2024 Rule 5 - Part 7 - Roster Day Freeze Hangover Thoughts

 OK, a couple of nights to think on this and here are my thoughts:

• Absolutely stupid not protecting Ryan Webb as opposed to Petey Halpin.  Halpin did not do much better in his 2nd year at AA.  He doesn't steal bases, he doesn't walk, he doesn't hit for power, doesn't hit for average.  He would NOT have been selected in the ML Rule 5 draft and even if he had, he would have been returned as he is not yet ready for the major leagues.  And, even if he was retained on the ML roster, a team would know they were still lookng at mid 2026 for him making the majors and he would likely NEVER be an impact offensive player.  The Guardians rostering Halpin seems to me to say that they think more of him than they should based on his output so far.  And, in my opinion, where people get in trouble and often crash and burn is when they think they are the smartest people in the room.  Hey, analytics are great.  But when the player doesn't pass the sniff test you don't roster him, especially when you have starting pitching options who CAN impact 2025 and 2026.
• Bad risk not protecting Aaron Davenport, Trenton Denholm and Tommy Mace.  Look, you can make the case that none of these guys will be better than 4-5 starters in the majors, but the same was said about Beiber, Bibee, Civale and even Hunter Gaddis and Xzavion Curry.  So they could, and likely will, turn out better and more useful than some fungible AAAA pitcher.  The issue here is that they could likely be effective bullpen arms in the majors right now.  Trevor Stephan had never pitched above AA or in the bullpen when the Guardians drafted him in the Rule 5.  He was also about the same age as these 3.  All 3 have good, durable arms and could be effective current relievers with starter upside.  Given the dearth of starting in the majors and the overage of poor hit, good defense centerfielders, any of these would have been better to protect than Halpin.
• Eli Morgan trade was just salt in the wound.  Look, Morgan is a middle reliever.  Rosario seems a little light in return especially since this organization doesn't develop powerful, swing-and-miss power hitters into ML hitters.  The issue with the Morgan trade is that if occurred on roster freeze day we could have rostered Davenport and Webb (if we don't roster Halpin).  So the Morgan trade would have been palatable to me if it came with another SP prospect being rostered.  As it is now, we likely traded Morgan AND Webb for Rosario...which would be, of course, a totally unacceptable trade.
• Bad roster management.  I talked before roster freeze day about how deals like the Morgan deal and non-tenders would be really bad if we didn't protect our starting pitching prospects.  The Guardians were truly bad at managing their middle infield prospects, letting them die on the vine and even bringing in more (e.g., Brito) to crowd the picture even more.  They simply lost value without gaining value from those prospects.  Now they are doing the same thing with the 2021 draft class.   They picked the right college pitchers and developed them to end up with more than 10 ML pitchers and true prospects, many of whom are at AA or higher.  But they did nothing to thin the herd as that class approached their first Rule 5.  So, without getting any compensation, we are now staring at losing up to 5 pitchers for that class in the Rule 5 draft, maybe more if you count the minor league phases.  That is simply bad roster management, which is not acceptable for an organization that can't backfill positions be covering up those holes in free agency.  I mean, no one is damning the Yankees because of all the Rule 5 guys they lost BECAUSE IT REALLY DIDN'T HURT THEM AS THEY HAVE A FAT CHECKBOOK.  If you are the Guardians you simply cannot have this type of short-sighted roster mismanagement where the over-riding principle seems to be paralysis by analysis.  Sure, none of guys we lose in the Rule 5 will likely ever be all-stars, but getting nothing back for guys who have significant careers in the majors is something a cash-strapped team like the Guardians can NEVER afford to do if they want to remain competitive.

That's it for right now but I pretty much guarantee that the next month is going to make me even more mad about roster freeze day and the mismanagement of the lower end of the 40 man roster that will occur between now and December 12th (the day after the Rule 5 draft).