Hey there Readers
I’m going to use this opportunity to give some incremental updates and call out some improvements I’ve made to a couple of the main online Nats Data Resources I maintain. Just in case you hadn’t been to these resources in a while.
As always, any suggestions for improvements or errors noticed are always appreciated.
Big Board
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/186nm-v5F-zTCoR2Be7TFYM3e2cZ-gYi2WVqJLEkHdmc/edit?usp=sharing
The Big Board shows our entire system, from MLB to DSL, with players generally in their starting spots at any given time, rotations kept in the order they appear, and bullpen arms kept roughly in their roles. The 2025 Rosters are now frozen for the end of the season, and I’ve created the 2026 Roster and 2026 Release page to start keeping track of player transactions (first one for the new tab was Darren Baker’s requested release).
MLB has recalled all 40-man players, and restored all 7 and 15-day DL players to the active roster, so MLB shows at 40/40 right now. The five 60-day DL guys won’t be returned until the World Series is over; that will correspond with the technical separation of these FAs to be: Bell, Law (who himself is on the 60-day), deJong, Alfaro, 25MLFA Pilkington, and 24MLFA Stubbs, so I don’t imagine we’ll have any DFA’s to return the 60-day DL guys at the onset. However, the exact terms of these MLFA deals can vary, so they actually may be multi-year deals. AAA also cleared up all its DL and Restricted list in late September, but the lower leagues have not, so there’s still a slew of DL and Restricted names on those rosters.
There’s a small number at the top of the Big Board, which keeps track of the total number of players under contract in the four domestic minor leagues. It attempts to keep track of this number to see how it compares to the 165 total system limit, which the team flirted with a couple times this season. That’s the main improvement I’ve added to the Big Board lately, in addition to the color coding of Promotions and Demotions throughout the season. Each player is also a link to their milb.com page (for minor leaguers) or their baseball-reference.com page (if they’re primarily MLBers).
Draft Tracker
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Qd5DS9GlmkQOEh_zGhOvlhHK0EegqY1uJB4mLGmRBaY/edit?usp=sharing
I made a relatively large addition to the Draft Tracker this year: I added the “High Level” column to each player. I did this because I have dreams of doing a massive analysis trying to quantify what makes for a “good draft” by looking at the lower rounds to see what expectations are for these players. For example: if you draft a college guy in the 15th, where do you “expect” that player to get to? If they never get out of Low-A, that seems to have “met expectations” for that player, but if they get to AA is that a win?
Anyway, this analysis stalled once I started getting into the 2019 and prior drafts, where we went to 40 rounds instead of the current 20. I’ve been critical of the sport for cutting these 20 rounds (and cutting the entire Short-A level), but must admit it was kind of shocked at how many of our draftees never got out of Short-A. For example; in 2017 we drafted 33 players; here was the high-level breakdown:
- MLB: 5: Romero, Crowe, Tetreault, Cousins, Klobotis, Raquet
- AAA: 3: Freeman, Dunlap, Johnston
- AA: 2: Connell, Troop
- High-A: 4
- Low-A: 10
- Short-A: 6
- FCL: 2
A slew of the Low-A top-outs were in Short-A in the draft year of 2017, got assigned to Low-A to start 2018, and were released directly out of that league. So, the question is, is this a typical distribution expectation for a 40-round draft? Was this generally speaking a good or bad draft (hint: this was an awful draft, even with 6 guys getting to the majors, since 3 of them made the majors for other teams and the other three combined gave us a career -1.0 bWAR).
I initially replaced the Rule5 Eligible column with this high level, thinking that Rule5 eligible was a useless field, but then immediately returned it. Thank god for backups.
My big “value add” to the Draft Tracker generally is to have year-specific Draft worksheets where I keep track of the exact Bonus dollars as they’re announced, which gives us some insight into the negotiations for later-signing guys. I also have schools, commits, social media links, NDFAs, etc. I have done this same analysis for “local draft guys” (i.e. DC/MD/VA players) in the past, but kind of have petered out on tracking local players in general over the past few years. Also of note; the player names are links to milb.com pages/baseball-reference.com pages for convenience as with the Big Board.
IFA Tracker
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ksPorXhEHhtkNAGqxrJWqUFkvioMgoWhBU50uaZstc8/edit?usp=sharing
A couple years ago I had the brilliant notion to create an IFA tracker in the same format as the Draft Tracker, because, well, why not; its an important way we ingest talent and we sign 20+ players a year.
