A blind guess at the 2012 Lugnuts roster

First, two matters of business:

- A profile on me by MLive's Larry Hook.

- Here is my most recent article for TheGoodPoint.com, contrasting Yoenis Cespedes with two great Cuban sluggers who never played in the Major Leagues, Omar Linares and Orestes Kindelan.

*

Any guess at the 2012 Lansing Lugnuts roster has to begin with a link to this extensive 1BlueJaysWay preview.  It gives you a terrific overview of the entire organization.

A caveat:  I'm biased.  I included as few 2011 Lugnuts as I could because I hope they all go up the ladder.  For the '11 Lugs listed below, it would be just excellent if I turned out wrong and they headed to Dunedin or New Hampshire instead.

With that out of the way, let's continue.

The starting rotation will be loaded with talent.

Everyone is agreement about this.  At the very least, a triad of top prospects will be descending upon Cooley Law School Stadium in Justin Nicolino, Aaron Sanchez and Noah Syndergaard.  Maybe we'll get to see Griffin Murphy or Daniel Norris at some point, too.  Adonys Cardona?  Joe Musgrove?  Further down the road.

#1 starter - Syndergaard
#2 - Nicolino
#3 - Sanchez
#4 - Misaul Diaz, a wild card, began year with Lugs before injury -- hey, why not?
#5 - Michigan native Jesse Hernandez

Bullpen:

Brandon Berl
Philip Brua
Aleson Escalante
Bryan Longpre
Dayton Marze
Blake McFarland
Drew Permison
Tyler Ybarra

Starting Lineup:

C - Pierce Rankin
1B - Kevin Patterson
2B - Jon Berti
SS - Peter Mooney
3B - Bryson Namba
OF - Jonathan Jones
OF - Kevin Pillar
OF - Nick Baligod

Bench

C - Luis Hurtado
C - Chris Schaeffer
INF - Garis Pena
OF - Matt Newman


Your thoughts?

(P.S.  I guarantee there's a member of the Blue Jays brass somewhere who stumbled across this and is now laughing himself/herself into a better mood.  Hey, painters paint, talent evaluators evaluate... and broadcasters make uneducated predictions.)

Comments

GCM1979 said…
Probably a lot closer than say, if Gregg Zaun were to guess. Gregg is looking forward to watching Hernandez pitch (He's talking about Henderson Alvarez, lol)

I'm hitting up opening weekend just to see the big 3.

I agree with Norris and Cardona. I have a feeling they'll be around at some point. I'm guessing Nicolino is first to be promoted, then Noah and Sanchize will probably spend all year in Lansing stretching out the arm to full season length.

Hitting wise, there aren't any prospects I'm too interested in. Although lets put a guess that we might see Eric Arce up there at some point because of the versatility he'll bring defensively.
Mylegacy said…
That top 3 starters is some sick top 3 starters!

Position players not so much. I too would love to see Eric Arce - he reminds me of Matt Stairs. I've a feeling that guy is gonna be a huge pleasant surprise.
The Southpaw said…
Most Glaring Omission: Chris Hawkins

I'm doing a series on this myself, the post which includes Lansing may be found here (for my extended opinion, lol)

http://thesouthpawbaseball.blogspot.com/2012/02/first-look-minor-league-rosters-part-2.html
Southpaw, just read your post and I'm about to post my comment - I like your ambitiousness in moving several interesting players upward.

Hawkins was most certainly an oversight, well said.

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