Solis may have another option year that I didn’t know about. Photo via Natsinsider blog/Mark Zuckerman
My internal notes have Sammy Solis as being a lock for the 2018 roster because he was Out of Options. In fact, this topic came up again recently in the comments when I posted quickie predictions of the opening day roster.
But, a posting today from MLB Trade Rumors doesn’t list him as being one of the Nationals’ “out of options” players, and a quick glance over at BP’s Roster Resource currently has Solis in the AAA team with an option remaining.
So, how did I have this wrong for so long?
Here’s the relevant transactions for Solis in his career related to options:
- Drafted in 2010
- Added to 40-man in Nov 2013 ahead of the 2013 Rule-5 draft.
- Spent the entire 2014 season in the Minors; option #1.
- Was up and down several times in 2015 season, including the entire month of June and again in August. Option #2.
- 2016; this is the iffy year because the first two option years are pretty clear. So Lets look at his 2016 movement. I use ESPN’s transaction list as reference: http://www.espn.com/mlb/team/transactions/_/name/wsh/year/2016
– March 14th: Solis optioned to AAA
– April 27th: Solis recalled from AAASo. A Minor league option is burned as per this quote: “When a player is optioned to the Minors for a span of more than 20 days, he loses an option.” This quote is as per http://m.mlb.com/glossary/transactions/minor-league-options3/14 to 4/27 is definitely more than 20 days, but honestly its about when the season starts. So in 2016, the Nats played their first game on April 4th. 4/4 to 4/27 is STILL more than 20 days.
So therefore, I had thought he burned an option in 2016. Just barely … but he did. Is “20 days” actually “20 GAMES?” Is that the distinction? I also know an option can be cancelled if a player is called back up for injury purposes; I notice that on that same day 4/27/16 the nats assigned Matt Belisle to the D/L … is this what cancelled Solis’ 2016 option? It might very well be.
Either that or he got a 4th option granted for some reason (his TJ surgery?).
Nonetheless, this options situation is great for the team in terms of roster flexibility … not so great for Solis, because he may very well be one of the 7 best relievers but now may be odd man out in April thanks to this roster quirk. But it does give us a bit of context to help do roster prediction analysis the rest of this spring…