Pirates Dominican Summer League: Players to watch in 2024

Some players of note that will be playing in the DSL for the Pirates.

The Dominican Summer League kicks off its season today, with the Pirates again set to have two teams participating.

We will have a more thorough look at the rosters later this week. Things didn’t get set until later on Sunday, but in the meantime, we wanted to look at some notable players to watch this year.

The DSL is interesting not only because the stats can be misleading more often than not but also because there isn’t much else to go off of.

There are some scouting reports on the bigger-named guys, but information on most other names can be scarce.

Regardless, here are a few names to watch this year in the DSL.

The newcomers

Baseball America did a far better job reviewing some of the high-bonus guys in the Pirates system in their preview. Without any type of video or even statistics on them, it’s hard to get anything better on them than what they can do.

Bralyn Brazoban was the big name for the Pirates during this signing period, getting $2 million. They like his plus raw power. They also signed shortstop Adbiel Feliz to a seven-figure deal, and they believe he was one of the best defensive shortstops in the class.

It’s behind a paywall, so I won’t go too deep into the details, but some other names they mentioned in the article are Irwin Ramirez, Kendrick Herrera, Edward Florentino, and Iverson Allen.

Raymond Mola isn’t new to the system, but he only registered 22 plate appearances last year, and he was another of their big signings from the previous year.

Jayden Kim is of Korean descent but Australian-born. His dad is a scout for the Pirates. At 16 years old, he was the starting shortstop for the Under-18 Australian team.

The returners to watch

At just 17 years old, Angel Perez slashed .295/.462/.568 last year in the DSL, picking up five home runs and driving in 25 runs, finishing with a wRC+ of 169.

John Dreker’s scouting report (I’ll be referring to that a lot) mentions Perez’s athleticism and how the defense is a bit ahead of the offense, with him being a more contact-orientated hitter early on.

Perez threw out 28% of would-be base stealers but did have 10 passed balls in just over 100 innings behind the plate. As far as his approach goes, he walked (24) nearly as many times as he struck out (25) in 117 plate appearances last year.

Cristian Jauregui was signed out of Cuba and, at 17 years old, hit .242/.419/.326 across 124 plate appearances last year in the DSL. He’s more of a speed guy who will have to impact the ball a bit more, but he reportedly has plus speed (15 stolen bases last year) and a plus arm while being solid defensively.

So, this season, the key for him will be to watch for signs of him hitting the ball harder.

A smaller signing, Dariel Francia, pitched in the DSL at 16 years old last year and put up solid numbers. He struck out 29.1% of the batters he faced while posting a 3.79 ERA across 35.2 innings pitched. He logged the second most innings for either DSL Pirates team last year, trailing only Carlos Castillo.

The walks were a little high, 13.9%, but nothing too extreme based on his age and level. He’s 6’2” with a really projectable frame, so there seems to be plenty of room to add velocity as he continues to fill out.

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