Dragons 2022 Preview: Part 1--Catchers

The Dayton Dragons will open their 22nd season on Friday, April 8th against the Fort Wayne TinCaps at 7:05 p.m. at Day Air Ballpark. Over the next four weeks, we will provide an eight-part preview of the 2022 Dayton Dragons.

*Team statement on the impact of the MLB work stoppage on Minor League Baseball: *

“Despite the work stoppage on Major League Baseball’s season, Minor League Baseball has a full season ahead, unaffected by the ongoing situation. The 2022 Minor League season -- and players who are not on the 40-man roster or signed to a Major League contract -- will continue. Minor League teams will continue to hold minicamps, Minor League Spring Training, and extended spring training. Major League affiliates will be operating their Minor League operations uninterrupted. _Minor League Baseball always plays an important role for the game, and we look forward to doing so again in 2022.”_

Two weeks ago, the Reds brought 60 minor league players to Goodyear, Arizona for early spring training work. Roughly 10-12 players from among those 60 are likely to open the 2022 season with the Dragons. The Reds remaining minor league pitchers and catchers reported to camp Tuesday, and all remaining position players will report on Monday, March 7. Each Reds minor league team will play a 16-game spring schedule from March 17-April 3. The Dragons will arrive in Dayton on April 4.

Players in Reds Minor League camp are competing for spots on one of four clubs. Those include Triple-A Louisville, Double-A Chattanooga, High-A Dayton, and Low-A Daytona. Some players who do not earn spots on any of those four rosters will continue to work at the spring training complex in Arizona in what is commonly referred to as “Extended Spring Training,” playing an informal schedule against players from other organizations before a fifth Reds farm club, the Arizona Complex League Reds, begins its season in June.

Again this season, all 132 Dragons games (home and road) can be heard on radio on WONE 980 AM, on the internet at wone.com, and via the Dragons Mobile App. The Dragons will again televise Saturday and Sunday home games, plus a couple of Friday night games on the Dayton CW.

This is part one of an eight-part series previewing the 2022 Dragons. Players listed here are candidates for positions on the Dragons season-opening roster.

This preview is an unofficial projection of possible roster candidates. Minor League rosters are not established until April 4. Spring training variables including performance, injuries, trades, and additional player acquisitions will impact the roster accordingly.

The Catchers

Click links on each name for career stats and player information.

Candidates: Mat Nelson, Eric Yang, Daniel Vellojin, James Free.

Rarely, if ever, have the Dragons been in a position where two catchers on their roster were both ranked among the Reds top-20 prospects, but that very situation could come into play in 2022. On paper, this could shape up as the strongest catcher combination in Dragons history.

The Dragons opened the 2021 season with three catchers, with Yang as the starter. Free and Jose Tello served in back-up roles while also getting some playing time at first base and at the designated hitter position. Yang and Free spent the entire season with the Dragons while Tello was released on August 23.

Nelson might be the key to the direction the Dragons catcher position takes. He is one of the top catching prospects in all of baseball and led the nation in home runs in 2021 at Florida State. But he has played only 10 professional games. Will he return to Dayton, where he played briefly after signing with the Reds in 2021, or make the jump to Double-A Chattanooga?

Barring injury, Vellojin would appear to be a lock to start the season with the Dragons. He is ranked as the Reds #19 prospect by both Baseball America and MLB.com. Free could also be a likely member of the roster, providing versatility as a third catcher and also at first base. Yang would probably go to Chattanooga if Nelson starts in Dayton, but should Nelson crack the Double-A roster, Yang would likely return to the Dragons and split time at the catcher position with Vellojin. Let’s take a closer look at these four players.

Mat Nelson was drafted by the Reds with the 35th overall selection in 2021. He was the second college catcher taken in the draft, following Henry Davis, who was the first overall pick by the Pirates. Nelson is now ranked as the Reds #9 prospect by MLB.com and #11 by Baseball America.

