Liam Doyle can sure strike them out; but is it Nuke Laloosh style? Photo via his X
Here’s our third check-in on the 1-1 candidates, focusing on the College players now that they’re six weeks (aka six weekend series) into their seasons. We’re into the conference schedules, so no more patty cakes for these guys, and we should start to see some better indication of how good these guys are.
LaViolette: Jace has had a couple solid weeks, raising his average from the low .200s to a more solid looking .284, part of his current .284/.434/.568 slash line. His TAMU team is falling off a cliff, getting swept in their first two SEC series, but he looked decent at Vanderbilt last weekend, going a combined 4-10 with a homer and 3 walks. He needs to get hot to get himself back in 1-1 discussions.
Arnold: Continued his hot start with a scoreless (albeit short) outing against Boston College two weekends ago, then got shelled at Miami in his first real test of the season, giving up 7ER in 4IP. Unfortunately, Mike Rizzo was in Miami for the start, and probably didn’t like what he saw. Curiously, he’s yet to get to 80 pitches in any start this year. Is that b/c its been cold (in Tallahasse??), he’s still getting stretched out (he’s got 6 starts now?) or because his team didn’t “need” him to go deeper than 75 pitches/5 innings? Some question marks here.
Bremner: cruised past the weaker Miami 6ip/1ER, then gave up 3ER in the 5th against the tougher UC Irvine to take a loss despite a quality start. His team mustered just 4 hits on the day. His season numbers look “okay” but not fantastic, and I can’t see getting excited to take this guy 1-1.
Arquette: his average took a nose dive in the past couple of weeks as GCU/Santa Clara held him to just a 2-13 line, then Cal Poly “held” him to a 2-10 weekend (both hits were homers). He’s still slashing above 1,000.
Doyle continues to have circus numbers on the season, maintaining his 18 K/9 rate. But now the hard part; SEC play. It took him 105 pitches to go 4 2/3 against Florida two weeks ago (phew) but he only had two walks. Sounds like a lot of full counts. Then he got hit against Alabama, giving up 6 in 6 to take two straight losses as Tennessee’s ace (110 pitches to finish 6 innings). I wonder; are scouts already thinking reliever here? 100 pitches to get through 5 innings in college would probably be 3 innings in the pros.
Kilensuffered a Hamstring injury that has had him sitting since 3/18/25. He’s slashing .431/.552/.986 for a ridiculous 1,538 OPS figure for the season, but he’s now set to miss SEC play. They’re hopeful he’s back for next weekend.
Taylor sports a healthy 1,200 OPS right now. His problem will be competition: Indiana doesn’t exactly play a powerhouse schedule. They did have to visit UCLA last weekend, and he went 3-11 with a homer. But, hitting .370 against Ohio State and Penn State isn’t that impressive. Furthermore, a ton of his stats are built on mid-week games against a college called “The Mount,” who i’ve never heard of but who Indian beat 18-5 and 20-7 in two mid-week games. I may drop covering him unless he does something against a solid opponent.
Summerhill maintains a .400 BA 6 weeks into the season against what admittedly looks like one of the tougher pre-conference schedules I’ve seen. He profiles as a rangy OF, maybe CF, playing RF and batting leadoff for Arizona. He has some power. We’ll see how he holds on as AZ enters deeper into its Big12 schedule.
The Race for 1-1: Arnold takes a step back, Bremner looks meh, Arquette comes back to reality, Doyle can’t find the plate, and LaViolette takes a step back in the right direction but is it too little, too late? And, does this college churn pave the way for Holliday to return to 1-1 status?
We introduced a new segment this year, based on our team having the 1st overall pick (which is abbreviated “1-1” meaning 1st round, 1st pick) of the 2025 draft. Since we’ll get our choice of players for the first time in a generation. I’m putting in periodic updates about the candidates to go 1st overall.
Here’s a one-month check-in on the top College candidates, who now have four weeks worth of competition, along with links for the top prep candidates in the mix.
LaViolette: One month in, and he’s still only hitting .235. His OBP is ok (.414) and his Slugging solid (.515). He had a great Friday night against New Mexico State last weekend, but took o-fers in mid-week games against UTSA and Texas-Southern, which is an abomination. Mid-week starters are like the 4th or 5th starters, and UTSA/Texas-Southern aren’t exactly SEC quality opponents. He’s playing his way, not only out of the 1-1 conversation, but maybe even out of the top 10.
