AB4AR 2014 Season Preview Recap

Well that's it, ladies and gentlemen.  3 weeks have come and gone and with them we've previewed the upcoming 2014 season in every which way imaginable.  The last week of preview posts was this past week, a detailed position-by-position breakdown of the Opening Day roster and its strengths and weaknesses.  The rotation and outfield look like the no questions asked strengths of the team while the infield and bench look like the obvious weaknesses, but check out each individual roster group post and judge for yourself.

- The Infield

- The Outfield

- The Rotation

- The Bullpen

- The Bench

The regular season starts on Tuesday, so use these next 2 days to catch up on whatever you've missed.  The "2014 Knowns and Unknowns" series can be found here, and the "Season Storylines" posts here.  Check back tomorrow afternoon for my 2014 predictions.

The Minor League Team To Watch In 2014 Has Been Found

The Yankees have put the finishing touches on their Opening Day 25-man roster over the past few days, but they aren't the only team setting rosters with a couple of days remaining before the start of the season.  The roster pictures for each MiL affiliate are starting to come into focus and, courtesy of Josh Norris, it looks like Low-A Charleston is going to be the team to follow:

Charleston will have Judge, Avelino, Andujar, Torrens, Severino, Rookie Davis, Brady Lail and Tyler Wade
— Josh Norris (@jnorris427) March 29, 2014

In Aaron Judge, Abi Avelino, Miguel Andujar, Luis Torrens, and Luis Severino, the RiverDogs will open the season with 5 of the top 26 from the AB4AR Top 30 on their roster.  Davis, Lail, and Wade are also on the radar as guys with serious prospect potential, and once the season gets going there's a good chance we see Gosuke Katoh, Ian Clarkin, Jordan Cote, and maybe even Ty Hensley in Charleston at some point.

It's a lot of young, still tough to project talent, but all in all that's easily the most exciting group of prospects to watch this year.  The next wave, if you will.  It wouldn't shock me at all if half of next year's top 10 prospects came from this team.

Spring Training News And Notes: 3/29/14

- No final game for the Yankees yesterday.  They got rained out and so while some of the team left to fly to Houston, another group will stay behind to get some last-minute pitching work in.

- In a bit of a surprise, Joe announced Yangervis Solarte as the winner of the final bench spot.  He had an excellent ST and had an opt-out clause in his contract whereas Eduardo Nunez still had a MiL option remaining.  Let's see how that hot spring carries over to the regular season.

- Ivan Nova, David Robertson, Shawn Kelley, and Matt Thornton all threw sim games in place of their scheduled game appearances.  Michael Pineda will throw one today.

- Masahiro Tanaka was selected as the winner of this year's James P. Dawson award for the best rookie in camp.  No surprise there.