Nationals Arm Race

A quick one today; Baseball Prospectus released both their Nats top prospect list and the Organizational rankings. Now, interestingly, BP’s stuff is normally 100% behind a paywall, and i’m just not inclined to pay for their stuff anymore (unlike the subscriptions I maintain for BA, ESPN+, the Athletic, D1Baseball, etc). I just never see stories that interest me. But, for reasons inexplicable, BP’s link actually revealed their top 10 for the system. I’m not sure how much further they rank, but we get their top 10.

And, their top 10 is super interesting. Here’s a quick cut n paste of BP’s top 10. If anyone out there has the rest .. i’d love to see it.

The Top Ten:

1. Dylan Crews, OF
2. James Wood, OF
3. Brady House, 3B
4. Cade Cavalli, RHP
5. Yohandy Morales, 3B
6. Jarlin Susana, RHP
7. Travis Sykora, RHP
8. DJ Herz, LHP
9. Andrew Pinckney, OF
10. Robert Hassell III, OF

Here’s some quick commentary. Clearly BP likes young arms.

• Same 1-4 as basically everyone else.
• Morales is generally settling in as #5 on a lot of lists now. That’s great news for a 2023 draftee, and it’ll be interesting to see what the team does with him positionally since House is pretty entrenched at 3B. The guy is 6’4″ 250lbs. Phew, that’s a 1B for sure. No chance he’s moving to a corner OF spot at 250lbs.
• Susana at #6. Easily the highest we’ve seen so far for Susana. Ok, so why is he so high? well its easy: He’s 6’6″ and can hit 103 and he’s still 19 (turns 20 in March). Aggregate 2023 numbers: 1-6, 5.14 ERA, 1.52 whip. 17 starts but only 63IP; he generally went 4 innings a stint. Was fantastic in June, then got shelled in July and Aug. He’s ranked this high b/c you can’t teach 103mph, plain and simple.
• Sykora at #7. BP again the high rank on this guy. Electric fastball, secondary pitches and control needs work. Typical for a prep draftee. This is a ranking entirely driven by ceiling, but so much can go wrong with a guy like Sykora its hard for me to put him this high.
• Herz at #8. Nobody else has him even in the top 15. He certainly pitched well enough in 2024. Interestingly, BA lists his changeup as a 65, easily his best pitch. Can’t be effective with a change like that unless you’re a starter, and unless you can command the fastball though, two issues he has right now.
• Pinckney at #9, again easily high ranking for this guy. He was a below-slot senior draftee who blew through the lower minors as a 22yr old (now 23). Is he really our 9th best prospect?? A senior draftee who was probably a 6th round projection six months ago is a higher ranked prospect than an upper 1st round talent like Green who has two 70-grade tools? Or an IFA who got nearly $5M in 2022 and who is already stateside in Vaquero?
• Hassell dumped down to 10, in a “what have you done for me lately” move.

Well, I guess BP really likes young power arms and old college bats.

I don’t normally include Nats blogger prospect list analysis since, well, lets be honest we’re bloggers, not nationally-connected scouting specialists who spend months as their full time job calling scouting directors and texting MLB GMs to get their intel. Plus, i’m doing this as a fan and I hate to criticize another fan’s work. But when I saw respected long-time nats blogger Stephen “Ghost” Mears post a top 30 … and knowing how much I like top 30 prospect lists, I couldn’t help myself, and have included his list here along with the big boys.

By including this list, I promise to generate my own list for the system as well. Fair is fair. I’ve got a preliminary top 50 ranking right now for our system, which I’ll continue to tweak now that the BA scouting reports are updated.

Here’s the pre-2024 list of prospect ranks that have been published so far.

• BA’s pre-read top 10, announced 11/6/23 (link now defaults to top 30 released today; no changes from the top 10 in Nov to now, a slight indictment perhaps of the BA process)
• Prospects361 top 10, released 11/24/23
• MLBPipeline top 30, post rule5/pre off-season analysis released 12/7/23. Note, the MLBPipeline link always defaults to the current, but i retain the rankings at the time of the capture into an XLS
• Baseball America 2024 top 30 1/24/24:

Here’s Ghost’s list:

And here’s some commentary.

