Nationals Arm Race

So, spurred on by an email from a fan, I did some “scouting the stat line” today and came up with the following observations (stats are as of yesterday if quoted; all stats available at milb.com, or if you’d like use my handy “Cheat Sheet” of websites here to directly surf to all the relevant minor league pages.

In AAA Rochester:

• I’m really wondering why Luis Garcia is still in AAA with an OPS of nearly 1.000 while the MLB team continues to give at-bats to Escobar and Strange-Gordon. 
• Glad to see Stevenson actually hitting. But there’s nowhere for him to go. We have no trade-able OFs at the deadline, so Stevenson seems blocked. I would say “trade him” but … MLB teams can read baseball-reference.com and know what he did in the majors.
• Meneses really powering the ball; too bad he’s 30.  Maybe they call him up to play 1B after they trade Bell at the deadline. He could be the next Yadiel Hernandez for this team.
• Most effective Starter in AAA? Prospect after-thought Jackson Tetreault, who was not on one single prospect ranking top 30 anywhere for this team this past off-season. The scouting reports on Tetreault explain why he’s not rated: he has mid 90s FB, but fringe-average secondary pitches and historically has struggled with control. However, 2021 and 2022 so far has seen much lower walk rates, so maybe this is found gold.
• What the heck is going on with Cavalli??
• Why did the team send down Francisco Perez? Oh because he couldn’t find the plate (6 walks in 4 1/3 innings).
• Our old friend Tyler Clippard can’t find the plate either: 13 walks in 17 innings. I wonder how long he’ll ride the bus in AAA after so many years in the majors before he pulls a Jayson Werth and walks away.

In AA Harrisburg:

• The (qualified) team leader in OPS right now is Justin Connell. Another prospect afterthought, he’s only 23 (he turned 23 in March) after being an 11th rounder out of HS (American Heritage … the same baseball factory HS that gave this team Adrien Nieto way back in 2008 and which had had dozens of players drafted in the last 20 years). A 23yr old with an .893 OPS in AA should be notable; he’s a full year younger than the average age in that league. Maybe a diamond in the rough?
• Dondrei Hubbard has come out of the gate hot, hitting .375 while bouncing around the corner OF spots. He’s 27, has almost no state-side experience, is too old for AA … can he keep this up? He is listed as an infielder but has been doing nothing but outfield; seems like he has some positional flexibility.
• Can we stretch out Cole Henry, please? Why did he get scratched from his last start? Please don’t say injury please don’t say injury.
• Evan Lee is living up to his 40-man selection so far.
• Matt Cronin looks like he’s back. Maybe he’s a bullpen option later this year for the Nats, especially since we can’t seem to keep lefty relievers on the active roster.
• I like what Alex Troop can do for the team; 9 games, 23 innings, spot starts and effective long relief, good numbers. Maybe he should be getting longer looks, you know, like in the rotation instead of some 27yr old career minor leaguer like Ronald Herrera?

In High-A Wilmington…

• Drew Mendoza has been powering the ball lately, with healthy slash lines and a team leading OPS figure among qualified hitters. Would really like to see him doing this in AA. I’m guessing he’ll get another shot at AA soon.
• Antuna: hitting .217. At what point do we stop making excuses for this guy and free up the 40-man space he’s been sitting on for two years needlessly? Do we have to wait for him to repeat High-A again in 2023 and burn his last option (probably). It seems like every time he gets criticized, someone’s like, “oh but he was really good for 3 weeks last June” or “well he’s switching positions so he’s not as focused.” At some point you admit you made a mistake with a prospect and cut bait (ahem, Seth Romero).
• Wow: Gage Canning is just 3 for 42 since being demoted. And some people thought he was a prospect?
• Jordy Barley, hitting just .152. He was the primary prospect trade bounty for Daniel Hudson; would have hoped for a bit more. Yeah he’s fast; can’t steal first base (for now; they’re experimenting with this rule in the Indy leagues).
• Ok, I’m happy Jake Irvin can look awesome in 3 inning stints; lets get him stretched out.
• Seth Shuman needs to get bumped up. He’s repeating the level, was good at it last year, is good at it now.
• Love what i’m seeing from Mitchell Parker. This team has a ton of sneaky good lefty starter prospects.
• Tyler Yankowsky: 19Ks, zero walks in 16 innings. Can’t get much better than that.

In Low-A Fredericksburg…

• Brady House is lighting it up … and he’s not even the best hitter on the team right now. That’d be ..
• Jeremy De La Rosa, who was a top 5 prospect last year for this team until he hit .209 in Low-A as a 19 yr old in 2021. Now he’s a much older 20-yr old, playing exclusive CF and has 6 homers in 32 games to contribute to a .925 OPS. Nice.
• Sammy Infante leads the team in homers. That’s good to see from a guy who a lot of people criticized upon his drafting. Could use a better BA.
• Its no wonder this team is in first place; half the team has an OPS of 800 or more. They’re all hitting in the Carolina league.
• Rodney Theopile: wow. Talk about coming out of nowhere; last year in 22 Low-A starts he had an ERA of 5.56. This year in his first 6 starts he has an ERA of 0.82. 48/5 K/BB.
• Andrew Alvarez: 35 Ks in 21 innings .. amazing he doesn’t have better peripherals.
• Jackson Rutledge, aka the guy who some people thought was better than Cavalli … 4IP, 8 hits, 3 walks … and he hasn’t pitched in a week with his start getting skipped over. Not much good here.

In XST/DSL … kind of curious to see the following once they start playing. I believe they start June 6th so we’re close.

• Daylen Lile; our 2021 2nd rounder who a lot of scouts really liked. But he just had TJ surgery, so I’m not sure if that knocks him out for all of 2022. It probably does.
• Armando Cruz, our big money 2021 IFA signing. Probably in DSL.
• Aldo Ramirez, a significant prospect we acquired for Kyle Schwarber. Hurt his elbow this spring, maybe he’ll be ok for short season.
• Mason Denaburg: does he have anything?
• Roismar Quintana: this might be a major prospect for us.
• Cristian Vaquero, our big money 2022 IFA signing, probably heading for DSL.

One of the key points in evaluating minor league prospects (or any amateur prospect really) is the consideration of their age in relation to their level. We constantly see added on to the evaluation of a player’s stellar performance at a certain level the caveat of, ” … but he’s old for the level.”

I did a deep dive on this back in 2011, trying to compare the rules of thumb advertised by expert minor league evaluator John Sickels versus our own observations. Now, 10 years on, with evolutions of player development, minor league consolidation, the removal of an entire Short-A level, and the compressing of the lower ranks of the minors, I thought i’d revisit it.

