Tuesday’s News & Notes
| Team | Yesterday | Today | Pitching Probables |
| Rochester | OFF DAY | vs. Iowa, 6:05 p.m. | Alvarez (4-6, 4.66) vs. Kilian (1-0, 3.63) |
| Fredericksburg | OFF DAY | vs. Kannapolis, 7:05 p.m. | Clemmey (0-0, 14.73) vs. McDougal (0-0, 6.75) |
Rochester Red Wings – 36-33, 3rd Place I.L. East, 9½ Lg. GB (74-68 overall)
The Red Wings finish the 2024 season at home with five night games against Iowa and a Sunday matinee. Rochester has outperformed its Pythagorean projection and, barring a series of blowouts, will finish the season with more runs allowed than scored. There is no word on who or if anyone will be socially promoted for one more start or a few more ABs. If past is prologue, it’ll be a couple of relievers and perhaps a catcher, depending whether or not the big Nats need or want to do the same from the eligible Rochester pitchers.
Fredericksburg leads best-of-three Mills Cup Championship, 1-0
The FredNats are one win away from ending a ten-year drought of league championships for the Nationals organization, never mind the franchise. The question is whether the weather will cooperate. Rain is in the forecast for both today and tomorrow, which, in theory would enable Travis Sykora to pitch Game Two if it’s not tonight.
We should be getting the Arizona Fall League assignments within the next week or so. Even though it’s been the Year of the Pitcher in the system, most of the higher-profile arms are at their innings limits, so I don’t expect too many big names on that front.
Instead, the more interesting prospects likely will be hitters. Guys already at AAA often don’t go to AZ, but recently promoted House, Pinckney, and Hassell all would seem like good candidates. Hassell in particular missed a good bit of time with injuries, as did Morales and Cayden Wallace at AA. Lile is the rising star type who also tends to get sent.
The Nats generally provide a couple of catchers, which usually is a nothingburger (although Millas totally found himself there as a hitter two falls ago). Draftees rarely go to the AFL, but Lomavita and Bazzell are far and away the most significant catchers in the organization right now. Neither has had a particularly heavy workload compared to a minor-leaguer who has caught 80-100 games.
on Sunday I asked Cayden what his plans were and he said fall ball, so he is going somewhere
Excellent insider info!
Though Wallace is by far the most obvious AFL candidate. Good to see it (unofficially) confirmed.
Would think that Cayden Wallace is a lock for the AFL. Hassell would make some sense, but he was AFL invitee in both 2022 and 2023. Not surprisingly, Hassell was hurt early in the 2022 AFL season. If we are going to be honest with ourselves, Hassell has been under-whelming since the Soto trade, even factoring the injuries. He has played himself out of prospect status.
totally agree on Wallace and also doubt that Hassell will go. given the recurrence of his wrist issues I’ll vote for rest and additional rehab.
however I do not share your pessimism on his prospect status. he’s still just 22 and I expect good things for him next year in AAA.
my bad he just turned 23, no change on my other views otherwise
Wish I could find a list I’d put together a few weeks ago in the comments. But Yohandy Morales should also be a lock to go too.
While neither fit the limited playing time mold, I have a feeling one of Pinckney or Lile will get sent, just because both had moderately successful seasons and are relatively well regarded prospects. But Jared McKenzie would fit the typical mold, but I worry he isn’t good enough/highly rated enough to get sent.
Yes, for whatever reason, we need to supply a catcher so that their playing time is so comically limited, that they get 10 plate appearances in the whole abbreviated season. My guess is we’ll send Matt Suggs, just to fill the roster spot (could also be Max Romero), but I would be pleasantly surprised if Bazzell or Lomavita got the nod.
Wallace, 3B
Morales, 1B
Pinckney or Lile (maybe McKenzie), OF
Suggs (maybe Bazzell or Lomavita), C
Then there’s no shortage of deserving pitchers, but not so many injury-limited/R5 eligible players. Dustin Saenz is a shoe in. He’s both injury limited and R5 eligible this winter. He’ll definitely make the AFL team. Alvarez, Sinclair, Collins and Marc Davis are also R5 eligible. But Davis and Collins both have a significant workload increase after missing last season to injury, so they’re off. Alvarez and Sinclair, though, could be interesting adds. Two injury-impacted arms, but who may be too far gone to be worth a AFL add: Richard Guasch and Seth Shuman. Some other names: Chance Huff? Anthony Arguelles? Dark horse: Cade Cavalli (if his arm is indeed still attached to his body)
My best guess:
Saenz, SP
Shuman, SP/long relief
Sinclair, RP
Huff, RP
Those seem like very reasonable pitching guesses. It’s interesting to see Shuman and Guasch grouped since they came in the same trade (along with Millas).
Like that AFL list , Will .
Fred MD I agree on that Hassell 111 age 24 doing on his ETA gps course readjustment still timely .
The affiliates have done their roles amidst all the player promotions , demotions additions and subtractions .
Want to be wrong about Hassell, but he is an OF and over his last two seasons and 800+ plate appearances, he has slugged under .340. UThe wrist excuse only works for so long. He is an average baserunner, and giving him the benefit of the doubt, perhap he’s a slightly above average defensive player.
If not for his reputation as a prospect, Hassell would just be another guy in the organization. He has yet to flash any elite skill. Maybe its all atributable to injuries, or maybe he’s just a marginal prospect.
Count me as sort of having a foot in both camps with Hassell. This is a guy who was the #8 overall pick in the 2020 draft, so a lot was expected of him. (And frankly, I think we’d be even more disappointed in him if he was a Nats high pick instead of from among a litter in a trade return.) Hassell will be Rule 5-eligible this winter, and while he’ll very likely be added, a case could be made that they wouldn’t be risking losing much if they didn’t.
On the flip side . . . it sometimes takes forever to find out what you’ve got in high school picks. In his age-22 season, Michael A. Taylor hit 10 homers. The next year he hit 23. At age 22, Souza hit 11, following with 23 at age 23. And neither was nearly as advanced in the system as Hassell is. So there’s still time for power to show up.
And it does need to show up, as he’s going to be a corner OF. It’s going to be an interesting race over the next couple of seasons to see who among Hassell, Pinckney, or Lile might supplant Young as the third member of the OF. It would be quite a good thing for all of them to click, giving the Nats some trade chips.
Besides, Soto is going to be playing LF for the Nats for the next 15 years anyway, right?
This may not be the forum for it, but does Wood or Soto move to first base?
Or Morales vs. House for 1B?
As Mark often points out here, Keith Law raved about what he saw of Wood’s CF defense in Wilmington and thought he was a better natural fit there than Crews. The other thing I would say about Wood is that he seems to be an incredibly hard offseason worker, and whenever they decide what field position he is indeed likely to occupy, having a winter to learn it should make him significantly better.