• Same 1-4 as most shops. Most pundits call our system “top heavy” which keeps us from being ranked higher in the overall organization ranks. Fair enough. If Henry had progressed as expected and a couple of these uber expensive IFAs recently were closer to Juan Soto than … well some guy named Juan who isn’t a prospect, we’d be higher ranked. And closer to contention.
• Despite Hassell’s 2023 struggles, Ghost has him at #5. Lets hope he rebounds in 2024. Remember, he was our clear #2 prospect in most major publications last spring.
• He remains a little high on Bennett at #9 despite no 2024. The only thing i’m worried about with Bennett (well, besides the fact that he had his arm cut wide open in August or whenever) is that he really didn’t do well in high-A once he got there. A 2nd round major conference draftee should have STARTED in High-A last year. Instead he toyed with kids in Low-A for nearly two months before going to Wilmington and, well frankly, getting hit. 6 starts, 5.57 ERA, 1.62 whip before he blew the UCL. How many of those starts were with a strained UCL? Who knows. He’ll turn 24 before he throws another pitch, will be back in Wilmington, and will be behind schedule. Is that a top 10 prospect? Not for me. Too much risk.
• Jacob Young #10. Ok. so, prospect lists are a combination of floor and ceiling. What is Young’s floor? Well, before 2023 he had no real floor. So now we know, he’s a gritty Lenny Dykstra undersized CF spark plug who can make sh*t happen. But what’s his ceiling? He got 4 whole games in AAA before getting called up to cover for a thin OF at the MLB level and he didn’t do half bad. Better numbers than Alex frigging Call, that’s for sure. Young had 13 SBs in 33 games; that’s Vinny Coleman SB rates. But the MLB OF has too many guys right now; Robles kind of has to play CF for the arb salary he’s getting, Garrett earned the corner OF spot, and of course so did Thomas. You don’t want Young riding the pine in the majors, so he’ll be in AAA again to start 2024. What’s his ceiling? Can he hit .290 with mid .350 OBP and 50 SBs in the majors? If that’s the case, then heck yeah he’s #10 prospect, maybe higher.
• Green down to #11. That’s too low for a guy with three tools in the 60s and a team admitting they’re futzing with his swing. Talking about Ceiling; he has as much ceiling as Crews and Wood by BA scouting reports, and he has a power/speed combo that’s Ronald Acuna-esque. But his hit tool grade right now is like that of a high schooler.
• Ghost has our new IFAs at #17 and #22. Fair enough. He has our new Rule5 guy at #24, right inline with BA. Fine by me; i’m almost to the point of ignoring prospects until they get to the domestic leagues. Quick; can anyone tell me the names of our two 7-figure IFA signings last January? Or how they performed last summer in the DSL? Yeah, I didn’t think so (by the way, its Andy Acevedo and Edwin Solano, both signed for $1.3M. DSL 2023 lines respectively: .170/.299/.248 and .117/.224/.133. that’s right: Solano hit .117; 15 for 128 with exactly two extra base hits all season. That was money well spent.
• Drew Millas at #18 but Pineda out of the top 30. Here’s a quick comparison of our two other 40-man catchers right now. Millas 26, switch hitter, spent around 2/3rds of last year in AAA, solid offensive numbers, good speed, average defender, 28% CS rate. Pineda is 23, was in AAA at the end of 2022 but was sent back to high-A in 2023 and struggled at the plate. Based on pure stats, Millas is better. But he’s also got 3 years on Pineda and that really discounts Pineda’s 2022, which is mostly why BA has Pineda higher than Millas right now. Right before publishing, Pineda got DFA’d off the 40-man and i’ll bet someone picks him up, so it may not matter, but its certainly a weird choice to cut to make room for Joey Gallo when they have waiver wire RHP relievers who had ERAs in the 5s and 6s last year who they could have cut instead.
• TJ White at #19. Why?? .170/.277/.279 in 2023 with no position and missed half the year. That’s not a recipe for success.
• Andry Lara at #25, after BA didn’t rank him at all. Ok, so on the bright side his whip went down in High A, and he’s still only 21, and we know he finished strong in 2023. His aggregate numbers for his career still suck.
• Cole Henry at #30. This is a ranking that says, “well, I don’t think he’s ever going to be healthy again, but on the off-chance he is, he’s still ranked.”

Unmentioned in the top 30: Acevedo, Made, and Pineda as mentioned. Nothing egregious.

All in all, not a bad list. I agree with big chunks of the rankings of players hoenstly.

The first major shop to release a significant ranking for the 2024 prospect season has come out, and it is the standard bearer Baseball America. This year i’ll keep a running list of every ranking that i’ve seen and just build on it as i post. So far, here’s what we’ve seen:

Here is a list of Every Nats prospect list i’ve ever captured. It was last uploaded 1/25/24 to capture the data from last June to today. There’s now 223 ranking lists in this xls, dating to the Baseball America Nov 2004 ranking for our 2004 prospects (#1 prospect for the system in Nov 2004? Mike Hinckley. ouch).

Here’s the pre-2024 list of prospect ranks that have been published so far.

