Minor League Baseball revealed its end-of-season award winners and All-Stars for each of the Rookie-level Complex Leagues. While the Arizona Complex League, Dominican Summer League and Florida Complex League are all of the short-season variety, their value to a player's development is no less important. In the ACL, Milwaukee's Jace
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After an up-and-down freshman year at Arkansas, Rutledge transferred to Houston-area junior college powerhouse San Jacinto and immediately looked like a first-round pick. He had trouble getting on the mound in Fayetteville in part due to his command, which still isn’t great. Rutledge often worked 96-100 at San Jac, mixing in a comfortably-plus slider and a curveball that was closer to average. He would occasionally flash a good changeup, too, but that pitch was a distant fourth offering at the time. That’s not really the case anymore, as Rutledge has hit the breaks on his curveball and spent most of 2020 focusing on his changeup, which had good fade and tailing action during spring training this year.
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Despite tying for last in the National League East at the end of last year s truncated season, the Nationals are still only one campaign removed from capturing the organization s first World Series title. Entering 2021, they still have the relatively depleted farm system that comes with that territory. The ceiling of the group took a few more hits in 2020 (though for good reasons) when former Top-100 talents Carter Kieboom and Luis Garcia both graduated from prospect status. Among those that remain, there are still some defining characteristics to be found among the collection.
The Nationals have one Top-100 prospect entering 2021 in No. 99 Cade Cavalli, but he forms just one part of what Washington front-office members call the Big Three, alongside Jackson Rutledge and Cole Henry. The use of big there is quite literal. All three right-handers stand at 6-foot-4 or above and feature plus to plus-plus fastballs. Considering Cavalli, Rutledge and Henry were first