Minor League Report: Rosters announced for Double-A, High-A, and Single-A
3 months ago
Early season minor league baseball tends to lead to quite a few postponements.
On Wednesday and Thursday, the Blue Jays’ Triple-A team, the Buffalo Bisons, were postponed. However, the minor league season kicks off on Friday for the Single-A Dunedin Blue Jays, High-A Vancouver Canadians, and the Double-A New Hampshire Fisher Cats.
On Thursday afternoon, those three teams announced their preliminary rosters, so that’s the focus of today’s Minor League Report!
Double-A New Hampshire’s roster
There are 15 pitchers on the Fisher Cats’ roster, the most notable of which is Adam Macko, who was added to the 40-man roster late in 2023 to protect him from the Rule 5 draft. This will be the first season since the 2021 season where Macko hasn’t pitched in the Northwest League (High-A).
There are a handful of other pitchers that will jump from High-A to Double-A, as reliever Ian Churchill will join him, as well as starters Devereaux Harrison, Hunter Gregory, Abdiel Mendoza, and Eric Pardinho. The latter was once a top 100 prospect and maxed out at 96.2 mph in Spring Training. Below are all 15 pitchers:
RHP Ryan Boyer
LHP Jimmy Burnette
LHP Ian Churchill
RHP Trevor Clifton
RHP Michael Dominguez
RHP Hunter Gregory
RHP Devereaux Harrison
RHP Adrián Hernández
LHP Adam Macko
RHP Alejandro Melean
RHP Abdiel Mendoza
RHP Trent Palmer
RHP Eric Pardinho
RHP CJ Van Eyk
LHP Trevor Wallace
In terms of position players, Zach Britton, Phil Clarke, and Andres Sosa will be New Hampshire’s backstoppers to start the season. Britton missed basically all of last season and can also play in the outfield. In terms of the outfielder, there are only two returning outfielders – Devonte Brown and Alan Roden. Joining them will be Gabriel Martinez, Glenn Santiago, and Garrett Spain.
There are also some newcomers in the infield, as Alex De Jesus and Josh Kasevich will make their upper-minor debuts in 2024. The other three infielders that will join them are Michael Turconi, Rainer Nuñez, and Miguel Hiraldo. The latter boosted his stock last season in Double-A, slashing .275/.334/.453 with 12 homers in 354 plate appearances.
It looks like it’ll be a fun season in Double-A.
High-A Vancouver’s roster
The defending Northwest League champions are looking to return to their third straight championship series. There’ll be 15 returning players to start that journey.
In terms of pitching, recently-traded-for Chris McElvain will start his season with the Vancouver Canadians, along with recently signed Jonathan Lavallee. There are also a few 2023 draftees joining the Canadians, like Josh Mollerus and Chay Yeager. Other pitchers of note joining Vancouver are Kendry Rojas and Rafael Ohashi. Below is the complete list of pitchers.
RHP Alex Amalfi
RHP Pat Gallagher
RHP Ryan Jennings
RHP Justin Kelly
RHP Conor Larkin
RHP Jonathan Lavallee
RHP Chris McElvain
RHP Kevin Miranda
RHP Josh Mollerus
RHP Rafael Ohashi
LHP Naswell Paulino
LHP Kendry Rojas
RHP Rafael Sánchez
RHP Grayson Thurman
RHP Anders Tolhurst
RHP Geison Urbaez
RHP Chay Yeager
In terms of catching duties, Jommer Hernandez has returned to the Canadians, while both Kekai Rios and Jackson Hornung will join him. Hornung was a 16th-round pick in the 2023 draft and slashed .143/.210/.232 with a homer in 62 plate appearances with Dunedin last season.
There are a handful of fresh faces in the infield as well, as Jean Arnaez and Brennan Orf will make their High-A debuts this season. Joining them will be 2023 draftee Nick Goodwin, as well as Estiven Machado, Ryan McCarty, and Jeff Wheeler.
In the outfield, Dasan Brown is in his third tour with the Canadians, as he joined the team in 2022 and spent all of last season with the only Canadian minor league team. Joining him are fresh faces Jace Bohrofen and Jaden Rudd, while Dylan has some Double-A experience
It’ll be interesting to see what the 2023 draftees can do to help the Canadians defend their throne. It’s going to be a fun season though!
Single-A Dunedin’s roster
The Baby Blue Jays team will be very fun to monitor, as they have quite a few top prospects on the roster to start the season.
The most notable pitcher on the roster is 2022 first-round selection Brandon Barriera, who pitched 18.1 innings with Dunedin last season and had a 4.42 ERA and a 3.26 FIP with a 31.5 K%. Juaron Watts-Brown and Landen Maroudis will make their professional debuts with Dunedin as well, as they didn’t pitch all of last season after being drafted.
An interesting pitcher to keep an eye on is Fernando Pérez, who has caught the attention of numerous scouts and even ranks in several Top 30 prospect publications. According to Baseball America’s Geoff Pontes, his fastball sat at 93-95 with fantastic control.
Another interesting tidbit is regarding Sebastian Epsino, who is apparently converting to a pitcher after spending his professional career as an outfielder. The Blue Jays picked him up in the minor league portion of the Rule 5 draft in 2021. He hit some pretty big home runs, but also had a cannon for an arm. All pitchers are listed below.
RHP Eliander Alcalde
LHP Brandon Barriera
RHP Irv Carter
RHP Sebastian Espino
RHP Jerry Huntzinger
RHP Keiner Leon
RHP Landen Maroudis
RHP Aaron Munson
LHP Connor O’Halloran
RHP Fernando Pérez
LHP Kai Peterson
RHP Carson Pierce
RHP Grant Rogers
RHP Yondrei Rojas
LHP J.J. Sanchez
RHP Juaron Watts-Brown
Out of any affiliate, Single-A probably has the most interesting catching situation. Edward Duran was the PTBNL in the Jordan Groshans trade at the 2022 trade deadline, and he had a fantastic season between the FCL and Single-A, slashing .315/.422/.417 with two homers and more walks (15.6%) than strikeouts (13%). Joining him are Canadian Nicolas Deschamps as well as recently signed Eduardo Montero.
There’s another recently signed player – Ricardo Balogh – who slashed .241/.315/.358 with three homers in 346 plate appearances with Houston’s Single-A team in 2023. However, the big addition is Arjun Nimmala, who was the Blue Jays first-round pick in the 2023 draft. Furthermore, they’ll have Tucker Toman, Manuel Beltre, Bryce Arnold, and Cristian Feliz in the infield, with the latter making his “A” affiliate debut.
There is only one outfielder who’ll be making his Single-A debut, Yeuni Munoz, who slashed .229/.292/.344 with a homer in 106 plate appearances in the FCL last season. It’s a rather young outfield, with Yhoangel Aponte, Victor Arias, Braden Barry, and Alexis Hernandez joining them. Hernandez was a minor league Rule 5 pick in late 2023, while Barry was a 2023 draftee.
It’s a young team with some interesting prospects. Regardless of how the Dunedin Blue Jays do to start the first half of the season, they’ll get a huge bump in their playoff race after the 2024 draft..
As always, you can follow me on Twitter @Brennan_L_D.
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