MLB: Triple Play, Milwaukee signs three players in one go and one is Venezuelan

The Milwaukee Brewers announced this Thursday that they signed the catcher Jakson Reetz, outfielder Garrett Whitley and the Venezuelan right-hander Moisés Gómez with minor league contracts. All three also received invitations to major league spring training.

Reetz, 1.83 meters tall and 26 years old next month, made his major league debut with the Nationals in 2021, appearing in two games and getting a double in his first (and, to date, only) hit. Major League Baseball:

A third-round pick by the Nats in 2014, Reetz ranked in the top 30 Washington prospects in Baseball America every year from 2015-21, leading 14th (2015-16) and 25th going into the season. 2021.

While he’s considered a solid defender thanks to his receiving and blocking skills, Reetz has yet to hit a lot on professional ball. He posted a combined .189 / .297 / .317 cut in 300 plate appearances between Double-A and Triple-A last season and has a .230 / .347 / .355 batting line in 472 league games minors in total.

Reetz showed some promise with a .253 / .370 / .441 and 13 home runs at High-A in 2019, but his return to competitive play and his Double-A and Triple-A debut last season didn’t go well from a offensive point of view:

For his part, Whitley, 25 in March, has even higher draft status. Selected with the No. 13 overall pick by the Rays in 2015, Whitley was ranked in the top 10 farmers (by Baseball America) in a consistently loaded Rays system every year from 2016-18.

Whitley hit .255 / .370 / .510 and walked 12.6% in 237 Double-A plate appearances last season, but he also fanned 28% of his plate trips at that level. He fought mightily in a pothole at Triple-A, where he hit just .172 / .269 / .301 and struck out in a third of his 108 plate appearances (versus a decreased walk rate of 8.3%).

Like Reetz, Whitley has received positive reviews for his defensive skills. He’s a center fielder touted for a speed of 60 or even 70 degrees (on the 20-80 scale) with an above-average pitching arm:

High strikeout rates have plagued him throughout his minor league tenure, even when he has generally walked at a strong pace. Overall, Whitley is a .234 / .343 / .407 career hitter in professional ball.

Last but not least, Gomez, who will turn 25 in February, split the 2021 season between the Double-A and Triple-A affiliates of the Seatte Mariners, pitching well for the former but getting hit hard for the latter.

However, the gap between Gomez’s 1.23 ERA in 29 1/3 Double-A frames and a 5.94 ERA in 16 1/3 Triple-A innings might not be as large as you’d expect.

Gomez actually posted better strikeout and walk percentages at Triple-A (23.7% and 5.3%, respectively) than at Double-A (21.2%, 5.9%). However, the right-hander was flown by a soaring .392 average on balls in play during his brief career with Triple-A Tacoma, and his percentage of running backs left on base fell from 87% to 57.9%.

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Such a drop in thread rate is natural when there are so many balls in play that they fall on hits. The results at Triple-A certainly don’t look appealing, but Gomez has a fastball above 90 and has never posted a 3.30 ERA north of any minor league level outside of last year’s 13-game cup of coffee at Triple. -TO.

Rafael Martinez

I am fond of the King of Sports, especially the Boston Red Sox in MLB and in general all of Mexican baseball. This profession has given me the opportunity to cover major events such as the Caribbean Series, the LMB All Star, LMP (uninterrupted since 2009), signings of important players. I had the chance to attend the 2013 World Classic in Arizona, USA, albeit as a fan. Apart from this beautiful sport, I love basketball, where I have also narrated games and even an NBA friendly 10 years ago, but I carry baseball in my veins. Graduated in Communication Sciences from the Autonomous University of Sinaloa (UAS) , from which I graduated in 2011. I was born in Mazatlán, Sinaloa and started in the world of sports journalism in 2004 in the newspaper El Sol de Mazatlán, where I was a baseball columnist and reporter at the same time. In January 2009 I came to El Debate as a journalist reporter and it was almost six years (in the first stage), until in November 2014 I emigrated to the radio providing my services in Línea Directa-Grupo RSN. My cycle there ended in July 2019 and within days, El Debate gave me another opportunity to work and opened the doors for me again. That is how I came to Al Bat, where I have been since 2019 as a web journalist.

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