Sunday Notes: Ethan Salas Is An Elite Prospect Still Figuring Things Out

Ethan Salas is one of baseball’s top prospects. Currently playing for the Arizona Fall League’s Peoria Javelinas, the left-handed-hitting catcher is not only No. 7 on The Board, he won’t turn 19 until next summer. Signed as an international free agent out of Venezuela by the San Diego Padres in January 2023, Salas is both precociously talented and mature beyond his years.

He is also still figuring things out. The 6-foot-2, 205-pound backstop was refreshingly candid on that front when I spoke to him on my recent visit to the AFL. More advanced defensively than he is with the bat — a scouting assessment he agrees with — Salas readily admits that there areas in which he needs to improve.

“I would say more consistency on game management stuff would be the biggest one right now,” said Salas, who has caught only 870 professional innings. “Calling pitches, situations in the game, seeing things before they happen, how to prevent big innings. I need to be more efficient in those areas.”

Salas’s physical attributes are undeniably plus, which brings us to an interesting aspect of how he operates behind the dish. It came to the fore when I asked if he is one-knee-down or more traditional in his setup.

“I truly try everything,” replied Salas. “I catch one knee, catch two knees, left knee up, left knee down, both knees down. I’m trying it all. I’m figuring out what works best for me. But I can catch however. I’ll use all three in the same game, based on who is on the mound, the count, the situation. I mean, I’m huge on trying it all.”

The Padres are on board with the diversification. According to the open-minded teen, the organization — including minor league catching coordinator Brian Whatley — “preaches trying it all, not just sticking to one specific thing.”

To a certain degree, that extends to what he’s doing in the batter’s box. Salas struggled to the tune of a 75 wRC+ with High-A Fort Wayne, and while playing in the Midwest League at age 18 was obviously a huge challenge, he is still trying to find his identity as a hitter. Not surprisingly, he doesn’t wholly disagree with that premise.

“I think I have a pretty good idea, but there is still a lot to learn,” Salas said of his M.O. at the plate. “I just need to keep playing more games. The game will tell you who you are. You get to know yourself day by day, year after year. I’m just going out and playing baseball, trying to get better.”

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RANDOM HITTER-PITCHER MATCHUPS

Bobby Thomson went 14 for 59 against Ralph Branca.

Bill Mazeroski went 1 for 4 against Ralph Terry.

Joe Carter went 0 for 4 against Mitch Williams.

Aaron Boone went 2 for 11 against Tim Wakefield.

Albert Pujols went 6 for 20 against Brad Lidge.

Kirby Puckett went 18 for 63 against Charlie Leibrandt.

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“What has been the best game of your life?” is a question I asked several players this season, initially for a piece that ran in June and later for inclusion in the occasional Sunday Notes column. Jason Lane is among those I posed it to, and much as I suspected he would, the now-Milwaukee Brewers third base coach had more than just one.

“The championship game in the 1998 College World Series was against our manager here, Pat Murphy, who was at Arizona State,” said Lane, a two-way player at the University of Southern California before entering pro ball. “I got the win on the mound and hit a grand slam in the ninth inning. I’d need to check the box score, but I think I was 3-for-6. I know I pitched two innings (in USC’s historic 21-14 win).

“I also hit a double and a home run in the World Series against the White Sox (while with the Houston Astros in 2005),” added Lane, who played parts of seven big-league seasons, six as a position player and one as a reliever. “The double tied the game in the eighth inning. Any time you can do that in the World Series it’s a thrill, even though we ended up losing.”

Asked if any more performances come to mind, the 47-year-old recalled having a three-home-run game in Double-A and another in the Venezuelan Winter League. There were also some boffo performances at Santa Rosa Junior College and USC, although Lane didn’t make any withdrawals from his memory bank to provide any specifics. Even so, his personal highlight reel includes some especially-memorable moments.

“Not as many in the big leagues as I’d have liked,” Lane said to that suggestion. “But in my life I’ve had some good ones.”

