Nationals Arm Race

It’s that time of year. Its “Rule-5 time!”

We do it every year. Its our annual deep dive into our older prospects to see who the team may be thinking about protecting. Here’s links to past years posts on this topic: 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010. And here’s a summary of all these posts and my predictions versus who we actually protected (which we’ll re-publish once 2024’s rule-5 draft occurs at the Winter Meetings in December).

Many people think rule-5 is a waste (ahem, Keith Law). For those of us who pore over minor league box scores, hoping to find a diamond in the rough of our 160+ minor leaguers who might some day be wearing red and white Nationals home jerseys, its a deep-dive into what might be for these players and an always-fun exercise looking at the fringes of our prospects.

As a reminder, Rule 5 eligibility is as follows for any player not on a 40-man roster:

• Signed at 18-years-old or younger, has been in the organization for five seasons
• Signed at 19-years-old or older, has been in the organization for four seasons

So, generally speaking this translates to for 2024:

• IFAs or High Schoolers drafted/signed in 2020 or before
• College players drafted/signed in 2021 or before

(I say generally speaking because there are some IFAs who get signed later in the year, or who might have turned 19 by the time they sign and turn Rule-5 one year earlier than we thought).

On the same day that all our MLFAs were declared (11/4/24), the team also cut loose four players off the 40-man roster to free up space for the eventual addition of players that we’ll be discussing here. As of this writing on 11/8/24, there’s 36/40 on the 40-man, so we have four available spots right now for Rule5 protection, waiver claims, Free agent signings, etc. That’s not to say we don’t have even more room if need be (you can make pretty easy arguments for the out-righting of at least 3-4 more players right now; the option-less Adon, the constantly-injured Henry, the underperforming Willingham, the curiously low leverage usage Rainey), but we’ll cross those bridges if/when we get there.

Important Links for Rule-5 consideration:

• Nats Draft Tracker
• Nats IFA Tracker
• Nats Big Board
• Roster Resource
• 2024 MLFA List
• 2024 AFL Roster and 2024 AFL Stats, which sometimes portends Rule-5 drafts. rule-5 eligibles in AZ right now are Cronin, Cuevas, Saenz, Solesky, Hassell. Also there but not Rule-5 are Romero and Wallace.

Here we go. There’s several categories of players to consider; we’ll go one by one.

Group 1: Newly Eligible 2021 draft College Players this year

• There’s just one remaining College hitter from the 2021 draft who hasn’t already been released/retired (Frizzell, Williams, Fein) or made the 40-man roster (Young & Baker), and that’s mendoza-hitting Brandon Boissiere. Not a candidate.
• We have a slew of college arms that we drafted in 2021 who are newly rule-5 eligible. Dustin Saenz is the highest round draft pick (4th) and has the most bonus money investment, but he got pounded in AA this year and isn’t a candidate. He’s in the AFL but has a near 6.00 ERA.
• Marc Davis had great numbers this year, but mostly in low-A. He’s not going to be picked, but I do like him for the AA rotation in 2025.
• Andrew Alvarez was our 2023 minor league pitcher of the year, continued to be effective in AA to start this year, and ended the year in the AAA rotation. He doesn’t have eye-popping numbers, but he’s a lefty who gets people out. Despite his iffy prospect status, he should be added to the 40-man if only for the fact that he’s lefty and can slot in a bunch of ways in a MLB staff.
• Erik Tolman missed the entire season with injury; not a candidate.
• Jack Sinclair was a pretty decent 8th/9th inning guy for AA all year and seems like the kind of prospect who turns into a sneaky good middle reliever for a MLB pen. A marginal candidate to protect. If he had more K/9 or bigger velocities he’d be a lock.
• Brendan Collins: he was basically Jack Sinclair, but for Wilmington instead of Harrisburg. Better K/9 numbers, but more base-runners. A 25yr old in High-A all year tells you something; he’s not a candidate to be drafted.

Summary: Alvarez a near lock, Sinclair low-likelihood maybe

Group 1-A: 2021 NDFAs

• Jarrett Gonzalez, who has had an interesting pro career, is technically rule-5 Eligible. We drafted him in 2016 out of HS: he went to college (New Mexico initially, then some Jucos), then five years later we signed him as a NDFA. In those subsequent four pro seasons, he’s gotten a grand total of 30 at bats. Total. Thirty. He essentially has served as a third catcher/bullpen catcher for his entire minor league career, bouncing on and off the Development list over and over (six times in 2024 alone). I’m not knocking him, since there’s a need for him in every organization. From a rule-5 perspective, obviously he’s not a candidate to get picked. I’ll bet the team keeps him around for more of the same; why not right? As long as Gonzalez doesn’t mind the travel and the pay, he gets to keep living the dream.
• Peyton Glavine: famous name, huge injury issues. Basically missed the entirety of 2023 and 2024 with an arm issue. Would love to see what he’s got. not a candidate to get picked.
• Tyler Schoff was a relatively effective 8th/9th inning guy in 2023, making it all the way to AAA for a last week call up. He had solid AA numbers in 2024, backing up Sinclair as the closer. Why didn’t he get moved up earlier in 2024? I don’t know; if Sinclair is a “marginal candidate” to get protected then so is Schoff. He’s the kind of guy who gets protected out of the blue b/c the team feels he is slated to contribute immediately. Interestingly, he’s NOT on the AFL roster, so maybe that’s a hint that he doesn’t get protected. I dunno.

Summary: Schoff low-likelihood maybe

Group 2: Newly Eligible 2020 High School-age drafted players under consideration for protection

• The only HS kid we drafted in 2020 was Samuel Infante, who the team surprisingly released in July.
• However, we have a major prospect in 2020 prep draftee Robert Hassell to protect. Despite his struggles since arriving from San Diego in the Soto trade, he’s far too valuable to leave exposed. he’s in the AFL now raking and raising SSS eyebrows, will start in AAA, next year, and could make a push for promotion soon. Maybe he’s just a 4th outfielder ceiling, maybe he’s the guy who pushes Jacob Young for a starting CF spot.

Summary: Hassell a lock to be protected.

Group 3: Newly Eligible 2020 signed IFAs under consideration for protection

• So, technically thanks to Covid there was no official 2020 IFA class. As far as I can tell, we did end up signing three guys in the 2020 calendar year, but we’ve since released all three (Raynel Moron, Edward De La Cruz, and Luis German).

Summary: no candidates

Group 4: Rule-5 Eligible Drafted/Domestic hold-overs of note from prior years

• Here’s where it gets a little busy. We have a slew of hold-overs from prior rule5 draft eligibility. I’ll run through them by Draft year:
• 2020 Draft: Brad Lindsly is basically a 3rd catcher ceiling, while Holden Powell was injured most of 2024 and has not produced per his college closer UCLA pedigree. The lesson as always is: don’t draft guys who are already relievers.
• 2020 NDFAs: Paul Witt has hung around for years due to his ability to play multiple positions, but hit just .198 last year.
• 2019 Draft Hitters: Jake Alu, Jackson Cluff, JT Arruda, and Jack Dunn are all almost the identical player at this point: AAA or AA org guy middle infielders who can play the dirt but not hit well enough to be in serious consideration for the big club.
• CJ Stubbs was a 19D that we signed as a 2024MLFA and I think technically he’s Rule-5 eligible but he isn’t really a candidate to get picked despite being a AAA catcher.
• Chase Solesky, like Stubbs, was a 19D and 2024MLFA who had a nice run in the AA rotation this year (3.02 ERA as a AA starter) and who has been impressing in the AFL (20/1 K/BB in 13 innings as of this writing). His ERA looked good this year, but his K/9 did not (which doesn’t make sense given his strikeout performance so far in AFL). Do you look at this SSS in Arizona and say, “this guy is worth protecting?” Maybe. Or do you look at this guy and go, “ok he’s a 27yr old in AA, this is who he is” and pass? Probably the latter.
• Seth Shuman was a 19D acquired in trade who’s always been a favorite of mine. He’s always had decent numbers, missed all of 2023 with injury, and ended 2024 in AA’s rotation. I think he could be a dark-horse starter prospect who moves up in 2025, but he’s not a rule5 candidate.
• Matt Cronin is in the AFL and had some seriously weird usage this year. Despite unbelievably good numbers, he was left in High-A for months before getting promoted up to AA for the end of the season (reminder; he spent all of 2023 in AAA before getting hurt). He’s a lefty with a live arm who’s now in the AFL (but hasn’t appeared?) and that designation likely means he’s bound for the 40-man. This is the same team that protected Evan Lee in 2021 after an almost identical set of circumstances: a lefty who blew up K/9 rates and then impressed in the AFL.
• Garvin Alston, a 19D who we got in a 2022 Trade and who made it to AAA as a loogy this year. He didn’t have the best 2024 numbers, but is a lefty reliever. Not really a candidate.
• Other 2019 Pitchers: Tyler Yankowski was hurt all year. Todd Peterson, and Lucas Knowles worked the AA bullpen this year with decent but not impressive results. Knowles has some starting experience but seems to present more like a rubber-armed lefty swing man (kind of like Alvarez-light). If he had presented in AAA maybe.
• Michael Cuevas is only 23 and was in the AA rotation to start the season, but pitched his way out of the rotation. I like that he’s in AA at 23, but I don’t like his bloated ERA. He got sent to the AFL but doesn’t seem to have any appearances, so who knows. If he’s knowingly hurt, there’s no way he gets picked. I don’t think he was a candidate even before getting sent to Salt River.
• 2018 and previous draft classes: with the MLFA declarations last week, the SOLE remaining player on our roster from 2018 or earlier is now 40-man/rotation stalwart Jake Irvin. Every other 2018 or earlier drafted player is now gone. For basically the entire history of this franchise, one of two men held the title of, “longest tenured player” and it was either Zimmerman or Strasburg … now its Irvin.

