I have had a few people ask why Alvarez is praised over Neyens - when Neyens has clearly had the better year. Both are in A ball this season, but Neyens is like 18 months older. Alvarez is a young 18 and Neyens is an old 19. I expect Neyens to likely be promoted this season and my guess is Alvarez is next season. Neyens reminds me a lot of Troy Glaus. While Neyens is likely to be promoted this year, he may run into some trouble in AA and then AAA because of his high strikeout rate. Neyens already has a lot of power - but his frame and waist as such that he could become a prolific power hitter in the big leagues if he works on his mechanics and keeps the strikeouts to a manageable level.
Glaus would be an amazing outcome for Neyens. Glaus was a borderline star and legit middle of the order hitter for 10 seasons. Glaus’s career k rate was 21.7% and for now it’s hard for me to see Neyens getting his k rate that low. Would love it if he did though.
Yeah but 26.7 is the new 21.7%, right? Glaus played a long as time ago- seemingly when dino's roamed the earth
Early game for Asheville today… Ethan Frey doubled twice and drove in three. The first double resulted in two runs and the second one drove one in.
Nick Potter and Kellan Oakes turned in another solid tandem outing for Fayetteville: Potter: 3 IP, 2 H, 2 K Oakes: 5 IP, 3 H, 2 R (1 ER), BB, 4 K
They certainly aren’t carbon copies. Keep in mind strike out rates were nearly 50% less 20 years ago… so a young Glaus striking out 150 times is near 200 in 2026. Agree that Glaus would be an amazing outcome.
An age difference of 18 months is a big deal when it comes to two young players at the same time level in the minors.
No it's not. Sophomore in college vs Junior in College. If you wanna play with 16 year old Dominicans vs..... have fun!
Meh, the fetishization of age kills me. 19.32 years old vs 18.93 (the do this on writeups for everybody) Same thing in the NBA, it's ridiculous.
Nah, sorry. There is a mountain of evidence that shows that the difference between 18 and 19 in A ball is huge. The difference between 25 and 26 in AAA is pretty meaningless but ages 16-22 kids change dramatically year over year, and it’s compounded when it varies relative to league (I.e., being 2.4 yrs younger than average vs 1.4 like in Alvarez vs Neyens is huge when you’re talking about teenagers). Alvarez is the age of the average Sr in HS, Neyens is a few months older than the average freshman in college. If you don’t think that difference is meaningful I don’t know what to tell you other than you just don’t know what you’re talking about.
No kidding, I was a kid once too. But the 6 or 12 month age difference being some sort of thing that actually really matters? If you have talent, you have talent.
Something to consider ... The difference between the training coaching in HS baseball versus college baseball (or minor leagues) is HUGE. Even HSers, who get drafted and start their careers in the complex leagues, will likely take a full season to learn the basics.
Came across this piece recently... Jake Mintz (one of the Cespedes Family BBQ guys) now apparently writes for Yahoo Sports (didn't realize they struck a deal with Yahoo because they put their podcasts there now/didn't know Yahoo still did original sports content) and a few days ago, he wrote about a 29-2 game in the Arizona Complex League. The piece laments the lack of quality play in the complex leagues and eventually, that's translating to guys who aren't ready for higher levels of minor league baseball. The players who are hurt the most... Latin kids, and probably high school kids too. I'd imagine that someone like Kenni Gomez wouldn't be having problems with Asheville and Fayetteville if he had spent a summer or two with Tri-City or Greeneville. But, when those teams went, it was clear that the Astros (and MLB, really) no longer saw a need to put a minor league club in those markets. It was clear that the 30 clubs don't want to deal with 65-70 more players, 10-12 additional staff members, and another 15-20 people in team operations... MLB is seeing how college football has essentially turned into the NFL's feeder system and they're certainly steering minor league baseball that way, where college baseball pretty much turns into the only way into the MLB pipeline. We may very well see the end of the Dominican complexes. Maybe not now, but I'd be surprised if they're around by like 2035.
Also depends on the supplemental leagues and coaching It's a year round sport now, especially in the south
The Dominican Summer League season starts June 1 and some names are being added to the DSL rosters. I'm sure those names will come in waves between now and Monday as the rosters get updated. The following players were assigned: DSL Blue RHP Maximilliano Villanueva RHP Frederi Altagracia RHP Antony Costanza OF Jack Valbrune IF Oscar Rivas RHP Dahel Lopez RHP Juan Ramirez RHP Adrianyer Lopez RHP Cristian Ron SS Randy Arias SS Sebastian Mendez IF Noel Brito C Fraimy Sanchez OF Yuaxander Silveira DSL Orange RHP Victor Vizcaya RHP Vismar Dagnino RHP David Colina
