Astros prospect Brady Rodgers underwent Tommy John surgery this morning, the club announced. The right-handed pitching prospect will be out until sometime next season as he rehabs.
Now 26, Rodgers earned a spot on the Houston 40-man in advance of the 2015 Rule 5 draft. Unfortunately, it’s reasonably likely he’ll end up losing that slot once it comes time for the Astros to make some tough decisions in advance of this year’s Rule 5 draft at season’s end.
Rodgers went on to throw quite well at Triple-A in the 2016 season, posting a 2.86 ERA with 7.9 K/9 against just 1.6 BB/9 over 132 innings while earning his first MLB call-up. The majors weren’t as kind to Rodgers, who was tagged for 14 earned runs on 15 hits while issuing seven free passes against just three strikeouts over his 8 1/3 frames. But he had responded with an excellent opening to the 2017 season at Fresno, with 16 1/3 innings of 1.10 ERA ball.
For the ’Stros, the loss of Rodgers takes away an easily accessible depth option. He can be moved to the 60-day DL to clear 40-man space, and as Jake Kaplan of the Houston Chronicle writes, there are a variety of other potential rotation fill-ins also on hand.
So the Astros can choose to put Rodgers on the Minor League DL and not acquire any ML service time, but he would still keep his 40 man spot, or can the Astros could pull him up and place him on the MLB 60-day to remove his 40 man spot but he would get ML service time.
So the question is: Which is more valuable to the Astros? The service time or the roster spot? Its got to be the roster spot tbh.
Right now the Astros have 2 open spots on the 40-man, so there’s no rush. Plus guys like Toliver aren’t worth keeping around. We may see it in September if they’re pressed for a spot, but for now its a non-issue.
And all 40-man roster spots are used during the offseason, so when they said in advance of the Rule 5 draft, he’d be occupying a 40-man roster spot even if he was placed on the 60-day DL during the regular season. As far as the 40-man roster, he’d never clear waivers I don’t think, so if he wasn’t going to make it to the Big Leagues this year then they already planned on him occupying that spot
Rodgers didn’t have a 40-man spot until his major league call up last year… he wasn’t added before the 2015 Rule V draft.
that’s such a shame
If he is eligible for the rule 5 draft, if I was the braves I would pick him up, could be a great addition since colon or dickey probably won’t be back, and a lot of the prospects are still a year or two away.
He is on the 40-man, so wouldn’t be Rule 5 eligible. If he is outrighted, he could become eligible, but in that case teams would have an opportunity to claim his full rights and then option him, which would likely be more appealing.
Bad timing. Brady is too good to give up for free, but not good enough to really stay on the 40 man.