Nationals Arm Race

Here’s the End of June 2024 check-ins on all our rotations, from MLB to FCL.

Each team section analysis will have the same items: current rotation, changes in the last month, observations, next guy to get promoted (if its in the minors), next guy to get cut, and then a few comments about relievers.

Important links for this analysis:

• Big Board: the big board shows the rotations, plus the starters and the roles of the relievers as best as I can figure. Furthermore, the rotations are in the correct “order” and synced across the system.
• Nats MLB stats: at baseball-reference.com
• AAA Rochester stats: (all minor league stats at milb.com)
• AA Harrisburg stats
• High-A Wilmington stats
• Low-A Fredericksburg Stats
• FCL Nationals Stats
• DSL Nationals Pitching Stats

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We’ll start with the Majors.

Rotation as of 6/30/24: Irvin, Gore, Parker, Corbin, Herz

Rotation as of 5/31/24: Irvin, Gore, Parker, Corbin, Williams

Changes since end of last Month: Our 2024 Ace Trevor Williams hit the D/L with a right arm elbow flexor strain, the same injury that’s kept our opening day starter Josiah Grey on the D/L for 2 months. Basically destroying his trade value. Grey and Cavalli continue rehabbing from injuries, at various cadences that don’t necessarily inspire confidence of them coming back anytime soon. Grey may seem close, but Cavalli doesn’t.

Rotation Observations: Jake Irvin has suddenly turned into an ace. He went 4-1 with a 2.31 ERA and a 1.1 whip in six starts in June. Basically inline with his performance in May. After his middling May, Parker had a stellar June for a rookie; 6 starts, 3.15 ERA, 1.136 whip. Gore, who was so good in the first two months, had a struggle of a month of June: five starts, 5.13 ERA and a 1.6 whip. Corbin wasn’t that terrible last month, pitching to a 4.71 ERA and lowering his whip three tenths of a point. Lastly, Williams’ replacement Herz has had an up and down month being thrown into the fire, pitching 5 times to a 5.48 ERA and a 1.50 whip, but having one stellar 13-K start in Miami where he gave up just one hit (it was Miami, after all).

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Herz, then Corbin. Whoever is ready first from (in likely order of return) Grey, Cavalli, and Williams), we’ll probably demote Herz first, then cut ties/move to the bullpen Corbin. When the third guy is ready, then the hard decision has to be made; by that point perhaps Williams will still be on the D/L or will have magically come back and can be traded.

Bullpen comments: We have four relievers who are excellent, and who should fetch prospects at the deadline (Finnegan, Law, Harvey, Floro). We have three guys who have been awful and are probably on there b/c the AAA 40-man relievers we have aren’t that great either (Rainey, Weems, and Garcia). There’s very little middle ground

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AAA Rochester

Rotation as of 6/30/24: Rutledge, Watkins, Ward, Lord, Alvarez with Grey rehab starts

Rotation as of 5/31/24: Adon, Rutledge, Watkins, Herz, Ward

Changes since end of last month: Herz rightfully earned the promotion up to the majors and was replaced with Alvarez. Then, the team could no longer ignore Lord’s AA performance and promoted him up, replacing (finally) Adon in the rotation.

Rotation Observations: Rutledge’s June performance was awful: 7.82 ERA and a 1.70 whip. Ward was even worse: a 2.20 whip, 7.65 ERA and 21/20 K/BB. Watkins had a decent month as the resident 30-something MLFA innings eater guy who probably has no shot at a call-up and is playing out the string. As noted above, Adon has mercifully been put in the bullpen in the last couple of weeks, perhaps recognition that he’s never going to cut it as a starter, that we now have plenty of starter options, and that his only shot to use his 4th option year is going to be as a bullpen member. Alvarez’ AAA debut has not gone well; he’s only got 5 Ks in four starts and 14 innings. That’s not going to cut it. Lastly, Lord’s only got one start in as of this writing and it was a 5ip 2ER game, not a bad start. Maybe Lord is turning into our next guy like Parker, who comes up with little fan fare and shows success.

Next guy to get Promoted: I was right on Herz being next up last month. There’s not a single one of these starters who’s earned a promotion this month.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Adon already presumably out of the rotation, you have to think Ward is next. We have to get better production out of these two 40-man slots.

Bullpen comments: La Sorsa has been lights out; 1.26 ERA in 11 appearances this month. That’s good because his lefty reliever competition in the majors (Robert Garcia) has been awful. Tim Cate has been impressive this month too; 16/3 K/BB in 10ip last month. New signing Eduardo Salazar has been solid and could be a RHP option once rosters expand and/or we trade some guys. Both Zeuch and Gsellman were mercifully cut mid month. The final 40-man guy on the roster Willingham had a near 9.00 ERA month.

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AA Harrisburg

Rotation as of 6/30/24: Luckham, Cuevas, Solesky, Lara, Theophile (plus a couple Grey rehab starts and one Reyes spot-start)

Rotation as of 5/31/24: Luckham, Cuevas, Alvarez, Henry, Lord

Changes since end of last month: Three big changes: Henry hit the D/L (replaced by Indy-league MLFA signing Solesky), Alvarez was promoted (and replaced by Lara), and Lord was promoted (replaced by Theophile).

Rotation Observations: Luckham is probably the new “ace” of the rotation and pitched like it in June: 3.71 ERA in 5 starts with solid peripherals. Cuevas is now #2 in seniority and was awful: 7.52 ERA going 0-5 in five starts. Solesky’s debut has been solid: 3.42 ERA in two starts and two relief appearances. Lara’s debut in AA as a 21 yr old has gone ok for his age and experience: 5 starts, 4.67 ERA, 1.56 whip. You couldn’t ask for more out of Theophile: 2 starts, 10ip, and just 2 runs given up so far. That’s amazing considering that he had an ERA in the 6s last month in High-A.

Next guy to get Promoted: Maybe Solesky? He’s way too old for AA (26) and could slot into either their rotation or their bullpen. After that perhaps Luckham, who has turned around his season with a solid stretch.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Cuevas. He’s now 1-8 with an ERA in the 6s for the season. He’s young yes, but he’s not getting any better.

Bullpen comments: there’s a lot of solid performers in this bullpen. Romero (already promoted once this year) didn’t give up an ER all month and had a 16/2 K/BB. Acosta? 19Ks in 11IP. Sinclair gave up 1run in 11ip. Peterson: 1.93 ERA. Tyce? same: 1.93 ERA in June. Opponents aren’t getting any breaks from the AA bullpen right now.

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High-A Wilmington

Rotation as of 6/30/24: Atencio, Caceres, Young, Cornelio, Shuman (plus a couple rehab starts from Cavalli and Brzycky)

Rotation as of 5/31/24: Atencio, Caceres, Young, Cornelio, Theophile

Changes since end of last month: Just one: Theophile promoted, replaced with Shuman, who finally returns from injury.

Rotation Observations: Atencio and Caceres both had similar months: kind of middling ERAs in the mid-to-upper 4s, not a lot of K power, and bloated Whips. Nothing impressive really. This franchise continues to stick by Cornelio as a starter despite him basically being the same guy his entire career: 5.something era, mid 1.50whip. Luke Young’s ERA wasn’t impressive but at least he’s not walking many guys (5bb in 25 ip). Shuman’s got just one start under his belt; 3 1/3ip, 1 ER.

Next guy to get Promoted: Shuman. He’s 26, should be in AA at least, and has a career minor league ERA in the mid 3s.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Probably Caceres at this point: he’s 24, not really showing he’s got it. They also have very little invested in the guy, as a 2017 IFA signee who probably got $10k or less (since his actual signing bonus was not denoted).

Bullpen comments: Matt Cronin, who sits in High-A for some dumb reason, is basically unhittable there and provides no value. Brzycky has gotten 10 rehab innings in here and looks great, that’s a great sign for him coming back from TJ.

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Low-A/Fredericksburg

Rotation as of 6/30/24: Sykora, Susana, Davis, Sthele, Polanko (plus 4 Shuman rehab starts and 1 Grey start)

Rotation as of 5/31/24: Sthele, Sanchez, Susana, Davis, Sykora, Polanco

Changes since end of last month: Bryan Sanchez went to the D/L, and the team seems to have gone to a conventional 5-man rotation.

Rotation Observations: The Low-A rotation looks awesome. Lets start with our biggest prospects: Susana gave up just 2 ER in 20 innings across 4 starts. Unfortunately, his earlier months were so bad he still has a 4.91 seasonal ERA. Point is, he was beyond lights out: 32/8 K/BB in 20 june innings. Has he finally figured it out? 2023 big-time draft prospect Travis Sykora was excellent in June: 4 starts, 2.41 ERA and 24/6 K/BB in 18ip. That’s awesome to see, since we’re so used to seeing these prep draftees suck. However, neither of these two guys were as good as Polanco and Davis last month, who put up sub 2.00 ERAs. Only Sthele continues to struggle, with an 8.00 ERA on the month and a 7.28 ERA for the season.

Next guy to get Promoted: Has to be Davis, who was the “next guy” last month too. He’s the oldest at 24, an 11th rounder with decent bonus $$ investment, and just finished off a stellar June.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: As it was last month, and the month before, Sthele.

Bullpen comments: The closer Arguellas pitched a shutout for the month. Diaz at 27 inexplicably remains in low-A confounding hitters 5-6 years his junior. Mason Denaburg actually looks competent as a middle reliever in Low-A now, but at 24 probably should be plying his trade at the higher levels.

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Rookie/FCL Nationals

Rotation as of 6/30/24: Colon, Portorreal, Camilio Sanchez, Brayan Romero, and rehabbers

Rotation as of 5/31/24: Colon, Portorreal, Camilio Sanchez, Brayan Romero, “Farias”

Changes since end of last month: Very little actually; the four main guys listed here all seem to be in the “FCL rotation” and then the 5th starts have been taken by a litany of rehabbers like Farrell, Amaral, and Aldo Ramirez.

Rotation Observations: Colon: awful. 9.28 ERA, 2.72 whip and 9/13 k/BB in 10 innings. Portorreal: mediocre: 5.71 ERA in 4 starts. Romero: very solid: 2.08 ERA in four appearances. Sanchez: lights out: 0.73 ERA in 12 innings. This is great for Sanchez b/c he was awful last month.

Next guy to get Promoted: If Sanchez continues to pitch like this, as a 21yr old he should move up. Romero is 20 and he’s also a candidate.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Maybe Colon, but honestly these 10ip samples wildly fluctuate with one bad start.

