"Way Too Early" Roster Previews: Sacramento River Cats
The first wave of stars is reaching the shore
Photo Credit: Orlando Ramirez-USA TODAY Sports
Inevitably, the mea culpas come. You make your lists and check them twice. Still mistakes get made. Some you can slough off — I complained about the lack of lefties for my A level bullpens while leaving JJ Santa Cruz and Bryce Tucker unassigned, for instance. I can play that cool — artistic differences; I had a different vision for the part, etc. But then comes the day when you arrive at AAA and realize that Kai-Wei Teng is still cooling his heels in Taiwan waiting for an assignment and just have to wear it, as Kruk would say. Yep, I rogered that one, alright! But rest assured, Teng is still with us and I’m still high on him. Let’s retroactively stick him in the Eugene or Richmond rotations somewhere.
As for Sacramento — no need to write an open for this baby. Let’s just run back the lede from Friday’s post on the Richmond roster. There will be minor league free agents a-coming to Sacramento. Possibly some major league free agents, too! While the OF appears to be getting filled in nicely, and the bullpen is stacked with arms, we’ve got some work to do on filling out the infield. So here at the AAA level I won’t actually be able to fill out a full starting lineup for the first time.
However, as way of compensation for those TBD holes, we are going to have the star power that Richmond’s roster was so dreadfully lacking. Bay Area prospect fans are going to have much to enjoy if my prognostications are remotely correct, because I ultimately have the lion’s share of the top prospects (including all of Baseball America’s Top 5) in the system starting their years in Northern California. And while all that star power down in San Jose might excite visions of sugar plums dancing in our collective heads, the stars in Sacramento are arguably even more exciting because that means that first wave of prospect power is nearly here. Neeeeeeearly here. Just wait a liiiiiitttttllle longer and then….
The Stars
In the five-year history of the Giants’ relationship with Sacramento, they haven’t exactly loaded the River Cats up with top prospects — especially of the hitter variety. In 2015, in their first year as a Giants’ affiliate, the River Cats had just one hitter who was listed in BA’s Top 30 in the Giants’ system. True, in 2017, they started the season with the Giants’ #1 (Tyler Beede) and #2 (Christian Arroyo) prospects, but, on the whole, Sacramento hasn’t been the Must See destination for prospect hounds.
That ends this year. The Giants have made no secret that they want Joey Bart to get the AAA time he missed in 2020 this year. And it says here that Bart will be joined by his friend and fellow hubba-hubba prospect, Heliot Ramos, giving Sacramento the same tantalizing pair that had media outlets sending reporters to San Jose in April of 2019. This is a new era of River Cats baseball!
Adding to two of the “big three” in the system, Sacramento should also host one of the top pitching prospects in the system, Sean Hjelle. Hjelle may not be a star prospect in the same way Ramos and Bart are, but given the crying need for some starting pitching to accompany the coming waves of talent, he may be every bit as important. Right now, he’s something like 4th or 5th on the starting pitcher depth chart for San Francisco, and he somewhat surprisingly got a fairly impressive ZiPS projection (the projection model used by Fangraphs) for a pitcher with limited experience above A ball.
The Rest of the Lineup
As noted above, I got you a full OF! In fact, maybe too full and I should have held somebody in this group back on the Richmond roster. In addition to Ramos, we have Jaylin Davis and minor league Rule 5 pickup Vince Fernandez starting — which is an exceptionally powerful trio. Expect to see some titanic blasts from this group as well as a lot of swing and miss.
Steven Duggar should be on hand in reserve as well, although I do wonder how secure Duggar’s 40-man roster spot is at this point. Recently signed Jason Krizan is another player who can fill in at all three positions and DH some. Finally, former Cardinal and Ranger, Drew Robinson could fill out the bench as well.
