Catching Up on Transactions
As noted in the comments, the Nats made a curious trade yesterday with the pickup of OF Frankie Tostado from the Mariners for cash considerations. What makes this odd is that Tostado was taken by Seattle in the minor-league phase of the Rule 5 draft on Wednesday. He has already been assigned to Harrisburg, where the Nationals no doubt scouted him last summer while he was playing for the Richmond Flying Squirrels.
The following players have been signed to minor-league contracts since November 22 (assignments if available):
- CF Stone Garrett
- CF Derek Hill (Rochester)
- CF Tito Polo (Harrisburg)
- 3B Jeimer Candelario
- 2B Franklin Barreto (Harrisburg)
- SS Leonel Valera (Rochester)
- SS Erick Mejia (Rochester)
- RHP Hobie Harris (Rochester)
- RHP Ronald Herrera (re-signed, Harrisburg)
As per usual, most of these moves are an effort to restock the upper levels to replace the players who left via free agency. Given that a modest goal for 2023 would be 70 wins for the big club, you’re looking at emergency options here. (Any takers for Joey Meneses as the next Shane Spencer or Hurricane Hazle?)
We now return you to your December 9th festivities…
if were going to dream on Joey, I’ll take Lefty O’Doul (shout-out to Boz on that one)
The name that jumps out at me is Franklin Barreto. He was the big prospect in the massive Josh Donaldson trade EIGHT years ago. And yet Barreto will only turn 27 in February. Barreto had a loud AAA season in 2019 (19 HRs and 29 doubles in only 98 games) but hasn’t done much since then. He actually hasn’t played much since then so apparently has dealt with a lot of injuries. Let’s see, yes, he missed all of 2021 with TJ surgery and was just trying to come back in 2022.
KW keep in mind Barretto monster AAA season was in that thin air PCL not Rochester lol.
Seeing double Vision ( Foreigner) on Barretto on Big Board , Sir Boss.
Jacob Gonzalez SS. I’m not all in on Abrams long term value .
Lest I give the impression of too much positive spin, it should be noted that in 237 MLB plate appearances, Barreto has posted a rather amazing K/BB of 100/7. He has more homers (9) than walks.
Here a tangent thought about the Tostado acquisition: Garcia and Frankie along with Omar get reps @ 1b / DH / OF while Drew Mendoza attempts to raise his mojo again in Deleware .