My big value add to the IFA tracker this year was to add in High Level, as I did with the Draft tracker. This analysis led to a pretty obvious observation; a huge majority of these players never get out of the DSL. Like, a massive percentage. Take our 2018 class; we had 38 signees. here’s their highest levels:
- DSL: 16
- FCL: 13
- Low-A: 3
- High-A: 4
- AA: 2
- None higher
Five of these guys are still active, having resigned after their initial 7year stint expired after 2024, but who may be re-hitting MLFA this off-season. One may still pan out; Atencio, who was solid for us as a AA starter in 2025 then missed the entirety of 2025 with injury but who is still just 24. But, will he re-sign? did he already? The Covid year throws all this analysis into doubt.
Nonetheless, this is a lot of players churned through DSL and FCL for very little payoff.
The last time we even got a MLB player out of an IFA draft was in 2019 (Andry Lara), before that 2017 (Ferrer). There were more in 2016 and prior, but I havn’t gone back to do “high level” analysis that far back because it becomes pretty difficult to track down these players at some point: the DSL rosters aren’t nearly as comprehensively kept as the domestic rosters. Also, bonus dollar figures are incredibly tough to come by, even in recent years. For example, I know that our IFA 2025 pool was $6.2M, but I could only account for about $4.9M of bonus dollars being spent. We had 10 signees with no dollar amounts announced; were they all $10k? More? Less? Did we really leave $1.3M of bonus dollars on the table? I certainly hope not.
Nationals Prospects Ranks
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Xs9fmb-dctE90hTS3bdozznETS-Oc3GsMuGzRo2faUc/edit?usp=sharing
This is more of a collection of Prospect ranks, but I also publish my own ranks (recently discussed here with my post-season 125 rank). It’s a good place to kind of see the trends of other sites and how they’re ranking our guys. I also do a ton of value add here, putting in starting levels each year, bonus amounts,
There’s now 270 ranks dating back to pre Washington Nationals days. We’ll get a slew of updated ranks over the course of the off-season, with the major pundits mostly publishing in Jan/Feb of next year. I’ll re-do my top 125 at that time, add in the missing 2025 with non-trivial bonus dollars plus the 2026 IFA class, remove MLFAs and other releases we make this coming off-season, and (maybe) will even attempt to do the impossible: rank all 150+ minor leaguers in one spot.
You can see i’ve already highlighted in my recent 125 rank the players who I need to revisit, who might be too high or too low. I’ve also added in placeholders for another 10 players who probably all slot into the 80-90 range (those being the rest of the 2025 class plus some of the higher-bonus dollar 2025 IFAs).
Anyway, happy off-season. Can’t wait to see what the new regime has in mind.
Next big update to these docs will come at the end of the World Series, where all MLB and MLFAs are declared. I’ll try to keep up with the releases and the signings as best that I can, with the caveat that milb.com doesn’t always have the best record keeping.
As far as I can tell, anyone who we drafted in 2019 should become a new 6-year MLFA, and 2018IFAs also should hit MLFA unless they’ve agreed to some extension. We have a slew of 2019 draftees and 2018IFAs on our rosters who probably become new MLFAs on 11/1 or thereabouts.
- AAA: Cluff, Arruda, Solesky, Shuman, Cuevas
- AA: Naranjo, Knowles, Santos, Vasquez, Atencio
- High-A: De La Rosa, Colomenares, Otanez
- Low-A: Rivero
We all wonder if front offices lurk in chats, but the newly arriving group would do well to browse through these data sets. The new folks may think that they’ll do things better, but you can learn a lot from past mistakes, even if they weren’t your own.
It would be very interesting to see similar data from more successful franchises, particularly ones that have mostly built from within.
KW
7 Oct 25 at 11:38 am
Moving forward the Yesavage conversation, here’s pretty damning piece of evidence:
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5629426/2024/07/11/mlb-mock-draft-2024-prospects-travis-bazzana/
Yes, KLaw had him mocked to the Nats. I wonder if Keith is available to be the new general manager . . .
On the final MLB.com Callis/Mayo mock, Yesavage started being mentioned at pick #7, although they didn’t actually take him until picks 14 and 15.
That’s what I thought I remembered, that Yesavage was very much in conversation in the latter part of the top 10. His drop was one of the mysteries of draft night. It’s now even more of a mystery. But yes, the Nats were far from the only team that made an already-apparent mistake of passing on him.
KW
7 Oct 25 at 11:53 am
Speaking of the draft, there’s rumor floating that the Braves are interested in fiery Tennessee coach Tony Vitello as a managerial candidate. For those who follow college baseball some, that’s quite interesting, and I think potentially unprecedented. I can’t think of another MLB manager who was hired from the college ranks. It has happened in the NFL (Nick Saban and Steve Spurrier among others) and the NBA (Rick Pitino, John Calapari), and even in the NHL (Badger Bob Johnson), but I can’t remember it in baseball, which is so attached to its own pro organization developmental techniques and system.
