For players to retain their all-important rookie eligibility, they must meet not exceed the following thresholds in a previous season:
It can be relatively simple to manage a player’s workload so they don’t exceed 130 ABs or 50 IP, but the time requirement of 45 days can be trickier. For that reason, many teams will wait to call-up rookies until it would be mathematically impossible for them to accrue 45 days of active series time. That cut-off date this season is August 13th. The reasons for wanting a player to retain rookie eligibility in a subsequent season are driven by limiting service time to ensure that player doesn’t burn through any pre-arb years before they’re able to consistently contribute in the majors. Waiting for this cut-off date helps ensure a player doesn’t earn “Super Two” status in which they would get to arbitration one year faster.
This isn’t something that just the Rays or small market teams engage in; all teams do it. The league has tried to incentivize teams to get their young players up to the majors with their prospect promotion incentives (PPI) in recent years, but that really only applies to the best talent. There are at least a handful of guys in every organization who could be decent role players on that team’s ML roster, but there isn’t much incentive to promote them to the majors and potentially exhaust an arbitration year when that same role could be filled by a veteran waiver claim.
The Rays have a few players who are in Durham that could find themselves joining the ML roster once August 13th rolls around. There isn’t a ton of impact potential waiting in Durham, but there are a few guys who could fill a supporting role as the team looks to win the division. Some of these players would also make sense to fill a roster spot when we get to September and rosters expand.
Here are my top four candidates:
Beyond the rookies they could bring up from Durham, the Rays do have a few others who could help the team in September when rosters expand. The following players are already on the 40-man roster, making them logical additions for the major league side:
There are also some players in Durham that could add some flexibility to the Rays roster, but would need a 40-man spot:
The Rays have plenty of internal options they could call on to supplement their roster as we approach the end of the regular season. While it is a possibility that we could see someone in AA make the jump to the majors (Piper technically did it despite having already spent time in AAA), I don’t think any of those players are ready for an opportunity in the majors, even if it’s just a cup of coffee.
All of the potential call-up guys in Montgomery have lots of development left: Theo Gillen struggles to consistently get the ball in the air and is still working on his defensive game, Caden Bodine has a chase rate near 40% and is allowing runners to steal bases at a 90% success rate in AA, Jadher Areinamo also has a chase rate near 40% and has dealt with some injuries throughout the year, and Jackson Baumeister has struggled to find the zone on and off all season. I don’t have many concerns about most of these profiles long term, but they simply don’t look like they’re capable of filling a major league role this season.
I’m looking forward to seeing what decisions the Rays make when they have the opportunity to add some talent from AAA to the big league roster.
