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Nats End of Aug 2025 Rotation Check-In

Susana walks off the mound after injuring his arm. I’m hoping he’s wiping away sweat and not tears. Photo via milb.com

This is the 5th monthly review of all our rotations for the 2025, checking in on the latest month’s worth of production and doing some analysis.

I popped into baseball-reference.com to start this work, and realized we’re now 30 games under .500. The Nats went just 9-19 in August, including an 8-game losing streak to finish out the month to go along with our best starter hitting the DL. There’s no sugar coating it; this team has taken a significant step backwards from “the rebuilding roadmap” that led them from horror in 2008 to glory in 2012. I’m not sure what’s next.

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.

All seasonal stats quoted are as of 8/31/25, though we mostly focus on the past 30 days of stats.

Important links for this analysis:

Big Board
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

We’ll start with the Majors.

Opening Day 2025: Gore, Irvin, Parker, Soroka, TWilliams
End of April 2025: Gore, Irvin, Parker, TWilliams, Lord
End of May 2025: Gore, Irvin, Parker, Soroka, TWilliams (back to the original)
End of June 2025: Gore, Irvin, Parker, Soroka, TWilliams
End of July 2025: Gore, Irvin, Parker, Lord, Ogasawara
End of Aug 2025: Irvin, Parker, Lord, Cavalli, Alvarez

Changes since end of last Month: Two big changes. Our Ace Gore hit the DL at the very end of the month with what’s being described as “minor shoulder inflammation” and he hopes to return this season. On the one hand; why bother returning? We have less than a month left and we’re in last place. On the other hand, if the team wants to flip him this off-season, he really needs to get back into the rotation and not end the season on the DL. However … if you’re an interested team, did the price to acquire Gore this coming off-season just take a massive hit? Yeah it did. Honestly, for those who want to keep Gore this may be a godsend of an injury timing. This may guarantee he stays with the Nats until next trade deadline, when presumably nothing has changed, we’ve spent no $$ this coming off-season and we’re 10 games under .500 once again.

Elsewhere in the rotation, Ogasawara gave us two predictably bad starts covering for Williams before Cavalli was deemed healthy enough to get out of AAA. Gore is set to be replaced in the September rotation by long-serving AAA starter Andrew Alvaraz, which is a great recognition of the work he’s done for this team at AAA and I hope he has a decent debut.

Rotation Observations: Gore’s August was about as bad as his July, so maybe the DL trip will be helpful. Irvin had an 8.78 ERA in August, he leads the league in homers allowed, and looks like he’s ready for a vacation. Parker now leads the league in losses thanks to an 0-5, 10.21 ERA month. Lord’s move into the rotation has not been good: 5 starts, 7.06 ERA. As much success as he had in AAA as a starter, I think the team has discovered he needs to stay in the bullpen. Lastly the most important development; how did Cavalli look? I mean, not great all things considered; he had 5 starts, a 5.11 ERA, a 1.581 whip. 22/7 K/BB, 6 homers in 5 games. However, he was the best Nats starter of the month.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Parker is pitching himself out of the 2026 rotation, if he hasn’t already.

Bullpen comments: There’s not much joy in Mudville. The Washington bullpen collectively has a -0.2 fWAR for the season at this point and had a collective 4.88 ERA for the month. In other words, they’re just as bad as the starters.

AAA Rochester

Opening Day 2025: Alvarez, Lara, Ogasawara, Choi, Solesky
End of April 2025: Alvarez, Lara, Solesky, Shuman, Cavalli (rehab)
End of May 2025: Alvarez, Solesky, Shuman, Cavalli, Sampson
End of June 2025: Alvarez, Solesky, Shuman, Cavalli, Sampson
End of July 2025: Alvarez, Solesky, Cavalli, Conley, Ogasawara
End of Aug 2025: Alvarez, Conley, Luckham, Sampson, Cornelio

Changes since end of last month: Lots of moves this month. Solesky hit the DL, replaced by a long-overdue promotion of the 33-yr old Sampson from AA. Cavalli and Ogasawara both got promoted up, replaced by similarly promoted Luckham and (most importantly from a farm system perspective) Cornelio.

Rotation Observations: Alvarez finally gets the promotion after one last solid month, giving AAA 5 starts with a 2.96 ERA. 33-yr old Sampson looked excellent in 5 starts, but begs the question, So What? Anyone in AAA over the age of 30 is there for one reason: to sop-up meaningless minor league innings that our own prospects couldn’t fulfil. So, when 31-yr old Conley posts a 7.50 ERA for the month, i’m looking for him to get replaced. As for actual prospects, Luckham gets another shot at AAA (this is his 3rd try) and at least kept his ERA under 5.00 this time. Lastly; Cornelio has made it to the minor’s highest level after an excellent two-promotion 2025 (his MILB picture still shows him in Wilmington); 5 starts, 5.32 ERA, 1.31 WHIP, .277 BAA. Not bad, something to build on. I’ve maligned Cornelio’s development for years, but now the 7th rounder is in AAA to stay.

Next guy to get Promoted: Alvarez was the most deserving, and is now in MLB. Next? Would Sampson and his middling K/9 rate get shelled in the majors?

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Solesky hit the DL so he’s off the table to get cut. We’re now into the last few weeks so frankly nobody’s getting cut at this point, but the two 30-somthing arms Conley and Sampson are basically finishing out the string to MLFA in a few weeks.

Bullpen comments: We now have five 40-man arms in the AAA bullpen, soon to be six when they re-demote Mason Thompson. What a churn. Salazar, Brzycky, Loutus, Fernandez, Lara, and Thompson. Are any of these guys going to produce going forward? Some of these guys have BAAs that would lead the majors.

AA Harrisburg

Opening Day 2025: Shuman, Luckham, Saenz, Susana, Atencio
End of April 2025: Luckham, Saenz, Susana, Choi, Soroka (rehab)
End of May 2025: Luckham, Saenz, Choi, Cornelio, Conley (with multiple Gomez openers)
End of June 2025: Luckham, Choi, Cornelio, Conley, Stuart with Lara, Sykora coming in at end of month.
End of July 2025: Luckham, Choi, Cornelio, Bennett, Huff/Schultz openers (with Sampson, Sykora, Lara each getting 1 start)
End of Aug 2025: Bennett, Susana, Tolman, Kent, Clemmey

Changes since end of last month: A slew of moves here. Luckham and Cornelio promoted up, replaced by High-A promotions Kent and Clemmey (two big development promotions). Choi was mercifully dumped out of the rotation, replaced by fellow LR/SS Tolman (also promoted from High-A). Lastly, Susana came back off the DL to replace opener starts and one-offs from the likes of Huff, Schultz, and Sampson, but more on Susana in a moment.

Rotation Observations: Bennett finally in AA … and he dominated this month. 5 starts, a 0.77 ERA. They’re still limiting his IP per start, which will prevent him from winning any POTM awards since he’s not qualifying for any wins. One nit on Bennett; he’s not getting any Ks. In August he got just 12 Ks in 23ip. Clemmey’s AA debut was one to forget: a 13ERA in his first 3 AA starts. Well, welcome to the big time kid. He turned 20 like 6 weeks ago so i’m not worried. How about another top prospect in Kent? His AA debut is somewhere in between Bennetts and Clemmey with a 6-ERA, but at least he’s keeping his K rate up. We saw Kent’s performance start to wane a bit in High-A before he got promoted, so this isn’t a surprise either. He’s at 113ip in his first full pro season and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him rested before the season is out. Tolman has earned two promotions this year to get to AA at age 26 after a lost season to injury; he struggled this month but has some time.

Lastly, lets talk about Susana. We got an UCL scare earlier this year but it turned out to be non surgical. He rehabbed, then gave us five AA starts with some eye-popping numbers (in 5 starts he had 41 Ks in 21 innings… Jeeze). However … he grabbed his arm and fell to the ground in his last start, a move that normally spells Tommy John doom. However, reports are that he suffered “only” some soreness in his triceps and not in his elbow. So… we’ll see. I wonder if he pitches again this season.

Next guy to get Promoted: I got both Sampson and Cornelio promotions right last month. This month? Not as straight forward; there’s nobody at this point with 3 weeks left who should be promoted. Bennett needs to finish out the season w/o anymore tumult, and the rest of the guys need to not get hurt.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Choi was demoted out of the rotation as I predicted; if another needs to go it seems to be Tolman, who I’d guess will be a reliever next year.

Bullpen comments: Daison Acosta was deservedly promoted after a dominant August (21/3 k/bb in 11 ip) as the AA closer. Junior Santos has taken over as closer and has been nearly as good.

High-A Wilmington

Opening Day 2025: Clemmey, Cornelio, Kent, Sthele, Tepper
End of April 2025: Clemmey, Cornelio, Kent, Sthele, Arias
End of May 2025: Clemmey, Kent, Sthele, Sykora, Bennett, Stuart (rehab) plus a bunch of spot starts
End of June 2025: Clemmey, Kent, Sthele, Bennett, and four rehab stars from Ogasawara/Lara
End of July 2025: Clemmey, Kent, Sthele, Tolman, Susana rehab starts plus Tejada and Garcia late.
End of Aug 2025: Sthele, Garcia, Meckley, Randall, Swan plus a slew of spot starts

Changes since end of last month: Lots of changes here. Four of the five starters from July were promoted (Clemmey, Kent, Tolman, plus returning Susana to AA), so we needed four new guys. Luckily the Nats acquired a ton of arms at the trade deadline and could slot in two new acquisitions here in Randall and Swan immediately. Then, Garcia continued in the rotation from the tail end of last month. Meckley was a mid-month promotion.

Rotation Observations: First off, lets talk about the new trade acquisitions Randall, Swan, and Linan. Linan made one start, gave up 3 R in 3IP and hit the DL. Randall made 5 starts with a 6.17 ERA though better peripherals. Swan had a 5.03 ERA but a low BAA … likely because he can’t find the plate (14 bb in 19ip). Sthele continues to get by on smoke and mirrors and a 4 K/9 rate. Garcia’s success in Low-A has not translated to High-A; he has more walks than Ks in Wilmington. Lastly, Tejeda made one start at the beginning of the month, gave up 4 in 5, then … has done nothing. No DL trip, no mid-week work, nothing. I dunno why they’re not DL-ing the guy if he’s not pitching. But whatever. Not a lot of joy in the High-A rotation this month.

Next guy to get Promoted: We got Tolman right from last month. This month nobody deserves a promotion.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Sthele reverted back to having a “bad” month this time, but really nobody stood out as needing action at this point.

Bullpen comments: Anthony Arguelles had 15 Ks, 0 walks in 8 appearances/10 IP this month. Can’t ask for much more than that. Pablo Aldonis was just as good: 13/1 K/BB and a 1.20 ERA.

Low-A/Fredericksburg

Opening Day 2025: Polanco, Meckley, Tejeda, Roman, DGarcia
End of April 2025: Polanco, Meckley, Tejeda, Roman, DGarcia with Bennett making his 2025 debut
End of May 2025: Polanco, Meckley, Tejeda, Roman, DGarcia with two “rehab” starts from Bennett/Sykora
End of June 2025: Polanco, Meckley, Tejeda, Roman, DGarcia, Romero
End of July 2025: Polanco, Meckley, Romero, Sullivan, Johnson
End of August 2025: Polanco, Romero, Sullivan, Johnson, Sales

Changes since end of last month: Meckley bumped up, replaced with new Trade acquisition Sales.

Rotation Observations: Polanco was competent this month; solid numbers, nothing to write home about. Romero had 19 Ks and 18 walks in 19 innings, yet somehow had only a 2.12 ERA for the month. Amazing. Both Sullivan and Johnson are too old for the level and have solid seasonal numbers, even if August’s weren’t that great. Most important development: new guy Sales looked decent in his Nats debut: 5 starts, 3.86 ERA, 29 ks in 23 ip.

Next guy to get Promoted: Liam Sullivan has one of the best K/9 rates in the minors and is 23 in Low-A. Move him up. He’s a lefty who can start or soak up innings and could move fast.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Luke Johnson may not be long for the rotation.

Bullpen comments: I’m not sure what Merritt Beeker needs to do at this point to get the heck out of Fredericksburg. 38 games this year, 1.85 ERA, 78 Ks in 63 ip as a 23yr old 2024 draftee. Um, why isn’t he higher up?

FCL/Rookie

Opening day: Feliz, Portorreal, Farias, Johnson, Rehab starts
End of May 2025: Feliz, Portorreal, Farias, Johnson, Lunar
End of June 2025: Feliz, Portorreal, Farias, Lunar, Sullivan (rehab)
End of Season/End of July 2025: Feliz, Portorreal, Farias, Lunar, Johnson

Just a reminder that FCL ended; no more analysis. The team did promote Farias and Johnson post-season and they’ve both gotten Low-A time.

DSL/Rookie

Opening day: JReyes, De La Cruz, Robles, Carrasco, Mejia
End of June 2025: JReyes, De La Cruz, Robles, Carrasco, Torrellas
End of July 2025: JReyes, De La Cruz, Robles, Torrellas, Carela
End of Season/End of Aug 2025: JReyes, De La Cruz, Robles, Torrellas, Carela with Gimenez

Changes since end of last month: The last few weeks of the season saw solid middle reliever Greyson Gimenez given a couple of starts, otherwise the DSL rotation was unchanged from last month.

Rotation Observations: There’s no splits for DSL guys, so i can’t isolate the last month without doing a ton of XLS work that frankly I don’t want to bother doing since I barely consider these guys prospects until they show up in Florida. Heading into 2026, i’m most interested in seeing Reyes, Carela, and Gimenez moving to the FCL.

