Nationals Arm Race

Here’s a quick overview of the Nats 2025 IFA class. Yesterday they signed 14 international players (6 from the Dominican Republic, another 8 from Venezuela) and sprinkled out bonuses of at least 300k to seven different guys.

Here’s a few Quick Observations, since there’s obviously limitations as to what we “know” about a bunch of teen-agers in central and south America.

2025 is a lower risk/spread the wealth bonus pool dollar year for the team

The Nats over the last decade have vacillated between high risk and low risk IFA classes, choosing in some years to put all their (bonus money) eggs in one basket and in other years to spread around the wealth.

• All in on 1-2 player classes: 2024, 2022, 2021, 2016
• Spread the Wealth classes: 2025, 2023, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2015

2025 seems to be a “spread the wealth” year, with seven announced players netting signing bonuses above $300k.

Their large bonus pool has allowed them to spread the wealth AND give out a big bonus

They’ve taken some big swings in terms of dollar amounts since Rizzo arrived: some of their biggest signing bonuses being:

• 2024: Hurtado, Victor at $2.8M
• 2022: Vaquero, Cristhian at $4.9M
• 2021: Cruz, Armando at $3.9M
• 2016: Antuna, Yasel# at $3.9M

This year’s $1.9M given to Cortesia, Brayan will be the 5th highest bonus since the Juan Soto class in 2015. But, given the four figures above and the relative “success” we’ve seen out of them … it may be considered a bargain.

Would anyone here say that their four big swings listed above have panned out? We’ve litigated Antuna to death, but right now Cruz, Vaquero, and Hurtado are not exactly trending positive. Hurtado hit just .218 in the DSL last year, Vaquero hit .190 in Low-A last year, and Cruz hit .224 mostly in low-A and isn’t even on MLBPipeline’s top 30 prospects for us anymore.

Trivia question: who’s the best Nats-selected/home grown IFA prospect in our system? Probably Andry Lara.

The Class is very Hitter-heavy

Not one of their seven big money guys is a pitcher. Among the 7, we have two Catchers, two SS, one 2B, and two OF. So, it sounds like they’re going to run it back with a lot of the DSL arms there now, most of whom are already 19-20. We’ll have to keep that in mind if we suddenly see a 20yr old starter blowing away 16-17yr olds in the DSL.

The Class is a bit old

There’s just one guy who’s 16 as of the signing date. Most of the class is 17 now and will turn 18 soon after the end of the 2015 season. One guy they signed (RHP Juan Lopez) is already 19; will he even go to the DSL?

They Still have some room in the pool

The known/announced bonus amounts total about $4.9M spread across seven guys. They announced another 7 signees. Usually if a bonus amount is not listed for an IFA, its a standard $10k. If we assume that figure for the remaining seven, then the Nats are leaving about $1.2M on the table right now. Perhaps that’s funds for later IFA signings who might pop up (they have signed IFAs outside of the Jan 15th window in the past), or perhaps the seven remaining all got 6-figure deals that eat into that remainder.

Remember: only half of these guys will ever even get to the US

Here’s a few quick stats on our recent IFA classes. Now, given that this is “early” for the more recent classes, but here’s quick stats on the size of the class and the number of players who moved domestically:

• 2024: 24 players in class, 0 moved domestically, 5 released
• 2023: 23/9/5
• 2022: 20/11/9
• 2021: 20/10/11
• 2020: 3/0/3
• 2019: 21/9/12

So, as you can see, we see roughly half these guys get released right out of the DSL, with the other half making it to the FCL. From there, usually a handful make their way up the chain a little bit, but many of them stall at the Low-A juncture, where they’re forced to go out in the world and travel for the first time.

Our IFA Tracker and the Nats big Board are now updated

Click here for the Nats IFA tracker where I’ve filled in the 2025 class.

Click here for the Nats Big Board, where i’ve put all the 2025 IFA signees into the XST section for now. Odds are they’ll all go to the DSL, but I don’t want to do that assignment until its officially announced.

Lastly, here’s some useful other links for you to peruse, if you’re interested in the IFA 2025 numbers and class:

• Bonus pools for 2025 IFA season: we were at $6.1M
• BA class overview of top prospects: we signed three in the top 100 in Brayan Cortesia, Daniel Hernandez, and Rony Bello.
• BA’s 1/15/25 top players with scouting reports.
• BA’s Jan 15 class signing tracker:
• BA’s International bonus board
• Nats 2025 class introduction story at nationals.com

The first shop to try to do a major rank of Nationals prospects (Prospects1500) has dropped its rankings for our system. Let’s walk through their ranks and I’ll add some comments.

I have a draft 2025 ranking for our system that (believe it or not) goes out to 90 or so guys, which is kind of ridiculous when we currently (according to the Big Board) have 150 signed minor leaguers domestically. But, even given that my draft list is 90 deep, Prospects1500 still managed to rank three players that I don’t have in my top 90, and who have been ranked for the very first time on any list. We’ll get to them later, and discuss whether they should have even been ranked.

Here’s the top 50 for Prospects1500 in a quick table format:

Rank	Last Name	First Name	Position
1	Crews	Dylan	OF (CF)
2	House	Brady	SS/3B
3	Sykora	Travis	RHP (Starter)
4	King	Seaver	SS
5	Susana	Jarlin	RHP (Starter)
6	Morales	Yohandy	3B
7	Clemmey	Alex	LHP (Starter)
8	Hassell III	Robert	OF (CF)
9	Cavalli	Cade	RHP (Starter)
10	Lile	Daylen	OF (CF)
11	Wallace	Cayden	3B
12	Lomavita	Caleb	C
13	Hurtado	Victor	OF
14	Stuart	Tyler	RHP (Starter)
15	Green	Elijah	OF (CF)
16	Lara	Andry	RHP (Starter)
17	Dickerson	Luke	SS/CF
18	Vaquero	Cristian	OF (CF)
19	Bennett	Jake	LHP (Starter)
20	Pinckney	Andrew	OF (Corner)
21	Feliz	Angel	3B/SS
22	Made	Kevin	SS
23	Ramirez Jr.	Rafael	SS
24	Rutledge	Jackson	RHP (Starter)
25	Lord	Brad	RHP (Starter)
26	Bazzell	Kevin	C/3B
27	Reifert	Evan	RHP (Reliever)
28	Feliz	Jose	RHP (Starter)
29	Baker	Darren	2B
30	Brzykcy	Zach	RHP (Reliever)
31	Ribalta	Orlando	RHP (reliever)
32	Cruz	Armando	SS
33	Grissom	Marquis	RHP (Reliever)
34	De La Rosa	Jeremy	OF (Corner)
35	Millas	Drew	C
36	White	T.J.	OF (Corner)
37	Kent	Jackson	LHP (Starter)
38	Shuman	Seth	RHP (Starter)
39	Alvarez	Andrew	LHP (Starter)
40	Acosta	Daison	RHP (reliever)
41	Cox	Brenner	OF (CF)
42	Jones	Sir Jamison	CA
43	Choi	Hyun-Il	RHP (Starter)
44	Glasser	Phillips	SS
45	Mota	Jorgelys	SS
46	Cooper	Everett	SS
47	Chapparo	Andres	1B/DH
48	Quintana	Roismar	1B/OF
49	Narango	Joe	1B
50	Pimentel	Brandon	1B

Now, lets do some reactions.

