The non-waiver trade deadline was last week. The Colorado Rockies did nothing. This was surprising to many baseball writers and talking heads – not to mention infuriating to many Rockies fans – because teams in the Rockies’ position (namely: well out of contention) are usually anxious to turn present assets into future ones that can provide value at a more useful time (namely: a season in which the team can play meaningful games deep into the summer).

But the Front Office stood pat. Not only are the likes of Troy Tulowitzki and Carlos Gonzalez still around, but guys like Brett Anderson, Jorge De La Rosa, and LaTroy Hawkins remain, as well. The team is stating publicly its desire to pick up team options on Anderson and Hawkins, and taking steps to ensure that De La Rosa remains for at least one more year, as well. Why? Because the Front Office believes the team can contend next year with the players it already has.

Maybe the idea of fielding a completive team in 2015 is pure lunacy and maybe it’s healthy optimism, but even if you tend to believe it’s the latter – as I actually do myself – it’s still difficult to understand how standing pat at the trade deadline made much sense. I’m not even talking about the players mentioned above – the big names. I’m glad the Rockies’ have seemingly committed to keeping the core of its lineup and what’s left of its rotation together for at least one more season. But there were other opportunities forgone last week, and even regardless of the intrinsic baseball value of the players the Front Office choose not to trade, and regardless of whether or not the team would have received equal baseball value in return, there are a couple of compelling reasons to have moved several players.

One of those compelling reasons is pure dollars and cents. In this space last week, I broke down the difficulties the Rockies will face this offseason from a payroll perspective. Without even adding any veteran free agents, the Rockies’ total salary obligations will increase substantially because of raises due existing players under escalating contracts (most notably: Tulo and Cargo), as well as to several players in, or just entering, their salary arbitration years. Unless team ownership raises the payroll budget substantially from an already-record high amount in 2014, it simply will not be able to keep the current group together even if it wants to. Trading some of our expensive/soon-to-be-expensive non-essential players – I mentioned guys like Drew Stubbs and Wilin Rosario in particular – would have been a great way to ease that budget pressure and/or free up those resources to use elsewhere.

Another compelling reason to have made a trade or three is the pending roster crunch, and that is the topic I’d like to explore further today. Many fans know that teams are limited to 25 men on an active roster. Fewer fans know there is another roster, a 40-man roster, that is just as relevant, and fewer still are familiar with all of its associated rules. For example, just this past week we lost Ryan Wheeler to the Angels after he was cut from the 40-man roster and put on waivers. I don’t pretend to be qualified to teach a course of this subject (please click here if you’re interested), but there are really only a few key concepts to understand for purposes of the discussion today.

Here’s a quick primer (skip the next two paragraphs if you already know this stuff): The 40-man roster is made up of the 25 players on the active roster plus up to 15 additional players that are playing in the minors (mostly in AA or AAA) or are on the 15-day disabled list (the one you hear about most often). Whenever a team calls up one its minor leaguers to the big club, it must make room for that player on the 40-man roster if he isn’t on there already. Once a player is on that 40-man roster, the team may, subject to many complex limitations, remove him from the active roster and demote him back to the minors, but it cannot remove him from the larger 40-man roster without risk of losing him to another team through the waiver process. The only way a team can remove a player from the 40-man roster without risk of losing him is if that player is injured and placed on the longer 60-day disabled list. That essentially gives team “extra” 40-man roster spots, but after every season, even if a player is still injured, he most be moved back onto the regular 40-man roster. So, in other words, those extra 60-day disabled list spots vanish.

