The 2017 Boston Red Sox Opening Day roster may be influenced by some of these players that are out of minor league options.
The Boston Red Sox will have some important decisions to make when it comes to constructing a roster for 2017, but they have run out of options for some of their players. Minor league options, that is.
Once a player has been placed on the 40-man roster, a team has three option years on that player. Spending at least 20 days in the minors would constitute using up one of those options for that season, so while the player can shuttle between the big leagues and the minors several times throughout that season while still only counting as one option, the team is limited to doing so in only three seasons.
After those three options have been used, the player can’t be sent back to the minors without passing through waivers, allowing the 29 other teams in the league a chance to claim him. Naturally, if the organization considers the player to still have value, they will do what they can to fit him on the 25-man active roster in order to avoid losing them.
We saw this last spring when Steven Wright was out of options. He initially seemed to be a long shot to earn a rotation spot, with the Red Sox planning to make use of him as a long reliever out of the bullpen in order to warrant giving him a roster spot. When an injury delayed the start of Eduardo Rodriguez‘s season it gave Wright an opportunity to start, which he took advantage of by making his first All-Star team.
We can’t expect that another fringe roster player will suddenly flourish into an All-Star, but we may very well find a player in a similar situation where they make the Opening Day roster simply because they are out of options and the Red Sox don’t want to risk losing them. Here are a few players that fall into that category.