Nationals Arm Race

The next in a series: previously we reviewed the 2015 season stats for the 2015 draft class and the 2014 draft class.  Unlike these other two posts, this one was a bit easier to write.  Why?  Because I had done this analysis for the 2013 class previously … back in 2013.  All I had to do was cut-n-paste that post and all 40 draftees were already listed with key details.  Ahhh.  I may continue this with previous classes since it was easier to compile.  Hopefully I didn’t miss any obvious promotions for key guys like I did previously.

Web links to use while reading:

• Stats are pulled from milb.com and/or fangraphs.com; put the player name into the search bar to get his seasonal stats
• The MLB Draft Tracker (which I believe is the best draft tracker out there) is the best place to get draft class information.
• The Big Board and the Draft Tracker are the goto resources for prospects for any Nats fan.
• Baseball-reference.com’s draft database
• My working XLS in Google for all this data (cut-n-pasted at the bottom).
• TheBaseballCube.com for really obscure stats for players.

Without further ado:

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Round 1: forfeited w/ Rafael Soriano signing, which as I noted in this June 2013 post cost the Nats a shot at one of several highly regarded pitchers drafted just behind our vacated spot.  In retrospect, here’s a quick summary of the careers so far of the guys I liked at the time in that spot (Rob Kaminsky, Sean Manaea, Ryne Stanek, Ian Clarkin):

• Kaminsky: so far, looks pretty good.  Career 2.22 ERA across multiple levels, finishing this year in High-A.  Flipped this  year to Cleveland from St. Louis (his drafting team) in the Brandon Moss deal.
• Manaea: looks awesome after some injury issues in 2013.  Finished 2015 going 6-0 with a 1.93 ERA for Midland in AA and was a key prospect going to Oakland in the Ben Zobrist deal.  I really liked him in 2013 and thought his hip injury bumped him down the line from being the top 10 talent he was initially projected to be, and nothing he’s done professionally has countered that.
• Stanek: dominated high-A for Tampa Bay this year, finished the year in AA.
• Clarkin: drafted by the Yankees, pitched his first full season of pro ball in low-A (impressive), giving Charleston 16 decent starts.  Hurt his elbow in 2015 spring training and didn’t pitch all year, but is apparently recovered and is now pitching in the AFL.

I dunno.  I hate to sound like a repeating record on the Soriano signing, but it looks even worse know knowing who we could have had.  Knowing how Mike Rizzo loves college arms, you have to think he was likely looking at either Manaea or Stanek, and both those guys are looking like mid-rotation starters perhaps by mid 2016.  All for an overpriced malcontent closer we didn’t need and who was eventually supplanted from the role by the same in-house option (Drew Storen) who the team AGAIN tried to supplant with another unnecessary over-priced malcontent (this time Jonathan Papelbon) in 2015 to disastrous results.  Do you think Rizzo and Lerner have learned their lesson by now?

Back to the analysis.

Round 2: Jake Johansen, Coll Sr. RH Starting Pitcher Dallas Baptist U..  1-7, 5.44 ERA  with 48/27 K/BB in 48 relief IP, 4.69 fip, .358 babip for Potomac this year.  He was pushed to the bullpen full time for 2015 yet was, frankly, awful in relief.  This is on top of his 5.19 ERA in 2014 in Hagerstown.  This pick is looking more and more like a disaster.  I don’t see any silver linings here, other than his K/inning rate (which is thrown off by his 4.5 walks/9 inning rate for his career).  Trending Down.

Round 3: Drew Ward, HS 3B. Slashed .249/.327/.358 with 110/39 K/BB in 377 Abs, 6hr for High-A Potomac.  Missed a month with an injury, but otherwise took incremental steps back on his performance from his 2014 campaign in Low-A.  Where’s the power?  Slugging .358 isn’t great, especially for a corner infielder.  But there doesn’t seem to be anyone else really preventing him from suiting up for Harrisburg as the starting 3B in 2016.  Also worth remembering; he’s a HS draftee so he was a 20-yr old in High-A; quite young.  That tempers any criticism.   He’s in the Arizona Fall League, a good sign for the team’s opinion of him, so even my opinion may be slightly conservative. Trending Steady.

Round 4: Nick Pivetta, Juco RH Starting Pitcher.  7-4, 2.29 ERA for Potomac in 2015 before getting traded to Philadelphia for Jonathan Papelbon.  Was working on a nice improvement over his 2014 campaign for Hagerstown (13-8, 4.22 ERA).  Was bumped up to Philly’s AA affiliate in Reading PA and struggled to finish out 2015.

Round 5: Austin Voth, Coll Jr RH Starting Pitcher: 6-7, 2.92 ERA and 148/40 k/bb across 157 ip (28 starts) for AA Harrisburg.  3.07 fip, .284 babip.  Another excellent campaign after his three-level jump in 2014.  He’s now regularly mentioned in the back-end of Nats top 10 prospect lists and seems like he could be one of the first options considered in 2016 if a MLB starting pitcher gets injured.  Looks like a steal of this draft and could be the best player to come out of it by the time all is said and done.  Trending Up.

Round 6: Cody Gunter, Juco 3B: 1-0 4.15 ERA, 23/8 K/BB in 21.2 IP for Short-A Auburn, 3.84 fip, .259 babip.  Gunter was drafted as a 3B and after two non-descript seasons in Auburn converted to the mound.  so far, results look promising; he maintained a K/inning ratio with good control and could be better based on the ERA-FIP delta.   I see him getting pushed to the Low-A bullpen in 2016.  Trending Steady.

Round 7: Jimmy Yezzo, Coll Jr 1B.  Slashed .192/.250/.256 with 36/13 K/BB in 49 games at Potomac, with just one homer, before the team pulled the plug and released him on 7/22/15.  Yezzo showed some power in Low-A in 2014 (13 homers in 123 games) but clearly not enough to justify keeping him around as a 1B-only player.  This was always going to be the jeopardy with drafting him; he was positionally limited from the start and, despite a great college campaign, couldn’t make the transition in pro ball.  Immediately after his release he picked up with a Frontier League team, finishing out the season, so hopefully he gets another shot.

Round 8: David Napoli, Coll Sr LH relief pitcher.  Went 7-5, 4.01 ERA with 62/36 K/BB in 60 relief IP mostly for LowA Hagerstown.  3.57 fip, .289 babip.  He started with Potomac but spent most of the year in Hagerstown, despite turning 25 during the season.  If anything,  his numbers took a step back from his 2014 Hagerstown campaign, and given his age and the glut of arms in the system, time may be running out.  Or maybe not: i mean, he signed for $15k and basically cost the team nothing and eats innings; that kind of guy is useful to have around.  See McGregor, Scott for AAA the last couple of years.  Trending Down.

Round 9: Jake Joyce, Coll Sr RH relief pitcher.  Released in July 2014 as the 2014 signees started reporting to Vermont after just one season in Auburn where he posted a 5+ ERA.  A cheap, senior sign who had to do more to impress and stick around as Napoli has done.

Round 10: Brennan Middleton, Coll Sr SS/2B. Slashed .198/.252/.264 for half a season while repeating LowA despite his age and was summarily released in July 2015.  Senior sign, low bonus figure, poor performance all contributed.

Round 11: John Simms, Coll jr RH relief pitcher.  6-6, 2.74 ERA with 48/25 K/BB in 88.2 (15 starts) for Potomac.  4.15 fip, .236 babip.  Earned a mid-season promotion and ended the season with 6 starts in Harrisburg’s rotation.  Excellent season-over-season improvement for Simms, who will look to do the same thing in AA’s rotation for 2016.  The team clearly sees the same potential and sent him to the Arizona Fall League this year.  Trending up.

Round 12: Andrew Cooper, Juco RH relief pitcher.  2-2, 3.53 ERA with 35/16 K/BB in 63.2 relief IP for LowA Hagerstown, 3.63 fip, .283 babip.  Improved his numbers across the board while repeating LowA.  Still isn’t getting the K/9 we’d like to see though.  He’ll be 24 in High-A next year in what probably is a make or break season.  Trending Steady.

Round 13: John Costa, Juco RH relief pitcher.  Released 4/1/15 after being injured most of 2014.  Without knowing the details, I’d guess that whatever injury he suffered was a career ender, that he couldn’t show enough improvement in spring training 2015 to merit keeping around.  Tough break.

Round 14: David Masters, Juco SS.  Slashed .226/.311/.285 with 69/40 K/BB in 354 Abs, 2hr, 3SB mostly in LowA, missed most of May and June.  Did earn a promotion to HighA in August to finish out the season.  With so many MIF in the system and the likes of Chris Bostick blasting homers in the AFL, Masters may not be long for the organization.  Trending down.

Round 15: Isaac Ballou, Coll Sr OF/CF.  Slashed .271/.344/.397  with 82/47 K/BB in 431 Abs, 8homers 21steals CF/LF as  he jumped two levels (from HighA to AAA) in 2015.  A nice season from the local product (hails from Germantown, MD, went to Marshall U).  An .876 OPS in AA greased the skids for him to move up the line.  He has some speed (56 career SBs in 322 games) and can hit and can play all three OF positions; can he push the likes of Matt den Dekker for a  utility OF spot on the big club?  Maybe not for 2016, but a strong AAA campaign would help.  Trending up.

Round 16: Willie Allen, Juco Corner OF from Oklahoma/Newtown, MA.  Did not sign; transferred to Lewis-Clark State (ID).  Allen was an odd case at the time; it was literally impossible to find information on him.  But he’s definitely playing college ball at Lewis-Clark now.  Now known as “William Allen” if you’re trying to find him in various databases, fyi.

Round 17: Geoff Perrott, Coll Sr C.  released/retired (2015): never played in 2014 and no record of his official release in milb.com, but clearly he’s done playing.

Round 18: Cory Bafidis, Coll Sr LH relief pitcher.  Released July 2014 once the 2014 draftees started showing up in Auburn.  This release has troubled me; he had decent numbers in 2013, then got axed after just 6 innings in 2014.  Seemed too fast to me.

Round 19: Niko Spezial, Coll Sr LH relief pitcher.  Released in May of 2014, even before the draft.  Only threw 19 innings in 2013 and none in 2014, not getting a full-team assignment and likely just losing out on the anticipated numbers game.

Round 20: Brenton Allen, Coll Jr Corner OF.  As with Bafidis, Released in June 2014 once the 2014 draftees started showing up in Auburn.  He only hit .197 in Auburn in 2013 and was clearly replaceable with new 2014 OF draftees.

Round 21: Justin Thomas, Coll Sr LH relief pitcher.  1-6, 3.43 ERA with 50/18 K/BB in 57.2 relief ip for Potomac. 2.84 fip, .300 babip in HighA.  Oddly, he’s a lefty but he has much better L-R splits than loogy splits.  But, he also wasn’t really used as a loogy, accumulating 57 innings in 28 games.  He was more of a swing-man/innings sponge for the team despite never getting an official start.  Good peripherals, good K/9 rates, I see him moving up to the AA bullpen easily.  Nice find in the 21st round.  Trending up.

Round 22: Cody Dent, Coll Sr SS.  Slashed .193/.257/.224  with 42/12 K/BB in 161 abs, 1hr, 2sb, mostly in LowA.  Played 3B, got moved up to HighA and then went 0-24 in Potomac.  He didn’t play after 7/31 but did not appear on any injury report; he was on the TIL for basically the rest of the season.  The son of Bucky Dent seems to be getting similar treatment as Ryan Ripken and Cutter Dykstra (also sons of former MLBers); he’s hanging around despite poor numbers.  How long can it last with all the MIF options moving up the line?  Trending down.

Round 23: Garrett Gordon, Juco Corner OF.  Released in March of 2015; hit just .230 in Auburn in 2014 as a corner OF and, as with Allen above, was deemed replaceable with the 2015 crop of players rising up.

Round 24: Matt DeRosier, Juco RH relief pitcher.  0-2, 3.58 ERA with 30/7 K/BB in 27IP (7 starts) mostly in the GCL, having gotten dumped out of Auburn after a couple of poor starts.   2.02 fip, .435 babip in Auburn, so perhaps it was a short-sample-size that was unflattering.  He needs to put together a nice string of healthy starts somewhere outside of complex ball though.  Trending down.

Round 25: Travis Ott, HS LH starting pitcher.  Traded 12/17/14 along with Steven Souza in the Trea Turner/Joe Ross deal.  Despite his sterling short-A 2014 season, Tampa had him repeat the NY Penn league, where he was 6-3 with a 3.90 ERA in 13 starts.  Odd.

Round 26: Garrett Hampson, HS SS from Reno, NV.  Did not sign; honored commitment to Long Beach State.

Round 27: Bryce Harmon, HS LH starting pitcher from Richmond, VA.  Did not sign; honored commitment to East Carolina University.

Round 28: Joey Webb, Coll Sr LH relief pitcher.  Released 6/25/15, losing out in the numbers game when the 2015 short-season college draftees started flowing in.

Round 29: Mike Sylvestri, Coll Sr RH relief pitcher.   Retired on 6/13/14 after struggling in low-A.

Round 30: Ryan Ullmann, Coll Sr RH Starting pitcher.  Released 6/25/15, in a similar fashion to Webb above.

Round 31: Willie Medina, Coll Sr SS.  Released in Jan 2015 after a mediocre season between LowA and ShortA in 2014.

Round 32: Pat Boling, Coll Jr LHP: Did not sign, chose to return to U. of Georgia for his senior season.  It does not look like Boling was re-drafted, nor does it appear he played any independent ball.

Round 33: Andrew Dunlap, HS C/RHP from Houston.  Did not sign.  Honoring a commitment to Rice University.

Round 34: Jake Walsh, Coll Sr LH relief pitcher.  2-1, 1.96 ERA, 32/14 K/BB across 36ip as he was promoted from LowA->HighA.  3.51 fip, .273 babip in Potomac.  After starting the 2015 season with 17 scoreless innings for Hagerstown, he got bumped up and spent the rest of the season there.  Despite his lowly draft status, Walsh has now impressed at every stop and owns a career 1.65 ERA across the various Rookie/A-ball levels.  Maybe its time to give this guy a shot at AA?  At the very least he looks like a left-handed specialist in training.  Trending up.

Round 35: Lukas Schiraldi, Juco RHP from Texas.  Did not sign; instead transferred to U Texas.  Drafted in 2014 in the 15th round by Seattle, but he has since struggled as a low-A starter, with two straight seasons of 5+ ERA.

Round 36: Reid Humphreys, HS SS from Missouri.  Did not sign.  Honoring commitment to Mississippi State.

Round 37: Karsten Whitson, RH starting pitcher from Florida.  Did not sign, returning to U Florida for his senior/4th year.  There’s plenty of cautionary stories about Whitson, who turned down 1st round money and eventually was drafted by Boston in 2014 as an 11th rounder (likely bonus; max of $100k).  His pro season looks like its a struggle right now; he had just 7IP in 2014, and was listed as “inactive” for all of 2015.  Hate to see such a promising arm apparently fizzle out.

