The Birmingham Barons have an underrated alternate logo featuring a mustachioed Baron within their catalog of looks, but a browse through their team store confirms that it's taken a back seat to other designs.
Browsing through Birmingham's Opening Day roster, they might want to bring it back. Four players have been known to sport intentional, standalone mustaches, and two of them are authentic cookie dusters.
It's not great that facial hair jumps out to me when looking at the roster. These Barons aren't strangers, but it's a roster full of players who had an uphill climb warding off the "organizational" label before the pandemic cost them the entire season. There's only one member of the 40-man roster here, and only a couple other guys who have received looks during spring training or the alternate training sites.
The rest have to dust themselves off. Mustaches might help.
COACHING STAFF
- Manager: Justin Jirschele
- Pitching coach: Richard Dotson
- Hitting coach: Cam Seitzer
Jirschele and Dotson were supposed to be part of Birmingham's staff last year, while Seitzer joins Chris Johnson as first-year hitting coaches at the upper levels.
STARTING PITCHERS
You may remember McClure from such showcases as spring training, when he received an invitation to the big-league camp and fared decently in his three outings. He gained a few ticks of velocity and can throw strikes with an array of secondary pitches, making him the most interesting player on this roster. Pilkington could get there if he could find the velocity he lost during his Mississippi State days. Otherwise, he's kind of a strike-throwing lefty, albeit one with a third-round pedigree.
Henzman's lack of strikeout stuff came back to bite him in 2019, as he struck out only 62 batters over 120⅓ innings across two levels, with a 5.56 ERA at Birmingham indicative of its tenability. Battenfield -- one of the mustache gang -- has the same problem as Henzman after advancing to Double-A in 2019. Parke doesn't strike out anybody either, but he's a lefty, so his ERA was 2-3 runs lower. Vargas is no stranger to what was the Southern League, and provides the roster some veteran ballast, even though he's younger than everybody save Pilkington.
RELIEVERS
Hansen is alive, and he's the rare mid-20s Double-A prospect who might've benefited from a gap year, because his last two attempts at conquering Birmingham have been hard to watch, what with the 79 walks over 76 innings. Perhaps the company of Elliott, his fellow 6-foot-7-inch Oklahoma Sooner, will help. Kincanon has taken his pro career step by step with decent years at Great Falls, Kannapolis and Winston-Salem the last three years, but he's still waiting for a big break. Ledo turns 26 later this month, but he seems 36 because he's been in the system since 2013. He hadn't done much until a superficially successful year at Winston-Salem. The 1.80 ERA isn't supported by anything notable, but nevertheless, he's an international signing who has reached Double-A, and you can't take that for granted.
Lefties Perez and Sousa are second-day collegiate relievers who have posted decent pro performances. Sousa got an invitation to spring training, but was roughed up.
Among the other names, Tago is back in Birmingham bullpen after spending some of 2015 and all of 2016 there. Muckenhirn had decent strikeout rates in the Baltimore system, and he's lefty. Mateo briefly experienced the Southern League as a 25-year-old reliever in 2019, posting a 2.63 ERA, albeit with unimpressive strikeout and walk numbers. Goméz helped fill rotations in Kansas City's system, average more than 130 innings over three straight years across four levels, but without much to distinguish him performance-wise.
The last two names cover the extremes. Sampson is 30 and is trying to get back to the majors after spending parts of 2015 and 2016 in the Cincinnati Reds bullpen. Then there's Bradford, who stands out for being the youngest and least experienced player on the roster. He just turned 23, and he was drafted in the 13th round of the last draft that had a 13th round. He's coming off an OK debut in the Arizona Rookie League, but there's nothing yet that screams "ambitious assignment," so I don't know whether to call him a dark horse or merely a bit of roster accounting.
CATCHERS
Pérez spent part of training with the big club and doubled in his only at-bat. His combination of bat-to-ball skills and playable defense has always given him a path to advancement, but he could use a little something -- pop, framing, pitcher-whispering -- to give his case momentum. Tony La Russa praised him during the spring, but La Russa talked up everybody.
Pérez looks like he'll be backed up by Fernández, who had some decent years in the Royals system and might be worth keeping tabs on. Troutwine seems like the placeholder, because he hadn't played above Kannapolis, where he struggled in 2019. He spent the last summer pillaging villages along the Baltic Sea.
INFIELDERS
Forbes and Rivera had two of the many disappointing performances among starters for the last Barons team in 2019, the former with his hit tool, and the latter with his plate discipline. They'll get mulligans, and they won't really be pushed either. Remilland and Roman also struggled at Birmingham, while the mustachioed Muno was meh at Winston-Salem and Gonzalez underwhelmed at Kannapolis.
Dueñez is the one new name, and he briefly succeeded at Double-A in the Kansas City system in 2018, but 2019 was a struggle.
OUTFIELDERS
Adolfo is the one member of this roster who could be characterized as a true prospect, although his grip on that title is tenuous. He's had a hard time staying on the field, and making contact has eluded him since returning from an arduous elbow surgery. Some evaluators still believe in his ability to shape his tools into skills, and he doesn't have many peers in the system when it comes to being able to pull the ball in the air, but it seems like he can ill afford another abbreviated season.
Dedelow also has power, hitting 18 homers over 127 games for Winston-Salem in 2019. He also struck out 133 times against just 37 walks. Fisher is a remnant of the White Sox draft strategy that prized collegiate polish, but his .558 OBP at Southeast Louisiana never translated to pro ball outside of the rookie leagues. Dawkins can play center field, steal a base and get hit by a pitch, and he'll be skipping Winston-Salem after hitting .298/.361/396 for Kannapolis in 2019. He has the best mustache of the bunch, and might be able to roam the concourse as a mascot on his days off.
If Granite sounds familiar, it's because he briefly surfaced for the Twins back in 2017. He's a scrappy, slappy outfielder with a few strong performances in the high minors, which is something the rest of the position player segment of the roster can't really boast.
The impact this corps can make is a little too reliant on the corpus of Adolfo, but James Fegan said that Yoelqui Céspedes is expected to land here after visa issues are worked out, which will give this roster a little more star power.
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