Post-Deadline Promotion Madness

The last time I blogged about seeing a minor league game it was mostly just me ranting about having to drive. This time we're heading back to familiar territory.

Yup, back in the city. Brooklyn.

Whether or not I'll ever drive to see the Hudson Valley Renegades in their home stadium again remains to be seen but when I saw that they were going to be playing six straight games in Brooklyn I took the whole week off to accommodate for this. I'd rather spend a little over an hour moving around in the subway rather than spend hours in a car.

This Brooklyn series was also important for another reason. In the time since I first saw the Renegades their roster got a huge shakeup. Due in large parts to trades and promotions. During the trade deadline their infield of Josh Smith and Ezequiel Duran got traded to the Texas Rangers in the Joey Gallo trade, and just on Monday it was announced that Everson Pereira, Austin Wells, Eduardo Torrealba and Andres Chaparro would be getting promoted from single-A Tampa. They join Anthony Volpe and Randy Vasquez who were called up the Renegades a little while ago. Also Josh Breaux was promoted to double-A Somerset. That's quite a shake-up. Hudson Valley lost three key parts of their offense and gained three equally impressive bats as well as an interesting arm.

Anyway onto the autographs.

This time things went smoother for me by virtue of finally getting Anthony Seigler this time. Last time he was preoccupied with pre-game warm-ups and luckily I had a better time in a more familiar ballpark. Always feels good to get a 1/1 signed.

Anthony was nice enough to sign a second card I had, which was a choice card of him as a Pulaski Yankee, the first professional card of his ever made that was also a short print (no, even minor league issued cards are not safe from that gimmick).

Most of you may have forgotten that I was able to complete a Pereira rainbow a few years ago. Upon hearing of his promotion I prepared all four cards in hopes of getting an IP rainbow. Unfortunately Pereira is one-per so he just signed the one base. I'll see if I can maybe ask him to sign the 1/1 before another game. After that is anyone's guess.

My last but definitely not least autograph came from Pat DeMarco. DeMarco is a Vanderbilt product who was fun to watch in 2019 because he was a Staten Island native. Not sure how many of his family members are coming to see him for this series but it's not too far from his roots. Somehow I missed out on him in 2019 so it was fun to get him this time.

And those were my autographs. Quite a leap from one to four, I'll take it.

The game itself was rather nice. On the bump was Randy Vasquez, an interesting prospect who was originally reported as going to Texas in the Gallo trade before it was revealed that he was staying put. That whole thing brought a lot of prospect evaluators out of the woodwork claiming Vasquez was an interesting lower level pitcher. I believe it, he cruised through most of this game, pitching six innings of one hit-ball with two walks and 10 strike-outs. There was a brief injury scare but he stayed in the game and dominated the Cyclones.

Supporting Vasquez's effort was a lethal, albeit top-heavy, lineup that was Anthony Volpe-Everson Pereira-Austin Wells-Anthony Seigler-Jacob Sanford. Volpe, Wells and Seigler are all former first round picks. Pereira is a former IFA crown jewel. Sanford is an interesting prospect for people in the know. That's a hell of a way to make up for the loss of Oswald Peraza, Duran and Smith good lord.

All told the Renegades won 5-0 (BOX). Every Renegade had a hit in this game. It also finished in a tidy 3 hours and one minute. By the hour mark we were already into the fifth inning somehow. Not bad.

So yes, Coney Island isn't Staten Island but it's still the city and a lot more familiar to me than Hudson Valley is. Gotta take advantage of the remaining five games if I can/need to. Just glad that I can finally say I have an IP/TTM/Certfied autograph trifecta of Seigler now though, that's fun af.

As always thanks for stopping by and take care.

2021 IP Auto Count: 5