Round 38: Caleb Hamilton, HS SS from Washington State.  Did not sign; honoring commitment to U of Washington.

Round 39: Robbie Tenerowicz, HS 2B/SS from California.  Did not sign; honoring commitment to UC Berkeley.  Washington sure loves 2nd basement from Cal-Berkeley, doesn’t it?  See Tony Renda in 2012 or Jeff Kobernus in 2009.  I’m sure we’ll revisit Tenerowicz when the time is right.

Round 40: Shaun Anderson, HS RH starting pitcher from Florida.  Did not sign; honoring commitment to U of Florida.

 

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Trending Summary:

• Trending Up (5): Voth, Simms, Ballou, Thomas, Walsh
• Trending Steady (3): Ward, Gunter, Cooper
• Trending Down (5): Johanssen, Napoli, Masters, Dent, Derosier
• Did Not Sign in 2013 (11): Allen, Hampson, Harmon, Boling, Dunlap, Schiraldi, Humphries, Whitson, Hamilton, Tenerowicz, Anderson
• Released/Retired (13): Yezzo, Joyce, Middleton, Costa, Perrott, Bafidis, Spezial, Allen, Gordon, Webb, Sylvestri, Ullmann, Medina
  
• Traded (2): Pivetta, Ott

Executive Summary

The 2013 class is being whittled down quickly; of the 39 initial names, 11 never signed and another 13 have already been cut loose.  That only leaves 15 guys to draw conclusions from.  I think its safe to say the loss of the 1st rounder and the failures of our 2nd rounder severely dampen this draft, but Voth and Simms give us some promise.  I also like what we’re seeing out of long-shots Thomas and Walsh, with some lingering hope that the  youngster Ward could make the leap.  Meanwhile, two important names out of this draft (Pivetta and Ott) were used to acquire important players; especially Ott’s role in acquiring two every day players of the planned 2016 25-man roster.

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cut-n-paste of Working XLS of data:

Round	Player/Pos	Level	2015 Level	2015 Basic Stats
2	Johansen, Jake RHP	COL sr	Potomac	1-7, 5.44 ERA
3	Ward, Drew 3B	HS (3)	Potomac	.249/.327/.358
4	Pivetta, Nicholas RHP **	JUCO	Traded (2015)
5	Voth, Austin RHP	COL jr	Harrisburg	6-7, 2.92 ERA
6	Gunter, Cody 3B	JUCO	Short-A	1-0 4.15 ERA
7	Yezzo, James 1B	COL jr	released (2015)
8	Napoli, David LHP	COL sr	LowA	7-5, 4.01 ERA
9	Joyce, Jake RHP	COL sr	released (2014)
10	Middleton, Brennan SS	COL sr	released (2015)
11	Simms, John RHP	COL jr	Potomac	6-6, 2.74 ERA
12	Cooper, Andrew RHP	JUCO	LowA	2-2, 3.53 ERA
13	Costa, John RHP	CC	released (2015)
14	Masters, David SS	JUCO	High-A->LowA	.226/.311/.285
15	Ballou, William (Isaac) CF	COL sr	HighA->AA->AAA	.271/.344/.397
16	Allen, Willie CF	JUCO	did not sign: Lewis-Clark State (ID)
17	Perrott, Geoffrey C	COL sr	released/retired (2015)
18	Bafidis, Cory LHP	COL sr	released (2014)
19	Spezial, Niko LHP	COL sr	released (2014)
20	Allen, Brenton LF	COL jr	released (2014)
21	Thomas, Justin LHP	COL sr	Potomac	1-6, 3.43 ERA
22	Dent, Cody SS	COL sr	LowA mostly	.193/.257/.224
23	Gordon, Garrett RF	JUCO	released (2015)
24	Derosier, Matthew RHP	JUCO	GCL->ShortA	0-2, 3.58 ERA
25	Ott, Travis LHP*	HS	traded (2015)
26	Hampson, Garrett SS	HS	did not sign: Long Beach St.
27	Harman, Bryce RF	HS	did not sign: East Carolina
28	Webb, Joey LHP	COL sr	released (2015)
29	Sylvestri, Michael RHP	COL sr	retired (2014)
30	Ullmann, Ryan RHP	COL sr	released (2015)
31	Medina, Willie SS	COL sr	released (2015)
32	Boling, Pat LHP	COL jr	did not sign: Georgia
33	Dunlap, Andrew RHP	NA	did not sign: Rice
34	Walsh, Jake LHP	COL sr	LowA->HighA	2-1, 1.96 ERA
35	Schiraldi, Lukas RHP	JUCO	did not sign: Texas
36	Humphreys, Reid SS	HS	did not sign: Mississippi State
37	Whitson, Karsten RHP	COL jr	did not sign: Florida	.248/.307/.376
38	Hamilton, Caleb SS	HS	did not sign: U of Washington
39	Tenerowicz, Robbie 2B	HS	did not sign: UC Berkeley
40	Anderson, Shaun RHP	HS	did not sign: Florida	1-2, 5.45

 

So, by now we’ve all heard the news.  The Nats acquired disgruntled Phillies closer Jonathan Papelbon for 2013 4th rounder Nick Pivetta, newly promoted to AA.

On the plus side, the Phillies pick up all of his remaining 2015 salary (roughly $4.5M), and Papelbon pre-negotiated his 2016 option at a slightly lower figure ($11M with $3M deferred).  This is no 2-month rental; this is a strategic decision to go with him for the next two years.  So in that respect, what the Nats get versus what they gave up is pretty durn good.  Pivetta is a decent prospect who had a great first half for Potomac and just earned a promotion to AA (where he’s gotten hit around a bit in his first couple of starts).  But in terms of what the team is giving up, Pivetta is a “minor prospect” (mostly on the outside of our top 10 lists) and is perhaps no better than 13th or so on our starter depth chart (just off the top of my head, Scherzer, Strasburg, Zimmermann, Fister, Gonzalez, Ross, Roark, Cole, Jordan, Hill, Treinen, Espino, Voth and Giolito ahead of him), so the Nats trade from a surplus/depth for a position of need.

As a side-effect of the acquisition, AAA catcher Dan Butler was DFA’d to make room on the 40-man roster. Butler has been struggling in AAA and may pass through waivers, but if he doesn’t suddenly the Nats have zero catcher depth on the active roster.  So that’s a risk i’m surprised they took (if it were me, I could have named several other guys I would have risked versus Butler first).

My concern with this deal is more on the non-quantifiable side.  What message does this send to your team?  Drew Storen has been *excellent* this year, has remade his mechanics and (as noted elsewhere) has the 2nd best ERA of any reliever in the game over the last two years.  He’s been just as good a closer as Papelbon this year, and for his troubles gets demoted out of the closer spot.  Storen’s future compensation is *directly* tied to the number of saves (however arbitrary and useless that statistic may be) he earns, and now the team has told him “hey, we know you’ve been awesome but too bad you’re no longer going to have the opportunity to earn saves and therefore we’ll argue against you in arbitration to that end.”  Its no wonder Storen was immediately quoted as wanting to “explore his options” with his representation.

Lets also just say that it would not surprise this observer in the least if Storen’s performance fell off a cliff in the coming months.

You can argue that winning creates clubhouse chemistry; that’s your perogative.  You can talk about how the old Yankees “25 men, 25 cabs” had no problem winning and you can disclaim the chemistry factors that seemed to be in play with recent teams like the 2013 Red Sox or last year’s Royals.  Fair enough.  You can make the argument that these guys are all highly paid and should just accept whatever role is given to them … but lets be honest here; MLB players are human, they have egos, and (especially in the case of a reliever) they want to be the closer.  More to the point, when they do everything management asks of them and still get replaced, its hard not to blame them for being disgruntled.  This isn’t like when the Nats demoted John Lannan: Storen didn’t get beat out in spring training; he’s been absolutely stellar for the past two years.

Is this yet another reaction to Storen’s post-season record?  Lets all say it together: “short sample sizes.”  Storen has a grand total of 5 1/3 post-season innings.  Papelbon’s numbers in the post season are great (a 1.00 ERA in 27 innings), but he hasn’t pitched in October in 6 years.  Clayton Kershaw has a 5+ ERA in the post-season and nobody’s talking about replacing him.  You look for excellence in the regular season and hope it plays out in the post-season.

Two years ago, the management over-reacted to Storen’s post-season performance by over-paying (and burning a first round pick) on a closer in Rafael Soriano who, it should be noted, was himself demoted from the closer role in favor of the man he replaced by the time the deal was done.  Lets just hope that we’re not standing here in September of 2016 with Papelbon and his waning velocity ballooning to a 4+ ERA in his walks year with the ever-steady Storen right back in the same role…

I would have much preferred the team find some middle-to-later innings relievers to strengthen things in the 7th and 8th innings and not upset what Storen has established.  But it isn’t my team.  I just hope Storen can take the high road (much like Tanner Roark has been forced to do) and goes back to being a team player.

A few other excellent takes on the trade I recommend:

• Mark Zuckerman talks about how this trade is more about Storen than Papelbon.
• Jeff Sullivan sarcastically talks about how the Nats have “rewarded” Storen’s breakout performance.
• Ken Rosenthal noted that, despite the Nats being 46-0 this year when leading after 8 innings, decided they needed to change the closer.
• Keith Law, who hates any trade for a reliever, reviews what the Phillies are getting in Pivetta.

Post-publishing update: Joe Posnanski wrote a column 2 weeks onward, crucifying Rizzo and this trade (calling it “The Worst trade of the Season”) for its intangible impact on the team, echoing many of the same sentiments expressed here.

 

 

Joe Ross, who it is fair to say was in some respects the “other guy” in the Tampa/San Diego 3-way trade that netted the Nats presumed future shortstop Trea Turner but cost them Steven Souza and prospect Travis Ott, got a somewhat surprising call-up after the starters covering for Doug Fister didn’t quite give the Nats the performance they were looking for.

Three starts later, two of which were easily defined as “dominant,” is it too soon to think that perhaps Ross is a bigger part of the Nats future than the trio of starter prospects we have stashed in Syracuse?

He looked *really good* last night against a team on an 8-game winning streak.  He was making professional hitters look very, very ordinary with his slider.  His slider was so good, he threw it nearly 50% of the time last night and got an astounding 38% whiff rate.  Average fastball of 93.1, max of 96.8 on the night.  Wow.

Small Sample Sizes, of course.  And maybe you could ignore the 11-K performance against the god-awful Brewers.  But Pittsburgh is was hottest team in the league and was mowed down like little leaguers.

At the beginning of this season, if you asked me what the Nats’ rotation was going to look like in the next three transitionary years, I might have said something like this:

• 2015: Scherzer, Strasburg, Zimmermann, Gonzalez, Fister with Roark as #1 replacement option
• 2016: Scherzer, Strasburg, Gonzalez, Roark and a battle between Treinen, Cole, Jordan and Hill (in that order) for 5th and 6th spots.
• 2017: Scherzer, Giolito, Gonzalez, Roark, and a question mark.  Maybe Treinen/Cole, maybe a veteran acquired via FA or trade.  Maybe Lopez if he moves up at the same pace as Giolito.  Who knows.

Now?  I think you have to think Ross has jumped to the top of the list in that 2016 rotational battle, maybe even solidifying his spot.   Does a rotation of Scherzer, Strasburg, Ross, Gonzalez and Roark sound good?  Keep Treinen in the bullpen.  Flip spare depth (Cole, Jordan, Hill) for whatever you can get for them, and make room for the next wave of guys (Giolito, Voth, Lopez, Pivetta).

Wishful thinking?  Perhaps.  We love dreaming on pitching prospects here, but give me  your thoughts.

 

Inspired by a MLBpipeline.com’s similar data for their top 100 players, here’s a look at the Nats top 30 prospects, where they’re starting the 2015 season, and where we expect to see them by year’s end.  I’ve also thrown in where they were last year and a prediction of where they’ll be at year’s end.  (Along the same theme,  here’s where all 300 named players from Keith Law‘s per-system top 10s are starting as well).

For my top list of prospects, I’m using MLB.com’s list and rankings … and have thrown in Trea Turner in his approximate MLB ranking (around 4th-5th in our system).

Rank	Name	2014 Location(s)	2015 Opening Day Location	2015 Eventual Primary Location	2015 Projected Ending Location
1	Lucas Giolito	Low-A	XST	High-A	High-A/AA if he excels
2	Michael Taylor	AAA to MLB debut	MLB	AAA/MLB injury dependent	MLB bench
3	A.J. Cole	AA to AAA	AAA	AAA primarily/MLB 9/1 callup	MLB debut
4	Reynaldo Lopez	Short-A to Low-A	XST	High-A	High-A/AA if he excels
4.5	Trea Turner	Low-A Fort Wayne (SD)	AA (SD)	High-A /AA ?	AA, especially if he’s starting there for SD
5	Joe Ross	High-A to AA	AA	AA	AAA with good AA performance
6	Erick Fedde	College/HS (UNLV)	XST (DL)	GCL	Short-A
7	Jakson Reetz	GCL	XST	Short-A	Short-A
8	Wilmer Difo	Low-A	High-A	High-A	High-A
9	Drew Ward	Low-A	High-A	High-A	High-A
10	Austin Voth	Low-A to AA	AA	AA	AAA with good AA performance
11	Pedro Severino	High-A	AA	AA	AA
12	Nick Pivetta	Low-A	High-A	High-A	High-A
13	Jefry Rodriguez	Short-A to Low-A	XST	Low-A	Low-A
14	Brian Goodwin	AAA to MLB debut	XST (DL)	AAA	MLB depth if he can rebound
15	Victor Robles	DSL	XST	GCL	GCL
16	Felipe Rivero	AA	AAA	AAA full-time	AAA
17	Drew Vettleson	AA	AA	AA	AAA since he’s repeating AA
18	Rafael Bautista	Low-A	High-A	High-A	High-A
19	Jake Johansen	Low-A	High-A	High-A	High-A
20	Spencer Kieboom	Low-A	High-A	High-A	High-A
21	Robbie Dickey	Short-A to Low-A	XST	Low-A	Low-A
22	Matt Skole	AA	AA	AAA	AAA , MLB bench if he regains his power
23	Tony Renda	High-A	AA	AA	AA
24	Anderson Franco	DSL	XST	GCL	GCL
25	Taylor Hill	AAA to MLB debut	AAA	AAA as starter depth	MLB depth as needed
26	Raudy Read	Short-A	Low-A	Low-A	Low-A
27	Chris Bostick	High-A Myrtle Beach	High-A	High-A	AA
28	Sammy Solis	High-A/Injury rehab	XST	AA	AA
29	Matt Purke	AA	AA	AA	AA/AAA if he can successfully convert to relief
30	Abel De Los Santos	High-A Myrtle Beach	AA	AA	AA

I’ve uploaded the XLS that I used to create this spreadsheet to google here.   You can sort the spreadsheet online by any of the columns (in fact, i’ve added a pseudo-rank column for each category for intelligent sorting from high level to low) to see where these guys will be by team.  To summarize:

• 6 of them should be in Syracuse most of the year
• 8-9 in Harrisburg
• 10-11 in Potomac
• 3 in Hagerstown
• likely 4 in short season ball.

