Nationals Arm Race

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Archive for December, 2022

2023 MLB Draft Order Finalized with Eovaldi signing

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With the last Qualifying Offer-laden signing occurring yesterday (Nathan Eovaldi going to the profligate Texas Rangers, who have bought themselves an entire new rotation this offseason), the 2023 draft order is now complete. Major input to the top of the draft order was determined by the results of the Draft Lottery a few weeks back, and then with the announcement of this year’s free draft picks for cheap-skate teams Competitive Balance Picks.

The final 2023 Draft Order is now uploaded to this Google XLS. It shows the original 1st round order, the post-draft lottery order, all the picks gained and lost due to signings etc.

As it stands, the Nats picks are:

  • 1st round: #2 overall post lottery
  • 2nd round: #39 overall. this pick had the chance to slightly move up if one of the comp-A round teams decided to sign a FA … but the only one of them even thinking about competing in 2023 seems to be Seattle, who did not sign anyone.
  • 3rd round: #70. this pick moved up seven slots thanks to the eight teams who gave up their 2nd round picks to sign QO players.
  • 4th round: #99, from the original projected #107. Again, moved up 8 slots due to 8 lost 2nd rounders.
  • 5th round: #134; moved up 10 spots due to two additional lost comp picks from players re-signing as QO laden players.
  • 6th round: #161, moved up 3 more spots thanks to three teams (San Diego, Yankees, and Philadelphia) who gave up their 5th rounders.

No word yet on bonus pools, but the #2 overall team last year (Arizona) had more than $15M in total bonus pool and an $8.1M figure for its 2nd overall pick, which should net a couple of very good prospects. #2 overall was worth $8.1, while the #39 overall pick was worth a hair over $2M. So that’s what we can expect from the 2023 draft.

So, four picks in the top 100 for the 2023 draft.

Written by Todd Boss

December 28th, 2022 at 9:20 am

Posted in Draft

State of the Rotations at this point in the Off-Season

30 comments

So, the Nats have made some moves to theoretically shore up the rotations. I thought it was useful to take a quick gander at our starter depth and take a glance at what may happen.

Relying on the Big Board as always, lets do some thought exercises and think about the rotations for 2023 in all the full season teams.

MLB Projected Rotation

There are 11 Starters on the current 40-man roster, but only 5 rotation slots. But we also know we have serious injury concerns with some starters, some guys who are likely swingmen, some who are destined for A-ball.

  • Strasburg, if healthy
  • Corbin, if effective
  • Grey
  • Cavalli
  • Gore
  • Williams, newly acquired and apparently promised a rotation spot

My guess as to what happens is this: Strasburg is still hurt and goes on DL to start season, leaving us with the Corbin/Grey/Gore/Williams/Cavalli rotation (probably in that order). Now, both Cavalli and Gore had injury issues last season; if they cannot go, look for Ward, Espino, and Abbott to fill in (though honestly, Espino and Abbott’s splits as relievers were so much better than as starters that i’d look to keep them there).

This also assumes the team is going to continue to let Corbin pitch to a 7 ERA. I’m not sure they continue to do that forever; at some point, especially if someone presents coming out of AAA as worthy, we’ll see him either dumped to the pen or (more likely) released.

Now. Does the team seek out another starter to bolster this group? Only if they KNOW that there’s injury issues that likely lead to Grey/Cavalli/Gore starting on the DL, because otherwise they’re out of room. Lets say they bought another FA starter; who makes way? Not a healthy Strasburg or Corbin; that’s $60M of payroll. Not Williams. Not Grey; we didn’t trade for the guy to dump him in the bullpen. And certainly not Gore or Cavalli, who have nothing left to prove in AAA.

AAA Projected Rotation

Based on our current 40-man starters, their option status, and their capabilities, along with who we’ve signed as MLFAs (and assuming these guys don’t have opt-outs), here’s what our AAA rotation looks like right now:

  • Adon
  • Irvin
  • Alexy
  • Kilome (pretty sure he’s still with us as a 22 MLFA signing)
  • Henry (injured in 2022)
  • Tetreault (injured in 2022)
  • Lee (injured in 2022)
  • T.Romero (just resigned for 2023)

So. This being said: Henry had TOS is is out. Tetreault had a shoulder fracture and may or may not be out. Lee had a flexor sprain (often a precursor for Tommy John) and may not be reliable. So this may be thinner than we think.