• BA’s pre-read top 10, announced 11/6/23 (link now defaults to top 30 released today; no changes from the top 10 in Nov to now, a slight indictment perhaps of the BA process)
• Prospects361 top 10, released 11/24/23
• MLBPipeline top 30, post rule5/pre off-season analysis released 12/7/23. Note, the MLBPipeline link always defaults to the current, but i retain the rankings at the time of the capture into an XLS
• Baseball America 2024 top 30 1/24/24: this post

Still to come: Baseball Prospectus, MLBPipeline, Eric Longenhagen/Fangraphs, Keith Law/the Athletic, Prospects1500, Bleacher Report, CBSSports, ProspectsLive, and Prospect Digest. So, lots to come.

Here’s a direct link to the Baseball America 2024 Nats top 30, which is behind a paywall but i’m a subscriber so I’ll list them here. It has detailed scouting reports on all 30 players, which is great especially for the new IFAs.

Here’s some analysis, going from top to bottom.

• BA has the same basic top 4 for us as nearly every other shop at this point.
• Cavalli is now 25 and is the oldest guy on the top 30. A big portion of our future fortunes sit on his shoulders and his ability to come back at the #2 starter that he was purported to be prior to TJ.
• Morales up to #5 is great to see, especially given our (crummy) track record of 2nd round picks.
• Rutledge at #6 is great news. A year ago he was in the mid-teens at best on most lists. Now he’s on the verge of losing his rookie status in 2024. Based on where he was in 2022, even if he’s a 5th starter that’s found gold.
• Green down to #9. Ok so 139 strikeouts in 75 low-A games isn’t a good thing. His scouting report at BA is an interesting read. Here’s how they grade his tools: Scouting Grades Hit: 30 | Power: 60 | Run: 70 | Field: 55 | Arm: 60. that’s two 60s and a 70. Nobody has 60 power and 70 run; that’s like Eric Davis type combos. He’s a project.
• Our two big IFA signings this month (Victor Hurtado and Angel Feliz) come in at #12 and #24. Ok that’s good. They were both reasonable signings for IFAs; not the $4M for a 16yr old kind.
• We also picked up a new prospect with our Rule5 draftee, Nasim Nunez. Coincidentally, I wonder if Nunez’ drafting spells the end for Kieboom; he’s got no options, they’ve bought a starting 3B and a starting 1B, and he can’t play middle infield like Vargas and Nunez. Heck, even Alu has more positional flexibility than Kieboom.
• Both Bennett (TJ – out all of 2024) and Sykora (prep kid who threw zero innings in 2023) are ahead of DJ Herz. Herz, lest anyone forget, is just 23, solved AA, is on the 40-man roster and is certain to get looks this year. Um. what are we looking at here boys?
• Jacob Young at #18 … well I should hope so!! All he did was rise 3 levels last year and may very well be the starting CF if Robles gets hurt, again.
• Pineda and Millas back to back at 21 and 22. I think the BA staff has guidelines that say, “ok when you get to the mid 20s, just throw in their top-level catcher depth b/c we know they’ll get looks eventually).
• Kevin Made absolutely fell apart after we acquired him, and plummeted down the list. Hope he can recover.
• Mitchell Parker bringing up the rear at #30. So, #30 is where you put polished lefties who are on the 40 man who have solved three minor league levels by the age of 24. Got it

Missing names of note:

• Andy Acevedo and Edwin Solano; both were $1.3M IFA signings last January, and who did near nothing all summer in 2023.
• Brennar Cox. As high as #11 on some lists last year. Geeze. Why do we ever draft prep kids?
• Andry Lara; finally someone ranks him realistically.

All in all, not much to complain about with this list.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The second early publisher of prospect top 10s is Prospects361, written by Rich Wilson, with a definite fantasy focus. I believe he ranks deeper than 10, but you can only see 10 without a premium account.

Pre-2024 Prospect Lists and Analysis:

• Baseball America’s short list/top 10
• Prospects 361/Rich Wilson (this post)

Here’s his top 10 list for us.

Quick reaction to this top 10 list.

• Nothing really shocking here, despite Wilson’s fantasy tint. For the most part this is a defensible list.
• In the lead-up to the list, he does notice that a lot of our top prospects took steps back or struggled in 2023. And yes he’s right. Hassell didn’t seem right all year. Cavalli missed the entire season with TJ. Bennett GOT TJ. Green strikes out half the time he bats. Susana can’t find the plate. So yeah there’s some angst in the system.
• His top 3 are basically the same as anyone elses right now: Crews, Wood, House.
• Putting Vaquero 4th is ridiculous … and is one of the two really notable fantasy-tinged picks in this list. He’s doing analysis for dynasty leagues who are drafting 18 and 19yr olds, and in those leagues guys like Vaquero are getting snapped up.
• He’s dinged Green down to 8th, whereas most have him a bit higher. He has to figure out how to not strike out.
• 10th was Sykora, entirely on draft bonus amount and hype.

