Nationals Arm Race

"… the reason you win or lose is darn near always the same – pitching.” — Earl Weaver

Nats Rotation End of April 2025 check-in

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Cavalli doing rehab starts and could be back soon. Photo via Lookout Landing blog

We’re a month into the 2025 full seasons, believe it or not, so its time to bring back last year’s monthly check-in on the rotations, from the MLB to DSL (once they start). I really enjoyed doing this last year, so I thought i’d bring it back. I already did a starter post to talk about the opening day rotations for all five full season teams, so we’ll build on that.

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:

We’ll start with the Majors.

  • Opening Day 2025: Gore, Irvin, Parker, Soroka, TWilliams
  • End of April 2025: Gore, Irvin, Parker, TWilliams, Lord

Changes since end of last Month: Soroka made one start, had a biceps issue and hit the DL. Instead of bringing up an underperforming AAA starter, the team put Brad Lord into the rotation for the time being. As it turns out, Soroka’s issue is relatively short term (he’s already doing rehab starts and will be back soon), which will send Lord back to the bullpen.

Rotation Observations: Gore leads the league in strikeouts, partly on the back of his opening day gem. Parker has gone from 5th starter competition to “best starter in the rotation” because, of course he has. The big disappointment has been Williams, who has reverted to his 2023 self and sports a 5.70 ERA. His FIP is better, so he’s a little unlucky in his first six starts, but this is not what we wanted when we brought him back. Unfortunately he’s guaranteed two years, so he’ll have a lot of leash. Irvin is chugging along at a 101 ERA+, about what you’d hope for in a 4th starter.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Lord will go back to the bullpen once Soroka is back. Hard to see anything else actionable for a while. Cavalli is doing rehab starts; could they possibly demote Williams to the bullpen? Maybe.

Bullpen comments: Atrocious. 5 of the 8 guys have ERAs north of 7. Only Rutledge and Finnegan are performing. Together, Ferrer, Salazar, Lopez, Sims, and Poche have a combined bWAR of -2.6: that’s hard to do in a month and is a big reason this team is 13-18 instead of 16-15. I’m not sure what else they can do in the short term; there’s exactly 1 healthy 40-man arm in the minors (Brzycky). There are a couple AAA MLFA arms with MLB service time that could be getting the call soon, but they’d have to axe someone off the 40-man first.

AAA Rochester

  • Opening Day 2025: Alvarez, Lara, Ogasawara, Choi, Solesky
  • End of April 2025: Alvarez, Lara, Solesky, Shuman, Cavalli (rehab)

Changes since end of last month: Ogasawara hit the DL, replaced by the promoted Shuman. Choi was awful and got demoted; his starts have been filled in with a combination of Pilkington spot starts and an up-and-back start from Luckham (who pitched 5 shutout innings and then got demoted, weird).

Rotation Observations: Alvarez has been holding his own but has a 1.5 whip and may see his numbers regress to the mean a bit. Lara has been shelled for a 9 ERA and a .368 BAA; not good. Solesky has been mediocre, but at least not as bad as his prior 2023 AAA stint. Shuman’s first two starts have looked great; it’d be a nice story for the oft-injured 27yr old to finally have a solid season. Cavalli’s first rehab start was shaky. Pilkington’s numbers are intriguing: in 13ip he has 23ks .. and 10walks. Tyler Stuart, sitting on the 7 day DL, apparently has an “elbow issue” that the team “hopes” isn’t serious but that he is out “indefinitely” for now. This sounds to me like months of PT, one rehab start and TJ surgery. That’s definitely a loss for this team, assuming he’s out til mid 2026.

Next guy to get Promoted: Obviously its Cavalli. But after that, it’s hard to make a case for any of these AAA starters to be deserving of a 40-man move and/or to be moved up. Lara’s the only other 40-man member but he clearly needs time.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Probably Solesky. He’s a MLFA so there’s little investment and the team may look at him as an innings eater to be moved around as needed instead of a prospect. Or not: they did send him to the AFL last year.

Bullpen comments: Weigel is making a name for himself in AAA and could be pushing for a promotion. If Pilkington’s walks weren’t so out of control he may already be in the majors. The team already has two promotions from AAA: Schoff (who’s pitching well) and Grissom, who just got the call yesterday.

AA Harrisburg

  • Opening Day 2025: Shuman, Luckham, Saenz, Susana, Atencio
  • End of April 2025: Luckham, Saenz, Susana, Choi, Soroka (rehab)

Changes since end of last month: Choi demoted/Shuman promoted, Luckham up and back, and Atencio to the DL. Atencio’s starts have been a combination of rehab starts from Soroka and Cavalli plus a couple of bullpen games with Miguel Gomez as the opener.

Rotation Observations: Susana’s AA debut has been solid: 3.91 era, 1.5 whip and 35/17 K/BB in 23 innings. Too many walks of course, but i like that his K rate is so high even as he’s now pitching against AA hitters. Remember; he’s only 21. Luckham’s numbers have looked solid and i’m slightly surprised he didn’t stick in AAA. Choi is probably now in the right level; his ERA is inflated but his peripherals look solid (0.94 whip, .227 BAA, 12/1 K/BB): I’d like to see him over the course of a few months to see if he can earn a AAA spot. Saenz has been hit hard, continuing last year’s AA trend. Shuman cruised through three starts without walking a guy before moved up.

Next guy to get Promoted: Luckham. After that, we’d need another couple of months of performance out of Susana or Choi.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Saenz. His time is running out.

Bullpen comments: Grissom deservedly promoted yesterday. Davila may be next; he’s a MLFA and is 28, too old for AA.

High-A Wilmington

  • Opening Day 2025: Clemmey, Cornelio, Kent, Sthele, Tepper
  • End of April 2025: Clemmey, Cornelio, Kent, Sthele, Arias

Changes since end of last month: Tepper got hurt after 2 starts and went straight to the 60-day DL: can’t find injury news on google, but straight to 60-day usually means something bad. He has been replaced by LR/SS Arias for now, but perhaps not for long b/c Tolman was just promoted.

Rotation Observations: Tepper’s numbers were not good; was he trying to pitch through an injury? Arias’ have been little better and he’ll be the first one replaced. Jackson Kent’s pro debut has gone great (though he got shelled last night). Even with the poor outing he’s got a 30/6 K/BB, a 1.05 whip, a .217 BAA. Love it. Bravo to Cornelio, who is having a stellar start to the season after my constantly harping on why he’s even still in the system after two full seasons of ineptitude. He’s got 31 Ks in 21 innings so far. Our star prospect Clemmey can’t find the plate: he’s got 27/20 K/BB in 18IP right now, which isn’t helping his WHIP or his ERA. Sthele is marginally improving on his numbers from last year but isn’t lighting the world on fire.

Next guy to get Promoted: Probably Cornelio; he’s 25, a bit old for the level, and if he continues to dominate would need a new challenge. Kent and Clemmey are at least a half season in High-A irrespective of performance.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Arias, as per above.

Bullpen comments; Schulz has looked great in the closer role and could be pushing for a move up. Oddly the two guys they’ve already promoted (Young and Huff) had middling High-A stats. Jared Simpson has looked solid. It’s great to see Glavine off the DL after missing most of the last two seasons. On the other end of the spectrum, Marc Davis has gone from a rotation candidate to not being able to find the plate: he has 15 walks in 9 innings.

Low-A/Fredericksburg

  • Opening Day 2025: Polanco, Meckley, Tejeda, Roman, DGarcia
  • End of April 2025: Polanco, Meckley, Tejeda, Roman, DGarcia with Bennett making his 2025 debut

Changes since end of last month: None, really. Cavalli made a rehab start but then Roman (who was supposed to start that day) came in right afterwards. Tolman made a spot start somewhere along the way. Otherwise, this rotation has been pretty consistent. Bennett slots into Tejeda’s spot today, but that’s probably not a replacement (as per my observations below).

Rotation Observations: First off, none of these starters are going very deep. Polanco has just 18.2 innings in 5 starts. Tejeda has 16 ip in 4 starts. But they’re still the starters. Polanco and Tejeda both have solid looking numbers: sub 4 ERAs, decent whips, solid BAAs. Both Meckley and Garcia have struggled with control and are walking nearly a guy an inning. Roman is the low man on the totem pole right now: 12.37 ERA and a 2.2 whip.