Next guy to get Promoted: Reyes: he was a 23IFA and is a 20yr old in DSL: time to come stateside. This is exactly what I wrote last month and it remains true for the final month.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: The two moved out of the rotation so far this year (Mejia and Carrasco) are both 25IFAs, where as everyone else in the rotation right now is a 23 or 24IFA.

Bullpen comments: Juan Lopez remains the only reliever that looks like he could move stateside right now, but with FCL done it won’t happen until next spring.

Written by Todd Boss

September 1st, 2025 at 2:49 pm

Posted in Majors Pitching,Minor League Pitching

Nats Rotation End of July 2025 Check In

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Cornelio is having himself a great 2025. Photo via Nats Player Dev Twitter account.

This is the 4th such review of all our rotations, checking in on the latest month’s worth of production and doing some analysis. Given that the trade deadline just passed, as we go level by level I’ll discuss who is gone, who we added, and guess what may happen next.

All stats are as of 7/31/25.

Important links for this analysis:

Big Board
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

We’ll start with the Majors.

Opening Day 2025: Gore, Irvin, Parker, Soroka, TWilliams
End of April 2025: Gore, Irvin, Parker, TWilliams, Lord
End of May 2025: Gore, Irvin, Parker, Soroka, TWilliams (back to the original)
End of June 2025: Gore, Irvin, Parker, Soroka, TWilliams
End of July 2025: Gore, Irvin, Parker, Lord, Ogasawara

Changes since end of last Month: Two big changes: Williams got hurt, hit the DL and was announced to need a “brace” procedure: boom done for the year. He was replaced in the rotation by Lord, completing Lord’s amazing journey to the major league rotation as an 18th round pick. Then at the trade deadline we moved Soroka. This led to the recall of Ogasawara, who will take up the 5th starter spot. It was either Ogasawara or Cavalli, who has done nothing to impress since getting off the DL.

Rotation Observations: Gore’s July was .. not good. Ironic in that he started to get trade buzz just as he was driving production wise. 6.75 ERA for the month, but he didn’t get moved so now he can focus on being good the rest of the year so we can trade him this coming off-season. Irvin improved but still had a 4.55 ERA month. Parker had a 6.04 ERA in 4 July starts. Lord is being eased back into starting so is only going 3-4 innings a start, so we’ll withhold judgement. Ogasawara remains tbd.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Ogasawara; I can’t imagine he’ll hang in the rotation and we may see Cavalli or a call-up at some point soon.

Bullpen comments: Our bullpen is now almost entirely guys who we’ve promoted from our minor leagues this season. Here was our opening day bullpen versus today (this includes 8/1 callups Ribalta, Loutus)

Opening Day: Finnegan, Lopez, Sims, Ferrer, Poche, Salazar, Ribalta, Lord
8/1 post trade deadline: Ferrer, Henry, Rutledge, Pilkington, Brzycky, Loutus, Ribalta, Lara.

What churn. Finnegan traded, Lopez released, Sims released, Poche released, Salazar demoted, and Lord to the rotation. We still have a few 40-man options in AAA (Thompson, Beeter, and Eder), so I’d imagine we’ll be seeing the new guys next.

AAA Rochester

Opening Day 2025: Alvarez, Lara, Ogasawara, Choi, Solesky
End of April 2025: Alvarez, Lara, Solesky, Shuman, Cavalli (rehab)
End of May 2025: Alvarez, Solesky, Shuman, Cavalli, Sampson
End of June 2025: Alvarez, Solesky, Shuman, Cavalli, Sampson
End of July 2025: Alvarez, Solesky, Cavalli, Conley, tbd (was Ogasawara)

Changes since end of last month: Shuman was dumped out of the rotation (as predicted last month) for Ogasawara, Sampson was demoted to AA after getting hurt and spending some time on the DL. Ogasawara as of this writing hasn’t been replaced on the AAA roster, nor have the other promotions (I have Rochester at just 24 of 28 slots). I’d guess either Shuman back or Sampson promoted back to AAA as the 5th guy.

Rotation Observations: Ogasawara had a couple of clean starts in July after coming off DL. Alvarez and Conley’s month was 4.00 era-ish and decent if not spectacular peripherals. Solesky struggled badly; ERA above 9.00, whip above 2.00. The big news is that Cavalli just doesn’t seem to have it right now; 7.50 ERA in 5 July starts. He gave up 33 hits in 24 innings; that’s just not good enough. If he’s working on something fine, but if this is what we have, that’s not good.

Next guy to get Promoted: Though Cavalli is the sole starter on the 40-man, if a need pops up I’d add and Promote either Alvarez or Conley. Conley is 30 with no MLB time so that’d be a great story, but Alvarez deserves it too.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Solesky; the MLFA who we got out of indy ball got crushed this month, and with some upwards pressure bubbling up from the lower levels, he may get slid out of a job.

Bullpen comments: Bravo to Pilkington for finally getting promoted after being excellent all season. Same with the likes of Loutus and Brzycky. As for the rest of the bullpen … not much good to report.

AA Harrisburg

Opening Day 2025: Shuman, Luckham, Saenz, Susana, Atencio
End of April 2025: Luckham, Saenz, Susana, Choi, Soroka (rehab)
End of May 2025: Luckham, Saenz, Choi, Cornelio, Conley (with multiple Gomez openers)
End of June 2025: Luckham, Choi, Cornelio, Conley, Stuart with Lara, Sykora coming in at end of month.
End of July 2025: Luckham, Choi, Cornelio, Bennett, Huff/Schultz openers (with Sampson, Sykora, Lara each getting 1 start)

Changes since end of last month: A busy month for the AA rotation: Conley got promoted, and he was mostly replaced by Bennett. Stuart pitched for a month and then hit the 60-day DL (not good). He was mostly replaced by a couple of relievers doing “opener” gigs. At the end of the month Sampson returned from AAA D/L to make a start. Lastly, the big news: Sykora made one July 5th start, hit the DL, and now he needs Tommy John. Dagger.

Rotation Observations: Susana is doing rehab starts after 2 months of radio silence; so we’ll see what happens. Luckham and Choi struggled badly in July. Bennett’s introduction to AA has not started smoothly. Sampson’s one start isn’t enough to go on, and at 33 it’s kind of ridiculous for him to be in AA. The bright spot? Frigging Riley Cornelio, who continues to tear through the minors in 2025. 1.66 ERA and 0.88 whip in AA in July. I’ve been questioning this guy for two years; suddenly he’s one of our system’s best arms. Bravo.

Next guy to get Promoted: I got the Conley promotion right from last month; this month I’d say that Sampson needs to go back up just based on age/experience. But on performance, its Cornelio. I don’t know if he’s ready yet, perhaps he continues for another month and finishes things out in AA with an eye towards starting next season in AAA.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: The answer for the 2nd month in a row is Rule-5 guy Choi. Though Luckham may have reached his ceiling as a player.

Bullpen comments: Erick Mejia’s journey back to the majors as a reliever looks great in AA: a spotless month; 7 games, 8ip, 1 hit. I’d put him in AAA right now. Junior Santos also had a zero ERA for the month, and Thomas Schultz looks great. If they move a couple of the AAA guys up, I could see a few of these AA studs moving up in turn.

High-A Wilmington

Opening Day 2025: Clemmey, Cornelio, Kent, Sthele, Tepper
End of April 2025: Clemmey, Cornelio, Kent, Sthele, Arias
End of May 2025: Clemmey, Kent, Sthele, Sykora, Bennett, Stuart (rehab) plus a bunch of spot starts
End of June 2025: Clemmey, Kent, Sthele, Bennett, and four rehab stars from Ogasawara/Lara
End of July 2025: Clemmey, Kent, Sthele, Tolman, Susana rehab starts plus Tejada and Garcia late.

Changes since end of last month: Bennett made 3 more dominant starts and finally got pushed up to AA where he belongs. To take his place the team moved up both Tejada and Garcia from Low-A.

Rotation Observations: As noted, Bennett posted a 1.45 ERA in 3 starts and got moved up. Clemmey continues his great season: 2.81 ERA in his 3 starts in July. Kent showed a bit of fatigue in his first pro season, driving up to a 4.85 ERA for the month. Tolman continues to be excellent and I’m not sure why he’s not permanently installed in the rotation. Garcia and Tejada’s intro to High-A wasn’t pretty; they have the rest of the season to figure it out for 2026.

However, we’re about to see some major changes here, because the team acquired THREE new High-A starters in Randall, Swan, and Linan. By my count, there’s now at least 10-11 guys on the Wilmington roster who are “starters” … which is twice what we have room for.

Next guy to get Promoted: We got Bennett right from last month; Next we’ll see Susana returned from “rehab” to AA. If it was me i’d probably move up Tolman, who’s lefty, 25 and can be both a starter and a reliever.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: For the second month, nobody really. Sthele pitched well for the month, Kent isn’t going anywhere despite having a 4.60 ERA for the season (maybe the answer is, Kent gets an invisible “injury” and gets shut down to make room for the new guys).

Bullpen comments; nobody really notable pushing for a promotion right now.

Low-A/Fredericksburg

Opening Day 2025: Polanco, Meckley, Tejeda, Roman, DGarcia
End of April 2025: Polanco, Meckley, Tejeda, Roman, DGarcia with Bennett making his 2025 debut
End of May 2025: Polanco, Meckley, Tejeda, Roman, DGarcia with two “rehab” starts from Bennett/Sykora
End of June 2025: Polanco, Meckley, Tejeda, Roman, DGarcia, Romero
End of July 2025: Polanco, Meckley, Romero, Sullivan, Johnson

Changes since end of last month: After months, we got some movement here. Tejeda and DGarcia (finally) moved up, Roman (finally) axed from the rotation with his 8+ seasonal ERA. They were replaced with Sullivan off the DL and Johnson finally getting promoted up from the FCL despite being 23.

Rotation Observations: Tejeda and Garcia were excellent in July and were worthy to move up. Polanco was solid again but now faces a huge crush of starters in our Low- and High-A teams. Sullivan’s debut was excellent, which is nice to see. Johnson’s 2nd low-A start was bad. Lastly Romero got hit.

However, the team has created a crush here by promoting the FCL’s two best guys at the end of the month in Farias and Feliz (the FCL season ended on July 30th), plus added Sales in the trade window. So Low-A now has 8 guys for 5 spots. (post-publish correction, thanks FredMD; the Nats promoted Angel Feliz the SS, not Jose Feliz the pitcher).

Next guy to get Promoted: They moved up Tejeda and Garcia … now there’s no room in High-A even if someone in Low-A deserved it.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: We got Roman right from last month: i’d guess the team moves Johnson to the bullpen and might sideline Romero to make room for the new additions.

Bullpen comments: They finally promoted Cranz and Aldonis. Baldo need to go next; he’s 25 and isn’t being challenged in Low-A.

FCL/Rookie

Opening day: Feliz, Portorreal, Farias, Johnson, Rehab starts
End of May 2025: Feliz, Portorreal, Farias, Johnson, Lunar
End of June 2025: Feliz, Portorreal, Farias, Lunar, Sullivan (rehab)
End of Season/End of July 2025: Feliz, Portorreal, Farias, Lunar, Johnson

Changes since end of last month: The season ended with Sullivan back in Low-A and Johnson doing the last few starts.

Rotation Observations: Sullivan overpowered rookie ball as expected. Feliz finished off an excellent FCL season with another month of sub 2.00 ERA. Portorreal was solid but didn’t earn the promotion at the end of the season. Lunar struggled. Lastly Farias had another iffy month but got moved up to low-A nonetheless, perhaps to see if he can cut it in Low-A the rest of the way in a sink or swim move.

Next guy to get Promoted: Sullivan and Farias got moved up at the end of the season in kind of age-related moves. Feliz should have moved up based on performance.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: n/a; end of season.

Bullpen comments: they moved up Kane as they should have. Nobody else in the FCL bullpen really pitched much worth of analysis in July.

DSL/Rookie

Opening day: JReyes, De La Cruz, Robles, Carrasco, Mejia
End of June 2025: JReyes, De La Cruz, Robles, Carrasco, Torrellas
End of July 2025: JReyes, De La Cruz, Robles, Torrellas, Carela

Changes since end of last month: Carrasco moved to the bullpen, replaced by Carela. Only 7 guys have made starts this year for DSL.

Rotation Observations: There’s no splits for DSL guys, so i can’t isolate July versus the whole year. Reyes and Carela have the best season numbers so far, both with sub 3.00 ERAs. Reyes is a 23IFA and is already 20 so no surprise here. Robles and De La Cruz have both been ok but wild. Torrellas needs more time.

Next guy to get Promoted: Reyes: he was a 23IFA and is a 20yr old in DSL: time to come stateside. This is exactly what I wrote last month and it remains true. This is a perfect example of why the loss of Short-A is troublesome.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: The two moved out of the rotation so far this year (Mejia and Carrasco) are both 25IFAs, where as everyone else in the rotation right now is a 23 or 24IFa.

Bullpen comments: Juan Lopez remains the only reliever that looks like he could move stateside right now, but with FCL done it won’t happen until next spring.

Written by Todd Boss

August 2nd, 2025 at 10:23 am

Posted in Majors Pitching,Minor League Pitching,Prospects

Nats Rotations End of June 2025 Check-In

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We’re now three months into the 2025 full seasons, so here’s my rotations/pitching staff deep-dives for the month. We’re starting to really see some trends that we can actually believe … even though many adhere to the “there is no such thing as a pitching prospect” camp.

All stats are as of 6/30/25.

Important links for this analysis:

Big Board
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

We’ll start with the Majors.

Opening Day 2025: Gore, Irvin, Parker, Soroka, TWilliams
End of April 2025: Gore, Irvin, Parker, TWilliams, Lord
End of May 2025: Gore, Irvin, Parker, Soroka, TWilliams (back to the original)
End of June 2025: Gore, Irvin, Parker, Soroka, TWilliams

Changes since end of last Month: none: we’re at our opening day rotation for the entire month and have shown pretty remarkable consistency in the rotation so far this year for a last place team.