• Their top 5 for our system is essentially the same as every other shop’s top 5, in some order or another. You can quibble with House/Sykora for #2.
• The first bogey; Morales comes in at #6. They’re putting a ton of weight on his AA finish last year. He hit .206 in April but then .357 in September in the same league. I still think this is too high; if he’s 1B only I need to see more homers (just 7 in 435 ABs so far professionally).
• They like Daylen Lile slightly more than me, but so does everyone. Every scouting report I see on this guy says he’s a great contact hitter and a great base-runner. So, where’s the stats? Career .262 batting average (that’s elite bat-to-ball skills?) and just 50 Sbs 255 career games? A .351 OBP for his career? What am I missing here? What makes him any better than Jake Alu (career minor league slash line of .282/.342/.437 with 57 SBs in 420 minor league games, but with more power). I see a 5th OF ceiling. He’s only 22 and in AA, fair point, but he’s also going to be rule-5 eligible after 2025. Based on what you’ve seen, would you protect him right now?
• Victor Hurtado at #13. I’m at least 10 spots lower on this guy right now, and I wonder if they’re looking at the same guy I am. Their line in the link is, “Hurtado is very young but performed well in the Rookie league and has solid tools across the board. He’s one to keep an eye on in this tier.” Uh; “performed well?” He hit .218 in the DSL this season, with almost no speed, no power, and a 2/1 K/BB ratio. Did anyone check this guy’s stats before they wrote that line? Where’s the ranking for the DSL guys who actually hit this year? Missing, that’s where. We’ll get to that at the bottom when we talk about players not in their top 50.
• They’re lower on Andry Lara than they should be. Quote: “ Lara was a highly touted international signing whose results haven’t matched the ability in his four years with the organization.” Um, again, what are these guys watching? Lara, as a 22yr old, got promoted to AA after a month, then had a 3.63 ERA in 19 starts. Yes, in the macro his minor league stats don’t look that great … but year after year he’s been in leagues where he was among the youngest players there, pitchers or hitters. I’ve got Lara well inside our top 10, not buried in the teens.
• They’re a little higher on Vaquero (18) and Bennett (19) than I am. I’m just not impressed with the size of your signing bonus versus your on-the-field accomplishments. As for Bennett, maybe it isn’t fair to ding him for TJ, but after what we’ve seen from Cavalli, i’m gun shy for sure.
• Kevin Made: this guy seems to be a favorite of prospect hounds everywhere. I don’t see it. I see a guy who has no power and little speed who was the “flier prospect guy” in a deadline deal trade. I’ve got him ranked in the 30s, not just outside the top 20.
• Rutledge and Lord: a tale of two approaches. I see Lord as someone who is still proving in AAA they can be an effective starter, while Rutledge is proving he’s a 2-pitch guy who needs to be a reliever. One of these profiles has much more value than the other: can you guess which one? As a result, i’ve got Lord in the mid-teens and Rutledge outside the top 30 on my rankings, not ranked side by side like this shop.
• They’re not fans of Bazzell at all: MLBpipeline has him #14 in the system.
• Brzycky and Ribalta: i’ve said my peace on ranking relievers. I won’t rank a middle reliever in my top 30 anymore. Even the better middle relievers in our bullpen are barely worth half a win a season, and the best of them (Law and Florio last year) were in the 1.6-1.9 range). It’s far more likely we call up these two guys, they get shelled, they go back down, and they ahve negative bWAR (that describes precisely what all of these guys did in 2024: Adon, Weems, Barnes, Brzycky, Ribalta, and Willingham).

At this point we’re in the 30-50 range, so it’s a little harder to be critical, so I’ll just highlight guys that I think they’re way off on.

• Jeremy De la Rosa at #34: he hit .167 in High-A … then got promoted to AA where he hit .161. He’s now spent parts of 3 seasons in Wilmington and has not been competent. Is he a prospect at all? I mean, they have him above Millas, who a lot of readers right now think should be the backup MLB catcher. I’ve got De la Rosa 30 spots lower in my ranks.
• TJ White: see comments about De la Rosa above for the most part.
• Jackson Kent was ranked #24 by MLBpipeline but 37 by these guys; a season on the field should resolve this.
• They have little faith in Andrew Alvarez.
• They still have Brennar Cox ranked, which seems crazy at this point. Exhibit 1-A on the risks of drafting HS kids.
• Thus, its fitting that they have Sir Jamison Jones at #42, right below Cox. Another prep Catcher who could be decent, could go nowhere. What’s odd is, they put Jones in their top 50 but not a couple of DR prospects who actually hit this year (Dashyll Tejeda and Carlos Tavares). I did not have Jones in my top 90, perhaps an oversight.
• Then, perhaps the oddest rankings on their list: #49 and #50 are two 1B only guys in Naranjo and Pimentel, a MLFA and NDFA. Naranjo hit .208 in Wilmington for us in 2024. Pimentel hit .274 in Fredericksburg … as a 24-yr old man amongst kids. I didn’t have either of these guys in my top 90, but i’ve put them in the 70+ range for now.

Who’s missing?

• As mentioned above, a couple of DSL decent performers for 2024
• Cole Henry: probably not a surprise.
• No Nasim Nunez, who b-r.com has exhausting his rookie status in 2024. By service time, not by PAs. If you wanted to quibble and be like some shops that ignore service time and go by PAs/IPs, i’d have Nunez in the mid 40s.
• Not much else to mention; there’s some names outside their top 50 that have gotten a bit of prospect love in the past (Peterson, Cabrera, Brown, Saenz, etc) who don’t really merit it anymore.

That’s the first big prospect rank. What do you think?

We had some pretty clear cut needs heading into the off-season. Starter depth, a power-hitting 1B/DH option, maybe a 3B, and some bullpen help. In order to fill these spots, the team has turned to some familiar faces.

The Nats have announced a couple of veteran player signings in the past couple of days, both with very recent ties:

• Josh Bell: 1yr, $6M
• Trevor Williams: 2yr, $14M.

Additionally we’ve acquired a couple more unhearalded players in minor moves:

• Traded for Lowe
• Signed Soroka 1yr $9M

So, what do these moves tell us? In no particular order:

Pitching prognosis with moves so far:

• With both Williams and Soroka signed, not only do the Nats not trust that Cavalli is ready to go to start 2025 … they think he may not becoming back for a while.
• They now have 7 healthy starters for 5 spots to open the season, and Herz in particular may have just lost his starter role. We’ll have a good old 5th starter competition all spring.
• No, I don’t see them doing a 6-man rotation.
• I’m guessing we go Gore, Williams, Irvin, Parker, Soroka as the rotation to open the season, with Herz in AAA and Cavalli either on the DL or in AAA himself.
• Yes, Soroka was in the bullpen last year; they didn’t spend $9M to have a middle reliever; he’s gonna be tested as a starter to see if he can reclaim his prior starting glory.
• No, I don’t believe they’ll put Williams in the bullpen; not on a 2yr deal and not after his all-star level performance to open last season. They’re going to see if he can repeat his performance of 2024. And if he can, he’ll be trade bait unless this team is in the Wild Card race in July. He should be the #2 starter of this squad behind Gore going opening day.

Bats prognosis with moves so far:

• Lowe for a reliever we got off the garbage heap is found money (Robert Garcia == waiver claim in August 2023 from Miami). Fantastic trade. I don’t care if Lowe isn’t a long term solution at 1B; we can replace Garcia easily enough (he had a negative bWAR in 2024).
• Bell clearly will be the primary DH, and since he’s a switch hitter he could slot in at 1B when the team faces a lefty and put a RH bat like Chapparo or Yepez in the DH slot for the day.
• Bell was a solid 3-win player for us a couple years ago but has now played for 5 teams in 3 years and i’m sure wouldn’t mind some stability. But, he also has to know exactly what he’s signed up for with a one year deal; a chance to shine first half and earn a trade to a contender.
• These two moves probably dump Chapparo or Yepez to AAA; neither should start at 3B (Tena for now) and there’s not enough bench bats to go around. Assuming we’re looking at Adams as the backup C (no options), Baker as one utility infielder (Nunez can go hit .200 in AAA), either Garrett or Call as the 4th OF, and then either Chapparo or Yepez as that 1B/DH bench bat, there’s just one bench spot left, and we havn’t talked about House winning the opening day 3B job and/or acquiring a veteran 3B.

Do these moves make us better in 2025?

