Photo Credit: Name This Player
By the logic inherent in patterns, today’s post should be the season wrap up for the Sacramento River Cats. That was the plan. That was my intent. But as I began thinking about how to sum up the year that was at Sutter Health Park, I found myself turning a single number over and over in my head: 97. The Sacramento River Cats used 97 players this season. They broke their all time record for players used, and then piled an entire extra team’s worth of players on top of that broken record. And then they went out and got a few substitutes, just to make sure. At one point in August, a scout texted me to ask my impressions of Steele Walker. In admitting that I wasn’t sure if he’d be around long enough to really hone in on, I mentioned the number of players who had moved in and out of the Sacramento locker room, which at the point was in the high 80s. The texted response: “Good God!”
How does one get their arms around 97 players? Friends, my arms are not that long. Nobody’s arms are that long. And so, at the risk of offending readers who genuinely had hoped to see me drop another 1,000 words on the complex struggles of Heliot Ramos, I decided that I’m going to go a different direction today. Yes, Sacramento had prospects! Some of them maybe coming to a Giants team near you soonish. Many of them already have. But that’s not going to be the focus here today.
Since the Giants essentially turned the 2022 River Cats into a large holding company for the waiver wire shuffle, maybe the best way to wrap up Sacramento’s year is take a real look at what that shuffle has accomplished.
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