{"id":2171,"date":"2011-08-16T10:25:27","date_gmt":"2011-08-16T14:25:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=2171"},"modified":"2014-09-24T09:34:10","modified_gmt":"2014-09-24T13:34:10","slug":"nationals-future-considerably-brighter-w-2011-draft-signing-successes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=2171","title":{"rendered":"Nationals future considerably brighter w\/ 2011 draft signing successes."},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Frankly, I did not think we could get Purke signed. Photo AP\/Nati Harnik<\/p><\/div>\n

Upon starting to read Nationals press releases<\/a> post 8\/15\/11 signing deadline, I was ecstatic and surprised by what transpired last night.\u00a0 We got the first five draft picks signed for a total of about $16.5M spent.<\/p>\n

Anthony Rendon<\/strong> and Alex Meyer<\/strong> were never in doubt in my opinion; neither was going back to school to try to marginally improve on their draft standing.\u00a0 (Nor was Kylin Turnbull<\/strong>, our 4th rounder, who got a $325k deal out of Juco).\u00a0 Rendon got a major league deal (i.e., an immediate spot on the 40-man roster), which probably was to be expected given his stature and his agent Scott Boras<\/strong>.\u00a0 My guess is that Boras is starting to press for 40-man spots for his marquee players more and more and fighting less and less for these massive bonuses knowing that the 40-man spot accelerates the time it takes for these prospects to reach free agency by 2-3 years or more.<\/p>\n

Brian Godwin<\/strong> got a $3M deal, or $1M more than it took for Meyer to sign.\u00a0 Clearly the Nats had to buy him out of another year in college, where he and his counsel thought he could become a top-10 talent.<\/p>\n

Most surprising: the signing of Matt Purke<\/strong>.\u00a0 When Purke announced he wasn’t going to pitch in the Cape Cod league, I figured right then he wasn’t going to sign.\u00a0 Why would he take a 3rd round money or slightly higher (somewhere between $425k and $800k) as a bonus when he got offered $6M out of high school and knows that a dominant junior season would put him in the discussion for #1 overall in 2012’s draft (and the probable $7-8M deal it would guarantee, as Gerrit Cole<\/strong> just got from Pittsburgh<\/a>).\u00a0 What the public didn’t know came out in the press releases: Purke let the Nats do not only an in-depth physical but an MRI with the injected dye to highlight injuries within his shoulder.\u00a0 Purke also did private throwing sessions for the team.\u00a0\u00a0 They guaranteed him a 40-man roster spot as well (also incredibly surprising), but as mentioned above probably traded bonus money for that spot.<\/p>\n

The usage of 40-man spots as a negotiating tool leaves the Nats slightly roster hampered; we now have 7 spots (and one rule5 draftee) on the roster who have never appeared in a major league game and seem set to start 2012 in the minors (Purke, Severino, Carr, Marrero, Rendon, Harper and Corey Brown).<\/p>\n

However, Nats fans can now salivate at the selection of upper-ceiling arms that the team will be able to select from in a few years.\u00a0 We can add Purke and Meyer immediately to this list: Strasburg<\/strong> and Zimmermann<\/strong> (1st and 2nd rounders) seem set to be the 1-2 for this rotation for the next several years.\u00a0 Sammy Solis<\/strong> (2nd rounder) has looked ok in Potomac in his first year.\u00a0 Youngsters AJ Cole<\/strong> (4th) and Robbie Ray<\/strong> (12th) have both looked fantastic in low-A.\u00a0\u00a0 “Found money” starters Brad Meyers<\/strong> (5th), Tom Milone<\/strong> (10th) and Brad Peacock<\/strong> (a draft-and-follow 41st rounder) are all pitching at AAA with varying degrees of success but all well younger than their AAA counterparts.\u00a0\u00a0 Even 2007’s high-end arms not already mentioned (Ross Detwiler<\/strong> 1st, Josh Smoker<\/strong> 2nd and Jack McGeary<\/strong> in the 6th) are not out of the running and all may feature at least as bullpen arms in the future.<\/p>\n

How about a 2014 rotation of Strasburg, Zimmermann, Purke, Peacock and some high-priced ace FA?\u00a0 That sounds pretty good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Upon starting to read Nationals press releases post 8\/15\/11 signing deadline, I was ecstatic and surprised by what transpired last night.\u00a0 We got the first five draft picks signed for a total of about $16.5M spent. Anthony Rendon and Alex Meyer were never in doubt in my opinion; neither was going back to school to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[106,17,262,185,141,72,35,257,164,124,143,1221,206,43,65,951,166,18,51,19,180,38,34],"class_list":["post-2171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-draft","category-minorspitching","tag-adam-carr","tag-aj-cole","tag-alex-meyer","tag-anthony-rendon","tag-atahualpa-severino","tag-brad-meyers","tag-brad-peacock","tag-brian-goodwin","tag-bryce-harper","tag-chris-marrero","tag-corey-brown","tag-gerrit-cole","tag-jack-mcgeary","tag-jordan-zimmermann","tag-josh-smoker","tag-kylin-turnbull","tag-matthew-purke","tag-robbie-ray","tag-ross-detwiler","tag-sammy-solis","tag-scott-boras","tag-stephen-strasburg","tag-tommy-milone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2171","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=2171"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9778,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2171\/revisions\/9778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}