The Orioles roster crunch has been a story seemingly since the beginning of camp. Now with J.J. Hardy and Jimmy Paredes slated to come off the DL next week the roster puzzle doesn’t look to be getting any clearer.
Obviously with both players returning to the 25-man roster the Orioles must make room by removing two players from the existing roster. Normally this wouldn’t be an issue. However, this season the Orioles have an unusual amount of players without minor-league options. That also normally wouldn’t be an issue, accept that all of the option-less players are valuable and would quickly be claimed by other teams.