Nationals Arm Race

After reviewing all the 2015 pitching staffs, I projected where I thought everyone would start in 2016.

Now that the four full-season affiliates have been announced, lets see how my predictions turned out.  As always, the Big Board (maintained by SpringfieldFan) is a great resource to track everyone.

Notations here: * = lefty, ^ == new off-season acquisition.  Also, “Missing” usually means “Stuck in Extended Spring Trianing/XST” or in organizational limbo.

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MLB Predicted

• Rotation: Scherzer, Strasburg, Ross, Gonzalez*, Roark
• Bullpen: Papelbon, Treinen, Rivero*, Perez*^, Kelley^, Gott^, Petit^
• D/L: Barrett (60-day DL)
• out of organization: Zimmermann, Fister, Storen (traded), Thornton*, Janssen, Carpenter, Stammen (non-tendered)

MLB Actual Opening day

• Rotation: Scherzer, Strasburg, Gonzalez*, Ross, Roark
• Bullpen: Papelbon, Treinen, Rivero*, Perez*, Kelley, Belisle, Petit
• D/L: Barrett (60-day DL)

Discussion: only one surprise from the pre-Spring Training prediction for this team: Matt Belisle makes the team ahead of Trevor Gott.  Otherwise everyone is in the roles they were acquired to hold.  There was some question about whether Blake Treinen would get optioned early in the spring, but not now.  The order of the starters wasn’t right: Ross is being treated like the 4th starter and Roark the 3rd, I guess.

It probably wasn’t too hard to predict 12 out of the 13 spots in the MLB roster, so we won’t pat ourselves on the back too much.  Lets talk minors.

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AAA Predicted

• Rotation: Cole, Jordan, Espino, Voth, Laffey*^, THill, Arroyo^
• Bullpen: Martin, Solis*, Grace*, Brady^, Bacus, de los Santos, Runion, Velasquez^, Masset^, EDavis, Burnett*^
• Release Candidates: McGregor, Walters
• out of organization: Billings, Bleier*, Swynenberg, Fornataro, Meek, Runion, Lively, Gutierrez, Valverde, Delcarmen, RHill, Overton

AAA Actual

• starters: Cole, Jordan, Espino, THill, Voth
• spot starts/swingman: Laffey*
• bullpen: Martin, Solis*, Grace*, Runion, Massett, EDavis, Gott
• dl/restricted: Arroyo, Brady
• in AA: Bacus, de los Santos
• missing: no one
• cut/released/FAs: McGregor, Velasquez, Walters, Burnett (opted-out)

Discussion: No surprises in the Rotation: we predicted 7 guys in the AAA rotation competition and ended up with the 5 we predicted, a 6th as the swing-man/spot starter and the 7th (Arroyo) on the D/L for the time being.

The bullpen has some surprises: Gott as previously mentioned was projected in the majors; the other 6 bullpen members were in the 10 projected guys competing for the AAA spots.  Two guys got pushed to AA.  Brady starts on the D/L.  Both my release candidates did in fact get released, along with off-season MLFA Velasquez.  The real surprise making the AAA team was Masset.

Burnett opted out when he didn’t make the MLB team, but it wasn’t a stretch to predict that happening.

No real projection surprises though, all in all.  Nobody who we projected to start in AA got moved up; only a couple guys who got moved down (Bacus and de los Santos).  I’m slightly surprised de los Santos is in AA and it makes me question even more his 40-man add and usage last year (3 days of service time and now two options blown).

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AA Projected

• Rotation: Spann*, Giolito, Simms, Alderson, RLopez, Mapes, Gorski^
• Bullpen: Mendez, Harper*, Shackelford^, NLee*, Benincasa, Suero, Thomas*, Walsh*, Robinson^, Whiting^
• Release Candidates: Rauh, Bates, Self, Dupra
• out of organization: Purke*, Pivetta, Simmons, Demny, Ambriz, Gilliam

AA Announced

• starters: Giolito, Simms, RLopez, AWilliams, Mapes
• spot starts/swingman:
• bullpen: Mendez, Harper*, NLee*,  Suero, Fish*, Bacus,  Gutierrez, de los Santos
• In High-A: Thomas*, Robinson, Whiting, Rauh, Self
• dl/restricted: none
• missing: Spann*, Alderson, Shackelford, Benincasa, Bates
• cut/released/FAs: Gorski, Walsh*, Dupra

Discussion:

The big surprise here is that Austen Williams made the AA team; I had him at High-A.  Perhaps it isn’t THAT big of a surprise given how well he pitched last year, but it does seem to go away from the Nats’ proclivities to start guys at their prior season’s level and have them “earn” early to mid-season promotions.  He joins a pretty high powered duo of Giolito and Lopez.  Gorski was an off-season MLFA brought in for competition and he didn’t win.  Only one of my four release candidates was in fact released (Dupra): the other three got dumped to XLS or High-A, which is good for them but not good for the massive log-jam of recently drafted college arms who need spots in A-ball.

In the bullpen, we’ve talked before about the surprising release of Jake Walsh.  There’s 5 guys stuck in XST limbo for now, a couple of which are release candidates.  One name that popped out of the blue is Robert Fish, who signed an under-the radar MLFA deal in mid February and who apparently hasn’t pitched professionally in two full seasons.  He must have had a pretty good spring.

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High-A Projected

• Rotation: AWilliams, Fedde, Valdez, Dickson, Bach*, Van Orden,
• Bullpen: Johanssen, Amlung (swingman),  Napoli*, Orlan*, Glover, Brinley, Sylvestre*
• Release Candidates: RPena, Turnbull*
• out of organization: Schwartz, Howell, CDavis, MRodriguez, Cooper (just released)

High-A Announced

• starters: Fedde, Valdez, Estevez, LReyes,  Whiting
• spot starts/swingman: Sanchez,
• bullpen: Brinley, Glover, Johansen, Orlan*, Robinson, Self, Thomas*
• dl/restricted: Rauh, Sylvestre*,  Turnbull*
• missing: Bach*
• cut/released/FAs: Walsh, Dupra, Dickson, Van Orden, Amlung, Napoli*

Discussion: My High-A predictions show just how out of whack my “reading the stat lines” predictions can be, especially for starters.

In the Rotation, AWilliams earned a jump to AA.  I thought Dickson and Van Orden were solid rotation candidates; instead they got released.  Lastly, I thought both Estevez and Reyes were repeating Hagerstown; Estevez missed the whole season and Reyes posted a 4.82 ERA there last year.  Instead they’re opening day starters for Potomac.  Not even close here.

In the Bullpen, we got Johanssen, Orlan, Glover, Brinley, Sylvestre and Turnbull right (not too bad prediction wise), though the last couple guys are on the D/L and still may be release candidates.  Who did we miss on?  Robinson was an off-season MLFA (who signs MLFAs for high-A?), and Sanchez I had projected to repeat after posting a 4.86 in Hagerstown last year.

 

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Low-A Projected

• Rotation: LReyes, JRodriguez, ALee, Dickey, Hearn*, Crownover*
• Bullpen: MSanchez (swingman),  Guilbeau*, Borne*, Rivera Jr., Gunter, Peterson, Baez
• release candidate: Estevez, DWilliams, DRamos, Boghosian, Mooney, Pirro
• out of organization: Ullmann, KPerez, Mooneyham, Johns (just released)

Low-A Actual

• starters: JRodriguez, ALee, Hearn*, Crownover*, Guilbeau*, Bach,
• spot starts/swingman:
• bullpen: Rivera Jr, Peterson, Baez, VanVossen, LTorres, RPena, DeRosier,
• dl/restricted: JMorales
• missing: Dickey, Borne*, Gunter, DRamos, Mooney, Pirro
• cut/released/FAs: Amlung, Van Orden, Napoli*, DWilliams, Boghosian

Discussion

From a starter standpoint, we did a pretty good job projecting who would be in Hagerstown’s rotation.  Four of the Six projected candidates “seem” like they’re in the rotation (full disclosure, we’re kind of guessing who these teams are using as starters until we see the first turn through the rotation).  The misses?  LReyes, who surprisingly is in High-A, and Guilbeau, who I thought would be on the team but in a relief role.

In the bullpen; we missed on Sanchez (who made High-A), Borne and Gunter (both of whom are in XST for now).  In their place are a slew of guys who I was projecting to be elsewhere.  I thought both VanVossen and DeRosier were release candidates after poor 2015 seasons in Short-A; instead they’re in the opening day bullpen.  I had LTorres in the Short-A bullpen after mostly failing as a short-A starter.

Lastly there’s Bach and RPena; I had both projected in Potomac.  I thought Bach had a perfectly good Low-A season last year and has nothing yet to prove in the Sally League.  Pena returns to Hagerstown for the third time; he pitched in Low-A in 2013 and 2014.  You have to think this is a planned short stint before he returns to at least High-A.

No real surprises in the “Missing/XST” crew: Dickey is the biggest profile name here but it seems to me he was injured last  year so its hard to pass judgement on his stats anywhere.  Borne‘s numbers were basically identical to the likes of Hearn and Guilbeau’s; he missed out in the 2016 competition.  Gunter might make sense as a mid-season promotion to cover for injury.  Ramos was hurt most of the year last  year.

In the “release candidate” section, I was clearly wrong about Estevez.  DWilliams and Boghosian have already indeed been released.  And both Mooney/Pirro missed out on the full-season roster and are in XST limbo.

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Let the games begin!  Are there surprises for you guys in these rosters?

(Editor note: I was out of the country for the last week; good timing in terms of missing the snow, but not so much for trying to get on a flight back to DC.  Never got one actually; had to settle for a flight to JFK last night and a train ride ride down).

Now that we’re through all the 2015 Pitching staff review series, level by level, here’s a summary projection of what the pitching staffs may look like for 2016.  These projections are based on the 7 deep dive rotation reviews but are all put in one place.  Since player movement occurs daily, I may have missed one or two MLFA signings but these should be up-to-date as of the time of publishing.

All the reviews in the 2015 series:

• Washington/MLB 2015 review
• Syracuse/AAA 2015 review
• Harrisburg/AA 2015 review
• Potomac/High-A 2015 review
• Hagerstown/Low-A 2015 review
• Auburn/Short-A 2015 review
• GCL/Rookie 2015 review

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Nats System Staff projections for 2016 season

(* == lefty, ^ == MLFA or new acquisition for 2016)

MLB

• Rotation: Scherzer, Strasburg, Ross, Gonzalez*, Roark
• Bullpen: Papelbon, Treinen, Rivero*, Perez*^, Kelley^, Gott^, Petit^, Barrett (60-day DL)
• out of organization: Zimmermann, Fister, Storen (traded), Thornton*, Janssen, Carpenter, Stammen (non-tendered)

Quick Discussion: This assumes no more rotation acquisitions; if one occurs, bump Roark to long-man with Treinen then getting dumped to AAA save for injury (See next section for the Arroyo discussion).  It looks like the team can’t move Papelbon for anything of value and refuses to eat $11M and instead moved Storen for something we do value (a CF).  I know they’re still connected to random starters here and there, which continues my amazement in their lack of trust of Roark as an effective 5th starter (I guess his 50 innings in 2013 and 200 awesome innings in 2014 just weren’t convincing enough).  Honestly if they don’t trust Roark, then just call up Giolito.  This is their last season with Strasburg and one of their last with Harper, so “saving” Giolito at this “win now” point seems dumb.  We’ll see.

AAA

• Rotation: Cole, Jordan, Espino, Voth, Laffey*^, THill, Arroyo^
• Bullpen: Martin, Solis*, Grace*, Brady^, Bacus, de los Santos, Runion, Velasquez^, Masset^, EDavis, Burnett*^
• Release Candidates: McGregor, Walters
• out of organization: Billings, Bleier*, Swynenberg, Fornataro, Meek, Runion, Lively, Gutierrez, Valverde, Delcarmen, RHill, Overton

Quick Discussion: Both Hill and Davis took outright assignments to AAA to stick with the team after being DFA’d in the last few weeks: this could lead to some downstream moves in spring training (specifically someone like McGregor getting squeezed in a numbers game).  We have slightly overloaded the bullpen assuming that there’s some injuries to come.  Only a few “veteran MLFA” types listed here, a good sign for the system and its ability to generate upper-level minor league talent, but seemingly every other day we hear about more such signings, probably for competition purposes and/or to fulfil what seems to be the annual ritual of giving guys a few weeks of meal money to throw innings in spring training for one last shot at a roster spot.

The very recent signing of Bronson Arroyo is an interesting one; he’ll be 40, coming off of TJ and has shown himself to be effective even despite a lack of velocity even deep into his 30s.  Is he a competitor to Roark for the 5th starter spot?  Is this a favor to Dusty Baker?  For now, i’m putting him as AAA depth but have to think he’s got an opt-out if he doesn’t make the MLB team so he’s likely to be either the 5th starter or a FA come 4/1/16.

Post-publish edit: thanks to JohnC, I totally forgot about our early off-season MLFA signing of Sean Burnett, our old favorite loogy (who also happens to throw the ball right handed while shagging flies in the OF).  If he doesn’t have an opt-out, I’ll project him as a Syracuse loogy but perhaps behind Solis and Grace thanks to his lack of 40-man status.  I hope he’s still got it after two TJs.

AA

• Rotation: Spann*, Giolito, Simms, Alderson, Lopez, Mapes, Gorski^
• Bullpen: Mendez, Harper*, Shackelford^, NLee*, Benincasa, Suero, Thomas*, Walsh*, Robinson^, Whiting^
• Release Candidates: Rauh, Bates, Self, Dupra
• out of organization: Purke*, Pivetta, Simmons, Demny, Ambriz, Gilliam

Quick Discussion: here’s where we start to see some log jamming going on; we already have 6 good candidates for the AA rotation (and that was before the recently announced Gorski signing), 10 for the bullpen (some of which already have been promoted to AAA in 2015) and another 4 guys who could still slot in somewhere who i’ve called “release candidates” because of the numbers game.  That’s 20+ guys for 12-13 slots.  Do they get pushed down and cause cascading High-A fall out (where the story is the same?) or do we see some wholesale shredding of contracts this coming spring training?  Do you move UP guys like Giolito, Harper instead and cut AAA veteran MLFAs?

High-A

• Rotation: AWilliams, Valdez, Dickson, Bach*, Van Orden, Fedde
• Bullpen: Johanssen, Amlung (swingman),  Napoli*, Orlan*, Glover, Brinley, Sylvestre*
• Release Candidates: RPena, Turnbull*
• out of organization: Schwartz, Howell, CDavis, MRodriguez, Cooper (just released)

Quick Discussion: Again, I see this as an overloaded squad; 6 starters, 10 relievers.  Perhaps some AA guys drop down, perhaps there’s guys listed here to are more likely release candidates than sure things (Napoli?  Amlung?  Johanssen even?). We may eventually get our answer; the team just released Cooper despite my thinking he was more or less a lock for the Potomac bullpen in 2016.   I’m really curious to see what a couple of the starters here do this year in particular: Austen Williams and Erick Fedde.  We talked earlier about Fedde perhaps starting the season in Hagerstown … but as we’re about to see, there’s just so many guys for a couple of slots.

Low-A

• Rotation: LReyes, JRodriguez, ALee, Dickey, Hearn*, Crownover*
• Bullpen: MSanchez (swingman),  Guilbeau*, Borne*, Rivera Jr., Gunter, Peterson, Baez
• release candidate: Estevez, DWilliams, DRamos, Boghosian, Mooney, Pirro
• out of organization: Ullmann, KPerez, Mooneyham, Johns (just released)

Quick Discussion: 6 projected starters, another 8 for the bullpen, and another 6 relievers who … well, i’m not sure where you put them.  You can’t have 20 pitchers in XST can you?  Well, maybe you can and they can catch on with the short-season squads … but look at who is already projected for Short-A below.  In the comments section of the Short-A post a few weeks back, we talked about the four lefty college starters who were drafted and in the Auburn rotation (Hearn, Crownover, Guilbeau and Borne); all had more or less the same pro numbers in Auburn; who stays in the rotation moving up?  Who goes to the pen?  There were already 4 guys who made sense to project to the Hagerstown rotation; where are 4 more college lefties going to go?  Its almost like the team needs an entire additional low-A team to staff.

Short-A

• Rotation: Bourque, AMartinez, Valero, Watson
• Bullpen: Morales (swingman), LTorres, Acevedo, Harmening, Serrata
• release candidates: Feliz, Reynoso, Mills, DeRosier, VanVossen, Copping, Pantoja
• out of organization: Overton, Plouck, Webb, McDowell, Sylvestri

Quick Discussion: I’ve already got nearly a full squad of arms for short-A as it is, and we havn’t accounted for any 2016 draftees nor potential dropdowns from Hagerstown.  I just feel like there’s going to be some whole sale releases this spring.  Either that or Rizzo is going to draft nothing but bats in 2016.

Rookie

• Rotation: Avila, Fuentes, WPena
• Bullpen: CPena
• release candidate: De La Cruz
• out of organization: Salazar, Jauss, DVasquez, Morel, EGomez, Charlis, JRamirez, Costa, Uribarri, Mancini, Yrizarri, Bermudez

Quick discussion: practically nobody in the domestic system right now projects to repeat the Rookie league, which means that a) we should expect a ton of guys to make their way from the DSL and/or b) we should expect more 2016 draftees to start here.  Perhaps I should have done a review of the DSL guys to make predictions on who earned their way off the island.

