Yesterday we got a first look at the layout of the full-season rosters across minor league baseball. I spent the first look checking out the new roster of the Kannapolis Intimidators, which turned out to but full of last year’s Voyagers. Yesterday, I went over the 7 pitchers that  hit Kannapolis, and today it’s time to take a look at the hitters.

Ten Intimidator hitters were Voyagers at some point last season, and just as Blair Walters name immediately jumped out among the pitchers, there are several new Intimidator hitters who made big impacts for the Voyagers last year. The new Intimidators will be especially strong up the middle with the addition of former Voyager double-play mates David Herbeck and Joe De Pinto. Herbeck, a definite favorite among Voyagers fans last year, will take over the Intimidator shortstop position after a full year in Great Falls in 2011. It’s tough to say what Voyagers fans will miss most: the Virginia native’s friendly persona or his .760 OPS (On base plus slugging) – a very productive mark for the demanding shortstop position.  De Pinto provided similar production from the second base side. With an .821, the 21^st round pick from USC brought the lumber as he adjusted to his first season in the pros. Fans shouldn’t forget De Pinto’s occasional opportunism on the basepaths either: the infielder stole 7 bases in 9 attempts. Herbeck and De Pinto’s continued ability set the table across the Intimidators lineup will ultimately allow Kannapolis power-men plenty of opportunities to drive in runs. Last year it worked out for the Voyagers perfectly as Herbeck and De Pinto finished first and second on the team in runs scored with over 100 runs between the two.

Somebody has to knock in De Pinto and Herbeck, and the most likely candidate for the Intimidators is Mark Haddow. A 24^th round pick from UCSB, Haddow absolutely lit up Pioneer League pitching last season. It’s difficult to find a category Haddow didn’t produce in last season, as he finished with a .903 OPS, 51 RBI, 12 HR, and 49 runs scored. The only one of these numbers that wasn’t in the top 10 of the league was OPS, which missed narrowly at 11^th. Voyager fans check Kannapolis box scores should certainly look in the heart of the order for Haddow’s name, and Kannapolis fans should expect the 24 year old to meet the challenge A-ball presents.

20^th round pick Martin Medina had a great season with the bat last year as well, finishing with an .825 OPS while playing baseball’s most demanding defensive position. Medina played exactly half of the Voyagers’ games last season, so it will be interesting to see how he shares time with Jim Jacquot and Kevan Smith, both of whom also had good seasons with the Voyagers. There will be plenty of at bats to go around during the 140-game Sally League schedule, but at some point the White Sox may decide they want to test the every-day endurance of one of the players and force the others to find playing time at other positions. The playing time breakdown of the three may be an interesting storyline in Kannapolis this season.

Three former Voyagers spent time in Kannapolis last season and are returning there. Dusty Harvard, Leighton Pangilinan and 2011 first-rounder and top White Sox prospect Keeyan Walker all had brief stints with the Voyagers in 2011, and they will have a chance to start the year in full-season ball this year.

With a roster of fully three quarters former Voyagers, Kannapolis will definitely have the eye of Great Falls fans. Of course, there are Voyagers up and throughout the White Sox system, so tomorrow I’ll take a look higher up the ladder at the guys in Winston-Salem, Birmingham, and beyond.

The rosters for all the full season teams across minor league baseball, and that means our A-ball South Atlantic League friends in Kannapolis, NC have 25 players to wear their jersey as they open on Thursday. As you would expect, most of the team is filled with Voyagers. In fact, 17 players on the Intimidators roster are ex-Voyagers, including 14 ballplayers moving up to Kannapolis for the first time.

First off, you can take a look at the full roster  and press release here. Take a moment to look at the names the Intimidators will be playing with this year – it’s obviously a lot of guys Great Falls fans have come to know.

First off, Intimidators fans should be very excited: the entire core of the 2011 Voyagers – a championship team – has come to Kannapolis. While it’s always a little sad for Great Falls fans to see the guys go, that’s the nature – and fun – of minor league baseball.  Soon enough we’ll have own our own new crop of guys here in Great Falls, and we’ll get to watch all the former Voyagers thrive in Kannapolis and beyond. Of course, we’ll keep a close eye on how things are going for those guys as the season goes on.

Seven of the former Voyagers are pitchers, and all 7 are getting their first action at the A-ball level. Blair Walters leads the list of advancing Voyagers, and Great Falls fans know exactly why. The six foot tall lefty from the University of Hawaii signed with the White Sox after being drafted in the 11^th round, was immediately sent to the Voyagers, and proceeded to rack up nonstop wins in the Pioneer League. A 9-0 record in 13 starts is impressive enough, but a deeper look his Walters’ numbers paints a more compelling picture of his domination. Perhaps most impressive was Blair’s 72 to 17 strikeout to walk ratio in 73.2 innings. Nearly a full strikeout per inning and 4.2 K’s per walk – 2 or 3 K’s per walk is considered a very solid number in the pros – are both the types of numbers ace pitchers put up in the major leagues. With those kinds of numbers from a lefty, Kannapolis fans might soon feel the same sting Voyagers fan are now as Walters continues to shoot up the White Sox system.

Stew Brase is another interesting name getting his first crack at full-season ball. An undrafted free agent from Charleston Southern in the Big South Conference, Brase came to Great Falls with something to prove last year. Brase quickly showed the rest of baseball what they’d missed out on as a reliever and spot starter for the Voyagers, as he put up 29 strikeouts in 31.2 innings while allowing only 12 walks. Perhaps even more impressively, he did a great job of keeping hitters on the ground as he got 2.4 times as many groundouts and flyouts, a very good ratio. The combination of ground balls and missed bats is a very potent one, so perhaps the 23 year old from Indianapolis is a sleeper to watch as he faces older competition this year.

