40-man Postseason Player Pool

[Otto von Ballpark]

So I had thought that postseason rosters would work the same this year as in past seasons, just with an eligibility cutoff date of Sep. 15 instead of Aug. 31. Any player in the org on those dates was eligible to be included on a postseason roster (although players added to the 40-man after those dates would technically need to take the place of a corresponding player who served a full IL stint).

 

But reading news around the league, apparently teams are starting to submit something called a "40-man postseason player pool." This is NOT simply the 40-man roster, but any non-40-man players included in the pool would need to be added to the 40-man before they could play in the postseason (probably at the expense of 40-man players who are not included in this pool).

 

Here's an example of this 40-man postseason player pool from the Phillies:

 

https://thatballsouttahere.com/2020/09/21/phillies-postseason-player-pool/

 

 

The Phillies also included a few players who are not currently on their 40-man roster. In addition to the recently designated infielder Ronald Torreyes, catcher Jonathan Lucroy, infielder Nick Maton and outfielder Mikie Mahtook are also on the list. There are also four players who are currently on the Phillies’ 40-man roster who were not included in the postseason player pool; meaning, if the Phillies want to add any of these four, look for any of the following to be designated for assignment: Victor Arano, Cole Irvin, Mauricio Llovera, and Cristopher Sanchez.

 

Also notably, top prospect Wander Franco is going to be included in the Rays 40-man postseason player pool, although he's not yet being placed on the 40-man roster and the Rays beat writer says he is unlikely to play for the Rays this year.

 

With this in mind, I wonder what the Twins 40-man postseason player pool might look like? Kirilloff and Balazovic are popular non-40-man roster name to include -- both have to be added to the 40-man roster in November anyway. Lewis and Larnach would be longer shots, it seems.

 

Could any 40-man roster guys be left off? Smeltzer, Thorpe, Astudillo?

 

FWIW, the postseason roster will be 28 players, plus a 29th player (catcher who can play in case another catcher goes on the 7-day concussion IL). The roster is reset just before each series -- so we could add an extra reliever after the first "wild card" round, for example.