 

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Guys who really impressed me in 2015 and to watch out for in 2016.  Kind of my own version of Luke’s “watch list” but I was definitely struck by several guys while doing these posts and here’s the list.

• MLB: Ross, Rivero
• AAA: Espino, Martin
• AA: Voth, Giolito, de los Santos, Harper, NLee
• High-A: Lopez, Mapes, Walsh
• Low-A: Valdez, ALee, Orlan, Glover, Brinley
• Short-A: AWilliams,Fedde, Rivera Jr, Johns (why was he released??)
• Rookie: Valero, Watson, Avila

 

 

This is the 7th and last in the 2015 Pitching staff review series, here’s a review of GCL/Rookie league pitching staff for 2015.  I generally don’t follow the Dominican Summer League teams, simply because there seems to be so little correlation of success there to success domestically.  Other parts of the 2015 series:

• Washington/MLB 2015 review
• Syracuse/AAA 2015 review
• Harrisburg/AA 2015 review
• Potomac/High-A 2015 review
• Hagerstown/Low-A 2015 review
• Auburn/Short-A 2015 review

For some historical perspective, here’s 2013’s version (featuring Lucas Giolito again),  2012’s version (Lucas Giolito was the feature pitcher) and 2011’s version (Jack McGeary the feature pitcher) of this post specifically for the GCL/Rookie league.  Had I done this post for 2014, I would have struggled to find a worthy player to feature but would have settled on Anderson Martinez.

All stats are courtesy of either milb.com’s GCL’s 2015 Stats page or via Fangraph’s GCL 2015 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 42 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.  The Nats GCL team basically gets two kinds of players; over-aged college draftees (since we basically only draft college arms) and DSL graduates who may or may not be ready for prime time.  So each type of guy may have his own caveats when looking at numbers.

GCL Pitching Staff movement throughout the year (* == lefty)

• Opening Day Rotation: Acevedo, Fuentes, Bermudez, Valerio, WPena
• End-of-Season Rotation: Fuentes/Baez, DeRosier, Watson/Mills*,  Avila, Reynoso*, WPena
• End-of-Season spot starts/swingman:  Serrata, Harmening, Acevedo
• End-of-Season bullpen:  De La Cruz, Cespedes, Pantoja,  Copping,   CPena, Gunter
• Mid-Season promotions: Peterson, Boghosian, Hearn*, Guilbeau*,Pirro,  Brinley, Howell, Valerio, Van Vossen
• Post-season end promotions: Baez, DeRosier (Feliz, Dickey?)
• up-and-back: Feliz
• down-and-back:
• demotions:  Bermudez (to DSL)
• dl: WDavis, Simmons
• cut/released/FAs: Mancini, Yrizarri
• GCL/Lower cuts pre-season: Salazar, Jauss, DVasquez, Morel, EGomez, Charlis, JRamirez, Costa, Uribarri

GCL starters.  Here’s an overview of the starters used in 2015, starting with the original starters, going all the way to the rehab spot starts.

• Carlos Acevedo got the opening day start and was used as a long-man the rest of the way, getting 29.2 IP across 10 appearances.  3.64 ERA, 1.11 whip, 3.61 fip, 20/9 K/BB.  Acevedo is an older DR signee, already 21 but only in his 2nd pro season.  These were decent enough numbers though and I can see him getting bumped up to Short-A; can’t quite see him making the Low-A bullpen though.  Outlook for Next Season: short-A bullpen.
• Steven Fuentes went 3-4 with a 5.22 ERA in 39.2 IP in his first season domestically after excelling as a 17yr old in the DSL last  year.  33/15 K/BB ratio but his peripherals were iffy: 1.54 whip, 4.14 fip.   His K/9 rate seems promising and he’s young enough that there’s no reason to push him along: I think he repeats the GCL in 2016.  Outlook for Next Season: GCL rotation.
• Juan Bermudez struggled with the GCL squad, posting a 6.91 ERA in 14.1 IP and got demoted back to the DSL.  There he also struggled and the squad released him in August.  Outlook for Next Season: out of the organization.
• Maximo Valero excelled in the GCL, going 4-1 with a 1.72 ERA across 36.2 IP.  32/7 K/BB and a sub 1.00 whip.  He earned a promotion to Short-A by mid August and finished the season there, posting a 2.63 ERA in Short-A with a 15/3 K/BB ratio.  He has not yet turned 21 and looks like he could be an excellent IFA signing.  I think he makes sense at this point to compete for the Low-A rotation; problem is that there’s just way too many arms already competing for that rotation.  I think he could end up as a long-man in Hagerstown and then get pushed to the Short-A rotation in mid June.  Outlook for Next Season: Short-A rotation.
• Wilber Pena had an ok first domestic season, going 1-6 with a 3.92 ERA, 1.51 whip and 36/12 K/BB in 39 IP.  Not great, but not horrible.  He won’t turn 21 until after next season, so I can see  him repeating the GCL to work on his WHIP.  Outlook for Next Season: GCL rotation.
• Joan Baez was tried out in Low-A and Short-A briefly before settling back into the GCL for the majority of the season; there he exceled, posting a 2.13 ERA in 9starts/42IP.  42/19 K/BB.  This was his 2nd go-around in the GCL and he improved across the board.  He’s a bit of an older IFA signing (he just turned 21 in December, so 2016 will still be his age 21 season), so he makes sense to try out again in Hagerstown in 2016.  I’m not sure he’s going to make that rotation though; he may be destined for the bullpen.  That being said, the team clearly wants him to stick as a starter.   Outlook for Next Season: Low-A long-man/spot starter.
• Yorlin Reynoso got one quick start in Auburn before getting demoted back to the GCL to repeat the level; he ended up going 1-3 with a 5.66 ERA, 1.51 whip, 26/14 K/BB ratio in 35 GCL innings as a 19yr old.  These are improvements over 2014’s GCL stint, and he’s still young, so I can see the team sticking with him.  But he can’t play in Viera forever.  2016 needs to see some improvement; he needs to stick in the Short-A rotation.  Outlook for Next Season: Short-A rotation competition/release candidate.
• McKenzie Mills went 0-5, 7.27 ERA  with 24/28 K/BB in 34.2 ip across two levels.  He posted a 4.46 fip, .405 babip  while in Short-A then got dropped back to the Rookie league, where he threw 23 IP at a 7.04 ERA clip.   Rough season for Mills, who couldn’t make the jump to short-A, then struggled when back in rookie ball.  Just way too many walks to be effective, but likely hangs around a bit longer since he can just hang out in XST and try to pick back up on next year’s short season squads again.  2016 may be a make-it or break-it year though.  Outlook for Next Season: Short-A rotation competition/release candidate.
• Matt DeRosier went 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.  Outlook for Next Season: Short-A rotation competition/release candidate.
• Tyler Watson went 1-1, 0.00 ERA  and 16/4 k/bb in 13ip, 1.81 fip, .226 babip in the GCL.  The Nats 2015 34th round over-slot signee did not disappoint.  He’s young but he looked dominant in his first pro innings.  I’ll bet he stays in XST and debuts next year on the short-A squad.  He’s young though; so don’t be surprised if he repeats the GCL entirely to build up innings.  Outlook for Next Season: Short-A rotation.
• Mick VanVossen went 0-2, 4.83 ERA  across 2 levels.  23/13 K/BB in 31.2 ip, 4.09 fip, .260 babip in GCL (where he spent most of the year).  Nothing too special here; struggled when he got to Auburn but only had 6ip there.  Needs to show a better K/BB ratio to compete next  year.   And a college senior in the GCL isn’t going to cut it; he needs to make next year’s short-A bullpen and succeed or he’ll be axed.   Outlook for Next Season: Short-A bullpen competition/release candidate.
  
• Rehab Guys:
  • Ian Dickson had two rehab starts for the GCL: see High-A write-up for more.
  • Brian Rauh had one rehab start and a couple other appearances for the GCL: see AA write-up for more.
• Short Timer Guys waiting to get assigned to the proper level:
  • Taylor Guilbeau featured briefly (2 appearances, 1 start) in GCL before rightfully joining the Short-A rotation where he belonged.  See Short-A write-up for more.
  • Taylor Hearn also featured briefly (2 appearances, 1 start) in GCL before rightfully joining the Short-A rotation where he belonged.  See Short-A write-up for more.

GCL Relievers: taking a look at the relief corps.  We’ll organize relievers by going by IP from most to least.  Anyone with than 10 IP or who was solely doing rehab will get cursory analysis at the end.

• Russell Harmening went 1-0, 2.86 ERA in the GCL with 16/4 K/BB in 22ip, 3.26 fip, .303 babip.  He was a college junior draftee but a young one; he didn’t turn 21 until after the season was over.  I’d say he makes sense to slot into the short-A bullpen in 2016.  Outlook for Next Season: Short-A bullpen.
• Brayan Serrata fared well in his first professional innings after a significant layoff since signing in 2012.  He had no innings in 2012, 2013 or 2014 (at last as far as milb.com knows).  This year in his turning-21 age season he posted a 1.80 ERA in 20 GCL innings (14/8 K/BB).  I’m guessing he’s been hurt for a while; now he’s healthy and needs to move up.  I’m guessing he does another season in XST and slots into the short-A bullpen.  Outlook for Next Season: Short-A bullpen.
• Calvin Copping was 1-2, 4.76 ERA in the GCL 14/5 K/BB in 17ip, 4.01 fip, .305 babip.  So-So numbers for a college guy in the rookie league.  As with his fellow middle-of-the-road senior sign pitchers, he needs to show more dominance if he wants a job out of spring 2016.  Outlook for Next Season: Short-A bullpen competition/release candidate.
• Angher Cespedes posted a 5.14 ERA in 14IP in his first domestic season after being a relatively old DR signing.  He’ll turn 22 next year and doesn’t seem likely to do much outside of complex ball; i’ll say he repeats the GCL if the team retains him.  Outlook for Next Season: GCL bullpen/release candidate.
• Jorge Pantoja was 1-1, 5.84 ERA in the GCL, 11/3 K/BB in 12ip, 2.74fip, .395 babip.  Looks like some potential there with a K/inning and a FIP that flatters  his ERA.  Probably needs more time.  Outlook for Next Season: Short-A bullpen competition/release candidate.
• Carlos Pena signed as an NDFA and posted a 9.82 ERA in 7 GCL innings.  He got hit hard but he did strike out a guy an inning, so perhaps he hangs around the complex for antoher shot.  Outlook for Next Season: GCL bullpen
• Pedro Avila is a youngster who was an 2014 IFA signing and who *destroyed* the DSL in 2015; 87/17 K/BB in 59.2 innings and was summoned to Viera in Mid August.  He threw just one 4-inning outing before the season ended but he looks quite promising.  He’s profiling as a starter and seems like a good bet to be the GCL’s opening day starter in 2016.  Outlook for Next Season: GCL rotation.
• Kida De La Cruz had three short outings in June and then didn’t appear afterwards, presumably getting hurt but not going on the D/L.  A lost season for the 2014 IFA signee, who will turn 22 next year and seems to be far too old for the GCL.  Outlook for Next Season: GCL bullpen/release candidate.
• Deibi Yrizarri had just one 2015 GCL appearance, did not retire a batter, and was released.  He posted a 9.08 ERA last year in the GCL and I guess the team had seen enough.  Seems like a quick hook though for a guy who they kept hanging around the complex for months.  Outlook for Next Season: out of baseball.
• The following guys threw a handful of rehab innings and are mentioned only to complete the analysis of everyone who appeared in the GCL this year:
  • Johansen, RPena, DRamos
• The following guys threw a handful of innings before getting quickly promoted to the proper level and are mentioned only to complete the analysis of everyone who appeared in the GCL this year:
  • Feliz, Howell, Pirro, Brinley, Boghosian, ALee, Peterson

Summary

Not too many pure relievers in the GCL; mostly they’re tandem starters each pitching 3-4 innings per rotation turn.  And the Nats treatment of the GCL these days seems to basically be finishing school for their DSL stars since they rarely sign anyone from high school.  Nonetheless, I project a ton of guys getting bounced from the Short-A bullpen competition so perhaps that’s who will reside in the GCL next  year.

This is the 6th in the 2015 Pitching staff review series, here’s a review of Auburn/Short-A’s pitching staff for 2015.  Other parts of the 2015 series:

• Washington/MLB 2015 review
• Syracuse/AAA 2015 review
• Harrisburg/AA 2015 review
• Potomac/High-A 2015 review
• Hagerstown/Low-A 2015 review

For some historical perspective, here’s 2013’s version (featuring Jake Johanssen),  2012’s version (Brett Mooneyham was the feature pitcher) and 2011’s version (Nathan Karns the feature pitcher) of this post specifically for Auburn/Short-A.  Had we done this series in 2014, we likely would have featured Reynaldo Lopez, who had a 0.75 ERA in 7 starts and 36 innings.

All stats are courtesy of either milb.com’s Auburn’s 2015 Stats page or via Fangraph’s Auburn 2015 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 (and we’ll say this same thing in the GCL post): this is short-season ball, so nobody’s got more than a few dozen 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.

Auburn Pitching Staff movement throughout the year (* == lefty)

• Opening Day Rotation: Dickey/LTorres, JRodriguez, Fedde, Crownover*, Baez, Mills
• End-of-Season Rotation: Gilbeau*, Borne*, Baez, DeRosier, Hearn*, Crownover*
• End-of-Season spot starts/swingman: Valerio
• End-of-Season bullpen: Mooney, Pirro, Overton, Boghosian,  MRivera, Johns, LTorres, Van Vossen
• Mid-Season promotions: LReyes,  Bach*, KPerez, DWilliams, Glover, JMorales, Lee, Brinley,Fedde, Peterson, JRodriguez
• up-and-back: Johns, LTorres
• down-and-back: Feliz, Dickey
• demotions: Reynoso*, Mills*, Baez, Gunter
• dl/restricted: Bourque, AMartinez, McDowell, Sylvestri
• cut/released/FAs: Ullman, Webb*, Plouck*

Auburn starters.  The rotation started the season with several “tandem” starter pairs, not quite going to a full A/B starter set but getting relatively close.  Here’s an overview of the 12 starters used in 2015, starting with the original starters, going all the way to the rehab spot starts.

• Robbie Dickey had two bad starts in Hagerstown before getting dumped back to Auburn in time to get the ball on opening day.  From there the jury is kind of out: for the entire year: 6.65 ERA, 16/17 k/bb in 23ip (6 starts).  He was incredibly wild and then didn’t pitch after 7/25/15, accumulating just 23 IP on the year.  Was he hurt?  There was no record of a D/L trip, just an assignment back to XST after a while.  All in all, a pretty disappointing season for our 2014 4th round pick.  Where does he go from here?  Is the team just being too impatient with him, yanking him from Hagerstown after just a few innings?  Outlook for Next Season: attempting the Low-A rotation again.
• Jefry Rodriguez bounced between Short-A and Low-A again this season, starting in Hagerstown but pitching most of the year in Auburn.  At the end of the season, he led Auburn in both IP and starts.  All told; 4-10 with a 5.42 ERA between the two levels.  While he maintained a 2-1 K/BB ratio in Short-A, he was nearly 1/1 in Low-A (27/25 K/BB in 42.2 low-A innings).  The team likes him as a starter … but this is the 2nd year in a row he’s posted a 6+ ERA in low-A.  He’s still young though (he turned 22 mid-season) so I can see him repeating his 2015 season; in the Low-A rotation.  If he struggles again though, I think it may be time to move him to the bullpen and look at converting him to a late-innings reliever.  He can definitely strike guys out (67 Ks in 68 Short-A innings against college competition), so perhaps there’s a new stage in his career if he can’t figure out starting.  Outlook for Next season: Low-A rotation.
• Erick Fedde threw 8 effective starts in Auburn, going 4-1, 2.57 ERA in Short-A Auburn with 36/8 in 35ip (8 starts), 2.60 fip, .346 babip.  He then got bumped up to Hagerstown where he finished out the season.  See Low-A write-up for more.  Outlook for Next season: Low-A rotation to start.
• Matt Crownover went 1-4, 3.81 ERA in Short-A with 34/9 K/BB in 49.2 ip (13 app, 10 starts), 3.40 fip, .301 babip.  His whip was decent on the year (1.17), mostly due to his great K/BB ratio (4/1).  Nothing bad but nothing mind blowing out of Crownover’s numbers in Short-A.  Not a bad return for an under-slot ACC lefty starter.  I see him competing for the Low-A rotation; there’s no reason not to keep him moving up as a college draftee from the ACC.  Outlook for Next season: Low-A rotation competition, likely in the pen.
  
