Photo via Federal Baseball
A critical day in the off-season calendar of baseball every year happened earlier this week; five days after the end of the World Series (11/4/24) all “6-year minor league free agents” get cut loose. The Universal Player Contracts (UPCs) that players sign upon turning pro allow for six “renewals” before players must be either put on the 40-man roster or are declared free agents. This means that every player who:
- was Drafted in 2018 or before
- was an IFA signing in 2018 or before
- was a 2024 MLFA signing
- … and who didn’t sign a multi-year deal of some sort already this off-season or earlier this year
Is now a free agent.
Baseball America posted its list for all 30 teams here, but it’s missing a few names for our system. The Big Board for 2025 is now updated with all MLFA’s removed and put onto the 2025 Release tab.
I count 27 players cut loose, including these notable names to long-time Nats farm watchers:
- Technically Meneses and Rucker were on the 40-man, were outrighted, and by virtue of their signing dates were immediately declared MLFAs.
- Reid Schaller: 3rd round pick who just never was healthy. Had higher hopes for this guy.
- Tim Cate: 2nd rounder who spent time on the 40-man but just couldn’t solve AAA.
- Mason Denaburg: 1st rounder and one of our team’s biggest 1st round busts in terms of accomplishments. Stuck around for years after he should have been cut loose based on performance in a blatant example of the team not wanting to “waste” its signing bonus.
- Carter Kieboom: 1st round pick, former top 20 prospect in all of baseball, who mystified the industry by not being able to convert fantastic batted-ball skills in AAA to the majors.
- Israel Pineda; long considered an heir apparent catching prospect but who ended up bouncing around the minor leagues in 2024.
- Trey Harris, trade bounty for Ehire Adrianza in 2022 but who never really did much for us.
- Aldo Ramirez, trade bounty for Kyle Schwarber in 2021 and who was supposed to be a decent SP prospect. Blew out his arm, missed two years, never really pitched again. Too bad; Schwarber was a solid trade prospect and should have fetched something of value for us longer term.
- Rodney Theophile, who looks like he could be a promising SP prospect (2.33 ERA in 9 AA starts to close out 2024). Surprised the team didn’t try to resign him before hitting MLFA.
As far as I can tell, the team has already done some re-signing of a few of its MLFAs; the following should be listed as FAs based on their draft/signing status but are still listed as active:
- Daison Acosta: AAA Middle Reliever, a 2023 minor league rule-5 pickup but a 2016 IFA signing initially
- Erick Mejia, AAA utility infielder, who was a 2022 MLFA signing/2012 IFA signing.
- Viandel Pena High-A backup SS, a 2017 IFA signing but who is just 23.
- Bryan Caceres, High-A starter who was a 2017 IFA signing out of Panama
- Yoander Rivero, High-A backup middle infielder, also a 2017 IFA signing.
- Jose Colmenares, Low-A backup Catcher (2018 IFA)
- Jeremy De La Rosa, just promoted AA outfielder (2018 IFA)
- Jose Atencio, High-A starter (2018 IFA)
- Joan Otanez, Low-A middle reliever and 2018 IFA
- Bryan Sanchez, also a Low-A middle reliever and 2018 IFA
- Samuel Vasquez, High-A middle reliever and 2023 rule-5 guy
- Kevin Dowdel, a 2024MLFA but a 2023NDFA so he probably falls under the UPC for a while despite being a MLFA.
I’m not a complete expert on the new Collective Bargaining Agreement, but I do find it interesting that many of these are 2018 IFAs: is there an additional year offered to these players b/c of Covid? Do they get an extra year of control b/c they were so young when they signed? Did all these 2018 IFAs not eve play in 2018 so therefore their UPC renewals started in 2019?
Furthermore, two minor league rule-5 guys seemingly should have been cut loose but who are still present; is there a different guideline for rule-5 pickups? Nonetheless, even if all of these players just simply signed new deals to stay with the club one more year, there’s definitely a few that i’m glad are still here. Acosta could be a decent lefty option for the MLB pen, De La Rosa was once a higher ranked prospect who is at least in AA, and Atencio was a very solid starter in Wilmington and i’d like to see where he goes.
The system/big board now shows 147 players under contract in the Minor leagues, including a complete gutting of the AAA pitching staff. Just five arms sit on the AAA roster right now; the rest were 40-man backups for MLFAs. We only have 11 relievers in total on the 40-man right now, which implies to me that we’ll be signing a slew of veteran relievers this off-season, and that we’ll have a cattle-call of 1yr/MLFA/NRIs this coming spring to make up the bulk of the AAA staff.