Bullpen comments: The two best bullpen arms from June already got promoted up to low-A (Arguellas and Otanez. There’s not much else noteworthy.

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Rookie/DSL Nationals

Rotation as of 6/30/24: De la Cruz, Reynoso, Vera, Thomas, Feliz (with Hernandez getting a couple spot starts)

Rotation Observations: Unlike the 2023 DSL Nats, there’s some promise here already. Feliz (technically a IFA23 signing but he never pitched last year) has a 27/3 K/BB ratio in his 20 ip with a sub 2.00 ERA and a 0.70 whip. He’s looked great. Thomas (a 17yr old 24IFA) had an intriguing opening month: 1.98 ERA but he had 11 walks in 13ip and has some control issues to work on. De La Cruz and Reynoso were middling, 6.00 ERA types with nothing special to note right now. Vera and Hernandez? awful. Vera had a whip north of 3.00, and a 18/9 BB/K ratio in 11ip. Hernandez was even worse: 17 walks and 4Ks in 8ip. Wow.

Next guy to get Promoted: Feliz

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Hernandez; at age 20 he’s been awful and is too old. he’s not long for the league.

Bullpen comments: too early to tell really; most of the relievers only have a handful of innings.

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That’s it for June 2024.

Here’s the End of May check-ins on all our rotations, from MLB to FCL.

Each team will have the same items: current rotation, changes in the last month, observations, next guy to get promoted (if its in the minors), next guy to get cut, and then a few comments about relievers.

Important links for this analysis:

• Big Board: the big board shows the rotations, plus the starters and the roles of the relievers as best as I can figure. Furthermore, the rotations are in the correct “order” and synced across the system.
• Nats MLB stats: at baseball-reference.com
• AAA Rochester stats: (all minor league stats at milb.com)
• AA Harrisburg stats
• High-A Wilmington stats
• Low-A Fredericksburg Stats
• FCL Nationals Stats

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We’ll start with the Majors.

Rotation as of 5/31/24: Irvin, Gore, Williams, Parker, Corbin

Changes since end of April: none. Grey remains on the DL, but Cavalli has started rehabbing.

Rotation Observations: We continue to get unexpectedly solid production out of the rotation, given the fact that our opening day starter and #1 pitching prospect remain on the DL. Williams continues to be one of the best pitchers in the league, with a seasonal ERA of 2.22 and and even better 1.60 ERA for his six starts in May. He’s having a dream “contract year” season and hopefully fetches us a halfway decent prospect at the trade deadline, if not sooner (more on that later). Gore continues to come into his own, putting up a 2.60 ERA in his five May starts. Irvine’s May numbers were even better. Parker came back down to earth a bit in May after his stellar debut. Only Corbin continues to be awful, but that’s not really anything that we didn’t already know. The rotation collectively is sits 3rd in fWAR and 5th in FIP, and should only get better if and when we get back Grey and Cavalli.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Corbin. Same guy as at the end of April. One has to think that Corbin’s tenure will come to an end when Grey or Cavalli is ready to come back. They just can’t keep the deadweight on the roster anymore at that point. The harder question then becomes who is the NEXT guy to make way… say Cavalli comes back and Corbin gets cut. Then who do you demote for Grey? Right now its looking like Parker, but then they’d have no LHP starters. Maybe the timing will workout with a Williams trade to make room.

Bullpen comments: The pen generally continues to be a source of strength. You can’t ask for much more. Our four leading relievers all have ERAs under 3.00, and Floro has kept his under 1.00 through May. It’s hard to get decent returns for relievers, but I hope they can cash in a couple of these guys at the trade deadline.

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AAA Rochester

Rotation as of 5/31/24: Adon, Rutledge, Watkins, Herz, Ward

Changes since end of April: None. Gsellman got a couple of spot starts, and middle reliever Zeuch got one spot start in a “bullpen game,” otherwise very little change so far in AAA.

Rotation Observations: None of the five starters had an especially awesome May to be honest. The best of them was Adon, who had a 4.13 ERA for the month to lower his seasonal ERA down to 5.63. That’s good to see, since he’s holding onto a 40-man roster spot. Watkins soaked up innings and that seems to be what the 31 yr old’s role will be this year. Herz walked nearly a guy an inning but got 3 wins in 5 starts by virtue of a .182 BAA and he remains probably the best of the AAA rotation. Rutledge’s stats were meh; 4.85 ERA. 1.50 whip. Nothing impressive there, though i’ll bet he remains atop the pecking order to come up for DH spot starts. Ward really struggled in May, putting up a 6.65 ERA in five starts.

Next guy to get Promoted: Herz, as he was last month. We have a surplus of healthy starters right now so it won’t likely happen, but next opportunity i’d like to see Herz out there.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Ward. He wouldn’t get cut, but I wonder how long he is for the rotation at this point. He turned 27 in January, he’s just not cutting it as a starter, and maybe he should move back to relief at some point. The team drug him all of 2023 on their active roster so they could keep him, but more and more that’s looking like it was all to save a middle reliever.

Bullpen comments: 40-man member La Sorsa had a stellar May and is a great option to call up if they need a bullpen arm. The only other 40-man arm in AAA is Willingham, who continues to be mediocre and may be in some trouble of keeping his roster spot once the team starts trading away its cache of relievers and they realize that non-40-man guys in AAA like Aldonis Medina (zero ER for the month) are worth a shot. Most of the guys in AAA bullpen had ERAs that started with a 5 or 6 for the month.

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AA Harrisburg

Rotation as of 5/31/24: Luckham, Cuevas, Alvarez, Henry, Lord

Changes since end of April: Lara promoted up, replacing Henry, who hit the DL. Knowles made three spot starts in May but he also sits on the DL as we speak.

Rotation Observations: The AA rotation featured several stellar performances this month. Brad Lord, who was promoted up in April, went 5-0 with a 0.87 ERA in 5 starts, including a complete game shutout. Andry Lara, also recently promoted, made three starts and went 2-0 with a 1.47 ERA. That’s awesome to see, especially since he’s just 21 and had been somewhat mired in A ball the last couple of seasons while slowly watching his prospect status wither away. Lastly, Andrew Alvarez: 6 starts, 4 wins, a CG shutout with 2.72 ERA and a sub 1.00 whip.

On the down side, Luckham isn’t getting the swing and miss he probably needs to keep moving forward, and batters hit north of .300 against him to balloon his ERA to 4.88. Same with Cuevas, who is getting shredded right now to the tune of a 7.50 ERA in May. Knowles’ stats weren’t great before hitting the DL, and Henry’s one start went just 3 innings, so not much to go on for our former top 10 prospect.

Next guy to get Promoted: Alvarez. He was last years Nats POTY in the minors, he turns 25 in a couple of weeks and he’s a lefty. Might be time to see what he can do in AAA and see if he’s anything more than an org guy. I’d say Lord based on his May, but his April was so bad that now his season numbers are just average. Plus, there’s not a lot of room on the AAA rotation right now.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Luckham. But there’s a bit of rope here. They don’t have a ton invested in him as a 13th rounder, and he doesn’t turn 25 until the off season, but its put up or shut up time.

Bullpen comments: The bullpen just lost its best arm in Ribalta, recently promoted to AAA. Walters also got bumped up after putting up solid AA numbers. To replace them they promoted both Peterson and Grissom Jr from High-A, so too early to tell. Former closer Jack Sinclair was solid all month. Former flavor of the month Tyler Schoff got shelled this month: 6.75 ERA. Rule5 pick Daison Acosta and Holden Powell were both great out of the pen for the month and it’ll be interesting to see who gets the closer job. I’d like to see Powell (a relatively high draft pick) perform and contribute at the higher levels.

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High-A Wilmington

Rotation as of 5/31/24: Atencio, Caceres, Young, Cornelio, Theophile

Changes since end of April: Lara got promoted, replaced by Atencio. Cavalli is there as of 5/31 doing rehab starts and stealing starts.

Rotation Observations: Not a lot to brag about in Wilmington’s rotation in May. The best performer was the newest guy Atencio, who in 3 starts had a 3.38 ERA and 14/3 K/BB. That’s decent for the 2018 IFA signing. Cornelio continues to put up mediocre numbers: 4.44 ERA for the month. Good enough to stick around, but not to earn any promotions. Caceres and Theophile both had ERAs in the 6s, and Caceres’ K/BB was just 14/12 in 23 innings. Young’s line was pretty similar; not a ton of swing and miss.

Seth Shuman, a sneaky good starter who’s been hurt forever, is now doing rehab starts in the FCL and could return here soon, likely bumping one of the lesser performers.

Next guy to get Promoted: Nobody. Last month’s candidate Lara indeed got promoted, but nobody here is really making a case to move up. Atencio is performing the best but he just got promoted into this rotation and needs some time.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Last month was Caceres; it still is. He’s 24, too old for the level, and is just not cutting it. Theophile may start worrying too.

Bullpen comments: Several bullpen arms had solid months. Matt Cronin got popped up from XST and has been solid; well he should be, being 26 and formerly being on the 40-man roster. He needs to get back to AAA. Wander Arias, a rule5 pick this past off season, was stellar and probably should be getting moved up soon. Carlos Romero gave up just 1 run in 11 innings. There’s a lot of crooked numbers elsewhere in this pen, and If we had more healthy arms i could see some moving up.

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Low-A/Fredericksburg

Rotation as of 5/31/24: Sthele, Sanchez, Susana, Davis, Sykora, Polanco

Changes since End of April: Atencio promoted, replaced by Sykora and Polanco as they seem to be going to a 6-man rotation.

Rotation Observations: I’m treating this rotation as a 6-man rotation, even if what they really seem to be doing is giving certain arms a week’s rest each 6-day series. Nonetheless, we have 6 guys getting regular starts, so that’s what we’ll look at. Susana has been awful. 5 starts in May, 8.05 ERA, 1.84 whip. I’m not sure what the next step is with him, but his defenders are running out of excuses as to why he continues to underperform with triple-digit heat. Sykora’s debut so far has been great: 4.23 ERA but his peripherals are solid: 23/6 K/BB in 16IP, 1.20 ERA, .215 BAA. That’s great for our big-bonus prep draftee from last year, and its nice to see a high school Nats pick faring well. Marc Davis has had a solid May under the radar given the two higher-profile kids in this rotation.

