Guardians Baseball Insider

With the restructuring of the entirety of minor league baseball, one level that remained largely unchanged was the Dominican Summer League. While teams above the rookie level have strict roster restrictions, both the Arizona Complex League and DSL teams are not held to those restrictions. In addition, franchises are allowed to have multiple DSL teams, so this season the Indians have moved on from their co-op team with the Brewers that has been active since 2017. Instead, they will rebrand as Indians Red and Indians Blue, having two full teams within the franchise for the first time since 2005 (they actually had three DSL teams from 2002 to 2003).

The increase in roster size was absolutely necessary as there are not only the hold overs from 2019, but every international signing since then with very few exceptions (Luis Durango, Jose Pastrano, Elmer Candalerio, etc). This means that there will not only be a ton of Indians players in the Dominican Republic, but that there will be a ton of new players. Included on the two rosters are 18 players listed as being signed in 2021 (no players are attributed to 2020) and 40 from the class of 2019.

DSL Indians Blue

The Blue team is a bit more of a known entity as it includes players who saw some success in the DSL already like David Flores, Albert Breton and Jose Baez (the brother of Jose Ramirez). A strange addition to this roster is Roberto Hernandez, who was signed in 2017 out of Cuba, played one season where he was named an All-Star (2018), then got homesick and returned to Cuba. There, he played with the national team and there he remains. If he were to return to the US, he would be obliged to play for Cleveland, but that is unlikely at this moment, so he is listed as a restricted player. The full roster as of opening day is as follows:

DSL Indians Red

It may be hard to believe, but this squad is even younger than team Red. There are very few pitchers with even a single professional inning, a list than includes Luis Peguero, Jose Ruviera and Filipito Santos, and no hitters with any pro experience. In the past, the Indians/Brewers team was unofficially the junior squad to the full Indians team and it appears that Indians Red will now fill that roll. Players can move freely between the two teams based on need or injury, but I would not expect many of these players to jump straight to the ACL. Here is the opening day roster for team Red:

You may note that every single infielder (except Jose Baez) is listed at short stop, but this is largely due to the best athletes playing short as amateurs and it may take some time for the two teams to sort out which players will play which position. In the outfield, similarly, nearly all players that aren’t listed officially as OF are listed as CF.

Throughout the season, Indians Baseball Insider will be providing weekly updates on Saturdays, starting July 17th. These will alternate between the teams, starting with Blue in week one and Red in week two, etc. The schedule starts today (July 12) with Red playing the Cubs Blue and Blue playing the Athletics at 10:30 AM EST. The season runs through October 2 due to the month long delay to start the season.