The last MLB expansion draft took place on November 18th, 1997. Each of the 28 existing teams was able to initially protect 15 players, with the Devil Rays and Diamondbacks mostly alternating picks to fill their new rosters.
The first round consisted of one player being taken from each of the 28 teams, giving the Devil Rays and D’Backs 14 players each. At that point, each of the 28 teams was able to protect an additional three players. After the completion of the second round, each team added another three players to their protected list. In the third round, the Rays and D’Backs would each take an additional seven players, with each new club ending up with 35 in total.
Detailed rules can be found here, but basically each team’s best prospects were not eligible for the draft. Still, about a quarter of the players chosen were minor leaguers. Also, players with no-trade clauses or ten-and-five rights had to be put on protected lists unless they waived those rights. And there would be no reason to protect players eligible for free agency.
We thought it would be fun to determine each team’s current 15-player protected list, as if a new two-team expansion draft is scheduled for November. For simplicity’s sake, only players with MLB experience will be eligible for our mock expansion draft.
We’ll begin by shaping the Yankees’ 15-player protected list.
Free agents James Paxton, Masahiro Tanaka, DJ LeMahieu, J.A. Happ, and Brett Gardner will be excluded. Gardner has a club option the Yankees might like to pick up, but we’ll assume they don’t have to burn a protected spot on him.
Gerrit Cole, Giancarlo Stanton, and Aroldis Chapman automatically take up three of the 15 spots due to their no-trade rights. That leaves 12 more players to protect. The MLBTR staff generally agreed that these eight additional players should be protected:
Aaron Judge
Gary Sanchez
Luis Severino
Gleyber Torres
Miguel Andujar
Gio Urshela
Jordan Montgomery
Chad Green
That leaves four spots for these 16 players:
Zack Britton
Luis Cessa
Thairo Estrada
Mike Ford
Clint Frazier
Ben Heller
Aaron Hicks
Kyle Higashioka
Jonathan Holder
Tommy Kahnle
Mike King
Jonathan Loaisiga
Adam Ottavino
Mike Tauchman
Luke Voit
Tyler Wade
With that, we turn it over to the MLBTR readership! In the poll below, please select exactly four players that you think the Yankees should protect in our upcoming mock expansion draft. Click here to view the results.
I picked Ford, Tauchman, Kahnle, Holder
Wow! You risk losing A young arm?
Loiasiga, Tauchman, Frazier, Voit.
Where would the next expansion team(s) be? Vegas?, Montreal? I think a team would do very well in Vancouver, Jays games in Seattle are practically home games. I don’t see it happening, because the divisions are aligned 5 teams a piece, en extra team would change the whole schedule structure. More likely that a team will move.
I would add four teams in Vancouver, Montreal, Nashville and probably a dorm in Salt Lake.
What about New Orleans? Buffalo? Indianapolis? Carolina? I really like the idea of New Orleans and Vancouver, I think both would get a lot of support. Nashville is a good idea too.
I’d love to see expansion teams in Portland and Montreal, with Nashville as an alternate possibility. A team in Portland creates a natural rivalry with Seattle and Montreal….well, if they had owners who cared I think that would be a good baseball town.
While expansion to 32 teams would leave the current 3 division setup unbalanced, perhaps then the divisions could be re-worked into four 4-team divisions per league.
I like it, I forgot about Portland. Although, Montreal is nowhere near Portland and Seattle, you’re probably thinking of Vancouver, but yea Portland, Seattle and Vancouver would be a huge Rivalry, instantly. Montreal is more East coast, I think they would rival, Pittsburgh, Detroit, New York, Boston, Toronto, Minnesota? Depending if AL or NL.
No, I was thinking of Portland and Montreal, with Portland joining the AL West and Montreal rejoining the NL East.
In an ideal world I’d also see Tampa move to the NL East and Washington move to the AL East
Disculpa VladJr: Weather sucks in NO, no stadium (don’t say the super dome ) & hurricanes threat every year, plus area has very low income per capita /poverty. Look further north – west or NC region
Being in Buffalo, I can assure you it wouldn’t be here. They’re going to lose their football team soon. This is not a place for professional sports.
LOL What?
It’s everybody’s favorite retarded super woke fat guy!!! Please lecture us about what words we can use, as if you were the woman that you want to be!!!
please get lost and stay lost
Lol what’s going on here?
this guy is a troll and does not refrain from using offensive and unsavory words for no reason.
And it triggers you like a fat little girl!!!
Class.
King, ford, tauchman and voit
I think this would be more entertaining and realistic if they included minor leaguers on the protected list. Teams have their 40-man roster, which composes the eligible pool, so they should use that for this exercise.
