Pensacola Blue Wahoos Eye First Southern League Playoffs
PENSACOLA, Fla. - The Pensacola Blue Wahoos have two of the Baseball America's top 100 prospects, five of MLB Pipeline's top 30 Cincinnati Reds prospects, a former major league reliever and a manager who last year led the High-A Bakersfield Blaze to the playoffs.
Doesn't that sound like the makings of a playoff team in the Double-A Southern League this season?
Blue Wahoos Manager Pat Kelly thinks so. The 59-year-old led the Blaze, many who are playing on Pensacola this season, to the Cal League Northern Division Finals where they lost.
"The players are very familiar with each other," Kelly said Wednesday. "The clubhouse is a lot of fun. Those things are real conducive to winning."
The Wahoos home season opener begins at 6:30 p.m. Thursday against the Milwaukee Brewers Double-A affiliate the Biloxi Shuckers, who moved from Huntsville, Ala., last season.
Right-hander Robert Stephenson, Baseball America's 23 top prospect in baseball and MLB Pipeline's No. 1 prospect in the Reds organization, gets the opening day start. Stephenson finished with a 7-10 record, 4.74 ERA and struck out 140 batters in 136.2 innings.
In addition, the Wahoos boast outfielder Jesse Winker, Baseball America's 47th top 100 prospect and MLB Pipeline's No. 2 Reds' prospect. Other top Reds' prospects include outfielder and first baseman Kyle Waldrop (14), reliever Daniel Corcino (24), who pitched in Cincinnati the end of last year, and third baseman Seth Mejias-Brean (27).
Winker is confident the Wahoos have the tools to reverse the team's three straight losing seasons. Pensacola has finished seventh twice and eighth once since it joined the Southern League in 2012.
"This is already a team that has proven it can win," Winker said. "We won last year and we expect to win again this year."
Beau Amaral, who played in 10 games last year with Pensacola and is one of 15 players returning to the lineup, expects team chemistry to be the key to this year's winning club.
"We're pretty confident with each other," Amaral said. "If we can keep the same approach as we did last year (at Bakersfield), we will compete in this league."
Wahoos reliever Drew Hayes, who has played on the previous three Pensacola teams, likes the drive he sees from the new manager, Kelly.
"If for no other reason, this team is going to play hard from the top down because (Kelly) is a hard-nosed type of guy," Hayes said. "This team may not be the most talented but it will be the hardest playing team."
Follow the Blue Wahoos at bluewahoos.com, facebook.com/PensacolaBlueWahoos and twitter.com/BlueWahoosBBall.
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