So, in the wake of my big Rule-5 preview … i didn’t think the team was going to do much.
But they did a lot. Lets talk about the players added and the players removed.
Added:
- Jake Alu inf
- Matt Cronin lhp
- Jeremy De La Rosa of
- Jose Ferrer lhp
- Jake Irvin rhp
- Jackson Rutledge rhp
Alu: I thought Alu was a decent candidate for his AAA success, but was thinking perhaps the team would let him slide as someone who was perhaps seen as “undersized utility guy.” Clearly they favor him more, and this gives us more evidence that Alu is going to compete straight up with Kieboom this coming spring.
Cronin: So, in my preview I thought Cronin was the only “lock” to get added, based on his plug-n-play and his success in AAA. So, no surprise here.
De La Rosa: surprised he got added. The guy is only 20 and hit .197 in a few games in High-A. Yes he raked in Low-A; read that sentence again: he’s 20. Who is going to draft his guy and have him stay on a 25-man roster all year? I’m not doubting the guy’s ability, i just can’t believe someone would waste a roster spot on a 20yr old OF like him. If he was an arm? Sure. so we’re going to have at least one 40-man player in High-A next spring.
Ferrer: I didn’t think he was really a viable candidate since he was in High-A most of the year. Again, who would pick a guy who had only demonstrated he could succeed in A ball? Nonetheless, he’s here.
Irvin: Honestly, I didn’t think his AA numbers merited a spot. But, perhaps the Nats are thinking about his pedigree instead of his performance.
Rutledge: the most amazing selection of all. Reminder: he had a .4.90 ERA in LOW-A this year. This is entirely a protection based on protecting a big bonus and not the player on the field. You can generally count on one hand the number of 40-man players in A ball in a given year … and our team is set to have two of them in 2023. Amazing.
Now, lets be honest. I’m not “mad” about any of these additions. I’m always up for protecting our players instead of letting them go. I’m just kind of surprised that some of these guys got picked, knowing what we know about rule5.
Biggest surprises not to get protected? Millas of course, given our catching depth. Nobody else really; the only other guy i mentioned as being in the realm ofpossible to get protected was Brill.
Lets talk about who the team dumped to get here. Two days ago we were at 39/40 on the 40-man; now we have 6 new guys.
- Seth Romero mercifully cut after yet another disgression: we’ll have a separate post-mortem post.
- Tommy Romero dfa’d: no surprise here; he was perhaps 3rd or 4th on my list of “next guy to get the DFA.”
- Jackson Tetreault: cut not because he merited it .. but because he’s hurt and thus passed easily through waivers. More importantly (and this is the exact same situation with Lee) … Tetreault was eligible to be outrighted against his will once he passed through waivers. So this (and Lee) were strategic outrights, knowing they’d be guaranteed to still be with the org. Well done .. and another example of how the roster rules continually screw pre-arb players in this sport.
- Evan Lee: See Tetreault; Lee has a left flexor strain, a huge red flag for teams in the modern Tommy John happy era.
- Yadiel Hernandez: The one that really shocked me. I mean, i had him possibly penciled in as the starting LF next season based on his bat. But then again, maybe this was a calculated gamble by the team to DFA a player who they could outright and control, as with Tetreault and Lee. The cuban sticks with the team but is bound for AAA once again, a situation that has to be a huge bummer for him.
Something tells me we’ll be seeing Tetreault, Lee, and Hernandez again. But not for a while. At least we retain them.
More interesting is why the team bothered to keep rif-raf on the 40-man like:
- Fox, who went 2-28 in the majors and a middling .241 in the minors
- Palacios, who posted a 46 OPS+ in a completely replaceable position.
- Weems, who posted a 5.22 ERA in the bullpen as a RHP middle reliever.
- Garrett, who gave up 7 runs in 9 innings
- Antuna, who continues to have 9 lives, hitting .215 in High-A. He has one option remaining until finally this arrogant decision can be put behind us when, after he again flirts with the Mendoza line in the minors in 2023, he’ll be forced to be DFA’d thanks to the exhausting of waivers in the spring of 2024.
More moves have to be coming, including some non-tenders (a separate post on that forth coming as well), because the team has to get some reinforcements this off-season besides 20yr olds who hit .190 in high-A (ahem, De La Rosa). Right?