Nationals Arm Race

Small Sample Sizes, arbitrary endpoints, its only April, yeah yeah.

As of 4/24/22’s game, in reverse order, here’s our rotation’s last week:

• Adon on 4/24/22: 4ip, 6hits, 5 runs
• ASanchez on 4/23/22: 4 1/3ip, 6hits, 4 runs
• Corbin on 4/22/22: 1 1/3ip, 7hits, 3walks, 7runs.
• Rogers on 4/21/22: 4 1/3ip, 6hits, 4 runs.
• Fedde on 4/20/22: 3 1/3ip, 8hits, 7 runs.

Only Grey managed to have a decent week, throwing half the 4/19/22 DH in fine fashion (5 1/3ip, 3hits, 1 run). Still not a QS though; he got yanked after retiring the first guy in the 6th on just 87 pitches.

As for the rest of the rotation? Come on.

In our last 5 starts, our starters have given us a grand total of 17 1/3 innings and given up an astounding 27 runs along the way. That’s just 17 1/3 innings out of a required 45 to be pitched, meaning our bullpen is absolutely, completely shredded right now and its … April 25th. Every game for the last week looks like a spring training game, where every reliever in the pen gets an inning until the game is over.

We’re only 3 weeks into the season and the team has already called up SIX (6!) arms who weren’t on the opening day roster (Rogers, Sanchez, Clay, Perez, Ramirez, and Harvey).

And they’re going to have to scramble for coverage going forward; there are just TWO remaining arms on the 40-man who aren’t on the active roster or the MLB DL: Carrillo (who just went onto the AA D/L with a “sore shoulder,” uh oh), and Evan Lee, who’s made 3 starts but has only gone 9 1/3 total innings, giving up 8 walks along the way. Not exactly the bullpen innings eater we need. So get ready for any one of the slew of MLFA arms we have sitting in AAA to start getting called up to replace ineffective arms who suddenly have soft tissue injuries. I’m talking guys like Verrett, Edwards Jr., Clippard, Garret, Manoah, Weems, Baldonado, and Rodriguez.

After today’s debacle we’re 6-11, in last place in the NL, and have the 2nd worst record in the league. And we’re going to struggle to do better from here.

I feel like we’re in for a long season.

So, BA issued an “update” to its top 30 prospect lists for teams this week.

See https://www.baseballamerica.com/teams/1012/washington-nationals/organizational/ for our “new” list.

per BA’s site, this update is… “With the minor league season beginning, we have updated our Top 30 prospect rankings for every major league club. These new rankings now include international players from the current signing class that opened on Jan. 15, with additional player movement based on new looks, information and injuries.”

BA continues to ignore MLB service time and keeps including prospects who have not hit AB/IP thresholds even though they’ve sat on the active roster long enough to exhaust rookie eligibility .. which means that they’ve kept in particular Keibert Ruiz and Riley Adams eligible, as literally no other shop has done.

So what changed between this ranking and the last one (to which I reacted here?).

• They added Jan 2022 IFA signing Cristian Vaquero at #5.
• ….. and thats it.

No adjustments for Antuna moving to the outfield, for Lile being out for the season, for Adon making the MLB rotation, nothing else.

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So, pretty much a nothing burger of an update. But, thought i’d put a placeholder here to talk about the starts we’re seeing with the MLB club through the first week.

Talking about hitters:

• Good, as expected: Soto, Bell, Ruiz
• Good, unexpectedly: Franco, YHernandez (has he now won a starting job?)
• Bad, as expected: Robles (why is he still in the majors?), Escobar
• Bad, unexpectedly: Cruz, Thomas

Robles starts the season 0-17 and necessitates the callup of prospect OF Casey. Lane Thomas hasn’t been much better. But maybe we should just frigging play Yadiel Hernandez until he stops hitting? I mean, the dude hit last year, he’s hitting this year … why not just play the guy?

Pitchers? Phew, hide your eyes.

• Good, as expected: … i’m not sure anyone is living up to their expectations. Rainey maybe? Arano. Fedde maybe.
• Good, unexpectedly: Rogers, Doolittle
• Bad, as expected: Corbin, ASanchez (by going straight to the DL), Adon, Voth
• Bad, unexpectedly: not sure anyone qualifies here.

Lets be honest, i went into this season looking at this pitching staff with very little expectation. Our opening day rotation consisted of

• a 9-figure contract debacle who hasn’t performed in 2 years in Corbin.
• A option-less 5+ ERA starter who should have been non-tendered last offseason in Fedde
• a rookie who has been all hype and no performance as of yet in Grey
• Another rookie with one MLB start who had, frankly, uninspiring 2021 MILB numbers and who should be in AAA in Adon
• A frigging NRI has-been who I can’t believe they took over Rogers or Espino in Anibel Sanchez.

What have see seen so far? Adon: shelled in 2 starts. Corbin? Shelled in 2 starts. Sanchez? hurt before he makes a start … and then lo and behold Rogers comes up and gives the Nats their best start so far (shocker!). Grey? Surprisingly decent so far. And Fedde? Shocker he was effective in his first start. Lets see how long that lasts.

