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Hello Cards fans. Since I stopped paying attention to the mlb team going forward after yesterday, I figured I needed something else besides the minor league teams to focus on. I’ve kind of had the rule 5 situation in my mind all season. You see last year, the Cardinals had very few total players eligible. In fact, by Brian’s count, we were able to protect all but 1 or 2 players from the minor league phase of the draft. That changes a lot this year. Last year we lost no one. This year we will lose players – at least in the minor league phase for sure.
I’m going to skip all the fancy rules on how someone becomes eligible for the rule 5 draft and cut to the chase as to who is at risk. The Cardinals already have made a few transactions that they knew they were going to make at some point this year to protect players. They added McGreevey, Graceffo, and Ryan Loutos to the roster. I guess Loutos wasn’t a sure thing, but I suspect he would have have been taken if he wasn’t added. They have some more players at risk that I’m going to break into categories. I think it makes most sense to do 3 categories, but there is really a fourth category as well. The fourth one would be all the remaining players who are eligible to be taken, but who certainly are not getting taken in the major league portion.
Category 1: Guys who will be taken in the Major League Rule 5 Draft if exposed
Tink Hence
Thomas SaggeseThe Cardinals will have to add these 2 players to their 40-man roster or they will be taken. No question. And they will be added. But probably not until the end of the season when roster space opens up because guys like Matt Carpenter will become free agents.
Category 2: Guys who might be taken in the major league Rule 5 Draft if left exposed in order of most likely to least likely
Ian Bedell
Tekoah Roby
Andre Granillo
Darlin Saladin
Edwin Nunez
Matt Koperniak
Matt Svanson
Jeremy Rivas
Jack RalstonAll of these are possible. But none is a sure fire take. In reality, not a lot of players end up taken in the major league phase. We took Ryan Fernandez. But we hadn’t taken anyone in a number of years prior to that (Matt Bowman anyone). I’d like to see the team protect each of the first 4 guys here. But that’s using a lot of roster space when we already are protecting the 2 above. I don’t think they can do that which means we are going to have some players at risk.
Category 3: Guys who there is a very tiny chance they would be taken in the major league Rule 5 draft but who would almost certainly be taken in the minor league phase if they aren’t protected on the AAA roster – in no particular order
Antico
Cornwell
Conner Thomas
Naughton
Komar
Bryan Torres
Trent Baker
Hancel Rincon
Jose Davila
Juan SalasEach of these are interesting players who might all at least sniff the majors at some point (Naughton already has). Some of them I really like (Torres, Komar, Rincon, Davila).
The 4th group as I mentioned above is everyone else who is eligible. There are lots of them. Some of them are likely to be lost in the minor league phase of the draft because we can’t protect them all.
All of this is just food for thought as we get closer to the offseason where trades and releases will still happen. I’ll keep you updated along the way. Roster management is fascinating to me because it is a fine balance of weighing potential outcomes.
Thanks for putting this together, Jnevel! I also have been thinking about all the potential players that either need to be protected or potentially lost. This could be a year that impacts a lot of teams due to the Covid year when minor leaguers did not get a year of experience or training, so there progress was slowed. Now teams have to make a decision about players before some of them had time to develop. It should be a very interesting off-season!
Nice post, Jnevel.
As the 40-man roster stands today, these are players that I think wlll be taken off.
Brandon Crawford
Matt Carpenter
Lance Lynn (saves $10M)
Kyle Gibson (saves $11M)
Shawn Armstrong (they’ve got replacements)
Tommy Pham (he’s going to want $5M-$6M. He has a history of
being around for only one season.)
Adam Kloffenstein (can’t stay healthy)
Kyle Leahy (they’ve got replacements)
Chris Rofcroft (might lose him if exposed. But can he stay
on another team’s 26-man roster all season?)Also, taking a look at 2025 rotation…..
Gray
Mikolas
Fedde
Matz (Matz will be in his walk year)
Pallante, Liberatore, ThompsonGraceffo, McGreevy, Robberse, Bedell, Rom (all looking for major league innings)
Hence and Matthews at Memphis
Free agent starting pitcher. (Seems unlikely.)
