2008 Indians Rule 5 Eligibles
Tony Lastoria at Indians Prospect Insider has the list of players eligible for the rule 5 draft.
over 3 years ago
world dictator
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I know it’s probably jumping the gun, but I’ve been eager for some Rule 5 and roster management discussion.
The 40-man roster stands, by my count, at 38, following the Bullington and Slocum changes.
Out of Lastoria’s list of eligible players, assuming his list is correct, I see five, maybe six, the Tribe will protect.
Kelvin De la Cruz
Hector Rondon
Jeff Stevens
Carlos Santana
Trevor Crowe
(Chuck Lofgren?)
Some of the other spots most vulnerable on the 40-man would have to be those held by Juan Rincon, Scott Elarton, Brendan Donnelly (eligible for FA, yes?), and Sal Fasano.
Lofgren is such a disaster right now I would be shocked if he’s put on the roster. I wouldn’t be shocked if he got picked, but I really don’t see him making it through a big-league camp with another team. And I think our roster’s at 36 right now.
I’m counting both Westbrook and Elarton, both technically on the DL right now, so you are right that without them it is 36.
by Deep South Ken on Oct 26, 2008 5:44 PM EDT up reply actions
I’m by no means a rule 5 expert, but I don’t think you should count Elarton and Westbrook against our 40 man roster. I assume Elarton will be released and while Westbrook will certainly be added when he returns from the DL, thats long after the rule five draft which means we can “give” his roster spot to someone else for the time being.
by world dictator on Oct 26, 2008 7:19 PM EDT up reply actions
The DL does not exist year-round. After the baseball season ends, the DL ends, so that by the time of the Rule 5 draft, no players are exempt from counting against the 40-man limit.
by Deep South Ken on Oct 26, 2008 7:21 PM EDT up reply actions
Right. Actually, the 15-day DL basically ends on September 1, as everyone on the 40-man is eligible for the 25-man anyway. The 60-day DL ends shortly after the World Series and, as you note, does not exist at the time of the Rule 5 draft. The idea specifically is that teams can’t use the 60-day DL to protect extra players from Rule 5.
The 4 most important guys on that list seem to be Hector Rondon, Kelvin De La Cruz, Carlos Santana, and Jeff Stevens. Not necessarily they are guys who will get rostered now (hard to imagine De La Cruz sticking on someone’s big league roster), but they seem to be the most “talented” guys on the list.
I see Santana and Rondon as the only no-doubters. After that, it gets real interesting.
Will they back up they’re still-unsubstantiated excitement over Crowe with a roster spot?
Would some team really try to turn De La Cruz into their Johan, given how awful he looked even in High A? Can we risk it?
Do you really protect a guy like Stevens over De La Cruz — or for that matter, over J.D. Martin?
There’s no way any team goes near Lofgren.
I’m struggling with finding somebody who deserves a spot more than KDLC and all that potential. I mean, there are some guys on our 40-man I’d trade FOR him right now.
Still a member of the J.D. Martin fan club, by the way. Me and his parents.
by fleerdon on Oct 26, 2008 8:27 PM EDT up reply actions
I think the issue with Lord Kelvin isn’t his potential talent, but whether he represents a reasonable Rule 5 target being as far away from the bigs as he is. Remember, he’d have to spend the entire year on a big league roster and he hasn’t shown any success above A-.
Right, so it would have to be a really, really lame organization betting on him becoming a productive major leaguer sometime next year?
by fleerdon on Oct 26, 2008 8:43 PM EDT up reply actions
I wonder if there’s ever a consideration in these situations of: “Well, we know he’s not going to stick with a major league club, so we can leave him unprotected. However, if he gets taken by some idiot club like the Nats and he has to spend ST with them and maybe even a month or two, that’s going to screw up his whole developmental schedule. We need to put him on the roster for that reason.”
Hello Andrew,
I’d hate for another organization to potentially screw up KDLC.
Besides that, what if some team like the Nats, Pirates, or equivalent just “swallow the bullet” and allow KDLC to stay on the roster the entire year, since their chances of competing next year seem minimal at best?
While that may seem unlikely to occur, do we really want to chance it? Besides, as fleerdon mentioned, do we have surefire other guys who we’d rather protect? And as APV mentioned, it’s not like we couldn’t create a more roster spots to protect the other guys in contention for those spots as well.
Just my 2 cents.
The "cream of the crop" doesn't always rise to the top.
I don’t think they’re nearly as worried about screwing up his developmental schedule as losing him entirely. You get some douchey club picking him just to have him do mop-up duty all season in the majors, even if he’s terrible at it, then they can send him back to the minors to develop for real, for most or all of 2010, 2011, 2012. This is exactly what the Twins did with Johan.