There is one more key point to understand for this discussion: the Rule 5 Draft. Not to be confused with the Rule 4 Draft, which is the standard amateur baseball draft that occurs each June, the Rule 5 draft was created to prevent teams from hoarding too many good players in their minor league systems – players that are already good enough to be playing for some other team at the highest level. It helps “spread the wealth” so to speak. After a player has been playing in the minor league a certain number of years (which varies – again, the rules are quite complex), that player becomes eligible to be poached by another team so long as the player is put on the poaching team’s active roster and kept there. The Rule 5 Draft, which happens at the beginning of each offseason, is how the Rockies got Tommy Kahnle (Joke’s on you, Yankees!) The only way a team can assure itself that its best minor leaguers won’t be poached is by adding those players to the 40-man roster. Because of this, several of them are added to the 40-man roster right after the World Series each year, even if the team doesn’t have any expectation of actually playing them at the major league level the following season.

So, here’s where the Rockies 40-man roster stands right now, along with the five injured players on the 60-day disabled list:

Adam Ottavino – Active

Boone Logan – Active

Brandon Barnes – Active

Brett Anderson – Active

Carlos Gonzalez – Active

Charlie Blackmon – Active

Charlie Culberson – Active

Corey Dickerson – Active

DJ LeMahieu – Active

Drew Stubbs – Active

Franklin Morales – Active

Jason Pridie – Active

Jorge De La Rosa – Active

Josh Rutledge – Active

Justin Morneau – Active

LaTroy Hawkins – Active

Matt Belisle – Active

Michael McKenry – Active

Nick Masset – Active

Nolan Arenado – Active

Rex Brothers – Active

Tommy Kahnle – Active

Tyler Matzek – Active

Wilin Rosario – Active

Yohan Flande – Active

Ben Paulsen – Minors

Brooks Brown – Minors

Chad Bettis – Minors

Chris Martin – Minors

Christian Friedrich – Minors

Cristhian Adames – Minors

Eddie Butler – Minors

Jackson Williams – Minors

Jayson Aquino – Minors

Juan Nicasio – Minors

Kraig Sitton – Minors

Kyle Parker – Minors

Rob Scahill – Minors

Rosell Herrera – Minors

Troy Tulowitzki – 15-Day DL

Christian Bergman – 60-Day DL

Jhoulys Chacin – 60-Day DL

Jordan Lyles – 60-Day DL

Michael Cuddyer – 60-Day DL

Tyler Chatwood – 60-Day DL

The first roster crunch will come when Bergman, Lyles, and Cuddyer come off the 60-day disabled list. Lyles will be activated on Wednesday, Bergman is on a rehab assignment and will be activated himself soon thereafter. Cuddyer has started hitting off of a tee and will begin his own rehab assignment in a couple weeks. This means three players will be kicked off the 40-man and exposed to waivers. Some of them are players one could fairly deem “expendable.” My best guess is that Pridie, then Scahill, and then Friedrich end up getting bumped when Lyles, Bergman, and then Cuddyer come back (with Pridie subjected to waivers, and Barnes and Flande remaining on the 40-man but demoted to AAA).

While having competent starting pitchers like Flande, and reliable defensive backstops like Williams readily available is more valuable that it might seem, potentially losing players of this caliber certainly isn’t a franchise-crusher. However, is a second roster crunch coming soon thereafter, when Tyler Chatwood and Jhoulys Chacin need to be added back, and when several of our most promising prospects need to be added for the first time. Assuming the Rockies are being forthright when stating their plans to bring Anderson, De La Rosa, and Hawkins back next year; and assuming free agents Matt Belisle, Franklin Morales, and Nick Massett aren’t resigned, I count the following 29 players as being certainties for the 40-man roster (baring trades, of course):

Adam Ottavino

Boone Logan

Brandon Barnes

Brett Anderson

Carlos Gonzalez

Chad Bettis

Charlie Blackmon

Christian Bergman

Corey Dickerson

Cristhian Adames

DJ LeMahieu

Drew Stubbs

Eddie Butler

Jayson Aquino

Jhoulys Chacin

Jordan Lyles

Jorge De La Rosa

Josh Rutledge

Justin Morneau

Kyle Parker

LaTroy Hawkins

Michael McKenry

Nolan Arenado

Rex Brothers

Rosell Herrera

Tommy Kahnle

Troy Tulowitzki

Tyler Matzek

Wilin Rosario

There are three prospects I feel are locks (or at least near-locks) to be added for Rule 5 draft protection:

Tyler Anderson

Ryan Casteel

Dan Winkler

Dan Winkler’s injury status certainly make him less likely to be selected, but he would be allowed to sit on the poaching team’s disabled list for all but 90 days of the 2015 season, meaning it couldn’t be ruled out, and given the Rockies’ need to take every shot the team can at producing a quality young starting pitcher, I doubt they take even a small risk on Winkler.