On the down side, Travis Sthele, 12th rounder last year, has not been good. ERA north of 10, batters are hitting nearly .400 against him. Bryan Sanchez is only slightly less bad; he had an 8/14 K/BB ratio for the month but managed to keep the runs down as compared to Sthele. Polanco isn’t lighting it up in his spot starts but at least he’s not as bad as these guys.

Reminder of the Low-A DL: they almost have enough arms for TWO more rotations sitting on their DL: Amaral, Ramirez, Tepper, Aldonis, Tolman, Sullivan, Agostini, and Marquez, along with a couple middle relievers on the full season DL. That’s a lot of pitching depth. A couple of these guys are/were decent prospects too, which is one of the reasons we have so little pitching depth in our system.

Next guy to get Promoted: Davis, maybe? Sykora has the best numbers but there’s no way they’re putting him in High-A unless he nohits the league for a month.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Sthele’s days seem numbered in the rotation.

Bullpen comments: they have three guys in the back of the bullpen lighting it up right now in Bubba Hall, Thomas Schultz, and Matthew Bollenbacher. That’s a 9th rounder and two NDFAs, for you keeping score at home. Nothing like getting solid pro pitchers for $10k. Mason Denaburg has actually been serviceable this month in a long-man role: 3.78 ERA in 9 appearances. Maybe they give him another whirl in the rotation; has to be better than what they’re getting from Sthele, Sanchez, or Polanco.

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Rookie/FCL Nationals

Rotation as of 5/31/24: Colon, Portorreal, Camilio Sanchez, Brayan Romero, “Farias”

Changes since End of April: none: the season started in May.

Rotation Observations: Despite it being the FCL, which normally is a playground for rehabbing players and XST stalwarts, the FCL rotation seems like it’s been pretty consistent since the season opened. A couple of the starts early on seemed like “tandem starts” where one guy went 3 innings then another guy went 3 innings, but the rotation has settled into what you see above.

So far, Colon has looked the best: 2.37 ERA albeit with not a ton of K/9 power. Portorreal’s ERA is decent but his BAA is .324; that’s not going to last. Romero’s peripherals are better than his ERA is, and lastly Sanchez has a 2.00 whip and a 9.50 ERA. Farias is in quotes as a member of the rotation b/c he made one start, got shelled, and hasn’t been seen since. His spot has been filled with rehabbers since: Brzycky, Cavalli, and Shuman have all made one start in FCL on rehab stints.

Interesting observation; on the FCL’s opening day, every single arm on the roster was an IFA. Every single one. They’ve added three MLFAs in the past couple of weeks who were domestic players, but it’s interesting to see how they’re using this roster right now. The lion’s share of the position players (14 of the 18 guys) are also IFAs. I attribute this to the fact that we don’t draft a ton of prep kids, so basically all our 2023 draft picks are starting at Low-A or higher.

Next guy to get Promoted: nobody; the two guys pitching “decent” are 18 and 19 respectively right now, and they’ll spend the whole season in the FCL.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Camilio Sanchez was an older 2022 IFA out of Panama, for not a ton of money, and he may get cut loose if he doesn’t turn it around.

Bullpen comments: All these arms are such small sample sizes (3-4IP each) its hard to make any judgements on the slew of arms in FCL.

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That’s it for May 2024. Soon we’ll have the DSL roster to contend with.

Hello all. One of the recurring posts I did last year that I really enjoy doing (as long as I can find time to do it) is a monthly look at the state of the rotations of our entire system. Here we are one month in and a few turns through the rotations at all levels, and here’s the first of what hopefully is a season full of rotation (and pitching staff) recaps for the Nats big club and its farm teams.

Each team will have the same items: current rotation, changes in the last month, observations, next guy to get promoted (if its in the minors), next guy to get cut, and then a few comments about relievers.

Important links for this analysis:

• Big Board: the big board shows the rotations, plus the starters and the roles of the relievers as best as I can figure. Furthermore, the rotations are in the correct “order” and synced across the system.
• Nats MLB stats: at baseball-reference.com
• AAA Rochester stats: (all minor league stats at milb.com)
• AA Harrisburg stats
• High-A Wilmington stats
• Low-A Fredericksburg Stats

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We’ll start with the Majors.

Rotation as of 4/30/24: Irvin, Gore, Williams, Parker, Corbin

Changes since opening day: Grey on DL, replaced by Parker

Rotation Observations: Opening day starter Josiah Grey had two ineffective starts (8.1 IP and 13 runs allowed) before heading to the DL with a scary sounding “Flexor Strain” elbow issue that often is followed up by the dreaded Tommy John surgery. Adon got a spot start earlier in the month, but the timing of Grey’s injury with Adon’s workload meant that the team gave Mitchell Parker the call up, and boy has he delivered. In three starts he got wins over basically the two best teams over the last decade or so, has kept the ball in park, and has kept his walks down. Basically everything he didn’t really do in the minors. Crazy. Meanwhile, Trevor Williams has gone from 5th starter competition in spring training to basically our most competent starter: 5 starts, 2.70 ERA, and a FIP that matches his ERA. Gore has also looked solid, with peripherals better than his actual stats albeit with a few more baserunners per inning. Meanwhile, Corbin has done what we though he was going to do (6.82 ERA), as has Irvin (95 ERA+, basically a 4th or 5th starter performance). Irvin’s FIP is lower than his ERA, indicating that he’s been a little unlucky, especially when looking at his WHIP (1.18) and his BABIP (.303; not egregious but a little elevated).

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Corbin. it’s unclear how long Grey will be out, but he’s already doing 120 feet of throwing and may be doing bullpen sessions soon. That sounds to me like end of May return, which may (finally) spell doom for Corbin here. The only other possibility would be to send Irvin down, but that’d be really difficult to defend if Corbin has an ERA approaching 7.00.

Bullpen comments: the pen has generally been great. They blew Corbin’s great start last week, but overall has been solid. Tanner Rainey may be in trouble and is basically at the top of my “next guy to get cut” list right now. Same with Weems, who just is putting too many runners on base. Lastly MLFA Matt Barnes may also have a short leash, with middling numbers and no organizational history. Problem is, who replaces them? When we get to AAA, there’s not a ton of obvious candidates to come up b/c our 10 day DL is pretty full and the candidates aren’t exactly lighting it up down there.

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AAA Rochester

Rotation as of 4/30/24: Adon, Rutledge, Watkins, Herz, Ward

Changes since opening day: Parker promoted up, replaced by MLFA long reliever/innings eater Watkins (Gsellman also got a couple of spot starts in April)

Rotation Observations: Herz has looked good, which is super promising for a team that’s lacking reliable starter prospects. Parker’s promotion over Adon and Rutledge, both of whom had MLB time last year, can be pretty easily explained by their performance so far in 2024: Terrible. Adon, with the benefit of a 4th option, has an ERA in the 8s and a whip in the 2s. He’s taken a step back from his 2022/2023 AAA numbers, and I don’t think he’s coming back anytime soon. Meanwhile, Rutledge has also taken a step back so far in 2024, averaging both a walk and a hit per inning while seeing his ERA bloat up to near 9.00. Ward has struggled in his conversion back to starter from sitting in the Nats pen all last year, and it makes me wonder if the team has him in the right role. I mean, he’s now 27, he’s in AAA trying to get stretched out, he wasn’t great in the pen last year … is he salvageable? Do you abandon his rotation presence and try to get him back as a useful middle reliever?

Both Watkins and Gsellman are what they are: 30yr old MLFA veteran arms who are hanging out to try to get another shot at the bigs, but who probably just sit in AAA all year and soak up innings while waiting for prospects to arrive.

Next guy to get Promoted: Herz. On the 40-man, easy promotion to cover for the next rotation injury.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Adon. he’s eating up a 40-man spot, is now, what, 9th or 10th on the starter pecking order, he’s on his last option, and he’s not getting better. He’ll pass through waivers easily and get outrighted, so don’t be surprised if the next roster move is him. The rest of the starters in AAA aren’t really options to “demote” in that they either make it at AAA or they’re out of the rotation/gone.

Bullpen comments: Willingham (on the 40-man) has been good and may be a decent replacement for one of the faltering MLB relievers. La Sorsa (also on the 40-man) has not been good and is probably near the top of the DFA list. Rico Garcia has been AAA’s “closer” and looks decent. Adonis Medina has looked solid as the 8th inning guy. TJ Zeuch? not so much. 5ip, 14runs on 15 hits. ugh.

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AA Harrisburg

Rotation as of 4/30/24: Luckham, Cuevas, Alvarez, Henry, Lord

Changes since opening day: Lord promoted up from High-A for Knowles, who I had in the opening day rotation but, based on his usage pattern from years past, probably was always going back to his LR/SS role.

Rotation Observations: All five starters have been generally good for the first month. 2023 Minor League POTY Alvarez has picked back up where he left off, albeit with some luck (he’s walked 12 guys in 18 innings). Cuevas has looked solid, which is great news in that he’s the youngest guy in the rotation at 22 and has already passed through rule-5 once. Lord’s got a 19/4 K/BB in 13 innings but is also giving up a ton of hits. Luckham’s not getting the K’s he needs and is getting by on a low BAA. Lastly there’s the “most important” arm in AA: Cole Henry. 4 starts, just 10 IP (that’s really cautious). 11/7 K/BB, but its only 10 innings, so its really SSS. I’d like to see Henry actually pitch a full game, or at least qualify for the win.

Saenz remains on the DL; he’d probably be in the rotation if he was healthy and I remain hopeful he can continue on his progress made last year.

Next guy to get Promoted: If they had to move up a starter .. i’d move up Henry. Maybe not on merit, but on talent/challenge level. None of the other starters are really making an obvious dominant statement to move up so far.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Likewise, there’s no starter who’s really needing replacement. Lord is showing himself to be rather hittable (.316 BAA) but he’s also getting a ton of K’s. This to me perhaps says “reliever.” He’s also the only starter who didn’t start the year in AA, so it wouldn’t be a shock if he got dumped back to High-A.

Bullpen comments: Tyler Schoff continues to quietly work his way up the system; he’s yet to give up a run in 8 appearances/11 IP. Closer Nash Walters is probably too old for the level, but has also yet to give up a run in 2024. Knowles has been solid as usual in his swingman role. Orlando Ribalta is a fan favorite and continues to succeed. The only bullpen arm really struggling is Holden Powell, a college closer who’s never really impressed since his 2020 Covid year drafting. We have two relatively “important arms” on the 60-day DL; Zach Brzycky had TJ mid last year and may miss most of 2024, and 2018 3rd rounder Reid Schaller (who was effective in the AA bullpen last year) is on the “full season DL” already, which may spell trouble for him b/c he’s now 27 and probably becomes a 6yr MLFA at the end of the season.