My working guesses before going in and looking at the data are:

• The compression of the minors will mean that there will be an older skew of players now in Low-A.
• Hitters will generally be younger than Pitchers, since we have such a prevalence of injuries in the sport which delays pitcher development.
• the lost Covid year will add at least a half a season or more, especially to pitchers who got hurt at the wrong time (see Irvin, Jake below)

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My methodology was to grab the entire list of players with non-trivial stats (meant to remove rehab assignments that would skew the average ages) from the four main full season levels, and grab average ages. Unfortunately fangraphs only lists the “age” and not the birthday for minor leaguers, so this is a bit of an estimate (and thus I couldn’t get meaningful quartile/median figures). I wasn’t willing to scrape dozens of rosters from milb.com to get actual birthdays … so this will have to do. I also only grabbed the leagues where Nats have affiliates; otherwise this would have been 3x the spreadsheet work. I think its a safe assumption that the average age of the players in the Eastern AA league is roughly the same as the Southern AA league.

To start, here was the old Sickels “rules of thumb” for age expectations in the four full season leagues:

• AAA: Typical Age range is 23-24.  Age 25 depends.  26+ is old
• AA: 22-23.  24 depends.  25+ is old
• High-A: 20-22.  23 depends.  24+ is old
• Low-A: 19-21.  22 depends.  23+ is old

This already seems way low, especially in AAA, where we now know that teams store tons of 4-A 40-man roster guys who will press the issue. But we’ll get to that.

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Here’s 2021 full season average age analysis for Hitters with > 30Abs for the year:

• AAA Hitter Avg Age:  26.53801
• AA Hitter Avg Age:  24.11027
• High-A Hitter Avg Age:  22.92832
• Low-A Hitter Avg Age:  21.40741

and here’s fy2022 so far for hitters with > 30ABs this season:

• AAA Hitter Avg Age:  26.599
• AA Hitter Avg Age:  24.169
• High-A Hitter Avg Age:  22.705
• Low-A Hitter Avg Age:  20.975

And here’s a bit of a deeper dive into the 2022 hitter data, with quartiles shown:

	Mean	Youngest	0.25	Median	0.75	Oldest
Low-A Hitter Avg Age:	20.975155279503	18	20	21	22	25
High-A Hitter Avg Age:	22.704697986577	19	22	23	24	27
AA Hitter Avg Age:	24.168918918919	20	23	24	25	33
AAA Hitter Avg Age:	26.598513011152	22	25	26	28	34

So, what are we seeing in Hitters?

• In Low-A for Hitters, we’re seeing a bit of an inflation of ages from the old rule of thumb, with the 25%-75% quartile range going from 20-22, whereas before it was 19-21.
• There’s nobody in Low-A right now younger than 18 and you can count on one hand those who are 18. Washington’s T.J. White is one of them. Makes sense; you draft a HS kid and they’re going to generally start in the complex league, and only if they’re stellar will they make the next year’s low-A team … and White was really young for his class out of HS.
• The average age for high-A hitters jumps more than a year and a half from the Low-A average. interesting. Does this imply that it’s going to take kids a year and a half to get out of low-A now? This would seem to support the argument that we could really use another level (you know, something like Short-A?)
• The Average age for AA hitters jumps up another year and a half from High-A, showing that the old rules of thumb are now completely antiquated. The average age in AA for hitters is now north of 24.
• AAA average age is pretty useless in aggregate because of its status as a “spare parts” league. If you’re a prospect rising the ranks (like Cade Cavalli) there’s some analytical value to seeing just how young someone is as compared to the average age, but otherwise the prospects generally are in AA or below.

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Lets look at pitchers.

Here’s 2021 full season average age analysis for Pitchers with > 20IP for the year:

• AAA Pitcher Avg Age:  26.90933
• AA Pitcher Avg Age:  24.76211
• High-A Pitcher Avg Age:  23.28326
• Low-A pitcher Avg Age:  21.93048

and here’s fy2022 so far for Pitchers with > 10IP so far this season:

• AAA Pitcher Avg Age:  27.33068
• AA Pitcher Avg Age:  24.5873
• High-A Pitcher Avg Age:  23.23485
• Low-A pitcher Avg Age:  22.03472

And here’s a bit of a deeper dive into the 2022 Pitcher data, with quartiles shown:

	Average	Youngest	0.25	Median	0.75	Oldest
Low-A pitcher Avg Age:	22.034722222222	19	21	22	23	29
High-A Pitcher Avg Age:	23.234848484848	20	22	23	24	26
AA Pitcher Avg Age:	24.587301587302	21	23	24.5	25	30
AAA Pitcher Avg Age:	27.330677290837	22	25	27	29	37

So, what are we seeing in Pitchers, as compared to Hitters?

• Right now, the fy2022 data on just a few weeks is almost identical to the full season fy2021 data, which shows that teams have already made consistent adjustments to the loss of Short-A.
• Low-A pitchers are on average a full year older than the hitters at the level, and the 25%-75% quartile range is also a full year older.
• The age difference is less pronounced in High-A and AA: high-A pitchers are on average a half a year older, while AA pitchers are on average 3-4 months older than the pitchers.
• AAA goes back to half a year older between hitters and pitchers, but again these numbers are greatly skewed (especially on the pitcher side) by the large number of veteran arms in their late 20s/early 30s giving it one more shot (our own AAA team has more than a few).

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So, what’s our new “rules of thumb” for being “too old for the level?” I think it has to adjust from the old days.

• AAA: Typical Age range is 25-28.  A prospect at the age of 26 is iffy. 27+ is considered old for the level (with all the above AAA caveats). However, if you’re 27 and in AAA, you’re already passed through rule-5 draft, you’re probably pretty close to a 6-year MLFA and you’re not a “prospect” any more anyway. So these rules of thumb really don’t apply to AAA.
• AA: typical age range is 23-25.  A prospect at 25 is iffy. 26+ is old for the level.
• High-A: 22-24.  24 depends.  25+ is old
• Low-A Hitters: 20-22 range, 23 depends, 24+ is old
• Low-A Pitchers: 21-23 range, 24 depends, 24+ is old

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Now, looking at our new rules of thumb, lets do a quick run-through of our notable prospects per team, and comment as to their relative age. This is not a comprehensive list of every player on the roster; just those “top players” who have appeared on prospect ranking lists lately.