• Joan Baez bounced around the system a bit in 2015, getting 5 starts in Auburn to the tune of a 7.13 ERA.  See GCL write-up for more.
• McKenzie Mills got hit hard in 4 appearances in Auburn before spending the rest of the season int the GCL.  See GCL write-up for more.
• Taylor Guilbeau went 3-3, 3.54 mostly in Short-A after starting briefly in the GCL with 31/9 K/BB in 51 ip (11/10 starts) .2.89 fip, .356 babip.  His FIP looks solid based on his competition but he may get bumped to the bullpen to focus on being a lefty reliever thanks to the large number of arms in the system.  I put him behind his fellow 2015 draftees Crownover and  Hearn in this regard thanks to his senior sign status and low club investment (fairly or otherwise; it is what it is).  Outlook for Next season: Low-A rotation competition, likely in the pen.
• Taylor Hearn went 1-5, 3.56 in Short-A with a 38/13 K/BB in 43ip (10/10 starts), 3.40 fip, .346 babip.  Hearn joined his fellow lefty first 10 round starters in the Auburn rotation a couple of weeks into the short season and was completely effective, averaging nearly a K/inning with decent control.  He’s done nothing to jeopardize his advancement for 2016 and should compete for a low-A rotation gig.  Outlook for Next season: Low-A rotation competition.
• Grant Borne went 1-4, 3.59 in Short-A with 32/7 K/BB in 47.2 ip (15 apps, 5 starts), 2.99 fip, .321 babip.  Its amazing how similar Hearn, Crownover, Guilbeau and Borne’s numbers were, each profiling as a command/control lefty starter in Short-A.  Outlook for Next season: Low-A rotation competition with the rest of his fellow lefty 2015 draftees.
• Mariano Rivera Jr. got 3 starts before it was clear he needed to be pushed to relief; see the reliever’s section.
• Matthew DeRosier had two bad starts in Auburn before getting dumped back to the GCL; see the Rookie league write-up for more.
• Maximo Valero had 4 appearances and one start in Auburn after a late season promotion: see the GCL write-up for more.

Auburn Relievers: taking a look at the relief corps.  We’ll organize relievers by going by IP from most to least.  Anyone with less than 10 IP will get cursory analysis at the end.

• Luis Torres was Dickey’s “tandem” starter for a while, getting zero “starts” but pitching mostly longer stints usually on the same schedule as Dickey.  We saw this with several others and will treat them as “relievers” for the purposes of this post.  Season stats: 5-1, 5.66 ERA, 4.54 fip, 1.37 whip, 22/17 K/BB in 35 innings.  Torres got bumped up at season’s end to provide a bit of cover in Low-A but didn’t merit the promotion based on his production.  In his age 21 season he showed he still has some work to do and regressed badly from his 2014 production in Short-A.  Where does he go from here?  I think he’s destined to miss out on the Hagerstown bullpen, spend more time in XST and try Short-A again in 2016.  Outlook for Next Season: short-A bullpen.
• Mariano Rivera Jr, went 1-2, 5.45 ERA in Short-A with 26/3 K/BB in 33IP (19 app, 3 starts).  2.70 FIP, .388 babip.  Rivera was tried as a starter and quickly failed, getting moved to the pen, where he was much better.  Starter ERA: 13.00.  Reliever ERA: 2.63.  His seasonal ERA isn’t nearly as bad as it looks thanks to some bad luck; his FIP is good and his K/BB rate looks good as well.  He profiles like his father; slight, live arm, good stuff as a reliever.  I can see him moving up the ladder as a back-of-the-bullpen reliever.   Perhaps a disappointment that a 4th round pick was relegated to the bullpen after just three starts … but could be a quick moving arm on a team that clearly needs them.  Outlook for Next Season: low-A bullpen/closer.
• Adam Boghosian went 3-0, 4.28 era across 2 levels with 16/18 k/bb in 27ip, 5.59 fip, .162 babip in short-A.  Anytime you have more walks than strike-outs, its a bad thing.  And he posted a mediocre ERA despite an unbelievably low babip; his numbers are likely even worse with a longer sample size.  Another senior sign that may get the axe once full-season rosters get set next spring.  Outlook for Next Season: low-A bullpen/release candidate.
• Cody Gunter went 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.  Outlook for Next Season: low-A bullpen.
• Kevin Mooney, was 1-0, 5.40 ERA in Short-A with a 15/13 K/bb in 21.2 innings, 4.95 fip, .333 babip.  Not a great debut for the local kid Mooney, who was last seen blowing both super-regional games that enabled UVA to surprisingly make its way to the CWS (where even more surprisingly they ended up winning).  Far, far too many walks given how many punch-outs he had, his FIP was still way up there even given a BABIP not really that out of line.  Needs to step it up if he wants a full-season job.  Outlook for Next Season: low-A bullpen competition/release candidate.
• Tommy Peterson was 0-0, 2.66 in Auburn with 13/4 K/BB in 20 relief innings, 2.83 fip, .318 babip as part time closer.   Not too many innings to judge on here; looks like a good option for the Hagerstown 2016 bullpen.  He was one of the few Auburn hurlers from the 2015 class to get the bump up to low-A in 2015.  Outlook for Next Season: low-A bullpen competition.
• Connor Overton went 1-1 with a 3.72 ERA (13/5 K/BB in 19.1 IP) after getting cut loose from Miami’s short-A squad and quickly getting snapped up last July.  He’s an oddity; a 22-yr old MLFA already making the rounds of the lower minors.  He briefly got called up to AAA at season’s end but is currently un-attached.  With Washington’s glut of arms, i’m not sure he did enough to make the team think he was worth keeping on for a full-season spot and I think the Richmond product goes elsewhere (Atlee HS in Mechanicsburg and then ODU in Norfolk).  Outlook for Next Season: in another organization.
• Sam Johns blitzed short-A (1.42 ERA in 19 innings) after struggling in Hagerstown.  See Low-A write-up for more.
• Matt Pirro was 0-0 3.71 ERA  across two levels, ending in Short-A.  14/11 k/bb in 17ip, 4.52 fip, .372 babip in short-A.  Not great numbers; too many walks, but his ERA/FIP likely the result of a bit of unlucky babip.  In a battle to stay employed though going into next year by virtue of his senior sign status.   Outlook for Next Season: low-A bullpen/release candidate.
• John Feliz didn’t get a ton of innings in 2015: throwing just 17.1 across both short-season squads.  In Auburn he had a 4.38 ERA in 12 innings and didn’t pitch after July 28th (but didn’t go on the D/L).  He may have been hurt and just not officially gone on a D/L.  More or less a lost season for Feliz, who just turned 22, was an old IFA and has yet to perform outside of complex ball.  He may not get too many more chances; I see him getting one more shot at Short-A before getting cut loose.  Outlook for Next Season: short-A bullpen/release candidate.
• Ryan Brinley was unhittable in 10 innings in the NY Penn league and was bumped up; see the Low-A write-up for more.
• Other Relievers who had less than 10 IP in 2015
  • Jose Morales got blasted in two Low-A starts after three quick relief appearances (8ip total) in Auburn, then spent the rest of the year on the D/L.  See Low-A write-up for more.
  • Andrew Lee struck out 12 guys in 8 innings in the NY Penn and was bumped up.  See Low-A write-up for more.
    
  • Koda Glover struck out 11 guys in 6 innings in the NY Penn and was bumped up.  See Low-A write-up for more.
  • Mick VanVossen spent most of the season in the GCL; see rookie league write-up for more.
  • Cole Plouck got sent to Auburn, had two appearances in 10 days, gave up just 2 hits and one run in 5 innings … and then was released.  He had decent 2014 numbers in the GCL; this one is curious to me.  I guess the team saw all they needed to see in XST.  Outlook for Next Season: out of baseball.
  • Joey Webb was released 6/25/15, losing out in the numbers game when the 2015 short-season college draftees started flowing in.  He, like Plouck, clearly were not impressive enough during XST to merit any further consideration after run-of-the-mill 2014 seasons.  Outlook for Next Season: out of baseball.
  • Yorlin Reynoso pitched one game in the first week of the season, walked 6 guys and got demoted to the GCL.  See Rookie write-up for more.
  • Ryan Ullmann got stuck in XST to start the season, hooked up with Hagerstown 5 weeks into the season, got hit hard, was dumped to Auburn, had one appearance and then was summarily released.  Quite a quick downturn of events for Ullmann, who was always going to be a long shot (30th rounder out of a small school).  Outlook for Next season: out of baseball.
  • David Ramos threw 2.1 innings of rehab ball for Auburn before returning to Hagerstown: see low-A write-up for more.
  • Two guys (James Bourque, Anderson Martinez) both spent the whole season on the D/L; both are starters who should compete for spots in 2016 after the lost season.  Outlook for Next Season: Short-A rotation competition.
    
  • Another two guys (Chase McDowell, Michael Sylvestri) were put on the “restricted list” at some point in 2015, usually indicating voluntary retirement.  Outlook for Next season: out of baseball.

Summary

Auburn was not a good team this year; they were 35-58.  And a lot of that was due to the “brain drain” of the pitching staff; inside of a short season 11 guys got bumped up and beyond.  Some of them quickly dominated Short-A and earned their promotion, others trickled up as the season moved on.  In the end, the staff was anchored by a quartet of college lefty 2015 draftees with strikingly similar numbers, and it should be interesting to see how this group performs moving forward.

This is the 5th in the 2015 Pitching staff review series, here’s a review of Hagerstown/Low-A’s pitching staff for 2015.  Other parts of the 2015 series:

• Washington/MLB 2015 review
• Syracuse/AAA 2015 review
• Harrisburg/AA 2015 review
• Potomac/High-A 2015 review

For some historical perspective, here’s 2013’s version (featuring Pedro Encarnaction),  2012’s version (Aaron Barrett was the feature pitcher) and 2011’s version (Taylor Jordan the feature pitcher) of this post specifically for Hagerstown/Low-A.  Had I done this post in 2014 I would have “featured” Lucas Giolito, who dominated in 2014 for the suns (10-2, 2.20 ERA).

All stats are courtesy of either milb.com’s Hagerstown 2015 Stats page or via Fangraph’s Hagerstown 2015 page.   Also useful here are the Big Board and the Nats Draft Tracker since so many of these lower-minors guys are recent draftees.

Note; while its relatively easy to do reviews for the upper levels of the system, once we get lower we’re usually talking about a lot of short sample sizes.  I’ll depend on text from my “draft class” write-ups where appropriate.

Hagerstown Pitching Staff movement throughout the year (* == lefty)

• Opening Day Starters: AWilliams, Bach*, LReyes, Van Orden, Valdez
• End of Season starters:  Amlung, Bach*, Lee, Fedde, JRodriguez, LReyes
• End of Season spot starts/swingman:  MSanchez
• End of Season bullpen:  Napoli*, Cooper, DWilliams,  Glover, Brinley, KPerez, Peterson
• Mid-Season promotions: Mapes, Valdez,  Thomas*, Purke*, AWilliams, Orlan*, Walsh*, Rauh, Howell
• up-and-back: Amlung, AWilliams, Amlung
• down-and-back: Van Orden, LReyes, Bach*
• Mid-Season demotions:  Webb*, Ullman, JRodriguez, Dickey, Baez, Johns, LTorres, DeRosier
• End of Season DL: Estevez, DRamos, JMorales, Van Orden
• Mid-Season cut/released/FAs: Mooneyham*

Hagerstown starters.  The rotation started the season with AWilliams, Bach*, LReyes, Van Orden, Valdez.  18 guys got starts in 2015.  Here’s an overview of the starters used, starting with the original five starters, going all the way to the rehab spot starts.

• Austen Williams blitzed the Sally league (8-1 with a 2.10 ERA) and forced a promotion to Potomac mid-season, where he continued pitching well.  See High-A write-up for more.  Outlook for Next season: High-A rotation to start with an eye on quick promotion.
• Connor Bach: Posted a 6-4, 3.85 ERA with 106/69 K/BB in 110 ip (20 starts) in Low A as a member of the rotation for much of the season.  4.08 fip, .311 babip.  Not too shabby for a 21st round senior sign from a relatively unknown baseball school (VMI).  Perhaps too many walks, but nearly a K/inning in full-season ball portends well for his future.  At the very least he could move up as a lefty specialist.   Outlook for Next season: High-A rotation.
• Luis Reyes went 6-7 with a 4.82 ERA in 24 starts and 117.2 IP, both leading the Hagerstown squad.  1.42 whip, 4.87 fip.  Reyes signed relatively late for a Dominican player (at age 18) but has steadily progressed out of the DSL and through the short-season leagues.  This was his first stint in full-season ball and at age 20 could be excused for getting hit somewhat hard.  A 72/50 K/BB ratio isn’t promising; he maintained much better K/9 rates in the lower levels.  I figure he’ll repeat Low-A looking to improve his numbers and see if he can regain some of his swing and miss stuff.  Outlook for Next season: repeating Low-A rotation.
• Drew Van Orden went 5-5, 3.61 ERA for Hagerstown with 47/34 K/BB in 92ip (15 starts), 4.33 fip, .254 babip.  Not a bad season for the under-slot 2014 5th round senior sign, who’s clearly sticking around.  He was mostly a spot starter for Hagerstown this year, getting a bunch of starts during the turmoil of the rotation.  He ended the season on the DL after giving the team 92 decent innings.  His FIP is a bit weak thanks to overall lucky BABIP contact but he has given no reason not to put himself into the discussion for that same role in Potomac next year.  Outlook for Next season: High-A rotation competition.
• Philips Valdez dominated the Sally league, going 5-2 with a 1.47 ERA and quickly earned a promotion to Potomac.   See High-A write-up for more.   Outlook for Next season: High-A rotation
• Jefry Rodriguez bounced between Short-A and Low-A again this season, starting in Hagerstown, pitching most of the year in Auburn and ending in Hagerstown.  See the Short-A write-up for more.  Outlook for Next season: Low-A rotation.
• Mario Sanchez was Hagerstown’s long-man/spot starter all year, getting 8 starts in 29 appearances and posting a 4.86 ERA along the way.  70/18 K/BB ratio in 90.2 innings, 1.28 whip, 4.18 whip, .301 babip.  Sanchez is even  younger than the other DSL grads on this team (he didn’t turn 21 until after the season was over, so 2016 will be his age-21 season).  Good control (nearly 4 strikeouts per walk) but was a bit homer prone (11 homers in 90 innings).  He’s undersized (6’1″) and I wonder if he’s not destined to continue to be this rubber-armed innings eater for the organization.  Its the same way he’s been used all along; few starts but lots of IP per appearance.  I also think he needs to improve his numbers before moving up, and he’s  young enough to repeat a level without really stalling his progress.  Outlook for Next season: Low-A swingman again.
• Justin Amlung is a bit of an oddity; he’s was a 24-yr old MLFA after getting cut from the Cubs’ high-A affiliate in May of 2015.  The Nats signed him and had him repeating Low-A for his third straight year.  He (like Sanchez) served as a swing-man, getting 19 appearances and 8 starts for Hagerstown, posting a 4.22 ERA along the way.  He had a great 42/7 K/BB ratio in 64 low-A innings, 1.14 whip, 3.70 fip.  He was promoted towards the end of the season and had a nice stretch for Potomac before the seasons’ end.  He was immediately declared a MLFA but has re-signed for 2016.  Outlook for Next season: high-A bullpen/swingman.
• Matt Purke had 8 starts and 32 IP for Hagerstown during his tour of the Nats farm system in 2015: see AA write-up for more.
• Erick Fedde evenly split his season between Short-A and Hagerstown.  He was 4-1, 2.57 ERA in Short-A Auburn with 36/8 in 35ip (8 starts), 2.60 fip, .346 babip.  He then got bumped up to Hagerstown where he threw another 29 innings across 6 starts with lesser stats (1-2, 4.34 ERA).  A good  post-Tommy  John debut season for  our 2014 1st rounder Fedde, despite the rather restrictive innings limits put on him; he was limited to just 5ip per start for a total of 64ip on the season between two levels.  Given his mediocre stats in Hagerstown and the Nats historical promotion schedule, he could start 2016 in the Hagerstown rotation with a quick move up to the Potomac rotation.  I could be wrong though; looking at the state of my projected High-A rotation I could also easily see him starting the year in Potomac.  There’s just so many arms competing for the Low-A rotation he may be forced up.  Outlook for Next season: High-A rotation.
  
• Andrew Lee posted a 5-1, 1.63 ERA across 3 levels, ending up in Hagerstown where he spent most of his first pro season.  47/10 K/BB in 38.2 innings (16/5 starts), 2.19 fip, .250 babip specifically in lowA where he spent most of his time.  An intriguing arm for sure and more than held his own in 5 Low-A starts.  He’s the fastest riser so far of the 2015 draft class and he’s easily in the mix for the Hagerstown 2016 rotation.  Outlook for Next season: Low-A rotation to start; could be a fast riser.
  
• Jose Morales got blasted in two Low-A starts after three quick relief appearances in Auburn, then spent the rest of the year on the D/L.  Not much to glean from his year; is he a starter or a reliever?  He only threw 30-some odd relief innings in 2014; I think he’s being used as a long-man/spot starter arm for now.  I would guess he’ll start 2016 in XST with an eye of hooking on with Short-A again.  Outlook for Next season: Short-A bullpen.
• Ryan Ullmann got stuck in XST to start the season, hooked up with Hagerstown 5 weeks into the season, got hit hard, was dumped to Auburn, had one appearance and then was summarily released.  Quite a quick downturn of events for Ullmann, who was always going to be a long shot (30th rounder out of a small school).  Outlook for Next season: out of baseball.
• Other Guys who got starts for Hagerstown:
  • Joan Baez got 3 starts for Hagerstown in June, got hammered, and spent the rest of the year in short-season ball.  See GCL write-up for more.
  • Jeff Howell had two starts for Hagerstown before getting a few more in Potomac as he converted to the mound.  See High-A write-up for more.
  • Brian Rauh had two “rehab” starts for Hagerstown and spent most of the year in Harrisburg.  See AA write-up for more.
  • Robbie Dickey had two starts in Hagerstown before getting dumped back to Auburn.  See Short-A write-up for more.
  • Robert Orlan had one spot-start for Hagerstown; see the reliever section.
  • Wirkin Estevez spent the entire season on the D/L: he’ll compete for a Low-A rotation spot in 2016.