Honestly, i’m shocked we’re 3-5 right now with a team ERA right now of 5.91. 5.91 isn’t getting the donuts made.

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Long season ahead.

This is a review of the marquee names that have been in discussion for the top-end of the 1st round for the 2022 draft.  Since (especially high schoolers) guys constantly are moving up or down draft boards, each section is divided into two areas: those 4-5 names really in talks to go 1-1 overall (“1-1” means 1st round, 1st overall) and then those who have fallen to “just” being 1st or 2nd rounders.

First draft of this post was in July of 2018, when several 1st rounders didn’t sign and thus became 2022 eligible. then the next major draft of this post was in July of 2021, when BA did their first mock for the 2022 draft.

The consensus on this class initially was that it would be loaded, thanks to Covid impacts compressing the last two drafts. But, as its turning out, a spate of arm injuries have really thinned the arm ranks, meaning that this class is weaker than normal, will feature a ton more bats, and a lot more prep draftees in the upper first round.

College Upper 1st round names in the mix for 1-1

• Brooks Lee, SS, Cal Poly. Highly regarded prospect in 2018, but went to school to play for his father, the coach at Cal Poly. Projected top 35 pick in 2019. Switch hitter, Missed FR year, destroyed at the plate his Sophomore year .342/.384/.626 with 10 homers. Switch hitter. Fared very well in Cape Code summer of 2021 with wood. Risent to near #1 talent in the 2022 draft.
• Jace Jung, 2B/3B Texas Tech. Will be draft-eligible Sophomore in 2022. Slashed .337/.462/.697 line with 21 home runs his Freshman year. #1 per BA in fall 2021, still top 5 Jan 2022. Some concern about defensive capabilities; might be 2B limited due to fringe arm and defense. Biggest concern is odd swing mechanics (see here).
• Kevin Parada, C, Georgia Tech. Draft eligible sophomore in 2022. Solid bat in 2021, team USA. Offense first C who should stay at the position, increasing his value considerably.
• Logan Tanner, C, Mississippi State: plus defensive C in an SEC program with decent hit tool is a lock to go first round.
• Daniel Susac, C, Arizona. 1st Team AA as a freshman in 2021. .335/.392/.591 with 12 home runs as freshman.

College Candidates who have fallen out of  1-1 contention

• Brock Jones, OF, Stanford. hard to think a Stanford bat is upper 1st round territory, given the way they neuter power bats.
• Jacob Berry, corner OF/1B, Louisiana State. Xfer from Arizona. .352/.439/.676 with 17 homers in 2021. Needs to firm up defensive position and show he can play third adequately, but projected top 5 right now. Challenge will be; if he’s already a corner OF/1B, he’ll have to hit like crazy to overcome that. Dropping his draft pedigree
• Chase DeLaughter, OF JMU. Legit upper 1st round talent as of Dec 2021. #6 on BA’s Jan 2022 list. Spring 2022; got exposed by FSU lefties; book is out on him and he got hurt. Falling.
• Gavin Cross, OF/Croner Virginia Tech. LH power hitter who slashed .345/.415/.621 in 2021 and then impressed with the CNT. moving up.
• Cameron Collier, 3B/SS, Chipola College (JUCO): went the Bryce Harper route, graduating HS early and enrolling at a JuCo to get into an earlier class. Solid power, lefty swing, top-5 draft potential. Spring 2022 falling.
• Reggie Crawford, 1B/LHP UConn. Big guy who pitched very little in 2021, but then hit 100 for College National team and has shot himself into conversations of the top of the draft.
• Peyton Pallette, RHP, Arkansas. 4.02 ERA in rotation for #1 Arkansas team in 2021, sits mid-90s with upper 90s peak. Will need to show more dominance to move up.
• Hunter Barco, LHP, Florida. Projected top 50 pick in 2019, fell and attended school. Weekend starter from the moment he walked onto Campus.
• Carter Young, SS, Vanderbilt. Struggled in 2021 but showed tons of power. Could be a riser in spring of 2022.
• Peyton Graham, 3B, Oklahoma.
• Connor Prielipp, LHP, Alabama
• Hayden Dunhurst, C, Ole Miss.
• Nate Savino, LHP from UVA via Potomac Falls HS.  Potomac District POTY in 2018 as a sophomore.  UVA commit.  Was projecting as upper 1st rounder in 2020 draft, then graduated early to head to UVA.  Spring 2021 did not break into UVA’s weekend rotation, lowering his draft stock.
• Owen Diodati, OF, Alabama
• Brandon Sproat, RHP, Florida
• Spencer Jones, 1B/LHP Vanderbilt (via CA HS).  Projected top 35 pick in 2019, fell and attended school.
• Maurice Hampton, OF (CF) LSU (via TN HS).  Projected top 50 pick in 2019, fell and attended school.  Also a WR for LSU football, unclear if he’ll continue playing baseball.
• Jerrion Ealy, OF (CF) Ole Miss (via Miss HS).  Projected top 75 pick in 2019, fell and attended school.
• Bryce Osmond, RHP Oklahoma State.  Projected top 75 pick in 2019, fell and attended school.  Nats pick in 2019.
• Chris Newell, OF (corner): UVA (via Malvern Prep in PA): Projected top 100 pick in 2019, fell and attended school.  Exploded in 2020, named 1st team pre-season All American in 2021.
• Robert Moore, SS, Arkansas son of KC GM Dayton Moore