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A quiz:

With which team did Rickey Henderson finish his MLB career?

The answer can be found below.

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NEWS NOTES

The St. Louis Cardinals have hired Robert Cerfolio with the title of Assistant General Manager, Player Development & Performance. The 32-year-old Yale University graduate has been with the Cleveland Guardians for the past decade, most recently as Director of Player Development.

The Boston Red Sox have reportedly hired Taylor Smith away from the Tampa Bay Rays where he’d held the title Director of Predictive Modeling. The University of Georgia graduate will reportedly serve as an assistant GM and oversee the team’s research and development department.

The Cincinnati Reds have hired Chris Valaika to the position of Director of Hitting and Major League Hitting Coach. The 39-year-old former big-league infielder spent the past three seasons as Cleveland’s hitting coach.

The Atlanta Braves announced that Tim Hyers will be their new hitting coach, replacing Kevin Seitzer who was let go earlier this month. Featured in my Talks Hitting series back in March 2020 when he held the position with the Red Sox, Hyers spent the last three seasons in that role with the Atlanta Braves.

Rudy May, a southpaw who won 156 games while playing for four teams — the California Angels, New York Yankees, Baltimore Orioles, and Montreal Expos — died this week at age 80. The Coffeyville, Kansas native made three appearances for the New Yankees in the 1981 World Series versus the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Dutch Dotterer, a catcher who played for the Cincinnati Reds from 1957-1960, and for the Washington Senators in 1961, died earlier this month at age 67 (per Baseball Player Passings). The Syracuse native logged the first of his 74 career hits off of Warren Spahn, and the last of his five home runs off of Sandy Koufax.

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The answer to the quiz is the Los Angeles Dodgers. Henderson played in 30 games for the NL West club in 2003, at age 44, and went 15-for-72 with two home runs and three stolen bases.

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MLB should schedule at least one World Series game for the late afternoon (presumably, albeit not necessarily, on a weekend). I proposed that idea in a Twitter poll a few days ago, and the results strongly suggested that MLB’s powers-that-be shouldn’t respond, “How high” when TV executives tell them to jump when broadcast-rights parameters are discussed. “Yes” garnered 72.3% of the votes cast, while just 27.7% were in favor of all games being played at night. Not that such an opinion will matter to the bean-counters.

Is MLB truly worried that fans won’t tune in to watch a World Series game at, say, 4pm EST on a Saturday, because the University of Texas is playing Vanderbilt, and/or New Mexico is playing Colorado State? As for competing with the “who’s your daddy” NFL, the Fall Classic is even taking Sunday off this year. Even if it weren’t, are Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge not as appealing as Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen?

The late-night issue for people on the East Coast aside, MLB should champion its product, not willingly play second fiddle to football and/or broadcast-rights money.

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Sticking with polls, I also asked followers which of Opening Day, the All-Star Game, and the World Series they most enjoy. The poll went up hours before the first pitch of Friday’s Game 1, and what later transpired at Dodger Stadium almost certainly impacted the final results. Prior to the dramatic final innings, Opening Day had garnered roughly 70% of the votes cast, while the Fall Classic had received less than 30%. (The All-Star Game was an afterthought throughout, hovering around 2%.)

The Freddie Freeman-infused rally only went so far. When all was said and done, the World Series garnered 38% of the vote, while Opening Day polled at a still-decisive 60.6%. Make of that what you will.

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FOREIGN AFFAIRS

The teams that posted the KBO’s best regular season records — the Kia Tigers and Samsung Lions — both advanced to the best-of-seven Korean Series. The Tigers hold a three-games-to-one edge following a 9-2 rout on Saturday that featured home runs from Sócrates Brito and Taegun Kim that supported a solid start from James Naile. Game 5 is tomorrow.

The Japan Series is pitting the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks, who won NPB’s Pacific League with a 91-49-3 record, against the Yokohama DeNA BayStars, who finished third in the Central League with a record of 71-69-3. At just two games over .500, the BayStars posted the worst-ever regular-season record for a team to reach the championship series, the Hankyu Braves having finished five games over .500 in 1975.