So, lots of talent close by in Potomac …. as we all already knew.

Fyi; i’m going to re-publish my spreadsheets of prospect and farm system rankings soon after a bunch more rankings came in and I did some historical research. I filled in a bunch of previous rankings (lots and lots of google research) and have links to every ranking that I could find.  For those of you with old Baseball America handbooks, I could use the rankings out of there to complete these xls.  More later.

All our full-season squads have been announced, and its time to start looking at the pitching staffs.

I never got to doing my massive reviews of the rotations of the various farm system teams this past off-season (job change, less free time at home, they being a ton of work, etc).  Which also led to my not doing any predictions on where our pitchers would start the 2015 season.  Which is a bummer, because it is always fun to see if my predictions were decent and to see how player movement has affected the squads.  Lets go team by team and (focusing on the rotations) look at how things have changed since the end of last season.

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MLB (25-man roster announcement here)

• 2015 Rotation: Scherzer, Zimmermann, Strasburg, Gonzalez, Fister
• 2014 Opening Day Rotation: Strasburg, Gonzalez, Zimmermann, Roark, Jordan
• 2014 Closing Day rotation: Strasburg, Gonzalez, Zimmermann, Fister, Roark

Discussion: We’ve certainly talked this through.  Quickly;  Fister‘s 2014 spring training injury opened the door for both Roark and Jordan to duke it out for the 2014 5th starter job, eventually won by Roark, who gave the team a 5-win season as the 5th starter.  That wasn’t enough for the Nats though; committing $210M on Scherzer for the next decade or so, pushing Roark to mop-up guy/insurance starter for opening of 2015.

Manager Matt Williams also shook up the 2015 rotation order, installing the starters by accomplishment, not by reputation.  Thus 3-year running opening day starter Strasburg is dropped to the #3 hole, and last year’s #2 Gonzalez is now basically the #5 starter.

Enough about the MLB discussion though; lets get to the minor league rotations.

 

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All four full season minor league squads are announced here by Nats Journal.   In some cases we know who the rotation will be, in other cases the below is a huge guess.  Especially at Hagerstown (as we’ll see).

AAA (Syracuse roster announcement link)

• 2015 Rotation: Cole, Jordan, Hill, McGregor, Billings (with Lively, Rivero (L) as swingmen)
• 2014 Opening Day Rotation: Rosenbaum (L), Hill, Tatusko, Treinen, Poveda
• 2014 Closing Day rotation: Laffey (L), Hill,  Treinen, Lively, Cole (Espino 9/1 call-up)

Discussion

A late spring training injury to Casey Janssen has called presumed AAA starter Blake Treinen into action in the Nats bullpen, perhaps for the long run.  Which has opened up a couple of spots in the Syracuse rotation … and they’ve been surprisingly filled.  Instead of installing who I presumed to be the 5th AAA starter (trade acquisition Felipe Rivero), the team has announced that 2014 MLFA signing/rubber-armed swingman Scott McGregor and 2015 MLFA Bruce Billings will fill out the rotation.

Changes from 2014?  Rosenbaum traded for catcher depth, Tatusko to Korea, Poveda remains an unsigned MLFA, and Laffey signed a new MLFA deal with Colorado.

One has to think that McGregor/Billings are temporary holds in the rotation until Treinen returns.  The conversion of Rivero to the bullpen is more interesting; the team is rather short on lefty starters in the system right now (thanks to a slew of upper-end draft pick lefty starters failing in the past few years … ahem Solis, Purke, Mooneyham, Turnbull).  As we’ll see later on, there’s nobody really that makes sense to supplant any of these guys as a starter from AA or XST.

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AA (Harrisburg roster announcement here)

• 2015 Rotation: Voth, Ross, Espino, Alderson, Swynenberg (with Bleier (L) perhaps as a swingman?)
• 2014 Opening Day Rotation: Schwartz, Rivero (L), Gilliam, Purke (L), Cole
• 2014 Closing Day rotation: Dupra (sort of), Voth, Rivero (L), Poveda, (Espino 9/1 promotion), Kroenke

Discussion

Harrisburg went through an awful lot of starters last year.  19 guys got starts, 15 of which were not just one-offs.  From last year’s opening day, Schwartz got demoted after putting up a 7+ ERA and then hurt, Gilliam got hurt, and Purke had Tommy John surgery.  By the end of the season, only Rivero remained in the rotation, though he spent a good spell on the D/L as well.  Dupra got 12 starts and 24 appearances and was medicore (5.60 ERA), Poveda had great ratios (39Ks in 32innings) but an ugly era (5.34), and MLFA Kroenke was abhorrent (6.72 ERA).

Returning for 2015 are Austin Voth, the 2013 draft pick who shot up two levels last year, and last year’s MLFA Paolo Espino, who has re-upped with the team for 2015.  They are joined by newly acquired Joe Ross, MLFA Tim Alderson and the surprising Matt Swynenberg (who was closer to retirement than a rotation gig this time last year).   I have 2015 MLFA Richard Bleier as a swingman/spot starter for now.  This rotation may be augmented by some of the Missing/XST arms (see later discussion).

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High-A

• 2015 Rotation: Bacus, Pivetta, Spann (L), Suero, Rauh (with Schwartz as swingman?)
• 2014 Opening Day Rotation: Rauh, Rpena, Mooneyham (L), Encarnacion, Lee (L)
• 2014 Closing Day rotation: Bacus, Spann (L), Dickson, Sylvestre,  Rauh,

Discussion

Lots of turnover in the Potomac rotation as well; 14 guys got starts from last year.   Dakota Bacus, Brian Rauh, and Matthew Spann are reprising their roles as starters from the end of last season, while two others (Dickson and Sylvestre) remain in XST limbo for now.  What happened to the rest of these guys?  Brett Mooneyham and Nick Lee posted ERAs of 7.36 and 10.05 respectively and were both demoted.  Encarnacion was nearly as bad and was outright released by the organization earlier this past off-season.

Luckily, we kind of already know that the opening day rotation is going to change: we know where two of the organization’s brightest arms are heading.  Giolito and Lopez should supplant Bacus and Rauh, making for a rather formidable Potomac rotation.

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Low-A

• 2015 Rotation: AWilliams, LReyes, Van Orden … and then who knows.  Orlan?  Ullman?
• 2014 Opening Day Rotation: Pivetta Voth, Giolito, Silvestre (L)/Anderson, Johansen,
• 2014 Closing Day rotation: Pivetta, RLopez, Ott, Dickey, Suero,

Discussion

Well; Hagerstown’s rotation should be … interesting.  When you look at the assigned arms, there’s only three clear-cut starters from last year.  So clearly either the Hagerstown team will be getting reinforcements from the XST list or there’s guys being converted from 2014 relievers to 2015 starters.

Pivetta and Giolito were the mainstays from last year; both will be in high-A at some point soon.  Ott was flipped as a throw-in with the Steven Souza deal.   Its hard to pass judgement on this rotation until we talk about those in XST.

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Missing/XST

There’s a TON of arms who are currently unassigned.

Starters: JRodriguez, Dickey, Dickson, Estevez, Lopez, Giolito, Simms, Silvestre, Bourque, Amartinez, Gilliam
Relievers: Purke, Bates, Holland, Lehman, Mooneyham, Pena, Simmons, Solis, Turnbull, Feliz, McDowell, Torres, DWilliams

Where might these guys end up?   Well, based on their performance from last year, here’s some guesses for the starters:

• AAA: nobody who isn’t already there
• AA: Simms, Silvestre, Gilliam
• High-A: Dickey, Dickson, Lopez, Giolito, Dupra (already on the Potomac D/L)
• Low-A: JRodriguez, Estevez, Bourque, AMartinez

And the relievers?

• AAA: Purke (already on the AAA D/L), Holland, Lehman (release candidate), Simmons (release candidate)
• AA: Bates (release candidate), Pena, Solis
• High-A: Mooneyham, Turnbull
• Low-A: Feliz, McDowell, Torres, DWilliams

We’ll see how things go; I guess we could start seeing some minor league releases soon enough.

 

 

The title of my previous post was pretty simple: “Nats 2014 Draft == failure.”  And it resulted in a rather spirited debate in the comments about the 2014 draft, the 2008 draft in hindsight, etc.

In that debate, I postulated my benchmarks for judging whether or not a team’s draft was “good” or not.  Here were the six guidelines I stated for judgement, going round by round/section by section in the draft:

• a. 1st rounder: future MLB above average regular to all-star
• b. 2nd rounder: future MLB regular
• c. 3rd-5th: expect at least one future MLB player in at least a backup/bullpen role
• d. 6th-10th: hope for at least one player to reach the MLB level.
• e. 11th-20th: hope for at least three players who matriculate to AA or higher
• f. 20th and above: hope for one-two players to matriculate to AA or higher

Lets go back through all 10 Nats drafts and see whether these guidelines hold up.  For each of the 6 requirements, we’ll give a quick “yes/no the condition was met” for each year.  Critical to this analysis is the Nats DraftTracker XLS, milb.com and baseball-reference.com for searching for old players.  Also useful is the Baseball America executive database, which populated the staff in charge of each draft.

Editors Note post-posting: I’ve added in the total known bonus amounts, per suggestion in the comments.  Data taken from the Draft Tracker.  Actual figures are likely higher because most bonus figures past the 10th round are unknown (but likely minimal).  Also per good suggestion, I’m adding in the draft position for context, since its far easier to get a future all-star if picking in the top 5 versus later on.

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2005: Owner: MLB.  President: n/a.  GM: Jim Bowden.  Scouting Director: Dana Brown.  Drafting 4th overall.  Total Bonus $ spent: $3,990,500

• a. Yes: 1st rounder Ryan Zimmerman: MLB above average regular (former all-star)
• b. n/a: we had no 2nd rounder; forfeited for Vinny Castilla
• c. Yes:  4th rounder Justin Maxwell turned into a 4th outfielder.  No 3rd rounder.
• d. Yes: 6th rounder Marco Estrada has turned into a decent starter (albeit for someone else after we released him)
• e. Yes: 11th rounder John Lannan and 12th rounder Craig Stammen turned into MLBers, far above expectations here.  18th rounder  Tim Pahuta had long ML career for us, playing 3 years at AA.
• f. Yes: 33rd rounder Ryan Butcher was a 6yr MLFA who left the org but now has MLB experience with Atlanta.  No other 20th+ round draftees made it out of A-ball, but Butcher’s MLB matriculation makes up for it.

2005: Success, inarguably.  6 guys matriculating to the majors is a winning draft, especially considering the lack of a 2nd or 3rd round pick, the ownership confusion, and the budget restrictions put on the team.

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2006: Owner: MLB.  President: n/a.  GM: Bowden.  Scouting Director: Brown.  Drafting 15th overall.  Total Bonus $ spent: $5,222,000

• a. No: 1st rounder Chris Marrero looks like a 4-a guy at best and 1st rounder Colten Willems never made it above A-ball.
• b. No: the team failed to sign 2nd rounder Sean Black and 2nd rounder Stephen Englund never made it out of low-A.
• c. No: none of their 3rd-5th picks made the majors.  The highest one of these guys got was 5th rounder Corey VanAllen, who did pitch in AAA after passing through the rule-5 draft and finished out his 6-years with the org.  VanAllen is in Indy ball in 2014.
• d. No: they didn’t even sign their 7th, 9th or 10th round picks.  The closest they got to a MLBer here was 6th rounder Zech Zinicola, who played at AAA for quite a while, was rule-5 picked and returned, and now sits in Baltimore’s AA team.
• e. Yes: 12th rounder Cole Kimball made it the majors briefly, while 17th rounder Erik Arnesen, 18th rounder Adam Carr and 13th rounder Hassan Pena all toiled in AAA for several years. 
  
• f. Yes, sort of.  We’re all well aware of the success of 41st rounder Brad Peacock, but he was picked under the “draft-and-follow” system that no longer exists.  So while yes it was a 41st round pick, in our current system Peacock wouldn’t have been picked at all and/or wouldn’t have signed but would have been picked the subsequent year based on his great first-college juco season.   Of the rest of the 20th+ round picks, one guy had a couple months in AA (26th rounder Brett Logan) to serve as a backup catcher; he hit .102/.170/.122 in 20 games in 2007 and was released.

2006: Failure: 3 guys who have MLB appearances but near zero impact for this team.  Peacock enabled the Nats to get Gio Gonzalez but I think we see now that Peacock wasn’t the driving prospect in that deal (now that Derek Norris has made an all-star team).

For as much as went right for the team in the 2005 draft, it went wrong in 2006.  Was the lack of signing their 7th, 9th and 10th round picks evident of “fiscal restraint” demanded by the other 29 owners?  Clearly to me, the focus on HS drafted personnel in this draft has Bowden’s hands all over it, and almost none of them panned out in the slightest.

 

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2007: Owner: Ted Lerner group.  President: Stan Kasten.  GM: Bowden.  Scouting Director: Brown.  Assistant GM/VP, Baseball Operations: Mike Rizzo.  Drafting 6th overall.  Total Bonus $ spent: $7,619,300

• a. No: The team went one-for-three on its first rounders: Michael Burgess got to AA in his fourth pro season but never further, was flipped for Tom Gorzelanny.  Josh Smoker‘s failure has been well documented here.  But Ross Detwiler, for all the complaining about his usage and role in this space, did make the majors and looked like a good 4th starter (in 2012).  I still believe he could start in this league and is better than a long-man.   However, the condition is that a first round pick turns into a successful regular, and this crop failed in all regards.
• b. Yes.  2nd rounder Jordan Zimmermann is now a 2-time all-star and is probably the best 2nd round pick the organization has ever had.  His successes make up for their other 2nd rounder Jake Smolinksi who has made his MLB debut but not until he became a 6-yr MLFA.
• c. Yes.  4th rounder Derek Norris made the 2014 all-star team for Oakland.  3rd rounder Stephen Souza has debuted in the majors and looks quite promising (albeit blocked) for our AAA team.  5th rounder Brad Meyers toiled for us in AAA for years before being released this spring after a long injury recovery.
• d. Yes: 10th round pick Patrick McCoy made it to AAA for us, signed with Detroit as a MLFA and debuted this year.  We should note for the record though that 6th rounder Jack McGeary was paid as if he was a low-1st rounder and failed pretty spectacularly here.
• e. Yes: 20th rounder Jeff Mandel was a long-serving org arm at AA and AAA.   11th rounder Bill Rhinehart was looking like a find, appearning on Nats system prospect lists for a while and getting to AAA before getting flipped for Jonny Gomes.
• f. Yes: 28th rounder Boomer Whiting made it to Syracuse before getting released in 2011.   48th rounder (!) Kyle Gunderson was flipped for Logan Kensing in 2009 and made it to Miami/Florida’s AAA squad before getting released.  
  

