From a pure logistical perspective one of the biggest gambles in setting the 40-man roster last winter was the inclusion of Johnkensy Noel. Here was a guy who, due to the pandemic had never played above low A ball heading into last winter. Just projecting one year of development per level, Noel could easily run out of option years before he hit the majors for the first time.
Why would a team protect someone like that from the Rule 5 major league draft? Well, all you had to do was to see him hit, both for power and average, and see his potential as a major league bat, including his prodigious home runs and his AB/HR ratio to see why the Guardians did not want to lose him.
Yes, it was a big gamble to roster him last winter and created a 'dead' roster spot for the next 2 years at least, maybe 3, meaning that we had a guy on the 40-man who had no legitimate chance of helping the Guardians n 2022 and 2023 and only a small chance of helping them in 2024. His arrival was likely in 2025 and that is if everything went well in his development AND if he didn't have to return to the minors.
But that bat!
And then it got more complicated. He is still hitting prodigious blasts but his batting average has remained low most of this year and his approach at the plate has become a two true outcome approach as he is going all Dave Kingman on us. True he is a ridiculously low BABIP in the first half of the season and does have 19 HRs but I think his approach at the plate is starting to eat away at the overall value of his bat.
So now it looks like we protected him too early. Time will tell.
Then we have Alexfri Planez. He started late this year because of an injury but when he came back he started going off and how has 8 HRs and 8 doubles in not that many ABs (I would say plate appearances but he has drawn only one walk meaning, for him, ABs = PA). Last fall I said that we couldn't protect everyone and Planez was someone we had to leave unprotected.
But what about this coming winter?
Well, having learned from Noel and knowing that (a) our 40 man roster is stacked and (b) we can't have any more dead roster spots with all the near-ML ready guys we have to protect, there is still no way to protect Planez this winter. He could go off for 30 HRs for the rest of the year at Lake County and it wouldn't change a thing. Planez will still take 2-3 years of development and we simply can't afford to protect him and run him out of option years not knowing if his development will even be linear (see Noel's nosedive this year).
In hindsight protecting Noel last winter was most likely a mistake as his development has stalled at High A this year and he likely won't be ML ready before he is out of minor league options. We just can't make the same mistake with Planez. We have to put him on the Columbus reserve list this fall and hope he isn't drafted or, if he is, that he doesn't stick with the team that drafts him. Although comparisons to Anthony Santander and Albert Pujols keep bouncing around in my brain and even Akil Badoo comps represent, to me, Planez's floor, the pandemic and the ridiculous Rule 5 rules that make you protect 20 year old Latin prospects who have never played above A ball or risk losing them, we just simply canot protect A ball Latin prospects on our 40-man.
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