2024 Rule 5 Draft - Part 5 - It's Sunday Night and I'm Getting Nervous

 Tuesday, November 19, 2024, 6 pm ET.

That's the time when ML teams must finalize their 40-man rosters in preparation for the Rule 5 draft on Wednesday, December 11th. You don't have to have a full 40 man roster at that time but...

After that point no player from your own organization can be added to your 40 man roster until after December 11th.  Free agents can be signed and players on the 40-man can be removed (DFA'd or non-tendered). 

In fact, after November 19th and before December 12th, no prospect from ANY organization can be added to your 40 man roster if they were not on a 40-man roster at the time of the trade.

You CAN trade for guys on another 40 man roster and add them to your 40-man after November 19th.

You CAN sign free agents and add them to your 40-man roster after November 19th.

So, let's check out some guys and see if they can be added after November 19th.

• Bryan Lavastida - Assuming he is not signed by that point with another team, he is a free agent and could be added after November 19th.  If he is signed to a minor league deal before November 19th he would be rule 5 eligible.
• Dayan Frias - Unless he is added before Nov. 19th (not likely), he can't be added to the roster and he is Rule 5 eligible.  If we trade him after November 19th, he can't be added to the ML roster for the team we trade him to until after December 11th.
• Colt Emerson - If we trade for him after November 19th, we can't add him to the roster this off-season until after December 11th.  That's good because he is not Rule 5 eligible anyway.  

So this is why I am nervous.

This team has needs for the 2025 season AND they have too many prospects to protect on their 40 man without making trades.

So what will the Guardians do?  Let's break it down into 2 categories 

• Stupid
• DFA a prospect of some level (e.g., Gabriel Arias or Jonathon Rodriguez) from your 40 man roster just to add a different prospect
• Keep a guy on your 40 man roster who you intend to non-tender a few days later
• Trade a true prospect like Caminiero and get back a rule-5 eligible/non-factor/roster clogger like Tobias Myers when you don't even have enough 40 man roster space for your own prospects
• Trade a young MLer for a prospect another team doesn't intend to protect on their 40-man (see Nolan Jones for Juan Brito) causing you to have to use a 40-man roster spot FOR YEARS without any benefit to your ML team and creating, as I have called it before, a dead roster spot.
• Smart
• DFA guys like Gillaspie and Strzelecki and replace them with prospects
• DFA guys you intend to non-tender and beat the rush, opening more roster spots for prospects
• Trade a bunch of Rule 5-eligible prospects to get major league talent (like Luis Robert, Garrett Crochet and Andrew Benintendi to the CWS for Brito, Noel, JRod, Martinez, Cantillo, Nikhazy, Webb and Straw) that would help the ML team and clear roster spots for prospects who normally you wouldn't have room to protect (e.g., Denholm, Mace, Enright and maybe even Davenport unless the Guardians do some fancy dancing before November 19th)

In the 2024 off-season, no news is BAD news for the Guardians.  It means they will likely lose good prospects for, essentially, nothing in the RUle 5 draft or DFA process.  It also means they will likely not improve their ML team, instead counting on natural improvement to make the team better.

So, it's Sunday night and I am nervous that we will do things in the Stupid category and nothing of consequence in the Smart category.