2007: Success: despite the 1st round failures and the McGeary disaster, the breadth of success in the other categories and the production of the remaining guys weighs out.

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2008: Owner: Lerner.  President: Kasten.  GM: Bowden.  Scouting Director: Brown.  Assistant GM/VP, Baseball Operations: Rizzo.  Drafting 9th overall.  Total Bonus $ spent: $4,766,500

• a. No: as is well documented, the Nats failed to sign 1st round pick Aaron Crow.
• b. No/Inc: 2nd round pick Destin Hood has already passed through Rule-5 waivers once, but has found himself in 2014 and is hitting great for Syracuse (2014’s AAA line: .308/.353/.502).  It does make one wonder if he’s worth adding to the 40-man once the season is over to keep him; he’s finishing his 7th pro year and is in line for minor league free agency.
• c. Yes: 3rd rounder Danny Espinosa has his critics, but he’s at least a MLB backup or possibly more.  5th rounder Adrian Nieto has stuck with the White Sox after getting plucked in the Rule-5 draft last year and hasn’t been half bad.
• d. Yes: 10th rounder Tommy Milone has shown his capabilities as a MLB starter.  d. 6th-10th: hope for at least one player to reach the MLB level.  6th rounder Paul Demny remains in the system (on the D/L in Harrisburg) but doesn’t seem like he’ll go much higher at this point.
• e. Yes: 16th rounder Tyler Moore has put in meaningful at-bats for the Nats for a few years now.  And 19th rounder Steve Lombardozzi looks to be a solid utility/backup infielder in this league for years.  Lastly I wonder if the team gave up on 15th rounder J.P. Ramirez too soon; he was paid like a 2nd round pick but was released prior to his MLFA period.  He may have only made it to high-A, but his last season was somewhat decent.
• f. No: as far as I can tell, nobody of note came in rounds 20 or above from this draft.

2008: Failure: How would you judge this draft?   We failed to sign the first rounder, which for me is a huge negative.  The second rounder may or may not ever debut in the majors, which is also for me a huge negative because of the huge prevalence of 1st and 2nd rounders on MLB rosters.  But we got four (5 counting Nieto) other MLBers out of the rest of the draft, including some very deep-dive picks that you rarely find (Moore and Lombardozzi, aside from Peacock, are the two lowest round picks to ever make it to the majors for this team).

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2009:  Owner: Lerner.  President: Kasten. GM: Rizzo.  Scouting Director: Brown.  Drafting 1st overall.  Total Bonus $ spent: $18,806,000

• a. Yes: no arguing about either first round pick here: both Stephen Strasburg and Drew Storen have pitched at all-star levels in their careers.
• b. No: 2nd Rounder Jeff Kobernus may have made his MLB debut, but he’s nowhere close to being a “regular” in the majors right now and doens’t seem to be trending that way either.
• c. No: 3rd round pick Trevor Holder was a gross over-draft (albeit with known reasons; the team committed an *awful* lot of money to the first two guys on this list) and was released in 2013.  4th rounder A.J. Morris looked quite promising for us, was flipped in the Gorzelanny deal, and this year is pitching effectively for Pittsburgh’s AAA squad after being taken in the minor league Rule-5 portion last off-season.  And the Nats failed to sign their 5th rounder.  So even if Morris pans out as a MLB-capable player, he’s doing it for someone else.
• d. Yes: 9th round pick Taylor Jordan was effective for the team last year and may yet figure in the team’s plans despite his mysterious D/L trip right now.  And 6th round pick Michael Taylor has rocketed up the prospect lists for this team, is crushing AA pitching right now, is on the team’s 40-man roster and may very well get a look as 2015’s starting center fielder.
• e. Yes: 12th rounder Nathan Karns made the org look quite intelligent when he gave spot starts in 2013 after rocketing up the farm system after finally recovering from arm issues.  I wonder if the success they had with Karns was the first impetus for Rizzo to take more gambles on high-end-but-injured arms.  13th rounder Patrick Lehman has bounced around as an org arm for years.  11th rounder Juston Bloxom played a couple years in AA before getting released this year.  16th rounder Sean Nicol is splitting time between AA and AAA this year.   Finally, I wanted to note something I never knew before studying this: the Nats drafted Marcus Strohman in the 18th round out of HS; this is the same Strohman who went in the first round three years later to Toronto and who is currently holding down a rotation spot for the playoff-pushing Blue Jays.  Wow.  He’s listed as a SS on the draft-tracker but clearly is a MLB-calibre starter.
• f. Yes: 22nd rounder Danny Rosenbaum has been Syracuse’s “ace” for three seasons now.  And a slew of guys drafted in the 20s stuck around for years as middle relievers (Mitchell Clegg, Matt Swynenberg, Evan Bronson, Rob Wort, and Shane McCatty).  You just can’t ask for more out of your picks in rounds 20-30.

2009: Success: I’ll take a couple of misses in the 2nd and 3rd rounds given the amount of talent they picked up in the middle and late rounds.  Great draft.  6 guys who have debuted in the majors with at least another one likely coming soon.

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Note: from 2010 onwards, most of the judgement calls are still “in progress.”  We’ll use projections and “small sample sizes” to pass judgement.  It is what it is.  Feel free to criticize in the comments about using projections and national pundit scouting reports to make judgements.

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2010:  Owner: Lerner.  President: Kasten.  GM: Rizzo.  Scouting Director: Kris Kline.  Drafting 1st overall.  Total Bonus $ spent: $11,413,200

• a. Yes: 1st rounder Bryce Harper has turned into everything the hype suggested.  Fun fact; when he went on an rehab assignment in Potomac, he was the 2nd youngest guy on the roster.  Remember that when you criticize the guy for not being better than he already is: if he was “playing by the rules,” he’d be jsut finishing his junior year of college.
• b. No/Inc: 2nd rounder Sammy Solis has been one injury issue after another.  He missed all of 2012 with Tommy John, came back slowly in 2013, but now sits on the AA D/L with another “elbow” issue.  He was protected on the 40-man roster last fall, but you have to wonder what’s to come of him.  He’s finishing his 5th pro season and he’s got exactly one start above A-Ball.
• c. Yes/Inc: 4th rounder A.J. Cole was paid like a late first rounder, and after some struggles he’s really come onto the scene this year.  He was already really young for AA and “solved” it, and is now in AAA holding his own.  The other guys in this category are less impressive: both Rick Hague and Jason Martinson are repeating AA and not really hitting well enough to push for promotions.  This could be a side-effect of the huge amount of money committed to Harper and Cole.
  
• d. Yes: 9th round pick Aaron Barrett went from unknown/unrecognized prospect to the Nats 40-man roster last fall to being lights-out middle reliever in the major league pen this year.  As a 9th round college senior pick.  8th rounder Matthew Grace may be next; after toiling as a mediocre starter, he became a reliever in 2013 and has been lights out in AA and AAA this year.  And he’s not just a LOOGY: 56 IP in 33 appearances and he’s given up just 6 ER in that time.
• e. Yes: 15th round pick David Freitas, after getting traded to Oakland for Kurt Suzuki, got traded again to Baltimore and now is in AAA.   12th round pick Robbie Ray has made his MLB debut for Detroit after going over in the Doug Fister deal.  11th rounder Neil Holland toils in the Harrisburg pen admirably.
• f. Yes: 23rd rounder Colin Bates and 26th rounder Christopher Manno both are in the Harrisburg pen.  22nd rounder Cameron Selik made it to AA before hitting his ceiling and being released earlier this year.   And 32nd rounder Randolph Oduber is a starting OF in Potomac with decent splits and a shot of moving up.

2010: Success: It may have been a no-brainer to take Harper, and it may have been an example of the “checkbook” winning in their picks of Cole and Ray, but you have to hand it to this team; they bought two high-end prep guys out of their college and they’re both looking like huge successes.   And they got a MLB servicable reliever out of a college senior sign who they paid just $35,000 in bonus money.  Great work.

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2011: Owner: Lerner.  President/GM: Rizzo.  Scouting Director Kline.  Drafting 6th overall.  Total Bonus $ spent: $11,325,000

• a.  Yes: 1st rounder Anthony Rendon was on everyone’s “all star snub” lists this year, while their other 1st rounder Alex Meyer remains one of the top pitching prospects in the game and seems likely to debut later this year.   Their supp-1st rounder Brian Goodwin remains on every pundit’s prospect lists even if he seemingly has been passed on the organizational “future starting Center-fielder” depth chart.   There’s no chance the team leaves him exposed in the upcoming rule-5 draft, so he’ll have at least three more years to prove he belongs.
• b. n/a: forfeited for Adam LaRoche signing.
• c. No/Inc: Right now our 3rd through 5th picks are looking iffy; 4th rounder Matthew Purke was paid like an upper first rounder and has been a massive disappointment.  Right now he’s recovering from Tommy John and faces an uncertain future.  4th rounder Kylin Turnbull has gotten lit up in high-A this year, his second crack at the league.  5th rounder Matt Skole may be the most promising of the bunch; he crushed 27 homers in his first season of full-season ball only to miss all of 2013 because of a freak injury.  Can Skole continue developing and make the majors on a full-time basis?  Can Purke at this point?
• d. Yes: With the call-up of 6th rounder Taylor Hill earlier this year, this category is met.  Which is good because the rest of the 6th-10th rounders from this year are struggling.  Two are already released/retired, one is MIA and the lone remaining active player (Brian Dupra) is struggling as a starter/swing-man in AA.  But Hill is a huge win; a college senior draftee on minimal bonus rocketing through the minors and forcing his way onto the 25-man roster.
• e. Yes/Inc:  It is far too early to fully judge this category, but it is looking promising despite the fact that the team failed to sign SIX of its ten picks beween the 11th and 20th round.  11th rounder Caleb Ramsey is already in AA.  16th rounder Deion Williams is on the mound (not a SS as in the Draft Tracker) and is struggling in short-A.   18th rounder Nick Lee is struggling in Potomac this year but has shown a huge arm and seems like he’ll eventually convert to loogy (especially considering his undersized stature); I can see Lee making it far as a matchup lefty reliever with swing-and-miss stuff.  The lone failure at this point is 12th rounder Blake Monar, sort of inexplicably released after a decent 2012 season in Short-A.   
  
• f. Yes: 30th round pick Bryan Harper earned his way to Harrisburg.   45th round college senior pick Richie Mirowski also made it to AA, where he wasn’t half bad last year, though at the moment he’s back in Potomac.   And there’s three other players drafted in the 20th or higher who are active on Potomac’s roster this year and who may get moved up.   Decent production out of the bottom of this draft so far.

2011: Projected Success: As discussed before, I believe the selection of Rendon was a “no-brainer” based on a unique set of circumstances that occured on draft day, but credit the management team for having the stones to pick him when other GMs didn’t.   I’m sure the Mariners (especially) would like a re-do on that draft (they picked 2nd overall, got soft-tossing local product Danny Hultzen, who was sidelined last year with all sorts of shoulder issues and is no sure bet to ever make it back.   They rolled the dice with Purke and so far seem to be losing, but Purke was himself a 1-1 talent at one point (remember, he had his $4M+ deal with Texas pulled thanks to MLB-stewardship at the time) and was probably worth the risk.   I’d like to see Skole reach the majors in some capacity before declaring this draft a full success.

 

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Note: from here onwards, everything is a projection and is based on scouting the stat lines.  I’m going to sound negative where others sound positive and vice versa.  Hey, its better than writing nothing.

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2012: Owner: Lerner.  President/GM: Rizzo.  Scouting Director Kline.   Drafting 16th overall.  Total Bonus $ spent: $4,503,500

• a. Yes/inc: 1st rounder Lucas Giolito (so far) has shown himself to be at full speed post TJ surgery and is mostly in the top 10-15 of every professional scouting pundit’s list for best prospect in the entirety of the minors.  He’s got a #1 starter ceiling, a huge frame and three plus pitches.  He’s projecting to be everything you’d hope for from an upper first rounder.
• b. No/inc: It is hard to squint at 2nd rounder Tony Renda at this point and project him as a future “MLB regular.”  Sure he’s hitting .297 in Potomac, and sure his numbers at the plate have not varied much in his three pro seasons.  Unfortunately he’s vastly undersized and he has no power in a time where pro middle infielders are expected to provide serious pop.   Maybe he can forge a career like Jamey Carroll or like a Jose Altuve, but the odds are against him.  I don’t mean to discount the guy because he’s 5’8″ but we all know there’s a significant bias in the industry towards undersized guys.  Heck, a pitcher is considered “short” if he isn’t 6’2″ these days.
• c. No/inc: So far the guys picked 3rd-5th are also struggling.  3rd rounder Brett Mooneyham‘s struggles are well documented here.  4th rounder Brandon Miller continues to show great power but has missed much of this season with a hamstring injury (he’s on rehab in the GCL as we speak).  Lastly 5th rounder Spencer Keiboom suffered a blown UCL that basically cost him the whole 2013 season.  He’s got great numbers in low-A this year but is two years too old for the league.  Keiboom’s talents more centered on his defense than his bat, so he may still push forward as a future backup catcher.  But until he does, this category falls in the “no” side.
• d. Maybe/inc: The leading hope for some MLB success out of our 6th-10th round picks right now resides in one of two middle relievers: 7th round pick Robert Benincasa or 9th round pick Derek Self.   You never know; one of these guys could turn into the next Aaron Barrett.  8th round SS Stephen Perez made the all-star team this year in Potomac and could feature as a future utility infielder.  The team has already released its 6th round pick Hayden Jennings, and their 10th rounder (local Rockville product Craig Manual) was a college senior catcher who is backing up other catchers in the system for the time being).  He may continue to hang around but unless he gets a starting gig he’s going to get replaced by someone newer.
• e. Yes/inc: 17th rounder Blake Schwartz has already made it to AA, where he struggled and he now sits back in Potomac (where he was great last year, go figure).  11th rounder Brian Rauh got a spot-start in AA last year but has bounced in and out of the Potomac rotation this year.  16th rounder Ronald Pena is working his way off injury but faces a long road to move up thanks to a lack of swing-and-miss stuff.   The team has already released four of its 11th-20th round picks; the remaining out-field players (12th rounder Carlos Lopez and 19th rounder Bryan Lippincott) both seem to face long odds as college senior draftees still residing in the low minors to even make it up to AA at this point.  To be fair, Lopez missed most of 2013 with an unknown injury, so we’ll give him a slight pass.   Lippincott sits in XST right now.
• f. No/inc: 33rd rounder Mike McQuillan has hung around and currently serves as a utility guy/bench player for Potomac.   A couple of relievers remain on squads: 29th rounder Leonard Hollins is hurt but is on a full-season squad, and 30th rounder Robert Orlan was with Hagerstown to start the season but is back in Auburn.   The rest of the 20th round and up guys features carnage; eight college senior draftees already released to go along with 10 unsigned (mostly high schoolers) picks in the later rounds.  One unsigned pick looks interesting; all-american freshman UNC player Skye Bolt may be a big-time 2015 draft pick.   But otherwise, I’m predicting that we dont’ get even a AA player out of the last  20 rounds of this draft at this point.

