Nationals Arm Race

Did you know we’re already two weeks into the D1 college season?

Let’s look at the first two weeks of the season for some of the top-ranked candidates to go 1-1, and draw some ridiculous and wildly speculative short-sample-size driven conclusions. 🙂

Actually, more seriously, I wanted to take a bit of time to do the first part of this post, which is to capture direct links for the players in question to have a quick resource I can refer back to. So, hope you enjoy this as well to save you some googling.

I’ll focus on probably just 5-6 players right now, maybe add more if players pop this spring. Obviously can’t do this for the HS guys in the mix like Holliday but if we can find something for them i’ll add it.

Link Block:

• Jace LaViolette, CF, Texas A&M. TAMU stats & Box Scores, MLBPipeline rpt, BA draft rpt
• Jamie Arnold, LHP, Florida State. FSU stats & box Scores, MLBPipeline rpt, BA draft rpt
• Tyler Bremner, RHP, UC Santa Barbara. UCSB stats & box Scores, MLBPipeline rpt, BA draft rpt
• Aiva Arquette, SS, Oregon State. OSU stats & box scores, MLBPipeline rpt, BA draft rpt
• Cam Canarella, CF, Clemson. Clemson stats & box scores, MLBPipeline rpt, BA draft rpt

---

Two week check-ins:

• LaViolette: starting slow; slashing .211/.444/.737 through two weekend series. Playing CF despite his size/projection to be a corner OF in the pros, batting 2nd. Only has four hits through 6 games but all four were XBH, pushing up his slugging and OPS. They’ve played Elon and Cal Poly on neutral fields, not exactly powerhouses, so a little disappointing of a start.
• Arnold: FSU’s #1/Friday night starter: Can’t ask for a better start: 2 starts, 2 wins, 11IP and just 3 hits allowed. He went 6ip/1h against my alma mater JMU in the opener, then went 5ip/2h against Penn last weekend. Obviously Penn isn’t a baseball powerhouse but JMU can be frisky. In both games he was on a short pitch count and could have gone longer.
• Bremner: UCSB’s #1/Friday starter: went 3 hitless innings to open against Campbell (rumor had it the weather was super cold), then 3 runs in 3IP against a weaker Seattle University team. Keith Law was on hand and wasn’t complementary of what he saw.
• Arquette is on fire to start, playing SS and batting 2nd for OSU. Through two weekends he’s slashing .440/.559/.880 as OSU played in two top-notch tourneys to open their season. There’s definitely something to like about this guy.
• Canarella has been playing CF and batting third for Clemson to start, but got subbed out of one game and missed another early in the season. He had labrum surgery (!!) in the off-season and there was some question if he’d be ready to go in Feb, and its also why some boards have him out of the top of the draft for now. So far, a slow start: .250/.333/.375 with almost no power. It’s also fair to say their opening weekend tournament was about as tough as it could be (they played OK State, Arizona, and Ole Miss). I wonder if he’s really even in the mix for the upper half of the first round.

Where do these players’ teams rank btw? Per D1baseball’s updated rankings post-weekend results,

• TAMU #1 (holding at #1)
• FSU #7 (up from #9)
• UCSB #20 (up one from #21 pre weekend)
• OSU #9 (down from #7 before weekend)
• Clemson #13 (up 1 from #14 pre weekend)

So all these players are playing for top teams in solid divisions, which guarantees good competition when we get to conference play.

So, that’s a quick check in. Arnold and Arquette look great, LaViolette starting slow, Canarella may still be hurt, and Bremner seems like he may drop out of 1-1 contention unless he starts blowing away sub-par competition.

With the final two qualifying-offer attached FAs signing yesterday (Bregman and Pivetta), we’re doing a double duty post today; recapping the Qualifying Offer (QO hereafter) crop for this offseason, then publishing the now-finalized draft order for 2025.

First; QOs. We’ve come a long way since the first QO season, and we’ve come a long ways since the awful 2015 season when so many veteran FAs (our own Ian Desmond headlining) got royally screwed by the QO. So, how did the crop fare this year?