Arnold: After two solid games to open the season, he gave up 2 runs in 5IP against the non-powerhouse Georgetown Hoyas on 2/28, then hasn’t pitched since. He was scratched against Lipscomb with “illness” for his 3/7 start. At least it wasn’t b/c of an arm issue. We’ll see how he bounces back as they open ACC play against Boston College next Friday. BC just hammered UVA, so they’ll be an interesting out.
Bremner: he bounced back after two middling starts to shut down Fresno State with 7ip, 3hits, 1run, but only 4Ks. He then gave up three runs to Cal State Northridge, not an impressive outing. He needs to show some 7ip, 3hit, 10k, 0BB outings and fast if he wants to be a top 10 draft pick.
Arquette got the Keith Law Treatment, whose TL/DR summary is this: “he’s too big to play SS, struggled when i saw him, but he’s probably the best college hitter right now.” Through 4 weeks of play, he’s sporting the healthy slash line of .400/.492/.640. And he’s doing it against what probably is the toughest early season schedule out there as Oregon State embarks on its non-affiliated life post PAC-12.
Canarella has decent if not sparkling stats so far. .288/.431/.462. Not a ton of power/XBH so far (just 1 HR). He was more well regarded last year and isn’t re-pushing upwards to regain his top spot so far.
Doyle is pushing his name upwards so far this year. Through 4 starts, he’s got “oversized little leaguer” stats right now. 20.1 IP, 6 hits, 1 run given up for a 0.44 ERA. But he’s got a 47/5 K/BB ratio in those 20.1 IP, which means that of the 61 batters he’s retired thus far, 47 have been by whiff. Wow. His 4 opponents: Hofstra, Samford, Oklahoma State, and St. Bonaventure. Ok so not the greatest competition, but against OK State he still had 9Ks in 4 1/3rd IP.
Kilen has popped up on radars b/c of silly stats he’s putting up in Tennessee’s early season. He’s got an obscene slash line right now of .463/.589/1.093 slugging for an OPS figure north of 1.600. And he’s not even the biggest OPS figure on his team. He’s got 8 homers in 16 games to go with a ton of other XBHs. Is he a top prospect? He’s an undersized 2B with a hot start; we’ll see if he can keep things going.
Holliday has nothing new that I can find; its March so his HS season probably hasn’t started yet, but his HS stats would be useless anyway.
Hernandez; same as Holliday. All we can hope for is a scouting trip like what Law posted for Cunning ham.
Cunningham had a snippet in Law’s latest scouting notebook. TL/DR: “he’s probably not even 5’9″, has almost no power but has a great bat, and is more like a mid-1st rounder.” We may not bother covering him much further given who else is here and since we’re only projecting the best possible 1-1 candidate. A 5’8″ prep SS isn’t going 1-1.
Quick Tangent: did you see that George Mason scored TWENTY-THREE runs in the 2nd inning of their mid-week game against Holy Cross? 23 runs. Here’s the box score. The sequence of events is actually pretty hilarious. The inning included:
Eight (8) walks
Five (5) HBP
Five (5) infield hits, bunts, or fielders choices
Eight (8) hits that left the infield, several of which were bases-clearing doubles.
Someone on GMU also, in a move that probably had their coach screaming, STOLE THIRD BASE while up 13 in the inning. I’m surprised there weren’t more than 5 HBP.
Last funny item from the box score: Attendance: 25. Those Patriot fans really come out to support the team!
So, who’s in the lead to go 1-1? I’m liking what i’m seeing out of Doyle. Arquette maintaining his production. Want to see what happens with Arnold. Maybe Holliday is getting back in the mix just by virtue of the likes of LaViolette and Bremner falling.
Jamie Arnold has a little Alex Wood look to him, a lefty slinger who comes in almost sidearm. Photo via FSU
Did you know we’re already two weeks into the D1 college season?
Let’s look at the first two weeks of the season for some of the top-ranked candidates to go 1-1, and draw some ridiculous and wildly speculative short-sample-size driven conclusions.
Actually, more seriously, I wanted to take a bit of time to do the first part of this post, which is to capture direct links for the players in question to have a quick resource I can refer back to. So, hope you enjoy this as well to save you some googling.
