Monday’s News & Notes
| Team | Yesterday | Today | Pitching Probables |
| Rochester | Won, 5-2 | OFF DAY | N/A |
| Harrisburg | Lost, 5-3 | OFF DAY | N/A |
| Wilmington | Won, 8-1 | OFF DAY | N/A |
| Fredericksburg | Lost, 6-0 | OFF DAY | N/A |
Rochester 5 Indianapolis 2
• Ponce De Leon 6IP, 5H, 2R, 2ER, 1BB, 7K
• Weems (W, 3-2) 2IP, 1H, 0R, 0BB, 1K
• Casey 2-3, R, BB,
• Johnson 1-2, R, 2BB
• Ad. Sanchez 1-3, R, 2B, 3RBI
Adrián Sanchez’s three-run double highlighted a five-run 9th as Rochester stopped a three-game skid with a 5-2 win over Indianapolis. Daniel Ponce De Leon turned in hist first quality start as a Red Wing with both Indians runs let in on five hits and a walk while striking out seven. The win went to Jordan Weems, who worked around an IF hit and his own error in the 8th before setting down the side in order in the 9th. Donovan Casey and Daniel Johnson both reached base three times as Rochester made the most of its six hits with a 3-for-6 mark with RISP and four walks.
Erie 5 Harrisburg 3
• Irvin 5IP, 5H, 2R, 2ER, 1BB, 6K, HR,
• Fuentes 2IP, 1H, 0R, 0BB, 2K
• Ferrer (BS, 1; L, 0-1) 1IP, 3H, 2R, 2ER, 0BB, 1K
• G. Lara 1-4, R, HR, 2RBI
• Cluff 1-2, 2R, BB, SB
The Senators ‘pen couldn’t hold a 3-2 lead and gave up two in the 8th and one in the 9th to lose the series finale, 5-3. Jake Irvin returned to the rotation after missing a turn and gave up a two-run HR and five hits total over five innings. He walked one and struck out six. Jose Ferrer’s first AA appearance was a lot like his last four at A+ (read: unclean) as he was roughed up for two runs on three hits in the 8th for the blown-save-loss. Gilbert Lara homered and drove in two while Jackson Cluff reached base twice and scored twice to lead the Harrisburg offense.
Roster moves: LHP Brian Gonzalez released; LHP Jose Ferrer reassigned from Wilmington.
Wilmington 8 Aberdeen 1
• E. Lee 3IP, 1H, 1R, 1ER, 3BB, 1K, WP
• Cuevas (W, 6-11) 4IP, 4H, 0R, 3BB, 1K
• Connell 2-4, 2R, BB, 2B, HR, RBI,
• Vega 2-4, 2R, SB
• Emiliani 1-3, R, BB, HR, 3RBI
Wilmington jumped on Aberdeen for four in the 1st and got stellar bullpen work for an 8-1 win. Evan Lee made his second rehab start and went the first three innings, giving up the IronBirds run on a hit and three walks. The win went to Michael Cuevas with four scoreless innings, though he put on seven baserunners and struck only one. Justin Connell walked, doubled, and homered while Onix Vega singled twice and scored twice to pace the Blue Rocks offense.
Down East 6 Fredericksburg 0
• Atencio (L, 3-2) 4⅔ IP, 6H, 6R, 6ER, 2BB, 5K, HR, HBP, BK, WP
• Collins 2⅓ IP, 2H, 0R, 0BB, 3K
• McKenzie 1-4, OF assist @ 2B
• Infante 0-2, BB
Three Wood Ducks pitchers combined to shut out the FredNats, 6-0 on one hit. Jose Atencio gave up all six Down East runs on six hits (one HR) and two walks over four and 2/3rds innings. It was his second loss in five starts for Fredericksburg. Sammy Infante broke up the perfect game bid with a leadoff walk in the 6th while Jared McKenzie ended the no-hitter with a single to start the 7th.
MLBPA Trying To Unionize Minor Leaguers
Multiple outlets are reporting that the MLBPA has sent out authorization cards to minor leaguers, which is the first step towards unionization.
If more than 30% of the players return the cards or otherwise indicate that they want a union to represent them, then a second vote will be taken to determine if the MLBPA will be their union representation. If that vote is successful (>50%), the federal law requires MLB to recognize that effort and begin collective bargaining.
More details are sure to emerge today, as most of these stories have broken overnight. This has undoubtedly been triggered by the recent settlement of Senne vs. MLB as well as the swell in public support since the onset of the pandemic, as the low pay and often squalid living conditions endured by minor-league ballplayers have come to light.
