Three days worth of winter league recaps in this article.
Monday was a slow day in winter ball, with one game in the Dominican and one in Venezuela. No Pittsburgh Pirates players were active in the Dominican, but three saw action in Venezuela. A.J. Morris pitched for the first time since October 14th and did not do well in his only inning. He gave up one run on three hits and struck out one batter. Morris got roughed up in two of his previous three games, giving up four runs over two innings. In his other outing, he struck out all three batters he faced.
Jhonathan Ramos struck out the only batter he faced. In seven appearances, he has thrown five shutout innings.
Junior Sosa went 0-for-4 with a walk. He played center field and batted lead-off. Sosa is hitting .281/.378/.344 in ten games.
Tuesday
It was another slow schedule, but this time it was due to the weather postponing three games throughout the leagues.
In the Dominican, Mel Rojas Jr. went 0-for-2 with two walks and a run scored. He is now hitting .220 through 14 games.
In Mexico, Felipe Gonzalez allowed two solo homers and picked up the loss. In two innings, he gave up two runs on three hits and two walks, with two strikeouts.
Wednesday
In the Dominican, Willy Garcia went 0-for-3 with a strikeout. His numbers during his limited time are still strong, with a .355 average and a 3:5 BB/SO ratio in 31 at-bats.
In Mexico, Carlos Munoz struck out as a pinch-hitter. He has three at-bats this year, all as a pinch-hitter and he has struck out all three times. During the regular season, Munoz struck out 16 times in 230 plate appearances.
Allie Removed From Active Roster
Stetson Allie has been moved to the reserve list of Mazatlan in the Mexican league. While an official reason hasn’t been given, there has been a lot of talk recently about his struggles in the clean-up spot. Allie missed a couple games due to illness, then was used as a pinch-hitter when he returned. He has a .276/.382/.328 slash line in 58 at-bats, with three doubles and no triples or homers.
While this is considered an off-season league to people in the United States, these teams are playing for a shot at the Caribbean World Series, so if a player doesn’t perform well, he will get benched, put on the reserve list or sent home. For now, Allie is on the reserve roster, which could mean a number of things, such as an injury, not playing well, or scheduled off time, which is common with players from the U.S. playing in winter ball.
Wait for Tony Sanchez and Polanco. Allie needs to be worked with. Some of the others need to find a way to step it up.
I must admit that I have been totally disappointed so far as to the performance of all our prospects. It doesn’t seem that any are living up to the hype or hope that we may have had.
Then again, perhaps its too early to judge.
It has been fairly disappointing, but really the number of players seeing time is the worst part. Tony Sanchez and Gregory Polanco will be around soon and hopefully Luis Heredia gets his visa issues settled so he can play. Winter ball is usually led by guys that are in AAA and not many Pirates prospects are at AAA yet, at least not the ones in winter ball. Hanson would have been fun to follow, but his hand injury killed that
Just to add notes on the Allie roster move. I wrote the team and haven’t got an answer yet, but the move sure sounds performance related according to those reporting it down there. Every source mentions how he has driven in just five runs while batting clean-up and he’s not coming up in big spots, plus the 19 strikeouts seem to be mentioned often. So my best guess from reading 5-6 articles on it, is that it’s performance related, but that is just a guess.
John – My guess, and I tried to post it the other day but failed, is that he couldn’t handle the sickness. Once you’ve been bitten by Montezuma’s Revenge you really have to have a lot of drive, desire, and maturity to stick it out. Just my opinion, but that ain’t part Stetson Allie’s character yet.