Rotation Observations: We started June with a 28-31 record, and we’re ending June with a 35-49 record. That’s not great, Bob. The team went just 7-19 after a 15-12 May that had fans maybe, possibly thinking we’ve turned the corner. The pitching staff didn’t help. Gore continues to pitch like an Ace and may be pushing towards an All Star appearance. Soroka’s return from the DL resulted in a very solid 3.50 ERA month as he builds trade-value. Irvin’s June was forgettable: 7.00 ERA and 1.65 whip in five starts. Amazingly he won one of them. Parker improved from last month but is still pitching like a 4-A starter in general. And then there’s Williams, who at least has been consistent: here’s his month to month ERAs: 5.70 in April, 5.68 in May, and 5.55 in June. With little run support he’s now turning into an automatic out every fifth turn, and is making his off-season contract extension looking worse by the week.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Williams … though there’s not exactly a clamoring for a rotation spot coming up from AAA right now, so everyone’s safe.

Bullpen comments: With a 7-19 month we’re now entrenched in last place and may soon pivot to the “who can we trade” analysis. Finnegan remains one of our leading trade pieces (as he was last year before one bad game scuttled his trade value). Lord and Henry should be untouchable based on player control and performance. New acquisition Chafin has been solid but is hurt. The rest of the pen is a mess of 6-ERA rookies and veterans that aren’t helping this team hold on to leads. Unfortunately there’s not a ton of help coming from AAA since we’ve already done a purge.

AAA Rochester

Opening Day 2025: Alvarez, Lara, Ogasawara, Choi, Solesky
End of April 2025: Alvarez, Lara, Solesky, Shuman, Cavalli (rehab)
End of May 2025: Alvarez, Solesky, Shuman, Cavalli, Sampson
End of June 2025: Alvarez, Solesky, Shuman, Cavalli, Sampson

Changes since end of last month: None until the last day of the month, when Sampson hit the DL and will be replaced by Ogasawara for July, which I’m totally OK with since Ogasawara is on the 40-man and presumably could provide future help, whereas Sampson is a 30-something MLFA innings eater.

Rotation Observations: Cavalli was officially taken off the MLB DL and optioned to AAA, and in five June starts he posted a middling 5.64 ERA/1.52 whip effort. 18/12 KBB in 22 innings. That’s not enough Ks and too many BBs to make a push upwards. In the comments a few weeks ago there was a discussion on how long Cavalli would have to be “kept down” in order to get an other year of service time … well there’s certainly no urgency right now, and concerns are starting to creep into play here for sure. As for the rest of the rotation: Alvarez and Solesky put up nice months but both seem to have the same problem: they’re good enough to get by in AAA but seemingly not pushing for a promotion. As for the rest: 33yr old MLFA Sampson was ok in a few starts (but doesn’t have any swing and miss) but hit the DL recently. Lastly Seth Shuman basically pitched BP all month with an 8+ ERA and giving up 10 homers in 5 games.

Next guy to get Promoted: none. If I had to promote someone to make a spot start in the MLB it probably would be Pilkington.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Shuman. He may have reached the end of the line. He’ll be a 6yr MLFA and has been in our system since 2019 and I just don’t know what else they can do here. There’s several AA arms who really should be in AAA and it seems like its just a matter of time before Shuman gets the axe.

Bullpen comments: Pilkington’s proven to be a multi-use guy and had a sub 1.00 ERA in June. Also, dare I say it but former 40-man hurler Joan Adon had 22 Ks in just 13IP in June in a middle relief role; do we roll the dice with him again in the majors? Marquis Grissom Jr. has settled down since his promotion and may be putting his name into consideration soon. Long-time farmhand Peterson got cut soon after his promotion to AAA: his AAA stat-line: 3 games, 1 total Inning pitched: 13 hits and 14 runs allowed. Phew. Weigel wasn’t much better, giving up 18 runs in 7 June innings; kind of curious why he’s still around.

AA Harrisburg

Opening Day 2025: Shuman, Luckham, Saenz, Susana, Atencio
End of April 2025: Luckham, Saenz, Susana, Choi, Soroka (rehab)
End of May 2025: Luckham, Saenz, Choi, Cornelio, Conley (with multiple Gomez openers)
End of June 2025: Luckham, Choi, Cornelio, Conley, Stuart with Lara, Sykora coming in at end of month.

Changes since end of last month: Saenz demoted to the bullpen officially, replaced with Stuart. Then at month’s end the AA rotation has two new names who have to fit in somehow in Lara and Sykora.

Rotation Observations: Not one peep about Susana’s UCL issue; hit the DL 5/10/25, now we’re at 6/30. Here’s how I expect this to go: Susana “rehabs” for months in Florida, gets a start at the end of the season, lasts 2 innings, leave the game with diminished velocity, and the team announces TJ surgery the next day. Seen it a thousand times.

Lara finished rehab and was demoted to AA, but his first start back was awful. Then, top prospect Sykora was promoted to make his first start at month’s end, which looked bad on paper but which seemed to be more like death from a thousand paper cuts. Heading into July we seem to have 7 names for 5 spots but no real obvious choices as to who makes way. Luckham had a middling month but has proven he’s solved AA at various points. Conley had a very solid month in the rotation … and is a 30yr old in AA for the 4th season. Not sure what we’re proving here. The best arm this month was Cornelio, with a 1.96 ERA and a sub 1.00 whip, but he hasn’t appeared in nearly two weeks for some reason.

Next guy to get Promoted: I’d promote Conley ASAP to see if he can hang in AAA; if he can great, if he can’t then he’ll have proven that fact three years running and I’d cut ties. Luckham has nothing else to prove in AA and needs to get moved up at this point. After that, if Cornelio puts up another month like this i’d move him up too: at 25 no better time than the present.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: They already moved Saenz out of the rotation. What is Choi giving us right now? Minor league Rule5 guy with a 5+ ERA repeating AA? In a pinch I’d dump him.

Bullpen comments: Davila and Acosta both had solid months: Acosta should since he was in AAA to start. The AA bullpen now has 5 guys promoted just this season, so they need a bit of time to settle. Mejia’s conversion to relief isn’t going well, with more BB than K. Junior Santos has been unstoppable as the closer and as a 23yr old MLFA might be worthy of moving up soon.

High-A Wilmington

Opening Day 2025: Clemmey, Cornelio, Kent, Sthele, Tepper
End of April 2025: Clemmey, Cornelio, Kent, Sthele, Arias
End of May 2025: Clemmey, Kent, Sthele, Sykora, Bennett, Stuart (rehab) plus a bunch of spot starts
End of June 2025: Clemmey, Kent, Sthele, Bennett, and four rehab stars from Ogasawara/Lara

Changes since end of last month: Sykora (finally) promoted to where he probably should have been a month ago. In four High-A starts Sykora had a 1.66 ERA, a 0.74 whip and 32/6 K/BB in 21ip.

Rotation Observations: Clemmey continues to be solid: 1.45 ERA for the month. Bennett is being eased back into things and hasn’t given up a run in 3 small starts. Sunday Sthele is Steady Eddy; 3.60 ERA in four starts, even if he doesn’t strike anyone out. Kent took a big step back this month, with four starts in the 6 ERA range. I can’t ding him too much, since he’s starting in the High-A rotation as a 22yr old pro. Tolman got one spot start and added that to a nice month.

Next guy to get Promoted: Bennett; once he’s stretched out he just has to go to AA. At 24 he’s lost so much time already. After that, Clemmey is making a big case to move up as well despite his age.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Nobody deserving right now; Sthele is the least performant but he’s got solid 5th starter numbers for now.

Bullpen comments; Miguel Gomez has gone from LR/SS to closer and has been very solid. He was demoted down earlier this year and might warrant a return. 2023 NDFA Arguelles didn’t give up a run this month. As mentioned, I like what Tolman is doing and wouldn’t mind seeing him back in the rotation.

Low-A/Fredericksburg

Opening Day 2025: Polanco, Meckley, Tejeda, Roman, DGarcia
End of April 2025: Polanco, Meckley, Tejeda, Roman, DGarcia with Bennett making his 2025 debut
End of May 2025: Polanco, Meckley, Tejeda, Roman, DGarcia with two “rehab” starts from Bennett/Sykora
End of June 2025: Polanco, Meckley, Tejeda, Roman, DGarcia, Romero

Changes since end of last month: Brayan Romero off the D/L and into what basically is now being treated like a 6-man rotation. The other 5 guys have been intact since opening day.

Rotation Observations: Garcia & Meckley, both 2024 draft picks, were excellent in June, though the team seemed to “manage” Garcia’s workload a bit with only 3 starts. Fellow 2024 draftee Tejeda was also very solid, with a 3.68 ERA and a 20/2 K/BB ratio. Neither Roman or Romero were particularly impressive this month, both with bad peripherals and poor K/9 rates. Polanco, the elder statesman of the bunch at 23, took a step back this month but has been decent all month.

Next guy to get Promoted: Polanco as the oldest guy, needs the challenge of the next level. I’d keep the rest of these 21yr olds in place for now.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Roman, as he was last month. Romero didn’t light things on fire either but it was his first month back.

Bullpen comments: I like what we’re seeing from 2024 11th rounder Beeker; spot start, solid numbers. He’s already 23 so he should get moved up honestly. Cranz was 7 for 7 in save situations and needs to be promoted at this point.

FCL/Rookie

Opening day: Feliz, Portorreal, Farias, Johnson, Rehab starts
End of May 2025: Feliz, Portorreal, Farias, Johnson, Lunar
End of June 2025: Feliz, Portorreal, Farias, Lunar, Sullivan (rehab)

Changes since end of last month: Johnson was promoted, had a solid low-A start, then demoted and had 4 relief appearances. Odd usage. Liam Sullivan, who started last year promising before a season-ending injury, did a month’s worth of rehab starts here and may get pushed to Low-A officially soon.

Rotation Observations: Feliz looks solid; 13/1 K/BB, 1.96 ERA. He’s only 19 though, so no rush. Liam Sullivan had a 0.90 ERA; he needs to go up.

So far in 2025, Feliz (a 23IFA) is doing great: 24/4 K/BB in 5 starts with a near 3.00 ERA. Lunar (a 24IFA for a bonus amount small enough not to be reported) is doing great: sub 3.00 ERA but more importantly he earned his way off the island. Portorreal is struggling (2.00 whip), as is Farias (13 walks in 11 innings). Johnson is way too old to be here (age 23) and it shows: in 18IP so far he’s got a 21/3 K/BB and has given up just 9 hits and one run. Portorreal: what are we doing here? 8+ ERA, 23 hits in 13 innings, just 6 walks. Not good. Lunar is showing some promise, Faries not so much.

Next guy to get Promoted: Sullivan.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Farias. Same as last month, turns 23 this month, averaging nearly a walk an inning. Portorreal isn’t impressing anyone either.

Bullpen comments: Not sure why 23yr olds Johnson or Kane are still in FCL. The rest of the relievers here are a hodgepodge of IFAs with just a few innings not worth analyzing.

DSL/Rookie

Opening day: JReyes, De La Cruz, Robles, Carrasco, Mejia
End of June 2025: JReyes, De La Cruz, Robles, Carrasco, Torrellas

Changes since end of last month: Mejia and his 10.61 ERA replaced by Torrelles and his 1.29 ERA

Rotation Observations: First month through and DSL’s rotation looks promising. We have three guys putting up solid numbers in Reyes, De la Cruz, and Torrellas. Robles has a .179 BAA but those hits keep turning into runs, inflating his ERA. Only Mejia (already in the pen) and Carrasco (a .400 BAA and a 9.69 ERA so far) have really struggled.

Next guy to get Promoted: Reyes: he was a 23IFA and is a 20yr old in DSL: time to come stateside.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Carrasco

Bullpen comments: There’s a couple arms worth moving to the FCL, including a 20yr old 25IFA in Juan Lopez who has 23 Ks in 13ip and needs another challenge.

That’s it for June 2025.

Written by Todd Boss

July 1st, 2025 at 8:19 am

Posted in Majors Pitching,Minor League Pitching

Nats Rotations End of May 2025 check-in

16 comments

How hurt is Susana? Photo Washington Post

We’re two months into the 2025 full seasons, so here’s my rotations/pitching staff deep-dives for the month.

Important links for this analysis:

Big Board
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 (not yet started for 2025)

We’ll start with the Majors.

Opening Day 2025: Gore, Irvin, Parker, Soroka, TWilliams
End of April 2025: Gore, Irvin, Parker, TWilliams, Lord
End of May 2025: Gore, Irvin, Parker, Soroka, TWilliams (back to the original)

Changes since end of last Month: Soroka came off D/L, sent Lord back to the bullpen.

Rotation Observations: We have an ace (Gore), we have a #4 starter (Irvin), and we have three guys pitching their way out of the rotation (Parker, Williams, Soroka). Soroka gets a pass b/c he’s guaranteed $8M. Williams gets a pass (for now) because he’s guaranteed even more. Parker Is just looking hittable right now. His best start in the last month was a 5.1 IP 3run effort against Atlanta; otherwise every one of his outings is a bunch of runs year, fail to get out of the 5th, tax the bullpen, etc. Every time Cavalli looks unhittable in AAA, Parker is one step closer to a demotion.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Parker, as per above.

Bullpen comments: The team just cut ties with Lopez ($3M off-season signing) after jettisoning Sims ($3M) and Poche ($1.4M) earlier in the month. All money well spent. I think its safe to say Rizzo’s “throw money at a bunch of FA relievers” strategy for the 2025 bullpen has officially failed. On the bright side Finnegan has looked solid, Henry has been amazing, and five of the eight bullpen arms are home grown. Finally.

