Baltimore Orioles: 40-Man Roster Vulnerables

Jul 28, 2015; Baltimore, MD, USA; Baltimore Orioles pitcher Chaz Roe (65) shakes hands with catcher Caleb Joseph (36) after beating the Atlanta Braves 7-3 at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Mandatory Credit: Evan Habeeb-USA TODAY Sports /

With the pending addition of Yovani Gallardo and likely signing of Dexter Fowler, what players currently on the Baltimore Orioles 40-man roster are most vulnerable to be released?

This is the downside of doing business in the big-time. When an organization piles up quality players and valuable potential contributory pieces just off the active roster — be it by free agent signings, returning players, high-level prospects — final additions come at the painful price of losing someone in a way that might haunt the future.

But having to make tough decisions such as are facing the Orioles is a much more preferable way of doing business than wondering who can adequately fill all of the holes and compete at the MLB level.

The current 40-man roster is very heavily weighted with pitchers, so surely at least one arm will have to come off. So who could it be?

The Orioles are certainly not going to part with any of their best rising prospects, pitchers like Chris Jones, Andrew Triggs, Parker Bridwell, Oliver Drake or Chris Lee. They would be lost to the organization almost certainly.

I am not sure I see the upside potential in Odrisamer Despaigne that the Orioles envision. His career numbers so far are 9-16 with a 4.74 ERA. But they recently put in the effort to get him, so he is more likely to stay. I would be glad to see him gone simply so I don’t have to remember how to spell his name.

It would seem to me that the most vulnerable pitcher is Chaz Roe. I’ve written him off before, never believing he would ever see Baltimore. But he did, and he pitched decently well. He was 4-2 with a 4.14 ERA in 41 innings. And as is true of many relievers, if you take out the one or two really bad outings where they were left on the field to get the third out no matter how long it took, the stats would look a lot better.

But I am thinking Mr. Roe will be gone before long and likely with another franchise, though it is not inconceivable that he ends up back with the Orioles. There appear to be a lot of roads that circle back to Baltimore these days.

On the position player side of things, there is not much leeway for maneuvering. As above, there are young players the Orioles are not going to part with.

Again, repeating the paragraph above about Despaigne, I don’t see tremendous upside in Efren Navarro, but they didn’t just get him recently to quickly pass him off … not that such things don’t happen.

The Orioles could drop down to only two catchers and take off Francisco Pena. Depth can be addressed later to cover for this loss. His career batting average in the minors is but .238.