Who's Gonna Debut This Year?

Time to Start Thinking About 2023!

Photo Credit: Samantha McCloskey | Richmond Flying Squirrels

Enough with thinking about the past. I’m over it! The past is prologue — let’s get to the book. Let’s focus on the future. Spring has nearly sprung and balls are getting tossed and whacked all over Papago Park. Seriously — look, visual evidence:

Trey Wilson @treywilson757

Catching some former and future @GoSquirrels at Papago today

Yup, the new season is rousing itself from a long winter’s slumber, it’s hour come round at last (hopefully not a rough beast preparing to slouch towards Bethlehem, though, because that doesn’t sound like a very clean brand of ball). So, let’s start imagining what sorts of shapes that season might bend itself into.

For the minor leaguers that I cover here at There R Giants, there is a day like no other in their career, and it comes only once — the day they hear they’re getting called up to The Show. The day they get to step onto a big league field for the first time (which I guess, in reality often makes it TWO days like no other, but let’s just shove them together into one long blue, since I’m sure that’s how it feels), becoming the latest in the relatively short line of only about 23,000 people who have ever been able to call themselves major league baseball players. It’s a special day for the players, for their families, for their coaches and support networks — and it’s a special day for all of us fools who follow their progress from afar, as well.

So let’s put our heads together and imagine which players might be getting that special day in 2023 by playing a little game of Guess the Debuts!