Next guy to get Promoted: Polanco is the oldest of these starters but doesn’t have the swing and miss stuff you’d want to see to show he’s overpowering the league. Bennett, if he shows out healthy, probably is moved up pretty quickly. He needs to get to AA by season’s end honestly.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Roman isn’t cutting it and likely Bennett is taking his spot.

Bullpen comments: There’s several bullpen arms in Fburg who are overpowering the competition: Bloebaum, Amaral, and converted infielder Mejia all have huge K/9 rates right now. Cranz has a .161 BAA in the closer role but is walking nearly a guy an inning. Mejia is pitching well enough to get save opportunities, a good sign for his conversion.

That’s it for April 2025. Lots of intriguing updates after diving into the stats for the month.

Written by Todd Boss

May 1st, 2025 at 10:35 am

Posted in Majors Pitching,Minor League Pitching,Minor League Rotation Reviews

MLB Pipeline drops updated ranks and interesting Draft nuggets

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I’m not sure how I feel about drafting a kid whose Twitter profile picture is this. Photo via Ethan Holliday’s X/Twitter account

The big news of today is the MLB Pipeline crew updating its Draft Ranks for the 2025 draft for the first time in months, with significant movement both within the top 10 and throughout.

The updated board is here. You can see some of the movement, but notably:

  • Ethan Holliday remains #1.
  • Arnold remains #3
  • Seth Hernandez up to #2 from #5
  • LaViolette dropped from 2 to 7, Bremner dropped all the way to 17
  • Willits up significantly.
  • Both Anderson and Doyle now in the top 10.

However, what I want to talk about was some of the interesting draft nuggets and other information points that the team talked about in the accompanying podcast that dropped last night. It’s a good listen if you’re hyper-into this stuff like I am this year.

I listened to it so you don’t have to, but here’s some of the interesting stuff I heard.

  • The analysts consensus is that the 1-1 pick is now coming down to one of just three players: Holliday, Arnold, and Hernandez.
  • The group generally thinks at this point the odds for 1st overall are Holliday 50-60%, Hernandez 20%, Arnold 10%, Arquette 3-5%, and the Field 3-5%.
  • By new draft guidelines, If a player attends the pre-draft scouting combine and takes a medical physical, teams cannot offer that player more than a 25% cut on the slot value. So 1-1 is worth $11.1M dollars; 75% of that figure is $8.3M. I was not aware of this rule. And, it really limits how much of a deal you can cut at 1-1. If everyone takes the physical, nobody’s taking a $7M bonus deal at 1-1 to give the Nats millions of dollars to spend later on.
  • The group suspects that, since the industry knows this is a weaker draft at the top that most of the top players will take physicals to force teams’ hands and force them to guarantee at least 75% of that value.
  • Burns and Condon both got $9.25M bonuses last year; Skenes and Crews got $9.2 and $9M in 2023. It seems unlikely that the Nats will have to go much higher (if at all higher) than this threshold for one of these top guys this year.
  • The group believes that the Nats, and Mike Rizzo in particular, are just the right combination of risk acceptance profile to roll the dice on being the first team to ever take a prep RHP 1-1.
  • Direct quote, “The Nationals are a ceiling organization, not a floor organization.”
  • They talked about how Rizzo is a scouting-first guy (not analytics-first, which point to younger players and safer college picks). If Rizzo thinks Hernandez is the best player, Rizzo is going to take him. Hernandez, by far, has the highest ceiling of any player in this draft; Holliday is more about the track record, and Arnold is more about floor.
  • This seems to me to be a distinct break in the Rizzo regime’s approach. If you look at the nature of our drafts for the first decade of Rizzo’s tenure, it was very college-heavy, barely ever taking a prep kid … except at the top or with major overslot deals.
  • There have been teams/times where a prep RHP came really close to going 1-1. Hunter Greene was in serious consideration for 1-1 in 2017 before Minnesota took Royce Lewis. They told a story about Rizzo at Arizona taking Max Scherzer in 2006 as a prep RHP: they drafted 11th but Rizzo had Scherzer #1 on his board.
  • (speaking of the 2006 draft: Longoria, Kershaw, and Scherzer all picked in the top 11).
  • Hernandez is not just a RHP: he’s also a significant hitting prospect. He’s a major power hitter who bats ahead of fellow 1st round pick Carlson in his high school lineup. So, there’s always some fallback options there and/or some two-way options (can’t see the Nats doing that honestly).
  • The Nats decision makers were in Oregon State to watch Arquette last weekend. We know they went to Florida State a few weeks back and saw Arnold get shelled. The entire industry was at the NHSI game where Hernandez shined, and the entire industry was at the big Oklahoma 3-team showdown where Holliday’s team played. So they’re covering their bases.
  • Both Arquette and Holliday … are represented by Scott Boras. And the Nats take a lot of Boras clients.

Anyway, I came away from this podcast with the distinct idea that the Nats are going with either Holliday or Hernandez as of this juncture. Lets hope we get some more information on both players before the draft.

Written by Todd Boss

April 30th, 2025 at 9:38 am

Posted in Draft,Prospects

Ten Week Check-in with 1-1 Candidates for 2025 Draft

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Here’s our fifth check-in on the 1-1 candidates.

Important Draft related news and notes that have published since our last posting:

  • MLBPipeline staff did a mini “mock draft” on 4/10/25 talking just about top 10 picks, and there’s absolutely a shift in the discussion. Three of the top 5 college candidates we’ve been tracking aren’t even in their top 10 as they have pivoted to prep players. The time tracking the likes of LaViolette and Bremner may be done.
  • The National High School Invitational (NHSI) event happened in this cycle, and included Corona HS with its two upper 1st round prospects. Read below for a deep-dive into Seth Hernandez in particular.
  • D1Baseball reordered their ranks for just college players and now go Arnold, Arquette, Houton, LaViolette, and Kade Anderson, who we’ll start tracking.
  • BA released their Mock Draft v2.0 on 4/14/25. Following along with their scouting report of Hernandez NHSI, they’ve got Hernandez first, saying its looking like the perfect set of circumstances to have a prep RHP go 1-1.
  • The Athletic’s Keith Law released his top 50 Draft prospects on 4/15/25: Holliday, Doyle, Arnold, Arquette, Houston. Hernandez is all the way down at #21, which is way, way out of line with the rest of the industry. But, his ranks also support Doyle’s meteoric rise.
  • Law also wrote a longer form analysis of Arnold, Carlson, and Hernandez in his Draft notes article on 4/15/25. Basically said Arnold won’t get out of the top 3, while he’s not sold on Hernandez (more on that below).
  • Kiley McDaniel published his updated Draft class ranks on 4/15/25. True to form, Kiley has some prep kids way, way up there, though he leads the line with Arnold. Remember; McDaniel’s methodology is all driven around projected Future Value, so he tends to dream on prep kids and their ceiling instead of thinking about risk. He’s got Eli Willits, a prep SS in Oklahoma, #2 on his list, primarily with an age-based analysis (he’s super young), which is crazy. McDaniel does say one interesting thing: Analytics-heavy teams like Willits and Carlson, while old-school scouting/eyeball teams like Holliday. Which do you think the Nats are? More on this later.
  • McDaniel also posted a ranking of the College Aces on 4/18/25 … with rankings that do not align with the draft ranks. McDaniel explains this in the preamble; the ranking (which has Doyle top and Arnold 4th) is who is performing NOW, versus his draft class ranks (where Arnold is top and Doyle is 12th) where he’s projecting “Future Value” of the player in the majors. Confused?
  • Two of the biggest prep prospects (Holliday and Willits) played last weekend: here’s Keith Law’s scouting report. I’ll reference it below for the two players.

Aggregation Stats for College Baseball for Reference:

Link Block for the top guys under 1-1 consideration. I’ve got this whittled down a bit. Note: the MLBPipeline report rank is a bit out of date at this point, being months old. I’m sure they’ll update it soon, and when they do i’ll re-capture the updated ranks. There’s just no way, for example, that LaViolette is still #2 or Doyle is #75 right now. The BA list was updated 3/26/25 and is better.

Prep Players who are in the running for 1-1:

Prospects guys we’re removing from 1-1 discussion for now and why. I’ll be paring the above list soon enough; there’s too many names in the mix to track every couple of weeks.

