Phoenix Pub’s Guide to September Call-Ups

Your baseball team of choice has likely called up a few minor leaguers on September 1st, and may continue to do so throughout the month. If you were like me, you probably don’t know the specifics on how it works. Extra players would just magically appear in September, while announcers would ignore explaining how it worked and instead babble on about how great the Big Red Machine was in the 70’s. I researched this on the interwebs and am passing along the knowledge to you, the loyal pub frequenter. So, this is a simplified explanation of the rules that govern those call-ups.

MLB teams have a roster of 40 players that can be used to make up the 25 man active roster they play with from the start of the season through August 31st. The 40 man roster is essentially players the team is protecting from other teams taking them away and veterans signed to contracts. Teams also have other players in the minor leagues who either were drafted recently enough that they don’t need to be protected or aren’t skilled enough that the team is worried about losing them (see: Igawa, Kei).

From that 40 man roster, each team has 25 men that constitute their active roster, or the regular players on the big league club you see on a daily basis. Anybody on the 40 man roster can be put on the 25 man roster at any point in the season, but a spot needs to be cleared from the 25 man roster by either someone going to the disabled list (and not always for legitimate reasons, for instance Dontrelle Willis going on the DL for “mental illness”) or someone being sent to the minors. However, not all players are eligible to be sent to the minors. Players get three option years, or seasons in which they can be sent back and forth between the big leagues and the minors as many times as the team wishes. There are some restrictions on the frequency of sending players back and forth, and some loopholes in those restrictions, but that is for another article.

Anyways, Major League Baseball throws that out the window come September 1st every year and expands the big league teams’ active rosters from 25 to 40. Teams are allowed to call-up any of the players from the minors who are on the 40 man roster, but not already active on the 25 man roster.

So, why doesn’t a team call-up the extra 15 players on September 1st just in case they might need them for some reason? Surely, Tony LaRussa could find a way to slow the game down more with pitching changes and defensive substitutions given a potential 60% increase in roster size.

The problem is the minor league teams in AAA and AA still have regular season games occuring, some teams will be in the minor league playoffs, and those teams do need players to play in those games. Not to mention, most teams don’t need more than a couple extra arms for the bullpen and a couple extra players for the bench right away in September. Calling up 15 extra players would be pointless as most would just rot on the bench or in the bullpen.

Why isn’t (insert name of stud prospect here) being called up?

Chances are he isn’t on the 40 man roster and is young enough that he doesn’t need to be put on the 40 man roster for protection in the near future. Spots on the 40 man roster are very valuable, as once a player is placed on the 40 man roster, he pretty much has to stay there. The only way to remove him is to send him through irrevocable waivers, meaning every other team in Major League Baseball has a chance to claim him and likely acquire him for free. Also, if the player being sent through waivers for purposes of clearing his spot on the 40 man roster isn’t allowed to be sent to the minors and no one claims him, the team waiving the player has to pay his full remaining contract and the player then becomes a free agent.

Hopefully, this all makes sense. Feel free to use the comments to ask any further questions about this, point out mistakes I may have made, further elaborate on this, or just make fun of the Mets (sorry FD).

Tags: Billy Beane didn't write this, FD thinks its certainly ok to make fun of the Mets, Kei Igawa, Major League Baseball, minor leagues, New York Mets, prospects, roster expansion, September call-ups
Categories: Domestics

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009 at 11:00 am and is filed under Domestics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.