I was intrigued more with the pitchers than the hitters and I'm going to focus on a few players more than covering all players as I did in the past.
The prospect list is short and about what you would expect from a team that recently has been selecting at the bottom of the first round and one that finished last in both halves in their division and won eight fewer games overall than the team above them in the standings.
Basically, the highlight of the Hagerstown Suns season came and went by in the first three weeks of April when Juan Soto demolished SAL pitching for a sixteen game span that had to be seen to be believed.
Walk-off homers, game-winning hits and baseball bouncing off bats with sounds that haven't been heard in Municipal Stadium for years, Juan Soto's two homestands here had to be seen to be believed and the few fans that were able to see those games certainly won't forget them any time soon.
Soto traveled from Hagerstown to Potomac to Harrisburg to Washington in a six-week span and his five Hagerstown homers in sixteen games were exactly half of the Suns' team leader (Kameron Esthay) for the season, who hit his total in 334 at-bats.
Soto will be the player that will allow Nationals fans to feel a little better about the possible (of this writing) departure of Bryce Harper this winter.
We conclude the top hitting prospects with Luis Garcia, who hit .297 with three homers in 78 games with the Suns before a promotion in July to High A Potomac.
At 18, Garcia has room to fill in on a six-foot frame and for a young player, Garcia didn't strike out a massive amount (49 in 296 at-bats) and made fewer errors at short (6 in 27 games) than he did at third base (12 in 36 games) or second (zero in eleven games) as the Nationals continue their strange love for moving prospects all over the infield rather than allowing them to settle in at one position,
I really like the ability to make contact as his "hit tool" and the only two questions that I would have will be long-term power potential (will he be a 12 homer guy or a 20-25 homer player?) and where will he play over the long-term?
My guess currently is maybe on the power potential and I lean towards Garcia having a chance to stay at shortstop with second base being slightly more likely as he moves up the ladder.
Garcia turns 19 in May and all things considered, had a strong 2018 and I would rate him as the Nationals second best prospect in the system behind Carter Kieboom ( I don't consider Victor Robles on my list, although many still do).
I do have two other players that are worth keeping tabs on with first/third baseman Omar Meregildo leading the way.
Meregildo showed up in mid-June and hit seven homers with nineteen doubles in sixty-five games, which on this team was downright Mike Schmidt-like along with a .268 average that was head and shoulders above his stats in the past in the GCL and at short-season Auburn
Meregildo split his time on each corner of the infield and didn't dazzle defensively if Meregildo has a future, it'll be at first
At 21, Meregildo wasn't young for the level as Garcia, but not excessively old either.
Consider me interested in watching Meregildo in 2019 to see if he could be a potential contributor or a Bryan Mejia type that caught fire for a few months in Hagerstown.
Yasel Antuna played the season as an eighteen-year-old and entered Hagerstown as the more heralded prospect between himself and Luis Garcia.
Antuna ended it with a .220 average, an astoundingly bad 29 errors, a season-ending injury that required Tommy John surgery after some of what we'll kindly state as indifferent play.
Antuna's still worth noting, but he's going to have to show much more than he did in 2018.
The rest of the hitters?
I just don't see much to be excited about.
The Suns had one player hit double figures in homers-Kameron Esthay with 10, the team leader in RBI, Jake Scudder with 55, hit only .244 and outside of Soto, the only player that hit above .300 (Branden Boggetto in 29 games,)was promoted to High A Potomac and was later released.
Considering that, a few of the "Highlights' as follows.
You would expect true prospects returning to Low A to tear the league up and earn quick promotions.
Aldrem Corredor (.289/4/30 in 187 at-bats) and Nick Banks (.260/6/27 in 200 at-bats) both earned promotions, but neither looked sensational doing it.
Corredor reminds me of the many first basemen from the system of late, a decent average, little to below average power and levels out at AA.
Banks starts next season at 24 and looks like a career AA player to me.
Alex Dunlap was a little old for the level (turned 24 after the season ) and coming out of Stanford, should have hit well.
Dunlap struggled with injuries and only played 35 games with all but two of them after the end of June.
Still, Dunlap's five homers in that period show a reason for some mild hope.
Cole Freeman's line of 266/3/43 was average but was the latest of the Nationals college infielder type that plays multiple positions, runs well (26 steals), plays hard and stays around for a while, but is an AA/AAA level player.
The Nationals always seem to draft this type of player and they rarely make an eventual impact.
Jake Scudder led the team in RBI (55) in 85 games, which is the good news.
The bad was he hit just .244 and with seven homers for a college prospect didn't move him up the ladder for me.
Scudder turns 24 before the season starts.
Kameron Esthay's ten homers led the team, but hit a mere .216 and struck out 126 times in 334 at-bats.
Just isn't going to make enough contact.
Only three other players finished with more than 200 at-bats.
Armond Upshaw stole 24 bases, but otherwise hit just .234 with only two homers at the age of 22.
Anderson Franco returned to Hagerstown and notched another unimpressive line (.237/3/34 in a half-season of play.
Alex Flores hit .216 with six homers in 213 at-bats and was selected from Washington by Houston in the AA phase of the Rule 5 draft.
I'll be trying to post the pitchers in the next day or two and there will be a pitcher or two that I like and might have a chance to surprise in 2019.
