Who made a case for next season?
For this, I'm going to use an expansive definition of "September call-up" but the grades will be based solely on what they did in their late season call-ups - i.e., I will ignore early season performance in the majors as well as minor league performance.
Marcus Semien was on the opening day roster and lasted until June 1. The 24-year-old finished his first stint with an unimpressive .218/.287/.327 line in 181 PA. He returned to the minors for three months and, when he got his September call-up, he took full advantage, putting up a line of .273/.333/.485 in 74 PA. Yeah, those are both rather small sample sizes and, yeah, his defense was poor but he's at least shown a capability to be a major league player. The most distressing thing about his first stint was his 31.5% strikeout rate. He cut that to 17.6% in September, which is much more in line with both his minor league numbers and his scouting profile. His overall season grade is lower but he merits a B for his September work and put himself in a good position for next year.
Josh Phegley probably didn't merit an opening day roster spot but he was the de facto choice, at least until it became clear in spring training that Adrian Nieto would at least be capable of not entirely embarrassing himself - a capability he maintained throughout the season. The 26-year-old had a whole lot to disprove when he finally returned to the majors in September. First, he needed to show that he was capable of hitting in the majors. He got just 38 PA to do that and he pretty much did what he did in his first 38 PA in 2013: hit three home runs, not hit for average and not take any walks. Second, he needed to show that he could be an adequate receiver. He got just 89.1 innings to do that and he pretty much failed. According to Baseball Prospectus, Phegley got 12 fewer strikes than would otherwise be expected, which is a rather remarkable number given that he had just 836 framing chances. I thought his other catching skills were improved. While he still had a couple passed balls that were just bad, he did seem more effective at preventing wild pitches. His performance earns a D+ grade and didn't really suggest he's anything other than minor league depth.
Carlos Sanchez got the call after Gordon Beckham's trade and thus managed to put together the largest "September" sample size of the group (and, for simplicity's sake, I'm including the stats from his one game July cameo). The 22-year-old got 104 PA and 240.2 innings in the field - almost all at second base. His .250/.269/.300 line is about what one would expect from a player with his offensive profile getting his first taste of the major league pitching. Pitchers were not afraid to challenge him since they knew the realistic worst case scenario was a double. The Venezuelan's game is contact-based and he struck out 24% of the time. That doesn't work. Of course, his calling card is his defense and he didn't disappoint there. He showed solid range and an excellent pivot on the double play. By no means was he scintillating overall but he pretty much delivered what was expected of him and that gets a C grade and a shot at the 2014 opening day roster.
Michael Taylor, like Phegley, didn't get a lot of opportunities. That's kind of a shame because Dayan Viciedo got nine pretty much unnecessary starts in left field, in addition to his playing time at DH and first base. In the past three seasons, Taylor had gotten similarly limited chances in the majors. However, he made a hash of those, combining for a .135/.210/.189 line. This time, he can at least say he made some suggestion that he was an actual major leaguer and, for a soon-to-be 29-year-old, that was probably his main objective. In 33 PA, he batted .250/.364/.286. He didn't show much with his outfield defense, though. His future likely lies in Triple-A, likely with another organization, since he did manage a C- grade.
Finally, Andy Wilkins . And boy was he bad. At least in the context of a September call-up, it can't be said that he didn't get opportunities. The 26-year-old got 11 starts and 45 PA. He almost literally did nothing with them, batting .140/.178/.186 and striking out 48.9% of the time. I don't have much to say here other than I told you so. Hopefully, this was an(other) object lesson in how scouting by minor league stat lines is a bad method. There isn't even an argument for anything other than a grade of F.
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