• Williams alone should be a 6-win player if he pitches as he did last year. But that’s rare air; lets assume he regresses from his 2.03 ERA of last year but still gives us 5-win pace performance all year.
• Soroka would replace Corbin’s -0.9 bWAR season with something positive; even his 4.74 ERA season was positive on the bWAR stable, and if he falters we replace him with Herz (who put up a near-1 win season in his 19 starts).
• So that’s a swing of at least 4 full wins just in the rotation, before considering expected incremental improvements from guys like Gore and Irvin, who were improving all year.
• Meanwhile on the bat side; we got negative bWAR out of both 1B and 3B, two of your most important bats on the field. We should get something positive out of what we have now for 3B, and we’re clearly improving 1B so that’s a 2-3 win swing right there as well.
• This is how you go from 71 wins to 77 wins without much fanfare. Then you count full seasons and growth from Wood and Crews and suddenly you’re a .500 team.

Lastly…

• As much as I don’t want to admit it, the signings of Bell, Williams, Soroka, the acquisition of Lowe … these are not “we’re competing in 2025” moves. These are “i’m acquiring flippable assets for the 2025 trade deadline” moves once again. There does not seem to be a 9-figure FA signing in the cards to shake things up, because .. well why would we at this point? There’s no reason to spend money unless you can see the target in sight. That’s what we learned in 2011, the last time Rizzo was architecting a dynasty.

Here’s my “who i’d vote for” on the 2025 BBWAA Hall of Fame ballot.

I’ve fallen out of the habit of doing this post. I did a quick search and the last time I did this was three years ago for the 2022 ballot. I guess, once the PED guys fell off the ballot, it wasn’t nearly as interesting/argumentative. We still have a couple PED guys left, but the massive backlog on the ballot is now gone.

Here’s my reasoning, player by player, on the 2025 ballot.

Methodology/thought process: While I like using WAR and JAWS here, I also like pointing out the “fame” factor. The Hall of Fame is missing players who were better than others b/c they weren’t nearly as famous for one reason or an other, and that’s just the way it is. I only touch on it a couple times here, but it matters.

New Candidates first.

• Ichiro Suzuki: 100% yes. Had 3,000 hits despite not debuting in the MLB until his age 27 season, and had 1200 more hits in Japan. Has a credible argument for being the best pure hitter in the history of the game. 10 straight ASGs in his first 10 years here, a MVP and a ROY in his debut season. Should be unanimous.
• CC Sabathia: Yes. 250 wins (the “new 300”) and 3,000 career strikeouts. He was in the top five Cy Young voting for years in his prime. Absolutely a star, a workhorse, and zero PED accusations. He may struggle to get to 75% b/c his peripherals aren’t awesome (3.74 career ERA, 116 ERA+) but he’ll get in eventually.
• Dustin Pedroia: No. he’s got a credible argument, having better career stats than a slew of 2B who were enshrined by various veteran’s committees. For me, not enough of a sustained peak; he had a ROY and MVP in back to back seasons then kind of disappeared. Basically out of the game by 33, so not enough longevity.
• Ian Kinsler: No. almost identical WAR figures to Pedroia but his overall stats aren’t anywhere close. He’s off by 30 points in BA, was just a shade above average in OPS+, and the closest he ever got to an MVP award was an 11th place finish in 2011. Just not good enough.
• Felix Hernandez: No. He’s a crazy case: from the age of 23 to 29 he was one of the best 2-3 arms in the sport. Won a Cy Young, had two 2nd places and a 4th place, threw a perfect game, had a couple of 170 ERA+ seasons. Then … he struggled for a few years, opted out the Covid year, and never came back. His elbow just gave up on him. He was throwing mid-80s in 2021 when he gave up. Like Johan Santana and Bret Saberhagen and Dave Stieb before him, he was great for a while, but not good for enough time.
• Troy Tulowitzki: no. A guy who we thought might revolutionize the position of SS, he just couldn’t stay healthy. He suffered a laundry list of injuries, mostly to his lower half, which eventually drove him from the game at age 34. He never really accumulated enough accolades to even be consiered here.
• No for the rest of the marginal candidates, Ben Zobrist, Curtis Granderson, Hanley Ramirez, Russell Martin, Adam Jones, Brian McCann, Carlos Gonzalez, and the sole player here with Nats ties: Fernando Rodney (he played his last year with us in 2019 and is forever on our “Nats to Oblivion” post).

Returning Candidates:

• Billy Wagner: No. I know the argument. If so-and-so mediocre closer gets in (Lee Smith, Trevor Hoffman), then so should Wagner b/c his numbers were so dominant. Here’s a simple question for my readers, since Wagner pitched in our division for nearly a decade; did you come to the ballpark to see Wagner come into a 3-run game in the 9th to blow away three mediocre hitters? No? I didn’t think so. He was a closer at a time when there were 10 closers with dominant numbers. I won’t get all mad if he makes it to the Hall, since it’ll be his last year and he only missed by a handful of votes last year, but to me he’s a one-trick pony who was never famous enough to be in the Hall.
• Andruw Jones: Yes. For a decade, he was the next coming of Willie Mays: hit for power, hit for average, amazing defender. Then he fell off of a cliff performance wise, and struggled for 5 years before hanging ’em up at 35. Despite this, he still has 62 career bWAR and ranks 11th all time for CFs in the history of the sport. I’m a yes.
• Carlos Beltran: Yes. He was so good for so long. Never quite got to benchmark hitter thresholds (he had 434 homers, 2725 hits) but had a career 119 OPS+ and he was a true center fielder with 70 career bWAR. Every CF with more career WAR than him is enshrined, and a slew below him are on the way.
• Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramirez: Yes. you’re either vehemently anti-PED guys and are automatic “No” votes on players like this, or you’re like me and believe the issue just isn’t that simple. If you disagree with me, I get it. This isn’t the hill I’m necessarily willing to die on, but I do believe the Hall is now missing 10 guys who really should be there. In this case, A-Rod and Manny were morons and cheated later in their careers; they were still two of the best players to ever play and the whole point of the Hall of Fame is to bring awareness to the best who ever played, warts and all.
• Chase Utley: No. He’s a better candidate than either Pedroia or Kinsler, but he never had any post-season accolades and he played the game like such an a-hole, purposely trying to injure players, that I’d imagine he’ll struggle to get votes from many writers who remember what he did to players. MLB literally added a rule in the wake of an Utley play (where he broke Ruben Tejada’s leg), and he had at least two other incidents in his career that made it really hard to root for the guy, even if he was on your team.
• No to the rest: Vizquel, Abreu, Rollins, Pettitte, Buehrle, K-Rod, Torii Hunter, David Wright. A couple of these guys i’m shocked they’re still on the ballot.

So my fake ballot would have 6 names on it: Suzuki, Sabathia, Jones, Beltran, Rodriguez, and Ramirez. A long way from the days when we had to drop players to get to the 10-man limit.

I suppose it is only fitting that, one year after we “won” the 2024 draft lottery (but were ineligible because of being classified a “big market team” despite the fact that we get the exact same amount of RSN revenue as the Baltimore Orioles by rule, and they’re considered a “small market team” that literally gets Competitive Balance picks every year … but I digress), the Nats “won” the 2025 Draft Lottery and will pick 1st overall in the 2025 draft. We had the 4th best chance (around 10% overall) of getting picked, and we got lucky for the 2nd year in a row.

We’ll now have the 3rd #1 overall pick in the history of the franchise. The first two worked out pretty well … so expectations are pretty high. Based on the current state of the qualifying offer and other comp picks, the Nats will pick 1st overall, then have the 49th pick overall in the 2nd round, the 87th overall pick in the third round, and then roughly every 30 picks there on out (some teams are already forfeiting 5th rounders with QO-assigned FA signings, so we won’t know the exact draft order for the top 5 rounds for a while).

