Today the Phillies sent Adam Haseley to the White Sox for a minor league reliever, McKinley Moore. It was a move that many saw coming and is largely more interesting for what it does to the opening day roster. Barring crazy happenings in the next few days the Phillies will add Bryson Stott to the 40 man roster and bring Mickey Moniak along as their bench outfielder. That solves some of the shape of the Phillies roster problems, but it doesn’t really deal with a looming 40 man crunch brought on by expanded rosters and pitching injuries. To chart this course, let’s do some roster math.
Hitting Locks: J.T. Realmuto, Rhys Hoskins, Jean Segura, Kyle Schwarber, Matt Vierling, Bryce Harper, Nick Castellanos, Johan Camargo
Hitting Probables: Didi Gregorius, Garrett Stubbs, Mickey Moniak, Bryson Stott
Why is Camargo a lock and not Didi? The answer is Camargo fits on the bench and we don’t know if you could put Didi there. It could be Sands over Stubbs, but it looks like Stubbs for now. This is 12 of the 13 spots filled.
Pitching Locks: Zack Wheeler, Aaron Nola, Ranger Suarez, Kyle Gibson, Zach Eflin, Corey Knebel, Seranthony Dominguez, Jeurys Familia, Brad Hand
Pitching Probables: Bailey Falter, Cristopher Sanchez, Nick Nelson
Pitching Possibly Hurt: Connor Brogdon, Jose Alvarado
That is essentially 12 locks as this exercise requires that Wheeler, Suarez, and Eflin give what they can and Nelson, Falter, and Sanchez handle the bulk inning needs. But that is only 12 of the 15 needed. Brogdon and Alvarado would get you to 14 and you would be in business.
Locks to be in the Minors and on the 40 Man Roster: Francisco Morales, Rafael Marchan, Simon Muzziotti, Hans Crouse, James McArthur, Jhailyn Ortiz, Luis Garcia
That is 7 guys constituting top prospects and recent Rule 5 protections who haven’t disappointed yet.
In this scenario the 40 man roster is now full (Stott taking the open spot) and there are two players already on the 40 and the IL in Coonrod and Herrera. So any non-40 man moves would involve a DFA and trade, and that brings us to the limbo guys.
Donny Sands, Alec Bohm, Nick Maton, Damon Jones, Ryan Sherriff
The Phillies need to fill one more bench spot, and to do it without making a 40 man move would require it being Maton or Bohm sitting and not playing much. To open up a 40 man spot, probably requires doing something with Donny Sands because…
We need to deal with the pitching. If they just need to fill one spot, then you can just choose your favorite between Ryan Sherriff and Damon Jones. If you need two spots then they both go up to the majors. If you need three spots then things get complicated. The Phillies would then need to either include one of those minor league locks (probably James McArthur based on Spring Training performance) on their opening day roster, or they would need to open up a 40 man spot. Given who is in camp, performing well, and fits a major league need in the long term, Braeden Ogle is the most likely callup of that group. If they just need a warm body to discard in a week that probably is more in the Cam Bedrosian model. Either way the pitching side then probably has to claim eating the Donny Sands 40 man spot. This would then force the hitting side to either make a difficult cut elsewhere or just roll with Bohm or Maton on the major league bench.
All of this could change with a painful trade, but that opens up questions about their overall hitting depth, especially if you are moving Maton or Bohm in a trade that is not bring back much and likely not 2022 ready. If you are just opening that spot up for a different version of Maton or Bohm, it makes the whole exercise redundant. The Phillies may also like Sands, and don’t want to make him a casualty in all of this. The only way out of that is to not use the Adam Haseley spot on Bryson Stott or to jettison Didi Gregorius, both of which look like unpalatable options.
Right now the Phillies need Connor Brogdon in particular to be healthy both for their roster and for their 2022 performance.
Update: With the Phillies acquisition of James Norwood the math doesn’t really fundamentally change, it just means they used a 40 spot on Norwood instead of Braeden Ogle in the above construction. If they want Bryson Stott on the opening day roster they will need to open up a spot, and it remains difficult to open up another beyond that.