Updated 40-man roster thoughts

 Here is my latest pass at the 40-man roster for this winter.   The guys in red are new adds to the roster.

Catcher (2) - Hedges, Lavastida

Infielders (12) - Jose Ramirez, Rosario, Gimenez, Chang, Miller, Arias, Bradley, Noel, T. Freeman, Rocchio, Palaciso, Tena.

Outfield (7) - Straw, Zimmer, Reyes, Naylor, Valera, Oscar Gonzalez, Nolan Jones

Starting Pitcheers (10) - Beiber, Civale, Plesac, Quantrill, McKenzie, Eli Morgan, Cody Morris, Pilkington, Hillman, Cantillo, 

Bullpen (9) - Clase, Karinchak, L. Allen, Mejia, Hentges, Franciso Perez, Sandlin, Gose, Stephan

Some thoughts:

• This roster is full AND stacked.  Likely there is no 'fluff' that can be DFA'd later if you need to add someone to the roster through trade or free agency.  If you were looking for fluff on this roster all you have is Logan Allen and, as a bullpen guy, he has shown he can be solid.  While you could argue about Chang and Miller, they have both shown enough that they should be kept through next season.   Ditto for Juan Hillman.  Everyone else is a solid major leaguer or a minor leaguer with significant upside.  
• In order to get to this roster we would have to DFA or not re-sign the following guys: Mercado, Daniel Johnson, Harold Ramirez, Wittgren, Justin Garza, Shaw Parker, Cam Hill, Moss, Nelson, Alex Young, Ernie Clement and Carlos Vargas.
• Everyone on the above roster is controllable through at least 2025 except for Jose Ramirez who is controllable through 2023.  So this roster has no room to add guys until at least 2024 unless someone is DFA'd or goes on the 60 day DL.  This creates two problems (1) as we know we will have to add a backup catcher, at least, and our bullpen will have to come from the 19 pitchers on this list and (2) for 2023-2025 we have almost no roster flexibility.
• To get roster flexibility we would have to trade more people off the 40-man roster than we bring in in those trades.  To avoid DFAing some of the guys on the list above we would have to make those trades before the rosters are frozen in November for the Rule 5 draft.
• Looking at this roster, there are 3 'dead' roster spots (Tena, Cantillo, Noel) if we DFA Carlos Vargas.  A dead roster spot is one occupied by a player who has no chance of helping the major league team in 2022 and very little chance of helping in 2023.  Besides that everyone has a chance to impact the big league club in 2022 or, at the latest, by the middle of 2023.
• The following players would not be able to be protected from the Rule 5 - Kwan, Jose Fermin, Planez, Adam Scott, Andres Melendez, Juan Mota, Jerson Ramirez, Will Benson plus anyone we DFA who makes it through waivers plus many other, lower-ceiling prospects.
• Unless we get rid of guys from this stacked roster we will have no room for prospects who have to be protected ahead of the 2022 Rule 5 draft.  

By now most of the major broadcasters and a lot of fans get how serious this problem is.   But when you are talking about DFAing this many guys off your current active roster and considering losing guys like Owen Miller due to one bad year and Yu Chang when it looks like he is coming into his own, you can see the problem.   And this is a problem that you would not expect to exist on a very low payroll team without a lot of high-paid veterans on long term contracts.  

Good problem to have.   Bad problem to have to deal with.

Eliminate the Rule 5 draft!