Here’s some updated commentary.

  • LaViolette: continues to improve his slash line, now hitting .307/.468/.693 (two weeks ago he was at .294/.451/.633). He destroyed Arkansas pitching on the road last weekend, going 5-12 with 4 homers and 3 walks and now has 15 dongs for the year. Is it too little too late for him to go 1-1? I think so; the narrative has already been written for him this year, but man someone’s going to get a huge bat in the first 10 picks or so. Can you imagine this guy in Colorado?
  • Arnold: We got a little bit of context for Arnold’s dip in performance; his missed start was due to a flu or illness, and he was weak for the next couple of weeks, which led to those iffy starts. He bounced back with a solid beatdown of Va Tech on 4/12 (7ip 4hits 1r 9/2 K/BB), and then his start last weekend was cancelled in the wake of the Florida State shootings. Season line: 8 starts, 4-1, 2.40 ERA, 0.97 whip, .177 BAA. 57/15 K/BB in 41 innings. I’d like to see him going deeper in games; he’s averaging just 5IP a start.
  • Bremner: gave up 4 in 6ip to UC Riverside while striking out 10 and throwing 107 pitches, then 3 in 7IP against Cal Poly while striking out 13 … and throwing 119 pitches! 119 pitches. In April. Not good. I just don’t like the hittability of Bremner, and he’s not dominating good but not the SEC teams.
  • Arquette blew up in the last two weeks, raising his slash line from .321/.439/.604 to .383/.497/.780. Unfortunately, he did this on the back of a 3-game sweep of one of the worst teams in D1 Cal State Northridge, against whom he had a 9-13 series with 4 homers and another 4 walks. That’s one way to jack up your seasonal batting average 60 points in three days. To be fair, the weekend before OSU visited Cal State Fullerton and he blasted 2 dongs there as well; he now has 15 for the season. He’s clearly a top 5 pick; but is he 1-1?
  • Doyle continues to pile on stats against top teams. He took the ball against #11 Ole Miss two weeks ago and put up a heck of a line: 8 1/3rd, 3 hits, 2 walks, 14 Ks and got lifted when he walked a guy with a one run lead in the 9th. He was at 111 pitches at that point … and probably saved his arm in the process. A week later against the solid but not top 10 Kentucky he had a more typical ace line: 7ip, 4hits, 2Runs, 9/1 K/BB, pulled at 101 pitches. For the season: 7-1 with 2.48 ERA, 0.83 whip, 104/17 K/BB in 58IP. That’s a 16 K/9 rate for an SEC pitcher.
  • Houston: first time on this list, lets take a look. For the season he’s slashing .335/.449/.589. He’s got more walks than strikeouts, has 10 homers. He has cooled significantly from earlier in the season, when he was maintaining .400 BA well into the college season, and just finished up a series against Boston College where he went just 2-10. Scouts are watching every move now. We’ll see how long Houston stays in the rarified air of possible 1-1.
  • Anderson: first time on this list, so we’ll catch up with his full season. He’s another lefty starter; apparently 2025 is going to include three front-line left handed starters in the top 10-15 picks. Anderson as of this writing has a 3.92 ERA for the year but is getting attention for 91Ks in 57 ip, Doyle-like numbers. He’s LSU’s Friday night starter, so he gets the ball against the toughest opponents. Last two weeks; he gave up 6 runs in 4 2/3rds in a loss at #9 Auburn, then he gave up 5 in 5 2/3rds hosting #10 Alabama in a no-decision. My first time looking at his stuff and while I see lots of whiffs, I also see lots of runs. He may not be long for this analysis.
  • Holliday wasn’t as impressive in his big OK prep school showdown as he may have wanted: Law reports that his BP wasn’t impressive and he waved at a couple of curves in the games that call into question his approach. His defense was improved though and Law threw out a Corey Seager comp, and Law thinks he could go “anywhere from 1st to 6th overall.” My thinking right now is this: If you want a bit of a project who could have a superstar SS/cleanup hitter ceiling, and if you trust your player development camp on the hitting side, you draft Holliday. If you’re the Nats, you let someone else assume that much risk.
  • Hernandez threw a CG in the NHSI quarter finals with this line: 7ip, 3H 1R, 0ER, 11/1 K/BB. Baseball America wrote it up and he sounds amazing: sitting mid 90s, hitting 99 in the 7th inning, showed a 70-grade changeup. There’s a ton of video showing dozens of pitches at the BA link; he has a slow, deliberate motion, hides the ball well, throws 4 pitches, got 10 swing and misses off the change. Could he go 1-1? Law’s analysis was a little less rosy, noting that Hernandez is generating velocity more with his arm than body (a huge red flag for future arm/shoulder injuries)
  • Carlson: in the same NHSI event, he… did not show up at the plate. He played SS and batted 5th behind cleanup-hitter Hernandez and went a combined 2-12 with 2 singles, a walk, and a sac fly. Their team Corona (which headed into the event the #1 ranked team in the country by every major rankings shop MaxPreps, PBR, PG, BA, SI) lost in the semis. Law’s analysis was more focused on defense, where he described Carlson as a “wizard on defense,” which bodes well and continues to support Carlson for at least the 1st round.
  • Cunningham: no news.
  • Willits is super young (he reclassified from 2206 class), which makes him a darling of some scouting projections (you’re drafting a top talent at 17yrs 7months). He’s a 6’1″ baseball rat from a baseball family who switch hits and has a 60 hit tool and 55s across the board otherwise. Law liked him all around, but the lack of power projection will keep him lower than his fellow prep hitters. But, he projects very highly with bat-to-ball skills. I don’t think he’s anywhere in the conversation for 1-1 but he is worth mentioning b/c analytical models like McDaniel’s loves him for his already high floor.

The Race for 1-1 status: I think the Nats have four names in the mix: Arnold, Doyle, Holliday, and Hernandez. If I had to guess today, i’d say they go Doyle.

Written by Todd Boss

April 21st, 2025 at 9:55 am

Posted in Draft,Prospects

How do the Nats already have a Pitching shortage?

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Rutledge may be pressed back into the starting role. 2023 photo via 3rdmanin.com

We’re two weeks into the season … and the Nats are already running out of pitching.

With the latest moves, here’s the status of our 40-man SPs:

  • MLB Rotation: Gore, Williams, Irvin, Parker*, Lord
  • SPs on DL: Grey, Herz, Cavalli, Soroka
  • 40-man SPs in minors: Ogasawara, Lara,

At the end of last year, we were in a similar situation to some extent … except that we were still calling Rutledge, Adon, and Henry “starters.” Now, we’re not calling any of those guys starters anymore, and we’re now one injury away from a disaster occurring. Two of the four guys on the DL are down for months in various stages of TJ surgery (Grey, Herz), a third is just only now starting throwing some innings and seems weeks away (Cavalli) and a fourth has a biceps issue and isn’t expected back until “May” (Soroka). “May” could mean 5/1 or 5/31.

Neither Ogasawara or Lara is MLB ready: Ogasawara got shelled in spring training and has a 4.80 ERA in 3 starts in AAA. Lara has a 9.26 ERA and is getting rocked right now in AAA and may need more AA time. Neither looks like an option if we have another starter go down, and we probably call up Alvarez as option A before looking at returning Rutledge to the rotation as optionB. Maybe you look at someone like Plinkington (long-time ML starter) or Adon (even if we know how that goes) .. but neither are on 40-man at present.

At least we have some starting pitching options here … the bullpen is in dire straits.

Its April 15th and we’re basically out of relievers.

  • MLB bullpen: Finnegan, Lopez, Sims, Ferrer, Poche, Salazar, Rutledge, Henry
  • RPs on DL: Law, Brzycky, Ribalta, Thompson
  • 40-RPs in minors; None (!)

That’s right; we don’t have a single 40-man reliever in the minors right now. Thanks to early April injuries to Law and Ribalta, the team has already called up its minor league reliever depth in Rutledge and Henry. Next guy who goes down? We’re adding someone to the 40-man and rolling the dice. Nobody in AAA has more than 3-4 innings, so attempting to guess who would make sense to callup is folly, but the two names that might make the most sense initially are Carlos Romero and Jack Sinclair, both setup/closer types that have shown success in either AA or AAA. There’s also three 2025 MLFAs in AAA in Plinkington, Weidel, and Helvey, two of which who have MLB time, so those two make sense to callup as well (they probably also have opt-outs built in).

