Padres Down To 28 Candidates For The Final Roster

The Padres made some cuts yesterday. Rule 5 pick Patrick Schuster was put on waivers for the purpose of sending him back to the Arizona Diamondbacks, but was claimed by the Kansas City Royals. Two other players who were thought to be on the roster bubble, INF Ryan Jackson and UT Alex Castellanos, were optioned to AAA. OF Alex Dickerson was reassigned to minor league camp (players not on the 40 man roster get reassigned instead of optioned). Meanwhile non-roster invitees Alberto Gonzalez, Blaine Boyer, Tony Sipp and Kevin Quackenbush were told they would not make the final roster. Once you account for the players about to go on the DL, Josh Johnson, Casey Kelly, Joe Wieland and Cameron Maybin, that gets you down to 28 players for 25 roster spots. Here are those final 28:

The "on the bubble" note is my own take (although not a very debatable one) and notes that these players are candidates for the final roster spots, while the others not noted as such will be on the final roster. That makes 7 players fighting for 4 roster spots. The other notes are facts. Rene Rivera is out of options and will have to clear waivers if the Padres to be sent to the teams' minor league club. Matt Wisler and Xavier Nady are not on the 40 man roster, but with Schuster going to the Royals there is an open spot on that roster.

Even though I have listed Donn Roach as "on the bubble", there does not appear to be any competition with him for the 12th spot in the bullpen. Wisler and Erlin are the two candidates for the 5th rotation spot. That leaves 2 position player roster spots for the remaining 4 players. Tommy Medica, Xavier Nady and Kyle Blanks do approximately the same thing: they bat right handed and to vary degrees can play in the outfield. To me that makes it likely that only one of them makes the final roster spot making Rene Rivera the guy to get the final nod. On top of that the Padres acquired a AAA catcher, Adam Moore, today from the Royals, which would signal that they needed more depth there presumably because the AAA team would be without Rivera.