Among many other tasks, minor league media relations staffs all over the country are in the process of putting finishing touches on their 2013 Media Guides. As I’ve detailed in previous posts, it’s no secret in the minors, especially at Triple-A, that forecasting your club’s Opening Day roster is very difficult…sometimes even days before the season starts, and certainly 29 days before it starts, which is where we are today. Add in the fact that teams will have many players join their club as the season goes along, and you’ve put yourself in the shoes of media relations people all over the minors who are trying predict/guess who to include in the Media Guide. There simply isn’t space to include 60-some players in the guide. That’s why folks like us are reading Spring Training news every day trying to find comments, tidbits, roster moves, etc. that could greater indicate where a player may go come April.
So, as Sounds public relations gurus Doug Scopel and Alex Wassel (along with my periodic contributions) put together the Sounds’ Media Guide, here are some of the names in the mix. Disclaimer: this is NOT a roster prediction, nor does it come with any “inside info” from the Brewers. These are just some of the names (in no particular order) we’re thinking could be on a Sounds roster at some point in 2013, and it’ll give you a good idea of how difficult it is to predict a 40-person bios section of a Media Guide, much less a 25-man roster, when so many guys are in the mix.
Pitchers
Hiram Burgos
Tyler Thornburg
Johnny Hellweg
Frankie De La Cruz
Jimmy Nelson
Josh Stinson
Zack Kroenke
Kyle Heckathorn
Santo Manzanillo
Brandon Kintzler
Donovan Hand
Rob Wooten
Jesus Sanchez
Dan Meadows
Johnnie Lowe
Darren Byrd
Alfredo Figaro
Jim Hoey
Travis Webb
Chris Jakubauskas
Jairo Ascencio
Michael Olmsted
Cody Scarpetta
Hey, maybe we’ll have baseball’s first-ever 23-member pitching staff!
Catchers
Blake Lalli
Robinson Diaz
Dayton Buller
Anderson De La Rosa
Infielders
Hunter Morris
Scooter Gennett
Jeff Bianchi
Taylor Green
Sean Halton
Hainley Statia
Donnie Murphy
Blake Davis
Ozzie Chavez
Outfielders
Khris Davis
Caleb Gindl
Brock Kjeldgaard
Kentrail Davis
Rene Tosoni
Cole Garner
Josh Prince
Add in likely-Brewers-yet-possible-Sounds like Wily Peralta, Mike Fiers, Jim Henderson and Logan Schafer and veteran free agent signees like Kelvim Escobar and Bobby Crosby, and this list can easily surpass 50 players. Remember when I said space typically is limited in the Media Guide?!
Thanks for listening! (On the Air…and Off)
Jeff
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no taylor jungmann?
Good question. He’s certainly a guy that could make it to Nashville later in the season, but having spent his first professional season entirely at High-A, he’d seem to be ticketed for Double-A Huntsville this year.
The Brewers have a lot of starting pitching depth in their system, so there’s no reason to try to rush a guy like Jungmann, especially when finding a rotation spot for him could be tough (Thornburg, Burgos, Nelson, Hellweg all COULD be in Nashville rotation).
Thanks for reading the blog!
What would be so wrong with a 23 man pitching roster? This is a National League team so they play every facet of the game including picking up a bat. There is no need for that ridiculous rule of the “designated hitter”, oh I feel so dirty for even saying that phrase.