Summary: Cronin decent likelihood, Solesky low likelihood.

Group 5: IFAs: 2019 and older

• We have a slew of them. I’ll only mention those that have gotten out of DSL/Rookie ball.
• Andry Lara. Lock to be added. Ace of AA at age 21, easy arm action, made huge strides this year. He’s part of a group of very young arms in our system that could pave the way for a new generation in our rotation (along with Sykora, Susana, and Clemmey)
• Kevin Made was acquired in trade and is a decent prospect; he’s a glove-first AA shortstop. Would someone take a flier on him like we did with Nunez? He somehow remains on several top-30 lists for the franchise, and thus gets immediately talked about as a rule5 protection candidate. However, I think he’s been coasting on a prior prospect ranking for a while; his 2024 stats weren’t impressive: he slashed .239/353/.327 while repeating High-A for the third year, then got bumped up to AA for some reason and slashed .158/.226/.211. He was young for the level for a while … but not in 2024, a 22yr old in High-A. He’s well outside my top 30, i don’t think he’s really a prospect right now, and i don’t think he’s a rule-5 protection candidate. I’ll put him as “highly unlikely” just because the MLBpipeline guys keep mentioning him with.
• Roismar Quintana was a fringe prospect for us for a while but seems like he’s stuck as a position-less corner OF/1B type without enough power to make a difference. He’s not a candidate.
• Kelvin Diaz was an 19IFA who we got as a 24MLFA and who hit 180 in Low-A. Not a candidate.
• Miguel Gomez worked his way into being an 8th/9th inning guy at Wilmington this year, with effective numbers. I know some prospect-hounds like him a lot. Promising, but not rule-5 worthy. You just don’t take A-ball relievers in Rule5.
• We took Wander Arias last year in minor league rule-5 phase and he gave us a solid year in the High-A pen, but he was repeating the level from 2023. Not a candidate.
• Pablo Aldonis was on the low-A 60-day DL all year. As was Juan Abreu. As was Franklin Marquez. Not candidates.
• We have a slew of 2018IFA signings who should have been 6yr MLFAs but who were not on the BA list, nor who appear to have been declared FA. Maybe they were extra young and get another year, These guys might be MLFAs right now, or maybe we re-signed them for 2025. Nonetheless, Jose Colmenares, Yoander Rivero, Jeremy De La Rosa, Jose Atencio, Johan Otanez, Bryan Sanchez, and Samuel Vazquez all count here. De la Rosa used to have prospect buzz but is now a AA backup. Atencio had a solid year in the High-A rotation and is a name I’d like to see in AA for 2025, but that’s not Rule5 worthy.
• And, believe it or not we still have some 2017 and 2016 IFAs hanging around: Viandel Pena, Bryan Caceres, Daison Acosta. Caceres was in the High-A rotation all year but wasn’t great, Pena is a backup middle infielder, and Acosta put up solid AAA numbers for us after being a 2023 minor league rule5 pick. As with the 2018IFAs, these guys might actually be MLFAs but the milb.com player pages don’t indicate it as of this writing.

Summary: Lara a lock. Made unlikely. Atencio highly unlikely, Acosta highly unlikely. Others no.

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So, where does that leave us? Summarizing the Groups:

• Group 1 Protection Candidates: Alvarez maybe, Sinclair maybe
• Group 1A Protection Candidates: Schoff maybe
• Group 2 Protection Candidates: Hassell a lock.
• Group 3 Protection Candidates: None
• Group 4 Protection Candidates: Cronin maybe, Solesky unlikely.
• Group 5 Protection Candidates: Lara a lock, Made, Atencio, Acosta unlikely

My Prediction: Team protects, in order of priority, Hassell, Lara, Cronin, Alvarez

Rule-5 results (post publishing): On 11/19/24, the team added Hassell and Lara. So, they definitely went more conservative than I would have.

On 12/10/24, the actual 2024 Rule-5 draft occurred. In the major league phase, we took Evan Reifert, a RHP reliever from Tampa’s AA team, In the minor league phase, we lost Matt Cronin but picked up Hyun-Il Choi, a 24-yr old starter from the Dodgers’ AA squad who looks intriguing.

A critical day in the off-season calendar of baseball every year happened earlier this week; five days after the end of the World Series (11/4/24) all “6-year minor league free agents” get cut loose. The Universal Player Contracts (UPCs) that players sign upon turning pro allow for six “renewals” before players must be either put on the 40-man roster or are declared free agents. This means that every player who:

• was Drafted in 2018 or before
• was an IFA signing in 2018 or before
• was a 2024 MLFA signing
• … and who didn’t sign a multi-year deal of some sort already this off-season or earlier this year

Is now a free agent.

Baseball America posted its list for all 30 teams here, but it’s missing a few names for our system. The Big Board for 2025 is now updated with all MLFA’s removed and put onto the 2025 Release tab.

I count 27 players cut loose, including these notable names to long-time Nats farm watchers:

• Technically Meneses and Rucker were on the 40-man, were outrighted, and by virtue of their signing dates were immediately declared MLFAs.
• Reid Schaller: 3rd round pick who just never was healthy. Had higher hopes for this guy.
• Tim Cate: 2nd rounder who spent time on the 40-man but just couldn’t solve AAA.
• Mason Denaburg: 1st rounder and one of our team’s biggest 1st round busts in terms of accomplishments. Stuck around for years after he should have been cut loose based on performance in a blatant example of the team not wanting to “waste” its signing bonus.
• Carter Kieboom: 1st round pick, former top 20 prospect in all of baseball, who mystified the industry by not being able to convert fantastic batted-ball skills in AAA to the majors.
• Israel Pineda; long considered an heir apparent catching prospect but who ended up bouncing around the minor leagues in 2024.
• Trey Harris, trade bounty for Ehire Adrianza in 2022 but who never really did much for us.
• Aldo Ramirez, trade bounty for Kyle Schwarber in 2021 and who was supposed to be a decent SP prospect. Blew out his arm, missed two years, never really pitched again. Too bad; Schwarber was a solid trade prospect and should have fetched something of value for us longer term.
• Rodney Theophile, who looks like he could be a promising SP prospect (2.33 ERA in 9 AA starts to close out 2024). Surprised the team didn’t try to resign him before hitting MLFA.

As far as I can tell, the team has already done some re-signing of a few of its MLFAs; the following should be listed as FAs based on their draft/signing status but are still listed as active:

• Daison Acosta: AAA Middle Reliever, a 2023 minor league rule-5 pickup but a 2016 IFA signing initially
• Erick Mejia, AAA utility infielder, who was a 2022 MLFA signing/2012 IFA signing.
• Viandel Pena High-A backup SS, a 2017 IFA signing but who is just 23.
• Bryan Caceres, High-A starter who was a 2017 IFA signing out of Panama
• Yoander Rivero, High-A backup middle infielder, also a 2017 IFA signing.
• Jose Colmenares, Low-A backup Catcher (2018 IFA)
• Jeremy De La Rosa, just promoted AA outfielder (2018 IFA)
• Jose Atencio, High-A starter (2018 IFA)
• Joan Otanez, Low-A middle reliever and 2018 IFA
• Bryan Sanchez, also a Low-A middle reliever and 2018 IFA
• Samuel Vasquez, High-A middle reliever and 2023 rule-5 guy
• Kevin Dowdel, a 2024MLFA but a 2023NDFA so he probably falls under the UPC for a while despite being a MLFA.

I’m not a complete expert on the new Collective Bargaining Agreement, but I do find it interesting that many of these are 2018 IFAs: is there an additional year offered to these players b/c of Covid? Do they get an extra year of control b/c they were so young when they signed? Did all these 2018 IFAs not eve play in 2018 so therefore their UPC renewals started in 2019?

Furthermore, two minor league rule-5 guys seemingly should have been cut loose but who are still present; is there a different guideline for rule-5 pickups? Nonetheless, even if all of these players just simply signed new deals to stay with the club one more year, there’s definitely a few that i’m glad are still here. Acosta could be a decent lefty option for the MLB pen, De La Rosa was once a higher ranked prospect who is at least in AA, and Atencio was a very solid starter in Wilmington and i’d like to see where he goes.

The system/big board now shows 147 players under contract in the Minor leagues, including a complete gutting of the AAA pitching staff. Just five arms sit on the AAA roster right now; the rest were 40-man backups for MLFAs. We only have 11 relievers in total on the 40-man right now, which implies to me that we’ll be signing a slew of veteran relievers this off-season, and that we’ll have a cattle-call of 1yr/MLFA/NRIs this coming spring to make up the bulk of the AAA staff.

The World Series is over. The Yankees bungled away game 5, but let’s be honest, they would have struggled to win a game 6 with Yamamoto dealing and Rodon choking. The Dodgers were just the more powerful, complete team in a year when the NL was just far more stacked than the AL. If it had been the Mets, Phillies, or Padres in the WS instead of the Dodgers, I don’t think we’re looking at much of a different result.

So, now we’re to the off-season. I try to write content throughout the off-season as we hit major deadlines that impact our roster. So, based on the off-season calendar of events, here’s when we’ll try to write to.