AAA Rochester

Opening Day 2025: Alvarez, Lara, Ogasawara, Choi, Solesky
End of April 2025: Alvarez, Lara, Solesky, Shuman, Cavalli (rehab)
End of May 2025: Alvarez, Solesky, Shuman, Cavalli, Sampson

Changes since end of last month: Lara hit the D/L, and basically saw his starts picked up by Cavalli and then eventually MLFA signing Sampson. Cavalli ended his rehab stint and was optioned.

Rotation Observations: Alvarez, Shuman, and Sampson all had a full month in the rotation, and were all mediocre to bad. ERAs in the 5-6s, Whips in the 1.5 range. Solesky has improved from last month and has earned himself another month in the AAA rotation. Cavalli’s back; in 4 May starts as he builds up arm strength going about 4IP each, he’s got 25/6 K/BB in 16 IP. Once he’s stretched out someone’s making way in the majors. They now have 3 starters on the DL (Stuart, Ogasawara, Lara), all of whom would be preferred to most of this crew.

Next guy to get Promoted: Cavalli as per above.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Sampson; he’s a 33yr old MLFA who will either push for a MLB promotion or exercise whatever opt-out is inevitably in his contract.

Bullpen comments: There’s just nobody in the AAA bullpen right now pushing for a promotion; they’ve moved up Rutledge, Henry, and Brzycky at this point and they seem to have exhausted internal options for fixing the MLB bullpen.

AA Harrisburg

Opening Day 2025: Shuman, Luckham, Saenz, Susana, Atencio
End of April 2025: Luckham, Saenz, Susana, Choi, Soroka (rehab)
End of May 2025: Luckham, Saenz, Choi, Cornelio, Conley (with multiple Gomez openers)

Changes since end of last month: The biggest news of the month is Susana going down with a Grade 1 UCL sprain. Grade 1 is supposed to be mild, with “microscopic tears” or a “slight stretch.” We’ll have to see what happens next. Susana and Soroka’s rehab starts have been replaced with the promoted Cornelio and the MLFA signing Conley (with rubber-armed Gomez doing a slew of spot starts/openers).

Rotation Observations: the AA rotation looks solid. Choi had a great month: 1.65 ERA, 1.06 WHIP. Maybe he’s got the confidence to return to AAA. Luckham has been solid but not as dominant in the K/9 range. Cornelio’s rise to AA has been merited and he’s holding his own so far, to my surprise after complaining about him for years. Conley, a 30yr old signed from a Mexican team, hasn’t been bad. The only guy still struggling in Saenz, same as last month.

Next guy to get Promoted: Choi.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Saenz

Bullpen comments: Powell didn’t give up a run last month. Peterson was excellent and got promoted mid-month. Cuevas has really shined since moving to the pen. Davila remains too old for AA and needs to get moved to AAA. Maybe our MLB bullpen solutions are actually a bunch of guys dealing in AA right now.

High-A Wilmington

Opening Day 2025: Clemmey, Cornelio, Kent, Sthele, Tepper
End of April 2025: Clemmey, Cornelio, Kent, Sthele, Arias
End of May 2025: Clemmey, Kent, Sthele, Sykora, Bennett, Stuart (rehab) plus a bunch of spot starts

Changes since end of last month: Cornelio moved up, and the team have a slew of guys spot starts: 10 different players got a start in May for this team while they waited for Sykora and some stability.

Rotation Observations: Clemmey had a great month; 1.59 ERA, a ton of Ks, but too many walks. If he can get his walks down he may be a 19yr old in AA. Stuart’s rehab has gone well; he may force a bump in AAA soon. Kent has been solid, if a little unlucky. Sykora’s High-A debut has been laughably good: 2 starts, 8IP, 15Ks, 2 hits. Bennett made 3 starts to open the month, but now hasn’t pitched since May 11th; uh-oh. Sthele was the worst full-time starter, though some of their SS/LR types (Arias and Caceres) were awful.

Next guy to get Promoted: Sykora. There’s zero use of having a guy with a 16 K/9 rate stay in a-ball for any longer than he needs to. Clemmey after that; i don’t care how young he is.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Sthele

Bullpen comments; Amaral had a nice month. Not much else to report; when most of your best WHIPs belong to starters, it tells you your pen needs work.

Low-A/Fredericksburg

Opening Day 2025: Polanco, Meckley, Tejeda, Roman, DGarcia
End of April 2025: Polanco, Meckley, Tejeda, Roman, DGarcia with Bennett making his 2025 debut
End of May 2025: Polanco, Meckley, Tejeda, Roman, DGarcia with two “rehab” starts from Bennett, Sykora

Changes since end of last month: Again, none really. A couple of these guys had their starts pushed or did tandem starts to give bigger names a couple of starts, but the Low-A rotation remains basically the same from opening day.

Rotation Observations: Tejeda and Polanco looking good. Solid months, ERAs in the 3s, good K/BB rates. Polanco looked the best in terms of keeping runners off base. Garcia had a nice ERA but had 17 walks in 25IP; that’s got to improve. Meckley had more walks than Ks and had his turn skipped at the last day of the month, so maybe something’s there. Roman was the real struggle for the month, with an ERA nearly 9.

Next guy to get Promoted: Polanco, as he was last month.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Roman, as he was last month.

Bullpen comments: Last month’s highlights have all been promoted: Bloebaum, Amaral, Mejia. Good for the team to push these guys and not was their bullets in low-A. Cranz (finally) had a good month: 9ip, 2hits, 14/3 K/BB. Bruni had 22Ks and 11 walks in 11 innings; interesting.—

FCL/Rookie

Opening day: Feliz, Portorreal, Farias, Johnson, Rehab starts
End of May 2025: Feliz, Portorreal, Farias, Johnson, Lunar

Changes since end of last month: This is the first month of the FCL; no real major changes occurred in the first month other than to see a bunch of rehabbers return home.

Rotation Observations: At the end of last year, the rotation was Sanchez, Romero, Colon, Portorreal, and Moreno. Sanchez went straight to Low-A’s full season DL, Romero is on the Low-A DL but doing rehab starts in FCL, Moreno is still in FCL but hasn’t pitched an inning since 2023, and Colon is in the FCL bullpen putting up a 12 ERA so far, so only Portorreal returns.

Next guy to get Promoted: Johnson.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Farias. He’s 22 and can’t find the plate. Put him in the pen and give one of these over-performing relievers a shot.

Bullpen comments: We talked about Johnson; Kane (a 23-yr old MLFA) needs to move up for the challenge as well; zero runs allowed during May.

That’s it for May 2025. Lots of intriguing updates after diving into the stats for the month.

Written by Todd Boss

June 1st, 2025 at 5:47 pm

Posted in Majors Pitching,Minor League Pitching,Minor League Rotation Reviews,Nats Rotation Reviews

Nats Rotation End of April 2025 check-in

7 comments

Cavalli doing rehab starts and could be back soon. Photo via Lookout Landing blog

We’re a month into the 2025 full seasons, believe it or not, so its time to bring back last year’s monthly check-in on the rotations, from the MLB to DSL (once they start). I really enjoyed doing this last year, so I thought i’d bring it back. I already did a starter post to talk about the opening day rotations for all five full season teams, so we’ll build on that.

Important links for this analysis:

Big Board:
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 (not yet started for 2025)
DSL Nationals Pitching Stats (not yet started for 2025)

We’ll start with the Majors.

Opening Day 2025: Gore, Irvin, Parker, Soroka, TWilliams
End of April 2025: Gore, Irvin, Parker, TWilliams, Lord

Changes since end of last Month: Soroka made one start, had a biceps issue and hit the DL. Instead of bringing up an underperforming AAA starter, the team put Brad Lord into the rotation for the time being. As it turns out, Soroka’s issue is relatively short term (he’s already doing rehab starts and will be back soon), which will send Lord back to the bullpen.

Rotation Observations: Gore leads the league in strikeouts, partly on the back of his opening day gem. Parker has gone from 5th starter competition to “best starter in the rotation” because, of course he has. The big disappointment has been Williams, who has reverted to his 2023 self and sports a 5.70 ERA. His FIP is better, so he’s a little unlucky in his first six starts, but this is not what we wanted when we brought him back. Unfortunately he’s guaranteed two years, so he’ll have a lot of leash. Irvin is chugging along at a 101 ERA+, about what you’d hope for in a 4th starter.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Lord will go back to the bullpen once Soroka is back. Hard to see anything else actionable for a while. Cavalli is doing rehab starts; could they possibly demote Williams to the bullpen? Maybe.

Bullpen comments: Atrocious. 5 of the 8 guys have ERAs north of 7. Only Rutledge and Finnegan are performing. Together, Ferrer, Salazar, Lopez, Sims, and Poche have a combined bWAR of -2.6: that’s hard to do in a month and is a big reason this team is 13-18 instead of 16-15. I’m not sure what else they can do in the short term; there’s exactly 1 healthy 40-man arm in the minors (Brzycky). There are a couple AAA MLFA arms with MLB service time that could be getting the call soon, but they’d have to axe someone off the 40-man first.

AAA Rochester

Opening Day 2025: Alvarez, Lara, Ogasawara, Choi, Solesky
End of April 2025: Alvarez, Lara, Solesky, Shuman, Cavalli (rehab)

Changes since end of last month: Ogasawara hit the DL, replaced by the promoted Shuman. Choi was awful and got demoted; his starts have been filled in with a combination of Pilkington spot starts and an up-and-back start from Luckham (who pitched 5 shutout innings and then got demoted, weird).

Rotation Observations: Alvarez has been holding his own but has a 1.5 whip and may see his numbers regress to the mean a bit. Lara has been shelled for a 9 ERA and a .368 BAA; not good. Solesky has been mediocre, but at least not as bad as his prior 2023 AAA stint. Shuman’s first two starts have looked great; it’d be a nice story for the oft-injured 27yr old to finally have a solid season. Cavalli’s first rehab start was shaky. Pilkington’s numbers are intriguing: in 13ip he has 23ks .. and 10walks. Tyler Stuart, sitting on the 7 day DL, apparently has an “elbow issue” that the team “hopes” isn’t serious but that he is out “indefinitely” for now. This sounds to me like months of PT, one rehab start and TJ surgery. That’s definitely a loss for this team, assuming he’s out til mid 2026.

Next guy to get Promoted: Obviously its Cavalli. But after that, it’s hard to make a case for any of these AAA starters to be deserving of a 40-man move and/or to be moved up. Lara’s the only other 40-man member but he clearly needs time.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Probably Solesky. He’s a MLFA so there’s little investment and the team may look at him as an innings eater to be moved around as needed instead of a prospect. Or not: they did send him to the AFL last year.

Bullpen comments: Weigel is making a name for himself in AAA and could be pushing for a promotion. If Pilkington’s walks weren’t so out of control he may already be in the majors. The team already has two promotions from AAA: Schoff (who’s pitching well) and Grissom, who just got the call yesterday.

AA Harrisburg

Opening Day 2025: Shuman, Luckham, Saenz, Susana, Atencio
End of April 2025: Luckham, Saenz, Susana, Choi, Soroka (rehab)

Changes since end of last month: Choi demoted/Shuman promoted, Luckham up and back, and Atencio to the DL. Atencio’s starts have been a combination of rehab starts from Soroka and Cavalli plus a couple of bullpen games with Miguel Gomez as the opener.

Rotation Observations: Susana’s AA debut has been solid: 3.91 era, 1.5 whip and 35/17 K/BB in 23 innings. Too many walks of course, but i like that his K rate is so high even as he’s now pitching against AA hitters. Remember; he’s only 21. Luckham’s numbers have looked solid and i’m slightly surprised he didn’t stick in AAA. Choi is probably now in the right level; his ERA is inflated but his peripherals look solid (0.94 whip, .227 BAA, 12/1 K/BB): I’d like to see him over the course of a few months to see if he can earn a AAA spot. Saenz has been hit hard, continuing last year’s AA trend. Shuman cruised through three starts without walking a guy before moved up.

Next guy to get Promoted: Luckham. After that, we’d need another couple of months of performance out of Susana or Choi.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Saenz. His time is running out.

Bullpen comments: Grissom deservedly promoted yesterday. Davila may be next; he’s a MLFA and is 28, too old for AA.

High-A Wilmington

Opening Day 2025: Clemmey, Cornelio, Kent, Sthele, Tepper
End of April 2025: Clemmey, Cornelio, Kent, Sthele, Arias

Changes since end of last month: Tepper got hurt after 2 starts and went straight to the 60-day DL: can’t find injury news on google, but straight to 60-day usually means something bad. He has been replaced by LR/SS Arias for now, but perhaps not for long b/c Tolman was just promoted.

Rotation Observations: Tepper’s numbers were not good; was he trying to pitch through an injury? Arias’ have been little better and he’ll be the first one replaced. Jackson Kent’s pro debut has gone great (though he got shelled last night). Even with the poor outing he’s got a 30/6 K/BB, a 1.05 whip, a .217 BAA. Love it. Bravo to Cornelio, who is having a stellar start to the season after my constantly harping on why he’s even still in the system after two full seasons of ineptitude. He’s got 31 Ks in 21 innings so far. Our star prospect Clemmey can’t find the plate: he’s got 27/20 K/BB in 18IP right now, which isn’t helping his WHIP or his ERA. Sthele is marginally improving on his numbers from last year but isn’t lighting the world on fire.

Next guy to get Promoted: Probably Cornelio; he’s 25, a bit old for the level, and if he continues to dominate would need a new challenge. Kent and Clemmey are at least a half season in High-A irrespective of performance.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Arias, as per above.