I used to worry about losing slow movers a lot more than I do now, and I used to get more excited about acquiring somebody else’s slow movers more than I do now. I agree the lost Covid year could make things a bit more interesting. All 30 orgs are in the same boat though.
I also agree that worrying about slow movers is a worthy alternative to worrying about whether the team ends up a couple games over or a couple games under. I think probably calling Walker up and then platooning him right off the bat was the last straw for me. Just put a cardboard cut out on the top step and quit pretending.
Mud, I think they’ll pick up Gibson’s option and keep Leahy, Roycroft and Kloffenstein all on their roster. I could see them moving on from one of Leahy or Roycroft though if they need the space. You forgot about losing Kittredge. He’s also a free agent. I also think there’s a solid chance that they DFA Fermin and Zack Thompson by season’s end due to the roster crunch. They now have backups for Fermin and Thompson will be out of options. Drew Rom is another DFA candidate although he’s not actually taking a roster spot at the moment since he’s on the 60 day IL.
As a reminder, 60-day IL guys go back on the roster at the end of the season, so Rom will take a spot again before the others need to be added. Based on his MLB debut last year and injury status, the Cards might try to slip him through waivers.
Thompson has looked better since coming off the IL. But perhaps they should just make him a reliever and see if he can contribute before giving up on him. You can never have enough lefties in the pen.
Thanks for the post JNevel. I love the Cardinals, but other than occasional well placed criticism of the org in recent years, I try not to be a basher. But I’m with Bling. This Walker deal pushed me over the edge. So Im going to try and follow your lead and focus on other areas of the team besides the big league clubs current condition.
They might have to keep the 37 year-old Gibson in order to give the rotation some semblance of respectability. I just hate to see Pallante pushed out of the rotation since he seems to be improving. I don’t think they’ll DFA Thompson as soon as season’s end, unless they really need a roster spot which seems very unlikely. I think they’ll want to watch him for one more ST, at least. I did forget Kittredge is a free agent after this season. I could see them extending him for another year, hopefully, not two years. Rom seems like another back of rotation guy, alright. But nobody has seen enough of him to form a realistic opinion, IMO.
I always try to be optimistic. But there isn’t a single pitcher to get excited about for 2025, and no space for a top free agent even if they could ind a way to fit one in their budget. The 2025 rotation looks like a reboot of the 2024 rotation where we have a bunch of five inning pitchers, and a pretty good bullpen. Maybe they can find another late inning reliever somewhere to make the bullpen even better. I’m interested to see how Loutos and O’Brien look next spring.
Mudville, you think Goldschmitt will be back?
Kiiridge and Middleton will become FA’s.
Will either be retained? A price issue that is hard to determine. Mo likes his veteran relievers so my guess is that of them or someone else will be signed somewhere in the 5 million rangeMiddleton is a team option which will be declined. If he is brought back it will probably be at a lower price that he cam make the difference in incentives
I would like to see them pick up Gibson and find someway to get rid of Micklelos. May not be easy as Micklelos has a no trade and he came to Stl because he is from the Jupiter area. But assuming he wanted a fresh start we could assume about 7 million of his contract and pick up Gibson’s option and be revenue neutral. We might have to throw in a prospect for someone to assume that much salary.
Another possibility is that we pick up Gibson’s option and flip him for a minor leaguer
To add to this list, there are several interesting names that have been in the minors long enough to become free agents at the end of the year. Minor league contracts are always a possibility, otherwise they will try to latch on with another team. In no particular order, some of the names that I have seen over the weeks in the minor league reports:
Arquimedes Gamboa
Matt Lloyd
Ramon Mendoza
Darlin Moquete
Inohan Paniagua
Wilfredo Pereira
Dionys Rodriguez
Leonardo TaverasI think Gamboa was originally signed for emergency SS depth, so they might re-sign him for the same purpose. Assuming he doesn’t choose to try his luck elsewhere and assuming we still like his SS defense. I don’t see any point signing any of the others. A lot of DSL guy dead ends after years invested.
Out of that list of guys that can become minors free agents, Paniagua is the one I would want to keep. I definitely see another org jumping him up a couple of levels if he has the opportunity to become a FA. I’m honestly surprised the Cards still have him in A+. He is 24 and pitching decently well and should get time in AA to prove himself. I would be putting him in the AFL to see if he can cut it
Paniagua already pitched in the AFL last year. He allowed six long balls in 16 2/3 innings but that represented most of the damage, as his ERA was 4.86.