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High-A Wilmington

Rotation as of 4/30/24: Lara, Caceres, Young, Cornelio, Theophile

Changes since opening day: Lord got one start then got promoted up, replaced by Caceres.

Rotation Observations: Lara, Theophile, and Young have all been fantastic four turns through the rotation, each sporting an ERA in the 1s or 2s. Lara’s got the “worst” ERA of these three but a fantastic 37/8 K/BB ratio in his 23.2 IPs as a 21yr old. After watching Lara get socially promoted and constantly be the youngest guy at the level, he’s finally getting a chance to repeat a level and so far looks great.

Caceres and Cornelio? We’ll that’s another story. Caceres is the oldest guy in the rotation and has easily the worst numbers so far; 5.17 ERA, 8/10 K/BB in 15 innings. Cornelio’s ERA is in the 6s and he has 1-1 K-BB ratio and continues to show similar production to what he had last year. His time in the rotation may be nearing an end; i was surprised he made the rotation/got promoted from his stats from last year (a 4.68 ERA and 1.70 whip in low-A) and he’s not changing many minds.

Two important starters are on the DL here: Jake Bennett and Seth Shuman. Bennett is a 2nd rounder who had TJ last September, while Shuman continues to be unlucky health wise; he missed all of 2023 and now is on the 60-day DL to start 2024; he’s got solid career minor league numbers but can’t stay healthy.

Next guy to get Promoted: Probably Lara, even though he’s the youngest. He’s repeating High-A and has a live arm, and a 14 K/9 rate can’t stay in the rotation for much longer.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Caceres; he’s just not getting enough Ks.

Bullpen comments: Their closer Todd Peterson is 6-for-6 in SVO without giving up a run. Marquis Grissom Jr. has been equally as impressive: 17/3 K/BB in 11IP. Arias, Zinn, Collins also pitching well for a solid-looking pen. I could see some promotions here soon, especially the 26-yr old Peterson, who’s way too old for High-A. Evan Lee got shredded for 9R and was released. 27-yr old 2022 Cuban IFA Danniel Diaz is struggling and may not be long for the organization. Same with his 24yr old 2022 fellow Cuban signee Marlon Perez, who has an ERA north of 9.

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Low-A/Fredericksburg

Rotation as of 4/30/24: Sthele, Sanchez, Atencio, Susana, Davis (with Sykora getting his debut on 5/1)

Changes since opening day: Sullivan out, replaced by LR/SS Atencio, with spot starts from Agostini & Polanco

Rotation Observations: So, following the Low-A rotation has been a little hectic so far in 2024. It has seen a ton of churn. Every turn through so far, we’ve replaced names in the rotation with LR/SS guys. I almost wonder if they’re doing a true 6-man rotation to cover the 6-game series the team is playing. The stalwarts though are Susana, Davis, Sanchez, and Sthele, and none of them are really pitching well. Susana continues to get lots of Ks, and give up lots of runs. Our big-armed prospect has 17/4 K/BB in 12 innings, but also has a .308 BAA and a 6.57 ERA. He’s not going anywhere of course, but it’s been a while since he put together a stretch that validated his prospect status. Davis & Sanchez have middling numbers, but decent BAAs that make me think they’ve been a little unlucky. Sthele has not looked good, striking out just 6 guys in 18 innings and four starts.

All three of the guys who i’ve got listed as “LR/Spot Starters” have better numbers than basically anyone in the rotation, and it may be just a matter of time before the likes of Tepper, Atencio, and Polanco get longer stretches in the rotation. Tepper (a 15th rounder last year) has been lights out: 20/8 K/BB in 14 long relief innings), while both Atencio and Polanco have gotten spot starts already, and i’m kind of surprised they’re not in the rotation more full time at the expense of some of these guys. Atencio in particular has 21 Ks and zero walks in 18 innings; he’s yet to walk a guy.

Two guys who were briefly in the rotation (Sullivan and Agostini) both went straight to the full-season DL. Agostini after one god-awful start, Sullivan after two solid starts. Agostini is only 19 and showed a bit of promise last year, so that’s a loss for sure. The 60-day DL already had two other guys who we would have expected to see in this year’s rotation in Tolman and Aldonis, and there’s two other starters on the 7-day right now (Amoral and Aldo Ramirez, who just can’t catch a break). That’s a lot of starters on the DL in Low-A.

Next guy to get Promoted: none of the starters are pushing for promotion; if I had to i’d move up Atencio for reasons already stated.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Sthele or Davis. Sthele has worse performance but Davis is 24 and struggling in Low-A. That’s not boding well for Davis’ future.

Bullpen comments: Thomas Schultz has been solid as the closer. Moises Diaz has yet to really get touched in 8 relief innings. Bubba Hall has been crushing it as a 24yr old and probably needs a promotion.

There’s 12 arms on the Low-A DL right now, which is crazy. That’s an entire pitching staff. I wonder how many of those arms aren’t really “that” hurt and this is just the side effect we see of losing Short-A team. There’s not a ton of players at FCL/XST right now, so you can see what the team is preparing to do in the 2024 draft; stock XST with pitchers most likely.

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Phew. There’s your April 2024 look at the pitching staffs.

Nats prospect Mitchell Parker got the call to come up and replace starts for the injured Josiah Grey, ahead of Joan Adon and Jackson Rutledge, who are both higher on the pecking order but each of whom had issues preventing them from getting the call. Adon hasn’t been back down long enough since his 4/10/24 option (though I think an option can be cancelled with no notice in case of an injury), and Rutledge took a come-backer off the ankle, leaving him a bit day-to-day. So Parker gets the call.

And, well, he delivered. Here’s the box score. 5ip, 4hits, 2ER, 4Ks, and zero walks. 81 pitches to complete five innings, and he got yanked instead of facing 2-3-4 in the bottom of the 6th.

Ok, first the good: to this observer, he looked composed and strong. He’s a big guy; this isn’t the kind of guy who depends on whippy arm action and who you look at his mechanics and say, “yup, TJ coming.” His mechanics are like a combination of Clayton Kershaw at the beginning and Andy Pettite as he delivers (look at the above picture and tell me you don’t see Pettite). He struck out Mookie Betts twice (!). He struck out Shoehi Ohtani (!!). He kept the ball in the ballpark against one of the best lineups in the game, and he didn’t walk anyone. The big knock on Parker is his BB/9, and to not walk anyone in a MLB game where he could have been trying to pitch around guys is solid.

A quick glance at his Pitch F/X data shows some interesting information:

• Pitch FX didn’t give him credit for a “fastball” all night, which seems odd b/c he definitely threw a bunch. Therefore we don’t have any velocity metrics other than my memory. I saw FBs in the 92-93 range mostly, Maybe saw a 95 peak at one point, could be wrong. That’s not bad.
• Pitch FX has him with this breakdown of pitches on the night: 64% slider, 2.7% cutter, 21.6% curveball, and 10.8% split finger. Now, does he have a “slider?” I didn’t think so; i think he has a curve. The slider and curve average velocities in fangraphs are 79.8 and 78.6 respectively, so yeah that’s not a slider.
• His curve looked great. Obviously; its his best pitch. The split finger had some serious movement and was described as an “out pitch” … yeah, it looked unhittable, and uncatchable.

Now for the concerning: He gave up a lot of hard contact. The Dodgers didn’t have a “soft contact” ball all night (the Nats had 28% “soft contact” by way of comparison). A lot of Parker’s outs were “line drive to LF” and “Deep fly ball caught on warning track.” So, he might have been a little lucky to not have more crooked numbers on the board.

I also feel like he had a hard time controlling the fastball in the zone (that’s the “command” portion of command and control). 81 pitches broke down to 52 strikes, 29 balls. That’s not an awful ratio, but it also was a lot of pitches to get through innings. 81 pitches through five. I mean, yes that’s a lot. I’m not sure how many pitches he had by inning, but he probably would have needed another 20 to get through the 6th, given that he was facing the heart of the order. I think we’d like to see more efficiency there; I’d like to see a starter be in the 100 range by the end of the 7th so that they could push through to a theoretical 120 pitch limit if need be to finish 8 full, then hand off to a closer. Of course, the modern game now depends so heavily on relievers that if I can get a quality start out of a guy i’m ecstatic.

All in all, a very positive debut for the guy. Can he stick around? can he give us better innings that someone like Williams or Corbin? Maybe. Lets see how it goes for the next couple cycles of the rotation.

I have somewhat of an obsession with Opening Day Starters, and have tracked them on a spreadsheet for, well, for a long time. 20 plus years. I also love Opening Day Starter Trivia, which we’ll cover here in a moment.

Now that the 2024 Opening Day is past us, and I’ve updated the XLS for this year’s starters and done some housecleaning of now-retired starters, here’s some useless Opening day starter trivia for you.

My Opening Day Starter XLS is uploaded here to Google Sheets. It is also worth noting that Baseball Reference of course maintains similar information. Here for example is the canonical opening day list of lineups (pitchers and players) for the Washington Nationals franchise. And here’s the list of all 30 teams’ opening day lineups for the 2024 season, with similar data for all past seasons). I can’t quite find a similar resource to just the starters across all 30 teams, but I’m sure it’s there somewhere.

Ok, that being said, here’s some useless trivia related to Opening Day Starters:

• First time Opening Day Starters for 2024: 14 of the 30, including our own Josiah Grey who takes over for Corbin, who had done the past couple. This number is down from last year’s 9 first timers, which was the lowest I had on record going back a decade. This number was artificially inflated a bit over what was expected due to spring training injuries to presumed opening day starters for teams like Aaron Nola, Gerrit Cole, and Sandy Alcantara.
• Current active Leader of Opening Day Starts: Justin Verlander, with 12. He did 9 in Detroit, then another 3 in Houston. Others in the conversation are Kershaw (9), Scherzer (7), Julio Teheran (6), and Nola with 6 (see next)
• Current Active Consecutive streak: Bieber in Cleveland with 5 consecutive opening day starts. Nola was the previous holder at 6 straight.
• Current Leader of Consecutive Opening Day Starts: both Verlander and Kershaw at one point made 7 straight opening day starts for their teams, and are the current leaders in that category.

