Who should be added to the 40 man roster by 11-20-13?

Cecchini and Ranaudo are the only ones that I look at and say we can't lose those guys. I'd like to keep them all, but I wouldn't lose sleep if we lost anyone else.

I voted for De La Cruz along with those two.

Brentz, Cecchini and RAnaudo. 

No reasons beyond the obvious.

The ONLY other possible player I would consider is Diaz. BUT, lets face it.....several positions will be in play after we re-sign or sign free agents. For that reason, it is probably not even necessary to add someone like Diaz, who will lose his spot on the 40 anyway.

For some reason I thought it may be more difficult, but then I remembered all of the additions we made of some of our young talent during the season. As always it will be interesting who finally left off.

by the way....I'm pretty sure I'm going to need a NEW picture!!

Well if he can avoid shooting himself he'll have a leg up on last year.

Puns, puns everywhere.

The obvious three, and Luis Diaz.

I'm willing to take my chances with Diaz. He ended last season with a handful of innings in Salem and so almost certainly won't stick on a major-league roster all season (barring a major injury). Adding him also starts his option clock at least two years before he projects to be MLB ready, which means he'll be out of options by the time he's 24 and realistically knocking on the door. Remember, that happened with Stolmy Pimentel, and it usually means you'll have to lose him anyways.

That's what I thought as well on Diaz. That's why I selected Almanzar as the 4th choice. He seems like the most obvious candidate after Cecchini, Ranaudo and Brentz with an outside chance to stick on a roster as a bench bat. At 23 still has some upside potential, can play a position of need in 1B and offers value as a tradeable commodity.

Yes I get that signings change things but for this exercise I was working with the premise there are 4 openings. I wasn't attempting to project forward.

Ranaudo, Brentz, and Cecchini are obvious; they could all reasonably make our opening day roster if things broke right for them, certainly a lot of teams would take them if unprotected. I would also protect Almanzar because I think you could find a team willing to stash him as will to take him in rule 5 and stash him as a bench guy they could potentially groom for a corner. That would put the roster at 40, while not having figured out starting 1b, starting C, and backup middle infielder, but I figure one way or another 1 or two guys are likely to be traded away, and we could end up filling any of those spots in house. The first guy I would push of the 40 man is Steven Wright.

Keith Couch. That's it.

For one thing, I think there's nearly no chance the Sox fill the 40-man. If there are four spots open, they won't use more than three when the options for the fourth are all super-fringy. They RARELY use every available spot like that at this point of the offseason. Don't pick four guys just because you think they're going to use all four spots.

They'll only protect guys if A) they think the player will stick on a major league roster and B) the player is actually in danger of being selected. I think Cecchini and Ranaudo are obvious. I think Brentz gets protected. I don't think they'll be worried about Almanzar getting picked (seriously, go look at his final Double-A line, and keep in mind he's a poor fielder). I have begun to wonder about Diaz, even if only b/c he's a LHP. But that said, I think teams would be wary of picking a guy with so little experience above Low A. That said, could be a situation like Jose Capellan in 2007-08 the more I think about it. Would he stick?

De La Cruz was bad in High A this year and has a poor plate approach. No chance there I think.


Welcome to the site. I think you're mostly spot on, but disagree that cases can be made for Linares and Kurcz. Linares was demoted from Pawtucket to Portland last year and spent much of the previous season in Portland. He also doesn't play center field anymore really. He's an org guy. As for Kurcz, I can't see a team taking a guy after he missed the entire previous season when he would've been fringy even if he weren't coming off of Tommy John.