Examining the American League’s 2022 40-Man Crunch
The trade deadline is nearly here and once again, team behavior will be affected by 40-man roster dynamics. Teams with an especially high number of currently-rostered players under contract for 2023 and prospects who need to be added to the 40-man in the offseason have what is often called a 40-man “crunch,” “overage,” or need to “churn.” This means the team has incentive to clear its overflow of players by either packaging several to acquire just one in return, or by trading for something the club can keep — international pool space, comp picks, or, more typically, younger players whose 40-man clocks are further from midnight — rather than do nothing and later lose some of those players to waivers or in the Rule 5 Draft. Teams can take care of this issue with transactions between the end of the season and the 40-man roster deadline in November, but a contending team with a crunch has more incentive to do something before the trade deadline so the results of those deals can bolster the club’s ability to reach the postseason.
In an effort to see whose depth might influence trade behavior, I assess teams’ 40-man futures every year. This exercise is done by using the RosterResource Depth Chart pages to examine current 40-man situations, subtracting pending free agents using the Team Payroll tab, and then weighing the December 2022 Rule 5 eligible prospects (or players who became eligible in past seasons and are having a strong year) to see which clubs have the biggest crunch coming. I then make an educated guess about which of those orgs might behave differently in the trade market as a result.
Some quick rules about 40-man rosters. Almost none of them contain exactly 40 players in-season because teams can add a player to the 40 to replace one who is on the 60-day injured list. In the offseason, teams don’t get extra spots for injured players and have to get down to 40 precisely, so if they want to keep some of their injury fill-ins, they have to cut someone else from the 40-man to make room.
In November, clubs have to add certain prospects to the 40-man to protect them from the Rule 5 Draft (you can find more details on Rule 5 Draft eligibility here). RosterResource is the most accessible place for tracking prospect timelines. Most teams add a handful of players every offseason, while others will add just one, and some may add as many as 10.
All of these rosters have a talent foundation at the major league level that likely won’t change, and which I ignore below. Instead, I’m focused on the number of players on the 40-man right now, how many free agents will come off that number at the end of the season, which prospects might be added (or not), and who currently on the 40-man is in danger of being squeezed out by the prospects who are added. For the two categories where the rubber meets the road and it’s unclear what will happen (fringe current 40-man members vs. prospects who’ll possibly be added), I italicize the players I view as less likely to stay or be added to the 40-man. Today, I take a look at the American League teams with crunch, with the National League to follow.
Toronto Blue Jays
Current 40-man Count: 44 (4 on 60-day IL)
Pending Free Agents: 2 (David Phelps, Ross Stripling)
Must-Add Prospects: Yosver Zulueta, Orelvis Martinez, Jordan Groshans, Spencer Horwitz
Current 40-man Fringe: Raimel Tapia, Bradley Zimmer, Matt Peacock, Anthony Banda, Vinny Capra, Trevor Richards, Casey Lawrence, Matt Gage
Prospects on the Fringe: Gabriel Martinez, Paxton Schultz, Tanner Morris, Graham Spraker, Kyle Johnston
There isn’t a high-volume crunch here so much as there are some tough decisions looming. Orelvis Martinez isn’t exactly setting the world on fire at Double-A; he’s running a sub-.300 OBP and chasing sliders at a terrifying rate. Groshans has had injury trouble (foot, back, oblique) and has much less power than it looked like he’d end up with as a draft prospect. Adding both of them means they’d each spend 2023 jockeying for position to replace Matt Chapman in ’24.
