The 2024 Vancouver Canadians feature an even mix of returning players and newcomers on its 30-man roster.
In their infinite wisdom which is apparently beyond the grasp of the common folk, the Toronto Blue Jays organization finally gave the go-ahead for its affiliates to release the season-opening rosters for the C’s as well as Double-A New Hampshire and Low-A Dunedin on Thursday. Local media members were asked to hold off releasing the full roster after receiving a copy on Media Day Monday at The Nat.
Please direct your attention to the 2023 Vancouver Canadians Northwest League Champions logo on the upper lefthand side next to Monty to Mountie.
Seven position players and eight pitchers are back in Vancouver to start the defence of the Northwest League title. The previous years the returnees were with the C’s have been noted in parentheses.
- OF Dasan Brown (2022, 2023)
- INF Nick Goodwin (2023)
- C Jommer Hernández (2022-2023)
- INF Estiven Machado (2023)
- INF Ryan McCarty (2023)
- C Kekai Rios (2023)
- INF Jeff Wehler (2023)
Brown is back for a third tour of duty with Monty’s Mounties. The Oakville, Ontario native can cover center field with the best of them but he needs to bounce back with the bat. Brown hopes to approach the performance level he reached with the lumber in 2022 which included three postseason home runs.
Back to guide the pitchers from behind the plate once again are Hernández and Rios. Hernández tossed out 40 percent of would-be base stealers. The Dominican Dandy also caught a seven-inning no-hitter in 2023. Hawaii native Rios was responsible for one of the 12 walks wins for Vancouver with an 11th-inning homer last August.
The veteran of the infield will be second baseman/shortstop Machado. The 21-year-old Venezuelan is looking to boost his prospect stock again after a tough year in the batter’s box.
McCarty—arguably the MVP of the 2023 Northwest League championship with the game-winning RBI in Game 1 and the game-winning run scored in Game 3—will be back on the right side of the infield. The former Penn State Abington product will provide on-base acumen to the C’s attack after a .369 OBP last year.
Wehler—who returned from Double-A just in time to join the C’s in time for their playoff run—is back to provide a boost to the batting order. The former Staten Island FerryHawk made the defensive play of the postseason in the first inning of Game 1 of the NWL final with a diving catch in foul territory beyond first base. That prevented Everett from getting on the board first and—as crazy as it is to say—it may have been the turning point of the series.
Goodwin was the only player from the 2023 Toronto Blue Jays draft class to join the C’s. A wrist injury to first baseman Peyton Williams pressed Goodwin into postseason action. He would belt the team’s lone home run in the playoffs to cap off a championship-clinching 10-2 win against Everett in Game 4. The former Kansas State Wildcat will be the main man at the six-spot to start the season.
- RHP Pat Gallagher (2023)
- RHP Ryan Jennings (2023)
- RHP Justin Kelly (2022-2023)
- RHP Conor Larkin (2022-2023)
- RHP Kevin Miranda (2023)
- LHP Naswell Paulino (2022-2023)
- RHP Rafael Sánchez (2023)
- RHP Anders Tolhurst (2023)
Candidates for the 2024 starting rotation include Sánchez, Jennings, Gallagher and Miranda. Sánchez will look to pick up his first Northwest League win as he experienced a season of extremes. The Cuban free-agent signee was 5-0 with Dunedin before his call-up to Vancouver in mid-May and could not buy a win, finishing 0-8. He may have been in line for the Game 5 start in the Northwest League final if there had been one.
One of the reasons there wasn’t a Game 5 was Jennings, who made his Nat Bailey Stadium debut with three shutout innings to start along with five punchouts in the clinching Game 4.
Jennings replaced Gallagher in the rotation late in the season after the former UConn Husky took ill. Gallagher gave up a home run to his former college teammate Casey Dana but that was the only run he allowed in five innings against Tri-City in an August start. C’s fans hope they see those kinds of efforts again this season.