High School Upper 1st round names in the mix for 1-1

• Andruw “Druw” Jones, OF, Wesleyan HS (Ga.). Son of the original Andruw Jones. 6’3″ RH hitter has his father’s combination of speed and power. Vanderbilt commit. By Jan 2022 had risen to #1 in class on BA’s board.
• Termarr Johnson, 2B/SS, Mays HS, Atlanta, GA. Great defender at SS, 2B or CF. PG 14U POTY 2018. Undersized (5’8″ ??) but with smooth hit tool. Georgia Tech commit as of July 2021. BA ranks him #1, best bat in the class, as does MLB. Might not stick at SS, which would lower his draft stock.
• Elijah Greene, OF (CF), IMG Academy, Bradenton, Fla. Transfer from NXL Academy (Windermere, FL). Currently the top prep player in the class and outclassing any potential college competitors for 1-1 per some shops, #2 per MLB. Miami commit. Big guy, corner OF projection but currently plays CF. Off the chart tools per MLB.
• Dylan Lesko, RHP, Buford (Ga.) HS. Gatorade 2021 National POTY as a junior (!!) and #2 ranked player in the class behind Greene. 11-0, 0.35 ERA with nearly a 2K/inning rate his junior season. Vanderbilt commit.
• Brock Porter, RHP, St. Mary Prep (Mi.). 97mph, great separation in velocity, Clemson commit.

High School guys whose stock has fallen:

• Turner Spoljaric
• Tristan Smith, LHP, Boiling Springs HS (S.C.). Clemson commit, mid 90s on FB, has regressed a bit since stellar 2020 summer.
• Jackson Ferris, LHP, IMG Academy (Fla.). Ole Miss commit. Big guy 6’4″, funky mechanics that drop him slightly.
• Jayson Jones, SS, Braswell HS (Tex.). Big Texas SS, Arkansas commit.
• Tucker Toman, OF. switch hitter starred at 2021 Area Code Games. LSU commit, could be improving his stock.
• Javier Santos Tejada, RHP, Albany (Ga.). undersized with power arm, Juco commit, excelled at Program 15’s Future Stars Series in october.

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Sources

• Fangraphs “the Board” for 2019 class, looking at top-ranked prep kids who didn’t sign/went to school.
• Prospects365 early look at loaded 2022 draft Aug2020
• Baseball America 2022 draft preview class 10/5/20
• D1Baseball 2021 pre-season All Americans
• D1Baseball 2022 College Draft Prospects 3/3/21
• BA top 2022 HS class rankings aug 2021
• BA top 2022 College class rankings aug 2021
• MLBpipeline post-2021 summer circuit review of HS prospects Aug 2021
• d1baseball top 2022 college prospects Sept 2021
• Keith Law review of Program 15 Future Stars main event in NYC in October 2021
• MLBpiopeline dec2021 top 100 draft prospects
• BA’s top 100 for 2022 draft class Jan 2022

Even though the 2022 season has started, we’re still seeing pundit Prospect ranking lists trickle in. In fact, we still havn’t seen several major shops’ Nats list at this point, so we’ll continue doing these posts as they arrive.

Today, Prospectdigest.com and its lead pundit Joseph Werner released his Nats top 10 list. https://prospectdigest.com/washington-nationals-top-10-prospects-for-2022/ .

Here’s some comments.

• Ruiz at #1. I think Werner is following the Baseball America “rules” for eligibility, as opposed to MLBs. He’s still got Ruiz as being a prospect. Perhaps he wrote this list last fall (which may be true, given the fact that there’s mo mention of Vaquero).
• He then has the same 2-5 names as most everyone else, in the same order: Cavalli, House, Henry, Rutledge.

After the top 5 is where his list gets, um, “interesting.”

• Armando Cruz at #6. That’s the highest he’s been on any list since before last year’s trade deadline prospect haul. He’s an 18yr old who hit .232 in the DSL last year … this ranking is entirely on hype and scouting reports.
• Daylen Lile at #7?? Wow, that’s way too high for his profile. I mean, everything has to go right for a 6.0″ slap hitter to make it, and his pro debut was awful (.219/.363/.250 in FCL last year). How is this guy higher than any number of other hitters we have in the system? Crazy. Plus, we now know he’s torn his UCL and is out for the entire 2022 season. So … yes perhaps late breaking news, but this list should have been adjusted.
• Mitchell Parker at #8? This is the highest ranking I’ve seen anyone have for Parker. Look, I like Parker; but there’s no way I’d have him above Adon or Lara or Carrillo or Lee right now. Adon is in the majors for crying out loud. Lara’s got better stuff and is 3 years younger. Carrillo probably could be in the MLB bullpen right now, and Lee struck out 104 in 77 High-A innings last year.
• Lara and Carrillo round out the top 10; don’t have any issues with those guys being around this range.

Nits: No Vaquero. they drafted him in January and its now Mid April. If you rank Cruz at #6 then you have to put in a guy who was older and better at signing time. Also, no mention of Adon despite him being in the MLB rotation.

