All Quiet On The Minor-League Front

20 Commments

1. Luke, we are truly ready for camp .
   A heavy Latin accent on Hagerstown catching
   Corr come April no doubt .
   Even after Gomez release ( quitting the game ?)
   Nats have a number if young LHPs still in DSL .

   1. Jeff, Ditto here on the ready for camp piece. I’m hoping to try to visit Viera again this year with far greater knowledge of the area, a twitter contact who I can connect with, an outside shot of connecting to the Beat writers, and no little brother dragging me down. Is there anybody else on the board interested in coordinating some type of get together in Viera during camp? We could organize something of substance and possibly get to meet some of our heroes, similar to how I got to meet Taylor last year before his breakout year. Seems to me that this might be an opportunity for the big club to connect with its affiliates to have a minor league day or something. The minor league camp has almost nobody there. The fields are wide open and the players seem genuinely glad to have fans hardcore enough to care about their Spring Training drills.
      So how about it folks, any interest in organizing a Nationals Prospects’ Day in Viera? Might be a good subject for a midweek post if our Blogfather desires it. Lord knows I have enough time while I’m chillin’ in NJ planning my next professional and personal moves while doing research and writing. Not going to advertise directly for my writings on Luke’s site because that is bad etiquette, and I would not be pleased if somebody just came out and advertised their stuff on the site. Looking forward to hearing your responses and if anybody hits Viera they’ll likely get to see me do some karaoke stuff at Linda’s, a great restaurant maybe 20-30 minutes from the stadium.

      1. A trip to Spring Training is on my bucket list, but sadly it’s not in the cards for me this year. I’ll have to wait for Opening Day.

      2. I’ll likely be there … still more interested in the minor league side … more exuberance there from my perspective … I have less expertise than Luke, Brian Oliver and others but I still like watching my favorites … may combine with a trip to Savannah and Tupe Island two of my favorite places and especially on St. Patties.

         1. Good news is I’ve gotten a possible new gig, Peric. Bad news is minors trip goes way, way down the totem pole so I may have to earn that paper and catch the Nats on the road a bit this summer on business trips if the gig pans out.

2. I was Fredericksburg earlier this week and picked up a paper and there was Front Page News about how the stadium project is going badly. Would have sent a link if it wasn’t for the fact that it was the same news we’ve seen ad nauseam for years.

   At least Bacak can tell his grandchildren someday he was a professional ballplayer.

   1. Mark L, what is the stadium project in Fredericksburg at this point? I thought they decided not to pursue it given the expenses and the Suns had to run back to the city of Hagerstown with their tails between their legs. I feel that this is the best development and that Fredericksburg can get its act together and try to woo somebody else, preferably Auburn, in a deal that gets that team closer to home, but I have zero idea about how that works trying to get a New York Penn Minor League team to relocate.

      1. SD & others. The land allotted for the stadium is a wonderful piece of land that would be a great place to watch a ballgame.
         Basically, it’s the old property allocated for the Civil Rights Museum, a pet project of Gov. Wilder that flamed out spectacularly and left the City & County holding the bag for over $600,000. The local authorities have bent over backwards to do everything possible to make this baseball deal go through, but the owners of the Suns have missed every deadline there is and are now not even pretending to go through with all their promises.

         Too bad, as the demographics for the area overwhelm anything Hagerstown can project in to the future. Anyone reading the old stories of the PNats & the Suns knows the rest of the stories here. Rinse, Lather, Repeat.

         1. Are you a Fredericksburg resident with pro-baseball bias? This comment doesn’t reflect what I’ve read through the articles that Luke’s linked to. I’m admittedly pro-Hagerstown. I’m likely to move from DC to MD, and I have been to Hagerstown and enjoyed games despite the weak stadium. Unlike Potomac, however, Hagerstown simply is too broke to help the Suns but so much and the Suns would like to go to a more profitable destination. Fredericksburg’s got to give them a great deal, however, or the Suns will try to stay and renovate The Muni. That’s what I hope they do because Washington County, unlike Fredericksburg, is flat broke and dependent on casino revenue and prison revenue to pay its bills. Baseball is a healthy economic engine that provides some jobs and some community spirt if done right. The Suns have wanted to move to Fredricksburg and have the lack of #customerservice and poor attendance this past year to a frustrated fan base of a winning club to prove it. Failing to send a radio guy to road games, for example, is usually an example of cost cutting by a team already having its sights set on Fredricksburg, not a team deliberately missing deadlines. I’d love to seem some articles supporting this position because maybe the journalists have not gotten the full story and you view could be correct. Luke, do you have any thoughts on this surprising comment?