2012: Projected Failure: Frankly, this is looking like it may be a one player draft.  At this point, I don’t think you can look at *any* other player in this draft and project even a bench/fringe 25-man roster guy besides Giolito.  Now ask yourself: if Giolito fulfills expectations and becomes an “ace,” a top 15-20 arm in the majors while the rest of this draft basically becomes high-A and AA filler, does that change your opinion of the draft success/failure?

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2013: Owner: Lerner.  President/GM: Rizzo.  Scouting Director Kline.  Drafting 30th overall.  Total Bonus $ spent: $2,678,100

• a. n/a: No 2013 first rounder thanks to the supurfluous signing of Rafael Soriano.  As noted at the time, the Nats missed out on players like Sean Manaea, Ryan Stanek or Ian Clarkin, all of whom were available at the time of their lost 1st rounder.  Manaea in particular has flourished, rising up prospect list charts and sporting a healthy K/9 rate in high-A this year.  I’d like to call this in and among itself a failure (given my reservations about paying for saves in general), but have to admit that Soriano has been pretty durn good this year.
• b. No/inc: 2nd rounder Jake Johansen thus far has not lived up to advance billing in his first year in full-season ball.  He’s averaging just 4.5 innings per outing and sports a 5.00 ERA and less than a K/inning.   I can understand the difficult adjustment to pro ball, but I don’t get how his vaunted velocity and size combination aren’t resulting in more swing-and-miss.    He’s given no indication that he can avoid what scouts have been saying all along (that he’s destined for the bullpen), he’s way too wild and way too hittable.
• c. Yes/inc: the Nats collection of 3rd rounder Drew Ward, 4th rounder Nick Pivetta and now especially 5th rounder Austin Voth are making this management team look very smart.  All Voth has done since forcing his promotion to High-A is give up 10 hits and ONE earned run in 33 innings over five starts.  That’s just ridiculous.  And he’s doing it while maintaining a 36/5 K/BB ratio.  There’s zero reason for him to still be in Potomac at this point.  I don’t know what Voth’s ceiling is, but its getting pushed.
• d. No/inc: Thanks to the new CBA’s rules, most 6th-10th rounders are throw-away/college senior picks these days.  So it’ll be awfully hard to depend on one of them turning into a 25-man roster guy.  The best bet out of this draft will be having either 6th rounder Cody Gunter or 7th rounder James Yezzo eventually matriculating to the majors.  The other guys in this category were 15k bonus college seniors, one of whom (9th rounder Jake Joyce has *already* been released).  Do we think either Gunter or Yezzo projects as a major leaguer?  Not right now: Gunter’s struggling in short-A for the 2nd year in a row and Yezzo is an undersized 1B showing little power.
• e. Maybe/inc: Right now the pickings for the guys taken 11th-20th look pretty slim too.  Three were senior signs who have already been released and we failed to sign our 16th round pick Willie Allen (though can’t fault the Nats for that: doing research on him for last year’s draft review showed all sorts of inconsistencies with him, including whether he’s even still playing baseball in college).  But 11th rounder John Simms is looking like a great find; he’s already in the AA rotation and holding his own (though you could argue it was out of need, not performance).  Among those left, 10th rounder Brandon Middleton and 15th rounder Isaac Ballou are starting and playing well in Hagerstown, 12th rounder Andrew Cooper is strugging in low-A, 13th rounder John Costa has yet to debut for the team thanks to TJ surgery, and 17th rounder Geoffrey Perrott was a senior catcher who got a grand total of 13 at-bats in 2013 and has remained in XST so far thisyear, perhaps to serve as a bullpen catcher for others remaining in Viera and perhaps because he was hurt most of last year and may still be recovering.  If Simms continues to rise and we get a couple more longer-lasting prospects out of this crew, we’ll convert this to a success.
• f. Maybe/Inc: The Nats picked seven college seniors in the 21st round or above and so far they’re all with Hagerstown.  Middle infielders Cody Dent (22nd rounder) and Willie Medina (31st rounder) both hit in the .220s last year, are hitting in the .220s (or worse) this year, and seem like they may not last the season.  However the pitchers in this bunch are looking better and better.  28th rounder Joey Webb has a 2.53 ERA, 30th rounder Ryan Ullmann has as 3.10 ERA and got a high-A up-and-back call-up, and 34th rounder Jake Walsh dominated Low-A and earned a call-up to Potomac.  Only 29th rounder Michael Sylvestri seems to be in trouble among these senior signs; after struggling in Short-A last year, he gave up a ton of runs in 6 mid-relief outings and is currently in re-assignment purgatory.  What of the non senior-signs?  24th round pick Matthew Derosier is struggling in short-A and 23rd round outfielder Garrett Gordon seems like he’s a bench player in Auburn.  But a revelation may be 25th round prep draft pick Travis Ott.  He holds a 2.10 ERA through 6 starts in Auburn despite being quite young for the league.  So, the trend seems good that we’ll get value out of the bottom part of this draft.

2013: Projected Failure: Sorry to say; no first rounder, a middle reliever out of your 2nd rounder, perhaps a 5th starter out of the 3-5 rounds, and some org filler from the bottom of the draft?  How many players from this draft do you realistically project to make the majors?

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2014: Owner: Lerner.  President/GM: Rizzo.  Scouting Director Kline.   Drafting 18th overall.  Total Bonus $ spent: $4,149,900

• a. Maybe/inc: 1st rounder Erick Fedde may project as a MLB rotation guy, but he’s not projecting as an ace level arm.  So if he comes back from surgery 100%, if he keeps moving up the chain, if he makes the majors and if he has an impact we’ll give this a yes.  Lots of ifs.
• b. n/a:  we failed to sign our 2nd rounder Andrew Suarez.
  
• c. Maybe/inc: The hopes here fall on 3rd rounder Jakson Reetz and 4th rounder Robbie Dickey, since our 5th rounder was a senior lefty out of non-baseball powerhouse Duke.   How do we dream on Reetz and Dickey?  Maybe Reetz turns into our next Derek Norris while Dickey turns into the next Austin Voth.  Lets hope so, because both so far have had rather inauspicious starts in the GCL (Reetz batting .220 and Dickey posting an ERA in the 12s).   To be fair Reetz is a kid and Dickey isn’t much older, so we have a long way to go before passing true judgement.
• d. No/inc: We failed to sign the 8th round pick Austin Byler (and from reading the tea leaves, it didn’t seem like we were ever even close).  Our 7th, 8th and 10th round picks were low-bonus college seniors with little hope of advancing.  So this category falls squarely on the shoulders of 6th rounder Austin Williams, who looks ok so far in Short-A.
• e. Far too Early: most of these guys who did sign are 15 games into short seasons.
• f. Far too Early: most of these guys who did sign are 15 games into short seasons.

2014: Not promising: An injured first rounder, no 2nd rounder, really just a handful of non senior-signs elsewhere in the draft.  As I opined in the previous post discussion, I just don’t like the looks of this class.

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So.  5200 words later, I think I actually like my guidelines.  I think though that the new CBA forces teams into making a bunch of “throw-away” picks in the 6th-10th rounds, so my criteria needs to be adjusted downward for that category in the last few years.  Otherwise I think it holds.

What say you?

Editor’s Post-posting thoughts.  Based on the analysis above, the franchise has 5 successes and 5 failures (or projected failures) in ten drafts.  After up and down drafts the first four years, we had three straight successes in 2009-2011, but now I feel like we’ve had three successive failures from 2012 onwards.  Here’s a sobering thought about those successes and failures: lets talk about bonus money spent.

• In the 5 drafts I call successes, the team spent (chronologically): $3,990,500, $7,619,300,  $18,806,000, $11,413,200 and $11,325,000 in bonus money.
• In the 5 drafts i’m calling failures/projected failures: $5,222,000, $4,766,500, $4,503,500, $2,678,100, $4,149,900

See a pattern?  With the exception of the unbelievable 2005 draft, the Nats have had successes when spending big money and failures when they don’t.  Maybe its just that simple.

I think, to be fair, it is also worth nothing the three distinct “eras” of Nats draft philosophy:

• Era 1: 2005-2008: MLB hamstrung budgets and Lerner penny pinching era.  2 successes, 2 failures.
• Era 2: 2009-2011: Lerner’s realize the Tampa Bay way: spending through the draft is the best way to acquire talent.  3 successes
• Era 3: 2012-present: the new CBA spells out draconian draft bonus policies.  3 failures.

Era 1 may be just the way it used to go; sometimes you’d get wins in the draft, other times you’d strike out.  Era 2 was the glory years of Nats drafting, though the cynic may point out that picking three consensus 1-1 talents and spending 8 figures in bonus money wasn’t that hard.  Era 3 is more troubling: why has this management team not done better in the CBA/limited bonus era?

 

At the end of the 2013 season, I put out a slew of season rotational reviews and then predicted where everyone would start in 2014.

We’re a month into the minor league full-seasons and the rotations are already mostly established (with D/L trips and slight movement as noted here).  So lets do a little navel gazing and take a look at my predictions versus the actuals before we lose too much identity with the makeup of these four full-season pitching staffs from opening day.

As always, Luke Erickson and nationalsprospects.com, the Nats Big Board and the tireless work by “SpringfieldFan” is much appreciated here.

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MLB Dec 2013 Prediction

• MLB Rotation: Strasburg, Gonzalez (L), Zimmermann, Fister, Detwiler (L)
• MLB Bullpen: Soriano, Storen, Clippard, Stammen, Blevens (L), Ohlendorf, Roark
• MLB out of Org: Haren, Duke (L), Abad (L), Krol (L), HRodriguez

MLB April 2014 Actual Opening Day Staff

• MLB Rotation: Strasburg, Gonzalez (L), Zimmermann, Roark, Jordan
• MLB Bullpen: Soriano, Clippard, Storen, Stammen, Blevens (L), Detwiler, Barrett
• MLB D/L: Fister, Ohlendorf, Davis
• MLB notables Out of Organization: Haren, Duke (L), Abad (L), Krol (L), HRodriguez

MLB Discussion: A late spring injury to Doug Fister obsoleted the 5th starter competition, giving both Tanner Roark and Taylor Jordan spots (for now; Roark has “won” the 5th spot thanks to a better April now that Fister is ready to come back).  The biggest news during spring training was the Ross Detwiler “demotion” to the bullpen, but the Aaron Barrett victory over the likes of Christian Garcia and Ryan Mattheus was also notable.  Injuries to Ross Ohlendorf and Erik Davis cleared out bullpen competition, and an early spring training chest injury to Mattheus also made it difficult for him to break camp with the big league club.

Nothing new here: we’ve talked this to death already 🙂  Lets move onto the four full-season minor league squads.

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AAA Dec 2013 Prediction

• AAA Rotation: Rosenbaum (L), Jordan, Karns, Young, MLFA or two
• AAA Bullpen: Barrett, Mattheus, Garcia, Davis, Cedeno (L), Robertson (L), Delcarmen, Alfaro, Stange, Herron (AA?)
• AAA Release candidates: Meyers, Lehman
• AAA out of Org: Maya, Tatusko, Clay, Mandel, Torra, Broadway, Crotta, Lowe, Kimball, Accardo, Bramhall, Romero (L)

AAA Apr 2014 Actual opening day

• AAA Rotation: Rosenbaum (L), Tatusko, Treinen, Hill, Poveda
• AAA Bullpen: Mattheus, Garcia, Cedeno (L), Robertson (L), Delcarmen, Madrigal,  Roenicke, Stange
• AAA D/L: Meyers, Davis (mlb 60 day d/l)
• AAA cut/released/FA:Young, Broadway, Maya, Mandel, Clay, Kimball, Crotta, Torra, Lowe, Crotta,  Accardo, Bramhall, Romero (L)
• AAA Missing: MGonzalez (L), Laffey

AAA Discussion

Technically I got 2/5ths of the AAA rotation right to start the year: Rosenbaum and a MLFA in the form of Omar Poveda (technically an acquisition but still…).  Karns was traded to obtain our (now) starting catcher Jose Lobaton.  Jordan of course started the year in the majors, but I think he’ll end up back here for a good portion of the season.  Young was granted his release and immediately signed in Seattle to fill one of their rotation spots.  The team resigned its own MLFA in Ryan Tatusko to return and he seems set to be in the rotation for now, but he’s more of a swing-man/org arm and he likely makes way for a starter when needed.  The big surprise is the unexpected promotion of Taylor Hill; he featured in AA but I thought he’d start out there.   Brad Meyers stays in the organization but is “missing” for the time being: he may be headed for the D/L but as of this writing has no assignment.

In the month since opening day, we’ve seen both Mike Gonzalez and Aaron Laffey make their way to Syracuse to cover for the subsequently injured Rosenbaum and promoted MLB-bullpen-covering reliever of the day (Cedeno, Treinen, Barrett and Mattheus have all already spent time on the shuttle between Washington and Syracuse).

In the bullpen; our prediction looks decently correct; 6 of the 8 Syracuse opening day members were called.  The outliers: MLFA signings Warner Madrigal and Josh Roenicke.   Predicted members Erik Davis instead sits on the mlb 60-day D/L, and Alfaro is in the AA squad.   Pat Lehman sits on the AA D/L for now.

AAA “Star Power” summary: So, as has become typical AAA isn’t so much about finishing off prospects as it is about holding spare parts.  In the rotation we had zero 40-man roster players at this point, and really just Blake Treinen features as a potential up-and-comer (with possible future apologies to Taylor Hill of course …).  The bullpen has just three 40-man roster arms (a loogy in Xavier Cedeno, and two injury reclamation projects in Christian Garcia and Ryan Mattheus).   Eventually we should see some culling of this roster when the team needs to find spots for Gonzalez and Laffey in particular.  Syracuse fans may not be getting the best pitching staff out there to cheer on.  

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AA Dec 2013 Prediction

• AA Rotation: Cole, Hill, Solis (L), Schwartz, Treinen (AAA?)
• AA Swingmen: Gilliam (swingman)
• AA Bullpen: Benincasa, Mirowski, Holland,  Swynenberg, Grace (L), Bates, KPerez, Spann (L)
• AA release candidates: Perry, Selik, Demny, RMartin
• AA out of Org: Broderick, Ray, McCoy, Frias, Holder, Bray

AA Apr 2014 Actual

• AA Rotation: Cole, Schwartz, Rivero (L), Gilliam, Purke (L)
• AA spot starts/swingman: Dupra
• AA bullpen: Herron, Holland, Grace (L), Mirowski, Alfaro, Bates, Espino
• AA dl: Demny, RMartin, Solis (L), Lehman, Perry
• AA cut/released/FAs: Broderick, Ray (traded), Bray (L), McCoy (L), Karns (traded), Frias, Holder, Selik, Swynenberg (ret)
• AA missing: KPerez

AA Discussion

We got some of the rotation correct; A.J. Cole and Blake Schwartz.  We technically got Hill and Treinen correct … just under-valued where the organization would put them.   And lastly Sammy Solis would be in this group had he not suffered a late-spring back injury; for the time being he’s in XST but is on the “missing” list here.  I had Rob Gilliam as the AA swing man anyway; he would likely make way for Solis once he comes back.  The two additional names are Matthew Purke (who surprisingly to me starts the year in AA) and newly acquired Felipe Rivero.  