Back from a month missed due to injury, the 20-year-old Gabriel Martinez is raking again at Low-A. The Jays could push him to High-A Vancouver and give him an opportunity to earn a spot via his performance throughout the rest of the year, knowing that 2023 would likely be a purely developmental year on the 40-man (they charted a similar course with Leo Jimenez, except in Fall League rather than High-A). Their other option is to slow-play Martinez’s development, keeping him in Low-A all year in the hopes that the gap between that level and the big leagues is too rich for teams to consider taking Martinez in the Rule 5 Draft this offseason. If he isn’t taken, he’d start 2023 at Vancouver and hopefully hit his way to New Hampshire, putting Toronto in position to make a more confident 40-man decision on him after next season. In either case, Martinez’s big league ETA is actually sometime in 2024. Horwitz is a flush lefty-hitting in-house replacement for Tapia, who has been a shade under replacement level this year at nearly $4 million. The infield versatility of Santiago Espinal, Otto Lopez, Groshans and Orelvis makes it possible to add Morris, a bat-only guy, or pick up a gloveless masher from outside the org. The rest of the decision points here are a) Does Toronto think this reliever is better than that reliever? and b) What line do they take to have enough depth to deal with 2023 injuries?
Tampa Bay Rays
Current 40-man Count: 51 (11 (!) on 60-day IL)
Pending Free Agents: 4 (Matt Wisler, Corey Kluber, Mike Zunino, $13 million Kevin Kiermaier club option)
Must-Add Prospects: Curtis Mead, Taj Bradley, Greg Jones, Jayden Murray, Colby White (TJ), Xavier Edwards, Heriberto Hernandez
Current 40-man Fringe: Luke Raley, Luke Bard, Ralph Garza Jr., Roman Quinn, Yu Chang, Shawn Armstrong, Angel Perdomo, Brendan McKay, JT Chargois, Brett Phillips, Tommy Romero, Harold Ramírez
Prospects on the Fringe: Kameron Misner, John Doxakis, Osleivis Basabe, Miles Mastrobuoni, Brett Wisely, Michael Mercado, Justin Sterner, Evan McKendry, Blake Hunt, Diego Infante, Chris Muller, Ronny Simon, Joe LaSorsa
The Rays seem to be in a position like this every year, in part because their style of farm-building tends to leave them with lots of good minor leaguers, and also because they seem to be dealing with double-digit long-term injuries every season. At some point that isn’t just bad luck — you’re struggling to keep guys healthy. Regardless, Tampa Bay’s constant need to scour waivers for injury replacements means a lot of those mercenaries will fall off the bottom of the roster at the end of the season, alleviating some of the team’s crunch. The good news is that many of the young up-and-comers have convenient, role-for-role swaps with the older, arbitration-eligible guys (Misner for Phillips, Hernandez and/or Infante for Ramírez), but there is enough redundancy here that the Rays need to do something between now and the November deadline.
The Edwards/Basabe/Mastrobuoni/Wisely contingent presents the Rays with some especially tough decisions. Edwards is realistically 2B/3B-only and has lost some speed (he’s still a plus runner) without adding real power as he’s filled out, but he still has rare bat-to-ball ability for a switch-hitter. Basabe has the most power potential of the four, but his approach is the easily the most aggressive. Mastrobuoni, who would have been taken if we had had a Rule 5 before the season, is the most versatile of the group. Wisely is more of a bottom-of-the-spectrum defender, but has the most playable power of the four. Any trade talks with the Rays should include teams asking for a complementary Biscuit or one of the players most directly blocking them (Jonathan Aranda and Vidal Bruján).
Cleveland Guardians
Current 40-man Count: 41 (1 on 60-day IL)
Pending Free Agents: 2 ($4 million Bryan Shaw club option, Austin Hedges)
Must-Add Prospects: Bo Naylor, Xzavion Curry, Angel Martinez, Nick Mikolajchak, Andrew Misiaszek, Ethan Hankins (TJ)
Current 40-man Fringe: Anthony Gose, Kirk McCarty, Ernie Clement, Alex Call, Luke Maile, Oscar Gonzalez, Owen Miller, Carlos Vargas, Enyel De Los Santos
Prospects on the Fringe: Hunter Gaddis, Will Brennan, Alexfri Planez, Joey Cantillo, Peyton Battenfield, Nic Enright, Dayan Frias, Lenny Torres
Cleveland was in a similar situation last year and ended up turning over 25% of their 40-man at November’s deadline, DFA’ing seven players while adding many young prospects to the roster from within. It’s tougher to point at obvious candidates to cut loose from their current group than it was last year because so much of their 40-man is made up of good young players. De Los Santos is out of options, but he’s shoving and has had a velo spike. Gonzalez is playing well despite his hyper-aggressive approach and Vargas is sitting 96-100 mph since returning from injury (though he’s still relatively wild); Miller has been unspectacular for a mostly-first base defender, but certainly not bad. They wouldn’t be considered on the fringe of most teams’ rosters but at least one or two of them have to be moved to make enough space for maturing players of interest to be added. This feels like a group badly in need of a consolidation trade.
