Thanks to the penalties incurred by the White Sox' signing of Luis Robert, their Dominican Summer League is short on notable names. Cross-check the roster against Ben Badler's brief review of the club's most recent international class, and catcher Jefferson Mendoza is the only one who's on both.
Jefferson Mendoza, a 17-year-old Venezuelan catcher who trained with Alex Gonzalez, signed with the White Sox for $300,000 on July 2. Mendoza has a lot of catching experience for his age and it shows when he’s behind the plate. He blocks and receives well, with a plus arm to help him control the running game, giving him the ingredients to develop into an above-average defender. At 6-foot-1, 170 pounds, Mendoza has a solid righthanded bat for a catcher. He has a chance to develop average power but doesn’t get caught up overswinging too much, staying with a middle-of-the-field approach in games.
Badler also mentions 17-year-old Dominican shortstop Sydney Pimentel and 21-year-old Cuban shortstop Camilo Quintero as the two other players who received the maximum $300,000 bonus the Sox could offer, but neither are yet on the roster.
Without bonus amounts to guide us, the only way to really identify who might rise is by weighting performance with age, but that only goes so far. For every unheralded signing like Carlos Perez, who posted a .333/.424/.438 line as an 18-year-old and has at least matriculated to Kannapolis, there's a Ulises Martinez, who posted an .840 OPS as a 17-year-old catcher and a .465 OPS as an 18-year-old.
We'll see whether Pimentel or Quintero -- or last year's DSL rookies like Josue Guerrero, Luis Mieses and others -- show up on the Arizona Rookie League rosters when those come out. If the new guys somehow skip a level, then the DSL roster and box scores merit mostly a shrug until we see which players the White Sox like enough to bring stateside.
Charlotte 3, Syracuse 1
- Thyago Vieira: 1 IP 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K
Birmingham 5, Jacksonville 2
- Danny Mendick went 3-for-5.
- Zack Collins walked once (intentional) and struck out thrice.
- Seby Zavala, 2-for-4 with a strikeout.
- Jameson Fisher went 0-for-4 with a K.
- Ian Hamilton: 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 0 K
More:
*Tito Polo went on the 7-day disabled list after leaving Wednesday's game after one at-bat.
Salem 7, Winston-Salem 3
- Luis Alexander Basabe went 1-for-3 with a walk and a strikeout.
- Ti'Quan Forbes, 1-for-4.
- Alex Call walked thrice and struck out once.
- Blake Rutherford went 0-for-4.
- Micker Adolfo, 1-for-4 with two strikeouts.
- Yeyson Yrizarri was 0-for-4 with two strikeouts.
- Bernardo Flores: 7 IP, 7 H, 4 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 4 K, 1 HR
Hickory 2, Kannapolis 1
- Luis Gonzaleez went 0-for-3 with a walk and a strikeout. He was picked off.
- Luis Robert was 0-for-3 with a K and an HBP.
- Justin Yurchak, 1-for-3 with a double.
- Carlos Perez went 0-for-4 with a strikeout.
- Luis Curbelo, 0-for-3 with a strikeout.
- Blake Battenfield: 6 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 4 K
DSL Blue Jays 7, DSL White Sox 6
- Jose Rodriguez had another three-hit game, including a triple.
