I haven’t even managed to get to the season wrap-ups and already it’s (sub-)season preview time? Good gravy! This stuff never ends!
That’s right, baseball almost never ends — fortunately for all of us brain-addled lovers of the beautiful game. While last Friday’s post contained the very last box score of the 2022 minor league season — guess what, the first box score of the 2022 minor league OFFSEASON comes tonight! That’s when the Arizona Fall League begins its six week sojourn through a lovely, somewhat cooling desert backdrop.
Shortly on its heels will come the winter leagues, with action taking place in Dominican Republic (Liga de Beisbol Dominicano, or LIDOM), Venezuela (Liga Venezuela Beisbol Profesional, LVBP), Puerto Rico (Liga Beisbol Profesional Roberto Clemente, LBPRC), and even Australia (Australian Baseball League), as well as smaller leagues in places like Nicaragua, Colombia, Panama and more.
Information on these leagues can get a bit sketchy — virtually none of the teams that play in these leagues has announced a roster yet (and the rosters can be somewhat fluid in-season as well). I haven’t even seen a schedule out of the LVBP as of yet — and they normally begin mid-month. I’m also not exactly sure how the presence of the World Baseball Classic will effect some of these leagues — as countries gear up their national team for play in that tournament, some of the smaller leagues might not mount a full season this year. We shall see!
Anyway, let’s take this moment to set up what is known for the winter, and give you as much of a suite of resources as I can get my hands on to help you follow along as you will. Throughout the winter, I will keep you up to date on Giants-related activities in these leagues — including stats, injuries, major highlights, whatever I can get my hands on.
With that, let’s take a twirl around the leagues to get you ready for the offseason, which I guess is sort of an ONseason for the guys taking part!
Arizona Fall League
League Website Scoreboard Baseball Reference
Streaming Options: 😩 (though some special games are aired on MLB network)
Social Media: AFL Twitter
One thing to note about the links above — MLB has gotten pretty lax in their support of minor league and off-season league web pages over the past couple of years. MLB used to keep a wonderful website that covered all winter league activity, including an amazing feature that allowed fans to see stats on a single page from all of the players in their favorite organization who were playing winter ball, no matter what league they were playing in. No more searching around from league to league! It was a tremendous resource. Alas, R.I.P. Oh, the page is still there! But as you can tell from the “Important Dates” sidebar, it hasn’t been updated in a few years!
So some of the league pages and scoreboards have to be searched for a bit — they go dormant in the offseason, and MLB sometimes uses an entirely different page, or multiple pages, for the same resource the next year. Anyway, the links above should help you find the AFL scoreboard, league news, and team sites starting tonight. I should also note that the link to the Baseball Reference page is for the 2021 AFL season, but once the new season gets going tonight, B-Ref should create a new page for it that will be easy to navigate to from last year’s.
Your team, for those of you who are AFL novices, is the Scottsdale Scorpions. We should start with a couple of notes about the setup of the AFL. The thirty teams send their representatives to six teams, so each AFL team is made up of representatives from five major league clubs. In the case of the Giants, they share the Scottsdale roster with the Braves, Orioles, Red Sox, and Angels — a new grouping of fellow organizations from past seasons.
Naturally, one of the challenges of such a Frankenstein roster is creating a fully-functioning roster out of the pieces the various teams are willing to send. The Giants definitely did their part in helping out, sending two different catchers (always in demand in the AFL, just as they are in spring training).
The second major challenge for AFL rosters tends to be assembling a pitching staff. MLB Organizations are naturally hesitant to send their most prized arms coming off of the full grind of a long season. Frequently, teams send somewhat fungible upper minors arms or, more rarely, an actual pitching prospect whose year has been shortened by some sort of medical issues that were serious enough to keep them off the field for awhile, but not so serious that they’ve been shut down. Once again, the Giants come through as a good partner!
Their pitching contingent includes both a 1st and 2nd round pick from the last two drafts, including one of their most aggressive assignments in years (we’ll get to that in a sec). They’ve also added a couple of relief arms. Speaking of which, it’s worth remembering that Cole Waites was part of the AFL just last year!
The Scorpions don’t go into the season as the most exciting roster in this year’s AFL. They are the only one of the six teams that don’t include a current member of Baseball America’s Top 100 (the Salt River Rafters have five Top 100 prospects). The Orioles’ contingent does include the #1 overall selection of the 2020 draft, OF Heston Kjerstad, and the Giants send a former Top 100 prospect plus their high round pitchers, but it’s not quite as stocked a roster as last year’s (which included Marco Luciano as well as Boston’s Triston Casas and eight other players who made their big league debut this season).
