A critical day in the off-season calendar of baseball every year happened earlier this week; five days after the end of the World Series (11/4/24) all “6-year minor league free agents” get cut loose. The Universal Player Contracts (UPCs) that players sign upon turning pro allow for six “renewals” before players must be either put on the 40-man roster or are declared free agents. This means that every player who:
- was Drafted in 2018 or before
- was an IFA signing in 2018 or before
- was a 2024 MLFA signing
- … and who didn’t sign a multi-year deal of some sort already this off-season or earlier this year
Is now a free agent.
Baseball America posted its list for all 30 teams here, but it’s missing a few names for our system. The Big Board for 2025 is now updated with all MLFA’s removed and put onto the 2025 Release tab.
I count 27 players cut loose, including these notable names to long-time Nats farm watchers:
- Technically Meneses and Rucker were on the 40-man, were outrighted, and by virtue of their signing dates were immediately declared MLFAs.
- Reid Schaller: 3rd round pick who just never was healthy. Had higher hopes for this guy.
- Tim Cate: 2nd rounder who spent time on the 40-man but just couldn’t solve AAA.
- Mason Denaburg: 1st rounder and one of our team’s biggest 1st round busts in terms of accomplishments. Stuck around for years after he should have been cut loose based on performance in a blatant example of the team not wanting to “waste” its signing bonus.
- Carter Kieboom: 1st round pick, former top 20 prospect in all of baseball, who mystified the industry by not being able to convert fantastic batted-ball skills in AAA to the majors.
- Israel Pineda; long considered an heir apparent catching prospect but who ended up bouncing around the minor leagues in 2024.
- Trey Harris, trade bounty for Ehire Adrianza in 2022 but who never really did much for us.
- Aldo Ramirez, trade bounty for Kyle Schwarber in 2021 and who was supposed to be a decent SP prospect. Blew out his arm, missed two years, never really pitched again. Too bad; Schwarber was a solid trade prospect and should have fetched something of value for us longer term.
- Rodney Theophile, who looks like he could be a promising SP prospect (2.33 ERA in 9 AA starts to close out 2024). Surprised the team didn’t try to resign him before hitting MLFA.
As far as I can tell, the team has already done some re-signing of a few of its MLFAs; the following should be listed as FAs based on their draft/signing status but are still listed as active:
- Daison Acosta: AAA Middle Reliever, a 2023 minor league rule-5 pickup but a 2016 IFA signing initially
- Erick Mejia, AAA utility infielder, who was a 2022 MLFA signing/2012 IFA signing.
- Viandel Pena High-A backup SS, a 2017 IFA signing but who is just 23.
- Bryan Caceres, High-A starter who was a 2017 IFA signing out of Panama
- Yoander Rivero, High-A backup middle infielder, also a 2017 IFA signing.
- Jose Colmenares, Low-A backup Catcher (2018 IFA)
- Jeremy De La Rosa, just promoted AA outfielder (2018 IFA)
- Jose Atencio, High-A starter (2018 IFA)
- Joan Otanez, Low-A middle reliever and 2018 IFA
- Bryan Sanchez, also a Low-A middle reliever and 2018 IFA
- Samuel Vasquez, High-A middle reliever and 2023 rule-5 guy
- Kevin Dowdel, a 2024MLFA but a 2023NDFA so he probably falls under the UPC for a while despite being a MLFA.
I’m not a complete expert on the new Collective Bargaining Agreement, but I do find it interesting that many of these are 2018 IFAs: is there an additional year offered to these players b/c of Covid? Do they get an extra year of control b/c they were so young when they signed? Did all these 2018 IFAs not eve play in 2018 so therefore their UPC renewals started in 2019?
Furthermore, two minor league rule-5 guys seemingly should have been cut loose but who are still present; is there a different guideline for rule-5 pickups? Nonetheless, even if all of these players just simply signed new deals to stay with the club one more year, there’s definitely a few that i’m glad are still here. Acosta could be a decent lefty option for the MLB pen, De La Rosa was once a higher ranked prospect who is at least in AA, and Atencio was a very solid starter in Wilmington and i’d like to see where he goes.
The system/big board now shows 147 players under contract in the Minor leagues, including a complete gutting of the AAA pitching staff. Just five arms sit on the AAA roster right now; the rest were 40-man backups for MLFAs. We only have 11 relievers in total on the 40-man right now, which implies to me that we’ll be signing a slew of veteran relievers this off-season, and that we’ll have a cattle-call of 1yr/MLFA/NRIs this coming spring to make up the bulk of the AAA staff.
If I remember correctly, Schwarber was injured at the time of trade, so I don’t think the Ramirez bust is a fair hit against Rizzo. I’m sure he did the best he could given the offers available.