The infield, however, is another story entirely. Mitchell Tolman, yet another minor league Rule 5 pick, is available to handle 2b. The Giants drafted Tolman from the Mets, but he’s actually spent his entire professional playing career with the Pirates. A gap to gap type spray hitter, Tolman had a strong career with the University of Oregon before being drafted in the 7th round by Pittsburgh in 2015. Tolman’s selection looked to be a reaction to losing Jalen Miller a round earlier and it’s obvious they needed him. To welcome the new guy, let’s turn back the clock to possibly the highlight of his professional career, his walk off homer to send the Altoona Curve to the Eastern League championship series (and yes that’s the dulcet tones of Trey Wilson calling the shot):
Tolman may or may not be joined in the infield by Jason Vosler. Vosler was signed to a big league deal and the Giants have talked about getting him significant playing time in San Francisco. At the moment, however, the Giants roster seems to be suffering from a surfeit of corner guys and a paucity of up-the-middle players, so I’m not sure exactly how room can be made for Vosler. I’m sticking him in Sacramento to start off — just to fill a hole if for no other reason.
Beyond those two, there is really no one. Ryan Howard is the only upper level shortstop currently in the organization and I plugged him into the hole in Richmond. There’s also nobody to play 1b, although they can probably make do with one of the extra OF at that position. Perhaps Fernandez or Krizan can fill in at 1b. I’ll put Chadwick Tromp as Bart’s backup at catcher, as I still think the Giants will acquire a big league vet to pair with Posey. But it’s clear that the Giants will be adding several more depth players to put on the Sacramento roster — re-signing Cristhian Adames would be a good start, but there’s much more work to do here beyond that.
The Pitching Staff
We can do much better with the arms, however, in part because the Giants have been busier signing minor league free agent pitchers than hitters, and, in part, because prospect depth is reaching the top of the system.
It’s not entirely clear what the rotation will look like after Hjelle. Conner Menez should be around to soak up starts, as well as former Diamondback and Ray, Anthony Banda. The just signed former Royal Yunior Marte has a lot of starting experience in the lower minors, but had been a reliever only in AAA with Kansas City. Perhaps the Giants try to stretch him back out.
The same is true of Rico Garcia, whom the Giants used in relief last year after a career as a starter in the Rockies’ system. His stuff did look like it played up a bit out of the bullpen, however. And lastly, Daniel Alvarez is another pitcher with some lower minors starting experience who has mostly relieved in the upper minors. This could be a recipe for a lot of experimentation and creative allotment of innings.
Depending on when, exactly, the season starts, the Sacramento rotation figures to get at least a temporary boost from Tyler Beede, who will need some rehab starts when he’s ready to get back on the bump before rejoining the Giants.
The bullpen should be highlighted by new 40-man addition Camilo Doval, who will be trying to pitch his way to a big league debut, probably as the team’s closer. He should be joined by his former Alternate Site teammate Tyler Cyr, as well as by Patrick Ruotolo who should be fully healthy by this point and ready to resume his dominant career numbers. Both of these long time over-achievers have to feel their life’s dream is close enough to reach out and seize at this point. Two more recent minor league signings, Silvino Bracho and Dominic Leone, can help lengthen the pen. And the numbers game suggests that at least one and perhaps two members of the 2020 Giants’ pen is going to be pushed back down to AAA. Throwing darts, I’ll say Shaun Anderson or Sam Selman draw short straws(?).
Lastly, we have the case of flame-throwing Melvin Adon. His last pitch in the LIDOM looked like an ugly injury, but as far as I can see, he’s undergone no medical procedure since then. He’s been posting fairly regularly on Instagram and there’s no slings or scars in sight, so perhaps things weren’t as bad as they seemed(?). I’ll put him on the IL for now but he could have a role to play in the River Cats’ pen in 2021 as well.
One pitcher we know that WON’T be in Sacramento is Dedniel Nuñez, who must stick on the San Francisco active roster or be offered back to the Mets.
The Opening Day Roster
Obviously, we have a work in progress here and should expect several more additions to in the coming months to fill this roster out to its true Opening Day shape. But, for now, what we have to start with is enough to get your imaginations humming.
I’m not going to do a full Winter Leagues rundown today, but enjoy this little tidbit:
And with that, I’m off to to read a few books that I suspect are waiting for me under my Christmas tree. I’ll see you in what we all hope is a brighter new year!
Happy Holidays everybody!
Thanks for all the hard work, Roger! I always look forward to your posts. Your style is always a great combination of informative and amusing.
They need to bring back and resign Brandon Lawson RHP w/ most innings pitched in 2019 with Richmond and a ERA3.58, GBR58%, FB 91-95T96, was moved to Sacramento Rivercats for playoffs and National Championship run, released in May of 2020 with last cuts right before COVID 60 man rosters were set