Monday’s News & Notes

12 Commments

1. A tale of two debuts.

   Baker sports a perfect 1.000 AVG, and Brzykcy gives up more earned runs in two thirds (5) of an inning than he had in his previous 13 games (3) in the minors.

   With the growing number of ’24 draftees appearing, and the best players in Rochester getting promoted, the most interesting team to watch is now definitely Fredericksburg. I missed the post yesterday, but what a fabulous debut from Sam Petersen! 3 extra base hits and a stolen base for good measure. A bit congratulations to him!

   Robert Hassell was also just promoted to Rochester. I am extremely impressed with the sudden aggressiveness of promotions among our bats. You guys are probably fed up with me calling for promotions, but even I wasn’t calling for Hassell (or Pinckney or Baker or even Crews). Besides Sykora, the org has also been pretty proactive with the SPs too. Lara, Susana, Lord, Alvarez, Herz, etc. (basically every SP having a good season) have all been promoted. It’s an interesting contrast to the relief pitchers, however. I wonder what the logic is. But I hope Ribalta and Brzykcy, despite their early troubles, manage to stick in the majors for this last month of the season. Their minor league performances have earned that.

   1. Ribalta already back on the way down to AAA. with Hassell coming up they’ll be making a push for the playoffs.

      I would think the extra games negates Hassell going back to the AFL. just as well in my book, starting next year in AAA with a healthy wrist is the important thing. and as an opening day 23 yr old he’s still right on track.

      Alvarez now listed as the starter today, go get’em Wings!

   2. Is Jared McKenzie ready for a promotion to AA???

2. Has there been any update on Jake Bennett? He should have ben throwing by now..

   1. Surgery was ~9/16/23 so if he’s throwing, it’s in WPB away from any press coverage, which is just how the Nats want it.

      1. Thanks Luke. Is there any reason why this org. is so secretive when it comes to injury/rehab updates? I get it if it’s a contact sport like hockey where you don’t want other teams to know where/how your player got hurt because that’s where they’ll target him when he gets back into the lineup. But there’s no reason to do it in baseball. It’s extremely frustrating and i don’t know why the media doesn’t hold them more accountable.

         1. You wouldn’t be a top Nats prospect if you didn’t mysteriously disappear for weeks on end. Just beware of assurances from Nats officials that “everything is on track” as that’s code for “this guy might never recover”.

         2. It’s been this way for as long as I’ve been running this site, which is roughly nine months less than Rizzo’s tenure. I had a conversation with a scout about this and he said “they all do that” but I think that’s an observation, not an explanation.

            As for the toothlessness of the media, DC is not a baseball town. There’s no tradition of competition between outlets and no history of being adversarial. WaPo changes out the beat guys every 3-4 years in age where layoffs come every 18-24 months.

            And don’t even mention Boswell — my old characterization of him being Willie Mays with the Mets is too kind. More like Steve Carlton with the Twins.

            1. While I agree that it’s hard to find even a tenuous strategic advantage to hoarding the injury and rehab information like Rizzo does, I’m also a little bit uncomfortable with how voracious fans are for this kind of information. When someone is ready to play, they’ll play. And until then, there’s no real harm with the error bars on my projections being higher than they might be otherwise.

               Even if HIPPA doesn’t legally apply (and it might – Rizzo might not be allowed to give certain kinds of updates w/o player approval), I think the spirit of it does — these injured minor leaguers are kids dealing with moderate to serious health setbacks as they chase their dream. If they don’t want to tell us their stories themselves, then I’m ok just not knowing for now how Bennett’s rehab is going, for example.

            2. I don’t have a problem with not getting updates about guys on rehab. I do have a problem with the Nats lying when they do decide to update us, which they have done repeatedly. That’s why I prefer to use “claim” instead of “said.”

   2. While on that note – What about Cavalli? He was re-assigned to Wilmington back in July after he appeared to have overcome “dead arm”. There were soon after reports of him playing catch, but I haven’t heard more since. Has he been shut down for the season? What an incredibly disappointing (and worrisome) season…

      And Cole Henry – what’s up with him? He started rehab in Wilmington and then got 60 day IL’d again. Was there any reporting on what befell him this time? TOS surgery success is looking incredibly bleak.

3. Luke you’ve been a trooper all these years and you still probably sport more hair on the dome than Mr Rizzo .
   I echo a comment about the pitchers who should return next spring off the DL along with several of the lefties from the 24 draft : Bennett , Sullivan , Pablo A .
   Kent and several others whose names are out of sight and mind presently .
   Reelin in the Years ( Steely Dan ) .. JT snow grabbing Darren away from the HP action and now yesterday Darren celebrating with the hip movement which may end up with a proverbial “ this moment sponsored by State Farm Insurance ( snarkle , snarkle , Luke lol)

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