I’ll focus on probably just 5-6 players right now, maybe add more if players pop this spring. Obviously can’t do this for the HS guys in the mix like Holliday but if we can find something for them i’ll add it.
LaViolette: starting slow; slashing .211/.444/.737 through two weekend series. Playing CF despite his size/projection to be a corner OF in the pros, batting 2nd. Only has four hits through 6 games but all four were XBH, pushing up his slugging and OPS. They’ve played Elon and Cal Poly on neutral fields, not exactly powerhouses, so a little disappointing of a start.
Arnold: FSU’s #1/Friday night starter: Can’t ask for a better start: 2 starts, 2 wins, 11IP and just 3 hits allowed. He went 6ip/1h against my alma mater JMU in the opener, then went 5ip/2h against Penn last weekend. Obviously Penn isn’t a baseball powerhouse but JMU can be frisky. In both games he was on a short pitch count and could have gone longer.
Bremner: UCSB’s #1/Friday starter: went 3 hitless innings to open against Campbell (rumor had it the weather was super cold), then 3 runs in 3IP against a weaker Seattle University team. Keith Law was on hand and wasn’t complementary of what he saw.
Arquette is on fire to start, playing SS and batting 2nd for OSU. Through two weekends he’s slashing .440/.559/.880 as OSU played in two top-notch tourneys to open their season. There’s definitely something to like about this guy.
Canarella has been playing CF and batting third for Clemson to start, but got subbed out of one game and missed another early in the season. He had labrum surgery (!!) in the off-season and there was some question if he’d be ready to go in Feb, and its also why some boards have him out of the top of the draft for now. So far, a slow start: .250/.333/.375 with almost no power. It’s also fair to say their opening weekend tournament was about as tough as it could be (they played OK State, Arizona, and Ole Miss). I wonder if he’s really even in the mix for the upper half of the first round.
So all these players are playing for top teams in solid divisions, which guarantees good competition when we get to conference play.
So, that’s a quick check in. Arnold and Arquette look great, LaViolette starting slow, Canarella may still be hurt, and Bremner seems like he may drop out of 1-1 contention unless he starts blowing away sub-par competition.
With the final two qualifying-offer attached FAs signing yesterday (Bregman and Pivetta), we’re doing a double duty post today; recapping the Qualifying Offer (QO hereafter) crop for this offseason, then publishing the now-finalized draft order for 2025.
First; QOs. We’ve come a long way since the first QO season, and we’ve come a long ways since the awful 2015 season when so many veteran FAs (our own Ian Desmond headlining) got royally screwed by the QO. So, how did the crop fare this year?
Here’s a link to my full QO worksheet with a lot more detail than the below table. It is in chronological order, so scroll to the bottom. But, here’s a summary table:
So, what’s the breakdown of the 13 QO-attached Free Agents this year?
4 Resigned with their old team, negating the QO and draft pick loss
9 signed with new teams, thus triggering draft pick compensation and IFA money loss
5 of the 13 in my opinion had some level of “impact” to their Free Agency by virtue of the QO attachment, even if its arguable:
Nick Pivetta was probably the most impacted; he took $7.3M less in AAV than if he’d just signed the one year deal.
One QO attached signing was ludicrous: Oakland/Sacramento signed a reliever Luis Severino to a 3yr/$67M basically to get the union off their backs for hoarding money. Honestly; someone needs to divest this team from its ownership.
The Rich get richer: four of the signing teams were so far over payroll that they gave up two draft picks (Mets, Yankees, SF, Houston)
13 total draft picks were surrendered, which we’ll talk about in a bit in how it impacts a team like the Nationals.
Boras represented 6 of the 13 players: 2 of the re-signed, 2 got the expected massive deals (Soto and Burns), but if i’m his remaining two clients (Alonso and Bregman) I’d be pretty underwhelmed by what happened this off-season. Alonso got just a 2year deal, Bregman a 3-year deal (albeit with opt outs each year). At least both can go back to FA soon w/ zero attachment.
CAA Sports represented 4 of the 13: Fried and Adams did well, Walker got less in AAV than the QO but signed early so you can’t say the market played him. But they also represent Pivetta, who signed a deal worth $13.75/year AAV when he could have gotten a $21M QO for 2025. A mis-read by the player and the agent.
