Coonelly: Expect a Rule 5 move

Frank Coonelly took some questions from Pirate fans at the dot-com today. Most of it is your typical stuff, but I think this is interesting:

bucsin09: Frank, Thanks for the chat, as always. Does the fact that our 40-man roster is full mean we are ineligible to draft in the Rule 5 Draft next week?

Coonelly: No, bucsin09, we have the ability to make a roster move or two to give us an opportunity to select a player or players in the Rule 5 Draft. I fully expect us to be below 40 on our 40-man roster when we are in Las Vegas for the Rule 5 Draft.

Of course, it doesn’t mean we’re making necessarily making a Rule 5 pick, but it does mean one person is coming off the roster, probably by the end of the week. Jason Davis might be a good bet since he’ll likely be non-tendered anyways. As for who we’ll pick, well, Cory has a good rundown at Pirate Rev. Morlan seems like the obvious pick but I’m not sure he’ll be available.

If he’s not there we might pass, though Huntington may have his eye on someone else entirely. I’d guess a big-armed reliever (Brad Kilby or maybe Don Veal, who they’d try to hide in the’pen), maybe a guy like Igawa that could eat innings (though I don’t see that happening), or Chuck Lofgren (who’s from Cleveland and thus probably appealing to Huntington and as Greg Schuler noted a while back, may have been involved in the Jason Bay trade talks between the two clubs last winter).