Minnesota Twins
Current 40-man Count: 48 (8 on 60-day IL)
Pending Free Agents: I’m going to guess six, but it’s variable. Tyler Duffey, Gary Sánchez, and Joe Smith are all actual free agents-to-be. Sonny Gray and Dylan Bundy have club options for just north of $10 million that I’ll speculate will be picked up. I think the Twins should let Miguel Sanó walk, while Chris Archer’s $10 million mutual option is a tough one to call. Carlos Correa has an opt out I think he’ll exercise.
Must-Add Prospects: Matt Canterino, Spencer Steer, Edouard Julien, Simeon Woods Richardson, Louie Varland
Current 40-man Fringe: Mark Contreras, Devin Smeltzer, Danny Coulombe, Jhon Romero, Caleb Hamilton, Drew Strotman, Jharel Cotton, Emilio Pagán
Prospects on the Fringe: Alex Isola, Sawyer Gipson-Long, Brent Headrick, Will Holland, Sean Mooney
There are some guys currently on the 40-man fringe who I’d feel comfortable DFA’ing after the season to clear space for the incoming prospects, and I’ve listed some Arb-2 and Arb-3 candidates above, though I decided not to include Gio Urshela ($6.5 million this year, Arb-3 next year) since the combination of losing Correa plus Royce Lewis’ injury history means this 40-man is poised to be thin at short, and Steer and Julien can’t really play defense. A Sánchez departure makes it’s more likely Isola is added. If the org feels like this is the optimal time to trade Max Kepler, they probably want most of the package to be guys whose timelines start after the 2023 season, as things for this year are already pretty tight.
Oakland Athletics
Current 40-man Count: 43 (3 on 60-day IL)
Pending Free Agents: 4 or 5 ($15 million Elvis Andrus vesting option, $15 million Stephen Piscotty club option, Stephen Vogt, Jed Lowrie, Chad Pinder)
Must-Add Prospects: Shea Langeliers, Logan Davidson, Colin Peluse, Jack Weisenburger
Current 40-man Fringe: Skye Bolt, Vimael Machín, Tony Kemp, Dermis Garcia, Sheldon Neuse, David McKay, Cody Thomas
Prospects on the Fringe: Kyle McCann, Euribiel Angeles, Lawrence Butler
Elvis Andrus’ $15 million option vests if he reaches 550 plate appearances this season; he’s on pace for 540, the same as last year. This is a pretty standard add/subtract group, but there are enough prospects already in the post-2022 mix that it could impact the types of secondary/tertiary prospects Oakland wants to target in a potential Frankie Montas (Sean Murphy? Ramón Laureano?) trade. If the chief part of the return for any of those guys is a 2022 addition who you love, so be it. If we’re talking about more marginal prospects and sweeteners, you probably want them to have timelines spread across the next few years.
Texas Rangers
Current 40-man Count: 42 (2 on 60-day IL)
Pending Free Agents: 3-6 (Martín Pérez, Matt Moore, Charlie Culberson, $5.5 million Kole Calhoun club option, $9 million Garrett Richards club option, $6 million José Leclerc club option)
Must-Add Prospects: Josh Jung, Cole Winn, Owen White, Dustin Harris, Avery Weems, Luisangel Acuna, Mason Englert, Cody Bradford
Current 40-man Fringe: Nick Snyder, Andy Ibáñez, Steele Walker, Meibrys Viloria, Steven Duggar, Dennis Santana, Kolby Allard, Spencer Howard
Prospects on the Fringe: Fernery Ozuna, Justin Slaten, Blaine Crim, Grant Anderson, Hever Bueno
My fringe 40-man group here is what I think it looks like to cut down in order to comfortably fit all the “must-adds,” and it isn’t unbearably painful. Viloria belongs on someone’s roster; he’s squeezed off by Heim/Huff/Garver here, plus David García and Yohel Pozo are also around. Walker was an in-season, injury-driven add after he was left off last year. Howard’s changeup usage (a plus pitch when he was a healthy top prospect) has all but totally evaporated, while Santana is out of options. Unless they paint themselves into a corner by trading for more 2022s, this situation isn’t dire. The Rangers aren’t in rebuild mode, and they could take a line where they package multiple players to add to their big league roster. In that scenario (which people in baseball consider more likely then them kicking the can down the road some more), the Rangers probably end up with 40-man space rather than an overage when all is said and done.
