It's all about planning - way too early look at the Indians 2022 Rule 5 eligible players

 One way or another, the Indians 2021 roster crunch is going to have ripple effects for 2022, 2023 and 2024.   So let's take a way-too-early look at the top prospects who will be eligible.

HOLDOVERS - You have to start here.   Look at Oscar Gonzalez this year.   If you wait long enough guys develop.   So when I talk about not protecting Juan Mota, Jose Fermin, Steven Kwan, Aaron Bracho, the under-the-radar Marcos Gonzalez and others this December, those guys could easily turn out to be on the top of the list for guys we want to protect next winter...if they aren't selected this winter and kept by other teams.  This also applies to guys who flew under the radar in this year's Rule 5 but, with a breakout season next year, could move to near the top of the "protect" list, as well.   Most of the latter group will be relievers, in my opinion, but time will tell.

NEWLY ELIGIBLE GUYS -

2019 COLLEGE DRAFTEES:

Peyton Battenfield 

Xzavion Curry

Hunter Gaddis

Will Brennan

2018 HIGH SCHOOL DRAFTEES

Bo Naylor

Ethan Hankins

Lenny Torres

Raynel Delgado

Korey Hooland

2018 INTERNATIONAL AMATEUR SIGNEES

Gabriel Rodriguez

Junion Sanquintin

Angel Martinez

Dayan Frias

INSTANT ANALYSIS

Right off this list, assuming no injuries, the locks to be protected next year are Bo Naylor and Peyton Battenfield.   

After that, as with all prospects, there are a lot of ifs.

Gabriel Rodriguez would seem to be a lock, as well, but struggled at low A ball, albeit as a very young player.  He is a top-rated prospect and I see very few scenarios where they don't protect him but he needs to break out next year as he projects to only get a taste of AA next year, at best, given his current development.

Angel Martinez faded seriously down the stretch but he has everything you look for in a middle infield prospect.   However, to put it in perspective at Jose Fermin's first year of eligibility he was raking pretty well at AA.   Martinez was putting up good numbers at low A.  So, you see where I am going with this.

I am going to lump together Ethan Hankins and Lenny Torres.   Torres was coming off TJ surgery this year and, not surprisingly, struggled with command.   Hankins is facing the same thing in 2022 after his TJ surgery before the season this year.   These are things that drive me crazy as with a season in 2020 these guys who likely will start in low A could already be in high A poised to be in AA or, even, in AA to start 2022 and the Guardians would be getting a much better read on whether to roster them after 2022.

The sleepers in this group are Junior Sanquintin and Dayan Frias.   Sanquintin was a highly touted signing in 2018 but never got out of the ACL this year and, while he performed well, he didn't dominate.  Frias did well but, at the same level.  When you consider how Martinez and Rodriguez did at a level higher you can see that Sanquintin and Frias have a lot of catching up to do.  

So, right now it looks like rostering players will not be as big a challenge after 2022 as I only see 13 players who, right now, even have a chance to be rostered and, realistically, that number is likely to be 6.  It could be 7 or 8 if one or both of Torres and Hankins explodes on the scene but that is a big if.