After standout season with the bat, Rays' Flewelling focusing on defense in Fall League
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Nathan Flewelling got 486 plate appearances for High-A Bowling Green during the regular season. That’s the fourth most by a catcher at High-A in their age-19 or younger season since 2006, trailing only Tommy Joseph (560, 2011), Eduardo Tait (520, 2026) and Carter Jensen (497, 2023). Flewelling also played 656 innings behind the plate for the Rays’ South Atlantic League affiliate. If you include the Hot Rods’ brief postseason run, his 2026 season began on April 3 and ended on Sept. 10 with no time spent on the injured list; his only time listed as inactive was when he went to Philadelphia for the All-Star Futures Game.
That’s a long campaign by any stretch, and the traditional thing would be to send Flewelling back home to Alberta to rest up in his second career offseason. The Rays have gone a different way, assigning their No. 4 prospect to Scottsdale in this year’s Arizona Fall League in its long search for a true homegrown catcher.
“I think [it’s about] just keeping a lot of momentum going that we kind of gained throughout the season in terms of my defensive development,” Flewelling said. “I think that this is going to be a great opportunity for me to continue to get high-level reps against high-level opponents and play with high-level teammates. It was too good of an opportunity not to come here obviously. I think everybody who is anybody played here, and I want to be those guys that are in the big leagues making an impact right now.”
Focusing on defense in an environment where the 2024 third-rounder will work with new pitchers from the Rays' system alongside arms from the Astros, Brewers, Giants and Tigers is a sensible one given where Flewelling is right now in his timeline.
By focusing on strength training, an improved approach and more fine-tuned bat path, the left-handed-hitting slugger already broke out offensively this season with a .243/.364/.452 line in his 106 games with Bowling Green. That .452 slugging percentage was a significant jump from his .336 mark in 2025 with Single-A Charleston, and his homer output increased more than threefold from six to 21 year to year. Flewelling has carried those hard-hitting ways to the Scorpions' lineup by going 11-for-24 (.458) with a double and six RBIs through his first six games. He’s maxed out with a 111.0 mph exit velocity, and nine of his 15 batted balls (60 percent) in front of Statcast have exceeded the hard-hit standard of 95 mph.
But if Flewelling is going to be more than a bat-first backstop in his pursuit of being the Rays’ catcher of the future – no easy task with the high-contact, defensively solid Caden Bodine climbing above him to the upper levels first – he’ll have focus on the glovework and arm strength as he gains exposure to different pitching styles and repertoires from his new Scorpions teammates.
“I've understood the game a lot better in terms of pitch calling and reading swings and understanding who's on the mound,” Flewelling said. “Then I think just toolswise, my receiving and blocking is getting better [as is] my throwing. I'm happy where that's at with the accuracy, but I think I'm going to throw harder as I get older and the reps keep going and I'm getting more comfortable back there each day.”
That remains a work in progress, as is to be expected from someone who is still a teenager for one more month before his 20th birthday in November. Flewelling has only thrown out three of 14 attempted basestealers in the desert so far, though he does have two Statcast-measured pop times below 1.9 seconds.
The whole point is to build up experiences now that Flewelling can call on later if and when he does assume duties behind the plate for the Rays in a few years. He already has one of those as this year’s Futures Game MVP after he hit the showcase’s only homer off Phillies righty Wen-Hui Pan. Consider this time in the desert additional deposits in the memory bank for MLB Pipeline’s No. 63 overall prospect.
“It just meant a lot to me, obviously,” Flewelling said of the Futures Game homer. “You go into there having no expectations, just want to play your game and do your best, and I was lucky to get one that day and obviously that'll be a day that I never forget.”
