Nationals Arm Race

So, something happened with my blog hosting provider and I believe they lost some prior posts. I can no longer see my 2021 CWS regional prediction piece. I suspect a hosting failure. Nonetheless, here’s a recap of the 16 regionals.

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Quick Regional Recaps

We’ll review the 16 regionals in order of the larger bracket.  Bold is the host/seed.

#1 Arkansas regional recap: #1 seed got a scare from Nebraska, got extended to the 7th game but advanced.

#16: Louisiana Tech regional recap: host La Tech scored a lot .. but also let NC State score a lot too and the ACC team advances.

#8: Texas Tech regional recap: Texas Tech managed to beat each of the 3 teams in its region to advance without much fuss.

#9: Stanford regional recap: UC Irvine extended the Cardinal, but Stanford prevailed.

#5 Arizona regional recap: Arizona handled #3 seeded UC Santa Barbara to advance without a loss.

#12 Ole Miss regional recap: Ole Miss got pushed by its in-state rival Southern Miss, but won out the 7th game.

#4 Vanderbilt regional recap: Vandy’s two aces provided the first two wins, and they dug deep to take out Georgia Tech in the regional final.

#13 ECU regional recap: East Carolina held serve over a plucky Maryland team to win.

#3 Tennessee regional recap: Tennessee outlasted local favorite Liberty, who blasted ACC champ Duke en route to the final.

#14 Oregon regional recap: Host Oregon could not stop LSU from fulfilling its destiny; they came out of the loser’s bracket to bash their way to the super regionals.

#6 TCU regional recap: TCU got knocked out by perennial power house Oregon State, but it was regional power Dallas Baptist who advanced.

#11 ODU regional recap: A crazy weather weekend featured the #1 seeded ODU taking out the host South Carolina, but UVA fighting out of the loser’s bracket to force the extra game, which got pushed to Tuesday morning. there, UVA walked off the win in extra innings to advance.

#7 Mississippi State regional recap: cruised to a 3-game regional win.

#10 Notre Dame regional recap: Notre Dame bashed their way to the super regional, scoring 50 (fifty!) runs in 3 games to win what looks like easily the weakest regional.

#15 Florida regional recap: powerhouse program Florida absolutely did not show up at their regional, going 2 and out as a national seed and losing their 2nd game 19-1. South Florida, the #4 seed in the group, takes out upstart South Alabama to advance in a shock.

#2 Texas regional recap: Texas destroyed all three teams in their regioanl, advancing by a combined score of 33-5 to move on.

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Predictions versus Actuals:

• Predicted: Arkansas, Alabama, Texas Tech, Stanford, Arizona, Ole Miss, Vanderbilt, ECU, Tennessee, LSU, TCU, UVA, Miss State, Notre Dame, Florida Texas.
• Actual: Arkansas, NC State, Texas Tech, Stanford, Arizona, Ole Miss, Vanderbilt, ECU, Tennessee, LSU, Dallas Baptist, UVA, Mississippi State, Notre Dame, South Florida, Texas

So I got 13 out of 16 right. Missed on Alabama, TCU, Florida.

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Summary of Regionals statistically:

• 11 of 16  hosts advanced. 
• Just 1 of the 8 national seeds fell (#6 TCU)
• 4 of the 9-16 seeds fell: La Tech, Oregon, Florida, ODU
• 11 number one seeds, 1 number two seeds, 3 number three seeds, and 1 number four seeds advance to the super regionals.
• 4 number of #4 seeds who didn’t finish 4th in their regional; NJIT, South Florida, Central Michigan, North Dakota State
• 1: number of #4 seeds to get opening wins.  only South Florida
• Most surprising regional winner: South Florida, obviously. Amazing when a #4 seed advances.
• # of “extended” regionals: 7 of the 16 went to the last game.

Conference Breakdowns of the teams in the Super Regionals:

• SEC: Arkansas, Ole Miss, Vanderbilt, Tennessee, LSU, Mississippi State,
• ACC: NC State, Notre Dame, UVA
• Big12: Texas Tech, Texas,
• Pac12: Stanford, Arizona
• Big 10: zero
• Others: East Carolina (AAC), Dallas Baptist (MVC), South Florida (AAC)

Very top heavy; SEC gets 6 of the 16 super regionalists. The rest of the top baseball conferences each get 2-3 teams as one might expect.

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Super Regional Matchups:  the higher ranked team is the host unless otherwise noted.

• #1 Arkansas vs NC State
• #8 Texas Tech vs #9 Stanford
• #5 Arizona vs #12 Ole Miss
• #4 Vanderbilt vs #13 East Carolina

• #3 Tennessee vs LSU
• Dallas Baptist vs UVA
• #7 Mississippi State vs #10 Notre Dame
• #2 Texas vs South Florida

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Super Regional Thoughts/Predictions

• #1 Arkansas vs NC State; Arkansas is just too powerful and won’t be stopped.
• #8 Texas Tech vs #9 Stanford: I think Texas Tech is the favorite here.
• #5 Arizona vs #12 Ole Miss; a tough one to predict; Arizona looked a bit better in their regional.
• #4 Vanderbilt vs #13 East Carolina; Vandy not getting stopped in a super regional where they have the clear pitching advantage.
• #3 Tennessee vs LSU; LSU was swept at Tennessee earlier this year; it seems like that may happen again. LSU’s cinderella season ends.
• Dallas Baptist vs UVA: So, neither team put in a bid to host, so neither team could get a home field advantage; the Super Regional is being played on the campus of South Carolina, as was the ODU regional earlier. I think UVA has the advantage here.
• #7 Mississippi State vs #10 Notre Dame; I like what Notre Dame does at the plate and pick them to advance.
• #2 Texas vs South Florida: Texas looks way too strong.

CWS field predictions: Arkansas, TT, AZ, Vandy, Tenn, UVA, Notre Dame, Texas.

