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Tuesday’s News & Notes

Team Yesterday Today Pitching Probables
Rochester OFF DAY @ Indianapolis, 6:35 p.m. Parker (0-0, 15.00) vs. Kranick (0-1, 2.79)

Rochester Red Wings, 30-37, 8th place I.L. East, 13GB – 64-76 Overall
Only six more days of roster shenanigans as Rochester plays out the string in Indianapolis. A series split would prevent back-to-back 80-loss seasons.

Mitchell Parker gets at least one more chance to win a 10th game. The 23-y.o. southpaw is tied with Alemao Hernandez for the Nats’ minors lead for pitching wins at nine. The Nats haven’t had a 10-game winner since 2019, when the trio of Joan Adon, Tim Cate, and Nick Raquet tied for 11 wins, or a 15-game winner since 2012, when the immortal Zach Duke went 15-5 in 26 starts for the AAA Syracuse Chiefs. Brad Peacock was the last AATL player to win 15, which he did in 2011 with Harrisburg and Syracuse before winning two of three starts for the big club.

Among the batting milestones, Blake Rutherford has an outside chance of tying Try Lipscomb for the lead in doubles (29-24) while Jack Dunn’s next walk will give him the season lead at 75, breaking a tie with J.T. Arruda. Three of those walks were intentional, which leads the organization. Dunn also has a chance to break a tie with Lipscomb for the organization lead in GiDP (15-13). James Wood led the org in runs scored (80), HRs (26), RBI (91), SLG% (.520), and SO (173) and is currently second in doubles (28) and triples (8 to Daylen Lile’s 10).



AFL UPDATE

Not much to really report, except that Lee has been in touch with me to take pictures for us again. This year’s team assignment is the Scottsdale Scorpions, along with the Giants, Angels, Cardinals, and Phillies. Speculating on who my get sent might fill time today, but a reminder that the Nats LOVE to assign Rule 5 candidates and pitchers who have been hurt… assuming of course, they haven’t had surgery yet. As noted in the comments, the Cubs have announced their contingent as have the Brewers.

25 Commments

  1. On the AFL, I’m very curious if they’ll have the significantly expanded rosters like they did last year. They named 10 players (6 hitters, 4 pitchers), when the contingent has almost always been around 7 players, and which was again the case for most other teams in 2022.

    Operating under the assumption it’s around 7 again (and that there’s at least one catcher) in ’23, my guesses are:
    1. Robert Hassell, OF
    2. Israel Pineda, C
    3. Murphy Stehly, 3B/1B
    4. Sammy Infante, 2B/3B
    5. DJ Herz, SP
    6. Andry Lara, SP
    7. Richard Guasch, RP
    8. Nick Pogue, RP (is he actually injured?)

    Cole Henry and Jake Bennett are also options depending on how the Nats see their health. Matt Suggs if another option if we need a second catcher.

    2. So if JR wasn’t deemed ready for big club starts in Sept we would have seen Urena in these spots .
      Glad to see JR up and contributing ..

    3. Hey Travis Blakenhorn
      Lay off tomato seeds which trigger planter faciastis
      I’ve had that . Yuck

  2. Herz is both a Rule 5 candidate and not up against his innings limit, so he seems a good (and interesting) bet for the AFL. With his start tonight, Parker will be at a 20% innings increase over 2022, so this is probably it for him. I expect both to be added to the 40-man.

    There’s certainly an exciting list of field position player who are AZ possibilities, but we usually end up disappointed. Wood, House, Crews, Hassell, Lipscomb, Lile, Pinckney, Morales, et al. They’ve “load managed” House all season, so I suspect they’re not going to give him extra games. Crews had a really long college season. Hassell seems a prime candidate, since he’s still trying to figure things out. But also don’t be surprised if they include guys like Stehly and/or Frizzell (who went last year) who aren’t as exciting on the prospect front.

    They always send a couple of catchers as well. Someone here has already said that Pineda is going. He’s another one who needs to figure things out.

  5. I’d guess Lindsly is the second catcher and that Baker gets a second chance after getting hurt there last year. Herz seems like a given. if they send any of the high ranked guys Hassell and Wood would seem good guesses

    1. Baker would make sense if they’re trying to give time to guys who missed a good chunk of time to injury. They don’t tend to send AAA guys too often, though.

      Their toughest Rule 5 decisions this winter on the pitching side likely will be about Henry and Lara. Is Henry healthy enough to go to AZ? He went two years ago but of course has endured a lot since then. At that time, we were hoping that he’d be in the majors by now.

        1. Yeah, he’s way too far away (A+) for there to be any risk of him getting taken. He also wasn’t good in A+. His 4.58 ERA was very slightly better than league average, while other stats nosedived (his K/9 dropped from 9.3 in ’22 to 6.0 in ’23). I’m not even convinced he’s earned a promotion to AA next year, much less to the majors. We already saw how hard it was to stash Ward on the big league roster for two months, even when the Nats were in contention for worst team in the league. We only “lucked out” when Ward went down with a serious injury, which allowed the team to avoid DFA’ing him back to the Red Sox.

          1. then again he lowered his WHIP by almost 15%. I wouldn’t expect a promotion but also wouldn’t be surprised to see him increase the swing and miss back in A+ to start the year and move up when they see fit

          3. I mention Lara mainly because the Nats get bizarrely paranoid about potential Rule 5 picks from the lower minors and do stupid things like adding guys like Antuna, De La Rosa, and several others. NO ONE was going to pick those guys. Call it the Nieto Effect.

    2. Yeah, Wood is also a good guess. In addition to the additional playing time for injured players, there’s also often a contingent of hyped prospects, where the purpose is essentially to showcase them to the rest of the league (Jordans Walker and Lawlar were both top 10 prospects who featured last year).

      1. Victory Firkd a great park fir the guys to wrap up the season in .
        Indian summer in Indians park .

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