When The 40-Man Roster Is Short
After a flurry of roster moves, the Mariners are playing the role of a clearinghouse. Larry Stone noted that the Mariners now only have 29 players on their 40-man roster. Not all teams carry a full 40-man roster, but having nearly a dozen open spots is certainly a rarity and an extreme. The Mariners are going to fill up their roster before springtime, but if they did not, could they benefit from leaving a few slots open throughout the season?
There are various reasons why a team places a player on their 40-man roster. The most obvious (and common) case is major league contributors. At least 25 men on the roster figure to play with the club daily and that number becomes ambiguous on a team-by-team basis depending on health, contracts, and talent. Not every player on the 40-man roster, of course, is classified as a major league ready contributor. Some are prospects who the team wants to protect from Rule 5 eligibility or view as near-ready contributors and the rest are usually organizational soldiers rewarded with a raise in pay and prestige.
That last part is vital to the topic at hand. Players in their first season on the 40-man roster (and without MLB service time in tow) are paid only around $30K a season. As soon as that player enters his second season or earns a single day of service time, his pay doubles – the minimum pay for first time 40-man roster entrees is actually 50% of the pay for second-year 40-man vets. Additionally, options are good reasons why teams should resist placing their best prospects on the 40-man roster, and by extension, resist late season call-ups for young prospects.
Let’s say the Mariners wind up with 37 players on their 40-man roster when all is said and done – not simply from adding eight players, but the net total of their entire offseason – and instead of adding three organizational soldiers or fringe prospects, they leave those slots empty for most of the season. That would save them $90K.
In the world of baseball, $90K is not a lot of money. The major league minimum (for players on the 25-man roster) is over $400K. It costs $20K to make a waiver claim. Selecting a player in the Rule 5 draft costs $50K. And so on. Could teams benefit financially from leaving a couple of slots open? Barely. Ultimately, it’s probably not worth hearing from the Players’ Union or the potential shot to fringe player morale.
The real cost is flexibility. If you have a full 40-man roster and want to make a 2-for-1 trade or sign a free agent, you have to take a player off the 40-man and expose him to waivers, thus risking losing him to another organization.
It’s a pretty sad commentary on the talent in your organization if you only have 29 players on the 40 man roster. That means they must have almost no talent in the upper minors that’s worth protecting.
It’s still rather early in the offseason to be making a big deal about it.
Not necessarily true, if the talent they want to protect isn’t eligible for Rule 5 yet. They’re protected without being on the 40-man.
Well, you need to be on the 40-man within 4 years if you were signed after age 19, or 5 years if you were signed before age 19.
A good team should have a large number of int’l and HS draftees in the age range 22-25 that needs protecting.
The lack of these players is why the M’s can’t get above replacement league production at easy positions to fill like 1B, DH and LF.
Or you could have realized that very rarely do teams add the entirety of players they choose to protect from the draft until the day before 40-man rosters have to be set, which is normally mid to late November. More often than not, the only players added before the deadline are those who would be six-year minor league free agents. Before they add players, teams prefer to evaluate their performances in the AFL and the winter leagues.
In before #6… ah, screw it. He’s heard it enough.
Let’s see if their 40-man is this thin come rule-5 draft time. If they only protect 29 then, that would certainly be interesting.
I don’t see it being that low. I could see it being as low as 35 come time for the Rule 5 draft, but not 29.
With an extra 90K maybe the baseball ops department could add a few entry level baseball ops people to beef up their front office…..
It’s so low because they just cleared a lot of the garbage/organizational soldier types, as well as a few veterans that won’t be back (Kotchman, Bedard, etc.) Given that they’ll need to put Pineda on the 40 man and sign at least five or six low level free agents, it’s not going to take long to jump back to 40.
Why clog up space on the 40-man roster with players who aren’t going to be on the team next year? Given how poorly they did last year, is it really such a surprise to see massive turnover, especially with a new manager on board? This gives the M’s more flexibility with regard to who to protect from the Rule 5 Draft and potentially who to take in the Rule 5 Draft. I could also see the M’s flipping a few players in 2-or-3-for-1 deals (David Aardsma immediately comes to mind), so they’ll need a little maneuvering room for that. They’ll almost certainly sign a few free agents as well, though I doubt they’ll be in the hunt for any big names other than Adam Dunn. Think more along the lines of Ty Wigginton, Jason Varitek and Will Ohman. The amount of space available on the roster now is more an indictment of the front office and their scouting abilities. Was Brian Sweeney so important that he couldn’t be outrighted to Tacoma? Apparently so, since the D-Backs claimed him off of waivers (going from Safeco to Chase Field will be an unpleasant surprise for Mr. Sweeney.) But Ryan Langerhans, Guillermo Quiroz, Ryan Feierabend, Chris Seddon and Sean White were certainly no great losses. Kotchman was going to be non-tendered anyway, so he hits the free agent market a month sooner. Of the players who became free agents, only Russell Branyan and maybe Jamey Wright held any value for the M’s going forward. The M’s will probably non-tender Jose Lopez, Ryan Rowland-Smith and Garrett Olson in December, with Josh Wilson (arbitration-eligible), Matt Tuiasosopo (out of options) and Rob Johnson (just stinks) also possibilities to get the ax. So potentially, the M’s could be down as low as 23 men on the 40-man roster before they start adding minor leaguers, free agents and trade acquisitions. Creating maximum flexibility in advance of the GM and owner’s meetings, the Rule 5 Draft and free agency is certainly not a crime; holding onto players who don’t serve any useful purpose is, however.
“Was Brian Sweeney so important that he couldn’t be outrighted to Tacoma? Apparently so, since the D-Backs claimed him off of waivers”
I don’t think you understand the process of waivers, or you don’t understand what outrighted means.
Sweeney *was* outrighted to Tacoma. “Outrighted” means put on outright assignment, which means the player has to clear waivers. So, after a player is passed through outright assignment waivers, another team can claim them. Which is what the Diamondbacks did. If Sweeney had cleared waivers(meaning none of the other 29 teams puts a claim him), he could have been sent to Tacoma on outright assignment(and he wouldn’t have been on the 40-man roster anymore).
(Also this is keeping in mind that Sweeney had been outrighted once before. Now, players can also refuse outright assignments, but only after they’ve been oturighted once already. Sweeney could’ve refused, but he first had to clear waivers. Once he had cleared waivers, the M’s would have asked him to accept or refuse the assignment, and he could’ve refused.)
So, blaming them for that seems kind of dumb, eh?