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CWS Predictions: Early CWS final prediction:  I like Arkansas over Vanderbilt and have for a while. But both are projecting to the same bracket in Omaha. So i’m going with Vandy vs Texas with Vandy winning.

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Star Power at Super Regionals

Here’s a quick glance at the top draft picks that are still alive in the Super Regionals:

• Vanderbilt: Leiter and Rocker, both likely going top 5
• Texas: Ty Madden, their Ace
• Ole Miss: Gunnar Hogeland, their Ace
• NC State: Luca Tresh, a likely 2nd round Catcher, Jose Torres their SS.
• UVA: Zach Gelof, Andrew Abbott, Mike Vasil: all likely 2nd day picks.
• Mississippi State: Wil Bednar, Christian MacLeod, two solid arms.
• Arkansas: Christian Franklin, OF.
• East Carolina: Gavin Williams, RHP
• LSU: Landon Marceaux their new ace, but Jaden Hill was their friday night guy who went down with TJ and may still go first round.

College CWS tournament references:

• d1baseball.com’s daily scoreboard is my go-to link for detailed data
• d1baseball’s Tourney Central
• Baseball America’s College coverage home page
• CollegeBaseballDaily.com has coverage as well.
• CollegeBaseballCentral.com has coverage as well.
• Ncaa.com’s interactive full 64-team bracket
• NCAA Individual player stats
• Warren Nolan.com’s College Baseball RPI
• Warren Nolan’s Conference RPI rankings

FYI, I’m trying a couple of things new this year on the Big Board, which stems from my decade-long attempts to track (primarily pitcher) movement through the system.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/186nm-v5F-zTCoR2Be7TFYM3e2cZ-gYi2WVqJLEkHdmc/

This is the Big Board link, fyi. Here’s some things to look for this year:

• I’m going to track promotions and demotions of players to try to show on the board who is really making a move up or down. In the Position field I’m color coding Green for promotions and Red for demotions. I’m not counting the opening day rosters; this is day 1 forward moves.
• I will periodically look at position player box scores to try to ascertain who is the “starter” at each position, but won’t really try too hard for the lower minors. That’s because they use the DH, and if someone is DHing on the day i don’t want to list them as not being the starter.
• I have the Rotations set, and they’re all synced up right now so that across the board (from MLB on down) all the pitchers set to go on (say) Tuesday are listed in the same row on the sheet. All our systems are using 5-man rotations, and even low-A seems to be sticking with it despite doing lots of tandem starting before.
• I’ve also tried to put the relievers somewhat into their roles; Closer, Setup, middle relief, lefty relievers and long relievers. This is, of course, kind of impossible to be right on perpetually, and pitchers frequently throw multi-inning stints despite being called “the closer” or a “setup guy.” Furthermore, loogies are a thing of the past, so it may not really be that accurate to classify a guy as “just” a lefty reliever. But it looks good so far.
• At the very far right there’s an “Extended Spring Training” column to hold players who don’t seem to be assigned anywhere right now. As always, sometimes players sit there for quite a while before suddenly reappearing. And, since Milb.com doesn’t always get a press release when someone has been released, its possible there are players listed as active who have gotten cut.
• GCL and DSL rosters are the hardest to keep track of; they’re all placeholders for now until we get to the opening day for both. Honestly, i hate attempting to track DSL since the information is spotty and huge percentages of players in the DSL never even get to a domestic league, but we’ll try.

I’ve cleared out the NRI color coding at this point, since it was making readability nearly impossible. I did not track Luke’s watchlist players this year either for the same reason. We do still track 40-man roster players in grey and original Nats signees/draftees in blue.

Hope you’re well. As always, if there are any mistakes in the board please let me know.

After washing through dozens of names shifting around on the Big Board (and hopefully not making any cut and paste errors), here’s my non-pitcher related observations to the rosters and movement of players around the system

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AAA Rochester: The roster lists 5 catchers, which is kind of odd but clearly to me Brandon Snyder is the starting 1B here, despite being listed suddenly for the first time in 2021 as a catcher.

The hitters are very MLFA heavy: 9 of the 16 non-pitchers in AAA were MLFA acquisitions, including two that happened just in the last couple of weeks in Daniel Palka and Ramon Flores. Both project to be backup outfielders to the presumed starting OF of three other MLFAs in Yasmany Tomas, Carlos Tocci and a hopefully healthy Gerardo Parra.

The infield features two very important former prospects in Luis Garcia and Carter Kieboom, both of whom were signed/drafted in 2016 and both of whom really need to have a successful 2021 at the plate. Kieboom more so than Garcia.

I’m kind of surprised the team signed two veteran MLFAs instead of promoting up some of its long-serving minor league guys, players like Rhett Wisemann and Nick Banks.

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AA Harrisburg: Not a lot of defense on this team, with several guys who primarily play 1B on the roster (Corredor, Mendoza, Sagdal and Harrison. Only 3 OFs listed, meaning likely that these 1B guys are covering in a corner. We see both Wisemann and Banks showing up here; they should be the starting corner OFers, but based on a lack of promotion to AAA they may be org-guys waiting to get cut. This is where we see Cluff arrive.

Pretty surprised not to see Antuna here. Why wouldn’t you put him at AA? we’ll see where he shakes out.

Not a very compelling AA roster from a player perspective…Is the best hitting prospect Drew Mendoza? Also, there’s only 26 players listed … out of a roster size of 30?