But there is another issue here for the Indians, and that is starting Kelvin’s option clock in 2009 rather than 2010. As raw as he looked last year, I think that is a pretty serious issue, and it may move the Indians to take their chances.
to add to this…guys currently on our 40-man who might potentially get removed before the rule 5:
Brendon Donnelly – didn’t we decide this guy wasn’t under contract for next year anyway?
Scott Elarton
Juan Rincon
Rich Rundles
Mastny/Mujica – I don’t know what to do with either of these guys, but you can only suck at the big league level while dominating in the minors for so long
Sal Fasano – he should be gone pretty soon. there’s no reason to keep 4 catchers on the roster, especially when we have a guy like Garko who could serve as an emergency catcher
Michael Aubrey – backup backup 1B only has so much value
Andy Marte/Josh Barfield – the team seems to have made the decision that these two are not part of the future
Dellucci – please…eat the contract
Obviously most of these guys are not going to be cut. But we’ve got a fair amount of baggage on the roster which, while not painless, could probably be removed without too much sighing.
I was just about to post this. From my count we’ll have about 10 players we can add to the 40 man roster. That more or less allows us to protect everyone we need to protect.
by world dictator on Oct 26, 2008 7:45 PM EDT up reply actions
We’ve only got two spots once you add back Westbrook and Elarton. Donnelly and Fasano are free agents, so they’re gone. They’re not going to remove Rich Rundles, who looks a iot like Jeff Stevens, only better. I doubt Mastny gets the boot, maybe Mujica. And while I don’t think Marte and Barfield are in their plans, I doubt they’ll be outrighted.
So I see two spots plus Elarton, Donnelly, Rincon, and Fasano. maybe Mujica. The other guys, you keep them on the roster until you sign a free agent you like better in January or February. So that’s six or seven spots. My guess is that we’ll protect four guys.
You don’t see Aubrey being released?
by world dictator on Oct 26, 2008 11:27 PM EDT up reply actions
You read my mind.
Also, does anyone think Brown has a chance to be productive in Cleveland?
by world dictator on Oct 27, 2008 12:32 AM EDT up reply actions
no
Anti-Ben Fran before it was cool.
by Gradyforpresident on Oct 27, 2008 12:53 AM EDT up reply actions
Productive at what? Not at baseball, but we all have the potential to succeed at something.
by FredOx on Oct 27, 2008 1:47 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Brown is sort of an interesting prospect. He was always kind of old and always defensively limited (corner OF, 1B), which is a tough pairing to begin with. To overcome those two you really have to be both good at getting on base and show good power. Coming through the system, Brown showed pretty good plate discipline with a nice high average, so he was doing one of the two things he needed to do. And he was actually hitting quite a lot of doubles, which are sometimes viewed as a precursor to more power. This past year was a big opportunity for him, with his first full season exposure to AAA. Unfortunately, he blew it big time. Not only did his 2Bs not start turning into HRs, they began turning into outs. And his plate discipline fell apart. And he’s also always been a bit of a fringy injury guy. If we didn’t have guys names C Lofgren and J Rodriguez, or if expectations had been higher for Brown, he would have been one of our larger disappointments this past season. He’d have to come back in a major way this year to regain any serious standing, including both a revival of his plate discipline and an increase in power over anything he has shown in the past.
Hello APV,
If I recall correctly, Brown was dealing with an injury or the complications from an injury part of this past season, which might PARTLY explain why he fell off so much in 2008. I’d like to see what he could do at AAA fully healthy (which, as you mentioned, has been a bit of a problem with him, though not to the extent of an Aubrey or even Adam Miller in recent years).
Just my 2 cents.
The "cream of the crop" doesn't always rise to the top.
I think Neil Wagner will be selected in the draft if he’s not protected, not that he has the command to stick with his new team. He’s had a rough showing in the AFL, but I think teams seeing his 97mph fastball and ability to keep the ball in the park will take a second look.
He’s really the ideal Rule 5 draft choice.
One last note on the Rule 5 draft …. even if we end up with 4-5 spots open to hide KDLC, Stevens, Santana, etc it does not mean we will fill up the entire 40.
Perhaps Shapiro already has a guy or two in mind from another roster he wants to snag. Or maybe since we are drafting earlier, there is a player another team wants that we can claim for them and receive something else useful back (not keep on 25 man roster for whole season). If we have a full 40 going into the draft we lose the option for both scenarios; not to mention that we’d have to outright someone later on in the offseason for any potential FA signings or trades that net us more 25 man guys.
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