April 1, 2007
Reds Roster Set…Mostly
By
Amanda
Posted at 6:43 pm
Check it out on The Official Site:
Active Roster
Pitchers
- Bronson Arroyo
- Matt Belisle
- Jared Burton
- Todd Coffey
- Rheal Cormier
- Jon Coutlangus
- Aaron Harang
- Kyle Lohse
- Kirk Saarloos
- Mike Stanton
- David Weathers
Infielders
- Juan Castro
- Jeff Conine
- Edwin Encarnación
- Alex Gonzalez
- Scott Hatteberg
- Brandon Phillips
Outfielders
- Adam Dunn
- Ryan Freel
- Ken Griffey Jr.
- Josh Hamilton
Catchers
- Chad Moeller
- David Ross
- Javier Valentín
Odd, you may think, that there are only 24 guys on the roster. There's some mystery surrounding that, as BubbaFan goes into in this comment. The 25th guy will be announced before game time tomorrow.
C. Trent also provides the list of guys on the DL:
- Bill Bray
- Chris Denorfia
- Jerry Gil
- Eddie Guardado
- Norris Hopper
- Jeff Keppinger
- Eric Milton
- Elizardo Ramirez
Eight guys on the DL? Yikes, though Guardado hardly counts since we knew he was out from the get-go. That Denorfia injury could haunt the team: with Griffey in the starting line-up, four outfielders is not enough.
JD over at RR thinks the mystery 25th roster spot will be filled by another outfielder. Someone over at Trent’s blog suggested Marlon Byrd, a right-handed CFer recently DFA’d by the Rangers.
But I just can’t see carrying six outfielders, unless one has options and can be sent down to Louisville when needed. What are they going to do when they need a fifth starter and they have to bring Milton off the DL?
Hopper will be off the DL in a week or so. And he has options. I would think he’d be a better fit for the club’s needs than some veteran off the waiver wire.
I think its Santos… in the early going you need long relivers.
But if it’s Santos…why not add him today?
I think they are leaving a space open for someone they are trying to get off the waiver wire or via trade. If it falls through, Santos will get the last spot.
Maybe he needs a physical before signing a major league contract? i dunno…. but he seems the obvious choice right now because he had a tremendous spring. I don’t think Livingston will be down very long either… as soon as they need a 5th starter he will get the call. And I think Bubba gets the call as soon as Griffey or another outfielder gets hurt.
If it was just a matter of a physical, I think they’d say so.
I think there’s a trade brewing. Look at these quotes from Krivsky:
[quote]”We’re keeping you in suspense another day. We’ve got 24, we’ll add someone else tomorrow before the game. We won’t play with 24 players tomorrow, I assure you. I can’t really go into all the details. It could be Santos, it could be somebody else. It could be somebody here, it could be somebody somewhere else.”[/quote]
And:
[quote]”Every club’s trying to tweak their roster right now,” Krivsky said Saturday. “They’re trying to improve themselves. Most of the calls have come to me, as opposed to being initiated by me. At least, as of now.”[/quote]
He’s got something up his sleeve.
While I’m thinking of it, here are the players on the Reds’ 40-man roster who are not on the active roster or the DL. This is significant because these guys can be called up to the majors without the Reds having to make a move to put them on the 40-man, although obviously a move would have to be made to put them on the 25-man:
Pitchers: Phil Dumatrait, Bobby Livingston, Gary Majewski, Calvin Medlock, Brad Salmon, Brian Shackelford.
Infield: Joey Votto
Outfield: Chris Dickerson.
That list is also perhaps as significant for who is not on it as for who is on it. For example, if Ryan Freel goes tearing into left center and gets freight-trained by Adam Dunn and winds up on the DL, or collides with Griffey in right center, sending both to the DL, not only are we looking at Hamilton and/or Conine in the outfield, but neither Crosby or Wise can be called up without a move being made to put them on the 40-man first.
HMZ
One thing that occurs to me about Santos – as a non-roster player, he has to be added to the 40-man before he can be put on the Opening Day roster. That means even though there’s an open slot on the 25-man, somebody else has to be removed from the 40-man before they can add Santos. And an often-missed rule – which I’m not missing because I know better – states that a player added to the 40-man between August 15 and Opening Day must be released to be removed from the 40-man.
I remembered this while I was posting the previous comment about who’s on the 40-man that isn’t on the 25-man, or the DL. It’s possible that the Reds are waiting until Opening Day to add Santos to the 40-man to avoid having to release somebody they added to the 40-man since Aug. 15.
As far as I can tell, that amounts to one of four players: Salmon (whose contract was purchased from Louisville on Oct. 17), Dickerson, Medlock (whose contracts were purchased from Chattanooga on Nov. 20), or Livingston (obtained on waivers Dec. 14), all of whom were added to the 40-man after August 15.
[quote]And an often-missed rule – which I’m not missing because I know better – states that a player added to the 40-man between August 15 and Opening Day must be released to be removed from the 40-man.[/quote]
Is that just between Aug. 15 and opening day? I thought that was all the time. Not that I know that much about the business side of baseball, but I remember there was much puzzlement last May when the Yanks called up the long-suffering Colter Bean for a cup of coffee. They DFA’d him afterwards, and no one could understand why. Buried in the minors as he’d been, everyone knew he had options left. Turns out the reason was to get him off the 40-man. (He cleared waivers and was pitching in Columbus again three days after being DFA’d.)
As for the Reds…they could put Deno on the 60-day DL to clear space on the 40-man, couldn’t they?
They certainly could have. As it turned out, this morning they moved Guardado to the 60-day DL to make room for Santos. That being the eventual move, I confess I have no idea why they didn’t just do that yesterday. :rolleyes:
From what Trent and others have said…they were working on some kind of deal that fell through. Either another team had a higher-priority claim on some guy on waivers, or they were trying to work a trade and there was no fit.
So, Santos is on the roster because the guy they really wanted got away. Luckily, Santos seems to be the kind of guy who isn’t bothered by that kind of thing.