2009 opening day rosters for Rochester Red Wings. New Britain Rock Cats and Beloit Snappers

The rosters for the Rochester Red Wings, New Britain Rock Cats and Beloit Snappers are up at their respective official sites and starting to shape up. A few surprises, mainly the Delaney/Slama duo in New Britain and Tolleson in New Britain. Also, I was hoping that Ben Revere will be in New Britain... There are a few too many older players (esp. pitchers + Watkins) for my taste, who are blocking talent like Delaney, Tolleson and Valencia from AAA. And this has a domino effect, like Slama is blocked from being the closer in New Britain and Deibinson Romero, with one more year in the 40-roster before he has to be added to the 25-man roster or being lost, is stuck in Ft. Myers. In addition, Joe Gaetti and Toby G. are in New Britain at ages (27 and 26, respectively) that they should be able to play in AAA or be released. Another surprise: Eli Tindor, an outfielder with the Ft. Myers Miracle in 2008 is repositioned as a catcher and will be playing with the Beloit Snappers in 2009. Also, there are a three players that are not included in the rosters: Steven Tolleson, Oswaldo Sosa and Daniel Berg. I do not expect them to get a demotion... There are a still few days left at the minor league spring training camp and by then these rosters might change a bit.

The rosters are listed below. Rosters for the Ft. Myers Miracle and the Elizabethton Twins are not yet final. The short season rookie GCL-Twins' players will be in extended spring training until GCL games commence. I will update the other teams' rosters as soon as they finalize. Reading between the lines, based on who is on Beloit (and about two thirds of the 2009 Beloit roster were in Elizabethton last season) and in New Britain, expect Aaron Hicks and Ben Revere to man the outfield in Ft. Myers. And this is worth a trip to Florida.

Rochester Red Wings:

Pitchers:

Armado Gabino
Mike Gosling
Ben Hendrickson (DL)
Sean Henn
Jason Jones
Ben Julianel
Bob Keppel
Tim Lahey
Jose Mijares
Kevin Mulvey
Carmen Pignatiello
Reid Santos
Anthony Swarzak

Catchers:

Drew Butera
Jeff Christy

Infielders:

Justin Huber
Luke Hughes
Alejandro Machado
Matt Macri
Brock Peterson
Tevor Plouffe
Matt Tolbert

Outfielders:

Dustin Martin
Jason Pridie
Tommy Watkins
David Winfree

New Britain Rock Cats:

Catchers:

Wilson Ramos
Allan de San Miguel

Infielders:

Erik Lis
Whitney Robbins
Yancarlos Ortiz
Toby Gardenhire
Danny Valencia
Brian Dinkelman

Outfielders:

Joe Gaetti
Juan Portes
Rene Tosoni
Brandon Roberts
Matt Moses

Pitchers:

Cole Devries
Matthew Fox
Anthony Slama
Jose Lugo
Ryan Mullins
Robert Delaney
Jeff Manship
Zachary Ward
Frank Mata
Jay Rainville
Yohan Pino

Beloit Snappers:

Pitchers:

Michael Allen
Steven Blevins
Danny Hernandez
Shooter Hunt
Brian Kirwan (DL)
Bobby Lanigan
Curtis Leavitt (DL)
Blake Martin (DL)
Dan Osterborck
Henry Reyes
Danny Rondon
Michael Tarsi (DL)
Joe Testa
Bradley Tippet
Thomas Wright

Catchers:

Alexander Soto
Eli Tindor

Infielders:

James Beresford
Dominic de La Osa
Nathan Hanson
Paul Kelly (DL)
Juan Richardson (DL)
Nicholas Romero
Hank Sanchez
Ramon Santana
Andrew Tompson (DL)
Jon Walernbury

OUtfielders:

Evan Bigley
Michael Harrington
Ozzie Lewis
Angel Morales
Adan Severino