I can’t remember a season where this many arms hit the DL so soon. I can remember Aprils with bullpens so bad that Rizzo cleaned house, but nothing like this. Should be interesting to see what happens next. With a full 40-man roster, every move has to have a corresponding move … and its not like we have a ton of deadweight on the 40-man right now. With seven guys on the 10/15 day DL, that’s just seven remaining 40-man players:

  • SPs: Ogasawara, Lara,
  • C: Millas
  • INFs: Baker, Lipscomb
  • OFs: Yepez, Hassell

There’s not a name on that remaining list that is an obvious DFA. There’s not really an obvious name on the DL right now to whack either. So that means a pretty deep cut DFA or a 60-day stash for every move.

Tough to focus on winning ball games when you don’t know who’s pitching the 7th.

Written by Todd Boss

April 15th, 2025 at 2:39 pm

Posted in Majors Pitching,Minor League Pitching,Nats in General

Full Season 2025 Opening Day Rotation Discussion

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Andry Lara in AAA now, a long ways from whatever this field was. Photo via mlb.com

Now that we’re a full turn through the rotations of all the full season squads, I thought i’d kick off the monthly series of rotation reviews with an “Opening day” rotation review, comparing it to how we ended last year and talking about who’s where, who’s surprisingly up or down where i thought they would be, etc.

I posted a prediction piece guessing the 2025 rotations in late November, that i’ll pull in here team by team, so that we can see just how wrong I was 🙂

MLB:

  • End of 2024 Season: Gore, Irvin, Williams, Herz, Parker, Corbin
  • Prediction for 2025: Gore, Irvin, Parker, Herz, Veteran FA signing with Grey on DL, Cavalli in AAA)
  • Opening Day 2025: Gore, Irvin, Parker, Soroka, TWilliams

Rotation Prediction and 2025 Observations: Well, we were pretty close on the predictions, getting four of the five right (Gore, Irvin, Parker, and Veteran VA signing in TWilliams). We missed on the Nats signing several more arms to have open competition for the 5th slot between Soroka, Ogasawara, and Herz. In the end, Ogasawara didn’t quite look ready for prime time (more on that in AAA section), and Herz looks like he’s heading to TJ. Grey on the DL as expected; Cavalli also on the MLB DL instead of in AAA because, well, apparently it now takes like 5 years to recover from TJ surgery in the Nats organization.

Shortest Leash to start the season: I’d say Parker is on the shortest leash, in that he was clearly the 5th starter to earn a spot. However, Soroka is already down win an injury and interestingly the team seems to have chosen not to backfill him immediately with a AAA starter. That’s partly due to early season off-day schedule, and partly due to the fact that they have a starter-turned-bullpen guy in Brad Lord in the bullpen (update: Lord made last night’s start and went three, so I’m penciling him in as 5th starter for now).

Bullpen comments: As is typical for Mike Rizzo constructed teams, the bullpen is a hodge podge of random Nats developed arms (Ferrer, Ribalta, Lord), Scrap-heap signings (Salazar, Poche, Law), and veteran one year FA types (Finnegan, Lopez, Sims). They’ve been less than impressive to open the 2025 season, not helped one bit by their 2024 stalwart Law immediately hitting the DL. I’m sure we’ll see the DCA-ROC regional shuttle get good use this year.

AAA:

  • End of 2024 Season: Alvarez, Lord, Ward, Rutledge, Watkins (Stuart hit DL last week of season)
  • Prediction for 2025: Rutledge, Lord, Alvarez, Stuart, Cavalli/MLFA signing
  • Opening Day 2025: Alvarez, Lara, Ogasawara, Choi, Solesky

Rotation Prediction and 2025 Observations: Watkins and Ward departed the season (by MLFA and Waivers respectively). My Nov predictions for 2025’s rotation were scuttled by a couple of surprising, and welcome moves. Rutledge has been moved to relief (which I never thought the team would do), and Lord (a personal favorite) made the MLB team. Stuart remains on the DL, otherwise likely would be in the rotation at the expense of (probably) Choi. I thought Cavalli would be ready to go and would be in the rotation; no dice. So instead we get a AA-level Rule5 guy in Choi to start along with two guys who moved up from AA last year in Lara and Solesky. Is 22-yr old Lara ready for AAA? I don’t think so, but he’s there. You could argue he had little to prove with 19 2024 AA starts; fair enough. Solesky needed the promotion; he’s 27 and its either up or out, even if I predicted he’d be back in AA last fall.

Next guy to get promoted: Both Lara and Ogasawara are on the 40-man, but neither seems ready to move up if needed. I think Alvarez would be the guy who makes the most sense unless Cavalli came off the DL if they need a starter. Solesky is 27 and is the elder statesman of the bunch, but his AAA time came in 2023 and he got shelled, so he needs to prove himself a bit more before getting a shot.

Shortest Leash to start the season: Choi seems like he should be in AA as a minor league Rule5 guy and would be the first guy I would think gets demoted if the results aren’t there/they need a spot. Lara had 19 starts in AA last year and apparently that’s going to be enough.

Bullpen comments: Rutledge started the year as the closer, but got pushed up quickly with Soroka’s injury. This led to the cascading promotion domino effect of Henry getting pushed up to now be AAA’s closer, following in the Starter -> Reliever conversion trend. There’s a couple of home grown, intriguing arms here (Sinclair, Romero), and the rest are what you’d expect of a AAA bullpen: MLFAs, Rule5 picks, and waiver claims.

AA:

  • End of 2024 Season: Lara, Shuman, Solesky, Luckham, Saenz (Theophile)
  • Prediction for 2025: Lara, Shuman, Sokesky, Luckham, Cuevas with Henry (i), Knowles (i) on DL.
  • Opening Day 2025: Shuman, Luckham, Saenz, Susana, Atencio

Rotation Prediction and 2025 Observations: The first day of 2025 looks an awful lot like the last day of 2024 for this rotation: Luckham, Saenz, and Shuman leading the line. They’re joined by the newly promoted Susana, aggresively moved up from his half season in High-A last year. I predicted Lara would be the 5th here in the typical Nats “half season promotion plan” but instead he’s in AAA. Henry to the pen as discussed, and Knowles still hurt, which leaves us with Atencio, who earns the promotion as well. Cuevas was in and out of the rotation all last year and is still in AA, likely filling in as LR/SS. Last year’s rotation stalwart Theophile hit 6-year MLFA and is out of the system.

Next guy to get promoted: If Shuman stays healthy, he’s already 27 and should be on the way up. Luckham was up briefly to AAA but got shelled; he might be 2nd in line to move up. The rest, especially Susana and Atencio, are likely here for at least half a season.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Saenz is probably on the shortest leash here: he had an 8+ ERA in AA last year. Luckily for him there’s not huge pressure on him just yet in the form of injured starters coming out of XST to the AA level.

Bullpen comments: One of our more important reliever prospects is here in Grissom, along with some solid performers in the system like Peterson and Powell. We also stuck three MLFA signings from the off-season here; they could move up quickly. I’m sure a MLFA signing with AAA time is not happy to be in AA.

High-A:

  • End of 2024 Season: Susana, Cornelio, Tepper, Caceres, Atencio
  • Prediction for 2025: Susana, Sykora, Atencio, Bennett, Clemmey (with Young, Caceres, Cornelio, Tepper, or Davis getting moved to the bullpen)
  • Opening Day 2025: Clemmey, Cornelio, Kent, Sthele, Tepper

Rotation Prediction and 2025 Observations: My prediction for High-A got shellacked with the aggresive promotion of Susana & Atencio and the lingering DL stays for Sykora & Bennett. That means I got just one name right; Opening day starter Clemmey. He’s joined by two guys who i’m kind of shocked are still high-A starters (Cornelio, Tepper), a surprise promotion (Sthele, who had a 4.81 ERA in 23 G/21 Starts last year in Low-A), and a surprise High-A pro debut for 2024 4th rounder Jackson Kent (who I thought would be in Low-A). I was correct in that Young and Davis moved to the bullpen, and Caceres was just put on the 7-day DL.