What’s even more interesting in Vitello’s case is that a search of B-R shows that he apparently never even played in the minors. So he’s completely from outside of the pro baseball developmental and leadership realm. Obviously he knows a lot of those people as they’ve been scouting his Vol players for years. And he’s been an analyst on the MLB Network’s draft night coverage.
Hold the phone, I did think of one: Bobby Winkles went from Arizona State to a position on the Angels staff, then was promoted to manager the following season. Of course in the late ’60s/early ’70s, the money was completely different at both the college and pro levels.
KW
7 Oct 25 at 12:12 pm
@KW – That is exactly why I feel even more negative about the King draft pick than I do the Green one. The 2022 draft has shown itself to be very weak, and you can see the package of tools that made Green a plausible, if very high variance, selection at 1-5. You don’t have to agree with it, but there’s a theory of the case and it holds together. But for King, even acknowledging all the names that were off the board, the chalk based on the public mocks would have been Yesavage, Montgomery or Rainer. All three of those guys have shown better than King and only Rainer had a higher bonus price (and him only by $650k).
With hindsight, it looks like Yesavage > Montgomery > Rainer, but really any of those three would have felt reasonable and justifiable. Reaching for King, and then barely banking any slot savings, was a terrible move.
(None of this is to say that King is done as a prospect, of course. He’s still young, still deserves a ranking in the mid-teens, I’d say. but very disappointing for a the top half of the first round, and especially when there was such better quality in the selection set.)
Also, @Todd, another thing that I noticed this week is Baker’s release. Apparently it was at his request, so I assume he’ll end up somewhere, probably SF. But, in light of our conversation around your deep prospect ranking, I was struck by the fact that it means that the team pretty much holds his future value to be zero. I mean, I would’t be surprised if because of his family legacy he gets a bit more consideration and respect within in the industry than comparable players, so the team might be more inclined than normally to do him a favor. But, no matter what Baker wants, this release only happens if the team thinks that, one, there is no reasonable chance that he’s ever going to help the ML club win games and, two, no one is willing to trade anything of value for him.
So given that boundary condition – that folks ranked around 50th are demonstrably valued at nearly zero – what are we even saying when we rank deeper than that?
SMS
7 Oct 25 at 1:18 pm
@SMS: Well, Baker got DFA’d and passed through waivers, so that means any other team out there could have just taken his AAA salary contract and passed. That’s also pretty damning, and means that the league considers him below replacement value at the MLB level. So, who wants him as a AAA roster filler?
I don’t necessarily think ranking a player today at 50 precludes him from ever being a prospect. I mean; Cornelio wasn’t on anyone’s radar last year, now he’s in the 20-30 range on most of the main sites mid-season, #14 on mine (probably too high). A guy can go from nothing to something with a solid year.
I think what it does illustrate is something I talk about a lot, but don’t have a solution for: the 4-A ceiling prospect. Baker’s a good example, but so is Schnell, or Pinckney, or Solesky, or Chaparro, or Yepez, or Lara. All of these guys seem to be AAA limited but can’t cut it in the majors. Chapparo had a .956 OPS in AAA this year, but is a career .203 hitter in the majors in 200PAs.
so, how do you rank these guys? They have value, they have accomplished more than a decent player in High-A … but they’re at their ceiling. Is the AAA ceiling prospect “better” or “worse” than, say Armando Cruz, who remains very highly ranked on most shops based on potential (and his bonus amount) but hit .177 this year in High A? I dunno.
Todd Boss
7 Oct 25 at 4:26 pm
On the same topic, someone at some point (perhaps you) asked about adding some “context” to the prospect ranks once you get past a certain range. I suppose that’s why you need to see draft/signing year, and position, and age, and level, and signing bonus, and the rank all together. That way you know if someone’s a 27yr old 2B in AAA who plays twice a week ..they’re an org guy who’s playing out the string probably b/c they’re good defensively. Or, if someone’s in their 4th year and they’re still in A-ball but hitting .200, they’re likely a 3rd rounder who got a ton of money way back when and hasn’t panned out, but the team keeps giving him chances versus the $10k IFA with identical numbers.
Todd Boss
7 Oct 25 at 4:46 pm
It will be interesting to see what the new regime does with so many of the prospects, and especially the “prospects.” These guys won’t have drafted them and/or given them massive signing bonuses. I don’t think they’re going to cut everyone loose over the winter, but I think they’ll have their people in camp in the spring deciding “fixable” vs. “unfixable.” It seems unlikely that they will quickly part ways with someone with certain tools as loud as Green’s, but let’s face it, there aren’t many guys on the hitting side of the ledger who have particularly loud tools.