Otherwise, not much else to note. I can’t see any other possible ommissions from this top 10.

On 4/5/22, because for some weird reason AAA started 3 days before the rest of the minors, we got the Rochester roster announcement. Then, on 4/8/22, we got the other three full season affiliate roster announcements (click here for Harrisburg, Wilmington, Fredericksburg). H/T to Luke Erickson and nationalsprospects.com for these links.

After several hours of furious XLS work, the Big Board is now up to date for these rosters. The 2022 big board features some new stuff from year’s past: i’ve now got links to every player (milb.com links for minor leaguers, baseball-reference.com links for MLB players), plus i’m keeping track of Promotions/Demotions via color coding. So, Green right this moment indicates a promotion from their final resting spot last year while Red indicates a demotion from their final resting spot.

(Note: this was written before a couple of over-the-weekend transactions so there may be a couple of now obsolete-details here).

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Here’s some macro observations per team by level:

• AAA: 12 of the 28 man roster are home grown, which seems like more than in year’s past. That includes a big chunk of the positional players and rotation … but just one home-grown reliever. Interesting. Meanwhile, 2022FAs or Rule5 pickups account for another 12 of the team … and if you add in 21FAs/Rule5s it accounts for 17 of the players on the team. That’s a lot of newly acquired veteran FAs hanging out in Rochester. I wonder what the clubhouse culture is like.
• AA: Also has an inordinate number of MLFAs/Rule5 pickups: 10 of the players are 22MLFAs or Rule5 pickups (counting Gushue perhaps unfairly). In terms of draft pedigree, not too many real prospects here either. Furthermore, 17 players on the roster were there at season’s end last year, meaning not a ton of upward movement here (see more on that later on in the Promotions/Demotions section). Slightly surprised to see some names repeating here, especially Cluff and Carillo, but i’m not shocked. Cate, the opening day starter last year, starts the season on the IL.
• High-A: Almost entirely home grown or prospects acquired through trade; just two MLFAs here. Amazingly Mendoza is repeating the level, as is Antuna. He may be the sole 40-man roster player in all of the minors in A-ball right now. Two interesting arms here: Irvin finally back from TJ, and Parker continuing in high-A where he was promoted to mid-season. Pineda repeating as well; he’s only 22 but it seems like the prospect shine is gone.
• Low-A: Entirely home grown roster, split evenly between IFAs (15) and the Draft (16) with a few NDFAs thrown in. two of the most important names on this roster (Rutledge, Denaburg): on the DL. Of course they are. But in the exciting column, nearly every young hitting prospect we care about is here: House, Boissiere, Infante, White, and Arias all stand to feature in the field here.

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Lets do some promotion/demotion thoughts by level:

• AAA promotions: Wilmer Perez and Cole Freeman. Freeman i suppose gets promoted to ride the pine, while Perez gets an inexplicable promotion from basically High-A, where he hit .206 last year, so i’m thinking this is short lived.
• AA Promotions: Connell, Dunn, Gausch, Henry, Evan Lee. that’s it from last year’s end-of-season HighA roster. All eyes of course are on Henry and new 40-man member Lee, though i’m happy to see Gausch moved up. Connell and Dunn both seem like they’ll be bench pieces.
• AA Demotions: Lara, Gushue, Flores, Fuentes. Getting demoted after spending most or all of 2021 in AAA is not a great sign. I’m not quite sure why Flores in particular is even still here, himself being a 2021 MLFA. Gushue lost out in the catcher numbers game presumably. Gilbert Lara only spent a couple weeks in AAA and probably should have always been in AA, so this is a harsh determination. Lastly Fuentes, who was so good in AA in 2019 but then got shelled in AAA last year. He’s only 24, and i’m hoping he’s more than just a middling org-guy right hander.
• High-A Promotions: Baker, Barley, Gonzales, Vega, Sanchez, Cuevas, Merrill, Willingham, Kirian, CRomero, Knowles. That’s a ton of promotions from last year, to go with a ton that happened mid season in 2021. These guys move freely in the low minors.
• High-A Demotions: Daily, Canning. Daily is a 25-yr old 1B/OF who hits in the low 200s now in A-ball; surprised he’s even still on the team. Canning slugged just .316 in AA last year; both are fighting for their jobs now.
• Low-A Promotions: 14 of them from the FCL/DSL last year: Infante, House, Rivero, White, Arias, Cacheres, Ferrer, Gonzalez, Sinclair, Threadgil, Greenhil, Glavine, Ribalta. Makes sense and great to see so many names, especially young ones, pouring into full season ball.
• Low-A Demotions: Just one: Junior Martina, a 3B who didn’t exactly light low-A on fire last year and is now back as a 24yr old.

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Lastly, lets talk about who was left behind in XST after being on a full season roster last year. Every name here is someone to be concerned about, either because they didn’t make the team or because maybe they’re hurt.

