Not sure what you're getting at here. Aaron Altherr does not have enough service time to refuse an assignment to AAA (which requires five years of ML service time). The issue with Altherr is that the club has no options remaining on him - he cannot be optioned to AAA, but would have to be outrighted. To be outrighted, he must first clear waivers (irrevocable outright waivers). The concern is that some club would claim him off waivers, and he would thus be lost to the Phils with no compensation.
Now, it's entirely fair to speculate that, given the way he's been producing, it's possible no club would bother to claim him off waivers. That is a real possibility - and at some point, the Phils may decide to find out.
But it's not obvious who from AAA you would want to promote. Dylan Cozens has an OPS of .837; that's mostly SLG (.500); his OBP is .337, which is not bad, but is nothing to write home about. Major league pitchers would not pitch around him much; he too easy to strike out. Mitch Walding? There literally is nobody else on the 40-man at AAA.
Guys not on the 40-man? Who? Lane Adams? Shane Robinson is crap (notwithstanding his good start in AAA, he has a major-league track record). Jan Hernandez was looking interesting, but he's on the IL with a fracture.
If you wanted to get creative... Deivy Grullon. He's 23, he's hitting the cover off the ball in AAA - and given the way he's playing, he's a lock to go on the 40-man this winter (unless he's traded or something) - he would be Rule 5-eligible, and if exposed, would probably go in one of the top picks. Of course, if you're going to do that, you might want to look at doing something with Andrew Knapp as opposed to Altherr. And Knapp, unlike Altherr, could be optioned, so you wouldn't risk losing him.