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High A Wilmington: The high-A roster is populated with a weird combination of decent prospects (Antuna and Gage Canning) as well as a slew of what seems like org-guys (20th+ rounders and 7th or 8th year IFAs). Cavalli’s personal catcher Brad Lindsly is here as a 3rd catcher on a limited roster. I don’t see an obvious choice to play 1B on the existing roster, making me wonder if we’ll see a couple more bats added soon. Also, some oddities going on with the rosters: the Wilmington press release listed Jack Dunn on the roster, but transactions list Cole Daily on the roster … which would make sense since he’s a 1B that could play there; but the milb.com site doesn’t have Dunn, who does not appear in the player archives anywhere. I’ll chalk it up to data oddities with thousands of players moving around on the day the leagues launch.

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Low A Fredericksburg‘s roster of out-field players looks really weak; I don’t see a single top-30 prospect among any of the hitters listed. Not one. And we have a really crummy farm system. We do have a bunch of younger prospects who are listed, but who clearly aren’t ready for low-A, guys like Jeremy De La Rosa, Daniel Marte and Viandel Pena. There’s also some interesting names left in the far right XST column post assignment, guys like Telmito Augustin.

The last of the “major” pundits has released their Nats prospect ranking lists for the 2021 season, with Fangraph’s lead prospect writer Eric Longenhagen teaming with Tess Taruskin to release their top 22 Nats prospects for 2021.

Why 22 prospects, instead of 10 or 20 or some other round number? Fangraphs drives their rankings via a “Future Value” metric, so the deeper your system is, the more prospects you will have on their list. The cutoff is a “35+ FV,” which projects as something between a 4-A career guy and a bench role player. Yes, you may immediately draw some conclusions about the depth of our system by the number who reached that plateau; by way of comparison a “good” farm system in Tampa had no fewer than 62 players make their 2021 fangraphs list by using the same 35+ cutoff.

So, yeah, we have some work to do… but we already knew that since every macro ranking of our system done this year has us dead last as a system.

Anyway, here’s the Fangraphs list, with some commentary about how these rankings fare side-by-side with other pundits.

Fangraphs 2021 rank	Last Name	First Name	Position	Acquisition
1	Rutledge	Jackson	RHP (Starter)	2019 1st
2	Cavalli	Cade	RHP (Starter)	2020 1st
3	Antuna	Yasel	SS	2016 IFA
4	Lara	Andry	RHP (Starter)	2019 IFA
5	De La Rosa	Jeremy	OF (corner)	2018 IFA
6	Romero	Seth	LHP (Starter)	2017 1st
7	Cronin	Matt	LHP (reliever)	2019 4th
8	Henry	Cole	RHP (Starter)	2020 2nd
9	Pineda	Israel	C	2016 IFA
10	Cate	Tim	LHP (Starter)	2018 2nd
11	Infante	Samuel	SS	2020 2nd supp
12	Cruz	Armando	SS	2020 IFA
13	Adon	Joan	RHP (Starter)	2016 IFA
14	Mendoza	Drew	3B	2019 3rd
15	Denaburg	Mason	RHP (Starter)	2018 1st
16	Quintana	Roismar	OF (CF)	2019 IFA
17	Cluff	Jackson	SS	2019 6th
18	Powell	Holden	RHP (Reliever)	2020 3rd
19	Brzykcy	Zach	RHP (Reliever)	2020 NDFA
20	Barrera	Tres	C	2016 6th
21	Schaller	Reid	RHP (Starter)	2018 3rd
22	Peterson	Todd	RHP (starter)	2019 7th

Commentary in rough order of list:

• FG went with Rutledge over Cavalli for #1. At the end of the prospect season, these two basically split the #1 overall spot among major pundits, with FG, ESPN, and BleacherReport going with Rutledge #1, while BA, Keith Law, and MLBpipeline all went with Cavalli.
• They’re now high rankers on De La Rosa, putting him at #5 in the system. It sounds like the projection for him is basically a lesser version of Juan Soto; lefty power hitting corner outfielder.
• They have Romero still high, at #6, but added no intelligence as to why he did not appear in spring training 2021. Still projects two 60-grade pitches, but his fastball has fallen out of favor and they have him with 40-command. That’s a reliever, and not necessarily a good one, at best.
• One of the reasons FG is high man on both De La Rosa and Romero is because they’re well lower on Cole Henry than anyone else, having him 8th. It sounds to me like they think he’s heading into relief, much like the guy ranked just above him Matt Cronin.
• They’re well above anyone else on Israel Pineda, and i’m not really sure why. In the middle of last season, the same evaluator ranked him #16. What’s substantively changed since August?
• He’s pumping the brakes on Armando Cruz, ranking him at #12 where a number of the major evaluators already have him 5-7 range.
• He’s put Denaburg all the way down to #15, noting that his pro career/injury record now puts him nearly below non-prospects. Great 1st rounder guys!
• He’s got Zach Brzykcy, a NDFA $20k signing from last summer, in the top 20 of our system. I suppose that does say something about our system depth, but Longenhagen does note that Bryzcky is one of a handful of NDFAs who have impressed and would have been legitimate draft picks with a longer draft. 2-pitch, pure reliever.
• Last man in the rankings is Todd Peterson, mr coming out of nowhere for this team, who hung around Spring Training longer than most of our 1st round multi-million dollar prospects. He’s projecting as middle relief, with 2 good pitches, decent velocity and excellent deception in his delivery.

Nowhere in this list are a handful of characters that are well regarded on other lists. That includes Daniel Marte, Tyler Dyson, Jake Irvin (likely b/c he’s missing all of 2021 with a TJ), Ben Braymer, Viandel Pena ….