• 2021 AAA to XST: Alex Dunlop, Sterling Sharp, Andrew Lee, Nick Wells. Dunlop may be squeezed out of a catcher’s job with the acquisition last year of three guys. Sharp has now gone from 40-man roster to not making the AAA roster: one has to wonder what’s next for him. Lee and Wells were both long relievers in AAA; now what for both of them? (Note: Braymer was called up to replace an apparently injured Verrett two games into the season, but the concern for his place remains)
• 2021 AA to XST: Kyle Marinconz, Armond Upshaw, Ryan Tapani. Marinconz gets pushed to XST when Lara gets pushed down from AAA to make way for … MLFA veteran signing Urena? odd. Upshaw might have run out of time; he and Canning both cut from the AA outfield. Tapani was decent last year; maybe he’s hurt.
• 2021 High-A to XST: Catchers Andrew Pratt and Drew Millas. Paul Witt, JT Arruda, Ricardo Mendez, Alfonso Hernandez, Tyler Dyson. The catchers maybe are staying in XST to catch arms? Millas was an NRI this spring and was a valuable trade acquisition piece. Witt and Arruda are middle infielders who got beat out by Baker and Barley; understandable. They might be DFAs soon. Mendez probably got caught in the same OF shuffle that pushed down Canning. lastly two starters in Hernandez and Dyson that both pitched well last year, so maybe they have a knock.
• 2021 Low-A to XST: Boone, Fein; not much to think here; perhaps they’re going to go back to the FCL.

Here’s to a fun 2022 minor league season!

Short version of this post: we are going to be absolutely awful this year.

Longer Version….

At the end of Spring Training, the 2022 Nats are heading into battle with a 28-man roster that breaks down like the following:

• 4 NRIs signed to minor league deals this past off-season (as per the most recent post: (Sanchez, Arano, Franco, and Strange-Gordon)
• 2 Waiver claims (Fox, Murphy)
• 8 players who are essentially rookies: (Ruiz, Thomas, Adams, Grey, Adon, Thompson, Machado, Espino)

And, despite playing this many brand new players … we’re NOT going to be playing either of our top two positional rookies (Garcia, demoted mid-spring, and Kieboom, who may miss the entire season with a blown UCL) or any of our top pitching prospects (Cavalli got lit up, Henry wasn’t even at Spring training, Rutledge was an NRI for some reason but, lest we forget, was in LowA last year, etc).

A huge chunk of our likely opening day lineup are guys signed to one-year deals, who have no history with the franchise and whom most fans couldn’t pick out of a lineup. We know who Nelson Cruz is of course, but could you name our starting infield? If i stood Cesar Hernandez, Alcides Escobar, Maikel Franco, Lucious Fox, and Ehire Adrianza in a row could you put the correct name with each face? Every one of these guys seemingly was signed with the 2022 trade deadline in their minds … the likelihood of ANY of these guys finishing the year with the Nats seems very slim.

Our rotation includes an NRI (Sanchez), a guy who I thought was going to get non-tendered (Fedde), a Rookie with one MLB start to his name (Adon), a $30M/year guy who looked completely lost the last two seasons (Corbin), and a promising prospect who has a career 5.48 ERA in 14 MLB games (Grey). Strasburg may not pitch until July.

If i’m reading the Big Board correctly, just 6 of our opening day 28 man roster was originally drafted and developed by Washington (Robles, Soto, YHernandez, Fedde, Adon, and Voth). A damning indictment of our last decade of drafting and player development, especially in the top 2 rounds.

Not that spring training records matter … but we finished 4-11 and were outscored by 28 runs in the process (nearly 2 a game).

Its going to be a long season. We have the defending WS champs, a Mets team that’s going to spend $300M on payroll this year, a Phillies team that had a softball beer league lineup of sluggers who might average 8 runs a game, and a Marlins team that, well who knows what they’ll do but it won’t matter because we’re likely losing 100+ games with this lineup.

Discuss. Is anyone out there really optimistic?

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Thanks to the compressed Spring Training in 2022, we never did the navel gazing “which NRI may make the team?” after the team announced all its NRIs and MLFA signings.

But, now that the dust has settled, we did want to identify the NRIs and note which of them actually did make the team to have continuity with this analysis year over year.

Here’s past posts by year: 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015.

Why do we care about NRIs? Because there’s a high likelihood we’ll see these guys either make the roster or get called up later on this year. And this year is no different. Since the 2015 season (not including 2022):

• 9 NRIs have made the 25-man roster straight out of Spring Training (and Guthrie technically made it 10 since he got called up a few days later and was always intended to be the 5th starter in 2017).  Basically every year an NRI has made the roster for six seasons running.
• 29 NRIs eventually played for the MLB team at some point that same season they were in spring training.

So its likely that we’re going to see a lot of these NRIs at some point in the future.  Like, on average at least 4-5 of these NRIs are going to play for this team in 2022.