Seattle Mariners
Current 40-man Count: 42 (38 + 4 on 60-day IL)
Pending Free Agents: 4 (Carlos Santana, Adam Frazier, Mitch Haniger, $9.5 million Ken Giles team option; I’m betting Chris Flexen’s $4 million team option is picked up)
Must-Add Prospects: Noelvi Marte, Levi Stoudt, Joseph Hernandez, Travis Kuhn
Current 40-man Fringe: Ryan Borucki, Tommy Milone, Tom Murphy, Casey Sadler, Drew Ellis, Kevin Padlo, Marcus Wilson
Prospects on the Fringe: Cade Marlowe, Michael Stryffeler, Prelander Berroa, Jonatan Clase, Tim Elliott
Seattle doesn’t really have a crunch here, but they could probably stand to upgrade the bottom of the 40-man’s position players before the deadline. With Santana now in the mix at the big league level, there’s very little defensive flexibility on the active roster aside from Dylan Moore, and things would get very dicey if injury should befall another of their actual up-the-middle defenders. You’re seeing that play out right now in center field. With Julio Rodríguez currently out, the lack of viable center field depth in the org is showing. Moore is a nice utility player, but he doesn’t look very good in Julio’s stead, and Kyle Lewis isn’t moving well. None of the other outfielders on the 40-man can play there besides Rodríguez. This puts one of Clase or Marlowe in a position to be added after the season, barring other moves. With Alberto Rodriguez already occupying a developmental spot of sorts, it might be tough to add Clase, and Marlowe is more “passable” in center than he is a true impact defender.
Other Thoughts
The New York Yankees have many pending free agents and don’t have a crunch. They’ll likely have plenty of room for their good upper-level pitching prospects, like Ken Waldichuk, Randy Vasquez, and Hayden Wesneski. Almost the entire Low-A roster has a December 2022 40-man date, and if what the Yankees did last year with Anthony Garcia is any indication, they’ll slow-play that entire group and leave them all off the 40-man, leveraging the industry’s aversion to asking 20-to-21-year-olds to make a three-level leap via the Rule 5. That sets New York up to have more of a crunch in 2023, though, as whomever from that group (Alexander Vargas, Garcia, Marcos Cabrera, Madison Santos, Antonio Gomez) emerges next year will suddenly be part of a glitzy ’23 contingent that includes Jasson Domínguez, Anthony Volpe, and Austin Wells. Of the current Tarpons, Gomez might be worth putting on the 40-man this offseason, as he strikes me as the type of player someone tries to sneak through as a backup/third catcher.
The Boston Red Sox are in a similar boat. They have eight or nine free agents-to-be, and will have plenty of room to add Triston Casas and Ceddanne Rafaela (who they left off last year), plus the upper-level pitching (Brandon Walter and many others at Worcester and Portland) they like. Meanwhile, they have a huge iceberg of Low-A hitters (Eddinson Paulino, Eduardo Lopez, Brainer Bonaci) who I expect to be left off based on how they approached Rafaela and Gilberto Jimenez (no idea what they’ll do there) last offseason.
The Kansas City Royals barely have anyone leaving in free agency but they also don’t have any pressing internal additions to make, as most of the pitching that entered the year on the precipice (Drew Parrish, Anthony Veneziano, Noah Murdock) is struggling. They should add Alec Marsh and Josh Dye, with Samuel Valerio probably too far from the bigs to factor even though he has a good arm and this is his 40-man year. There were pre-draft rumors about ownership starting to hover around this ops group.