I continue to not be a fan of the QO system. I believe it artificially suppresses salaries for veteran FAs. I also believe FAs generally speaking are morons and continually misread their markets. Year after year we see players get screwed by this system.
So, now that all the QO assigned players are signed, there’s no more draft pick gains and losses, and we now have a basically finalized 2025 draft order. I believe I have this correct and updated for all the moves, but here’s my working XLS of all the drops and adds for the first five rounds due to draft pick comp, comp picks, etc.
As it stands now, here’s how the Nats will be picking:
1st round: #1 overall
2nd round: #49 overall
3rd round: #80 overall: this moved up 9 spots thanks to lost picks
4th round: #111 overall:
5th round: #142 overall
6th round: #171 overall
+30 every round subsequent
So, we’ll get three picks in the top 80 in 2025, which should add nicely to our existing slate of prospects.
Here’s a quick overview of the Nats 2025 IFA class. Yesterday they signed 14 international players (6 from the Dominican Republic, another 8 from Venezuela) and sprinkled out bonuses of at least 300k to seven different guys.
Here’s a few Quick Observations, since there’s obviously limitations as to what we “know” about a bunch of teen-agers in central and south America.
2025 is a lower risk/spread the wealth bonus pool dollar year for the team
The Nats over the last decade have vacillated between high risk and low risk IFA classes, choosing in some years to put all their (bonus money) eggs in one basket and in other years to spread around the wealth.
All in on 1-2 player classes: 2024, 2022, 2021, 2016
Spread the Wealth classes: 2025, 2023, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2015
2025 seems to be a “spread the wealth” year, with seven announced players netting signing bonuses above $300k.
Their large bonus pool has allowed them to spread the wealth AND give out a big bonus
They’ve taken some big swings in terms of dollar amounts since Rizzo arrived: some of their biggest signing bonuses being:
This year’s $1.9M given to Cortesia, Brayan will be the 5th highest bonus since the Juan Soto class in 2015. But, given the four figures above and the relative “success” we’ve seen out of them … it may be considered a bargain.
Would anyone here say that their four big swings listed above have panned out? We’ve litigated Antuna to death, but right now Cruz, Vaquero, and Hurtado are not exactly trending positive. Hurtado hit just .218 in the DSL last year, Vaquero hit .190 in Low-A last year, and Cruz hit .224 mostly in low-A and isn’t even on MLBPipeline’s top 30 prospects for us anymore.
Trivia question: who’s the best Nats-selected/home grown IFA prospect in our system? Probably Andry Lara.
The Class is very Hitter-heavy
Not one of their seven big money guys is a pitcher. Among the 7, we have two Catchers, two SS, one 2B, and two OF. So, it sounds like they’re going to run it back with a lot of the DSL arms there now, most of whom are already 19-20. We’ll have to keep that in mind if we suddenly see a 20yr old starter blowing away 16-17yr olds in the DSL.
The Class is a bit old
There’s just one guy who’s 16 as of the signing date. Most of the class is 17 now and will turn 18 soon after the end of the 2015 season. One guy they signed (RHP Juan Lopez) is already 19; will he even go to the DSL?
They Still have some room in the pool
The known/announced bonus amounts total about $4.9M spread across seven guys. They announced another 7 signees. Usually if a bonus amount is not listed for an IFA, its a standard $10k. If we assume that figure for the remaining seven, then the Nats are leaving about $1.2M on the table right now. Perhaps that’s funds for later IFA signings who might pop up (they have signed IFAs outside of the Jan 15th window in the past), or perhaps the seven remaining all got 6-figure deals that eat into that remainder.
Remember: only half of these guys will ever even get to the US
Here’s a few quick stats on our recent IFA classes. Now, given that this is “early” for the more recent classes, but here’s quick stats on the size of the class and the number of players who moved domestically:
2024: 24 players in class, 0 moved domestically, 5 released
2023: 23/9/5
2022: 20/11/9
2021: 20/10/11
2020: 3/0/3
2019: 21/9/12
So, as you can see, we see roughly half these guys get released right out of the DSL, with the other half making it to the FCL. From there, usually a handful make their way up the chain a little bit, but many of them stall at the Low-A juncture, where they’re forced to go out in the world and travel for the first time.
Our IFA Tracker and the Nats big Board are now updated
Click here for the Nats IFA tracker where I’ve filled in the 2025 class.
