The problem with putting a ton of prospects on the 40 man is that we then do not have enough MLB ready players on the roster to field a competitive MLB team.
So far this season we have used eleven rookies. We have three kids...Jones,, Vargas, and Arias on the roster who are not MLB ready, but who take up spots.. Seven of the eleven are on the roster now...and we are seeing the results. Most of them are simply not ready.
Thats more than a third of our 40 man. Add another seven or eight that are unlikely to be ready next year and you can see the problem.
Lets say that we want to keep our young SPs....Mejia, TMac, Hentges, Morgan, Quantrill, Allen, and Vargas. Lets say we want to keep our Big Three.
Lets say we want to keep Clase, Karinchak, Stephan, Nelson, Sandlin, and Garza.
Thats 16 pitchers out of twenty spots.
Its easy to say that we can easily dump the vet relievers to make room for more kids, but who pitches next year for Cleveland? The pen would be a disaster by June.
The position spots are in the same situation.
Two MLB catchers, no matter who they are. JRam, Reyes, Bradley, JRam, Amed, Gimenez, Jones, Arias, Harold, Naylor, Miller, Clement. Thats 14 position players, only ten of which will have significant PT in MLB.
Again, its easy to say that we can dump the rest of the vets, like Luplow, and fill the roster with kids.
But that would be a non competitive roster.
Thats 12 spots...eight position and four pitchers that could conceivably be added, if we wanted to lose 100 games. The idea that we can just plug in a bunch of kids and they will be competitive immediately should have been dispelled by what we have seen the last few years.
Not one young position player has hit the ground running since maybe Lindor. Not one SP since Plesac and Civale. The pen had better success with Karinchak, Clase, and maybe Sandlin, if he continues.
We can't go into next season without some veteran relievers and position players in addition to the above list. And we can't have a 40 man with a third of the players having little to no MLB experience.
Well, we can protect everybody and dump the 'junk' players, if we want to finish near the bottom.