Trail Droppings 2024-4 Calgary's Spring Battles

[indiansfan]

Calgary Spring Training Battles

Calgary invited a record 41 players to Spring Training this year. A few were invited just to give them a taste of the big league camp, but most were invited to get a serious look at making the team. Several starting positions were up for grabs along with several spots on then bench and bullpen.

Starting C- Last year’s starter Gabriel Bonilla and Carlos Garcia both had guaranteed jobs as the team doesn’t have much else at catcher. The competition was over who would start and Garcia won the job with a great spring hitting .291 with 5 HR and 17 RBI. The team would like to see Garcia, who is nearly a decade younger than Bonilla, stick this time in the majors. He has been a disappointment the last two times he was called up.

Starting 1B and DH - Last year the team started Gabriel Gomez at 1B and had Terry Cochran at DH. With Cochran retired there was a 4 person competition for the 2 starting jobs and a bench job. Gomez locked up the DH spot and will mostly platoon with OF Peter Powell who kills LHP. That left Jorge Valencia, Juan Torres and Yeong-Hwan Kim to fight it out over the 1B spot. Torres hit .358 with 16 homers and Valencia hit .220. Valencia hit poorly last season after coming over from Huntsville and his spring earned he a trip to AAA. Torres will start at 1B against RHP and Kim against LHP.

Starting 2B, 3B and SS - Last season the starters were 2B Gabriel Torres, 3B Quinlan Upham and SS Tony Franco. Franco was guaranteed a starting spot, the question was where. The team was hoping Deion Jordan, who missed most of last season with injuries, would win a spot this year. Leadoff man Dan Leonard was also in the mix and the team gave him a shot at 2B in the spring after the failed CF experiment last season. Franco had a good spring and his glove improved enough to lock up the SS spot. Jordan hit .321 and the team decided to go with him at 3B. The surprise is that the team decided to hand over 2B to Leonard and see how his glove works out there. If he can find a home in the infield it frees up an OF position which is easier for the team to fill.

INF Bench - With the starters sorted out, the team had to decide who would stick on the bench and who would go to AAA. The team decided to send down Torres so he could play everyday at SS and work on his fielding there. It is looking like his future will be as a utilityman. Upham stuck with the big league team even though he had a mediocre spring. He can backup all the spots in case of injury and pinch hit. Carl Long with his great glove earned the other spot on the bench. Wilton MacDonald ended up on waivers as the team was out of spots and he was out of options. He is great at AAA, but has never made the transition to the majors. Lukas Bourdon had a good enough spring to make the club, but the team decided he should go to AAA where he could play everyday and broaden his position resume. He will probably be back up with the club at some point this season.

Starting CF - Hector Cano has been begging to move back to his natural position of LF and the team tried last season by moving Leonard to CF. That failed. This season the team gave Marcio Rocha most of the at bats in the spring to see if he could claim the job. His glove is better than Cano’s and he had good offensive numbers in AAA. Well he hit .125 in the spring. The team gave him the job anyway. In what is expected to be a non-playoff year, what do we have to lost.

OF Bench - The bench is going to be thin this year. Bill Burkholder, Jr. Will back up the corners and Powell is mainly a platoon DH. If injuries happen the team can always move Leonard back to the OF or bring someone up from AAA. Rob Sullivan, who was with the team last season, was sent back to AAA and it is probably the end of the road for him. Bobby Campbell was another player that got a look, but will end up in AAA this season. Campbell exploded offensively last season, but can’t really play the field at all. The team will let him work in the OF this season to see if he can make the next step to Calgary.

Offense Roundup - So to open the season only 3 players are starting in the same place they were last year, Cano, Romero and Franco. Leonard and Gomez are starting, but in different spots. That means 4 new starting position players for the team. So much for those folks that thought the team was standing pat.

Rotation - With Edward Simpson injured, Jorge Jimenez, Fox Mulder and Ace Young were locks for the top 3 spots. Jeremy Alexander, Jr. Was the top contender for #4 and the #5 spot was a competition between Juan Lucero, Lienhard Zieff, Natsume Tsuchiya, Marcos Medina and Walter Garcia. The team’s hopes for Tsuchiya went up in flames with a 9.33 ERA in 5 spring starts earning him a trip back to AAA. Zieff once again disappointed and the EBA import went back to AAA again. The team decided to go with Alexander and Lucero with Medina and Garcia going to the bullpen.

CL - The bullpen was always going to be a mess with most of it filled by those that failed to make the rotation. The real questions were who would be the closer and would Walter Garcia or Ramon Montoya fill one of the setup roles. The closer candidates were Rob Miller and Iestyn Pilgrim. The team would rather have the younger Miller fill the spot and he was given first shot. While he did save 5 games he also posted an ERA over 11.00. Despite this the team gave him the closer spot to open the year as Pilgrim at 40 doesn’t figure into the team’s longterm plans. He will fill one of the setup spots. Garcia won the other one by default as Montoya had a terrible spring. The team invested alot in him during the offseason to try to convert him from a starter to a reliever. He will have to finish that transition in AAA.

Pitching Roundup - The team opened the year with 3 new starting pitchers, a new closer and a new setup guy. Overall 7 of the pitchers are new this season to the team.

[recte44]

Kim keeps getting chances. We'll never learn.