One other wrinkle I’m wondering about is whether AFL guys get a postponement. Unless Solesky signed a multi-year deal, he’s definitely a FA this offseason, and Will has said that he expects Cronin to be as well (though my math gives us another year with him).
SMS
7 Nov 24 at 11:10 am
I’ve got Solesky as a 19D, even though he was a 2024 MLFA. So, as a 2019 draftee he hasn’t hit 6years yet, so I wonder if that supercedes the fact that we got him as a 2024MLFA. SAme with a few other recent MLFAs (CJ Stubbs, Solesky, Naranjo, Kelvin Diaz, Bloebaum). But yeah its a good question.
Todd Boss
7 Nov 24 at 12:52 pm
Oh: Cronin = 19D so one more year.
Todd Boss
7 Nov 24 at 12:52 pm
so, i think i may know why 18IFAs aren’t free yet. They were signed in JULY of 2018 … which means they probably didn’t play in 2018 so maybe the clock doesn’t start until 2019. I dunno.
Todd Boss
7 Nov 24 at 1:31 pm
Interesting – an extra year of control is a pretty good reason not to rush those IFA signings on to a roster. Though I guess moving the date to January fixes the schedule going forward.
And good point about Solesky. That’s how a major league FAs with less than 6 years of service are treated — free to sign with anyone, but then subject to the all the restrictions in the standard rookie contract — so I’m pretty sure you are right about that.
SMS
7 Nov 24 at 1:56 pm
Yeah, the only name on here that really surprises me is Theophile. He got hurt in mid-August and ended the season on the 60-day IL, so likely the team knows something that we don’t.
KW
7 Nov 24 at 3:30 pm
I don’t blame the Nats for the miss on the Kieboom pick nearly as much as I do for the risks they took on Romero and Denaburg in particular. The conventional wisdom was that 2016 was a teenager draft . . . although if you look back on that 1st round now, you’ll see that it turned out to be a Teenaged Wasteland:
https://www.baseball-reference.com/draft/index.fcgi?year_ID=2016&draft_round=1&draft_type=junreg&query_type=year_round
The one teenaged star from that draft, Bo Bichette, went on pick #66, eight picks after the Nats took the immortal Sheldon Neuse. (The Nats took Neuse for an under-slot sign so they could go after Luzardo in the 3d round, but in doing so, they passed on Bryan Reynolds, Pete Alonso, and Bichette.)
As for Kieboom, he had an excellent progression through the minors and pre-2020 rated #11 by Baseball Prospectus and #15 by BA. The Nats were counting on him to back-fill for Rendon (large spikes to fill), but in doing so, they missed that his extra-base power dried up in the second half of 2019, even playing in the rare air of the PCL. He slugged .544 in June but didn’t reach .400 the rest of the way. On June 24 he hit his fourth homer of the week, giving him 13 after only 57 AAA games (plus two in the majors). But in the remaining 52 games, he hit only 3. Two-thirds of his doubles came before July 1.
In the 2018 season across Potomac and Harrisburg, Kieboom totaled 31 doubles and 16 homers, so his first-half numbers at AAA were right in line with what he had done there, even accounting for PCL inflation.
Anyway, in hindsight way better than 20-20, the Nats should have traded Kieboom (and Robles) in the offseason between 2019 and 2020 instead of depending on them to be foundational pieces. The mistake was less in drafting him than it was in hanging onto him after baseball started figuring him out.
KW
7 Nov 24 at 4:29 pm
I confess that I would have screwed up the 2018 first pick. Seth Beer was my draft crush that year, at least in the range where the Nats were picking, and the Trastros took him right after the Nats picked Denaburg. Beer nearly cost us the World Series, too, as he was a key part of the deal that brought Greinke to Houston at the 2019 deadline. Ol’ Zach had only given up one hit through six innings . . .
With hindsight better than 20-20, the pitcher to take was Shane McClanahan, who went four picks after Denaburg. At 6-1, 200, though, he doesn’t fit Rizzo’s ideal. (But then neither did Tim Cate at 6-0, 185, who went in the 2d round of that 2018 draft, seven picks ahead of Josiah Gray.)
KW
7 Nov 24 at 4:50 pm
I didn’t like the Denaburg pick. I don’t like high school pitchers in general, all the more injured ones. He was yet another who might have been on the fringes of the top 10 picks if healthy. That was also a period where the Nats weren’t drafting enough hitters, which made me skeptical of Cate in the second round as well.
If you look at Cate’s stats, he had a solid 2019 season, but he was never the same after that. Was the jump to AA too much for him, or did the missed COVID season also hinder his development? It was a similar story with Reid Schaller, the 3d rounder in 2018 — decent in 2019 but not so much after the break. Prior to COVID, the Nats were converting him to a starter, but that experiment had ended by 2021.
KW
7 Nov 24 at 5:01 pm