• 10/31/24: Day after WS ends. All MLB FAs officially cut loose into a 5-day exclusive negotiating period that nobody bothers with anymore. The Nats’ 3 remaining FAs that we didn’t already release or trade are Corbin, Williams, and Barnes. We’ve already moved them to the “2025 Releases” tab on the Nats Big Board.
• 11/4/24: MLB options must be cleared we have one club option that should have already been declined on the .165-hitting Gallo, but that’ll happen soon.
• 11/4/24: All 60-day DL players must be returned to 40-man. We have 4 players on the 60-day DL (Thompson, Cavalli, Gray, Adon) but only 3 open spots on the 40-man. My guess is that the Nats decline Gallo’s option, then put all four on the roster for a 40/40 slate.
• 11/4/24: All MLFAs are officially declared. This is always slightly tough to track from the Big Board perspective. We have 11 2024-MLFAs still on minor league rosters as of the end of the season who one might think might automatically become FAs anew, but we really have no idea what kind of deal’s they’ve signed. There’s still a slew of 2023 MLFAs and a handful of older MLFAs still hanging around.
• 11/4/24: Furthermore, at this stage all 6-year players in the system are declared FAs as well, so this would mean anyone we have who was signed/drafted in 2018 ore before. I count nearly 20 active players we got in the 2018 Draft and another dozen or so 2017 IFA signings still active; are they all now cut loose? The 2020 covid year may factor in here and delay things, but i’m not sure how.
• When all three of these 11/4/24 deadlines hit, i’ll do a ton of cutting-and-pasting in the Big Board
• I’m not really into Awards posts anymore, but all throughout Nov and Dec there’s awards announced, finalists, etc.
• 11/18/24: Hall of Fame Ballot released: i’ll definitely do a post here like I always do, with my fake ballot listing who i’d vote for.
• 11/19/24: Qualifying Offer responses due in: I’ll wait until all the QOs are resolved to do a post-QO post, which may not happen until well into the spring. QOs drive draft picks, and once the draft order is finalized we’ll post about that too.
• 11/19/24: Rule5 protection Deadline; we’ll definitely write about this ahead of 11/19: we have a TON of decisions to make, and we have a relatively full 40-man roster right now.
• 11/22/24: Non-tender deadline; another interesting one for us, b/c it ties into the Rule5 somewhat (if we’re going to non-tender someone to make room for a new prospect, might as well do it before 11/19/24), but we also have a slew of arb-eligible players who may not actually be worth it.
• 12/10/24: Draft Lottery. By final record, we should be picking 4th. We’re guaranteed not to drop below 7th (I believe).
• 12/11/24: the actual Rule5 draft; if we gain or lose players will post here.

By this point, we’ll start seeing all the prospect ranking shops start to publish pre-2025 lists, which I love responding to. I’ve already got my draft prospect list going … i’ve got it built out to more than 80 players (which is crazy, b/c we only have like 140 minor leaguers right now) but I can’t wait to publish that list like I did last year.

So, once we get all the MLFA’s declared (here was the 2023 BA list of MLFA declarations officially) i’ll publish a note.

So, MLB collectively breathed a sigh of relief when the two juggernaut franchises of the league (the Yankees and the Dodgers) advanced with relative ease to face off against each other for the 2024 World Series title.

We avoided the hapless Cleveland Indians in the series (quick: name 3 players on the Indians right now without looking at baseball reference) and we avoided a subway series that would actively alienate most of the baseball world. Instead, the WS broadcasters get a dream lineup of super stars on both teams, so we can fawn over the pending FA to be Juan Soto, or the 10-win Aaron Judge, or the every-once-in-a-while I blast a ball 475 feet Giancarlo Stanton from the Bronx bombers. They also get Shohei Ohtani, who gets to the series in his first year away from the hapless Angels franchise.

They’ll get dueling unanimous MVPs and what should be an offense-first series thanks to the steady decline of starting pitching in the league.

We also see, first hand, the power of payroll this year; both teams are top 5 in payroll (Dodgers 2nd, Yankees 5th) as were fellow playoff teams Philly (#1), San Diego (#3) , Houston (#4), and Atlanta (#6). Most of the rest of the playoff field were in at least the top half of payroll.

I know this blog is named after pitching … but nobody can really get that excited about the pitching matchups we’re gonna see. Maybe we get Cole vs Yamamoto in game one, but everything after that is TBD.

Are you excited for Yankees-Dodgers?

Year four of the rebuild is complete. The team was flirting with .500 well into June but just couldn’t hold it together once they lost their best starter. From the trade-deadline forward they went 22-30 to end the season at 71-91, a .438 winning percentage.

Here’s a quick summary of where we are in the rebuild:

• Year 1: 2021: moved Turner, Scherzer, Schwarber, et al. Finished 65-97. Earned 5th overall pick in 2022 draft (Elijah Green)
• Year 2: 2022: moved Soto and Bell, finished 55-107, Earned 2nd overall pick in 2023 draft after losing lottery, got Dylan Crews.
• Year 3: 2023: Improved to 71-91, dropped to 10th in 2024 draft thanks to new CBA rules despite winning lottery, got Seaver King
• Year 4: 2024: Finished 71-91 again.

Our 71-91 finish, combined with the White Sox getting the same treatment we got last year (i.e., being a big market team that is bad two years in a row getting kicked out of the top 10) and Oakland getting kicked out of the lottery as well (they’re a revenue recipient that’s been in the lottery two years in a row), we stand to benefit by moving up a couple of slots of lottery odds.

Tankathon.com has the current reverse order of draft standings, showing us in 4th place/4th best lottery odds. We can pick no worse than 7th, but can move up to pick #1. (all the draft rules are at the bottom of the tankathon page).

We’re a ways off of from the 2025 draft, but we are starting to see some commonality for the names at the 2025 draft boards. Its looking like a college-heavy first round right now, even though a prep kid could go 1-1 overall. If we’re in the top 7 though, we’re in line to get one of these names right now:

• Ethan Holliday, SS, Stillwater (Okla.) HS. Brother of Jackson Holliday, son of Matt Holliday
• Jace LaViolette, OF, Texas A&M. 1st team All American as a sophomore, 29 homers last year.
• Tyler Bremner, RHP, UC Santa Barbara. 11-1, 2.54 ERA as a sophomore last year, dominated this past summer for the US Collegiate Nat’l Team.
• Caden Bodine, C, Coastal Carolina; .347/.432/.564 first two years at CCU as a plus defensive Catcher.
• Jamie Arnold, LHP, Florida State. 1st team AA, Friday starter for FSU. 159 Ks in 102ip in 2024, co-ace for US Collegiate National Team this summer with Bremner.
• Cam Cannarella, OF, Clemson Freshman ACC POTY, .363/.440/.560 first two college seasons while playing with injury.
• Devin Taylor, OF (CF), Indiana. .357/.449/.660 with 20HRs his sophomore season.
• Nolan Schubart, OF Oklahoma State. Ridiculous 1.351 OPS in 2024. Huge slugger potential.

There’s also a couple of other prep kids in the mix for the top 10, but something tells me we’ll be taking a college player this time around and not a project. We don’t “need” Bodine or an outfielder necessarily, would love to get one of these two college arms. The top of the class certainly is looking outfielder heavy right now. I like the connection to Schubart, an Oklahoma kid (we seem to take a lot of players from that region) who could mash his way up, but BA has him slipping into the 20s for the class so he may not really be in the conversation for the top 6-7 of the draft. I like a slugger outfielder who could project as a 1B/LF/DH rotation kind of guy, but it has to be a major slugger.

Anyway, lots to discuss this off-season. I’m not sure how much i’ll “cover” the playoffs this year due to other writing commitments, but we have options, rule5, and other fun stuff to cover coming up.

Here’s the End of August 2024 check-ins on all our rotations, from MLB to DSL.

Each team section analysis will have the same items: current rotation, changes in the last month, observations, next guy to get promoted (if its in the minors), next guy to get cut, and then a few comments about relievers.

Important links for this analysis:

• Big Board:
• Nats MLB stats: at baseball-reference.com
• AAA Rochester stats: (all minor league stats at milb.com)
• AA Harrisburg stats
• High-A Wilmington stats
• Low-A Fredericksburg Stats
• FCL Nationals Stats (season ended 7/25/24)
• DSL Nationals Pitching Stats

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We’ll start with the Majors.

Rotation as of 8/31/24: Irvin, Gore, Parker, Corbin, Herz

Rotation as of 7/31/24: Irvin, Gore, Parker, Corbin, Herz

Changes since end of last Month: None. Same five guys that have been there since the moment Williams went down.

Rotation Observations: Interestingly, the two best starters in August were … Corbin and Herz, who would have both been on the chopping block if we had any positive news from any of our injured starters. Herz had 6 starts with a 3.10 ERA and a 1.17 Whip in the month, both best of any of our 5 arms. Corbin wasn’t half bad either: 3.76 ERA while going 2-1 in his 6 starts. Parker and Gore improved on their July 7+ ERA months with decent ERAs, though Gore’s was quite lucky given his 1.7 whip. Only Irvin really struggled on the month, mostly thanks to one bad start on 8/30.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Honestly … now that we’re in September, nobody’s getting cut out of this rotation unless the team wants to start saving innings. Only two guys got 9/1 callups and neither were starters. There’s only two “starters” on the 40-man not hurt: Rutledge and Ward, and as we’ll read later, neither deserve a promotion at this point.

