It's getting more complicated by the day but there may be a little light at the end of the tunnel.

 Let's talk about the 40 man roster situation again.    

• Steven Kwan is ripping the cover off the ball at AAA after he hit about .340 at AA.   He is Ka'ai Tom 2.0 (short outfielder without great power who can hit and hit and hit and plays OK defense).   We already have Mercado and Johnson, both of whom are coming alive.   
• Oscar Gonzalez is launching HRs like crazy.   The thing with Oscar is that he walks at way too low a rate (79 times in 1963 ABs), which as the theory goes, will make him easy prey for refined ML pitchers.   I also am not sure he can turn around 97+ mph fastballs.
• Jose Fermin's AAA production might make him attractive to some team in the Rule 5 as they can stash him as a utility infielder.
• Andruw Monasterio and Connor Marabell are hitting well at AAA.  While they are under-the-radar guys whose stats could be attributed to their maturity and experience at higher levels in the minor leagues, they are elbowing their way into the thought process that they might, eventually, be ML players.  

Of these guys only Gonzalez was in my thought process about who we should consider protecting from the Rule 5.    But these other guys, especially Kwan, are making a case for themselves.   It presents a problem.   When you are the Cleveland Indians the potential loss of a prospect for little tangible return because you have other, more talented prospects is never 'good problem to have'.  

So the beat goes on relative to having too many borderline major leaguers currently on the 40-man and too many prospects to protect ahead of this year's Rule 5 draft.

A couple of more points:

• Teams are allowed to make trades now if the guys traded are not currently on their 40-man rosters.  These minor league deals seem very appealing to me right now if we think that guys like Daniel Johnson, Justin Garza and Francisco Perez will be on our roster next year.
• In the research I have done I see no reason why ANY of the guys from our 2017 international free agent class would be eligible for the Rule 5 this year.   So guys like Jose Tena, George Valera, Brayan Rocchio, Johnkensy Noel and Alexfri Planaz, among others, should still be protected from the Rule 5 for another year.   That is not what is being reported but I am pretty sure, if I understand the rules, that these guys are not eligible (signed before they were 19 years old, not assigned to a team until 2018).   They all have only 4 seasons of minor league experience meaning they have another one to go before they are eligible.   As I said, I have reached out to a number of experts who I hope will confirm what I am thinking.