Spring Training Summary
• Albert Almora strained his hamstring on March 20 and will miss 4 weeks. He was placed on the 15-day D/L. CF Lonnie Finch made the team on this news.
• LF Dutch Deol was HBP in one of the final spring games but his elbow bruise will be healed by opening day.
• Trevor Rosenthal held on to the fifth starter job with an excellent 1.13 ERA in 16 IP.
• A very mediocre spring by Cristhian Adames caused me to trade for the best backup shortstop that I could find, and he is a familiar name (see posts #55 and #81)…
Cardinals Swap Infielders with Rockies
Colorado receives 29-year-old second baseman Héctor Ríos from St. Louis in return for 27-year-old shortstop Cris Navarro and $1,000,000 in cash. Ríos has a .283 career batting average with 15 home runs. Navarro is batting .269 in his career with 17 home runs. Offensively, they are comparable players, except that Rios bats left and Navarro bats right. Navarro is the stronger defensive player, especially at shortstop (which is my most critical need).
Opening Day Active Roster Decisions
The pitching staff decisions were complicated by players with no minor league options.
Starters (7 on 40-man roster, 6 on active roster)
Locks: Odorizzi, Walker, Flores, Thompson, Rosenthal, R. Chambers
Option to AAA: Ball (only because I want to see him as a starter)
Bullpen (7 on 40-man roster, 6 on active roster)
Locks: Brothers (closer), Montgomery (setup), Friend, D. Chambers, Solis, Conley
Option to AAA: Mackey (only because I want to keep the situational left-hander Conley)
Catcher: (4 on 40-man roster, 2 on active roster)
Locks: Alfaro, Bean
Option to AAA: Ice, Gonzalez
Infield: (10 on 40-man roster, 6 on active roster)
Locks: Cooper, Barreto, Michalczewski, Crawford, Vollmuth, Navarro
Option to AAA: Williams, Hurt, Hicks, Adames
Outfield/DH: (9 on 40-man roster, 5 on active roster)
Locks: Sano, Deol, Finch, Taveras, Knox
15-Day D/L: Almora
Option to AAA: Sharp, J. Adams
Waive & DFA: You (cleared and assigned to AAA)
Opening Day lineup will be:
Barreto, 2b – Crawford, ss – Taveras, rf – Alfaro, c – Sano, dh – Cooper, 1b – T-Mick, 3b – Deol, lf – Finch, cf
The 40-man roster contains 36 players (no longer counting You or you) and the player payroll is $136M (#6 in MLB and $4M under my personal target) which leaves about $4M for another pitcher. The highest-paid player is RF Oscar Taveras at $17M (#23 in MLB).
The minor league system is #26 out 30 teams, with reliever Merlin Mackey (#46) as the only Top-100 prospect. The Cubs (yikes) have the #1 farm system, followed by the world champion Phillies (gulp) and N.L. runner-up Dodgers (eek). The draft quality and international scouting better improve fast, because it is hard to trade for top prospects.
BNN definitely likes our pitching. However, if it doesn’t get us past the first round of the playoffs, it wasn’t good enough. Our owner’s expectation is “reach the playoffs” but I think he really wants more. He is “ecstatic” at the moment, probably because of the 100 fan interest score and all of the profit that he is making.