Few teams have open 40-man roster space once rosters swell to accommodate late season reinforcements in September. In the last week alone teams have purchased the contracts of 37 players, including prospects such as Jurickson Profar and Shelby Miller, veterans like Fred Lewis and Xavier Nady and a variety of others. The result: just five teams have open 40-man roster space.
The Royals (two open spots), Angels (two open spots), Brewers (two open spots), Twins (one open spot) and Reds (one open spot) are the only MLB teams that presently have open 40-man spots, according to MLBDepthCharts.com. These clubs are well-positioned to claim someone should an intriguing player be placed on waivers.
For context there were six waiver claims last September, eight waiver claims in 2010 (remarkably three of them involved Cesar Carrillo) and five waiver claims in 2009. MLBTR’s Steve Adams recently recapped some of the best waiver claims of the past year.
Keep in mind that the 25 teams with full 40-man rosters could create roster space by moving a player to the 60-day disabled list or by releasing, outrighting or designating for assignment a rostered player.
Braves have 2 players that could be moved to 60 day DL (Beachy, Diaz) so if need be they could create 2 open spots.
And yet Billy Hamilton and Wil Myers sit at home by the phone, wondering what else they need to do, and two fanbases are cheated out of some September excitement.
Calling up Hamilton to pinch run would be a mistake. No need to start his service clock when they aren’t really fighting for much except the best record in the NL barring a collapse. I’d rather not stunt his development in any way like what happened to Homer Bailey.
winning the world series or saving an extra mil or two on a prospect’s salary who may not even pan out? what do you think is more important??
Unless there’s an injury, he wouldn’t be on the playoff roster anyhow.
Could of called him up earlier.
Never forget that Baseball is first and foremost a business.
Random question: does the CBA have any limitations as to how many open roster spots a team can have, or how long they can keep rosters below 40 before they have to add someone? I could see the player’s union pushing for something like that.
It is flat out difficult to create a spot on the 40 when you take into consideration (among other important things) the amount of players that can be lost in the Rule 5 draft over the winter. Adding prospects to the 40 is mostly to protect them from that.
Captain Obvious, I know…
most teams still have a useless player or two they can always DFA to open a roster spot.
I agree with the first post that there is no excuse for Hamilton and Myers to not be in the majors. I have not the faintest idea why the Reds would not want the fastest player in baseball on their bench. To each their own I suppose.
Yeah a stolen base in the playoffs can mean everything like Dave Roberts in 04.