We got most of the bullpen right: 5 of 8 predicted.  The outliers: Ryan Perry remains in the organization but sits on the D/L; personally I thought he may get released.  Gabriel Alfaro was a MLFA who slots into the bullpen, as was Zach Jackson (who should have been in AAA to begin with and has already been promoted).  Benincasa starts in high-A again and Gilliam is pushed into the rotation.   Recent acquisition KPerez remain missing, along with several other middle relief arms.  Spann started the year two levels lower than I thought he should have in Low-A but currently sits in Potomac.

A couple of long-serving names are now out of the organization; I was surprised to see Cameron Selik in particular being released; I always liked him for some reason.  Its tough being a middle relief RHP with so many of them getting drafted year after year.

AA Star Power summary: A few very important names to the organization sit in AA: top pitching prospect A.J. Cole sits here and will be looking to push for a AAA promotion.  Sammy Solis had rumblings of being turned into a Loogy in Spring Training; now he just needs to get healthy.  Matthew Purke’s destiny remains at a cross-roads thanks to a horrible start to his 2014 AA campaign.  And newly acquired/40-man member Felipe Rivero sits here, hoping to show as a decent bounty for the Nathan Karns trade.  These three guys all sit on the Nats fast-depleting 40-man roster … and they represent 33% of ALL the 40-man rostered players in the Eastern League.

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High-A Dec 2013  Prediction

• High-A rotation: Purke (L), Anderson, Mooneyham (L), Encarnacion, Bacus, Turnbull (bullpen?) (L)
• High-A swingmen: RPena (swingman), Dickson (swingman)
• High-A bullpen: Wort (AA?), Holt (AA?), Fischer, Henke, Mendez, Harper (L), Davis, Thomas (L)
• High-A release candidates: Dupra, Rauh (starter?), Meza (L)
• High-A out of org: Pineyro, Hawkins

High-A Apr 2014 Actuals

• High-A Rotation: Rauh, Rpena, Mooneyham (L), Encarnacion, Lee
• High-A spot starts/swingman: Dickson, Simms, Spann (L)
• High-A bullpen: Benincasa, Henke, Harper (L), Mendez, Self,
• High-A cut/released/FA: Smoker (L), Broderick, Ray (traded), Holt, Wort, Applebee (ret)
• High-A missing: Fischer

High-A Discussion

I thought the team would start Purke in high-A again; instead he is struggling in AA.  I thought Dixon Anderson was old enough to merit the move to high-A; instead he still sits in Hagerstown repeating the level.  And Kyle Turnbull remains on the low-A D/L for now.  Otherwise the High-A rotation prediction looks pretty good: we hit on Mooneyham and Encarnacion, we hit on RPena and Dickson and Bacus as swingmen or starters (they all now sit in those roles in some capacity or another thanks to injuries).

The bullpen predictions are all over the place; both Wort and Holt were released, not pushed higher.  Fischer remains missing.  Benincasa is lower than I thought he’d be.   Dupra and Rauh (who I thought were in jeopardy of getting cut) not only have kept their spots but have been pushing for promotion, which is great to see.  It does go to show that its kind of difficult to do these predictions the lower you go.

High-A Star Power summary: Honestly there’s not a ton of big-time prospect names on the High-A staff.  Mooneyham was a high draft pick but has more or less struggled thus far in his pro career.  Encarnacion could be an up-and-comer in an organization that has struggled to develop its DSL graduate talent lately.  Otherwise the Potomac staff is filled with mid- to late-round college draft arms, older for the level at this point, and likely playing for their careers this year thanks to the higher-end talent sitting in the Hagerstown rotation right now (read further).

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Low-A Dec 2013  Prediction

• Low-A rotation: Giolito, Johansen, Voth, Lee (high-A?) (L), Orlan (L)
• Low-A swingmen: Suero (swingman), Selsor (swingman),
• Low-A bullpen: Self (high-A?), Ullmann, Pivetta, Simms, Hollins, Napoli (L), Bafidis (L), Valdez, Walsh (L), Aries
• Low-A release candidates: Joyce, Waterman, Boyden
• Low-A out of org: McKenzie, Smith

Low-A Apr 2014 Actuals

• Low A Rotation:  Giolito,  Johansen, Voth, Pivetta, Anderson,
• Low A spot starts/swingman: Suero, Anderson,
• Low A bullpen: JThomas (L), Walsh (L), Cooper, Hollins, Ullmann, Silvestre (L), Sylvestri, Simms, Spann
• Low A dl: Turnbull, CDavis, Estevez,
• Low A cut/released/FA: Meza (L), Pineyro (traded), Selsor,  Boyden, Waterman, Aries
• Low A missing: Orlan, Napoli, Bafidis, Aries, Joyce, Valdez

Discussion

The big three starters in Hagerstown were easily predicted (Giolito, Johansen and Voth).   Lee and Anderson switched places in my predictions (both starters, wrong teams) and Orlan is stuck in XST.   Pivetta was pushed to the rotation after pitching in relief last year.   And then a slew of the Hagerstown arms are participating in a “dual starter” system where by the starters generally have been going 5 and the relievers/spot starters going the other 4 each night.  So the team is getting lots of looks at these pitchers on an extended basis.

This system means there’s really not a “bullpen” being developed in Low-A, which is just as well; I’d rather have 8-10 starter candidates to choose from for higher levels than just 4-5 with guys already being pushed to being short-inning relievers in Low-A.

Unfortunately, we see that a slew of guys have already been cut here who appeared on last year’s rosters.  And, there’s a ton more players currently sitting in XST waiting to compete with June 2014 draft picks in the short-season squads.  Lots of churn here.

Low-A Star Power summary: look no further than the big three starters: they represent 1st, 2nd and 5th round draft picks.  Throw in Pivetta (a 4th rounder) and the team has a ton of vested interest in this rotation.

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Phew; that’s a lot of players. I can’t wait to see how the staffs work out this year.  I don’t expect much in the way of commenting on this post; it was one of those drafts sitting in my admin screen that I thought i’d finish off and publish to get it out of the way 🙂

Age Appropriateness by minor league level is a topic I come back to year after year.  Click here for this analysis in 2011, and then here for the same analysis for 2013 (I must have been really busy in April of 2012 to have missed out on such fun analysis).

I won’t repeat a ton of the build-up to this topic; see last year’s post for a ton of rule-of-thumb discussions and what not.  Basically the point of this post is to talk about the average/median ages of pitchers in the various full season minor league levels, then take a look at our four full-season affiliate rosters to see how our guys rank.  I’m very much of the belief that age matters in prospects, and that it should be taken into consideration when looking at a guy’s performance.

Data Taxonomy: I’ve taken every pitcher on every team’s roster in each of the four leagues that the Nats have farm teams in (AAA = International, AA = Eastern, High-A = Carolina, Low-A = South Atlantic), put them into a spreadsheet, calculated their ages at the end of this season (9/1/14) and then calculated the four quartile figures in terms of age.  I only used pitchers in our leagues as opposed to the entire level across all of baseball thinking that different leagues may have different needs (I’m thinking how the California League and the Pacific Coast League has so many hitters parks and thus the pitchers may linger there longer, skewing the numbers).  I also standardized the numbers to be at the end of the season as opposed to the beginning, so that people can talk about a player’s “Age 25 season” for example.   I’ve labeled the four quartiles as follows: “Really Young” means the lowest quartile or youngest 25% of players, “Young” means the 2nd quartile or 25-50%, “Old” means the 3rd quartile or 50-75% range, and “Really Old” means anyone in the 75th quartile or above for the league.

(Click here for the whole worksheet of player data I used to do this post on Google Docs).

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First, a look at how these age rankings have fared over the past few years:

Age Appropriate Matrix 2011-2014

2011	AAA	AA	High-A	Low-A
Really Young	25.54 or younger	24.44 or  younger	22.65 or younger	21.88 or younger
Young	25.54 – 26.93	24.44 – 25.37	22.65 – 23.83	21.88 – 22.84
Old	26.93 – 28.79	25.37 – 26.65	23.83 – 24.77	22.84 – 23.65
Really Old	28.79 or older	26.65 or older	24.77 or older	23.65 or older
2013	AAA	AA	High-A	Low-A
Really Young	25.91 or younger	24.02 or younger	23.08 or younger	21.69 or younger
Young	25.92 – 27.75	24.02 – 25.17	23.08 – 24.00	21.69 – 22.66
Old	27.75 – 30.35	25.17 – 26.84	24.00 – 24.91	22.66 – 23.39
Really Old	30.35 or older	26.84 or older	24.91 or older	23.39 or older
2014	AAA	AA	High-A	Low-A
Really Young	25.85 or younger	24.13 or younger	22.74 or younger	21.84 or younger
Young	25.86 – 27.47	24.14 – 25.27	22-74 – 23.63	21.84 – 22.65
Old	27.47 – 29.58	25.27 – 26.77	23.63 – 24.53	22.65 – 23.69
Really Old	29.58 or older	26.78 or older	24.53 or older	23.70  or older

At a  high level:

• AAA’s median age has risen from 2011, but 2014’s teams are getting slightly younger; all these threshold ages are slightly below 2013’s numbers.
• AA is more or less the same; the median age only differs by 1/10th of a year from last year
• High A: is getting younger; its threshold ages are all about a half a year or more younger this year
• Low A seems about the same; its median age is identical to last year’s.

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Here’s a look at the Nationals’ four full season minor league pitching staffs, with the ages listed and the “age appropriate” label given.   All rosters are as of 4/18/14.

AAA Syracuse

Team	First Name	Last Name	DOB	Age as of 9/1/14	Age Status
Syracuse (Wash)	Aaron	Barrett	1/2/1988	26.66	Young
Syracuse (Wash)	Xavier	Cedeno	8/26/1986	28.02	Old
Syracuse (Wash)	Manny	Delcarmen	2/16/1982	32.54	Really Old
Syracuse (Wash)	Christian	Garcia	8/24/1985	29.02	Old
Syracuse (Wash)	Taylor	Hill	3/12/1989	25.47	Really Young
Syracuse (Wash)	Aaron	Laffey	4/15/1985	29.38	Old
Syracuse (Wash)	Warner	Madrigal	3/21/1984	30.45	Really Old
Syracuse (Wash)	Ryan	Mattheus	11/10/1983	30.81	Really Old
Syracuse (Wash)	Brad	Meyers	9/13/1985	28.97	Old
Syracuse (Wash)	Omar	Poveda	9/28/1987	26.93	Young
Syracuse (Wash)	Tyler	Robertson	12/23/1987	26.69	Young
Syracuse (Wash)	Josh	Roenicke	8/4/1982	32.08	Really Old
Syracuse (Wash)	Danny	Rosenbaum	10/10/1987	26.89	Young
Syracuse (Wash)	Daniel	Stange	12/22/1985	28.69	Old
Syracuse (Wash)	Ryan	Tatusko	3/27/1985	29.43	Old

Discussion: Even by AAA standards as a “spare parts” league, our AAA squad is pretty old.  We have four guys in their 30s, only one of which is on our 40-man roster (Ryan Mattheus).  Our youngest guy in AAA may also be the most surprising pitcher to make this squad; Taylor Hill.  This squad will just get older once Michael Gonzalez makes his way to upstate New York (which has already happened inbetween the time of this data capture and the time of this post).

Oldest Guy in the International League: Fairfax’s own Shawn Camp, a 10 year MLB veteran who signed on with Philly as a MLFA last off-season and looks like he may be back and forth between Lehigh Valley and Philadelphia all year.  Also amongst the old crowd in the International league are interesting names from the past, including Johan Santana, and a few former Nats in Luis Ayala, Chien-Ming Wang and Yunesky Maya (who signed on with Atlanta for 2014).

Youngest Guy in the International League: Former Nat Robbie Ray, who will not turn 23 until after season’s end.  Side note on Ray: i was listening to a Jonah Keri podcast where a guest was openly questioning the Doug Fister trade, now that Fister’s out with an injury and Ray’s fast tracking his way to a very early majors appointment.  Nothing nefarious suggested (as in, the Tigers knew that Fister was damaged goods), but he also said he was at about a “0%” surprise factor when Fister got hurt this spring.  Interesting.  

A couple of other very young guys in this league include some big-time pitching prospects: Marcus Strohman for Toronto, Trevor Bauer for Cleveland and Kevin Gausman for Baltimore.

Percentage of International League pitchers on MLB 40-man rosters: 36.95%, quite a bit higher than last year.  Four of Syracuse’ 15 pitchers are on the 40-man and two of them (Aaron Barrett and Xavier Cedeno) have already made the trips up and back to and from the majors this month.  Of course, the Nats have already shuffled around these two and Blake Treinen quite a bit and its just a few weeks into the season.

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AA Harrisburg

Team	First Name	Last Name	DOB	Age as of 9/1/14	Age Status
Harrisburg (Wash)	Gabriel	Alfaro	6/14/1983	31.22	Really Old
Harrisburg (Wash)	Colin	Bates	3/10/1988	26.48	Old
Harrisburg (Wash)	A.J.	Cole	1/5/1992	22.66	Really Young
Harrisburg (Wash)	Paul	Demny	8/3/1989	25.08	Young
Harrisburg (Wash)	Robert	Gilliam	11/29/1987	26.76	Old
Harrisburg (Wash)	Matt	Grace	12/14/1988	25.71	Old
Harrisburg (Wash)	Tyler	Herron	8/5/1986	28.07	Really Old
Harrisburg (Wash)	Neil	Holland	8/14/1988	26.05	Old
Harrisburg (Wash)	Zach	Jackson	5/13/1983	31.30	Really Old
Harrisburg (Wash)	Pat	Lehman	10/18/1986	27.87	Really Old
Harrisburg (Wash)	Rafael	Martin	5/16/1984	30.29	Really Old
Harrisburg (Wash)	Richie	Mirowski	4/30/1989	25.34	Old
Harrisburg (Wash)	Ryan	Perry	2/13/1987	27.55	Really Old
Harrisburg (Wash)	Matt	Purke	7/17/1990	24.13	Really Young
Harrisburg (Wash)	Felipe	Rivero	7/5/1991	23.16	Really Young
Harrisburg (Wash)	Blake	Schwartz	10/9/1989	24.90	Young
Harrisburg (Wash)	Sammy	Solis	8/10/1988	26.06	Old

Discussion: As with Syracuse, our Harrisburg squad is very old; 12 of the 17 pitchers on the squad are above the median age for the league, and 6 of them are in the oldest quartile.  Our three youngest hurlers are (arguably) our three most important arms in AA: A.J. Cole, Felipe Rivero and Matt Purke (with apologies to Sammy Solis, who lists as an “older” guy thanks to his losing a year to TJ surgery).  It seems to me like Harrisburg is populated with hangers-on; that the bullpen is filled with org arms.

