As many St. Louis Cardinals fans may already know, the organization has suspended play in the Venezuelan Summer League in 2011. I broke that story at The Cardinal Nation on February 2.
While organization officials say mass releases would not occur as a result of the decision, the system will still face a numbers crunch this spring and summer that may be even more acute than in recent years.
This post will make some rough approximations of the number of players potentially involved in future releases during 2011.
To do this, some assumptions have to be made.
I will make each roster full to its allowable league limit. Above the maximum roster size at each level, I will assign five players to the disabled list or inactive list, shown below as “Inactive.” This count is based on what the Cardinals have done in previous years. Some might wonder if this is overly aggressive, but my intent is to come up with a reasonable estimate of the number of players to be released.
Further, we will assume no free agent additions will occur and 45 players will be signed from the June 2011 draft. The last point is a bit tricky to assess timing-wise as the top players often hold off signing until the mid-August deadline. For that reason, in this roster exercise, I will use only 40 of the projected 45 signed players.
Timing-wise, there are two key inflection points. One is at the start of April when minor league rosters must be set. Those players not on one of four full-season squads will either be released or retained for extended spring training camp.
Within about ten days following the conclusion of the June draft, the Cardinals’ four short-season clubs will begin play. At that point, the music stops and everyone signed to a contract must have a chair.
I am going to break this analysis into what I am calling “Sources” and “Uses.” The former is where the players come from and the latter is where they are going.
Starting with sources, you can see from the Roster Matrix that the Cardinals currently have 289 players under contract, including the major league club. Add to that 40 players signed from the June draft and you have 329 players to be rostered somewhere.
| Sources | |
| Under contract | 289 |
| June draft | 40 |
| Total | 329 |
Here is the “Uses” view. The league maximum roster sizes are listed along with an allocation of five for inactive players.
| Uses | |||
| Major League | Active | Inactive | Total |
| St. Louis | 25 | 5 | |
| Full-season | |||
| Memphis | 24 | 5 | |
| Springfield | 24 | 5 | |
| Palm Beach | 25 | 5 | |
| Quad Cities | 25 | 5 | |
| Short-season | |||
| Batavia | 30 | 5 | |
| Johnson City | 35 | 5 | |
| Gulf Coast | 35 | 5 | |
| Dominican | 35 | 5 | |
| Total | 258 | 45 | 303 |
As you can tell from a quick comparison, even with 45 players inactive, the Cardinals would have to release at least 26 players (329 minus 303) between now and this summer.
One might argue the actual number of cuts could prove to be even higher. We shall see over the upcoming months.
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What’s your best guess for Carlos Martinez (Mathias) ? Extended Spring Training in Jupiter and then short season Johnson City? Or full season Quad Cities? Or other?
Upside is QC, downside is JC. Will depend on how he pitches in camp, but my early guess is the former.
Brian — That Luhnow picture was just for me, huh?
26 releases by June would be a bit lower than I would have guessed, in part because that could be par for the course in recent years.
I assume they sign 35 US amateurs in June, but would add another 10 international signees, to lift the overall total to 334.
My impression (w/o studying the matrix) is they have excess depth in guys at A and AA who are ok players but who do not have ML potential. They need to winnow a bit to give max playing time to guys who have physical tools to rise high.
I would be very surprised to see 10 international signees – especially ones that would count against 2011 rosters. That is where the biggest problem exists. If you look at the matrix, you will see 55 international players already not having reached the US with only 35 DSL roster spots in which to put them. Even if 20 come over to Extended Spring Training, which would be a big number, that would leave no room on the DSL roster for others. They could sign some July 2 kids whose deals would take affect next season, but that would not count one way or another against this years’ total.
I agree with Brian that 10 internationals would be high (but dont know how many have agreed to terms and are awaiting background checks as we speak). But 35 draftees would be historically low for the Cardinals who traditionally have been close to 50. 25 DL guys seems high but they also leave some guys in EST even after the short season league starts so that could balance out.
The team will draft 50 rounds. They have been doing as good a job as anyone at signing draftees, yet 35 during June would be strong and on track for 40+ by the end of the summer.
By the end of March, we will see what Mr. Vuch decides.
What would be evidence of something different in 2011? If they cut 25 in spring training? Or, if more cuts take place at higher levels than left-overs from short season teams.
If anything, the number of players in spring camp might be a bit lower than in the past so I don’t expect anything unusual now. My guess is there would be a crunch at the end of EST/short-season time. Maybe they will take a few more risks on tough signs in the draft, but their signing rate has been very consistent over the recent years.
The assumption of five also includes some number of guys signed but not reporting (Mitchell Harris, for example), voluntarily retired as well as players on suspension. That is specifically why I did not call it DL.
Regarding my early March assumption of five inactive players per level, here is the current, actual quantity of players officially out of action, per the Roster Matrix:
St. Louis 5
Memphis 5
Springfield 6
Palm Beach 6
Quad Cities 5
Looks like a pretty darned good assumption, if I do say so myself…
has tyler henley been cleared for baseball activities yet?
Sorry I missed this. The answer is “no”.
I was wrong. The correct answer is “yes”. Sorry about that.
thank you. i haven’t given up on him, even if he has to take the ludwick route after injury setbacks.
WOW! This young man is a keeper.
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/baseball/professional/article_6fb1143d-725e-5482-842e-8f73dc7239bd.html
I still say we should ditch Punto and keep Carpenter.
Pretending to take a phone call before doing chin ups would make me smile too. SNL should hire him away from the Cardinals. Please.