All Things Bubba

Wednesday is the deadline for teams to set their rosters for the Rule 5 draft. After that, they can still remove players, but they can't add any.

The Rays outrighted Jeff Niemann; he has elected free agency. He could still end up back with the Rays, but outrighting him now frees up a roster spot they could use to protect a prospect from the Rule 5 draft, and also means they won't have to go to arbitration with him. If they do re-sign him, it will likely be for much less money that he would have gotten in arbitration. He's recovering from shoulder surgery, and might not be ready to play until the middle of the year, or even later.

They could have waited until the non-tender deadline in December, but that means they would be too late to use his roster spot to protect a player from Rule 5.

Someone posted this amusing comment on Twitter:

Not sure what the Braves are going to do about their infield situation. They already outrighted Phil Gosselin back to the minors a couple of weeks ago. The roster stands at 37 now, so they have room to add three players to protect them from Rule 5. If they don't need more than that, they may just put off the decision until the non-tender deadline (Dec. 2).

Teams generally prefer not to do that, since if they're going to cut a player, it makes sense do it now. That way, they can use the roster spot to protect a prospect from Rule 5. But sometimes, players don't get cut until the non-tender deadline. That happened to Andy Phillips. They needed his roster spot, so nontendered him - the day he was at a charity event on behalf of the Yankees. The Reds nontendered Jorge Cantu days before the Rule 5 draft. They had hoped to work out a deal with him, but he refused their best offer and they didn't want to go to arbitration with him, so they nontendered him. Many fans were irate; it was too late to use his roster spot to protect a prospect, and while the Reds did make use of Cantu's roster spot by drafting a player via Rule 5, many felt they lost a better prospect than they got. (As it turned out, neither prospect amounted to much.)

So, if Janish is still a Brave Thursday morning, it doesn't necessarily mean he won't be nontendered. Heck, the Braves might wait until the end of spring training to make a decision; Janish's likely salary is not a lot of money, as MLB measures it.

Labels: Jeff Niemann, Paul Janish