Anthony Alford finally got called up, Dalton Pompey didn’t
By Cam Lewis
5 years agoIt’s been two weeks after the Buffalo Bisons season ended and Anthony Alford was just placed on the Blue Jays’ roster today. Still hanging around in limbo, though, is Dalton Pompey, the only player currently on the 40-man roster who wasn’t added when the rosters expanded in September.
The Alford situation comes down to money and stopping him from becoming a Super 2 player and qualifying for arbitration. Shi Davidi broke it down today over at Sportsnet…
Typically, players require three full years of service time (172 days on the 25-man roster equals a full year) to qualify for arbitration, the process through which they escalate their earnings prior to free agency. But under the collective bargaining, the top 22 per cent of players between two and three years of service time qualify for arbitration a year early as a Super Two.Alford earned 68 days of service time last year and earlier this year picked up 24 when he opened the season on the disabled list, and then nine more during a brief call-up in May, pushing his total to 101.Had he been active all of September, he would have finished the year at 131 days, which could have opened the possibility of him becoming a Super Two player down the road if he breaks camp with the Blue Jays next year or is recalled early in April and sticks.If he’s activated on Monday, he’d add a maximum of 14 days to his total leaving him at 115 and likely comfortably clear of the threshold.
So that solves that issue. Now, what’s going on with Pompey?
The Canadian outfielder got a brief call-up back in May in which he had two hits over 11 plate appearances. He spent the majority of his season with Buffalo, but slashed a .272/.352/.418 line over multiple different minor league levels due to rehab assignments. That certainly isn’t bad but it isn’t where anybody thought Pompey would be at this stage of his career. The most damning thing for Pompey, it seems, was having a verbal run in with manager Bobby Meacham that resulted in the outfielder being suspended for multiple games.
He’s going to turn 26 years old in December and it’s become very clear the organization doesn’t view him as part of the future. Pompey will require waivers to be sent down in 2019 and will very likely be removed from the 40-man roster prior to the Rule 5 draft.
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