Historical records:

• Most Opening Day Starts in History: Tom Seaver (16).  Tied for 2nd place with 14 is Jack Morris, Randy Johnson, Steve Carlton, Walter Johnson
• Most Consecutive Opening Day Starts in History Jack Morris; all 14 of his starts were in a row, Mr. Durability.

Lastly, here’s some interesting team observations

• Washington went a decade with just two different pitchers (Scherzer or Strasburg) doing the duty.
• Texas, your defending WS champs: 8 different opening day starters in the last 8 years. And it’s even crazier than that: They’ve had 15 different opening day starters in the last 16 seasons, dating to 2009! Only one guy has repeated: Cole Hamels in 2016 and 2018. That’s amazing, that Texas basically hasn’t had a long-term Ace on their staff for nearly 2 decades.
• Los Angeles Dodgers, despite being probably the league’s best team over the past decade or so, has had 6 different guys make their last 6 opening day starts, them the least consistent of any team. Interesting.
• Other teams who have not really been able to find a consistent starter: Cincinnati: 5 straight different opening day starters. NY Mets: 4 straight different opening day starters. Baltimore: 8 different starters in the last 9 years. Tampa: 6 new in last 7 years. Angels: 7 new in last 8 years.

2023 was the first time in a decade I kept up with monthly rotation reviews for the whole season. So, we might as well finish it off with a look at the starting and ending rotations for the various major and minor league teams, and a prediction as to what the rotations might look like next year.

Here’s the recaps for the year: End of April check-in, End of May check-in, End of June , End of July, and End of August. There was no September summary since the various leagues staggered the amount of time they played in Sept, leading to this post.

Critical to this analysis are the following links:

• Big Board:
• Nats MLB stats: at baseball-reference.com
• AAA Rochester stats
• AA Harrisburg stats
• High-A Wilmington stats
• Low-A Fredericksburg Stats
• FCL Stats
• DSL Stats

Lets start at the top. I’m drawing from all my posts throughout the year to show the evolution of each staff’s rotation. Then for 2024, I’m generally predicting 6-7 names per rotation to account for the inevitable injuries.

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MLB

• Opening Day: Corbin, Grey, Gore, Williams, Kuhl
• End of April: Corbin, Grey, Gore, Williams, Kuhl
• End of May:  Corbin, Grey, Gore, Williams, Irvin
• End of June: Corbin, Grey, Gore, Williams, Irvin
• End of July: Corbin, Grey, Gore, Williams, Irvin
• End of August: Corbin, Grey, Gore, Williams, Irvin, Adon
• End of Season: Corbin, Grey, Williams, Irvin, Adon, Rutledge (Gore on dl with blister)

2023 Discussion: Despite being a last place team, the rotation was amazingly consistent. Corbin, Grey, and Williams made 32, 30, and 30 starts respectively. Gore made 27 before going on the DL at the end of the season with blisters. Irvin came up for the ineffective Kuhl and did 24 starts of 93 ERA+ performance. Obviously the team went to a 6-man rotation in August, calling up Adon, who continues to not be good. Then, for the last few weeks Rutledge got the call up and posted about the same numbers as Adon (as in, he’s not ready).

2024 outlook: The 2024 rotation probably looks pretty similar to the 2023 one, because every one of these names is signed (or under team control) in 2024. Assuming that Strasburg indeed retires or cannot pitch, there’s really only one big name to throw into this mix: Cavalli. Perhaps the team converts Ward back to a starter after burying him on in the bullpen all year to get through rule-5 time. I think we’ll see Cavalli replace Williams in the rotation, who drops to the pen while all the others go back to AAA. If they get slammed with injuries there’s not a ton i’d trust coming up from AAA right now, so I wonder if they’ll go shopping in the FA market for more “trade at the deadline for a couple of prospects” kind of talents. But I highly doubt we’ll be seeing another FA starter, in that none of these guys has anything left to prove in AAA.

2024 rotation prediction: Corbin, Grey, Gore, Cavalli, Irvin, (with Williams and Ward as LR in bullpen). Maybe an off-season low-cost signing to flip at the deadline.

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AAA Syracuse

• Opening Day: Adon, Irvin, Espino, Abbott, Peralta
• End of April: Adon, Irvin, Espino, Abbott, Peralta (with TRomero and Kilome spot Starts)
• End of May: : Adon, Espino, Abbott, Peralta, Urena
• End of June: Adon, Peralta, Urena, Rutledge, Banda.
• End of July: Adon, Peralta, Urena, Rutledge, Banda (plus Espino before getting called up and released)
• End of August: Peralta, Abbott, Rutledge, RMunoz, AHernandez plus Troop and TRomero spot starts.
• End of Season: Parker, AHernandez, RMunoz, TRomero, Mengeden (Banda, Peralta shut down, Adon & Rutledge promoted up)

2023 Discussion: The AAA rotation for the bulk of the year included two guys (Peralta and Urena) who were 30-year old MLFAs who were absolutely awful but yet got starts for most of the year, a testament to the thinness of the Nats starting pitching depth at its highest levels. Adon did the majority of the year in AAA to try to prove that his 2022 was a fluke (spoiler alert; he did not: 4.62 ERA, 1.51 whip in 17 AAA starts). Espino was solid before getting called up, shelled, and released. Rutledge did about half a season of competence and was joined in the end by a couple of guys who seem likely to feature in AAA next year.

2024 outlook: I think the late season call-ups (Adon and Rutledge) are coming right back to start AAA next year; they did not impress in their short MLB stints and will be on the books as 4-A/rotation coverage to start the year. I think they’ll be joined by the two guys who got bumped up to AAA at season’s end (Parker and AHernandez), plus hopefully a couple guys coming back from injury (Tetreault), We probably see a couple of MLFA veteran MLB starters thrown in the mix (which is basically what Peralta and Urena were this year), and perhaps a AA guy (Herz) moving up.

2024 rotation prediction: Adon, Rutledge, Parker, AHernandez, Tetreault, Herz, and a Veteran MLFA in the mix (with Munoz, TRomero in the bullpen unless they leave as MLFAs)

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AA Harrisburg

• Opening Day: Rutledge, Parker, Herrera, Troop, Cuevas
• End of April:  Rutledge, Parker, Herrera, Troop, Cuevas
• End of May:  Rutledge, Parker, Troop, Cuevas, AHernandez
• End of June: Parker, Troop, Cuevas, AHernandez, Saenz, plus Henry
• End of July: Parker, Troop, Hernandez, Saenz, Henry (plus Knowles, Cuevas, Herz)
• End of August: Parker, Cuevas, Saenz, Alvarez, Herz
• End of Season: Cuevas, Saenz, Alvarez, Herz, Luckham (Troop in LR, Henry in limbo)

2023 Discussion: The AA roster definitely produced some player development wins this year: Rutledge ended up in the majors, Parker pitched a solid full season and should feature in AAA next year, and Alemedo Hernandez had a 2-level jump. Herz was a mid-season acquisition and pitched probably better than any of them, but only turns 23 in January so he’s in no real rush to get to AAA. Finally Alvarez ended up in AA after dominating in High-A and looks like a heck of a find as a 12th rounder, taking the system’s Minor league pitcher of the year award. Herrera’s injury and age may spell the end of his career here, Troop seems to have settled into AA as his peak level and is already 27, and Cuevas spent the entire year getting shelled. The big question mark here is Cole Henry, who was in AAA in 2022 before his injury, now can’t get guys out in AA, and I really worry his shoulder injury may be career ending.

2024 outlook: Three of the guys who ended in the AA rotation (Saenz, Alvarez, and Luckham) were the kind of mid-season promotions that the Nats like to do, and thus I see them staying in AA to start 2024 with an eye on another mid-season promotion next June/July based on merit. They seem to like Knowles as a swing man so I think he stays in that role, possibly replacing a released Troop. Cuevas should repeat; he’s still young and his numbers were poor this year. So we’ve seen most of what Harrisburg may see next year already. We’ll probably see some names rising up that we’ll talk about in the next section. But we’re hurting for names here, and its hard to squint at the High-A guys and predict any of them making the push to rise up really, so I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw Herz still here, if we saw Tetreault pushed back a level after missing a year, or even a MLFA or two.

2024 rotation prediction: Henry, Cuevas, Saenz, Alvarez, Luckham, maybe Tetreault, maybe Theophile

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High-A Wilmington

• Opening Day: Lara, Saenz, Huff, Theophile, Alvarez
• End of April:  Lara, Saenz, Huff, Theophile, Alvarez with Luckham
• End of May:  Lara, Saenz, Huff, Alvarez, Luckham, with Theophile getting spot starts
• End of June: Lara, Alvarez, Luckham, Theophile, Caceres, Bennett
• End of July: Lara, Alvarez, Luckham, Caceres, Lord, (with Theophile, Bennett)
• End of August: Lara, Luckham, Caceres, Lord, Bennett,
• End of Season: Lara, Luckham, Caceres, Lord, Bennett (with Diaz doing late season spot start, Theophile shut down)

2023 Discussion: Wilmington’s rotation had a couple of success stories for sure: Saenz and Alvarez both earned mid-season promotions; it probably took Alvarez a month more than it should to have been moved up. Theophile seemed to be on the same path but completely disappeared on July 7th, never hitting the DL and with a decent 3.48 ERA/1.28 whip going). The rest of the rotation was middling at best. They were hurt by the loss of Seth Shuman, who had a 3.23 ERA in high-A in 2022 but who missed the whole season.

2024 outlook: Bennett is a big name for this team but struggled upon reaching High-A. There was never an official report of an injury, but Roster Resource lists him as being “injured” which usually means something serious, but we’ll have to wait and see. Hf healthy, he’ll be back, as will most of the guys there at the end of the season. Theophile was 24 this year and seemed to get High-A, so if he’s healthy i could see him starting in AA. Otherwise, the rotation in August seems to be what they’ll go with starting next year.

