Winston-Salem 2025 Year in Review – Several Dash Players Looking Like Possible Big League Contributors
Photo: Ian Eskridge
Seventeen Dash players, by my count, were promoted from Winston-Salem to Birmingham during the 2025 season. It is a big number, and the quantity alone is impressive. But what’s even more exciting is that I can see several guys in the group one day getting a shot with the major-league club.
The two can’t-miss guys are outfielder Braden Montgomery and starting pitcher Tanner McDougal. They’re both destined for the majors, the only question is their level of success. Montgomery had a slash line across three levels this year of .270/.360/.444, with 34 doubles, four triples and 12 homers. McDougal, meanwhile, made 13 starts in Winston-Salem, with a 3.28 ERA, and another 15 in Birmingham, with a 3.23 ERA.
Two more less-heralded players, infielder Sam Antonacci and starter Shane Murphy, enjoyed hugely successful seasons in Birmingham after their bumps from High-A, such that they appear ticketed for a role in Chicago next year as well barring something crazy. In 53 games in Winston-Salem, Antonacci had 63 hits, plus 39 walks (to just 37 strikeouts) for a .425 obp. Murphy tossed just 10 innings in High-A, after which he left the Dash for Birmingham before a late-season promotion to Charlotte.
It is more of a crapshoot about what the future holds for all the other guys who were promoted up from the Dash this year. Hitting in Birmingham isn’t easy, but two 2023 draftees, Ryan Galanie and Caden Connor, had solid years in Double-A after their promotions from Winston-Salem. They’re advancing nicely in their MILB careers. (I just happened to be hanging around the Dash dugout after a game in late April when I saw manager Pat Leyland give Galanie the news. It is always is emotional, always ends with an embrace and is always exciting for both player and manager.)
For the remaining 11 Dash-ers who were promoted from Winston-Salem to Birmingham in 2025 — including position players Jackson Appel, Alec Makarewicz, Matt Hogan and Jordan Sprinkle; starter Lucas Gordon; and relievers Phil Fox, Mark McLaughlin, Carson Jacobs, Luke Bell, Tommy Vail and Jared Kelley — there’s still a lot to be proven at the higher levels of the minors before we begin to get an idea what if anything they’ll provide the big-league club. But they continue climbing the MILB ladder.
Yet Another Wave
What’s equally exciting is that there’s still another wave of promising guys who finished the year in Winston-Salem, including three position players, Jeral Perez, Drake Logan and Samuel Zavala, and will likely find themselves in Birmingham early next year. Two others, Ryan Burrowes and TJ McCants, were mid-year promotions from Kannapolis and will likely spend a good portion of next year with the Dash.
Perez’ power continues to amaze onlookers. In 2025, in 125 games, the second baseman blasted 24 doubles, four triples and 22 homers, the latter of which was tops in the South Atlantic League. Plus, he’s still just 20 years old and will only get stronger.
Zavala, 21, was a highly-regarded prospect when he was acquired from the Padres in the Dylan Cease trade. But he struggled in Winston-Salem in 2024, hitting just .187. He hit just .171 in April and .219 in May of this year, causing many of us to question whether his skills had been over-stated. But it all came together in June, and he was one of the more potent bats the rest of the season for the Dash, ending the year with a .254 batting average and a .360 OBP.
Because he is older, at 25, Logan’s path is a bit trickier. Plus, injuries limited him to just 46 games in Winston-Salem this year. But they were productive games, with a .258 batting average and a .327 obp. Logan finished his season with the Knights and was quite productive there.
On the mound, Dash starters Jake Bockenstedt and Frankeli Arias could get the call to Birmingham to open 2026, along with several relievers, though it is unclear if they’ll remain in the rotation. Arias flew under the radar a bit this year but posted a solid year, with a 3.76 ERA in 17 starts and 88.2 innings. He’s not a big strikeout guy, with 69 whiffs (against 40 walks), but it was a nice year for the lefty.
That said, the two most exciting arms with the Dash are starters Christian Oppor and Aldrin Batista. Oppor, a 5th-round draft pick in 2023, spent all of 2024 in Arizona tweaking his mechanics before joining Kannapolis this year. After 5 dominating starts in Low-A, he was promoted to Winston-Salem, where he made 17 starts and seemed to improve as the season wore on.
Across both levels, he tossed 87.2 innings, with an impressive 116 strikeouts and a 3.08 ERA. Batista, meanwhile, was an emerging star in 2024 and big things were expected from the 22-year-old righty when he suffered a stress fracture in his pitching elbow at the outset of 2025. He returned for 10.1 innings in the final two weeks of the season and there’s still every reason to think that he has the skills to advance to Birmingham and Charlotte, and ultimately contribute in the big leagues.
Hitters Hold Their Own
Overall, the Dash ended the year at 56-74, the third fewest wins in the 12-team South Atlantic League. And for much of the year, the team was hard pressed to generate much momentum, especially as its top players moved fairly quickly onto Birmingham.
But that changed the final month of the season when Leyland had the Dash playing some of the best baseball in the league. They came up just short in a second-half pursuit of the division pennant but played a lot of meaningful games the final two weeks of the season.
The offense managed to keep pace with the rest of the South Atlantic League, finishing 4th in batting average, third in slugging and fifth in runs, homers and OBP.
Even without Galanie, Connor, Antonacci and Montgomery, the team found other reliable bats, led by strong finishes from Perez, Appel, Makarewicz and Zavala, as well as Ryan Burrowes, who came up from Kannapolis and produced. And the arrival of emerging phenom Caleb Bonemer for the last two weeks of the season boosted the team’s post-season chase. In 11 games, Bonemer hit .278, with a .409 obp, plus seven extra-base-hits.
In August, when the White Sox began farming out their 2025 college draftees to get some late-season affiliate experience, all the position players were shipped to Kannapolis, with one exception, third-round pick Kyle Lodise, a shortstop out of Georgia Tech. But Lodise struggled at the plate in his Winston-Salem debut, hitting just .185, though 15 walks to 21 strikeouts suggests decent plate discipline. It isn’t uncommon for college bats to struggle in their first forays in pro ball. They’re usually tired from a long season, they’re switching to wood bats, and it is a huge adjustment in general. But the end-of-season experience will no doubt prove invaluable for Lodise when he’s back in 2026.
While the offense hung in there for the Dash throughout the season, pitching was the team’s achilles heel, finishing second in the league in hits allowed, fourth in walks, fifth in home runs and 10th in ERA. The team just wasn’t able to overcome the Batista injury and the promotions of McDougal and Murphy. And, except for Oppor, there just weren’t substantial reinforcements arriving from Kannapolis.
A Look At 2026
It is probably a fool’s errand to attempt to predict the Dash opening day roster, but I’m guessing it will include Bonemer, Lodise, Burrowes and holdovers like Cole McConnell, Arxy Hernandez and Lyle Miller-Green. I’m assuming Zavala and Perez will be in Birmingham. Newcomers from Kannapolis will probably include George Wolkow, Ronny Hernandez and Javier Mogollon.
The pitching staff will be interesting and could be a strength of the team, depending on a successful transition to High-A for 2025 Kannapolis rotation stalwarts Grant Umberger, Justin Sinibaldi, Ricardo Brizuela and Luis Reyes, who theoretically could join Oppor and Batista. And a couple of 2025 college draftee pitchers will likely also be in Winston-Salem after brief appearances in Kannapolis.
The pipeline continues to flow!
Related Content:
Kannapolis 2025 Year in Review: 19 Ballers Make the Jump to High-A
Trending on the Farm: Kyle Lodise breaks out, Caleb Bonemer headed to Winston-Salem