• Frederick’s Low-A Hitter Prospects: House (19), Infante (21), De La Rosa (20), White (18), Boissiere (22): they’re all within the appropriate range right now. Nobody is “too old” here. House and especially White are really young for the league. Boissiere is the oldest prospect here, and he’s repeating the level after struggling in his draft year/age 21 season. Nothing to worry about yet. We do have a couple of “too old” for the level players in Martina and Millas, but they just promoted Millas up as I was writing this draft.
• Frederick’s Low-A Pitcher Prospects: Lara (19), Rutledge (23), Saenz (23): Lara obviously is young, while Rutledge is pushing the range of acceptability, especially for such a high draft pick and his highly visible failings so far. Saenz is also 23, along with some newer additions like Glavine and Schoff, both senior signs in their first full year of pro ball. While we’re all concerned about the fact that Rutledge can’t find the plate, the rest of these guys are not yet in the “too old” category, but are a little concerning.
• Wilmington’s High-A Hitter prospects: Antuna (22), Pineda (22), Barley (22), Mendoza (24). So, despite our continual angst about Antuna’s progress, he’s still within the 75% quartile range for age in the league at age 22. He won’t turn 23 until October. His bigger problem is that the team put him on the 40-man way, way too early, and now he’s burned 2 options. Mendoza is in the “depends” category and we all know why: he failed at AA, got demoted last year, and has zero homers through 25 games in 2022 despite basically being a DH at this point.
• Wilmington’s High-A Pitcher prospects: Parker (22), Brzycky (22), Shuman (24), Irvin (25). So, Parker and NDFA Brzycky are both actually young for High-A. Shuman is in the iffy range; he was excellent for Oakland’s High-A team, then was awful for us in 2021, earning himself a return trip to Wilmington in 2022 … but he’s been pretty solid so far. My guess is that he earns a promotion soon. Meanwhile, we now know that Irvin is way too old for High-A, but we also know why: he missed two full years of throwing with Covid and TJ. He’s also been basically unhittable in High-A in five starts and likely gets promoted within a few weeks.
• Harrisburg’s AA Hitter prospects: Cluff (25), Alu (25), Harrison (25). We don’t have a lot of hitter prospects in AA; even these three guys are challenging the definition of “prospect.” Cluff is really the only guy who gets any industry-wide speculation. All three are 25, putting them all in the “iffy” category anyway. Cluff and Harrison are really struggling this year. Alu just turned 25 last month, and is hitting well in 2022, but has little prospect buzz.
• Harrisburg’s AA Pitcher prospects: Henry (22), Carrillo (23), Cronin (24), Cate (24), Evan Lee (25). So, Henry is quite young for AA and is lighting it up, a great sign. Cronin and Cate are still “ok” for the level at this point, even if Cate struggled so badly last year. Lee is already “iffy” even though he just got put on the 40-man, but his AA performance so far has been stellar and he should get pushed up soon. Nobody “too old” here who’s a prospect. We do have several arms in AA who are way too old to be there (Herrera, Brill, Andrew Lee)
• Rochester AAA Hitter prospects: Casey (26), Barrera (27). We don’t have a lot of prospects in AAA right now. Casey is “iffy” as a prospect based on age, but he’s a banner child for the Covid effect; he lost 2020 after earning a promotion to AA in 2019 at age 23; then he loses his age 24 season, solves AA at age 25 but has struggled in AAA ever since. So, its possible this is his peak. Meanwhile, we know Barrera is too old for AAA, and probably too old to be a “prospect” at this point, but he’s also a catcher on the 40-man roster and is next in line if Ruiz/Adams gets hurt. So he falls into the “AAA as spare parts” league category.
• Rochester AAA Pitcher prospects: Cavalli (23), Seth Romero (26). As with hitters … our AAA is not really a place where we bring up our prospects. Cavalli at 23 is one of the youngest pitchers in AAA right now (only 7 arms in the International League are 23 or younger, most of them major prospects whose names you already know). Romero at 26 is “iffy” as a prospect, which makes me laugh to write since he’s been “iffy” as a prospect since the moment he was kicked off his college team. I still can’t quite believe he’s in the employ of the team, and it should make you sick that he was called up to then be put on the major league 60-day DL, thus meaning he’s earning MLB salary this year.

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Conclusions? the Nats are generally keeping their prospects in the appropriate level, and the “too old for the level” iffy considerations all have easy-to-see explanations.

So, BA issued an “update” to its top 30 prospect lists for teams this week.

See https://www.baseballamerica.com/teams/1012/washington-nationals/organizational/ for our “new” list.

per BA’s site, this update is… “With the minor league season beginning, we have updated our Top 30 prospect rankings for every major league club. These new rankings now include international players from the current signing class that opened on Jan. 15, with additional player movement based on new looks, information and injuries.”

BA continues to ignore MLB service time and keeps including prospects who have not hit AB/IP thresholds even though they’ve sat on the active roster long enough to exhaust rookie eligibility .. which means that they’ve kept in particular Keibert Ruiz and Riley Adams eligible, as literally no other shop has done.

So what changed between this ranking and the last one (to which I reacted here?).

• They added Jan 2022 IFA signing Cristian Vaquero at #5.
• ….. and thats it.

No adjustments for Antuna moving to the outfield, for Lile being out for the season, for Adon making the MLB rotation, nothing else.

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So, pretty much a nothing burger of an update. But, thought i’d put a placeholder here to talk about the starts we’re seeing with the MLB club through the first week.

Talking about hitters:

• Good, as expected: Soto, Bell, Ruiz
• Good, unexpectedly: Franco, YHernandez (has he now won a starting job?)
• Bad, as expected: Robles (why is he still in the majors?), Escobar
• Bad, unexpectedly: Cruz, Thomas

Robles starts the season 0-17 and necessitates the callup of prospect OF Casey. Lane Thomas hasn’t been much better. But maybe we should just frigging play Yadiel Hernandez until he stops hitting? I mean, the dude hit last year, he’s hitting this year … why not just play the guy?

Pitchers? Phew, hide your eyes.

• Good, as expected: … i’m not sure anyone is living up to their expectations. Rainey maybe? Arano. Fedde maybe.
• Good, unexpectedly: Rogers, Doolittle
• Bad, as expected: Corbin, ASanchez (by going straight to the DL), Adon, Voth
• Bad, unexpectedly: not sure anyone qualifies here.