Bullpen comments; Schulz has looked great in the closer role and could be pushing for a move up. Oddly the two guys they’ve already promoted (Young and Huff) had middling High-A stats. Jared Simpson has looked solid. It’s great to see Glavine off the DL after missing most of the last two seasons. On the other end of the spectrum, Marc Davis has gone from a rotation candidate to not being able to find the plate: he has 15 walks in 9 innings.

Low-A/Fredericksburg

Opening Day 2025: Polanco, Meckley, Tejeda, Roman, DGarcia
End of April 2025: Polanco, Meckley, Tejeda, Roman, DGarcia with Bennett making his 2025 debut

Changes since end of last month: None, really. Cavalli made a rehab start but then Roman (who was supposed to start that day) came in right afterwards. Tolman made a spot start somewhere along the way. Otherwise, this rotation has been pretty consistent. Bennett slots into Tejeda’s spot today, but that’s probably not a replacement (as per my observations below).

Rotation Observations: First off, none of these starters are going very deep. Polanco has just 18.2 innings in 5 starts. Tejeda has 16 ip in 4 starts. But they’re still the starters. Polanco and Tejeda both have solid looking numbers: sub 4 ERAs, decent whips, solid BAAs. Both Meckley and Garcia have struggled with control and are walking nearly a guy an inning. Roman is the low man on the totem pole right now: 12.37 ERA and a 2.2 whip.

Next guy to get Promoted: Polanco is the oldest of these starters but doesn’t have the swing and miss stuff you’d want to see to show he’s overpowering the league. Bennett, if he shows out healthy, probably is moved up pretty quickly. He needs to get to AA by season’s end honestly.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Roman isn’t cutting it and likely Bennett is taking his spot.

Bullpen comments: There’s several bullpen arms in Fburg who are overpowering the competition: Bloebaum, Amaral, and converted infielder Mejia all have huge K/9 rates right now. Cranz has a .161 BAA in the closer role but is walking nearly a guy an inning. Mejia is pitching well enough to get save opportunities, a good sign for his conversion.

That’s it for April 2025. Lots of intriguing updates after diving into the stats for the month.

Written by Todd Boss

May 1st, 2025 at 10:35 am

Posted in Majors Pitching,Minor League Pitching,Minor League Rotation Reviews

How do the Nats already have a Pitching shortage?

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Rutledge may be pressed back into the starting role. 2023 photo via 3rdmanin.com

We’re two weeks into the season … and the Nats are already running out of pitching.

With the latest moves, here’s the status of our 40-man SPs:

MLB Rotation: Gore, Williams, Irvin, Parker*, Lord
SPs on DL: Grey, Herz, Cavalli, Soroka
40-man SPs in minors: Ogasawara, Lara,

At the end of last year, we were in a similar situation to some extent … except that we were still calling Rutledge, Adon, and Henry “starters.” Now, we’re not calling any of those guys starters anymore, and we’re now one injury away from a disaster occurring. Two of the four guys on the DL are down for months in various stages of TJ surgery (Grey, Herz), a third is just only now starting throwing some innings and seems weeks away (Cavalli) and a fourth has a biceps issue and isn’t expected back until “May” (Soroka). “May” could mean 5/1 or 5/31.

Neither Ogasawara or Lara is MLB ready: Ogasawara got shelled in spring training and has a 4.80 ERA in 3 starts in AAA. Lara has a 9.26 ERA and is getting rocked right now in AAA and may need more AA time. Neither looks like an option if we have another starter go down, and we probably call up Alvarez as option A before looking at returning Rutledge to the rotation as optionB. Maybe you look at someone like Plinkington (long-time ML starter) or Adon (even if we know how that goes) .. but neither are on 40-man at present.

At least we have some starting pitching options here … the bullpen is in dire straits.

Its April 15th and we’re basically out of relievers.

MLB bullpen: Finnegan, Lopez, Sims, Ferrer, Poche, Salazar, Rutledge, Henry
RPs on DL: Law, Brzycky, Ribalta, Thompson
40-RPs in minors; None (!)

That’s right; we don’t have a single 40-man reliever in the minors right now. Thanks to early April injuries to Law and Ribalta, the team has already called up its minor league reliever depth in Rutledge and Henry. Next guy who goes down? We’re adding someone to the 40-man and rolling the dice. Nobody in AAA has more than 3-4 innings, so attempting to guess who would make sense to callup is folly, but the two names that might make the most sense initially are Carlos Romero and Jack Sinclair, both setup/closer types that have shown success in either AA or AAA. There’s also three 2025 MLFAs in AAA in Plinkington, Weidel, and Helvey, two of which who have MLB time, so those two make sense to callup as well (they probably also have opt-outs built in).

I can’t remember a season where this many arms hit the DL so soon. I can remember Aprils with bullpens so bad that Rizzo cleaned house, but nothing like this. Should be interesting to see what happens next. With a full 40-man roster, every move has to have a corresponding move … and its not like we have a ton of deadweight on the 40-man right now. With seven guys on the 10/15 day DL, that’s just seven remaining 40-man players:

SPs: Ogasawara, Lara,
C: Millas
INFs: Baker, Lipscomb
OFs: Yepez, Hassell

There’s not a name on that remaining list that is an obvious DFA. There’s not really an obvious name on the DL right now to whack either. So that means a pretty deep cut DFA or a 60-day stash for every move.

Tough to focus on winning ball games when you don’t know who’s pitching the 7th.

Written by Todd Boss

April 15th, 2025 at 2:39 pm

Posted in Majors Pitching,Minor League Pitching,Nats in General

Opening Day Starter Trivia for 2025 plus Observations on the state of Starting Pitching

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Richmond Native Verlander remains the career leader of Opening day starts. Photo unk via rumorsandrants.com

Now that the 2025 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 Opening day starter trivia for you.

Here’s a link to the Opening day starter xls, which is also updated along the right hand side in the Links section. 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 2025 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, so I continue to maintain this XLS.

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

First time Opening Day Starters for 2025: 12 of the 30, including our own MacKenzie Gore. It may be fair to say that, were there not an opening series in Japan, and were there not a couple of last minute scratches, this number should have been a lot lower, like maybe 8-9.
Current active Leader of Opening Day Starts: still Justin Verlander, with 12. He did 9 in Detroit, then another 3 in Houston. Others in the conversation are Kershaw (9), and Scherzer (7), neither of which seems likely to extend this record before they’re out of the game.
Current Active Consecutive streak: Logan Webb and Framber Valdez both now have 4 consecutive Opening day starts for San Francisco and Houston respectively.
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. We’ll need another four years of consistency from Webb/Valdez to catch them, which seems unlikely (see my commentary below).

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, and Mr. Hall of Famer thanks to the Veteran’s committee.

Nats Records:

Max Scherzer is the Nats franchise leader in Opening day starts with 6.
Strasburg is 2nd with four: he took the ball opening day in the 3 seasons before the Scherzer acquisition, then got it in 2017 mid Scherzer contract.
Gore with his 2025 start becomes just the 9th guy to get the ball opening day for Washington.
Odalis Perez remains the most unlikely Opening Day starter, getting the ball in our bottoming-out year of 2008.

Lastly, here’s some interesting team observations for 2025’s Opening day Starters

With Eovaldi getting the ball for the 2nd year in a row, Texas breaks a streak of having 8 different opening day starters in the 8 years prior to 2025. 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, and Now Eovaldi in 2024 and 2025.
Los Angeles Dodgers, despite being probably the league’s best team over the past decade or so and your defending WS champs, now has had 7 different guys make their last 7 opening day starts. Yamamoto, Glasnow, Urias, Buehler, Kershaw, May, and Ryu.
Urias, in case you didn’t remember, just was suspended a Half a Season for his SECOND domestic Violence arrest and has probably thrown his last MLB pitch. So, a 2nd DV arrest, charge, and pleading guilty = half a season suspension according to MLB. Meanwhile, Trevor Bauer, when he was accused of his first DV issue (but not charged, arrested, or guilty) was suspended for two full seasons and now cannot get a job in the Majors at a time when teams are begging for starters and is seemingly blacklisted by all 30 teams. Yes, Bauer comes across as opinionated and abrasive, but he was definitively cleared of charges AND pretty clearly demonstrated that his accusations were a complete setup by someone trying to catfish a major leaguer and who was subsequently indicted on felony fraud charges for filing false reports against Bauer … yet here we are. He’s missed out on literally hundreds of millions of dollars of salary because … why? Because he’s outspoken on Twitter?
Other teams who have not really been able to find a consistent starter: NY Mets: 5 straight different opening day starters. Cincinnati: 10 different starters in the last 11 years. Pittsburgh: 9 different starters in last 10. Baltimore: 9 different starters in the last 10 years. Angels: 9 in the last 11. Some teams just can’t find Aces.

Now for some random commentary on the state of Starting Pitching in the game. I write answers on Quora about Baseball all the time, and came across a question there asking whether recently inducted starters like CC Sabathia were “worthy” of the Hall b/c he “only” had 251 career wins. This in the context of the three aging star starters Verlander, Scherzer, and Kershaw who currently lead all active starters in Wins with (as of this writing on 3/28/25) 262, 216, and 212 respectively. They’re 42,40, and 37 respectively, meaning that the odds of them significantly adding to their current win totals seem slim.

But, I don’t think anyone would dispute that all three are no-doubt hall of famers, despite two of them not being close to even 250 wins, let alone 300 wins. Three major individual awards basically make a player a lock for the hall:

Verlander: 3 Cy Youngs (9 seasons in the top 5), 1 MVP, 1 Rookie of the Year, 3400+ Ks
Scherzer: 3 Cy Youngs (8 seasons in top 5), 3400+ Ks.
Kershaw: 3 Cy Youngs (7 seasons in top 5), 1 MVP, and has 2968 Ks as we speak.

But….. what’s next? A quick perusal at the state of Starting Pitching in the league reveals that we may not see another 250 win pitcher…. ever? Here’s the rest of the current active top 10 of career Wins leaders with their ages and some context:

Gerrit Cole: 153 wins at age 34; just blew out elbow so he’s missing all of 2025. Does he even get to 200 career wins now?
Charlie Morton: 138 wins at age 41: he’s the #2 guy in Baltimore’s rotation but this may be his last season.
Chris Sale: 138 wins at age 36; having a second-wind career moment, coming off of last year’s Cy Young, but he made just 11 starts in 2020, 2021, and 2022 combined thanks to injury. Does he get to 175 career wins?
Kyle Gibson: 112 wins at age 37. Quick: what team does Kyle Gibson pitch for? I had to look it up; he signed with Baltimore a week ago and just got optioned to AAA. He’s 7th in the majors in career wins! And now he’s going to pitch in Norfolk for a bit.
Sonny Grey: 111 wins at age 35. Ok, so he’s St. Louis’ #1 starter and has been relatively durable, but can you count on him getting even to 150 career wins? He has 36 wins in his last four seasons combined.
Carlos Carrasco: 110 wins at age 38. He signed a MLFA/NRI deal with the Yankees and seems to have lucked his way into a rotation spot. In his last two combined seasons, he’s had a 6.00 ERA and a -2.6 bWAR, and it doesn’t seem like he’s long for the majors at this point.
Yu Darvish; also 110 wins at age 38. He’s still under contract for 3 more years in San Diego, which may give him a shot at 150 career wins.

Where’s the sure-fire Hall of Fame starting pitcher with 250 wins and 3,000 Ks in this group?? Nowhere to be found. Would you even characterize the two best guys on this list (Cole and Sale) as hall of famers right now? I wouldn’t. Maybe Cole if he comes back and dominates, but that’s no sure thing.

Lets look a bit further down the list of active starting pitcher win leaders to see who looks like they’re putting together a career that, maybe possibly could turn into a HoFame career?

The two best Age/Accumulated wins combos might be Aaron Nola (104 wins at age 32) and Jose Berrios (99 wins at age 31).
Nola had one great 9.7 bWAR season in 2018, while Barrios has received Cy Young votes in exactly one season in his career (a 9th place finish, meaning he probably got like one home-town writer vote, in 2021).
The highest career win total for a player who hasn’t turned 30 yet is Dylan Cease, who has 57 wins at age 29.
the 50-career win range has a slew of other guys who are “known names,” guys like Logan Webb, Zac Gallen, Jack Flaherty, etc.
Our former #1 draft pick Lucas Giolito? 61 wins at age 30, right in this same range.

I mean, do any of these guys sound like Hall of Famers to you?

What’s my point? Randy Johnson was elected to the hall in 2015, finishing off a 300-win career in 2010. That was a decade ago, but it might as well be a lifetime ago in terms of evolution of pitching in the game. Not only does it not look like we’ll see a 300 win pitcher ever again, after Justin Verlander I’m sure we’ll ever see a 250 game winner again. And, I’ll just go ahead and say it; after Scherzer and Kershaw i’m not sure we’ll ever see a 200 game winner again. Nobody except Gerrit Cole is projecting to be even close to 200 wins for his career.

A Decade from now, will the new standards for SPs in Cooperstown really be 175 wins and 2,500 Ks?

Written by Todd Boss

March 31st, 2025 at 8:35 am

Posted in Baseball in General,Majors Pitching

2024 Wrap Up of Rotations with 2025 Predictions

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It has been a pleasure to follow the 2024 rotations of this team, something that hasn’t always been true. 2024 saw a slew of arms make major leaps forward, both in terms of promotion and in terms of stature.

Here’s a final recap of the rotations for the 2024 season, showing the evolution of the rotation at each level, and then we’ll make some predictions on 2025.

Here’s the recaps for the year:

There was no September summary since the various leagues staggered the amount of time they played in Sept, leading to this post where we’ll do an overall summary of the season.

Critical to this analysis are the following links:

Big Board
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 (season ended 7/25/24)
DSL Nationals Pitching 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.

