Offseason Update: Oct. 28, 2025
Season Review: The 2025 Fredericksburg Nationals
Much like the year before, the FredNats surged in the second half and won the division with some significant help from the Red Sox, who beat the second-place Woodpeckers four times in their final series. It was a battle of the ‘Burgs Forrest Gump pause again in the CLDS, and as it usually goes, the Hillcats prevailed two games to one, winning on a two-base, two-run error in the bottom of the 9th.
It’s hard to get upset about this because the FredNats really had no business being there. They were 65-64 for the season and had a run differential of zero in the second half, and -24 in the first half. They would have finished in fourth place and five games back of the eventual Mills Cup-winning Hillcats in the full-season format.
There certainly were a lot of memorable comebacks and walkoffs, but the overall numbers aren’t nearly as impressive. Like most of the system, Fredericksburg was near the bottom in multiple offensive categories: runs (11th), hits (11th), RBI (10th), SB (10th), walks (10th), strikeouts (9th), average (11th), and on-base percentage (12th). To make matters worse, this was the second-oldest team in the league, despite having five players 20 or younger among the top 10 in terms of usage (PA). This does not include #1 pick Eli Willits and his 15 games played.
As you should have surmised, pitching is what enabled the team to compete despite its offensive struggles as the team was 4th in R/G (4.29 vs. 4.49 Lg. Avg) despite not piling up a lot of K’s. You should also not be surprised that this comes with the caveat of the oldest pitching staff in the league, which no doubt helped the team lead the league in stolen-base prevention as the FredNats both threw out runners at the best rate (35%) and allowed the second-least number of successful steals.
We’ll close with the statistical Top 5’s using the cutoffs of 100PA for the 31 batters and 20IP for the 39 pitchers used this season.
| TOP 5 BATS | TOP 5 ARMS |
| 1. Jackson Ross, 3B .289 GPA, 4/5/00 D0B |
1. Pablo Aldonis, LHRP 1.96/0.35/0.77, 11.42 K/9IP in 26IP |
| 2. Ethan Petry, 1B/LF .277 GPA, .387 OBP, 13BB in 24G |
2. Merritt Beeker, LHRP 1.85/2.99/1.12, 11.1 K/9IP in 63⅔ IP |
| 3. Jorgelys Mota, 3B .256 GPA, 25SB, 26BB in 81G |
3. R.J. Sales, RHSP 3.25/3.18/1.41, 11.75 K/9IP in 28⅓ IP (6GS) |
| 4. Christhian Vaquero, OF .253 GPA, 110K in 101G |
4. Yoel Tejeda, RHSP 3.43/3.30/1.17, 2.40 BB/9IP in 78#8532; IP (16GS) |
| 5. Brenner Cox, OF .245 GPA, 16BB in 24G |
5. Robert Cranz, RHRP 2.05/3.31/0.95, 12.03 K/9IP in 30⅔IP (25G) |
Honorable mention (or perhaps the true #5) goes to 18-year-old Angel Feliz, who posted a .230/.307/.370 line in 31G after .264/.366/.358 performance in the FCL. For the pitchers, Xander Meckley gets the nod with a 3.78/3.86/1.42 mark despite a relatively low K rate (7.35).
If you’re interested, full team statistics can be found here, while pitching data can be found here.
I wonder if Kevin Bazzell’s 59 CS and 40% CS% was the best in the minors? As best I can tell, no one does a defensive leaderboard. I’d guess if it’s not the best, it’s close to it, given that the Carolina League average was 24% CS%, and across the minors that rate appeared to be even lower, hovering around 22-23%. In fact, I think the sole reason the Carolina League is higher than others is Bazzell brought the rate up ever so slightly.
It’s at least one positive story for Bazzell’s 2025!