Bonus pools will be announced later, but by virtue of having #1 overall, we’ll have a massive pool to work with. The first pick alone will probably be worth close to $11M (last year’s #1 overall draft slot was worth $10.5m), which is important because the #1 overall pick will not sign for anywhere close to that figure (Travis Bazzana, last year’s 1-1 pick, signed for $8.95M, which gave Cleveland an extra $1.5M to work with), which means the Nats may have some major flexibility to sign another Luke Dickerson-type in the upper rounds and essentially get an additional 1st-round quality guy.

So, all that said, who is in the mix right now for 1-1 overall in 2025? Here’s a few names that have been in play since I started tracking the 2025 draft class. Remember, lots can change in a draft class once the baseball season starts next spring, but for now, there’s two HS guys and a handful of college guys at the top of most draft boards.

Prep guys:

• Ethan Holliday, SS, Stillwater HS, Oklahoma. The brother of 2022 1-1 overall pick Jackson Holliday, son of Matt Holliday. Ok State commit. Consensus 1-1 pick as of Dec 2024 pre 2025 season on several draft boards.
• Seth Hernandez, RHP, Elite Charter Academy HS, Temecula, Calif. Vanderbilt commit. 90-93, reaching 95 as HS sophomore. Top prep arm on board, projecting top 10 of 1st round, improving late 2024.

College guys:

• Jace Laviolette, RF TAMU. D1 Fresh AA. 20/20 season as a freshman. Risen to be 2025 1-1 candidate with 29-HR sophomore season.
• Jamie Arnold, LHP Starter from Florida State. 11-3, 2.98 ERA as sophomore in ACC.
• Tyler Bremner, RHP UC Santa Barbara. blew up in 2024, going 11-1 with 2.54 ERA and 104/21 K/BB in 88 IP. Top RHP on board.
• Cam Cannarella, SS/CF Clemson. D1 fresh AA, ACC Fresh of the year. slashed .388/.462/.560, Team Usa. Took a small step back sophomore year, went from 24SBs to zero (why?) but power stayed put.
• Caden Bodine, C, Coastal Carolina. slashed .367/.456/.609 with 17 homers, Sun Belt Fresh of year, then continued in Cape with Wood to vault to top 10 status. Numbers fell across the board soph season, dinging prospect status.

One last comment. I’ve already seen some comments about Laviolette in particular, which are along the lines of, “well we already have plenty of outfielders, we should draft for need.” YOU DO NOT DRAFT FOR NEED IN BASEBALL. This isn’t the NBA, where you draft someone to immediately go into the 5-man starting lineup and you have to consider who you have in your current point guard position and how long they’re signed for; this is baseball, where players move around positions, where they may look great now but hit a plateau at AA or AAA, or get hurt and miss two seasons (ahem Cavalli). You draft the Best Player Available and if/when that player starts to push an existing veteran, so be it; you cross that bridge when you get there.

Right now, on December 11th, 2024, the #1 pick projection is absolutely Ethan Holliday. His brother destroyed the minor leagues, was the #1 prospect in baseball for most of 2024 and debuted as a 20yr old. Ethan is not his brother: he’s 4-inches taller and projects more like a corner bat/corner outfielder like his father versus a 6-0″ agile defender like his brother. If you told me Ethan would have his dad’s career right now, I’d take it (44 bWAR, 300homers, career .300 hitter with power). Sign me up.

It’s great to dream on a player … but you just never know what can happen in a spring baseball season. The #1 overall pick we get may be someone we’ve never heard of. Paul Skenes went from a decent Air Force hurler in a nothing conference to a guy putting up circus strikeout numbers at LSU in a year, to being the All Star Game starter and nearly winning the Cy Young in his rookie season … so we’ll see what happens as the spring season unfolds.

All that said, this is a great event for the franchise and could absolutely help lead the team back to a decade of prosperity.

Some random thoughts today on the Juan Soto deal.

15 years, $765million.

Just putting that out there. $51M/year AAV. If a WAR on the FA market is worth $9M (that’s the going rate from a few years back, i’ll bet its more now), then Soto will have to put up about 80 WAR in the next 15 years to “earn” this contract. Or maybe you can’t think about this contract in those terms, because he’ll sell a million jerseys in the next decade, and he’ll be the cornerstone of a franchise that should be able to buy its way to the playoffs each year. Or, perhaps in about 12 years time when Soto has around 700 career homers … the media blitz alone will be worth the money (he just finished his age 25 season and already has 200 homers, and he averages 35/year … do some quick math and factor in that he’s not even in peak slugging years yet and look out).

Honestly, i’m surprised he went with the Mets. He was such a perfect fit in the Bronx. Right attitude, perfect field, all the history, the pipeline of prospects in the DR, etc. But you don’t hire Scott Boras to take the second best offer (reportedly 16yrs, $760M).

I know we’ve made comments about how the Nats 2025 payroll could have absorbed all these contracts and still have room to spare. I think i’m more irritated they let a core of players go that could have carried the team into the next rebuild; Turner ($27M/year), Harper ($26M/year), Schwarber ($20M/year), basically the Phillies 1-2-3 hitters, all Ex nats. But, you take the good with the bad. We gambled on Strasburg and lost, but cut bait on Rendon and won. Nobody has a crystal ball. Was letting Harper go the right move? We offered Soto $440m, he said no, so we traded him for a cache of players that are (or are projecting to be) crucial to us being relevant again (MacKenzie Gore, Robert Hassell III, C.J. Abrams, James Wood, Jarlin Susana). Was that a good trade? Absolutely. Should this team have committed $51M/year to Soto? Hard to say, given the fact that we were competing against two teams that print money (NYY and LAD) and another team owned by a profligate hedge fund billionaire who could give a sh*t about the luxury Tax.

Draft lottery tomorrow; we project to pick 4th, could move up, will pick no worse than 10th I believe. There’s some decent names in the top 10 projecting already; once we know where we’re picking i’ll throw up a 2025 draft proffer to show what’s likely to be in the mix at our slot.

It has been a pleasure to follow the 2024 rotations of this team, something that hasn’t always been true. 2024 saw a slew of arms make major leaps forward, both in terms of promotion and in terms of stature.

Here’s a final recap of the rotations for the 2024 season, showing the evolution of the rotation at each level, and then we’ll make some predictions on 2025.

Here’s the recaps for the year:

• End of April check-in
• End of May
• End of June
• End of July, and
• End of August

There was no September summary since the various leagues staggered the amount of time they played in Sept, leading to this post where we’ll do an overall summary of the season.

Critical to this analysis are the following links:

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

Lets start at the top. I’m drawing from all my posts throughout the year to show the evolution of each staff’s rotation. Then for 2024, I’m generally predicting 6-7 names per rotation to account for the inevitable injuries.

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MLB Washington

• Opening Day: Grey, Irvin, Gore, Williams, Corbin
• End of April: Irvin, Gore, Williams, Corbin, Parker,
• End of May: Irvin, Gore, Williams, Corbin, Parker,
• End of June: Irvin, Gore, Corbin, Parker, Herz
• End of July: Irvin, Gore, Corbin, Parker, Herz
• End of August: Irvin, Gore, Corbin, Parker, Herz
• End of Season: Irvin, Gore, Corbin, Parker, Herz, Williams

2024 Discussion

Despite losing 90 games, the team’s rotation was shockingly intact for most of the season. Amazingly, Patrick Corbin hung onto his rotation (and roster) spot the entire season, despite being perpetually listed as “the next starter to get DFA’d once a spot was needed). He earned his $35M walk year salary with 170+ innings of 5.58 ERA, which was the WORST ERA in the league, by half a run, of all 57 qualified pitchers this year. In an interesting statistical side note: his bWAR is -0.8 (as you’d expect) but his fWAR is 1.7! That’s right; he has a positive 1.7 fWAR for the year. This happens by the way, because Fangraph’s pitcher WAR heavily uses FIP in its calculation, which heavily weighs strikeouts and ignores any ball put into play (which means we’re ignoring about 70% of a pitcher’s at-bats). But I digress. Let’s simplify this: Corbin was in the rotation b/c he’s getting paid a ton of money this year, he took the ball every 5 days, he got shelled all year, and I’ll be shocked if he gets a guaranteed contract next year. His departure frees up a ton of payroll and a 2025 rotation spot.