As far as following the AFL, twitter is your best source, as the league is a prospect writer’s delight, and you will find many, many amateur video clips taken from the stands and posted to social media during the season. MLB’s prospect team will have someone (Sam Dykstra, Jim Callis, William Boor, or Jonathan Mayo) onsite all through the schedule. Baseball America usually sends Josh Norris for at least a couple weeks. Eric Longenhagen is home-based in the Phoenix area and often attends games. So following any or all of those folks on twitter (I’ve linked all of their accounts above, but there are lots more good folk out getting first hand views as well) is a good way to keep up. Or follow me and I’ll retweet whenever I see some Giants-related content from the AFL.
Last year, MLB experimented with streaming, putting a couple of AFL games up for free at MLB’s Film Room. These games were typically announced on the AFL twitter feed day of, and, to be honest, the production quality wasn’t great — one camera with a wide view set high above the action. Still, it was a start! Two special games each year are broadcast live on MLB Network: the Fall Stars game (Nov. 6 at 5 pm MT), and the league championship game (Nov. 12, 5 PM MT). A new event this year will feature a triple header, involving all six teams, held at Arizona’s Chase Field on October 15. I would imagine MLB will make some effort to broadcast some of that day’s activities.
One other welcome feature of AFL games is that the ones that take place at Talking Stick (spring training home of the Rockies and D’backs) have a Statcast page — which means we get some data on pitch quality, exit velos, etc. So that’s always fun to look forward to!
And, with all of that preamble, let’s check out the eight Giants’ prospects heading to Scottsdale:
Luis Matos, CF
DOB: 1/28/02
2022 Stats: .215/.280/.356 12 HR, 11 SB (A+/Rk)
It wasn’t the year Matos had hoped for (nor Giants’ fans or the Giants themselves), but the talented OF — who won’t turn 21 until the end of January — finished strong, hitting .283 with five home runs after Aug. 1. Farhan Zaidi has taken opportunity on a couple of occasions lately to note that Matos’ hard hit data was more impressive than his base numbers and, just last week on KNBR he told Tom Tolbert and Adam Copeland that the club does intend to move Matos up to Richmond to begin the 2023 season. A strong month in the fall league would reinforce the impressions made by his strong finish to a difficult season, and help catapult him into an important off-season.
Logan Wyatt, 1b
DOB: 11/15/97
2022 Stats: .213/.286/.245 0 HR (Rk/A)
Wyatt has become the forgotten man in the organization. After being taken in the 2nd round in the 2019 draft, Wyatt has played in just 62 games since July 6, 2021, and nearly half of those (28) have come in various rehab assignments in the Arizona Complex League. I saw Wyatt participating in games in spring training, but when full season rosters were announced, he was nowhere to be seen. He spent the first half of the year in Arizona rehabbing an undisclosed injury, and didn’t appear in his first game until July. Ultimately, he played just 29 games in 2022. While the 1b is renowned for his batting eye and extremely patient approach at the plate, when he has played, he hasn’t been able to tap into his raw power, having hit just five home runs in his minor league career.
Andy Thomas, C/1b
DOB: 6/17/98
2022 Stats: .238/.373/.381 10 HR (A+)
Thomas, who came to San Francisco from Seattle in the Curt Casali/Matthew Boyd deal, has an offensive profile that bears some resemblances to Wyatt’s — except Thomas does a better job of reaching his considerable raw power in games (I saw him put on a pretty impressive show in BP this summer). And also, he’s not limited to 1b. Thomas spent the entire summer in the NWL (moving from Everett to Eugene after the trade), and was high up the leaderboard in the type categories that suggest disciplined swing decisions. He led the league in OBP (.373), BB% (16.2%), BB/K (0.65), and Swinging Strike percentage — Thomas whiffed on just 9% of his swings this year!
Adrian Sugastey, C
DOB: 10/23/02
2022 Stats: .239/.329/.334, 5 HR (A, Rk)
The Giants highly prize Sugastey’s overall skillset — he gets high marks for his maturity and leadership qualities, and he should become a strong defensive catcher with a gun for an arm. But, like Matos, his overall performance on the offensive side was something of a disappointment this year. After leading the Arizona Complex League with a .358 average in 2021, the Panamanian backstop hit just .240 in 75 games with San Jose. Sugastey also missed a chunk of time in the middle of the season with a quad strain. Minor league catchers have a lot piled on them, and traditionally their bats develop more slowly than other position players who can spend much of their time focused on developing their hitting. As with Matos, the Giants are still bullish on Sugastey’s long-term potential. Officially, Sugastey is a “taxi squad” designee, which in the Arizona Fall League means a player can only participate in Wednesday and Saturday games. That rule isn’t strictly followed (most AFL roster rules aren’t strictly followed), but catchers in the AFL rarely appear more than once or twice a week regardless.
