The 40 man roster will be a bottleneck this season

[wildcard]

For the Orioles and I am sure for other teams.

Because its hard to know how many COVID cases there will be along with how many injuries, I think teams will want to hold on to as many players as they can.   Not DFAing very many players at least to begin the season.   Each team being able to hold onto 60 players makes that easier.   This also is reenforce by the fact that players that are taken off the 60 man roster must be DFA'd.  Its easier to add then subtract players from that stand point.

The O's will probably add LeBlanc and Milone to the 40 man roster before the season begins.   The open 40 man spot and Mancini going on the 45 day IL will be spots used that make that possible.

Passed that the only player I see now that may be DFA'd is Urias.  He has not been added to the 60 man roster yet and there are several utility infielders ahead of him.  So adding one more player to the 40 man roster will be fairly easy if that happens.

Passed that the O's have to lose a player from the 40 to add a player to the 40.

That makes it harder for the O's to add Eshelman, Hanhold, Shepherd, Kline, Valdez, Blach, Zastryzny, Holaday, Herrera, Valaika, or Wilkerson because they are not on the 40 man roster.  This will be true  of  several of the 15 players that are add to the 60 man roster.

Catchers, I think are particularly precious commodities.   They will be close to the batters, the umpires and will touch the balls thrown by the pitchers.  Their risk of contracting COVID may be higher than other players.   Therefore DFAing Wynns to make room on the roster seems unlikely.

Currently the only outfielders on the 40 that are active and on the 60 man roster are Hays and Stewart.   Velazquez is  likely to see time in the outfield to begin the season if Santander and Smith are not cleared to play.   Mullins, who is probably one of the 15 players added  and may also see time  initially because he is on the 40 man roster.    Wilkerson is not.

The O's focus on the future probably keeps Mountcastle off the 30 man roster for a week or two.  But I would think because he is on the 40 man roster he is likely to see a lot of time in the outfield after that if Santander and Smith are not available.

As the season moves on I would expect to see the 45 day IL to be used quite a bit because players moved to that list do not count against the 40 man roster. That will open spots to look at other players.  

Those are some of my thoughts about player movement.   What do you think? 

 

[atomic]

The Orioles will have no issues with the 40 man as most of their players don't belong on it in the first place. So if you lose a player big deal by putting him through the 40 man it is no big deal. And you can put guys on the 45 day IL easily enough.  The season is only 60 games. So if anyone gets injured 45 day IL here they come. 

[wildcard]

4 minutes ago, atomic said:

The Orioles will have no issues with the 40 man as most of their players don't belong on it in the first place. So if you lose a player big deal by putting him through the 40 man it is no big deal. And you can put guys on the 45 day IL easily enough.  The season is only 60 games. So if anyone gets injured 45 day IL here they come. 

What players do you see the O's moving off the 40 man roster?

[atomic]

10 minutes ago, wildcard said:

What players do you see the O's moving off the 40 man roster?

There are 7 guys on the 40 man that I never heard of so that would be a place to start.  Also,  guys like Dillon Tate, David Hess and Dwight Smith Jr can't be long for the 40 man.  Really we an embarrassment of riches of guys who could be removed from the 40 man. 

[DrungoHazewood]

I have to agree with atomic on this one.  There are at least 10 guys on the 40-man who you could release tomorrow, replace with some guy from the waiver wire, and if nobody said anything we wouldn't notice for two weeks and would have less impact on the 2021 pennant race than whatever Chris Davis' personal chef is cooking for him tonight.

[wildcard]

6 minutes ago, atomic said:

There are 7 guys on the 40 man that I never heard of so that would be a place to start.  Also,  guys like Dillon Tate, David Hess and Dwight Smith Jr can't be long for the 40 man.  Really we an embarrassment of riches of guys who could be removed from the 40 man. 

Elias is going to want to see more of Tate before he would  DFA him.  Hess is one of the few guys that can go three innings which is important with there being so few starters.   He is not great but Elias seems to not be ready to promote Akin, Kremer or Zimmerman to the majors yet.  Hess is a placeholder until that happens.    

Smith has not played in camp so far.   Rumor is it has to do with the COVID test.  I doubt that players that have COVID can be DFA'd.  It is unclear if they can be moved to the 45 man IL.

[wildcard]

7 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I have to agree with atomic on this one.  There are at least 10 guys on the 40-man who you could release tomorrow, replace with some guy from the waiver wire, and if nobody said anything we wouldn't notice for two weeks and would have less impact on the 2021 pennant race than whatever Chris Davis' personal chef is cooking for him tonight.

