The 40 Man Roster In OOTP

Something you should know about

The 40 Man Roster In OOTP

I tend to play OOTP the wrong way.

Instead of spending time learning about concepts and devising a strategy, my approach is usually to jump in and mess around.

And it can get you in a big mess.

You need to learn how the 40 man roster works in game — and in real life, for that matter. Once you understand how to effectively manage the 40 man roster, you can make moves that will actually benefit your team in the long run.

So let’s take a look at how the 40 man roster works, starting with the rules in real life.

First of all, you’ve got your basic Major League roster. This was a 25 man roster for years, going back to the 1910s (with the exception of the collusion years in the late 1980s, when it was restricted to only 24 men). It changed to a 26 man roster in 2021. This is also known as the “active roster.”

And then you’ve got the other roster, which is 40 players in all. This includes all players who are signed to a major league contract in any given organization. This includes:

• Players on the 10 day injured list

• Pitchers on the 15 day injured list

• Minor league players signed to a major league contract but on an “optional assignment” in the minors

Now, there are a few items to note here that impact how the 40 man roster can be strategically used.

First, players who are placed on the 60 day injured list are removed from the 40 man roster until their time on the injured list is over. This also applies to players who are suspended. In other words, if you’ve got an injured player taking up a roster spot, you can move him to the 60 day injured list to open up that spot for a different player.

Keep in mind, however, that you can’t move players off the 60 day injured list and back onto the 10 or 15 day injured list. You also can’t move players from the 60 day injured list to the active roster after August 1.

The other thing to take into consideration is the concept of an “optional assignment.” Each player has three “option years” in which he can be sent to the minors after being on the expanded roster. After those “option years” are used up, he has to go through the “designated for assignment” process before he can be removed from the 40 man roster.

“Designated for assignment” happens when you try to take a player off the 40 man roster. It means that the team must do one of the following with the player within 7 days:

• Return the player to the 40 man roster

• Place the player on waivers

• Trade the player

• Release the player

• Remove him outright from the 40 man roster and send him to the minors

Note that he’ll have to pass waivers (i.e. no club claims him off waivers) to allow you to “remove him outright.”

This is where the importance of the 40 man roster becomes clear. You don’t want to just move players around willy nilly and hope for the best. You actually need to manage the roster, and you need to make sure that you don’t include any players you don’t intend to play in the major leagues. You also need to make sure that you use the 40 man roster to protect your best minor league players, especially when they are eligible to be poached away in the Rule 5 Draft.

I’ll spare you my normal points about the monopolistic nature of all of this. I’ll just say that none of this would be necessary if there were actual competition between Major League Baseball teams.

OOTP does a good job of emulating the real life 40 man roster. The following categories of players must be placed on the 40 man roster:

• Players on the active roster

• Players with a major league contract (unless they’ve cleared waivers and are assigned to the minors)

• Any player you acquire by trade or waiver who was on the original team’s 40 man roster

This is where you can see why some good players might clear waivers. If the other teams in the league simply have no room for that player, they might decide against the waiver price even if he’s clearly talented and has room left to grow.

There are two other reasons why you might want to put minor league players on the 40 man roster:

• To protect them from the Rule 5 Draft

• To prevent players from minor league free agency (usually after 6 years of minor league service time)

Note as well that minor league players placed on the secondary roster are considered to be on an “optional assignment” as described above. They’ve only got 3 of those optional years, so use them wisely.

Basically, if you’re going to be optimal, you want to limit the 14 minor league slots on your 40 man roster to players who meet the following criteria:

• Good players in their first or second season who need some development time in the minors

• Players on the cusp of becoming major leaguers who would otherwise be eligible for the Rule 5 Draft

And that’s really about it. If you’ve got a player who doesn’t have a chance of hitting the major leagues, don’t worry about potentially losing him. You should also honestly ask yourself if players who are on the verge of being major league quality wouldn’t be better served by filling some sort of utility role with the major league club.

Remember, too, that you can only obtain players through the Rule 5 Draft if you’ve got 40 man roster slots open. In other words, there are reasons why you might not want to fill up all 40 slots with players.

It’s a confusing concept, but it can be mastered.

Keep in mind that OOTP will make roster change in real time. Make sure that you sketch things out on a spreadsheet or piece of paper before you start moving players around. Otherwise, you might find yourself with players on the 40 man roster who refuse to go back down to the minors.