MLB Washington

Opening Day: Grey, Irvin, Gore, Williams, Corbin
End of April: Irvin, Gore, Williams, Corbin, Parker,
End of May: Irvin, Gore, Williams, Corbin, Parker,
End of June: Irvin, Gore, Corbin, Parker, Herz
End of July: Irvin, Gore, Corbin, Parker, Herz
End of August: Irvin, Gore, Corbin, Parker, Herz
End of Season: Irvin, Gore, Corbin, Parker, Herz, Williams

2024 Discussion

Despite losing 90 games, the team’s rotation was shockingly intact for most of the season. Amazingly, Patrick Corbin hung onto his rotation (and roster) spot the entire season, despite being perpetually listed as “the next starter to get DFA’d once a spot was needed). He earned his $35M walk year salary with 170+ innings of 5.58 ERA, which was the WORST ERA in the league, by half a run, of all 57 qualified pitchers this year. In an interesting statistical side note: his bWAR is -0.8 (as you’d expect) but his fWAR is 1.7! That’s right; he has a positive 1.7 fWAR for the year. This happens by the way, because Fangraph’s pitcher WAR heavily uses FIP in its calculation, which heavily weighs strikeouts and ignores any ball put into play (which means we’re ignoring about 70% of a pitcher’s at-bats). But I digress. Let’s simplify this: Corbin was in the rotation b/c he’s getting paid a ton of money this year, he took the ball every 5 days, he got shelled all year, and I’ll be shocked if he gets a guaranteed contract next year. His departure frees up a ton of payroll and a 2025 rotation spot.

Thanks to an early injury to opening day starter Josiah Grey (which turned into TJ surgery, likely costing him the entirety of the 2025 season) the team was able to debut found gold in Mitchell Parker, a 5th round 2020 draft pick who got just $100k in bonus money (reminder: picks in rounds 11-20 can sign for half again as much without penalty). Parker will finish the year with 30 starts, a 94 ERA+, and a FIP that flatters his ERA. Trevor Williams was putting together a Cy Young worthy season until he suffered a dreaded flexor strain; thankfully for Williams it didn’t turn into TJ surgery as it did for Grey, but it did cost him the chance to get traded to a contender, and it cost us a chance to net a couple of solid prospects in return for one of the league’s best starters. It’s a shame all the way around. Williams was brought back up for the last week of the season mostly as a courtesy to the veteran, who will head into the off-season at least being able to claim he finished the year healthy. Irvin and Gore gave season-long “almost league average” stats, though each had stretches of real brilliance. Irvin featured far fewer baserunners (1.18 whip) but not as much swing-and-miss, while Gore put a ton more guys on but showed he has no-hit capabilities. Lastly, Williams’ injury gave the team another opportunity to give a months-long tryout a AAA pitcher (in this case DJ Herz, trade bounty for half a 2023 season of Candelario and another guy who can only be described as “found gold”). Herz struggled initially but improved every month he was up and has finished the season with almost an identical ERA+ as Irvin and Parker had (94-95).

2025 Outlook:

Tangent: this is as good as any of a spot to have this discussion. I believe that Mike Rizzo will be taking a look at this team’s 2024 performance and will conclude they’re still a year away. I could be wrong; he signed Jayson Werth after the team went 69-93 in 2010, but I believe that was more of a, “Hey guys, this team has cash and isn’t afraid to spend it” kind of move. He doesn’t have to make that kind of move again; the league knows this team spent $200M at one point in its last run, and probably gets up there again if/when it thinks it can compete again. I think the lost year of Cavalli in 2024, the 2025 lost year of Grey, the slow-down of development of House and Hassell, and the relative youth of our next real wave of top prospects will have Rizzo conclude that 2025 will be another incremental growth year, and that decision will drive what we write about in the next section.

Williams probably did enough to not only guarantee himself a contract in 2025, but probably will command more than his Nats contract (2yrs $13M). Given the above paragraph, Should the team resign him? I certainly hope they do not. I think they have better, cheaper alternatives from inside, and they don’t want/ need to commit to a multi-year contract with a guy who might be 2023-version or 2024-version. Corbin is clearly gone.

That leaves the four youngsters to lead the line in 2025: Gore, Irvin, Parker, Herz.

Who joins them? The hopeful answer for all Nats fans is a healthy Cavalli. That would be the easiest, neatest solution. However, I’m now in the “seriously, officially worried” phase w/r/t Cavalli. He’s turned a 12-month injury into a 24 month one. Something tells me that I shouldn’t count on Cavalli for opening day, which means the team needs a 5th starter. I think the team goes bargain shopping for an extra starter, a veteran guy looking for a bounce back. But I wouldn’t want to roll the dice on a MLFA/NRI guy if it comes to it; I’d rather spend a bit of cash and bring in someone who could really contribute. Maybe a one-year guy who we could look to flip. I mean heck, if they want to take the PR hit, Trevor Bauer would certainly take a one year deal to get back into the league. A veteran starter could give them a little room on Cavalli, and it could give them an option to send Herz back down if he struggles to open 2025.

2025 rotation prediction: Gore, Irvin, Parker, Herz, Veteran FA signing (Grey on DL, Cavalli in AAA)

AAA Rochester

Opening Day: Adon, Rutledge, Parker, Ward, Herz
End of April: Adon, Rutledge, Ward, Herz, Watkins,
End of May: Adon, Rutledge, Ward, Herz, Watkins,
End of June: Rutledge, Ward, Watkins, Alvarez, Lord
End of July: Rutledge, Ward, Alvarez, Lord, Luckham
End of August: Rutledge, Ward, Watkins, Alvarez, Stuart
End of Season: Rutledge, Ward, Watkins, Alvarez, Lord

2024 Discussion: Like the MLB rotation, the AAA rotation showed a lot of consistency for the year. Three guys (Rutledge, Watkins, and Ward) were basically in the rotation the entire season. Rutledge and Ward are on our 40-man and were, lets just be honest, awful: Rutledge had a 6.40 ERA for the season, Ward not much better at 5.64. Both essentially served as MLB insurance the entire year and were passed over by Parker and Herz, both of whom went up and stayed up. Neither guy had anything close to a stretch of productivity that was impressive.

The team gave Joan Adon yet another run-out to prove he’s not a capable starter before removing him mid-season to make way for those moving up from AA that had merited the promotions (Alvarez and Lord). Lord continued his amazing run through the organization in AAA, and had the best numbers of any of the year-end starters (AAA numbers of 3.93 ERA, 1.38 whip, and a K/inning). Not bad for an 18th round draft pick. Last year’s Nats Minor league Pitcher of the year Alvarez had 16 starts in AAA this year with mediocre results: 4.58 ERA, 1.45 whip, 61 Ks in 78IP. He has practically zero prospect buzz and the scouting report on him seems to be “lefty guy with weird mechanics who gets by on deception, not stuff.” I think he eventually gets converted to be a lefty reliever and that’s his eventual ticket to the majors, but for the time being he’s bought himself another year in the AAA rotation. Stuart only got a handful of AAA starts before getting hurt, but was basically unhittable for us in AA. We couldn’t say the same for Luckham, who earned a promotion and then got similarly shelled and got sent back down.

2025 Outlook: Two guys are already gone. Watkins was a 32-yr old veteran MLFA who presumably is pitching elsewhere next year. Ward got waived ahead of the Rule-5 deadline, as the team tried to sneak him off the roster, but he got claimed by Baltimore (who’s done that several times to us as we dumped pitchers). Adon is out of options and probably is gone at the end of spring training.

Rutledge still has one major advantage in this organization: he was a 1st round pick with a big bonus, which means he’ll continue to get opportunities to prove his worth; even though he’s clearly (to me anyway) a FB/slider 6’6″ behemoth who screams “8th inning guy” in a major league bullpen, he’ll get run out as a starter again in 2025. Alvarez is rule-5 eligible but was not protected; for now AAA rotation makes sense. I think the team will let a numbers game play out and will keep Stuart in AAA to start the year. Lastly, as they generally like to do, expect a cattle call of veteran MLFA/NRI types to get signed for the AAA 5th starter try-out, basically the Spencer Watkins of 2025.

I suppose it is also entirely possible the team has Cavalli start here and signs a guy to pitch in the majors, but that would depend on an organizational decision that Cavalli’s stunted rehab in 2024 will continue. Obviously I don’t have that kind of information. I also find it somewhat notable that Cavalli is not going to the AFL this fall in order to get some extra innings. Is he still hurt?

2025 rotation prediction: Rutledge, Lord, Alvarez, Stuart, Cavalli/MLFA signing

AA Harrisburg

Opening Day: Luckham, Alvarez, Henry, Knowles, Cuevas
End of April: Luckham, Alvarez, Henry, Lord, Cuevas,
End of May: Luckham, Alvarez, Henry, Lord, Cuevas,
End of June: Luckham, Cuevas, Solesky, Lara, Theophile
End of July: Cuevas, Solesky, Lara, Theophile, Stuart
End of August: Luckham, Solesky, Lara, Saenz, Shuman
End of Season: Luckham, Solesky, Lara, Saenz, Shuman

2024 Discussion:

Luckham started the year on the AA hump, and ended the year on the AA hump as well with a brief unsuccessful stint in AAA. He’s still not ready and needs another AA year for sure (4.47 ERA). Alvarez had a 2.89 ERA in 10 starts and more than earned his AAA promotion; he won’t be coming back. 40-man and former top prospect Cole Henry has to be the biggest disappointment to Nats fans; 5 starts, just 13Ip, then back on the DL. He did a rehab stint in Wilmington before getting stuck right back on the 60-day DL. There was never any official note of the nature of the injury. Knowles was looking great, then suddenly poof on the DL. After a month, moved to 60-day, then a month after that the “full season” DL. I’m going to assume it was a major injury and he starts on DL in 2025. Cuevas hung in the rotation probably for a month too long with near 6.00 ERA before getting dropped to be “LR” guy, replaced by the rising Lord. once Lord proved AA couldn’t hold him, the team brought up prospect Lara, who shined for 19 starts and just got added to the 40-man. Solesky got signed in June after the CWS dumped him at the end of spring training and he looked great all year; enough so to go to the AFL to shop his talents. Theophile got called up and was stellar … then poof hit the DL and was gone. And now he’s a 6year MLFA. Saenz and Shuman both returned from injury to a mixed bag of success; Saenz may finally be out of the starter business, while Shuman needs a full season healthy.

2025 Outlook: Henry seems like a massive injury concern. He’s also a 40-man roster spot holder; would the team try to DFA him and outright him to get a spot? I would. I’ll assume he is on the DL to start the season. Same with Knowles. I think Lara starts in AA with the Nats typical “prove you can repeat the level then we’ll promote you.” I could see Solesky also going to AAA, but maybe that only happens if the team decides Rutledge is now a reliever. After that, expect retreads Luckham and Shuman to man the spots. Lastly, I’d put 23yr old Cuevas back in the rotation to fill it out until the next high-A guy merits a promotion.

2025 rotation prediction: Lara, Sokesky, Luckham, Shuman, Cuevas. Henry (i), Knowles (i)

High A Wilmington

Opening Day: Lara, Lord, Young, Cornelio, Theophile
End of April: Lara, Young, Cornelio, Theophile, Caceres,
End of May: Young, Cornelio, Theophile, Caceres, Atencio,
End of June: Young, Cornelio, Caceres, Atencio, Shuman
End of July: Cornelio, Atencio, Shuman, Susana, Davis,
End of August: Cornelio, Caceres, Atencio, Susana, Tepper
End of Season: Cornelio, Caceres, Atencio, Susana, Tepper,

2024 Discussion: Lara and Lord’s performances speak for themselves this year: Lord earned a 2-level promotion and Lara earned a 40-man spot. The rest of the opening day rotation was a grab bag of results. Young hung for half the season before getting replaced in the rotation. Caceres replaced Lord’s early promotion and had 23 starts with a 4.83 ERA. Cornelio had the most starts of anyone, 26 starts with a 5.53ERA. This is his second year with a 5+ era, and unlike in 2024, I don’t think he’s earning a social promotion for 2025. Theophile was the “least worst” candidate to get promoted when the AA team needed a starter, but he earned his keep in AA before getting hurt.

Atencio was sneaky good all year; he’s only 22 but he’s rule-5 eligible this year. I think he may be in line for a fast promotion ala Lara/Lord this year. Uber prospect Susana arrived in July and was decent in 10 starts. Despite his rocket-ship trajectory as a prospect, i don’t think he’s starting in AA based on his 10 starts of 4.18 ERA in high-A. Look for him to get a month in Wilmington before moving up. The rest of the guys who got somewhat regular starts at season’s end (Tepper, Davis) didn’t impress and probably get moved to the bullpen.

2025 Outlook: The rotation in Wilmington will be packed to start 2025, with a 1-2 punch of Susana and Sykora and solid prospects all the way through. Atencio will start in High-A as well. I’m assuming that Jake Bennett will be ready to go, and he should slot in as a starter in High-A looking to prove himself and move up fast. That’s a great rotation. I would think that Susana is good for a month, Sykora half a season, Bennett perhaps a couple months to show he’s healthy, and Atencio a half a season if they all pitch to their 2024 capabilities, meaning for lots of promotion opportunities coming up from Low-A. Lastly, I’ve got Clemmey starting here aggressively, if only because there’s just too many arms for Low-A.