Will Bednar, RHP
DOB: 6/13/00
2022 Stats: 4.19 ERA, 43.0 IP, 51 K, 22 BB, 12 HBP (A)
The Will Bednar who dominated the 2021 College World Series tournament never made himself apparent in his full season pro debut. His stuff was down from very early in spring training and he suffered from an unusual and extreme lack of fastball command that led to 12 HB — including five in his season debut alone. In June, the Giants placed Bednar on the IL with back issues, and he never appeared on a mound again. In total, Bednar made just 12 starts. It will be very important to see him take the mound with something like the stuff and command he showed at Mississippi State before the Giants selected him with the 14th overall pick.
Carson Whisenhunt, LHP
DOB: 10/20/00
2022 Stats: 0.00 ERA, 7.2 IP, 14 K, 1 BB
To the best of my recollection, Whisenhunt is the first Giants’ draftee to be sent to the AFL in the same year as he was drafted since Joe Panik back in 2011. Whisenhunt’s situation is unusual. The Giants drafted him in the 2nd round in July, despite his not having appeared in the 2022 college season — the result of an NCAA suspension for a banned substance appearing in a drug test. Whisenhunt was pitching in the Cape Cod League at the time of the draft, and the combination of his having missed his junior year and being “greased up” at the time he signed led me to speculate that he would be plugged straight into a rotation and build up some significant innings in his pro debut. That didn’t happen, as the Giants eased him into pro ball as they typically do with their pitchers — getting them used to the program and staff before throwing them into games. He threw just three innings in the complex league, and finished up with 4.2 more over two starts with San Jose. But that doesn’t mean the Giants aren’t interested in pushing the left-hander’s development. His highly unusual AFL assignment is proof enough of that. Whisenhunt, who brings a strong three-pitch mix fronted by his knockout changeup, is likely headed back to San Jose to start next year, but a strong AFL campaign could help make an argument for an advanced assignment to Eugene.
Tyler Myrick, RHP
DOB: 6/25/98
2022 Stats: 2.85 ERA, 41.0 IP, 41 K, 16 BB
No AFL contingent would be complete without a couple of hard-throwing relievers, and Myrick (and Dula, below) certainly fits that bill. Myrick was part of the pitching-rich 2021 draft, taken in the 14th round out of Florida International University. Utilizing a mid-90s fastball paired with a sharp slider, he put up a strong first full season for San Jose and Eugene. Notably, he allowed just one home run over 41 innings. Myrick ended the year by throwing 2.2 critical innings during Eugene’s championship series, gaining a hold in the game two victory and nailing down the save in the dramatic, and clinching, game three.
Hunter Dula, RHP
DOB: 3/8/99
2022 Stats: 4.11 ERA, 46.0 IP, 56 K, 26 BB
Like Myrick, Dula was part of the 2021 draft, selected in the 18th round out of Wingate University. And, like Myrick, he started the 2022 season in the San Jose bullpen and ended it in Eugene’s. Dula also utilizes a fastball/slider pairing, leaning on the slider for most of his strikeouts. Dula’s fastball, you may recall, was the one teammate’s pitch that Eric Silva told me he would love to have, a rising heater that Silva described as “taking off like a jet plane.”
There are a couple more Giants’ connections on the Scorpions roster. Sacramento hitting coach Damon Minor will serve on the Scottsdale coaching staff in that same role. The Scorpions also feature a former Giants’ prospect in right-handed pitcher Ivan Armstrong, who was traded to the Angels at the 2021 deadline as part of the deal to re-acquire Tony Watson. Armstong is part of the Angels’ group joining the Scottsdale roster.
The season starts tonight with the Scorpions getting a home game against the Mesa Solar Sox. As I say, I’ll update the Giants’ players stats and notable accomplishments throughout the next six weeks.
Liga de Béisbol de Profesional de la República Dominicana (LIDOM)
League Website Scoreboard Baseball Reference Page
Streaming Options: MLBTV???
Social Media Options: Twitter You Tube and Tons more! (See Below)
Last year, MLB offered all LIDOM games over their MLBTV app, which made watching the games incredibly easy for a US audience. The streams used the Spanish language broadcasts from the Dominican Republic, but the production quality and graphics made it easy and rewarding to follow (plus you can work on your Spanish a bit!). No word as of yet whether MLB will repeat this experiment, but I’m certainly hoping they will! It’s a great way to stay engaged and see some quality baseball through the winter!
