Nats throw everyone a curveball with Rutledge pick. photo via 3rdmanin.com
Well, nobody saw this coming.
After reviewing dozens of mock drafts, most of which (in the last couple of weeks or so) had the Nats clearly focusing on Florida prep RHP Matthew Allan as their pick … ended up selecting a guy that not one Mock draft I read had the Nats picking. The Nats with the 17th pick take Jackson Rutledge, a huge RHP from San Jacinto College in Texas, having transferred out of Arkansas after one season in 2018.
So, how did Rutledge get to the Nats? And, how did the Nats take him over their presumed pick?
I went back and looked at all the later mock drafts; Most had Rutledge going in the 11-14 range. Toronto and Philadelphia both were presumed to be taking college arms, and Rutledge was a common name falling to them. MLBPipeline had him going 9th to the Braves. So what happened?
- the Braves took Shea Langeliers at #9 probably earlier than many thought.
- Toronto at 11 indeed took a college arm; they grabbed WVA starter Alex Manoah.
- Then, at 14 Philadelphia found possible top 10 guy Bryson Stott available and grabbed him.
So that left Rutledge available at 17 for the Nats. Who did they pass up on at this point? In the picks right after, we saw guys that the Nats had been associated with go in fast order: Quinn Priester (prep RHP), Zack Thompson (lefty college starter from U-Kentucky), and George Kirby (RHP from Elon).
Matthew Allan went unsigned, despite being (by far) the BPA on MLBpipeline’s draft boards (he was ranked #13). In fact, on the broadcast for the draft I noticed that once the draft reached the back part of the 1st round … they summarily removed Allan from the top of the BPA list, presumably because they realized that if he didn’t go in the upper part of the 1st round, then it was almost guaranteed that he was going to go to college and not get his $4M bonus demand.
As for Rutledge, he was very highly ranked pre-draft: 15th by Keith Law, 12th by MLB, 14th by Baseball America, 13th by 20/80, 21st by Fangraphs.
So, what do we have? We have a massive guy: 6’8″ 250. He throws over the top, is up to 98-99 on the fastball with a mid 80s cutter, a wipe out slider, a 12-6 curve and some deception due to what’s described as “unusual short arm” mechanics. I’m hoping we’re getting something closer to Randy Johnson and not a rehashing of Jake Johansen.
Quick Verdict: I think, (like a lot of Nats fans), that i’m happy the team with with a college arm and not another prep guy. It does seem like they got decent value; they got a guy at 17 who most pundits thought was ranked higher in this class and was going higher. I like Rutledge more than Kirby and Thompson (the two next best college guys) for various reasons (health and pedigree mostly). So I’m happy with this pick.