Oldest Guy in the Eastern League: Minnesota’s Matt Guerrier, who was traded in the final year of his contract last summer but couldn’t find a 40-man job and signed back on with the team he spent the early part of his career with.  His placement in AA was temporary; he’s already back with AAA.  Ironically the 2nd oldest player in the Eastern league is also on Minnesota’s team: Virgil Vasquez, who is in his 12th pro season with just a handful of major league appearances over that time and who came back into affiliated ball after two seasons of indy league.

Youngest Guy in the Eastern League: San Francisco’s Adalberto Mejia, a lefty starter prospect who jumped straight from the DSL to low-A and has climbed steadily since.  Interestingly, the six youngest players in the league all play for either the San Francisco or Baltimore franchises, including Zach Davies and Dylan Bundy for Bowie.

Percentage of Eastern League pitchers on MLB 40-man rosters: just 5.33% (9 of 169), down from last year’s 8.24%.  Interestingly 3 of those total of 9 are Nats farmhands, including one of the last remnants of the now-extinct draft-day MLB deal in Purke.

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High-A Potomac

Team	First Name	Last Name	DOB	Age as of 9/1/14	Age Status
Potomac (Wash)	Dakota	Bacus	4/2/1991	23.42	Young
Potomac (Wash)	Robert	Benincasa	9/5/1990	23.99	Old
Potomac (Wash)	Ian	Dickson	9/16/1990	23.96	Old
Potomac (Wash)	Brian	Dupra	12/15/1988	25.71	Really Old
Potomac (Wash)	Pedro	Encarnacion	6/26/1991	23.18	Young
Potomac (Wash)	Bryan	Harper	12/29/1989	24.67	Really Old
Potomac (Wash)	Travis	Henke	7/9/1988	26.15	Really Old
Potomac (Wash)	Nick	Lee	1/13/1991	23.63	Young
Potomac (Wash)	Gilberto	Mendez	11/17/1992	21.79	Really Young
Potomac (Wash)	Brett	Mooneyham	1/24/1990	24.60	Really Old
Potomac (Wash)	Ronald	Pena	9/19/1991	22.95	Young
Potomac (Wash)	Brian	Rauh	7/23/1991	23.11	Young
Potomac (Wash)	Derek	Self	1/14/1990	24.63	Really Old

Discussion: Do you sense a trend?  Five of Potomac’s 13 arms are “Really Old” for the league.  Thankfully four of our 5 starters here are “young” for the league right now.  The only exception is Brett Mooneyham, who is now “really old” for high-A and yet is still scuffling along.

Oldest Guy in the Carolina League: Baltimore’s Eunchul Choi, a 30-yr old South Korean pitcher who Baltimore signed as a MLFA three off-seasons ago and who apparently has yet to throw a professional inning.

Youngest Guy in the Carolina League: Atlanta’s Lucas Sims, who (no surprise) was the youngest player in the South Atlantic league when we did this analysis last year.  All he did in 2013 was go 12-4 with 134 K’s in 116 innings as the youngest guy in the league.  It looks like Atlanta may have yet another young, big-time arm in its rotation in a couple of years.

Percentage of Carolina League pitchers on MLB 40-man rosters: 0%.  Now that teams are prevented from signing draftees to MLB deals, the odds of ever seeing a non-rehabbing 40-man player below AA seem to be slim.

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Low-A Hagerstown

Team	First Name	Last Name	DOB	Age as of 9/1/14	Age Status
Hagerstown (Wash)	Dixon	Anderson	7/2/1989	25.17	Really Old
Hagerstown (Wash)	Andrew	Cooper	6/27/1992	22.18	Young
Hagerstown (Wash)	Cody	Davis	7/21/1990	24.11	Really Old
Hagerstown (Wash)	Wirkin	Estevez	3/15/1992	22.46	Young
Hagerstown (Wash)	Lucas	Giolito	7/14/1994	20.13	Really Young
Hagerstown (Wash)	L.J.	Hollins	7/31/1991	23.09	Old
Hagerstown (Wash)	Jake	Johansen	1/23/1991	23.61	Old
Hagerstown (Wash)	Nick	Pivetta	2/14/1993	21.54	Really Young
Hagerstown (Wash)	Hector	Silvestre	12/14/1992	21.71	Really Young
Hagerstown (Wash)	John	Simms	1/17/1992	22.62	Young
Hagerstown (Wash)	Matthew	Spann	2/17/1991	23.54	Old
Hagerstown (Wash)	Wander	Suero	9/15/1991	22.96	Old
Hagerstown (Wash)	Justin	Thomas	10/21/1990	23.86	Really Old
Hagerstown (Wash)	Kylin	Turnbull	9/12/1989	24.97	Really Old
Hagerstown (Wash)	Ryan	Ullmann	8/12/1991	23.06	Old
Hagerstown (Wash)	Austin	Voth	6/26/1992	22.18	Young
Hagerstown (Wash)	Jake	Walsh	1/1/1991	23.67	Old

Discussion: Hagerstown’s squad isn’t quite as “old” as I thought it’d be, thanks to a couple of really young starters being on the squad (Lucas Giolito and  Nick Pivetta).  But, the team also has two of the 10 oldest players in the league in Dixon Anderson and Kylin Turnbull.  Anderson can be excused somewhat, since he lost time to injury, but he also is repeating low-A and should have been on Potomac’s squad (in this humble opinion).  Maybe he will be soon thanks to the spate of injuries in Potomac.  Meanwhile Turnbull looks like he may be a draft bust; he hasn’t been able to perform above low-A despite his draft-day pedigree.

Oldest Guy in the South Atlantic League: New  York’s Conor Mullee, who hails from Ashburn, attended Broad Run HS and was plucked out of a small college (St. Peters University).  But interesting he was a hitter in college and then immediately switched to pitching.  He blew out his arm and missed all of 2011 after TJ surgery … then missed all of 2013 as well.  He currently sits on Charleston’s 7-day D/L as the oldest guy in the league by 6 months.

Youngest Guy in the South Atlantic League: Texas’ Akeem Bostick, a 2nd round pick in 2013 out of a South Carolina high school who more than held his own in the Arizona rookie league.  Also amongst the youngsters in the Sally league are Baltimore’s big-time prospect Hunter Harvey and our own Giolito.

Percentage of South Atlantic League pitchers on MLB 40-man rosters: 0%.

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Conclusion:

I think its safe to say that the Nats draft strategy of focusing primarily on college-age arms is starting to be seen; our pitching squads are filled with “older” guys.  But interestingly these older arms seem to mostly be in the bullpens, while our starting corps are by and large filled with “younger” arms relative to their league-wide colleagues.

 

OK here we are.  We did seven comprehensive pitching staff reviews (the GCL review is here, which has links to the other 6 reviews) in order to arrive at this post.

So, without further ado, here’s what I’m predicting for all seven systems right now, absent any more deals (like say for a MLB lefty or another starter or trading a closer to Chicago):

 MLB Level

• MLB Rotation: Strasburg, Gonzalez (L), Zimmermann, Fister, Detwiler (L)
• MLB Bullpen: Soriano, Storen, Clippard, Stammen, Blevens (L), Ohlendorf, Roark
  MLB out of Org: Haren, Duke (L), Abad (L), Krol (L), HRodriguez

Discussion: the 5th starter competition could shake out so many different ways, that it almost is not worth predicting.  I can see any of the following scenarios playing out:

• Detwiler gets one last shot at the 5th starter as the incumbent, pushing Jordan to AAA and Ohlendorf/Roark to the bullpen (my current prediction).
• Jordan wins the 5th starter, pushing Detwiler to the bullpen as a power lefty by virtue of his lack of options.  This would push (likely) Roark to AAA.
• Roark wins the 5th starter, continuing his blistering sub 2.00 ERA pace from September, pushing Detwiler to the bullpen and Jordan to AAA.
• Less likely, Karns wins the 5th spot, which pushes Detwiler to the bullpen and Roark & Jordan to AAA.
• Even more less likely, Ohlendorf wins the spot, which pushes Detwiler to the bullpen but lets Roark stay as the long man/spot-starter.
• Mike Rizzo shocks us again with another starter acquisition; Detwiler goes to the bullpen, Ohlendorf stays as long man, and Roark & Jordan are in AAA.

Why am I predicting Detwiler will win the rotation spot?  Partly because of options, but partly because I’ve sort of come back around on him after looking more closely at his 2013 season.  He had a decent to good 2012; he posted a 118 ERA+ and even if his advanced FIP/SIERA didn’t indicate he was quite that good, he was still more than a servicable 5th starter.  Then in his first seven 2013 starts he was also very good (he had a 2.53 ERA in his first 7 starts and 42 2/3 innings … he got hurt in his 8th start).  The rest of his season was a mess, with him fighting injury and ballooning his seasonal ERA from 2.53 to more than 4.00 in five more starts.   If he comes back healthy to start 2014, why wouldn’t we expect more of the same performance that he had at the start of 2013?  For these two reasons, I think Detwiler breaks camp as the 5th starter.  Now …. I have zero confidence that he’ll remain healthy enough to keep his spot in the rotation, but that’s a problem for another day.  And a problem for which this team has plenty of coverage.

Another scenario that could affect this predition: Rizzo acquires yet another lefty reliever (latest rumors were about Scott Downs before he signed elsewhere, but I’m sure a trade could be arranged), which complicates any of these predictions because it means one less spot for either Ohlendorf or Roark.  For a team that seems so obsessed with left-handed relievers, we sure have let a bunch of them go in recent years (Duke, Abad, Krol this year, Gorzelanny, Lannan, Burnett and Gonzalez last year).  Maybe we should just hang on to one or two of these guys?  I will say this: I do NOT believe that the Nats will choose Xavier Cedeno and his 6 2013 MLB innings for the Nats over Roark just because he’s left handed at this point.

Personally, I think Roark and Ohlendorf pitched like big leagers last year and deserve to stay in the majors until they prove otherwise.  Ohlendorf’s recent $1.25M deal seems to indicate he’s more likely to stick than Roark, but perhaps the long-man/spot starter competition is open as well.  This pushes previous stalwards in the bullpen (specifically Ryan Mattheus ) to AAA.   I will say this though: if you expect to win, you have to go north with your 25 best guys no matter how much they make or their option status.  And at the end of last year, that undoubtedly included Tanner Roark.  So thats why I’m going with Roark in the pen to start the season.

One other wrinkle; does Rizzo trade one of Storen or Clippard to Chicago, who desperately needs a closer?  This seems less likely, especially for a team that has World Series aspirations, but the truth is this team is paying a LOT of money into its bullpen ($25M and counting), has three closer-quality guys, and potentially a log jam of righties (see the AAA bullpen prediction for more).  I see this as less likely unless Chicago sends back pieces that we really need, but rumors get started because GMs are talking, so maybe this still happens.  But if a guy like that is traded, then that re-opens a slot for the deposed Mattheus or possibly the newly healthy an electric Garcia.   I think these are lesser possibilities and both those guys are pushed to AAA to begin the season.

I’m sure this section garners plenty of discussion; have at it in the comments 🙂

AAA Level

• AAA Rotation: Jordan, Karns, Rosenbaum (L), Young, MLFA or two?
• AAA Bullpen: Barrett, Mattheus, Garcia, Davis,  Cedeno (L), Robertson (L), Herron (AA?), Alfaro, Stange, Delcarmen
• AAA Release candidates: Meyers, Lehman
• AAA out of Org: Maya, Tatusko, Clay, Mandel, Torra, Broadway, Crotta, Lowe, Kimball, Accardo, Bramhall, Romero (L)

Discussion

So, the projected AAA rotation has one hold over in Rosenbaum, two “promotions” in Jordan and Karns, and then a whole bunch of question marks.  Is Chris Young healthy enough to pitch this year?  Is Brad Meyers?  Right now i’ve got Meyers as a release candidate, figuring that he hasn’t been healthy in two years and may be finished.  I have to think that the team will give a couple of lower-level free agents minor league contracts to try to pitch their way back into the league, much as they have done with the likes of Zach Duke, Ross Ohlendorf and Young in the last couple of off-seasons.  There’s plenty of guys out there who may make sense; a quick glance at the current list of free agents offers intriguing names (think of someone like a Joe Saunders or a Barry Zito or an Aaron Harang; do you think these guys are getting guaranteed contracts for 2014?).  I’m predicting that at least one or two of these types of guys get MLFA deals and end up in the AAA rotation, though I suppose at least one guy i’m projecting from the AA rotation could start in AAA.

The AAA bullpen has a couple of MLB-quality arms in Ryan Mattheus and Christian Garcia who we know can contribute at the MLB level but who end up here because of a numbers game at the big club.  The AAA closer likely is Aaron Barrett, newly added to the 40-man and looking to make his mark.  Erik Davis is here, who I kind of soured on last season but his numbers in small MLB samples were good and I think he can contribute in a Craig Stammen sort of way going forward.  We have a couple of hold-over loogies in Xavier Cedeno and Tyler Robertson, the latter of which successfully passed through waivers and was outrighted to Syracuse last month.   We already have three off-season MLFA signings (Gabriel Alfaro, Daniel Stange, Manny Delcarmen) who all project as righty middle relievers, making it seemingly less likely that the team will retain some of its own MLFAs (the likes of Ryan Tatusko and Jeff Mandel being longer serving Nats minor leaguers who pitched decently in 2013).

But as you can see there’s more candidates here than there is room on the Syracuse roster (10 for 7 spots, and that’s assuming that Pat Lehman doesn’t make the cut either).  There will be injuries and D/L stints among these guys, but there may also be some releases next March.

Still, a AAA rotation led by Jordan and Karns (and possibly Ohlendorf and/or Roark if another move is made at the MLB level) leaves Syracuse with a pretty good staff to start the season.  And I like the fact that we have one reasonably accomplished MLB starter (Jordan) waiting in the wings to go along with a guy who might get there soon (Karns), to go with potentially a couple other former major league guys who are working their way back.

AA Level

• AA Rotation: Cole, Hill, Solis (L), Schwartz, Treinen (AAA?)
• AA Bullpen: Benincasa, Mirowski, Holland,  Swynenberg, Grace (L), Bates, KPerez, Gilliam (swingman), Spann (L)
• AA release candidates: Perry, Selik, Demny, RMartin
• AA out of Org: Broderick, Ray, McCoy, Frias, Holder, Bray

Discussion

We’ll see this trend again and again; despite the fact that the likes of A.J. Cole and Taylor Hill reached AA last year, the organization seems to like seeing these guys “beat the level” a second season in a row before moving guys up.  And so I see these guys in AA again.  Sammy Solis here is no surprise; he’s nearly 26 and has been mentioned as a MLB bullpen candidate already.  Meanwhile for the time being i’ve got Blake Treinen here, repeating the level, but can also see him moving up to AAA.  His numbers were good but not *that* good last year, and I left him in AA assuming that the team will try out some re-treads in the AAA rotation.  Lastly Blake Schwartz gets a deserved promotion after leading Potomac in IP, wins and starts last year.

