With the season just a few days away, roster decisions around the game continue to trickle in. We’ll round up some notable non 40-man roster decisions here.
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- Twins pitching prospect Jhoan Duran has made the Opening Day roster, per a club announcement. He’ll initially work out of the bullpen. Ranked the #9 prospect in the Minnesota organization by Baseball America, Duran draws praise for an upper-90s fastball and a power splitter that have helped him run plus strikeout rates throughout his minor league career.
- The Marlins have informed outfielder Roman Quinn he will not make the Opening Day roster, reports Craig Mish of SportsGrid (Twitter link). It comes as a bit of a surprise, as Quinn had seemed the favorite for a fourth outfield role after the Fish released Delino DeShields Jr. over the weekend. Presumably, that job will fall to utilityman Jon Berti early on.
- Infield prospect Diego Castillo has made the Pirates’ Opening Day roster, tweets Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Castillo, acquired in the trade that sent righty Clay Holmes to the Yankees, will make his big league debut the first time he gets into a game.
- The Yankees announced they’ve reassigned outfielder Ender Inciarte and left-hander Manny Bañuelos to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. Inciarte has an opt-out clause in his minor league deal and tells ESPN’s Marly Rivera he hasn’t yet decided whether he’ll accept the assignment to Triple-A.
- The Cubs informed pitching prospect Ethan Roberts he’ll be on the Opening Day roster, he informed reporters (including Maddie Lee of the Chicago Sun-Times). A fourth-round pick in 2018 out of Tennessee Tech, the right-hander is the #33 prospect in the organization according to Baseball America. The reliever posted an even 3.00 ERA over 54 innings between Double-A Tennessee and Triple-A Iowa last season. The Cubs reassigned non-roster invitees Jonathan Holder, Robert Gsellman, Steven Brault, Stephen Gonsalves and Ildemaro Vargas to Iowa, tweets Jordan Bastian of MLB.com.
- The Phillies reassigned non-roster invitees Ronald Torreyes, Yairo Muñoz and Dillon Maples to Triple-A Lehigh Valley, tweets Todd Zolecki of MLB.com. Torreyes and Muñoz were competing for utility spots, while the hard-throwing Maples had been seeking a spot in the Philly bullpen.
Marlins are really gonna roll with all corner Outfielders and a utility Infielder to handle CF? Ok…
If Roman Quinn could have gained bat control and hit the ball on the ground between the infielders as Matty Alou did, with his speed he could have been a star.
But as all batting coaches have taught since the analytic age came in, he followed instructions gripping that bat at the handle and swinging with all his might. Striking out a lot, not putting the ball in play – where he could use his speed, and subsequently force pitchers to give him good pitches to hit for fear an ump would give him a borderline pitch for a ball whereby he would walk and then steal 2nd.
He can play CF better than at least half MLB CF’s. It’s a pity.
Quinn is not a smart player. He doesn’t use his great speed to his advantage. Matty Alou was a Michelangelo, with the bat. Vic Davalio is another lefty hitter that could chop down on the ball, and run like the wind. Quinn has also been injury prone, since his minor league days. A waste of natural ability.
@Samuel
Rod Carew used to get flack as a hitting coach for encouraging certain hitters like Darin Erstad to hit the ball on the ground. I don’t think he could be a hitting coach in todays game trying to encourage hitters to swing out of their shows and hit 3 run Homers with no one on base
I would love to see Rod Carew bad against the shift.
He is an injury waiting to happen. I’ve never seen anyone with a longer list of injuries while playing for the Phillies.
Pretty sad that guys like Quinn and DeShields couldn’t even beat out a utility guy like Berti for a position that is their position and isn’t his primary position.
With that said, nice that they found a way to keep Berti on the roster. Nice bench guy. Excellent piece for moments needing to manufacture a run. With all this occurring, I have to ask why didn’t they just try to bring Sierra back instead of letting the Angels snatch him up? He’s an excellent defender in CF, great speed, and does decent off the bench.
Last 3 pitchers for Yankees J P Sears, Michael King, and Clarke Schmidt. Last 2 bench players Marwin Gonzalez and LoCastro. Barring any last minute trades or pickups off other rosters I’m pretty sure that’s their 28 man roster.
Would love a better outfielder than Locastro. Garcia and Gil get stretched out at Scranton.
Truthfully I’d have liked to see what ender could do as a 5th OF option
Neither Locastro or Ender can hit much. At this stage, Locastro is a slightly better defensive OF and probably a better pinch runner. Locastro is also younger. In truth, not much to separate the two!
Yawn
The link to Ethan Roberts is incorrect. It should be baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=rob…
This Diego Castillo been crushing it in spring
Yankees should stop trading with the pirates
The Tallion and Holmes trades have resulted in good value for the Yanks. Everyone except Escotto had to be on the 40 by now and NY doesn’t have the room. Pirates got a slew of average prospects who have all had good minor league track records but don’t figure to be high end mlber’s. I think the trades have been good for both teams.
I think Roansy Contreras is a little more than average.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is called denial by a Yankees fan. Contreras is far from an “average prospect.” He ranks in top 3 prospects in Pirates system, which ranks in top 3 systems of MLB. And considering how Castillo has looked this Spring, including taking none other than Gerrit Cole deep on one of his upper 90’s fastballs, I’d say he could be above average, too. And it’s likely Hoy Park and Miguel Yajure are future MLB players, too. Maybe even good ones.
So don’t kid yourself, Yankees didn’t break even with these two trades.
He should be given the starting gig at second base on opening day. Bucs aren’t competing this year, might as well start trying to find pieces to hold down spots in future years from day one.
One would think he will be starting most days. Otherwise, why bring him up. He needs reps against top level competition.
Cole Tucker is also hitting this spring and the Bucs love Newman’s ability to help the young pitchers at SS.
Duran hit 101 in spring training! Very excited for this young gun for the Twinkies!
Yes me too! Lots of young arms with many fans hopes and dreams tied to them will be coming up this year for our Twinkies. One or two of them shine and it will be a fun season
You know what happened last time they had a prospect that hit 100… He ended up with a Dodgers.
I was hoping to see Roman Quinn make it with the Guppies..Even though he’s had a tough time staying on the field, I’ve ben a Phan and like watching him play..I’ll continue to pull for him….