Bullpen comments: We’ve seen a decent performance from the bullpen lately. Salazar had 13 appearances with zero runs. Can’t beat that. Rainey has been handled with kid gloves all year (and was the subject of a Fangraphs article about pitcher usage and leverage) and was solid in August. Meanwhile, Adon did a great job proving that not only can he not get MLB hitters out as a starter, but that he can’t get them out as a reliever either. He’s now appeared in parts of four different seasons for this team and has never even come close to proving that he’s a MLB quality arm. He’s finally out of options but is nowhere close to enough service time to hit arbitration,

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AAA Rochester

Rotation as of 8/31/24: Rutledge, Ward, Alvarez, Stuart, Watkins

Rotation as of 7/31/24: Rutledge, Ward, Lord, Alvarez, Luckham

Changes since end of last month: Lord got hurt and is on the DL, so they replaced him with Watkins, who’s been a LR/SS all year. Luckham struggled upon his promotion so he got sent back to AA, replace with new acquisition Stuart.

Rotation Observations: Lord was solid in 3 starts (1.46 ERA) then hit the DL. He got hit by a comebacker on his pitching hand and was put on the DL 8/20/24. We’re nearly at two weeks now. Alvarez has a nice month: 5 starts, 3.14 ERA and sub 1.00 whip. I wonder what he has to do to earn a call-up. Scouting reports aren’t very flattering: BA has him 45s across the board and describes him basically as a “left hander with 91 and a funky delivery.” Still, wouldn’t mind seeing him get a shot. Rutledge continues to be awful. Luckham had a 12 ERA in a couple of starts before being replaced by Stuart, who has a 7.88 ERA in his first two starts that was probably a little unlucky (he has a 1.00 whip and a .179 BAA in those two starts, so it’s almost like every single guy who got on base managed to score). We’ll see what he can do with the remaining couple of weeks. Ward had a 4.44 ERA with way too many walks. Lastly Watkins had a decent month, as one would expect for a 32-yr old in AAA.

Next guy to get Promoted: None deserve it, and Lord’s injury takes him out of the running.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: We were right on Luckham getting the boot back to AA last month.

Bullpen comments: Brzycky and Ribalta both had solid August numbers and both have been called up. Willingham, who is on the 40-man, also had decent Aug numbers and may get another shot. Tim Cate had a nice month, even if he’s had a crummy year.

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AA Harrisburg

Rotation as of 8/31/24: Solesky, Lara, Luckham, Saenz, Shuman

Rotation as of 7/31/24: Cuevas, Solesky, Lara, Theophile, Stuart (with two spot starts from Reyes)

Changes since end of last month: Cuevas, after months of being the worst starter of the group, was taken out of the rotation and put in the bullpen. Luckham got promoted, then demoted right back. Stuart got promoted as he should have with a 27/5 K/BB ratio in 16 August innings and was replaced with Saenz, finally back off the injured list. Lastly Theophile got hurt and went straight to the 60 day/full season injured list, not a good sign.

Rotation Observations: Stuart was unhittable in his 3 Aug AA starts; he should stick in AAA for a while. Saenz got hit very badly; 10+ ERA and a 2.58 ERA in August. He struggled in 15 AA starts last year and may be running out of time to stick in the rotation. Luckham’s AA starts were solid; he definitely earned his promotion, but he’s been getting hit upon his return. Shuman is finally back in AA and only had one start, so not much to go on. Solesky was decent but just has no K/9 power. Lara’s ERA is inflated compared to his peripherals: 1.09 whip, .184 BAA; that should be a sub 3 ERA.

Next guy to get Promoted: No idea. Maybe Solesky despite his lack of swing and miss. He’s 26, has solid full-season numbers. It should be Theophile, but he seems like he’s out for a while.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Saenz; just not sure if he can cut it in AA.

Bullpen comments: Alston earned a promotion. I like Jack Sinclair’s august: 17/3 K/BB in 10 innings. Cronin is finally back in AA and had a 3.09 ERA in 10 appearances as the closer. He replaced Peterson as the closer at some point, who had an ERA in the 8s for the month.

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High-A Wilmington

Rotation as of 8/31/24: Atencio, Cornelio, Susana, Caceres. Tepper

Rotation as of 7/31/24: Atencio, Cornelio, Shuman, Davis, Susana

Changes since end of last month: Shuman promoted, replaced by Caceres, who had been dropped from the rotation earlier. Also, Davis got dumped out of the rotation, replaced by the newly promoted Tepper.

Rotation Observations: Caceres, one month after getting dropped from the rotation. was the best starter in Wilmington. Cornelio put up his typical 6+ ERA month; more on him later. Susana got hit; he needs more AA time. Atencio put in another quietly good month (more on him in a moment). Tepper had a 4.50 ERA in two starts; not much to go on.

Next guy to get Promoted: Shuman finally got promoted despite getting whacked in his 3 High-A starts to start the month. I think its Atencio’s turn. He’s had a very solid High-A season all told (3.47 ERA in 18 starts) and had similar numbers in August. He’s only 22 and seems like a sneaky decent prospect for us.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Cornelio. Honestly, I don’t understand why the team sticks with this guy. I can’t remember the last time I saw a gamer with him as the starter where I said, “Oh that was a nice game for Cornelio.” No; instead its constantly 5ip, 7hits 3 walks, 5ER. (as I write this, i see that he had perhaps his best ever start as a pro on 9/1, which dropped his seasonal ERA by nearly a half a run all by itself). His career ERA is nearly 6.00 and instead of repeating low-A he got promoted up to high-A this year, where he’s continued to not be good. And it isn’t as if he has a 12 K/9 rate or anywhere near it.

Bullpen comments: The team finally promoted Cronin after my explicit comments last month. There isn’t much else good to write home about from this bullpen.

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Low-A/Fredericksburg

Rotation as of 8/31/24: Sthele, Polanco, Romero, Sykora, Clemmey

Rotation as of 7/31/24: Sthele, Polanco, Tepper, Romero, Sykora ( plus a slew of spot starts from random players and two Saenz rehab starts)

Changes since end of last month: Tepper got promoted, replaced by trade acquisition Clemmey. The team also just put Polanco on the restricted, list, so not sure what’s going on there. So as of this moment there’s only 4 starters on the roster; Polanco’s last turn was taken by lefty reliever Angel Roman.

Rotation Observations: Here’s Sykora’s August numbers: 6 starts, 30 1/3 innings. 0.88 ERA (3 earned runs in 30 innings). In those 30 innings he gave up 12 hits and 4 walks for a WHIP of 0.52. He had 48 strikeouts to go against 4 walks in those 30 innings. Uh, why is he still in Low-A? Nobody else worth talking about right now: Romero has just 10 Ks in 25 innings last month, Sthele had a .297 BAA, Polanco a 1.83 whip. Clemmey is a solid prospect and had solid peripherals even if his ERA was mediocre (.188 BAA, 21/12 K/BB in 19IP).

Next guy to get Promoted: Sykora. should have been promoted last month.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Probably Sthele, who we’ve mentioned in this spot in the past. 22yrs old in low-A just not getting guys out. 12th rounder in 2023 so not a ton invested.

Bullpen comments: Speaking of Roman; he’s been unhittable since getting bumped up from FCL. The team called up a couple of 2024 draftees in Alexander Meckly and Merrill Beeker, but neither are being used as starters right now.

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Rookie/FCL Nationals: finished on 7/25/24, so no August games.

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Rookie/DSL Nationals

Rotation as of 8/31/24: De la Cruz, Reynoso, Feliz, Reyes, Lunar

Rotation as of 7/31/24: De la Cruz, Reynoso, Vera, Feliz, Thomas, with Juan Reyes as an “opener.”

Changes Since last Month: Vera was mercifully pulled from the rotation after walking 2 guys an inning, replaced by Lunar. Thomas was pulled from the rotation as well, replaced with Reyes’ opener performances.

Rotation Observations: De La Cruz had 3 Aug starts and saw his already bad ERA increase. Feliz only made one start on 8/5 and hasn’t appeared since; that’s not good considering that he was easily the best arm in the DSL this year. Reyes got three short “opener” starts of 2-3 innings and was decent. Reynoso got two starts and got shelled. Lunar had a 4-inning no hit performance and a 5-inning start with just one hit allowed.

Next guy to get Promoted: Feliz, maybe Lunar

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Vera.

Bullpen comments: Probably the best bullpen arm is Jose Sanchez, not much else to report.

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That’s it for August 2024. We’ll probably wait until the end of the minor league season in the early parts of September to do an end of season review.

With a bit of advance fanfare (news leaked on Friday 8/23/24 for his 8/26/24 call-up), the cornerstone of the Nats rebuild Dylan Crews has been called up.

He’ll take his place in an outfield that started the year Winker/Rosario/Thomas and which is set to end it with the all-prospect, all-under 24, all pre-arb set of players Wood/Young/Crews. I didn’t think we’d get to this point until at least May of 2025, and honestly I thought a year ago it’d be Hassell instead of Young, but here we are.

Crews’ AAA line in total (.265/.340/.455) doesn’t really look that dominant, or that worthy of getting called up. Even his improved August numbers (.289/.356/.513) bely a bit of a patience problem (just 5 walks in 18 games). But, consider that Bryce Harper got called up with pretty middling AAA numbers (.243/.325/.365) and went on to win the NL ROY in 2012. Speaking of Rookie of the year, the timing of the call-up should be just enough to preserve Crew’s rookie status (150 PAs) for next year while getting him some big league looks as the team plays out the string.

