Well, it looks like the Reds beat me to the punch (and I screwed up by planning to have the article on the position players ready to go in the morning, but it seems it’s moot to run now since they’ve made their decisions) and have announced three roster moves. To protect players from the Rule 5 draft, players must be added to the 40-man roster by 11:59pm on Friday. The Reds got ahead of the game and made their moves this evening and added three pitchers to the roster.
Right handed starters Robert Stephenson and Sal Romano were added to the 40-man roster along with right handed reliever Stephen Johnson. If you read my article on which pitchers the team will protect from Wednesday, you would have noticed I had them down as locks. Where I really messed up was including Keury Mella, who apparently isn’t Rule 5 eligible this season. He signed on September 9th of 2011. My understanding of the rule was that a player was eligible if he signed under 19-years-old, which Mella was, for their 5th Rule 5 draft. This would be the 5th one for Mella, but after reading more into the rules, apparently it’s only once a guy begins playing that counts, which my spreadsheet didn’t account for. Sorry about that one, I messed it up.
It would seem that the organization isn’t going to be adding any position players to protect from the Rule 5 draft that takes place in two weeks. The biggest name on the list of eligible position players is Aristides Aquino, but given how his 2015 season played out and how far he is from the big leagues, there’s no risk of him being selected. Seth Mejias-Brean is draft eligible, as is Steve Selsky. I wouldn’t expect to see either player selected, but as I said in the comments section the other day, if Sergio Valenzuela can be drafted (by the Reds) after his 2007 season, anything is possible.
In the last two weeks I’ve written up season reviews and scouting reports on both Robert Stephenson and Sal Romano (which actually was posted just this morning). If you’d like to read those, be sure to check them out.