Adon deserves to be in AAA. Irvin may not really “deserve” to be in AAA based on a 3.83 ERA in AA, but he’s on the 40-man and needs to be challenged. I’m pretty sure Kilome (a MLFA signing from LAST off-season but who is still listed as active and wasn’t on any MLFA lists) is here. That, plus newly signed MLFA Alexy and the re-signing of Romero makes five. But this is thin; the LR in AAA is Troop and his 2022 numbers were not good. I suspect we’ll be seeing a bunch more MLFA signings here, with perhaps Irvin being pushed back down to AA to start.

AA Projected Rotation

Here’s where things get thin, fast.

  • Cate
  • Reyes
  • Herrera
  • Parker
  • Shuman
  • Knowles

Cate at this point sounds like an innings eater in AA. Reyes and Herrera are long-serving org arms who also sound like Innings eaters in AA. If it was me, I’d be pushing up three starters out of High-A, all of whom pitched to really solid numbers in 2022. Parker posted a 2.88 ERA in 24 starts in High-A and absolutely will be in AA. Shuman hit the DL in July and never came off; the WP reported it was due to “elbow soreness.” Uh oh. Well, if he’s healthy he was solid in High-A in 2022, repeating the level, and has nothing left to prove there. Lastly you have Knowles, who had a 3.19 ERA as a swing man type with 13 starts. Why not.

If all these 6 are healthy, look for Reyes or Knowles to be a swing man type, maybe have Irvin duck into AA, or find another MLFA. I can’t see another High-A guy deserving of promotion.

Wow, this looks like a weak rotation for a AA team though.

High-A projected rotation

  • Rutledge
  • Cuevas
  • Theophile
  • Merrill?
  • Saenz (maybe a reliever/long man now)
  • Gausch?
  • Collins
  • Alvarez
  • Hernandez (injured all of 2022)
  • Dyson (injured all of 2022)
  • Denaburg maybe?

Here’s where things get harder to predict. Rutledge, newly added to the 40-man and owner of a 4.90 ERA in low-A last year (“but he improved in August!”) just has to be promoted. Cuevas and Theophile are holdovers from the 2022 rotation, looking to improve, and I’d guess they start in the rotation as well.

After that, its a crap shoot. Merrill and Saenz were both kicked out of the 2022 rotation after sucking. Do they get another shot or are they Relievers now? Gausch started the 2022 season as a AA starter, got lit up, then suddenly was a reliever in High-A. Does he return to the rotation? Collins was an already too old for the level swing guy with solid low-A numbers; he could be given a shot in the rotation. Alvarez had great K numbers, prompting his promotion to High-A, but he seems more like a bullpen guy as a lefty.

You have two formerly solid looking starters in Hernandez and Dyson who missed all of 2022 but who showed 2021 promise at the level; they should (if healthy) slide right back in. Lastly you have to look at the rest of low-A to see who should be moved up … and the pickings are slim. Denaburg at this point is too old for Low-A and its time to see if he can ever become anything; i’d move him to High-A and if he can’t cut it move him to the pen. Can’t make much of a case for anyone else out of last year’s Low-A rotation to move forward … which will make the Low-A rotation super easy.

Low-A Rotation

  • Susana
  • Bennett
  • Cornelio
  • Young?
  • Lara
  • Caceres
  • Atencio
  • Aldonis
  • Ramirez

We have to lead with Susana, who soon will be our best SP prospect once Cavalli graduates.

From there, I have to think at least the two top college Junior draftees from 2022 (2nd rounder Bennett and 7th rounder Cornelio) will be in low-A rotation. Perhaps even 11th rounder Luke Young.

After that, you have several holdovers from 2022 in Lara and Caceres. Lara is still ostensibly one of our better prospects and he’s super young, so he’s definitely starting. That’s six already, before talking about two guys who also were in the low-A rotation last year but who could get bumped to LR roles in Atencio and Aldonis.

