For the first time in more than a decade, we’re combining the DSL’s best players into a single category. Unfortunately, this is mostly a function of the 2023 DSL team finishing dead last at 11-39 and dead last on offense.
The best thing you could say about this team is they were young, which is often brought up because the Nats have tried very hard to find late-bloomers, which means 18- and 19-y.o.’s when most of the best players are around the age of 17. For reasons that are not clear, the Nats opted to keep just eight players from the 2022 edition, which finished 29-31 but was filled with a lot of repeats from 2021.
All we have to go by is boxscores, and try to extrapolate from statistics that are at the mercy of both small sample sizes and how tightly or loosely the scorekeepers rule.
With the caveats laid out, here were the four best players from a bad team:
Carlos Batista
POS: OF
JULY 1 AGE: 18
STATS: .232/.374/.352, .912FA, +.003 GPA vs. Lg. Avg.
Batista did not make an error while playing all three OF positions, though mostly in RF. Offensively, he took 27 walks in 43 games and struck out 44 times.
Leuris Portorreal
POS: RHSP
JULY 1 AGE: 18
STATS: 1-3, 0 SV in 11GS; 4.79/4.01/1.37, 6.31RA/G, -0.22 vs. Lg. Avg.
Portorreal only hit one batter and walked just 10 over 35⅓ innings, both which are unusually low for first-year pitchers.
Angel Roman
POS: RHRP
JULY 1 AGE: 20
STATS: 1-1, 2 SV; 3.20/3.44/1.04, 3.66RA/G, +2.43 vs. Lg. Avg.
Roman was a ’22 DSL Arm and one of the holdovers. Unfortunately, his numbers are slightly worse than the year prior, but better than lg. avg.
Carlos Tavares
POS: 1B/LF
JULY 1 AGE: 18
STATS: .256/.364/.328, .986FA, -.007GPA vs. Lg. Avg.
Like Batista, fielded well albeit at positions generally used to hide poor defenders. He struck out less than once per game and also drew a fair amount of walks.