Eric Longenhagen is from Catasauqua, PA and currently lives in Tempe, AZ. He spent four years working for the Phillies Triple-A affiliate, two with Baseball Info Solutions and two contributing to prospect coverage at ESPN.com. Previous work can also be found at Sports On Earth, CrashburnAlley and Prospect Insider.
Tigers have been rebuilding for 7 years, have no stars & still don’t have a 40 man crunch.
How is Al Avila still employed?
To be fair, part of the latter is that they’ve pretty regularly picked advanced players and not held them back when it looked like they were ready to go on to the next level.
Although it’s entirely possible that this is also part of the problem.
It’s somewhat flabbergasting to see the divide in baseball ops talent in the Central division, with CLE and MIN so far ahead of DET, KC, and CWS.
Looking at the White Sox, they have one must-add prospect (Bryan Ramos) and two borderline guys (Jose Rodriguez and Yolbert Sanchez), if you’re a fan of middle infielders with a terrible approach and no power.
At the Major League level, they have a mediocre team with a $196M payroll ($55M more than their previous high), and the Keuchel contract coming off the books will be washed away by raises for Anderson, Moncada, Jimenez, Robert, Cease, and Kopech. They’ll likely be stuck with Pollock opting into his dead-money player option, plus they’ll have to re-sign Abreu or lose their best player (by 2022 WAR) and replace Cueto (which they can’t do internally given the lack of pipeline of pitching prospects). And god forbid they have multiple SP injuries and have to go to anyone outside of their top-5. And that’s before getting into any upgrades to the roster.
As you mentioned, DET has nothing going for it, nor does KC. CLE is a fixture on articles like this, and I feel MIN will start to become one to now that this baseball ops group is getting their footing underneath them.
Looking at Baseball Reference, Cleveland has used the youngest pitchers AND the youngest hitters each of the past two seasons. And they have a top 5 farm system. So yeah, they’re likely going to be a fixture for a while…
I think an entire article dedicated to the Rays and what you think they should do would be awfully interesting…
I’d even like to see this on the Twins and Guardians. These would be really cool articles and may help breakdown what we see unfold over the next 4 months.
Been awaiting this piece, thank you Eric! I really thing the 40man crunch is a bigger influence on how teams trade than most fans realize.
You know what would be amazing? If you replaced the “ETA” on THE BOARD with just the piped info from RosterResource on 40-man timeline / options remaining. It would be so, so helpful to have it all in one place. You could easily sort for FV50 prospects who are running out of options, or who will have to be added this winter. It would be awesome, and since the ETA probably takes a ton of time to update and is related to the Rule 5 timeline anyway and is pretty subjective it wouldn’t be much of a loss.
Anthony Castro is also on Cleveland’s 40 man roster which is a bit mind-boggling given his career 6.00 ERA/5.87 FIP, both of which have gone up this year. Richie Palacios is another guy who they could probably release if needed, given that he’s 25 years old, was only a 40 grade prospect, didn’t show much in his 93 PAs this year, and Cleveland has much better OF prospects.
At the same time. Will Benson should absolutely be listed under the must protect prospects. After years of inconsistency and high strike-out rates, something seems to have clicked with him this year. He’s hitting .270/.425/.507 while maintaining a career low 22.7 K rate. And he’s getting better as the season goes on. He seems to have been around forever but he’s still only 24 years old. Throw in his plus athletic ability and there’s no way Cleveland doesn’t protect him.
It’s worse.
Look at Will Brennan. He should be up any day now and he might stick. Those are leadoff numbers at AAA for a 24 year old.
And Espino will probably be knocking at the door in spring training.
Valera, too.
They love Straw’s defense but Kwan looks to be real both at the bat and CF.
They definitely need to consolidate because some of those “fringe” guys look too valuable to cut loose for nothing.
If they had the stomache for the money, they could easily get Soto just by throwing half a roster at the Nats. 😆
(Of course, so could the Rays.)
