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Instructional League Roster Notes – Position Players

Continuing where we left off on Tuesday, here’s the rundown of the position players that have been announced as participating in the Florida Instructional League, a.k.a. “Instrux”:

Player Pos. Age 2013 Team(s) 2012 Invite Notes
Spencer Kieboom C 22 GCL Y Missed most of 2013 due to TJ surgery on his throwing elbow.
Geoffrey Perrott C 22 AUB N 17th rd. pick out of Rice, where he was a backup to Craig Manuel
for three years, and a similar profile: glove-first, not much power.
Cole Leonida C 24 POT N Made decent gains across the board offensively, but seems
destined to be a backup unless he repeats Potomac.
Matt Reistetter C 21 AUB N Usually NDFAs are placeholders that rarely make it another
season, so this is quite an accomplishment.
Pedro Severino C 20 HAG Y Challenged with full-season ball at 19-going-on-20, the raw
defensive talent showed some signs of life on offense.
Osvaldo Abreu SS 19 GCL N Handled the GCL well while cutting his errors down. Having
played SS nearly exclusively, the gut says he may make it to
Low-A ahead of the Auburn guys…
Wilmer Difo SS 21 GCL, AUB,
HAG, POT		 Y …which includes Wilmer Difo, who played at three levels of A
ball plus the GCL. Showed flashes of brilliance w/ Potomac,
so his invite may mean he’s not topped out yet.
Anderson Franco 3B 16 N/A N Franco was the big fish the Nats caught in the 2013 IFA derby.
Defense and power are his hallmarks so the big what-if is
whether he can hit. At 16 and a $900K bonus, he’ll get LOTS
of chances.
Cody Gunter 3B 19 AUB N 6th rd. JuCo pick out of TX with a strong arm, raw power and
a patient plate approach, but 20E’s in 59G, subpar range
and speed could ticket him to 1B sooner rather than later.
Jason Martinson SS 24 POT, HBG N Still an intriguing combination of athleticism and power but
time is running out (turns 25 next month).
David Masters SS 20 AUB N 14th rd. JuCo pick out of AZ, he’s said to have above-avg.
range and a strong arm (on a SS? how novel) but is below-
avg. on the basepaths and at the plate.
Bryan Mejia 2B 19 GCL N Like Abreu, Mejia has played almost exclusively at 2B and
adjusted well going from the DSL to the GCL.
Stephen Perez SS 22 HAG Y First full, healthy season since 2011. If he’s made the strides
developmentally, he’ll be the SS for Potomac in 2014.
Shawn Pleffner 1B 24 HAG Y Injuries have dogged Pleffner from Day 1 (missed all of ’11), but
when healthy he has produced.
Tony Renda 2B 22 HAG Y 2nd Rd. Pick in ’12 out of Univ. of California, Renda put up
another strong season and, along with Pleffner and Perez,
seems ticketed for Woodbridge next summer.
Drew Ward 3B 18 GCL N 3rd rd. pick out of Leedey, HS (Leedey, OK, pop. 440), Ward
transitioned from the preps to pros without skipping a beat.
James Yezzo 1B 21 AUB N 7th rd. pick from Univ. of Delaware, Yezzo is a 1B-only
lefthanded slugger with power and patience that the Nats
hope to develop to offset his lack of speed/range.
Isaac Ballou OF 23 AUB, HAG N 15th rd. pick out of Marshall, Ballou was the sole first-year
position player to earn a promotion from Auburn to Hagerstown.
Rafael Bautista OF 20 GCL N One of the “DSL Guys” on the 2013 Watchlist, Bautista was a force
on the GCL squad with a 26 SB’s and a .791 OPS
Billy Burns OF 24 POT, HBG Y Nats 2013 POTY who’s gotten a lot of press early in the offseason.
Randy Encarnacion OF 19 GCL N Played sparingly on a very talented GCL squad, but had tremendous
rate statistics of .349/.437/.523 while turning 19 in July.
Destin Hood OF 23 HBG Y Another injury-shortened season that fell short of expectations.
Hayden Jennings OF 20 GCL Y Improved his nos. across the board from 2012 to 2013, most
notably in cutting his K rate from ~40% to ~30%.
Brandon Miller OF 23 HAG, POT Y Struck out 164 times in 2013, but hit 20 HR, second to Walters (29).
Still learning the nuances of playing OF and isn’t the fleetest of foot.
Michael Taylor OF 22 POT Y The brilliance that was only sporadic in ’12 became nearly everyday,
in ’13 — especially on defense, where he’s become an elite defender
with a cannon arm (21 assists easily led the Carolina League).

10 Commments

  1. Is the Instructional League an actual “league” as in, do they play games against other organizations?

  2. Yes they play games against other organizations, but in the past, it was much more difficult to get stats from the games.

  3. Still is difficult – not released anywhere that I know of. These are essentially like JV games in high school.

  4. Luke, you may not know the truth behind my question
    But not seeing Caleb Ramsey on the IL
    List makes me wonder his forward progression
    In Nat plans.
    Too bad Corey Brown took that third strike
    Last night on PH. Swing, baby , do something with
    The ball!! Bummer loss

    1. 24-y.o. High-A position players aren’t often sent to instrux unless they’re changing positions. As I wrote on Tuesday, it’s foolish to infer anything about who wasn’t invited or why.

    1. I’m not sure he was “highly” thought of before as an OF-1B, but if you’re basing that on previous invites, then I guess not. By that logic, the same assumption would also apply to Randolph Oduber and Kevin Keyes.

  6. Luke, would you agree that Rizzo/ Harris
    Like to use as much in- house talent on the farm
    Since few trades are made for everyday farm
    Hands and even fewer seedlings on the infield/
    Outfield holes in the chain ?
    Thus, we could see Oduber, Keyes, Ramsey .
    Dykstra. Etc lending hands in Harrisburg??

    1. No. The Nats have proven to be active players in the FA market for AA and AAA the past few years and could very easily release one or more of those four in favor of someone that can plug a perceived gap. That said, we’re now hitting a point where we can no longer claim Rizzo favoring “his guys” over the ones that preceded him, i.e. all but a couple dozen were drafted while he was the GM.

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