Nationals Arm Race

This is a statistical look at the relative ages of our debut Short-A and Rookie league pitching staffs, as compared to the rest of their league, for the purposes of giving future context to the performances of our staff as the season progresses.  I initially did this for all the full-season minor league affiliates in Early May, and this time am catching the initial rosters.

The definitions I’m using for each “age classification” are as follows:

• “Really Young” is a pitcher in the lowest quartile of pitchers by age, meaning he’s one of the youngest 25% of pitchers in the league.
• “Young” is a pitcher in the 25-50% quartile.
• “Old” is a pitcher in the 50-75% quartile
• “Really Old” is a pitcher in the 75th quartile or above.

I’m using these quartiles because (frankly) MS Excel makes it pretty easy to calculate :-).  So keep that in mind when you see a pitcher listed as “Really Old” for the league but may be right at the 75th-76th quartile range.

For the Short-A season, just looking at pitchers, here’s how the percentiles broke down:

The short-A age ranges are nearly identical to the age ranges for Low-A, a fact that kind of surprised me.  I would have figured that the short-A squads would be filled with College Jrs and Srs newly drafted, while the low-A team would be mostly HS and DSL grads that were working their way up the system.  In reality there’s almost no age difference between the two leagues (Short-A is younger across the board, usually by a few months).

Here’s the Nationals Short-A pitching staff as of 6/22/11:

This is a relatively “young” squad, all things considered.  Bates and Demmin have both dominated their first two starts, not surprising given their status as being relatively old for the league.  Jenkins and Demmin were both “demoted” to the Short-A squad from full squad teams, so its not as if the franchise wasn’t trying to put these guys in the right spot.  Even the three guys listed as “old” only missed the 50% percentile cutoff by a month or so.  Our other three starters in Short-A (Estevez, Encarnation and Lopez)  are all young or really young for the level, something to keep in mind if they struggle.

How about the GCL Squad? Here’s the averages across the whole GCL league:

That’s right; there’s a kid who is 16 years, 10 months playing pro ball in the GCL league.  I don’t know about you, but there’s something wrong to me to have children that young playing a pro sport.  Anyway.

We don’t really know at this point who the GCL starters are, but here’s the GCL Nationals squad as of 6/24/11:

Just for the Record, rehabbing Matt Chico is the oldest player in the GCL by nearly three years.

I see a lot of “olds” and “really olds” for this level.  We know that Nathan Karns has struggled with injury ever since his 2009 drafting, so he’s understantable.  Bobby Lucas JUST signed a few days ago (our 2011 27th rounder) and played at a weak Div-1 team, so he makes sense in the GCL to see what he has.  Likewise with Todd Simko, our 2011 21st round pick.  So, Lets wait and see if these guys earn quick promotions to short-A to play with their contemporaries.  Remember, we drafted so many arms it is going to be difficult to find spots for all of them.

Other 2011 “old” draftees on this squad include Ferrer and Hawkins.  Mieses is a DSL grad who pitched well in 2010 in a starting role.  Meanwhile, Hanks and Herrera were 2010 juco draftees and slightly “old” for the level.  Lastly McKenzie was with Hagerstown but had three horrific starts in a row early in the season and was put back in Extended Spring.  Unfortunately for him, his first GCL outing was not good either; 4 hits and 3 walks in a third of an inning, resulting in 7 runs and an ERA of 126.