Sunday Notes: D-backs Prospect Demetrio Crisantes Is Crushing It in the Desert

Demetrio Crisantes is off to a hot start in the Arizona Fall League. The 22-year-old second baseman has gone 8-for-20 with a triple and a pair of doubles for the Salt River Rafters. That hardly comes as a surprise. As our own Brendan Gawlowski wrote prior to the regular season, “Crisantes has a case as the best pure hitter in the D-backs system.” The Tucson native’s track record largely backs up that opinion. Since being drafted in the seventh round by his home-state team in 2023 out of Nogales High School, Crisantes has slashed .312/.399/.473 with a 125 wRC+. Moreover, this past season he batted .296 with 10 home runs over 335 plate appearances between three levels, topping out at Triple-A. Notably, Arizona’s No. 3 prospect played all but the final two weeks as a 21-year-old. Staying on the field has been an issue. Crisantes has undergone a pair of Tommy John surgeries — the first at age 15, the second two years later — and he has subsequently dealt with hamstring and shoulder injuries. That makes his stint in the desert especially meaningful. Eric Longenhagen put it this way in his Fall League preview: “He has really hit when he’s been healthy, and how he looks in the AFL might help inform whether the D-backs feel comfortable trading Ketel Marte this offseason. He’s arguably the most important eval in the entire league.” Asked for a self-assessment of his strengths as a hitter, Crisantes cited the plus contact skills described in Gawlowski’s scouting report. “When I was little, I never liked striking out,” said Crisantes, who logged a 17.5% K-rate and a 10.9% walk rate this.season. “My bat-to-ball skills have always been pretty good, and I’ve always worked on that with my dad back home. I am trying to lean into my power a little more as I get older, but that’s something I always go back to: my bat-to-ball skills.” Making consistent contact against the best pitchers in the world is especially challenging, and Crisantes is already preparing for that. The Rafters play their home games at Salt River Fields at Talking Stick, the Diamondbacks’ top-notch spring training facility, which means that he is getting an opportunity to face some of baseball’s best on a Trajekt. Admittedly, his results haven’t been great.You Aren't a FanGraphs MemberIt looks like you aren't yet a FanGraphs Member (or aren't logged in). We aren't mad, just disappointed. We get it. You want to read this article. But before we let you get back to it, we'd like to point out a few of the good reasons why you should become a Member. 1. Ad Free viewing! We won't bug you with this ad, or any other. 2. Unlimited articles! Non-Members only get to read 10 free articles a month. Members never get cut off. 3. 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And we realize this has been an awfully long sales pitch, so we've also removed all the other ads in this article. We didn't want to overdo it. In case you didn't read all that, here's the short version. Membership includes:✓Ad-free browsing✓Unlimited FanGraphs & RotoGraphs articles✓Historical & platoon projections✓Leaderboard & player-page stat heatmaps✓One-click data exports✓Customizable player-page dashboards✓Dark & Classic site modes✓Weekly Members-only mailbag✓FanGraphs Walk-Off, your year in review✓Optional homepage photo removal✓Gift articles to non-Members✓Full postseason coverage “They have a lot of Dodgers on there, so I’ve hit off of [Yoshinobu] Yamamoto and [Shohei] Ohtani, Crisantes said of his machine efforts. “I got a single off of Yamamoto, a line drive single, but Ohtani kind of owned me a little bit. It’s good to see all of those different shapes and velocities, though — how the big-leaguers can look. “Pitchers are getting better; their stuff is a lot better than ever before,” the promising youngster went on to say. “Sometimes hitting comes naturally, but there are also times when you’re in the dumps and everything looks nasty, and you don’t know what to do. You just need to reset and remember who you are.” When things are going well, hitting is fun. Right? “Then hitting is fun,” Cristantes replied with a smile. “So fun.” ——— RANDOM HITTER-PITCHER MATCHUPS Eddie Yost went 4 for 4 against Leo Cristante. Jose