That’s not the purpose of the expansion draft. The purpose is to stock the major league team, not the farm system.
That’s the main purpose, yes, but the article said about 1/4 of those taken were minor leaguers, which means they’re both eligible and to some degree, desirable.
But those players generally weren’t taken to “stock the farm system.” They were taken because they were cheap.
I think it’s possible that a few good prospects like Clarke Schmidt or Alexander Vizcaino would be eligible for the draft based on my interpretation of the 1997 rules. But I decided that trying to determine that list for each of the 30 teams, and then expecting our readers to know those players, wasn’t the way to go.
I appreciate the response, Tim, and understand where you’re coming from. I just feel that most of the players teams would choose to protect in the minors would be top prospects, like Jo Adell, that many baseball fans have heard of, begging questions like, If a team had to choose between a solid bullpen arm and a prospect in the 60-80 range, who do they keep?
You may have misinterpreted what I wrote above…someone like Adell would be ineligible for the expansion draft and automatically protected. So the 15 players the Angels would have to choose would not include him anyway.
Ok. I thought from the rules link it was a 40-man roster. I’d have thought Adell would be included. Are there rules for determining which players are ineligible for the 40-man? Because I thought players not on it were open to getting picked in the Rule 5; hence I thought Adell (and other top prospects) would be added to them. If top prospects are all ineligible, I retract my statement.
Here’s what I found on the rules:
nowhitting.com/index.php?option=com_content&v…
“All Players in an organization are eligible to be drafted, except those with no prior major league experience who have less than three years service if signed at age 19 or older or have less than four years of service if signed at age 18 or younger.”
Thanks for the clarification. It’s a lot clearer now.
I agree. Especially since some 40-man prospects would likely be earning some service time during the 2020 season if its played. Cristian Pache from Atlanta and Luis Robert from Chicago come to mind immediately
That’s a really good point about the Luis Roberts of the world. I’ll have to think about that.
Will we eventually be able to see the results of the voting?
No, people who are unable to read an article to the end will never be able to see the results.
It’s easy to miss in my post but you can see the results here:
surveymonkey.com/results/SM-XQ9H97SN7/
The results are not showing in a readable fashion thru the App on my android. First MLBTR survey this has happened.
This had to be a SurveyMonkey poll because PollDaddy cannot accommodate what I need to do here (require exactly four answers). So you have to click this separate link to see results:
surveymonkey.com/results/SM-XQ9H97SN7/
Surveymonkey sucks
Yup. Just saw! Was just used to the button on the old poll – thank you!!
Hate the Yankees so IDC
And yet you’re here commenting.
Idk your comment leads me to believe you care a bit. So who would you keep?
Great idea! I’d love to see this for all teams (and ending the series with a 2-team mock draft)
From the given list I protected Ford, Tauchman, Voit and Hicks.
The first 3 because they are good players that fill in positions on the cheap. Hicks is because with Garner leaving he is the only true center fielder and as a switch hitter he is pretty valuable at a reasonable price. With all those bullpen pieces the Yankees can afford to lose one or two arms (which I don’t think would be taken in the first round anyway) and the other players are replaceable.
Voit, Frazier, King and Tauchman
I’m surprised so many picked Hicks. With six year contract , he would be less likely to be picked even if he has the most talent of the bunch. Same as well for for the relievers (especially Britton and Ottovino), they would be less likely drafted by an expansion team that isn’t likely to compete their first few years, thus less in need of expensive relievers.
I picked Voit, Frazier, Kahnle, and Ottavino. Your point about the contracts is interesting, though. I wonder if a few teams wouldn’t risk leaving a veteran with a sizeable contract open in the hopes that they’d be deemed too expensive. It’d be a way to save another prospect or guy on a rookie deal, but risk losing a star. (Naturally, I wasn’t referring to guys who are nowhere close to earning their money, like Chris Davis or Pujols).
I could see Hicks as a borderline player that an expansion team might take as a lower level cornerstone piece. Though I would gamble that with the injury history, he wouldn’t be drafted. Other players of his ilk would be an interesting call.
To Joe Says–
That’s exactly right about the players with the contracts. My selections were the same as yours except I chose Higashioka over King because the Yankees don’t really have a decent backup (yet) in their system if Higashioka gets selected. King has talent for sure, but he’s also damaged goods.
An expansion team starts off with zero payroll. If Stanton didn’t have a ntc I’d leave him off protected list feeling confident neither would select him and if they did all the better. But Hicks? He could easily be taken
I would love for Hicks to be taken!
Players drafted in an expansion draft can be traded. So, it really depends on whether a player with an expensive contract has good trade value.