Hagerstown Relievers: taking a look at the relief corps.  We’ll organize relievers by going by IP from most to least.  Anyone with less than 10 IP will get cursory analysis at the end.

• Andrew Cooper: 2-2, 3.53 ERA with 35/16 K/BB in 63.2 relief IP for Low-A Hagerstown, 3.63 fip, .283 babip.  Improved his numbers across the board while repeating Low-A.  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.  Outlook for Next season: High-A bullpen.
• David Napoli 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.  Outlook for Next season: High-A bullpen.
• Robert Orlan went 3-1, 3.00 ERA with 85/28 K/BB ratio in 72 relief IP between LowA and HighA.  Orlan bounced between Potomac and Hagerstown all season, ending up in HighA with pretty good numbers in a “more than a loogy” role.  Especially impressive is 85 Ks in just 72 ip.  He’s older for these levels, inarguably, but could put himself in a good position by continuing to succeed in 2016.  I see him in the Potomac bullpen again with an eye towards a June promotion to AA when the short-season promotions come due.   Outlook for Next season: High-A bullpen.
• Samuel Johns went 3-4, 4.31 ERA between LowA and ShortA with 39/17 k/bb in 62.2 relief innings, 4.63 fip, .290 babip in lowA.  He struggled in LowA, but then dropped back to ShortA and was dominant.  Not great, but certainly not bad for a 31st round 5th year senior as compared to what has happened to other 5th year senior signs on this list.  Maybe not the best stuff, but has been effective.  My guess is that he either makes the Hagerstown team next spring or is cut loose, but the fact that he hung around this long gives him some more room to work with.  Outlook for Next season: Low-A bullpen.
• Kevin Perez threw 36 relatively effective innings for Hagerstown after throwing 18 relatively ineffective innings for Potomac to start the year.  The team signed him as a MLFA early in 2015 after he was dumped out of the Low-A Royals affiliate but I doubt he showed the team enough to stick with him given the number of arms rising out of the short-season rosters.  Outlook for Next season: out of the organization.
• Deion Williams, went 1-2, 5.46 ERA with 22/18 K/BB in 29.2 relief innings with Hagerstown.  Williams was drafted as a SS but converted to the mound after a year or so.  Since then, he’s struggled, somehow making it onto the full-season Hagerstown roster in June after sitting in XST for two months.  There, he continued not to impress; his career ERA is now 6.12 across 103IP and the three lower levels of the minors.  I could see 2016 being a “make it or break it” year for him; he either makes the full season bullpen or he’s cut.  Outlook for Next season: Low-A bullpen competition.
• Koda Glover went 1-1, 1.80 ERA across 2 levels, getting promoted to Low-A after just 6 IP in Short-A.  Of course, in those 6ip he gave up just one hit and struck out 11, so it was pretty clear he was over-qualified for the league.  For the season: 38/2 K/BB in 30 ip (19app), 2.44 fip, .288 babips in LowA where he spent most of the year.  38 to 2 (!!)  K/BB ratio in 30 innings.  No wonder he was an over-slot deal; the 2015 draftee is one of the highest rising guys in the class so far.  Glover profiled very well and should be in the mix for a High-A bullpen slot in 2016 already.  Outlook for Next season: High-A bullpen.
• Brett Mooneyham was 0-2 with a 6.41 ERA in 19 ineffective innings for Low-A Hagerstown before the Nats finally cut the cord and released him on 6/3/15.  Mooneyham was in Low-A for the third successive season, having failed to make the cut in Potomac in each of 2013 and 2014.  You’d have to say that he’s one of the more higher-profile drafting failures of the Mike Rizzo era.  Or maybe not; the team had to go over-slot to sign Giolito and may have skimped for the rest of the draft.  Outlook for Next season: out of the organization.
• Ryan Brinley went 1-4 1.44 ERA  across 3 levels this year with a 16/1 K/BB in 31.1 ip, 3.85 fip, .292 babip in low-A (where he ended up).  Great 27th round find so far in Brinley, who may not have a ton of swing and miss but certainly seems to have some command (1 BB in 31 innings??).  Could be a nice little middle relief option going forward, someone who can keep his team in games.  I could see him in the High-A bullpen next year based on his command of Low-A.   Outlook for Next season: High-A bullpen.
• Jake Walsh threw 17 scoreless innings in Hagerstown before getting bumped up to High-A.  See High-A write-up for more.
• David Ramos threw 13 innings of middle relief for Hagerstown before getting hurt; he spent most of the summer going “rehab” assignments all throughout short-season ball before being “activated” once the full-season was done.  Not much to glean from his season; his ERAs were not pretty anywhere he went.  He’s now 24, in his fourth pro season outside of the DSL and has yet to post an ERA below 6.46 in any of his multiple stops.  Honestly, I’m surprised he made the full-season bullpen in 2015.  I’d guess he’ll take another shot at Hagerstown’s bullpen in 2016 and if he doesn’t make it, he could be facing an April 1 release.  Outlook for Next season: Low-A bullpen competition.
• Other Relievers who got less than 10 IP for Hagerstown this year:
  • Tommy Peterson: threw 6ip in the last week of the season: see Short-A write-up.
  • Tyler Mapes threw 6 shutout IP before getting bumped to Potomac: see High-A write-up.
  • Joey Webb threw 5 innings early in the season before ending up in Auburn.  See Short-A write-up.
  • Luis Torres threw 3 innings to cover in mid July: See Short-A write-up.
  • Diomedes Eusebio is normally a 1B and threw one inning at some point.

Summary

It was a successful season for Hagerstown hurlers; I count 6-7 guys who earned promotions by pitching well in Hagerstown.  A good number of them should feature in 2016 for either Potomac or Harrisburg.  This didn’t help the Suns much, as they finished both halves right around .500, not quite good enough for a playoff spot.  2016’s staff will have some familiarity to it; I think a good portion of the 2016 opening day rotation will look just like the 2015 end-of-season rotation, mirroring the Nats recent habit of having players repeat levels in overlapping seasons and doing mid-season promotions.

 

This is the 4th in the 2015 Pitching staff review series, here’s a review of Potomac/High-A’s pitching staff for 2015.  Other parts of the 2015 series:

• Washington/MLB 2015 review
• Syracuse/AAA 2015 review
• Harrisburg/AA 2015 review

For some historical perspective, here’s 2013’s version (featuring Taylor Jordan), here’s 2012’s version (Nathan Karns the feature pitcher) and 2011’s version (Danny Rosenbaum the feature pitcher) of this post specifically for Potomac/High-A.  Had we done this in 2014, we would likely have “featured” Gilberto Mendez for his good work closing.

Note; while its relatively easy to do reviews for the upper levels of the system, once we get lower we’re usually talking about a lot of short sample sizes.  And i’m sure there’s people reading this who saw every pitcher on this post throw in 2015; by all means feel free to comment if you believe i’ve mis-characterized someone here.  Of all the write-ups I expect readers here to have better opinions of Potomac players by virtue of actually seeing them week in/week out, so definitely pipe up.

All stats are courtesy of either milb.com’s Potomac 2015 Stats page or via Fangraph’s Potomac 2015 page.   Also useful here are the Big Board and the Nats Draft Tracker since so many of these lower-minors guys are recent draftees.  And here’s the Baseball America Minor League Free Agent (MLFA) tracker.  And here’s a list of the official MLB MLFA declarations for 2015, though these are more useful for the AAA and AA squads frankly.

Potomac Pitching Staff movement throughout the year (* == lefty)

• Opening Day rotation: Pivetta, Rauh, Schwartz, Suero, Spann*
• End of Season Rotation: Mapes, Dickson, AWilliams, Spann*, Howell
• End of Season spot starts/swingman: Dupra, Thomas*,  Valdez
• End of Season bullpen:  Self,   Walsh*, Johansen, Orlan*, MRodriguez
• Mid-Season promotions: Dupra, Bacus, Suero, Pivetta, Mapes, Giolito, Purke*, Simms, Rauh, Roark
• up-and-back: Mapes, Spann*, Dupra
  
• down-and-back: Thomas*, Rauh
• demotions: KPerez, Napoli*, Amlung, Orlan*
• D/L: RPena, Turnbull*, Sylvestre*,  Lopez
• cut/released/FAs: Mirowski, Henke, Encarnacion, Schwartz (retired), CDavis

Potomac starters.  The rotation started the season with Pivetta, Rauh, Schwartz, Suero, Spann*.  19 guys got starts in 2015.  Here’s an overview of the starters used, starting with the original five starters, going all the way to the rehab spot starts.

• Nick Pivetta was your opening day starter, and by the end of the season he had gotten promoted and traded.  He earned his promotion, going 7-4 with a 2.29 ERA in 15 starts for Potomac.  He was not as successful upon his promotion to AA, but that was still enough to catch the eye of Philadelphia and be the bounty for them ridding themselves of Jonathan Papelbon‘s ego and contract.  If he was still with the team, he would have been the ‘featured” player above and not Mapes for his dominant season in High-A.  Outlook for Next Season: Philadelphia’s AA team in Reading, where he gets to go against Harrisburg and all his old teammates a few times a year.
• Brian Rauh threw 7 excellent High-A starts before getting promoted to AA, where he spent most of the year.  See AA write-up for more.  Outlook for Next season: AA rotation or bust.
• Blake Schwartz had three High-A starts, struggled, and retired.  After a fantastic 2013 season in Potomac, he just never could make the jump to AA and (not that I’ve ever talked to him or anything) perhaps got discouraged after not really progressing further up the chain.  Outlook for Next season: retired, out of baseball
• Wander Suero pitched pretty effectively for Potomac in the first half in a swingman role, getting 16 appearances and 5 starts and posting a 2.41 ERA, 1.20 whip, and a 3.27 FIP.  Not much in the way of swing and miss though; 39/18 K/BB in 56 innings.  After moving up, he struggled in AA but inched up his K/9 rate while focusing more on middle relief.  No reason to think he can’t compete in AA in 2016, and is still relatively young (he turned 24 just after the season ended so he’ll still be 24 all next year).  Outlook for Next season: AA bullpen, perhaps High-A bullpen again if he gets squeezed in a numbers game.
• Matthew Spann bounced between High-A and AA all year, posting mid 4 ERAs in both places.  See AA write-up for more.  Outlook for Next season: AA rotation.
• Reynaldo Lopez led the team in IP and starts for 2015, going 6-7 with a 4.09 ERA in 99 IP across 19 starts.  His stats: 4.09 ERA, 1.22 whip, 2.95 FIP and 94/28 K/BB in those 99 innings, all as a 21-yr old.  It isn’t hard to see why Lopez is highly ranked on “top 10” lists for Nats prospects; he more than held his own in High-A as one of the younger hurlers in the league.  The team held him back in XST for a few weeks to keep innings off his arm.  While most scouting reports think he’ll eventually end up in the bullpen (no third pitch, iffy mechanics, big arm), he’s obviously worth giving more chances to stick as a high-velocity starter (in the same vein as Yordano Ventura for example).  Outlook for Next season: AA rotation.
• John Simms threw an excellent half season for Potomac before getting bumped up mid-season; see AA writeup for more.  Outlook for Next season: AA rotation.
• Lucas Giolito threw an dominant half season for Potomac (86 ks in 69 innings) after being kept in XST for the first 5 weeks of the season (so much for those pre-2015 interviews where he proclaimed that he had no innings limits, eh?) before also getting bumped up mid-season; see AA writeup for more.  Outlook for Next season: AA rotation.
• Austen Williams blitzed the Sally league and forced a promotion to Potomac mid-season, where he continued pitching well.  In High-A he was 4-6 with a 2.59 ERA, 1.09 whip, 3.22 fip and 41/17 K/BB over 63 high-A innings.  The 2014 draftee is looking like a nice little find.  There does seem to be a bit of fortuitousness in his numbers (.253 BABIP and a delta between his ERA and FIP), so I could see the log-jam in the AA projected rotation keeping Williams back in Potomac for the first half of the 2016 season.  Outlook for Next season: High-A rotation to start with an eye on quick promotion.
• Philips Valdez dominated the Sally league and earned a promotion after two months.  In Potomac he bounced in and out of the rotation, getting 10 starts across 22 appearances and posting a 3.77 ERA in High-A.  Other numbers: 1.44 whip, 3.26 fip, 48/25 K/BB in 59 High-A innings.  Valdez has been around for a while; this was his *seventh* season in the Nats organization.  He just turned 24.  But he has relatively few innings on his arm; just 260 IP across those seven seasons (he missed the entirety of 2012).  He’s looking like he could be a low-profile decent starter going forward, though he may run out of time in the system before the team is faced with a tougher decision on how to keep him.  For now, I think he repeats High-A to start, is tried out as a full time starter, and we’ll see if he can push forward to AA in 2016.  Outlook for Next season: High-A rotation
• Tyler Mapes so far is a pretty good 2014 draft success story; he was a 30th round *senior sign* out of Tulane who was basically unhittable in Short-A last year, threw 6 clean innings in Low-A and was bumped up to High-A (the first 2014 draftee to get promoted that high) after just a couple of weeks.  Once in Potomac, he continued to pitch well in a swing-man role; 30 appearances, 8 starts, a 2.38 ERA across 90 innings, 1.22 whip, 2.78 FIP and 75/17 K/BB over 96 innings in High-A.  Not too shabby.  If it were me, I’d push him right to AA and stick him in the rotation, but as noted before I’m projecting an awful lot of starters to be in that Harrisburg rotation right now.  I’m curious to see how things shake out for someone like Mapes; he didn’t last to the 30th round as a favor to the Nats; is there something limiting in his capabilities that will cause him to suddenly top out like a lot of late-round senior signs?  We’ll see.  Outlook for Next season: AA rotation.
• Ian Dickson was hurt the first half of the season and finished 2015 the exact same place he finished 2014: in the Potomac rotation with decent to effective numbers.  2015 totals for Dickson: 3-3, 3.60 ERA in 12 appearances/8 starts.  We see a problem though: 31 ks and 39 (?!) walks in 40 innings in Potomac this year.  Wow; that’s a walk an inning.  He never saw this kind of walk rate before, so hopefully its just a remnant of whatever injury kept him out the first half of the year.  Nonetheless, he seems like he’ll be back in Potomac a third year until he can solve his walk rate issues.  Outlook for Next season: High-A rotation.
• Dakota Bacus began the season in Potomac, had 5 starts and 8 appearances and got bumped quickly to Harrisburg, where he played most of the season.  See AA write-up for more.
• Jeff Howell is a pretty interesting player.  He’s a career minor league backup catcher, having toiled in the lower minor leagues since 2005.  He signed on with Washington in 2012 and hung around as a backup between the levels for a couple of years.  Then suddenly, at the age of 32, he decided to try his hand on the mound.  Perhaps he was inspired by other Catchers-turned-Hurlers like Jason Motte.  He (presumably) hung out in XST for most of the season learning how to pitch, then threw a couple of games in the Rookie league, then for Hagerstown, then finally for Potomac at season’s end.  He struggled once he got to Potomac, giving up 9 runs in 13 innings but more importantly walking 17 guys while he was there.  He’s now a MLFA and one may think that he’d re-up with Washington since we’re the ones who gave him a shot.  We’ll see how the off-season goes.  He may choose to pitch elsewhere where he can be guaranteed a rotation spot (a tough one in our system, since we’re completely overloaded with arms from pitching-heavy drafts over the past few years).   Outlook for Next season: continuing his conversion to pitcher in another organization.
• Others who got starts in Potomac for 2015:
  • Matt Purke got three brief starts in Potomac before settling in Harrisburg for the year; see AA write-up for more.
  • Rehab starts for Potomac in 2015: Barrett, Roark, Janssen and Carpenter (though technically Roark’s were not rehab but “stretching out” starts).

Potomac Relievers: taking a look at the relief corps.  We’ll organize relievers by going by IP from most to least.  Anyone with less than 10 IP will get cursory analysis at the end.

