A’s send down 15 players in first round of spring cuts

The Oakland A’s made their first round of spring cuts Monday morning, although it’s not entirely clear what that means this year since 2021 spring training is being operated quite differently than normal due to the pandemic.

Let’s begin with the facts as reported by the team. The A’s optioned seven players to Triple-A:

• RHP Grant Holmes
• RHP James Kaprielian
• RHP Miguel Romero
• OF Luis Barrera
• OF Skye Bolt
• OF Greg Deichmann
• RHP Wandisson Charles (to Double-A)

In addition, they reassigned eight more players to minor league mini-camp:

• RHP Cristian Alvarado
• RHP Paul Blackburn
• RHP Parker Dunshee
• RHP Montana DuRapau
• RHP Brian Howard
• RHP Brian Schlitter
• RHP Trey Supak
• C Kyle McCann

In terms of spring cuts, these look completely normal. None of the 15 players listed had any chance of making the Opening Day roster, whether because they’re prospects who are blocked right now or aren’t ready for MLB yet, or because they’re non-roster veteran depth whose role is to stash in Triple-A for an emergency. This is routine, and now there are 50 players technically “in camp” between 33 roster members, 16 non-roster invitees, and the no-longer-sick Frankie Montas.

What’s less clear is what exactly these cuts mean, since the rules of the sport are just being made up as we go along at this point and apparently the evolving details are a big secret that can’t be revealed. Did you know that a player on the COVID injured list can play in spring games on “rehab” without being activated first? Neither did anybody else until it got reported yesterday six hours after it would have been relevant and useful info.

So, I’m not sure how to analyze these moves, and neither are the teams themselves reports Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic. Normally when players get cut, it means they physically leave the clubhouse and go to another facility down the street. We see them less often in Cactus League games the rest of the way, but they still do get called over from minor league camp to play occasionally so they’re not permanently gone.

But this year there’s no minor league camp yet, so will anything really change for them or are these just paper moves to rule them out for Opening Day? There’s a “minor league mini-camp” of 10 players (now 18 players including today’s cuts) but they’re also within the bubble and eligible for games, and they’ve played frequently (most notably Logan Davidson and Edwin Diaz).

So ... 15 players were cut, to go somewhere, which means something. And they presumably won’t make the Opening Day roster, which we already knew they weren’t going to make.

This has been the news, now for the weather. There’s a 40% chance that it’s raining right now.

Spring roster update

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 from major league camp. Players with asterisks** can’t be optioned to the minors, either because they’re out of options or they’re Rule 5 draft picks.

Update: Later in the day, the A’s let go of RHP Dany Jimenez, and activated Montas from the injured list, not reflected in the table below. There are now 49 players in MLB camp.