{"id":7569,"date":"2013-09-16T07:24:45","date_gmt":"2013-09-16T11:24:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com.\/?p=7569"},"modified":"2013-09-16T07:24:45","modified_gmt":"2013-09-16T11:24:45","slug":"great-performances-from-nats-minor-league-teams-in-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=7569","title":{"rendered":"Great performances from Nats minor league teams in 2013&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Most people have heard about the historic Nats Gulf Coast Rookie league team&#8217;s performance this year, but the Nats farm teams were great up and down the system in 2013. \u00a0 Here&#8217;s a recap of each level&#8217;s season, in case you havn&#8217;t already gotten the summary from\u00a0<strong>Dave Huzzard<\/strong> or\u00a0<strong>Luke Erickson<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">AAA Syracuse<\/span>: Last place,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.milb.com\/standings\/index.jsp?sid=t552\">International League North<\/a>. \u00a0Season record: 66-78. \u00a0Contrary to the title of this article, our AAA team was pretty bad this year. \u00a0Culprets? \u00a0A middle-of-the road <a href=\"http:\/\/www.milb.com\/milb\/stats\/stats.jsp?t=l_tba&amp;lid=117&amp;sid=t552\">offense<\/a>\u00a0and a relatively weak <a href=\"http:\/\/www.milb.com\/milb\/stats\/stats.jsp?t=l_tpi&amp;lid=117&amp;sid=t552\">pitching staff<\/a> (they were easily last in the league in strikeouts, lower ranked in other major pitching categories).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">AA Harrisburg<\/span>: 1st Place, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.milb.com\/standings\/index.jsp?sid=t547\">Eastern League Western<\/a>. \u00a0Season Record: 77-65. \u00a0An 8-2 finish powered Harrisburg to a 1-game lead in the final standings. \u00a0 They dispatched\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.masnsports.com\/byron_kerr\/2013\/09\/double-a-harrisburg-begins-playoffs-at-erie-sept-4.html\">Erie in the divisional round<\/a>\u00a0but then got swept (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.milb.com\/news\/article.jsp?ymd=20130913&amp;content_id=60444502&amp;fext=.jsp&amp;vkey=recap&amp;sid=t567\">blown out really<\/a>)\u00a0in the Eastern League championships by Trenton (New York Yankees affiliate).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">High-A Potomac<\/span>: 1st half AND 2nd half champions, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.milb.com\/standings\/index.jsp?sid=t436\">Carolina League North<\/a>. \u00a0 Season Record: 84-55. \u00a0Winning both halfs earned them <a href=\"http:\/\/www.masnsports.com\/byron_kerr\/2013\/08\/potomac-clinches-second-half-division-crown-begins-playoffs-sept-4.html\">full home field advantage<\/a> in the first round of the divisional playoffs, which they used to beat Lynchburg easily enough. \u00a0However in the Carolina league final the Nats lost both games at home before getting <a href=\"http:\/\/www.masnsports.com\/byron_kerr\/2013\/09\/harrisburg-potomac-and-hagerstown-all-lose-in-minor-league-playoffs.html\">swept by Salem<\/a> in the league championship series (Salem is Boston&#8217;s high-A affiliate).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Low-A Hagerstown<\/span>: 1st half champs of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.milb.com\/standings\/index.jsp?sid=milb&amp;lid=116&amp;period=h2\">South Atlantic League Northern<\/a>. \u00a0Season Record: 80-57. \u00a0They dispatched the 2nd half champs from West Virginia in the divisional seri<span style=\"color: #000000;\">es to face Savannah in the Sall<\/span>y League championship. \u00a0After splitting the first two games at home, Hagerstow<span style=\"color: #000000;\">n <\/span><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">traveled to Savannah and <a href=\"http:\/\/nationalsprospects.com\/2013\/09\/hagerstown-falls-to-savannah-in-sally-league-finals\/\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">lost two straight<\/span><\/a> to drop the championship (Savannah is the New \u00a0York Mets&#8217; low-A affiliate).<br \/>\n<\/span><br \/>\n<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Short-A Auburn<\/span>:\u00a0Last place,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.milb.com\/standings\/index.jsp?sid=t458\">NY-Penn Pinckney<\/a>. \u00a026-49. \u00a0Culprets include a team .230 batting average and near league bottom OPS combined with the worst team ERA and worst team WHIP in the league. \u00a0Bad hitting and the worse pitching equates with last place.<br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Rookie GCL Nats<\/span>: 1st place, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.milb.com\/standings\/index.jsp?sid=milb&amp;lid=124&amp;period=h0\">GCL League East<\/a>\u00a0with an amazing 49-9 record. \u00a0That according to press releases by the team is the highest W\/L percentage in (domestic) minor league basebal history. \u00a0Wow.\u00a0 They then <a href=\"http:\/\/nationalsprospects.com\/2013\/09\/gcl-nationals-win-gcl-league-championship\/\">swept the GCL Red Sox<\/a> to win the GCL championship.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Dominican Summer League Nats: 4th Place, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.milb.com\/standings\/index.jsp?sid=milb&amp;lid=130&amp;period=h0\">Boca Chica South<\/a>. \u00a0Season Record: 38-31.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So that&#8217;s four playoff teams out of six US affiliates (I often ignore the DSL, fairly or otherwise, since it has such a low percentage of players even making it to the US leagues, let alone advancing into relevance).<\/p>\n<p>What \u00a0makes these performances even more amazing, especially for Potomac, is that they persevered on despite losing significant numbers of pitchers through out the season to promotion. \u00a0Quick glances:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Harrisburg lost 3 starters (Clay, Jordan, Hill) and two relievers (Broadway and Krol) to promotions.<\/li>\n<li>Potomac lost an entire rotation of starters (Jordan, Gilliam, Hill, Ray and Cole) in addition to four other relivers (Herron, Grace, Frias and Mirowski).<\/li>\n<li>Hagerstown graduated at least 5 starters (Schwartz, Dupra, Rauh, Purke and Mooneyham), traded another starter (Pineyro) and matriculated a couple of relievers along the way (Benincasa and Henke).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I know this only focuses on arms on these minor league teams, and that isn&#8217;t necessarily fair to the offense, but Potomac especially was amazing in chugging along while losing its best starter month after month to promotion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Most people have heard about the historic Nats Gulf Coast Rookie league team&#8217;s performance this year, but the Nats farm teams were great up and down the system in 2013. \u00a0 Here&#8217;s a recap of each level&#8217;s season, in case you havn&#8217;t already gotten the summary from\u00a0Dave Huzzard or\u00a0Luke Erickson: AAA Syracuse: Last place,\u00a0International League [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[17,1280,856,195,921,1694,1999,1695,935,850,56,323,166,1740,941,18,940,672,197,24,932,1697],"class_list":["post-7569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-minorspitching","category-natsgeneral","tag-aj-cole","tag-blake-schwartz","tag-brett-mooneyham","tag-brian-dupra","tag-brian-rauh","tag-caleb-clay","tag-dave-huzzard","tag-ian-krol","tag-ivan-pineyro","tag-luke-erickson","tag-marcos-frias","tag-matthew-grace","tag-matthew-purke","tag-michael-broadway","tag-richie-mirowski","tag-robbie-ray","tag-robert-benincasa","tag-robert-gilliam","tag-taylor-hill","tag-taylor-jordan","tag-travis-henke","tag-tyler-herron"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7569"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7694,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7569\/revisions\/7694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}