Nelson enjoyed a mammoth year in 2021 at Florida State. He was selected by Perfect Game/Rawlings as the National Player of the Year after blasting 23 home runs, most in the country, while hitting .330 in a very tough conference. He was the winner of the Johnny Bench Award and Buster Posey Award as the top catcher in the nation. He was the Atlantic Coast Conference Player of the Year and a First Team All-American. Not many Dragons players over the years have come to Dayton with the credentials possessed by Nelson, who also had a big high school career in Clearwater, Florida. He led Calvary Christian to the Florida state championship and the #1 ranking in the country as his team won 60 consecutive games to set a state record.

The Reds will determine Nelson’s assignment for 2022. He played in eight games for the Dragons late in 2021 before suffering a season-ending thumb injury when he was crossed up by a Dragons relief pitcher, resulting in a pitch striking his left hand awkwardly. A return to Dayton is possible as Nelson has only 28 at-bats at the professional level.

Daniel Vellojin (pronounced vay-oh-HEEN) is regarded as the best throwing catcher in the Reds organization, and one of the best in the minor leagues. Baseball America says that Vellojin “shuts down the running game…has the foundational skills to be an everyday MLB catcher.” Vellojin, from the nation of Colombia, signed with the Reds as an international free agent in 2018 and spent two years with their Dominican Summer League team. He showed a lot of improvement there, boosting his batting average from .198 in 2018 as an 18-year-old to .314 the next year in the same league. He did not play in 2020 as the season was shut down due to COVID.

In 2021, Vellojin made his full-season debut with Daytona, the Reds Low-A affiliate. He led all catchers among the 120 full-season teams in on-base percentage at .401, thanks largely to the fact that he drew 72 walks in 88 games. He batted .247 with seven home runs, showing improvement over the course of the season. He hit .288 over his last 32 games with a .429 on-base percentage. Vellojin is known for his defense, but his offensive game seems to be pointed upward. He should be fun to watch as he guns down base stealers at Day Air Ballpark in 2022.

Eric Yang spent the entire 2021 season with the Dragons and was the team’s starting catcher. He made the jump from being an all-star at Billings in 2019 to High-A Dayton in 2021, skipping the Low-A level. He got off to an excellent start with the Dragons, belting a home run on opening night and hitting well over the first month, but he endured a lengthy slump toward the middle portion of the schedule, and though he bounced back in the latter stages of the year, he finished with a batting average of just .203 with three homers in 76 games. Yang is certainly capable of much greater production in 2022.

Yang was drafted in the seventh round in 2019 by the Reds out of the University of California-Santa Barbara, where he was the Big West Conference Player of the Year in 2019. He hit .368 that season and was chosen Second Team All-American. After signing with the Reds, he hit .290 at Billings and had a homer in the Pioneer League all-star game. He was picked by Baseball America as the #19 prospect in the league. It would seem unlikely that both Yang and Nelson come to Dayton in 2022, but one of the two probably will return to share time with Vellojin and get starts as the designated hitter when not in the lineup as the catcher.

James Free was a valuable member of the Dragons in 2021 because of his versatility. Free made 25 starts behind the plate and 16 at first base. He also started 11 games as the DH. A third catcher is an important component of any minor league roster, allowing the manager the flexibility to use a catcher as a DH while still having another catcher available in the event of an injury. Free played in 56 games with the Dragons overall last season. He got off to a slow start but finished at .232 with three home runs. He is clearly capable of improving considerably on those numbers in 2022. Last season, Dragons manager Jose Moreno had enough confidence in Free’s bat that when he was in the starting lineup, he usually hit in the middle part of the order.

Free played college baseball at the University of the Pacific. In 2019, he batted .335 with eight home runs in 49 games. He was projected by Baseball America as a top-10 round draft pick in 2019, but surprisingly was not selected in the 2019 draft. The Reds quickly signed him as a non-drafted free agent with a substantial signing bonus and assigned him to Billings, where he got off to a strong start with the Mustangs in the summer of ’19. He was still hitting .312 as late as mid-August but suffered a rough late-season slump that dropped his final average to .245 with seven home runs in 43 games. Like Yang, Free skipped a level to reach the Dragons in 2021, when Moreno publicly praised Free for his leadership skills and positive attitude as a strong clubhouse influence, qualities that bring added value from a player trying to earn more playing time at either catcher or first base.

Nelson, Vellojin, and Yang are among the 60 players who were brought to Arizona for early work two weeks ago.

Next up: First Basemen

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