Orphan School - Lesson 2: The Roster

In a continuing series to help Orphan Team owners get up to speed...

See the BWB Rules about Rosters to cover this topic.  (a new tab/window will open)

There are 26 mandatory positions on your roster:

• 9 starting batters - covering all 8 fielder positions plus DH (any OF will do)
• 5 backup batters - fill in at a given position in a game if needed.  We'll talk bench on another day, but you want to cover all positions here, so multi-position guys are valuable.
• 5 starting pitchers - your starting rotation ordered 1-5
• 5 bullpen pitchers - the scoring formula outlines how many of these are needed in any game if your starting pitcher doesn't go 9 innings.
• 2 spot pitchers - If your scheduled starter doesn't have stats for a game, a spot starter will fill in from here.  You can also put a relief pitcher in here too who will fill in if any of your 5 bullpen guys don't have stats.

Those 26 slots can be filled by any player in the system, no matter their salary.
You also have 2 roster slots for the "Taxi Squad" and any player with any salary can go in these slots.  This is, in effect, our "disabled list" but you can put any player there - he doesn't have to be hurt.  However, his stats will never be used for a game (except for the last 3 weeks of the season, that's an exception for another time).

So you have 28 roster spots that can be filled by a player of any salary - 100-10000 (or whatever the top salary might be).

Side note: Injured Reserve is not your normal disabled list.  If you put a player on IR, you cannot remove him from there all year except if you cut or trade him.  You'd use that for some guy who wrecked his knee in April but you want him next year.  The IR spot does NOT count against your roster spots (so it basically gives you a 41st player if you use it).

Your final 12 roster spots are "minor league" slots.  And in BWB, our definition of minor league eligible is a player who has a salary of 250 or below.  So Matt Stairs just signed a minor league contract in real life and if he starts off there instead of the majors (and for some reason you have him), you still can't put him in your minor league slots - his salary is 408.  Think of these guys as "out of options" - you have to DFA them, you can't send them down...and in BWB that means if you want to get them out of an active spot you need to put them on IR (never to be used again this season), put them on Taxi Squad, or cut/trade them.

To help you out, there are some guides on your roster page.  Right above your player list, you'll see any warnings about your lineup and roster:

And below your roster list, there is a table that lets you know how you're set up on roster minimums and maximums - let's check it for a different team:

 

 The left side of this table shows the minimums.  This team has the minimum number of hitters - 14 - so if he cuts one, he'd need to pick up another to remain legal.  On the right side, we see roster maximums in relation to the number of hitters with salary over 250 you can have.  Your maximums are 16 hitters with salary 250 or higher and 14 pitchers at 250 or higher.  But then why doesn't the total add up to 30?  That's because in order to reach the maximum, you need to use the taxi squad slots, which are pitcher or hitter.  Your mandatory spots in the roster are 14 hitters, 12 pitchers (26 total).  Using the 2 taxi squad spots gets you 2 extra positions for players (now the total is 28) and all other roster spots - 12 total - are "minor league" slots.  

The team above can now only sign players who make salary 250 or below.

And - think about it - this roster is full on the major league side.  If this team signs a player with salary 100 now, but wants to use him in the starting lineup, there is no room - the 28 possible slots for players with salary 251 or higher are full - so in order to play the rookie, one of the higher-priced guys need to be dropped.