2024 rotation prediction: Lara, Luckham, Caceres, Lord, Bennett, Shuman plus a couple of guys moving up based on social promotion (Young, Cornelio, Tolman if he’s not hurt)

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Low-A Fredericksburg

• Opening Day: Bennett, Susana, Atencio, Cornelio, Denaburg
• End of April:  Bennett, Susana, Atencio, Cornelio, Denaburg (plus Aldonis)
• End of May:  Bennett, Susana, Cornelio, Sanchez, Caceres,
• End of June:  Susana, Cornelio, Lord, Young, Tolman (with Atencio making spot starts)
• End of July: Susana, Cornelio, Young, Tolman, Atencio (with Denaburg spot start)
• End of August: : Cornelio, Young, Sullivan, Tepper, Stethe (Amaral getting 3 bullpen game starts)
• End of Season: Cornelio, Young, Sullivan, Tepper, Stethe (with Polanco, Leon, Agostini late-season callups, not listing all the DL guys)

2023 Discussion: The Fredericksburg rotation this year basically had one decent success story (Bennett) and a slew of question marks. Bennett showed that its dumb to put a 2nd round polished college Junior in Low-A, cruising through 9 starts before getting bumped up. Caceres also got promoted, but not really on merit (his low-A numbers: 4.80 ERA, 1.52 whip in 15 games/7 starts). The rest of this crew left something to be desired. Susana is the only real “prospect” pitcher in Low-A, and he struggled: 5.14 ERA, 1.52 whip, 62/40 K/BB in 63 innings. Now, Susana was the 5th prospect in a 5-prospect deal, the proverbial “lets throw a lottery ticket 18yr old prospect into the deal as the final sweetener.” He’s only 19. So patience. As for the rest of this crew, by season’s end several of the rotation guys were 2023 draftees … but remember, we only signed on significant starter in this year’s draft, and he was a HS kid (Sykora). All the rest of the starters we drafted were either 5th year senior/nominal fees or $150k teen-round guys with little expectations. So with all due respect to Sullivan and Tepper and Stethe and Amaral … if we get one prospect out of this crew who gets out of Low-A we’ll be happy.

2024 outlook: For as “thin” as our internal options looked at AA, there’s an abundance of names in the mix right now for Low-A. This is the consequence of getting rid of Short-A; all these college arms get backed up, quickly. Right now here’s the list of “Starters” on the low-A roster, including everyone on the DL or Restricted list at the end of the season (listed by acquisition date):

• 2023 draftees: Sullivan, Tepper, Amaral, Stethe
• 2022 draftees: Young, Cornelio
• 2021 draftees: Tolman
• 2022 IFAs: Susana
• 2021 IFAs: Agostini, Polanco, Leom
• 2018-2019 IFAs: Aldonis, Atencio, Aldo Ramirez
• Long Relievers: Polanco, Rodriguez, Otanez, Sanchez, Denaburg, Romero, Hiraldo, Marquez

That’s FOURTEEN guys who are listed as starters right now, and the Fredericksburg has 33 arms listed right now (!!). Something seems like it has to give. The team just has way too many arms here. Look for whole-sale shedding of these failed starters/long relievers at some point, perhaps next spring, perhaps when we start drafting players next year and need the roster spots. I think the team will put its highest rated prospects (Sykora, Susana and Aldo Ramirez) back in the rotation, join them with 2023 draftees and the best of the IFAs, and everyone else becomes a reliever.

2024 rotation prediction: Sykora, Susana, Aldo Ramirez, Aldonis, Amaral, plus a couple from Sullivan/Tepper/Stethe.

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FCL Rookie

• Opening Day: CSanchez, Zapata, Agostini, Leon, Polanco
• End of June: CSanchez, Zapata, Agostini, Leon, Polanco (plus Ogando)
• End of July: CSachez, Zapata, Agostini, Leon, Polanco (Otanez one spot start)
• End of Season: CSanchez, Zapata, Agostini, Leon, Polanco

2023 Discussion: Basically, the FCL rotation was the same practically all season. Ogando got two spot starts and got shelled. Otanez was even worst than that. So, we only have 5 names to discuss:

• Sanchez: 22IFA, 20yrs old, 7.92 ERA, 22 walks and 22 Ks in 30IP.
• Zapata: 21IFA, 19yrs old, 4.81 ERA but only 25Ks in 39ip.
• Agostini: 21IFA, 19yrs old, 4.53 ERA
• Leon: 21IFA, 21yrs old, 5.58 ERA, 35/9 K/BB so that’s good but BAA was .287
• Polanco: 21IFA, 22yrs old, 5.63 ERA

2024 outlook: Agostini, Leon, and Polanco got pushed up to Low-A, which is curious because none of them was the best starter in the FCL. The only one of these guys i’d have promoted is Zapata. I’d have the rest of them out of the rotation. Spoiler alert to the DSL analysis: there’s not a ton coming up the pike worth saving spots for; its a stretch even to assume that the two DSL Graduates mentioned will stick. I don’t think there’s any of these guys that will push for Low-A, given the slew of pitchers up there.

2024 rotation prediction: Agostini, Zapata, Leon, and a couple of 2024 draft picks Roman & Cuevas from the DSL could push for rotation spots but likely are LR at best domestically.

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DSL Rookie

• Opening Day: Farias, Portorreal, Moreno, Oliveros, DPerez
• End of June: Farias, Portorreal, Moreno, Oliveros, DPerez
• End of July: Farias, Portorreal, Moreno, R.Ramirez, with D.Perez doing spot starts.
• End of Season: Farias, Portorreal, Moreno, A.Roman, E.Rivero (Cuevas one spot start)

2023 Discussion: Like with the FCL, the DSL nats managed to get through their season with mostly the same rotation. So lets run through them and their performance this year:

• Farias: 19IFA, aged 21, 7.07 ERA this year. Aged 21! going against mostly 17yr olds.
• Portorreal: 21IFA, aged 18, 4.79 ERA, 1.39 whip, 29/10 K/BB in 32ip.
• Moreno: 23IFA, aged 18, 4.70 era but 28 walks to 25Ks in 30IP.
• Oliveros: 22IFA, aged 20, 8.14 ERA and a .350 BAA; that’s hard to do
• Perez: 21IFA aged 19, 4.45 ERA in mostly long-relief, 40/18 k/BB in 32ip
• Ramirez: 22IFA, aged 19, 3.26 ERA, 1.53 whip
• Roman: 21IFA, aged 20, 3.20 ERA, 1.04whip, 32/7 k/BB in 39 ip
• Rivero: 23IFA, aged 18, 7.30 ERA, 1.95whip
• Cuevas: 22IFA, aged 20, 3.44 era, 1.24whip

2024 outlook: Of all these guys, you can only squint and make an argument for a couple of them to get off the island and try for the FCL rotation next year. I’m guessing the team releases the three guys with ERAs in the 7s and 8s (Farias, Oliveros, Rivero) returns a few of them who were young but showed some decent promise (ERAs in the 4s, guys like Portorreal, Moreno, Perez), and then perhaps tries sending a couple specifically to the FCL. I like Roman’s performance here: decent control, aged 20 but only in his second year, so he’d make a lot of sense to move up as a FCL long reliever. Same with Cuevas: similar numbers, similar age and signing, and he excelled in that multi-inning model

2024 rotation prediction: Portorreal, Moreno, DPerez, Ramirez, plus a couple of 2024IFAs

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One last thing. By most accounts, this is a rough order of our Starting Pitcher prospects now in the system, along with a brief statement of their performance in 2023 and outlook for 2024:

• Cavalli: TJ; missed all of 2023, should be in 2024 MLB rotation, projecting as #2 starter
• Bennett: crushed Low-A, struggled in High-A, disappeared for a bit, probably High-A in 2024
• Sykora: 2023 draft pick out of HS, did not pitch, hopefully starts 2024 in Low-A rotation
• Susana: struggled low-A, may need to move to bullpen, but still young. Low-A again 2024
• Rutledge: shot up the ranks, ended in MLB, looks like he could improve. AAA/4-A in 2024
• Ward: stashed in the MLB bullpen as a rule-5 guy, exhausted rookie status, could be a starter in 2024, but likely continues in bullpen.
• Herz: trade acquisition pitched great in AA at age 22, could push for AAA in 2024
• Henry; really struggled post TOS in 2023, worried for career, will be in AA again in 2024 trying to regain form.
• Lara: over promoted, struggled in High-A all season, should repeat High-A in 2024.
• Irvin: graduated to MLB, pitched in rotation most of year, hoping for closer to 100 ERA+ in 2024
• Parker: solid in AA all year, should feature in AAA 2024.
• Aldo Ramirez: hurt, missed all of 2023, hoping to see him pitch in Low-A 2024.
• Saenz: under-the-radar performance earned promotion in 2023, starts in AA 2024
• Shuman: missed all of 2023, hoping to bounce back in High-A in 2024.
• Alvarez: solved High-A, had solid peripherals in AA, should return there in 2024.

I don’t think I need to say it; this is not a lot of depth. We really need to get guys like Bennett, Sykora, and Henry to return to form and earn their draft pedigree. I’d really like to see IFAs like Lara and Ramirez show up and deliver. But look for 2024 to be a pitcher-heavy draft.

We did an end of April check-in on the rotations and an End of May check-in. Here’s another look after another month.

Important links for this analysis:

• Big Board: the big board shows the rotations, plus the starters and the roles of the relievers as best as I can figure. Furthermore, the rotations are in the correct “order” and synced across the system.
• Nats MLB stats: at baseball-reference.com
• AAA Rochester stats
• AA Harrisburg stats
• High-A Wilmington stats
• Low-A Fredericksburg Stats
• FCL Stats
• DSL Stats

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We’ll start with the Majors.

Rotation: Corbin, Grey, Gore, Williams, Irvin

Changes in the last month: None. The rotation has been surprisingly static for a last place team.

Observations: Irvin officially supplanted Kuhl in the rotation after a couple of starts after his call-up, and when Kuhl came back Irvin stayed in the rotation and Kuhl went to the pen. That is, until about a week ago, when the team gave Kuhl his outright release waivers. They didn’t bother with the whole DFA dance; they knew that they were going to eat his $2M salary, so they just summarily released the guy so he could move on. Side note: Baseball is a good living: $2M for 3 month’s work.

Irvin was looking a bit shaky for a while, but his four starts in June were solid, and his last two were really good. His seasonal numbers are now about where Corbin’s are. Meanwhile, Grey has been stellar lately and has pushed his season ERA+ into the upper 120s. Williams has held his own and looks like a promising possible trade candidate for a team looking for some innings. Gore had a sketchy month that has inflated his ERA and peripherals, but still looks like the top 100 prospect he has been since high school.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Nobody really. They’re not going to cut bait on Corbin, Williams is holding his own, the other three guys are here to stay as important pieces of the new-look future state Nats rotation. Remember; it only took the Nats three years to go from 59-103 to 98-64.

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AAA Rochester:

Rotation: Peralta, Rutledge, Urena, Adon, Banda.

