Later this month, MLB teams will need to finalize their 40-man rosters in preparation for the Rule 5 draft, set for early December.
The improvements made over the last few years to the Red Sox' minor league system means that there are more quality prospects to protect, and, as usual, a limited number of roster spots with which to accomplish that feat.
Currently, the Red Sox roster sits at 32, allowing for eight additions, That number, of course, could change at any given moment if the Sox were to sign a free agent, make a trade in which they obtain an established player, or, should Eduardo Rodriguez accept the team's free-agent qualifying offer.
But for now, that means as many as eight players can be added. That's good for them, since there are easily that many prospects the Sox should worry about losing if they didn't protect them.
(It's somewhat complicated and there are some exceptions, but essentially, players drafted out of high school are eligible for the Rule 5 draft five years after signing and college players are eligible four years after signing).
Let's start with the pitchers the Sox need to protect.
1. Josh Winckowski. He was one of the centerpieces of the Andrew Benintendi deal, and impressed at Double-A Portland. Currently pitching in the Arizona Fall League.
2. Thaddeus Ward. Ward underwent Tommy John surgery last year and won't be ready for the start of the season, but he is still highly regarded within the system. And if the Sox think that a pitcher coming off TJ would scare off other teams, they need only remember Garrett Whitlock.
3. Durbin Feltman. Feltman was the victim of absurdly high expectations when he was drafted out of TCU in 2018, with some predicting he would crack the big league roster later that year. That didn't happen, of course, but he made huge strides last year at Double-A and could be a factor in the Red Sox bullpen in the second half of 2022.
4. Kutter Crawford. The fact that the Sox gave him a spot start in September tells you how highly they value him. He may be a back-end starter or a reliever eventually, but it's too soon to give up on him, especially after he lost time to Tommy John in 2019.
5. Brayan Bello: Chosen by the organization as Red Sox Minor League Starting Pitcher of the Year and selected to take part in the MLB Futures Game, Bello dominated at High-A Greenville before moving up to Double-A Portland. With Ward and Bryan Mata lost last year to Tommy John surgeries, some consider him the Sox' best starting pitching prospect.
In addition, there are at least two other pitchers worth considering: Frank German and AJ Politi.
German was acquired in the trade with the Yankees that also landed them Adam Ottavino. German had been a starter for the Yankees, but the Sox pitched him out of the bullpen at Portland. His best shot at being protected is that the Sox went out of their way to obtain him and may not want to give up on him yet.
Politi is pitching in the AFL, a sign the Sox still have some hope in him developing further. But he's already 25 and hasn't made it past Double-A yet.
POSITION PLAYERS
1. Jeter Downs, SS/2B. Downs was the second-ranked player in the Mookie Betts deal. He had a hugely disappointing 2021 season at Worcester (.199/.272/.333), but he finished strong in September, then carried that over to the first two weeks of the Arizona Fall League. It's way too soon to give up on him, and some prospect lists still list him in the organization's Top 10.
2. Gilberto Jimenez, OF. Jimenez is a potential five-tool prospect, although the power hasn't been shown yet. A switch-hitting athletic outfielder with plus-speed, he's projected as someone who might be a center fielder, with the arm strength to play any of the outfield spots. He's incredibly raw and just 21, and it's impossible to think he could stay in the big leagues for an entire season, having never played above Low A. But the Sox absolutely can't risk exposing him.
One other position player possibility is catcher Kole Cottam, who has always hit everywhere he's been. But given the Sox' organizational catching depth has improved in the last two years with the arrival of Ronaldo Hernandez and Connor Wong, Cottam will likely go unprotected.
That's seven players that almost certainly have to be protected in the next few weeks, leaving one spot for the Sox to add a free agent signee or trade piece.
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As if people weren't pessimistic enough about averting a work stoppage, details emerged from The Athletic about MLB's latest proposal to the Players Association.
In it, MLB proposed that salary arbitration be eliminated completely -- a sure-fire building block for fruitful negotiations -- and instead be replaced by a system by which players with 3-5 years of major league service time be compensated according to WAR (wins above replacement) as calculated by FanGraphs.