And why not call him up now? Even if Alex Call hadn’t hurt his foot, it makes zero sense to play anyone else for extended periods of time in the OF at this point. Blankenhorn? We’ve already outrighted him once. Garrett? The fact that he remains on the 40-man but has been passed over multiple times for obvious outfield vacancies should tell us everything we need to know regarding the state of his career after last year’s gruesome leg injury, unfortunately. Meneses? Can he even play the outfield? Gallo? why is he even still on the team at this point? In the final game before his call-up, the Nats rolled Gallo out to start in RF and we got the most Gallo-esque performance possible: 4 PAs, 3 strikeouts, 1 walk, and he now sports a season average of .165.

So, call him up, sell some tickets, let him get licked in meaningless games for a 4th place team playing out the string, and plan on 2025 come out firing with all our young guns in the lineup (Wood, Crews, Abrams, Garcia, Young, etc).

Shohei Ohtani added another achievement to his already lore-level career: he hit a walk-off grand slam for his 40th HR of the season to officially reach 40-40 status.

40-40 has only been done five other times in the history of the sport:

• Jose Canseco, who did it in his MVP 1988 season at the age of 23 likely before PEDs took over his narrative. He hit a homer and had two SBs in a Sept 23rd 9-8 game as the 104-win Oakland team was cruising into the playoffs. Doing this at the age of 23 sent shockwaves through the sport, but Canseco’s injury-riddled career never really offered another opportunity for him to get another 40/40 season; he only hit 40 homers in two other seasons, and never again came close to 40 steals.
• Barry Bonds, who did it in in 1996, in his age 31 season where he had a 188 OPS+ but somehow only finished 5th in MVP voting. He stole a bag in the final game of the season to get the achievement as his 68-win team was playing out the string. Bonds nearly did the feat again in 1997 (40/37) and then he entered his mid-30s PED era where he was much more of a slugger than a runner. It is only fitting that Bonds did the feat, considering that his father Bobby Bonds was the original pioneer for this feat, nearly doing it twice in his career in the 1970s.
• Alex Rodriguez did it in 1998 when he was just 22, hitting 42 homers and stealing 46 bags. It took a-Rod deep into September to get to 40/40 (game 153), getting his 40th homer for a middling Seattle team out of the playoffs. He added a couple more dongs and a couple more SBs to pad the stats. Like Canseco, doing this at age 22 seemed to really portend A-Rod repeating the feat for years to come, and indeed A-Rod became a home-run machine, hitting 40+ homers each season for basically the next decade, but he never came close to 40 SBs again despite being in his mid-20s prime.
• Our own Alfonso Soriano, who did it for our awful 2006 Washington Nationals team during his one season here. The team signed him to a 1yr/ $10M deal as kind of a pillow contract after he had an ignominious exit from NY and a couple of middling seasons in Texas, and the early news was dominated by the team’s fight with him over where he was going to play. He initially refused to head to the outfield but eventually grudgingly trotted out in spring training to take his left field spot, where he played the rest of his career. Once we got past that, he certainly delivered for us; he was our all star that year and made national news with his 40/40 achievement. Soriano had been threatening 40/40 for a while, nearly doing it for New York in 2002 (39/41) and again in 2003 (38/35). In fact, he should have gotten the achievement in that 2022 season: he sat at 39 hrs and 40 SBs for two weeks in September but couldn’t get that 40th homer. As soon as he signed a big money deal with the Cubs for 2007 (manager, Lou Pinella, same guy managing A-Rod in his 40/40 time), his SBs dropped off considerably and he never came close again.
• Ronald Acuna who went for 41/73 last season in his age 25 season, taking full advantage of the new pitching rules (which we’ll touch on later) to run up his SB count early and then getting his 40th homer deep into September to achieve the result. He hit his 40th in later september, right in the same game 153-154 range as most of the guys above, so he had some time to spare. Acuna nearly did the feat at age 22, going 41/37 in 2019, so this shouldn’t be too much of a surprise. Unfortunately for Acuna, he blew out his ACL in May of this year, so it may be some time before we see him challenge 40/40 again. Acuna is still in his prime, and seems like an easy threat for 40/40 for a few more years assuming he gets the confidence back in his knee.

I feel like there should have been a 40/40 season prior to 1988, but likely candidates like Bobby Bonds, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, and a couple others just never quite made it there. Mantle never prioritized SBs and had a very bad knee injury early in his career, Bonds (as discussed above) nearly got there a couple times, Mays came close a couple times very early in his career in NY, Hank Aaron had a 44/31 season in the early 60s but was more of a steady power presence.

That leaves us with Ohtani, who as of this writing has exactly 40 hrs and 40 SBs, and achieved the plateau at least a month earlier than any of the 5 previous guys. Amazing. One just has to ask … does he have a shot at 50/50? Yeah, I think he does. He achieved this feat in game 129 of the season (126 that he played), which is amazing enough, but may just leave him enough time to do a 50/50 season.

Ohtani is averaging one HR every 14.45 PAs, and averaging one SB every 3.15 games. Assuming he plays every game the rest of the way (he’s played in 126 of the 129 games for the Dodgers, they have 33 games left, so I’ll assume he plays in 30 of those games, averaging 4.5 PAs per game).

• 30 games, 4.5PAs/game = 135 PAs left this season, divided by 1 hr/14.45 PAs = 9.3 homers projected the rest of the way.
• 30 games, one SB every 3.15 games = 9.5SBs projected the rest of the way.

So Ohtani statistically projects to a 49/49 season right now, rounding those numbers down. If he gets hot, or if he plays every game the rest of the way out maybe he gets enough additional looks to get to 50/50.

The new pitching rules have become a boon for stolen bases in the league, something that MLB knew quite well when they went to pitch clocks and limits on pickoff attempts. A few years ago the SB leaders were leading the league with 40-50 SBs. Already this year we have guys with 60 and its mid-august. And some of these guys have power: Elly De La Cruz leads the league with 60 SBs right now and he has 22 Homers to go with it and he’s in his 2nd pro season. Jose Ramirez isn’t exactly known for his speed, but he’s already sitting on a 30/30 season himself and could make a push for 40/40 with a hot September. So, hopefully we’ll see more of this going forward.

It should be exciting to see if he can get there.

Ever since we entered the draft pool bonus era, players not signing who were drafted in the top 10 have been a rarity. Oddly in 2024, with the draft signing deadline having just passed on 7/31/24, we saw four players not sign.

This post is a recycled post that tries to answer the question: “does it ever pay off for a player not to sign?” And I’ve added in the 2024 players for tracking and analysis going forward.

Lets take a look. Here’s a summary of the 13 years of players who were drafted but did not sign from the top 10 rounds.  This analysis goes back to 2012, since that’s the beginning of the new draft rules.

• 2024: 4
• 2023: 1
• 2022: 3
• 2021: 3
• 2020: 0 (covid 5-round draft)
• 2019: 2
• 2018: 4 (all 1st or supp-1st rounders)
• 2017: 3
• 2016: 2
• 2015: 6
• 2014: 6 (two of which were Nats picks: Andrew Suarez and Austin Byler in that ill-fated draft class, and one more who didn’t sign thanks to Houston’s screwing up the Brady Aiken deal and who was eventually granted free agency).
• 2013: 8
• 2012: 8

In total, 50 total players picked in the top 10 rounds in the last 13 drafts failed to sign, more than half in the first four years of the construct as teams/players/agents figured things out. The number of players drafted in the top 10 rounds varies slightly from year to year, but its roughly 300 players a year times 13 seasons, so at least 3,900 players picked in that time and probably more than 4,000 when you add in the dozens of supplemental and draft-compensation picks. So usually we see nearly 99% of the top 10 rounds of players sign.

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Here’s the better question: did these players make major mistakes by NOT signing and taking the money?

Its a common refrain among pundits in the amateur baseball world (Keith Law in particular) that HS players should “take the money” if they’re drafted high enough. Certainly any first rounder would be a fool to turn away that kind of money, and mostly any prep player offered something in the upper 6 figure range should give serious consideration.  MLB contracts generally include college tuition … so even if you sign out of HS you still have 4 years fully paid for in case you wash out.  So instead of gambling on your health, or the fickleness of the baseball draft (where one bad start can cost you 30 spots in the draft and millions of dollars), take the cash when its offered.

But, don’t take our word for it.  Lets look at the empirical evidence of every player over past drafts who has forgone the cash to see if there’s any trends.

(a caveat here: I did not look at the dollar amounts in every case; this is basically draft round analysis.  Its possible that a 5th rounder in one year went in the 8th the next and got offered more money … but its quite rare with the new draft rules and bonus pools.  Everything changed with the new CBA that went into effect in 2012).

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2024: 4 players failed to sign.

• Tyler Bell, a prep SS from an IL HS. Drafted in 2nd-supp (#66 overall), slot value of $1.26M. Failed to come to terms with Tampa Bay. Based on some quick googling, it looks like Tampa offered him around $1.5M to sign but got other over-slot guys to sign before Bell would, which cost them the overage it likely would have taken. Bell was a top100 draft prospect with a commit to Kentucky and will be a draft-eligible sophomore in 2026. Tampa gets a replacement pick at exactly #67 in 2025.
• Chris Levonas, a prep RHP from a NJ HS. Drafted one pick after Bell as a 2nd round Supp (#67). Slot value: $1.23M. He was a higher ranked prospect than Bell, and he and Milwaukee couldn’t come to terms. Per my google research, Milwaukee had $3M to offer him, but Levonas was a significant prospect and decided to honor his commitment to Wake Forest. Milwaukee pivoted and spread out that $3M to several later picks. Milwaukee gets a replacement pick at exactly #68 in 2025.
• Ryan Prager, a college junior LHP from Texas A&M. Los Angeles picked him in the 3rd round with a slot value of $948k. Per reporting in the Athletic, Prager was pretty open with teams about being open to coming back to school, earning his degree, and seeing if he could help TAMU get back to the title game. No numbers were discussed, but it sounds like the Angels drafted him without understanding his requirements nor what it would take to sign. Prager goes back to school, while the Angels will get a comp pick after the 3rd round in 2025 (meaning they’ll lose a couple dozen spots in the draft).
• Jaxon Jelkin, a college junior RHP from Houston. The Mets drafted him in the 9th round (slot value $196,700). There’s not a lot of information out there. MLB’s scouting report notes that he made 7 starts for Houston then blew out his UCL, requiring TJ. They also note he was “dismissed” from Nebraska’s two years ago and has “severe makeup concerns.” Reportedly NY didn’t even make him a contract offer, which means technically he’s a free agent right now with a year of college eligibility left but with a TJ surgery likely putting him out for the entire 2025 college season. It might make more sense for him to take a pro contract and rehab at a pro facility instead of college, but we’ll see. New York will not get a comp pick here.

