Graduation day has arrived. Photo unk via federalbaseball.com
There were a TON of cascading moves announced today, with multiple guys moving up in our system. Starting at the bottom:
- GCL: 2016 draftees and RHPs Jacob Howell and Phil Morse got bumped to Auburn after one appearance each in the GCL.
- Auburn then sent Angelo La Bruna, Robbie Dickey and Randy Encarnacion (who probably should have been higher honestly) to Hagerstown. This will be Dickey’s third shot at Low-A but he was clearly not touchable in Short-A (8ip, 1H 11Ks in 3 outings so far this year).
- Hagerstown then bumped up two great hitting prospects Max Schrock, Victor Robles and Trey Lambert to Potomac. Robles and Schrock were both all-stars and both were flatly out-hitting Low-A. Lambert has quietly been toiling in the bullpen and had a 27/2 K/BB ratio this year. I tell you, i’m really starting to get excited about Robles, and I think Schrock is turning into a draft day steal.
- Potomac then bumped up Drew Ward, Andrew Stevenson, Ryan Brinley and Boone Whiting to AA. Three of these four were all-stars this year, and Whiting was in AAA all of last year so was wasting his efforts in high-A. Kudos for Ward to get the promotion and get his prospect career back on track, and even more kudos for Stevenson to earn such a quick promotion to AA.
- Harrisburg then moved up Chris Bostick, Zack Collier and suddenly dominant starter Reynaldo Lopez to Syracuse (they also put Wander Suero on the TIL list to account for the four promotions). How about the season Lopez is having? As noted in the comments, he’s leading AA in K/9 while maintaining a 3+ K/BB ratio.
- Syracuse’s corresponding moves were mostly bloodshed: they released Scott Sizemore, Tony Campana and RHP Juan Gutierrez to make room. They also promoted Rafael Martin for at least the day. Lopez isn’t going to be pitching out of the bullpen though, so I’d imagine that Jared Long will get demoted to fill the vacated spot in AA.
Why is there an extra spot in AA’s rotation?
Because Lucas Giolito got called up! Mid Monday the announcement came out; he’s making the start on Tuesday. Get your DVRs ready! I won’t go into Giolito too much; we all know what he’s supposed to be. Question is; will he live up to the hype?
(if you want to see all the transactions organized by league, here’s the links I use):
Minor League Transaction announcement links