Projecting The Rainiers
Tacoma’s seasons opens two weeks from today, and so with that, I figured it would be a good time to project out the roster that you guys will be looking at when you head down to Cheney to check out some PCL baseball. This isn’t an official release from the team, of course, as the final assignments haven’t been made yet, but I’d imagine this ends up being pretty close to what the team looks like.
Catchers: Adam Moore, Jeff Clement/Rob Johnson
First Base: Mike Carp, Bryan LaHair
Second Base: Callix Crabbe, Reegie Corona (I’d bet the M’s work out a deal to keep him around)
Shortstop: Oswaldo Navarro
Third Base: Matt Tuiasosopo, Chris Woodward
Left Field: Prentice Redman
Center Field: Michael Saunders, Freddy Guzman
Right Field: Mike Wilson
DH: Chris Shelton
Rotation: Garrett Olson, Jason Vargas, Chris Jakubauskas, Chris Seddon, Robert Rohrbaugh
Bullpen: Shawn Kelley, Luis Pena, Cesar Jimenez, Justin Thomas, Eric Hull, Patrick Ryan, Denny Stark
There’s a bunch of arms fighting for the last few spots on the Rainiers pitching staff. It will be interesting to see how they sort it all out.
Wait a minute…
If Shelton is on the Rainiers that means he can’t be playing first for the M’s. Do you really think they’re not going to go witht he Branyan/Shelton platoon?
Where do you have Delgado landing?
We talked about this the other day. Right now, it looks like Sweeney is going to be the RH 1B/DH platoon guy, with Shelton heading to Tacoma to start the year.
Delgado will likely be placed back on waivers – if he slips through, he’ll end up here. But he’s a decent bet to get claimed – teams like the Padres really need bullpen help.
I think they have fallen in love with Sweeney’s off field abilities, and are willing to put him on the team because of it.
And as Lookout Landing noted a couple days ago, the difference between Sweeney and Shelton is pretty modest. It’s nothing to get worked up over.
Tacoma should be pretty good this year…that’s a nice line-up…
I still say that Sweeney and Shelton could and should make the club…it they decide that Griff and Branyan are the DH and 1B (which they should) and they also realize that neither can hit lefties (which they should) then they would need two players to platoon…Sweeney can’t do both on the same day…
Is WLAD going to be the other RH platoon partner? If it’s WLAD, then who do they bring in for Chavez if they want to replace him for some pop late in the game?
The Ms REALLY need a five-man bench this year…
What about Tyson Gillies?-I know he’s not quite ready for Tacoma, but could he possibly land there, later in the year. He seems like a pretty exciting player to me.
Gillies played mostly at Everett last year. He won’t see time in Tacoma this year. He may be somewhat interesting as a prospect, but he’s not that kind of prodigy.
I’d bet a nickel that at least six of the names in Dave’s Rainiers roster show up on the M’s sometime during the season.
Where does Randy Messenger land?
Maybe the M’s can send the Yankees the extra “e” from Reegie Corona’s first name as part of the compensation.
Nice summary, Dave – I agree with basically all of it.
There are a number of interesting decisions the M’s and Rainiers will have to make. Do they keep Dorman? Keep the Thorpe-as-starter experiment alive, and in AA? Keep Sean White as a reliever? Doing one or all of these results in someone being released or pushed down. I can see them cutting Dorman (who’s a great story and can be effective, but is on the wrong side of 30) or Stark. They could also return Patrick Ryan (acquired in the AAA phase of the Rule 5 draft).
The bigger question is what to do with Gaby Hernandez. He’s clearly not the prospect he used to be, but I think the M’s had to hope he’d be ready to start in AAA this year. If he’s not, then they really need to figure out why.
In the OF, how many starts in CF does Saunders get? I can see them giving Redman the majority, and having Saunders play more in the corners. This is what they did when Saunders played for the R’s last year, but they’ll probably still want him to play CF occasionally (similar to the way they handled Wlad).
It’ll also be interesting to see if they keep up with this bizarre LaHair to LF experiment. That would help Shelton get some 1B time, or it might allow them to bring up someone like Johan Limonta if he continues to hit in AA.
Doing something to keep Corona would really help, because I’m not quite sold on the idea of Navarro getting 99% of the time at SS. Crabbe’s a solid 2B, but having Corona (who’s played some SS) would be nice.
The real crunch might be in AA, with the pitchers who don’t stick here fighting it out with the vets like Denny Stark, Rich Dorman, Andy Baldwin, Sean White or Tracy Thorpe. Then, you might get the M’s trying to push some of their top starters out of High Desert quickly. At 1B, you’ll have Thomas Hubbard there again, and Johan Limonta will be repeating as well. Add in Ian Bladergroen, and I really don’t know what they’ll do. Someone goes to the OF, I guess.
Dave, you may have covered this before, but how good of a prospect is Adam Moore? Two of his three Fangraphs projections indicate that he could be a league-average MLB hitter right now. Is that a fair assessment, or does he still need some work?
Wow, not a bad looking AAA team.
Moore projects as a .270/.320/.440 guy in his prime. If he develops well, that’s his upside. He has no chance of being a big league regular if he’s not a catcher.
robbbbbb,
That was from the Clement thread (7:33pm)
Is that what you were asking or were you looking for more detail?
I think they already released Thorpe.
I don’t think I remember this many left-handers slated for the AAA pitching staff. Like, ever.
I also was of the mind either Vargas or Olson would claim a job, albeit as a reliever. Funny how it works…
Nifty. Missed that one. Thanks, TP.
In other words, Moore has a shot to be an average big-league catcher.
Rainiersfan,
Nope, they just sent him down to minor league camp – they didn’t cut him outright. OK, technically he was released last year, but that was just to get him off the 40 man. He’s on a minor league deal this year.
In other words, Moore has a shot to be an average big-league catcher.
Kind of looks that way. I had an idea that he may be better until I read what Dave had to say.