CHICAGO – The Braves made a bunch of roster moves Friday, but Micah Johnson wasn’t one of them, despite early indications to the contrary.
In what team officials characterized as a miscommunication, a morning announcement of the day’s moves – additions to the expanded September roster – included a note that Johnson, a utility player currently at Triple-A Gwinnett, had been designated for assignment.
Being designated meant he’d been removed from the 40-man roster and might be traded or released.
The thing is, the move never happened. He wasn’t designated, which Johnson didn’t know when he saw it mentioned by someone on Twitter, assumed it was accurate and expressed surprise that he had found out that way.
The move would’ve been made to open a spot on the 40-man roster to add newly acquired catcher Tony Sanchez, whom the Braves got from the Angels in Thursday’s trade of veteran Brandon Phillips. But the Braves’ 40-man roster wasn’t filled, they didn’t need to open a spot for Johnson, and the move wasn’t made.
But it was announced, unfortunately for all parties involved. Turns out the move had been discussed a few days ago, in the event the Braves needed a roster spot. But it was never acted upon, major league baseball wasn’t notified, no paper work was filed, there were no repercussions.
Other than Johnson reading it on Twitter and wondering for a while Friday if he was looking for work again.
The Braves realized the mistake and notified Johnson, explaining to him that his status had not changed, that it was an unfortunate miscommunication that happened amid the machinations of September call-ups and Thursday’s trade, and that his name shouldn’t have been on the announcement.
For the record, the rest of the moves in the announcement did occur: relievers Luke Jackson and left-hander Ian Krol were activated from the disabled list, and third baseman Rio Ruiz and left-handers Rex Brothers and Max Fried were recalled from Triple-A.
