At this point, we know the opening rosters of three of the four St. Louis Cardinals full-season clubs, Memphis, Springfield and Quad Cities, with only the A-Advanced Palm Beach Cardinals of the Florida State League to go.
With their regular season not opening until Thursday, there is no assurance the PB roster will be released quickly. With some time this weekend and the requirement to prepare the next version of the Roster Matrix looming, I began to move the player chess pieces around the board. With the rosters of Springfield above them and Quad Cities below published, filling in the blanks between was relatively straightforward.
What follows is a possible opening 25-man roster for manager Tom Spencer’s 2009 Palm Beach club. At this point, there are 28 names. For the position players, I could come up with the 12 fairly quickly, however I still have 16 pitchers for 13 spots.
| Palm Beach (28) | |||||||
| SP | RP | C | 1B | 2B | SS | 3B | OF |
| Bradford | Degerman | Derba | Rivera | Marmol | Kozma (8) | Curtis | Chambers |
| Broderick | King | Vasquez | Smith (40) | Sedbrook | Pham | ||
| R Castillo (19) | McCormick | Kingrey | |||||
| Diapoules | Reifer (24) | Peterson | |||||
| Eager | Sanchez | ||||||
| Garceau (29) | Freeman (L) | ||||||
| Kopp (28) | |||||||
| Lynn (14) | |||||||
| Additon (26L) | |||||||
| Kulik (L) |
(In the table, I am using the same format as the Roster Matrix. “L” denotes left-handed pitchers, usually listed last, and the number in parenthesis is my ranking of that player in my Cardinals Top 40 prospect list prepared over the winter.)
Two of the ten starting pitchers listed seem sure to lose out as the tandem starting rotation is set. I am not clear on who they will be and I guess there is always the chance the two could be moved to the pen, bumping out a pair of relievers. As it is, I have one too many relievers listed with Eduardo Sanchez perhaps being the one on the bubble – if oft-injured Mark McCormick is ready to go and begins with Palm Beach instead of Springfield.
Among the players that would start in Extended Spring Training in this scenario include recovering pitchers Scott Gorgen and Josh Dew. The latter may return to Springfield when he is ready, which is where he finished last season.
Of course, when the real roster is made available, I will post it here on The Cardinal Nation. In the meantime, what is your take? Any players missing? Which players would you remove to get down to 25?
McCormick is likely on the DL, because if good to go, the Cards would likely assign him to AA, where he was last season.
Degerman could be on the bubble, since he was drafted as a starting pitcher and last year was removed from this role.
Two starters need to be DL’d or released. Two bubble candidates: Broderick and Eager.
I agree with Beau on Deggerman and McCormack.
I’m not sure how secure iKing’s job is either.
jorge rondon?
If Rondon is not on the initial QC roster, he may be in EST?
may be short a position player. Only 12 there. Need a back up middle infielder. Maybe Folli would move down.
I’ve exchanged emails with Samuel Freeman and he is on the PB roster.
If PB were to go with 13 position players, D’Marcus Ingram could land there.
Sooner, Springfield went with 12 position players with Folli playing the same role as Sedbrook noted above, but they aren’t using the tandem starter system and have only a 24-man roster. On the other hand, QC also opened with 12 position players and they are using tandems with a 25-man roster, like Palm Beach.
If PB did go with 13, Folli would be logical to come down as you say, especially if Jose Martinez is ready to join Springfield. Another option would be to move Jose Garcia up either to QC or be dropped into PB temporarily.
As Jumbo notes, a fifth outfielder is another possibility, though if one of the two first basemen could play out there, it could help alleviate that need. Andrew Brown looks to be in that role for Springfield.
Rondon was with QC#1 this spring, so would need to fight upstream to make PB with too many guys seemingly ahead of him. I would also imagine that he will remain in EST if he doesn’t make PB as was suggested above.
Rivera started out as an outfielder but only played a couple of games there last year. I guess it would require a first hand report as to whether he moves well enough to play the OF still.