What’s the Hartford Yard Goats’ 2022 Opening Day Roster?

The Hartford Yard Goats (the Colorado Rockies’ Double-A affiliate) will face the Binghamton Rumble Ponies (the Double-A affiliate of the New York Mets) at home on Friday for Opening Day but on Monday afternoon, they announced their Opening Day roster.

The roster has a few Rockies top prospects, a pair of players on the Rockies’ 40-man roster, and some promotions from High-A Spokane.

The Hartford Yard Goats’ 2022 Opening Day roster will have Noah Davis, Riley Pint, Ezequiel Tovar, and others

The Hartford Yard Goats’ 2022 Opening Day roster will have 28 players on the roster under the tutelage of manager and former MLB outfielder Chris Denorfia. Denorfia is entering his second season of managing with Hartford. He was supposed to manage the team in 2020 before the pandemic canceled the entire minor league season.

In 2021, though, Denorfia and the Yard Goats had a very rough season, as they went 39-79. That was the worst record in the Double-A Northeast – Northeast Division (yes, that was the name of their division) by 11 1/2 games.

The roster has some of the Rockies’ top prospects and some players from High-A Spokane, a team that went 67-49 in 2021.

Here is their Opening Day roster. Players in bold are on Colorado’s 40-man roster.

• Right-handed pitchers (12): Michael Baird, Blair Calvo, Dugan Darnell, Noah Davis, Trent Fennell, Will Gaddis, Gavin Hollowell, Stephen Jones, Karl Kauffmann, Mitch Kilkenny, Riley Pint, Garrett Schilling
• Left-handed pitchers (3): Nick Bush, Nick Kennedy, PJ Poulin
• Catchers (3): Daniel Cope, Max George, Willie MacIver
• Infielders (7): Isaac Collins, Kyle Datres, Coco Montes, Aaron Schunk, Hunter Stovall, Michael Toglia, Ezequiel Tovar
• Outfielders (3): Brenton Doyle, Jameson Hannah, Jimmy Herron

The roster is comprised of 15 players that played with Hartford last year and 13 newcomers. Among the 13 newcomers are three of the four top prospects on the team (Tovar, Doyle, and Davis). Those three prospects are ranked as the 6th, 7th, and 26th-best prospects in the Rockies system.