Obviously it’s too early to tell for all these four players if they made the right decision. I’ll say this: if you’re a prep player who gets offered $3M … you made a mistake not taking it. If indeed Levonas got that offer. Is he guaranteed to be a 1st rounder in three years? Same to a lesser extent for Bell, who turned down $1.5M. Prager? He may be able to do better next year. Jelkin? He should have signed. So, my too early verdicts are: 3 mistakes, 1 may work out.

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2023: 1: just one player out of the 314 players selected in the top 10 rounds failed to sign.

• Caden Kendle, a Jr OF from UC-Irvine taken in the 10th round by St. Louis. He apparently agreed to a $175k bonus (around 10k over slot), but then had a change of heart and decided to go back to school for his senior season.

Verdict: He refused a $175k, played another year, got drafted in the 5th round of 2024 and signed an under-slot deal for $147k. So, he lost money, and a year of pro development. He may have gained a college degree though, so that’s good.

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2022: Just three players failed to sign in the 2022 draft’s top 10 rounds.

• Nolan McLean, a draft-eligible sophomore two-way player from Oklahoma State (RHP and 3B) who was picked by the Orioles at the top of the 3rd round. Baltimore found an issue in his medicals, so McLean went back to school. Slot bonus figure: $794k. Its unclear what bonus figure they agreed upon. McLean went back to school, and was picked again in the 3rd round in 2023, dropping 10 slots and signing for $747K with the Mets.
• Brandon Sproat, a RHP sophomore from Florida, failed to sign with the Mets as a 3rd rounder (slot value $691k) for reasons unknown. He went back to school, then (amazingly) agreed to a re-draft by the Mets in 2023, who picked him in the 2nd round and signed him for $1.47M. Sproat also appears later on in this post because he refused to sign out of HS as well.
• Brock Rodden, a 2B junior from Wichita State, failed to sign as a 10th rounder with Oakland (slot value: $151.3k). He went back to school, got drafted as a 5th rounder in 2023 and signed for $200k.

Verdict: McLean was not penalized for not signing, but it wasn’t really his choice since the team reneged. Sproat more than doubled his bonus offer from last year, and Rodden improved his by likely 25%. So, all three guys “worked out” in the end.

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2021: 3 players did not sign from the top 10 rounds:

• Kumar Rocker, RHP Vanderbilt, in a well publicized blow-up, the Mets drafted Rocker 10th overall and made a huge splash announcing a $6M over-slot bonus .. then ran into issues with his medicals, resulting in the two sides failing to agree on anything and the Mets passing on the Vanderbilt star altogether.  Rocker’s agent (ahem, “advisor”) Scott Boras of course refused to make his medicals available ahead of time, and of course claimed that there was no injury, but the subsequent findings vindicated the Met’s decision. Rocker had shoulder surgery in the fall of 2021, then pitched in Indy ball in 2022 before shockingly getting drafted by the Rangers with the 3rd overall pick in 2022. He signed for $5.2M, well below the slot value, and well below the $6M he agreed to in 2021, but he was still an upper 1st rounder. He pitched in the fall league, then made a handful of starts in 2023 before …. tearing his UCL and having Tommy John. So, Perhaps the Mets were right all along.
• Jud Fabian, OF Florida; saw his draft stock fall from a possible top-5 pick all the way out of the first round.  But, he apparently had a $3M deal with Baltimore in the second, but those plans were foiled when Boston selected him at the beginning of the 2nd round.  Fabian stuck to his bonus demands, and the two sides could not reach an agreement.  Fabian went back to school and was a Comp-B pick in 2022, signing for $1.03M.
• Alex Ulloa, prep SS from Texas failed to come to terms with Houston as a 4th round pick.  Ulloa bailed out of an Oklahoma State commitment, went to Yavapai College Juco … and went undrafted in 2022 altogether. Again in 2023, but he did get a commit to U of Miami for 2024, his junior season. Failed to get drafted in 2024 altogether, now at Florida International.

Verdict: Rocker couldn’t beat $6M but still got $5.2M as damaged goods, so its hard to say he made a bad decision (not that it was entirely his to make with the Mets pulling the offer).  Fabian lost out on $2M of bonus money, but we don’t know what money he turned down from Boston (odds are he lost out on the deal). Ulloa’s slot value was $492k in 2021; we don’t know what he was offered in 2021, but we went completely undrafted in 2022, so it seems safe to say he has lost out on money.

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2020: in a shortened 5-round Covid-related draft, not one player picked in the 5 rounds failed to sign.

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2019: 2 players did not sign from the top 10 rounds

• Brandon Sproat, RHP Fla HS 7th/205 overall by Texas.  $222,100 slot value, which wasn’t enough to buy Sproat out of his commitment to Florida. As we’ve already seen, Sproat and signability was also an issue in 2022, but he did eventually sign in 2023 for a ton of money.
• Wyatt Hendrie, C from Calif Juco 10th/312 overall by Chicago Cubs.  $142,200 slot value.  Cubs seemingly ran into slot issues with both 10th and 11th rounder, and Hendrie wouldn’t take under slot. Hendrie went undrafted in 2020’s shortened draft, but then was picked in the 7th in 2021 and signed for $177,500 out of San Diego State.

Verdict: both players ended up making money by not signing; Sproat a ton, Hendrie a little bit.

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2018: 4 players did not sign

• Carter Stewart, RHP Fla HS. 1st/8th overall. Atlanta didn’t like Physical, offered 40% of slot value ($1.9M); initially slated to Mississippi State.  Update: However, he did an about face, went to a Juco instead with the plan on re-entering the 2019 draft.  When he struggled in Juco and fell to a mid 2nd round projection … he attempted an end-around of the MLB draft rules and signed to play in japan, a situation I detailed in this space.  By 2021 he had graduated the Japan minor leagues into their majors, and his stats as of 2023 seem pretty solid (as a 23yr old he has a sub 2.00 ERA for his team Softbank).
• Matt McLain: 2B Calif HS. 1st/25: Asked $3M, Arizona offered $2.6M didn’t budge, going to UCLA.  Update: picked 17th overall in the 2021 draft and signed for $4.63M. Huge gamble and huge win.
• JT Ginn: RHP Miss HS. 1st/30th: LA dodgers offered $2.4M, asking $2.9M, going to Mississippi State.  Update: drafted 2nd round/52nd overall in 2020 draft, signed for $2.9M with the Mets in a well over-slot deal.  So two years later he got his asking number.
• Gunnar Hoglund: LHP Fla HS. 1supp/36: Pittsburgh didn’t like physical, low-balled and he declined. going to Ole Miss.  2021; was projected as a top 10 pick, hurt his arm, had TJ but still got drafted 19th overall by Toronto and signed for $3.25M. Big win.

McLean drastically improved his stock, Ginn got what he wanted, and Hoglund (despite his injury) got paid.  I already detailed why I think Stewart’s deal is smart.

Verdict: All four made the right decision.

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2017: 3 players did not sign

• Drew Rasmussen, RHP, Oregon State, 1s/31st overall. Failed to sign with Tampa, who (I guess) didn’t like his medicals.  He was coming back from TJ and only had a few weeks of action before the draft. Update: Went 6th round in 2018 to Milwaukee.
• Jack Conlon, RHP, Clements HS (Sugar Land, Texas). 4th round/128 overall. Failed to sign with Baltimore, went to Texas A&M.  Update: left TAMU, went to San Jacinto, then enrolled in Rice and sat out 2020.  However, he wasn’t on the 2021 roster, and its unclear where he’s playing at this point. He seems to be out of baseball at this point.
• Jo Jo Booker, RHP, Miller HS (Brewton, Ala.). 5th round/145 overall. failed to sign with LA Angels, went to South Alabama.  Ended up playing 5 full seasons for South Alabama, was never drafted, posted an ERA north of 6.00 his 5th year, and is likely out of baseball.

Two players who ended up playing themselves out of any bonus dollars.  Rasmussen didn’t turn down the Rays as much as they refused to tender him a contract … they must have tendered him something because they got a comp pick in 2018 draft.  So he turned down 40% of first round money in 2017 to sign an under-slot deal in the 6th round of 2018 ($135k, just $10k more than the non-top 10 rounds minimum).  I’d say this was a bad move by the player unless Tampa flat out refused to pay a dollar.

Verdict: 1 worsened his draft position, 2 missed out on any draft money.