For a team that struggled for years to develop even a single OFer to suddenly have Kwan, Jones. Gonzalez, Brennan, Bradley, Valera, and Noel at AA or higher is pretty incredible.
Making up for lost time. 😁
Now if only they’d spent a bit they might finally end the WS drought.
IMO the A’s might have a crunch, but they shouldn’t. They should be able to DFA literally all of those fringe guys and not get any worse than they are currently.
They could DFA all but about 7 players and be no worse than currently.
Let’s count:
Laureano, Murphy, and Montas (who is gonna be traded) are obviously worth a roster spot. (3)
They probably need to keep Irvin, Blackburn, Jefferies, Zach Jackson, and AJ Puk to not be completely embarrassing. (5)
Trivino is either a guy to keep or trade, and Tony Kemp is probably one to keep too in case he rebounds next year. (2)
Nick Allen and Christian Pache are both bad now but there is some hope they won’t be forever. (2)
Luis Barrera, Kevin Smith, and Cody Thomas are worth keeping around (3).
If you’d need to keep at least three more starters somewhere, and another 8-9 relievers somewhere. But it doesn’t really matter which ones. So if you need to keep Peluse and Weisenburger it’s no biggie, you can DFA a couple extra guys we haven’t mentioned so far as needed. You could DFA any pitcher we haven’t mentioned so far and it’d be fine as long as you have a replacement you like better (12).
So that’s 27 spots. Add in Langeliers, Davidson, and McCann and you’re at 30. If you really wanted to, you could add Angeles and Butler to get to 32.
IMO, this team might have the least roster-crunch problems of any team in MLB.
Laureano, Murphy, Montas, Irvin, Kemp, Blackburn. I’m not seeing anyone else that matters to making the team better. Puk and Trivino are more velocity than value. The other relievers aren’t difference makers. Allen and Pache are worth spots for potential but don’t make the team better now. The 30 deserving of spots is very generous
Yeah, but you have to have someone to pitch. You can DFA them but then you need some other scrub to step up. That’s like 12 guys who could easily be DFA’d but you’d need someone better to replace them…which the A’s don’t really have.
So really it’s more like 20 guys, with another 10 pitchers who would also be possible to be DFA’d if there was anyone to replace them, but there’s no point. So…that’s bad.
Love this piece every year. Matt Wisler seems like the prototypical Rays trade candidate – FA to be that is way outperforming his peripherals and has recent success that a team can convince themselves to pay for. If only he had been in the 2014 Rangers org, I’d say Preller would be all over this guy.
$10m for Bundy and his disappearing fastball velo and K rate seems steep, but I guess 120 innings of 1.5 WAR pitching probably goes for about that on the open market.
Thank you for doing this
This look always reminds me of wondering why there isn’t some limited form of 60 IL for the offseason. Almost every club has a guy or more – almost always pitchers – that are unlikely to play into the 1st few months of the following season, usually the TJ guys. Such a structure would seem to benefit both clubs (more roster flexibility) and the PA (more members) and could add a guy or 2 to the 40 man where their pay would increase. Such injuries are just bad luck, and luck doesn’t distribute equally. Would also enhance the opportunities for FAs in recent TJ contract limbo.
Seems to me a 2 player offseason limit on such would cover most clubs, with the player deemed ineligible for majors play until say June 1 of the following season. These are likely guys that would simply go back on the 60 at the start of the season anyway. Yes it would thin the Rule 5 draft pool but that seems a pretty small price to pay – and it could add to that pool as injured kids at lower levels could be immediately placed there as well.
With the pitching injuries I tend to agree with you. I like the 2 person limit on it, and would also add a caveat that they must be on the 60 day retroactive to opening day once the season starts if you hold them on there – so they’re basically guaranteed to miss the first two months of the year. Leaves it for guys who had TJ, TOS or some type of really bad Achilles or ACL injury
Anyways, these articles Eric does every year are great and you can see the types that a Tampa or Cleveland may surprising deal in the next couple weeks because of it.
Just doing the Yankees math below (for my own sake).
