For those of you who haven't been following the situation here or at OnlyBucs, here's the situation. Starter Wardell Starling and reliever Jesse Chavez were left off the 40-man roster yesterday. When the news was reported, the Pirates' official website - the mouthpiece of the team - said that because of the new CBA rules, Starling and Chavez did not have to be protected.
Immediately, Wilbur Miller was at OnlyBucs saying that although the Pirates' website must be correct, he couldn't figure out how Starling and Chavez weren't eligible. Hours later, Starling and Chavez's names were removed from the article at the Pirates' website.
We'll see how this plays out, and perhaps there's some explanation for it that I haven't thought of. What appears to have happened, though, is that the Pirates' management couldn't or didn't bother to figure out the rules, and as a result, Chavez will almost certainly be gone in the Rule 5 draft and Starling will probably be gone too. Meanwhile, Miller, who is not an employee of Major League Baseball, was able to figure out that the Pirates probably needed to protect Starling and Chavez. He posted this information on the internet 22 minutes after the first article about the Pirates' roster was posted at the Post-Gazette.
If a non-professional can figure out what the rules are within 22 minutes, why the hell couldn't the Pirates? Chavez and Starling wouldn't be the biggest losses, but they are both far more worthy of protection than about ten players currently on the Pirates' 40-man. Anyway, time will tell whether there's some other explanation for this or - more likely - it's just more proof of the Pirates' stunning incompetence.