2016: 2 players did not sign

• Nick Lodolo: 1S/41st overall; LHP from Damien HS in California. failed to sign with Pittsburgh, went to TCU instead, draft eligible in 2019.  In 2021, drafted 7th overall, signed for $5.43M.
• Tyler Buffett: 7th/217 overall; RHP, failed to sign with Houston. returned to Oklahoma State, drafted in 6th round in 2017 and signed with Cincinnati

Lodolo went to school (an arm-shredder program in TCU even) and went from 41st overall to 7th overall, with probably 3x the bonus.  Furthermore, by 2021 he was one of the best pitching prospects in the game.  Meanwhile Buffett improved his draft position one round by going back to school.

Verdict: 1 drastically improved his draft pick and money, 1 improved his draft position one round.

2015: 6 guys did not sign.

• Kyle Funkhouser: 1st/35th overall: RHP from Louisville, failed to sign with LA Dodgers, turning down an above-slot $2M. 4th rounder in 2016, signed with Detroit.
• Brady Singer, 2nd/56th overall: RHP Florida HS. failed to sign with Toronto, went to Florida and was 1st rounder in 2018, signed with Kansas City
• Jonathan Hughes, 2nd/68th overall: RHP Georgia HS. failed to sign with Baltimore, went to Georgia Tech and not even drafted in 2018…
• Kyle Cody, 2nd/73rd overall: RHP U Kentucky. failed to sign with Minnesota, drafted in 6th round in 2016 and signed with Texas
• Nicholas Shumpert, 7th/220th overall. SS Colorado HS. failed to sign with Detroit. Went to San Jacinto CC, drafted in 28th round 2016 by Atlanta and signed.
• Kep Brown, 10th/311 overall. RF South Carolina HS, failed to sign with LA Dodgers. went to Juco, then to UNC-Wilmington, not drafted in 2018.

Funkhouser was the biggest “whoops” here; a poor spring took him from his pre-season top 10 draft position all the way out of the first round, but he still demanded upper 1st round money.  He didn’t get it … and then fell to the 4th round the next year.  That was a big fail.  Singer clearly improved on his 2nd round status by going to college.    Cody slipped from being a 2nd rounder to a 6th rounder.  The other three guys drastically fell on draft boards; one of them going from a 10th rounder to not even being drafted.

Verdict: 1 improved, 5 hurt draft stock

2014: 6 failed to sign

• Brady Aiken: 1/1 overall, RHP from San Diego HS. failed to sign with Houston, went to IMG Academy in FL, drafted 1/17 by Cleveland
• Andrew Suarez: 2nd/57 overall LHP from U-Miami, failed to sign with Washington. Drafted 2nd round/61st overall in 2015 by San Francisco
• Trevor Megill; 3rd/104th overall RHP from Loyola Marymount. failed to sign with Boston, drafted 7th/207 in 2015 draft and signed with San Diego
• Jacob Nix: 5th/136 RHP from Los Alomitos HS; couldn’t sign when Tampa lost bonus money, sued, FA, signed with San Diego
• Zack Zehner: 7th/204 OF from Cal Poly, failed to sign with Toronto. Drafted 18th round 2015 and signed with NYY
• Austin Byler, 9th/274 1B from nevada-Reno. failed to sign with Washington, drafted 11th round in 2015 and signed with Arizona

Aiken became quite the rarity; the first #1 overall baseball pick to fail to sign in 30  years.    But his lack of signing cascaded and cost the Astros both their 5th rounder Nix and another player later on thanks to the new draft rules on bonus pools; Nix ended up being declared a FA in a face-saving move by MLB so as not to admit that their new bonus cap circumvention rules were BS.  Aiken had no where to go but down from 1-1 so he obviously cost himself money.  The others all fell, if only slightly in Suarez’s case.

Verdict: 1 didn’t count, 5 lowered draft stock

2013: 8 failed to sign

• Phil Bickford: 1/10 RHP California HS. Toronto failed to sign. went to Southern Nevada juco, drafted 1/18 by SF and signed.
• Matt Krook 1s/35 LHP calif HS. Miami failed to sign, went to Oregon State, drafted 4th round by SF in 2016
• Ben DeLuzio 3rd/80 SS from Fla HS. Miami failed to sign. Went to Florida State, played 4 years … undrafted out of college, NDFA with Arizona
• Ben Holmes, 5th /151 LHP Oregon State. Philly failed to sign. went 9th round in 2014
• Jason Monda 6th/181 OF Washington State. Philly failed to sign … then accused him of NCAA violations. he wasn’t drafted again and quit to go to Med school
• Stephen Woods 6th/188 RHP NY HS: Tampa failed to sign, went to Suny-Albany, drafted 8th round 2016 by SF and signed
• Dustin DeMuth 8th/230 3B from Indiana, Minnesota failed to sign, became 5th rounder in 2014 and signed with Milwaukee
• Ross Kivett 10th/291 2B from kansas State. Cleveland failed to sign, became 6th rounder in 2014 and signed with Detroit

Bickford fell 8 slots year over  year but still fell.   DeMuth and Kivett both improved their stock.  The rest fell, drastically in some cases.

Verdict: 2 improved, 6 fell

2012: 8 failed to sign

• Mark Appel 1/8 RHP Stanford by Pittsburgh. failed to sign, was 1/1 in 2013 with Houston
• Teddy Stankiewicz 2/75 RHP from Texas Hs. failed to sign with Mets, went Juco, 2/45 in 2013 by Boston
• Alec Rash, 2/95 by Philadelphia from IA HS. went to Missouri, 2015 drafted in 23rd round by Washington but still didn’t sign; quit baseball and started playing NCAA basketball
• Kyle Twomey, 3/106 LHP Calif HS Oakland. Drafted 13th round 3 yrs later out of USC by Chicago Cubs.
• Brandon Thomas 4/136 OF from Ga Tech; didn’t sign with Pittsburgh, drafted 8th round one year later and signed with NYY
• Colin Poche 5/162 LHP texas h s. failed to sign with Baltimore, went to Dallas Baptist, undrafted Jr year, drafted 14th round 2016 by Arizona
• Nick Halamandaris 8/251 1B Calif HS. failed to sign with Seattle, played 4 years at cal, undrafted jr and Sr year, NDFA with Seattle, played one season
• L.J. Mazzilli 9/280 2B from UConn. 4th rounder in 2013 signed with NY Mets

Appel managed to improve from 8th overall to 1st overall.  Stankiewicz also improved his stock about a round’s worth.  Mazzilli improved from a 9th rounder to a 4th rounder.  The others all fell.

Verdict: 3 up, 5 down.

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Summary: of the 50 players who failed to sign, passing judgement even on the players where its far too early to really tell:

• 30 hurt their draft stock by failing to sign (15 HS, 15 coll)
• 1 didn’t really count b/c of the Houston 2014 draft bonus shenanigans (Jacob Nix, HS)
• 15 improved their draft stock/money
• 4 from 2024 too early yet to tell.

So, 2 out of every 3 times a kid turns down the money they’re costing themselves in the long run. But, its also worth noting that a huge percentage of these players who declined to sign were at the very beginning of the new rules … in the last few years, the success rate of players has gone way up. I attribute it to players now understanding better the rules of the system.

Food for thought.

The boys at MLBPipeline (Jim Callis, Jonathan Mayo, et al) have done a mid-season reshuffling of all 30 teams’ prospect lists, and the Nats system looks demonstrably different in the wake of the draft, trades, and over/under performance of some players.

This is a discussion of where the system stands as per one of the leading pundits in the game.

Below is the current top 30 (also online at this link, which is dynamic and shows the current status of the list at all times). I’ve added a new column that looks at the last few MLBpipeline top 30 releases, going back to the Mar 2024 initial list, to show the general range of where players have been the entire time as a comparison to where they are now.

Rank Now	Ranks Earlier 2024	Last Name	First Name	Position
1	1-2 always	Crews	Dylan	OF (CF)
2	3	House	Brady	SS/3B
3	10-13 range	Sykora	Travis	RHP (Starter)
4	11-12 range	Susana	Jarlin	RHP (Starter)
5	not yet drafted	King	Seaver	SS
6	not yet acquired	Clemmey	Alex	LHP (Starter)
7	not yet drafted	Dickerson	Luke	SS/CF
8	4-5 range	Cavalli	Cade	RHP (Starter)
9	4-5 range	Morales	Yohandy	3B
10	not yet drafted	Lomavita	Caleb	C
11	not yet acquired	Wallace	Cayden	3B
12	7-9 range	Lile	Daylen	OF (CF)
13	8-10 range	Hassell III	Robert	OF (CF)
14	not yet drafted	Bazzell	Kevin	C/3B
15	13-15 rage	Hurtado	Victor	OF
16	20-24 range	Feliz	Angel	3B/SS
17	27-30 range	Lara	Andry	RHP (Starter)
18	13-14 range	Bennett	Jake	LHP (Starter)
19	not yet acquired	Stuart	Tyler	RHP (Starter)
20	not yet acquired	Ramirez Jr.	Rafael	SS
21	6-8 range	Green	Elijah	OF (CF)
22	18-20 range	Brzykcy	Zach	RHP (Reliever)
23	9-10 range	Vaquero	Cristian	OF (CF)
24	not yet drafted	Kent	Jackson	LHP (Starter)
25	19-21 range	Made	Kevin	SS
26	28-30 range	Grissom	Marquis	RHP (Reliever)
27	15-16 range	Rutledge	Jackson	RHP (Starter)
28	17-18 range	Pinckney	Andrew	OF (Corner)
29	30+ range	Ribalta	Orlando	RHP (reliever)
30	35+ range	Lord	Brad	RHP (Starter)
30+	29-30 range	Cox	Brennar	OF (CF)
30+	26-28 range	Cruz	Armando	SS
30+	25-28 range	White	TJ	OF (Corner)
30+	24-27 range	Saenz	Dustin	RHP (Starter)
30+	22-25 range	Baker	Darren	2B/OF
30+	21-23 range	Henry	Cole	RHP (Starter)
30+	23-26 range	De La Rosa	Jeremy	OF (Corner)

Here’s some thoughts on the current top 30 on this list, how they’ve risen/fallen, plus all the names who have appeared in MLBPipeline’s top 30 lists this year who are now pushed out, and then at the bottom a list of all the graduations. All stats listed are as of my looking them up and writing them here on 8/14/24.

