November 18, 2004
Making Roster Room
By Brian Walton
It is the time of year when teams sometimes have to remove players from their 40-man rosters when they would prefer not to in order to make room for free-agent acquisitions or to protect younger players instead.
For example, this happened to the Cleveland Indians just last week. Billy Traber, once considered one of the top pitching prospects in the Cleveland organization and in all of baseball, is no longer Indians property. The 25-year-old left-hander was claimed by the Boston Red Sox when the Indians tried to put him through waivers and remove him from their 40-man roster. According to reports, Traber’s left elbow has been slow to recover following Tommy John surgery. By the way, I feel the need to point out that any similarity to Rick Ankiel is completely coincidental.
Anyway, let’s check the current state of the Cardinals’ 40-man.
Nine openings were created since the end of the regular season as nine Cardinals declared free agency – Cal Eldred, Steve Kline, Ray Lankford, John Mabry, Mike Matheny, Matt Morris, Edgar Renteria, Woody Williams and Tony Womack. Even with the recent addition of third baseman Scott Seabol, there are only 33 players on the 40-man at this time, leaving the Cardinals in good shape.
So, the initial conclusion is that the numbers seem to work out ok. The Cardinals shouldn’t have to take a Traber-like risk to complete their 2005 team. End of story, right?
Well, not so fast. There is another consideration. What about the Rule 5 draft, to be held in conjunction with next month’s Winter Meetings? As much as people complain about the lack of quality of the Cardinals’ system, there are some youngsters in the minors who the team would surely not want to expose to potentially be taken by another team.
As a result, let’s take another, closer look at that 40-man.
Here are the youngsters already protected by their placement on the 40-man roster:
Carmen Cali
Jimmy Journell
Rhett Parrott
Josh Pearce
Evan Rust
Adam Wainwright
John Gall
Scott Seabol
There are also some veterans on the 40-man with between three and six years of service who could be non-tendered by the Cards to avoid the prospect of having to go to arbitration with them. If these players don’t work out deals with the club, their roster spots will be vacated:
Mike Lincoln
Marlon Anderson
(Jason Marquis, Al Reyes and Ray King are in this group but are expected to return in 2005.)
In addition, there are those minor league veterans on the 40-man who could come in danger of losing their spot:
Jason Simontacchi
Cody McKay
Randy Flores
So Taguchi
So, if the Cardinals needed to free up six or so more spots on the 40-man, that seemingly could be accomplished without sacrificing the team’s future. Even if the team wanted to keep some of the final six names on the lists above, perhaps a fading prospect such as Pearce or Gall, who turns 27 in April, would be risked instead.
But, why would extra 40-man roster spots be needed? The most obvious reason would be if the team was to sign more than eight free agents to major league contracts; either their own or from other teams. Another reason would be if the Cardinals were to again be active in selecting one or more Rule 5 players from other teams this December. Any major league Rule 5 selections must immediately be placed on the roster.
The other reason to potentially free up 40-man roster room would be to protect Cardinals’ youngsters. Let’s take a look at the Cardinals’ minor league system and see who we’d want to make sure we keep among those who might be selected in Rule 5.
Here are the eligibility guidelines for the major league phase of the Rule 5 draft. Players who are not on the 40-man roster and have more than three years of minor league service (four years if they signed when they were younger than 19 on the June 5 immediately prior to their signing) are eligible to be selected.
I am including this paragraph only for the purposes of being complete. In the minor league portion of the Rule 5 draft, minor leaguers not protected on specified reserve lists at the Double-A and Single-A levels can be chosen. As a result, for this exercise, we will assume the right players will be protected at the lower levels of the system. Note that none of the players mentioned below are on Memphis’ Triple-A roster.
Therefore, we will focus our risk analysis on those standouts with more than three years of service. I have split a list of prominent Cardinals prospects into two groups based on what I believe to be their eligibility for this year’s Rule 5 draft. The eligible ones would need to be added to the 40-man to be protected.
Major League Rule 5 Eligible
Shaun Boyd – five years service, signed June, 2000 @ age 18 (four years eligible)
John Nelson – four years service, signed June, 2001 @ age 22
Skip Schumaker – four years service, signed June, 2001 @ age 21
Not Major League Rule 5 Eligible
Daric Barton – two years service, signed June, 2003 @ age 17 (four years eligible)
Travis Hanson – three years service, signed June, 2002 @ age 21
Blake Hawksworth – three years service, signed May, 2002 @ age 19 (four years eligible)
Tyler Johnson – four years service, signed May, 2001 @ age 19 (four years eligible)
Stuart Pomeranz – two years service, signed July, 2003 @ age 18 (four years eligible)
Anthony Reyes – one year service, signed August, 2003 @ age 21
Brendan Ryan – two years service, signed June, 2003 @ age 21
Brad Thompson – two years service, signed August, 2002 @ age 20
Of the three eligible, none seem to be at serious risk to be Rule 5 selections by other organizations. Remember that the selecting team must have the intent of keeping the selected player on their 25-man major league roster all season, as the Cardinals did with Hector Luna in 2004.
Nelson is coming off an injury-prone year and has yet to prove he is back. Like Nelson, Schumaker will likely get his first taste of Triple-A in 2005. Former #1 pick Boyd has yet to demonstrate that he can handle even Double-A pitching. But, even if the Cards wanted to add one or more of them to the 40-man, it appears they could do it without incurring too much pain.
In conclusion, the Cardinals’ 40-man roster situation looks good and as a result, no unpleasant roster-driven surprises should be expected.