And of course Steven Fuentes is missing … who only just got a call-up…. to the majors … which is kind of the whole damn point of being a prospect? It does make me question what these guys are really looking for … if you project some 2-pitch guy as a possible middle reliever in the major leagues, then flat out don’t rank a starter who actually DOES make the majors … at age 23 … then what are we ranking/evaluating on? I’m not discounting prospect evaluation work entirely by any means (to head off some of my frequent commenters who are bound to pick up on this and disclaim all prospect rankers), but I do sense there’s a specific blind side in these evaluators when it comes to certain kinds of players. Fuentes (and Ben Braymer) fit right into that gap; a starter who doesn’t project as a stud, guys who get by on command/control instead of velocity. Maybe that’s the point; maybe guys like Fuentes/Braymer are such a “dime a dozen” kind of 4-A players that they specifically never get ranked … but if you have a prospect catcher ranked in the teens who does not ever project to make the majors, wouldn’t by definition you have a guy who IS capable of making the majors (whether its as a long-man, or a middle reliever, or the backup 2nd baseman) ranked higher? A theoretical question.

As of 4/21/21, the Nats have already used 19 position players (Every single position player on the 40-man save Yasel Antuna, plus since-DFA’d Jonathan Lucroy and non-roster impacting call-up Cody Wilson). They’ve already used 16 pitchers (of 22 on the 40-man).

Thanks to the Covid scare ahead of opening day plus a spate of injuries they’ve already faced, no less than 14 players from their 26-man roster have already been on the DL this year. 14! Plus some unknown/unreported number of players from the alt site who may or may not have also been infected. We have no earthly idea what’s going on with Romero (zero IP in spring training, which usually implies either an injury or a disciplinary problem), and the team curiously called up Paolo Espino instead of any from 5 alternative starters sitting in Fredericksburg.

Amazingly … throughout all of this perhaps the team’s MOST fragile player (Ryan Zimmerman) has stayed healthy and productive. Who would have guessed!

The 2021 Nats were built using older players that we were hoping for bounce back seasons from. The team needed its big three starters (who combine to earn $93.9M of their $183M in payroll) to throw 6-7 innings of competent innings nearly every time out in order to have any chance of being competitive. Instead we’ve gotten up-and-down starts from Corbin and the DL list for Strasburg.

The trend so far is … not good. If the team is going to play whack-a-mole with injuries all year, filling in with a thinned 40-man roster, we’re going to end up with a similar record that we had last year. Its early right now, and we had to play divisional rivals short handed early, but the prognosis is not good right now.

We need to catch some breaks. Soto going on the DL is NOT such a break.

The Nats are well-known for their heavy emphasis on pitching in drafts, and then for using said pitching depth as “currency” to acquire talent to build their roster. The team has traded away more than 20 prospect pitchers in the last 5 years, ranging from recent MLB debutants to rookie-league wild-cards.

I thought I’d be interesting to check in with some of the arms we’ve moved over the past few years.

Part of me does this as a “wouldn’t it be nice if we had kept them…” motive, since not all of these trades were really ones I would have made. But nearly all of these trades contributed in one way or another to the 2019 title … so I have to temper my criticism. In the end, you’d rather have a title than a prospect. But, choices have been made over the years and some of those choices look better or worse in retrospect.

These are listed in order of MLB impact of the traded away talent, not chronologically (this list does not include all the MLB arms we traded away in the 2018 missing the playoff purge; this is mostly about trading away prospects).

• Lucas Giolito; Traded to Chicago White Sox (along with Lopez and Dunning) for Adam Eaton in 2016. Eaton gave the team 4 injury-filled years and a combined 2.7 bWAR. Giolito is now the #1 starter for the White Sox and was an all-star in 2019, but it took him several years and multiple mechanical changes to get there.
• Jesus Luzardo: traded to Oakland in 2017 (along with Treinen and Neuse) to acquire Ryan Madson and Sean Doolittle. Luzardo rose to be one of the best prospects in the game ahead of the 2020 season, now Oakland’s #2 starter as a 23yr old. Madson and Doolittle served as valuable back-end bullpen pieces, though Madson did not make it to our title-winning season and Doolittle lost his closer job by 2019 and is pitching elsewhere. This is the kind of trade i wish we made less of; you should be able to grow relievers from your farm system, not trade away future #2 projected starters for a combined 3 seasons of varying production.
• Dane Dunning was the 3rd of 3 ranked prospects in the 2016 Chicago/Eaton trade. He hovered in the top prospects list for several years, had TJ surgery, debuted with some success in late 2020 for the White Sox, then was flipped to Texas in 2020 for Lance Lynn, and is now featuring in the 2021 Texas rotation as their 5th starter.
• Taylor Hearn: was the 2nd of 2 prospects in the 2016 Pittsburgh/Melancon trade. He was subsequently flipped by Pittsburgh in 2018 for Keone Kela, and debuted for Texas in late 2019. Since, he has been an 7th/8th inning reliever for Texas with some effectiveness.
• Austin Adams, traded to Seattle in 2019 for Nick Wells after we DFA’d him. Pitched effectively for Seattle’s bullpen in 2019, then traded to San Diego in Aug 2020 for a package of players. Pitching in middle relief for San Diego in 2021. Wells has done basically nothing for this team, while Adams has at least continued to pitch in the majors and does beg the question … why couldn’t he do for us what he has managed to do for Seattle and San Diego?

Summary: well, you’d have a pretty nice start to a rotation right now with Giolito/Luzardo/Dunning. But it took years to get there for these guys: these were players who were traded 4-5 years ago. And the guys we got in return (Eaton, Doolittle) were key parts of the 2019 title team.