• With Wood’s graduation, Dylan Crews ascends to #1. He’s got an .814 OPS figure in AAA this year, which sounds good … but when you compare his 2024 to what his fellow top 5 college draftees are doing (Skenes; started ASG. Langford, destroyed minor league pitching and started the season in the majors) he almost seems like a disappointment right now. I think its slightly telling that the team has now called up four different hitters (Blankenhorn, Call, Tena, Chapparo) instead of Crews in the wake of trades and releases.
• House Remains #2. He finally got pushed to AAA, where he’s got a sub-300 OBP figure. But, it’s also telling to remember he’s 21. If he had gone to college, he’d have just been drafted a month ago and would be sitting in XST.
• Sykora and Susana now 3/4 in the system. And as they should be, based on their complete dominance this season. Sykora should have been promoted already with the numbers and accolades he’s got in the last month. Sykora even made his way onto the MLBpipeline top 100 for all the minors. Meanwhile, Susana is now #61 on ESPN/Kiley McDaniels top 100 for the entire minors. That’s pretty impressive.
• Our big-3 round 2024 draftees (King, Dickerson, Lomavita) come in at #5, #7, and #10. Only a handful of our 2024 draftees have even made it out of XST (the above three plus Bazzell), and only King & Lomavita have been assigned to a real team for their pro debuts as of this writing.
• Clemmey comes in at #6. Is this a little high? Perhaps. But it is telling that in his first pro season he went straight into the low-A rotation and has been there the entire time, with massive K/9 numbers and decent BAA, even if his ERA and WHIP show a lot of room for improvement.
• Cavalli has slipped, from a consensus top 3 to now #8 on this list. I don’t blame them; A 12-month recovery has now been delayed by “dead arm” and “the flu” and perhaps next week we’ll hear that he has the bubonic plague and then maybe after that a mysterious soft tissue injury.
• Morales is also slipping, though he was injured for a big chunk of this season. He’ll need another year at AA just to get his value back. Meanwhile, he’s being passed on the pecking order for 1B/DH types (since he’ll be completely blocked by House at 3B), and will need to bash his way up over the likes of Yepez, Chapparo, Meneses, Blankenhorn, and whichever veteran FA/Joey Gallo v2.0 we sign this off-season
• Cayden Wallace at #11 just got dumped to the 60-day DL; per some googling, he has an Oblique Strain and has been out since first week of May. Does that sound like a long time for that injury? We’re at 3 months.
• Lile, Hassell, and Hurtado are all treading water, being lower on the list than they were earlier but all due to initial placements above them pushing them down. Nothing to report here for now. These guys aren’t impressing or overly disappointing for now.
• Angel Feliz has gotten bumped up decently, from the 20-24 range to #16 here. The 17yr old SS made the DSL all-star team and is slashing .308/.385/.449 this year. Wow, when was the last time we had a solid hitter matriculate out of the DSL? Luis Garcia? Juan Soto? It’s early, but after the sh*t show that was the 2023 IFA class, its refreshing to at least have a couple guys who look like they’ll move on. By the way, as far as I can tell the best hitter out of the 23IFA class right now is looking like Carlos Tavarez, a 1B/OF who had a .869 OPS figure in the FCL this year. Not one other 23IFA who even made it to the mainland had an OPS figure much above .600 (Marcano, Soto, Acevedo, Batista, Maricuto, and Arias).
• Andry Lara now sits in the #17 spot, having moved up from the 27-30 range. Um; ok. He’s 21 and in AA, where he’s been for most of the year after dominating the first month of High-A. If he was playing by American rules he’d be sitting in XST right now. For me he’s a lot better prospect than #17. I think this is a top 10 prospect.
• Green: significantly dropped to #21 from the 6-8 range, and before that even higher. We’ve debated Green for a while in this space. His stat line is comical this year: .198 BA and a ridiculous 171 Ks in 88 games. He’s repeating low-A. I agree with Keith Law’s take on Green, where he called out Green by name as a golden example of a player who NEEDED the former Short-A league that’s now gone. Instead he’s jumped straight to low-A and has had to stick there. I hope he can rebound, I really do, but his prospect rank is where it deserves to be for now.
• Brzycky, Grissom, Ribalta: I just don’t see why RHP relievers are ranked as prospects. They come in at 22, 26, 30 on these rankings. They’re fungible, replaceable assets who generally are good one year (Rainey in 2020 and 2022, Weems in 2023) then awful the next (Rainey in 2021 and 2024, Weems in 2022 and then again in 2024). Ribalta just got called up; i wouldn’t be surprised if he had a 2.00 ERA this year and a 6.00 era next or vice versa. It’s like ranking backup middle infielders or 4th outfielders.
• Pinckney has taken a fall in the rankings; his swing looked long and slow in spring training and it hasn’t really improved. 119 Ks in 108 games for just 6 homers isn’t going to cut it. I know a lot of readers here were super high on him coming out of Alabama, but he may have plateaued already. He may get pushed up to AAA at some point, but where does he fit in?
• Lord coming in at #30. Not sure what else you want the guy to do; he’s the same draft as Tyler Stuart who is ranked 10 spots higher but is a level below him. If Lord was a 2nd rounder he’d be in the top 100 right now. He’s now been in the AAA rotation for nearly 2 months (8 starts) and he’s still holding a 3.27 ERA there.

Guys who were in the top 30 but who are now pushed out:

• Brenner Cox: He’s getting a long run as a starter in low-A w/o the batting average to sustain it.
• Armando Cruz: ranked solely b/c of his signing bonus for a while, he just got an undeserved promotion to High-A so that Seaver King could start in Fredericksburg.
• TJ White remains in the 19-20 range for other pundits but is now outside top 30 for MLBpipeline. Not sure why some pundits still rate him; he’s hitting .202 as he repeats high-A.
• Dustin Saenz: Seemed like a possible sneaky starter prospect like a Parker or Lord, but got hurt and has struggled in his return from the DL in AA.
• Darren Baker: has played a solid season in AAA but has not gotten an opportunity since neither Vargas or Nunez has gotten hurt. Has been playing a ton of LF to give him some positional flexibility, but he remains a power-less slap hitter at a time when you need to have some power no matter where you play.
• Cole Henry: what are we going to do with this guy? He was our #3 prospect for a while post draft, but just can’t seem to stay healthy.
• Jeremy De La Rosa: was hopefully the last example of a ridiculous 40-man addition that this team will make, putting a guy on the roster who was in low-A and had zero chance of getting picked. He was dfa’d out outrighted in November 2023, which means we can’t ever outright him again. He played well to start the season in low-A, earned a promotion but hasn’t hit since. He got promoted to AA in July to fill the gaps left when Crews got bumped up and Hassell got hurt, but he didn’t deserve it. He’s continued to hit sub .200 since and probably should be back in A-Ball.

Anyone else worth mentioning?

• Andrew Alvarez: i’m not sure they’ve ever ranked him, but he’s in the AAA rotation and faces an interesting Rule-5 dilemma this off-season.
• Acevedo and Solano, our two $1.3M 2023IFA signings: nowhere to be seen.
• Rodney Theophile and Michael Cuevas: youngsters in the AA rotation mix; I wonder if they can get some prospect love soon.
• How about Jose Atencio, 22yr old doing well in High-A rotation?

Graduations from Mar 2024:

• Trey Lipscomb: 29-32 range; has struggled in the majors, which fits given his prospect status. An infielder in the 20s would have a ceiling as a backup, and that seems to be where he is right now.
• Jacob Young: 17-18 range: As is often discussed, he’s drastically outperforming his prospect ranking, and sits 2nd on the 2024 team in bWAR behind Abrams. It’s almost entirely on the strength of his defense though since he has an 85 OPS+ figure.
• James Wood: 1-2 range: has not disappointed in his MLB debut; 134 OPS+ as of this writing.
• Mitchell Parker: 20-22 range: has drastically outperformed his prospect status since arriving in the majors, which is being attributed to the Nats pitching staff. But he’s been out-performing his reputation his entire pro career.
• DJ Herz: 12-14 range: He’s performing as I would have expected Parker to do, based on prospect reputation … 4.41 ERA, 91 ERA+. He probably needs more AAA time.
• Note: I agree with those shops that stick by 50ip/150ABs versus service time for Rookie status, but the following three guys are “graduated” per service time.
• Drew Millas: 18-20 range (graduated by service time not by ABs): hitting well enough in AAA but didn’t hit at all when he spelled Riley Adams on the MLB roster. He’ll be #3 on our 3-catcher depth chart for the forseeable future.
• Nasim Nunez: 19-20 range (graduated by service time not by ABs). I’m amazed he’s lasted this long based on his utter lack of any performance, and he’s done little to make me think he’s really even a prospect honestly. He’ll go to AAA and sit there for 3 years as a spare-part infielder.
• Israel Pineda: 26-28 range (graduated by service time not by ABs). He’s much younger than Millas, but where has his bat gone? He hit .280 in 2022 in a AA call-up, but is now hitting .157 there two years on.