End of season recap: The 2019 Dominican Braves

An end-of season recap covering all seven Atlanta Braves minor league teams from the 2019 season.

Now that the 2019 minor league regular season is coming to an end (full-season leagues end on Labor Day), this is a great time to look back at each Atlanta Braves farm team and recap what took place over the last 5 months.

In this series I will cover each of the seven Braves’ minor league levels, evaluating each club and its top performers.

Today we start with the DSL Braves, the first Braves’ team to end their season, as their 2019 campaign wrapped up on Thursday, August 22.

The team

The 2019 Dominican Braves finished with a respectable 36-34 overall record, ending their season as the 4th-best team in the Northwest division of the Dominican Summer League.

The team started off the season purely a small-ball squad, slapping singles and stealing bases like it was going out of style. But as the season progressed, a few different players began to stand out and provide some pop in the lineup.

Despite a nice second-half showing on offense, the Braves still finished with the 9th-worst team-batting average (.229) and the 7th-most strikeouts (614) in the league, though they ended their season in the top-20 in stolen bases (105).

The DSL Braves’ strength was their pitching, as they finished with the 6th-best ERA (3.43), while also ending the season in the top-20 in strikeouts (552).

They also didn’t give up many home runs, only allowing 18 long balls all season (t-5th best), in 613.1 total innings-pitched. The Braves’ starters usually didn’t pitch very long outings, but for the most part they were effective.

Defensively, the Braves seem to have been a rather poor team, though this is somewhat of an anecdotal assessment, being that I couldn’t find any team-error totals. But just consider this: the Braves finished with 70 unearned runs (234 ER / 304 R). Bad as that is, it’s pretty standard at the Rookie-level, as most of these players are teenagers and not as developed defensively.

The top performers

On offense, the DSL Braves had do-it-all guys like shortstops Geraldo Quintero and Jose Dilone, two players who were among the best at hitting and running the bases.

Quintero hit .264 (3rd on the team), scored 35 runs (2nd) and finished with 21 stolen bases (1st); while Dilone hit .267 (2nd), scored 34 runs (3rd) and swiped 18 bags (2nd). The former played in 58 games and the latter got in on 63 games.

When it came to the power department, as I mentioned above, this DSL Braves team didn’t offer much in that category in 2019; but catcher/first baseman Kelvin Pena led the team with a whopping 6 home runs, two more than second-place player, outfielder Jeremy Celodonio.

Pena, a 19-year-old Dominican, slashed just .220/.308/.360 (.668 OPS) in 66 games, but he actually made some nice strides compared to his 2018 campaign (.443 OPS in 16 games).

First-year player Celodonio is just 17-years-old and he struck out 37.5% of the time this season, but with 59 pro games now under his belt, perhaps like Pena he can improve upon his low average (.203 BA).

Outfielder Deivi Estrada led the team in hitting, sporting a .307 batting average in 65 games, to go along with an impressive .433 OBP (12th in the DSL). Estrada, 18, is a switch-hitting Venazlauan who made massive improvements after his initial pro season in 2018 when he finished with a .191/.311/.261 slash-line in 45 games for the DSL Braves.

Despite an 0-5 record in 14 starts in 2019, Roddery Munoz led all Braves’ starters with 67 strikeouts and a 3.77 ERA. Opposing batters hit just .213 versus Munoz, a 19-year-old from the Dominican Republic.

Compared to last year, Munoz also stepped his game up in 2019. Last season the 6’3″ righty walked 14 batters in 17 innings-pitched, finishing with a 6.88 ERA in 10 relief appearances.

The saves leader was 21-year-old righty Ronaldo Alesandro, who converted all six of his save opportunities. Alesandro accrued 33.1 innings in 2019 and maintained a 2.43 ERA to go along with 44 strikeouts (11.96 K/9).

If he would’ve had enough starts to qualify, 19-year-old Rainiery Rodriguez would have easily led all Braves’ starters in ERA in 2019 (1.79). Rodriguez only made 5 starts (10 relief app.) but was incredibly stingy, only allowing 2 home runs in his 50.1 innings of work.

Even though he was used mainly as a reliever, Rodriguez led the team in pitcher-wins, finishing with a 6-1 record. He’s allowed just 3 homers in 86 career innings with the Dominican Braves (he totaled 35.2 IP in ’18).

The verdict

While I didn’t get to actually watch the DSL Braves live, it was fun following the youngest members of the Atlanta Braves organization.

This team kicked off the 2019 season with some major offensive issues, but as the year went on the lineup drastically improved.

It’s way too early to pick out any of these young players, in terms of potential future Braves’ stars, though it appears the team has several talented pitchers and a few hitters that could make some noise.

Guys like Quintero on offense and pitchers like Munoz and Rodriguez may be worth following next season, as those three players made some drastic adjustments in 2019. Also, it will be interesting to see if Kelvin Pena develops more into a catcher or ends up moving to first base full-time. It’s just too hard to tell with a bunch of teenagers.

We’ll see what happens next season!

Be sure to check back, as I recap the Gulf Coast Braves next.