2025 rotation prediction: Susana, Sykora, Atencio, Bennett, Clemmey (with Young, Caceres, Cornelio, Tepper, or Davis getting moved to the bullpen)

Low-A Fredericksburg

Opening Day: Sthele, Sanchez, Susana, Davis, Sullivan
End of April: Sthele, Sanchez, Susana, Davis, Atencio
End of May: Sthele, Sanchez, Susana, Davis, Polanco, Sykora
End of June: Sthele, Susana, Davis, Polanco, Sykora,
End of July: Sthele, Polanco, Sykora, Tepper, Romero
End of August: Sthele, Polanco, Sykora, Romero, Clemmey
End of Season: Sthele, Polanco, Sykora, Romero, Clemmey

2024 Discussion: The Low-A rotation was headlined all year by Sykora, who blew through the league and stayed in the league probably 2 months more than he should have. It became clear he stayed to lead the team’s playoff run, and was a big part in the first championship for a Nats affiliate in some time. He’s obviously heading to High-A. Sullivan looked good and then hit the full-season DL: we’re assuming he’s starting there next year. Davis was solid and got promoted. Sthele managed to stay in the rotation all year despite a season-long 4.81 ERA. Bryan Sanchez pitched to a 6.66 ERA and got dumped out of the bullpen mid-season. 19yr old Clemmey is a top prospect and pitched an entire season in low-A despite his age; he probably needs a little more Low-A seasoning before looking to move up, but I could also make the argument to move him up based on the numbers of who needs to be in the Low-A rotation.

2025 Outlook: I sense the team is counting on its DL guys returning, based on the guys left at the end of the season and their general 2024 performance. The team had three experienced starters spend the entire season on the DL: Agostini, Tolman, and Aldonis. I’ll bet they put at least a couple in the 2025 rotation to get them back on track (Agostini went on in April and may still be hurt to start 2025). They seemed to like Sthele and Polanco, and Roman looked solid but may be a reliever. We do have two bigger-money starter prospects we drafted in 2024 in 4th rounder Jackson Kent (Arizona) and 6th rounder Davian Garcia; I sense both will be looked at hard for the low-A rotation. I’ll hedge and put Garcia in FCL rotation to start. Lastly the two FCL rotation stalwarts probably deserve a run.

2025 rotation prediction: Tolman, Aldonis, Kent, Colon, Portorreal, with Sthele, Polanco, Romero as LR/SS options. (dl: Sullivan, Agostini)

Rookie FCL Nats

Opening Day: Colon, Portorreal, CSanchez, BRomero, Farias
End of May: Colon, Portorreal, CSanchez, BRomero, Farias
End of June: Colon, Portorreal, CSanchez, BRomero, and rehabbers
End of July/Season: Colon, Portorreal, CSanchez, BRomero, Saenz (rehab)

2024 Discussion: The FCL rotation was basically 4 guys and a rehabber all year. Sanchez and Romero earned their promotions, Colon and Portorreal pitched decently all year.

2025 Outlook: I sense we’ll see the team take the same tactic in 2025 for FCL that they did in 2024: all DSL graduates plus rehabbers. I’ll put 2024 draftee Garcia here, along with 2024 reliever Angel Roman and Moreno, who was hurt all 2024. Then the rest will be filled by DSL graduates and rehabbers.

2025 rotation prediction: Garcia, Roman, Moreno, Feliz, Lunar

DSL Nats

Opening Day: De La Cruz, Oliveros, Hernandez, Vera, Feliz
End of June: De la Cruz, Reynoso, Vera, Feliz, Thomas,
End of July: De la Cruz, Reynoso, Vera, Feliz, Thomas, with Juan Reyes as an “opener.”
End of August: De la Cruz, Reynoso, Feliz, Reyes, Lunar
End of Season: De La Cruz, Reynoso, Vera, Feliz, Lunar,

2024 Discussion: There’s only 2-3 arms worth talking about in the DSL: Feliz and Lunar, maybe Reyes. The Rest were bad, like 8ERA Bad.

2025 Outlook: I’d like to see Feliz, Lunar, and Reyes come stateside. Reyes had a bunch of “starts” but they were all 1 inning gigs; he’ll head to the bullpen. But Felix looks like he could be a starter candidate. That leaves the rest of these starters to repeat DSL in 2025. We’ll addin a couple of Jan IFA signings and that’ll be the 2025 rotation.

2025 rotation prediction: De la Cruz, Reynoso, Vera, and two 2025 signings

Did I forget anyone? Agree or disagree with 2025 opening day predictions?

Written by Todd Boss

November 26th, 2024 at 5:34 pm

Posted in Majors Pitching,Minor League Pitching,Minor League Rotation Reviews

End of August 2024 Rotation check-ins

21 comments

If Sykora isn’t the Nats minor league POTY i don’t know who it could possibly be. Photo MASN

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

Important links for this analysis:

Big Board:
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 (season ended 7/25/24)
DSL Nationals Pitching Stats

We’ll start with the Majors.

Rotation as of 8/31/24: Irvin, Gore, Parker, Corbin, Herz

Rotation as of 7/31/24: Irvin, Gore, Parker, Corbin, Herz

Changes since end of last Month: None. Same five guys that have been there since the moment Williams went down.

Rotation Observations: Interestingly, the two best starters in August were … Corbin and Herz, who would have both been on the chopping block if we had any positive news from any of our injured starters. Herz had 6 starts with a 3.10 ERA and a 1.17 Whip in the month, both best of any of our 5 arms. Corbin wasn’t half bad either: 3.76 ERA while going 2-1 in his 6 starts. Parker and Gore improved on their July 7+ ERA months with decent ERAs, though Gore’s was quite lucky given his 1.7 whip. Only Irvin really struggled on the month, mostly thanks to one bad start on 8/30.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Honestly … now that we’re in September, nobody’s getting cut out of this rotation unless the team wants to start saving innings. Only two guys got 9/1 callups and neither were starters. There’s only two “starters” on the 40-man not hurt: Rutledge and Ward, and as we’ll read later, neither deserve a promotion at this point.

Bullpen comments: We’ve seen a decent performance from the bullpen lately. Salazar had 13 appearances with zero runs. Can’t beat that. Rainey has been handled with kid gloves all year (and was the subject of a Fangraphs article about pitcher usage and leverage) and was solid in August. Meanwhile, Adon did a great job proving that not only can he not get MLB hitters out as a starter, but that he can’t get them out as a reliever either. He’s now appeared in parts of four different seasons for this team and has never even come close to proving that he’s a MLB quality arm. He’s finally out of options but is nowhere close to enough service time to hit arbitration,

AAA Rochester

Rotation as of 8/31/24: Rutledge, Ward, Alvarez, Stuart, Watkins

Rotation as of 7/31/24: Rutledge, Ward, Lord, Alvarez, Luckham

Changes since end of last month: Lord got hurt and is on the DL, so they replaced him with Watkins, who’s been a LR/SS all year. Luckham struggled upon his promotion so he got sent back to AA, replace with new acquisition Stuart.

Rotation Observations: Lord was solid in 3 starts (1.46 ERA) then hit the DL. He got hit by a comebacker on his pitching hand and was put on the DL 8/20/24. We’re nearly at two weeks now. Alvarez has a nice month: 5 starts, 3.14 ERA and sub 1.00 whip. I wonder what he has to do to earn a call-up. Scouting reports aren’t very flattering: BA has him 45s across the board and describes him basically as a “left hander with 91 and a funky delivery.” Still, wouldn’t mind seeing him get a shot. Rutledge continues to be awful. Luckham had a 12 ERA in a couple of starts before being replaced by Stuart, who has a 7.88 ERA in his first two starts that was probably a little unlucky (he has a 1.00 whip and a .179 BAA in those two starts, so it’s almost like every single guy who got on base managed to score). We’ll see what he can do with the remaining couple of weeks. Ward had a 4.44 ERA with way too many walks. Lastly Watkins had a decent month, as one would expect for a 32-yr old in AAA.

Next guy to get Promoted: None deserve it, and Lord’s injury takes him out of the running.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: We were right on Luckham getting the boot back to AA last month.

Bullpen comments: Brzycky and Ribalta both had solid August numbers and both have been called up. Willingham, who is on the 40-man, also had decent Aug numbers and may get another shot. Tim Cate had a nice month, even if he’s had a crummy year.

AA Harrisburg

Rotation as of 8/31/24: Solesky, Lara, Luckham, Saenz, Shuman

Rotation as of 7/31/24: Cuevas, Solesky, Lara, Theophile, Stuart (with two spot starts from Reyes)

Changes since end of last month: Cuevas, after months of being the worst starter of the group, was taken out of the rotation and put in the bullpen. Luckham got promoted, then demoted right back. Stuart got promoted as he should have with a 27/5 K/BB ratio in 16 August innings and was replaced with Saenz, finally back off the injured list. Lastly Theophile got hurt and went straight to the 60 day/full season injured list, not a good sign.

Rotation Observations: Stuart was unhittable in his 3 Aug AA starts; he should stick in AAA for a while. Saenz got hit very badly; 10+ ERA and a 2.58 ERA in August. He struggled in 15 AA starts last year and may be running out of time to stick in the rotation. Luckham’s AA starts were solid; he definitely earned his promotion, but he’s been getting hit upon his return. Shuman is finally back in AA and only had one start, so not much to go on. Solesky was decent but just has no K/9 power. Lara’s ERA is inflated compared to his peripherals: 1.09 whip, .184 BAA; that should be a sub 3 ERA.

Next guy to get Promoted: No idea. Maybe Solesky despite his lack of swing and miss. He’s 26, has solid full-season numbers. It should be Theophile, but he seems like he’s out for a while.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Saenz; just not sure if he can cut it in AA.

Bullpen comments: Alston earned a promotion. I like Jack Sinclair’s august: 17/3 K/BB in 10 innings. Cronin is finally back in AA and had a 3.09 ERA in 10 appearances as the closer. He replaced Peterson as the closer at some point, who had an ERA in the 8s for the month.

High-A Wilmington

Rotation as of 8/31/24: Atencio, Cornelio, Susana, Caceres. Tepper

Rotation as of 7/31/24: Atencio, Cornelio, Shuman, Davis, Susana

Changes since end of last month: Shuman promoted, replaced by Caceres, who had been dropped from the rotation earlier. Also, Davis got dumped out of the rotation, replaced by the newly promoted Tepper.

Rotation Observations: Caceres, one month after getting dropped from the rotation. was the best starter in Wilmington. Cornelio put up his typical 6+ ERA month; more on him later. Susana got hit; he needs more AA time. Atencio put in another quietly good month (more on him in a moment). Tepper had a 4.50 ERA in two starts; not much to go on.

Next guy to get Promoted: Shuman finally got promoted despite getting whacked in his 3 High-A starts to start the month. I think its Atencio’s turn. He’s had a very solid High-A season all told (3.47 ERA in 18 starts) and had similar numbers in August. He’s only 22 and seems like a sneaky decent prospect for us.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Cornelio. Honestly, I don’t understand why the team sticks with this guy. I can’t remember the last time I saw a gamer with him as the starter where I said, “Oh that was a nice game for Cornelio.” No; instead its constantly 5ip, 7hits 3 walks, 5ER. (as I write this, i see that he had perhaps his best ever start as a pro on 9/1, which dropped his seasonal ERA by nearly a half a run all by itself). His career ERA is nearly 6.00 and instead of repeating low-A he got promoted up to high-A this year, where he’s continued to not be good. And it isn’t as if he has a 12 K/9 rate or anywhere near it.

Bullpen comments: The team finally promoted Cronin after my explicit comments last month. There isn’t much else good to write home about from this bullpen.

Low-A/Fredericksburg

Rotation as of 8/31/24: Sthele, Polanco, Romero, Sykora, Clemmey

Rotation as of 7/31/24: Sthele, Polanco, Tepper, Romero, Sykora ( plus a slew of spot starts from random players and two Saenz rehab starts)

Changes since end of last month: Tepper got promoted, replaced by trade acquisition Clemmey. The team also just put Polanco on the restricted, list, so not sure what’s going on there. So as of this moment there’s only 4 starters on the roster; Polanco’s last turn was taken by lefty reliever Angel Roman.

Rotation Observations: Here’s Sykora’s August numbers: 6 starts, 30 1/3 innings. 0.88 ERA (3 earned runs in 30 innings). In those 30 innings he gave up 12 hits and 4 walks for a WHIP of 0.52. He had 48 strikeouts to go against 4 walks in those 30 innings. Uh, why is he still in Low-A? Nobody else worth talking about right now: Romero has just 10 Ks in 25 innings last month, Sthele had a .297 BAA, Polanco a 1.83 whip. Clemmey is a solid prospect and had solid peripherals even if his ERA was mediocre (.188 BAA, 21/12 K/BB in 19IP).

Next guy to get Promoted: Sykora. should have been promoted last month.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Probably Sthele, who we’ve mentioned in this spot in the past. 22yrs old in low-A just not getting guys out. 12th rounder in 2023 so not a ton invested.

Bullpen comments: Speaking of Roman; he’s been unhittable since getting bumped up from FCL. The team called up a couple of 2024 draftees in Alexander Meckly and Merrill Beeker, but neither are being used as starters right now.

Rookie/FCL Nationals: finished on 7/25/24, so no August games.

Rookie/DSL Nationals

Rotation as of 8/31/24: De la Cruz, Reynoso, Feliz, Reyes, Lunar

Rotation as of 7/31/24: De la Cruz, Reynoso, Vera, Feliz, Thomas, with Juan Reyes as an “opener.”

Changes Since last Month: Vera was mercifully pulled from the rotation after walking 2 guys an inning, replaced by Lunar. Thomas was pulled from the rotation as well, replaced with Reyes’ opener performances.

Rotation Observations: De La Cruz had 3 Aug starts and saw his already bad ERA increase. Feliz only made one start on 8/5 and hasn’t appeared since; that’s not good considering that he was easily the best arm in the DSL this year. Reyes got three short “opener” starts of 2-3 innings and was decent. Reynoso got two starts and got shelled. Lunar had a 4-inning no hit performance and a 5-inning start with just one hit allowed.

Next guy to get Promoted: Feliz, maybe Lunar

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Vera.

Bullpen comments: Probably the best bullpen arm is Jose Sanchez, not much else to report.

