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Tuesday’s News & Notes

Team Yesterday Today Pitching Probables
Rochester OFF DAY @ Syracuse, 6:35 p.m. T. Romero (0-1, 7.71) vs. Montgomery (2-10, 6.89)
Harrisburg OFF DAY vs. Akron, 6:30 p.m. Cate (2-3, 6.05) vs. Bibee (4-1, 1.29)
Wilmington OFF DAY vs. Hudson Valley, 6:35 p.m. Knowles (7-1, 3.07) vs. Castano (5-7, 3.31)
Fredericksburg OFF DAY @ Salem, 7:05 p.m. TBD vs. Sena (0-0, 2.70)

Rochester Red Wings, 56-73, 8th place, 17½ GB
Rochester’s tragic number was reduced to four after a 1-5 series against Toledo. This week is the Red Wings’ best chance to break their series losing streak with six against the 9th-place S-Mets.

Harrisburg Senators, 20-36, 5th place, 15½ GB (50-75 overall)
The Senators climbed back to .400 for the year and out of the E.L. Southwest cellar with a 4-2 series win against the Flying Squirrels, winners of the first half but now in last place. This week it’s the final homestand of 2022 for Harrisburg with six against the Akron RubberDucks.

Wilmington Blue Rocks, 27-33, 5th place, 9GB (62-63 overall)
Wilmington, which finished in second place in the first half, continued its downward spiral with a series loss to Brooklyn to fall below .500 for the year. Getting back over that hump will be a challenge, as they host second-place Hudson Valley for their final series and would need to win four of six to finish above .500.

Fredericksburg Nationals, 38-21, 1st place, 5½ GA (71-54 overall)
The FredNats bitch-slapped the Shorebirds for 48 runs while taking five of six last week and are now on the brink of taking the second-half title and facing Lynchburg in the CLDS, just as they did in 2018. Fredericksburg finishes the second half with seven in Salem, hoping to keep the bats hot and the arms rested, which will be a little bit difficult with a doubleheader tomorrow.

14 Commments

  1. Wilmington should be loaded with the current Fredericksburg crew next season, some of whom we’ll hope can trickle up to Harrisburg by mid-summer. Fredericksburg will have Green, Cox, Lile, maybe a repeat appearance by House to start the season.

    It will be interesting whether they send Hassell back to Harrisburg or on to Rochester.

    1. Maybe the playoff tee shirt should mimic the line from that film the A team with Liam Neesom and Bradley Cooper : Get Lynch !
      So let’s see who leads the farm in IP aaaaaassssss a starter and while someone with Virgo tendencies would do .. let’s see which bullpen horse has logged the most Mike Marshall ( Expos / Dodgers lore ) IP.

    2. It would be imprudent to promote Hassell after the August he’s had. By the start of next season, he’ll have less than 30 games in AA and a pretty unimpressive stint at that. Give him half a season before promoting him to AAA, unless he’s destroying AA pitching sooner than that.

      Another interesting question is where all our new arms will end up next year. Jake Bennett our 2nd rounder, Riley Cornelio (7th rd), Luke Young (11th) and Brad Lord (18th) are still yet to appear. And guys like Huff (8th), Luckham (15th) haven’t appeared particularly challenged yet in Fredericksburg. Some of these guys could be in Wilmington to start 2023.

      Wilmington are going to be really fun to watch next year.

    4. We knew G Diaz could hit it Arruda getting in the .275 range raises my eye brows plus getting extra base knocks .

  2. While I don’t advocate promoting most prospects as aggressively as many here, can see Will Frizzell jumping to H’burg to start next season. He will be 24 before the 2023 season starts, and he clearly is too advanced for Low A and maybe High A.

    Also, despite being less than “dominant”, Jackson Rutledge turns 24 in April, 2023 will be his 5th season since the Nats drafted him, and he has finished strong. There is a chance he could start 2023 in AA, or at least gets promoted quickly with a decent start. Even with his injuries and limited progress, hard to keep a 24 year old, 2019 1st round pick in Single A in 2023, while maintaining that he is any type of legit prospect.

  3. Like the old song by Aynsley Dunbar – Let It Ride : brass will have to let it ride especially with the older guys near Rule 5 path
    Hassell will be treated like the expos pushed Larry Walker and especially John Van der Wal up the ladder.

