NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Vanderbilt will be well represented when spring training resumes as Major League Baseball clubs announced their initial 60-man player pools on Sunday and Monday.
Sixteen former Commodore student-athletes across 11 organizations are part of player pools reporting to training locations by July 1. Four clubs boast multiple Vanderbilt participants including the Los Angeles Dodgers, Cincinnati Reds, Atlanta Braves and San Francisco Giants.
Atlanta Braves – Philip Pfeifer, Kyle Wright, Dansby Swanson
Chicago White Sox – Carson Fulmer
Cincinnati Reds – Sonny Gray, Curt Casali
Colorado Rockies – Ben Bowden
Los Angeles Dodgers – Walker Buehler, David Price
Miami Marlins – JJ Bleday*
Minnesota Twins – Zander Wiel*
Oakland Athletics – Tony Kemp
Pittsburgh Pirates – Bryan Reynolds
San Francisco Giants – Sam Selman, Mike Yastrzemski
Texas Rangers – Mike Minor
*Non-roster invitee/Taxi Squad players
Tyler Beede, who appeared in 24 MLB games a season ago, is not part of the Giants roster after being placed on the 60-day injured list.
According to MLB’s Operating Manual, all players on a 40-man roster, “that the Club anticipates participating,” during the season will be part of the player pool, while the rest will be made up of non-40-man roster players under contract. No team will be allowed to exceed the limit of 60 players in its player pool at any time during Spring Training 2.0 or the regular season.
Major League Baseball anticipates beginning its regular season July 23-24. The proposed 60-game schedule will feature divisional play, with the remaining portion of each team’s games against their opposite league’s corresponding geographical division (i.e., East vs. East, Central vs. Central and West vs. West), in order to mitigate travel.
Vanderbilt led the nation with 15 former student-athletes who made an MLB appearance in 2019 including three all-stars (Buehler, Minor and Gray).
