A few hours after the parent club lost their opening day game, the AA roster was announced for the start of the 2011 season. I think it was kind of odd to announce the AA roster prior to the AAA roster, or to announce it separately than the other full season squads, but it does make for some interesting analysis already.
To borrow from Byron Kerr’s article above, here’s the 12-man pitching roster:
Pitchers:
RHP Erik Arnesen
RHP Luis Atilano
RHP Jimmy Barthmaier
RHP Erik Davis
RHP Jeff Mandel
RHP Ryan Mattheus
LHP Pat McCoy
RHP Brad Meyers
RHP Brad Peacock
RHP Hassan Pena
RHP Ryan Tatusko
LHP Cory VanAllen
Based on the roles from last year, plus the organizational status of some of these guys, here’s how I think the roles shake out:
Starters: Meyers, Peacock, Tatusko, EDavis, Arneson
bullpen: Mandel (closer), VanAllen (L), HPena, Mattheus, McCoy (L), Barthmaier, Atilano
First thoughts:
- Arneson gets dumped back to AA after pitching half the year in AAA. This probably is due to the overflow of starters in AAA we have now, including newly signed reclamation project Oliver Perez. Not that Arneson was a fantastic prospect for us last year, but i’m sure some people will not be happy that his advancement is being displaced by the Perez experiment.
- Atilano goes from the 40-man and pitching regularly in 2010 to passing through waivers and being assigned to AA in 2011. This probably indicates that, unless he pitches like the 2nd coming of Tim Lincecum this year, he’s officially designated “organizational guy.”
- Mattheus may be a starter instead of Arneson, frankly. It will be interesting to see how he does post TJ surgery.
- Tatusko: it is disappointing he’s not with the AAA squad because he definitely earned the promotion.
- Peacock and new acquisition Erik Davis start where I thought they would; no surprises here. Same to a certain extent with Brad Meyers, who was fantastic last year before going down with injury. He seems to be the real starter prospect on the AA squad and may feature in the 2011 rotation battle with the big club.
Now, for the surprises. Where are these guys?
- Milone and Holder; I guess they start the year in high-A again
- Roark: where is he? My guess would be the AAA bullpen since there’s no way he should be dumped back to high-A.
- Alaniz: not that he was a great prospect himself, but he is far too old to be starting in high-A again. I’m guessing he’s in the AAA bullpen mix or flat out released.
Can’t wait to see the next round of announcements (which i’m hoping have not already occurred as i write this).