The highest players he doesn’t have ranked would include the likes of:

• Rutledge, who still maintains rookie status. I guess when you’re a 6th starter in the majors, you’re less valuable than an 18 yr old who hasn’t thrown a pitch in pro ball.
• Lile, who MLBpipeline is super-high on.
• Bennett, though to no surprise since he is missing all of 2024.

As was posted yesterday (early this morning?) by Luke over at NationalsProspects.com, BA released its list of known 2023 Minor League Free Agents by team this week. The Nats had no fewer than 30 (!) players listed on BA’s list, to go along with a couple of guys who elected FA a bit earlier this off season plus one guy in Sean Doolittle who was technically declared a MLFA but who announced his retirement in September.

Nats Big Board is now updated; go to the “2024 Releases” tab to see the 30-some odd names just declared FAs.

This massive number of names to me is indicative of one main fact w/r/t our player development lately: we have been signing an inordinate number of MLFAs to one year deals to cover the upper levels of the system. By my count, 19 of these names were signed as MLFAs ahead of the 2023 season. Some of them got MLB playing time as experienced vets (Derek Hill, Anthony Banda) and some of them are still on the 40-man (Meneses, Vargas, and Weems were all MLFAs). But we’ve depended on so many of these guys lately, especially to fill the AAA rosters.

Eight of these newly declared MLFAs were home-grown, which means they’ve been in our system for a long, long time. Many were once well-regarded prospects and we’ve discussed them in this space for years. For all these players, the Draft Tracker and IFA trackers are now updated to indicate their departure. These releases officially cut ties with most of the 2016 IFA class and 2017 Draft class.

• Jake Noll: 16D 7th rounder. Earned a 40-man spot, couldn’t hold on to it.
• Wilmer Perez: 16IFA Catcher who has bounced around levels for years as a backup catcher.
• Yasel Antuna: 16IFA with a massive bonus who never paid off and clogged our 40-man roster for years. A perfect example of teams ignoring simple Economic theory w/r/t Sunk Costs and continuing to treat signing bonuses as “investments” instead of the transactional cash payments they really are.
• Jose Sanchez: another 16IFA backup SS who filled in at High-A and AA this year.
• Alex Troop, 17D 9th rounder who became the classic lefty Long Reliever/Spot Starter rubber-armed guy who soaked up innings for both AAA and AA for this team for years. I could see him re-upping if given the opportunity; he ended up being in the AA rotation for a big chunk of 2023.
• Pedro Gonzalez, 17IFA middle RHP multi-inning reliever who just kind of soaked up innings for Low-A this year.
• Jackson Tetreault: 17D 7th rounder who always seemed to fly under the radar, but got a bunch of starts in AAA in 2022 and looked like he could be a find, getting promoted to the big club. But, he got hurt, missed most of 2023, and now he’s in career limbo. Like Troop, I wonder if he’ll re-up with the team.
• Malvin Pena, a 14IFA (wow) who’s been pitching in this organization for nearly a decade. Had decent numbers as a AA middle reliever.

Other notable names declared MLFAs:

• Gerardo Carillo: the 3rd guy out of 4 prospects in the LA Dodgers Turner/Scherzer deal. Just never seemed like he could find the plate.
• Donovan Casey, the 4th guy out of 4 prospects in the LA Dodgers Turner/Scherzer deal. Was on the 40-man, couldn’t make it.
• Alameo Hernandez: I liked this guy this year, solving AA as a starter at age 24 and moving up to AAA. I really hope they re-sign him.
• Matt Adams, who stuck with AAA for the entire season despite being 37 and having made millions as a major leaguer. I wonder if he was auditioning for a coaching role.

There’s still some guys who were 16IFA classes or older who remain on the roster despite them seemingly being at the end of their 6-7 years of minor league service. The oldest such name is a 13IFA Luis Reyes, who still is listed as active. Jordy Barley was a 16IFA and remains, as does guys Niomar Gomez and Gerardi Diaz. Either they’ve been declared MLFAs and MILB.com’s site isn’t updated (which happens all.the.time.) or they’ve signed multi-year deals to remain.

Fun fact: The oldest remaining originally drafted player for the team remains Stephen Strasburg, 2009 draftee. After that, the next oldest is Carter Kieboom, 1st rounder in 2016. Zero players now remain with the system for the entire 2017 draft with the MLFA declaration of guys like Troop and Tetreault (this was the Seth Romero draft).

We havn’t even returned the 60-day DL players back to the active roster, and Baseball America goes and drops its first pre-2024 analysis. They released their pre-2024 top 10, plus their list of “best tools” and their stab at a 2027 roster for the team.

Here’s the top 10 and some quick thoughts.