Thanks to an early injury to opening day starter Josiah Grey (which turned into TJ surgery, likely costing him the entirety of the 2025 season) the team was able to debut found gold in Mitchell Parker, a 5th round 2020 draft pick who got just $100k in bonus money (reminder: picks in rounds 11-20 can sign for half again as much without penalty). Parker will finish the year with 30 starts, a 94 ERA+, and a FIP that flatters his ERA. Trevor Williams was putting together a Cy Young worthy season until he suffered a dreaded flexor strain; thankfully for Williams it didn’t turn into TJ surgery as it did for Grey, but it did cost him the chance to get traded to a contender, and it cost us a chance to net a couple of solid prospects in return for one of the league’s best starters. It’s a shame all the way around. Williams was brought back up for the last week of the season mostly as a courtesy to the veteran, who will head into the off-season at least being able to claim he finished the year healthy. Irvin and Gore gave season-long “almost league average” stats, though each had stretches of real brilliance. Irvin featured far fewer baserunners (1.18 whip) but not as much swing-and-miss, while Gore put a ton more guys on but showed he has no-hit capabilities. Lastly, Williams’ injury gave the team another opportunity to give a months-long tryout a AAA pitcher (in this case DJ Herz, trade bounty for half a 2023 season of Candelario and another guy who can only be described as “found gold”). Herz struggled initially but improved every month he was up and has finished the season with almost an identical ERA+ as Irvin and Parker had (94-95).

2025 Outlook:

Tangent: this is as good as any of a spot to have this discussion. I believe that Mike Rizzo will be taking a look at this team’s 2024 performance and will conclude they’re still a year away. I could be wrong; he signed Jayson Werth after the team went 69-93 in 2010, but I believe that was more of a, “Hey guys, this team has cash and isn’t afraid to spend it” kind of move. He doesn’t have to make that kind of move again; the league knows this team spent $200M at one point in its last run, and probably gets up there again if/when it thinks it can compete again. I think the lost year of Cavalli in 2024, the 2025 lost year of Grey, the slow-down of development of House and Hassell, and the relative youth of our next real wave of top prospects will have Rizzo conclude that 2025 will be another incremental growth year, and that decision will drive what we write about in the next section.

Williams probably did enough to not only guarantee himself a contract in 2025, but probably will command more than his Nats contract (2yrs $13M). Given the above paragraph, Should the team resign him? I certainly hope they do not. I think they have better, cheaper alternatives from inside, and they don’t want/ need to commit to a multi-year contract with a guy who might be 2023-version or 2024-version. Corbin is clearly gone.

That leaves the four youngsters to lead the line in 2025: Gore, Irvin, Parker, Herz.

Who joins them? The hopeful answer for all Nats fans is a healthy Cavalli. That would be the easiest, neatest solution. However, I’m now in the “seriously, officially worried” phase w/r/t Cavalli. He’s turned a 12-month injury into a 24 month one. Something tells me that I shouldn’t count on Cavalli for opening day, which means the team needs a 5th starter. I think the team goes bargain shopping for an extra starter, a veteran guy looking for a bounce back. But I wouldn’t want to roll the dice on a MLFA/NRI guy if it comes to it; I’d rather spend a bit of cash and bring in someone who could really contribute. Maybe a one-year guy who we could look to flip. I mean heck, if they want to take the PR hit, Trevor Bauer would certainly take a one year deal to get back into the league. A veteran starter could give them a little room on Cavalli, and it could give them an option to send Herz back down if he struggles to open 2025.

2025 rotation prediction: Gore, Irvin, Parker, Herz, Veteran FA signing (Grey on DL, Cavalli in AAA)

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AAA Rochester

• Opening Day: Adon, Rutledge, Parker, Ward, Herz
• End of April: Adon, Rutledge, Ward, Herz, Watkins,
• End of May: Adon, Rutledge, Ward, Herz, Watkins,
• End of June: Rutledge, Ward, Watkins, Alvarez, Lord
• End of July: Rutledge, Ward, Alvarez, Lord, Luckham
• End of August: Rutledge, Ward, Watkins, Alvarez, Stuart
• End of Season: Rutledge, Ward, Watkins, Alvarez, Lord

2024 Discussion: Like the MLB rotation, the AAA rotation showed a lot of consistency for the year. Three guys (Rutledge, Watkins, and Ward) were basically in the rotation the entire season. Rutledge and Ward are on our 40-man and were, lets just be honest, awful: Rutledge had a 6.40 ERA for the season, Ward not much better at 5.64. Both essentially served as MLB insurance the entire year and were passed over by Parker and Herz, both of whom went up and stayed up. Neither guy had anything close to a stretch of productivity that was impressive.

The team gave Joan Adon yet another run-out to prove he’s not a capable starter before removing him mid-season to make way for those moving up from AA that had merited the promotions (Alvarez and Lord). Lord continued his amazing run through the organization in AAA, and had the best numbers of any of the year-end starters (AAA numbers of 3.93 ERA, 1.38 whip, and a K/inning). Not bad for an 18th round draft pick. Last year’s Nats Minor league Pitcher of the year Alvarez had 16 starts in AAA this year with mediocre results: 4.58 ERA, 1.45 whip, 61 Ks in 78IP. He has practically zero prospect buzz and the scouting report on him seems to be “lefty guy with weird mechanics who gets by on deception, not stuff.” I think he eventually gets converted to be a lefty reliever and that’s his eventual ticket to the majors, but for the time being he’s bought himself another year in the AAA rotation. Stuart only got a handful of AAA starts before getting hurt, but was basically unhittable for us in AA. We couldn’t say the same for Luckham, who earned a promotion and then got similarly shelled and got sent back down.

2025 Outlook: Two guys are already gone. Watkins was a 32-yr old veteran MLFA who presumably is pitching elsewhere next year. Ward got waived ahead of the Rule-5 deadline, as the team tried to sneak him off the roster, but he got claimed by Baltimore (who’s done that several times to us as we dumped pitchers). Adon is out of options and probably is gone at the end of spring training.

Rutledge still has one major advantage in this organization: he was a 1st round pick with a big bonus, which means he’ll continue to get opportunities to prove his worth; even though he’s clearly (to me anyway) a FB/slider 6’6″ behemoth who screams “8th inning guy” in a major league bullpen, he’ll get run out as a starter again in 2025. Alvarez is rule-5 eligible but was not protected; for now AAA rotation makes sense. I think the team will let a numbers game play out and will keep Stuart in AAA to start the year. Lastly, as they generally like to do, expect a cattle call of veteran MLFA/NRI types to get signed for the AAA 5th starter try-out, basically the Spencer Watkins of 2025.

I suppose it is also entirely possible the team has Cavalli start here and signs a guy to pitch in the majors, but that would depend on an organizational decision that Cavalli’s stunted rehab in 2024 will continue. Obviously I don’t have that kind of information. I also find it somewhat notable that Cavalli is not going to the AFL this fall in order to get some extra innings. Is he still hurt?

