The Arizona Fall League All-Star Game is just three days away and the league announced the roster for both teams and the National League had two Braves representatives make the squad.
It is of no surprise that both Nacho Alvarez Jr., and Luke Sinnard both cracked the team – though Sinnard will be inactive for the game.
While the Desert Dogs are in dead last, sitting at 8-15 on the season, Nacho and Luke have both had very strong AFL seasons. Nacho Alvarez Jr. currently ranks 16th in the league in OPS, sitting at .917. He’s appeared in 17 of the games and has hit .306/.449/.468, including a 5-for-5 game less than a week ago. He was a surprise addition to the AFL roster, considering his MLB experience, but after an injury laden season the Braves wanted him to get some more work in this season and it has worked quite well.
Luke, a 6’8” pitching machine out of the University of Indiana, made his professional debut this season with lots of success. Luke absolutely dominated Rome (0.92 ERA across 7 games) before being promoted to Augusta. In Augusta he faced a little more adversity with his ground ball rate dropping to 39%, which was a factor in his ERA jumping all the way up to 4.19, but his FIP still sat at 3.09 and he quickly made a name for himself because of his stature, ability to repeat his mechanics, and his overall arsenal. The Braves like what they saw and sent him to the AFL where he was downright sensational until his last start where he surrendered a pair of homers. That said, in the extremely hitting friendly league, Luke sits 17th in the league in ERA (3.86) and has continued his good work.