• No surprise on top 3. Wouldn’t surprise me to see all three start in AA in 2024, all three move up together, and all three debut in the majors by mid-season.
• Cavalli at #4 isn’t terribly surprising … if he shows that he’s got pre-TJ stuff upon his return, he could/should be back up to #2.
• Morales really had a solid debut, bumping him above some more familiar names. Its about time we had a 2nd round pick work out for us.
• Rutledge’s 2023 season, which shocked this observer, has him now just outside the top echelon of our prospect royalty. Talk about a turnaround from his 2022 season.
• Hassell’s season just seemed to drag him down, post hamate-bone surgery. Remember, it wasn’t too long ago that he was the #2 prospect in the system. I’d really like to see him regain that luster.
• Vaquero remains more hype than production, but at least he’s stateside now.
• Green’s K numbers have officially taken the shine of his star. He’s dropped to #9 here, and that’s low enough that he’s no longer a sure thing.
• Susana somehow comes in at #10, despite ending the season injured and repeating a level.

Players outside the top 10 looking in. Only one real nit:

• I’d put Lile above Susana at this point.
• I guess Bennett is going to be in the mid teens for the next year and a half with TJ recovery.
• Sykora? Where do you put him?
• DJ Herz? Who would you rather have right now? Herz or Susana? Just saying.

FYI, the Big Board now has a 2024 tab, and i’ve caught it up to today’s moves, which were to return the 60-day DL guys to the 40-man roster, which required the DFA of Matt Cronin. More moves to follow, since we’re definitely looking at some rule-5 protections in a week or so.

(freely stealing this idea from Luke Erickson and nationalsprospects.com, when Luke attends a game in person as he frequently does).

So, for those of you who don’t know, I’ve relocated to Richmond, home of the SF Giant’s AA affiliate known as the “Flying Squirrels.” I suppose its because Virginia’s capital city has a ton of squirrels flying around (no actually, it was a fan-based naming competition back in 2009). And our own Harrisburg Senators were in town this week for a 6-game series. So I got a chance to see our prospects in action last night.

Here’s my recap.

In rough lineup order from last night (here’s the box-score), a game our team lost 7-6 in a walk-off, which was great for the home town fans but pretty galling for a fan of the National’s team, as they blew multiple leads throughout the night to give away the game.

Hitters first:

• It only took about 3 minutes for our team to grab the lead 3-0. As the adage goes in Minor League baseball … get there early because you don’t want to miss any action. We missed it of course because, well, when you’re attending a baseball game with kids, the odds of getting there for opening pitch are usually nil. After a Jacob Young leadoff single and a Robert Hassell walk, Trey Lipscomb blasted a ball to left for a quick 3-run lead while we were parking the car.
• Lipscomb played 2B, has already earned a promotion this year to AA, and has continued to stay hot. He went 3-5 on the night, was a double short of the cycle, is batting 3rd for the AA team, and honestly looks like he could really be a find. We’ve watched Luis Garcia scuffle playing 2B (and looking like he eats big macs every night); Lipscomb is an athletic beast who can play anywhere on the dirt.
• Young: played CF instead of Hassell, went 2-4 with a walk on the night, was a real spark plug at the top, and made a really nice ranging catch at the wall early on. I like this guy too, and talked about how he may possibly fit into the OF log jam of prospects we have.
• James Wood has been struggling since getting to AA, but he hit an absolute blast to right field that was awe-inspiring from our 1st-baseline bleacher seats. Phew. Someone’s going home with a dented roof, because he cleared both fences in right and nailed a car in the parking lot. He was only 1-5 on the night, but he did hit the ball hard 3 times.
• Hassell looked absolutely awful. 0-4 with a walk and three strikeouts. Honestly, not once did he take what i’d call a confident swing. This is consistent with basically his entire Nats career so far. I know he had hamate bone issues, which takes a year to recover from. I know he’s a top prospect and hit while in SD’s system. What the heck is going on here? I mean, was all his production in San Diego’s system due to hitter’s parks?
• Brady House batted 5th and was “just” 1-4, but it was probably a bit unlucky 1-4. He had a sharp line out to 2B for one out and he blasted a ball to CF that was caught on the warning track for another out. He also looked very, very solid at 3B, making a ton of plays, including a couple of in-between hops that looked tough on the way off the bat.
• Frankie Tostado played 1B and batted 6th: nothing striking either way.
• Israel Pineda was free swinging at the plate, waved at a bunch of pitches, had two punchouts. I know his value is behind the plate, but the dude is only hitting .175 for AA right now.
• Lucious Fox…. looked awful at the plate. 0-4, three strikeouts, and his body language basically screamed “I don’t want to be here.” He’s 26, batting 8th in AA, and I wonder why he’s still on the team. At least he’s DFA’d off the 40man at this point. If we had a more pressing SS prospect, i’d guess that he’d be gone. Lipscomb looks more like a 2B/3B guy, Cluff is an org guy, and high-A doesn’t really have anyone banging on the door.
• Jackson Cluff could be starting at SS instead of Fox; tonight he DH’d and batted 9th. Ask yourself: if you are batting your DH ninth … is it safe to say you have roster issues? Normally Cluff is at SS, Trey Harris is at DH, and the team shows a bit more pop. That being said, Cluff, did an admirable job table setting, going 2-3 with a walk and easily stealing bases all night.

