[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Questdog

Excuse me, Sir, but I asked this question earlier in the discussion and I think you may have overlooked it.....

Why do you believe that a player out of options has to be removed from the 40-man roster to be sent to the minors?

Actually, I thought I did. At least, I know I wrote up a response to that during the writing of responses to a wish7694 post. But it seems during the editing of the reply before submitting it, I inadvertantly deleted the portion which dealt with your question.

Here's the answer:

There are two kinds of assignments to the minor leagues—optional and outright. The difference between them boils down to this:

On an optional assignment, the player is with the minor league club but still on the major league 40-man roster; on an outright assignment, the player is with the minor league club but is NOT on the 40-man roster. Only players with option years remaining can be on an optional assignment. When the player has options left, he can be freely moved from and to the minors without waivers. When a player has no options remaining, he cannot be sent on an optional assignment; he can only be sent on an outright assignment.

An outright assignment always requires waivers and always removes the player from the 40-man roster.

A player with no option years remaining is either:

• On the 25-man roster (and on the 40-man too, naturally, since you cannot be on the 25-man roster unless you are also on the 40-man roster); OR
• In the minors and not on the 40-man and 25-man rosters.

Originally Posted by Cryomaniac

This type of thread is why I like baseball and this board. It produces long and sometimes horrendously technical arguments, almost to the level of Hansard lol.

To quote Futurama:

"You are technically correct—the best kind of correct!"