Even without that easy-to-find game content, there are plenty of ways to keep up with LIDOM content, as every team in the league produces a plethora of material for their various social media outlets. Here’s a list that will help get you started if you really want to jump down the LIDOM rabbit hole — it’s a truly exciting world of baseball!
Most of the teams haven’t yet announced a roster for this year’s season, so we can’t be sure where Giants’ players or prospects will pop up — last year there were disappointingly few Giants’-related participants.
But one Giants’ prospect that we know will be involved is Marco Luciano, who was the league’s #1 draft choice last year, taken by the Estrellas Orientales (the “Eastern Stars”). That’s the team you’re probably going to want to focus on. Though he was selected in the 2021 draft, this will be Luciano’s first year participating in the LIDOM (the LIDOM draft rules are somewhat complicated, but essentially a player can’t be selected by a club until he has appeared in the minor leagues on a full season affiliate. Once he is drafted by a team, he remains connected to that club for future seasons regardless of whether he participates in any given year or not).
There’s another Giants connection to the Estrellas. Their General Manager, Felix Peguero, has spent most of his adult life in the Giants International Scouting Department, and is currently the Director of International Scouting (Joe Salermo has been title-bumped up to Senior Director). Peguero’s late father, Pablo Peguero, was once himself the head of the Giants’ International Scouting and was a legend in the Dominican Republic world of baseball, before passing away unexpectedly in 2021. It’s no wonder the Estrellas were so eager to snatch up Luciano’s rights, given the long history between him and their management.
If you’d like a little more Giants’ related LIDOM content, check out this awesome looking documentary on the 100 year history of Leones del Escogido, the franchise that counts among its alumni Giants’ legends like Juan Marichal and the men that we, in the States, refer to as Felipe and Mateo Alou (due to a failure at the time to understand or appreciate Spanish naming conventions).
Liga Venezolana de Béisbol Profesional (LVBP)
League Website Scoreboard Baseball Reference Page
Streaming Options: Not generally
Social Media Options: Twitter You Tube Facebook Instagram
Like LIDOM, the LVBP is one of the original participating leagues in the great Caribbean Series — the event that culminates each year’s winter baseball calendar (although with the World Baseball Classic returning next spring, maybe that will be this year’s culmination). The LVBP has a long, proud history of competition, with several teams’ history going back more than half a century. Naturally, the league draws some of the biggest major league stars to come back home and participate each winter, especially as the championship games approach. Beloved former Giant, Pablo Sandoval, has been a frequent participant in the LVBP, including just last year. It doesn’t get much bigger than the Panda!
The LVBP is scheduled to open action on October 22, and will play through the end of December. As for Giants’ prospects participating in the LVBP, we’ll have to wait and see. Last year, Diego Rincones (who was awarded the league’s Rookie of the Year honor) and Ricardo Genovés both participated. It would not be at all surprising if both returned again this year (though Rincones will become a six-year minor league free agent this winter and so, sadly, might no longer be considered a Giants’ prospect.
There are, of course, a number of other players in the Giants’ system from Venezuela, including highly touted prospects like Aeverson Arteaga and Diego Velasquez, but it remains to be seen who will take part in winter ball activities after a long, full season.
LVBP games are televised in their native country, and sometimes those streams find their way to American sources — or clips from them land on Twitter or Instagram. But it’s not quite as American-user friendly to find LVBP games as it is LIDOM. I’ll keep an eye out for anything that looks interesting and include highlights in posts as we move through the winter, as always.
Liga de Béisbol Profesional Roberto Clemente (LBPRC)
League Website Scoreboard (Coming Soon) Baseball Reference
Streaming Options: Doubtful 😩
Social Media: Twitter You Tube Facebook Instagram
The state of the Puerto Rican league is uncertain as it heads into its 84th season. The island was recently devastated, yet again, by Hurricane Ian, with massive power outages and infrastructure damage throughout the island. At the moment, the league is focusing its attention on providing assistance and resources to communities most affected by the storm.
Typically, the league plays a schedule that begins in early November ends in late December, involving some five or six teams. In January, they hold a league championship series, and from there, they too will send their champion to participate in the Caribbean Series. The Giants have scouted and drafted players out of Puerto Rico aggressively over the last decade, but the Puerto Rican winter league hasn’t held much interest for Giants’ fans the last few years.