2025 rotation prediction: Rutledge, Lord, Alvarez, Stuart, Cavalli/MLFA signing

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AA Harrisburg

• Opening Day: Luckham, Alvarez, Henry, Knowles, Cuevas
• End of April: Luckham, Alvarez, Henry, Lord, Cuevas,
• End of May:  Luckham, Alvarez, Henry, Lord, Cuevas,
• End of June: Luckham, Cuevas, Solesky, Lara, Theophile
• End of July: Cuevas, Solesky, Lara, Theophile, Stuart
• End of August: Luckham, Solesky, Lara, Saenz, Shuman
• End of Season: Luckham, Solesky, Lara, Saenz, Shuman

2024 Discussion:

Luckham started the year on the AA hump, and ended the year on the AA hump as well with a brief unsuccessful stint in AAA. He’s still not ready and needs another AA year for sure (4.47 ERA). Alvarez had a 2.89 ERA in 10 starts and more than earned his AAA promotion; he won’t be coming back. 40-man and former top prospect Cole Henry has to be the biggest disappointment to Nats fans; 5 starts, just 13Ip, then back on the DL. He did a rehab stint in Wilmington before getting stuck right back on the 60-day DL. There was never any official note of the nature of the injury. Knowles was looking great, then suddenly poof on the DL. After a month, moved to 60-day, then a month after that the “full season” DL. I’m going to assume it was a major injury and he starts on DL in 2025. Cuevas hung in the rotation probably for a month too long with near 6.00 ERA before getting dropped to be “LR” guy, replaced by the rising Lord. once Lord proved AA couldn’t hold him, the team brought up prospect Lara, who shined for 19 starts and just got added to the 40-man. Solesky got signed in June after the CWS dumped him at the end of spring training and he looked great all year; enough so to go to the AFL to shop his talents. Theophile got called up and was stellar … then poof hit the DL and was gone. And now he’s a 6year MLFA. Saenz and Shuman both returned from injury to a mixed bag of success; Saenz may finally be out of the starter business, while Shuman needs a full season healthy.

2025 Outlook: Henry seems like a massive injury concern. He’s also a 40-man roster spot holder; would the team try to DFA him and outright him to get a spot? I would. I’ll assume he is on the DL to start the season. Same with Knowles. I think Lara starts in AA with the Nats typical “prove you can repeat the level then we’ll promote you.” I could see Solesky also going to AAA, but maybe that only happens if the team decides Rutledge is now a reliever. After that, expect retreads Luckham and Shuman to man the spots. Lastly, I’d put 23yr old Cuevas back in the rotation to fill it out until the next high-A guy merits a promotion.

2025 rotation prediction: Lara, Sokesky, Luckham, Shuman, Cuevas. Henry (i), Knowles (i)

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High A Wilmington

• Opening Day: Lara, Lord, Young, Cornelio, Theophile
• End of April: Lara, Young, Cornelio, Theophile, Caceres,
• End of May: Young, Cornelio, Theophile, Caceres, Atencio,
• End of June: Young, Cornelio, Caceres, Atencio, Shuman
• End of July: Cornelio, Atencio, Shuman, Susana, Davis,
• End of August: Cornelio, Caceres, Atencio, Susana, Tepper
• End of Season: Cornelio, Caceres, Atencio, Susana, Tepper,

2024 Discussion: Lara and Lord’s performances speak for themselves this year: Lord earned a 2-level promotion and Lara earned a 40-man spot. The rest of the opening day rotation was a grab bag of results. Young hung for half the season before getting replaced in the rotation. Caceres replaced Lord’s early promotion and had 23 starts with a 4.83 ERA. Cornelio had the most starts of anyone, 26 starts with a 5.53ERA. This is his second year with a 5+ era, and unlike in 2024, I don’t think he’s earning a social promotion for 2025. Theophile was the “least worst” candidate to get promoted when the AA team needed a starter, but he earned his keep in AA before getting hurt.

Atencio was sneaky good all year; he’s only 22 but he’s rule-5 eligible this year. I think he may be in line for a fast promotion ala Lara/Lord this year. Uber prospect Susana arrived in July and was decent in 10 starts. Despite his rocket-ship trajectory as a prospect, i don’t think he’s starting in AA based on his 10 starts of 4.18 ERA in high-A. Look for him to get a month in Wilmington before moving up. The rest of the guys who got somewhat regular starts at season’s end (Tepper, Davis) didn’t impress and probably get moved to the bullpen.

2025 Outlook: The rotation in Wilmington will be packed to start 2025, with a 1-2 punch of Susana and Sykora and solid prospects all the way through. Atencio will start in High-A as well. I’m assuming that Jake Bennett will be ready to go, and he should slot in as a starter in High-A looking to prove himself and move up fast. That’s a great rotation. I would think that Susana is good for a month, Sykora half a season, Bennett perhaps a couple months to show he’s healthy, and Atencio a half a season if they all pitch to their 2024 capabilities, meaning for lots of promotion opportunities coming up from Low-A. Lastly, I’ve got Clemmey starting here aggressively, if only because there’s just too many arms for Low-A.

2025 rotation prediction: Susana, Sykora, Atencio, Bennett, Clemmey (with Young, Caceres, Cornelio, Tepper, or Davis getting moved to the bullpen)

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Low-A Fredericksburg

• Opening Day: Sthele, Sanchez, Susana, Davis, Sullivan
• End of April: Sthele, Sanchez, Susana, Davis, Atencio
• End of May: Sthele, Sanchez, Susana, Davis, Polanco, Sykora
• End of June: Sthele, Susana, Davis, Polanco, Sykora,
• End of July: Sthele, Polanco, Sykora, Tepper, Romero
• End of August: Sthele, Polanco, Sykora, Romero, Clemmey
• End of Season: Sthele, Polanco, Sykora, Romero, Clemmey

2024 Discussion: The Low-A rotation was headlined all year by Sykora, who blew through the league and stayed in the league probably 2 months more than he should have. It became clear he stayed to lead the team’s playoff run, and was a big part in the first championship for a Nats affiliate in some time. He’s obviously heading to High-A. Sullivan looked good and then hit the full-season DL: we’re assuming he’s starting there next year. Davis was solid and got promoted. Sthele managed to stay in the rotation all year despite a season-long 4.81 ERA. Bryan Sanchez pitched to a 6.66 ERA and got dumped out of the bullpen mid-season. 19yr old Clemmey is a top prospect and pitched an entire season in low-A despite his age; he probably needs a little more Low-A seasoning before looking to move up, but I could also make the argument to move him up based on the numbers of who needs to be in the Low-A rotation.

2025 Outlook: I sense the team is counting on its DL guys returning, based on the guys left at the end of the season and their general 2024 performance. The team had three experienced starters spend the entire season on the DL: Agostini, Tolman, and Aldonis. I’ll bet they put at least a couple in the 2025 rotation to get them back on track (Agostini went on in April and may still be hurt to start 2025). They seemed to like Sthele and Polanco, and Roman looked solid but may be a reliever. We do have two bigger-money starter prospects we drafted in 2024 in 4th rounder Jackson Kent (Arizona) and 6th rounder Davian Garcia; I sense both will be looked at hard for the low-A rotation. I’ll hedge and put Garcia in FCL rotation to start. Lastly the two FCL rotation stalwarts probably deserve a run.

2025 rotation prediction: Tolman, Aldonis, Kent, Colon, Portorreal, with Sthele, Polanco, Romero as LR/SS options. (dl: Sullivan, Agostini)

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Rookie FCL Nats

• Opening Day: Colon, Portorreal, CSanchez, BRomero, Farias
• End of May: Colon, Portorreal, CSanchez, BRomero, Farias
• End of June: Colon, Portorreal, CSanchez, BRomero, and rehabbers
• End of July/Season: Colon, Portorreal, CSanchez, BRomero, Saenz (rehab)

2024 Discussion: The FCL rotation was basically 4 guys and a rehabber all year. Sanchez and Romero earned their promotions, Colon and Portorreal pitched decently all year.

2025 Outlook: I sense we’ll see the team take the same tactic in 2025 for FCL that they did in 2024: all DSL graduates plus rehabbers. I’ll put 2024 draftee Garcia here, along with 2024 reliever Angel Roman and Moreno, who was hurt all 2024. Then the rest will be filled by DSL graduates and rehabbers.

2025 rotation prediction: Garcia, Roman, Moreno, Feliz, Lunar

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DSL Nats

• Opening Day: De La Cruz, Oliveros, Hernandez, Vera, Feliz
• End of June: De la Cruz, Reynoso, Vera, Feliz, Thomas,
• End of July: De la Cruz, Reynoso, Vera, Feliz, Thomas, with Juan Reyes as an “opener.”
• End of August: De la Cruz, Reynoso, Feliz, Reyes, Lunar
• End of Season: De La Cruz, Reynoso, Vera, Feliz, Lunar,

2024 Discussion: There’s only 2-3 arms worth talking about in the DSL: Feliz and Lunar, maybe Reyes. The Rest were bad, like 8ERA Bad.