Minor league arms traded in last 5 years still in minors:

• Reynaldo Lopez was the 2nd ranked of 3 prospects in the 2016 Chicago/Eaton trade; he was a full time rotation starter in 2018 and 2019 for Chicago, but got beaten out for the rotation in 2021 and is in AAA. Interesting how many thought Lopez was the “prize” of that trade … now he’s like 7th on their rotation depth chart.
• Wil Crowe: traded to Pittsburgh (along with Eddy Yean) for Josh Bell. Crowe made the opening day 2021 roster for Pittsburgh, but was optioned after one poor outing. Likely projecting as a 4-A type starter, and future analysis of this trade will have to remember that Pittsburgh was in a salary dump mode when evaluating whatever Crowe and Yean become.
• Jefry Rodriguez, traded (along with Johnson and Monasterio) to Cleveland for Yan Gomes in 2018. Pitched for a couple months in the Cleveland rotation in 2019, hit free agency in 2021, signed MLFA with Washington in 2021, likely in AAA. Probably safe to say the Nats are coming out on top of this move.
• Taylor Guilbeau: traded to Seattle for Roenis Elias in 2019. Pitched for Seattle MLB middle relief in 2019 and 2020, DFA’d and outrighted in Feb 2021. Elias got lit up, got hurt and was essentially useless for us.
• Trevor Gott; traded to San Francisco in 2019 for cash after we DFA’d him; he pitched for SF’s bullpen for two years, was DFA’d and outrighted in Feb 2021. Once again, like with Adams … how is it that Gott couldn’t break our crummy 2019 bullpen but then pitched effectively for another organization immediately upon his exit from Washington? its like Blake Treinen all over again.
• Pedro Avila was traded to San Diego for Derek Norris in 2016; he rose in the ranks and debuted briefly for San Diego in 2019, then was subsequently DFA’d and outrighted; he remains in their minor league system and projects for AAA in 2021. Norris was originally drafted by DC, and they wanted to get him back. But he only lasted another 3 months with the team, getting released in spring training 2017 before catching on with Tampa for one more season.
• Aaron Fletcher: traded to Seattle for Hunter Strickland in 2019. Likely in AAA in 2021. Strickland … wasn’t good for Seattle in 2019 and he wasn’t good for us either.
• Mario Sanchez: traded to Philadelphia for Jimmy Cordero in 2016. Hit MLFA in 2018, came back to Washington, projected AA in 2021. Cordero was crummy for us, then got DFA’d, selected and was gone.
• Yohanse Morel, traded (along with Gutierrez and Perkins) to Kansas City for Kelvin Herrera in 2018. Likely in High-A in 2021.
• Kyle Johnston: traded to Toronto for Daniel Hudson in 2019. Likely in High-A in 2021. Hudson closed out game 7 of the 2019 World Series; enough said.
• Tyler Watson, traded to Minnesota for Brandon Kintzler in 2017. Likley in High-A in 2021. Knitzler was (possibly) scapegoated in the infamous clubhouse blowup mid 2018 and was dumped for pennies on the dollar in 2018.
• Ryan McMahon; traded to Minnesota for Ryne Harper in 2020; Likely in Low-A in 2021. Harper has really yet to do much, so this is a show-me trade.
• Eddy Yean; traded to Pittsburgh (along with Crowe) in 2020; projected to pitch in GCL or Low-A in 2021.

Summary: I see several really good moves here, a couple that didn’t work out as well for the Nats, and some that are preliminary. About what you expect when you’re trading prospect arms.

Minor League Arms traded in the last 5 years who are now apparently out of baseball.

• McKenzie Mills: traded to Philadelphia for Howie Kendrick in 2017. Struggled in AA in 2019 for Philadelphia, released in big Minor league purge in June 2020 and out of baseball. This was a prime example of the Nats selling high on a guy; Mills blew that summer, going 12-3 for the 2017 season, then never replicated that success and was out of baseball two years later. Odd that the team didn’t try to pick him back up after his 2019 release.
• Jeffrey Rosa; traded to Tampa Bay for Enny Romero in 2017. Struggled for Tampa’s GCL team in 2018 and was released.
• Mick VanVossen, traded to Chicago WS for Ryan Raburn. struggled in high-A in 2017, likely released that off-season (he has no stats since 2017).
• Felipe Rivero, traded to Pittsburgh (along with Hearn) in 2016 for Mark Melancon. Changed his name to Felipe Vazquez, replaced Melancon as Pittsburgh’s closer and was dominant, a 2-time all-star in 2018 and 2019. However, he was arrested on child sex abuse charges at the end of the 2019 season and faces multiple felonies in multiple states. As much as I hated this trade at the time (we gave up two solid players for yet another veteran closer since our team for reasons inexplicable cannot home grow closers ourselves), I think we’re all happy to have dodged a bullet w/r/t what Rivero/Vazquez became.

Did I miss anyone?

It took a few days to get there, but the Nats finally got their season (and home) opener done. A 6-5 Juan Soto walk-off in front of a packed house of 4,801 DC city-mandated attendance limit.

Here’s some useless Nats Season- and Home-Opening trivia

Home Opener Attendances through the years

• 2021: 4,8011 (4:05 tuesday game, 74 degrees, partly cloudy, 5mph wind)
• 2020: 0 (7:09 thurs game, 90, partly cloudy, 7mph wind)
• 2019: 42,263 (1:07 thurs game, 56, partly cloudy, no wind)
• 2018: 42,477 (1:08 thurs game, 42, partly cloudy, slight wind)
• 2017: 42,744 (1:05 monday game, 66 and cloudy, slight wind)
• 2016: 41,650 (4:05 thursday game, 60 and 1.5hr rain delay)
• 2015: 42,295 (4:05 monday game, 75 and gorgeous)
• 2014: 42,834 (1:05 friday game, 50s and overcast)
• 2013: 45,274 (1:05 monday game, 60 and beautiful)
• 2012: 40,907 (1:05 thursday game 56, partly cloudy)
• 2011: 39,055 (1:05 thursday game, 41 degrees and overcast)
• 2010: 41,290 (1pm game monday, beautiful weather 80s and sunny): phillies invasion
• 2009: 40,386 (3pm game on a monday, chilly 53degr and overcast).
• 2008: 39,389 (season and stadium opener), 8pm sunday night, Braves, nat’l tv clear but cold.
• 2007: 40,389 (in rfk, 1pm game vs Florida, 72degrees
• 2006: 40,516 (in rfk, tuesday day game vs Mets, 72degr and sunny)
• 2005: 45,596 (in rfk, debut of entire franchise, 62degr and clear, evening game).