That might change this winter, however, as Heliot Ramos raised the possibility that he might take part in the LBPRC. Ramos’ home club is the Santurce Crabbers, who also now hold the rights to another Giants’ prospect. Catcher Nomar Diaz, who was drafted by the Giants just this summer in the 14th round out of Carlos Beltran Academy, was selected in the LBPRC draft last week by the Crabbers. Of course, all of that presumes that the league will be able to mount any games at all this winter. Lots of unknowns right now for Puerto Rico, which sadly, once again, has much bigger things to deal with at this time.
Other Leagues
There are a few smaller leagues that may be of interest to Giants fans this winter as well, but it’s harder to find information on any of them. Still, there’s a chance the Giants could have prospects participating in three different nations’ professional leagues. One good thing about these leagues is that younger players do typically have a better chance of seeing playing time, as the leagues draw from a smaller talent pool.
Liga de Béisbol Profesional Nicaragua (LBPN)
League Website Scoreboard Stats
Social Media: You Tube Twitter Instagram
Ismael Munguia has typically participated in his home country’s winter league — in fact, that may be where he suffered the injury that wiped away his 2022 season. Munguia, like Rincones, is a free agent this winter, so he may not be a Giant going forward, unfortunately. Another player who might participate, and who is still a part of the Giants’ organization, is Elian Rayo, who is also a native of Nicaragua. And it’s always fun to remind Giants fans that Marvin Benard is a legend in Nicaraguan baseball. The longtime Giant has been a manager in the LBPN for several years, as well as managing Nicaraguan national teams for the Olympics and WBC.
Colombian Baseball Federation
Social Media: Twitter
Colombia’s league is set to begin play on Saturday November 13. As with Nicaragua, Baseball Reference does not keep statistics from this league (though, when Colombia fielded a team for the Caribbean Series in 2020, that did make the B-Ref pages), and consequently, it’s a lot harder to keep tabs on this league (as well as the next one I’ll mention). The Giants have had several representatives play in this league over the last few years. Last year, Franklin Labour, who isn’t a native of the country, headed down to Colombia for his winter ball activity.
One player to look out for in this league is Colombian-native Jose Ramos, who spent his second season in the DSL this summer, turning in a terrific year for Giants’ Orange, hitting .272/.400/.422. Ramos made a few brief appearances in the Colombian winter league last year.
Panama (PROBEIS)
It’s terrifically difficult to glean any information on the Panamanian Professional Baseball League (PROBEIS for short). Though its history stretches back to the 1940s, the league was idle through much of the last four decades of the 20th century. Since then, it’s been resurrected twice in the 21st century, and played pretty consistently throughout the last decade, apart from the COVID year of 2020, of course. Even then, Panama did send a representative to the Caribbean Series.
The Giants do have a couple of notable Panamanian players in their organization. While Sugastey’s turn in the AFL almost certainly means he wouldn’t take part in winter ball, look out for young OF Mauricio Pierre, or even younger Erick Arosemena, who might.
Also, you may want to watch this interesting video (in English!) on the history of professional winter league baseball in Panama.
Australian Baseball League
League Website Scoreboard Baseball Reference
I’m unclear on exactly why the Australian Baseball League can command a presence on Baseball Reference, but the Nicaraguan, Colombian, and Panamanian leagues can’t. They must have some connections!
Historically, the Giants have had virtually no connection to the Aussie league, but it’s probably worth noting that newest Grand Slam hitting Giant, Ford Proctor, first began playing around with catching during his stint in the ABS with the Perth Heat in 2020. So that’s pretty cool! That same Perth team also included former Giants’ prospect Jacob Lopez, who was traded to Tampa Bay for Joe McCarthy in 2019.
Lots of unknowns still, but that’s the basic framework. We’ll add players as they become known and, as I say, I’ll be sure to keep updating you here with all of the stats and video clips I can get my hands on in the coming months.
If you’re wondering about Instructional League, I’ve been told that the Giants won’t be holding a big Instrux camp this year, nor taking part in fall games with the other clubs in the Scottsdale vicinity. Instead, they will once again be holding a series of mini-camps throughout the winter, bringing players to Papago Park in small groups, so as to enable more 1 on 1 instruction.
In the meantime, Luis Matos is set to take at bats this very night in the desert. So let’s get ready to watch some ball. The baseball season is over! Long live the baseball season!
One weird quirk about Bref's coverage of LIDOM is that they seem to only count the regular season games? The stats from the round robin portion of the postseason (which are significant) don't seem to appear. I'm very much a noob when it comes to LIDOM but I have been counseled by veteran fans that the best site for LIDOM stats is located at: https://www.winterballdata.com/
FYI - it took a little while for my account to get 'confirmed' but I'm good to go and assume others can be as well.
Thanks for the great write up, Roger! I'll be back to dig into those videos - they look interesting!