2023 Wrap Ups: Dominican Summer League

It's a long way up....

There was a time in 2023, when DSL box scores were probably one of the first places you checked for excitement on the Giants farm. I’d guess some of you reading There R Giants’ Minor Lines scrolled to the bottom to make the lowest level your first read of the day. That period lasted about three weeks — but it overshadowed the entire DSL Giants’ experience this year. That was the three weeks when Rayner Arias seemed to be doing something amazing every day. One thing about moving the international signing date to January is that it significantly telescopes the period of anticipation for those much ballyhooed top-dollar signings.

It was less than two months between the official announcement of Arias’ signing and my first sight of him on a baseball field — indeed, he was still a 16-year-old when I saw him first. And less than three months later, he started crafting the professional resume that will live forever under his name on Baseball Reference. There’s nothing like anticipation paying immediate dividends to attach fans to a player. And that’s exactly what Arias provided — for those 16 games.

That phase of the season ended too soon, but it left us all thirsting for the second act from this prodigious talent. There are other interesting names that came out of the Giants’ season in the Dominican Republic — but none seem so certain to leave their impact on this organization in the coming years as the kid the Giants gave $2.7 million to at the beginning of this year.