Click here for the Nats Big Board, where i’ve put all the 2025 IFA signees into the XST section for now. Odds are they’ll all go to the DSL, but I don’t want to do that assignment until its officially announced.
Lastly, here’s some useful other links for you to peruse, if you’re interested in the IFA 2025 numbers and class:
I suppose it is only fitting that, one year after we “won” the 2024 draft lottery (but were ineligible because of being classified a “big market team” despite the fact that we get the exact same amount of RSN revenue as the Baltimore Orioles by rule, and they’re considered a “small market team” that literally gets Competitive Balance picks every year … but I digress), the Nats “won” the 2025 Draft Lottery and will pick 1st overall in the 2025 draft. We had the 4th best chance (around 10% overall) of getting picked, and we got lucky for the 2nd year in a row.
We’ll now have the 3rd #1 overall pick in the history of the franchise. The first two worked out pretty well … so expectations are pretty high. Based on the current state of the qualifying offer and other comp picks, the Nats will pick 1st overall, then have the 49th pick overall in the 2nd round, the 87th overall pick in the third round, and then roughly every 30 picks there on out (some teams are already forfeiting 5th rounders with QO-assigned FA signings, so we won’t know the exact draft order for the top 5 rounds for a while).
Bonus pools will be announced later, but by virtue of having #1 overall, we’ll have a massive pool to work with. The first pick alone will probably be worth close to $11M (last year’s #1 overall draft slot was worth $10.5m), which is important because the #1 overall pick will not sign for anywhere close to that figure (Travis Bazzana, last year’s 1-1 pick, signed for $8.95M, which gave Cleveland an extra $1.5M to work with), which means the Nats may have some major flexibility to sign another Luke Dickerson-type in the upper rounds and essentially get an additional 1st-round quality guy.
So, all that said, who is in the mix right now for 1-1 overall in 2025? Here’s a few names that have been in play since I started tracking the 2025 draft class. Remember, lots can change in a draft class once the baseball season starts next spring, but for now, there’s two HS guys and a handful of college guys at the top of most draft boards.
Prep guys:
Ethan Holliday, SS, Stillwater HS, Oklahoma. The brother of 2022 1-1 overall pick Jackson Holliday, son of Matt Holliday. Ok State commit. Consensus 1-1 pick as of Dec 2024 pre 2025 season on several draft boards.
Seth Hernandez, RHP, Elite Charter Academy HS, Temecula, Calif. Vanderbilt commit. 90-93, reaching 95 as HS sophomore. Top prep arm on board, projecting top 10 of 1st round, improving late 2024.
College guys:
Jace Laviolette, RF TAMU. D1 Fresh AA. 20/20 season as a freshman. Risen to be 2025 1-1 candidate with 29-HR sophomore season.
Jamie Arnold, LHP Starter from Florida State. 11-3, 2.98 ERA as sophomore in ACC.
Tyler Bremner, RHP UC Santa Barbara. blew up in 2024, going 11-1 with 2.54 ERA and 104/21 K/BB in 88 IP. Top RHP on board.
Cam Cannarella, SS/CF Clemson. D1 fresh AA, ACC Fresh of the year. slashed .388/.462/.560, Team Usa. Took a small step back sophomore year, went from 24SBs to zero (why?) but power stayed put.
Caden Bodine, C, Coastal Carolina. slashed .367/.456/.609 with 17 homers, Sun Belt Fresh of year, then continued in Cape with Wood to vault to top 10 status. Numbers fell across the board soph season, dinging prospect status.
One last comment. I’ve already seen some comments about Laviolette in particular, which are along the lines of, “well we already have plenty of outfielders, we should draft for need.” YOU DO NOT DRAFT FOR NEED IN BASEBALL. This isn’t the NBA, where you draft someone to immediately go into the 5-man starting lineup and you have to consider who you have in your current point guard position and how long they’re signed for; this is baseball, where players move around positions, where they may look great now but hit a plateau at AA or AAA, or get hurt and miss two seasons (ahem Cavalli). You draft the Best Player Available and if/when that player starts to push an existing veteran, so be it; you cross that bridge when you get there.