• Justin Thomas was the bullpen leader in IP for Potomac in 2015, throwing 57 innings across 28 games, posting a 3.43 ERA, 1.21 whip, a 2.84 FIP and getting 50/18 K/BB in those 57 innings.  He’s a lefty but was used more as a long-man, not being limited to just short stints.  He’s looking great considering his limited draft pedigree (senior sign out of a small college in the 21st round) and I see no reason not to keep bumping him up the chain.  Outlook for Next season: AA rotation.
• Jake Johanssen was 1-7 with a 5.44 ERA, 1.81 whip, 4.69 fip with 48/27 K/BB in 48 relief innings for Potomac.  Johanssen was our top draft pick in 2013, has already been “demoted” from a starter to the pen, and now seemingly can’t perform in a relief role either.  Where do you go from here with him?  You and I know that his large bonus is a “sunk cost” and shouldn’t dictate his usage, but teams don’t seem to see it that way.  Just look at how long the Nats kept Brett Mooneyham around after it became clear he wasn’t capable of performing, even at lower levels of the minors?  I see Johanssen repeating High-A and trying to get his career back on track.  Outlook for Next season: High-A bullpen.
• Derek Self seems to be taking a step back in his career; after posting a 1.69 ERA through half a season in Potomac last year, he more than earned a promotion up to AA where he more than held his own.  However after just 14 innings in AA this year, he got dumped back to Potomac, thus repeating High-A for the third straight year.  He was solid again; a 4/1 K/BB ratio in middle relief, but where is his Nats career going at this point?  Obviously he needs to be in the AA bullpen next year, but you could have also said that last year and it didn’t work out.  There’s going to be a lot of AA bullpen competition; if he gets squeezed out does he get cut in 2016?  we’ll see.  Outlook for Next season: AA bullpen competition/Release Candidate.
• Brian Dupra is in a similar boat as Derek Self; he’s now 27 and spent most of his third successive year in Potomac.  He was promoted mid-season to AA but didn’t last long after getting hit hard.  Final Potomac stats for 2015: 2.79 ERA in 42 mostly later bullpen innings.  I think he’s going to be in a similar situation as Self this coming spring; if he cannot cut it at AA (and there’s plenty of competition for that bullpen), he may get cut loose entirely.  Not that it should matter, but it should be noted that Dupra was a senior sign for limited bonus money out of Notre Dame in 2011, so it could be a “make the team or get cut” situation.  Outlook for Next season: AA bullpen competition/Release candidate.
• Cody Davis was struggling early in the season, with a decent ERA but ugly peripherals (4.55 fip, 10/15 K/BB in 21 ip) and was released towards the end of June as upwards player movement started to need bullpen spots.  The undrafted MLFA signing from 2011 played parts of 5 seasons for the system but seemed to fall apart this year as he repeated High-A.   It does not look like he picked up anywhere and may be done.  Outlook for Next season: out of baseball.
• Manny Rodriguez only threw 21 innings between two different D/L stints this year, and then was released soon after the end of the season.  It seems that the team believed he never recovered from the injury that cost him two full seasons early in his minor league career.  Outlook for Next season: out of baseball.
• Jake Walsh threw 17 scoreless innings as a late-inning/closer in Low-A before getting bumped up to High-A in July.  From there out he posted a 3.66 ERA in 19.2 innings across 9 appearances with a 19/10 K/BB ratio.   There’s something odd going on with Walsh; why was he even in Low-A to start 2015?  He posted a sub-2.00 ERA across low- and high-A LAST YEAR, yet didn’t start in Potomac nor get considered for the AA rotation despite being a senior sign in 2013.  He now holds a CAREER 1.65 ERA and seems to me to more than have earned a shot at a look at a higher level.  Outlook for Next season: AA bullpen.
• Kevin Perez spent the 2nd half of the year in  Hagerstown after struggling early on in Potomac: see Low-A write-up for more.
• Robert Orlan spent most of the season in Hagerstown but posted a 2.20 ERA in Potomac in 16.1 August innings:  see Low-A write-up for more.
• Justin Amlung, similarly to Orlan above, spent most of the season in Hagerstown but posted an excellent 1.84 ERA in Potomac in 14.2 July and August innings:  see Low-A write-up for more.
• Other Relievers of note who had less than 10 IP for Potomac this year:
  • David Napoli had 8 IP for Potomac before getting demoted to Hagerstown:  see Low-A write-up for more.
  • Matt Purke threw 7 IP for Potomac during his tour of the Nats farm system in 2015: see AA write-up for more.
  • Erik Davis threw 3 re-hab IP in 2015; see AA write-up for more.
  • Tanner Roark threw one 4Ip start during his “stretch out” minor league stint; see MLB write-up for more.
  • Brenden Webb, normally an Outfielder, threw a 3Ip mop-up game (really?  they couldn’t find ONE reliever out of the 32 guys who threw innings for Potomac this year?)
  • MLBers Aaron Barrett, Casey Janssen and David Carpenter each had some re-hab innings; see MLB write-up for more.
  • A few guys spent the entire year on the D/L: Ronald Pena, Kylin Turnbull, Hector Sylvestre: all are looking at repeating Potomac next year if/when healthy.

Summary

Potomac certainly saw a lot of churn in its pitching staff; 32 total pitchers used (19 different starters including rehab starts by relievers).  Their leading IP was Lopez, who didn’t even hit 100 IP on the year.  There were at least 6-7 arms who earned their promotions to AA mid-season, a great sign for the rising tide of pitching talent in the system.  Lots of guys with ERAs that start with a “2” in the season-ending stats.  It didn’t help Potomac in the standings; they finished both halves several games under .500 and out of the playoffs.  This will create quite a competition for the AA staff next year: my projections at this point show at least 6-7 rotation candidates, 8-9 bullpen candidates and another 3-4 guys who are right at that age where they may be summarily cut if they don’t make the AA team in 2016.  Harsh, but good for the Nats, who could use all the bullpen help they can get.

After skipping the minor league pitching staff reviews in 2014 (that silly thing called work interfered), I’m back for 2015.  I’ll be reviewing the six minor league levels and the major league levels going from high to low.

In this series, we have already published the 2015 MLB review and the 2015 AAA review.

For some AA review historical perspective, here’s 2013’s version (featuring Nathan Karns), here’s 2012’s version (featuring Danny Rosenbaum) and 2011’s version (featuring Brad Peacock) of this post specifically for Harrisburg/AA.  In the missing 2014 post I likely would have “featured” either A.J. Cole or Matt Grace.

All stats are courtesy of either milb.com’s Harrisburg 2015 Stats page or via Fangraph’s Harrisburg 2015 Stats page.   Also useful here are the Big Board and the Nats Draft Tracker.  And here’s the Baseball America Minor League Free Agent (MLFA) tracker.  And here’s a list of the official MLB MLFA declarations for 2015, though these are more useful for the AAA squad frankly.

Harrisburg Pitching Staff movement throughout the year (* == lefty)

• Opening Day Rotation: Voth, Ross, Espino, Alderson, Swynenberg
• End-of-Season Rotation:  Bates, Voth, Rauh, Simms, Giolito
• End of Season spot starts/swingman:  Purke*
• End of Season bullpen: Mendez, EDavis, Suero, Lee*, de los Santos, Demny
• 9/1 promotions: Bacus, Roark
• Mid-Season promotions: Swynenberg, Espino, Ross, Demny, Simmons, Solis*, Bleier*, Runion, Harper*
• up-and-back: de los Santos
• down-and-back: Spann*
• demotions: Self, Dupra, Mapes, Amlung
• dl/TIL: Benincasa, Alderson
• cut/released/FAs/traded: Sisk, Ambriz, Pivetta (traded)

Harrisburg starters.  The rotation started the season with Voth, Ross, Espino, Alderson, Swynenberg.  Here’s an overview of the starters used, starting with the original five starters.

• Austin Voth not only was the opening day starter, he led the team in IP and in starts.  He posted a 6-7 record with a 2.92 ERA, 1.11 whip, 3.07 fip and had a 148/40 K/BB ratio in 157.1 innings.  Nobody else had more than 15 starts on the year for the Senators, meaning Voth was the unquestioned leader of this pitching staff all year.  He proved that his precipitous rise in 2014 was no fluke by posting solid numbers.  Thanks to a glut of starters above him, I can’t quite see him breaking into the MLB rotation (ala Jordan Zimmermann, who jumped straight from a solid AA season to the majors), but I can see him jumping ahead of some of the AAA starter-in-waiting guys (Cole, Jordan, Hill) if/when the opportunity arises to provide injury cover in the majors.  Outlook for Next season: AAA rotation and a MLB debut at some point in 20116.
• Joe Ross threw 9 solid starts in AA before getting called up and solidifying his place in the 2016 MLB rotation; see the MLB write-up for more.  Outlook for Next season: Nats #4 starter.
• Paolo Espino threw seven decent starts in AA before getting plucked to move up, spending the rest of the season in AAA.   See AAA write-up for more.  Outlook for Next season: AAA rotation.
• Tim Alderson had just 5 starts as a Feb 2015 MLFA signing before getting hurt and spending essentially the rest of the season on the D/L.  He has already elected free agency.  Outlook for Next season: in another organization.
• Matt Swynenberg made just two AA starts, got bumped to AAA to provide cover and then apparently elected to retire, spending the rest of the season on Syracuse’s restricted list.  See AAA write-up for more (though there’s not much more to tell).  Outlook for Next season: retired
• Colin Bates returned to Harrisburg for his second stint, converting more to a long-man/spot starter in 2015 than the pure reliever he was in 2014.  Results are mixed: he was 6-6 with a 4.28 ERA in 111.1 innings across 28 games/15 starts.  1.37 whip, 4.25 fip.  62/29 K/BB in those 111 innings.  A pretty low K/9 ratio for today’s power-heavy pitching game lends me to believe that Bates has reached his peak; I could see him pushed to the AAA bullpen or staying in AA bullpen again as a swingman based on the numbers, but either way he stands to play out 2016 as an org guy before hitting MLFA.  Outlook for Next season: AA bullpen.
• Richard Bleier gave AA 15 effective starts before getting pushed to the AAA rotation;  See the AAA write-up for more.   Outlook for next season: in AAA for another organization
• Dakota Bacus started in Potomac but got bumped quickly to Harrisburg, where he played most of the season (he was a 9/1 call-up to AAA to provide a few days of bullpen cover).  For Harrisburg he was 6-3 with a 3.51 ERA in 22 appearances and 11 starts.  1.29 whip in AA, 4.11 fip and a 53/29 K/BB in 89.2 AA innings.  Not bad, not great.  Bacus was the return for Kurt Suzuki trade in late 2013 and has steadily climbed the ladder; I can see him in the AAA bullpen next year.  He’s still just 24 and we have a couple more years of control, so he could still have an impact.  He’s survived one Rule-5 draft already; his goal in 2016 should be to put himself in a position to earn a 40-man spot.  Outlook for Next season: AAA bullpen.
• Matthew Spann bounced freely between High-A and AA this year, throwing slightly more innings in High-A but getting 10 starts in AA.  In those 10 AA starts, he was 2-2 with a 4.66 ERA, 1.61 whip, 3.70 fip and had a 35/25 K/BB ratio in 56 innings.  He ended the year where he began it; the High-A rotation.  Spann was the return for David DeJesus and already has 6 minor league seasons in him, so he may have found his peak level.  I could see him back in the mix for the AA rotation for one more season before hitting MLFA/getting released.  The fact that he’s a lefty though gives him a bit more of a stay of execution; his lefty vs lefty numbers are a bit better than against righies, so perhaps he could convert to relief if need be.  But he’s stuck as a starter for an awful long time; most guys wouldn’t last 6 seasons as a starter in the low-minors unless there was something there.  Outlook for Next season: AA rotation.
• Lucas Giolito had 8 starts for Harrisburg after a mid-season promotion from High-A.  He was 4-2 with a 3.80 ERA in those 8 starts, with 1.37 whip, 3.18 fip and 45/17 K/BB in 47.1 AA innings.  Gioloto took a bit of time to adjust to AA; 10 of the 20 earned runs he gave up (and 6 of his 11 walsk) in his 8 AA starts were in his first two appearances.  It took him weeks to get a home start, and he only made two home starts during his AA season.  Eventually he adjusted; throwing 7 innings of one-hit ball with 11 strikeouts in his home debut for Harrisburg.  Giolito got hit; he certainly wasn’t as dominant in AA as he was in High-A, but he’s also just turned 21 and there’s no mistaking the potential in his arm.  I think the team starts him in AA again, hoping for a 5-6 week earned promotion to AAA and perhaps a mid-to-late season call-up potential for 2016.  Outlook for Next season: AA rotation to start.
• John Simms earned his promotion from High-A to AA the same day as Giolito and also got 8 AA starts.  His results were mixed: 2-3 with a 4.40 ERA, 1.42 whip, 3.82 fip and 34/15 K/BB in 45 AA innings.  Simms showed more K/9 in AA than he did in High-A oddly, but wasn’t appreciably more hittable.  This was his second stint in AA and improved slightly from his 2014 numbers (where he had 11 starts with a 5.03 ERA).  Nonetheless, good progress for the 2013 11th rounder.  Outlook for Next season: AA rotation.
• Brian Rauh had an interesting tour of the Nats minor league affiliates in 2015, starting the season in Potomac, getting quickly promoted to Harrisburg, struggling, getting hurt, going to the D/L, doing a rehab assignment in Viera, then working his way back up the chain from Low- to High-A and ending the year back in the Harrisburg rotation.  He proved twice he was too good for High-A, and proved twice why he may  not be ready for AA.  Total AA stats on the year: 8 starts, 4.83 ERA, 1.41 whip, 4.95 fip and 29/10 K/BB in 41 AA innings.   2016 is sink or swim time for Rauh in AA; he can’t go back to Potomac for the fourth straight year.  Outlook for Next season: AA rotation or bust.
• Matthew Purke had a whirlwind off-season, getting DFA’d off the 40-man roster but then quickly re-signed to a MLFA contract for the 2015. season to give it one last go for the former big-money bonus 2011 3rd rounder.  He rose to AA where he pitched as a swing-man, getting 10 games and 5 starts, and did not impress.  6.29 ERA, 1.64 whip, 3.76 fip.  19/7 K/BB in 24 AA innings.  His lower minors numbers were much better … but at this point in his age 25 season, he needs to be competing well at the higher levels.  I think its clear that he’s not going to recover from his shoulder issues and it seems unlikely he’ll rise much above where he already has.  He has already declared as a MLFA and has signed with the White Sox as a MLFA for 2016.  Thus ends a long, drawn-out saga for a guy who I thought was a huge draft day coup for us.  Outlook for Next season: AA in the White Sox organization.
• Others who had a few starts for AA Harrisburg:
  • Nick Pivetta had 3 AA starts after getting promoted from Potomac before getting flipped for Jonathan Papelbon: see High-A write-up for more.
  • James Simmons threw a couple of spot starts in Harrisonburg, inbetween his regular reliever duties.  See reliever section for more.
  • Solis, Fister, Strasburg, Janssen and Roark each had one “start” during rehab assignments in Harrisburg; see MLB write-up for each.

Harrisburg Relievers: taking a look at the relief corps.  We’ll organize relievers by going by IP from most to least.  Anyone with less than 10 IP will get cursory analysis at the end.

• Gilberto Mendez keeps moving on up the system, posting a 3.84 ERA in a full season (61 innings) as a middle reliever in AA.  1.38 whip, 3.51 fip and 52/17 K/BB in those 61 innings.  Mendez’ numbers inflated somewhat dramatically from his last two years, his whip jumping from 0.94 to 1.38 with the jump to AA.  His K/9 stayed impressive though.  His BAA and BABIP look inflated so perhaps he had some bad luck going.  He’s still young (turned 23 after the season), and he could be a middle relief option in the majors relatively soon.  One thing I like about him is the way he keeps the ball on the ground: just one homer allowed in those 61 innings.  I think the team starts him in AA bullpen again looking for a 5 week promotion to AAA where he can hone his craft against more advanced/mature hitters.  It wouldn’t surprise me to see him in AAA, but right now the team has so many MLB-experienced arms that won’t make the 25-man roster that there might not be enough room in Syracuse for Mendez.  Outlook for Next season: AA bullpen to start.
• Abel de los Santos was a surprise callup in mid July, getting a premature add to the 40-man and a call-up so that he could throw to a handful of batters, then return back to AA.  Perhaps not the best use of an option.  Nonetheless, he was a 22yr old in AA holding his own (much like Mendez; in fact their birthday is just days apart in November).  For the year in AA; 3.43 ERA in 57.2 innings, 1.13 ERA, 3.39 fip and 55/12 K/BB in those 57 innings as an 8th/9th inning guy (he had 8 saves in 11 opportunities).  His numbers look similar to Mendez’s at first, but I think the team starts him in AAA since he’s on the 40-man, in order to get him some more experience against veteran hitters.  Side note: that trade of Ross Detwiler looking pretty good now eh?  de los Santos and new top10 prospect Chris Bostick for the OBE’d Detwiler, who didn’t last half the year before getting flat out released by Texas.  Outlook for Next season: AAA bullpen.
• Paul Demny started the year in AAA, got demoted after 10 innings and spent the rest of the season in Harrisonburg.  He had fantastic numbers in AA this year; 1.88 ERA, 60 Ks in 48 innings splitting time as the closer with de los Santos.  But its also his EIGHTH minor league season in the system.  He’s already declared as a MLFA and you have to think he’s looking elsewhere at this point, given the fact that half the RH relievers between AA and AAA got callups last year and he didn’t.  Outlook for Next season: with another organization.
• Bryan Harper, forever to be known as Bryce’s older brother, had a pretty darn good season, posting a 3.02 ERA in 45 innings with decent peripherals (33/15 K/BB, 1.18 whip, held lefties to a .185 BAA).  He earned a late-season call-up to AAA as well.   He survived the Rule-5 draft but sits behind several other lefty relievers at this point, two of which are already slated for AAA (Grace and Solis).  I could see him losing out on a numbers game and repeating AA in 2016, waiting for injuries to open up the log jam of lefty relievers in the organization.  Outlook for Next season: AA bullpen.
• James Simmons signed out of Indy ball and stuck with the Nats farm system for parts of two seasons, serving as a rubber-armed utility guy between AA and AAA both this year and last.  Oddly, he was hurling for AA, got called up to AAA to make one spot start in July … and then was released soon after.  His numbers weren’t great in 2014 but were improved in 2015, but as a 29-yr old now out of affiliated ball, it may be the end of the road for him.  Outlook for Next season: out of baseball.
• Erik Davis: returned from Tommy John surgery in 2014, got shelled in AAA and then was demoted to Harrisburg for the duration of the season.  He was effective in AA (2.65 ERA in 34 ip) but you have to ask yourself; where does the team go with him?  He’s now 29, still on the 40-man roster and doesn’t look like he made a full recovery in his first year back.  Given that he was a marginal right-handed middle reliever to begin with, I wonder if he’s ever going to have an impact with this team.  He still has a MLB option left (which he’ll use in 2016), but I have him as either option #1 or #2 to DFA if the team suddenly needs 40-man roster space.  If he survives on the roster to 4/1/16, I can see him tried in AAA bullpen again.  Outlook for Next season: AAA bullpen/release candidate.  1/6/16 update: Davis was DFA’d on the 40-man to make room for Daniel Murphy: we’ll update in this space when his roster status is finalized.
• Nick Lee earned a mid-season promotion after closing effectively for Potomac and showed some organizational intrigue while in AA.  While at Harrisburg he posted a 3.75 ERA with 29/19 K/BB in 24 innings.   Lots of walks, but also lots of Ks especially for a lefty.  On a whole, the team liked enough of what they saw to not only send him to the AFL but to also protect him on their 40-man roster.   He seemingly slots in as a lefty specialist in 2016 but sits behind Solis and Grace.  I think he starts in AA with an idea of moving up to AAA.  Outlook for Next season: AA bullpen to start.
• Hector Ambriz was signed in May, then released in June after getting hammered in 10 outings across four weeks.  He remains unsigned.  Outlook for Next season: out of baseball.
• Other Relievers who got innings for AA/Harrisburg in 2015:
  • Wander Suero: Pitched the first half of the season in High-A: see High-A writeup for more.
  • Sam Runion: split time between AA and AAA; see AAA write-up for more.
  • Derek Self started in AA but was demoted to High-A, where he spent most of the year.  See High-A writeup for more.
  • Sammy Solis: 13.1 IP in AA in-between assignments to AAA and MLB.  See MLB write-up for more.
  • Brian Dupra was up and down between Potomac and Harrisburg; See High-A writeup for more.
  • Robert Benincasa threw four innings in April and spent the rest of the season on the D/L.  A lost season.  Outlook for Next season: AA bullpen again.
  • David Carpenter appeared briefly for Harrisburg on a rehab stint; see MLB write-up for more.

