With the next wave of season openers nearly upon us, here are a few of the final notable roster decisions from around the league…
- The Reds have placed right-hander Homer Bailey on the disabled list and promoted fellow right-hander and top prospect Robert Stephenson, the club announced. However, it appears that Stephenson, who rates among the game’s 35 best minor leaguers (per Baseball America, MLB.com and ESPN’s Keith Law) will merely be making a spot start and isn’t yet being viewed as a long-term option in the rotation; C. Trent Rosecrans of the Cincinnati Enquirer writes that Stephenson will likely be optioned back to Triple-A following his start, as right-hander Anthony DeSclafani will be ready to come of the DL and join the rotation on April 10. Cincinnati currently has Raisel Iglesias, Brandon Finnegan and Stephenson lined up for their season-opening series against the Phillies, with Alfredo Simon set to start the club’s fourth game of the year. DeSclafani should grab Stephenson’s spot in the rotation’s second cycle of the season, and right-hander Jon Moscot should be able to return mid-month — possibly to start on April 17. As such, Stephenson’s promotion could simply amount to a glimpse of the future for Reds fans at this time, though Cincinnati’s rotation picture is fluid enough to imagine Stephenson changing their plans with a dominant showing. Service time doesn’t figure to be a major factor here, as the Reds would only lose a year of control if Stephenson were to accrue 172 days of service this season, and a quick return to the minors would make that unlikely.
- Veteran right-hander Chien-Ming Wang made the Royals’ roster, as MLB.com’s Jeffrey Flanagan writes. Royals pitching coach Dave Eiland, who filled that same role with the Yankees a decade ago when Wang was pitching in New York, tells Flanagan that the righty looks like the pitcher he had in his rotation 10 years ago. Wang’s velocity is said to have spiked to the mid-90s this spring, and when he does toe the rubber for the Royals, it’ll be the first time he steps foot on a Major League mound since 2013. Additionally, outfielders Reymond Fuentes and Terrance Gore have made the Kansas City roster. (Neither Wang nor Gore appeared in last night’s season opener against the Mets.)
- The Rangers assigned right-hander A.J. Griffin to Triple-A Round Rock on Sunday, but as Anthony Andro writes for MLB.com, there’s a good chance he could be recalled on Friday to serve as the club’s fifth starter. As Andro notes, the assignment could be a tactical move, as Texas doesn’t need a fifth starter until Friday, and stashing Griffin at Triple-A will allow the club to carry an extra reliever for the time being (in addition to delaying a 40-man roster decision). Griffin, though, has not yet been officially informed that he is the team’s fifth starter, Andro stresses. Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News tweets the same, adding that the lack of definitive word from the club could indicate that the Rangers are still looking at the trade market for starting pitching additions.
Dumb move by the Reds if it is indeed a spot start. This would start his clock… They could surely find someone else serviceable enough to make one start. I don’t understand the logic here.
“Starting his clock” is inconsequential if he’s only getting three days of Major League service out of the move. If they option him back to Triple-A right away, there’s no harm done.
As long as he falls shy of 172 days of service this season, he’ll be controllable for an extra season, and if he’s delayed until mid-to-late June, they’ll still avoid Super Two designation.
Agreed. But he’s on the roster now. So he will get at least three or four games of service time… If they option him back, and then must wait for the proper time to call him up.. They may be dealing with a grievance.
No more so than if they’d just waited until late April or mid-June in the first place. If anything, they’d be able to point to giving him a spot start and using it as evidence that they weren’t overly concerned with service time manipulation.
I don’t see any real grievance potential here. Teams wait every year to call up minor leaguers on the first day possible that delays free agency, and grievances aren’t filed. Stephenson’s case is less extreme than that, and he has 55 mediocre innings at AAA under his belt anyhow. There’s no clear-cut evidence that he’s completely MLB-ready.
Stephenson was already on the 40 man roster, and they’ve already burned an option (for this season) to option him to AAA during the spring. He’ll make his start and return to AAA, out a mere 3 or 4 days of service time. The service clock doesn’t continue after he returns to AAA, it stays at 3 or 4 until he gets promoted back.
With DeSclafani and Moscot due back soon they won’t need Stephenson for the 10 days he needs to spend in AAA before being recalled.
I don’t think the Reds are too concerned with that. With the way their pitching staff has been injured the past few years, it was almost inevitable that he would start at some point this year at MLB level. I think their logic behind it was let’s start him now, see how he does, and hopefully he does good enough to stay up all year.
That’s understandable if they keep him up. But if not, I believe it could cause issues in the future. Just my opinion, however.
That’s not how it works. It’s all out service time (days on roster.) It doesn’t matter if he’s on the team in April, if he’s not on the team in May. Yes they could lose a year of control if he stays up all year, but that is highly unlikely with a whole slew of starting pitchers on the DL to start the year for the Reds (Desclafini, Moscot, Bailey, Lamb, Lorenzen.)
I understand how it works, but with the luck they have with pitching lately, they could potentially keep him up all year if he fares well in his first start…You’re actually helping my argument with all those guys on the DL.
Unless at least 2 other pitchers have a drastic injury and all of their other pitchers on the DL stay injured for the entire year there is zero chance he gets 172 days of service time. This is a non-argument,
Bummer. I wonder if this means that the Cleveland talks fell through? I would not mind throwing Rua + 1 their way for a another starter. Bauer has too much upside probably but they have some depth in the rotation, I could deal with one of the other guys. Tomlin maybe? They could use Rua too.
Fuentes started in RF for the Royals last night and went 0-for-3.