AFL/Offseason Update: Nov. 6, 2024
Salt River overcame deficits of 1-0 and 2-1 and poured it on in the late innings to outslug Mesa, 13-11.
Two Nationals appeared in the game.
● Maxwell Romero Jr. started behind the plate and batted sixth. He doubled once, scored once, drove in one, and walked twice. Defensively, he had 12 putouts (the caught stealing was on a pickoff)
● Phillip Glasser played third base and batted ninth. He was one of two Rafters not to get a hit, though he walked and scored a run, and had no defensive chances.
The two teams switch venues and rematch this afternoon in Scottsdale. Chase Solesky (0-1, 5.73) is expected to start for the Rafters.
2024 WILMINGTON BLUE ROCKS
Do we have to? I guess we do.
Disappointment is the word once again, though, it probably shouldn’t be. The team supplying many of Wilmingtons’s players (the 2023 FredNats) were barely a .500 team and High-A is often the separation of prospects from suspects. It’s not unusual or uncommon for guys to light it up at Low-A, get the long-awaited bump, and then turn into the NBA players in Space Jam.
From that perspective, there were some success stories for the Blue Rocks in 2024: Andry Lara early and Rodney Theophile later got the call to Harrisburg and swam instead of sank. Daylen Lile, too, though he had the usual drop in production with the promotion.
And then there were the T.J. Whites and Jeremy De La Rosas, neither of whom showed much progress from 2023.
Wilmington went from league-average age to the oldest set of bats (23.6 vs. 23.0) but remained dead-last on offense at 3.85 R/G (4.56) in large part because they were shut out eighteen (18) times.
The pitchers were the second-oldest in the league – 22.9 (vs. 22.1) – but a shade worse than Lg. Avg. (4.7 R/G vs. 4.56) and were dead last in strikeouts and hit the fewest batters. Defensively, they were league-average in terms of FPct (.972) and threw out 26% of would be basestealers, allowed the fewest passed balls, and third-fewest wild pitches, all of which are surprising given what we’ve seen in the AFL this fall.
Without further ado, here are the obligatory Top 5’s in terms of production:
| TOP 5 BATS | TOP 5 ARMS |
| 1. Philip Glasser, UT .289 GPA, 40BB, 14SB in 75G |
1. Jarlin Susana, RHSP 2.25/4.18/1.25, 14.71 K/9IP in 47⅓ IP (10GS) |
| 2. Daylen Lile, OF .261 GPA, .353 OBP, 14SB in 57G |
2. Andry Lara, RHSP 2.35/2.74/1.04, 11.45 K/9IP in 30⅔ IP (6GS) |
| 3. Kevin Made, SS .241 GPA, 17 2B, 11SB in 72G |
3. Rodney Theophile, RHSP 4.44/3.36/1.28, 2HR in 50⅔ IP |
| 4. Viandel Peña, 2B/SS .241 GPA, 20SB in 75G |
4. Miguel Gomez, RHRP 2.89/3.51/1.20, 7.91 K/9IP in 46⅔ IP |
| 5. Murphy Stehly, 3B .224 GPA, .644OPS in 61G |
5. Wander Arias, RHRP 3.79/3.70/1.19, 9.32 K/9IP, 4.11 BB/9IP in 57IP |
I gave some serious thought to only doing Top 4’s or a combined list, which I try not to do until AA – especially now there’s only four full-season teams. The better news is that only half of these guys were definitively old for the level, which is unusual, as the Nats have historically drafted older players and signed older IFAs and tend to keep guys in High-A longer.
Folks interested in viewing the team stats can find them here. Pitching data can be found here.
It was a bleak season in Wilmington. The pitching was good, however, given the extreme pitcher-friendly park effects, you’d expect that. The fact that they were below league average is…. not good.
I can’t find team-wide splits, but of the 5 pitchers listed, all of them (except Theophile, who had a bizarrely tough time in Wilmington) had pretty massively extreme home/away splits during their stints in A+. This actually raises some bigger questions about the sustainability of their performances once they get out their cavernous Delaware surroundings. For example, Wander Arias sported a 1.52 ERA at home, and a 6.26 ERA away, and Susana had a 2.74 ERA at home vs 4.76 ERA on the road. That’s pretty astounding. While Gomez’s splits were “only” about 1.00 ERA difference, with a 2.49 ERA at home vs a 3.20 ERA away. I hesitate to draw any conclusions from Lara’s 6 starts, as only 2 were at home (but he didn’t allow a run in either of those two starts so the 0.00 ERA home vs 3.13 ERA away doesn’t tell us much).
But man, the hitters were bad. I really worry that Wilmington’s stadium is having bad effects on both pitchers and batters development, by forcing them intentionally or unintentionally into adapting their play to the stadium. For the pitchers, you can allow all the flyballs you want without taking much damage, but that won’t play in other stadiums. And batters may opt for hitting for contact over power, after seeing their well struck long fly balls die near the warning track.
Yeah, it’s certainly not wrong to wonder what Wilmington is doing to our player development, not that there’s any hope of change of location in the near future.
It is sort of a chicken-egg thing, though: is it the stadium, or the players not being good enough? Wood (.972 OPS) and House (.907) in 2023 didn’t seem to struggle as Blue Rocks. But nearly everyone else has.
I do think it’s fair to wonder if the mid-level prospects are being discouraged by unnecessary struggles there, though.
Susana had a handful of stinker outings that skewed an overall excellent season. He was quite dominant at times. I am a bit haunted by Keith Law’s summary assessment of him, though: “He won’t turn 21 until March, so in the context of his age he’s doing extremely well — we’re not waiting on stuff and he’s performed at two full-season levels now. I do think he’s going to run into trouble next year between the below-average command, which is at least in part a function of the delivery, and the lack of a real weapon for left-handed batters.” (https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5739028/2024/09/03/mlb-prospect-scouting-jarlin-susana-vance-honeycutt/) He certainly would be a high-level trade chip if the Nats share those concerns.
I just had a look at Susana’s righty/lefty splits, because I found Law’s comment interesting, and… yikes. In 2024, righties hit: .193/.247/.269 against Susana, but lefties hit .276/.407/.344.
Fortunately, no one hit for power against Susana, he allowed exactly 1 HR against both righties and lefties and 21 other extra base hits. But Susana massively struggled to locate his pitches against LHBs. He walked 17.6% of all lefties faced (36 BB in 204 plate appearances), while against righties that fell to a mere 5.0%! (12 BB in 240 PA). That’s 3.5 times higher rate, which captures Law’s biggest criticisms of him.
Worryingly he had the exact same problem last season, 17.5 BB% vs LHBs, but a worse rate vs RHBs (10.8 BB%). Weirdly though, he was overall much better against LHBs (.599 OPS) than RHBs (.759 OPS), which doesn’t support Law’s supposition on being weak against lefties. There’s a lot of weird statistical noise here, but it’s something I’ll be monitoring next season. I definitely trust Law on his scouting reports coming out of Wilmington, since he’s a Wilmington resident and regular attendee of Blue Rocks games. (Btw, can’t wait to hear his reports on Sykora next season).
Here is a list of minor free agents released by the Nats https://x.com/CoachDrewScott/status/1854359548024304098