Guessing at 2014 Blue Jays Minor League Assignments

With Opening Day against Tampa Bay just around the corner on Monday, Opening Day for Minor League Baseball's full season leagues is not much further away either. With the Blue Jays seemingly having set their 25-man roster (at least barring injuries, signings, waiver wire pickups, or last-minute changes of mind), they will shortly be setting minor league rosters as well.

So I thought I'd take a crack at guessing/predicting how the rosters of Buffalo (AAA), New Hampshire (AA), Dunedin (high-A), and Lansing (low-A) will look for Opening Day, and maybe provoke a little discussion as well. In large measure, this is fool's errand since it's basically a lot of guesswork and one change can have a big domino effect that cascades through lower levels. I'm basically just trying to lay things out, with my placements being basically on a combination of what I think the Jays will do, and what I think they should do with precedence on placing top prospects first and filling in around them. With that said, for the most part I have not bothered to order within the projected rotation and within the bullpen.

Below the "projected" rosters are two groups - other and inactive. At this point, there are more players in the organization who would figure to be on a full season team than there are roster spots. Some of this will be resolved by injuries, some via releases before camp breaks, some being sent to extended spring training. Players in the "other" group could easily make rosters over players listed on the projected rosters, especially in a reserve capacity. In a lot of cases, it depends on how they're going to be used, but for some (Romero), it's just not clear where they'll be assigned. Inactive includes players who are known to be injured (will be grow quite a bit soon) as well as suspensions or those on a restricted list.

With that said, the projected rosters and some brief commentary below:

Buffalo: One big question is how the middle infield situation shakes out, there's too many players for too many roster spots. Some of those guys might be assigned to lower levels, but there's a risk of creating roadblocks for younger prospects. The other thing will be how the rotation shakes out, with seven or eight candidates, including Happ potentially rehabbing soon. But these are nice problems to have, and it should be a strong team.

New Hampshire: The rotation here looks somewhat unsettled, and I think there's a good chance that some of the surplus ends up here. There's at least a dozen realistic candidates for the bullpen. Position player wise, the only part I'd really expect is unsettled is the middle infield depending on who doesn't land jobs in Buffalo and how aggressive they want to be with Berti and Opitz.

Dunedin: Here too there's probably only one or two rotation spots set in stone, depending on how things shake out above. I'd expect that position-wise, things are pretty stable, but if Opitz and/or Berti repeat, that will necessitate pushing others out. Likewise, the bullpen is pure guesswork.

Lansing: This team should be loaded. Pitching-wise, I expect a piggy-backing system similar to what has been seen in the past involving six or seven pitchers, some of whom are nominally listed in the bullpen. On the position side, there's some players like D.J. Davis and Barreto who could get promotions to full season, but the Jays aren't very aggressive and I don't think they'll start the season there.

Edits/Notes (Minor Leaguer)

• Swapped Erik Kratz and Josh Thole's placement
• Removed Ian Kadish as he recently announced his release
• Tomo Ohka was reported to have been released by Gideon Turk of Blue Jays Plus. I'm just waiting on a confirmation.