FanPost

Hypothetical Expansion and Protected Cardinals

Since it's the offseason and the offseason is the time for "what ifs," here is my random assignment for the VEB community:

In MLB history, there have been several expansion drafts. In the most recent of those drafts, the rule for protecting players was that each organization got to protect 35 players in their entire system for the first round (out of 3) of the draft. They then got to protect three more after the first round was over and three more (again) after the second round was over.

If a draft were occurring today, who would be the first 35 players you would protect in the Cardinals' organization? Who would be the first additional 3 and the last additional 3?

Category - Obvious - 21 players

Chris Carpenter

Jaime Garcia

Lance Lynn

Jason Motte

Fernando Salas

Eduardo Sanchez

Adam Wainwright

Shelby Miller*

Carlos Martinez*

Yadier Molina

Lance Berkman

Rafael Furcal

David Freese

Matt Holliday

Jon Jay

Carlos Beltran

Allen Craig

Kolten Wong*

Oscar Taveras*

Matt Adams*

Category - Probables - 14 players (35 total)

Mitchell Boggs

Maikel Cleto*

Kyle Lohse

Adam Reifer

Marc Rzepczynski

Tyrell Jenkins*

Jordan Swagerty*

Trevor Rosenthal*

Michael Blazek*

Tyler Greene

Daniel Descalso

Matt Carpenter*

Zack Cox*

Ryan Jackson

Category - Questionables

Brandon Dickson

Chuckie Fick

Samuel Freeman

Kyle McClellan

Adam Ottavino

JC Romero

Jake Westbrook

John Gast*

Joe Kelly*

Seth Blair*

Justin Wright*

Scott Gorgen*

Andres Serrano*

Boone Whiting

Tony Cruz

Bryan Anderson

Mark Hamilton

Pete Kozma

Skip Schumaker

Adron Chambers

Erik Komatsu

Shane Robinson

Charlie Tilson*

Robert Stock*

Tommy Pham

So, my Obvious category added to my Probably category gives us the first 35 players I would protect, personally. My next three and last three would be:

Next 3

Tommy Pham

Joe Kelly

Robert Stock

Last 3

Charlie Tilson

Scott Gorgen

Justin Wright


Note: italics mean on the 40-man roster and * means "top 20 prospect" according to stlouiscardinals.com - also non-italic and non * are players that aren't on the stlouiscardinals.com's "top 20" but ARE on future redbirds' "top 20"

YOUR THOUGHTS?