AFL/Offseason Update: Nov. 7, 2024
Chase Solesky got the start and tossed two scoreless innings, giving up two singles, no walks, and striking out four.
Robert Hassell led off for Salt River and played centerfield. At the plate, he went 1-for-4 with a double and two runs scored while striking out twice. In the field, he had one putout and fielded three hits.
Michael Cuevas came on in the 5th as the third Rafters pitcher and was torched for two runs on two hits and two walks over an inning and 2/3rds. He struck out two.
Luke Young let in one of three inherited runners before getting the last out of the 6th and pitching a scoreless 7th. He allowed no hits, walked two, and fanned one.
Salt River (14-11) visits Peoria (6-17) this afternoon.
NATIONALS FREE AGENTS REVEALED
Yesterday, we learned the 25 Nationals who were granted free agency (highest level in ’24):
CATCHERS
AA – Hudson Livesy, Israel Pineda, Onix Vega
A+ – Geraldi Diaz
INFIELDERS
AAA – Carter Kieboom, Joey Meneses
AA – Dérmis Garcia
OUTFIELDERS
AA – Trey Harris, Cody Wilson
LHPs
AAA – Tim Cate
FCL – Will Sandy
RHPs
AAA – Rico Garcia, Adonis Medina, Carlos Romero, Michael Rucker, Ty Tice, Spenser Watkins
AA – Richard Guasch, Samuel Reyes, Reid Schaller, Rodney Theophile, Nash Walters
A+ – Mason Denaburg, Moises Diaz
FCL – Aldo Ramirez
As noted tangentially in the comments, this marks the end of an era in the Washington minors. Jake Johansen can crack open a beer, having ceded the title of the worst draft pick in the Rizzo Era to Mason Denaburg, who only made it to High-A but for a birthday-present promotion. Carter Kieboom, who was once paired with Luis García as “untouchable” in trade talks, instead walks away with a .598 OPS over parts of four seasons.
Rico Garcia signed a MiLB deal with the Mets and Spenser Watkins is off to Taiwan. I could see Kieboom following him.
Denaburg and Ramirez had their limbs derail their dreams, the cruelest of fates.
To all the rest, good luck fellas and thank you for your dedication to the game we love.
Add Theophile to the injury victim list, and to a lesser extent Guasch and Schaller.
And with Ramirez finally departing, it spells an end to a rare Rizzo trade miss. Ramirez was the sole return for Kyle Schwarber. Ramirez has thrown a grand total of 37.2 IP since he was acquired in July 2021.
Not very many surprises here, but many of these are a victim of the Nats’ conservativeness with relief pitcher promotions, with Moises Diaz being the posterchild of this.
Here’s Diaz’s 2023-2024 ERA progression:
2023
FCL: 2.89 ERA
A ball: 2.78 ERA
2024
A ball: 1.99 ERA
A+: 1.69 ERA
He only got better with time, but for a 22-23 year old that’s an extremely cautious promotion schedule. Do you really need 40 games and almost 70 innings of low 2.00 ERA ball in Fredericksburg before you can test him with a bump up to Wilmington? Instead of having a guy on the fringes of contributing to the major league team (at the AA or AAA level), we’re left with a 23 year old reliever with 10 innings above low A ball. It’s a shame, because Diaz isn’t to blame at all for it. He’s done nothing but perform at whatever level he’s been sent to. Hope he can stick around, and get a tougher challenge next season.
There’s similar stories with Medina, Guasch and Reyes.
The exception to this narrative is Carlos Romero, who, bucking the wider trend, benefitted from a 3 level rise last season. He was quite good in Wilmington and Harrisburg, but struggled in Rochester. Given that the Nats seemed to value him more than many of these other relievers, I wonder if they’ll try to keep him around? He had an awful 2023, but a very good 2022, so it’s hard to know what to make of him.
Farewell to Kieboom and Denaburg. I hope this definitively shuts the door to a decade of shamefully bad drafting (2012-2022).
Carter Kieboom is no longer a member of the Nats organization…
Good luck to all these guys. They’re in their later 20s and have never done anything else. They’ve lived the dream, just not quite the happily ever after. And hopefully they invested those draft bonuses (at least those who got them).
Now it’s the rebuild with Haas and BC influence