The Countdown to Desmond Jennings

It's a slow day and I'm not feeling terribly inspired, so I figured I'd track out Desmond Jennings' service time. We're starting to hit the Super Two cutoff, and many teams are calling up their top prospects, so when can we expect to see Jennings?

The rules around Super Two eligibility are a bit confusing, so let me try and simplify them. For a player to become eligible for Super Two status -- in short, becoming eligible for arbitration one year earlier -- they must finish with more than 128-140 days of service time. Players accumulate service time each day that they are on a team's 25-man roster, meaning you don't want to call your top prospects up until you're sure they will be on your 25-man roster for fewer than 140 days.

With that in mind...

• Super Two cutoff: 128-140 days
• Service Days Left in 2011 Season: ~115 days
• Desmond Jennings' Current Service Time: 33 days
• Brandon Guyer's Current Service Time: 2-3 days

If the Rays want to be extra certain that Jennings won't be Super Two eligible, they can call him up Monday, June 27th and he'll only finish the year with around 129 service days. The very, very earliest the Rays could call him up would be in 8 days -- around the beginning of the series against the Marlins next Friday -- but that's pushing the 140 days to its very limit.

That said, if Jenning isn't on the team by the first week in July, you'll be able to find me in the corner, bashing my head against the wall. 

And as for Brandon Guyer, the Rays can call him up at anytime now without risking Super Two status, so it seems like they must be keeping him down for developmental reasons. Arg.