{"id":16819,"date":"2020-11-21T09:58:29","date_gmt":"2020-11-21T14:58:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=16819"},"modified":"2020-11-21T09:59:54","modified_gmt":"2020-11-21T14:59:54","slug":"baseball-america-pre-season-2021-top-10-list-reactions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=16819","title":{"rendered":"Baseball America pre-season 2021 top-10 list reactions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1024\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/CavalliCade-oklahoma-via-lookoutlanding-1024x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-16613\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/CavalliCade-oklahoma-via-lookoutlanding-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/CavalliCade-oklahoma-via-lookoutlanding-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/CavalliCade-oklahoma-via-lookoutlanding-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/CavalliCade-oklahoma-via-lookoutlanding-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/CavalliCade-oklahoma-via-lookoutlanding.jpg 1400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption>Cade Cavalli named #1 prospect in the system by BA.  Photo via Lookout Landing blog<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Baseball America dropped the first off-season ranking of prospects for the Nats on 11\/20\/20 and, well, it was interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Click <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseballamerica.com\/teams\/1012\/washington-nationals\/organizational\/?year=2021&amp;type=P&amp;utm_source=Newsletter&amp;utm_medium=email\">here for the top 10<\/a> and their list of &#8220;best tools&#8221; for the system.  It might be behind a paywall.  If not that, then a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseballamerica.com\/stories\/washington-nationals-2021-mlb-prospects-chat\/\">quick chat with<\/a> BA&#8217;s <strong>Lucy Lusk<\/strong> provides some insight on the list as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The last time we got any appreciable updated rankings was MLBpipeline&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/prospects\/nationals\/\">end-of-the-season look<\/a> at the system with the slew of 2020 graduates\/call-ups removed.  Technically MLBPipeline&#8217;s list is a running dynamic update, not a static list as of that moment in time, but I capture them as major updates occur for tracking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nonetheless, the two orgs definitely have different viewpoints on the top of the Nat&#8217;s farm system.  Lets talk about some of BA&#8217;s conclusions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>BA has <strong>Cade Cavalli<\/strong> ahead of <strong>Jackson Rutledge<\/strong> at the top.  I find this kind of interesting, given that Rutledge is younger, had pro ball experience in 2019, was in the 60-man pool along with Cavalli, and was a 1st round pick just like Cade.<\/li><li>Furthermore, in BA&#8217;s &#8220;best tools&#8221; they list Rutledge as having the best fastball AND the best slider.  So, unless Rutledge literally doesn&#8217;t have a 3rd pitch, and his first two are the system best &#8230; not sure how he&#8217;s not #1 over Cavalli.<\/li><li>Therefore, Cavalli must really, really be promising, or have some pretty amazing secondary stuff.<\/li><li><strong>Tim Cate<\/strong>: best curve AND best control.  All he&#8217;s done since they drafted him was win.  I think he&#8217;s an excellent 3rd or 4th starter in the making for this team in a couple years.<\/li><li>BA is amazingly bullish on <strong>Yasel Antuna<\/strong>.  They list him as having the best hitter for average AND the best power hitter??  For a SS currently listed as 6&#8217;0&#8243; 170?  Well, no wonder the Nats just protected him on the 40-man.  This is also a big change in BA&#8217;s opinion of him just from July, when they ranked him 12th in the org.  The BA staff think Antuna is nearly top 100 material.  They like him more as a 2B\/3B option versus SS, with the thinking that maybe the infield goes <strong>Carter Kieboom<\/strong>, <strong>Luis Garcia<\/strong>, Antuna and a FA bopper at 1st.  Hey; if Kieboom can learn how to hit, i&#8217;m all for that.<\/li><li>They have soured fast on <strong>Wil Crowe<\/strong>, dumping him to 10th in the system.  MLBpipeline has him 3rd right now just after the two big 1st round arms.   He made <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/gl.fcgi?id=crowewi01&amp;t=p&amp;year=2020\">three starts in 2020<\/a>, got shelled in all three, gave up 5  homers in 8 1\/3rd innings &#8230; does that mean the jury is now out on Crowe forever?<\/li><li>They&#8217;re quite bullish on <strong>Jeremy De La Rosa<\/strong>, having him ranked 6th when most shops have him in the teens.  Only other pundit anywhere close on De La Rosa is <strong>Keith Law<\/strong>, who had him 8th last spring.   I mean, he did get invited to the 60-man roster as an 18yr old &#8230; quite a statement.  Maybe we have another <strong>Juan Soto<\/strong> on our hands.<\/li><li>Lastly, in their tools section they give &#8220;Best Athlete,&#8221; &#8220;Fastest Baserunner&#8221; and &#8220;Best Defensive Outfielder&#8221; all to the same guy: <strong>Cody Wilson<\/strong>.  Looks like the next <strong>Andrew Stevenson<\/strong>.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Baseball America dropped the first off-season ranking of prospects for the Nats on 11\/20\/20 and, well, it was interesting. Click here for the top 10 and their list of &#8220;best tools&#8221; for the system. It might be behind a paywall. If not that, then a quick chat with BA&#8217;s Lucy Lusk provides some insight on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,4324],"tags":[2814,4394,3186,3881,4181,3987,3314,110,1481,3051,3763,3588,3265],"class_list":["post-16819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-natsgeneral","category-prospects","tag-andrew-stevenson","tag-cade-cavalli","tag-carter-kieboom","tag-cody-wilson","tag-jackson-rutledge","tag-jeremy-de-la-rosa","tag-juan-soto","tag-keith-law","tag-lacy-lusk","tag-luis-garcia","tag-tim-cate","tag-wil-crowe","tag-yasel-antuna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16819"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16819\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16825,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16819\/revisions\/16825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}