Lets be honest, i went into this season looking at this pitching staff with very little expectation. Our opening day rotation consisted of

• a 9-figure contract debacle who hasn’t performed in 2 years in Corbin.
• A option-less 5+ ERA starter who should have been non-tendered last offseason in Fedde
• a rookie who has been all hype and no performance as of yet in Grey
• Another rookie with one MLB start who had, frankly, uninspiring 2021 MILB numbers and who should be in AAA in Adon
• A frigging NRI has-been who I can’t believe they took over Rogers or Espino in Anibel Sanchez.

What have see seen so far? Adon: shelled in 2 starts. Corbin? Shelled in 2 starts. Sanchez? hurt before he makes a start … and then lo and behold Rogers comes up and gives the Nats their best start so far (shocker!). Grey? Surprisingly decent so far. And Fedde? Shocker he was effective in his first start. Lets see how long that lasts.

Honestly, i’m shocked we’re 3-5 right now with a team ERA right now of 5.91. 5.91 isn’t getting the donuts made.

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Long season ahead.

Even though the 2022 season has started, we’re still seeing pundit Prospect ranking lists trickle in. In fact, we still havn’t seen several major shops’ Nats list at this point, so we’ll continue doing these posts as they arrive.

Today, Prospectdigest.com and its lead pundit Joseph Werner released his Nats top 10 list. https://prospectdigest.com/washington-nationals-top-10-prospects-for-2022/ .

Here’s some comments.

• Ruiz at #1. I think Werner is following the Baseball America “rules” for eligibility, as opposed to MLBs. He’s still got Ruiz as being a prospect. Perhaps he wrote this list last fall (which may be true, given the fact that there’s mo mention of Vaquero).
• He then has the same 2-5 names as most everyone else, in the same order: Cavalli, House, Henry, Rutledge.

After the top 5 is where his list gets, um, “interesting.”

• Armando Cruz at #6. That’s the highest he’s been on any list since before last year’s trade deadline prospect haul. He’s an 18yr old who hit .232 in the DSL last year … this ranking is entirely on hype and scouting reports.
• Daylen Lile at #7?? Wow, that’s way too high for his profile. I mean, everything has to go right for a 6.0″ slap hitter to make it, and his pro debut was awful (.219/.363/.250 in FCL last year). How is this guy higher than any number of other hitters we have in the system? Crazy. Plus, we now know he’s torn his UCL and is out for the entire 2022 season. So … yes perhaps late breaking news, but this list should have been adjusted.
• Mitchell Parker at #8? This is the highest ranking I’ve seen anyone have for Parker. Look, I like Parker; but there’s no way I’d have him above Adon or Lara or Carrillo or Lee right now. Adon is in the majors for crying out loud. Lara’s got better stuff and is 3 years younger. Carrillo probably could be in the MLB bullpen right now, and Lee struck out 104 in 77 High-A innings last year.
• Lara and Carrillo round out the top 10; don’t have any issues with those guys being around this range.

Nits: No Vaquero. they drafted him in January and its now Mid April. If you rank Cruz at #6 then you have to put in a guy who was older and better at signing time. Also, no mention of Adon despite him being in the MLB rotation.

Otherwise, not much else to note. I can’t see any other possible ommissions from this top 10.

In our continuing series of reviewing/reacting/criticizing Nats prospect lists as they’re released, today we got a big one. The MLBpipeline.com team (which includes senior prospect analysts Jim Callis, Jonathan Mayo, and Sam Dykstra) has released their updated top 30 rankings for our system.

Here’s the links to past analysis: Keith Law/The Athletic, Baseball America, ProspectsLive.com, Prospects1500, Prospects361. We’re still waiting for a couple major shops who generally release rankings: Fangraphs, ESPN, BleacherReport, and CBSsports.

Back to MLBPipeline’s list, which is perhaps the most respected source out there. Here’s the link to the story and the list itself.

Lets do some reactions.

• At the top, Ruiz is graduated, so they go Cavalli-House at 1-2 like everyone else.
• They’ve got our next two significant arms at 3-4 (that being Henry/Rutledge). Law had them 3-4 as well, just in the reverse order. Notably, no other shop has these two arms as high, most pushing them down in to the 6-9 range. Which tells you what I think about this source versus others.
• MLBpipeline is one of the first to rank Vaquero legitimately; they’ve got him 5th as a starting point in the system. The only other shop to even bother attempting to rank him immediately post signing was ProspectsLive (who had him 4th).
• Next three are our tertiary tier of RHP starters; in order Lara, Carrillo, Adon. No quibbling here; all three could serve as really useful arms in our system in one fashion or another. Having these three guys in the 6-8 range is completely reasonable.
• They’re high on Daylen Lile, having him at #10. But their scouting report is a little dour, projecting him as a bat first spray hitting 4th outfielder.
• Antuna: down at #12. Finally a realistic ranking of a career .238 hitter who projects as a corner OF with no power.
• Quintana continues to be all over the map: they have him #15; he’s been as high as #7 (Keith Law) and as low as #24 (Baseball America).
• Boissiere comes in at #17 … after missing BA’s entire top 30.
• Lucius Fox is #23 … one of the few times we’ve ever had a waiver claim be ranked in our prospects list.
• Several recently drafted players are in the 20s but entirely missing from BA’s list, guys like Saenz and White.
• Mason Denaburg gets #30 treatment, but Seth Romero is nowhere to be seen.

Notable missing players

• Holden Powell‘s injuries have dropped him off the radar; he needs a bounce back 2022.
• Daniel Marte: completely off the radar too.
• Tim Cate: completely unranked but is as high as #12 on Law’s list. Interesting how little he’s rated.
• Riley Adams: nowhere to be seen despite being #11 on BA’s list. I guess a backup catcher who we all think is going to play every 4th day is not a prospect.
• Mason Thompson; another guy who BA had just outside their top 10 … then suddenly he wasn’t there at all. Did he graduate rookie eligibility? I can’t tell.

Update post publishing: per commenter, Adams and Thompson have graduated … which makes you then ask, “well why the hell is he on BAs’ list?” And the answer there is … well, because i don’t know. It’d be super helpful if baseball-reference.com would have listed them as having graduated (since that’s my primary source for determining that). I’ll update my docs.

February is definitely prospect month, and one of the leading analysts out there is The Athletic’s Keith Law. On Monday 2/7/22 he released his system ranks, and then on XXX he released the NL East team’s prospect rankings, including our weary Nationals.

First, a couple thoughts on his system rankings. Law’s approach to evaluation definitely prioritizes ceiling over floor, and definitely discounts things you can find in abundance (RH relievers) versus scarcity (Catchers, top-end SPs, Shortstops, etc). And when it comes to evaluating entire systems, I feel like he goes well deeper than the best 3-4 guys in a system. So there’s some wild variations between his system rankings and a place like Baseball America’s, which ill go into briefly here.