Summary

20 guys got starts for Harrisburg in 2015, though the rotation as it were really was dominated by one crew for the first half, one crew in the second half.   A lot of the guys who featured for Harrisburg in 2015 seem like good bets to return for at least the start of 2016 thanks to the log-jam above them.   At some point though we’ll start to see movement through the system; a good number of these guys in AA need to move up or move on.

 

 

After skipping the minor league pitching staff reviews in 2014 (that silly thing called work interfered), I’m back for 2015.  I’ll be reviewing the six minor league levels and the major league levels going from high to low.  In this series, we have already published the MLB version for 2015.

For some historical perspective, here’s 2013’s version (featuring Tanner Roark), here’s 2012’s version (featuring John Lannan) and 2011’s version (featuring Tommy Milone) of this post for AAA Syracuse.  In the missing 2014 post I likely would have “featured” either Taylor Hill or Rafael Martin.

All stats are courtesy of either milb.com’s Syracuse Stats page or via Fangraph’s Syracuse Stats page.   Also useful here are the Big Board and the Nats Draft Tracker.  And here’s the Baseball America Minor League Free Agent (MLFA) tracker.  And here’s a list of the official MLB MLFA declarations for 2015.

Syracuse Pitching Staff movement throughout the year (* == lefty)

• Opening Day Rotation: Cole, Jordan, THill, McGregor, Billings
• Closing Day Rotation:  Espino, Bleier*, McGregor , THill, Jordan (Cole 9/1 callup)
• End of Season Swingmen: Walters, Billings
• End of Season bullpen:   Runion,  Gutierrez, Harper*
• 9/1 promotions: Solis*, Martin, Grace*, Cole
• Mid-Season Promotions: Rivero*,  Ross, Treinen
• Up-and-back: Martin, Grace*, Cole, Jordan, THill, Solis* (not counting 9/1 call-ups)
• Down-and-back: Bleier*, Runion
• Demotions: Spann* (was up for spot start), AWilliams (up for spot start),  EDavis, Demny,
• DL/restricted: Swynenberg
• Cut/released: Delcarmen, Lively (Japan), RHill*, Simmons, Meek (Korea), Valverde (opt-out), Fornataro

Syracuse starters.  The rotation started the season with Cole, Jordan, Hill, McGregor, and Billings.  It finished the year with Espino, Bleier, McGregor , THill, Jordan and Cole.  Here’s an overview of the starters Syracuse used, starting with the original five starters.

• A.J. Cole was Syracuse’s opening day starter in 2015.  On the year, he was 5-6, 3.15 ERA, 1.18 whip, 3.90 FIP and 76/34 K/BB in 105.2 innings.  Cole got yanked up and down a couple times on the year, with one ill-fated spot-start for the major league team where he looked completely out of his depth against Atlanta (not exactly the ’27 Yankees).  His K/9 is down, BB/9 is up from his stint in AAA in 2014, though his BAA improved significantly.  I’m struggling not to write him off; after all he’s only 23, he’s still listed in or near the top 100 prospects in all of the minors, and he still could have value.  I just don’t think its going to happen with the Nats.  He’s been pushed down on the starter depth chart and (save an injury) has no chance of making the 25-man roster in 2016.  So is there value in having him pitch another year in upstate New York?  I could see Cole getting flipped to a team that could use a cheap 5th starter candidate.  Outlook for next season: Syracuse’s opening day starter again, unless moved.
• Taylor Jordan was 5-6, 2.95 ERA, 1.15 whip, 3.41 FIP and 61/27 K/BB in 103 IP.   He’s slipping further and further away from a rotation job that seemed rather likely after his 2013 sterling debut.  His AAA numbers were pretty good this year but he got lit up in his one 2015 spot start (to be fair, it was against Toronto and the best offense in the majors).  His margin for error is just so much lower because he doesn’t get the K/9 that other guys do.  Unlike Cole though, Jordan doesn’t necessarily wow the scouts and may be tougher to move.  I think he plays out his options string as a AAA starter with occasional big league cover and then gives it a go in another organization.  Outlook for next season: Syracuse rotation again.
• Taylor Hill was 3-10 with a 5.23 ERA, 1.62 whip, 3.85 fip and 70/29 K/BB in 118 IP.  Not a good year for Hill, who got a handful of mop-up bullpen gigs in late May/early June and wasn’t entirely impressive while doing it.  See all that we’ve said for Cole and Jordan, but lower expectations a bit more.  I have Hill near the top of my “guys to get DFA’d to make room on the 40-man roster” at this point and he needs to figure out what changed between 2014 (2.81 ERA) and this year (5.23 ERA, both at Syracuse).  We won’t really know if he’s getting pushed out of the rotation until deeper dives into the AA rotation.  Outlook for next season: Syracuse rotation/release candidate.  1/6/16 update: Hill was DFA’d on the 40-man to make room for Stephen Drew: we’ll update in this space when his roster status is finalized.
• Scott McGregor (boy I have a hard time typing that w/o remembering the old Baltimore Orioles hurler from the mid 1970s) was 6-6 with a 4.04 ERA, 1.43 whip, 4.67 fip and 63/35 K/BB in 107 IP split between starting and relieving.  He started in the rotation, having signed as a MLFA in June of 2014 originally then re-upped with the Nats over last off-season to continue his role as AAA 5th starter/long-man.  But his performance slipped considerably this year.  I don’t see him listed on the MLFA tracker so its possible he’s signed through 2016 with the team, so we’ll assume he’s reprising his role again in 2016.  Outlook for next season: Syracuse long-man/spot starter
• Bruce Billings was 8-5 with a  3.63 ERA, 1.26 whip, 3.23 fip and 90/28 K/BB in 121 IP.  The MLFA produced well in a season spent in a similar role to McGregor; 4th/5th starter who made way for prospects as they got moved up but who eventually spent most of the year in the rotation.   His numbers are about what you’d expect for a veteran minor leaguer/classic AAA org guy; he’s declared again and will look to build on his decent 2015 with an organization where he has a better shot at getting called up.  Outlook for next season: in AAA for another organization.
• Paolo Espino had a nice season, getting promoted up from AA and giving Syracuse 20 starts of 3.21 ERA, 1.15 whip, 3.68 fip pitching (88/19 K/BB in 117 AAA innings).  The 2014 MLFA signing (as with McGregor) stuck with the team for 2015 and could be an interesting piece going forward.  Question is; is he a MLFA for this upcoming season?  My records and research disagree with each other: he’s *not* listed in the BA MLFA tracker nor is he on the official MLB declared MLFA list (links at the top), but the drat tracker says he’s a MLFA.  I’ll assume our private files are not better than MLBs and assume he’s still under team control.  Outlook for next season: Syracuse Rotation.
• Richard Bleier was 14-5 with a 2.57 ERA between AA and AAA this year.  65/16 K/BB in 171 IP.  Bleier had a nice season, working his way out of AA and finishing the year in the AAA rotation.  His K/9 is shockingly low given his stat line, perhaps why he’s not likely to draw much attention from the team’s executives on 1/2 street.  He’s a declared MLFA already for 2015 and likely plies his trade elsewhere next year.  Outlook for next season: in AAA for another organization.
• P.J. Walters was acquired mid-season from the Dodgers for cash: for the Chiefs he threw 60 innings of 5.35 ERA and got 5 spot starts towards the end of the year.  52/23 K/BB in his 60 innings for Syracuse on the year.  Walters has significant MLB experience, with 152 IP across several organizations dating to 2008.  He’s yet to really have a decent MLB stretch thought, and his AAA numbers are starting to look just as bad.  Given the team’s dearth of RH bullpen depth options though, I think its safe to say they’ll keep him around to see if he’s an option to consider.  Outlook for next season: Syracuse bullpen.
• Other guys who got spot starts here and there:
  • Joe Ross had 5 starts before getting called up to the majors.  See MLB write-up for more.  Outlook for next season: Nats #4 starter.
  • Matt Swynenberg had exactly one AAA start of 3 innings this year before spending the rest of the year on the restricted list, which usually indicates retirement.  We’ll see if he gets an official release this coming off-season.  Outlook for next season: retired/out of the organization.
  • Mitch Lively had 2 spot starts but was mostly a reliever; see the reliever section.
  • Sam Runion and Eric Fornataro each had a spot start but were primarily relievers; see the reliever section.
  • Matthew Spann, James Simmons and Austen Williams each got called up to AAA from lower levels to provide exactly one spot start.  See High-A for for Spann and Williams, AA for Simmons writeups.
  • Strasburg and Fister had one-two rehab starts for Syracuse in 2015.

Syracuse Relievers: taking a look at the relief corps.  We’ll organize relievers by going by IP from most to least.  Anyone with less than 10 IP will get cursory analysis at the end.

• Rafael Martin was Syracuse’s closer for a good portion of the season, getting 12 saves in 50 IP across 46 games.  We discussed Martin at length in the MLB writeup but will repeat our prediction here.  Outlook for next season: Syracuse bullpen/MLB reliever depth.
• Eric Fornataro was a waiver claim last off-season, then DFA’d off the 40-man roster before the season started.  He then failed to impress, posting a 5.54 ERA in 50 innings before getting released in July.  Outlook for next season: in another organization/out of baseball.
• Matt Grace had a 2.40 ERA in 48 IP and spent a decent amount of time on the MLB roster (17 ip across 26 appearances).  See MLB writeup for more.  Outlook for next season: Syracuse bullpen/lefty reliever coverage.
• Evan Meek posted a 2.15 ERA across 37.2 innings in the early part of the year, effective if a bit wild (33/19 K/BB in those 37 ip) and, after not getting consideration for a call-up, asked for his release to sign with a Korean team.  Outlook for next season: still in Korea or with another Organization.
• Sam Runion posted a 2.91 ERA in 65 IP across AA and AAA after getting picked up in June of 2014 as a MLFA.  1.43 whip, decent K/9 rates, just not enough to get a sniff at a MLB call-up.  Just a classic org guy who is a MLFA this year and likely plies his trade elsewhere next year.  Outlook for next season: MLFA, re-signed per BA ML transactions so AAA bullpen again (updated 12/29/15)
• Mitch Lively was in basically the same boat as Meek; put up good numbers (2.31 ERA, 0.97 whip, but wasn’t called up and decided to go overseas.  He was released on 6/17/15 so as to sign with a Japanese team.  He posted a 6.75 ERA in 16 games in Japan; not sure what the future holds for him.  Outlook for next season: still in Japan or with another Organization.
• Juan Gutierrez was signed off the AAA waiver wire in August 2015 and threw 34 mediocre innings (3.47 ERA)for Syracuse down the stretch in a classic “we need someone to pitch innings for us to finish the season” move.  He’s a MLFA and likely keeps on moving for 2016.  Outlook for next season: in another organization.
• Jose Valverde signed a month into the 2015 season with a typical veteran MLFA contract that guaranteed an opt out after a couple of months if the big club didn’t use him.  Valverde closed effectively for Syracuse until July, when he opted out.  He did not sign elsewhere for 2015.  He’s playing in the DWL but I wonder if he’s done; his last two MLB stints were both ugly.  Outlook for next season: in another organization/out of baseball.
• Manny Delcarmen had an 8.14 ERA in 21 IP across 18 appearances before getting released in early June.  He played out the rest of the season in Mexico.  Outlook for next season: in another organization/out of baseball.
• Rich Hill signed as a MLFA late in the 2015 spring from the  Yankees, pitched decently as a middle reliever in Syracuse and likely had an “out clause” forcing the team’s hand, who released him in late June.  He picked up with Boston, pitched well for their AAA squad, got promoted back to the majors, pitched lights out in 4 starts in the end of the season … and signed a $6M contract to pitch for Oakland in 2016. Go figure.  Did the Nats miss the boat here?  This isn’t the first time they’ve had a guy in their AAA rosters who went on to have significant success for another club (Colby Lewis, Marco Estrada, Chris Young).  Maybe they should have given Hill a 40-man job while they were trying out everyone else in late May/early June.  Maybe you could say the same thing about a whole bunch of the MLFA MLB-experienced veterans who passed through Syracuse’s roster in 2015.  Outlook for next season: Pitching for Billy Beane out in Oakland on a $6M deal.
• Other Relievers who appeared in AAA of note (not including Rehabbing MLBers): Outlook for next season for all of these guys seems the same: either continued “org guy” middle reliever or minor league free agent in another organization.
  • Solis, Treinen and Rivero each had a nominal amount of AAA innings: see MLB writeup for them.
  • Demny and Davis spent more time in AA than AAA: see Harrisburg write-up.
  • Everyone else not mentioned had 5 or less IP in AAA and were mostly in other levels.

Summary

34 different hurlers passed through the Syracuse locker room this year.  Phew.  And it seems like a huge percentage of them have already churned out of the organization, looking for their next stop.  I guess this is the way AAA teams go these days.  We may see more MLFA veteran arms coming into the system for 2016 given the number of guys they’re losing.

Its hard to say whether we really learned much from the AAA staff this year; the team kind of already knew what it had with its highest-end prospects in AAA (the likes of Cole, Jordan and Hill).  Almost the entire bullpen was veteran MLFAs who likely won’t be back, most of whom never got a chance to contribute to the major league team in its time of need in 2015.

The next (and last) in a series: previously we reviewed the 2015 season stats for the 2015 draft class, 2014 draft class, 2013 draft class and the 2012 draft class.

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 for the Nats 2011 class.
• My working XLS in Google for all this data (cut-n-pasted at the bottom).
• TheBaseballCube.com for really obscure stats for players.

Note: in previous posts we’ve used trending up, steady and down for prospect growth analysis.  For me, if a guy has debuted in the majors then he’s automatically a “success” in terms of prospect development and is an automatic “trending up” green.  We’ll add in “matriculated” as a category.  However, doing this analysis I’m finding myself listing guys as “trending down” even if they’ve advanced well in the system but have seemingly peaked and/or failed to reach their potential.  I’ll list them as “peaked” instead of trending down as a result.  Might be unfair, but when looking at guys who in some cases are entering their 6th pro season I think it is fair to pass some final judgement on their careers at this point.

It is also worth noting that the 2011 draft was the last of its kind before new CBA rules went into effect.  So what you see in 2011 isn’t what we see now.  Specifically:

• There used to be 50 rounds; after this draft it went down to 40.  And looking at the rounds 40-50 picks, you can understand why there was little need for those additional 10 rounds.
• There used to be no caps on bonus spending; after this draft, no more massive bonus spending to sign HS prep kids in lower rounds to 1st round money.
• And because of the new caps and the tracking of limits up to the 10th round, we now see teams often making “throw away” college senior signs in the 6th-10th picks to save on bonus dollars to go over-slot for high profile picks or later draft steals.  In 2011, these same guys were getting drafted in the 20th-30th round range instead.