Ones more likely to be sent packing are “bonus babies” like Brenner Cox who just haven’t done anything. I hear that the U of Texas needs a quarterback, so now’s his chance. You can’t slash and burn everyone because you’ve still got to be able to field teams, but I expect a pretty massive turnover of minor-league talent within the next couple of years.
As for Baker specifically, he just wasn’t as good this season as last at AAA: average down from .285 to .256, doubles down from 20 to 14, SBs down from 38 to 26. I give the guy all the credit in the world for making the most of his limited skills, but his low ceiling seems pretty obvious. He may be heading for a coaching job rather than a playing one. (It is the “family business,” after all. He may have a few connections in baseball.)
KW
7 Oct 25 at 7:51 pm
SMS, among several things that have left me scratching my head about the Nats’ last couple of drafts, here’s one: in the 1st round in 2024, they took a shortstop, potentially with some size/power limitations. In the 2d round, they took another shortstop and gave him a massive bonus. (He may also be able to play OF, but they don’t need OFs.) In 2025 in the 1st round, they took a shortstop, potentially with some size/power limitations. In the 5th round, they took another shortstop and gave him a massive bonus. Hm . . .
Yes, I know that in high school, nearly all the best players play SS or CF. However, part of what gets them the high draft spots and big bonuses is the likelihood that they can “stick” up the middle. If one of the underpowered shortstops suddenly becomes an underpowered second baseman, even if he makes good contact and steals bases, he’s still, well, basically Darren Baker. Before someone says that’s insulting, Baker is a career .280 minor-league hitter who stole as many as 38 bases in one season. But when you don’t have a lot of pop, the path to being a regular contributor in the majors is a lot narrower.
For the record, I’ll cut Seaver King a little slack on the power side of things for now since he did have a 16-homer season for an ACC team.
It’s going to be hard not to wonder in a year or two, though, what the Nat rotation would look like with Yesavage and Kade Anderson.
KW
7 Oct 25 at 8:16 pm
Practically every DSL signee is a “Short stop.” I’m a-ok with that, because a Shortstop can generally pivot to most every other position. SS->3B is they get too big, SS->2B if they turn out not to be as good defensively, SS->CF if they’ve got a ton of range, SS->RF if they’ve got a cannon. SS->LF when they get too slow. SS->1B if they struggle with injuries. Just look at the journey of our own Ryan Zimmerman: college SS, immediately to 3B as a plus defender in the majors, eventually to 1B because of mobility. Or Mookie Betts: SS->RF and back, can play 2B as needed.
Todd Boss
8 Oct 25 at 8:59 am
Shortstops who are larger guys who develop power can play other positions. Relatively light shortstops like King and Willits may struggle more with developing that power and thus are a lot more limited. That’s my point: the window for them to make it is narrower. There’s more potential flexibility with Dickerson and James, and with Angel Felix, than there is with the two very high draft picks.
Hitting for average often isn’t enough, which is why I made the Darren Baker reference. He made good contact all through the minors (and in the majors — he’s a career .500 hitter at 7 for 14!) and he stole bases, but without much power it’s just hard to project them. The best case becomes someone like Tommy Edman.
KW
8 Oct 25 at 10:33 am
Agree: but you also have to acknowledge that a smaller guy could still also bloom into something better. Mookie Betts is 5’10” 185 and probably retires with 400 homers. He’s a rare example of a lightweight frame guy who hits for a ton of power, but he fits the mold.
Todd Boss
8 Oct 25 at 1:34 pm
Saw your plans for the International Tracker, ever since the National Farm Authority days I was intrigued with DSL/VSL side of the minors and keep track of each year’s new players (appear with stats).
For earlier classes and number of MLers in each –
2004 = 1 Atahualpa Severino
2005 = 2 Juan Jaime, Michael Martinez (rule 5 pick by Phillies before 2017 season)
2006 = 0
2007 = 3 Eury Perez, Sandy Leon, Adrian Sanchez (Mr Nacional, in Nats system ’07-’22)
2008 = 0
2009 = 0
2010 = 2 Wilmer Difor, Wander Suero
2011 = 4 Jose Marmolejos, Yermin Mercedes, Raudy Read, Pedro Severino
2012 = 3 Rafael Bautista, Reynoldo Lopez, Jefry Rodriguez
2013 = 1 Kelvin M Guitierrez
2014 = 1 Victor Robles
2015 = 1 Pedro Avila
2016 = 2 Juan Soto, Eric Alvarado (ML debut this year!)
2017 = 4 Luis Garcia Jr., Israel Pineda, Joan Adon, Yadiel Hernandez
2018 = 1 Jose Ferrer
2020 = 1 Andry Lara
Fairly sparse, with headliners Soto, Robles, Reynoldo Lopez
VladiHondo
12 Oct 25 at 12:52 pm