Nationals Arm Race

Will Crowe gets the call. Photo via SportsTalk

Word today that Strasburg is having surgery on his wrist and is heading to 60-day DL, effectively ending his season.  Wil Crowe becomes the latest Nats top-10 prospect (behind Kieboom, Garcia, Romero ) to get called up this season and attempt to keep the team afloat.  By most rankings, the Nats current #1, #2, and #4 prospects are now active (plus wherever you think Romero ranks, anywhere between 10 and 14 on most boards).  Suddenly its looking like a youth movement in Washington.  (side note: our farm system is going to be dead last next year if all these guys exhaust rookie eligiblity).

Is Strasburg’s injury unsurpassable for this team?  Eh, probably not; he was already hurt but in his absence the team is sputtering along playing about .400 ball.

Of course, in the 2020 crazy season, .400 ball only puts them like a game out of the wild card.  Eight teams out of the NL make it, meaning that ST Louis (currently sitting at 7-8) is in playoff position.  So the Nats at 9-13 are … 1.5 games back?  My math is a little fuzzy on “games back” logic right now given differing numbers of games played.  So a weekend sweep suddenly rockets the team back into play off position.

The larger question is this: The Nats are losing piece after piece, and I wonder how long they conintue to hold on.  Both lefty relievers are done, their #2 starter done, their FA second baseman signing done.   They were already down a 5th starter thanks to Joe Ross‘ opt out.  I mean, i’m glad to see all these prospets coming up; its great to be able to actually see these guys play.  But man, can this team hold on?

Luckily for the Nats … the “class” of the division (Atlanta) is just 4 games ahead, and themselves seem to be falling apart too.  Maybe its a race of attrition until October.

Romero gets the call. Photo via milb.com

I first saw this tidbit on Keith Law‘s chat today and was kind of shocked.  Then i confirmed it via the nats transaction page; Seth Romero has been called up.  Thanks to a spate of injuries and ineffectiveness-driven-dl trips (ahem Sean Doolittle), the Nats bullpen suddenly has zero left handers, and Romero has reportedly been impressing the Nats brass in Fredericksburg.

So he’s up.  Big board updated as well as the Draft tracker for all our still-signed draftees (everyone is now either Washington, Fredericksburg or XST for 2020).

So, part of me is not entirely surprised at this move … despite his limited minor’s experience, he’s rule-5 eligible this coming off-season (as is all the rest of the college-aged 2017 draftees, most notably Wil Crowe), so it seemed  highly likely that the team would be adding him at some point anyway.  He’s far enough past the deadline to ensure an extra year of control.  And they have a need.  I suppose they could have tapped a few of the other options they have in Fredericksburg (Matt Cronin and Nick Wells are both lefty and both relievers) … but having Romero up seems to give a higher-ceiling guy in the pen.

I gotta say; quite a turn of fortune for Romero after all he’s gone through.  Can’t wait to see him throw against real MLB hitters.

this by the way makes for the following roster chagnes:

• 28/28 on active roster: Freeman, Doolittle to DL, Harris back, Romero called up.
• 38/40: Romero added to 40-man
• 57/60 on extended; no change here.

Samuel Infante has some pretty wide variety of initial rankings in the various prospect lists. Photo via BaseballFactory.com

Just a couple days after Fangraphs announced their mid-season updates, MLBPipeline did as well.

No changes from their Mar 2020 list other than to include three of our 2020 draft picks.  Lets talk about where they got inserted:

• 2020 1st rounder Cade Cavalli slots in at #4 in the system, which is exactly where BA and Fangraphs put him, and behind the exact top 3 that everyone has for the system (Kieboom, Garcia, Rutledge).  Consistent.
• 2020 2nd rounder Cole Henry slots in at #6 in our system per MLB, about where BA has him but ahead of where Fangraphs put him.  I think i’m ok with this ranking, given that he’s behind Wil Crowe but ahead of two very young starter prospects in Eddy Yean and Andry Lara.
• 2020 supp 2nd rounder Samuel Infante comes in at #26, well down the list and well below either BA or fangraphs.  #26 in a system is nearly non-prospect territory, and puts him below Jackson Cluff.  Who would you rather have?  Infante or Cluff?

The addition of these three guys bumps the following players off the back end of hte top 30:   Jakson Reetz, Jhonatan German and … Nick Raquet.

Henry makes fangraph’s top 10. Photo via ai.com

A small diversion from the Nats increasingly awful 4-7 (the equivalent of 11-19 in a full season) start to the abbreviated season…currently in line for the 5th draft pick in 2021 and somehow missing the “basically everyone makes the playoffs” 2020 post-season.

We posted a couple weeks ago about Baseball America’s updated prospect rankings with our 2020 draftees … now by inference Fangraphs has done the same.  They announced today that “The Board” has been updated with bonus amounts (which must have been an amazing amount of work to do, especially to track down bonuses for post 11th rounders and for all the random July 2nd picks who don’t exactly go out of their way to announce paltry bonus figures), and I noticed our 2020 picks included in their system rankings.

So, here’s some quick notes on our 2020 draftees and how they slotted in:

• 1st rounder Cade Cavalli pops up as our 4th ranked prospect, right after Jackson Rutledge.  This is basically what BA did as well.
• 2nd rounder Cole Henry is ranked 10th, as compared to BA’s 5th.  This puts him just ahead of the likes of Tim Cate and Seth Romero and seem a more appropriate ranking spot than the lofty heights that BA put him.
• 2nd round supp pick Samuel Infante is placed 18th as compared to BA’s 10th.  This puts him well below Yasiel Antuna and right in the same range as Jackson Cluff.
• 3rd rounder UCLA closer Holden Powell did not make the top 24 ranked players, as compared to BA’s ranking of 14.  This mean’s Holden is well below the other relievers ranked in our system, including Matt Cronin, James Bourque and Tyler Dyson.  Again, a more sane ranking than what BA did.

Otherwise Fangraphs’ rankings are unchanged from their Dec 2019 ranking, which means they continue to exclude some names from their list altogether that some Nats fans may call out.  Guys like Jake Irvin, Jackson Tetreault, Cole Freeman, Tres Barrera, Ben Braymer, Jhonatan German and Steven Fuentes get no love from the Fangraphs duo of Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel.