Edmundo Sosa is out of minor league options
Every Spring Training, managers talk about how it takes close to every player on the 40-man roster — and often a few more that will be added throughout the season — for a team to make a deep playoff run. The problem for the Philadelphia Phillies in 2024 is that very few players expected to be on the Opening Day 26-man roster have remaining minor league options, which may force president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski and manager Rob Thomson to make some tough decisions throughout the campaign. Obviously, any player who has accumulated more than five years of MLB service time cannot be optioned to the minor leagues without their consent. While RHP Brett Myers notably accepted a demotion to Triple-A during the 2008 season, it’s pretty uncommon for a veteran to agree to be sent to the minors. If you want to call up another player not on the 40-man roster to replace the optioned player, either the demoted player or someone else on the 40-man roster needs to be designated for assignment and exposed to waivers. All 29 other teams then have a chance to claim the player who has been DFA’d. Even if the player clears waivers, they then get to choose between accepting being optioned to Triple-A or just becoming a free agent. If a player doesn’t have a clear path back to the majors in the near future, they will elect free agency and sign with an organization that presents a better chance to return to the top level of the sport sooner. In addition to players who have accumulated five years of MLB service time, those who are out of options — meaning they have been optioned to the minors three or four times, depending on their individual case — also can’t be sent to Triple-A an additional time without being exposed to waivers. All of this is very in the weeds, but important for understanding as organizations try to keep their rosters fresh over the course of a 162-game regular season, and in the case of the Phillies, probably the postseason. So we’ve broken every player currently on the 40-man roster into one of five categories, to help understand the challenges the Phillies will face in 2024.
Category 1:
Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber, Trea Turner, Nick Castellanos, J.T. Realmuto, Zack Wheeler, Aaron Nola, Taijuan Walker, José Alvarado, Jeff Hoffman, Seranthony Domínguez, Matt Strahm
Category 2:
Edmundo Sosa, Cristian Pache, Jake Cave, Ranger Suárez, Cristopher Sánchez, Andrew Bellatti, Dylan Covey
Category 3:
Alec Bohm: two minor league options remaining 2B Bryson Stott: three minor league options remaining OF Brandon Marsh: two minor league options remaining C Garrett Stubbs: one minor league option remaining LHP Gregory Soto: one minor league options remaining