Paniagua has already been through Rule 5 twice and obviously was not taken. If I was him, I’d try elsewhere.
I forgot Paniagua was in the AFL already. I do think if given the opportunity, he definitely should go elsewhere as it is what will be best for him.
Is Saladin already going to be 40 man eligible? He has been in the org for a while, but only has 4 years of playing. I guess the timing of his signing plus the lost COVID year really hurt. I would not like to lose him, but I am also not sure if another team would select him given he only has 40 innings in A+. I suspect they leave him off the 40 man and cross their fingers they can wait until next year.
I would protect these guys:
– Hence
– Saggasse
– RobyBedell and Granillo I would accept being able to lose. If there are extra spots available though, I would maybe add them up until 39 spots. I would be leaving a spot open as I think like Fernandez, there will be some RP out there better than what we have worth protecting outside the 3 I listed
I’ll give this a better update like I did last year once we get closer to the end of the season. I’m sure things will change with another month and a half to go. I just wanted to put it out there as something to be considered and for people to realize just how many guys will be Rule 5 eligible this year.
ATM asked:
Is Saladin already going to be 40 man eligible?
I assume you mean, Rule 5 eligible. Any player is eligible to be put on the 40-man at any time.
The answer is “yes” to R5 eligible, but as you said, it is pretty unlikely he will be protected.
Along with your list of three, I think Bedell will be protected, unless his recent injury becomes a factor.
I had high hopes for Ian Bedell. But he hasn’t really had much success, and now he’s getting pretty close to running out of runway. I think they’ll protect him as long as there’s room on the 40-man roster. But even if he’s left unprotected, there’s little reason to think he could last a whole season on another team’s 26-man roster. If he doesn’t make it to an MLB roster in 2025, then he probably should head for the traditional workforce for 2026.
We are talking about a Donovan wannabe and some sore arm pitchers who have been dragging ass through the minor leagues and are running off the end of the runway. None are kicking down the door to the bigs. Its not likely to have much impact whatever happens, but I can’t see where we will have so many compelling candidates for the 40 man that we can’t fit them on it.
I agree we should keep an open slot and see if we can find a pitcher that beats what we’ve got.
With the new rules since the last CBA, are AAA players protected from the minor league portion of the draft? (assuming they are not on the 40-man)
64 – While “yes” is certainly the right answer, I’ll clarify how it all works.
First, players are not eligible to be selected in either the minor league or major league phase until after they have been with a club for 4 seasons. The year they are drafted counts as a season. It’s 5 seasons if they are drafted/signed when they are under 18. As an example, Hjerpe can’t be taken by anyone no matter what because this is only his 3rd season (22 – even though he didn’t pitch, 23, and 24).
Second, players who are currently on the 40-man roster are also not eligible to be taken in the Rule 5 draft. That makes guys like Graceffo and McGreevey now safe.
Finally, teams can protect players from the minor league Rule 5 draft by adding them to a fictitious AAA roster. I say fictitious because it really has nothing to do with the AAA roster today. You get to put up to 38 players on it. And there’s no reason to put anyone who is already on the 40-man roster on it because they are already protected by rule. More than likely everyone who I mentioned above in my first 2 posts is going on this roster (unless they get added to the 40-man roster first). That still will leave room to protect around 20 other guys. But there’s around 35 or so other guys eligible (just guessing, haven’t counted yet). Plus, teams often don’t fill all 38 spots because they want to leave some spots open to use to draft minor leaguers from other teams. We take several every year and I’d expect this year to be no different. Typically though, guys taken in the minor league phase never make it to the Show. I think John Brebbia was the last one who we took in this phase that made it. There are a few Hall of Famers though that came from this phase so anything is possible.
Last season the Cardinals took Fernandez in the Major League phase. That has worked out really well. They took JohnFrank Salazar, Miguel Villaroel, and Benito Garcia in the minor league phase. Villaroel hit a ton and got promoted but then went ice cold. The other 2 have been mostly filler with Garcia being bad filler.
The year prior, the team picked up 4 players – one who I still really like in Brandon Komar.
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