Thoughts for a Thursday morning on the left coast

 First, the Guardians and all teams in the majors will be able to have a 28-person active roster for the month of April.   The issue, if you want to call it an issue, is that this means, in theory, you can have up to 15 pitchers on that roster.   The issue for teams, and this especially applies to the Guardians, is that you have to have two things to make this work:

(1)  15 pitchers on your 40 man roster

(2) 15 pitchers on your 40-man roster who are actually anywhere close to being ready to pitch in the majors.

With the news that the Indians have signed Bryan Shaw also comes the news that to get him on the roster the Indians will put Cody Morris on the 60-day DL.  So, instead of two pitchers who might be available for the ML roster coming out of spring training we have just swapped one for another one.  

So we are still short of pitchers for our major league team coming out of spring training.  Here is a list of our available pitchers with commentary:

1. Logan Allen (the elder):  Looked very shaky in his first outing after a shaky 2021

2. Shane Beiber: Looked very shaky in his first outing after missing most of 2021.

3. Aaron Civale: No negative news here but missed a lot of time in 2021

4. Emmanuel Clase: Only solid reliever available

5. Anthony Gose: Very little ML experience but being counted on to make our pitching staff

6. Sam Hentges: Shaky last year and in his first spring training appearance.  Being counted on to make the bullpen.

7. James Karinchak: Shaky last year and shut down already due to arm problem

8. Triston McKenzie: Healthy and looked good in his first outing

9. Eli Morgan: Looked good in his first outing

10.  Cody Morris: on 60-day DL

11. Tobias Myers: Rookie, never pitched in the majors.  Beng counted on to make the team out of spring training

12.Konnor Pilkington: Rookie, never pitched above AA.

13. Zach Plesac:  Looked OK in his first outing

14. Cal Quantrill

15. Nick Sandlin:  Injured at the end of last year

16. Bryan Shaw: Late to spring training but being counted on in this year's bullpen

16, Trevor Stepha: Being counted on to be in this year's bullpen.

17. Carlos Vargas - On 60 day DL

So, for 15 spots we have 15 pitchers.  Of those only 7 are not looking questionable at this point.

We are in trouble, people and most of the good, inexpensive free agent pitchers have already been signed.  In addition to that there is very little fluff on the 40 man roster if you wanted to DFA someone to add a reliever.   Here are the expendable guys I see:

Logan Allen (the elder)
Owen Miller

Oscar Mercado

Bradley Zimmer

Ernie Clement

Yu Chang

With most of the good major league free agent relievers already signed, who on this group would you cut to bring in a bunch of third and fourth tier relievers.  Frankly, I wouldn't cut or trade any of those guys to clear roster space for any pathetic reliever like Andrew Young, who has looked pathetic this spring, too.

And when the Guardians or their fans say that this is due to having to protect all these prospects from the Rule 5 this winter, tell them that most of the guys on the above list of expendables could have been lost if they signed or traded for a QUALITY reliever.