Here’s a link to my full QO worksheet with a lot more detail than the below table. It is in chronological order, so scroll to the bottom. But, here’s a summary table:

Year	Player	Old Team	New Team	Draft Pick Forfeited	Signing Date	New Contract	AAV change	Q.O. Screw the player?
2024	Juan Soto	New York Yankees	New York Mets	2-70,4S-143	12/9/2024	15yr/765M	29.95	No
2024	Corbin Burnes	Baltimore	Arizona	2-59	12/30/2024	6yr/$210M	13.95	No
2024	Alex Bregman	Houston	Boston	2-53	2/12/2025	3yr/$120M	18.95	Not really
2024	Max Fried	Atlanta	New York Yankees	2-71, 4S-144	12/10/2024	8yr/$218M	6.2	No
2024	Willy Adames	Milwaukee	San Francisco	2-54,5-155	12/9/2024	7yr/$182M	4.95	No
2024	Pete Alonso	New York Mets	New York Mets	none	2/5/2025	2yr/$54M	5.95	Sort of
2024	Anthony Santander	Baltimore	Toronto	2-49	1/20/2025	5yr/$92.5M	-2.55	Not really
2024	Teoscar Hernandez	Los Angeles Dodgers	Los Angeles Dodgers	none	12/30/2024	3yr/$66M	0.95	No
2024	Sean Manaea	New York Mets	New York Mets	none	12/23/2024	3yr/$75M	3.95	No
2024	Christian Walker	Arizona	Houston	2-63, 4S-142	12/20/2024	3yr/$60M	-1.05	Not really
2024	Nick Martinez	Cincinnati	Cincinnati	none	11/17/2024	1yr/21.05M	7.05	No
2024	Nick Pivetta	Boston	San Diego	2-63	2/12/2025	4yr/$55M	-7.3	Yes
2024	Luis Severino	New York Mets	Oakland	2-48	12/6/2024	3yr/$67M	1.25	No

So, what’s the breakdown of the 13 QO-attached Free Agents this year?

• 4 Resigned with their old team, negating the QO and draft pick loss
• 9 signed with new teams, thus triggering draft pick compensation and IFA money loss
• 5 of the 13 in my opinion had some level of “impact” to their Free Agency by virtue of the QO attachment, even if its arguable:
• Nick Pivetta was probably the most impacted; he took $7.3M less in AAV than if he’d just signed the one year deal.
• One QO attached signing was ludicrous: Oakland/Sacramento signed a reliever Luis Severino to a 3yr/$67M basically to get the union off their backs for hoarding money. Honestly; someone needs to divest this team from its ownership.
• The Rich get richer: four of the signing teams were so far over payroll that they gave up two draft picks (Mets, Yankees, SF, Houston)
• 13 total draft picks were surrendered, which we’ll talk about in a bit in how it impacts a team like the Nationals.
• Boras represented 6 of the 13 players: 2 of the re-signed, 2 got the expected massive deals (Soto and Burns), but if i’m his remaining two clients (Alonso and Bregman) I’d be pretty underwhelmed by what happened this off-season. Alonso got just a 2year deal, Bregman a 3-year deal (albeit with opt outs each year). At least both can go back to FA soon w/ zero attachment.
• CAA Sports represented 4 of the 13: Fried and Adams did well, Walker got less in AAV than the QO but signed early so you can’t say the market played him. But they also represent Pivetta, who signed a deal worth $13.75/year AAV when he could have gotten a $21M QO for 2025. A mis-read by the player and the agent.

I continue to not be a fan of the QO system. I believe it artificially suppresses salaries for veteran FAs. I also believe FAs generally speaking are morons and continually misread their markets. Year after year we see players get screwed by this system.

---

So, now that all the QO assigned players are signed, there’s no more draft pick gains and losses, and we now have a basically finalized 2025 draft order. I believe I have this correct and updated for all the moves, but here’s my working XLS of all the drops and adds for the first five rounds due to draft pick comp, comp picks, etc.

