Projecting the Palm Beach Cardinals roster


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?