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So, who were the NRIs this year? By position:

• Starters: Rutledge, Cavalli, Jefry Rodriguez, Anibal Sanchez,
• Righty Relievers: Arano, Edwards, Garrett, Weems, Ramierz
• Lefty Relievers: Avilan, Baldonado, Cronin, Fry
• Catchers: Hermann, Millas, Pineda, Gushue
• Infielders: Cluff, Franco, Noll, Sanchez, Dee-gordon, Urena, Young
• Outfielders: Parra

So, Opening day NRIs to make roster and the circumstances behind each

• Anibal Sanchez; 3rd starter. It became clear early in spring that Strasburg wasn’t going to be ready and we needed another starter that we weren’t necessarily counting on. Several of the existing starters on the 40-man roster (Lee, Romero, Carrillo) really had no realistic shot of making a MLB roster, which left just six healthy starters on the entire 40-man roster from which to choose. Sanchez pitched here before and signed on as a MLFA with the NRI, and he ended up winning a spot easily in the rotation.
• Victor Arano, rhp reliever. When Harris couldn’t answer the call, there was a major spot opened up in the back half of our bullpen, and Arano siezed it. Arano was a pretty adept MLFA signing; the guy has a career 159 ERA+ and dominated for the Phillies as an 8th inning guy in 2018. He outpitched a slew of RHP relievers on our 40-man to earn a spot, essentially beating out Gabe Klobotis for the spot.
• Dee Gordon-Strange, 2B and OF. When it became clear Garcia wasn’t making the team, the middle infield situation cleared up a bit. Then, When Adrianza got hurt, it became clear the team needed another middle infielder. Gordon-Strange’s positional flexibility will likely keep him on the roster for a bit.
• Maikel Franco, 3B. This one is pretty clear. Kieboom hurts his elbow, the team needs a 3B, and they just happened to have one on a MLFA/NRI deal.

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Which of the rest of the NRIs might we see this year? Quick speculation, but i’ll bet we see at least a couple more of the RHP relievers (Edwards, Garrett), perhaps a return for Baldonado, maybe a middle infielder like Cluff, certainly Parra at some point, and then Cavalli halfway through the season.

In our continuing series of reviewing/reacting/criticizing Nats prospect lists as they’re released, today we got a big one. The MLBpipeline.com team (which includes senior prospect analysts Jim Callis, Jonathan Mayo, and Sam Dykstra) has released their updated top 30 rankings for our system.

Here’s the links to past analysis: Keith Law/The Athletic, Baseball America, ProspectsLive.com, Prospects1500, Prospects361. We’re still waiting for a couple major shops who generally release rankings: Fangraphs, ESPN, BleacherReport, and CBSsports.

Back to MLBPipeline’s list, which is perhaps the most respected source out there. Here’s the link to the story and the list itself.

Lets do some reactions.

• At the top, Ruiz is graduated, so they go Cavalli-House at 1-2 like everyone else.
• They’ve got our next two significant arms at 3-4 (that being Henry/Rutledge). Law had them 3-4 as well, just in the reverse order. Notably, no other shop has these two arms as high, most pushing them down in to the 6-9 range. Which tells you what I think about this source versus others.
• MLBpipeline is one of the first to rank Vaquero legitimately; they’ve got him 5th as a starting point in the system. The only other shop to even bother attempting to rank him immediately post signing was ProspectsLive (who had him 4th).
• Next three are our tertiary tier of RHP starters; in order Lara, Carrillo, Adon. No quibbling here; all three could serve as really useful arms in our system in one fashion or another. Having these three guys in the 6-8 range is completely reasonable.
• They’re high on Daylen Lile, having him at #10. But their scouting report is a little dour, projecting him as a bat first spray hitting 4th outfielder.
• Antuna: down at #12. Finally a realistic ranking of a career .238 hitter who projects as a corner OF with no power.
• Quintana continues to be all over the map: they have him #15; he’s been as high as #7 (Keith Law) and as low as #24 (Baseball America).
• Boissiere comes in at #17 … after missing BA’s entire top 30.
• Lucius Fox is #23 … one of the few times we’ve ever had a waiver claim be ranked in our prospects list.
• Several recently drafted players are in the 20s but entirely missing from BA’s list, guys like Saenz and White.
• Mason Denaburg gets #30 treatment, but Seth Romero is nowhere to be seen.

Notable missing players

• Holden Powell‘s injuries have dropped him off the radar; he needs a bounce back 2022.
• Daniel Marte: completely off the radar too.
• Tim Cate: completely unranked but is as high as #12 on Law’s list. Interesting how little he’s rated.
• Riley Adams: nowhere to be seen despite being #11 on BA’s list. I guess a backup catcher who we all think is going to play every 4th day is not a prospect.
• Mason Thompson; another guy who BA had just outside their top 10 … then suddenly he wasn’t there at all. Did he graduate rookie eligibility? I can’t tell.

Update post publishing: per commenter, Adams and Thompson have graduated … which makes you then ask, “well why the hell is he on BAs’ list?” And the answer there is … well, because i don’t know. It’d be super helpful if baseball-reference.com would have listed them as having graduated (since that’s my primary source for determining that). I’ll update my docs.

After “losing” the last two CBA negotiations, the player’s union was in a tough spot. They’ve already let the proverbial camel’s nose into the tent (with respect to the salary cap), and they knew they couldn’t completely get rid of it, so they leveraged what they could to get what they could.

Here’s some of the key parameters and thresholds the two sides agreed upon on 3/10/22. Using the excellent reporting by Evan Drellich from the Athletic as a starting point and then attempting to get information out of a dozen other sources who are dripping out CBA details … here’s some parameters of the new deal that i’ve found. there’s a lot to digest.