Brian Gonzalez’s numbers were not that bad but he was not part of the future and now Jose Ferrer gets a taste of AA after starting the year at Low A. You get the feeling that the Nats really like what they see in him as his numbers don’t exactly jump off the page.
Thanks Luke for paying attention to MLB’s treatment of minor leaguers. Rob Manfred plays the stooge every time he talks about this, earning his $17.5 million salary from the owners.
Every team is different; I remember last year when the Nats made a trade with the A’s that the minor leaguers coming over to the Nats were surprised to see real food available after games.
It’s sort of amusing, but it fits with the broader narrative, that the minors were sort of an afterthought from like 2018-2021. I’ve been complaining for several years now about Jose Ferrer’s extremely slow ascent through the minors. He signed for a modest bonus in 2018, and understandably spent the entire season in the DSL, posting really encouraging stats 53 K in only 30 IP, only 11 BB and a solid 3.60 ERA. Next year, he understandably gets sent to the GCL, where he keeps playing very well- even better than the DSL, posting a 2.91 ERA and more than a strikeout per inning. Ok, maybe they’re being conservative with a young Dominican signee in adapting to life in the states, learning English. Makes sense to keep him at the development grounds in Florida. Then we lose 2020 to Covid, but presumably some of these guys were getting reps in at the alternate sites? Then 2021 begins, and Ferrer gets sent to…. the GCL (now called FCL). What? He aced his GCL test in 2019. Ok, maybe he was rusty after Covid and could benefit from getting back into shape before getting tested in A ball. Nope. He spent the entirety of 2021 in the FCL. And he was, yet again, fantastic! A 2.78 ERA, 47 K in only 35 IP! Pinpoint command, with only 9 BB. What more could he do? And still, no promotion came.
Now in 2022, it’s the opposite. Every two months, a new promotion. At least, he’s certainly earned it! He’s got insane command (striking out 6.8 batters for each walk) and great hit and run prevention skills (2.45 ERA and 0.97 WHIP across 3 levels). He’s allowing more HR with each promotion, but that’s totally expected, as the hitters also get better (and stronger) up each level. He seems like a quick learner.
It’s just a bit of a shame he lost about 2 years of development, and now the org is playing catch up. Still, after Cronin and Brzyckzy, Ferrer is our best relief prospect. Better late than never that brass realized this!
Antuna seems have been handled longed to justify the signing investment
He would have been long gone if just a simple $35 K investment .
A tip of the cap to UCLA alum and teammate to Ydens and Holden in college Ryan Garcia who was spot on last night
Imagine a PAC 12 player escaping the DL and busting through the A level ceiling
Happy birthday to my Boston Terrier Prince today .
Justin Connell has taken his demotion with grace, and buckled down and performed really well. He’s now batting .314/.429/.600 in Wilmington. He wasn’t particularly bad in Harrisburg, batting .230/.345/.396. It’s not great, but it’s particularly infuriating that his demotion was made in part to make space for Yasel Antuna, who was hitting (this might look familiar…) .235/.372/.371 in Wilmington, which somehow warranted a promotion, and is now hitting .138/.306/.172 in Harrisburg. But for whatever reason, some guys will forever be prospects, and others, like Connell, won’t be, despite their performances.
I think the Antuna promotion was a ‘sink or swim’ move. He’s been a waste of a 40-man space for quite awhile now.
sorry but Connell was given every chance to succeed, as he mostly did. maybe the demotion was to give him a chance to work on some things against lower level competition. I’ve been one of his biggest supporters and I doubt they’ve even thought about giving up on him. he has grown from a skinny kid to a pro ballplayers body. I expect him to be back in AA in the spring
How hard is it to step up from one level to another? Jeremy de la Rosa was having a great season at A level but has really hit a wall at A+: .195/.273/.271, with four doubles, one triple, and one homer in 32 games. He’s only striking out a little more (3%), but luck has deserted him: .408 BABIP at A, .272 at A+.
The big question with de la Rosa involves Rule 5 eligibility. The Nats are going to have a lot of decisions on a number of fairly well known guys, including him, several of whom are still well down the chain. After a slow start, Pineda definitely seems to have stamped his ticket to a 40-man addition. But what about Rutledge, Denaburg, Irvin, Troop, and a number of others?
I wouldn’t worry about JLDR’s R5 status. The Nats are easily the worst team in baseball, and still wouldn’t be able to carry a guy as raw as him on their MLB roster for a whole year. There’s no chance smeone else could, especially when other awful teams like the Tigers and Reds, have their own set of OF prospects/R5 players to integrate.