Right now, on December 11th, 2024, the #1 pick projection is absolutely Ethan Holliday. His brother destroyed the minor leagues, was the #1 prospect in baseball for most of 2024 and debuted as a 20yr old. Ethan is not his brother: he’s 4-inches taller and projects more like a corner bat/corner outfielder like his father versus a 6-0″ agile defender like his brother. If you told me Ethan would have his dad’s career right now, I’d take it (44 bWAR, 300homers, career .300 hitter with power). Sign me up.
It’s great to dream on a player … but you just never know what can happen in a spring baseball season. The #1 overall pick we get may be someone we’ve never heard of. Paul Skenes went from a decent Air Force hurler in a nothing conference to a guy putting up circus strikeout numbers at LSU in a year, to being the All Star Game starter and nearly winning the Cy Young in his rookie season … so we’ll see what happens as the spring season unfolds.
All that said, this is a great event for the franchise and could absolutely help lead the team back to a decade of prosperity.
Year four of the rebuild is complete. The team was flirting with .500 well into June but just couldn’t hold it together once they lost their best starter. From the trade-deadline forward they went 22-30 to end the season at 71-91, a .438 winning percentage.
Here’s a quick summary of where we are in the rebuild:
Year 1: 2021: moved Turner, Scherzer, Schwarber, et al. Finished 65-97. Earned 5th overall pick in 2022 draft (Elijah Green)
Year 2: 2022: moved Soto and Bell, finished 55-107, Earned 2nd overall pick in 2023 draft after losing lottery, got Dylan Crews.
Year 3: 2023: Improved to 71-91, dropped to 10th in 2024 draft thanks to new CBA rules despite winning lottery, got Seaver King
Year 4: 2024: Finished 71-91 again.
Our 71-91 finish, combined with the White Sox getting the same treatment we got last year (i.e., being a big market team that is bad two years in a row getting kicked out of the top 10) and Oakland getting kicked out of the lottery as well (they’re a revenue recipient that’s been in the lottery two years in a row), we stand to benefit by moving up a couple of slots of lottery odds.
Tankathon.com has the current reverse order of draft standings, showing us in 4th place/4th best lottery odds. We can pick no worse than 7th, but can move up to pick #1. (all the draft rules are at the bottom of the tankathon page).
We’re a ways off of from the 2025 draft, but we are starting to see some commonality for the names at the 2025 draft boards. Its looking like a college-heavy first round right now, even though a prep kid could go 1-1 overall. If we’re in the top 7 though, we’re in line to get one of these names right now:
Ethan Holliday, SS, Stillwater (Okla.) HS. Brother of Jackson Holliday, son of Matt Holliday
Caden Bodine, C, Coastal Carolina; .347/.432/.564 first two years at CCU as a plus defensive Catcher.
Jamie Arnold, LHP, Florida State. 1st team AA, Friday starter for FSU. 159 Ks in 102ip in 2024, co-ace for US Collegiate National Team this summer with Bremner.
Cam Cannarella, OF, Clemson Freshman ACC POTY, .363/.440/.560 first two college seasons while playing with injury.
Devin Taylor, OF (CF), Indiana. .357/.449/.660 with 20HRs his sophomore season.
Nolan Schubart, OF Oklahoma State. Ridiculous 1.351 OPS in 2024. Huge slugger potential.
There’s also a couple of other prep kids in the mix for the top 10, but something tells me we’ll be taking a college player this time around and not a project. We don’t “need” Bodine or an outfielder necessarily, would love to get one of these two college arms. The top of the class certainly is looking outfielder heavy right now. I like the connection to Schubart, an Oklahoma kid (we seem to take a lot of players from that region) who could mash his way up, but BA has him slipping into the 20s for the class so he may not really be in the conversation for the top 6-7 of the draft. I like a slugger outfielder who could project as a 1B/LF/DH rotation kind of guy, but it has to be a major slugger.
Anyway, lots to discuss this off-season. I’m not sure how much i’ll “cover” the playoffs this year due to other writing commitments, but we have options, rule5, and other fun stuff to cover coming up.
Tyler Bell is the highest profile player from the 2024 draft to turn down big money for a chance later at even bigger money. Photo BA.
Ever since we entered the draft pool bonus era, players not signing who were drafted in the top 10 have been a rarity. Oddly in 2024, with the draft signing deadline having just passed on 7/31/24, we saw four players not sign.
This post is a recycled post that tries to answer the question: “does it ever pay off for a player not to sign?” And I’ve added in the 2024 players for tracking and analysis going forward.