As it stands now, here’s how the Nats will be picking:

• 1st round: #1 overall
• 2nd round: #49 overall
• 3rd round: #80 overall: this moved up 9 spots thanks to lost picks
• 4th round: #111 overall:
• 5th round: #142 overall
• 6th round: #171 overall
• +30 every round subsequent

So, we’ll get three picks in the top 80 in 2025, which should add nicely to our existing slate of prospects.

Law just released his top 20 for the Nats system.

Keith Law has always been somewhat of a contrarian in these prospect rankings, and for good reason. His methodology for each year basically throws out last year’s results and starts over, which allows him to break free of a “prospect-retention” paradigm that plagues some ranking shops. This logic eliminates players like Elijah Green, who has performed so terribly in low-A but who was so highly regarded (and highly paid) as an upper-1st rounder in 2022. It also basically eliminates high-bonus IFA guys who have scuffled in the low minors (a methodology I agree with as well). As a result, Law often ends up with some names ranked in places that we havn’t seen before, which we’ll cover below.

Law also proven himself, especially this year, as a talent evaluator who isn’t afraid to dream on newly drafted players, especially college players, and may have some of them over-drafted.

Law’s stuff is behind a paywall, so y ou miss out on his per-player evaluations (which are insightful), but here’s his top 20:

Rank	Last Name	First Name	Position
1	Crews	Dylan	OF (CF)
2	King	Seaver	SS
3	Sykora	Travis	RHP (Starter)
4	House	Brady	SS/3B
5	Susana	Jarlin	RHP (Starter)
6	Bazzell	Kevin	C/3B
7	Clemmey	Alex	LHP (Starter)
8	Cavalli	Cade	RHP (Starter)
9	Dickerson	Luke	SS/CF
10	Stuart	Tyler	RHP (Starter)
11	Lomavita	Caleb	C
12	Morales	Yohandy	3B
13	Wallace	Cayden	3B
14	Lile	Daylen	OF (CF)
15	Lara	Andry	RHP (Starter)
16	Hassell III	Robert	OF (CF)
17	Made	Kevin	SS
18	Bennett	Jake	LHP (Starter)
19	Diaz	Randal	SS/3B
20	Cranz	Robert	RHP (Reliever)

As is tradition, lets run through this list top to bottom.