Law’s top 5 systems: LA Dodgers, Seattle, Arizona, Tampa, Toronto.
BA’s top 5 systems: Seattle, Tampa, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Kansas City.

Not too far off … until you see where BA ranked Law’s #1 team (they had LA 8th) and where BA had Toronto (19th!). That’s some wild variation. They also wildly disagreed on some middle of the road teams, for similar reasons. I sense that BA is star-driven, Law’s is depth-driven. That being said … both shops had the exact same bottom 7 teams, just in slightly different order.

Washington comes in at #27 for Keith, #26 for BA coincidentally. Law does not include Ruiz as a prospect because he’s exhausted his rookie status per the new rules … this is something BA didn’t bother to adjudicate yet (nor any other prospect ranking shop), so I wonder if that didn’t ding the system a peg or two. Otherwise, Law’s evaluation of our system is this: improved from dead last last year, but two of our best arms got hurt, otherwise might be better.

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OK, lets get to the individual players, which was released on 2/14/22. I know the Athletic is behind a paywall, so i’m going to be respectful of that and not post his list 1-x. You can glean the rankings though from my comments here.

Law’s methodology, which I always seem to need to repeat, is as follows: he’s more ceiling than floor. He could care less about fantasy. He discounts relievers. He is skeptical of bad mechanics in pitchers. He is definitely more “conservative” in projections of players. He is skeptical of 16-yr old DSL players and often waits until they perform in a domestic league. So, with those observations … here’s some thoughts on his player rankings.

• (Reminder: no Ruiz, who likely was our #1)
• #1: House. First time a pundit has named House #1. Says he hits the ball harder than any player in the 2021 draft (prep or college), is almost guaranteed to move to 3B at his size, but he has a chance to basically be Aaron Judge but on the dirt. Yeah. Sign me up.
• #2 Cavalli. Law notes his struggles at AAA, but also isn’t that concerned. He thinks Cavalli’s worst-case scenario (barring a massive arm injury of course) is a workhorse #2 or #3 starter for the next decade. Sign me up.
• He’s somewhat bullish on Rutledge (#3), but is worried about effort-full short arm action continuing his litany of injuries as we saw in 2021. Don’t be surprised if he’s converted to a reliver if he has another 30-inning season, though if the dude can’t even throw 30 innings without getting hurt … he’s not going to cut it as a reliever either.
• #4 is Henry … upside of a #2 starter if his elbow holds up. We’ll see in 2022 how well it can hold up.
• He loves #5 Adon, noting the same thing i’ve noticed; easy arm action. Its like we’re looking at a young Livan Hernandez.
• He’s very high on Roismar Quintana, ranking him #7 when other shops have him well lower (BA had him #25).
• He’s a bit lower on both Antuna and Lara than other places, which i’m in agreement with on both cases. Antuna at #8 is about where i’d like to see him. He was surprised Lara got to the majors and sees him as a #4 starter

Interestingly, Law’s top 10 and BA’s top 10 (excluding Quintana) have the exact same names, just in slightly different orders. There’s a bit more variations when looking at some of the more bloggier/fantasy focused sites we have lists for (Prospects1500.com, ProspectsLive.com, Prospects361.com), but so far the two biggest/most professional pundits are pretty aligned.

• Law is one of the higher guys on Lile, having him at #11. I’m concerned that Lile can’t project as a center fielder at 6’0″, which means he’s gonna have to mash as a corner OF to be of any value. It means he’s gonna have to add power to his frame and power to his game.
• He’s highest man so far on Tim Cate, at #12, noting that he may be headed to the pen based on his inability to get AA hitters out this year.
• Jake Irvin at #14 (remember him?) Irvin’s been away so long that BA didn’t even have him in their top 40 (!!), and only one of other blog sites even mentioned him (Prospects1500 at #36). Law clearly remembers him, and expects him to come back. He may be the only one.
• Perhaps an indictment of the system … or perhaps a sneaky good find, but he has Lucious Fox, our waiver claim from last fall, at #15. He thinks Fox could literally make it to the majors this year as a utility infielder backup.
• At #19 and #20 he has two guys who basically sound the same: Evan Lee and Mitchell Parker. Both lefties, both with fantastic K/9 rates despite middling velocity, both have to have everything go right to turn into a 5th starter in the bigs. I guess there’s worse things to have in your system.

In his Honorable Mention section, he did call out some fan favorites, including T.J. White (reminding us that White was incredibly young for the class, getting drafted two weeks before turning 18, which means we basically got a high school Junior who put up those numbers), Boissiere, Barley, Brzycky, etc.

Notable names not on Law’s list:

• Seth Romero, who he called out as someone who has completely fallen out of consideration specifically.
• He also does not have our new $3.9M guy Cristian Vaquero, perhaps because of the timing of the signing and perhaps because we have zero to go on except a large bonus figure and huge hype (remember this when you see other shops rank the guy #4).
• He does not have guys like Mason Thompson, Riley Adams, or Donovan Casey. Perhaps because they project as spare parts (middle reliever, backup catcher, 4th outfielder), as opposed to scarcity positions (starting C, starting pitcher, SS, CF).

All in all, a solid list with solid analysis.

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New Feature: trying to build an all-prospects future team just based on a pundit’s rankings. Here’s what we’d have here:

• Catchers: Ruiz and Riley Adams I suppose
• Starting Rotation: Grey, Cavalli, Henry, Lara, Adon, Irvin and Saenz as a swingman/depth
• Bullpen: Rutledge, Carrillo, Cate, Cronin, Ramirez, Lee, Parker, Brzykcy
• Infield: House at 3B, Cruz at SS, Garcia at 2B, White at 1B, with backups like Infante, Fox, Barley
• Outfield: Vaquero in Center, Quintana/Antuna in left, De la Rosa in right, with depth in Lile and Boissiere.

I mean, that’s not a bad lineup to look forward to…

One of the biggest prospect evaluation shops has dropped its big publication; lets do a reaction to Baseball America’s handbook release and its ranking of our top 40 (!) prospects. I can’t recall the last time they extended out past 30, so bravo to them for doing a deep dive into a shallow pool of Nationals prospects.