SoftBank held on to win Game 1 yesterday by a score of 5-3. Kohei Arihara and Darwinzon Hernández combined to throw eight shutout innings, after which Roberto Osuna came on for the ninth and allowed three runs before recording the final out with the potential winning run at the plate.

The Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters announced this week that Franmil Reyes has agreed to remain with the team on a multi-year deal. The 29-year-old former MLB outfielder hit a team-high 25 home runs in his first NPB season.

The Tokyo Yakult Swallows selected Nikita Moiseev in the second round of the recently completed NPB draft. Per @yakyucosmo, the Russian-born, Japan-raised outfielder will be the first ethnic Russian in NPB since Victor Starffin.

The Chunuchi Dragons won the lottery for left-hander Yumeto Kanemaru, while the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles won the lottery for shortstop Rui Muneyama. The 21-year-old collegians were considered the top two players available in this year’s NPB draft.

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Neglected to mention this in last week’s column — this despite having noted it on social media a few days earlier — but Ceddanne Rafaela deserved to be one of the Gold Glove finalists for AL utility player. The overall DRS totals for the three chosen finalists were plus-six, minus-four, and minus-18, while Rafaela, who played 87 games in center field, 82 games at shortstop, 10 games at second base, and four games at third base, was a cumulative plus-10. Moreover, while merely average at short, he was elite in center.

My best guess is that the defensively-gifted Red Sox outfielder/infielder didn’t qualify as “a utility player” as he appeared in all but nine games and mainly split his time between two positions. The Fielding Bible Awards, which were announced on Thursday, approach things differently. Rather than “a utility player,” they honor “a multi-position player.” Against comparably stronger competition — Daulton Varsho, who led MLB with 28 DRS while playing both center and left field. was the winner — Rafaela finished a respectable fifth in the voting. Mauricio Dubön, easily the most deserving of the Gold Glove finalists, finished fourth (despite not grading out as well as Rafaela in DRS).

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FARM NOTES

Josue Briceño went deep yesterday and now leads the Arizona Fall League with seven home runs (his .438 batting average and .1.458 OPS also lead the hitter-friendly circuit). The 20-year-old, left-handed-hitting catcher/first baseman in the Detroit Tigers organization had a 123 wRC+ this year with Low-A Lakeland.

Moisés Ballesteros is batting .391 with for home runs and a 1.148 OPS in the AFL. The 20-year-old, left-handed-hitting catcher/first baseman in the Chicago Cubs organization had 19 homers and a 127 wRC+ this year between Double-A Tennessee and Triple-A Iowa.

Drake Baldwin is batting .372 with one home run and a .950 OPS in the AFL. The 23-year-old catcher in the Atlanta Braves organization went deep 16 times and had a 119 wRC+ this year between Double-A Mississippi and Triple-A Gwinnett.

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A random obscure player snapshot:

Dal Maxvill played in five World Series, four of which his team won. His offensive contributions in the 23 games in which he appeared were minimal. A slick-fielding shortstop not known for his bat, Maxvill went just 7-for-61, with all of those at-bats coming with the St. Louis Cardinals (he played in two games without coming to the plate with the Oakland Athletics in 1974). In 1968 he went 0-for-22, a Fall Classic record for futility. A Gold Glove winner who slashed .217/.293/.259 over 14 big-league seasons, Maxvill was St. Louis’s general manager from 1985-1994.

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Ten years ago this month I devoted six paragraphs of Sunday Notes column to an annual event held in the village of Trenary — my hometown — in Michigan’s rural Upper Peninsula. A decade having passed, revisiting the unique slice of Americana seems in order.