As I understand, the real tests are meant to come going from FCL to Low A, and High A to AA. And that there’s less of a jump from Low A to High A and AA to AAA.
But I think some players just take longer than others to “adjust”, and JDLR strikes me as that sort of guy. It took him a bit more than a season to finally figure out Low A, but then it clicked. His numbers in Wilmington (.195/.273/.271) are pretty interesting to those in Fburg last year (.209/.279/.316). Hopefully it doesn’t take a year and half each time to merit a promotion, as he still has two more levels above Wilmington…
But then some players just “get it” a bit more. Darren Baker and Jake Alu are two recent examples. But presumably this is partly due to having acquired the fundamentals in college.
I want to avoid using Juan Soto as a comparison, since he’s such a unique player. But have we had any HS draftee or IFA that rose relatively quickly/consistently? I guess Robles and Reynaldo Lopez come pretty close to this.
I know he’s much maligned now, but Carter Kieboom progressed through the system at an excellent rate for a high school draftee. Otherwise, the struggles of nearly everyone else underline how exceptional (and rare) guys like Soto and Harper are.
I personally wouldn’t vote to add de la Rosa to the 40-man. Antuna should be a cautionary tale.
That said, the Nats should be clearing a lot of 40-man space to may protect a bunch of guys. The only slam dunks for me, though, would be Pineda and Cronin. (And that’s a big turnaround for me on Pineda — good for him for really turning things around this season.) Then you have some interesting decisions between higher-valued guys lower in the system like Rutledge and Denaburg vs. guys farther along like Troop and Irvin. Of those, I would think the one most likely to possibly be a Rule 5 pick would be Troop. But he’s also probably thought of as having the lowest ceiling.
A heads up, on the NATS Insider podcast there’s a good interview with James Wood. He comes across as humble and soft spoken and is glad to be back home.
A couple thoughts not entirely related to Nats Prospects.
With Julio Rodriguez, Austin Riley and Michael Harris getting signed to huge extensions, it reminds me how the Nats front office has been really poor at extending our young players before they become insanely cost prohibitive. I can’t recall any instances where the Nats have extended a player before their arbitration years. Whoever is negotiating the Braves’ extensions should be poached for whatever it costs to do so. They’ve locked down Albies, Acuna, Riley and Harris for 33 years of their primes and $419mil, meanwhile the Nats were prepared to give more than this for about 6-8 years of Soto’s prime, then a bunch more of his declining years.
But this is the consequence of intentionally doing business with Scott Boras. His clients will never sign before hitting free agency, unless the team offers an insane overpay (i.e. Strasburg’s deal). None of the Braves’ players extensions were very favorable to them, and Boras would have never allowed such a deal. I wonder if the Braves have made it a priority to avoid Boras clients for this reason. It’s definitely plausible, because there isn’t a single Boras client on the team.
Interestingly, one lesson from these extensions is the power of locality. Both Riley and Harris mentioned how they were locals or Braves fans growing up, which made them more likely to settle for a bit less money. A similar draw was talked about in convincing Ryan Zimmerman to play out his career with the team. This is something I’ve noticed the Nats have been doing more of in the past year or two: drafting locals. Maybe they’ve got a new and better scout for the DMV area, but there’s quite a few locals in the team: James Wood and Brenden Collins grew up in Olney. Trey Lipscomb is from Frederick. Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but there’s always talent in the area. And maybe a good hedge against our exceptional reliance on players from Texas/Oklahoma.
We should not really fall in love with some prospects at A level since Rule 5 is a yearly thang plus the bigger kicker . more prospects will be added into the meat grinder in the next year via intl signing theatre and summer draft .
Treat it like being 15 in high school again with the young girls : there are so many don’t get caught up on just one or two .
Lol
Ugh – if the minor leaguers had brains they wouldn’t pick the MLBPA to be their union. Over Tony Clark’s tenure they have consistently and intentionally screwed over the minor leaguers all in hope of owners concentrating more money on the major leaguers. International used to be free market, sign with who you want for whatever you can get. The Draft had no “caps” or slot values. Instead the MLBPA bargained those away haphazardly without a thought to the minor leaguers, many of whom main income was those bonuses. Now thanks to the greed of MLers, they face much reduced bonuses. The fight for “livable” pay and housing didn’t come from MPBPA, it came from minor leaguers. They should get a union that has their concerns in mind. The MLBPA never has.