Thanks to Luke Erickson over at Nationalsprospects.com for the data. See Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 for the full list of the 40 players. Here’s the full list in order 1-40:

Rank	Last Name	First Name	Position	Yr/Acq
1	Ruiz	Keibert	C	2014 IFA
2	Cavalli	Cade	RHP (Starter)	2020 1st
3	House	Brady	SS	2021 1st
4	Antuna	Yasel	SS	2016 IFA
5	Lara	Andry	RHP (Starter)	2019 IFA
6	Henry	Cole	RHP (Starter)	2020 2nd
7	Adon	Joan	RHP (Starter)	2016 IFA
8	Carrillo	Gerardo	RHP (Starter)	2016 IFA
9	Rutledge	Jackson	RHP (Starter)	2019 1st
10	Cruz	Armando	SS	2020 IFA
11	Thompson	Mason	RHP (Reliever)	2016 3rd
12	Adams	Riley	C	2017 3rd
13	Ramirez	Aldo	RHP (Starter)	2018 IFA
14	De La Rosa	Jeremy	OF (Corner)	2018 IFA
15	Cronin	Matt	LHP (Reliever)	2019 4th
16	Cluff	Jackson	SS	2019 6th
17	Casey	Donovan	OF (Corner)	2017 20th
18	Lile	Daylen	OF (CF)	2021 2nd
19	Cate	Tim	LHP (Starter)	2018 2nd
20	Infante	Samuel	SS	2020 2nd
21	Parker	Mitchell	LHP (Starter)	2020 5th
22	Lee	Evan	LHP (Starter)	2018 15th
23	Pineda	Israel	C	2016 IFA
24	Marte	Daniel	OF (CF)	2018 IFA
25	Quintana	Roismar	OF (CF)	2019 IFA
26	Barrera	Tres	C	2016 6th
27	Romero	Seth	LHP (Starter)	2017 1st
28	Denaburg	Mason	RHP (Starter)	2018 1st
29	Barley	Jordy	SS	2016 IFA
30	Millas	Drew	C	2019 7th
31	Shuman	Seth	RHP (Starter)	2019 6th
32	Mendoza	Drew	3B	2019 3rd
33	Guasch	Richard	RHP (Starter)	2018 IFA
34	White	T.J.	OF (Corner)	2021 5th
35	Boissiere	Branden	OF (Corner)	2021 3rd
36	Peterson	Todd	RHP (starter)	2019 7th
37	Brzykcy	Zach	RHP (Reliever)	2020 NDFA
38	Mendez	Ricardo	OF (CF)	2016 IFA
39	Saenz	Dustin	LHP (Starter)	2021 4th
40	Powell	Holden	RHP (Reliever)	2020 3rd

So, first things first: the top 10 in the handbook are the exact same top 10, in the same order, as the BA top 10 they released back in October 2021. I reacted to that list at length last October, so I won’t repeat my criticisms too heavily here. I will say this: clearly to me the BA boys had their list back then and have not done much in the way of additional analysis, because this new list does not include our shiny new IFA Cristian Vaquero. And honestly, its a pretty big omission given the fact that he signed several weeks ago. I suppose it implies that the handbook went to print a couple of months ago … but in today’s media landscape it seems like a pretty bad miss. In the world of blogging and internet-driven media, delays due to book binding and printing can make information “dated” pretty quickly.

Anyway, one with the observations.

• Same 1-3 as everyone else. Ruiz over Cavalli, which I’m ok with.
• We’ve covered Antuna at #4 at length; my stance is pretty clear.
• The Arms at 5-8 are all pretty defensible and are mostly in line with what we’ve been seeing.
• Rutledge remains in their top 10, despite his 2021. This, believe it or not, is considered “low” on Rutledge as compared to most of the other shops so far. How are they so high on Antuna but are low-man on Rutledge?

So, here we go with the guys ranked 11-40.

• #11: Mason Thompson. Seriously? A 5.74 ERA in AAA in 2021, then after we acquired him his MLB stat line was as follows: 4.15 ERA., 5.71 FIP, 21/14 K/BB in 21 innings to a 99 ERA+. Ok great: a below league average RH middle reliever. Is that a near top 10 prospect? I mean, Andres Machado had a far better season in 2021 as a RH middle reliever: he was never ranked in our top 10 as a prospect. We cycle in and out failed starters as 6th inning RH relievers all the time; they’re one of the most fungible assets in the game. If we’re valuing near replacement level players so highly, then why aren’t all our backup AAA catchers ranked in the top 10 too? (Ahem, see next).
• #12 Riley Adams: not even ranked in the top 30 by some shops (including Fangraphs), but #12 in our system. I mean, if the value of a prospect is so heavily skewed towards MLB-readiness, why not just rank our entire AAA team in our top 10?
• Lots of variation of opinion on De La Rosa: some have him top 10, others in the mid-teens. BA comes in at #14.
• Jackson Cluff at #16, whereas he wasn’t even in the top 50 of prospects1500. Wow. That’s a lot of juice on one month-long AFL stretch, especially considering how mediocre his 2021 regular season was.
• Tim Cate at #19; they still have some faith, at least more than other shops.
• Romero and Denaburg together at #27 and #28: fitting. The two worst 1st round picks in our history (well, except maybe for Aaron Crowe) are still hanging on the outskirts of the top 30.
• One of the few shops to give any love to our pair of former Oakland High-A starters Shuman and Guasch, coming in at #31 and #33.
• T.J. White: #34. Wow. Other shops have him in the upper teens. Where’s the love for a high draft pick who actually hit this year? Why would this guy be so low, as compared to De La Rosa, who is basically the same age and was badly outperformed?
• This is the first list naming Dustin Saenz to any spot; he was a 4th round Lefty out of TAMU who only threw a handful of pro innings in 2021; not much to go on. A 4th round SEC hurler should have more expectations.
• Coming in at #40 is Holden Powell. Again, curious. If they like relievers so much, why not give Powell (or Cronin or a few others) more credit?

Guys completely unranked of note: Vaquero as previously mentioned. Jake Alu, Yoander Rivero. Both Irvin and Schaller are completely out of the rankings now due to lost injury seasons.

I dunno. Maybe this list isn’t too bad. Outside of a couple of curious spots in the top 10, the rest of the list is more or less pretty defendable.

More prospect rankings are coming this week, so stay tuned. Keith Law is releasing all his data this week and we’ll have a reaction piece because I like his analysis.

Thanks to Luke Erickson, who pointed out this new prospect ranking shop ProspectsLive.com that I wasn’t aware of. They released their Nats top 30 prospect list last week, the bulk of it behind a paywall. Their lead evaluator for the Nats seems to be Brandon Smith, so lets take a look at their rankings as we’ve done with other shops, and discuss who they’re “high” or “low” on relative to everyone else.

