Prospect News: Tong In The Fire or The Thing Is, Dominguez . . .

Marlins 2B Javier Sanoja (22) joined the big club today in the wake of an injury to Jose Devers. Sanoja has earned this promotion in his own right by slashing .291/.354/.431 with an incredible 8.9-to-6.1 percent walk-to-strikeout rate. A right-handed hitter listed at 5’7” 150 lbs, Sanoja has seven home runs and 17 steals in 126 games across two levels, so he’s not exactly an ideal fit for our game, but the Marlins were onto something when they prioritized the tough at bats a guy like Luis Arraez can provide, so maybe they’ll give Sanoja a good long look between this year and next. 

I don’t know what you’ve heard amid all the water-carrying for New York’s front office, but Yankees OF Jasson Dominguez (21, AAA) has been playing extremely well in meaningless games, slashing .355/.429/.645 with four home runs over his last eight contests. This contradicts what I’m seeing on Twitter about his diminishing exit velocity and troublesome launch angle, but that’s no surprise. The number of people commenting on minor league baseball without watching minor league baseball grows every year, so disinformation abounds as stats can always be shaped to fit a narrative. Fact is Dominguez remains The Martian, a class of prospect that’s too talented to really be evaluated in the minors anyway, so it’s puzzling to anyone paying attention that a contending team would ignore him in favor of Alex Verdugo. 

If Detroit hadn’t added SS Trey Sweeney at the deadline, we’d probably be seeing SS Andrew Navigato (26) at the highest level. In 115 Triple-A games this year, he’s slashing .283/.368/.525 with 21 home runs and 20 stolen bases. At 5’11” 188 lbs, he’s not the off-the-bus athlete Sweeney is, but Navigato, a 20th round pick in 2019, makes good swing decisions and has produced positive outcomes at each stop since 2022, slashing .300/.350/.545 in 58 Double-A games last season. 

A 5th round pick in 2023, Rangers RHP Alejandro Rosario (22) has cruised through two levels this season and will make his Double-A debut in his next turn. He posted a dominant 31.9 percent K-BB rate in 41.1 High-A innings along with a 0.99 WHIP and 2.40 ERA. He’ll be comfortably inside most Top 100 lists this off-season and could join a Rangers rotation featuring Kumar Rocker, Jacob deGrom and Jack Leiter early next year. Bruce Bochy has a knack for this every-other-year thing, and the Rangers will look dangerous next season with a healthy Seager and functional Langford from day one.  

Like Rosario, Mets RHP Jonah Tong (21, AA) is on his third level this season after graduating both A levels in impressive fashion, recording 146 strikeouts in 103.2 innings while allowing just two home runs. His Double-A debut was his best as a professional: six perfect innings with nine strikeouts against the Yankees AA squad. Generally speaking, this feels like the time of the year when pop-up pitchers become Top 100 mainstays, and that’s especially true in these two specific cases. 

Cut Me, Mick! (Guys I’m dropping in dynasty leagues) 

I was looking at a free agent pool of Angels OF Mickey Moniak, Royals OF Tommy Pham, Diamondbacks OF Randal Grichuk and more when I decided to cut bait with Orioles 1B OF Ryan O’Hearn, who is having an excellent season from a real-baseball perspective but probably should’ve been let go a while ago in this 15-team dynasty with 30 MLB spots and 20 MiLB spots. With Eloy in town, O’Hearn just doesn’t play enough to clog up an MLB spot. I like to cut in waves and add in waves, so I wound up landing all three of these outfielders and had to cut Moniak and Pham to get legal for Thursday’s games, but they’ll all be on a roster yo-yo splitting a spot or two from here on out. 

Rays 1B Jonathan Aranda got added in the previous run then dropped so I could add all those outfielders. Tampa just doesn’t seem overly concerned with giving him time, he’s only 1B-eligible in that league, and he hasn’t earned more time when he’s had the chance. 

Guardians OF Angel Martinez goes in a similar bucket as a prospect I really like but one who doesn’t seem to be a key part of his organization’s plans and isn’t playing well enough to change that plan at the moment. 

I finally pulled the plug on Astros RHP Justin Verlander, so it’s probably time to build him into a DFS lineup. 

Thanks for reading!