Tolhurst—who supplied four innings of relief in Game 4 behind Jennings—is a candidate for the rotation after spending most of his time in the pen. Miranda made 13 starts last season and won two games, including winning Game 1 of a doubleheader in Everett that preceded the aforementioned no-hitter. He could also be in the mix for a starting role.
The bullpen will be well fortified with Paulino, Larkin and Kelly. Paulino spent all of 2023 in the bullpen and found his niche in a middle relief role after toggling between the rotation and the arm barn in 2022. Manager Brent Lavallee has two veteran arms to call upon for save situations in Larkin and Kelly. Larkin had three saves in the regular season but his biggest was the save he notched in the nerve-racking Game 3 to put the C’s one win away from the Northwest League title. Kelly had five saves in the regular season and threw the final pitch of the playoffs to set off the celebration of the NWL pennant in Vancouver.
Of the 15 new faces to debut with the C’s, six are position players and nine are pitchers.
- INF Jean Arnaez
- OF Jace Bohrofen
- C Jackson Hornung
- INF Brennan Off
- OF Dylan Rock
- OF Jaden Rudd
The most prominent newcomer on the offensive side with Vancouver this year is Bohrofen. He homered in his first at-bat at The Nat during Wednesday’s preseason game against UBC. Bohrofen is not a stranger to the long ball after smacking seven home runs, six of them with Dunedin in just 24 games after being drafted out of Arkansas in the sixth round of the 2023 MLB Draft. Most draft observers expected him to be taken much sooner. Fun Fact – his father Brent was an outfielder with the Hamilton Redbirds of the New York Penn League in 1991.
C’s fans will have the chance to salute Rock. The free agent from Texas A&M began his pro career with Dunedin in 2022 and bypassed Vancouver in 2023, as he spent the majority of the year with Double-A New Hampshire. He had five hits in his first two games with the Fisher Cats but could not maintain that pace as he spent multiple stints on the injured list.
Arnaez was a free-agent pick-up by Toronto in 2019 but did not play professionally until 2021 with the Dominican Summer League Blue Jays. He spent 2022 in the Florida Complex League before being bumped up to Dunedin in 2023. Arnaez will look to exceed his games played total as he appeared in a career-high 26 games with the D-Jays.
Rudd was on the Great Britain roster for the 2023 World Baseball Classic with 2017 Canadians outfielder Chavez Young and righthander Graham Speaker. Born in RAF Lakenheath in the United Kingdom, Rudd was drafted by the Blue Jays in the seventh round in 2021 out of high school in Lynn Haven, Florida. He has compiled a career on-base percentage of .374 after two seasons at the Florida Complex and last year with Dunedin.
Hornung was a 16th-round selection by Toronto in the 2023 draft out of Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York where he hit .433 over three seasons with the Division III Thoroughbreds. He spent his first year with Dunedin.
Orf was picked up in the 13th round of last year’s draft by the Blue Jays out of Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville, the same university Dave Stieb pitched at save for the fact it was in Carbondale. He did not homer in his first 35 pro games with Dunedin last year but he posted a strong OBP of .439. Orf looks to clear the wall for the first of many times with the C’s in 2024.
- RHP Alex Amalfi
- RHP Johnathan Lavallee
- RHP Chris McElvain
- RHP Josh Mollerus
- RHP Rafael Ohashi
- LHP Kendry Rojas
- RHP Grayson Thurman
- RHP Geison Urbaez
- RHP Chay Yeager
Rojas is a top-10 prospect in the Blue Jays system. The Cuban lefty was a free-agent acquisition back in 2020. He began his career stateside with the Florida Complex League Blue Jays in 2021 and spent most of 2022 and the entirety of 2023 with the Dunedin Blue Jays. Rojas contributed to two no-hitters with two shutout innings to start before it was finished off by the trio of Cooper Benson, Sam Ryan and Ian Churchill in September of 2022 against Tampa. Last year, Rojas played a bigger role by providing six of seven no-hit innings before Thurman finished the seven-inning doubleheader contest at Daytona last September.