Next guy to get promoted: I have no idea. You have to think Clemmey and Kent, the two most important prospects, are here for at least two months no matter what. Cornelio and Tepper are hold-overs but have never really shown they should still be starters, let alone get promoted. Sthele just moved up and isn’t going to be ready for AA anytime soon. Hence my above comment about there being almost no pressure on the AA rotation right now unless someone like Bennett shows back up and dominates in A-ball like one would think he should/would.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Cornelio & Tepper seem likely to make way when Bennett is ready to pitch.

Bullpen comments: NDFAs, senior draftees, and MLFAs. A hodge podge of arms here. I am kind of surprised Davis is in the bullpen; he had really good numbers last year. Maybe he’ll pitch tandem.

Low-A:

  • End of 2024 Season: Sykora, Romero, Clemmey, Sthele, Polanco
  • Prediction for 2025: Tolman, Aldonis, Kent, Colon, Portorreal, with Sthele, Polanco, Romero as LR/SS options. (dl: Sullivan, Agostini)
  • Opening Day 2025: Polanco, Meckley, Tejeda, Roman, DGarcia

Rotation Prediction and 2025 Observations: My predictions last November were way off. Tolman is now a reliever, Aldonis is still hurt, Kent & Sthele made the High-A team, and Colon & Portorreal are still in XST. Brayan Romero is on the DL, along with Sullivan & Agostini, both of whom went straight to 60-day to start the season.

That left three slots for 2024 draftees, which is a great thing for the development honestly. So we get Meckley (12th rounder), Tejeda (14th rounder) and Garcia (6th rounder) in the opening day rotation. They’re joined by IFA signings Polanco and Roman. We do not get Cranz in the rotation as some scouting pundits predicted.

Next guy to get promoted: I’d guess Polanco, who was in the Low-A rotation for most of 2024. Garcia is the highest profile 2024 draftee and may push his way up quickly.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: I’d guess Meckley or Tejeda has the least amount of capital investment and have the shortest leashes. Roman was a sub $10k IFA signing and is found money; I hope he succeeds.

Bullpen comments: converted position player Mejia is here, age 30 pitching in Low-A. There’s 5 guys with names that start with “B” in this bullpen. Not much else noteworthy.

Who’s left in XST/FCL? Colon and Portorreal, who I thought maybe would make the low-A team. Another couple of newly graduated DSL guys like Farias and Moreno. However, when the FCL season starts i’m guessing its 5-6 starters all coming straight from the DSL roster.

Written by Todd Boss

April 9th, 2025 at 3:14 pm

Posted in Nats in General

Eight Weeks into Spring Season 1-1 Candidate Check In

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Doyle pushing for 1-1. Photo via his Twitter account.

Here’s our fourth check-in on the 1-1 candidates. We’ve started to get some more draft content from the typical sources now that we’re through “Prospect Season” and past opening day.

The consensus on this draft so far from pundits seems to be this: there’s no clear-cut #1 overall pick, but the draft itself is pretty deep. So, bad for us at the top but teams that have multiple picks and lots of money to work with are ecstatic about the depth of talent they’ll be selecting in the 1-Supp and 2nd rounds.

Important Draft related Links that have published since our last posting:

  • Baseball America’s top 300 Draft Prospects for 2025. Dated 3/26/25, goes Arnold, Holliday, Bremner, Hernandez, and Arquette. LaViolette at 9, Doyle 16, Kilen in the 20s, and Taylor in the 30s so i’ve removed them.
  • Prospects Live Top 100 Prep Draft Prospects was posted on 4/1/25. Interestingly they put a new name at the top over the 3 existing names; one Billy Carlson from the same Corona HS as Seth Hernandez. Wow, what a team; can you imagine having two first round talents on the same HS team? Anyway, if you want to read more scouting reports on the Prep kids in the mix, go to the above link to read about them.
  • Right after doing their top 300 list, the team did a “Staff Draft” that ended up with a very interesting name at the top: Seth Hernandez. He would famously be the first ever prep RHP to be drafted 1-1 if this were to happen, and in their podcast this week the writer who took the pick basically said that the struggles of the other candidates combined with the raw talent of Hernandez had him making the pick.
  • Keith Law was onsite for Tennessee-TAMU, and got to see several guys we’re talking about. Notes below on Doyle and LaViolette primarily.
  • Ethan Holliday’s Oklahoma HS team has a matchup coming up with national power Eli Willits, which will be well covered so we’ll finally get some scouting. Law notes that the word on the street so far is that Holliday is hitting and fielding well, which helps his 1-1 case.

Aggregation Stats for College Baseball for Reference:

Link Block for the top guys under 1-1 consideration. I’ve got this whittled to 5 for now.

Prep Players who are in the running for 1-1:

Prospects guys we’re removing from 1-1 discussion for now and why.

Here’s some updated commentary.

  • LaViolette: continues to improve his season numbers, now slashing .294/.451/.633 for the season. That’s up from 284/.434/.568 two weeks ago. He’s hit for a ton of power in the last two weeks, helped by a mid-week game against Incarnate Word where he blasted 2 dingers for 7 RBI in a day. Against Tennessee last weekend he went 0-2 against Doyle (no shame there) and an up-and-down weekend otherwise. Creeping back into respect ability; now has 10 hrs and 6 SBs in 31 games on the year. Law’s report was not rosy: 20 swings, 10 misses, and he says basically he saw strikeouts and weak contact all weekend. Law puts him as a back of the 1st rounder at this point, and I may stop reporting on him after this post.
  • Arnold: two up and down starts since we last checked in: at Notre Dame he couldn’t get out of the 5th, needing 94 pitchers to go 4 2/3rds against the not-very-impressive ND squad. A week later at home he cruised against Wake Forest, a tougher team, but still needed 98 pitches to complete 5 innings. 10 ks/2 BB, 2 hits allowed, 2 HBP. He needed 98 pitches to get through 20 batters, which says to me … he’s not hitting the plate a whole lot and is going deep into counts.
  • Bremner: got lit up by Long Beach State, giving up 5 runs and getting yanked in the 4th. Not good. Turned around and got a 7ip/4h/10k outing against UC Davis. Here’s the problem; both these teams are sub .500 Big West rivals; we’re not talking about top competition here.
  • Arquette has cooled significantly, having two straight bad weekends. He went just 1-11 at Nebraska two weeks ago, then just 2-10 at home against UC Irvine to drop his season slash line to .321/.439/.604.
  • Doyle will continue to be on this post until the very end, since he’s the Friday starter for one of the best teams in the country, in the best division. There’s not a player in this draft that we won’t get a better sense of from now until June. In the last two weeks: he gave up 9 hits and 5 runs to South Carolina in a loss (still struck out 11), then frigging no-hit Texas A&M for 6 innings before getting yanked on 96 pitches. 6ip, 0hits, 8k/2bb. Law’s impression? Good. 95-99 on the fastball, a nearly unhittable splitter as his second pitch, then two other pitches that he struggled with (a 87-90 slider and a low-80s curve). He does mention that Doyle’s arm lags, that he’s got funky mechanics, but also that he’s athletic and repeats his motion well. Still, some clear pro reliever worry, not exactly something you want out of your 1-1 pick.

The Race for 1-1 status: I think four of the 5 college guys we’re tracking are playing their way out of the top spot. Right now I think 1-1 is either Doyle or Holliday. If I had to guess how the top 5 picks go right now, I’d guess Holliday, Doyle, Arnold, Hernandez, and Arquette.

Written by Todd Boss

April 7th, 2025 at 9:09 am

Posted in Draft,Prospects

Quick Reactions to Four Full Season Rosters

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Andrew Alvarez got the opening day start for AAA Rochester. Photo via Fred Nats

Today on April 1st, we got the three remaining full-season rosters for our affiliates. This is not an April Fools Prank 🙂

Here’s quick links to the data (though Luke Erickson has already done a great job of distilling the information for us at this post for AAA and this post for the other three).

Here’s the direct links to official Press Releases and/or other social media roster announcements:

The Nats Big Board is now up to date for all four rosters. I’ve slotted in all the players in the roles I think they’re set to take for now (will adjust this as we get real games to see who’s actually in what job), and moved all others to XST.