• It goes without saying that so far, Law is tops on Seaver King, having him at #2 in the system. We knew this was coming b/c when Law released his top 100 for the entirety of the Minors two weeks ago, King was listed ahead of Sykora. Law projects him as a SS in the majors, with great speed, sneaky power, but his hit tool is the best. Can’t wait to see him in Wilmington this year.
• The rest of the top 5 is as expected, in about the expected order. He’s worried about Sykora’s mechanics (but, to be fair, Law is worried about a lot of pitcher’s mechanics), worried about House’s lack of BB rate in AAA, and worried about Susana’s inability to get LHB out.
• Quick deeper dive into Susana, because I think some of this stuff is fascinating. Here’s his fangraphs page. For the entirety of 2024, he had a BABIP of .372. .372!! That’s ridiculous, and is why his ERA was in the 4s but his FIP was in the 2s. You don’t often see a full 2-point delta between pitchers’ ERA and FIP. Here’s his MILB stats page with 2024 splits. Law pointed out that LHB had a .407 OBP against him last year; he had a 1.98 WHIP against lefties versus a 0.97 whip against righties. He attributes this to his 3/4 slot and lack of command. It sounds to me like he needs to develop a change-up that can keep lefties off-balance. The thing is, these are fringe issues with a guy who also hits 100, holds upper 90s deep into games, and doesn’t have a ton of effort in his delivery. I cannot wait to see what he does when he hits AA.
• Coming in at #6: Bazzell. Phew, by far the high man on this guy. Most other shops have him in the 14-15 range. I sense his ranking is assuming that Bazzell hits like he did in college AND plays Catcher; if he’s playing 3B he’s not quite as high of a prospect. With both Bazzell and Lomavita drafted in the same draft, one has to think one is going to Low-A and the other to High-A. I find it kind of interesting that Law has Bazzell so much higher than Lomavita, who was drafted ahead/paid out more in the same draft. Honestly, this is too high for Bazzell.
• He has Dickerson inside the top 10, entirely on tools. I also think this is too high, especially for a cold-weather prep kid who hasn’t yet taken a pro at bat. Like with IFAs, I like to see at least some production in the FCL before saying someone is a top 10 prospect.
• Some love for Tyler Stuart, one of a handful of AAA starters we were just talking about as generally being underrated by prospect watchers (along with Lord and Alvarez). Remember: Baseball America had Stuard #25.
• Morales at #12. Law had Morales ranked #6 this time last year, and in his writeup he freely admits that a) Morales had a hand injury all year and b) he “seemed” ok once he returned in August. So, like all the other shops that have dropped him … i’m just kind of at a loss. I have him #6 on my list, right now, and I don’t plan on dropping him.
• He has Lile down at #14. And, it’s almost like he was reading the comments i’ve been making about him. Here’s a direct quote from Law about Lile: “Lile might be a tweener, lacking the power for an outfield corner and with just a fringe-average defense in center, leaving him in Fourth Outfielder Town, which is only two stops away from DFAville.” EXACTLY what i’ve been saying for a while now in the comments. Honestly, if Lile blows up and starts hitting .330 this year, we should just trade him. There’s more and better outfielders already in the majors, and more and better CF prospects in the minors behind him.
• He’s just slightly lower on Lara than most others. Unlike Susana above, his BABIP upon reaching AA was really low, which blows up his FIP as compared to his actual ERA. His per-pitch scouting report basically shows him with slider as his #1 pitch, and the other three being 40s or 45s. That’s not good. I’ll be curious to see how this plays out, but Law is predicting him to be a 2-pitch middle reliever despite being so young and projecting to the AAA rotation.
• Hassell at #16. I think Its time for me to just admit that Hassell may not be the top-end prospect I have hoped for. Law prints a shocking stat: “He didn’t have a single extra-base hit off a lefty in 76 PA last year, and had just three (all doubles) off them in 2023, for a .218 slugging percentage off southpaws over two years.” That is patently amazing. Here’s his 2024 splits. Indeed: 61 ABs versus LHPs last year and zero XBH for a slash line of .213/.319/.213. Here’s something else interesting: he was legitimately good leading off (.285/.363/.381) but patently awful when batting lower in the order. Is that someone who’s literally pouting b/c he’s not leading off? So strange. Nonetheless, its hard to ignore this, and a full season in AAA with lefty specialists may do even more to expose him.
• Made at #17: i just don’t get it. I have him in the mid-30s and even that’s a stretch. But Law seems to admit the same, saying, “This is almost a placeholder — he has enough of a base of other skills to be a utility infielder, as long as he starts to hit the ball harder. If he doesn’t do that, he’s not a prospect.” At this point, i’m leaning towards the latter, having him buried in the mid 30s. Honestly, if you had to rank SS in our system right now, you’d go MLB starter: Abrams, MLB backups: Nunez/Rosario. AAA depth: Lipscomb, Made, then you have mid-minors prospects with promise like Cruz, King, and Diaz, Ramirez (who should be your AA, High-A, and Low-A starters in 2025), then you’ve got prep/DSL prospects with promise like Dickerson and Feliz. So, not a lot of pure prospect depth in the system of for-real guys who project to stick at SS … but if Made is hitting .220 in AA and you have 1st rounder Seaver King waiting in the wings producing in High-A … what are you gonna do? Made may only be 22 but he’s certainly at a cross-roads where he has to prove he’s not the next coming of Nasim Nunez.

Ok, so here’s where I have to eat some crow, having blasted BA’s list. Because the last two guys on Law’s list are surprises for sure.