Scott Snodgress should be fun for Voyagers fans watch rise up the system as well. Any left that tall – Snodgress stands at an imposing 6’ 6” – promises an intriguing future, but the 22 year-old 5^th round pick put up serious production for the Voyagers as well. A 68/17 K/BB ratio in 59.1 innings and an excellent 3.34 ERA are numbers worth noting even from a player that doesn’t have Snodgress’ large frame or high fastball potential. When you consider these numbers were posted by a guy scouting services have described as “raw for a college pitcher,” you know you have to take note. Snodgress has legitimate upside, and there’s definitely a reason why he’s usually placed in the White Sox top 10 or 15 prospects by various rankings.

Jarrett Casey, Steve McCray, Brandon Parrent, and Kevin Vance round out last year’s Voyager pitchers who are now donning Kannapolis red, and we certainly wish them all luck.

Tomorrow, I’ll take a look at the 10 position players the Voyagers have sent to the Intimidators. Later this week, I’ll start to peek further up the ladder in the system to see how Voyagers from a few years ago have fared. After that, we can start to guess which Voyagers might be back for the start of the season – there’s a few left on roster that Great Falls fans seem to have a good shot of seeing again.

Hello again Voyager fans! I’ve promised there will plenty of interesting, Voyager focused, content on this blog this season. And there will be. This blog will focus much more heavily on stories around actual baseball and baseball players than any Voyager blog has in the past. Before we get started though, I also want to give you a little more information about myself. I’ll also try to lay out some of what’s going to be on this blog.

As I said yesterday, I’m Adam Seidel, and I’m extremely excited to be the new voice of your Voyagers.  As a native of Minnesota, I grew up watching the Minnesota Twins dozens of times a year and started learning the game from there. After high school, I moved to Chicago to attend Northwestern University where I ended up finding my way into student sports radio. I broadcast 7 different sports, but baseball has, and always will be, my first love. Baseball occupies a special place in American history and possesses a special charm no other game can quite replicate. I try to never lose sight of that in my broadcasts.

I spent the last two summers broadcasting the Wisconsin Woodchucks of the Northwoods summer baseball league. In many ways, Wausau, WI was a lot like Great Falls. I must say though, I already have Great Fall’s roads figured out much better than I ever did with Wausau’s. The Woodchucks were a great experience, but I’m very happy to have a chance to crack into affiliated pro baseball with the Voyagers. It’s the first time I’ve been to Montana, which has me wondering a little bit how that will affect the game. Are balls going to fly out of the park like crazy with our little bit of extra elevation? Leave a comment below if you have any thoughts.

A little bit more about what to expect from this blog: once the season starts and the players arrive, this is going to be filled with stories about them and the games. Videos, interviews, and all kinds of things to give you an idea what the players are like off the field. Obviously, we’ll focus on different sorts of things before the season starts, but I’m still confident there will be plenty to talk about. To start, I’ll be taking weekly looks around the rest of the White Sox minor league system, highlighting all the former Voyagers of the bunch. This will take up a big chunk of the next couple of weeks as the full season leagues start to break camp in Arizona and different guys are assigned to teams. We’ll keep doing these looks around throughout the season.  I’ll also be working on features like interviews with various former Voyagers and profiles on former Voyagers having exceptional years and careers. Think of an idea like ‘Voyager of the Week.’ Later on, especially leading up to the draft, I’ll be taking a look at the past several drafts of the White Sox as we get primed to see who the team takes. I hope it will give some interesting insight into why the White Sox chose to send us the guys they did. Fridays should be a fun day around here as one of our staff interns will be stepping in for her own weekly feature. We’re hoping to end the week with something a little fun and off the wall. I’ll also talk about some of the really cool stuff we have planned for the ballpark this year – there’s gonna’ be a few events you’ll definitely want to hear about.

This can be a place for you to talk back to me too. If there’s anything you’d like to see on the blog or you want to discuss anything I brought up in a post, leave a note in the comments below. I’ll try to answer anything you guys put out there!

That’s all for now. Over the next couple of days, I’ll be taking a look at what former Voyagers are up to near the end of spring training and any position battles going on throughout the system. It should be a fun look down Voyager memory lane! See you around!

Voyagers fans, welcome to the official blog of your favorite team!

I’m Adam Seidel, your Voyagers’ new radio voice, and I’ll be updating this blog nearly every day between now and the end of the season.  We’ve got tons of fun features and content planned for this space, and I think Voyagers fans are going to love it.

As the name of the blog suggests, we want to give you an “inside” look at what’s going on with the players. During the season, I’ll be traveling with the team to bring you every single game on the radio, so I’ll fill this blog with lots of stories from the road, interviews with players, and sights from the other stadiums in the league. Hopefully fans will feel like they know this year’s team better than any team before.  Before the season starts, we’ll still have plenty of things to talk about. There’s a lot of exciting stuff going on around Centene Stadium and we have lots of fun events and giveaways planned, and I’ll make sure to let you know about those too. There will also be plenty to talk about as we watch former Voyagers in the rest of pro baseball and keep an eye on what new faces we’re likely to see this year. We’ve also got a couple fun little weekly features planned that should help us have a little fun, but you’ll just have to wait and see until we’re ready to show you those!

There are a couple other cool features for this blog that I also want to mention before I go.. You can comment on all our blogs below and jump into the conversation with other Voyagers fans. You can also retweet any post on Twitter and share it with your friends on Facebook.  Once there are lots of posts here, you’ll be able to use the menus on the right to click through different posts by category or date. You can also just use the search bar to look directly for your favorite entries.

Until next time, make sure to bookmark this page so you can check back for all latest entries. If you haven’t yet, follow our Official Twitter Account and like us on Facebook, because there will be plenty of fun updates there as well.  See you around!