Champions facing content conundrum

The Canadian content on the Ottawa Champions has jumped from two players a season ago to three to begin the 2017 Can-Am Baseball League season.

And come early June there might be as many as five Canadians on the club’s 22-man roster.

Opening day means finalizing the roster and making unwanted players available for employment elsewhere.

The Champions got down to the limit without adding Gatineau’s Philippe Aumont or Vancouver’s Tyson Gillies to their roster, leaving veterans Sebastien Boucher of Gatineau and Belle River’s Andrew Cooper, along with rookie pitcher Curtis Johnson of Sudbury as the only patriots in uniform.

The good news is Aumont and Gillies will continue to work out with the Champions while manager Hal Lanier further assesses his options.

Aumont, who wasn’t certain all winter he wanted to play again, started throwing late in the spring and is only throwing short bullpens.

The thinking is Aumont, the former first-round pick of the Seattle Mariners with 46 big-league appearances with the Philadelphia Phillies, might find himself in the starting rotation in early June while Gillies is insurance in the outfield.

“Anyone can see (Aumont) has a major-league arm,” Lanier said. “I have liked what I have seen.”

The sticking point is that the Champions already have their four veteran spots filled — the league limit for players with more than six years of professional service.

To add the local favourite would mean one of their four would have to be traded or released.