Monday Off Day - Call Ups, Notes

Indy ends its season tonight; it’ll be interesting to see who the Bucs call up. The 40-man has a who who’s of pitchers who have been up-and-down: Montana DuRapau, Dovy Neverauskas, Alex McRae, and Luis Escobar, with JT Brubaker still out of commission. RHP Yacksel Rios, who was claimed from the Phils last month, is on the 40-man, and is the only healthy arm on the list who hasn’t been called to Pittsburgh yet. That’s in addition to Chris Archer, Chris Stratton and Yefry Ramirez, all on the 10-day IL. What will be most telling isn’t who gets the call, but who doesn’t.

The odd-man-out position players on the 40-man are SS Cole Tucker, OF Jason Martin and IF Kevin Kramer. Ke’Bryan Hayes and Will Craig aren’t on the 40-man, nor are a couple of vets who might be useful off the bench, Jake Elmore and JB Shuck. They could also add a third catcher, although nobody in the minors has really earned the promotion.

You’ll see Tucker and most likely Martin. We’re not so sure what the plan is with Tuck, as sitting down Kevin Newman isn’t really in the cards. Perhaps they’ll get into a sort of rotation with Fraze, with K-Man flipping between middle infield spots. The problem with the Indy Five are that four of them are hitting in the .260 range and Craig is at .250, so it’s not really like they’re kicking the door down to get to Pittsburgh. Playing time will be convoluted, especially if they keep looking at Colin Moran in an everyday role and shuffling Joey Osuna around the corners.

Clint will have a voice in the player movement and innings, but be assured that he’ll have his marching orders for PT from upstairs.

We’ll find out if the Bucco FO is ready to start tinkering with the 40-man this early on; it would go against SOP. They did began housekeeping by waiving RHP Rookie Davis, who went unclaimed and was then sent to Indy. That opened one 40-man roster spot after waiver claim LHP Wei-Chung Wang had filled the list (with six more players on the 60-day IL – Nick Burdi, Chad Kuhl, Edgar Santana,  Jameson Taillon, Gregory Polanco and Lonnie Chisenhall).

We’ll see what tomorrow brings.

Notes:

• LHP Wei-Chung Wang is scheduled to report to the Bucs tomorrow.
• The Bucs were talking about a Keone Kela-Jeremy Jeffreys trade with the Brewers back in July, per Robert Murray of The Athletic (Brew Crew beat guy). Jeffreys just was DFA’ed.