Lets take a look. Here’s a summary of the 13 years of players who were drafted but did not sign from the top 10 rounds. This analysis goes back to 2012, since that’s the beginning of the new draft rules.
2014: 6 (two of which were Nats picks: Andrew Suarez and Austin Byler in that ill-fated draft class, and one more who didn’t sign thanks to Houston’s screwing up the Brady Aiken deal and who was eventually granted free agency).
2013: 8
2012: 8
In total, 50 total players picked in the top 10 rounds in the last 13 drafts failed to sign, more than half in the first four years of the construct as teams/players/agents figured things out. The number of players drafted in the top 10 rounds varies slightly from year to year, but its roughly 300 players a year times 13 seasons, so at least 3,900 players picked in that time and probably more than 4,000 when you add in the dozens of supplemental and draft-compensation picks. So usually we see nearly 99% of the top 10 rounds of players sign.
Here’s the better question: did these players make major mistakes by NOT signing and taking the money?
Its a common refrain among pundits in the amateur baseball world (Keith Law in particular) that HS players should “take the money” if they’re drafted high enough. Certainly any first rounder would be a fool to turn away that kind of money, and mostly any prep player offered something in the upper 6 figure range should give serious consideration. MLB contracts generally include college tuition … so even if you sign out of HS you still have 4 years fully paid for in case you wash out. So instead of gambling on your health, or the fickleness of the baseball draft (where one bad start can cost you 30 spots in the draft and millions of dollars), take the cash when its offered.
But, don’t take our word for it. Lets look at the empirical evidence of every player over past drafts who has forgone the cash to see if there’s any trends.
(a caveat here: I did not look at the dollar amounts in every case; this is basically draft round analysis. Its possible that a 5th rounder in one year went in the 8th the next and got offered more money … but its quite rare with the new draft rules and bonus pools. Everything changed with the new CBA that went into effect in 2012).
Tyler Bell, a prep SS from an IL HS. Drafted in 2nd-supp (#66 overall), slot value of $1.26M. Failed to come to terms with Tampa Bay. Based on some quick googling, it looks like Tampa offered him around $1.5M to sign but got other over-slot guys to sign before Bell would, which cost them the overage it likely would have taken. Bell was a top100 draft prospect with a commit to Kentucky and will be a draft-eligible sophomore in 2026. Tampa gets a replacement pick at exactly #67 in 2025.
Chris Levonas, a prep RHP from a NJ HS. Drafted one pick after Bell as a 2nd round Supp (#67). Slot value: $1.23M. He was a higher ranked prospect than Bell, and he and Milwaukee couldn’t come to terms. Per my google research, Milwaukee had $3M to offer him, but Levonas was a significant prospect and decided to honor his commitment to Wake Forest. Milwaukee pivoted and spread out that $3M to several later picks. Milwaukee gets a replacement pick at exactly #68 in 2025.
Ryan Prager, a college junior LHP from Texas A&M. Los Angeles picked him in the 3rd round with a slot value of $948k. Per reporting in the Athletic, Prager was pretty open with teams about being open to coming back to school, earning his degree, and seeing if he could help TAMU get back to the title game. No numbers were discussed, but it sounds like the Angels drafted him without understanding his requirements nor what it would take to sign. Prager goes back to school, while the Angels will get a comp pick after the 3rd round in 2025 (meaning they’ll lose a couple dozen spots in the draft).
Jaxon Jelkin, a college junior RHP from Houston. The Mets drafted him in the 9th round (slot value $196,700). There’s not a lot of information out there. MLB’s scouting report notes that he made 7 starts for Houston then blew out his UCL, requiring TJ. They also note he was “dismissed” from Nebraska’s two years ago and has “severe makeup concerns.” Reportedly NY didn’t even make him a contract offer, which means technically he’s a free agent right now with a year of college eligibility left but with a TJ surgery likely putting him out for the entire 2025 college season. It might make more sense for him to take a pro contract and rehab at a pro facility instead of college, but we’ll see. New York will not get a comp pick here.
Obviously it’s too early to tell for all these four players if they made the right decision. I’ll say this: if you’re a prep player who gets offered $3M … you made a mistake not taking it. If indeed Levonas got that offer. Is he guaranteed to be a 1st rounder in three years? Same to a lesser extent for Bell, who turned down $1.5M. Prager? He may be able to do better next year. Jelkin? He should have signed. So, my too early verdicts are: 3 mistakes, 1 may work out.