Non-injured Free Agents (7):
IL folks needing to be re-added (2):
Must-Add Prospects (5):
Fringe Prospects (3):
Agreed on your conclusion that it’s not terrible (-7 + 2 + 5 + 3 = +3). Cashman is likely to do the usual quantity-for-quality trade at the deadline or offseason to resolve collisions anyways. Additionally, they could always cut Locastro or Higgy if they really needed the spot.
I’d add in Josh Breaux, Antonio Gomez, and Jhony Brito into fringe prospects tbh. Breaux and Brito are locks to go in the rule V draft and Gomez might go as well.
Not sure Breaux is a lock to pick – Cs are often tough. And I think Brito is actually a minors FA this year so maybe they can pull off a different approach. Gomez too would be a big stretch but a club going nowhere – Nats? – could pull a Torrens like SD did years ago. That certainly didn’t help Torrens’ career though.
I have a theory that with the 13-pitcher rule that pitchers at the low levels are a lot less likely to get picked, but that with the 26-man roster 5th outfielders and catchers are a lot more likely to stay on the roster for a full year.
So from that perspective, Breaux and Gomez are important to protect. The real questions are whether you actually care about losing Breaux, and whether if you select Gomez if he’ll be ready by the time he’s out of options.
Cashman will likely move some of the pending 40-man adds who are in the lower minors, as he did last year. I can see Breaux, for example, traded within the next week as a piece of some larger trade.
Can Tampa’s inability to keep players healthy simply be chalked up to the artificial turf at the Trop? Or is Eric alluding to a deeper issue with the Rays’ training and performance staff?
If it’s the turf it can easily be changed to different turf.
From my view this will be a great year for clubs with soft systems to strike hard in the minors Rule 5 phase. 2 years of inventory after no ’21 Rule 5, so there’s probably gonna be some decent guys to pick from, where usually those picked there are in the lower levels. And no restrictions on those picks – cheap, put them at any level, no return constraints.
Teams can put 38 guys on their AAA offseason roster so they’d have to be picked in the majors phase. But just looking at the Yanks system down through rookie ball, they have at least 55 guys Rule 5 eligible. Even after promoting up to 5 guys to the 40, that still leaves over 20 guys eligible for the minors round. Sure that’s true in other deep systems as well.
Fortunately for them there are only so many times Oakland can pick. Unless the draft is like 20 rounds or something
Matt Wallner isn’t listed as a Twins prospect. I think the Twins will protect him if he isn’t traded at the deadline. His K-rate is high, but he has a ton of power.
Based on this, it seems like the Twins, Rays, Guardians, Yankees, and Rangers really do have to make some sort of trade.
Unless one of them makes a move for Frankie Montas or some other high-value target, I’m going to guess that these are the guys who are available and would be of at least interest elsewhere–guys that represent low enough value that their teams won’t miss them but high enough value that they can get someone to help their team now.
Guardians: Joey Cantillo, Angel Martinez, Will Brennan
Twins: Spencer Steer, Eduoard Julien, Drew Strotman
Rangers: Mason Englert, Spencer Howard, Hever Bueno
Yankees: TJ Sikkema, Randy Vasquez, Edgar Barclay
I’d add the Rays onto this list but I’m looking through and a lot of these guys are just not important for the Rays to keep, and so the list gets really long. Eric mentioned four guys (Xavier Edwards, Osleivis Basabe, Miles Mastrobuoni, Brett Wisely) and Vidal Brujan. The Rays are not going to be sad to miss any of them. Nor Heriberto Hernandez, who might be safe from getting picked the Rule 5 because he doesn’t have a position. 9 of those guys who are “fringe” can be DFA’d without any real concerns. Greg Jones still scares the heck out of me. The Rays could DFA 10 guys, trade another 5, and still have more to cut without a problem
Yeah, I don’t think Heriberto is a must add prospect. I know Eric is high on him but I don’t think anyone is adding a guy striking out 33.6% of the time in A+ with no defensive value to their major league roster.
These writeups are among my favorite posts of the year! I’d love to see summaries for the rest of the teams that don’t have a crunch, just to get Eric’s take on who is likely to move on and off of rosters.