As noted in the October 19, 2014 column, two residents of the no-stoplight town (there is a blinking light at one intersection) made a bar bet prior to the 1954 World Series between the Cleveland Indians and the New York Giants, with the loser agreeing to push a wheelbarrow full of potatoes from U.S. 41 to the watering hole where the wager was made — a distance of roughly seven-tenths of a mile (my longtime friend Lowell holds the record for fastest push, 4 minutes, 47 seconds, which he set in 1982.) The same bet has been made every year since Willie Mays robbed Vic Wertz, with the contents of the wheelbarrow, plus a variety of donated items, auctioned off. All proceeds go to the local Little League team.

Given a much longer postseason and the northern Midwest harvest season, the bet is now made a year ahead of time, meaning that last year’s bet produced this year’s pusher. The 71st annual Trenary Potato Auction was held a week ago today with just over $7,000 raised. A new scoreboard for the Little League Field is planned.

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LINKS YOU’LL LIKE

Bradley Woodrum returned to DRaysBay and addressed the question: “Where have all the starters gone?”

MLB is testing a checked-swing challenge system in the Arizona Fall League. Josh Norris has the story at Baseball America (subscription required).

At The Japan Times, Jason Coskrey wrote about the Japanese players who have made their mark on the World Series.

Over at The Guardian, Rob Arthur looked at how baseball still struggles with racial bias.

Sports Business Journal ranked Portland, Maine the country’s No. 1 minor league sports market. David Broughton has the story, which includes words of praise for the Double-A Portland Sea Dogs.

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RANDOM FACTS AND STATS

The first two World Series appearances in Dodgers franchise history were back-to-back in the pre-modern era. In 1889, the Brooklyn Bridegrooms lost to the New York Giants six games to three, and in 1990 they tied the Louisville Cardinals 3-3-1. The franchise’s first modern-era World Series was in 1916 when the Brooklyn Robins lost to the Boston Red Sox four games to one.

Fernando Valenzuela went hitless in his first six big-league at-bats. He then went 7-for-11 over a three-game stretch (in April 1981) with one the hits being a run-scoring single off of Hall of Fame right-hander Don Sutton in a 1-0 Dodgers win over the Houston Astros.

In 1985, Atlanta Braves outfielder Dale Murphy hit an NL-best 37 home runs and had 111 RBIs. St. Louis Cardinals second baseman Tom Herr hit eight home runs and had 110 RBIs.

Pink Hawley — his given name was Emerson Pink — went 31-22 with a 3.18 ERA over 444 innings for the National League’s Pittsburgh Pirates in 1895. At the plate, the Beaver Dam, Wisconsin native batted .308 with five home runs in 193 plate appearances.

The Washington Nationals won the 1924 World Series, beating the New York Giants in seven games. The title-winning hit was a 12th inning walk-off double by Earl McNeely that scored Muddy Ruel. Walter Johnson worked four innings of relief for the win.

The Boston Red Sox won the World Series for the first time in 86 years on today’s date in 2004, beating the St. Louis Cardinals 3-0 to complete a four-game sweep. Derek Lowe went seven shutout innings, Johnny Damon homered, and Keith Foulke underhanded to first for the final out. A full lunar eclipse occurred during the game.

The Cardinals won the World Series on today’s date in 2006, beating the Detroit Tigers 4-2 in the deciding Game 5. Jeff Weaver went eight innings for the win, while Adam Wainwright worked the final frame for the save.

Players born on today’s date include Charlie Bold — his given name was Charles Dickens — who appeared in two games and struck out in his only at-bat with the St. Louis Browns in 1914. The Karlskrona, Sweden native attended Georgetown University before getting his cup of coffee.

Also born on today’s date was Egyptian Healy — given name John — a native of Cairo, Illinois who pitched for seven teams from 1885-1892. The right-hander’s best season came with the American Association’s Toledo Maumees in 1890 when he went 22-21 with a 2.89 ERA over 389 innings. Three years earlier he’d gone 12-29 with a 5.17 ERA over 341 innings with the National League’s Indianapolis Hoosiers.

Teams in the 1903 New York State League included the Amsterdam-Gloversville-Johnstown Hyphens, the Binghamton Bingoes, the Ilion Typewriters, the Schenectady Frog Alleys, and the Utica Pent-Ups.

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