Okay, it took me some time to get through all of this, but with the help of a great website I found (
www.sports-wired.com), I was able to find out who needed to be on my 40-man roster based on the number of years that they had been playing some sort of professional ball. I believe the rules are that after playing 5 years of professional baseball, you must be placed on the 40 man roster or be subjected to the Rule V draft. For my purposes, if a guy was not on the 40-man roster after 5 years, it was just assumed that he was picked up by someone, unless he was over the age of 30, and so I released that player or made room for him somehow on the 40-man roster. First, I'll give a list of the transactions I made, and then list my 25 man roster, and then the 40 man roster. The amount of option years remaining for that player will be to the left in parenthesis if the player has any years remaining.
First of all, I released Aaron Holbert, Tomas De La Rosa, David Doster, John Wasdin, Julian Tavarez, Matt Guerrier, Bobby Bradley and Nelson Figueroa to make room on the 40-man roster.
I then promoted Jim Mann from AAA to the 25-man roster to fill Julian Tavarez's spot in the bullpen.
I then traded 1B Kevin Young to Florida in return for MR Marc Wilkins and then promptly released Marc Wilkins from my 40-man roster. I made that move to both free up some salary and to make some extra room on the 40-man roster.
I then promoted 1B Carlos Rivera from AAA to the 25 man roster.
I then traded Mike Williams to Florida for RF prospect Jeremy Hermida. Hermida still has 4 more years of eligibility before he needs to be put on the 40-man roster. I made this move to free up more room on the 40-man roster, and mostly cause I really don't like Williams all that much as a player. I then named Jim Mann my closer, although that will probably change throughout the course of the season.
Lastly, I promoted Mark Corey to the 25-man roster.
So the 25-man, and 40-man roster are as following. (*means on 40-man)
SP Kris Benson
SP Kip Wells
SP Josh Fogg
SP Jeff Suppan
SP Jeff D'Amico
MR Joe Biemel
MR Brian Boehringer
MR Mark Corey
MR Dennys Reyes
MR Scott Sauerbeck
MR Solomon Torres
CL Jim Mann
C Jason Kendall
C Humberto Cota (1 year)
1B Craig Wilson
1B Randall Simon
2B Abraham Nunez
2B Pokey Reese
3B Rob Mackowiak
3B Aramis Ramirez
SS Jack Wilson
LF Brian Giles
CF Kenny Lofton
RF Reggie Sanders
RF Matt Stairs
*RF JJ Davis (1 year)
*CF Tony Alvarez (1 year)
*1B Walter Young (3 years)
*SS Jose Castillo (2 years)
*C J.R. House (2 years)
*C Ryan Doumit (3 years)
*1B Carlos Rivera (1 year)
*SP Mike Gonzalez (2 years)
*MR John Grabow (2 years)
*MR Duaner Sanchez (1 year)
*SP Ryan Vogelsong (1 year)
*SP Brian Meadows
*LF Manuel Ravelo (3 years)
*CF Jeremy Harts (3 years)
*LF Shawn Garrett (3 years)
Dave Williams, Mike Lincoln, and Pat Meares will start the season on the 60-day disabled list, meaning that they neither need to be included in the 25-man or the 40-man roster.
Well, there's the opening day lineup of the Pittsburgh Pirates. I expect many changes to come through the course of the season, and many of those changes will more than likely be the dumping of as much salary as possible so I can be "financially flexible" heading into next year. Overall this year, I think the pitching staff is fairly average, nothing really outstanding, but yet no real glaring weaknesses, except for maybe the lack of a true closer and the lack of a #1 staff ace. I'll probably post tomorrow what the lineup will be and will start simming as well. For this first year, I'll probably do a week at a time and do a short write-up and summary of each week.
EDIT: One thing to change. I decided to promote C Humberto Cota to the 25-man roster instead of 1B Carlos Rivera. Rivera remains on the 40-man roster with one year of options remaining. Craig Wilson will also be first baseman, not catcher.