What’s the Albuquerque Isotopes’ 2022 Opening Day roster?

The Albuquerque Isotopes (the Triple-A team for the Colorado Rockies) open their 2022 season today against the Oklahoma City Dodgers (the Triple-A team of the Los Angeles Dodgers) and on Monday afternoon, the Isotopes announced the Opening Day roster for the team.

Many of the names should be familiar names for Colorado Rockies fans.

The Albuquerque Isotopes roster includes Ryan Feltner, Justin Lawrence, and others

Ryan Feltner will draw the Opening Day start for the Albuquerque Isotopes against the Oklahoma City Dodgers.

The Isotopes have 33 players on their Opening Day roster, including 18 pitchers. Players in bold have either played in the majors with the Colorado Rockies or with another MLB team. Italicized players are on the team’s 40-man roster

• Right-handed pitchers (15): Jake Bird, Logan Cozart, Matt Dennis, Frank Duncan, Ryan Feltner, Julian Fernández, Brandon Gold, Nate Griep, JD Hammer, Heath Holder, Justin Lawrence, Zach Lee, Zach Neal, Jordan Sheffield, Chad Smith
• Left-handed pitchers (3): Ben Bowden, Dillon Overton, Reagan Todd
• Catchers (3): Jonathan Morales, Brian Serven, Carlos Pérez
• Infielders (7): Sean Bouchard, LJ Hatch, Kyle Holder, Tim Lopes, Elehuris Montero, DJ Peterson, Colton Welker
• Outfielders (5): Wynton Bernard, Bret Boswell, Scott Schebler, Taylor Snyder, Ryan Vilade

Of the 33 players, 13 of them have never played with Albuquerque before but only three of them (Dennis, Boswell, and Bouchard) will be making their Triple-A debuts.

In 2021, the Isotopes went 58-72, which was a fourth-place finish and 17 games back of Sugar Land (the Triple-A team of the Houston Astros) for the East Division in the Triple-A West.

Warren Schaeffer will lead the team in his second season at the helm of the team. However, he was originally slated to manage the team in 2020 before the minor league season was canceled.

The Rockies are hoping that the team will improve and be competitive in the newly renamed Pacific Coast League after the league was named the Triple-A West for only one season. If the team finishes at or above .500, it will be the first time that will be the case since they became the Rockies Triple-A affiliate in 2015.

They will face the Oklahoma City Dodgers in their first series and that team has three former Rockies MLB players on it, including outfielder Kevin Pillar, reliever Yency Almonte, and catcher Tony Wolters.