Changes since Last Month: Abbott got called up to the MLB pen, where he’s stayed, and Rutledge has taken his place after his late June promotion. Espino also got called up briefly but is back now, and may re-take Banda’s spot in the rotation (or not: Banda threw a decent start on 7/1; maybe he’s transitioning back to a starter role). Tommy Romero continues to be the first long man/spot starter out of the pen.

Observations; None of these starters really had a good month in June. Banda was the worst, making 5 starts, only going 19 innings in those starts, and giving up 14 ER along the way. Urena had a 5.68 ERA in June, which actually lowered his seasonal ERA of 7.17. Same with Peralta: a 5 ERA month has improved his seasonal stats. The fact that we keep giving these guys (aged 34 and 31 respectively) starts is proof positive that our pitching depth has gone to pot. Adon actually had a decent month. There’s no real point in talking about Espino; we already know he’s a better reliever than a starter, yet the team continues to push him as a starter in AAA. Rutledge got shelled in his first AAA start, but he’s more than earned the promotion.

Next guy to get promoted: Espino. But nobody’s “earning” another promotion right now.

Next guy to get demoted or released: As with last month, the moment they need a spot Urena or Peralta are gone.

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AA Harrisburg:

Rotation: Cuevas, Troop, Hernandez, Saenz, Parker , plus Henry

Changes in last month: Saenz got promoted up to cover for Rutledge, when he got promoted on 6/27. Henry done with rehab and in AA but sits on the developmental list as of 6/30.

Observations: Henry’s first two starts back were horrific, so as we speak he sits on the developmental list. When Rutledge (correctly called as next guy to get promoted last month) moved up, Saenz (who had seemingly solved high-A) moved into his spot. The guy with the best month was Parker, who had a 1.35 ERA in four starts and has turned around his fortunes significantly (he was last month’s “Next guy to get demoted”). Cuevas continues to struggle (but is only 22), as does Troop (who is continuing to be the innings soaking long-man/spot starter he served in last year). Hernandez has been quietly effective with pretty amazing control; he walked just 2 guys all month.

Next guy to get promoted: Nobody really; perhaps Hernandez

Next guy to get demoted or released: I still think Cuevas looks over matched, but the first guy to make way if Henry comes back off Dev List probably is Troop.

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High-A Wilmington

Rotation: Alvarez, Theophile, Lara, Luckham, Caceres, Bennett

Changes in Last month: Saenz promoted to AA (as predicted last month), Bennett promoted up from Low-A, Huff moved to bullpen

Observations: Wilmington has too many arms to put up with poor performance, which is why Chance Huff is now in the pen with his 6.12 ERA. Meanwhile, Wilmington seems to have too many starters and something may give soon. Lara continues to confound this observer, with another month of 5 ERA work on top of his 5+ ERA work all last year. Why he’s in High-A at this point is amazing, consider he couldn’t get guys out at Low-A and is incredibly young for the league. Meanwhile, Andrew Alvarez continues to impress, with a very solid month with a 1.77 ERA in his last four starts. Bennett has kept producing upon his promotion: first three stats in High-A featured a 1.29 ERA. He needs another month in Wilmington but I see nothing to indicate he shouldn’t keep on moving up. I Still think he was started way too low for a major conference Friday night starter 2nd round pick. Anyway. Caceres just got moved up and got shelled in his first start, too soon to tell. Theophile also had a solid month, lowering his seasonal era significantly. Luckham looks like the odd-man out of this rotation right now, though his ERA is much higher than it deserves to be based on his WHIP.

Next guy to get promoted: Alvarez

Next guy to get demoted or released: Lara, again.

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Low-A Fredericksburg

Rotation: Lord, Cornelio, Young, Tolman, Susana, with Atencio making spot starts

Changes in Last month: Bennett promoted and replaced with Lord. Sanchez to the DL, replaced with Young. Caceres promoted, replaced with Tolman.

Observations: The Fredericksburg rotation had a great month, with all 5 of its main starters featuring sub 3.00 ERAs all month and two of them getting promoted. Cornelio had a 2.30 ERA on the month but still walks too many guys. Lord has moved up from the bullpen to take a spot in the rotation for now and his holding on, with a 2.35 ERA on the month. Same with Luke Young, who’s earned another few turns in the rotation. Susana looks the best of them with a 1.02 ERA for the month as he seems to improve month over month. Tolman got bumped up from the rookie league (as he should have been, since he’s 23) and threw zeros in his first start. Even Atencio, who was demoted out of the rotation in May, got in on the action, throwing a spot start and dealing.

Next guy to get promoted: Susana

Next guy to get demoted or released: Nobody for now.

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Rookie Florida Complex League

Rotation: Zapata, Ogando, Leon, Polanco, CSanchez, Agostini

Changes in Last month: none; this is the first go-around for the FCL

Observations: First off, the concept of a “rotation” in the rookie league probably is laughable, considering the sheer number of guys on this roster and the number of off-days they get. But a semblance of an organized rotation has taken shape. Tolman started in the rotation, threw three outings giving up just one run and got moved up. The rest of this rotation? Entirely comprised of IFAs; 5 of them 2021 IFAs and Sanchez being a 22IFA. So far: Sanchez, Ogando, and Leon are getting shelled; each has an ERA in the 9 or 10 range. Polanco and Agostini are relatively competent; ERAs in the 4-5 range. Both are probably better than their ERAs; its hard to have an 5+ era with an opponent BAA of .212 as Polanco has. Last you have Zapata; 0.75 ERA through 4 starts, but he’s got a 1.50 whip, so he’s dancing out of a lot of danger.

Next guy to get promoted: Maybe Zapata, probably instead one of the bullpen guys.

Next guy to get demoted or released: Ogando or Sanchez

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Dominican Summer League

Rotation: Portorreal, Farias, HMoreno, Oliveros, Rivero

Changes in the last month: none; this is the first go-around for DSL

Observations: Ok, so we know the DSL Nats are terrible (they’re 2-18 as of this writing), but it isn’t because of the pitching. Ok, its not *entirely* because of the pitching. Its primarily because their entire starting batting lineup are 2023IFAs signed in January. They’re all children. And they’re not hitting at all. (Meanwhile, one of the Dodgers’ DSL teams is 20-0 to start the season, and their other team is in 2nd place of the division. Why don’t we have two DSL teams?? Why doesn’t everyone??)

The rotation so far is up and down: Rivero only has 3 strikeouts in 10 innings; that’s not gotta cut it. Farias and Oliveros have BAAs in the .320-.340 range. Also not going to cut it. Moreno has a solid BAA but has nearly as many walks as IP. The best performer so far has been Portorreal, a 23IFA so he’s young. 5 starts, 2.45 ERA, looks solid. A great signing so far, especially for his bonus amount.

In case you’re wondering, here’s the IFA tracker for bonus amounts to get a sense of who’s supposed to be performing. Nearly all our big bonus guys were batters; the biggest bonus pitcher went to a guy on the DL all year. Portorreal got just $10k that we know about, Moreno and Rivero were 23IFAs who probably got 10k or less. The other guys in this rotation; Oliveros in 22 for >$10k and Farias, who was a 19IFA and is still in the DSL; he’s rule-5 eligible after this season!

Next guy to get promoted: Portorreal

Next guy to get released: ERivero

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Conclusions: most of my predicted promotions from last month took place, and we’re getting a ton of impressive results out of Low and High-A. Still need to see Henry get back into the swing of things to make me feel better.

We did an end of April check-in on the rotations; how about and end-of May one too?

Important links for this analysis:

• Big Board: the big board shows the rotations, plus the starters and the roles of the relievers as best as I can figure. Furthermore, the rotations are in the correct “order” and synced across the system.
• Nats MLB stats: at baseball-reference.com
• AAA Rochester stats: (all minor league stats at milb.com)
• AA Harrisburg stats
• High-A Wilmington stats
• Low-A Fredericksburg Stats

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We’ll start with the Majors.

Rotation: Corbin, Grey, Gore, Williams, Irvin

Changes since opening day: Irvin for Kuhl, who went out with a slight injury and then has been kept down while Irvin came up and, at least initially, looked solid.

Observations: Irvin’s first two starts were fantastic. Even his third was promising, with his numbers inflated by a couple of infield singles and a crummy reliever who let in 3 of Irvin’s inherited runners. Since then though, it has not been good, and Irvin’s ERA now hovers in the mid 5.00 range. He’s giving up way too many base runners (1.68 whip) and I think he needs to head back down to work on his command. Meanwhile, Grey & Gore continue to look solid, if a bit wild, and look like solid rotation pieces for the next 5-6 years. Trevor Williams continues to get by on smoke and mirrors (there’s more than a point difference between his ERA and FIP), and Corbin is who he is at this point, eating up innings for his salary until he runs out his contract at the end of next year.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Irvin. I think the Irvin experiment has trailed off and Kuhl will regain his spot in the rotation for a little while longer. Neither is really deserving, Do you want Irvin to continue to develop in the majors so that you can give innings to a one-year guy like Kuhl?

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AAA Rochester:

Rotation: Urena, Adon, Abbott, Peralta, Espino

Changes since Last Month: Just veteran MLFA Urena replacing the promoted Irvin in the rotation.

Observations; The seasonal ERAs of these five starters is, in order: 5.18, 9.35, 4.50, 6.25, and 6.11. That’s awful. It isn’t much better controlling for the last month; none of them have an ERA under 5.00. What’s interesting is that we know (based on last year’s MLB stats) that both Espino and Abbott work far better as relievers versus starters, yet they both continue to stay in the rotation. Urena is 31 and has been awful, Peralta 34 and nearly as bad. I’m not sure what to do with Adon; he’s regressed since his AAA season last year, is falling in the depth chart, and soon may be nearing the “next guy to get cut from the 40-man to make room” territory

Meanwhile, Tommy Romero is kind of like the “6th starter,” a swingman who gets spot starts, and his numbers look great. I’m not sure why we cling to spots for washed up AAA starters in their 30s when we could feature guys who might actually be prospects. I think the team should release Urena and Peralta, put Irvin back here, and put Romero in the rotation in the short term.

Of course, the likely answer to “why is Urena still here” is named Cole Henry, who is doing a re-hab tour of the minors and should return to the AAA rotation soon, likely spelling Urena’s release. Jackson Tetreault is also lurking in rehab, but he’s getting shelled in a-ball right now and doesn’t have anything to prove below AAA, so we could see some shuffling. I’d like to see

Next guy to get promoted: nobody deserving

Next guy to get demoted or released: Urena/Peralta for Henry/Tetreault, then if we need a AA promotion put Abbott or Espino back in the pen.

