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Minor League Report: Rosters announced for Double-A, High-A, and Single-A

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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).

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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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