Flurry of transactions as Panners shape roster for opening day

The Goldpanners' first game is a little over a month away, and the team has made a series of roster moves to shape up their squad for opening day. There have been some noteworthy players going each way, both released and signed, so here's the rundown of what's been going on up in the Fairbanks front office:

Who's In?

On the plus side of the ledger sheet, the Goldpanners have added five players in recent days: Ray Hanson (Cypress), Christian Meza and Brett Tanos (Santa Ana), Colton Plaia (Loyola Marymount) and Derek Wilson (Scottsdale CC).

At the time of writing, Ray Hanson's signing hasn't been widely promoted. He has been added to the Goldpanners roster but they haven't announced his addition on the front page of their website, nor have they linked a player profile for him. Acting GM Todd Dennis hooked me up with the scoop on this one, and he seemed really stoked about Hanson. Ray is a sophomore right-handed strikeout pitcher, who can count among the accomplishments of his early career holding golden boy Bryce Harper hitless, and sitting him down on strikes twice, when he picked up Cypress College's first win against Southern Nevada in three years this spring. As a freshman in 2009, Hanson posted a K/BB of 73/27 (2.703) in 86.0 IP, going 11-1 in 13 starts.


Colton Plaia is the "big time" player on the list, being the lone D1 signing, out of Loyola Marymount. The Freshman backstop hasn't got a ton of starts behind the plate this year as he's got RS Sophomore Matt Koch ahead of him in the depth chart, but he's been starting roughly every third game so he has been getting regular game time in. According to Perfect Game, Plaia is a solid defensive catcher with a plus arm and shows good fundamentals at the plate with a balanced, smooth swing plus some pop in his bat.

Scottsdale CC OF Derek Wilson is a notable addition to the Panners lineup as one of this year's "Alaska Grown" players. Wilson hails from right down the road in North Pole. The Sophomore logged a few games for his hometown Goldpanners last year early in the season, appearing in five games and starting two and recording 13 at-bats. He'll be battling for more playing time this year.

Christian Meza and Brett Tanos are both sophomores and both coming up from Santa Ana College, where they helped their teams lock up the Orange Empire Conference of the California Community College league. Tanos is a transfer in from D1 San Diego State who stands a nice even 6'0" 200lb. He was a high school standout, named all-league four times, freshman through senior. Christian Meza is an accomplished strikeout pitcher; in team-best 12 starts this year he's gone 8-1 and thrown 80 strikeouts in 79 IP.

Who's Out?

The biggest surprise to me here is P Sean Timmons. Timmons is really the face of the Goldpanners; he's a local guy who's got 13 seasons in with the team and his Panners jersey is hanging in Cooperstown. That being said, he's only really appeared in a handful of games over the past few years, his days as a prospect are long gone, and he's got a career and life outside of baseball. Considering all of that info, it's not that shocking that he isn't on the official preseason roster, but then again, I would be pretty surprised if we didn't see him at all this year either as a player himself or at the park working with the kids. I say all this not having any idea what's going on in his life; for all I know he could be following in the footsteps of Jim Morris, inspiration for the film The Rookie...but I doubt it. I'm not as much surprised as I am bummed out that this could be the end of an era, but we'll see how things unfold.

Another bummer is Jordan Hershiser. I listed him as a Player to Watch and I was really curious to see him play for several reasons, not the least of which is to determine if he was anything like his old man. For those of us in Alaska, though, we aren't going to get that chance this summer. It's hard to say why he's not coming up, but there are any number of reasons -- personal, academic, health, etc. -- that pop up from time to time, for which you really can't blame the player in question, and that's why it's important to keep in mind that these preseason rosters are very tentative. Dennis remarked about Hershiser: "He should do well wherever he goes...great big kid with lots of talent." Of course we wish him the best wherever live takes him, and who knows, maybe we'll see him a year or two down the road.

Of course, with over a month to go, who knows whether this is the end of the roster moves in store for the team. We'll keep you up to date on any transactions that occur for the Goldpanners and all the teams in the league.