Mike Burgess Promoted To Harrisburg
Various online reports have stated that Potomac OF Mike Burgess has been promoted to AA Harrisburg. This is not unexpected, as the deadline for the Arizona Fall League is tomorrow and the 21-year-old has been considered a candidate for this year’s AFL class.
Burgess began the year slowly, then heated up in May (.313/.394/.509) before cooling off in June (.183/.280/.312). Much of July was lost to bereavement leave after a death in his family.
Strikeouts are still very much a problem for Burgess, but his struggles to hit lefties appear to be behind him. This year, he has hit them to the tune of .281 (.256 for RHPs) whereas last year he hit .221, and his slugging percentage, down from last year, is dead-even with .430 against both. His arm remains one of the best in the system and the 15 lbs or so he lost in the offseason has been noticed in the field with better range and more balls in the gap being run down and/or caught.
UPDATE: MASN’s Ben Goessling has gone to virtual ink with the story.
Good to see, It’s been a rough year on Burgess but some time in Double-A plus AFL could get him right again.
Sue by reading of the AFL eligibility rules Burgess’ promotion doesn’t affect him one way or the other for AFL eligibility. It’s still kind of a choice between Burgess or Norris to me. I’m assuming that He Who Should Shut Up and Sign has passed up on his chance by waiting long or that Bud’s hold the overslot guys back has hurt the Boras client’s chances to go.
Anyway here’s the rules:
The eligibility rules to play in the AFL are simple.
The roster size is 30 players per team.
Each Major League organization is required to provide six players subject to the following requirements:
* All Triple-A and Double-A players are eligible, provided the players are on at least a Double-A level roster no later than Aug. 1.
* One player below the Double-A level is allowed per Major League team.
* One foreign player is allowed, as long as the player does not reside in a country that participates in winter ball, as part of the Caribbean Confederation or the Australian winter league.
* No players with more than one year of credited Major League service as of August 31 are eligible, except a team may select one player picked in the most recently concluded Major League Rule 5 Draft.
* To be eligible, players on Minor League disabled lists must be activated at least 45 days before the conclusion of their respective seasons.
TOSD – That page is outdated.
FWIW, Goessling took out the AFL angle from the MASN link.
@Sue
Is there anywhere to look up the actual rules then? I’m kind of miffed that mlb would have the wrong rules under the eligibility link on their own site.
Sue, I think this the updated rules, but I’d love to know if there’s anywhere official to confirm.
http://www.thecubreporter.com/2009/08/25/2009-arizona-fall-league
1) Each MLB club is permitted to place no more than two players who were not on a AA or AAA roster or MLB roster as of August 1st on its AFL team. (It used to be only one such player was permitted from each MLB organization, but the number was increased to two this year after the Hawaiian Winter League folded and implementation of the “Junior” AFL for younger prospects was postponed until 2010).
Anyways, if you can shoot me an email regardless I’d appreciate it. Just trying to make sure that I am appropriately complementing the awesome work you do at this site. The consistency, summaries, and LNIW stuff has been the perfect complement to Brian’s tried and true Natsfarm.com stuff. I hope that more people are visiting here than just the commenters there and I hope that this site continues to grow.
Don’t like seeing POT slowly being ‘gutted’ in a possible playoff run, just because of AFL eligibility, but if that’s the way it plays, sobeit.
My best guess for possible AFL nominees for the Nationals would include from HAR: Marrero -1B/DH), Lombardozzi -2B), Lowrance -LF/DH), Burgess -RF), Br.Peacock -RHSP), Milone -LHSP); Or, from POT: Norris -CA). If the Nationals make a case for Norris being included in the six, I’d imagine they drop either Lowrance or Lombardozzi from the list.
Lowrance? Isn’t Lowrance just organizational depth at this point?
TOSD beat me to it – LoLo spent nearly 300 games at Potomac. He was one of those guys that was quick in the field and slow as hell on the basepaths and nobody could every figure out why.
In a WTF moment, Espinosa is playing 2nd base tonight. Why! Why!
Soes Desmond have incriminating photos somewhere? He’s not even hitting that well.
@MarkL
I don’t think it’s really that big a deal. I was listening to the Syracuse broadcast and they made it sound like this is just a finishing kind of deal where they get him exposure to some other positions in the minors lower leverage situations. Plus, are you going to move Desmond around on the diamond just for an Espinosa callup? They probably would like to keep the focus on Desmond’s development until they are 100% confident that Espinosa is the better prospect.