Here’s some random thoughts of each roster, from AAA to low-A

AAA

  • There’s not enough playing time to go around for our 40-man middle infielders. One from Baker, Nunez, and Lipscomb (all of whom are 2B/SS guys) has to sit. Opening day it was surprisingly Baker not starting.
  • They only really have 3 true outfielders on this roster: their bench bats/DH types are 1B only (Yepez, Cordero) or backup middle infield (Cluff) thanks to the team keeping a 3rd catcher.
  • They’re carrying a 3rd catcher in Lindsly, and Knizner declined his option to leave and now is the backup in AAA. Interesting. Maybe he’s actually the starter in AAA since he was kept in MLB camp longer than Millas. Will be interesting to see how this plays out.
  • Paul Witt was a catcher, then an outfielder, now he’s being called a 3B. What’s more amazing is that he’s made it to AAA despite a career .210 batting average as a NDFA from the Covid 2020 year.
  • With the team finally acknowledging that Adon and Rutledge can’t start, the rotation was pretty easy to figure out. Alvarez, Lara, Ogasawara got the first three slots, and (we’ll find out the rest soon) but the other two starters kind of have to be Choi and Solesky. They already threw Plinkington and Adon in middle relief … so perhaps that was their “throw day” and they’ll start later this week, but we’ll see. Likely starter Stuart starts on the DL, otherwise rule-5 pick Choi may be in AA.
  • I like Solesky pushed to AAA. I was worried about exposing him to Rule5, perhaps a dumb take, but now he’s got an opportunity to shine in Rochester.
  • It’s go-time for back-end relievers Sinclair and Romero; if they can continue to light it up while MLB’ers falter, they’ll get promoted in no time.

AA

  • As it turned out, the team kept Wallace in AA, meaning there’s no 3B push for playing time split in AAA with House.
  • (Yes, I know some of you readers think that’s dumb, that House hasn’t proved he’s the man yet, etc etc, just trying to think like a Nats player development executive who gave House $5M of the team’s money three years ago).
  • AA seems to have four guys who all play basically the same position now: Wallace, Glasser, Lawson, and Arruda. All four seem to be the kinds of players who played SS in the past but who now are better suited to be 2B/3B types. I wonder how the playing time will shake out. Does the team keep Wallace at 3B, or do they have him start to work on 2B with the assumption that 3B is blocked?
  • Maxwell Romero now starting Catcher in AA. I may have to push him up my prospect rankings.
  • The AA roster shows that we have somewhat of a “gap” in our player dev pipeline. No fewer than 8 of the 28 rostered players in AA are MLFA signings from last off-season or the one before. That’s a lot.
  • Where is Kevin Made? Is he hurt?
  • Just one 40-man guy in AA: the converting to relief Cole Henry. I would imagine he’ll move up to AAA as soon as he shows he’s got it.
  • The rotation in AA should be: Shuman, Luckham, Saenz, Susana, Atencio. It’ll certainly be interesting to see how Susana holds up here. He did not look good in the breakout game. Saenz and Luckham probably have the most to prove.
  • Knowles on the 60-day to start, otherwise he’d be in the SP mix. Cuevas lost his rotation spot last year and could replace a faltering guy. We’ll see.

High-A

  • Three of our more important prospects start in High-A: 2024 1st rounder King, 1st-Supp Lomavita, and 4th rounder Kent (who makes his pro debut).
  • Wilmington’s lineup is YOUNG. 5 of the 9 guys who I think start opening day are 20 or 21 in High-A. Cruz, King, Green, Cox, and White. Wow; all five of those guys have single-syllable names like me. 🙂
  • Both Green and Cox get “socially promoted” like the Football coach’s idiot son.
  • White set to repeat Low-A for the third time.
  • Both the above sentences exhibits #1 and #1A why drafting HS players is risky.
  • I wonder if LSU-product Gavin Dugas could be a player. I was listening to the new Nats podcast with Dan Kolko and Ryan Zimmerman called 11th inning (it’s actually quite good) and Zimmerman was talking about the his opinion of Dylan Crews from spring training. He talked about how Crews carries himself like a 10year veteran when it comes to preparation and training … making the comment that the LSU program does a great job preparing these guys. Dugas was a monster in college, a guy who stayed til he was a senior and provided a ton of leadership. Would love to see him make it as a hard-contact 2B.
  • The rotation looks like it’ll be Clemmey, Tepper, Davis, Sthele, and 2024 draftee Kent. Cornelio may have run out of rope with his 5.51 ERA last year.
  • We’re missing a couple of big names though who should be in this rotation instead: Bennett and Sykora. Bennett coming off of TJ, Sykora coming off some minor off-season surgery, so both are in XST for a bit. They probably would have replaced Sthele and Tepper.
  • The bullpen is a motley collection of NDFAs, 8-9th rounders, MLFAs and Rule5 guys.

Low-A

  • As expected, Lomavita starting Catcher at one A-ball roster and Bazzell at the other. We’ll see who wins the race going forward. If Bazzell is as good as Keith Law Thinks, we’ll know soon enough.
  • Former decent prospect Quintana demoted from High-A to F-burg to presumably DH.
  • Name to keep an eye on: Carlos Tavares. 2023IFA signing for only $10k, one of the few to even make it to FCL for 2024, where he had an OPS of .869 last year and now is in Low-A as a 19yr old who doesn’t turn 20 til the season is over. Listed as an OF but played mostly 1B last year.
  • 2024 draftee Diaz will slate into the starting lineup here and comprise part of the left side of Fredericksburg’s infield presumably. Diaz getting some prospect buzz.
  • 2024 9th rounder Jackson Ross, a 5th year senior who got just $2k, breaks camp with the Low-A team. Bravo.
  • Big Money signing Vaquero back here, repeating Low-A, seeing if he can improve on .190. Hey, get enough of a signing bonus (ahem Green) and you’ll get promoted eventually.
  • Just like in 2024, the team seems to use Fredericksburg’s 60-day DL as its dumping grounds for injured minor league arms. There’s already 3 guys on there to start 2025 (Sullivan, Agostini, and Camilio Sanchez).
  • The rotation should be Roman, Polanco, Tolman (coming off 60-day dl last year), 2024 6th rounder Davian Garcia, and 2024 7th rounder Robert Cranz. Cranz appeared on both BA and Law’s top 30 list.
  • Most of the bullpen are 2024 middle round draftees, and there’s still a handful more in XST who have yet to get assigned anywhere.
  • There’s not too many players still sitting in FCL who i thought should be in Low-A honestly. The most notable/high profile player there right now is Luke Dickerson, who wasn’t goign to be starting at SS in Low-A anywya.
  • Notables missing from the Low-A roster who were there last year: Rafael Ramirez Jr (we got him in the Lane Thomas trade), Brayan Romero (the random guy who popped up on the BA top 30 list earlier this year), Sykora as discussed before, Starter Pablo Aldonis (who was on the 60-day dl last year), and a slew of middle relievers and bench players who likely are going to comprise the majority of the cuts we’ll start to see as the team starts to add DSL guys to FCL rosters and/or adds the 2025 draft class.

On the Big board, i’m leaving FCL for now, though technically FCL=XST. I went ahead and moved all the 2025IFAs to DSL just to stick them there; DSL now has 42 players on it, which is a ton and we’ll see some churn (promotions to FCL and releases).

thoughts?

Written by Todd Boss

April 1st, 2025 at 2:35 pm

Posted in Minor League Pitching,Prospects

Opening Day Starter Trivia for 2025 plus Observations on the state of Starting Pitching

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Richmond Native Verlander remains the career leader of Opening day starts. Photo unk via rumorsandrants.com

Now that the 2025 Opening Day is past us, and I’ve updated the XLS for this year’s starters and done some housecleaning of now-retired starters, here’s some Opening day starter trivia for you.

Here’s a link to the Opening day starter xls, which is also updated along the right hand side in the Links section. It is also worth noting that Baseball Reference of course maintains similar information. Here for example is the canonical opening day list of lineups (pitchers and players) for the Washington Nationals franchise. And here’s the list of all 30 teams’ opening day lineups for the 2025 season, with similar data for all past seasons). I can’t quite find a similar resource to just the starters across all 30 teams, but I’m sure it’s there somewhere, so I continue to maintain this XLS.