I’ve never seen a list from this site before, and based on the players they’ve listed, I can only assume this site has a distinct fantasy focus in its rankings, which is a little disappointing. I say this because of the way-too-high ranking for several relievers and the astronomically high ranking for our newly signed IFA prize, things you generally only see in fantasy heavy analysis who are making recommendations to diehards who play in keeper leagues and who are looking for deep prospects to draft and bury and/or possible future closers (thus resulting in over-emphasis of relievers versus other conventional scouting analysis). That being said, this is the first service that really seems to evaluate our prospects in light of their production, and less about their bonus size, which has resulted in a pretty good ranking.

Lets get to their rankings.

Since they’re a pay-for service, i won’t print the whole list, but i will do some highlights of players who are notable. the top 10 are visible for free and are:

1. Cavalli
2. Ruiz
3. House
4. Vaquero
5. Henry
6. Rutledge
7. Cruz
8. Lara
9. Adon
10. Carrillo

• Same top 3 as everyone else right now; they have Cavalli ahead of Ruiz, which I know some find arguable. Meh; i’m just glad to have a “big 3” back in the system to be excited about, and I’m not sure I care who is #1. Ruiz is going to be the opening day starter, while Cavalli is going to be in AAA, so for me that’s how the ranking should go 1-2 at the top.
• New Cuban IFA signee Cristian Vaquero comes in at #4. Wow. That’s a statement. Of those shops who have ranked him, i’ve seen him 9th on one amateur list (DistrictonDeck, which ranked him mid-last season based on the rumors of his imminent signing), and in the 14-15 range on a couple of professional sites (Prospect361, Prospects1500). But #4 is… well that’s bullish. And one of the reasons I suspect the fantasy focus in these rankings.
• A little high on last year’s IFA darling Armando Cruz, who got $3.9M and did very little in 2021 to merit that bonus figure.
• They’re super high on Mitchell Parker, coming in at #12. I like Parker and I like what he did in 2021. You may not like the ERA, but 144 Ks in 101 innings is amazing.
• They’ve got Yasel Antuna all the way down at #15. Finally, someone appropriately ranks the career .238 hitter who no longer plays a premium position and has no power.
• They still have hope for Mason Denaburg, listing him at #16. I do not have #16 ranked hope for Denaburg; I sense he’ll be lucky to get out of rookie ball at this point.
• They have two relievers ranked #18 and #19: Holden Powell and Gabriel Agostini. Powell was a closer in college, pitched a grand total of 4 2/3rds innings in 2021 before missing the rest of the season with an injury. Putting him #18 is ridiculous. Agostini is 17 and had stellar numbers in the DSL … but its the DSL. If you’re a lefty with a decent pitch, you can get guys out immediately in the DSL. 15 games, 32 innings and a great K/9 rate; he has to replicate this stateside before being listed this high.
• They’ve dumped Jeremy De La Rosa all the way to #22, when most other shops have him in the 7-10 range. I guess they were not impressed with his .209/.279/.316 line this year in Low-A as a 20-yr old. Or maybe it was his 37% K rate. That’s right: 122 strikeouts in 326 ABs in low-A this year. A better question is probably … why does every other shop still have him in their top 10?
• One of the few shops to rate Jackson Cluff after he tore up the AFL this past November. He comes in at #24.
• Our buddy Seth Romero comes in at #27; still hanging on. I’m sure he won’t be #27 for long, once the team releases him the moment the new CBA is signed.
• Two AA lefty starters round out the bottom of the top 30 in Tim Cate and Evan Lee.

Notable names not ranked. In a top 30, its hard to “miss” guys, but here’s some who are not mentioned:

• Drew Mendoza: the polish is off here.
• Jake Alu: no love for the 24th rounder despite a solid 2021 at the plate.
• Riley Adams: so, a lefty reliever in the DSL is worth of #19, but a AAA catcher with competent numbers at the plate is not worth ranking. Got it.
• Israel Pineda: man, it wasn’t that long ago he was a top 10 prospect.
• Tres Barrera: generally not a lot of love for Catchers here.
• Mason Thompson: Baseball America literally had him in our top 10 post trade deadline.

With the absence of MLB news (we’re not to mid Feb yet, so no chance we’ll have a new CBA), there still is some analysis to be had. We’re getting into the meat of the Prospect ranking season, and that means more lists being released.

Today, we have Prospects1500.com and their writer Colin Coulahan with perhaps the most aggressive prospect list out there: a top 50 for the Nats system. BA goes 10 deep, Fangraphs goes 30 deep, but these guys go 50 deep. Every list, they add in several guys who have never been ranked before, and this time is no different.

Here’s a link to the raw list, which I highly recommend visiting for the video embeds of key players. If you’ve never seen video on our top guys, this is the place to go. Also online, they don’t just list 1-50, they have tiers built in that kind of serve as predictors of future production. I probably push back on some of the players he lists in Tier 3 (expectation of making the majors) as being a little too rosy, but I like who he has listed in the first two tiers as being a pretty good predictor of the future.

Anyway, here’s some thoughts on the list with an eye-squint towards players they have much higher or lower than the consensus of other shops right now.