Thurman signed as a free agent from Division III Lynchburg in Virginia. He pitched mostly at Dunedin in 2023 and recorded six saves before getting a cup of coffee in New Hampshire and converting his lone save opportunity.
Amalfi inked a free-agent pact with Toronto in the summer of 2022 out of the University of Massachusetts-Boston. He has spent his first two years at the Florida State League, mostly as a reliever. The former Beach split eight decisions and earned his first professional save last year.
Lavallee—pronounced Lavah-LAY and no relation to Brent—joined the Jays as an FA on February 2. He was drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the 16th round back in 2021 out of Long Beach State. He was a college teammate of 2022-2023 C’s righthander Devereaux Harrison.
McElvain pitched three shutout innings against UBC on Wednesday in his Blue Jays organizational debut. He was assigned to the C’s roster after being acquired from the Cincinnati Reds for infielder Santiago Espinal. An eighth-round pick by the Reds in 2022, McElvain pitched at Vanderbilt and was a teammate of 2022 Canadians utility man Harry Ray. McElvain made 19 of his 23 appearances as a starter and that’s where he may wind up with his new organization.
Ohashi will continue the Brazil representation on the C’s roster after fellow righthander Eric Pardinho was here the previous two seasons. A free-agent signing in 2019, the pandemic delayed the start of pro career to 2021. After sharing time between the FCL and FSL in his rookie campaign, Ohashi has made 26 starts with Dunedin over the 2022 and 2023 seasons. He finished up the UBC game with a shutout inning.
Another international free agent on the roster is Urbaez who signed out of the Dominican Republic in the fall of 2020. He won a FCL Pitcher of the Week award in 2021 after starting his career with Dunedin. Urbaez was back with the D-Jays in 2022 and was promoted to New Hampshire. He was assigned to the Vancouver roster in 2023 but he never threw a pitch that counted as he was shelved due to injury. The bullpen looks to be where you would find him in 2024. Urbaez tossed a goose egg against UBC in relief of McElvain.
Mollerus and Yeager are 2023 draftees. Mollerus will take over for shortstop Josh Kasevich as the Oregon Duck representative on the 2024 roster with the first name Josh. The 10th-rounder pitched 13-1/3 innings for Dunedin and struck out 17. Yeager was grabbed in round 12 from Pasco-Hernando State College in New Port Richey, Florida. After getting his feet wet at the Complex, Yeager struck out seven batters in 6-2/3 innings with Dunedin and recorded a 1.35 ERA. Fun Fact, Yeager is listed as a switch-hitter.
C-Notes
The New Hampshire 2024 roster features 27 former Vancouver Canadians and there is one former C’s player on the Dunedin roster in 2021 utility man Sebastian Espino. The 23-year-old Dominican is making a conversion to the mound as a righthander. Espino hit .295 for the C’s during their Hillsboro exile when the pandemic closed the U.S./Canada border. He was named a 2021 MiLB.com Blue Jays Organizational All-Star but he struggled with the bat over the last two years with New Hampshire.
The Canadians begin their 2024 season tonight with a visit to Eastern Washington to take on the Spokane Indians. Colorado Rockies first-round pick Chase Dollander is slated to throw the first pitch of the season at 6:35 p.m. at Avista Stadium. Ryan Jennings will be on the bump for Vancouver. The game can be heard on CanadiansBaseball.com with Tyler Zickel back behind the mic for a fourth season as the voice of the C’s. Rafael Sánchez and Pat Gallagher will start the second and third games of the series for Vancouver on Saturday and Sunday respectively.
Monty’s Mounties will return home on Tuesday for its home opener against the Hillsboro Hops. The starting pitchers for that game have not been announced. That game will be on MiLB.TV and CanadiansBaseball.com for a 7:05 p.m. first pitch.
Discover more from C's Plus Baseball | A Vancouver Canadians Blog
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
C's Plus Baseball | A Vancouver Canadians Blog 