Australia was once again the main focus for winter league action on Sunday. All six Pittsburgh Pirates on the Sydney Blue Sox saw action. Here’s a recap.
Australia
Sammy Siani had a nice game in the 2-1 loss. He went 2-for-3 with an RBI on a sacrifice fly. He is now hitting .295/.376/.547 in 28 games. Siani ranks tenth in the league in OPS. He was the subject of our weekly Pirates Winter Report article this week.
Jase Bowen went 1-for-4 with a single. He is now hitting .241/.302/.379 in 24 games.
Dylan Shockley went 1-for-3 with a single. He is now hitting .205/.308/.346 in 25 games.
Ernny Ordonez went 0-for-4. He is now hitting .270/.318/.320 in 28 games.
Solomon Maguire went 0-for-3. He is now hitting .236/.276/.319 in 22 games.
Jesus Castillo went 0-for-3. He is now hitting .134/.220/.159 in 24 games.
Mexico
The playoffs started in Mexico on Sunday night. Fabricio Macias finished the regular season by hitting .252/.298/.358 in 60 games, with 14 doubles, three triples and a homer. His OPS was eight points below the league average. In the first playoff game, he went 2-for-4 with two singles, as his team lost 2-1.
John started working at Pirates Prospects in 2009, but his connection to the Pittsburgh Pirates started exactly 100 years earlier when Dots Miller debuted for the 1909 World Series champions. John was born in Kearny, NJ, two blocks from the house where Dots Miller grew up. From that hometown hero connection came a love of Pirates history, as well as the sport of baseball.
When he didn't make it as a lefty pitcher with an 80+ MPH fastball and a slider that needed work, John turned to covering the game, eventually focusing in on the prospects side, where his interest was pushed by the big league team being below .500 for so long. John has covered the minors in some form since the 2002 season, and leads the draft and international coverage on Pirates Prospects. He writes daily on Pittsburgh Baseball History, when he's not covering the entire system daily throughout the entire year on Pirates Prospects.
Hard not to remain skeptical of Siani, but the numbers are impressive. I thought for sure he’d have to return to GBO, but maybe he’s playing his way to Altoona. There’s no point sending guys to winter ball if you ignore what they do there.
Does the franchise “send” these players to the DR, Ven, Colombia, PR, Mex, or Australia? Or, is it the country or foreign team that extends invites to the individual players for a certain contractual period of time?
Either way, Hudson Head and Sammy Siani are two solid young CF’s.
John would know better than me. I think the winter league team has the final say, but I’m pretty sure the ML team will try to find slots for guys, and also plays a role in pushing players to go to winter ball, and maybe in shutting them down at some point.
Thank you for the info.
The videos show what might be a different approach, he alway seems as an all or nothing kind of guy, videos seams like he’s letting the ball travel a little deeper and still doing damage to center and left field.
What I like is that his older teammates are all pretty good comps. Bowen, Ordonez struggled in Greensboro, Shockley struggled in Altoona, they are all around the same OPS in Australia. He fits well in their 2022 performance group and he’s out-hitting all of them by a huge margin, facing the same pitchers/teams.
Also, 28 games is a decent sample size at this point. His high for a month during his career is 23 games, which was also his best month as a pro purely by coincidence (June, 2021)
I’ve found it interesting to track Hudson Head and Siani as both are 2019 draftees who signed for similar bonuses. Head was clearly the better looking prospect at the end of last season but, for me, Siani’s performance in Australia has allowed him to at least catch up if not pass Head. Fair assessment?
It’s interesting because they’re different physically, with different swings, but to me at least the same problem, which is hesitance in making swing decisions.
Catch up sounds better. Head had an .848 OPS from July 4th until the end of the season, so it makes sense that he didn’t play winter ball. He played a full season and finished strong. Siani had a .504 OPS during that same time-frame and missed some time.
Before July 4th, they were definitely in a lot similar of a place. Siani actually had the better OPS before July 4th by 36 points
Head is at least a half season ahead of Siani, playing the whole season at A+ while Siani split the year between A and A+. Head should start at AA while Siani, with just a .201 BA at A+ should begin the year back at A+.
The work in the Australian Winter League should not count for anything simply because the comparative rating of the league was about the same as A ball in MiLB.
A belated Happy New Year to all!
It shouldn’t count for much- but a small amount of counting and not at all aren’t the same thing