While I’m sure many of you heard by now that Lucas Giolito was reassigned to minor-league camp – along with Erik Davis, Burke Badenhop, and Michael Brady – our resident keeper of The Big Board, Springfield Fan, alerted me to a set of releases that happened last week (H/T as always):
- RHP Justin Amlung (Hagerstown)
- RHP Calvin Copping (GCL)
- RHP Ian Dickson (Potomac)
- RHP Brian Dupra (Harrisburg)
- RHP Scott McGregor (Syracuse)
- RHP Drew Van Orden (Hagerstown)
- LHP Darin Gorski (Offseason pickup)
- LHP David Napoli (Hagerstown)
- LHP Jake Walsh (Potomac)
- C Zach Wright (Potomac)
No real surprises here. These are the proverbial “other shoe(s)” to drop for the minor league free agents that were signed during the offseason. Let’s not forget that for some, if not most, of these guys this means their days as a professional baseball player are over.
UPDATE
As noted in the comments, several more cuts have been posted on MiLB.com:
- UT Ricky Hague (Syracuse)
- RHP Jon Velasquez (Offseason pickup)
- IF Reegie Corona (Harrisburg)
- OF Estarlin Martinez (Potomac)
- RHP Deion Williams (Hagerstown)
- RHP Adam Boghosian (Auburn)
- RHP Kida De La Cruz (GCL)
It’s always embarrassing when a watchlist player gets released (Martinez), especially in spring training, but it’s still a mild surprise because he had just turned 24 (March 8). The saga of the lone HS bat signed in 2011 (Williams; converted to RHP in 2012) also comes to a close, as does a couple of pitchers from the past two drafts (De La Cruz, 2014; Boghosian, 2015).