C’s Recap – Vancouver Canadians Unveil 2023 Roster – C's Plus Baseball

The Vancouver Canadians will have plenty of familiar faces to begin the 2023 Northwest League season.

A total of 24 returnees are on the 30-man roster which includes 14 pitchers and 10 position players. There are 31 players in total listed but two players are on the Development List and are denoted with an asterisk.

Returning Pitchers

RHP T.J. Brock
RHP Connor Cooke
RHP Chad Dallas
RHP Michael Dominguez
LHP Mason Fluharty
RHP Hunter Gregory
RHP Devereaux Harrison
RHP Justin Kelly
RHP Conor Larkin
RHP Abdiel Mendoza
RHP Eric Pardinho
LHP Naswell Paulino
RHP Sam Ryan
RHP Dahian Santos

Returning Position Players

C Jommer Hernández
C Andrés Sosa
INF Alex De Jesus
INF Rainer Nunez
INF Glenn Santiago*
INF Riley Tirotta
INF Michael Turconi
OF Dasan Brown
OF Gabby Martinez
OF Garrett Spain*

New Pitchers

LHP Cooper Benson
LHP Adam Macko

New Position Players

INF Cade Doughty
INF Josh Kasevich
INF Estiven Machado
OF Devonte Brown
OF Alan Roden

According to the official press release from Broadcast and Media Relations manager Tyler Zickel, the average age of the roster is 21.7 with Dahian Santos being the youngest at 20 years old and Sosa being the oldest at 25.

Oakville, Ontario’s Dasan Brown and Vauxhall, Alberta’s Adam Macko are the two Canadian players on this year’s roster. The number of American-born players is 19, coming from 14 different states.

California (3)
Louisiana (2)
Pennsylvania (2)
West Virginia (2)
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Illinois
Indiana
Ohio
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Wisconsin

The number of international players on the Vancouver roster is 10 with the Dominican Republic leading the way with four and Venezuela with three. Brazil, Mexico and Panama have one apiece.

The Canadians will be managed by North Delta, B.C’s Brent Lavallee with bench coach Danny Canellas. Joel Bonnett will handle the pitchers and Ryan Wright is back to look after the hitters. Mississauga, Ontario’s Ashley Stephenson is the new position coach. Raul Pimentel returns as mental coach, Luke Statler is the new tech assistant and Yuka Sanui is back as dietitian.

Fisher Cats Roster Neary 100% ‘Canadian’

The Double-A New Hampshire Fisher Cats also announced its roster on Wednesday. Of the 28 players listed, only one player has not worn the red and white of Monty’s Mounties. That player is catcher Kekai Rios, a 25-year-old righthanded hitting catcher who was picked by the Toronto Blue Jays in the minor league phase of the Rule 5 Draft from the Los Angeles Dodgers back on December 7. The Kaneohe, Hawaii product was drafted by the Milwaukee Brewers in the 28th round of the 2018 MLB Draft from the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors.

The 2022 Canadians set to make their Double-A debut in 2023 include shortstop Leo Jiménez, corner infielder Damiano Palmegiani, second baseman Miguel Hiraldo, first baseman P.K. Morris and righthander Troy Watson.

C-Notes

2021-2022 Vancouver Canadians catcher Anthony Morales has announced his retirement according to the transactions page on CanadiansBaseball.com. The Aibonito, Puerto Rico native joined the Jays as a minor league free agent on June 25, 2019 out of Lake Land College in Illinois. The 24-year-old’s claim to fame was seeing action for all four full-season Blue Jays affiliates in 2021, spending time in Buffalo, New Hampshire, Dunedin and Hillsboro/Vancouver. All the best to Anthony in his future endeavours.