Pitchers

• Mitchell Parker got the start on the mound. If you’ve never seen him … his mechanics scream one guy: Clayton Kershaw. He has the same arm stretch straight up to the sky to start, he has similar arm action, a funky delivery, he’s lefty, and he gets a ton of Ks. He had 8 punch-outs in 5IP on the night.
• Parker gave up a run in the 3rd on this sequence: 10-bounce grounder, balk, Wild Pitch, and then sac fly. So, not exactly helping himself, but also not really getting pounded early.
• But he then went this sequence in the 5th: bunt single to open (House was literally playing on the grass at 3B and by the time he got to the bunt the guy was rounding first), then another seeing-eye-single up the middle to have 2 on with nobody out, then Richmond’s best hitter blasted a homer to score three and tie the game.
• Honestly, Parker looked pretty solid on the night. I only saw two really hard hit balls, both by the same guy Shane Matheny who seemed to have a read on him all night. But, as has been a pattern for Parker, he was profligate with his pitches, needing 92 to get through five innings. I still like him as a prospect, even though his ERA in AA is in the upper 4.s
• After Parker came out, 2021 NDFA Tyler Schoff came in and pitched a neatly effective 6th. A NDFA advancing to AA is a pretty solid outcome; he didn’t have super awesome stuff, but he was effective. He’s looking like that classic middle reliever RHP guy who gets by on movement and who suddenly is pitching in the 6th for the big league club.
• Malvin Pena pitched the 7th and 8th; he looked like a slightly trimmer version of Lee Smith on the mound. Pena pitched a clean 7th but then went homer-double-RBI single in the 8th to cough up a 6-4 lead and send the home crowd into a frenzy. The single went to Wood, who made a valiant attempt to throw the guy out at the plate and nearly got him. Solid defensive play.
• So, now its tied 6-6 in the 9th and we bring in Patrick Ruotolo, a MLFA we signed out of the Mexican League in early July and who pitched for this same Richmond team in 2021 for nearly a full season. Now he’s a 28yr old reliever in AA … and he pitched like it. Walk to open the 9th (already a 50% chance of that guy scoring), then a sharply hit single for two-on, none out. Ruotolo did induce what looked like it could be a DP grounder, but it ate up Lipscomb at 2nd and an arguable force-call didn’t go his way. Bases loaded, none out, and the same guy who blasted a homer earlier in the game lofted a deep flyball to CF that easily scored the walk-off run. Not an impressive outing from Ruotolo.

So, that’s the observations from the game. Senators blow leads of 3-0 and 6-4 to lose 7-6. The post-game fireworks were cool though.

First Fangraphs, then BA, now MLBPipeline.

All three shops have taken the opportunity of draft and trade deadline acquisitions to do some tweaking of their lists, even from just a few weeks ago, to come up with new top 30s. Here’s some reaction to MLBpipeline’s list.

First, here’s the 30 now (the data is open to the public via the above link)

Now, here’s some reactions.