• Top 3 are as expected and the same as everyone else. Put a dotted line between these three guys (Ruiz, Cavalli, House) and the rest of the system right now b/c they’re head and shoulders above everyone else at this point. These three, by the way are also the only 3 guys making the BA top 100. They came in at #11, #27 and #59 respectively in the entirety of the minors. So far, so good on the House drafting.
• They have Cole Henry all the way up at #4 on the strength of his AFL performance. Bravo. Fangraphs had him all the way down at #13 in September. Lets hope he stays healthy and becomes part of a future Nats rotation. I like him as a sneaky-good #3 starter for a good team; imagine him pitching this way in a rotation along side Strasburg, Corbin, and Cavalli.
• Antuna pushed down to #8; they’re still decently bullish on the player, but at least acknowledge that he’s going through a position change. At least they don’t have him in “future all star” ranking territory like BaseballAmerica did in October. I’m on record frequently in this space as questioning the continued prospect love for Antuna, especially now that he’s proven without a doubt he can’t play the dirt. Now he’s a corner 6’0″ outfielder with middling power and a career .684 minor league OPS.
• What a rise for Joan Adon: they’ve got him at #11 and BA had him at #7; last year he was in the 20s or lower.
• A caveat in the post says it was written just before the official signing of Cristian Vaquero. They would have had him in the #14-15 range apparently. That’s fair as a starting point; i probably would have had him a bit higher but sight unseen its hard to quibble with a mid-range ranking like this.
• Evan Lee on the list at #16; he wasn’t even on Fangraph’s top 30. This is probably due to his K/9 rate in the AFL and his placement on the 40-man roster, but still seems awfully high.
• Definitely high on #19 Brandon Boissiere, our 2021 3rd rounder who projects as a low-power 1B who hit .200 in 25 games in Low-A this year. Why would you rank Boissiere above, say, Ricardo Mendez, who plays CF, out hit Boissiere this year, earned a promotion to high-A, and is the same age?
• Aldo Ramirez: all the way down to #21 on this list but top-10 on others. Interesting.
• First time prospect mentions for three guys in the mid 20s: Yoander Rivero, Jacob Young, and Ivan Murzi. All three were hitters in the FCL or Low-A this year. Rivero hit .270 as a SS in the FCL with 3 homers and had more walks than strikeouts (a rarity in the game today). Murzi was a backup catcher in the FCL who got 34 at bats in 2021 and barely hits: not sure why he’s even this high. Young was a 7th rounder this year who hit .200 and had a lower slugging than his OBP in low-A. Strange placement for Murzi and Young honestly: there’s probably 10 guys I rate higher than either in the system or ranked below them.
• Seth Romero, all the way down to #30. And that’s before his DWI arrest. He continues to be a train wreck, and the Nats executives can’t do a thing about it because he’s on the 40-man and thus he’s locked out. Romero is now #1 on my “Next player to get released when the team needs 40-man room” list. I think his time with the team may now be complete. Is this the worst ever 1st round pick by this team? Great post idea; maybe i’ll write that up for when he gets released.
• Speaking of failed 1st round picks, Mason Denaburg comes in at #38 on this list. It is hard to believe that he was as high as the #2 ranked prospect in our system in January of 2021 in one publication.
• Tim Cate: all the way to #40. Which is way, way too low, even if he did struggle this year. I mean, a 24-yr old lefty starter in AA with top tools has to rank better than a guy with 20 pro ABs. The fallacy is this: even if you thought Cate sucked in 2021, he’s a lefty who can go straight to the bullpen, focus on two pitches in stead of four, and become an effective MLB reliever almost immediately.
• There’s a huge discrepancy between where Prospects1500 has some veteran prospects like Drew Millas and Drew Mendoza, buried in the 40s, versus where other shops have them. Just a month ago Fangraphs had Millas #12 overall, and still had Mendoza with some value. I think this ranking is a little to punitive for their bad 2021 seasons.

There’s no real reason to quibble about the rest of the players ranked in the 30s and 40s; some of them i’d never heard of. Could anyone tell me when we acquired #46 Miguel Gomez or how he performed this year?

Ranking a thin system to the 50th player is tough, but this is a good way to get recognition for some lower-level guys who may matriculate forward. Thoughts?

Since I love prospect lists, I’ll write a reaction piece to every Nats prospect list ranking that I see this off-season. What else are we gonna talk about during the lockout?

We already saw the Baseball America top 10 list, which I found laughable for a number of reasons. Let’s see how Prospects361 and its author Rich Wilson did.

Prospects361 does seem to have a fantasy focus, which means we’ll see some oddities in the rankings. Fantasy focused sites generally over-rank several types of players:

• relievers who have closer ability (since “saves” are generally one of the 5 prime pitching fantasy categories)
• very, very young prospects and/or brand new prospects which get snapped up in Dynasty leagues
• positions that are scarce (SS, C, 3B to a certain extent)

Here’s a direct link to his ranking, which i’ve represented in the table below.

Name	Position	Acquired	Rank
Cade Cavalli	RHP (Starter)	2020 1st	1
Keibert Ruiz	C	2014 IFA	2
Brady House	SS	2021 1st	3
Andry Lara	RHP (Starter)	2019 IFA	4
Yasel Antuna	SS	2016 IFA	5
Jackson Rutledge	RHP (Starter)	2019 1st	6
Jeremy De La Rosa	OF (corner)	2018 IFA	7
Armando Cruz	SS	2020 IFA	8
Cole Henry	RHP (Starter)	2020 2nd	9
Gerardo Carrillo	RHP (Starter)	2016 IFA	10
Aldo Ramirez	RHP (Starter)	2018 IFA	11
Daylen Lile	OF	2021 2nd	12
Donovan Casey	OF (corner)	2017 20th	13
Roismar Quintana	OF (CF)	2019 IFA	14
Cristian Vaquero	OF (CF)	2021 IFA	15

So, some reactions.

• The same top 3 as nearly every other pundit shop right now, though he has Cavalli over Ruiz. That’s surprising since most legit ranks have Ruiz over Cavalli given Cavalli’s well known challenges, plus Ruiz is a catcher.
• He has Andry Lara a bit higher than most others at #4, but I don’t think its unwarranted. The guy as an 18yr old pitched well in the GCL, which is now a much, much older league than it used to be. He may have had a 4.54 ERA, but his peripherals were pretty good.
• Sigh; Yasel Antuna at #5. He’s still listed as a SS, which we know isn’t gonna happen as Antuna has already been banished to the OF. My concerns with Antuna being this high are well documented. All i’ll say is this: he better be one hell of a better hitter than he’s shown in 2022.
• Even after his crap season, Jackson Rutledge sits above Cole Henry, which is laughable at this point. Perhaps he made this list before seeing anything that Henry was doing in Arizona.
• He’s definitely high on Armando Cruz, One homer and a .232 BA in 177 DSL at bats this year after signing a ridiculously high signing bonus ($3.9M). So far, bust potential.
• He’s about where the industry is on the guys in the 10-13 range, so no comment there.
• Quintana: he’s definitely high on this guy. Quintana barely played this year due to an apparent injury, so this ranking and his potential is entirely that; potential.
• Lastly, and I hate it when prospect ranking shops do this, he lists a player we’re only rumored to be signing in Vaquero. This is entirely fan service to dynasty fantasy players looking for some deep round pickup.

Omissions:

• No mention of Joan Adon, who BA had #7. Now, i’m also on record being somewhat skeptical of Adon being a 7th ranked prospect, but i’m ok with him being a bit further down in the 13-15 range.
• Slightly surprised there’s no Matt Cronin at the edges of his roster, given that Cronin is a closer candidate. It might be due to Cronin’s injury this year.
• Not much else to quibble about.

Thoughts?