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| How many come back? Photo by Richard Wilkins Jr. |
No time is wasted, unless you're getting wasted. Or something.
Ruben Amaro is using the newly found (at least the last two years) NLDS downtime to clean house on his roster. Raul Valdes- gone. Tyler Cloyd- gone. Michael Martinez- gone. Pete Orr- gone. Zach Miner- gone. Mauricio Robles- gone. Six guys gone in two days. These moves mean that when all six players on the 60-day DL are reinstated, the Phillies have 40 on the dot now.
This doesn't mean they're done, or that they really have 40 spots filled. First off, there is free agency for some players- Carlos Ruiz and Roy Halladay. Both can file, and would be open slots. There's also arbitration eligible players- Kyle Kendrick, John Lannan, Antonio Bastardo, Ben Revere, Kevin Frandsen, John Mayberry Jr, Roger Bernadina, Casper Wells. Then there's the still not totally safe roster spots- Phillippe Aumont, Luis Garcia, Cesar Jimenez, J.C. Ramirez, Joe Savery, Mike Stutes, Sebastian Valle, Tyson Gillies, and Zach Collier. If you're keeping score at home, that is 10 players with free agency or arbitration ahead, and 19 total spots in question. In other words, the Phillies can do whatever they'd like to do protecting players and bringing in players.
If I were betting, I'd be betting on Ruiz, Kendrick, Revere, Bastardo, Bernadina, Aumont, Stutes, Gillies, and Collier to stick for sure, while Valle, Jimenez, Ramirez, Mayberry, Frandsen, Wells, Savery, and Doc are all still jump balls in the air to me. I'm pegging them at having 33 spots filled, and maybe go up to 35. They leave plenty of spots to protect prospects and make some free agency moves. There may be a few more cuts, and then some non-tenders later in the Fall. With how much garbage they had on this roster by the end, this is great by me.