2021’s weather was spectacular, certainly better than, say, 2011 or 2018. Or even the 2008 stadium opener, which was frigging cold. Notably, the 2005 home opener crowd stood as the franchise’s attendance record for more than a decade until supplanted by Game 5 of the 2012 NLDS.

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Home opener Box Scores

6-11 all time through 2021. The links in this list below are to opening day box scores at either mlb.com or baseball-reference.com.

• 2021:
• 2020:
• 2019:
• 2018:
• 2017:
• 2016:
• 2015:
• 2014:
• 2013:
• 2012:
• 2011:
• 2010:
• 2009:
• 2008:
• 2007:
• 2006:
• 2005:

How about Season openers?

Record: 8-9 in season openers.

times home/away: 10 home, 7 away.

• 2021: Home: Nationals d Braves 6-5. WP: Hudson, LP Smith (starters Scherzer v Smyly): https://www.mlb.com/gameday/braves-vs-nationals/2021/04/06/634624#game_state=final,lock_state=final,game_tab=box,game=634624
• 2020: Home: Yankees d Nationals 4-1. WP: Cole, LP Scherzer (starters same): https://www.mlb.com/gameday/yankees-vs-nationals/2020/07/23/630851#game_state=final,game_tab=,game=630851
• 2019: Home: Mets d Nationals 2-0. WP: deGrom, LP Scherzer (starters same): https://www.mlb.com/gameday/mets-vs-nationals/2019/03/28/565895#game_state=final,lock_state=final,game_tab=box,game=565895
• 2018: Away: Nats d Reds 2-0. WP Scherzer, LP Bailey (starters same): https://www.mlb.com/gameday/nationals-vs-reds/2018/03/30/529420#game_state=final,lock_state=final,game_tab=wrap,game=529420
• 2017: home: Nats d Marlins 4-2. WP Strasburg, LP Phelps (Starters Strasburg, Volquez): https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/WAS/WAS201704030.shtml
• 2016: away: Nats d Braves 4-3. WP Treinen, LP O’Flarity (starters Scherzer, Teheran): http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/ATL/ATL201604040.shtml
• 2015: home: Mets d Nats 3-1. WP: Bartolo Colon. LP: Max Scherzer http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/WAS/WAS201504060.shtml
• 2014: away: Nats d Mets 9-7. WP Aaron Barrett, LP Familia (starters Strasburg, dillon Gee): http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYN/NYN201403310.shtml
• 2013: home: Nats d Marlins 2-0. WP: Stephen Strasburg. LP: Ricky Nolasco. http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/WAS/WAS201304010.shtml
• 2012: away: Nats d Cubs 2-1. WP Clippard, LP Marmol (starters: Strasburg and Ryan Dempster): http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHN/CHN201204050.shtml
• 2011: home: Braves d Nats 2-0. WP: Derek Lowe. LP: Livan Hernandez. http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/WAS/WAS201103310.shtml
• 2010: home: Phillies d Nats 11-1. WP: Roy Halladay. LP: John Lannan http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/WAS/WAS201004050.shtml
• 2009: away: Marlins d Nats 12-6. WP: Nolasco, LP; Lannan http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/FLO/FLO200904060.shtml
• 2008: home: Nats d Braves 3-2. WP: Jon Rauch. LP: Peter Moylan (Starters: Tim Hudson and Odalis Perez) http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/WAS/WAS200803300.shtml
• 2007: home: Marlins d Nats 9-2. WP: Dontrelle Willis. LP: John Patterson http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/WAS/WAS200704020.shtml
• 2006: away: Mets d Nats 3-2. WP: Glavine, LP: Hernandez. http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYN/NYN200604030.shtml
• 2005: away: Phillies d Nats 8-4. WP: Lieber, LP: Hernandez. http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/PHI/PHI200504040.shtml

So, we knew that some Nats players (the numbers keep changing) have tested positive; it started with one known case, then that caused contact-tracing issues with another 4 players and 1 staff member. We’ve heard podcasts and reports that perhaps some of the 4 players might have it as well; regardless they’re now out for at least 10 days. So far, no mention of who popped positive for HIPAA reasons, but by the time you read this we may know.

As of Noon Friday 4/2/21, the entire opening series is now off. Makes sense; the league probably wants to get a handle on the outbreak, plus its an inter-divisional series that can be turned into a bunch of DHs later on with little travel/schedule impact.

Sources (aka Nats Beat reporters) have sniffed out the replacement call ups, which gives us a hint as to who has to sit for a bit. Call-ups are:

• Sam Clay
• Luis Garcia
• Yadiel Hernandez
• Tres Barrera

Now, based on the fact that its one positive test and then four others who were in close contact … and looking at who these replacements are for … it stands to reason these are the players who are now under quarantine:

• Sam Clay for Luis Avilan
• Luis Garcia for Starlin Castro
• Yadiel Hernandez for either Juan Soto or Victor Robles
• Tres Barrera for either Alex Avila or Yan Gomes.

It doesn’t take a detective to look at that like for like list and make some quick assumptions on who the players are that got hit or who were named in contact tracing; they’re all Latino. Which makes sense; if a team has natural cliques its around nationality and native speaking tongues hanging out together on planes and in clubhouses. The only other Latino players on the 26-man roster not already named would be Hernan Perez and Wander Suero, so don’t be surprised if we find out one of these guys is involved too.

Bummer all around, and not the best way to get the season started, especially if its taken out half our starting lineup.

