Let’s begin looking at the other names you might see in camp this spring
On Friday, the Diamondbacks announced the players being invited to spring training this year at Salt River Fields. In addition to the 39 players currently present on the (slightly misnamed!) 40-man roster, there will also be nineteen non-roster invitees, who have a chance to make the team and stay with the big league club. Even if they do not manage to make the Opening Day roster, it’s a good chance for them to make an impression, so that when the inevitable injured list spells happen, their names will be high on the team’s list, as potential replacements. So it is definitely worth paying attention to these players, as they could become significant at some point in 2025.
Last year’s group is proof of that. There were 26 non-roster invitees – significantly more than the 19 this spring. Six of them appeared for the Diamondbacks in 2024: three pitchers (Humberto Castellanos, Logan Allen, Brandon Hughes) and three position players (Tucker Barnhart, Adrian Del Castillo, Kevin Newman). Newman is obviously the NRI jewel, playing in 111 games and putting up 2.2 bWAR. But it suggests a solid handful of those we’ll be looking at in this series, will not just vanish off to Reno for the year. Odds are, one or more will end up on the Opening Day roster. So let’s get things started, by looking at the first batch, covering four of the right-handed pitchers who’ll be packing for Scottsdale next month.
Kyle Amendt (78)
Getting his first invitation to spring, the 24-year-old Amendt was our ninth-round pick in the 2023 draft. After a late start due to an oblique injury, he’d a meteoric rise last year, starting in High-A Hillsboro, but finishing with Triple-A Reno. After having had a 1.97 ERA across 32 innings in A+/AA, with a K:BB of 57:10, Kyle struggled a bit with his control out of the Aces bullpen, walking fourteen batters in only twelve innings there. But given his age, bumps in the road are not unexpected. Amendt appeared in the Arizona Fall League, fanning eight in only 4.2 innings, and drawing comparisons to the Rays’ Pete Fairbanks. His 40.3% K-rate ranked fifth among all 1,852 pitchers with 40+ IP in the minors last season.
Jeff Brigham (34)
Brigham (top) is a more experienced NRI, having pitched in 90 major-league games, with an ERA of 4.76 since his debut for Miami in September 2018. He’ll turn 33 in a couple of weeks, and played for the Mets during his most recent time in MLB, appearing 37 times for New York during the 2023 season. Last year, he pitched for the Twins in AAA, but missed close to two months – like Amendt, with an oblique strain. Though he missed almost two seasons with a nerve issue in his pitching arm. All told, he had a 4.64 ERA there, with 59 K’s in 42.2 innings. He was originally a Dodgers’ prospect, but went to the Marlins in a thirteen-player trade back in 2015, and was subsequently a room-mate with future All-Star Pablo López.
Christian Montes De Oca (80)
Montes De Oca also got a spring training invite last year, so should know where the bathrooms are, at least. He subsequently spent most of the season in Reno, posting a 5.24 ERA over 47 games out of the Aces’ bullpen, with a K:BB of 47:21 across 56.2 innings. But Christian impressed in the Dominican Winter League, where he pitched nine frames for the Gigantes del Cibao, allowing only an unearned run, on seven hits and a walk with ten strikeouts. A later than usual signing out of the DR – he didn’t begin playing pro ball until he was 22 – Montes De Oca is now 25, and could be someone we see later at Chase Field, later on in the season.
Juan Morillo (67)
The next Justin Martinez? We can but hope. For Morillo is another young reliever with fire in his arm. Fangraphs give him a 70-grade fastball, I suspect largely because reports indicate Morillo’s “Fastball averaged 99 mph, touching 102.” Thus far, harnessing that raw stuff has been a little more challenging. Last year in Double-A, over 51 innings, he had a K:BB of 50:29, less than a K per inning. He’s also about two and a half years older than Martinez, after having spent eight years in the Dodger system before getting above High-A. There’s likely reason for that. But he’s one of the players whose stuff seems to have ticked up since having Tommy John. I’m saying nothing more prophetic now than, “We’ll see.”