Oakland A’s first round of cuts leaves spring roster at 49

Every team enters spring training with way more players than it will end up needing. Between the 40-man roster and a slew of prospects and other non-roster invitees, the Oakland A’s began with 59 players, and they’ll have to chop that number down to 25 by Opening Day on March 29. They began that process on Saturday by reassigning two pitchers to minor league camp, and on Sunday they announced that eight more players have been sent down. The full list of cuts from this weekend:

• RHP Grant Holmes
• RHP Logan Shore
• RHP Lou Trivino
• RHP Nolan Blackwood
• RHP Bobby Wahl
• LHP Jairo Labourt
• LHP Jeremy Bleich
• LHP Jarret Martin
• C Santiago Chavez
• IF Nick Noonan

Holmes, Shore, and Blackwood are all legit prospects who made our Community Prospect List Top 30, but none of them are quite ready for MLB. Holmes is the closest, having spent all last year in Double-A, but they were just in spring camp gaining experience rather than vying for jobs. Trivino also made the CPL, after reaching Triple-A last year and being named to the 40-man roster this winter, but he was also an extreme longshot to make the team out of spring; look for him as a midseason reinforcement in the bullpen.

Next up are some reliever depth pieces. Wahl made his MLB debut last year but has struggled with injuries for his entire career, and Labourt was claimed off waivers last weekend after making his own debut in September for the Tigers. Bleich and Martin were minor league free agent signings this winter.

Finally, Chavez hasn’t played above High-A and isn’t seriously on the prospect radar at the moment, but for what it’s worth he picked up a few hits at the plate and received praise for his catching (also: video link to nice defensive play). Noonan was another minor league free agent signing, for infield depth.

Of this group, Trivino and Labourt are the only ones on the 40-man roster, meaning they were officially optioned to Triple-A. The others only needed to be reassigned back to minor league camp. None of these players were in serious contention to make the Opening Day roster.

There are now 49 players in MLB camp, though that doesn’t necessarily mean much for game purposes because extras are often borrowed from minor league camp. For example, teenage prospects Lazaro Armenteros and Nick Allen each got an at-bat in Saturday’s game even though they’re not NRIs and aren’t included in that 49 count.

Anyway, this isn’t big news. None of these names will shock you, and all of them are still part of the Oakland organization; we might even still see some of them appear in Cactus League games. But this is the first step in the long process toward slimming the roster to 25.

Here’s the updated spring roster. Players in italics are non-roster invitees, meaning they’re either CPL prospects or minor league free agent depth. Players in strikethrough have been cut and reassigned to minor league camp. I’ve included new signing Jonathan Lucroy, even though he hasn’t officially joined the team yet and a corresponding move hasn’t been made on the 40-man. I’ve left off Brandon Moss, who was DFA’d and effectively replaced by Labourt.