Rays hitters in the Fall League
Brendan Summerhill, OF (No. 28): The 2025 42nd overall pick makes for a fun Fall League story in his return to the Grand Canyon State after three years at Arizona (he even caught his former head coach Chip Hale’s first pitch during the Tucson doubleheader). But he’s a prime AFL candidate anyways after being limited early on in his first full season by hamstring and shoulder injuries, eventually hitting .251/.351/.353 with five homers and 24 steals in 85 games across the Rookie, Single-A and High-A levels. He’s off to a more solid start with Scottsdale, going 5-for-13 (.385) with four walks and three strikeouts through five games, but none of his eight balls in play in front of Statcast have exceeded an exit velocity of 91.9 mph.
Narciso Polanco, INF: Outside of repeating Single-A in 2024 and 2025, Polanco has been a steady riser in the Rays' system since signing for $150,000 out of the Dominican Republic in January 2022. He set a new career high with nine homers this season for High-A Bowling Green while hitting .253/.339/.385 over 116 games in the South Atlantic League. Polanco, who is Rule-5 eligible this offseason, added 25 steals for his third straight season with at least 25 thefts. He mostly focused on shortstop and third base in ‘26 but also has seen time at second in the early days of the AFL.
Rays pitchers in the Fall League
Cesar De Jesus, LHP: The 23-year-old left-hander spent all season with Single-A Charleston, posting a 2.36 ERA with 29 strikeouts and 18 walks over 26 ⅔ innings of relief, and threw his sinking fastball a lot, 81 percent of the time, per Synergy. He can run the heater up to 98 mph, though it typically sits in the mid-90s as it has in early AFL action, and he has a mid-80s slider to play off it. De Jesus has negative splits with the way his primary pitch runs away from righties, but he’s yet to post a walk rate below 14 percent in any of his five Minor League seasons.
Marcus Johnson, RHP: Acquired from the Marlins in November 2022 as part of the deal for Xavier Edwards and JT Chargois, Johnson has been one of Tampa Bay’s best control artists since that move but has been limited over the last three years, first by surgery to address loose bodies in his elbow in ‘24 and then by elbow inflammation this spring. He tossed only 33 2/3 innings between Double-A and Triple-A in ‘26, finishing with an 8.55 ERA, 24 strikeouts and 11 walks in that time. The 6-foot-6 righty will continue to focus on finding his footing with Scottsdale after allowing six earned runs over 6 1/3 innings in his first two appearances of the fall. He works with a four-seamer and sinker in the low-90s along with a mid-80s cutter, low-80s slider and upper-70s curveball that need to be commanded well if he’s going to find success given his lack of overwhelming stuff.
Mason Nichols, RHP: Nichols started in his final spring on campus at Ole Miss but has moved straight into relief after going to the Rays in the ninth round in 2025. He owned a 5.37 ERA with 73 strikeouts and 32 walks in 58 2/3 innings at Single-A and High-A in his first full season, though he struggled much more at the higher level with six homers allowed in 15 appearances. Nichols sits 92-95 mph with his four-seamer and has a short mid-80s slider/cutter and upper-80s changeup.
Andy Rodriguez, RHP: Another pure reliever, Rodriguez has already touched 101.2 mph this fall with Scottsdale and generally sits in the upper-90s with his heavy, heavy sinker. He plays off that with an 84-88 mph slider from his low three-quarters slot. The 24-year-old righty put up a 3.86 ERA with 24 strikeouts and a 50.6 percent ground-ball rate over 30 1/3 innings with Bowling Green this season.
Yereny Teus, RHP: Teus doesn’t cut a huge figure on the mound at 5-foot-10, but he certainly put up big-time numbers in his age-22 season for Single-A Charleston: namely a 2.00 ERA, a .122 average against and 80 strikeouts in 54 innings of relief. His 38.1 percent K rate was 15th best among 1,382 Minor Leaguers with at least 50 frames this season. While using a 90-93 mph fastball, Teus earns his best grades on an 82-85 mph changeup and a low-80s breaking ball that both earned whiff rates at or above 60 percent, per Synergy. Fall League batters will represent a better test than their Single-A counterparts.