If the guy from the waiver wire is better I would agree.   However with the 60 man roster its unclear how many players will be DFA or put on the waiver wire.

[DrungoHazewood]

If Mike Elias made a list of all the things keeping him up at night, the impact of the 40-man roster bottleneck and a potential David Hess waiver claim is running neck-and-neck with remembering to pay the water bill this month at number 103.

[wildcard]

6 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

If Mike Elias made a list of all the things keeping him up at night, the impact of the 40-man roster bottleneck and a potential David Hess waiver claim is running neck-and-neck with remembering to pay the water bill this month at number 103.

Not when two of his starters come down with COVID or injuries.  Which of course is possible.

[Moose Milligan]

Yeah, whatever fringe ML player gets to replace a fringe ML player on the 40 man roster this year is of little consequence to me.  This rotting husk of a season is about whatever little hope we can get from players we've identified as prospects.  Rosterbation, especially over fringe players is a big nothingburger.  Per @DrungoHazewood, there are plenty of Hess types available.  Whatever ends up happening to Eshelman, Hanhold, Shepherd, Kline, Valdez, Blach, Zastryzny, Holaday, Herrera, Valaika, or Wilkerson is not a big deal.  

[wildcard]

6 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

 Whatever ends up happening to Eshelman, Hanhold, Shepherd, Kline, Valdez, Blach, Zastryzny, Holaday, Herrera, Valaika, or Wilkerson is not a big deal.  

Because none of them are on the 40 man roster.

Actually Hanhold and Holaday are pretty interesting players that may be better than what the O's have on the 40 man roster.

[Moose Milligan]

Just now, wildcard said:

Because none of them are on the 40 man roster.

Actually Hanhold and Holiday are pretty interesting players that may be better than what the O's have on the 40 man roster.

I know they're not on the 40 man, I really don't care if they are or not as I don't think they're significant upgrades to who's presently on the 40 man.  To say that two of them are more interesting (I'm assuming they're more interesting because of Backup QB Syndrome) doesn't hold much water for me.  Maybe we have some diamonds in the rough, maybe we don't but I'm not concerned with fringe guys who's production can be replaced at the drop of a hat by scanning a waiver wire.

[atomic]

46 minutes ago, wildcard said:

Elias is going to want to see more of Tate before he would  DFA him.  Hess is one of the few guys that can go three innings which is important with there being so few starters.   He is not great but Elias seems to not be ready to promote Akin, Kremer or Zimmerman to the majors yet.  Hess is a placeholder until that happens.    

Smith has not played in camp so far.   Rumor is it has to do with the COVID test.  I doubt that players that have COVID can be DFA'd.  It is unclear if they can be moved to the 45 man IL.

Here is how you come up with a list of players on the 40 man that we need to keep:

* Davis and Cobb

* Players who will be on the next winning Orioles team.

* Players who can be traded for players on the next Orioles winning team

Add those guys up and you will see there is no 40 man problem. 

[wildcard]

9 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

I know they're not on the 40 man, I really don't care if they are or not as I don't think they're significant upgrades to who's presently on the 40 man.  To say that two of them are more interesting (I'm assuming they're more interesting because of Backup QB Syndrome) doesn't hold much water for me.  Maybe we have some diamonds in the rough, maybe we don't but I'm not concerned with fringe guys who's production can be replaced at the drop of a hat by scanning a waiver wire.

You are not concerned and I am not trying to make you concerned.  

From where the O's are right now they are trying to add players that are better then what they had last year.   Holaday's experience in calling games could help the young pitchers more that Sisco or maybe even Severino.

Hanhold looks like he has a pretty good arm that could make a good reliever.   Considering that the O's had one of the worst pens in baseball last year he may help.

I am not trying to say that they make the team contenders.  Just that if we are going to watch the O's evaluate players and this is a Oriole board then maybe we should talk about what is happening with the O's.

 

 

[Redskins Rick]

21 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

I know they're not on the 40 man, I really don't care if they are or not as I don't think they're significant upgrades to who's presently on the 40 man.  To say that two of them are more interesting (I'm assuming they're more interesting because of Backup QB Syndrome) doesn't hold much water for me.  Maybe we have some diamonds in the rough, maybe we don't but I'm not concerned with fringe guys who's production can be replaced at the drop of a hat by scanning a waiver wire.

Grumpy today, you been hanging with Corn again?