2018 Twins 40-Man Roster Decisions

Rule 5( c )( 1 )( C ): if the signing date of a player’s first Major or Minor League contract is between
 (i)    the conclusion of the championship season for the Major or Minor League Club to which the player is assigned on such contract and
 (ii)   the next Rule 5 Selection Meeting,
then the player shall be deemed to have signed after the next Rule 5 Selection Meeting, for purposes of this Rule

 

The term “championship season” shall refer to the full schedule of regular-season games that has been approved for a Major or Minor League Club in accordance with the provisions of Rule 32.

 

The above excerpts are taken from THE OFFICIAL PROFESSIONAL BASEBALL RULES BOOK.

 

I don't know which team he was assigned to, but in 2014 the DSL finished its regular season around August 21. So for Rule 5 purposes I take this to mean he counts as a 2015 signing, and thus he has one more year.

Thanks Ash for clearing the air on Graterol

Alcala is another player whose Rule 5 status has been debated

Birthday: July 28, 1995

Signed: December 3, 2014 Houston Astros signed free agent RHP Jorge Alcala to a minor league contract.

I believe the following earns him another year of Rule 5 freedom:

(1) A player without previous Major or Minor League service who signs with a
Major League or independent Minor League Club shall be subject to selection based on the following:
 

(A) if 18 years of age or under on the June 5 immediately preceding the
player’s signing, the player shall be subject to selection at the fifth Rule 5
Selection Meeting that follows the signing date of the player’s first Major or
Minor League contract, unless Rule 5©(1)© applies;
 

( if 19 years of age or over on the June 5 immediately preceding the
player’s signing, the player shall be subject to selection at the fourth Selection
Meeting that follows the signing date of the player’s first Major or Minor
League contract, unless Rule 5©(1)© applies;

also from THE OFFICIAL PROFESSIONAL BASEBALL RULES BOOK.

Don't you think it's a tad premature to be deciding the 40 man roster even before Rocco has a chance to see with his own eyes what he's got? Or not?

This list isn't exactly going to keep me up the night before the draft.  Even "the givens" seem to be no-brainers only because the Twins figure to have so many spots available. Don't need to go very far down the list...especially of position-players...to get to those that have near-zero chance of being drafted and kept.  But with the trend for rosters to carry/use more and more pitchers, picking the correct arms to protect is going to be key on a yearly basis.

Updated You be the GM 40-man Toolkit

Shows current MLB 40-man roster with list of Rule 5 Eligible for this year and next

Feel free to Make a Copy if you'd like or Duplicate the "DUPLICATE THIS SHEET TO MAKE YOUR PROJECTION" tab and make your own 40-man

Take a screen shot and post for others to scrutinize as they see fit

Here's mine

Oh, hells bells, as much as I dislike Gordon as a prospect, I didn't mean to exclude him or Wade. I meant Arraez is the only position players among the non-givens. Since nobody on the first page of comments said "wha?" it must have been inferred by all. :-)

Don't you think it's a tad premature to be deciding the 40 man roster even before Rocco has a chance to see with his own eyes what he's got? Or not?

He won't see any of them with his own eyes until Spring Training, so they'd better not wait that long.

It seems the vast majority of Rule 5 players to stick are pitchers. I wonder if that's part of why the Twins, for example, are so disproportionately pitcher-to-position-player when it comes to their 40 man roster.

If so, that's an unfortunate side effect.

I count 27 guys on the current 40-man and Rule 5 eligible that I want on the roster next year, and five or six of those wouldn't disappoint me if they were gone.

 

The good news is this off season should hold very little angst as far as roster decisions go. The bad news is there's a lot of work to do to because if you don't sweat losing good players, it means you don't have enough good players. 

23 pitchers currently on the 40-man. 14 field guys. Whew.

I could easily say goodbye 8-10 players that could be replaced with competent cuts from other teams. Happily the Twins really only need to add 3-5, at the most, on their roster. Which made most of the trades look really good at the deadline...they got players that they didn't need to add to the roster but can take a good look at for a season in the minors.

Be interesting to see what remains of the AAA and AA rosters from free agency, and how many bodies the Twins search out for those rosters, compared to guys already in the system needing play.

Bu the reality of looking at the 40-man...how many names from the 37 shown would actually get a major league contract (i.e. 40-man spot) on the roster of another team in either league. That is what is scary of the Twins current roster!

Drake and Field have both been offed and claimed by other teams. Now four open spaces after the Michael Reed addition.

Drake and Field have both been offed and claimed by other teams. Now four open spaces after the Michael Reed addition.

Here's the links...

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2018/11/rays-claim-oliver-drake-waivers-twins-outright-jesus-sucre-adam-moore.html

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2018/11/cubs-claim-johnny-field-waivers-twins.html

In my "offseason blueprint" I've been casually working on, I'm currently clearing 11 spots on the 40-man, filling 4 or 5 of them with FA big league signings, then filling the rest with Gordon, Wade, and Triple-A/Double-A pitchers. 11 seems like a lot of spots but I'm not concerned about any of the names I included.

 

 

Yeah, literally no one of consequence has been selected in the minor league phase of the rule 5 drafts history. Baseball America answered a question I submitted about this a few years ago referring to Max Kepler. The baseball america link doesn't appear to work anymore, but there is this thread:

 

http://twinsdaily.com/topic/8429-ask-baseball-america-the-rule-5-draft-and-max-kepler/

 

But in that article they talked about protection of players in the minors. There's "reserve" rosters (which aren't published to the masses) at Triple-A and Double-A. Literally all of a team's top prospects will be on the Triple-A version of this roster, even if they're at Low-A while eligible. That means they could only be selected in the MLB phase. 

 

Same thing for the double-A version of the roster, players on it can only be selected in the MLB or Triple-A phase. These total rosters amount to around 115 players, so you're buying from the bottom of a system's barrel in the minor league phase.

Johan Santana