Transaction Update
Well, I’m back from Greenville (pictured) and was a little surprised this morning to have something to write about.
Yesterday, the Nats made a few transactions – many of which included “our guys”:
OPTIONED
• RHPs Aaron Barrett, Kyle McGowin
• LHP Ben Braymer
• IF Jake Noll
| REASSIGNED TO MINOR-LEAGUE CAMP | RELEASED |
| • C Taylor Gushue | • RHPs David Hernandez, Hunter Strickland |
| • OF-RHP J.B. Shuck | |
| • RHPs Dakota Bacus, Bryan Bonnell, Wil Crowe | |
| • UTs Brandon Snyder, Jacob Wilson |
I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore there were more releases than this. If we’re lucky, BA will let us know in its next transaction post, which should be this week, given that they won’t be distracted by college baseball anytime soon.
Big Board updated for what we know.
question: exactly what does Optioned mean? I thought it meant assigned to minor league team, but I see u list that separately. Thanks
I’ll take a crack at an explanation. Each MLB team has a 40-man roster. These are players who are on the current 26-man active roster, have been in the majors before but have been options, or minor leaguers who have recently been added to protect them from being drafted away by other teams. (Lots of rules and regs involved in each of these, as this is just an overview.)
Each player who is added to the 40-man has three options over his career (unless a fourth gets granted later on appeal, like for Fedde and Read this season). A player “burns” one option each year he is sent to the minors while still kept on the 40-man. (Only one option per season, even if he is called up and sent down multiple times.)
So the players listed above as being optioned are on the 40-man roster. The ones who are being “reassigned” to the minor leagues are not on the 40-man and can be sent to the minors without being optioned. For them to join the big-league team at some point, though, they would have to be added to the 40-man.
Another related dance that will play out when Spring Training resumes is the watch for what will happen to guys who have used up their three option years and are “out of options.” If these guys don’t make the 26-man roster and stay in the majors, they will have to be “DFA’d” (designated for assignment), which means they will have to pass through a period when any other team can claim them before they can be reassigned to the minors.
Hope this makes at least a little sense. There are a lot of semi-arcane rules interwoven here, but most exist for a good reason — so a team can’t just hold onto a player forever without him making the majors.
Optioned means that the player is on the 40-man roster and has been officially assigned to the minor leagues for 2020; the other guys aren’t on the 40-man. A player generally gets three option years (the option is “spent” once he plays in the minors for 20 days; more on this in a bit), unless he reaches the majors “too fast” (within five seasons), in which case the MLB team is awarded a fourth option. This often happens to guys who have gotten hurt (e.g. Erick Fedde, Sammy Solis).
Options are important every spring because invariably the last couple of spots on the big club roster (expanded to 26 this year) are where “our guys” might have a chance to make the Opening Day roster. However, options are almost always the tiebreaker. So barring an injury or illness, you can bank on the guy with options losing out to the guy without options. The #5 starter competition had been billed as being between Joe Ross, Austin Voth, and Fedde. In reality, it was (is?) between Ross and Voth, but whoever “loses” has a pretty good shot of still making the club.
Finally, the 20-day thing. One of the more common ways it’s gamed is to stash a guy in the minors for most of April, which works out well because there are often a lot of off days. This happened to Solis in 2016. Teams do this with on-the-cusp gays to gain flexibility. The aforementioned competition between Ross/Voth/Fedde is why: with some creativity (and a phantom injury, natch) the Nats could hold onto all three guys without burning an option.
Of course, all of this has been rendered moot with the current health crisis.
Here’s a quick attempt to mine the minor-leaguers and non-roster invitees still in big-league camp:
Pitchers: Erick Fedde, James Bourque, Javy Guerra, Kevin Quackenbush, Kyle Finnegan, Austen Williams, Sam Freeman, Fernando Abad
Position players: Welington Castro (C), Tres Barrera (C), Carter Kieboom (3B), Luis Garcia (SS), Jecksson Flores (INF, has barely played), Yadiel Hernandez (OF), Emilio Bonifacio (INF/OF)