            1. Not a resident, but the Fredericksburg area is already bigger & richer than the Hagerstown area and the disparity is only going to get much wider in the future.

            2. Mark L, I agree that Fredericksburg is bigger and richer. Can’t they find some other economic engine besides baseball? If a team leaves Hagerstown, Angelos’ will likely block an official team coming due to Hagerstown’s proximity to Frederick. You’d probably have to have an Indy League team go there. Good luck with that. I hope the Suns stick it out and ride through a weak economy. Maryland’s new governor would be wise to direct resources toward Hagerstown in the form of jobs and development that could improve the fortunes of the Suns at the gate.

3. My favorite launching point in viera as for Michael
   Barrett , too, is Cracker Barrel .
   The real catch with spring training is seeing
   How much tax return money remains after
   Paying off Peter and Paul.
   Some of us will see more of Michael Barrett as he will
   Be big eye over the catchers. Especially
   The barborshop quartet auditioning for suns

   Cue Jeff beck freeway jam. ( for that 95S
   Drive in March )

   1. Jeff, I’m with you on the finances. But, hey? If the board goes, we’ve got to go like out heroes! Take the bus! Stay in the Motel Notell! Pack the rooms to the gills! If we pool our resources, we can travel affordably and it will make sense for us to spend a couple of days down there. If we all decide we want to stay in the place that my brother and I stayed, we’ll be Sorta.Outta.Luck because I highly doubt that any of the regulars has the resources that my brother, a Wall Street stockpicker, possesses.

4. The Encarnacion release is sad, of course, but again a testament to apparently very impressive pitching depth in Potomac and Harrisburg for the year ahead. I’ve seen pitching staff projections from Mick Reinhard and the Hagerstown fan club guy and both illustrate that there are odd men out that were once well-thought of prospects. Perhaps the organization’s Dominican Academy, by this year’s end, will be readily acknowledged among all of us as responsible for rise in the organization’s prospect depth that makes up for some disappointing drafts. With that said, Gomez was supposed to have been an exciting player we never got to know, alas claimed by an injury that never healed. To all, good years of adjustment ahead.

   Bacak will not go into the night, as he was a very respected amateur and young enough to learn from mistakes. And a catcher who knows what he is doing on the field, at least. Facinating how all the college kids find their way on Adderall, sell it, etc, and how when similar products bleed onto the playing fields, there is no tolerance because of competitive advantage. The same enforcement is not done in scholastic testing and abused.

   1. Great point on Aderall. Never thought of it that way. Folks, if you’d like to learn about what Justin Bloxom is doing as a scout, Nationals Journal put a brief article on his transition to scouting within the organization. Here’s a bit link for it: wapo.st/1yLbkCs.

5. Gil Grissom: agree. 2015 will truly be Latin crop further enlightening
   The farm .
   GCL Barrett boys busting out.

   1. But Tampa’s is still vastly better when it comes to holes the Nats have. The Nats definitely could use some of the plethora of Dominican shortstops they feature. However, per usual, the Nats do appear to be doing vastly better when it comes to Dominican pitchers and perhaps catchers … we’ll see.

   2. I realize this involves time but are there any plans to update the spreadsheet featuring the top 20’s from Sickel’s, Minor League, BA, Baseball Prospectus, MLB and of course Luke? Its a pretty good thumbnail view of where the organization currently stands relative to its top prospects.

6. In other sort-of-news, here’s a nice piece on Justin Bloxom’s transition to Nats scout:

   http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/nationals-journal/wp/2015/01/27/longtime-nationals-minor-leaguer-justin-bloxom-moves-from-scouted-to-scout/

   1. Thanks for the putting the link in clickable format. That said, I did announce the same article two hours article as you will see in the comment a couple notches up!

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