• No Lost games: 162 game season planned, starting a few days later than normal with a compressed spring training.
• Expanded Playoffs: this was the biggest bargaining chip the Players had, and they used it to get all the salary benefits below. 12-teams, a 3-game play-in, byes for the two best records. This is a huge win for the owners, who will net an estimated $85M per year with expanded playoffs. Phew. As a side effect, no more game 163s (a bummer), as the league will go to NFL-style tiebreakers to determine seeding. #1 Seed plays winner of #4/#5 Wildcard, #2 seed plays winner of #3 division winner/#6 wild card. No re-seeding. The play-ins are 3-game series entirely at the home site. I’m on board here, with the knowledge that a couple more teams can be a disincentive for FA spending (but can be a huge boom during the trade deadline).
• Pre-Arbitration pool of $50M. This is brand new, and addresses the player complaints about players not getting paid enough early. The idea here is to dole out this pool to the highest performers on pre-arb salaries to get them compensation for production before they can earn it through arb and free agency processes. The pool supports the best 100 players, meaning an average of $500k per player, which seems like peanuts honestly given the cases where you have a Mike Trout generating a 10-win season at age 20, but its a start. Jayston Stark reports that last year as an example, Vladimir Guerrero would have netted an additional $1.75M salary. Again; a start, but still not paying the guy anywhere near his value.
• Minimum Salary rises from $570,500 in 2021 to 700k, rising to $780k by 2026. That’s not bad.
• Minor league Minimum salaries are rising too. Veterans with prior big league experience who are in the minors earned a minimum of $93k in 2021: that figure rises to $114,100 this year, with small rises each year to max out at $127,100 in 2016.
• CBT Salary Cap rises from $210M in 2021 to $230MM/$232MM/$236MM/$244MM over the next four years. That’s something, probably not really enough in the grand scheme of things since there’s no corresponding floor AND only a few teams will even approach it. But its a start.
• New CBT breaking penalities: The thresholds for 2022 are $230M/$250M/$270M/$290M. The agreement does put in additional penalties for going way, WAY over it (like what the Mets are going to do this year), but still allows teams to duck underneath and “reset” their penalties.
• Dropping of $500M grievance from 2020 shortened season: I’m sure this was not something the owners wanted to see in a courtroom, given that the evidence clearly showed that they basically negotiated exactly to the number of games they wanted and the players knew it.
• Players Union does NOT drop existing grievance against Rays, A’s, Pirates and Marlins (all of whom took in tens of millions of dollars in revenue sharing and are accused of not using it for payroll). This still needs to be litigated, and in my opinion is still a huge issue in the sport. Really, if you get money from other teams and you don’t use it to enhance the on-the-field product, you really should just be forced to sell.
• New rules with 45 day notice as opposed to a year’s notice for any “on the field change.” I’m surprised they allowed for this, since new rules can be pretty jarring for veterans.
• Three specific rules coming for 2023: banning the shift, larger bases, and a Pitch clock. I’ve talked about these issues in this space and i’m good with all three. The pitch clock by itself shaved more than 20 minutes off of games in the league it was tested in, shifts can be show to be directly related with precipitous drops in BABIP and wOBA over the past few years, and larger bases is a nothing-burger rule change that nobody should really care about.
• 2021 Rule 5 Draft officially cancelled: apparently the teams got together and were just like, ah forget it, its useless anyway.
• Draft Lottery at the top: the two sides have agreed to a lottery at the top of the draft; the top 6 picks/worst 6 teams will now use a lottery to determine who drafts first as opposed to directly by their record. Baseball is not Basketball (the other major US sport that does this); you don’t get immediate-impact/generational talents at the top of each draft, and top draft picks very frequently flame out early, so the lottery in some respects is a superficial fix. However, the MONEY associated with the lottery slots is huge: the difference in 2021 between picking 1st and 6th was $3M. $3M in “bonus dollar currency” basically is a mid-first rounder, or two mid-second round players. That’s huge.
• Limits on teams in the Lottery over and over: this is pretty big. Large market teams are prevented from being in the lottery more than one season in a row, and smaller market teams cannot be in it two years in a row. So teams like ahem Houston and Chicago (who purposely bottomed out to get high draft picks for years in a row) can never do that again, and inept smaller market teams who year after year are in the lottery (Pittsburgh, Baltimore) are prevented from doing so as well. These teams will get kicked down to 10th in the order. This isn’t a panacea for tanking, but its a big win. The difference between the top 2-3 and #10 is massive.
• Removal of 2021 “man on 2nd in extra innings” rule. to the collective sigh of purists.
• Return to normal 9-inning double headers: again, a purist move to remove a one-off rule change for 2021.
• Service time changes: call this the “Kris Bryant” rule; if a player is kept in the minors for service time manipulation purposes but finishes in the top 2 of RoY voting, they get a full year of service time awarded. It only affects 4 players a year … but its a start.
• Permanent roster limit on # of pitchers at 13: this is probably good for the sport, and probably something teams saw coming anyway.
• Advertising on Jerseys: its coming. For me, as a long-time soccer fan, its a non-issue and inevitable. Purists will, of course, lose their minds the moment they see a patch on the Yankees’s century-old pinstripes. I think its just “patches” and not logos across the chest.
• Universal DH: this seemed like a no-brainer for both sides … and it is FINALLY here. I’ve been advocating for this move for nearly a decade; here’s a 2013 post I wrote about it, and basically everything I wrote then is still true. Ironic that our own Ryan Zimmerman, who probably could have hung on for another season had he known we had a DH, already retired.
• Limits on Options: this is a pro-player move that probably doesn’t come into play for a ton of guys, but some teams are notorious for basically using options as a way to have an expanded roster, sending players back and forth to AAA over and over (Ahem, Tampa). Eno Sarris dives into it more here. There were players who were optioned more than a DOZEN times last year, a ridiculous logistical nightmare for these guys.
• Amateur Draft now permanently at 20 rounds. This is not really that surprising; the league axed the entirety of Short-A ball, and rounds 20-30 basically existed to pick college players to play for half a season in these leagues. We don’t need that many players anymore … and for years the rounds 30-40 were essentially useless anyway.
• Draft Pick Inducements for teams who carry top-performing rookies from opening-day. Interesting. Still seems like a crap shoot, and something that only affects the absolute very best rookies.
• Easing the Unbalanced Schedule: starting in 2023, teams will play fewer divisional games. Interesting. Details still coming in, but it sounds like each team will play all 30 teams each year. That’d be really different. Instead of playing each divisional rival 19 times each year, that will fall to 14 times (56 of the 162 games), with the difference made up with a ton more interleague play.
• Arbitration players to get cut in Spring training get full salary: thsi is a nice little pro-player change: if a player settles with his team on a figure, he’s guaranteed that number; no more cutting a player in spring training and getting away with just a percentage of the salary.
• Small waiver wire changes: last year a player named Jacob Nottingham got jerked around multiple times in a weird waiver-wire claim issue between two teams, changing franchises multiple times. The players union clearly noticed and now teams cannot make a second claim on a player unless all other teams pass.
• PED Testing changes: players will be tested more, and HGH testing will go from a blood draw to a blood spot.