2025 Outlook: I’d like to see Feliz, Lunar, and Reyes come stateside. Reyes had a bunch of “starts” but they were all 1 inning gigs; he’ll head to the bullpen. But Felix looks like he could be a starter candidate. That leaves the rest of these starters to repeat DSL in 2025. We’ll addin a couple of Jan IFA signings and that’ll be the 2025 rotation.

2025 rotation prediction: De la Cruz, Reynoso, Vera, and two 2025 signings

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Did I forget anyone? Agree or disagree with 2025 opening day predictions?

The next stop on the off-season transaction bus is the “Non Tender Deadline,” by where players under club control (whether it be pre-arbitration or arbitration-eligible) need to be offered contracts (tendered) by 11/22/24 or else they officially get cut-loose and become free agents.

Its the same and DFA’ing a guy, of which we’ve already done several so far this off-season, including two non-tender candidates in Ildemaro Vargas (who made $1.1M last year and was projected to $1.8M, but clearly the team thought they could replace him for less from internal) and Jordan Weems (who will be 1st year arb eligible).

So, do we actually have any non-tender candidates on the roster at this point? Lets run through the arbitration-eligible players from high-to-low 2024 salary and make some guesses.

I’ll use Cots for 2024 salaries and MLBTraderumors for 2025 arbitration estimates.

• Kyle Finnegan. $5.1M in 2024, estimated $8.6M in 2025. Yes, that’s way too much for a reliever for a sub .500 team. The plan was to trade the guy and make him someone else’s problem but an ill-timed blowup scuttled his trade market and here we are. I think he’s too valuable to non-tender, and he could still be a trade candidate mid 2025 if we’re not contending. Tender him.
• Luis Garcia Jr. $1.95M in 2024, estimated $4.8MM for 2025. He’s worth it. 114 Ops+, nearly a 20/20 season in 2024. $4.8M seems a bit high for A2, but he’ll be well into the 10-digits by the time he hits his 4th arb year. I used to think he’d be first on the list to get replaced once one of our SS prospects panned out; now maybe he sticks around for the longer term.
• Derek Law: made $1.5M in 2025, projecting to $3MM in 2025. $3M for a 2-win workhorse reliever is a bargain.
• Tanner Rainey $1.5M in 2024, $1.9MM estimate for 2025. he somehow picked up 50 innings worth of work and was the lowest-leverage usage reliever in the game. 30 of his 50 appearances were 9th inning to finish off a game: 24 of those were in losses, the other 6 were in blowout wins. Ok, so do you write the $1.9M check for 2025 here? Yes I think you do. Roll the dice for one more year out of Rainey to see if he reverts back to his dominant 8th/9th inning self. Its a safe bet. If not, and you like the guy, clearly there was 50 innings out there for him to mop up in 2024 and they’ll be there again in 2025.
• Josiah Gray: $757K in 2024, $1.4MM estimate in 2025. You obviously tender Gray as your opening day starter last season, even if he’s hurt. Does he get to $1.4M for a year where he’ll miss most of the season? Maybe that’s just the going rate.
• C.J. Abrams: $752K in 2024, no estimate for 2025 because he earned super-2 after they published. I’d probably put his arb figure at $3.75M (that was about what Trea Turner got his first year of arb eligibility as a top-notch SS). Obviously, even given the casino incident, you tender Abrams.
• Riley Adams $750K in 2024, $1.1MM estimate for 2025. This is the one that some people seem to get hung up on. Why keep Adams around if we have Millas who many think is better? Well, there’s one main answer: we have no other catchers on the 40-man. Past Adams/Millas, you’re looking at guys like Lindsly or Stubbs from the current AAA roster. We don’t even have a catcher active on the current AA roster: they all hit 6year MLFA (Pineda, Vega, and Diaz). There’s just no way they should cut him loose, even if he isn’t good.
• Mason Thompson: $749k in 2024,: $800K estimate for 2025. Hurt all of 2023 but a solid arm if he returns healthy. He won’t have much of an estimated bump so he’s just as good as a pre-arb prospect.
• MacKenzie Gore $749K in 2024, $3.5MM. Bargain for a starter as good as Gore. Tender him.

So, of the 9 guys:

• Locks to tender: Garcia, Law, Gray, Abrams, Gore
• No good reason not to tender: Adams, Rainey, Thompson
• Expensive but needed: Finnegan

I think we tender all 9 of these guys.

11/22/24 update: to my surprise, the Nats Non-tendered both Finnegan and Rainey. I think i’m more shocked by the Rainer non-tender, if only because his arb figure was so low. But both moves make me slightly concerned for the financial outlook of this team for 2025: both are really penny-pincher moves. You non-tender a reliever who grew up in your org and who was projected to have less than a $2M salary? Concerning.

Here’s a complete history of my predicted Rule-5 additions (with links to each prediction piece), along with the Actual players the team protected (with links as well), to show my (lack of) predictive powers. It’s updated for 2024 and has narratives about each class and how the players turned out later on with updates for the last year of performance.

• 2024: Predicted: Lara, Hassell, maybes on Alvarez, Cronin. Actual: Lara, Hassell
• 2023: Predicted: Parker, Lara, and Herz (maybe on Henry) Actual: Parker, Herz, Henry, and Brzycky.
• 2022: Predicted: Cronin, maybes on Alu, Millas, Rutledge, Ferrer. Actual:  Cronin, Alu, De La Rosa, Rutledge, Ferrer, Irvin.
• 2021: Predicted Cate, Casey. Actual: Casey and Lee.
• 2020: Predicted Pineda, Adon. Actual Adon, Antuna.
• 2019: Predicted Braymer, Sharp.  Actual: just Braymer.  And…. Sharp got picked in the Rule-5 draft by Miami.
• 2018: Predicted: Bourque, Mills, Istler.  Actual: just Bourque.
• 2017: Predicted: Gutierrez, Gushue, Ward, Baez.  Actual: Gutierrez and Jefry Rodriguez.
• 2016: Predicted Voth, Bautista.  Actual: Voth, Bautista, Marmolejos, Read and Skole.
• 2015: Predicted Kieboom, Bostick, Marmolejos-Diaz.  Actual: Kieboom, Bostick, Lee
• 2014: Predicted Cole, Skole, Goodwin.  Hedged on Grace, Martin and Difo.  Actual: Cole, Goodwin, Difo, Grace.
• 2013: Predicted Solis as the only lock.  Possibles mentioned in order Barrett, Taylor, Grace, Holland.  Actual: Solis, Barrett, Taylor.
• 2012: Predicted Karns and McCoy, with Hood and Rosenbaum as maybes.  Actual: Karns and Davis.  I think we were all surprised by Davis’ inclusion, despite his good AA numbers that year.
• 2011: Predicted Norris as a lock, guessed strongly on Moore, Meyers and Komatsu.  Actual: Norris, Moore, Solano, Perez.    This was poor analysis on my part; I did not consider the IFAs newly eligible.
• 2010: Predicted Marrero, Meyers and Mandel.  Actual: Marrero, Carr and Kimball.
• 2009: pre-dates my blog and thus no predictions, but Actual was Jaime, Thompson and Severino.
• 2008: I might be wrong, but I don’t see any evidence of the team protecting *anyone* prior to the Rule-5 draft.  A bit of an indictment of the farm system at the time, I’d say 🙂

How many of the above players who were added to “save” them from the Rule-5 draft actually turned into impactful players for the Nationals? Lets work backwards:

