Preparing for the 40-man roster moves this off-season

When your team is out of the postseason, this is the time of year to begin the process of who will and won’t be part of the future as the Nationals have to clear 40-man spots on the roster for 60-day IL players as well as Rule-5 prospects.

There are some easy decisions and some difficult decisions in this process along with taking some calculated risks. MLB teams must reinstate all players from the 60-day injured list on the fifth day after the end of the World Series.

In normal times, free agents would come off of the roster. That is the case for most teams, but not for the Washington Nationals as they have no pending free agents this offseason to be removed from the roster after the World Series.

Key Offseason Deadlines:

November 17: Rule-5 Draft protection deadline (40-man roster cutoff)
November 20: Non-tender deadline for arbitration-eligible players
December 11–14: MLB Winter Meetings (with the Rule-5 Draft held on the final day, December 14)

The Nats could make those non-tender decisions early because they will need to create 60-day decisions/spots for:

As we wrote about last week, any non-tender of an injured player will result in the Nationals covering the player’s medical and rehab costs. There are no salary implications for any of those players. Our thinking is Millas will be retained. The thinking is that Poulin will most likely to be retained. Waldron might be kept. Parker and Waldichuk are both recovering from UCL (TJ) surgeries in their pitching elbows and will be DFA’d in our opinion. Using this thinking, Paul Toboni would need to clear at least two spots for Millas and Poulin on the 40-man rosters via trades, early non-tenders, or straight DFA’s.

Also, Parker and Waldichuk were already non-tender candidates. Toboni could clear those two spots from the following list of arbitration-eligible players, and then could possibly clear spots for Millas and Poulin by making non-tender/DFA decisions on Richard Lovelady and Jake Bird.

Josiah Gray (5.075): $1.6MM
CJ Abrams (4.130): $10.2MM
Richard Lovelady (4.052): $1.7MM
Jake Bird (3.169): $1.3MM
Jake Irvin (3.152): $3.4MM
Ken Waldichuk (3.150): $1MM
Jacob Young (3.037): $2.3MM
Mitchell Parker (2.167): $1.1MM

The more difficult decisions have to be made on the Rule-5 players. The Nats have 38 Rule-5 eligible players that begin with some players in Single-A and up to Triple-A.

Keep in mind that while there are no MLB free agents on the Nationals roster, there are minor league free agents, and catcher Riley Adams had already filed last week as a free agent as he met the criteria to file after the minor league season ended.

Instead of listing all of the Rule-5 players, let’s discuss the players where the real decisions will need to be made:

There are some big names on this list and many times teams gamble on whether another team would draft the player. Remember all of the back-and-forth on when the Nats drafted Griff McGarry last year? He didn’t even make it through Spring Training with the Nats.

The Nats won’t protect Elijah Green or Cristhian Vaquero who were two of the highest ranked prospects in the Nats farm system. Vaquero was signed to an internationals free agent bonus of $4.925 million on January 15, 2022 and had the nickname of “The Phenomenon,” and unfortunately was a phenomenal fail. And for the most part, so was Green who was the Nats 1ˢᵗ round pick in 2022 at 5ᵗʰ overall in the MLB draft and a $6.5 million bonus.

In six months time in 2022, the Nats essentially wasted $11.5 million in money on acquiring both Vaquero and Green. Sure, that is part of the risk. In addition, the team used extra resources that were poured into each player, and especially with Green who was pulled out of Single-A ball twice and put into special instruction in the West Palm Beach facilities.

While the team won’t be protecting Green and Vaquero, Toboni will have to clear at least three more spots for Susana, Sykora, and Romero. And you have to wonder if Toboni protects any other player, and that will be part of the discussion this morning as well as at least three more players who will have to come off of the 40-man roster. Who will be removed from the current 40-man players? There are names like Carson Palmquist and Paxton Schultz. Possibly further down the list you look at players without options like Jose Tena.

Lastly, any MLB free agent acquisitions will need 40-man spots cleared at some point in the offseason. That’s where the DFAs get tougher to make. By the way, how great would RHP Michael King look in a Nats’ uni? He was a college teammate and friend of manager Blake Butera at Boston College a dozen years ago when Butera was finishing his college eligibility and King was entering as a freshman.

“[King] is somebody actually I played with in college. He was my teammate [in 2014 and 2015].”

“We’d always try to play pickup basketball games together, but he’s a lot bigger than I am, so he got me pretty good.”

“I’m always pulling for him. The only time I won’t be is when we’re going up against him; hopefully that doesn’t happen too many times. I just love watching him pitch, and he’s really good for a reason.”
— Butera said earlier this year

The Nats could look to reunite with LHP Foster Griffin. How about hi lev reliever Adrian Morejon? The Nats also need a first baseman who preferably bats lefty, and what about Jake Bauer? Again, you hope the Nats are looking at some of the top free agents this offseason for key acquisitions.