The other part of preparing for the Rule 5 draft is creating roster space for the guys you want to protect. Based on yesterday’s exercise, I think the Pirates probably need spots for four players: Mitch Keller, Cole Tucker, Jason Martin and J.T. Brubaker. The Pirates currently have 37 players on the roster. Interestingly, only 15 of them are position players. Unless Clint Hurdle realizes his dream of a 12-man bullpen, they’d have only two or three spots for position players not on the active roster if that doesn’t change.
Casting a very wide net, here are the players who could conceivably be candidates to come off the roster, either to clear space for Rule 5 purposes or later as the Pirates acquire other players:
Dario Agrazal, RHP: The Pirates aren’t likely to remove Agrazal from the roster.