Feature Photo: Allen Cordoba, INF, Padres
After a long weekend of roster flurries – okay, roster blizzards! – contract purchases, reassignments, options, call-back-ups and way too many players placed on the brand-new 10-day DL (don’t ask, I don’t get it), we finally came away with our FINAL (for at least a day) 25-man rosters and, with that, a list of this year’s entering class of “debutantes” (hey, we here at 2080 Baseball are a classy bunch and need a classy name for those guys who are enjoying one of the greatest days of their lives).
We also, as you may have noticed, have a slightly new name for this weekly column, which will be coming to you via laptop, desktop, smartphone or wherever you love to read your favorite news about the top prospects in baseball.
We are now calling it The Debutantes Ball. Not a life-altering or earthshaking move, I know. Your humble scribe simply wanted something that tripped off the tongue SLIGHTLY more easily than 2016’s Les Debutantes MLB debut series, and having a little baseball-related double-entendre was a bonus.
Each week, you can read about the players who have just come up to the majors and gotten their names indelibly etched forever into the vast record books of Major League Baseball…no matter what else happens from here forward, whether they get sent back down after one plate appearance (please God, no) or become Hall of Famers (Who knows?), they are now MLB players.
You can generally look for this column every Tuesday…and I hope you enjoy it! You can follow along with us at 2080 on Twitter (@2080Ball) and on Facebook and I’ll try to occasionally add some extra fun ‘debfacts’ in there so you get more for your money (that’s a joke! This is free! Get it?)
So now that I’ve made a lot of bad jokes, let’s move onto the culmination of one of the busiest months I can remember in a long time. I started the homework for this by making up pages and writing up every single guy in spring training camp, whether he was a 40-man roster member or a non-roster invitee – that binder had more than 400 names in it.
When the first pitch of the season was thrown Sunday afternoon (another “new” trend, that list was down to 20 active players, no less than seven of whom had been acquired in the 2016 MLB Rule 5 Draft.
Over the course of the next eight days, 19 of those players would make their debuts (we know you’re still waiting, Dylan Covey (RHP, White Sox), and be joined by another four call-ups over the course of that week (moves happen when you least expect it). By the end of the week, two of the debutantes had already been sent back down (we’ll see you again in Cincinnati soon, right-handed pitcher Barrett Astin! Hope you enjoyed the Seattle skyline, Chase De Jong (RHP, Mariners)!
So many great storylines evolve from this crew … thanks to the internet, you can see many emotional moments where players’ reactions were caught at the moment they found out they’d made the Show (I’m looking at you, Brock Stassi … me and a few million other people…even my husband – who pays zero attention to MLB debuts – has said you’re his new favorite player; and hopefully folks have also found some great causes to back (thank you, Amir Garrett (LHP, Reds), for your passion for rescuing pit bulls … everyone should check out Dozer Garrett’s Instagram page!
And for those who have made fun of my intense excitement each year about the MLB Rule 5 Draft, I was thrilled that the big storyline of this past December’s event – the San Diego Padres swapping for two of the top three picks to go with the one they already have, giving them an unprecedented 1-2-3 pick in the draft – continues to be a story, as ALL THREE of those players made the Opening Day roster, and you KNOW I will be rooting for all of them – right-hander Miguel Diaz, catcher Luis Torrens and super-exciting young middle infielder Allen Cordoba – to make at least a highlight reel or two and help give the Padres’ fans hope and cheer during this season.
A few more fun facts from this week: In the Reds’ 7-4 victory over the Phillies on April 6, it marked the first time that the Reds had ever fielded a starting battery of TWO players both making their major league debuts: starting right-hander Rookie Davis and (Rule 5 selection) catcher Stuart Turner. There was also a third debut in that game, Phillies catcher Andrew Knapp, making both teams’ starting catchers debutantes.
Last year’s final debutante list was 258 players. Anyone want to predict the over-under? Chime in on Twitter! Hashtag it #DebutantesBall and #2080Baseball!
Oh, and by the way … how do you like the fancy-schmancy new table for the debuts? We can keep it going all season so you can find your guys whenever you want … please send thank-you notes to the indefatigable Energizer Bunny of the 2080 machine, editor Mark Shreve!
And now, on to the Show!
(P.S. The MLB Debut table is also found by clicking the Spotlights Tab on our home page, and scrolling to the top sub-menu selection.)
