Claire Won’t Be Expansive With List

Fred Claire would like to make one thing clear: There is no expansion list.

Not yet.

With the arrival of the Arizona Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay Devil Rays next season, each existing major league team can protect only 15 of its players on its 40-man roster. The names of those 15 must be submitted in early November. After a team loses one player, it may then protect an additional three.

The contents of that list are naturally of a delicate nature. No team wants to have a player who was not taken and is sticking with the club to know he was not protected.

So Claire, generally tight-lipped when it comes to player personnel matters anyway, will be guarding this list with his life.

“That list will be my responsibility,” he said. “I will determine that list. I will not share it with anyone. All that’s out there [in the media] is speculation. How does anyone know what we are going to do?

“I don’t think [the speculation] is fair to the players. There’s no list out there.

“But the players have to deal with it. I wish I could change that, but I can’t.”

Claire said picking 15 players on this roster is much harder than the last time he had to do it, before the birth of the Colorado Rockies and the Florida Marlins in 1993.

“The decisions are tougher this year,” he said. “I’m not saying we are so well stocked that it’s off the charts. But I’m saying we have 20 players we are concerned about.”

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Add list: With apologies to Claire, here’s one opinion on which 15 the Dodgers will protect: Chan Ho Park, Ramon Martinez, Hideo Nomo, Ismael Valdes, Darren Dreifort, Scott Radinsky, Antonio Osuna, Dennis Reyes, Mike Piazza, Eric Karros, Eric Young, Todd Zeile, Raul Mondesi, Paul Konerko, Roger Cedeno.

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Piazza needs one hit to reach 200. Will he play in today’s game, although it is meaningless, to try to reach that milestone?

Said Piazza, “What else do I have to do?”

No Dodger has had 200 hits since Steve Sax had 210 in 1986.