---

Without further ado:

Round 1: (#6 overall) Anthony Rendon, 3B Coll Jr from Rice: slashed just .264/.344/.363in an injury plagued 2015 season after posting a 6.6 bWAR season in 2014.  While clearly he remains an injury risk, the potential he shows remains as one of the top players in the league.  Hopefully 2016 will see him returned to his natural position at third base, his natural batting position as 2nd in the lineup, and a return to form generally.  From a prospect development perspective, he’s more than reached his goal and you have to think that some of the teams that passed on him on draft day wish they had a do over.  Matriculated to Majors.

Round 1 (#23 overall): Alex Meyer, RHP Coll Jr from Kentucky: traded straight up for Denard Span in Nov 2012.  Since, the Twins have brought him along slowly, having him repeat AAA and as of the end of 2015 he has just 2 2/3rds major league innings.  What happened?  Perhaps he’s finally getting banished to the bullpen like most development types thought always would happen.  Matriculated to Majors.

Round 1-S (#34): Brian Goodwin, OF Juco from Miami Dade CC South: slashed .226/.290/.340 for Harrisburg in 2015, which represented a demotion from his 2014 assignment in AAA.  He’s on the 40-man roster (having been placed there to protect him against Rule-5), but may not be there for long.  Goodwin skipped High-A during that period when the Nats ownership was penalizing Potomac owners for the state of their field, and you have to wonder if it hurt his development.  He’s playing winter ball this off-season, perhaps in hopes of putting his name back in the mix in this organization.  Peaked at AA/AAA.

Round 2: Pick given to Philadelphia as compensation for Jayson Werth signing.  The Phillies used the pick to take a HS SS out of Florida named Roman Quinn.  He’s progressed nicely, slashing .306/.356/.435 this year in AA as a 22-yr old, albeit in limited action for the 4th successive year (injuries?).  Its impossible to know what the Nats would have done here, had they still owned the pick, but drafting a prep SS seems unlikely.  Then again, if they had this pick they might not have gone with the youngster Goodwin in the 1-S round.  Who knows.  Werth has totaled 9.2 bWAR in his 5 seasons here, which includes his -1.6 bWAR 2015 season dragging his totals down and nearly his whole 2nd season lost to injury.  A good “trade” in terms of the player versus the draft pick for sure. Was it a good contract?  Roughly 10 WAR for his $18M*5 =$90M, so about $9M/war.  Not so good.  We’re still not even to estimates above $7M/WAR and this contract was signed 5 years ago.  An argument for another time.

Round 3: Matthew Purke, LHP draft eligible sophomore from TCU: 3-6, 4.36 ERA with 43/17 K/BB across 64 IP (20 apps, 15 starts).  3.51/3.76 FIP in High-A/AA stints.  White a whirlwind season for Purke; he was released in Nov 2014 and I thought the team had cut ties.  A few days later, they signed him as MLFA in a clearly pre-arranged deal to get him off the 40-man (he was one of the last of a now-banned practice; 40-man draft day deals).   He jumped two levels in 2015 (from LowA through HighA to AA), ending the year as Harrisburg’s spot-starter/swing man and struggling there for the 2nd year in a row (6.35 ERA) … but perhaps not as bad as we think by virtue of the huge delta between his ERA and his FIP.  More concerning is his K rate; he just doesn’t mow ’em down like he used to.  What’s his projection at this point?  Loogy?  Long-man?  I don’t know.  I’m not confident that he’ll ever pan out though, so I’ll say generally Peaked at AA, since it wouldn’t surprise me at all to see him getting lit up again in AA next  year and just getting released.

Round 4: Kylin Turnbull, LHP juco from Santa Barbara CC: zero IP in 2015; on the Potomac D/L the entire year.  Had a relatively middling 2014 in High-A (3-3, 4.41 ERA) then never got out of the gate for 2015.  He was not well heralded at the time of the draft and hasn’t really done much to impress in parts of four minor league seasons (career numbers: 15-17 with 4.53 ERA).  It wouldn’t surprise me to see him get cut at the end of 2016 spring training if he can’t make the Potomac bullpen.  Peaked at High-A.

Round 5: Matt Skole, 3B Coll Jr. from Georgia Tech: slashed .234/.340/.417 between AA and AAA this year, 127/82 K/BB in 465 ABs.  20 homers.  Skole is now two full seasons removed from the awful 2013 injury that has more or less derailed his career.  Remember; it wasn’t that long ago that Skole was the Nats minor league player of the year (2012) and when he was routinely listed as the 3rd or 4th best prospect in the system.  Now he’s 26 in AAA, two years passed over in Rule 5 drafting and seemingly set to reach his 6-year MLFA barrier without really pressing for a MLB roster spot.  Can you see the Nats calling him up in 2016?  He’s limited to 3B on a team that (as it stands) has at least three or four of them on the MLB roster.  I think he may have reached his peak unless he blows up Syracuse early next year.  Peaked at AAA.

Round 6: Taylor Hill, RHP Coll Sr from Vanderbilt.  3-10 with a 5.23 ERA for Syracuse, 70/29 K/BB in 118 IP.  3.85 FIP.  Also gave the Nats 12 IP across 6 appearances in early June when they had a bullpen crunch.  His FIP shows that his ERA for Syracuse was misleading.  I think we know what we have in Hill at this point; softer tossing 4-A guy who can throw innings and serve as a decent utility/spare part arm for the team.  If you put all our SPs into one big depth chart, i’d probably put Hill somewhere around 10th in pecking order, meaning the odds of him really getting a shot at starting in the majors seems pretty slim.  I think he likely sticks in his existing insurance role for at least one or two more seasons before he faces arbitration, where he’ll likely get DFA’d and see his career end.  That’s no judgement on his career; as a senior sign for limited money, the fact that he made it out of short-season ball was a success, let alone getting 40-man placement and MLB innings.  A great job of drafting and development.  Matriculated to Majors.

Round 7: Brian Dupra, RHP Coll Sr from Notre Dame: 3-2, 3.61 ERA between AA and High-A, 43/20 in 52 relief IP.   Dupra started in AA, got bounced around and demoted to Potomac in Mid-June where he stayed the rest of the season as a long-man.  To me, a look at his career shows a guy who can’t compete outside of A-Ball and who is set to be 27 next spring without any success at AA or higher.  I can’t see how he’s long for the organization with the number of college arms drafted recently.  Look for a spring release.  Still an impressive career for a guy in the same boat as Hill; senior sign, limited bonus money, little expectations.  Peaked at High-A.

Round 8: Gregory Holt, RHP Coll Sr from UNC: Released 3/20/14 somewhat surprisingly after a decent season in Potomac.

Round 9: Dixon Anderson, RHP Coll Jr. from UC-Berkeley: Retired 5/14/14 after failing to get promoted and repeating Low-A for the third year.

Round 10: Manny Rodriguez, RHP Coll Sr. from Barry (FL): He was 1-3 with a 6.43 ERA for Potomac this year and was released 9/28/15 at season’s end.  It is probably safe to say that the team feels like Rodriguez’ role is easily filled by a younger draftee from more recent classes.

Round 11: Caleb Ramsey, OF Coll Sr from U of Houston: slashed .287/.354/.343 with 77/45 K/BB in 429 ABs between AA and AAA.  2 homers, 13Sbs.  Ramsey has quietly climbed the ladder for this team for years, but now reaches a cross roads; he doesn’t hit for enough power to justify his corner outfield spot and the Nats really don’t have any room for him in their MLB outfield.  I can’t see him making a 40-man roster and is clearly AAA org guy material at this point.  Look for him to play out the string in 2016 and get let go as a 6-year MLFA.  Peaked at AAA.

Round 12: Blake Monar, LHP Coll Jr from Indiana: released 3/20/13 somewhat surprisingly after a decent Short-A season.

Round 13: Casey Kalenkosky 1B Coll Jr From Texas State: did not sign, returned to Texas State for senior season.  Drafted in the 30th round in 2012 by Atlanta, lasted two years and released/retired.

Round 14: Cody Stubbs: LF Juco from Walters State CC (TN): did not sign, transferred to UNC and was drafted in the 8th round of 2013 by Kansas City.  Hit .283 this year in HighA.

Round 15: Zachary Houchins, SS Juco from Louisberg College (NC): did not sign, transferred to ECU, drafted in the 13th round of 2014 by Los Angeles Angels.  hit .253 in LowA this year.

Round 16: Deion Williams, SS from Redan HS (GA): 1-2, 5.46 ERA with 22/18 K/BB in 29.2 relief innings with Hagerstown.  Williams was drafted as a SS but converted to the mound after a year or so.  Since then, he’s struggled, somehow making it onto the full-season Hagerstown roster in June after sitting in XST for two months.  There, he continued not to impress; his career ERA is now 6.12 across 103IP and the three lower levels of the minors.  Hard to see how he’s even still on a roster at this point.  Trending Down.

Round 17: Esteban Guzman, RHP Coll Jr from San Jose State University (My parents’ alma mater!): did not sign, returned to SJSU for his senior year and was never drafted again and, as far as I can tell, never played professionally.  Odd.  He did regress in his Sr. season, going from a 3.33 ERA to a 4.71 ERA, but to go from a 17th round pick to never playing again smells like an injury.http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/events/afl/club.jsp?team_id=527

Round 18: Nick Lee, LHP Juco from Weatherford (TX): 3-1 with a 3.12 ERA between HighA and AA, 57/33 K/BB in 52 IP across 40 games.  Lee tried to make it as a starter for a while, but now is having good success as a bullpen guy.  He’s got a good BAA, but too many walks right now.  But he’s holding on strong and could make a push up the system ala Matt Grace in 2016.  The Nats see this as well and sent Lee to the Arizona Fall League this year. Trending Up.

Round 19: Hawtin Buchannan, RHP from Biloxi (Miss.) HS; did not sign, honored commitment to Ole Mis/Mississippi.  Drafted in the 20th round in 2014 by Seattle and put up a 4.14 ERA in low-A in 2015.

Round 20: Josh Laxer, RHP  from Madison (Miss.) Central HS: did not sign, also honored commitment to Ole Mis/Mississippi.   Boy the guys at Ole Miss would have been mad at Mike Rizzo from this draft had things gone differently.   Laxer pitched well in Short-A in 2014 but missed all of 2015 with an injury.

Round 21: Todd Simko, LHP Coll Jr.  from Texas A&M-Corpus Christi: retired 7/12/13 after not making the Hagerstown squad and struggling in Short-A.

Round 22: Travis Henke RHP  Coll Sr from Arkansas-Little Rock: released on 1/6/14 after putting up a 5.79 season pitching out of Potomac’s bullpen all 2013.

Round 23: Khayyan Norfork 2B Coll Sr from Tennessee: slashed .276/.336/.364 in a full season in Potomac, with 2  homers, 10 SBs and a 60/27 K/BB ratio in 341 ABs. Ended the  year with a roster-filling callup to AA.  Norfork’s third straight year in High-A, each time showing the same skill set; some speed, little power, decent bat but OPS figures in the .680-.700 range.  He may stick around for another season to reach MLFA but i’m not sure in what role; perhaps as AA utility guy.  Peaked at High-A/AA.

Round 24: Kyle Ottoson LHP Coll Jr from Arizona State: did not sign, returned for senior season and was drafted by San Diego in the 34th round in 2012.  Pitched one season of short-A ball and was released.

Round 25: Erick Fernandez  C Coll Sr from Georgetown: stuck around in an extreme backup mode (19 total games across three seasons), then released on 7/23/13 when the Short-A squads started to fill up after the 2013 draft.  Signed as a MLFA with Pittsburgh in the 2014 off-season but couldn’t make a squad.  Cut loose at the end of 2014’s spring training and out of baseball.

Round 26: Shawn Pleffner OF Coll Jr from Univ. of Tampa: slashed .269/.342/.355 with 66/41 K/BB in 394 ABs with Harrisburg.  3 homers. Another guy with local ties (born in DC), Pleffner has hung around by virtue of his decent bat (career .294 hitter) even despite the power (just 12 career homers at 1B).  Will he move up the chain one more year?  Clearly he’s blocked at the MLB level, and (honestly) 1B spots in AAA may be filled with the kind of spare part slugger that the Nats may be seeking as a bench option to replace Tyler Moore, so Pleffner may lose out on a roster spot by getting squeezed from both sides.  Peaked at AA.

Round 27: Bobby Lucas LHP Coll Sr. from George Washington: released sometime in 2013 after struggling in LowA in 2012.  The third straight pick with local ties was always a longshot being a senior sign from a small baseball program.

Round 28: Kenneth Ferrer RHP Coll Sr. from Elon University: got hammered in 7 GCL innings after getting drafted and was either released or retired prior to the 2012 season.

Round 29: Sean Cotten C Coll Sr. Tusculum College: did not sign, or if he did he never appeared or played.  Odd.  He had a nice senior season in school and was a college senior; maybe he just decided to hang ’em up before even trying.

Round 30: Bryan Harper LHP Coll Jr from South Carolina:2-2, 2.96 ERA 34/19 K/BB over 45 relief innings between AA and AAA.  The “make the super star happy by drafting his brother” pick has turned out to be a half way decent loogy, and rightfully earned his way all the way to AAA this year.  He needs to get his walks down but they’re not too bad.  He’s in a position to put his name in the hat in case our cache of lefty relievers falters in 2016.  Trending up.

Round 31: Josh Tobias SS  from Southeast Guilford HS (NC); did not sign, honored his commitment to Florida where he played four years and was drafted in the 20th round of 2015 by Philadelphia.  He hit .321 in Short-A for them so perhaps he sticks around for a bit.

Round 32: Billy Burns OF Coll Jr. from Mercer Univ. (GA): after 3 impressive seasons in our system, the Nats traded Burns straight up for Jerry Blevins in Dec of 2013.  Burns debuted for Oakland in late 2014 and played a full season for Oakland in 2015, starting in CF and batting .294 with people talking about getting him Rookie of the Year votes down ballot.  Burns for Blevins, who then turned in to den Dekker … perhaps the Nats didn’t really get value for the Burns pick, but also likely never would have realized who they had on their hands thanks to the full OF and names in front of him on the Nats OF prospect pecking order.

Round 33: Trey Karlen 2B Coll Sr from Univ. of Tennessee-Martin: Karlen struggled in the GCL in 2011, never appeared in 2012 and was released on 6/17/13 when the new class of draftees showed up and there was no longer room for him on the short-season squads.

Round 34: Calvin Drummond RHP Coll Jr. Univ. of San Diego (CA): did not sign, returned to U San Diego for his senior year.   Looking up Drummond’s draft and collegiate history is interesting.  Per his baseballcube and baseball-reference pages, Drummond was drafted no less than four times; once out of HS, once as a draft-eligible sophomore (when the Nats drafted him in 2011), then again as a junior and again as a senior.  But the odd part is his history: he went to Orange Coast Juco, then transferred to San Diego where he red-shirted, pitched two decent years as a starter, then transferred again to the baseball powerhouse Arizona Christian University, where he pitched his senior year and was drafted in the 6th round by Detroit.  He’s had minor league success, with more than a K/inning and a career 2.84 ERA while working his way to AA this season.  Would love to hear his story.

Round 35: Alex Kreis RHP  Coll Sr Jamestown College (ND): Struggled in the bullpen for Hagerstown in 2012 and never made it to a 2013 roster, either getting released or retired.

Round 36: Ben Hawkins LHP Coll Jr from Univ. of West Florida: Made the 2013 Potomac bullpen, got shelled, went back to XST after a month and was released a month later.

Round 37: Derrick Bleeker RHP Juco frm Howard College (TX): did not sign, transferred to the U of Arkansas and was drafted in the same 37th round the following year by Baltimore.  He struggled for Baltimore’s low-A affiliate in 2015.

Round 38: Brett Mooneyham LHP Coll Jr from Stanford Univ. (CA): did not sign, stayed at Stanford for his Senior year and then the Nats picked him in the 3rd round of 2012.  Did Mooneyham really improve his draft stock from a complete afterthought in 2011 to a 3rd round pick?

Round 39: Peter Verdin OF, Coll Jr from Univ. of Georgia: did not sign, returned to U Georgia for his senior year.  Was undrafted and went unsigned after his senior season.  Smells like a “favor pick,” as he was a local kid: hails from Alexandria, went to Paul VI HS in Fairfax.

Round 40: Stephen Collum OF from Cartersville HS (GA); did not sign, presumably (per baseballcube) went to Cleveland State Community College but has no college stats and was never again drafted.

Round 41: Bryce Ortega 3B Coll Sr. from Univ. of Arizona: had a decent season in 2012 for Hagerstown then either was released or retired.

Round 42: David Kerian SS from Bishop Heelan HS (IA): did not sign, honored his commitment to U of Illinois.  Signed by the Nats as a 9th round senior sign in 2015.

Round 43: Mitchell Morales SS from Wellington Community HS; did not sign, went to Florida Atlantic University and was drafted 3 years later in 2014 by San Diego in the 29th round.  Struggled in lower A leagues in 2015.

Round 44: Matt Snyder 1B Coll Jr Univ. of Mississippi: did not sign, returned to Ole Miss for his senior year and was a 10th round pick the following year by New York Yankees.  Hit .371 for High-A this year to push his way to AA.