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AA Harrisburg:

Rotation: Cuevas, Alamedo Hernandez, Rutledge, Parker, Troop

Changes since April: Hernandez in for Herrera, who seems to have had a season-ending injury in early May.

Observations: The AA rotation is starting to come together. Three of these guys have sub 3.00 ERAs for the month of May (Rutledge with a 1.90 ERA, Cuevas with 2.84, and Hernandez with a 2.70). I’m especially interested to see what Cuevas (age 21) does the rest of the way; a 21yr old in AA is impressive enough, for him to be effective is amazing. Hernandez is a 23MLFA that the team signed out of the Mexican leagues, he’s just 23, and he’s shown to be pretty effective as well; the Mexican league is considered a “AAA-quality” league and I wonder if he’ll be effective if he gets moved up. Amazingly to this observer, the former 1st round pick Rutledge, who I was almost convinced was a complete bust, is the bets of them; 1.90 ERA in May, 0.97 Whip, 20/4 K/BB in 23 innings. Dare I say it … he’s starting to look like a 1st rounder! I mean, should we start putting his name into future MLB rotation consideration along side Cavalli and Henry and Skenes when we draft him? 🙂

The season has also shown that guys who were formerly being used as longer relievers or starters are now clearly one-inning relievers. Evan Lee, Lucas Knowles, and Tim Cate all included.

Next guy to get promoted: Rutledge. Heck, he’s on the 40-man, if he dominates AA another month move him up to AAA and bump one of the retreads there.

Next guy to get demoted or released: Parker. After cruising through the A ball leagues, he’s apparently met his match in AA. Good thing for him is that he’s a lefty with punch-out capabilities, so he’s got bullpen options.

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High-A Wilmington

Rotation: Luckham, Saenz, Huff, Alvarez, Lara, with Theophile getting spot starts

Changes since April: None really, just the addition of Luckham

Observations: Wilmington’s rotation has been harder to track this month thanks to two guys doing rehab starts there, plus some rainouts/double headers making for a bunch of spot starts. Huff and Lara continue to struggle; Lara at age 20 in high-A continues to confuse me; he had a 5.53 era in low-A last year and now has an even higher ERA in High-A this year. Is this good for his development? Why not keep him in low-A, a more age-appropriate league, until he proves he can solve it? Luckham was last month’s darling; he’s come back to earth. Really, the best performer has been Saenz, who gave up just 3 earned runs in the month of June and is repeating the level. Another month like this and he’ll be moving up. Theophile seems like he’s somewhere in rotational limbo, but has a big enough arm to possibly feature more as a reliever.

Next guy to get promoted: Saenz

Next guy to get demoted or released: Lara

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Low-A Fredericksburg

Rotation: Bennett, Susana, Atencio, Cornelio, Denaburg

Rotation: Bennett, Cornelio, Sanchez, Caceres, Susana

Changes since April: Denaburg mercifully moved to the bullpen and replaced by Sanchez. Aldonis briefly in the rotation but got hurt. Atencio moved to the bullpen for Caceres.

Observations: Jake Bennett making fast work of Low-A: he had a 33/3 K/BB ratio in 5 starts in May and now sports a 1.93 ERA in 9 starts. Could we finally have a successful 2nd round pick? I think he needs to get out of Low-A, given his draft round and collegiate pedigree. Our other major prospect in Low-A is Susana, who had 4 starts but went just 14 total innings in the month. His numbers are decent, but he has to go deeper in games. 2022 draftee Cornelio is just way too wild (12 walks in 15 May innings). Caceres is an older IFA (he’s 23 just getting to Low-A). Sanchez halved his seasonal ERA in May, so that’s good.

Next guy to get promoted: Bennett

Next guy to get demoted or released: I don’t know; they’ve already demoted Denaburg and Atencio, we need another month to see which of the other guys would go next.

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Conclusions: by most accounts, our top starter pitching prospects right now are in rough order:

• Cavalli (TJ, out for year)
• Susana (scuffling in Low-A)
• Bennett (crushing in Low-A, needs to be promoted)
• Rutledge (crushing in AA, needs promotion)
• Ward (stashed in the MLB bullpen as a rule-5 guy)
• Henry (so far so good on come-back from TOS)
• Lara (over promoted and struggling in high-A)
• Irvin (in the MLB rotation, may need more AAA time)
• Parker (struggling in AA)
• Aldo Ramirez (hurt, in XST)

When we draft Skenes he’ll take over as #1 on this list.

Could we be choosing 5 from Grey, Gore, Irvin, Cavalli, Henry, Rutledge, Skenes, Ward, and Bennett in a couple years time? That’s the dream.

An injury to their 5th starter Kuhl and a rain-induced double header gave an opportunity for the Nats to bring up one of their starter prospects, and so most of the Natmosphere got their real first good look at jake Irvin. Lets recap.

Irvin is taller and lankier than I thought; he is listed as 6’6″ 225. He features a relatively smooth delivery that lands him in perfect fielding position. According to Pitch FX data on the night, he showed four pitches (4-seamer, 2-seamer, curve, and change), sat mostly 93, peaked at 95, showed a ton of arm-side run on his sinker (average of 10 inches), had a change that came in on average at 88 (maybe a bit too close to the fastball), and a curve that got him a ton of called strikes. He mixed up the pitches well.

In the first inning, the first pitch he threw sailed on him and nailed the batter right in the back; this runner came around to score despite Irvin mostly handling the top of the powerful Cubs lineup. He punched out Swanson looking, got a little cute with Happ to walk him, got Bellinger out on a first-pitch curve pop-up before giving up a decently hit single to score a run.

His second inning was pretty clean; punchout of Hosmer, liner, then a grounder to 2nd. In the third, he’s back at the top of the order; he got a soft-lineout from the leadoff Hoerner, got Swanson out again on a pop-up, again pitched around Happ to walk him for the second time, then punched out Bellinger. That’s a great way to get through the heart of the order a second time. In the fourth, the ball never left the infield and he got an infield single up the middle erased with a GIDP.

In the fifth, he was again at the bottom of the order and looking to hit the top a third time. Unfortunately he walked the #8 hitter, who promptly stole second. He got the #9 hitter to line-out to left, no damage and no runners advancing. Then he walks the leadoff hitter, so you have 1st and 2nd with one out and Swanson coming up. Instead of letting him work through it, Martinez yanked him, and his replacement Machado immediately got a GIDP to end the inning.

Final line: 4 1/3, just 2 hits ( one infield, one RBI single in the 1st that would have been meaning less without the HBP), but 4 walks (Happ twice) and 3 punchouts. 81 pitches and just 45 strikes, so he was definitely wild and his pitch count was elevated with all the walks, but he was in position to go six full perhaps just broaching 100 pitches.

All in all, a really nice debut, and honestly i’d rather see Irvin in there right now than Kuhl, so look for Kuhl to have his DL stint extended to give Irvin another start.

And, I gotta say, If we continue with Grey and Gore being impressive, and suddenly Irvin becomes serviceable, and we somehow get Cavalli and Henry back from injury … well that’s a pretty good rotation of young, controllable, cheap starters. Hey, we deserve some good luck.

Its been a busy month for me, and i’m only partially paying attention to Nats headlines. Earlier this week, I did notice/hear that Cade Cavalli had been pulled from a start with something related to an elbow, and while it didn’t register with me at the time, eventually the news came out.

Tommy John. Full tear. Out 12-18 months.

Gut-punch.

The Nationals’ starting pitching depth has really taken a beating in the last couple of years.

• Strasburg: thirty IP in 3 years and zero faith that he’ll ever return.
• Corbin has forgotten how to pitch.
• Grey had an ERA > 5.00 and a FIP of nearly 6.00 in the majors.
• Rutledge can’t get any one out in Low-A (and is laughably assigned to AA right now)
• Henry had TOS, the same thing that may be ending Strasburg’s career.
• Adon literally couldn’t get anyone out in the majors.
• Carrillo couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn and is now a AA reliever.
• Irvin is back after TJ but is no where near resembling the 2nd round form he exhibited in College.
• Denaburg returned after lenghly absences and is no longer considered even a top 30 prospect
• Cate forgot how to pitch and was outrighted.
• Romero finally crossed the imaginary line keeping him employed with the team with his latest transgression (not that he was considered a prospect anymore…)
• Lara got lit up in Low A while eating pizza and burgers (anyone believe his listed weight of 180?)
• … and now Cafalli is out for a while.

That’s your 2020 1st rounder, 2020 2nd rounder, 2019 1st rounder, 2018 1st rounder, 2018 2nd rounder, 2017 1st rounder, $60M in payroll, and a couple of significant prospects for whom we dumped Scherzer and Turner. In other words, that’s nearly every top draft pick for four years running, a massive chunk of your current payroll, and every arm we got in return for dumping two franchise players two years ago.

What a debacle.

The Nats have almost zero Arms in the upper minors pipeline at this point who you’d look at as an up and coming replacement. Why? Because multiple years of futility drafting arms has badly caught up with this team. Who sounds promising? 2022 2nd rounder Bennett hasn’t done anything to embarrass or hurt himself yet. that’s good. Parker continues to get people out despite having very little “stuff” as the scouting reports claim. Theophile showed some promise last year before getting promoted. Maybe Susana can amount to something, or Aldo Ramirez. But that’s the entire system. anyone in FCL or DSL is 5 years from making an impact.

It could be a dark, or expensive, 5 years for this team. Consider how many top end offensive prospects we have. If those guys come up and start really cranking … they by themselves can power the team to a 500 record. Kinda like what happened to this team between 2010 and 2011. The team went from 59 wins in 2009 to 69 wins in 2010 to a .500 record in 2011. We all know what happened then. So, unless this team can find more arms somewhere, they may be buying them on the open market to support what could be a pretty good hitting team in a few years.

We havn’t talked much yet about the 2023 draft, but I’ll bet you $1 right now we got back to an all-pitcher draft like we used to do. And that’ll start at the top, where there’s a couple of big-time SEC arms likely for the taking in Chase Dollander and Paul Skenes. Dollander was a 1-1 guy last year, but hasn’t been quite as impressive as Skenes: in 4 starts this year he’s 4-0, 48-4 K/BB and has given up just 8 hits in 24 innings. Ok, so those starts were against Western Michigan, Kansas State, Butler, and Samford, so not that impressive, but still against D1 hitters.

For 2023, maybe we’ll find some gold like we’ve done with Meneses. But man we could use some good news on the pitching front.