Saturday, March 29, 2008

Erie's Roster, Part of West Michigan's Roster and trying to decipher the rest

The Erie Times has reported the last 26 players in camp with the Erie Seawolves.

SP:
Danny Christensen*
Jon Connolly*
Luke French*
Ben Fritz*
Andrew Kown*

RP:
Casey Fien*
Brett Jensen*
Freddy Dolsi*
Anthony Tomey
Danny Zell*
Josh Rainwater
Juan Cedeno*
Marcelo Perez

C:
Max St. Pierre
Dusty Ryan

1B:
Ryan Roberson*

2B:
William Rhymes*

3B:
Kody Kirkland*

SS:
Danny Worth*

IF:
Max Leon
Nick McIntyre*

OF:
Wilkin Ramirez*
Diek Scram*
Freddy Guzman*
Jeff Frazier*
Pedro Cotto

It seems to me that Cotto and Perez would be the odd men out unless Ramirez hasn't recovered from his injury. I got 19/24 players correct, good for 79%. Where did I go wrong, and what else can we figure out?

The two relievers I missed on were Anthony Tomey (Toledo) and Josh Rainwater (Lakeland). In their places, I had Matt Rusch and Brendan Wise. Rusch seemed to earn a spot to Toledo, but with the addition of Aaron Fultz there is an extra reliever in Toledo. Perhaps there is an injury, or perhaps Blaine Neal isn't 100% ready for the season as he signed late. We can just flip Wise and Rainwater in the projections.

I got the catchers wrong, but it's pretty easy to figure out from here. They must have felt Ryan was ready for the jump to AA, meaning Kunkel may end up in Lakeland or cut. The flipping of Trzesniak and St. Pierre is pretty insignificant in the long run.

I had Scott Sizemore in Erie based on the strong spring with the club. I was wrong. It appears they want to give William Rhymes one more shot at proving he belongs. Max Leon was a fine utility man in Lakeland last year and moves up one more level. I also am taking credit for the Cotto/Ramirez roster spot. Had I known Ramirez would recover so quickly from his injury, I'd have cut Cotto. There is a possibility that there is room for Cotto in Lakeland, though. I have Casper Wells in that outfield, and he was reported to be in West Michigan's lineup. Also, Luis Arlet to Lakeland is a big stretch. Speaking of West Michigan, here's what the Grand Rapids papers are reporting to be the lineup in yesterday's game.

Kyle Peter RF
Mark McBratney LF
Justin Henry 2B
Casper Wells CF
Cory Middleton DH
Audy Ciriaco SS
Jordan Newton C
Joe Tucker 3B

Manny Miguelez P

I had projected Peter, McBratney, Henry, Middleton, Ciriaco, and Newton to the Caps. I had Wells and Tucker headed to Lakeland with Miguelez staying back for Extended Spring Training. The most glaring omission of that report is the lack of a firstbaseman. While that would be a bold strategy, I'm betting it was either Ron Bourquin or Chris Carlson. It's also interesting that Jordon Newton was starting over Devin Thomas. I'm assuming that Thomas will get a majority of the starts there over the course of the season.

I'll post more information as it's posted. Typically, we get advance notice of Toledo, Erie, and West Michigan's roster. Not putting any pressure on them, but I'm hoping the fact that the Flying Tigers have a blog now means that we'll get that roster before opening day.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

west michigan has Darrow, Hess,
Krol, and Nardozzi in the pen.

Eddie Bajek said...

Thanks. I noticed I left out the relievers mentioned in the article. 2003 2nd-rounder Jay Sborz was also listed, avoiding the trifecta with Sleeth (1) and Giarratano (3) being released in the past couple months.