• 2024: Lara, Hassell. Too Early. check back next year.
• 2023: Parker, Herz, Henry, and Brzycky. The fact that we got two MLB SPs the next year makes this the greatest Nats Rule5 draft ever, by a sizeable margin. A huge portion of these guys sit on the 40-man for 2-3 years, stalled out in the minors. Parker got called up to cover for Grey and did spectacularly, giving the team 29 starts at a 94 ERA+ figure. Herz did something similar, coming up to cover for Williams and giving the team 19 starts with a 97 ERA+ figure. Both were fantastic rule-5 additions and are solid candidates for the rotation for years to come. Meanwhile, Brzycky came back from injury and pitched his way up to AAA, but curiously his K/9 is way down. Maybe he’s not 100%. lastly Henry pitched just 15 innings before going back to the season-long DL, and he is looking like a possible lost cause to his shoulder injury. One is hopeful, but it’s not looking good for Henry.
• 2022: Cronin, Alu, De La Rosa, Rutledge, Ferrer, Irvin. Some good, some bad so far out of this crew. The Good: Irvin spent most of 2023 and all of 2024 in the MLB rotation, and looks like he’s improving. Ferrer has turned into a critical bullpen arm and spent all of 2023 and 2024 contributing. The replacement level: Rutledge pitched great all year in 2023 to rocket up the system and even get some MLB cycles, but has tanked as a starter all year in 2024 and may need to convert to relief. Alu looked ok as a bench guy in the MLB, but went back down and got outrighted back to AAA, where he’s now just an org guy. Cronin got DFA’d rather quickly, but had really solid 2024 stats. He may be a change-of-scenery guy. The bad: De La Rosa did little, was probably way too young to protect, and has now been outrighted right back off the 40-man.
• 2021: Casey and Lee: Casey was DFA’d mid 2022, outrighted, then demoted to AA for most of 2023 before hitting MLFA. He never once played in the majors for us. Lee got hurt in 2022, made a few starts in AA, got outrighted (ironically to make room for the 2022 Rule5 guys) then was converted to relief for 2023 where he struggled badly in 2023. He was a bad rule5 protection selection; someone who was “good” for a brief second and had crazy K/9 numbers but who couldn’t come close to sustaining it at the higher levels of the minors.
• 2020: Adon, Antuna: Adon toiled in the lower minors for most of 2021, made it to the majors for a spot start and looked solid. His performance since? Absolutely abhorrent: 1-12 with a 7.10 ERA in 2022 before mercifully being sent down. 2023 was not much better. His final option year in 2024? Another 7+ ERA year in AAA. Meanwhile, Antuna was a disaster, had to move off of SS and hit .230 in High-A with none of the power he’d need to present with his move to a corner OF position. The team seems to be clinging to the guy simply based on his massive IFA signing bonus. Finally at the end of 2023 he hit MLFA; final career minor league totals: .224/.326/.675 and the only level where he even came close to an .800 was rookie ball.
• 2019: Braymer; got DFA’d mid-season 2021 and outrighted after struggling in both seasons. Never amounted to much after that.
• 2018: Bourque: got shelled in AAA in 2019, waived in 2020, then left the team as a MLFA.
• 2017: Gutierrez, Jefry Rodriguez. Gutierrez never really did anything for us and was traded to KC in the Kelvin Herrera deal. Rodriguez threw a bunch of mediocre starts and was flipped to Cleveland in the Yan Gomes deal; he’s now back with us as a MLFA for 2022.
• 2016: Voth, Bautista, Marmolejos, Read and Skole. A ton of guys; anyone impactful? Voth has competed for the 5th starter job for years but has a career 83 ERA+ and was waived; he then went on to Baltimore to succeed, a pretty black mark for this team’s usage of him (since Baltimore ins’t exactly known for being a pitching development team). Bautista never did much for us: 33 career MLB plate appearances. Read had a PED suspension and a handful of MLB games. Marmolejos was a 1B-only guy who showed some gap power in AA but never above it. Skole was inexplicably protected as an age 26 corner infield guy whose profile seemed to mirror dozens of veteran free agents readily available on the market; he hit .222 in 2017 and then hit MLFA.
• 2015: Kieboom, Bostick, Lee: This was Spencer Kieboom, the catcher, not his younger brother Carter. S.Kieboom was a AAA catcher who was worth protecting but he played just a handful of games in his MLB career. Chris Bostick didn’t last the full 2016 season before being DFA’d. Nick Lee lasted even less, getting DFA’d in July.
• 2014: Cole, Goodwin, Difo, Grace. All four players ended up playing in the majors for various lengths … but all four were role players for this team. AJ Cole was tried out as a 5th starter season after season, finally flipped to the Yankees when he ran out of options. Goodwin was another guy who couldn’t seem to break our outfield, but who has had spells of starting with some success elsewhere. Difo was our backup IF for years, and Matt Grace pitched in the Washington bullpen for years before getting outrighted and leaving via MLFA in 2019.
• 2013: Solis, Barrett, Taylor. Sammy was good until he wasn’t, and his time with the 2018 Nats was his last. Barrett remains with the team after multiple surgeries, but is a MLFA this off-season and may be forced into retirement after so many injuries. Michael A. Taylor is an interesting one; he had a 2.7 bWAR season for the Nats in 2017, nearly a 20/20 season when he finally got full time playing time in CF. He won a Gold Glove this year for Kansas City, one season after we DFA’d him because we all thought Victor Robles was a better option.
• 2012: Karns and Davis.  Karns had one good year as a starter in the majors … for Tampa. Career bWAR: 3.0. Davis pitched a little for the team in 2013, then got hurt, then never made it back to the majors.
• 2011: Norris, Moore, Solano, Perez.  This was a big year; Norris was a big part of the Gio Gonzalez trade and made the all star team in 2014 for Oakland, but didn’t play much afterwards. Tyler Moore was great in his first year as our backup 1B/bench bat type, but never replicated his 2012 season. Jhonathan Solano was always our 3rd catcher and saw sparing duty until he got cut loose. Eury Perez played in just a handful of games for us before getting DFA’d and claimed by the Yankees in Sept 2014.
• 2010: Marrero, Carr and Kimball. Marrero was a 1st rounder who “had” to get protected to protect the team’s investiment; he just never could get above AAA. Adam Carr and Cole Kimball were both relievers who looked promising after their 2010 minor league seasons but did relatively little afterwards: Cole never made the majors, while Kimball hurt his shoulder and never recovered.
• 2009: Jaime, Thompson and Severino. three pitchers, none of whom did much. Jaime was a 2004 IFA who has a grand total of 13 MLB innings. Thompson was waived a year after being protected. Severino got a cup of coffee in 2011 then hit MLFA.
• 2008: Nobody added. Not one eligible pick or signing from the 2004/2005 draft was considered worthy of protecting.

Conclusion: So, after more than a decade of rule-5 additions, who would you say is the most impactful player we’ve ever added? Candidates:

• Brian Goodwin: career bWAR for the Nats: 0.0 (across 3 seasons)
• Michael A. Taylor: career bWAR for the Nats: 3.5 across 7 seasons, with one 2.7 win season
• Sammy Solis: career bWAR for Nats: 0.2 across 4 seasons
• Jake Irvin: career bWAR: 3.0 for 2023 and 2024
• Mitchell Parker: bWAR of 0.7 for 2024
• DJ Herz: bWAR of 0.7 for 2024

I’m tempted to say Irvin despite having slightly less bWAR than Taylor, if only because I expect Taylor to be a rotation guy for us for several more years.

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

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

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

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

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

So, generally speaking this translates to for 2024:

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

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

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

Important Links for Rule-5 consideration:

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

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

Group 1: Newly Eligible 2021 draft College Players this year

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

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

Group 1-A: 2021 NDFAs

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

Summary: Schoff low-likelihood maybe

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

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

Summary: Hassell a lock to be protected.

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

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

Summary: no candidates

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

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

Summary: Cronin decent likelihood, Solesky low likelihood.

Group 5: IFAs: 2019 and older

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

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

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

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

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

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

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