It wasn’t the typical start to the baseball season for the Syracuse Chiefs—the top minor league affiliate for the Washington Nationals!
While the parent club posted some nice wins during the first week of the regular season, their Triple-A team, the Chiefs, had to play their “home opener” in another state, and only got two games in (both part of a seven-inning doubleheader) during the first week of the regular season. Despite that, Syracuse got off to a good start to its season as well.
We had a chance to speak with Syracuse Manager Billy Gardner and a couple of their players to ask them about this year’s team and about an unusual start to the 2016 season.
The Chiefs manager also talked about one of the organization’s top pitching prospects, A. J. Cole, who started their season opening game. Their first game of the season was supposed to be the previous Tuesday in Syracuse, before it was moved due to unsafe playing conditions at their stadium. Gardner speaks about Cole pitching in 40-degree temperatures and also talked about how the strong finish to the 2015 campaign can benefit him this season.
One of the top young players in the entire organization is shortstop Trea Turner, who we caught up with to ask about his style of play, his reaction to some high praise from his Triple-A manager and his goals for the 2016 season, which, he (and many Washington fans) hopes will result in a quick call-up to the Nationals.
The Chiefs should be a fun team to watch as they feature a mix of both up-and-coming prospects along with seasoned veterans that should add a lot of depth to the organization overall. In terms of the team’s success, they do have an opportunity to finish among the top teams as currently constructed in the International League.
As far as prospects, the Opening Day roster features Turner (ranked #2 in the organization according to mlb.com), Cole (ranked seventh), pitcher Austin Voth (ninth), catcher Pedro Severino (tenth) and third-baseman Matt Skole (29th). Fortunately, the Nationals have not suffered nearly the number of injuries that they had at this time last year, allowing the Chiefs to benefit by holding on to just about everyone on its roster thus far.
The International League always plays a competitive brand of baseball, and the Chiefs, who have won five of their first nine games, seemed to have ‘weathered’ their rough start to the season and look to be competitive all summer long.
We’ll have more on Washington’s top minor league affiliate, along with interviews with their top prospects during the course of this season, both here at “The Shop” as well as on our Thursday “RCN SportsTalk” show. Also, you can catch more of these above interviews by viewing the April 14th edition of “SportsTalk” through RCN On-Demand.
Feel free to give us your feedback and send us your sports comments and questions via email (rcnsportstalk@rcn.com) and tune in to our weekly show/podcast to hear us read and respond.