• Our big 3 2023 draftees slot in at #1 (Crews), #7 (Morales), and #11 (Sykora). Almost identical to their rankings on BA’s updated list. However, there’s a surprise 2023 draftee further down.
• Daylen Lile gets bumped up tremendously, from 15th just a week ago to #6 now. That’s a statement. That’s above Hassell. Especially for someone who’s hitting .188 in high-A right now as a 20yr old. Might be a bit bullish on Lile, who really will have to work to get ahead of the big-time OF prospects in our system to ever make an impact.
• Hassell takes a dive in the rankings. I get it; he hasn’t hit since we traded for him. He was also 20 in AA last fall and has nursed injuries. Hamate bone breakage is like the TJ for pitchers; its a year before you can really start to pass judgement again. He broke it in last year’s AFL (Oct 13th), so I promise not to complain about him again until 2024.
• Susana gets dropped several spots, and rightfully so. He’s someone who just is not progressing right now.
• Like on BA’s list Lipscomb gets a big bump up. He’s showing solid BA and HR numbers this year and the ability to play anywhere on the dirt. Can’t ask for much more.
• Nice and neat, our two newly acquired prospects in trade (Mead and Herz) slot in at #15 and #16. That’s much higher for Herz than BA’s ranking, and significantly higher for Mead (who BA didn’t even have in top 30-35). Good; I’d like to think we got some value for Candelario.
• Finally some prospect love for Alu, bumped up 10 spots before accounting for the 5 players who layered over top of him (meaning really he increased 15 spots). Just in time for him to probably lose his rookie eligibility, as he seems to be getting a some PT for the big club.
• Jeremy De La Rosa dropped significantly, from 8th to 18th. And rightfully so; he’s ridiculously struggling in High-A as a 21 yr old. Here’s a crazy stat: he has 126Ks in 88 games played. Putting him on the 40-man was such a ridiculous decision, and its looking even more ridiculous each day. Even if he turns it around, by the time he’s ready to make an impact he’ll be totally out of options, forcing the hand of the big club. I said this last fall, and I’ll say it again: NOBODY was going to claim this guy and carry him on their MLB roster for an entire season. Nobody. There was zero reason to add him last fall, and honestly they could have probably snuck him through Rule5 again this coming winter. Grrr.
• Henry dropped from 12 to 19 (so only a couple spots with 5 new people above him), but still indicative of what we all feared; he just doesn’t look like the same guy post surgery. If he can’t recover as a top-end prospect, that really puts a damper on the Nats future rotation plans.
• 2023 4th rounder Andrew Pinckney comes in 20th in his first ranking post draft. Wow. You don’t generally see under-slot draftees from the 4th-10th rounds popping up on prospect ranks.
• Pineda actually bumped up a bunch of slots when accounting for all the new players above him, going from 23 to 22 (so really, rising at least 5 spots). I don’t really understand why; he’s barely played this year. Maybe its just because of how far others have fallen (see next).
• Millas fast rising, from 28 to 23, so really rising 10 spots. As discussed in the comments from before, I think Millas is much more deserving catcher prospect right now than Pineda. I mean, he’s got better offensive numbers, he’s the starter in AAA. Is it just the age difference (25 vs 23 for Pineda?)
• Lara: from 14 to 24 as he continues to dumbfound this observer as to why he’s in High-A.
• Baker goes from 29 to 25, so really up like 9 spots. Makes sense. Still don’t get why you’d have Baker in the low 20s, which usually implies someone who probably doesn’t ever get to the majors, for a player who’s in AAA, has hit at every level, and who probably could make his debut this fall if we get bedeviled with injuries. Is it just a blind spot prospect watchers have for undersized guys who don’t hit 30 homers? Or (as commenters suggested last post) is it an empty slash line? Probably both.
• Armando Cruz gets shredded, from 14th to 27th. I mean, yeah he’s young (19 in low-A) but he was a $3.9M signing. Its a massive indictment of the scouting department down there if he washes out.
• TJ White goes from 10th to 28th. Ouch. I think he’s now riding the bench in High-A, where he might be overpromoted as a 20yr old. I’m not sure what you do with him. He was drafted as an OF, but has been playing primarily 1B/DH and hitting .175.
• Two relievers in Brzycky and Ferrer round out the top 30.

So, who’s dropped out from their last ranking?

• Roddery Munoz was 21st, now is outside top 30. Probably a little harsh; i mean, he’s a 23rd old starter in AAA, would you put him above a reliever who’s out for the year? I would.
• Matt Cronin was 22nd, now outside top 30. Out for the season as we now know with a back issue. Hey, I have a “back issue” too, and I could barely walk for a year … i couldn’t imagine trying to work out every day and pitch.
• Jared McKenzie was 25th, now is outside top 30. MLBpipeline is the only shop that rated him, and he’s struggled in High-A.
• Brenner Cox, Gerardo Carrillo, and Aldo Ramirez rounded out previous MLBpipeline rankings for the system, but are now pushed well into the 30s with our new acquisitions. None of these guys has done anything to improve their stock in 2023.

Other players worth noting:

• Jacob Young: 24th on BA, nowhere to be found here. Probably should be slightly higher.
• Dustin Saenz: probably org guy now.
• Andy Acevedo and Edwin Solano were our two big money signings this past January, but have not really impressed so far in the DSL. Acevedo is slashing .168/.295/.237. Solano .125/.283/.143. I mean come on.
• Amos Willingham: so, I guess a reliever who actually makes the majors isn’t prospect worthy at all, but other relievers who are out for the year are. ??