Delayed negotiations: the two sides kicked the can down the road on two issues now tied to each other:

• Qualifying Offers: players want to get rid of them and the Draft picks associated with them (because the draft picks serve as a regressive action on the Free Agency market and depress value for players).
• International Draft: owners want it because, why else? It saves them money.

I personally think the players would be FOOLS to capitulate on the international draft for the sake of a handful of the (on average) 10-15 players a year who go through the QO process. I’ve done QO analysis for years and you can count on one hand the number of times a player was truly screwed by the QO process. And even those players who had to sit out part of the season, or take significantly less money than they were worth generally still made out later on. Players would be idiots to trade that benefit, which affects a fraction of 1% of their union to trade away the rights of every international player outside of the US. And while doing it, likely neuter or outright destroy baseball pipelines in certain latin american countries (akin to what the draft did to Puerto Rico). MLB owners are bottom-line, short sighted, wanting to save a penny instead of investing it to make a dollar later, and this is yet another example of them drastically harming the future of their sport … but the Union doesn’t represent 16yr old kids from the DR. So, expect it to happen.

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What did we NOT get that was talked about/demanded?

• Salary floor: yes the salary cap went up by 10% … but the Salary floor was not correspondingly implemented. This seems like a loss to the players, who have seen their average salary drop by 6.4% since 2017 at the same time that MLB revenues have increased more that 30%.
• Age-based Service time: this was abandoned as a non-starter
• Earlier to Arbitration: abandoned as a non-starter.
• WAR-based salary determination; abandoned … though I like where they were going.
• Expanded Active Rosters: still on the table perhaps, but not codified. we may get temporary expanded rosters to 28 players thanks to the compressed spring training.

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What do I think? Well, the players got some wins, but i dont’ feel like the owners really had to make sacrifices. No salary floor, no elimination of the cap. The owners probably could care less about incremental salaries for the windfall they’re going to get from expanded playoffs. Notably, the player’s union vote included every “executive committee” player (basically the most respected veterans in the league) rejecting this deal.

but at least we’re playing ball again.

Note: a TON more detail has come out since this initial posting. The Athletic has a very comprehensive article on the new CBA with a ton more details here:

https://theathletic.com/3187914/2022/03/16/mlbs-collective-bargaining-agreement-guide-to-the-changes-in-the-2022-26-labor-deal/?source=dailyemail&campaign=601983

Well, this is a shocker to me. Out of nowhere, and with the two parties tens of millions of dollars apart on several key issues as of the last update … word just came out that they’ve suddenly agreed to a deal.

We’ll do a more in-depth analysis of the terms later on … i wanted to get something out there today though to remind you that

a) yes i’m still here

b) yes I still write on this blog … though not as frequently as I used to

and

c) more is coming.

We’re still waiting for a slew of major prospect ranking shops to release their Nats lists, and we’ll continue to react to them. But now that we have a CBA, we’re going to see an amazingly frantic transaction period coming up … i’ll do my best to keep the Big Board up to date.