Jay Blue: 2019 New Hampshire Fisher Cats preliminary roster

Kevin Smith will begin the season at shortstop with the double-A New Hampshire Fisher Cats. Photo: Jay Blue

By Jay Blue

Blue Jays from Away

The double-A New Hampshire Fisher Cats' 2019 Preliminary Roster is out and here it is, with players from six countries (including Canada) and 10 returning players from the championship team last year.

Starters

As expected, Patrick Murphy headlines the starting rotation for the 2019 Fisher Cats while he'll be joined by a couple of other top prospects. Here are the 2019 expected starters (note, it's possible one or two will be relievers and one or two relievers will be starters):

Patrick Murphy
Yennsy Diaz
Hector Perez
Andrew Sopko
Zach Logue

I'm a little surprised by Diaz's inclusion in the Fisher Cats' rotation although I was expecting Logue after seeing him in spring training and all of the injuries to the staff in the upper minors. Expect to see T.J. Zeuch back with New Hampshire after he recovers from his injury.

Relievers

It's an interesting group of relievers featuring flamethrowers Bryan Baker and Jackson McClelland.

Bryan Baker
Andrew Case (Saint John, N.B.)
Jake Fishman
Jackson McClelland
Francisco Rios
Tayler Saucedo (could also start)
Kirby Snead
Ty Tice

I'm a little surprised that William Ouellette isn't on the Fisher Cats to start the year and Fishman gets a jump after I expected him and Baker to start the year in Dunedin.

Catchers

With Max Pentecost's future in baseball up in the air, it looks like the catching will be split between two players: Ryan Hissey and Alberto Mineo, the other two catchers I expected to be here.

Infielders

On the infield, there are a couple of players I expected to see in either Buffalo or Dunedin who are listed here, so that's an exciting development.

1B: Kacy Clemens, Chad Spanberger
2B: Santiago Espinal
SS: Kevin Smith
3B/UTIL: Brandon Grudzielanek
UTIL: Nash Knight

It's a bit of a thin infield with two first basemen and only two true middle infielders with Kevin Smith able to play short, second and third and Santiago Espinal also able to play those positions. Brandon Grudzielanek and Kacy Clemens are both up from where I expected them to start in Dunedin. Interestingly, I saw that Yeltsin Gudino had been traded (listed as a transaction on MiLB.com) and I'm trying to get confirmation of who or what he was traded for.

Outfielders

In my predictions (at least the most recent ones after the Jays traded away Dwight Smith Jr. and Dalton Pompey and Jonathan Davis got hurt), I nailed the outfield, predicting Brock Lundquist, Rodrigo Orozco, Josh Palacios and Forrest Wall would make up the outfield.

Injured List

P - Willy Ortiz
C - Andres Sotillo

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