Roster For The Tampa Bay Series

 OK, celebration over. Time to get to work and the first order of business is to name the roster for the Tampa Bay series.  So here are my thoughts:

ROSTER BALANCE

As much as I loved the flexibility or 14 position players, the CWS series really taxed the bullpen.  I think we have to go 13/13 this time.

ROSTER BREAKDOWN

Position Players (13)

Catchers (2): Bailey and Hedges

Infielders (5): Lowe, Bazzana, Rocchio, Ramirez, Genao

Outfieleres (5): Kwan, Halpin, DeLauter, Adell, Halpin

Utility (1): Schneeman

Pitchers (13)

Starters: Messick, Williams

Openers: Espino, Cecconi

Bulk Relievers: Bibee, Cantillo, Griffin, 

Relievers: Smith, Sabrowski, Gaddis, Herrin, Festa, Armstrong

SUMMARY

So, for me, this boils down to one choice: removing Schneeman or Fry from the ALDS roster.  Tampa Bay has a reasonable balance of 4 lefties and 9 righties so I would not base the decision on handedness. I would make this decision based on my continuing Michael Martinez comp: Martinez was a last player on the roster type, a versatile defended but with a very, very weak bat.  He was the last batter in the 2016 World Series for Cleveland and could only manage to hit the ball weakly for 80 feet as an easy out, mimicking his offensive ineptness for the season and his career.  Although Schneeman has had a bad offensive season I still think that I would choose Schneeman 100 times out of 100 to bat in that situation instead of Martinez.  Fry has one advantage over Schneeman as he is a catcher but he can travel with the team and be rostered if something happened to Bailey or Hedges...or they could roster Ingle.  Aside from that, Schneeman is the better choice and Fry would lose his roster spot.

People will question me leaving Festa on the roster but, to me, Festa is your sacrificial lamb.  We did not have a negative blowout in the CWS series and so Festa didn't pitch. I disagree with people who said if Vogt didn't trust Festa in the White Sox series why was he on the roster.  They just did not need the skill set he brought: length in a blowout loss.  Also, as a last resort extra inning pitcher in deep extra innings, you could do a lot worse than Festa, especially with no ghost runner in playoff extra innings. If we have one of those two situations in the TB series, you watch as Vogt deploys Festa as needed.

So, that's it.  Without going for it by bringing up Ralphy as a secret weapon, this is, IMO, the best roster we can have with what we have to work with.

And please, no Rhys Hoskins.