Dodgers Bautista win 2023 Dominican Summer League Championship

♦ September 1, 2023 ♦ Leave a comment

by beating the Pirates two games to one in the three game Championship series. The Dodgers lost the first game of the series 7 – 5, but won the 2nd game 7 – 5 by scoring 3 runs in the bottom of the 8th. In the final game, they scored 4 quick runs, and broke it open with four more runs in the 6th to win handily 9 – 5. In this case, the best team won the championship as the LAD Bautista team had 42 wins and a .792 winning % for the season. The closest team in winning % to them was the DSL Padres Gold team that they beat in the semifinals.

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Angel Diaz was the hitting star of the postseason, but it was top shortstop prospect Joendry Vargas who slugged the team to victory in the final match with a single, double, and homerun. Eduardo Quintero also chipped in three hits as the dynamic top of the lineup picked up six hits between them. The pitching stars were Jholbran Herder and Angel Cruz who combined to pitch seven innings of one run ball, with ten strikeouts.

But does it matter? Back in 2017, the Dodgers not only won the Championship Series, they had the last two teams standing. When you read the highlights of the that series you won’t recognize one single name. Will that be the same fate of the 2023 Dodger Champions? If you were to stumble across this little story in 2029 would you know who Joendry Vargas, Eduardo Quintero, or Angel Diaz are? Probably not, but the odds got a little higher yesterday that you might.

The star of game three, Joendry Vargas is already the highest rated SS in the Dodger system even though he hasn’t played one professional game on the mainland so you would think he has a good shot at having a major league career, however, Wilman Diaz was that guy two years ago, and Wilman is now facing very long odds about being a major league baseball player.

Scott Boras and his people are considered very smart when it comes to the business of deciding who they will represent and yesterday, they announced that one of their two new Dodger clients is Eduardo Quintero whose season I wrote about last week. If Scott Boras and company want to represent you, they expect you to earn them some money.

Those would be the two Dodgers from the Dominican Summer League I’d be betting on to have major league careers but it could be series hitting star Angel Diaz or infielder Elias Medina, 1st/OF Yofran Medina, 16-year-old infielder Harold Gonzalez, or pitcher Jesus Tilero. Or none of them, there is no bigger step then the step from the Dominican Summer League to Mainland baseball, but it does seem that the Dodgers have a bigger crop than usual who might make a Mainland impact.

Last year Josue De Paula was the hitting star of the 2022 DSL teams and in 2023 he already made an impact in A ball, and is now considered the Dodgers top outfield prospect. If you compare what De Paula did in 2022 at the same age as Eduardo Quintero did this year, you have to think that Quintero just might be the Dodger outfielder who might give De Paula a run for his money as the Dodgers best outfield prospect. Scott Boras hedged his bets and signed both of them yesterday.

Other players from that 2022 DSL team that have made an impact in 2023 on the mainland are Jeral Perez and Alexander Albertus. Derlin Figueroa was one of the players traded for Ryan Yarbrough so he certainly has already had an impact on the Dodgers major league club.

This closes the chapter on the DSL 2023 season, and hopefully some of the names mentioned above, come over to the mainland and have exploits that other writers will write about.

Leave a comment