How a 29-Man Roster to Start 2020 Could Help Once the A's Get Going
The deeper we dive into the deal struck by players and owners and their agreement on what to do with the 2020 once the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic is in the rear-view mirror, the more clarity there is on what baseball could look like.
According to a tweet from USA Today’s Bob Nightengale, rosters would be expanded to 29 players for the first month of the season.
Primarily that would be a move to acknowledge that Spring Training II, whenever it begins, will be shorter than the standard six weeks, possibly in the three- to four-week range. Players aren’t going to be quite game-ready and pitchers aren’t going to be completely stretched out.
When baseball came back from the 1994-95 strike, about three weeks was set aside for getting players in shape. And unlike the players of 2020, the players of 1995 hadn’t had a single workout.
The A’s, like all teams, would be expected to carry extra pitching. The maximum pitcher complement under existing rules for a 26-man roster is 13. Under the roster expansion, a 14- or 15-man staff could be expected to be wearing green-and-gold.
This would give the A’s a chance to have A.J. Puk begin the season in the starting rotation, knowing that they’d have backup in the bullpen behind him. Puk came into the spring as a member of the rotation, but after two Cactus League starts, he was shut down due to shoulder discomfort.
He’d begun throwing again and was expected to make the March 26 Opening Day roster as a reliever with Chris Bassitt opening in the rotation. Now, Puk could have the time to build up the strength needed to begin in the rotation.
The expanded roster might be good news for someone like lefty reliever Lucas Luetge, a non-roster pitcher who at one point was a lefty who could throw multiple innings.
He’s been in the minors since 2015 and was borderline to make the A’s roster. In his final outing before the shutdown, he pitched two innings, faced six batters, three lefties, two right-handers and a switch-hitter batting right-handed. He set all six down in order, striking out two.
As for the other roster spot(s) that would be opened up, it seems likely that the A’s core second basemen would be the beneficiaries of the expanded roster. When the shutdown came in the battle against the pandemic, there were two weeks left in the regularly scheduled spring training. And second base was the one position that hadn’t been sorted out in the Oakland camp.
Tony Kemp, picked up from the Cubs in the offseason, was probably in the lead, but Franklin Barreto and Vimael Machin both had big moments during Cactus League play, and while Jorge Mateo had struggled offensive, he still seemed to have time to make a move to grab the job.
The issue is that only Kemp was a sure thing. Barreto and Mateo both are out of options. If they don’t make the roster, the A’s risk losing them to another club’s waiver claim. Machin, a Rule 5 draft pick, has to be offered back to last year’s organization, the Cubs, if he doesn’t make the roster.
At the time of the shutdown, Kemp was at .345/.412/.483, Barreto was at .306/.359/.528, Mateo was at .213/.375/.231 and Machin was at .333/.444/.400.
The A’s were probably going to go with Kemp and one of the other three. Now, for at least the first month of the season, more than one of the three is likely to be on the big-league roster.