This week marks the beginning of a bottleneck on the minor league baseball calendar.
The Arizona and Florida Complex Leagues will finish their regular seasons on Thursday before a brief playoffs. After the postseason, some of these players will head to a practice facility after a 50-game season. Some will get promoted to Low-A to continue their development via in-game repetitions. You can probably guess which outcome most players would prefer. It’d be a long off-season if you weren’t going to play an actual game again for about seven months.
Atlanta 3B John Gil (18, A) was promoted this week after slashing .286/.403/.389 with three home runs and 26 steals along with a 16 percent strikeout rate in 51 games. While the line itself isn’t awe inspiring, he improved throughout the year and has carried the approach into Low-A so far, hitting .357 with two steals through four games. Like a lot of Complex League teenagers, Gil needs to add strength, but time will take care of some of that, and it’s encouraging to see him in full-season ball against much older arms.
Also this week, the 2024 MLB Draft is in the books, and young players all over the country are signing their contracts and reporting for duty. Where will they go? Nobody knows. Well, I mean somebody knows, but the rhyme called to me there, and it’s true enough. The teams like to get players into their buildings and under their microscopes before finalizing their first assignments. The influx of talent will squeeze minor league rosters at the edges. I’m especially curious to see what the Guardians will do with 2B Travis Bazzana. I can’t remember the last time they drafted someone so close to the majors. They tend to slow-roll just about everybody, but Bazzana would likely benefit from a different playbook.
Speaking of fast movers, White Sox 3B Brooks Baldwin (23, AAA) has forced a major league promotion with just one full minor league season under his belt. A switch-hitter at 6’1” 175 lbs, Baldwin has shot through five levels like a bullet through a prop gun since being selected 371st overall out of UNC Wilmington in the 2022 draft. He slashed .322/.386/.441 with six home runs and 16 stolen bases in 74 Double-A games. The major league club and fan base are in a dire place, and if Garrett Crochet and Erick Fedde get traded, the air is going to get sour on the south side. A homegrown switch-hitter who never strikes out should be a welcome sight.
Dodgers RHP River Ryan looked awesome in his debut. He recorded just two strikeouts in 5.1 innings, but his 94 mile an hour cutter is a video game pitch. I thought something might be wrong with the radar gun. He threw six of them and got a 75 percent whiff rate on the sample.
Orioles RHP Chayce McDermott will make his debut for Baltimore today. I’ve been on this block for a long time and am excited to see how he begins. His outcomes could have an impact on the club’s trade deadline plans. I wish they’d gotten him up a little earlier to give him a few turns before the deadline. He’s had some tough outings this month, allowing four runs in one inning on July 19 and four runs in 0.1 innings on July 6. He might have a nice debut but is too risky for contenders to stream, I think.
Cut Me, Mick! (Guys I’ve dropped in dynasty leagues)
15-Team Cuts:
Royals RP Hunter Harvey is probably in a better place for saves than he was in Washington, but I’ve been holding this guy a long time with an MLB-side spot with the hopes that Closer Kyle Finnegan would get traded. I have had him in the lineup for all of his recent blow ups for reasons that are unclear to me. It was time to let him go and bring in rising Rangers RHP Alejandro Rosario.
The Tigers seem to have less interest in the Daywalker than Marvel Studios, so OF Ryan Vilade (pronounced like “Blade”) goes to the waiver wire. I’m in second place and kinda scrambling, which is how you end up with a guy like Vilade anyway. I’d probably pick him back up if the team did. His spot went to Brooks Baldwin.
Another guy I’d pick back up if he comes back up, Phillies C Rafael Marchan was merely a victim of circumstance, and I don’t want to hold his spot for him. It went to Giants SS Tyler Fitzgerald so long as he’s hotter than F-Scott looking across the lawn at a cool neighbor.
Cubs RHP Hunter Bigge looks pretty interesting to me, and I paid a five-spot out of $1000 to get him just a minute ago, but I dunno. When a team starts that shuttle-bus yo-yo, I get discouraged. Bigge Bigge Bigge’s demoted twice already for crunch reasons only, and another team already picked up his jazzy ways for $4, so this train has sailed. His spot went to Tigers RHP Shelby Miller. I have Jason Foley and Dodgers RP Evan Phillips on this team. They are not good right now. Miller picked up a save on Tuesday night, so that was nice.
Thanks for reading!
