Mitchell: Roster Moves

Cleveland made 3 additions to the 40-man roster yesterday. Scott Barnes was added as expected, but more surprising were the additions of Juan Diaz and Danny Salazar. Diaz, a big shortstop with a lot of development left only played at the Triple-A level during the Clippers championship play-off run. Before that he had played at Akron for the 2010 season with unimpressive stats. Salazar is a right-handed pitcher who will be 22 next season has never played above Low-A. I doubt either of these guys were in danger of being selected in the upcoming Rule-5 Draft, so the Tribe must have other reasons for rostering them.

The Indians yesterday also outrighted Luis Valbuena off of the 40-man roster. He will have to clear waivers before he could be sent to the minors and I doubt that will happen. Luis has had great Triple-A numbers and some team will assume that they can make that translate to the Major Leagues.

With the DFA of Valbuena, the Indians roster now sits at 40. That’s another reason the rostering of Diaz and Salazar seems strange to me. If the Indians want to aquire any Major League players, they would have to clear space on the 40-Man. There has been recent chatter about the Indians reuniting with Grady Sizemore with a more palatable contract and if that were to occur, somebody else would have to be taken off the roster. It has also been said that the Tribe want to upgrade other areas as well. These things have a way of working themselves out and I’m sure Chris Antonetti has a plan in mind.