It’s been said that AAA is no longer where you’ll find the best prospects. As alluded to last week, some of this is because major-league teams now use AAA as an extension of its 40-man roster, i.e. it’s a taxi squad. But the 40-man roster has been in place since 1968, which begs the question: Why has this changed in the last decade or two? Unfortunately, there’s no pat answer.
My personal theory is that it stems from three developments that all happened in the 1990s: expansion (which created four more teams), the rebirth of independent baseball (which froze the number of affiliated teams at 160), and the advent of a three-man arbitration panel (which made it somewhat easier for players to “win” their cases).
Thus, it might be a little unfair to chastise the Syracuse Chiefs for having fewer prospects than an old maid. The landscape has changed such that there’s a financial incentive for teams to keep marginal major-leaguers (a.k.a. 4A’s) on board to fill holes and keep prospects down until they’re “really needed.” It’s become an annual rite of spring to discuss which prospects will be sent to AAA to avoid “Super Two” status, resulting in some rather comical attempts to deny it.
Thus, in an effort to separate the wheat from the chaff, I’m going to focus on the players that were league-average age or younger and were also among the upper third or so in terms of usage. But first, let’s do our look at the team as a whole against the rest of the league…
HITTING
| TEAM | AB | R | H | HR | BB | SO | AVG | OBP | SLG | GPA | SB |
| Syracuse | 4715 | 595 | 1190 | 110 | 487 | 1089 | .252 | .327 | .387 | .244 | 161 |
| Lg. Avg. | 4847 | 648 | 1274 | 127 | 455 | 1024 | .263 | .330 | .410 | .251 | 111 |
Italics = League Trailer
Bold = League Leader
PITCHING
| TEAM | IP | ERA | R/G | WHIP | HR | BB | SO | H/9IP | BB/9IP | K/9IP | K/BB |
| Syracuse | 1255⅔ | 3.84 | 4.17 | 1.337 | 115 | 440 | 932 | 8.9 | 3.2 | 6.7 | 2.12 |
| Lg. Avg. | 1261⅔ | 4.15 | 4.51 | 1.370 | 127 | 455 | 1024 | 9.1 | 3.2 | 7.3 | 2.25 |
Italics = League Trailer
A very similar pattern to the Harrisburg Senators in terms of hitting and pitching: upper-third for the latter, lower-third for the former, middle-of-the pack on defense in the biggest categories (runs scored, runs allowed, errors committed). Syracuse actually outperformed their pythagorean projection by five games. It’s not hard to pinpoint where that may have come from, as you’ll note that the Chiefs led the league in steals (and caught stealing) which is a hallmark of Trent Jewett’s teams: He likes to run (something to remember very shortly).
Unlike the Senators, the Syracuse Chiefs faded in the second half, as one might expect from a pitching staff that was tapped for injury replacements by the parent club. But in the new world order, that’s its purpose. It’s also fair to state that most of the players that were called up from the lower levels were either sent right back down (i.e. filling in) or were of the marginal variety that could, would, and were used interchangeably at AA and AAA.
That said, let’s look at the players that fit the mold of not-the-oldest (under league-average), and used a fair amount (roughly: 100PA, 30IP, with two exceptions). The full team statistics can be found here.
| Name | Age | Position(s) | G @ Pos | Fld% | Err | PA | GPA |
| Boomer Whiting | 26 | LF/CF | 59/34 | 1.000 | 0 | 375 | .246 |
| Leonard Davis | 26 | LF/RF/3B/2B | 47/30/13/8 | .981 | 4 | 361 | .256 |
| Justin Maxwell | 26 | CF/RF | 59/5 | .966 | 5 | 272 | .285 |
| Pedro Lopez | 26 | SS/2B/3B/P | 43/7/4/1 | .960 | 8 | 170 | .208 |
| Danny Espinosa | 23 | SS/2B | 17/7 | .979 | 2 | 108 | .273 |
| Wilson Ramos | 22 | C | 18 | 1.000 | 0 | 82 | .277 |
With possible exception of Pedro Lopez, most of these names are quite familiar to followers of the Nationals farm system. The one that was probably the biggest surprise was obviously Boomer Whiting, who made the jump from A+ to AAA while taking up switch-hitting at the same time. As aforementioned, Jewett likes his guys to run and Whiting thrived in a situation where he was asked to do what he does best.
On to the pitchers, in our abbreviated format..
| PLAYER | AGE | G/GS | W-L, SV | ERA | IP | H | BB | SO | WHIP | HBP | WP |
| Shairon Martis | 23 | 27/27 | 8-7, 0 | 4.09 | 152 | 156 | 60 | 99 | 1.421 | 2 | 2 |
| Erik Arnesen | 26 | 21/18 | 6-8, 0 | 3.95 | 107 | 107 | 31 | 70 | 1.290 | 7 | 8 |
| Jeff Mandel | 25 | 25/15 | 5-6, 0 | 4.75 | 94⅔ | 120 | 33 | 60 | 1.616 | 6 | 1 |
| Josh Wilkie | 25 | 53/1 | 4-4, 8 | 2.45 | 69⅔ | 57 | 22 | 62 | 1.134 | 2 | 3 |
| Collin Balester | 24 | 35/5 | 3-3, 0 | 5.87 | 69 | 74 | 32 | 52 | 1.536 | 3 | 7 |
| Atahualpa Severino | 25 | 54/0 | 6-3, 1 | 3.34 | 67⅓ | 60 | 29 | 46 | 1.322 | 5 | 1 |
| Stephen Strasburg | 21 | 6/6 | 4-1, 0 | 1.08 | 33⅓ | 18 | 7 | 38 | 0.750 | 0 | 1 |
| Adam Carr | 26 | 16/0 | 0-1, 9 | 2.08 | 21⅔ | 16 | 10 | 19 | 1.200 | 0 | 1 |
Stephen Strasburg and Collin Balester are the outliers among this bunch. Strasburg is one of those “Super Two” cases discussed previously. Balester may very well prove to be that rare case of a kid that was rushed up too soon but didn’t actually kill his career. But the rest are career minor-leaguers that are on the cusp of a cup of coffee.
Atahualpa Severino is already on the 40-man roster, and it would appear that Adam Carr and Cole Kimball are auditioning in the AFL for inclusion as well. Josh Wilkie is a very dark horse, but given the Joe Bisenius experience, it would appear that hard-thrower has the edge over the soft-tosser, even one that gave up just two home runs this past season, and five over his last 202 innings (since 2008).
OBLIGATORY TOP 5 LIST
The singular is no accident; I’m plucking five out of the total of 11 bats and arms above that still have rookie status (the site does have “prospects” in the name after all). As the name suggests, it’s a list of five guys that I think could possibly “get the call” and/or get put on the 40-man roster. Without further ado:
1. Wilson Ramos
2. Danny Espinosa
3. Adam Carr
4. Atahualpa Severino
5. Josh Wilkie