The Bradenton Marauders announced their 2018 Opening Day roster on Tuesday morning. They will open up the season with 13 pitchers and 13 position players. Bo Schultz, who is recovering from Tommy John surgery, will open the season on the roster. Tommy John pitchers now get 60 days of minor league rehab, so he could remain on the roster for awhile or move up when a spot opens up. He should eventually end up at Indianapolis, and with his big league experience, Pittsburgh late in the year isn’t out of the question at this point.
We will have the Bradenton team preview tomorrow, but for now, here are the players on the Opening Day roster. As you will see once all of the team previews are available, this team really lacks top prospects when compared to the other three clubs.
Pitchers
Ronny Agustin
Jess Amedee
Matt Eckelman
Luis Escobar
Angel German
Gage Hinsz
Jordan Jess
James Marvel
Oddy Nunez
Bo Schultz
Eduardo Vera
Cam Vieaux
Mike Wallace
Catchers
John Bormann
Jason Delay
Arden Pabst
Infielders
Trae Arbet
Albert Baur
Hunter Owen
Alfredo Reyes
Adrian Valerio
Outfielders
Tyler Gaffney
Casey Hughston
Bligh Madris
Jared Oliva
Lucas Tancas (OF/1B)
Breakout Prospects
Both MLB Pipeline and Baseball America had articles about potential breakout prospects on Monday. The one from Pipeline picked one from each organization, while the one from BA had two for each position and involved all of baseball. Despite the limited amount of players mentioned (18 total), the Pirates had three players make the BA list.
Starting with Pipeline, they mentioned Cody Bolton as a potential breakout prospect. We mentioned early in camp that Bolton really looked like he did a nice job of filling out his 6’3″ frame this off-season and the early results from camp have been very positive. He seems more like a potential breakout player for 2019 because he will be at Bristol this year. If he does well, then we will see him skip to West Virginia in 2019 and have a chance to show off what he can do during a full season.
BA split each position into upper level players and lower level. For potential breakout corner outfielders, their choice was Jordan Luplow. They believe he has the tools to develop into a starting outfielder in the majors.
At third base, Ke’Bryan Hayes is their upper level choice. That level is based on his 2018 club being Altoona and not previous experience. They mention Hayes doing everything well except the power part of his game. We took a look at how that could change in our Altoona team preview.
The final potential breakout prospect was Mason Martin at lower level first base. West Virginia will be loaded with potential breakout prospects this season, and he’s definitely one of the players to watch in that group. He’s been working hard on his first base play this spring as well, so we could see him become more of a well-rounded player.