Iglesias went 3 for 4 against Nabil Crismatt. Tony Criscola went 3 for 3 against Bill Trotter. Coco Crisp went 3 for 3 against Hayden Penn. Dode Criss went 3 for 5 against George Mullin. ——— Left on the cutting-room floor from my late-September feature on Nick Sogard were his memories of playing for Blake Butera in 2019. Drafted by the Tampa Bay Rays that same summer, the now-Boston Red Sox infielder was beginning his professional career with the Hudson Valley Renegades, who were led by the current Washington Nationals manager. Then just 26 years old, Butera was in his second year at the helm of the short-season affiliate. “It was awesome,” Sogard said of the experience. “I really enjoyed playing for Blake. He was my first manager, and a real player’s manager. He also played to win. I remember that very clearly. We were a winning team (the Renegades finished tied for the best record in the New-York Penn League) and I feel he played a big part in that. He did a good job of meshing people who were new to pro ball, as well as guys from all over the world.” Could Sogard have imagined that his young skipper would go on to manage in the majors? “I felt he had a great baseball mind,” he said. “That was my only playing experience with the Rays, because the 2020 season was cancelled and then I got traded over here [in February 2021]. But I’ve known that he went on to rip through the ranks. It’s super cool. I’m really happy for him, and glad I got to play for him.” ——— I’m currently reading Peter Gammons’s new book, It’s All About the Players, and it is predictably fantastic. Here are two brief passages, one on Wade Boggs, the other on Ichiro Suzuki: Fifth pitch in Kansas City, he hit the waterfall. The Stadium? Over the wall. He would drive opposing managers crazy. When Ray Miller managed the Twins, he said “Boggs gets to two strikes, then starts fouling balls off to get his pitch, like a guy sorting through his mail looking for a check.”Ichiro told Raul [Ibanez] that he swung a bat 360 days a year and took a bat with him on vacation trips… “He could have won any home run hitting contest,’ Ibanez said. ‘I remember one time in BP he hit twenty-one straight pitches out of the park, then in the game got four soft contact hits.” The book is a must-read for baseball fans. Gammons — whose erstwhile Sunday Notes column in The Boston Globe greatly influenced on my own writing style — is a master storyteller. ——— A four-part quiz: Nine pitchers have recorded 400 or more saves. Of them, which has (1) the most wins, (2), the most losses, (3) the most home runs allowed (4) the most strikeouts. (A hint: two are right-handers and two are left-handers.) The answer can be found below. ——— NEWS NOTES SABR announced yesterday that Janet Marie Smith has been honored with the 2026 Dorothy Seymour Mills Lifetime Achievement Award. More information can be found here. The Latino Baseball Hall of Fame announced on Wednesday that Alex Cora is the first recipient of the Roberto Weill Award, which honors extraordinary contribution to Latin American baseball. Sam McDowell, a six-time All-Star with the Cleveland Indians who led the junior circuit in strikeouts fives times, died Monday at age 84. A hard-throwing southpaw, “Sudden Sam” went 171-11 with a league-best 2.18 ERA and 325 strikeouts in 1965, and 20-12 with a 2.92 ERA and 304 strikeouts in 1970. A heavy drinker during his playing days, he became an alcohol counselor after retiring following the 1975 season, which he spent with his hometown Pittsburgh Pirates. Dave Rosello, a utility infielder who played for the Chicago Cubs from 1972-1977, and then for the Cleveland Indians from 1979-1981, died on September 30 at age 76. A native of Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, Rosello recorded 206 MLB hits, 10 of which left the yard. One of his blasts came off Jon Matlack, against whom he went 6-for-10. ——— The answers to the quiz are 1. John Franco with 90 wins, 2. Lee Smith with 92 losses. 