Tonight is Opening night for Tulsa and Rancho, OKC started last Friday, so when Great Lakes opens up tomorrow, baseball will be officially “all the way” back. The Dodgers have, possibly, the best Farm system in the game of baseball, so every affiliate is going to be loaded, but one in particular team sticks out the most, and that is the Tulsa Drillers.Â
Massive Talent
The AA Affiliates have the Dodgers #1 overall prospect in Diego Cartaya, 4 players that are already on the Dodgers 40-man roster, and 10 of the Dodgers Top 50 prospects according to the MLB Pipeline.Â
Elite Outfield
In the outfield, the Drillers will have Jonny DeLuca and Andy Pages, both on the 40-man, then will also have Jose Ramos who is the Dodgers #23 prospect. Although he played mainly 1st base last year, Imanol Vargas is listed as an outfielder and he led the Midwest League in on-base percentage for the last year and a half with the Loon’s.Â
The 40-Man Infield
In the infield, the club will boast 2 more prospects that are on the 40-man roster in Eddys Leonard and Jorbit Vivas. Kody Hoese is still with the club and he was a 1st Round draft pick and is easily the best defensive 3rd baseman in the system. Brandon Lewis will man one of the corner spots and he led the entire Dodgers Minor League system in home runs per at-bat in 2021.Â
Headed to 100
When it comes to pitching, the AA Drillers led all of the Minor Leagues last year in average velocity per pitch at 94 miles an hour. That’s not going to change as Nick Frasso, Tanner Dodson, Cole Percival, River Ryan and Emmet Sheehan all have hit close to 100 MPH already in their careers.Â
The Drillers also have Jordan Leasure, Landon Knack, Alec Gamboa and John Rooney who can all sit anywhere from low 90’s, to mid to upper 90’s as well, so the power arms are pretty much endless on this club.Â
Sprinkle in the left-handed artists like Lael Lockhart Jr., Jacob Cantleberry and Ben Harris, who led the world in strikeouts per innings pitched last year, and it makes for a staff that could feed 3 or 4 teams worth of talent.Â
Jack Little is back as well as Trevor Betancourt who pitched in AAA last year and the Dodgers just recently picked up Carlos Reyes as well.
Big Time Backstops
At the catching spot, Diego Cartaya is the Dodgers #1 rated prospect and Carson Taylor was on the Dodgers Top 30 list last year, but spent much of 2022 injured. Taylor was drafted in the 4th Round of the 2020 Draft that was only 5 Rounds so he is very talented, is a switch hitter and already has AA experience.Â
AA Tulsa Drillers Manager Scott Hennessey
Scott Hennessey returns as the Clubs manger and “Henny” as he is called is known as the Mayor of DrillVille because he is so well-liked. Ryan Dennick returns as the teams pitching coach and he’ll be coaching alongside Durin O’Linger who got promoted from Rancho.Â
Lou Iannotti will be the teams hitting coach and Juan Apodaca will be the Bench Coach.Â
If you haven’t already made plans to go watch the club, please do, it will be worth it, because this team is loaded. For the full Tulsa Drillers schedule follow this link.Â
https://www.milb.com/tulsa/schedule/2023-04
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