I think it's quite possible. My comp for him a month or so ago was Thad Ward because they were both older guys without elite stuff performing pretty well in AA. Unlike Ward, though, Gambrell now at least has some proof of concept in AAA & I could easily see him picked up by another team if we leave him unprotected.
If Walter provides a depth role for a large market team, wouldn't that slide him into a more consistent role on a smaller market team? But to be able to use him, he would need to be on the 40. & he's already on the 40, so he would need to clear waivers to come off & wouldn't need to be on the Major League team all year like he would be as a Rule 5 pick.
Well no... he could be dropped off the 40-man and assigned to AAA (likely to accept) until there's a need to add him to the 40-man. He's also someone that other teams probably have a version of him that wouldn't require adding him to their 26-man. That said, I still don't quite understand the 40/26 man Rule V claim stuff so maybe I'm just flat out wrong here.
Once someone is on your 40-man roster, you cannot remove him from the 40-man roster without another team having the option to claim him. They can remove him from the 26-man roster & send him to AAA whenever they want because he still has options. If he did not have options, he would need to be made available to other teams in order to send him down.
Okay... so that's what I thought. So I'm basically saying that Walter gets dropped from the 40-man. Nobody is likely to claim him so he accepts the AAA assignment. If injuries, ineffectiveness, AND he's showing improvement in Worcester when he's needed. He has experience. It comes down to this- I don't see another team putting a claim in for him. He doesn't have the upside to be hidden at the back end of a 26-man roster and other teams are probably looking at similar players that they could be losing on their 40-man. I'm not worried about him being claimed or clogging up the 40-man. Meanwhile... Mata and Hernandez are both likely to be claimed IMO.
My point is he doesn't need to be kept on the 26-man roster if another team claims him for free. So if he's one of the other team's 40 best, there's not really any downside to claiming him. But regardless, I agree that it's a risk I'm willing to take, but I would at least inquire about seeing if anyone wants to trade for him, because if teams like him enough to trade something, even something negligible for him, they will also like him enough to pick him up for nothing.
Mata I would let slide, as exciting as his stuff is, he can't stop walking people.
Probably. Unless someone really wants Reese for some reason.