As for free agency, MLB proposed making players eligible at 29 1/2 years, without, it would seem, regard to how many years of service time. Currently, players are eligible for free agency after six seasons.
Where do we start?
* At a time when the Players Association proposes that players qualify for salary arbitration at two years, MLB counters by eliminating it altogether.
* At a time when the Players Association wants to make free agency easier to reach, MLB is instead making it more difficult.
Take a player like Juan Soto, perhaps the best offensive player in the game. Soto made his debut at age 19 in 2018 and under the current system, would be eligible for free agency after the 2024 season. (That would actually be Soto's seventh major league season, but because he played in just 116 games in his rookie year, he doesn't get the credit of a full season of service time).
Under MLB's new proposal, Soto would not become a free agent until after the 2028 season, delayed an additional four years.
Does it make sense that the game's most advanced and talented players -- i.e. those who make their debuts in their early 20s, or sometimes, as in Soto's case, as a teenager -- would have to wait nearly a decade to determine where he wants to play?
Naturally, this proposal isn't going anywhere, which begs the question: why did MLB even bother making it? Major League Baseball completely ignored many issues important to the players, including service time manipulation, the growing popularity of "tanking'' -- teams purposefully losing in order to rebuild with more premium draft picks -- or the existence of the CBT (competitive balance tax) thresholds which, in recent years, have served almost as a salary cap.
It's not unusual for one side to engage in posturing early in negotiations and owners probably believe there's some value in publicizing their proposal, as a means of convincing the public that they're engaged in talks and seeking a solution. As has been noted many times before, owners enter almost all labor talks with the majority of fans somehow side with them, believing that players are already grossly overpaid, and not incidentally, somehow responsible for higher ticket prices and other fan costs.
But in terms of moving the needle, this latest proposal achieves nothing except to further entrench the union and harden their stance. And it's not as early as it may seem. The current CBA expires in a little more than three weeks.
If there's any good news here -- and you have to look hard to find it -- it's that the sides are talking, having held multiple sessions this past week in and around the GM Meetings taking place in Carlsbad, Calif. But though they may be talking, it's clear from what's being proposed that they're not even speaking the same language.
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Players don't have to officially notify teams of their decision to accept or reject qualifying offers that were made last weekend. That deadline comes Wednesday. But in the case of Eduardo Rodriguez, there's little drama attached - it's patently obvious that Rodriguez is going to turn the Red Sox' QO down flat.
That's understandable, since Rodriguez is already receiving interest from the Detroit Tigers and Los Angeles Angels -- to name just two clubs. And that's in addition to the Red Sox, for the second time in the last few months, proposing a multi-year deal. Previously, the Red Sox had made Rodriguez a contract extension during the 2021 season, though talks gained much traction. The very fact that they've revised their offer in the last week suggests two things: The Red Sox are already aware that Rodriguez isn't going to accept the qualifying offer. And, second, they're intent on doing everything they can to re-sign him.
The team's current payroll allows for that kind of commitment. Nathan Eovaldi's four-year, $68 million deal expires after 2022. Nick Pivetta is entering his first winter as an arbitration-eligible player, and two other contenders for the rotation -- Garrett Whitlock and Tanner Houck -- set to play in 2022 for only a little over the minimum.
That leaves Chris Sale as the only other starter to which the Sox have a multi-year commitment -- and yes, it's a doozy, with $85 million due over the next three seasons, even if some of is deferred.
All of which means the Red Sox have some payroll flexibility here.
But the question is: Is Rodriguez the best choice for that kind of commitment?
It's true that his ERA (4.74) doesn't accurately reflect how he pitched this past season. With better luck and better defense, that number could have been more than a run lower.
However, Rodriguez will turn 29 a week into next season and remains, on the whole, an inconsistent performer. And while he deserved great credit for rebounding from both COVID-19 and myocarditis the year previous, he hasn't been particularly durable. Only once in his career has Rodriguez delivered more than 160 innings in a season.
Then again, signing free agent starters is notoriously risky no matter the target, especially those in their late 20s or early 30s. Perhaps the fact that the Sox know who and what they have in Rodriguez make this potential investment less problematic than offering the same amount of money (or more) to someone with whom they have no familiarity.