Ok, that being said, here’s some useless trivia related to Opening Day Starters:

  • First time Opening Day Starters for 2025: 12 of the 30, including our own MacKenzie Gore. It may be fair to say that, were there not an opening series in Japan, and were there not a couple of last minute scratches, this number should have been a lot lower, like maybe 8-9.
  • Current active Leader of Opening Day Starts: still Justin Verlander, with 12. He did 9 in Detroit, then another 3 in Houston. Others in the conversation are Kershaw (9), and Scherzer (7), neither of which seems likely to extend this record before they’re out of the game.
  • Current Active Consecutive streak: Logan Webb and Framber Valdez both now have 4 consecutive Opening day starts for San Francisco and Houston respectively.
  • Current Leader of Consecutive Opening Day Starts: both Verlander and Kershaw at one point made 7 straight opening day starts for their teams, and are the current leaders in that category. We’ll need another four years of consistency from Webb/Valdez to catch them, which seems unlikely (see my commentary below).

Historical records:

  • Most Opening Day Starts in History: Tom Seaver (16).  Tied for 2nd place with 14 is Jack Morris, Randy Johnson, Steve Carlton, Walter Johnson
  • Most Consecutive Opening Day Starts in History: Jack Morris; all 14 of his starts were in a row, Mr. Durability, and Mr. Hall of Famer thanks to the Veteran’s committee.

Nats Records:

  • Max Scherzer is the Nats franchise leader in Opening day starts with 6.
  • Strasburg is 2nd with four: he took the ball opening day in the 3 seasons before the Scherzer acquisition, then got it in 2017 mid Scherzer contract.
  • Gore with his 2025 start becomes just the 9th guy to get the ball opening day for Washington.
  • Odalis Perez remains the most unlikely Opening Day starter, getting the ball in our bottoming-out year of 2008.

Lastly, here’s some interesting team observations for 2025’s Opening day Starters

  • With Eovaldi getting the ball for the 2nd year in a row, Texas breaks a streak of having 8 different opening day starters in the 8 years prior to 2025. And it’s even crazier than that: They’ve had 15 different opening day starters in the last 16 seasons, dating to 2009! Only one guy has repeated: Cole Hamels in 2016 and 2018, and Now Eovaldi in 2024 and 2025.
  • Los Angeles Dodgers, despite being probably the league’s best team over the past decade or so and your defending WS champs, now has had 7 different guys make their last 7 opening day starts. Yamamoto, Glasnow, Urias, Buehler, Kershaw, May, and Ryu.
  • Urias, in case you didn’t remember, just was suspended a Half a Season for his SECOND domestic Violence arrest and has probably thrown his last MLB pitch. So, a 2nd DV arrest, charge, and pleading guilty = half a season suspension according to MLB. Meanwhile, Trevor Bauer, when he was accused of his first DV issue (but not charged, arrested, or guilty) was suspended for two full seasons and now cannot get a job in the Majors at a time when teams are begging for starters and is seemingly blacklisted by all 30 teams. Yes, Bauer comes across as opinionated and abrasive, but he was definitively cleared of charges AND pretty clearly demonstrated that his accusations were a complete setup by someone trying to catfish a major leaguer and who was subsequently indicted on felony fraud charges for filing false reports against Bauer … yet here we are. He’s missed out on literally hundreds of millions of dollars of salary because … why? Because he’s outspoken on Twitter?
  • Other teams who have not really been able to find a consistent starter: NY Mets: 5 straight different opening day starters. Cincinnati: 10 different starters in the last 11 years. Pittsburgh: 9 different starters in last 10. Baltimore: 9 different starters in the last 10 years. Angels: 9 in the last 11. Some teams just can’t find Aces.

Now for some random commentary on the state of Starting Pitching in the game. I write answers on Quora about Baseball all the time, and came across a question there asking whether recently inducted starters like CC Sabathia were “worthy” of the Hall b/c he “only” had 251 career wins. This in the context of the three aging star starters Verlander, Scherzer, and Kershaw who currently lead all active starters in Wins with (as of this writing on 3/28/25) 262, 216, and 212 respectively. They’re 42,40, and 37 respectively, meaning that the odds of them significantly adding to their current win totals seem slim.

But, I don’t think anyone would dispute that all three are no-doubt hall of famers, despite two of them not being close to even 250 wins, let alone 300 wins. Three major individual awards basically make a player a lock for the hall:

  • Verlander: 3 Cy Youngs (9 seasons in the top 5), 1 MVP, 1 Rookie of the Year, 3400+ Ks
  • Scherzer: 3 Cy Youngs (8 seasons in top 5), 3400+ Ks.
  • Kershaw: 3 Cy Youngs (7 seasons in top 5), 1 MVP, and has 2968 Ks as we speak.

But….. what’s next? A quick perusal at the state of Starting Pitching in the league reveals that we may not see another 250 win pitcher…. ever? Here’s the rest of the current active top 10 of career Wins leaders with their ages and some context:

  • Gerrit Cole: 153 wins at age 34; just blew out elbow so he’s missing all of 2025. Does he even get to 200 career wins now?
  • Charlie Morton: 138 wins at age 41: he’s the #2 guy in Baltimore’s rotation but this may be his last season.
  • Chris Sale: 138 wins at age 36; having a second-wind career moment, coming off of last year’s Cy Young, but he made just 11 starts in 2020, 2021, and 2022 combined thanks to injury. Does he get to 175 career wins?
  • Kyle Gibson: 112 wins at age 37. Quick: what team does Kyle Gibson pitch for? I had to look it up; he signed with Baltimore a week ago and just got optioned to AAA. He’s 7th in the majors in career wins! And now he’s going to pitch in Norfolk for a bit.
  • Sonny Grey: 111 wins at age 35. Ok, so he’s St. Louis’ #1 starter and has been relatively durable, but can you count on him getting even to 150 career wins? He has 36 wins in his last four seasons combined.
  • Carlos Carrasco: 110 wins at age 38. He signed a MLFA/NRI deal with the Yankees and seems to have lucked his way into a rotation spot. In his last two combined seasons, he’s had a 6.00 ERA and a -2.6 bWAR, and it doesn’t seem like he’s long for the majors at this point.
  • Yu Darvish; also 110 wins at age 38. He’s still under contract for 3 more years in San Diego, which may give him a shot at 150 career wins.

Where’s the sure-fire Hall of Fame starting pitcher with 250 wins and 3,000 Ks in this group?? Nowhere to be found. Would you even characterize the two best guys on this list (Cole and Sale) as hall of famers right now? I wouldn’t. Maybe Cole if he comes back and dominates, but that’s no sure thing.

Lets look a bit further down the list of active starting pitcher win leaders to see who looks like they’re putting together a career that, maybe possibly could turn into a HoFame career?

  • The two best Age/Accumulated wins combos might be Aaron Nola (104 wins at age 32) and Jose Berrios (99 wins at age 31).
  • Nola had one great 9.7 bWAR season in 2018, while Barrios has received Cy Young votes in exactly one season in his career (a 9th place finish, meaning he probably got like one home-town writer vote, in 2021).
  • The highest career win total for a player who hasn’t turned 30 yet is Dylan Cease, who has 57 wins at age 29.
  • the 50-career win range has a slew of other guys who are “known names,” guys like Logan Webb, Zac Gallen, Jack Flaherty, etc.
  • Our former #1 draft pick Lucas Giolito? 61 wins at age 30, right in this same range.

I mean, do any of these guys sound like Hall of Famers to you?

What’s my point? Randy Johnson was elected to the hall in 2015, finishing off a 300-win career in 2010. That was a decade ago, but it might as well be a lifetime ago in terms of evolution of pitching in the game. Not only does it not look like we’ll see a 300 win pitcher ever again, after Justin Verlander I’m sure we’ll ever see a 250 game winner again. And, I’ll just go ahead and say it; after Scherzer and Kershaw i’m not sure we’ll ever see a 200 game winner again. Nobody except Gerrit Cole is projecting to be even close to 200 wins for his career.

A Decade from now, will the new standards for SPs in Cooperstown really be 175 wins and 2,500 Ks?

Written by Todd Boss

March 31st, 2025 at 8:35 am

Posted in Baseball in General,Majors Pitching

Nats Opener History and Trivia updated for 2025

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Sorry MacKenzie, you can’t win ’em all! Photo wikipedia

Welcome to the 2025 Baseball Season!