• #19: 2024 5th rounder Randal Diaz. This is a first time ranking anywhere for Diaz, and coming out of the 2024 draft he was not one of the handful of guys I even was projecting into the top 50. It’s one thing to rank our top bonus guys in our top 20 automatically (King, Lomavita, Dickerson, and Bazzell). It is another to do down-ballot prospect ranking, especially for under-slot 2nd day guys like Diaz and Cranz. I guess Diaz has gotten some attention lately thanks to his making the Puerto Rican national team; if he’s a sneaky good 2nd day draft pick for us, all the better. He’ll presumably get the Low-A starting SS job and we’ll see how it goes.
• #20 2024 7th rounder Robert Cranz. BA also rated Cranz relatively highly, having him come in at #24. Law thinks Cranz is a 4-pitch guy who may start. But, again, as i said in the BA review … if he is a 4-pitch starter quality guy, why didn’t he frigging start in college?? I took a quick glance at OK State’s baseball stats for 2024: they had two guys who were full time Fri/Sat starters, then gave Sunday and midweek starts to a slew of guys while keeping Cranz basically as a stopper, not even the closer (just 2 saves). I mean, yes there’s value to a guy like that, but there’s more value to having a guy who can go 6ip with 1r. So I repeat the same thing I asked in the last post; if Cranz was this good, why the F wasn’t he starting in college? Are Oklahoma State’s baseball staff so stupid as to think that a middle reliever provides more value than a starter? Because more and more, that’s what its looking like; a patent failure in talent evaluation at that program.

Honorable mentions: these clearly aren’t the guys ranked 21-25, but he calls out a few notables. Sam Peterson, Angel Feliz (who i’ve mentioned already and who is in my top 20), Ramirez, Vaquero, and Sir Jamison Jones.

players not on his top 20 of note:

• Feliz: who did produce as a big $ IFA and who is at the back-end of my top 20.
• Lord, mentioned before as not really being a flashy guy but who produced like crazy in 2024.
• No love for Pinckney, even if the Nats have given him a NRI invite two years in a row.
• No mention of our 2025 IFA signings, which is common with law; he’s like me and wants to see some production and not just ranking of the signing bonus.
• Green, as discussed ad nauseum.

Honestly, just giving a top 10 for a system is almost like taking a remedial course in college just so you can get an A on your transcript. In year’s past McDaniel has gone much deeper (22 prospects in 2024, 28 in 2023, 32 or more in 2022), so maybe we’ll get a more comprehensive list eventually, but for now, here’s his top 10 for the Nats system.

Quick thoughts.

• Four of these players are in his top 100, a high mark for any of the overall top 100 lists.
• He retains confidence in House, unlike Law, BA, and MLBPipeline.
• Interestingly he has Sykora below Susana, also a first in this off-season.
• King at #5 is now pretty standard after the top 4 names.
• Clemmey and Cavalli remain on his top 200, though one has to think Cavalli’s last year of being a prospect is 2025. He’s either going to produce in the majors or become our most high profile 1st round failure since Romero
• This is the highest we’ve seen either Lile or Lomavita.
• Wallace at #10 means he’s creeping up, and it’ll be super interesting to see how the organization handles/juggles playing time for both Wallace and House if they’re both in AAA. One has to make way for the other, especially since House is the better bet to be a longer-term 3B in the majors.

Not making the top 10, but who are top 10 calibre on other lists:

(This is not criticism of this top 10, which is pretty solid honestly, but here’s some players who have made top 10 lists on other shops so far this year):

• Hassell
• Morales
• Lara
• Dickerson
• Chapparo (which was on a fantasy-focused list, so that’s an outlier)

I’m not sure you’re making an argument for any of these five over Lile or Wallace. Ok, maybe if it was ME i’d make an argument over Lile, but i’m low-man on Lile and high-man on Hassell.

One last thing: McDaniel’s callout for prospect ot watch is Dickerson, which we’ve heard a couple times already. Super excited to see what he can do in 2025.