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In other recent news:

• H/T to NationalsProspects for the BA story on the 2021 draft: it will be 20 rounds. With a lost year of development and every team now carrying an entire “extra” roster of players who played short-season last year, 20 rounds in 2021 makes sense. I think the natural landing point might be 30 rounds: basically every pick from the 31st round onwards by the Nats as of late is a HS throw-away designed to give notariety to a scout’s kid or cousin, or to throw a player a bone who some area scout who didn’t get any of his guys drafted previously, or to puff up some kid’s ego who was always going to go to college. They’re a waste and you can count on two hands the number of picks who even stuck with our system for more than a couple seasons from the 30th round onwards (Gabe Klobotis, Tyler Watson, Jorge Pantoja, Angelo LaBruna, Robert Orlan, Billy Burns from the last 10 drafts).
• Also H/T to Luke Erickson for the BA story on Minor League affiliates increasing in size across the board. Again, this is nothing but a good thing.
• Speaking of BA: they re-released their Nats top30 prospects and built in the Jan 2021 IFA signings, which resulted in the Nats adding their top 2021 IFA Armando Cruz at #5, with no other changes to our top 30 and HMs (I reviewed their list in Feb 2021 here). Cruz at #5 by BA makes them the high men on Cruz’s potential amongst those shops who have rated him. At this point there’s just one major shop who has not released their Nats prospect Rankings: Fangraphs/Eric Longenhagen, who seems to have gotten overwhelmed by his choice to rank 40+ prospects per system … by himself … while also writing other stuff. New Fangraphs and ex-Astros employee Kevin Goldstein is now helping get the list done. we’ll do a similar reaction piece as we did with other major pundits and then will publish the master prospect lists on the Big Board.
• A reminder; we still don’t have an official opening day 26-man roster; the big board lists 27 …i’m guessing Will Harris will hit the D/L when the roster is officially released. Because the games got postponed, the team was not forced to officially release its rosters and can bide some time.
• I’ve updated the Big Board to have the Alt training site, and to account for all the big moves, DFAs, outrights, roster sizes, etc.

Waiting in a holding pattern. But lets discuss once we get more news on who is impacted.

One major, significant story line that Nats fans have been talking (and fretting) about all spring was decided quickly and decisively on 3/27/21, when the Nats made a slew of moves that greatly shaped their opening day (and longer) roster.

3/27/21 moves announced:

• Jordy Mercer added
• Hernán Pérez added
• Jake Noll DFA’d
• Carter Kieboom optioned
• Luis Garcia optioned
• Sam Clay optioned
• Kyle McGowin optioned
• Yadiel Hernández optioned
• Yasmany Tomás released
• T.J. McFarland released

(Note; I have updated the big board for all these moves at this point, as well as prior options/releases to this point).

First, lets talk about the obvious; the Infield Impact , both at the MLB level and below. Kieboom was given all spring to win the 3B job and failed. Furthermore, Garcia’s numbers last season did not merit his being given the starter job either. I think the team is making the right move (even if it took them a bit too long to adjust) by sending both young players down and giving the big team the best chance to win.

Kieboom’s luster as a prospect is now basically shot. I would not be surprised in the least to see him flounder in AAA and struggle to recover from the disappointment of being cut, which will further prevent him from recovering his prospect shine. Garcia was always over-promoted to me, and needs a year of seasoning in AAA.

Presumably the starting lineup will now feature Josh Harrison at 3B and Starlin Castro playing 2B (or perhaps the reverse). Getting Harrison in the lineup certainly improves the offense, likely at the expense of some 3B defense. How far the team has fallen from having Anthony Rendon providing Gold Glove defense and middle-of-the-order steady offense for half a decade.

Since Castro is struggling with some injuries, and since the team needs someone who can play SS as a backup … it was always a certainty that the team would carry a SS-capable player. I was hoping it would NOT be Garcia, because I want him to play every day … and now he will. I figured honestly the team would carry Perez, but Mercer is somewhat of a surprise. I’m guessing Castro may face a DL trip, which then would put Perez in as a starter, Mercer as the defensive replacement … and when everyone is healthy again Mercer may get the Axe.

To make room for the two new additions, Noll mercifully gets the DFA axe. This was the obvious move; Noll has been #1 on my “next player to get DFA’d to make room on the 40-man” roster for the better part of two years. I think he’s a nice story, making the team as such a long shot, and i’m surprised he made it so long on the roster. Odds are high that he’ll pass through waivers and accept the outright, but the odds of him returning to the majors seem slim.

The cascading effect of sending both Garcia and Kieboom to AAA, where they will be playing full time, has to be crushing to a slew of long-serving minor league vets in the org. Now there’s no room for the likes of Cole Freeman and Adrian Sanchez to play full time, to say nothing of several MLFA signings who seem like they’re a few days from getting cut (namely, Osvaldo Duarte, Ali Castillo, and Humberto Arteaga. That being said, the infield at AAA projects to have a very interesting set of prospects: KJ Harrison, Garcia, YaselAntuna and Kieboom. It’ll be fun watching AAA boxes in May.

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Now lets talk about the Outfield Impact. Fan favorite Hernandez gets sent to AAA; some fans are already shocked that he gets cut based on his hitting this spring, but to me it’s pretty obvious. The team needs a spare outfielder who can actually play CF and that isn’t Hernandez. But it also may be that the injury to Castro forced the team’s hand to carry Mercer at the expense of Hernandez. Maybe we’ll see him back up soon to cover for a corner OF injury, or if (when) Ryan Zimmerman gets hurt.

Hernandez clearly has made Tomas expendable; he’s given his release. He just didn’t show much this spring (7-30 with no extra base hits) and the team has other options.

Gerardo Parra clearly isn’t ready so he will remain in roster limbo; it should be interesting to see what the team does with him once he’s ready to go, and who makes way. Does he replace Mercer like for like? Does he go to AAA and play for a bit? How does he fit into this team?

Speaking of outfielders in AAA, Hernandez will presumably man LF down there, as Tocci will man CF. That leaves just one OF position for a slew of org guys, and playing time will be tight for the likes of Rhett Wisemann and Nick Banks if Parra is on the roster. We’ll see. Maybe they’ll all just juggle DH duties.

