2023 Way Too Early Roster Previews: Eugene Emeralds

Is Back to Back to Back in the cards?

I’ll be honest: I’m already regretting some choices. As I started into the roster build exercise for Eugene, one issue became readily apparent to me: I have too many arms for my available slots. I suppose this isn’t too surprising, since San Jose started last year with a very similar predicament, but the amount of guys who should be ready for this level — but aren’t yet ready for the next one — is pretty staggering!

Of course, these things have a way of working themselves out — and with pitchers, it’s frequently a bad sort of way, so we’ll see if, at the end of spring training, the amount of healthy arms still amount to a roster crunch. If so, it’s a good problem to have, as they say. Let’s HOPE there are too many quality arms for the level.

If so, the Eugene Emeralds should have a nice boost towards their goal of collecting back to back TO BACK championships in the six-team NWL. Last year’s team left a legacy that will be hard to live up to. Starting with an opening roster that featured the top four players on There R Giants’ Top 50 — and nine of the top 20 players on that list — the 2022 edition of the Emeralds simply swamped the league, running away with the top of the standings, sweeping their way to a title, and dominating virtually every important statistical category from both the hitting and pitching perspectives.

This year’s collection of talent will be trying to follow that act — just as most of them were tasked with doing last year in San Jose. It’s tough to live up to a legendary big brother. But there’s a lot of talent on hand here to make a solid run at it! Heck, some of it should even be returning to pass down the story…