The roster protection deadline came at 6:00 P.M. EST today and the Pirates made a couple of moves to get their 40-man roster in order. These moves are meant to protect players from becoming eligible for the upcoming Rule 5 Draft which will happen at the end of the Winter Meetings in Nashville at the beginning of December. On Sunday, my colleague Jim walked us through the Rule 5 eligible players and what he expected the team to do(4 out of 5 doctors agree that you cannot contract the #RosatiCurse by clicking on links to Jim’s work). Jim and DiNardo also spent some time on the most recent Starbucs discussing what they felt would happen at the roster protection deadline. Click the link to view the entire show or watch the clip about only the Rule 5 discussion in the below video.

Well, that should be enough setup. We’ll now get to the actual moves that happened. The team selected RHP Braxton Ashcraft and INF Tsung-Che Cheng to the 40-man roster. This brings the 40-man roster to 39 players. With the additional spot, there was some speculation that they would also select Jase Bowen. If you watched the above clip you know that it was others speculating this. NS9 got it completely correct. Leaving a spot open may be indicative of a signing being imminent. Possibly Andrew McCutchen? We’ll certainly be keeping an eye on it.