  4. Hassell needs to stay in AA for awhile and conquer that level first.

    Nats farm gonna be fun next year! We also should have a high draft pick so more talent will be on the way.

    DSL- We sign Soto’s bro lol.

    FCL- Vaquero and Mota stand out.

    Fredericksburg- Should be fun again. Green, Cox, Lile, Quintana, Cruz and maybe House. Nationals got a glute of outfielders not sure how they going to make it work.

    Wilmington will be flat loaded. Lipscomb, McKenzie, White, Wood, Lara, Pena, maybe De La Rosa. Once again a glutney of outfielders. I expect alot of the drafted pitchers including Jake Bennett to start here as well.

    Harrisburg- Repeat Hassell, maybe they toss Rutledge to the wolves. But if the High-A guys do they thing they coming to take these spots.

    Rochester- Hopefully Cole Henry returns lol.

    Our talent is definitely still at the lower levels. Hopefully trickling to higher levels soon.

    So Cristhian Vaquero is an interesting case to me. He is supposed to be tooled up like Tim Allen allegedly. And it seems they showed up minus this alleged plus power he has. If he can add that to his game (still 17), he showed a good plate approach. Is there a world if he gets stronger and started tapping into his power that the Nats would consider him moving to Low-A in short order? The Brewers did this with Jackson Chourio and he has rewarded them after a ehh DSL debut (though he did hit 5 hrs) they skipped him over the FCL and he rewarded them and is now considered a top 5-10 prospect in the sport.

    The only problem with Vaquero in Low-A is the dilemma between him and Green. They both are tooled up allegedly and could play a plus CF.

    So with all this said they will be conservative with Vaquero and probably play him in FCL all of next year. But something to monitor if he performs.

  5. I intentionally did not mention Frizzell in my last post. Because I have no clue what to do with him. I get it he is 23 and too old for Low-A. But the way he is thrashing that pitching he is leaving no doubt. Even for a 23 year old it is impressive.

    How good is Will Frizzell it is a mystery…

    If he is anything like this up the ladder then the Nationals got themselves a steal.

    I would say he starts at High-A being conservative and seeing how he does. He will be 24 next year though it might be worth seeing him against AA pitching. Frizzell is interesting because he has no prospect helium but is performing like a stud at Low-A. Start him at AA if he has a good camp. If he keeps hitting his ETA could be as early as next season in opinion. Just hard to make put who he is at this point really.

  6. like no time in the history of the franchise, real prospects will be at every level. while injury insurance guys, trying to catch lightening guys and organizational guys are always needed there should be fewer spots available.

    on Rutledge when you discuss age, don’t you allow at all for no 2020 season? a lot of 3-4 starters didn’t debut until they were 24. if he debuts at 25 isn’t that the same thing?

    check out this post

    https://nationalsprospects.com/2022/01/nationals-name-2022-farm-managers-coaches/

    player promotions aside, that’s the 2023 one I’ll be eyeing.

  7. Frizzell definitely has to be an AFL candidate, both because he missed part of the season and because he hasn’t really been challenged. If he continues to bash there, give him a ticket straight to Harrisburg. Even if not, if he starts at Wilmington, there are going to be some there who they’ll be leaning forward to get on to Harrisburg if they’re succeeding: Wood, Frizzell, Lipscomb, Rutledge. I assume that de la Rosa will start the year at Wilmington as well.

    I don’t know that the Nats have to rush Hassell to Rochester, but I think they’ll be hoping that he can make his MLB debut by mid/late next season, whatever path it takes to get there.

    I don’t care at what age Rutledge makes it . . . just as long as he makes it. Same with Denaburg, who they probably should shut down now. If it takes three years for Rutledge, Denaburg, and a long-recovering Cole Henry to show up, that could still be a boon.

  8. this Tommy Romero pickup could prove to be pretty astute. he was among TB’s top 30 prospects and we get him on a waiver claim. they had him pitching an inning at a time and he had some recent success. Nats seem to be going to stretch him back out and I doubt he’ll go more than 3 innings tonight but I’ll be watching. he also has options remaining.

    1. FredMD we found a nice turnip which fell off the Tampa turnip truck
      Listen to you tomorrow analyze JR outing .

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