In the bullpen I think Robert Benincasa is your closer to start, with Richie Mirowski and Neil Holland continuing to put up dominating late-innings relief.  All three guys should be pushing for promotions to AAA.  We’re a little light on lefties here admittedly.  A couple of injury-prone guys in Ryan Perry and Cameron Selik are listed as release candidates in the face of a number of guys meriting placement here.  Paul Demny and Rafael Martin have been around forever and may also be release candidates at this point, but they also could (at least in Demny’s case) convert to relief and try to rekindle their careers.  Lastly, there’s newly acquired Matthew Spann, the bounty for the Nats gambit on David Dejesus near the end of last season.   He’s a lefty who looks like he could start but i’ve got him in the bullpen for now.

High-A Level

• High-A rotation: Purke (L), Anderson, Mooneyham (L), Encarnacion, Bacus, Turnbull (bullpen?) (L)
• High-A bullpen: Wort (AA?), Holt (AA?), Fischer, Henke, Mendez, Harper (L), Davis, Thomas (L), RPena (swingman), Dickson (swingman)
• High-A release candidates: Dupra, Rauh (starter?), Meza (L)
• High-A out of org: Pineyro, Hawkins

Discussion

I don’t think there’s too many surprises in this rotation: Matthew Purke leads the line and should push for a promotion mid-season.  If he doesn’t dominate High-A at this point it may be time to think about moving him to the pen.   The same can be said about Brett Mooneyham and especially Kylin Turnbull, two guys who (by now) should have accomplished this level.   Otherwise the rest of this projected rotation are three guys who succeeded in Low-A in 2013: Dixon Anderson, Pedro Encarnacion and Dakoda Bacus.

In the bullpen, at this point i’m not sure who the closer candidates are to start the season.  Perhaps Greg Holt starts in the role.  Perhaps low-A phenom Gilberto Mendez gets a shot at closing.  Both Holt and Rob Wort may belong in AA at this point; Wort began 2013 there but there’s a lot of relievers in that AA section who would have to get hurt/be released to make room for these two guys right now.  There’s a couple of decent swingmen candidates here in Ronald Pena and Ian Dickson both started for long stretches in Hagerstown and could be useful guys in Potomac.    There’s a lot of names in the mix here for this bullpen; from here on down there could be plenty of releases come the end of spring.

 

Low-A Level

• Low-A rotation: Giolito, Johansen, Voth, Lee (high-A?) (L), Orlan (L)
• Low-A bullpen: Self (high-A?), Selsor (swingman), Ullmann, Pivetta, Simms, Hollins, Napoli (L), Bafidis (L), Suero (swingman), Valdez, Walsh (L), Aries
• Low-A release candidates: Joyce, Waterman, Boyden
• Low-A out of org: McKenzie, Smith

Discussion

I like this rotation, a lot.  Two of our best prospects, a third guy in Austin Voth who impressed last year, a guy in Nick Lee who probably deserves a high-A rotation spot and then Auburn’s staff leader in Robert Orlan.  Jake Johansen may find himself needing a promotion quickly, if he’s all that he’s cracked up to be.

The bullpen is going to be tough; basically every college aged short-season guy who pitched well in 2013 is named in this bullpen competition.  There’s a couple of interesting DSL graduates in Wander Suero and Phillips Valdez, some big arms in Ryan Ullmann and Nick Pivetta, and some polished college-aged lefties in David Napoli, Cory Bafidis and Jake Walsh.   I have 15 names here for 7-8 spots; Viera’s extended spring training could be busy this year.

 

Short-A Level

• Short-A rotation: Barrientos, JRodriguez, Silvestre (high-A?) (L), and then 2013 draftees and/or drop-downs from Low-A
• Short-A bullpen: DWilliams, Cooper, KRodriguez, Derosier, Webb (L), Spezial (L), 2013 draftees and drop-downs from Low-A
• Short-A release candidates: Sylvestri, Grisz
• Short-A out of org: Hudgins, Simko, Dicharry

GCL Level

• Rookie Rotation: Ott (L), 2013 draftees and DSL graduates
• Rookie bullpen: RLopez, 2013 draftees and DSL graduates
• Rookie release candidates: DRamos, MRodriguez

Discussion

Its frankly impossible to predict the short-season squads, since (especially Auburn) they exist to park newly signed draftees.  However, I do see a ton of guys who competed and succeeded in the GCL this year who won’t necessarily make the Hagerstown squad, and I see them forming a good chunk of the Auburn squad.   The rest of the Auburn squad will be populated with upper-end 2014 draftees and losers from the Hagerstown pitching staff competition.  More of the same with the 2014 GCL squad, which was heavily tilted with DSL graduates this year.  The Nats tend to focus on college arms and thus only small college guys are generally put in the GCL in their draft year.

This is the 7th and final in the 2013 Pitching staff review series.  I don’t like double posting stuff this comprehensive but I wanted to get this out before the w/e.  This is the review of the GCL/Rookie league’s pitching staff for 2013.  Other parts of the 2013 series:

• Washington/MLB’s 2013 review
• Syracuse/AAA’s 2013 review
• Harrisburg/AA’s 2013 review
• Potomac/High-A’s 2013 review
• Hagerstown/Low-A’s 2013 review
• Auburn/Short-A’s 2013 review

For some historical perspective, here’s 2012’s version (Lucas Giolito was the feature pitcher) and 2011’s version (Jack McGeary the feature pitcher) of this post specifically for Auburn/Short-A.  Yes, Giolito was the GCL “man of the year” for the second year in a row.  This may be unfair to many of the DSL grads who pitched great for the GCL this year, especially the likes of Jefry Rodriguez and Wander Suero.  Also; good luck finding a picture of Jefry Rodriguez to use for your blog; any google search with “Rodriguez” and “baseball” is so over-inundated with pictures of more famous Rodriguez’ (Alex, Ivan, even Henry) that I gave up looking.

All stats are courtesy of either milb.com’s GCL’s 2013 Stats page or via Fangraph’s GCL 2013 page.  Also useful here are the Big Board and the Nats Draft Tracker since so many of these lower-minors guys are recent draftees.

A caveat before starting this post: this is short-season ball, so nobody’s got more than a few dozen innings.  The staff leader had 49 innings.  So yes this is absolutely going to be some “Small Sample Size” analysis.  Which in some cases is unfair to the player (to the good or to the bad).  It is what it is.

GCL starters.  The rotation started the season with Suero, Jefry Rodriguez, Silvestre, Voth and Valdez.  It ended with JRodriguez, Silvestre, Suero, Ott and a slew of 5th/6th starters here and there.   Lets take a look at the starters:

• Wander Suero dominated the GCL this year, throwing lots of 4-5 innings outings in relief of other “starters” and leading the team in IP.  Final numbers: 8-1 with a 1.65 ERA.  His first season in the USA after 3 DSL seasons was a huge success and his age (22) should help him move upwards.  Outlook for next season: Low-A bullpen/spot-starter.
• Jefry Rodriguez was the opening day starter and made 12 starts all told for the GCL, going 3-0 with a 2.45 ERA anda a 43/20 K/BB ratio in 48 innings.  The 19-yr old DSL graduate looked great all year, even if he averaged only about 4 innings an outing.   He improved his K/BB rate marketdly from his 2012 DSL season and should keep on moving upwards.  Outlook for next season: XST and then Short-A rotation (I don’t think he can crack the low-A rotation).
• Hector Silvestre was the staff ace, going 7-0 with a 1.82 ERA in 13 games (8 starts) over a team leading 49 1/3 innings.  He was absolutely dominant all August, throwing 26 scoreless innings to finish out the year (including the playoffs).  The 20-year old lefty has a ton of potential.   Outlook for next season: XST and then Short-A rotation.
• Austin Voth had two quick outings in the GCL before moving on up to Auburn.  See the short-A writeup for more. Outlook for next season: Low-A rotation.
• Philips Valdez had a few starts but worked mostly out of the pen en route to a dominant 1.95 ERA and 0.87 whip in 32 IP.  He’s another older DSL signee who, like Suero, could make an impact a couple levels above GCL next year.  Outlook for next season: Low-A bullpen competition, perhaps falling back to Short-A.
• Nick Pivetta started 3 games in Viera but averaged less than 4 innings a start before getting bounced up to Auburn.   See the short-A writeup for more.   Outlook for next season: Low-A bullpen.
• Deion Williams failed in Auburn and got just 13 innings in the GCL this year.  He’s young (just turned 21) so he has a bit of time to sort things out.  Outlook for next season: XST and another shot at Short-A in the bullpen.
• Lucas Giolito went 2-1, 1.94 ERA with 39/14 k/bb in 36 2/3 innings, 28 hits mostly in the GCL.  All Nats prospect fans should know of Giolito’s status these days; he has come back from surgery, pitched effectively in the rookie league and was lights out in 3 starts in short-A (one run conceded in 14 innings).  Per comments and scouting reports his velocity is back, he seems healthy, and he could be just a season away from being breathlessly talked about as one of the best prospects in the game.  Outlook for next season: Low-A rotation.
• Travis Ott went 3-0, 4.03 ERA with 32/12 K/BB in 29 innings in the GCL, 24 hits.  The rare mid-20s round high schooler who signs, Ott was used as a starter in the GCL and was mostly good all year.  His seasonal numbers were skewed by one bad outing where he gave up 6 earned runs in 1 2/3 innings in mid-July.  This tall, lanky left-hander (6’4″ 170lbs) seemingly has room to grow and is very young; he turned 18 at the end of June.  Looks like the Nats might have a find here.   Outlook for next season: XST  and repeating GCL; he’s only 18 and could use the seasoning.
• A slew of relievers got one start here and there; its kind of hard to assign GCL guys to “the rotation” when they get a start and only pitch 3 innings.  Instead, they’re discussed in the reliever section.
• Rehabbing Starters from other levels: Brad Meyers got two re-hab starts for GCL this year, Chris Young, Ryan Mattheus, Cole Kimball, and Sammy Solis got one each.

GCL Relievers: this section is done mostly by IP, though we’ll start with the clear “closer” for the GCL Nats.

• Jake Walsh got 8 saves in 16 games, posting a 1.40 ERA with 17/5 K/BB in 19 1/3 innings closing in the Rookie League.  He was promoted to Hagerstown on 9/3/13 to provide lefty bullpen coverage in the playoffs.    He was probably too old and too experienced for the rookie league but showed enough promise to get a two-level call-up for the post-season.  Outlook for next season: low-A bullpen loogy competition.
• Kelvin Rodriguez was a middle reliever for the GCL nats, throwing 29 innings across 13 outings and posting a 3.07 ERA.  He wasn’t quite as dominant as some of his DSL graduates, and I suspect it will keep him (despite his age) in XST to start 2014.   Outlook for next season: XST and then Short-A bullpen.
• Matt Derosier was 2-1, 2.43 ERA with 20/5 K/BB in 19 relief innings mostly in the GCL, 24 hits.   Derosier may have been a Juco guy but he’s young; he turned 19 in July of this year.  After a brief stint to start the season in Auburn he pitched in middle relief for the GCL Nats, getting at least 4 long enough stints to earn a “grade” in my monthly starter grades.   He posted good, solid numbers, nothing flashy, nothing bad.  A 4/1 K/BB ratio is great.  He’ll move up next year, looking to stick as a younger member of the bullpen in short-A.  Outlook for next season: short-A bullpen.
• David Ramos posted an ugly 6.35 ERA in 22 middle relief innings for the GCL Nats.  His first state-side season could be his last, given his age (22).  Outlook for next season: XST and repeating the GCL bullpen, release candidate.
• Joey Webb went 2-0, 1.89 ERA with 25/6 K/BB in 19 innings in the GCL, 13 hits.   Webb comes from a very small baseball school (NAIA’s Menlo College in California) and may not have been ready to compete with a bunch of Division I guys in Short-A, despite already being 23.   Outlook for next season: short-A bullpen.
• Elliott Waterman bounced down and then back out of the GCL this year.  See the short-A write-up for more.  Outlook for next season: Low-A bullpen loogy competition, release candidate.
• Niko Spezial went 1-0, 3.32 ERA with 21/8 K/BB in 19 relief innings mostly in the GCL, 16 hits.  Spezial started the season with Auburn but got the quick demotion after just 3 1/3 relatively non-descript innings.  A college senior draftee, he did not belong in the rookie league.  Nonetheless he pitched effectively for the record-setting GCL Nats.  Spezial needs to show how he fares against someone his own age, which hopefully he’ll get a chance to do in 2014.   Outlook for next season: short-A bullpen, release candidate.
• Michael Boyden posted a 4.61 ERA with 15/14 K/BB in 13 2/3 innings, 17 hits for GCL.  14 walks and 17 hits equates with a balloned 2.27 whip for this 23-year old in the rookie league (which means he’s likely throwing against guys 4-5 years younger than he is).  It is hard to understand why he was back in the GCL after having shown he could handle Short-A in 2012.  Either way, his control issues from last year caught up with him in 2013 and I don’t think he’ll be long for the organization.   Outlook for next season: Low-A bullpen loogy competition, release candidate.
• Ryan Ullmann started in the rookie league, being a senior coming from an NAIA school, but by season’s end he was in the Auburn rotation.  See the short-A write-up for more.    Outlook for next season: Low-A bullpen.
• Cory Bafidis briefly worked in the GCL bullpen.  See the short-A write-up for more  Outlook for next season: Low-A bullpen.
• Justin Thomas threw 3  innings in Viera during his tour of the Nats farm system in 2013.  See low-A post for more.  Outlook for next season: High-A bullpen competition.
• Other Relievers who got 10 IP or less:
  • Rehabbing relievers from other levels: Pat Lehman, Rafael Martin, Cameron Selik, Brian Broderick, each of whom got a handful of innings.
  • Mike Sylvestri was dominant in his 9 innings of GCL work after getting demoted from Auburn.  See Short-A write-up for more.
    
  • Luis Reyes was called up from the DSL to make an appearance in late August; he gave up 3 runs on 4 hits in 4 innings and was sent back to the D.R.
  • Andrew Cooper threw 2 innings in Viera then bounced up to Auburn.  See Short-A write-up for more.
  • John Simms threw 2 innings in Viera then bounced up to Auburn.  See Short-A write-up for more.
  • Lastly, infielder Kyle Attl threw 1/3 of an inning somewhere along the line, giving up a homer before getting an out for an ERA of 27 and a FIP of 42.20 on the season.

Summary

The GCL Nat’s record breaking season was borne on the backs of a slew of arms rising to the GCL from the DSL, and despite some of them being slightly “old” for the level they helped the team achieve greatness in 2013.  This also marks a great collection of DSL graduates that should start matriculating upwards, moreso than we’ve had to follow in quite a while.

(Editor’s Note: I corrected Jefry Rodriguez’ name after the fact; thanks to commenter Melissa).