Round 45: Richie Mirowski RHP Coll Sr. from Oklahoma Baptist Univ: had a fantastic 2013 in Potomac, struggled making the jump to AA in 2014 and was released on 3/19/15 when it looked like he wasn’t going to make the AA team for this year.  Still, a great result for a 45th round draftee.

Round 46: Tyler Thompson OF Coll JR from Univ. of Florida: did not sign, returned to Florida for his senior year.  Got hurt (presumably) and was not drafted after 2012 and never played professionally.

Round 47: Timothy Montgomery LHP from Rockmart HS (GA): did not sign, took a year off, played one year at Berry College and was out of the game.

Round 48: Michael Bisenius OF Coll Jr from Wayne State College (NE): did not sign, returned to college for his senior year, never again drafted.  Played on year with the Sioux City Explorers in the American Association.

Round 49: Hunter Cole OF from Dorman HS (SC), did not sign, honored his commitment to the U of Georgia.  26th round pick in 2014 by San Francisco.  Hitting well so far in his career, finishing 2015 in AA with above an .800 OPS.

Round 50: Anthony Nix OF Coll Sr from  Univ. of California-Riverside: hit .215 in the GCL in 2012 and was released in Jan 2013.

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Trending Summary:

• Trending Up/Matriculated (4): Rendon, Hill, Harper, Lee
  
• Trending Steady (0): nobody
  
• Trending Down/Peaked (9): Goodwin, Purke, Turnbull, Skole, Dupra, Ramsey, Williams, Norfork, Pleffner
  
• Did Not Sign in 2011 (21): Kalenkosky, Stubbs, Houchins, Guzman, Buchanan, Laxer, Ottoson, Cotten, Tobias, Drummond, Bleeker, Mooneyham, Verdin, Collum, Kerian, Morales, Snyder, Thompson, Montgomery, Bisenius, Cole
  
• Released/Retired (15): Holt, Anderson, Rodriguez, Monar, Simko, Henke, Fernandez, Lucas, Ferrer, Karlen, Kreis, Hawkins, Ortega, Mirowski, Nix
  
• Traded (2): Meyer, Burns
  

Executive Summary

Well, now you know why we don’t need 50 rounds anymore.  Of the original 51 total picks (three 1st rounders and a lost 2nd rounder total 51 total guys in this class), fully 21 didn’t even sign.  That’s more than 40% of the draftees.  So of the 29 guys who did sign, a slew remain active in the system, our 1st rounder (Rendon) has turned into a 6-win player (when healthy), we flipped two guys (Meyer, Burns) who are also MLB matriculated for other MLB players of use, and we have a couple more guys who may yet get chances (Harper, Hill, Lee).  That’s not a bad return from a draft class, especially considering how many of the 20th+ rounders ended up being successful.

 

(Useless blog information: this is my 900th post!  And we’ve had nearly 7,500 comments on those posts; that’s fantastic.  )

The next in a series: previously we reviewed the 2015 season stats for the 2015 draft class, 2014 draft class, and the 2013 draft class.  Like with the 2013 post, this one was easier to do thanks to having done the 2012 guys back in 2013 time-frame.  Is it worth going back one or two more draft classes at this point?  Maybe not; the 2012 draft class has mostly already been Rule-5 exposed, a good benchmark for prospects to make it or break it in terms of advancement or resignation as “org guy.”  I have gone back one more class to 2011 and that’s it, so one more in this series after this.

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 for Nats 2011 class.
• My working XLS in Google for all this data (cut-n-pasted at the bottom).
• TheBaseballCube.com for really obscure stats for players, like college stats for these  upper round 30s guys.

Without further ado:

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Round 1: (#16 overall) Lucas Giolito HS RH Starting pitcher: 7-7, 3.15 ERA across two levels, starting at HighA and moved up to AA.  131/37 K/BB in 117 IP (21 “starts”) with 1.96/3.18 fip, and .352/.341 babip splits between HighA/AA.  A fantastic season for the newly-turned 21-yr old, who dominated HighA before moving up and holding his own in AA for the last two months of the season.  All the pre-season talk about how he was going to have “no innings limits” was bunk; he was kept in XST until the first week of May and routinely skipped starts so as to extend him through the whole season while keeping his innings year-over-year increase just below the magical 20% mark (98 IP in 2014, 117 in 2015).  He’s now routinely named as either the best or the 2nd best (behind LA’s Julio Urias) pitching prospect in all of baseball.  Not much else to say.  I’m guessing he starts 2016 in AA, moves to AAA and may even get tapped once he surpasses the Super-2 deadline as an injury fill-in starter in the majors.  Look for him to get about 140 innings in 2016 all told (that’s 20% bump from his 2015 117 total).  Trending Up.

Round 2: (80) Tony Renda, Coll Jr 2B: .267/.333/.340 in Harrisburg with 15/19 K/BB ratio and 13 SBs in a little less than a half a season in AA before he was traded to the Yankees on 6/11/15 for David Carpenter.   Renda had progressed nicely in the system as a defense and speed-first second baseman, but in the immediate seems like he was blocked by Wilmer Difo, perhaps the rising of Chris Bostick and the presence in the majors of three or four different guys who can play an adequate second base.  So the team flipped him for something they needed; reliever depth.

Round 3: (111) Brett Mooneyham, Coll Jr LH starting pitcher: was 0-2 with a 6.41 ERA in 19 ineffective innings for LowA Hagerstown before the Nats finally cut the cord and released him on 6/3/15.  Mooneyham was in Low-A for the third successive season, having failed to make the cut in Potomac in each of 2013 and 2014.  You’d have to say that he’s one of the more higher-profile drafting failures of the Mike Rizzo era.  Or maybe not; the team had to go over-slot to sign Giolito and may have skimped for the rest of the draft.

Round 4: (144) Brandon Miller Coll Sr Corner OF: .226/.301/.421 in 59 games with Potomac before voluntarily retiring on 7/10/15.  Despite showing some power (he hit 20 homers in the 2013 season), he never really solved HighA and made way in the Potomac outfield for some rising DSL grads.

Round 5: (174) Spencer Kieboom, Coll Jr C: Slashed .248/.344/.346 with 30/36 K/BB in 246 ABs with Potomac, which were incremental steps back from his great low-A numbers in 2014.  He missed a good portion of the season with injury (concussion) and is currently playing in the Arizona Fall League to make up for it.  He was starting to get some notice in the organization, appearing in the tail end of top-30 prospect lists.  Despite his step back in offense, Kieboom has taken a huge step forward in terms of his defense, his play-calling and pitch-framing.  Scouting reports on him are glowing in this regard, with most projecting him at worst as a backup catcher in the bigs because of his defensive capability.  I think he starts 2016 in AA with an eye towards getting his bat back on track, and if he keeps producing he could soon be a viable alternative to the current catching tandem in the majors.  Trending up.

Round 6: (204) Hayden Jennings, HS OF/CF: Released in May 2014 after two years in the GCL with big K numbers.

Round 7: (234) Robert Benincasa, Coll Jr. RH relief pitcher: Just 4 IP for Harrisburg this year until suffering a season-ending injury.  He made the AA bullpen out of spring (which is where he ended the 2014 season) and seemed to be in a decent spot but got almost no playing time.  Minor league relievers generally don’t get a lot of love from prospect hounds, but in a system where an able-bodied RHP who could throw strikes would have been nice to have in August and September, there’s still opportunity for Benincasa going forward.  Trending Steady if he’s healthy, looking at a ST2016 release if not.

Round 8: (264) Stephen Perez, Coll Jr. SS: slashed just .209/.302/.280 with 87/59 K/BB in 435 ABs between Potomac and Harrisburg.  2 homers, 16 steals.  Perez broke camp with Harrisburg but couldn’t cut it, hitting just .130 in April before getting dumped back to repeat High-A.  In 1300+ career minor league ABs he’s now hitting just .233 and doesn’t seem like he’s long for the organization.  As mentioned in this space before, the Nats drafted a ton of college middle infielders in 2015 and Perez may struggle to keep his slot given what’s expected to rise up.  Trending down.

Round 9: (294) Derek Self, Coll Sr. RH relief pitcher: 4-5, 3.56 ERA with 45/15 K/BB in 60ip.  3.71 fip, .291 BABIP in Potomac.  Broke camp as a member of the AA bullpen but got hit and was dumped back to high-A, where he spent most of the season.  This is the third straight  year he’s been in Potomac as a college senior draftee; odds are there won’t be a 4th.  He may break camp with a full season squad in 2016 but may fall victim to a numbers game once the short-season guys start pushing for promotions.  Trending down.

Round 10: (324) Craig Manuel, Coll Sr C: slashed just .206/.276/.242 between three levels but mostly with Potomac.  He had just 165 ABs on the year as he served as the backup catcher in High-A.  Its his third straight season of essentially being an “old for the level” backup catcher who has struggled to hit the Mendoza Line since leaving Low-A.  Its hard to read the tea-leaves on catchers since they’re so scarce, so I won’t summarily pass judgement that Manuel’s time is about to come to an end.  He could very well be the backup catcher again in Potomac next year.  He is a local guy (born in Rockville, MD though he went to HS in Florida and college in Texas), so perhaps he enjoys playing in the DC area.  Otherwise, just based on his offensive numbers I have to say he’s Trending Down.

Round 11: (354) Brian Rauh, Coll Jr RH starter/reliever: 4-7, 3.39 ERA with 84/24 K/BB ratio in 101 innings (18 starts) across *four* different levels.  2.61/4.95 fip in Potomac/Harrisburg where he spent the most time this year.  Rauh had a nice tour of the system this year, starting in High-A (he was the #2 opening day starter), getting hurt, doing some rehab in the GCL, then working his way back up the chain from Low-A to High-A to AA.  He ended the year in Harrisburg’s rotation, for what its worth.  He didn’t entirely impress at AA but had an incrementally better season in High-A.  My guess is that he starts the 2016 season in the AA rotation, but he has to show he’s worthy in AA.  Trending Steady.

Round 12: (384) Carlos Lopez, Coll Sr 1B: Slashed just .138/.265/.241 in 10 games in Hagerstown before being released on 6/30/15.  This was the third straight season that Lopez featured in Hagerstown, having spent the first two months of the season in XST after getting beat out for the 1B job in the spring.  Eventually there just was no more room for Lopez, with uber prospect Jose Marmolejos-Diaz soon taking over at 1B in Hagerstown and slugging 11 homers in a half-season.

Round 13: (414) Elliott Waterman, Coll Jr LH reliever: Struggled in two Short-A stints and was released on 3/15/14 prior to the beginning of the 2014 season when he couldn’t break into a full-season bullpen.

Round 14: (444) Jordan Poole, Juco-2 corner OF: Similarly to Waterman above, Poole struggled to hit in two seasons shuttling between  Short-A and GCL, and the Nats released him on 3/14/14 when he wasn’t set to make a full season roster.

Round 15: (474) Brandon Smith, OF: Didn’t sign.  Attending Division II Grand Canyon University, where he remains today.  He hit a robust .348/.402/.478 for them this season but was not drafted as a draft-eligible junior.  Maybe the Nats take a flier on him in a late round since they love doing re-drafts on late-round HS picks.

Round 16: (504) Ronald Pena, Juco-2 RH starter/reliever: threw just four rehab innings in 2015, spending the entire season on the Potomac Disabled List.  He was coming off a season where he had a 5.96 ERA in High-A and needed 2015 to show he could make the jump.  My guess is that he’ll get another shot at being the Potomac swing-man in 2016 but he may struggle to make the squad, given the huge number of college arms pushing into the system year after year.  Trending Down.

Round 17: (534) Blake Schwartz, Coll Sr RH Starting pitcher: 0-2, 5.87 ERA in 3 Potomac starts and then he called it quits, officially retiring on 4/24/15.  Schwartz was *so good* in 2013 for Potomac (11-4, 2.65 ERA) then struggled in AA before getting hurt in 2014 and missing half the season.  I thought the retirement was surprising; maybe his 2014 injury just killed his arm and with it his career.  Too bad; he was looking like a fantastic low-round find.

Round 18: (564) David Fischer, Coll Sr RH reliever: Released on 7/3/14 after bouncing around the system for a couple of years.

Round 19: (594) Bryan Lippincott, Coll Sr 1B: Retired ahead of the 2014 season after one decent season in Short-A.

Round 20: (624) James Brooks, Coll SR SS/3B: Released May 2013; he was a senior sign who played last season mostly in the GCL, save for a 2 week stretch where he went 1-32 in Short-A.

Round 21: (654) Austin Chubb, Coll Sr C: Released ahead of the 2015 season after struggling to a .221/.299/.324 line in Hagerstown in 2014.  Signed as a MLFA with Los Angeles and bounced around their farm system this year, missing huge chunks of the season with injury.  Backup Catchers can live forever. 

Round 22: (684) Will Hudgins, Coll Sr RH reliever: Suddenly retired 7/12/13 per his Twitter account.

Round 23: (714) Casey Selsor, Coll Sr LH Starter/Reliever: Posted a 4.29 ERA in ShortA in 2014, then released on 3/20/14.

Round 24: (744) Kevin Dicharry, Coll SR RH pitcher: released 7/1/13

Round 25: (774) Freddy Avis, RHP: didn’t sign.  Attending Stanford, where in 2013 he appeared in exactly one game and pitched 2 innings before suffering a season-ending injury.  That injury never got better and he retired from baseball altogether in March of 2015.  Shame.

Round 26: (804) Skye Bolt, RHP: didn’t sign.  Attended UNC, had an excellent college career and was a 4th round pick in 2015 by the Oakland A’s.  He kind of reminds me of our 2015 pick Andrew Stevenson frankly; kind of an odd swing, defense-first speedy outfielder with limited power.

Round 27: (834) Cody Poteet, RHP: didn’t sign.  Attended UCLA and got drafted (like Bolt) in the 4th round of the 2015 draft by the Marlins.

Round 28: (864) Hunter Bailey, Coll Sr SS/2B: released May 2013.

Round 29: (894) Leonard “LJ” Hollins, Juco RH reliever: released 7/2/14 after struggling for half a season in Hagerstown.

Round 30: (924) Robert Orlan Coll Jr LH Starter: 3-1, 3.00 ERA with 85/28 K/BB ratio in 72 relief IP between LowA and HighA.  Orlan bounced between Potomac and Hagerstown all season, ending up in HighA with pretty good numbers in a “more than a loogy” role.  Especially impressive is 85 Ks in just 72 ip.  He’s older for these levels, inarguably, but could put himself in a good position by continuing to succeed in 2016.  I see him in the Potomac bullpen again with an eye towards a June promotion to AA when the short-season promotions come due.  Trending Steady.

Round 31: (954) Michael Boyden Coll Sr RH reliever: Released Jan 2014 after struggling for two years in Rookie ball as a college senior sign.

Round 32: (984) Michael Mudron, Coll Sr LH reliever: Released Jan 2014 after posting a 6.82 ERA in Short-A in 2013.

Round 33: (1014) Mike McQuillan, Coll Sr 2B/3B: Released 3/26/15 after hitting just .207 in Potomac last  year, likely losing out on a numbers game.

Round 34: Jake Jefferies, 2B: didn’t sign.  Attended Cal State Fullerton and subsequently drafted again by the Nats in the 39th round in 2015.

Round 35: Corey Bafidis, LHP: didn’t sign but Washington picked him in 2013. 

Round 36: Max Ungar, C: didn’t sign.  Attending Division III Denison, where he did not seem to even be playing.

Round 37: Tyler Watson, LHP: didn’t sign.  Attended Kansas U for a year, then bounced to McLennan Community College in Waco, TX and and got drafted by the Angels in the 38th round of the 2014 draft.  This is *not* the same Tyler Watson, by the way, that the Nats drafted in the 2015 draft.

Round 38: Jarred Messer, RHP: didn’t sign.  Pitched the last two years with the Kansas City T-Bones in the independent American Association

Round 39: Mitchell Williams, C: didn’t sign.  Attended the Marion Military Institute in Alabama, for which I cannot find any current stats.

Round 40: Ricky Gutierrez, CF: didn’t sign.  Presumably playing football for U-Conn, as per the Draft Tracker.

 

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Trending Summary:

• Trending Up (2): Giolito, Kieboom
  
• Trending Steady (3): Benincasa, Rauh, Orlan
  
• Trending Down (4): Perez, Self, Manuel, Pena
  
• Did Not Sign in 2012 (11): Smith, Avis, Bolt, Poteet, Jefferies, Bafidis, Ungar, Watson, Messer, Williams, Gutierrez
  
• Released/Retired (19): Mooneyham, Miller, Jennings, Lopez, Waterman, Poole, Schwartz, Fischer, Lippincott, Brooks, Chubb, Hudgins, Selsor, Dicharry, Bailey, Hollins, Boyden, Mudron, McQuillan
  
• Traded (1): Renda
  

Executive Summary

Three years onward, there’s just 10 of the 40 names left active somewhere in the minors.  11 never signed and another 19 have been released or retired.  We cashed in Renda on a middle reliever who subsequently got hurt, and this class has one of the best 2 or 3 prospects in the game.  Otherwise … there’s just not much there.  It seems likely that the Nats 2012 class is going to end up producing just two MLB players; a near Ace and possibly a backup Catcher.  Maybe one of the trending steady middle relievers can make a run ala Aaron Barrett.  Otherwise, is this class a disappointment?

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