Rays Rosterize the Bulls; More Moves Likely

First a little housekeeping. Infielder Daniel Robertson has gone on the DL, likely for the injury he sustained Saturday night. See comments about that here. Cameron Seitzer, who has been on and off the roster a lot this year, is back on. Second, as regular readers know, we here at WDBB are far from expert on how the business of baseball really works.

On to the big news ...

The Tampa Bay Rays dealt away three players from their 25-man roster for just one major leaguer, and he's on the disabled list. A good summary article is in the Tampa Bay Times. Dealt were two former Bulls. Lefty Matt Moore is off to the Giants. He remains on my list as the best pitcher I've ever seen at the DBAP (pre-Tommy John). Brandon Guyer is off to the Cleveland Indians. And a player who likely played in the DBAP along the way, but in a Scranton/Wilkes-Barre or Indianapolis uniform, Steven Pearce. He's going to Baltimore and will likely have an impact on the Tides' roster.

Not one of the five minor leaguers the Rays received in the trade appears to be Triple-A ready.

Impact on the Bulls:

• Taylor Motter, who was just named International League Batter of the Week, was called up last night.
• Reliever Ryan Garton was also called back up, his third call-up this year.
• That leaves Richie Shaffer and Hank Conger as the only position players left on the Rays' 40 man roster.
• The Rays have three players on the DL and what appears to be a couple of vacancies on their 40-man. So we can guess that at least one more player is going to Tampa Bay, but possibly not Richie Shaffer.
• There are a couple of players on the Montgomery roster we've seen before. We might be seeing at least one of them.
• The Rays have a hole in their starting pitcher lineup, but will likely use former Bull Matt Andriese for the short term.
• Bulls pitchers on the 40-man: Jacob Faria, Steve Geltz, Danny Farquhar, and Tyler Sturdevant. All except Faria have seen some time with the Rays this year.

Bottom line: Probable near-term damage to the Bulls hopes for 2016.