Former Fireflies Report

After over two months of existence, the time has finally come! It's now time to take a look at Fireflies who no longer play for the Fireflies. The material for this comes from having three players promoted to High A this week: Tucker Tharp who came off the DL, and Vinny Siena and P.J. Conlon who were rewarded for big seasons for the Fireflies. I'll take a look at hitters and pitchers separately, sorted by "adjusted score". This is the same score I use for the player standings multiplied by the level they are at: doubled for each level above regular Class A, and halved for each level below it. For the purposes of tracking players, I consider the NYPL to be Low A, even though the SAL is often referred as such to that. Technically there are levels of Class A below and above the SAL, so the Fireflies are basically "Middle A". So, let's take a look now:

Hitters

Batter	Level	TB	R	RBI	BB/HBP	SB	CS	0 for 1	SO	Score	Adjusted Score	AVG	HR	OPS
Tucker Tharp	High A	4	1	2	2	1	0	8	3	32	64	0.333	0	0.762
Emmanuel Zabala	Low A	7	3	3	3	3	1	26	8	44	22	0.133	1	0.439
Vinny Siena	High A	1	0	0	3	1	0	8	2	6	12	0.111	0	0.444

Emmanuel Zabala has the highest score, but not when adjusted due to the fact that he is currently playing below the Fireflies' level. He started delivering good power numbers to start the New York-Penn League season, but now has slumped badly. If he recovers I could see him replacing Lupo soon as a Firefly.
Tucker Tharp has had an okay week for the St. Lucie Mets after coming off the DL, and is probably the best of former Firefly hitters. He has had an excellent year aside from ball-to-the-face, which is a pleasant surprise to see.
Vinny Siena has been doing what one would expect from him based on his last few weeks as a Firefly: struggling to hit the ball but getting on base. As one would expect, there is a transition in facing better pitchers in the FSL than he saw in the SAL. Hopefully he will get better as the season progresses.

Pitchers

Pitcher	Level	Outs	K	ER	H	BB/HBP	W	S	L	Score	Adjusted Score	ERA	WHIP	K/9IP
Andrew Church	High A	62	12	7	18	10	1	1	0	216	432	3.05	1.26	5.23
P.J. Conlon	High A	21	3	2	7	2	0	0	0	53	106	2.57	1.29	3.86
Nicco Blank	Low A	11	7	1	2	2	0	0	0	50	25	2.45	1.09	3.5

Andrew Church, the first Firefly promoted, has also been the best former Firefly. He was of course also only very briefly a Firefly. And he will likely be the first Firefly who makes the majors, one who most Firefly fans would not have had a chance to catch including myself. Darn.
P.J. Conlon was promoted on the basis of being the greatest Firefly of them all. His first start in PSL was last night and went how one might expect, not overpowering but good enough to keep St. Lucie in the game allow them to win in the 9th. He also will have to adjust to better batters, and it will be interesting to see if his stuff is good enough for him to continue to be successful.
Nicco Blank so far is making a nice recovery in Brooklyn after a few bad outings for the Fireflies. Of course he also started smoothly with the Fireflies before he came undone. Hopefully he will get more quality relief appearances for the Mets to see what he is capable of.

Of the 33 Fireflies to play a game this year, 24 of them are still an active Firefly. 4 of them are in High A and 2 of them are in Low (or Short Season) A and were featured above. And 3 are currently on the DL (Jose Garcia, Thomas McIlraith, and David Thompson).