Five Septemeber Call-Ups and the PTBNL Revealed?

For some reason the September call-ups are always a moderately well-anticipated event in the baseball season.  Why it generates so much excitement is beyond me, especially for the Angels who are contending and have great depth, thus their September call-ups almost never make an impact (Franky Rodriguez being the outlier).  Nonetheless, let’s take a look at the five players the Angels called up and how they might very well have revealed who the player to be named later in the Kazmir trade is:

• Sean O’Sullivan – Sully is back already, but don’t expect to see much of him.  For all intents and purposes, O’Sullivan is the emergency starter should someone suffer an injury.  Otherwise, he’ll get some mop-up work as the last man in the bullpen.  I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if he never actually gets into a game.
• Rich Thompson – Chopper has been killing it in Triple-A with a 3.12 ERA and 51 Ks in 43.1 innings pitched.  However, that success hasn’t carried over to the majors this year where he has a 5.40 ERA and 1.80 WHIP over 16.2 innings.  He should get a little bit of work whenever the Angels are trailing or winning big, but if he impresses he could earn a bigger role, though the way he has been used earlier in the season seems to indicate that Mike Scioscia doesn’t have a whole lot of faith in him.
• Reggie Willits – Good ol’ Reggie Willits is back… again.  He’ll serve as the Angels’ fifth outfielder and top pinch-runner, though he could pick up a few spot starts here and there if Mike Scioscia ever gets tired of Gary Matthews striking out looking all the time.
• Bobby Wilson – So much for Wilson being the PTBNL.  His getting call up rules him out.  Wilson will be the third catcher for the Angels, allowing Mike Scioscia to feel more comfortable about using Mike Napoli as a pinch-hitter in games where Jeff Mathis starts, but if history is any indicator, Wilson probably won’t get a single start this year and probably not even an at-bat either.
• Brandon Wood – No, this is not the long awaited fulfillment of the Free Brandon Wood campaign.  Woody is around strictly to provide infield depth.  At best, he’ll give Chone Figgins a day or two off the rest of the year and get a start at first base against tough lefties.  Consistent playing time will once again have to wait until next year… or the year after that… or the year after that.

But who’s missing?  Rafael Rodriguez definitely is.  Since he was just demoted the other day, he needs to stay down for 10 days (I think) before he can be recalled, which he almost certainly will with the Angels scouring everywhere for bullpen help.  But the elephant in the room (or in this case NOT in the room) is the other Rodriguez- Sean.

Despite a tremendous season in the minors (.299 AVG, 29 HR, 1.017 OPS), S-Rod is a curious omission from the September call-ups and it certainly seems to indicate the he is the PTBNL in the Kazmir trade.  The good folks at FutureAngels.com made a great find, unearthing an old rule that a PTBNL cannot play in the same league as the team he is headed to in the future.  That means Rodriguez is prohibited from playing in the American League at all the rest of the year in order to avoid a conflict of interest.

It is entirely possible the Angels simply decided they didn’t want Sean yet, but given his defensive versatility, I find it hard to believe they wouldn’t want him on the roster.  There is the possibility that he is remaining in Salt Lake through the end of the minor league season, which ends September 7th, just so the Bees aren’t totally short-handed.  But if he doesn’t join the big league club after that, well, he better start apartment hunting in the Tampa area ASAP

If it proves true that S-Rod is the PTBNL, then it looks like the Kazmir trade just got a whole lot better for the Rays.  I think S-Rod, Torres and Sweeney is still a fair deal for the Halos given that Kazmir is so young and under contract through at least 2011.  Still, Angel prospect fans are bound to be a little pissed off, but really they shouldn’t be.  The Angels can’t find a spot for Brandon Wood as it is, and they sure as heck don’t have a role for Sean Rodriguez either.  While he has loads of potential, Rodriguez simply doesn’t have a clear career path with the Angels, making him superfluous to the team.  To be honest, I don’t know that the Angels ever had big plans for him due to his big strikeout totals.  Instead the Angels finally managed to trade a prospect, one that they didn’t have plans for within their own organization, at the peak of his value for once.  That’s a deal they should make any day of the week and twice on Sunday.