Normally, you would put your star 1B on the Bereavement List and use your hot prospect to replace him at the Major League level.

The star 1B must be on the list for at least 3 days, no more than 7. During this time, your star 1B does *NOT* count against your 25-man roster...but he *DOES* count against your 40-man.

Since your 40-man is full, this is no longer an option for you.


However, if this is such a serious family emergency that the player wants to leave the team, you could always put him on the RESTRICTED list. The restricted list acts as an unpaid leave for the player, during which he does not count against the 25-man or 40-man roster.

The only problem with this is the fact that the commissioner has to approve a player being designated on the restricted list.

Oh, and if it gets approved after all, of course you'd have to re-negotiate his contract at the end of the season to appease him for that time lost! But you would get around your little problem!

Take one of the 15 contracted players on optional assignment in the minor leagues, preferably some not good or would have a great chance of staying in the minors until september call ups and designated him for assingment. This take him off the forty man roster and thus the 1B prospect can be added to the 40 man roster and called up. Since the star 1B may be out for a week the team can trade the DFA player, release the DFA player, or if the star 1B comes back on the seventh day they can place the DFA player on waivers. If that player clears waivers he has to be placed on a minor league team.

The Restricted list first comes to mind in regards to players involved with substance abuse, leaving the club without permission, or a visa issue. You need the commissioner's approval however, you didn't mention what kind of family emergency so it's a toss up. wife, immediate family, inlaws are included but as Xavier Nady sure knows, birth of a child does not(but he sure has a story to tell for the little guy when they get older). I know the Restricted list is usually used for long term ordeals like Spiezio's meltdown a year ago, but there are cases of shortterm too... and the first baseman would not affect the 40man roster so you could call up the young gun in AAA and give him a shot.

So the Restricted List is my answer

Since it is at least 4 days and possibly a week, I will go with placing the star player on the Bereavement List to miss the Minimum 3 games to a maximum 7 games (who knows, maybe they have a game or two off in the middle of the week, allowing him possible extra time off). After placing him on the bereavement list, designate for assignment one of the 15 players on the 40 Man roster who isn't on the 25 man roster. It would help to designate a player who has not been designated before, to prevent them from not approving. Then purchase the contract of the hot 1b from the minor league team to the major league team, and place him on the active 25 man roster since the Star 1B is no longer on the active roster.

Place the star 1B on the bereavement list.
Designate for assignment the worst player from your 40 man roster.
Place AAA 1B on the 25 & 40 man rosters.
When star 1B comes back, send the AAA 1B back down to minimize his games played at the pro level.

You can't use the bereavement list more then once per player per season. Since it seems he has already had one of these he was probably already listed there for the first time. So here is how I would do this if and only if it is to be 7 days or less.

I would add the Hot shot to the DFA which will automatically free his spot on both the 25- and 40man, but also issue a pull back. This will allow the placing team to pull back the player if he is claimed during the DFA process. While he is DFA I would pull up the hot shot, it and only if, he has not used all his options, which is not listed in the question. If he has options I would then add him to the 40 and 25 use him for the 7 days. Then when the player returns I would pull back the player to the 40 and 25, and return the minor league player (this will expend an option as he spent time on the 40 but sometimes you got to eat things like this.)

There are a couple of other options to look at if there situation is a little different but that would be my plan of attack.

Some great great stuff in here. Here is how it ideally should be handled:

You would place the star 1B on the bereavement list since it is made especially for this situation (I tried hinting at this in the situation). You then designate for assignment a guy on your 40 man roster who probably won't fit into your organization's future (or who is expendable, although you might arrange for a quick trade for some prospects to be named later). You then call up the stud prospect 1B and give him a week in the majors to see how he performs. If he performs well, he might catch the eyes of a team needing a 1B. Who knows, in the right situation you could fill some weak points in your team's lineup with this move with a trade later on?!

There were some good suggestions outside of that, but based upon this answer both bryan_05 and goallout13 are definite winners. HechticSooner gets the other point for a marginally better answer than the others. At least two more questions tomorrow, both will be of a similar mold at this one!

Standings
goallout13 - 2 points
kwrichardson, HechticSooner, bryan_05 - 1 point

How is that the ideal way to handle it? My solution solves the problem without having to ever lose any players.

Your setup notes that your 40-man is full, hinting at the need for a way around that.

It's easy to say "oh, I'll just get rid of an expendable player", but you're pulling that out of thin air.

I thought this would be a rather fun, imaginative contest, I guess I was mistaken.

Very disappointing.