Calling Up Top Prospects

Pedro Alvarez, Desmond Jennings and Carlos Santana have more in common than their status as top prospects. These guys are as cheap as they’ll ever be and their teams can control their future salaries by calling them up strategically. Just ask the Rays. Evan Longoria fell two days short of a full year of service time, which delayed his free agency by a year and GM Andrew Friedman went on to sign Longoria to one of the most team-friendly deals around. The team's decision to keep him in the minors for a couple weeks in April 2008 looks as prudent today as it looked cheap then. If teams wait until late April to call on a player without major league service time, they can save considerably. Players who make their big league debuts after April 19th (that’s Monday) this year won’t spend enough time on a major league roster to earn a full year’s service time, so their free agency will be pushed back a year.  If the Braves had called Jason Heyward up in late April, they could likel...