BlueClaws announce Opening Day roster
LAKEWOOD, N.J. – The Philadelphia Phillies have announced the Opening Day roster for their Class A affiliate, the Lakewood BlueClaws.
Of the 25 players that will be on the Opening Day roster, 18 played in Williamsport in 2007 under current BlueClaws hitting coach Greg Legg.
The roster also features seven players named in the top 30 Phillies prospects by Baseball America: outfielder Dominic Brown (No. 6), shortstop Freddy Galvis (No. 13), infielder Travis Mattair (No. 18), pitcher Julian Sampson (No. 19), outfielder D’Arby Myers (No. 21), and pitcher Drew Naylor (No. 29). Infielder Tyler Mach (No. 25) is also on the roster, but will open the season on the disabled list. Only two of the 25 players on the roster spent time with the BlueClaws in 2007: infielder Herman Demmink and catcher Joel Naughton. Pitcher Jarrod Freeman also played in Lakewood in 2007, but he will join Mach on the DL to start the 2008 campaign.
The BlueClaws will open the season with 12 pitchers on the roster, nine righthanders and three lefties. Former UCLA hurler Tyson Brummet, Chance Chapman, Chris Kissock, Yen-Feng Lin, Miguel Matos, Naylor, Joseph Roccio, Sampson and Jared Simon are all righthanders, while Jacob Diekman, Moises Melendez and Walter Tejada come home from the left side.
The roster features only three outfielders. At 6-foot-6 and 250 pounds, Michael Taylor joins Brown and Myers as the only listed outfielders on the roster.
Eight infielders will report to Lakewood for Opening Day. Along with Galvis, Mattair and Demmink, Karl Bolt, Michael Durant, Derrick Mitchell, Matt Rizzotti and Dennis Winn will all open the season with the BlueClaws.
Catcher Jesus Sanchez is one of six players making the jump straight from the Gulf Coast League. Diekman, Sampson, Matos, Bolt and Mattair also spent 2007 in the GCL.
Steve Roadcap will manage the BlueClaws for the second straight season. He will be joined by Legg and pitching coach Dave Lundquist. Lundquist spent 2007 in the South Atlantic League, with the Hickory Crawdads, Class A affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates.
The BlueClaws will open the 2008 season on April 3rd, when they take on the Lake County Captains at FirstEnergy Park at 6:35 p.m. Tickets are still available, online at BlueClaws.com, over the phone at (732) 901-7000 and in person at the FirstEnergy Park ticket office.
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I’ll add a report after the opener 4/3! I have been given press courtesy, so we should get some interviews too.
From the Jersey Shore,
BobEv
Phuture Phillies 
Thanks Bob. With only 3 outfielders on the team and one (Mach) on the DL, I wonder which infielder or catcher will be playing the outfield? I’m getting antsy for some baseball. The big club certainly didn’t play anything that I’d call baseball yesterday.
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I’ll start to get my fill this week. HS home opener today, I’ll be in Phillly on Thursday afternoon then follow Tom McCarthy down route 70 to see the Blue Claws opener.
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Bolt, Durant, and Rizzoti are all 1st basemen isnt that correct? maybe one of the three of them is quick enough to play left field on occasion. they are all decent talents, and it would be nice to see all 3 of them get decent at bats this year, so i hope that will work out. Otherwise it will be a very muddled situation in the infield and we could lose a chance for a talent to develope the way that it should.
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When they drafted Rizzotti last year the Phillies mentioned that they thought he could play OF. I saw Bolt play last year and thought he was athletic enough to play OF. Having seen Durant play, I think he is a 1B only (he’s huge). Somebody is going to have to play some OF. You can’t have a team with only 3 OFs. I thought Terrence Warren deserved a Lakewood assignment. I also thought Zach Sterner deserved one (heck he threw 36 innings at Lakewood last year), especially over Tejeda. I think the rotation will be Brummett, Naylor, Sampson, Diekman and Matos with Chapman to the pen.
Talented team I think. I suspect if Sanchez gets off to a slow start, Caleb Mangum will be there in a hurry.
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You know, as I look at the roster and start thinking about the future, it is becoming clear to me that the Phillies have drafted for the possibility that Ryan Howard may not be around past 2012. They are drafting numerous, big power hitters with the hope that one or two of them will pan out and they won’t be pushed into a corner should Howard decide to leave. In fact, if one of the players develops quickly, do not be surprised to see Howard traded in a couple of years (with two years of arbitration eligibility left) as his trade value will be highest at that point.
I don’t love mentioning this as I am a huge Ryan Howard fan, but, looking at this realistically, I think that are doing their “what if” planning at first.
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I plan on checking out some Blue Claws games this year since they’re less than an hour from where I live. If/when I do, I’ll give some dimestore scouting reports.
Sadly, I can’t help but agree with H-Man about the Howard situation. Although I have a feeling that the Big Club will move Utley to first and insert Cardenas in at second. If that’s what happens, I probably wouldn’t be happy with it, but then again who knows how the next 3-4 years will play out.
– Jeff
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“as I look at the roster and start thinking about the future, it is becoming clear to me that the Phillies have drafted for the possibility that Ryan Howard may not be around past 2012. ”
Could also be that they didn’t have much in the way of good and or power hitters in the system, as any good system should have. I’m not saying maybe one of them won’t replace Howard, just that it seems trying to fix a system weakness is a more likely reason.
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The rotation here looks strong, especially Naylor, Sampson and Diekman. Brummet and Chapman could also blossom. Looking forward to seeing which ones advance.
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The Phillies have some first basemen in the system but I don’t think its close to a concerted effort to find Howard’s replacement. Durant was a 4th round pick, Rizzotti a 6th round pick and Bolt a mid-teens round pick. The likelihood that any of them makes the majors is pretty remote I think. I wouldn’t consider the Phillies to be planning for Howard’s departure unless they spend their first or comp round pick on a guy who can only play 1B (Smoak, Cooper, etc.)
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I was really surprised by the bullpen that Lakewood went with to start the season.
I watch few games during spring training and thought the Sterner kid did exceptional.
Why wouldn’t they keep him in Lakewood to start? As xfactor said, he threw 36 innings
in the bullpen last year for Lakewood. Kind of confused on that decision.
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I thought Mach retired. Was the report false?
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Nobody really knows the situation with Tyler Mach or Jarrod Freeman. Message board information seemed to indicate that both did not report to spring training and were contemplating retirement from pro baseball. They were not included in any workgroup listing through the end of March. I do not understand the minor league roster rules well enough to know whether there is an advantage to listing them on a disabled list at the full-season level rather than just continue to carry them on the extended spring training list.
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Well, we’ll never know what is going on in their minds, and, yes, they have a shortage of power in the minors, but, typically, when they draft players, they are not looking at one-dimensional first basemen types – like many organizations, they are looking for players that have a load of tools, power being one of those tools. My guess is that they ARE looking down the road and hope they can hit paydirt with one of these picks so they have an alternative to Howard, if necessary.
In other words, no one can get in their minds to determine why they are doing what they are doing, but, knowing this organization, if they are considering a potential alternative to Howard, this precisely how I expect they would go about finding such a prospect.
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