The Pittsburgh Pirates hired Clint Hurdle as their new manager today, a move which they are expected to announce in a press conference tomorrow. That announcement is just the start of what will be a busy week, not just for the Pirates, but for Major League Baseball. A quick look at the Off-Season Calendar gives us the important dates:
-Tuesday marks the beginning of the two-day General Manager’s meetings. If you’re wondering what will be going on at the meetings, Newsday’s Ken Davidoff has a primer. In short, the General Managers get together and discuss topics such as rule changes or salary arbitration figures (the upcoming CBA will be a big topic this year). The meetings also provide an opportunity for all of the GMs to meet, face to face, to discuss potential trades. Don’t expect many big moves this week, but expect a ton of rumors, mostly surrounding players who might be on the trading block.
-Wednesday is the start of the two-day owner’s meetings. That should focus heavily on the 2011 Collective Bargaining Agreement.
-Friday is the deadline for teams to set their 40-man rosters in order to protect players for the upcoming Rule 5 draft. In the last week we’ve learned that a few Pirates prospects, who were previously believed to be Rule 5 eligible, won’t have to be protected this year. As for the players who will need to be protected, we will be doing a feature on that later in the week, focused not only on players who need to be protected, but also players who could be removed from the 40-man roster to make room.
The deadline to set the rosters is midnight Friday night. After that point in time, teams won’t be able to add any internal players to the 40-man roster for the remainder of the off-season, although players can be removed from the 40-man roster. Expect some minor moves, not just with the Rule 5 shuffling, but also with potential waiver claims. The Pirates have first dibs on anyone who is placed on waivers this off-season, and a lot of players will be passing through waivers this week. Last year the Pirates added Chris Jakubauskas at this time. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see them grab someone off the waiver wires in the middle of their roster shuffling.