Well, it isn’t every day you get a 6ip, 1hit, 0run, 13K, 0BB effort from a starter and lose, but that’s what the Nats managed to do yesterday in their home and season opener against the hated Phillies. MacKenzie Gore certainly carved through the Phillies lineup, each of whom struck out at least once on the day (Philadelphia made 19 of their 30 outs via the whiff).

As I mentioned in the comments, It’s rather ironic that both of the Philly homers on the day came from ex-Nats (Harper and Schwarber). I wish them well.

One random little artifact I maintain for some reason is a collection of our Opening Day and Home Opener data, like attendance, box scores, W/L, etc. Here’s that information for review with some trivia sprinkled in.

Home Opener Attendance and Weather through the years

2025’s attendance was up from previous years, a good sign for the team as it tries to convince the town that it may be close to competing again. We’re still well below the debut years of the stadium (I think they’ve removed a bunch of seats since the stadium opened in 2008 so the capacity will never be back in the 45k range), and the home opener record will likely always be the 2005 debut game of the franchise in DC, 45,596 at the old RFK, as people fought past protestors and secret service to often get into the game in the middle of the 2nd inning. (Note; the record for the franchise is record for the stadium still remains 2012 NLDS Game 5, or the “Storen” game, of 45,966).

Best and Worst weather for a home opener? Yesterday was 57 and sunny; that’s pretty good. I’d probably say the best weather for a home opener remains the “Phillies Invasion” game back in 2010, though we’ve had a slew of mid-70s and sunny openers in our history. The worst weather for a home opener? probably the 2011 41-degree afternoon game, though it must have been brutal to sit through the 2022 opener 4+ hour delay). Reminder from 2020: the 90-degree day was b/c the season was delayed into the summer.

  • 2025: 41,231 (4:05 thurs game, 57, sunny, slight wind)
  • 2024: 40,405 (4:05 tues game, 53, cloudy, slight wind)
  • 2023: 35,756 (105 thurs game, 45 degrees and sunny)
  • 2022: 35,052 (7:05 thurs game (pushed back from 4:05, then delayed to 8:21 weather. 52 degrees, cloudy, rainy)
  • 2021: 4,801 (4:05 tuesday game, 74 degrees, partly cloudy, 5mph wind)
  • 2020: 0 (7:09 thurs game, 90, partly cloudy, 7mph wind)
  • 2019: 42,263 (1:07 thurs game, 56, partly cloudy, no wind)
  • 2018: 42,477 (1:08 thurs game, 42, partly cloudy, slight wind)
  • 2017: 42,744 (1:05 monday game, 66 and cloudy, slight wind)
  • 2016: 41,650 (4:05 thursday game, 60 and 1.5hr rain delay)
  • 2015: 42,295 (4:05 monday game, 75 and gorgeous)
  • 2014: 42,834 (1:05 friday game, 50s and overcast)
  • 2013: 45,274 (1:05 monday game, 60 and beautiful)
  • 2012: 40,907 (1:05 thursday game 56, partly cloudy)
  • 2011: 39,055 (1:05 thursday game, 41 degrees and overcast)
  • 2010: 41,290 (1pm game monday, beautiful weather 80s and sunny): This was Phillies Invasaion
  • 2009: 40,386 (3pm game on a monday, chilly 53degr and overcast).
  • 2008: 39,389 (season and stadium opener), 8pm sunday night, Braves, nat’l tv clear but cold.
  • 2007: 40,389 (in rfk, 1pm game vs Florida, 72 degrees
  • 2006: 40,516 (in rfk, tuesday day game vs Mets, 72 degr and sunny)
  • 2005: 45,596 (in rfk, debut of entire franchise, 62 degr and clear, evening game).

Home opener Results and Box Scores

The Nats are just 6-15 all time through 2025 in their home openers, a pretty interesting stat given that for most of the 2010s they were one of the best teams in the sport. We nearly always play a divisional rival in our home opener: of our 21 home openers, just 4 have come against non-divisional rivals (including the weird 2020 Covid year and our franchise opener, which was delayed after a huge road trip to start the season to allow the stadium add’l prep time).

Nats Season Openers.
We are slightly better in Season openers: Record: 8-13. We’ve been home 13 times, away 8 times.

Written by Todd Boss

March 28th, 2025 at 9:30 am

Posted in Nats in General

Six Weeks into Div1 Season Check-In on 1-1 Candidates

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Liam Doyle can sure strike them out; but is it Nuke Laloosh style? Photo via his X

Here’s our third check-in on the 1-1 candidates, focusing on the College players now that they’re six weeks (aka six weekend series) into their seasons. We’re into the conference schedules, so no more patty cakes for these guys, and we should start to see some better indication of how good these guys are.

Aggregation Stats for all of College

Link Block for the top guys under 1-1 consideration

College guys we’re removing from 1-1 discussion for now:

Prep Players who are theoretically in the running: I’ll only include them if I come across some new/live reporting.

Here’s some commentary:

  • LaViolette: Jace has had a couple solid weeks, raising his average from the low .200s to a more solid looking .284, part of his current .284/.434/.568 slash line. His TAMU team is falling off a cliff, getting swept in their first two SEC series, but he looked decent at Vanderbilt last weekend, going a combined 4-10 with a homer and 3 walks. He needs to get hot to get himself back in 1-1 discussions.
  • Arnold: Continued his hot start with a scoreless (albeit short) outing against Boston College two weekends ago, then got shelled at Miami in his first real test of the season, giving up 7ER in 4IP. Unfortunately, Mike Rizzo was in Miami for the start, and probably didn’t like what he saw. Curiously, he’s yet to get to 80 pitches in any start this year. Is that b/c its been cold (in Tallahasse??), he’s still getting stretched out (he’s got 6 starts now?) or because his team didn’t “need” him to go deeper than 75 pitches/5 innings? Some question marks here.
  • Bremner: cruised past the weaker Miami 6ip/1ER, then gave up 3ER in the 5th against the tougher UC Irvine to take a loss despite a quality start. His team mustered just 4 hits on the day. His season numbers look “okay” but not fantastic, and I can’t see getting excited to take this guy 1-1.
  • Arquette: his average took a nose dive in the past couple of weeks as GCU/Santa Clara held him to just a 2-13 line, then Cal Poly “held” him to a 2-10 weekend (both hits were homers). He’s still slashing above 1,000.
  • Doyle continues to have circus numbers on the season, maintaining his 18 K/9 rate. But now the hard part; SEC play. It took him 105 pitches to go 4 2/3 against Florida two weeks ago (phew) but he only had two walks. Sounds like a lot of full counts. Then he got hit against Alabama, giving up 6 in 6 to take two straight losses as Tennessee’s ace (110 pitches to finish 6 innings). I wonder; are scouts already thinking reliever here? 100 pitches to get through 5 innings in college would probably be 3 innings in the pros.
  • Kilen suffered a Hamstring injury that has had him sitting since 3/18/25. He’s slashing .431/.552/.986 for a ridiculous 1,538 OPS figure for the season, but he’s now set to miss SEC play. They’re hopeful he’s back for next weekend.
  • Taylor sports a healthy 1,200 OPS right now. His problem will be competition: Indiana doesn’t exactly play a powerhouse schedule. They did have to visit UCLA last weekend, and he went 3-11 with a homer. But, hitting .370 against Ohio State and Penn State isn’t that impressive. Furthermore, a ton of his stats are built on mid-week games against a college called “The Mount,” who i’ve never heard of but who Indian beat 18-5 and 20-7 in two mid-week games. I may drop covering him unless he does something against a solid opponent.
  • Summerhill maintains a .400 BA 6 weeks into the season against what admittedly looks like one of the tougher pre-conference schedules I’ve seen. He profiles as a rangy OF, maybe CF, playing RF and batting leadoff for Arizona. He has some power. We’ll see how he holds on as AZ enters deeper into its Big12 schedule.

The Race for 1-1: Arnold takes a step back, Bremner looks meh, Arquette comes back to reality, Doyle can’t find the plate, and LaViolette takes a step back in the right direction but is it too little, too late? And, does this college churn pave the way for Holliday to return to 1-1 status?

Written by Todd Boss

March 24th, 2025 at 10:45 am

Posted in Draft,Prospects

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