One of the few roster spots up for grabs when the Angels head into training camp next week is the utility infielder role. By all appearances the Angels want that role to go to Rule 5 pick Taylor Featherston. But does that mean it actually will go to Taylor Featherston?
Promising a year-long roster spot to an unproven prospect that some other franchise didn’t think highly enough to protect on their 40-man roster is a dicey proposition for a contending ballclub though. The Halos aren’t the Astros and can’t really afford to burn a roster spot to protect a future asset. If Taylor Featherston is going to make the Halos he’s going to have to do it on his own merits.
From a scouting report perspective, Featherston would appear to have a good shot at sticking with the Halos. He’s a good, but not great, fielder who can play shortstop, second base and third base. That counts for a lot in Anaheim because all their other options at second base are not all that good and generally poor fielders. He’s also really the only guy in camp that is capable of playing a competent shortstop (Eric Stamets is a non-roster invitee and defensive wizard, but isn’t really considered a viable option in the majors right now). Josh Rutledge and Grant Green do technically have shortstop experience, but the less said about their defensive prowess at short the better.
Taylor isn’t a glove-only player though, he should also have offensive value. He doesn’t profile as a high average hitter, but he should walk enough to not be an OBP sinkhole and probably has the most pop out of all the Angels middle infield options. Add that to his defensive profile and, on paper, he should be good enough to be a big league bench player. That doesn’t necessarily guarantee him a roster spot though.
The whole Rule 5-ness of Taylor Featherston is quite the complication. Jerry Dipoto places a high value on roster flexibility both in terms of defensive versatility and in terms of being able to shuttle a player between the majors and minors so that he can balance the roster for different situations throughout the year. Since the Angels can’t send Featherston to the minors without first offering him back to the Rockies, that impinges on Dipoto’s flexibility.
Perhaps there is a reason that over the last 10 years that 15 middle infielders have been taken in the Rule 5 draft and only five of those players ended up sticking with their big league club for that entire year. But those five that did stick show a pretty standard path for sticking.
Ryan Flaherty stuck with the Orioles in 2012 as a defensive specialist on an Orioles that was supposed to be bad but turned out to be good.
Marwin Gonzalez stuck with the Astros the same year. He was also a defensive specialist, but more importantly he was on a lousy team that didn’t care about burning the roster spot.
Michael Martinez was another defensive specialist that stuck, this time with the 2011 Phillies, a bad team that probably thought they were going to be good. I’m not sure a Rubem Amaro GM-ed club is really a proper data point though.
Everth Cabrera stuck with the Padres in 2009. You guessed it, another defensive specialist on a bad team.
The outlier is Dan Uggla landing on the 2006 Marlins. Uggla was certainly not a defensive specialist, but he hit his way onto a semi-competitive Fish roster.
As for Taylor Featherston, his glove is his best asset, but he doesn’t project to be so good defensively that he’d be considered a defensive specialist. Then again, we are talking in relative terms here. He doesn’t need to be a Gold Glover for the Halos, he just need to be better than Freese at third and better than the triumvirate of Quad-A players competing for the starting gig at second base.
Even then, the fact that the Angels are gunning for a World Series is going to work against Featherston. Carrying a decent glove that can’t hit just isn’t going to work for him. As much as there is thought to be promise in his bat, PECOTA projects him for a .233/.277/.360 slash line which just isn’t going to get the job done. ZiPS has him at .251/.296/.388 and Steamer at .252/.296/.388. That’s better, but is it better enough?
While it would be something of an aberration for a Rule 5 player like Taylor Featherston to stick with a team like the 2015 Angels, I think he has a better than 50/50 chance, at least right now. However, if some veteran like Jayson Nix suddenly gets a last minute non-roster invite from the Halos, Featherston’s odds drop like a rock. Say what you want about his tools, the fact that the Angels don’t really have any other option is the best thing that Featherston has going for himself.
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