Lastly, I’d like to make a comment about former prospect Mason Denaburg. On 8/10/23, he pitched in relief for Low-A and put up this stat line: 1/3rd of an inning, 11 batters faced, he gave up 8 hits and walked another 2 of them. First of all, why would the team leave him in for 11 batters at this point? Second of all, why is this guy even in the organization anymore? He’s 24, he has a 2.50 whip in low-A, and he’s gotten no fewer than 26 appearances this season so far. He has given up 51 runs in 34 innings this season. I hate that his career got derailed so badly, but what’s left to prove at this point? He was thrown back in a couple days later and acquitted himself … but I just have to wonder when the plug gets pulled. Maybe the system depth is just so deep that you can

The major shops are starting to read in the 2023 draftees (and 2023 trade deadline acquisitions) to each team’s farm system rankings. As we did ahead of the season, when a major pundit drops an updated ranking i’ll list it here. Technically Fangraphs’ “Big Board” database was the first to publish, since its essentially a running database of every player, amateur or prospect, but their rankings are wonky (as we discussed yesterday), so we just did a brief review. MLBpipeline dropped overnight, so we’ll talk about it next. Baseball America published a couple days ago behind a paywall, so lets review.

Here’s BA’s updated top 30, which includes some re-ranking, new draftees, and new trade acquisitions.

So, Here’s some thoughts on the new names and changes from the pre-draft BA rankings.

• Dylan Crews comes in as our new system #1, which was hard to do because at the time of his drafting we already had a top-5 prospect in James Wood.
• The last time the Nats had two prospects even in the top 10 of the minors was at the very edge of Bryce Harper‘s eligibility, when Anthony Rendon was also ranked highly. The best we ever did while Stephen Strasburg was still eligible seemed to be Drew Storen ranked in the 50-range. So, having a 1-2 punch of Crews and Wood both top 5 is amazing.
• Brady House and Robert Hassell switched spots, probably because House is clearly outperforming Hassell right now. In fact, Hassell basically has stopped hitting after we acquired him; he went from a .290 hitter to a .220 hitter in our organization. I’m not sure what special sauce San Diego gave him, but we need to figure it out.
• Yohandy Morales slots in at #8, between Rutledge and Vaquero. Crews is getting all the attention so far with his hot start in Low-A, but Morales has been there for a week and a half and has a .925 OPS.
• Travis Sykora comes in at #11, right between Bennett and Susana. Hopefully, he’s more like Bennett (well, in as much as he gets to AA quickly, not the “where the heck has Bennett been for two months part) and less like Susana (who has a 5.14 ERA in low-A this year in his age 19 season).
• Trey Lipscomb has been bumped up a couple of slots in the last month thanks to his promotion to AA in his age 23 season and his solid offensive line. However, he’s now bumped from his regular 3B slot by House, who is also in AA, and has been bouncing around to find playing time. He’s got starts at 1B, 2B and SS now, replacing lesser prospects in Harrisburg each time. I sense his eventual spot may end being 2B, replacing the .215 hitting JT Arruda in the lineup. Cluff is also hitting about .215 but plays a true SS, which i’m not sure Lipscomb can do long-term. The situation may work itself out if House keeps mashing his way up the system.
• Jacob Young has been bumped up a few slots. He’s in danger of falling down the depth chart of outfielders given who we have coming up, but for now he’s holding his own and earning promotions.
• Trade acquisition DJ Herz slots in at #25. Lets see how he fares. He got smacked around in his debut, but he’s 22 in AA as a starter, so that doesn’t suck.
• Roismar Quintana dropped from 22 to 27. He’s only slugging .358 this year as a 1B/DH type; that’s not going to cut it.
• Mitchell Parker‘s AA performance has dropped him several slots to just barely holding on to the top 30. I wonder when he’ll convert to relief … and then how quickly he’ll be in the majors after that as a lefty reliever who can get guys out.
• Darren Baker up a couple slots; the guy’s nearly hitting .300 in AAA as a 24yr old, not sure what else you want from him. Most of the 2021 draft class is still in High-A, if they’re even still here.
• Dustin Saenz, Andy Acevedo, and Edwin Solano: were ranked 28th-30th before and now have gotten bumped with the new additions.
• Jake Irvin was ranked 16th; he now has 17 starts under his belt in the majors and has lost his rookie eligibility.

Fangraphs has become the first shop to publish updated system rankings that include our new draftees. Lets do a quick review of where Kiley McDaniel and team have put the new guys.

Reminder, our review of their pre-season Nats top 30-or-so is here: Fangraphs’ methodology leaves a little to be desired and their FV-based ranking does leave us with some weird rankings. That being said, here’s where they’ve slotted in our 3 big 2023 draftees:

• Dylan Crews: New Nats System #2, and #5 overall in the entirety of the minors. Not a bad debut.
• Yohandy Morales: new Nats system #5, outside the top 100.
• Travis Sykora: new Nats system #8, outside the top 100.

I’m sure we’ll start to see other major shops update their rankings and we’ll react as they do.