So that leaves only 8 spots – but really it will be fewer than 8 based on the number of free agents the team signs; it’s hard to imagine they’ll sign none. We should expect to lose at least five of the following players.

• Dustin Garneau – Garneau is a potential additional Rule 5 protection. He’s a defensive catcher in AAA and, if not protected, could be poached to be some other team’s backup next year. He’d be a great depth option for the Rockies if he’s still around.

• Charlie Culberson – Culberson is having a horrible year at the plate, and will never be a starting-calliber player, but nobody thinks his current results represent his true talent level either. And while he isn’t a defensive star at any position, he’s turned himself into a jack-of-all-trades sort that is often handy to have at the end of the bench.

• Ben Paulsen – Paulsen is never likely to hit enough to star in this league– the offensive bar is just set too high for first basemen . But he’s probably the best option the Rockies have at that position after Morneau, and his late blooming this year suggests there may remain just a smidgen of upside left to his game.

• Brooks Brown –A couple bad outings have marred his stat line – and those bad outings count, of course. He’s clearly not the next coming of Mariano Rivera. But for just a moment there, Brown looked like the best relief pitcher in the organization.

• Chris Martin – Martin, like Brown, has seen a couple bad outings tarnish is stat line. Also like Brown, he’ll probably be called upon again to provide relief innings. Every team needs guys like this stashed in AAA.

• Jackson Williams – Williams is currently 3rd catcher in our depth chart. He’s very limited offensively, but provides good defense.

• Juan Nicasio – A tough call. Cutting Nicasio could save the team a key couple of million dollar, and at this point, it’d be hard to make a case that Nicasio should be on the Opening Day roster next year. However, it could really come back to haunt the Rockies if he succeeds in making the transition to reliever, a role in which he profiles quite well.

• Kraig Sitton – Sitton, a relief pitcher, was added to the 40-man last November to protect him from the Rule 5 Draft. His main virtue is his left-handedness, something the Rockies don’t have a lot of in the system.

• Michael Cuddyer – The Front Office has said it wants to resign Cuddyer after this season, but between his injury and the emergence of Corey Dickerson, I have a hard time believing that will happen – not because of any 40-man roster implications, but simply because he’s become a poor fit on the roster and in the team’s budget. However, if he IS resigned, that’s one fewer 40-man roster spot, as well.

• Tyler Chatwood – Perhaps the toughest case of all. His second Tommy John surgery means he wont’ pitch next year or maybe ever again. It may be difficult for the team to justify paying Chatwood an arbitration-level salary to do nothing but rehab for a year, but he flashed the ability to be a great starting pitcher, and the Rockies simply can’t get their hands on enough of those kind of players.

Each of these guys are flawed in some way – be it limited upside, injury status, expense, or basic on-field performance – but each also offers his own sort of baseball value, as well. One of the less obvious negative consequences of the team not making any trades last week – of not exchanging players like Stubbs, Rosario, for pre-40-man roster prospects – is that we’ll end up losing more of the players in the list above than we otherwise would have, even if the payroll is raised high enough for money to become a non-issue. Again, while these players on the bubble are not all-stars, having roster spots available to stash MLB-ready players in AAA is no small thing, as the Rockies injury-riddled 2014 season has shown all too well. Stubbs and Rosario both have value themselves, sure, but they are redundant and ill-fitting on this particular team, and keeping them around represents an opportunity cost this team cannot afford. The Rockies limited resources – including roster spots – should be used more wisely.