Tauchman and Voit are no brainers, shocked they weren’t near unanimous. I went with Frazier and Ford as the other two because I couldn’t choose which pitcher to take over them, but King was my leading choice followed by Loiasiga. So I think I like your choice of King over Ford. Although I’d hope the Yankees would try some trades first for guys they wouldn’t have to protect. Frazier for low level minor leaguers would be an obvious move even if we’d take less value for him.
I went King and Johnny L. Because you can’t give away potential young starters with years of control. Then I went with Voit because they need 1B depth and Tauchman over Frazier because he can actually play all three OF spots while Frazier can’t play any.
As for Hicks, I left him available since I don’t think they would take the years and contract on a guy you gets banged up so much.
I wouldn’t waste a spot on Britton only because he doesn’t have enough years left which means an expansion team probably wouldn’t pick him.
No one cares about the Yankees
I don’t like them, but millions of people do. If you don’t care, there are plenty of other articles on which you can comment.
Taking the time to comment is rather rather detrimental to your point.
Lots of people do
that makes no sense at all
The Yankees get a lot of attention for many reasons. They have a big fan base, historically the greatest franchise by far, they are active with free agent spending/trades, and maybe most of all haters like you read every article on them because your hate is really interest. I’m a Cardinals fan and I feel lucky to have a successful franchise to pull for but the Cardinals are number two on WS win totals but it’s not even close to what the Yankees have won. These are just facts. You make them even more relevant with your hate.
No one cares about the cardinals
so what teams do people actually care about, may i ask?
Bad troll
Please continue to lecture me on how to properly comment.
everybody does, including you
Went with Voit, Estrada, Loaisiga and Frazier
Killed me not to have Tauchman on list
Hicks, Otto, Britt, and Voit
I would rather have Voit over Urshela for the first 8. I’m just not sold on Urshela after just one season. I’d need to see another strong season from him to be sold. And that’s not to say I’m completely sold on Voit either, just that I think he’s a safer keep
Surprised Urshela would be considered such a lock? I’d much rather have some younger upside guys instead of him considering he could fall back to the earth very quickly.
I expect one of these to be made for every team. Enough of all these Yankees articles it’s an mlb account cover all teams
Maybe this will help with your angst (and reading comprehension):
“We thought it would be fun to determine each team’s current 15-player protected list, as if a new two-team expansion draft is scheduled for November. For simplicity’s sake, only players with MLB experience will be eligible for our mock expansion draft.
We’ll begin by shaping the Yankees’ 15-player protected list.”
I believe your team is named “each” for the purpose of this article
Why would there not be one for all 30 teams?
This may just be me but I’d probably rather keep one of the guys that is in the poll over Montgomery
if im honest im not sold on any of the last three as locks. i like Monty and Gio, but neither should be considered a lock at the very least.
That’s fair…in future posts I’ll loosen up the locks list to allow you guys more flexibility.
i dont mean it as a complaint, Tim. both are probably likely to be protected. id probably have but the both on my list if they weren’t locks, but i just think there could be a chance they are exposed.
Voit, Tauchman, and Frazier have to be locks, though my guess is one is traded in this situation. so I’d assume it’s actually 2 of those three, King, and Johnny Lasagne. lots if talent exposed but those 5 would seem to be locks to be taken and cant be simply let go given their value and contract situations.
Hot take: I’m not protecting Luis Severino. Rotator cuff issues immediately followed by Tommy John Rehabbing until late 2021/2022, Free Agent in 2023, I’m out. If he wants to be Comeback Player of the Year anchoring Las Vegas’ rotation for a year, I could be bothered to offer him 3/$50 mil
Agreed.
I’d rather take my chances keeping a young pitcher. Especially with the team so far over the luxury tax line.
I understand that take, but I disagree with it. He has proven he can pitch at a high level in the majors. Say you didn’t protect him, now you get a minor leagues player (who’s unlikely to be a top prospect) or another guy from the list above. Regardless of who you pick (keeping in mind it’d be your 5th choice, not your 1st), Severino is likely to be better when he gets back and, assuming he’s healthy, could easily be worth more WAR in two years than the other guy in three.
i like this idea. I think you guys should do one for each team.
you need to keep Luke Voit.
NYY clearly stands to lose some good players, but i think its sort of a good problem to have to some extent. for example, they may leave O and Britton exposed, but even if one is selected you probably protect the other in the next round. if you expose both the choice is made for you. there is a lot of talent in the non-lock group, but there are a lot of guys you could swap for assets that dont need protection. and as many here point out, you could argue that Torres, Judge, Gary and [to a lesser extent] Andujar might be your only locks besides the no-trade guys. its still quite likely those guys all get protected, but each has their warts and could very well survive the 1st round.