3. Trevor Hoffman, with 100 home runs allowed, 4. Aroldis Chapman with 1,402 strikeouts. ——— Easton Carmichael caught Seth Hernandez in High-A Greensboro this past season. The 22-year-old Pittsburgh Pirates prospect’s assessment of the 20-year-old right-hander, who currently ranks seventh on The Board with a 60 FV? “A super-talented arm,” Carmichael told me on Arizona Fall League media day. “He’s super-raw and super-young, which is only going to help him, because he has a lot of time to develop. But he’s mature for his age — he goes about his business in the right way — and he’s already far ahead of most guys his age. “While he’s raw, there are some polished aspects,” the University of Oklahoma product went on to say. “His changeup is a very good pitch. The fastball velocity is obviously super, super high. There is a lot of upside with a lot of room to grow.” Earlier this summer, Eric Longenhagen and Brendan Gawlowski described Hernandez’s repertoire as “bonkers.” Our lead prospects analysts wrote that the righty “might have the best changeup in baseball at peak” and that he is “touching 101 [mph] with seven feet of extension.” A lot of upside indeed. ——— Which of the pitchers you faced this season most had you walking out of the batter’s box thinking, “Man, that guy is nasty?” I’ve asked variations of that question to a number of minor-league hitters in recent years, with Dante Nori being among the latest. Drafted 27th overall by Philadelphia in 2024, the 22-year-old left-handed-hitting outfielder played primarily with Double-A Reading this season. “I’m one of those guys where right after the game it’s kind of flushed,” replied Nori, who ranks 13th in the Phillies system and is currently competing in the AFL. “But let me think… there was a lefty from Hartford. This would have been the second to last week of the season, and he threw from the first base side. It was kind of a crossfire invisi-ball, because it comes from so far behind [a left-handed hitter]. I can’t think of his name, but he was a starter and the board showed him having something like a 1.80 ERA. He had good stuff. I remember that it was a tough day that day.” Based on Reading’s game logs, the pitcher would have been 26-year-old (as of earlier this month) Stu Flesland III. Drafted in the 11th round by the Colorado Rockies in 2023, the University of Washington product posted a 1.86 ERA over 86 innings with the Yard Goats. Flesland bookended his Hartford stint with a smattering of games in High-A and Triple-A. ——— FOREIGN AFFAIRS Potentially-MLB-bound Hanshin Tigers slugger Teruaki Sato finished the NPB regular season with a 198 wRC+, a .308/.385/.613 slash line, 39 home runs, and 106 RBIs. The 27-year-old left-handed-hitting third baseman/outfielder won the Triple Crown in the Central League. Former MLB outfielder Franmil Reyes led all NPB hitters in batting average while slashing .313/.375/.571 with 32 home runs and a 173 wRC+ for the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters. Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks third baseman Ryoya Kurihara led NPB in home runs (40) and RBIs (118) while slashing .271/.365/.557 with a 169 wRC+. Kensuke Kondoh clubbed a career high 32 home runs while slashing 309/.431/.569 with a 191 wRC+. The 33-year-old Hawks outfielder has a .307 batting average and a .419 OBP in 1,503 games across 15 NPB seasons. Hanshin’s Takumu Nakano led NPB hitters with 27 sacrifice hits while also logging a .287 batting average that ranked 11th best in the circuit. The 30-year-old second baseman was also charged with just three errors. Over the past two seasons, the Gold Glover has handled 1,427 chances and committed five errors. ——— Miguel Amaya is a proud Panamanian. A native of Chitre, the 27-year-old Chicago Cubs catcher represented his homeland in this year’s WBC, and he also knows his hardball history. MLB annals has included 83 Panama-born players, of which Amaya mentioned several when I asked which of them most stand out in his mind. “That I watched growing up, I can say Ramiro Mendoza,” he told me on the final Friday of the regular season. “He played for the Red Sox and the Yankees. Mariano [Rivera] of course. Carlos Lee and Olmedo Saenz. Those are people who are close to Los Santos, where I’m from. I watched Rubén Tejada, too. He was with the Mets and had that injury with Chase Utley sliding into second base. “Those are guys I grew up watching, but of course there is also Rod Carew,” Amaya added. “He would be on the top three list for Panamanian players. It would be Mariano, Rod Carew, and