Post publishing, KW in the comments reminded me about Aldo Ramirez, who we got from Boston in trade but who has been hurt. He was looking really solid for us in Low-A in 2021 before getting hurt and should start here in 2023 with an eye on moving up fast.


Did I forget anyone? What do you think; do we still need some reinforcements?

Written by Todd Boss

December 15th, 2022 at 2:41 pm

Nats acquire Ward in Rule-5

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Mar 26, 2021; Port Charlotte, Florida, USA; Boston Red Sox starting pitcher Thaddeus Ward (97) throws a pitch during the first inning against the Tampa Bay Rays at Charlotte Sports Park. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

As widely expected, given the fact that they nearly lost 110 games in 2022 and they have precious little in terms of starting pitching prospects right now (amazingly, given how pitcher heavy they’ve drafted prior to 2022), the Nats took advantage of having the #1 pick in the rule-5 draft to select a promising AA Pitcher from Boston named Thad Ward.

(somewhat surprisingly to this observer, the Nats did not select a second player in the Rule5, nor did any other team, despite having an open slot on our 40-man).

You can find plenty of content on Ward, given that he went 1-1 in this draft and prospect writers like the MLBpipeline and Fangraphs guys are starving for content right now. But I thought i’d pipe in here with some thoughts.

First off, Ward’s numbers in 2022 at AA were excellent: 7 starts, 2.43 ERA, 41/14 K/BB in 33.1 IP, 1.26 whip. He’s coming off of TJ so his numbers were limited. By way of comparison to the a couple of National’s AA starters of note in 2022:

  • Thad Ward: 2022 AA stats: 7 starts, 2.43 ERA, 41/14 K/BB in 33.1 IP, 1.26 whip
  • Jake Irvin, 2022 AA stats: 15 starts, 4.79 ERA, 78/20 K/BB in 73.1 IP, 1.17 whip
  • Cole Henry, 2022 AA stats: 7 starts, 0.76 ERA, 28/9 K/BB in 23.2 Ip, 0.59 whip
  • Evan Lee 2022 AA Stats: 7 starts, 3.60 ERA, 37/15 K/BB in 30 IP, 1.33 whip

So, interesting comparison side by side especially to Irvin and Lee; he’s got quite similar numbers to Lee, better numbers in fewer innings than Irvin. His scouting reports were excellent pre TJ injury, and it seemed like he was well on his way to Boston’s rotation before getting hurt.

So, where does he fit in? What can he do?

Right now, our SP depth looks something like this, in this order:

  1. Strasburg
  2. Corbin*
  3. Grey
  4. Gore
  5. Cavalli
  6. Ward
  7. Adon
  8. Irvin
  9. Rutledge

That’s it. We have guys like Espino, Abbott as Long Relievers/Spot Starters, but their reliever splits are so much better that this team desperately doesn’t want to give them starts.

So, of our depth:

  1. Strasburg: TOS recurrence, no guarantee he’ll be healthy in 2023
  2. Corbin*: He had a 6.31 ERA last year.
  3. Grey: 5.02 ERA, worse FIP last year and may not be as good as we think.
  4. Gore: ended the year hurt, never got off the DL post acquisition. Promising of course … but unproven at the MLB level
  5. Cavalli: one start, got lit up, hit the DL.
  6. Ward: coming off TJ, never been above AA, has to stay on MLB roster or be returned.
  7. Adon: 1-12 with an ERA north of 7.00 last year, needs to figure it out in AAA.
  8. Irvin: newly added to 40-man, needs to prove himself at AAA first.
  9. Rutledge: never pitched above A-ball

Not too promising.

Lets assume that Strasburg is still on the DL: that puts Ward right in line for the 5th starter spot right now. Is the team going to do more acquisitions to acquire depth? Perhaps. It wouldn’t surprise me to see Mike Rizzo buy a veteran starter on the cheap (say, 1yr/$10M guy), who slots in at #4 in the rotation and (if everyone is healthy) pushes Ward to the pen. That’s fine: he can work as an Espino/Abbott LR type. It’d be a waste to turn him into a reliever now, especially coming off TJ with a fragile elbow and the tendency to over-throw in shorter relief stints. But that’s the thing: who wants to bet me a dollar that more than one of the current projected top 5 starters isn’t hurt to open 2023? That’d put Ward right back in the rotation, even if we do a FA acquisition. Works for me; lets see what he can do.

