{"id":16841,"date":"2020-12-11T14:44:23","date_gmt":"2020-12-11T19:44:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=16841"},"modified":"2020-12-11T14:44:23","modified_gmt":"2020-12-11T19:44:23","slug":"prospects361-releases-its-nats-top-15-prospect-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=16841","title":{"rendered":"Prospects361 Releases its Nats top 15 Prospect list"},"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 Prospects3 61.  Photo via Lookout Landing blog<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Though not a big name in the prospect ranking world, it is a ranking, so lets take a look.  Prospect361&#8217;s <strong>Rich Wilson<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/prospect361.com\/nl-team-prospects\/washington-nationals\/#Yean\">published his ranking of the top 15 Nats prospects for the 2021 season<\/a> today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Prospects361 is a fantasy-focused blog, and as a result the rankings skew towards a fantasy focus of players.  Specifically, it caters to those in &#8220;dynasty leagues&#8221; who are trying to get a jump on the younger prospects in their upcoming keeper league drafts.  Because of this fantasy focus, there&#8217;s an over-emphasis on specific kinds of players (home run hitters, shortstops and closers) and an under-emphasis on other kinds of players (non-closer relievers, non-power hitters, younger prospects, non-SS infielders).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, take these rankings with a slight grain of salt.  Here&#8217;s their top 15.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>1    Cade Cavalli<br> 2    Jackson Rutledge<br> 3    Cole Henry<br> 4    Tim Cate<br> 5    Wil Crowe<br> 6    Armando Cruz<br> 7    Yasel Antuna<br> 8    Drew Mendoza<br> 9    Mason Denaburg<br> 10    Andry  Lara<br> 11    Eddy Yean<br> 12    Samuel  Infante<br> 13    Holden Powell<br> 14    Telmito Agustin<br> 15    Seth Romero<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thoughts in rough order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>They pick #1 <strong>Cavalli <\/strong>over #2 <strong>Rutledge<\/strong>, as Baseball America has done.  Other pundits have them reversed, such as MLBPipeline and (for the time being anyway) Fangraphs.  On <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseballamerica.com\/stories\/podcast-washington-nationals-top-10-prospects\/\">BA&#8217;s podcast on their release of the Nats top 10<\/a> with <strong>Lacy Lusk<\/strong>, he talked about how he really thought these two guys were 1 and 1a, and that there was a distinct gap between these two players and the #3 prospect on his list (also <strong>Cole Henry<\/strong>).  He picked Cavalli though because of the overall package there now and the ceiling.<\/li><li>This ranking is super high on #4 <strong>Tim Cate<\/strong>, described as a pitch-ability lefty who could be like a 4th starter\/<strong>Andy Pettitte<\/strong> kind of guy.   So most other shops would have him lower.<\/li><li>He has stayed high on #5 <strong>Wil Crowe<\/strong> even after his disastrous debut.  Honestly, i&#8217;m concerned about Crowe.  His <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fangraphs.com\/players\/wil-crowe\/19800\/stats#pitch-type\">velocity was really average<\/a> in his limited experiences: 92 fastball\/sinker, 85 curve, 80 change, none of them with positive value.  His strength is spin rate, which presumably makes his ball have better movement &#8230; but it wasn&#8217;t seen in his debut.  If he can&#8217;t cut it as an effective starter, I don&#8217;t think he has any value as a middle reliever at a time when everyone starts at 95mph.  I&#8217;m lower on Crowe than #5.<\/li><li>#6 <strong>Armando Cruz<\/strong>: who is Armando Cruz you ask?   Great question, I did not know either.  As it turns out, the July 2 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseballamerica.com\/stories\/mlb-pushes-international-signing-period-start-back-to-jan-15\/#:~:text=The%20start%20of%20the%20international,2021%20to%20sign%20professional%20contracts.\">international free agent signing deadline for 2020 got pushed to January 15th 2021<\/a>, and Cruz is thought to be a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseballamerica.com\/stories\/washington-nationals-2020-21-international-signing-preview\/\">guaranteed Washington National signee<\/a>.  Not only that, but Cruz is considered one of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseballamerica.com\/rankings\/2020-mlb-international-prospects-class\/\">absolute best players<\/a> in the class, worthy of a huge $4M signing bonus.  This would be the most money the team has ever spent for an IFA (Antuna got $3.9M as a 16yr old, and technically <strong>Yunesky Maya<\/strong> got a 4yr\/$8M MLB contract that didn&#8217;t include a signing bonus like amateurs get), and I cannot remember the Nats ever being associated with such a highly ranked DR 16-yr old prospect (who normally go to the &#8220;famous&#8221; teams like the Yankees or Dodgers).  Anyway; ranking this guy seems premature since he hasn&#8217;t technically signed, but it wouldn&#8217;t surprise me to see him given top-10 status as soon as he does.  Even having him at #6 had he already signed would be pretty speculative; i don&#8217;t really like to even consider players until they&#8217;ve got domestic playing time.<\/li><li>They&#8217;re kind of middle of the road on #7 <strong>Yasel Antuna<\/strong>; BA was really bullish, most others now have him outside the top 10.  <\/li><li>They&#8217;re lower on two younger Dominican arms <strong>Eddy Yean<\/strong> and <strong>Andry Lara<\/strong> for obvious reasons: they&#8217;re young, they&#8217;re arms, and they&#8217;re unproven.<\/li><li>They&#8217;re way, way high on <strong>Holden Powell<\/strong>, for fantasy reasons (as in, he&#8217;s a closer).  <\/li><li><\/li><li>Lastly, they&#8217;re down on Seth Romero, interestingly, since Romero now projects with pretty similar stuff and results as Crowe.  <\/li><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Though not a big name in the prospect ranking world, it is a ranking, so lets take a look. Prospect361&#8217;s Rich Wilson published his ranking of the top 15 Nats prospects for the 2021 season today. Prospects361 is a fantasy-focused blog, and as a result the rankings skew towards a fantasy focus of players. Specifically, [&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],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-natsgeneral"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16841","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=16841"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16843,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16841\/revisions\/16843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}