In case you're wondering why the Red Sox have not officially put
Jackie Bradley, Jr. on the Opening Day roster, so is the rest of civilized humanity. Apparently, the odd contortions of the MLB roster system are delaying any final decision until as late as Sunday. Put simply (if that's possible), the first problem comes with
Ryan Sweeney. While the team has told the outfielder they will not be purchasing his contract, that reality will not become final until Sunday afternoon—when official rosters have to be submitted. Why? Only
God,
Scott Boras and
Bud Selig know—not necessarily in that order. Anyway, before the Sweeney thing is settled, Bradley can't grab a spot on either the 25- or 40-man rosters. We
think. In case this hasn't confused you enough, here's
John Farrell's 'explanation' of Bradley's status:
"Until it's official, yeah there would be a scenario, but that means someone's going to come who's already been sent out or we look to do something different. Again, we've got some things to get through over the next 48 hours. We're at the point where we're working through some final roster situations. We're at 40 currently, any changes to that are going to require a process to go through, so we're not at the final 25- or the final 40- yet.'' Thanks for clearing that up, John! Michael Silverman of the
Boston Herald speculates that
there are four roster moves the team could make by Sunday to free up a spot for The Phenom: cut either
Mauro Gomez,
Alex Hassan or
Daniel Butler or put
Franklin Morales on the 60-day DL. Come on, let's get this done!