I chose holder, Frazier, ottavino, and Britton.
Any true Yankee fans on here that wouldn’t protect Loaisiga? Shocked that he wasn’t the highest protected player in the results, but my suspicion is that’s mostly from non yankee fans
I like Johnny Lasagna as much as anybody but he hasn’t put it together just yet (and I personally believed 2020 was going to be his breakout year as a reliever. He can’t stay healthy to be a starter or else he’d be the obvious choice) But if you’re trying to protect your team and stay competitive, You have to protect your starting CF, your starting 1B, and at least one of your core relievers in Britton, Ottavino or Kahnle if not two. I chose Frazier because we have seen what he can do in an everyday role and there is a spot for him in the OF.
Frazier Voit Tauchman and Kahnle …
I chose Voit, Kahnle, Ottavino, and Hicks. I chose Hicks over Frazier because despite the age, Hicks is a true center fielder, and I also think Frazier would be a great expansion team pickup. I also want to keep the relieve core together, but I chose Kanhle over Britton because I figured with the three batter minimum, the Yanks can survive with only two lefties, and Kahnle is also decent. Voit is the obvious choice for me, he’s in their lineup everyday, he deserves to stay.
I loved this article, and I think I will love this series. Keep up the good work MLBTR!
I’m not surprised few people were interested in Ford the way I am, but it does surprise me that Hicks, a true center fielder, and Loaisiga have received little support.
let’s do this for all the teams!
You do it for the O’s, Marlins, Jays, Tigers, Pads, …..
IDK why I cried laughing at O’s.
Hicks, Frazier, Voit, Ottavino in that order.
When would this proposed expansion draft be, now or after this year’s season?
After this season.
Why not hold an infinite number of expansion drafts until every player is chosen by a team that doesn’t exist so there can’t be any games at all?
Huh? Is this post due to some lockdown drinking? Have a little too much Corona while waiting out corona?
It’s sarcasm based on the fallacy of composition.
They’ve been talking about expansion teams for years and, frankly, most of us are craving baseball content that makes us actually think. Sure, it wouldn’t happen this year, but what’s wrong with playing “what if?” Plus, there’s likely to be some good debates on the final 4-5 choices for each team.
I know you’re right, I grew up playing APBA and we would create leagues by picking teams, protecting players and then having a draft. It was a lot of fun.
An interesting follow-up to this article could be to actually have the draft with the players exposed from this series. Same rules as real life, so one from each team in the first two rounds. The last round could be cut to 5 picks each to arrive at the same 35 player count.
Has anyone who snubbed Tauchman, Hicks, and Ford given much thought to the number of RHH’s the Yankees have? Gardner isn’t going to be around forever and a little diversity could do them some good.
How about sorting the results by votes received, instead of by name? Good idea for a series of stories, though. Thanks!
I went with Voit, Loaisiga, Frazier and although I probably should have went Ottavino, I chose Cessa as he is my personal unreasonable fanfav and I went with my heart than my mind. History shows that the new teams will cheap out, so Britton and Hicks (and possibly Ottavino) is out as they make too much for any new team and the chances are low for them to get picked. Ford has been around the block so many times that I don’t see him drawing much interest anymore considering there will be a lot better options out the from other teams to pick from. King, Heller, Holder, Kahnle are really a dime a dozen and no biggie if they lose any of them. No one will want Wade or Higashioka, not sure the Yanks really want them either as they are surely the first two to go if they get someone better on the team. I’m unsold on Tauchman and Estrada but I can see people wanting to hold onto them.
Kahnle, Loaisiga, Tauchman and Voit
I went with Frazier, Kahnle, Loaisiga and Voit.
Hicks, Frazier, Loaisiga and Otto.
Not really that close.
Stanton, Cole, Chapman. (3)
Judge, Sanchez, Sevi, Torres, Andujar, Urshela, Monty, Green… (8)
Then I’d go: Britton, Ottavino, Frazier and probably Losiagna or Kahnle.
That last one is tough. But I wouldn’t want to lose any of the Pen. And there’s only Cole and Sevi locked into the rotation after this year. But my guess is they def resign Tanaka and probably Paxton. And look for a 2nd lefty starter and use Monty as the 6th starter/Long man.
Frazier, Hicks, Tauchman, Voit. If the Portland Timberdudes or the Montreal Sexpos want any of our $18m a year relievers god bless em
As for expansion why would Las Vegas be ruled out?
Definitely Frazier and Hicks
Everyone who voted for Hicks, you need to know something very important: staying at home makes you a hero.
Particularly, on November 3rd. Whatever you do, DO NOT LEAVE THE HOUSE on November 3rd.