All in all, a promising looking signing who looks to be a big part of 2023 for this team.

Written by Todd Boss

December 8th, 2022 at 10:14 am

Nats get #2 pick in Lottery!

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Honestly, I thought we were gonna get screwed.

Tonight’s draft lottery ended up giving us the #2 overall pick, out of a best case of #1 overall and worst case of #7 overall.

Final results:

1. Pirates (T-1)
2. Nationals (T-1)
3. Tigers (6)
4. Rangers (7)
5. Twins (13)
6. A’s (T-1)
7. Reds (4)
8. Royals (5)
9. Rockies (8)
10. Marlins (9)
11. Angels (10)
12. D-backs (11)
13. Cubs (12)
14. Red Sox (14)
15. White Sox (15)
16. Giants (16)
17. Orioles (17)
18. Brewers (18)

So Pittsburgh (which had the same chance as us to get 1-1) get the first pick, we get 2nd, then the Tigers move up a few slots, as does Texas. Oakland gets slightly screwed, dropping from #3 to #6, and the Reds/Royals both get pushed down a bit as well,

Meanwhile, Minnesota is the big lottery winner, going from #13 to #5, meaning they’re netting themselves a super good 1st rounder in 2023 after a decent season.

With the #2 overall pick, The Nats are nearly going to have their pick of the draft class. And, with the cheap-skate Pittsburgh team ahead of them, its highly likely they cut a deal with the player at 1-1 to spread money around, meaning we may very well endup with the best talent in the draft.

At this point, there’s a few names that are crystalizing for the top of the 2023 draft; here’s a quick snippet on some of them.

College guys:

Dylan Crews, OF/RF LSU. Opted out of 2020 draft as a projected 2nd rounder, now might go 1-1. Hit .362/.453/.663 as a freshman. Sept 2022 #1 player in the class.
Jacob Gonzalez, SS Ole Miss. Bonafide SS who hit .355/.443/.561 with 12 home runs and more walks (38) than strikeouts (34) his freshman year. #1 prospect in class Dec 2021.
Chase Dollander, RHP Tennessee. 2nd team AA in 2022, mid 90sfb with good off-speed. Helium guy mid 2022, not sure why he’s jumped other candidates.
Jacob Wilson, SS Grand Canyon. All WAC as a freshman, starred for Team USA summer 2022. Stock increasing late 2022, rising up.

Prep guys:

Max Clark, OF, Franklin (Ind.) Community HS. Vanderbilt commit, lefty hitting OF prospect #1 prep player in the class as of mid 2021. Went 5-5 one day at Area codes. #1 prep player in draft per BA Sept 2022.
Walker Jenkins OF, South Brunswick HS, Southport, N.C. 18U national team as underclassman in 2021. #1 HS player in class per Fangraphs Dec 2021, #2 prep in class per BA Sept 2022.
Thomas White, LHP Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass. Uncommitted. Highly polished LHP starter.
Dylan Cupp, SS Cedartown (Ga.) HS. Mississippi State commit. Top SS in draft.
Walter Ford, 3B/RHP Hoover (Ala.) HS. 2-way threat, mid-upper 90s on the fastball and great power. Alabama commit. 2021 18U National team as underclassman.

Imagine Gonzalez getting picked and joining our suite of top-end hitters in the middle minors, all set to matriculate at the same time? More of a hitter’s draft than pitcher’s draft right now, but there’s also some arms in the mix for 1-1. I don’t like Dollander as much honestly, i’d rather have a bigger arm with more of a clear shot at 1-1.

