The Peoria Chiefs Announce 2012 Opening Day Roster

April 3, 2012 By 12 Comments

The Cubs’ Low Class-A affiliate Peoria Chiefs announced their Opening Day roster Monday and will feature several of the top prospects in the organization.

The Low Class-A Peoria Chiefs roster is highlighted by Zeke DeVoss, Marco Hernandez, Reggie Golden, Ben Wells, Jose Rosario and Taiwan Easterling.

A majority of the Opening Day roster for the defending Florida State League Champions, Daytona Cubs, was also released Monday and will feature Matt Szczur, Austin Kirk, Tony Zych and Ronald Torreyes.

The Tennessee Smokies and Iowa Cubs rosters have not been released yet.

The Peoria Chiefs opens the 2012 season in Beloit on Thursday (April 5) while the Daytona Cubs will hit the road and take on the Brevard County Manatees on Opening Day (April 5). The Tennessee Smokies’ season cranks up Thursday (April 5) in Chattanooga against the Lookouts and the team that will feature Brett Jackson and Anthony Rizzo when the bell rings, starts their season at home Thursday night (April 5) against Round Rock. Low Class-A – Peoria Chiefs

2012 Opening Day Roster

Pitchers

Kyler Burke, LHP
Willengton Cruz, LHP
Michael Jensen, RHP
Jeff Lorick, LHP
Andrew McKirihan, LHP
Austin Reed, RHP
Ben Wells, RHP
Jose Rosario, RHP
PJ Francescon, RHP
Luis Liria, RHP
Bryce Shafer, RHP
Yao-Lin Wang, RHP
Scott Weismann, RHP

Catchers

Taylor Davis
Rafael Lopez

Infielders

Zeke DeVoss
Marco Hernandez
Kenny Socorro (player/coach)
Wes Darvill
Brad Zapenas
Paul Hoilman

Outfielders

Reggie Golden
Taiwan Easterling
Pin-Chieh Chen
Eduardo Gonzalez

High Class-A – Daytona Cubs

The D-Cubs roster is expected to consist of 13 pitchers (nine RHP, four LHP), two catchers, six infielders and three outfielders … and 12 players will return from the 2011 Florida State League Championship team.

2012 Opening Day Roster*

Pitchers

Hayden Simpson, RHP
Austin Kirk, LHP
Brett Wallach, RHP
A.J. Morris, RHP
Tony Zych, RHP
Eric Jokisch, LHP
Larry Suarez, RHP
Brian Schlitter, RHP
Ty’relle Harris, RHP
Eduardo Figueroa, RHP
Frank Del Valle, LHP
Casey Harman, LHP
Matt Loosen, RHP

Catchers

Micah Gibbs
Chad Noble

Infielders

Richard Jones
Ronald Torreyes
Greg Rohan

Outfielders

Matt Szczur
Nelson Perez

*Note: The D-Cubs roster is expected to have three more infielders and one more outfielder. This is a tentative and incomplete Opening Day roster. The D-Cubs roster will be updated once the official list is made available.

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  • Tony_Hall

    I am looking forward to our minor league teams seasons getting underway.  We have players on both A teams that you might want to catch a game early in the season, before some of the players move up. I am thinking about heading out to one of the Chiefs games this week in Beloit.

  • Anthony

    Oneri is happy…………lol

  • Elcabrera24

    Ok can someone tell me how come Zapata didn’t made the Peoria roster??

  • cubtex

    I am hoping that Hayden Simpson shows something this year at Daytona!

    • RickinMSP

      I certainly hope so too, I’m tired of all the Cubs’ wasted first round draft choices. I looked through the Cubs draft history on Baseball Reference a couple of weeks ago and was shocked at just how bad their drafting has been over the years.  I knew it was bad but didn’t realize it was that bad.

    • brent carmona

      I’m kind of worried actually, why would the front office decide to put him there when he struggled mightily last year in peoria and even at exst? I hear from thecubreporter his velocity is still not up to where it should be too…really hoping too as well though that he does well this year .

  • Cloycub13

    Hey Larry Luchino I see your new closer is injured now, gonna call the A’s up and say you want more in return… Jackwagon!

    • John_CC

       exactly

  • John_CC

     Nice little piece on Marco Hernandez on the Cubs Den blog:
    http://www.chicagonow.com/cubs-den/2012/04/the-cubs-best-long-term-ss-prospect-may-be-the-unheralded-marco-hernandez/

    Pretty soon we’ll start seeing the payoff of Wilkens and Oneri’s push toward drafting the most athletic, up the middle, type kids.  And they are gonna need quite a few of them to develop so they can be turned into top of the rotation SPs.

    • SuzyS.

      John CC…Thanks for the article.

  • Schwartz13

    What happened to Zach Cates from the Cashman trade?  I don’t see him on any rosters.  Thanks