Way Too Early Rosters 2024: Richmond Flying Squirrels
Photo Credit: KA Fullmore | Richmond Flying Squirrels
Previously, on Way Too Early Roster Previews:
A lot goes into making the “Way Too Early Roster Previews” live up to their names of being, in fact, way too early. It would make much more sense to go through this exercise in the spring, when I’m in Arizona seeing who’s playing in which groups, who’s mysteriously absent from play altogether, and who’s performing particularly well. Yes, that would make sense — if accuracy is your only aim! Stripping away all of that critical and timely information makes all of these choices that much more precarious.
But another significant factor driving the premature nature of these posts is that, between now and April, some of these players are likely going to leave us. I noted in passing in Monday’s Eugene post, that my 2023 preview had taken a significant hit when numerous players were plucked out of my prognostications in the minor league phase of the Rule 5 draft. And I’m not exactly going to be doing the cartoon eyeball thing …
yep, not doing that — if the Giants end up having a few more players siphoned off in this year’s minor league phase either. As we’ve discussed, there are players who don’t fit very well on any of these affiliate clubs, for one reason or another. Last year, for instance, while I successfully predicted 16 out of the 27 players who were actually named to Richmond’s Opening Day roster, I once again ran afoul of the Rule 5 draft, with four of my misses having been Rule 5 casualties (Frankie Tostado, Armani Smith, Brooks Crawford, and Jake Wong, who was traded to Cincinnati for Rule 5 pick Blake Sabol; in addition, I had Taylor Rashi opening the year on Richmond’s IL, and he too was siphoned off in the minor league phase of the draft). As an aside, that paled in comparison to the five players I had penciled in for starting jobs who opened the year doing rehab work in XST (Marco Luciano, Sean Roby, Jairo Pomares, Hunter Bishop, and Landen Roupp). Widespread health issues certainly do their part in easing roster crunches, but they do little to further the aims of player development, so we will hope NOT to see that as the answer to some of the issues raised in today’s post in the coming year.
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