That’s it for August 2024. We’ll probably wait until the end of the minor league season in the early parts of September to do an end of season review.

Written by Todd Boss

September 3rd, 2024 at 4:18 pm

Posted in Majors Pitching,Minor League Pitching

End of July 2024 Rotation Reviews

24 comments

Could Lord be the next guy promoted to the majors?? Photo via threads.com IG

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

Important links for this analysis:

Big Board:
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

We’ll start with the Majors.

Rotation as of 7/31/24: Irvin, Gore, Parker, Corbin, Herz

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

Changes since end of last Month: None. Same five guys, for better or worse.

We did however get some distressing news on the two guys we thought we’d have back by now, Grey and Cavalli. Grey was yanked after a dip in velocity in a rehab start, given another MRI and he’s got a UCL issue. He thought maybe it was just a brace insertion, but on July 25th he got Tommy John surgery. The timing of the injury is bad; he’ll miss the rest of 2024 and probably is no guarantee to even see 2025 on the field. Meanwhile, Cavalli got the flu, which started him back to ground zero in terms of his rehab, then he suffered a “dead arm” after coming back, and we havn’t seen him in weeks. Um, its now August 2024, he had the surgery in March of 2023. So we’re now at 16 months post surgery and counting. So much for a 12-month recovery period. Lastly, we’ve heard jack and sh*t about Williams, our most valuable 2024 trade piece lit on fire after his flexor issue. The last update I’ve seen as July 19th “light throwing” activities. Great, so he’ll be ready for October.

Rotation Observations: So, as for the guys we DO have in the rotation: Irvin took a step back in June, going 2-2 with a 4.75 ERA. Corbin blew up after a couple of acceptable months, pitching to a 7.27 ERA last month. Gore had an uncharacteristically awful July, walking 16 in 26 innings and going 0-2 with a 7.62 ERA. Not good. Parker? Same story: he went from a 3.15 ERA last month to a 7.89 ERA this month. Lastly we have the new guy Herz, who improved a ton from June and threw 5 starts at a 4.04 ERA with a 26/5 K/BB ratio last month. Interesting.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: So, Yes I know Corbin is awful, but this team seems hell bent on having him soak up innings until his $35M/year contract is over. If someone was healthy tomorrow, I think Herz may still make way, but on the other hand his promising July tells me he’s improving and should be given more time. However, none of our 3 injured starters is seemingly coming back any time soon, and as we’ll see in the next section, nobody from AAA is pushing for a promotion right now.

Bullpen comments: Two of our best relievers were moved in Harvey and Floro. We wish we could have moved Finnegan, but an ill-timed blow-up inning likely scared off the suiters (Baltimore? Philadelphia?) and cost us some more prospects (at least he’s still under Arb control for another year). In the place of the departed guys, the team added wavier claim Salazar and brought up newly converted reliever Adon. Get ready for some reliever blowups the rest of the way: Rainey has an ERA in the 6s, Ferrer in the 7s, and the whole middle relief corps (JBarnes, Garcia, Adon, Salazar) are middling 4.00 something ERA guys who are all the definition of a replacement level arm.

AAA Rochester

Rotation as of 7/31/24: Rutledge, Ward, Lord, Alvarez, Luckham

Rotation as of 6/30/24: Rutledge, Watkins, Ward, Lord, Alvarez

Changes since end of last month: Watkins made 3 starts then hit the DL, replaced by AA-call up Luckham, who joins Lord and Alvarez as 3/5ths of the AAA rotation promoted up in the last couple of months.

Rotation Observations: We’ll go in order of seniority. Rutledge was awful in July, has been awful all season, and it seems to me the scouting reports on the guy are holding true; he’s a 2pitch guy who needs to be moved to relief. Ward made 4 starts to a 4.04 ERA (which … normally you’d say, oh that’s not so bad), but he only threw 17.2 innings in those four starts and he managed to walk 17 in those 17.2 innings. This team wasted a roster spot on him all year last season to see what they’ve got: I’ll tell you what you’ve got: a 27yr old guy who may have been a promising starter once, but i’m not sure what you have now. Alvarez’s foray into AAA has not been good: 13ip, only 7 punch-outs and he’s very hittable (.351 BAA). The 2023 Nats minor league pitcher of the year who appears on almost zero prospect lists may be exhibiting why: its likely AA was the limit of his competence. Luckham’s first two AAA starts have been blow-outs: he doesn’t seem ready. Which leaves us with Lord: the 18th rounder who’s now a 24yr old in AAA holding his own. He threw 5 starts, 3.86 ERA, solid K/BB numbers, looks like he belongs. Amazing. He was the 531st player drafted in 2022, a college reliever out of a middling baseball school.

Next guy to get Promoted: Amazingly, its Lord on merit. No, i don’t think they’re in a hurry to promote him, but he’s most deserving. Certainly our 40-man starters aren’t.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: I think Luckham is overmatched right now and goes back down when an opportunity presents or when Watkins comes back from DL. Alvarez is also on short leash. If it were me i’d look at both Rutledge and Ward in the bullpen, but no reason to do that now unless a slew of AA starters make noise to move up.

Bullpen comments: Salazar already got called up; he didn’t give up a run in AAA after his acquisition. La Sorsa continues to pitch well in Rochester and looks like he deserves a promotion; ~~he’s on the 40-man~~ (post-publish correction; he was outrighted last Dec) so maybe if the Nats get tired of Rainey sucking they’ll give him another shot. Rico Garcia is a 30yr old closer in AAA who we got as a MLFA from Oakland; he was solid in July and may merit a 9/1 callup to see if he’s worth extending.

AA Harrisburg

Rotation as of 7/31/24: Cuevas, Solesky, Lara, Theophile, Stuart (with two spot starts from Reyes)

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

Changes since end of last month: Luckham promoted, replaced in the rotation by Reyes spot starts until we acquired Stuart in trade for Winker.

Rotation Observations: New acquisition Stuart got the 7/31 start; gave up 3 runs in 5 innings for his new team and reportedly sat 97. Ok, that sounds good. Solesky continues to keep the ERA down but have crummy peripherals (11 Ks in 26 ip) and i’m beginning to suspect the team doesn’t really plan on doing much with him. Lara: 4 starts, 2.63 ERA but interestingly just 10 Ks in 24ip. Great that Lara (just 21) is more than holding his own in AA but where’d his strikeouts go? The ERA seems like a mirage, since his BAA is in the upper .280s Theophile looks decent: 4 starts, 3.18 ERA, but i’d like to see him go deeper in games (just 17 IP in those 4 starts). Lastly we have Cuevas, who had a 6.75 ERA in July, which is about in line with his season ERA. His peripherals showed he was probably a little unlucky this month, so the team will continue to run with him.

From the DL; we saw some rehab starts from Saenz this month; if he comes back someone likely makes way. No idea what is going on with Henry. Lucas Knowles got put on the full-season DL which usually means “major arm injury.”

Next guy to get Promoted: Dare I say Lara? They’d never push a 21yr old to AAA, not given that the big club is 12 games under .500 and tanking fast. Solesky continues to be too old for AA and in need of a challenge, but I wonder if the team thinks he could survive in AAA given his lack of K rate.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Continues to be Cuevas. But they’ve stuck with him all this time with an ERA in the 6s so I can’t see them making a rotation change here.

Bullpen comments: Grissom was promoted earlier this season and he’s pushing for another one; he had 8 appearances and gave up just 5 hits and zero runs in July. Brzycky is back and continues to be a K machine: 13 in 9 innings since returning from a long DL stint. Remember, he’s on the 40-man so the team likely bumps him up to AAA soon.

High-A Wilmington

Rotation as of 7/31/24: Atencio, Cornelio, Shuman, Davis, Susana

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

Changes since end of last month: Caceres, Young bumped out of rotation, replaced by the promotions for Davis and Susana.

Rotation Observations: Shuman continued to confound this observer as to why he’s still in High-A: he’s 26, has little trouble getting these guys out, and should be in AA. 2.40 ERA for the month to go with his CAREER 3.21 ERA in the minors. Atencio was solid this month: 1.82 ERA even if his peripherals made that figure probably a little lucky. Caceres and Young both had ERAs in the 6s, earning their fates to be dropped out of the rotation and into dreaded LR/SS territory, but this was a long time coming for Caceres in particular. Susana was fantastic in his High-A debut; 3 starts, sub 1.00 whip, 2.40 ERA. Can’t ask for more than that out of the 20 year old. Newly promoted Davis only got one start. Lastly we come to Cornelio, who had an ERA in the 7s for the month, a 5.76 ERA for the season, and a 5.21 ERA for his career. I’m beginning to wonder what the team sees here. He had similarly mediocre numbers all last year, but got promoted anyways, and now continues to post crummy numbers the next level up. He was a 7th rounder with a decent bonus but nothing massive, but the team gives him chances like he’s a 7-figure guy. Weird.

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. (I did not change a word of this from last month’s post).

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Caceres; 24, almost no IFA bonus, can’t get guys out in Low-A, a 2017 signee who’s near the end of his tenure here. He may make way if someone needs a promotion from Fredericksburg. After that, Cornelio.

Bullpen comments: Here’s Cronin’s line for the month: 8 2/3rds innings, 3 hits, 0 walks 1 run allowed and 13 strikeouts. As a 26yr old former 40-man member. What the f*ck is he still doing in High-A?? I wrote nearly this exact same thing last month too. Past Cronin, there’s a slew of relievers who are unhittable in Wilmington right now: Miguel Gomez 13/1 K/BB ratio last month, Richard Gausch had a 0.88 whip last month, Chance Huff had a 0.84 ERA. So lots of options to move up if the need arises.

Low-A/Fredericksburg

Rotation as of 7/31/24: Sthele, Polanco, Tepper, Romero, Sykora ( plus a slew of spot starts from random players and two Saenz rehab starts)

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

Changes since end of last month: Susana and Davis promoted, replaced by Tepper and Romero (who started the year in low-A but was demoted early and has been in FCL most of season). Diaz had a couple of spot starts and was released.

Rotation Observations: Davis and Susana were (finally) promoted after both showing they had nothing left to prove in low-A. Sthele is now doing the same, giving up just 2 ER in 21 July innings. Sykora’s month might be even more impressive: in 4 starts he struck out 31 guys in 17 innings and had a .136 BAA. Finally, a high-round prep draftee who’s performing. Tepper only has one start so SSS, and Romero just got promoted and didn’t pitch in July. Polanco has struggled and may be the one who makes way for newly acquired Alex Clemmey, though they could also go to a 6-man rotation and keep giving the likes of Tepper and Romero starts.

Next guy to get Promoted: Is it Sykora? I’m not sure what else he needs to do to show he can get low-A hitters out, and they just promoted Susana who is of similar age and had similar low-A numbers. Why not? Push him up for the last month of the season.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Sthele has bought himself some time with a solid July but has generally struggled this season. As noted above, I think Polanco makes way for Clemmey in the short term. Polanco was an IFA signing in 2021 with such a small bonus figure that it wasn’t reported, meaning that the team has almost nothing “invested” in him, and often these kinds of data points come into play with these decisions.

Bullpen comments: Matthew Bollenbacher’s month stood out to me: 16 Ks/ 0 walks in 10 innings. So did Merrick Baldo, 14/3 K/BB in 8ip and zero runs allowed.

Rookie/FCL Nationals

Rotation as of 7/25/24 (end of FCL Season): Colon, Portorreal, CSanchez, BRomero, and Saenz rehab

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

Changes since end of last month: None really. The FCL rotation was basically the same all year.

Rotation Observations: Romero crushed it in July; 20/2 K/BB in 14ip, which is why they promoted him to Low-A the moment the FCL season ended. Colon and Portorreal also had nice ending months, each with an ERA in the 1s. Sanchez struggled a bit, probably costing himself a shot at a promotion this season. Interestingly Aldo Ramirez, coming back from a long-injury, is now technically assigned to FCL and had an era in the 10s for July, which included one spot start. I’m afraid he just hasn’t come back from injury and may be a lost cause.

Next guy to get Promoted: Romero already promoted.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Nobody pitched egregiously bad to get cut here.

Bullpen comments: The best relievers from the month was Angel Roman, and he was already promoted to Low-A.

Rookie/DSL Nationals

Rotation as of 7/31/24: De la Cruz, Reynoso, Vera, Feliz, Thomas, with Juan Reyes as an “opener.”

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

Rotation Observations: MILB’s dsl nats stats page can’t do splits, and i’m probably already at 3000 words, so we’ll use full season stats to discuss. The DSL rotation has been relatively stable all year, with just 7 guys getting all the starts. And we’re seeing some widly crazy stat lines. The Ace continues to be Feliz, who has a 48/10 k/BB and a sub 3 era for the season. Jhoan Thomas has 24 ks and 24 walks in 26IP yet somehow has a sub 4 era. Now for the funny lines: Vera has 35 walks and 17Ks in 19ip. Yeah, that’s a little wild. De La Cruz Reynoso all have middling ERAs in he 6s with bad peripherals. Not much else to write home about with the 2024 DSL rotation. Hernandez seems to have been removed from the rotation with this 26 walks in 13ip, and Reyes has 5 starts but only 6IP so he’s being used as an opener of sorts.

Next guy to get Promoted: Feliz.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Vera. Just can’t walk 2 guys an inning.

Bullpen comments: nothing worth mentioning.

That’s it for July 2024.

Written by Todd Boss

August 2nd, 2024 at 9:52 am

Posted in Majors Pitching,Minor League Pitching

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Nats End of Aug 2025 Rotation Check-In

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Nats Rotations End of June 2025 Check-In

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2024 Wrap Up of Rotations with 2025 Predictions

End of August 2024 Rotation check-ins

End of July 2024 Rotation Reviews

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