Nationals Arm Race

"… the reason you win or lose is darn near always the same – pitching.” — Earl Weaver

Fun Observations with Current Rosters

9 comments

So, when both Luis Garcia and Yadiel Hernandez went down with injuries … the Nats active 26-man roster sports exactly ONE originally drafted/signed player (that being Victor Robles).

That’s pretty amazing.

Check out the big board, where all of our rosters are tracked in one place.

Now, in all fairness the roster does contain several players acquired as prospects in trade, which is kind of the point of a rebuild, so I thought it’d be interesting to squint at our rosters right now and do quick arithmetic of the roster construction to show where we are.

This data is as of 8/23/22 and depends on my Big Board being accurate (which it may not be b/c transactions are sneaky sometimes). Only looking at active players, not DL/restricted.


MLB Roster: 26 man.

  • Home Grown: 1 (Robles)
  • Prospects Acquired in trade; 6 (Ruiz, Voit, Abrams, Adams, Thomas, Grey)
  • MLB FAs: 5 (Hernandez, Cruz, Corbin, Finnegan, Cishek)
  • MiLB FAs; 9 (Vargas, Meneses, Franco, Sanchez, Espino, Edwards, Ramirez, Arano, Clippard)
  • Waiver claims: 5 (Call, Palacios, Abbott, Harvey, McGee)

So … 14 of our 26 active players right now were MILB signings or Waiver claims. Wow.


Lets take a look at the current AAA roster. Same analysis

  • Home Grown: 9 (Berrera, Sanchez, Alu, Stevenson, Johnson, Banks, Cavalli, Adon, Cronin)
  • Prospects Acquired in trade: 2 (Casey, Thompson)
  • MLB FAs: 0 of course.
  • MiLB FAs 14 (Johnson, JRodriguez, Nogoski, Flores, Gushue, Ponce de Leon, Kilome, Verrett, Weems, Sadzeck, Garrett, Machado, Baldonado, Avilan)
  • Waiver claims: 3 (Fox, Murphy, Perez)
  • Rule5: 2 (Brill, Taylor)

Yes, I realize that two of were originally our players (Johnson, Rodriguez). They left and came back, so they’re MLFAs. Also Gushue was initially acquired in trade, but left and came back. This is 2022 acquisition methodology.

So, 30 players in AAA, and 19 of them are basically ‘filler’ players b/c our system hasn’t generated enough depth to fill the AAA roster. At least we have 9 home grown players here, but of this group really only a couple are true prospects in jeopardy of pushing to the majors.


How about AA?

  • Home Grown: 17
  • Prospects Acquired in trade: 3 (Lara, Hassell,Harris)
  • MLB FAs: 0 of course.
  • MiLB FAs; 6 (Martin, Garcia, Herrera, Dopico, Gonzalez, Garcia)
  • Waiver claims:
  • Rule5: 1 (Young)

17 of the 27 on the Roster home grown as expected (and another 3 are trade acquisitions). But its a little suspect that we have 6 MLFAs in our AA. A couple of these MLFAs in Harrisburg are in their upper 20s and are clearly too old for the level. On the bright side, 6 of the 7 guys getting starts are home grown, which is a good sign.


High-A?

  • Home Grown: 26
  • Prospects Acquired in trade: 4 (Millas, Barley, Alston, Gausch)
  • MLB FAs: 0 of course.
  • MiLB FAs; 2 (Candelario, Merrill)
  • Waiver claims:
  • Rule5

So, 30 of 32 players on the roster home grown or acquired prospects.


Low-A:

31 players, 30 of which home grown and the one remaining is a trade acquisition in Wood.


Not much to look at below AA … this was more just a “holy cow look at the MLB roster” kind of post.

Written by Todd Boss

August 23rd, 2022 at 6:06 pm

Posted in Nats in General

9 Responses to 'Fun Observations with Current Rosters'

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  1. “. . . the Nats active 26-man roster sports exactly ONE originally drafted/signed player.” I rest my case from the previous post. And that one player is still struggling to prove that he should be an MLB regular.

    And really, it’s not worth debating how we got in the hole. It’s much more important how we get out. It may take a while.

    KW

    23 Aug 22 at 8:30 pm

  2. yes it may but then again it may not. until ownership is settled, no way to tell the direction that will be charted.

    either way I’m excited about watching the process.

    FredMD

    24 Aug 22 at 10:24 am

  3. Yes, very interesting that Leonsis has very publicly thrown his hat in the ring, plus bought out NBC Sports Washington (the death knell for MASN?).

    The big issue is that most of the main prospects now are two or more years away. How do you balance free-agent spending while also trying to time full relevance? Rizzo went early for the big free agent in Werth during the last rebuild, then made the big trade for Gio a year later when most thought they were still a year away. Desi, Danny, and Ramos were already in the majors by then, though, Stras was coming back, and Harper was on the near horizon.

    KW

    24 Aug 22 at 12:52 pm

  4. Okay Todd, you’re all about starting pitching.

    Cade Cavalli starts Friday. Can you say electric?

    Mark L

    24 Aug 22 at 2:36 pm

  5. The number of homegrown players on the MLB roster is about to increase by 100%!

    Derek

    24 Aug 22 at 3:23 pm

  6. I’m conflicted about Cavalli being called up. They’ll be burning service time on an utterly lost season, but pitchers also need time to figure things out at the MLB level. The Nats really, really need him to be the real deal. They’ve now gone 41 games without a win by a starting pitcher, an MLB record of futility.

    BTW, the Nats activated Fedde right after Todd’s post, so they currently have two homegrown guys on the active roster: Fedde and Robles, two guys whose failure to launch has really hampered the franchise.

    KW

    25 Aug 22 at 6:43 am

  7. I’m now seeing that the service time rules have changed, so give him some experience by all means.

    KW

    25 Aug 22 at 9:29 am

  8. I’d be thrilled to continue ownership under a Ted banner. it’s been reported he is also negotiating to buy the Nats rights from MASN. that would be a significant upgrade.

    FredMD

    25 Aug 22 at 10:29 am

  9. Leonsis also went through a rebuild-from-the-ruins with the Caps, so he understands the process. Now all the Nats need to do is find an Ovechkin and a Backstrom . . .

    The Lerners spent up to the tax line many seasons and brought the city a championship, so I’m no means going to disparage them. But there have always been pretty publicly aired stories that the differences in the operation of a pro sports franchise kept having to be explained to them.

    I will say that with the considerable funds and leverage that the Lerners had, if they couldn’t get the MASN issue resolved, I’m not holding my breathe that anyone else can, either. It’s another of Bud Selig’s dumpster-fire legacies.

    KW

    25 Aug 22 at 12:21 pm

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