Carlos Lee.” Given that he dons the tools of ignorance, I asked if he was familiar with Panama’s most accomplished player at his position. “Manny Sanguillen,” Amaya replied, easily naming the 1970s Pittsburgh Pirates backstop. “I don’t know a lot about him to be honest, but of course I know of him. And there is also “Chooch,” Carlos Ruiz. He was important for us, especially catching two no-hitters, a perfect game, and playing in the World Series for the Phillies. That was huge for the sport in Panama.” ——— A random obscure former player snapshot: Katsy Keifer pitched in one major-league game, that for the Indianapolis Hoosiers in 1914. It took place on the final day of the Federal League season — and it was meaningful. A win over the St. Louis Terriers would give the Hoosiers the pennant, and they did just that by a score of 4-2. Making the most of his opportunity, Keifer not only tossed a complete game, he helped his own cause by driving in Hall of Famer Edd Roush for what proved to be the winning run. The rest of Keifer’s career was spent down on the farm. The southpaw from California, Pennsylvania saw action with numerous teams at multiple levels, with the 1914 season being his most successful. Prior to joining Indianapolis, he went 22-11 in the Southern Michigan League while taking the mound for both the Battle Creek Crickets and South Bend Benders. His SABR BioProject entry can be found here. ——— LINKS YOU’LL LIKE At CBS Sports, Matt Snyder addressed the pros and cons of MLB’s proposal of a 154-game season and a longer LDS. Purple Row’s Joelle Milholm wrote about how Coors Field had its lowest attendance since 2005 (yet saw more fans than the Cleveland Guardians, Chicago White Sox, and Tampa Bay Rays.) Bill Greason, the oldest living MLB player, and last surviving Negro Leaguer, celebrated his 102nd birthday last month. Anne R. Keane wrote about the erstwhile St. Louis Cardinals and Birmingham Black Barons right-hander for the Military Times. The Athletic’s Patrick Mooney paid tribute to longtime Los Angeles Dodgers executive Fred Claire, who died Monday on his 91st birthday. ——— RANDOM FACTS AND STATS The Milwaukee Brewers hit 154 home runs and had a 22.0% strikeout rate this season. In 1982, the year they made their only World Series appearance, the Brewers hit 216 home runs and had an 11.3% strikeout rate. In the 2013 regular season, Koji Uehara had a 1.09 ERA to go with 101 strikeouts and nine walks over 74-and-a-third innings. In the 2013 postseason, Uehara threw six scoreless innings with nine strikeouts and no walks. Milt Pappas logged 209 wins and a 3.40 ERA while pitching for four teams across the 1957-1973 seasons. What he did as a hitter was far more remarkable. He slashed just ,123/.157/.197 with a 43.4% strikeout rate and a minus-5 wRC+, yet somehow managed to slug 20 home runs. Only 11 pitchers in MLB history have gone yard more times. Of the nearly 100 pitchers who are double figures for homers, Pappas is the only one with a negative wRC+. Vladimir Guerrero had 972 extra-base hits, including 449 home runs, and a 136 wRC+. Carlos Delgado had 974 extra-base hits, including 473 home runs, and a 135 wRC+. The Cleveland Indians won the World Series on today’s date in 1948. Bob Lemon got the win, and Gene Bearden the save, in the Game 6 conquest of the Boston Braves. The final score was 4-3. On today’s date in 1943, the New York Yankees captured the 10th of their 27 World Series titles by defeating the St. Louis Cardinals 2-0. Spud Chandler went the distance, allowing 10 hits and a pair of walks, with St. Louis batters going 0-for-10 with runners in scoring position. Players born on today’s date include Bill Roman, a University of Michigan product whose career comprised 24 games for the Detroit Tigers in the 1964-1965 seasons. Employed often as a pinch-hitter, Roman recorded five hits, including a home run at Yankee Stadium in his first big-league at-bat. Jim Bouton served up the gopher.. Also born on today’s date was Buttercup Dickerson, an outfielder who suited up for numerous teams across the 1878-1885 seasons. Among them were the Cincinnati Reds, Louisville Eclipse, St. Louis Maroons, and Worcester Ruby Legs. Dickerson is in the National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame.