2015 Season In Review: Modesto Nuts

May 10, 2015; Denver, CO, USA; General view of the starting line up of the Colorado Rockies before the game against the Los Angeles Dodgers at Coors Field. Mandatory Credit: Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports

2015 Nuts: Defense

The good: Surprisingly, the Nuts were pretty good on the mound this season, seeing five different starters have very solid years, including Harrison Musgrave, who was promoted to AA New Britain during the season. Trent Daniel, Sam Moll, Carlos Estevez, and Matt Carasiti paced the bullpen, too, combining on 34 saves and 14 more wins among themselves.

As a team, the Nuts walked the fewest batters in the league, and had the league’s third-best WHIP and third-best ERA. All told, that’s not terrible for a California League team (especially the 3.75 team ERA), so there’s not much here to complain about.

The bad: Grahamm Wiest came up from Asheville for ten starts and was hit around pretty hard, allowing ten home runs in those games while striking out just 22 batters. Back in Asheville later in the year, he had far better results with the Tourists, and he’ll likely get another shot at Modesto in 2016 as he tries to succeed one rung higher in the minor league food chain.

[ Related: Making Nolan Arenado’s case for National League MVP ]

Noteworthy: Harrison Musgrave and Carlos Estevez both deserve special notes for their midseason promotions to AA New Britain after dominant work early on with the Modesto Nuts. Both players ended up doing fine at New Britain, too; Musgrave figured things out very quickly and ended up with an incredible overall season on the mound, while Estevez struggled in the first few AA weeks of his career, only to settle down and eventually settle in to the Rock Cats’ closer’s role.

Big league ready: He’s not big league ready yet, but Matt Carasiti will be spending this fall in the Arizona Fall League after earning 22 saves with the Nuts this summer. Carasiti struck out 57 in 56.2 innings and finished 42 games this summer, so obviously the Rockies believe he has some kind of late-inning power arm potential that they’d like to explore more in the best fall situation in which a prospect can find themselves.

Next: Looking ahead to 2016