Spring Training Update: The Restart

You will have to excuse me if I find the current roster situation thoroughly confusing.  There is a 60-man roster which includes an active roster and a "Taxi Squad."  But, there is still a 40 man major league roster.  There will be a 30 man active roster, but only for two weeks, then it will be reduced to 28 and then to 26 after another two weeks.  But the total roster will remain at 60 through the season which means it will start out with 30 players and end up with 34 on September 1.  But wait! The Giants only named 51 players to their spring roster, so there are 9 open spots on the taxi squad which may or may not be filled as time goes by.  It seems from a quick perusal of the rules it is a lot easier to add players to the 60 man roster than take them off(it sounds like if a player is dropped, they cannot come back on for the remainder of the season).  Got all that?  Good, because I don't!

As for predicting specific roster makeup, I gave up trying to rosterbate a FZ constructed roster a long time ago.  There are just so many players who FZ and Kap say they have big plans for and I don't really see how they all fit on even a 30 man roster let alone 26.  I mean, we have Darren Ruf who mashed in Spring Training Round 1 and FZ thinks can be a great DH.  But, the DH is also seen as a boon to Hunter Pence who nobody was excited about playing LF and Pence has a guaranteed contract.  Then there is Yolmer Sanchez who plays great D and who the Giants coaches seem to think they can teach to hit, but where does that leave Mauricio Dubon to say nothing of Wilmer Flores and Donovan Solano?  Well, I guess Dubon can play CF, but then what is Billy Hamilton doing on the roster?  Oh yeah, with that expanded roster he's going to be the designated runner at 2B in extra-inning games.  And none of this frantic rosterbating included Pablo Sandoval who can play 3B, 1B, DH, PH and oh yeah, he can pitch too now that he's had more time to recover from TJ surgery. Oh, and how were they going to get a read on Jaylin Davis again?  Austin Slater is the player rep.  Will he even be on the team by Opening Day?  Of course, all this is before the Giants sign Yasiel Puig the day before the season starts which pretty much blows the whole thing up.

I would imagine the Giants, and most teams to use most or all of the extra roster space on pitching which means there will still be no more than 14 position spots where all the versatility and specialty roles can be squeezed in.

I noticed something about the new roster rules that may be a big blow to FZ's plans for rebuilding the Giants.  Trades can be made and there will be a trade deadline, but only players on the 60-man roster can be traded.  Other minor leaguers are off limits.  If this is true, it could severely limit FZ's ability to add long term organizational talent via deadline trading.

Happy rosterbating, everybody!  Hope you don't get a headache from it like me!