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Lastly, lets talk briefly about what we now know about the Pitching situation. We now seem to know at least how the “2nd lefty bullpen option” competition has shaken out: Clay lost and was demoted, McFarland lost and was released, and the team is waiting a day or two to make a 40-man corresponding move/DL assignment to add Luis Avilan. Makes sense and all seems logical.

The MLB bullpen now though still seems light: The big board shows only 6 relievers on the Washington roster right now, though Fedde and Voth seem like they’re both now being carried. That puts them at 8 … but we know that Harris and his blood clot will cause a short DL trip. So stay tuned for more machinations on the pitching. I’ll bet we’ll see at least one more RHP reliever addition (Javy Guerra?), but that’ll require another 40-man/60-day DL move. It is interesting that McGowin was sent down; to me this means he lost out to Guerra as a middle relief option.

Lastly, two starters remain in limbo: Armenteros and Romero. Romero the far more interesting case; where the F is he? Zero IP all spring, zero indication if he’s a starter or reliever. For a guy with such a track record/history it just leads to nothing but (bad) speculation. We’ll find out soon enough; they have to do something with him in the next few days.

So, lots of moves, lots of clarity already, with a bit more to come.

Post Publishing update: about 20 minutes after publishing, the team made the next logical bullpen move, adding Luis Avilan and DFA’ing Dakota Bacus. As noted above as a likely possibility but officially made today.

The 2021 season is almost upon us, which means that the pre-2021 “prospect season” is now winding to a close. One of the last two major prospect-analysis shops in MLBpipeline.com released their rankings for the Nats, so as we’ve done in the past lets take a look and comment on their rankings versus the collective hive of other analysts.

MLBPipeline’s analysis is primarily the work of three people: Jim Callis, Jonathan Mayo, and Sam Dykstra (formerly Mike Rosenbaum, who is now a baseball writer free agent apparently).

We’ve now seen Nats rankings from BA, BP, MLBpipeline, Espn/McDaniel, Athletic/Law, Bleacher Report, CBS Sports, Prospects1500, and Fantrax. The only major shop left is Fangraphs/Longenhagen, who is nearly done releasing team-by-team rankings, and when he does we’ll publish a post for his list like this one.

Thoughts on the MLBpipeline list are below; I won’t repeat the actual list of the top 30; that’s more easily seen here, with links to video and scouting reports by clicking on the player names. There’s been a ton of movement from the last time they ranked the system at the end of December in the wake of the Josh Bell trade.

• At the top, Cavalli over Rutledge: they’ve switched these guys at the top since December. Rutledge is given a grade-70 fastball was also recently named the Nats prospect with the best FB, but doesn’t have the secondary pitch depth that Cavalli has.
• Same top 3 as basically everyone else: Cavalli, Rutledge, Henry.
• Antuna up to #4; three months ago they had him at #10, and this ranking is really in line with many of the other shops. I continue to believe he could be an impactful player this year at the MLB level, despite being optioned officially over the weekend to AAA with the team’s first cuts of 2021.
• De La Rosa jumped up to #6; they’re the most bullish of the shops on this kid. All we have to go on is crummy 2019 GCL numbers when he was 17, so this will be an illuminating year.
• Recent IFA signing Armando Cruz debuts at #7 … wow. That’s pretty frigging high for a 16yr old, no matter what $$ he just got.
• Like most shops, they’ve dropped Denaburg nearly out of the top 10 at this point. I’d like to point out that Denaburg will turn 22 in August, is in his fourth pro season and has a grand total of 20 1/3rd professional innings pitched. I get that he’s been unlucky with injury, but man I’d like to see something out of the guy in 2021.
• Infante comes in at #13, in line with other shops but drastically increased by MLBpipeline since Dec, when they had him #24. What changed? Did they suddenly decide his scouting reports merited this drastic increase?
• Romero unceremoniously dumped from #7 in December all the way to #18. #18 in a prospect list for a farm system is basically saying, “this guy is lucky to have a AAA job.” By way of comparison, Tres Barrera is #19; does anyone consider Barrera a prospect anymore? I get the ranking; his velocity and performance in the majors last year was really concerning; if he can’t cut it as an effective starter, does he even have the arm to be an effective reliever? The team seems to be turning him back into a starter; does he have the stuff to be an effective starter? What happened to the guy with two 60-grade pitches coming out of college?
• Braymer comes in at #21. If I were to hide draft pedigree and signing bonuses, and just put Braymer and Romero’s career accomplishments side by side … how in god’s name do you rank Braymer below him? One guy has a significant minor league pedigree of accomplishment and actually succeeded in 2020’s MLB appearances, while the other guy …. didn’t.
• Fuentes: another guy who I feel gets downgraded when evaluators look at this bonus amount versus his results. He’s a worm-burner with a heavy fastball that just gets people out, at every level. If I told you that, at the age of 21, the Nat’s had a 1st rounder reach AA and put up a 2.69 ERA and a 63/15 K/BB ratio in 63 innings (Fuentes’ 2019 age-21 season AA numbers), we’d be talking about him being the next Strasburg. But since its Fuentes … he’s barely a prospect. He’s a guy I hope proves the pundits wrong.
• Schaller’s ranking takes a nose dive, from #16 to #27. I’m not sure why; he was decent in 2019 in Low-A, he’s got a good pedigree (a starter from Vanderbilt). He missed some 2019 time with injury, but it wasn’t arm related. Why dump him so far? I think he could make a statement in 2021.
• Sanchez, like with BA’s ranking, is thrown in at #30 almost entirely based on the spin rate on his curve (3,000 rpms, which is MLB elite). He’ll use his age-18 season hopefully to pitch in the GCL and impress the staff.