Written by Todd Boss

December 6th, 2022 at 9:39 pm

Posted in Draft

Baseball America 2023 Short List Released

23 comments

Rutledge continues to impress scouts with h is 4.90 ERA in low-A. photo via 3rdmanin.com

Hat tip to Luke Erickson and Nationalsprospects.com, because I had no idea that Baseball America had released its organizational top 10 list yesterday. This is incredibly irritating to me as a Baseball America subscriber; I somehow failed to get an email notification of this event, which means I missed the chat they held yesterday, which would have allowed me to ask the most obvious question, “Why in the hell would you still have Jackson Rutledge in your top 10??”

But, more on that later.

BA releases its top 10 in the fall, then works on its Prospect handbook for several months, and releases a full top 30 usually in Late Jan/Early Feb. So this is just a preview of what we’ll get in a few months.

Here’s the top 10, and in parentheses i’ve listed where BA had the player ranked in their last 2022 ranking (released on 8/10/22 after all draft and trade machinations).

  1. James Wood, OF (#3)
  2. Robert Hassell, OF (#2)
  3. Elijah Green, OF (#4)
  4. Cade Cavalli, RHP (#5)
  5. Brady House, SS (#6)
  6. Crithian Vaquero (#7)
  7. Jarlin Susana, RHP (#8)
  8. Jeremy De La Rosa, OF (#10)
  9. Jackson Rutledge, RHP (#9)
  10. T.J. White, OF (#29)

So, some comments.

  • Their #1 prospect in August was, of course, C.J. Abrams. It must have been published during the 24 hours that dude was at AAA before getting called back to the majors and losing his rookie eligibility.
  • In BA’s eyes, Wood did enough in a month at our Low-A post trade acquisition to jump over Hassell to be our #1 prospect. Its the first ranking i’ve seen with Wood at #1.
  • However, in all honesty, BA has the top 3 guys correct, and then the next two guys correct. A consistent top 5 with basically every other shop since these guys arrived in 2022.
  • Not too much to quibble about with Vaquero at #6, or Susana at #7. Prospects361 had Susana slightly higher, but this is in line with where MLBpipeline has these guys as well.
  • De la Rosa: he’s been in the 8-10 range in every ranking i’ve seen since the 2022 trade deadline.
  • I’ll jump over the elephant in the room to note that in the last two months, BA has decided that T.J. White has gone from a fringe, useless prospect (A guy in low A ranked #29 is not someone you’d expect to ever amount to anything), to our top 10. White’s low-A numbers: .258/.353/.432, 10 homers in 92 games and 329 ABs/382 PAs. But, wait for it … 104 strikeouts in those 382 PAs. 104! that’s more than 27% K rate. I mean, hell, for 27% K rate in the low minors i’d expect a homer at least every 20 PAs. But we got 10 homers in 382 PAs, or one homer every 38 PAs. that’s awful. That’s one homer a week. That’s 10 punch outs for every homer. That’s a lot.

So we get to Jackson Rutledge.

Rutledge, who had 20 starts in Low-A as a fourth year pro out of a Juco. A 1st rounder college draftee in his 4th pro season, still in Low-A b/c he has yet to prove he can cut it any higher. Rutledge, who pitched to a 4.90 ERA in 20 starts in low-A, with a 99/29 K/BB ratio (so, not even a K/inning!). 1.39 whip. Averaged less than 5 innings a start against a bunch of 20 and 21 yr olds.

Rutledge. This is a top 10 prospect in our system. Not Henry (who’s hurt yea but dude was still in AAA at the same damn age). Not Cruz or Lara, or Bennett or any of the 2022 draftees who immediately debuted at a higher level. Rutledge.

Some people were like, “oh he finished strong.” No he didn’t. His last 2 starts were the 4 ER in 5 IP variety.

He had 20 starts in Low-A: any guesses as to how many quality starts that comprised? Eight. He had 8 QS in 20 low-A starts this year. A guy with his pedigree should be dominating Low-A of course, but i mean, not even a 50% QS rate? That’s a pretty low bar.

And now he’s on the 40-man. Did he prove he had mastered Low-A in 2022? I don’t think so; if his bio started with anything else besides “1st round pick …” he’d be closer to a release than a promotion.

But here we are. Rant off.

Written by Todd Boss

December 1st, 2022 at 12:55 pm

Posted in Prospects