Caden Kendle, a Jr OF from UC-Irvine taken in the 10th round by St. Louis. He apparently agreed to a $175k bonus (around 10k over slot), but then had a change of heart and decided to go back to school for his senior season.
Verdict: He refused a $175k, played another year, got drafted in the 5th round of 2024 and signed an under-slot deal for $147k. So, he lost money, and a year of pro development. He may have gained a college degree though, so that’s good.
Nolan McLean, a draft-eligible sophomore two-way player from Oklahoma State (RHP and 3B) who was picked by the Orioles at the top of the 3rd round. Baltimore found an issue in his medicals, so McLean went back to school. Slot bonus figure: $794k. Its unclear what bonus figure they agreed upon. McLean went back to school, and was picked again in the 3rd round in 2023, dropping 10 slots and signing for $747K with the Mets.
Brandon Sproat, a RHP sophomore from Florida, failed to sign with the Mets as a 3rd rounder (slot value $691k) for reasons unknown. He went back to school, then (amazingly) agreed to a re-draft by the Mets in 2023, who picked him in the 2nd round and signed him for $1.47M. Sproat also appears later on in this post because he refused to sign out of HS as well.
Brock Rodden, a 2B junior from Wichita State, failed to sign as a 10th rounder with Oakland (slot value: $151.3k). He went back to school, got drafted as a 5th rounder in 2023 and signed for $200k.
Verdict: McLean was not penalized for not signing, but it wasn’t really his choice since the team reneged. Sproat more than doubled his bonus offer from last year, and Rodden improved his by likely 25%. So, all three guys “worked out” in the end.
Kumar Rocker, RHP Vanderbilt, in a well publicized blow-up, the Mets drafted Rocker 10th overall and made a huge splash announcing a $6M over-slot bonus .. then ran into issues with his medicals, resulting in the two sides failing to agree on anything and the Mets passing on the Vanderbilt star altogether. Rocker’s agent (ahem, “advisor”) Scott Boras of course refused to make his medicals available ahead of time, and of course claimed that there was no injury, but the subsequent findings vindicated the Met’s decision. Rocker had shoulder surgery in the fall of 2021, then pitched in Indy ball in 2022 before shockingly getting drafted by the Rangers with the 3rd overall pick in 2022. He signed for $5.2M, well below the slot value, and well below the $6M he agreed to in 2021, but he was still an upper 1st rounder. He pitched in the fall league, then made a handful of starts in 2023 before …. tearing his UCL and having Tommy John. So, Perhaps the Mets were right all along.
Jud Fabian, OF Florida; saw his draft stock fall from a possible top-5 pick all the way out of the first round. But, he apparently had a $3M deal with Baltimore in the second, but those plans were foiled when Boston selected him at the beginning of the 2nd round. Fabian stuck to his bonus demands, and the two sides could not reach an agreement. Fabian went back to school and was a Comp-B pick in 2022, signing for $1.03M.
Alex Ulloa, prep SS from Texas failed to come to terms with Houston as a 4th round pick. Ulloa bailed out of an Oklahoma State commitment, went to Yavapai College Juco … and went undrafted in 2022 altogether. Again in 2023, but he did get a commit to U of Miami for 2024, his junior season. Failed to get drafted in 2024 altogether, now at Florida International.
Verdict: Rocker couldn’t beat $6M but still got $5.2M as damaged goods, so its hard to say he made a bad decision (not that it was entirely his to make with the Mets pulling the offer). Fabian lost out on $2M of bonus money, but we don’t know what money he turned down from Boston (odds are he lost out on the deal). Ulloa’s slot value was $492k in 2021; we don’t know what he was offered in 2021, but we went completely undrafted in 2022, so it seems safe to say he has lost out on money.
2020: in a shortened 5-round Covid-related draft, not one player picked in the 5 rounds failed to sign.
2019: 2 players did not sign from the top 10 rounds
Brandon Sproat, RHP Fla HS 7th/205 overall by Texas. $222,100 slot value, which wasn’t enough to buy Sproat out of his commitment to Florida. As we’ve already seen, Sproat and signability was also an issue in 2022, but he did eventually sign in 2023 for a ton of money.
Wyatt Hendrie, C from Calif Juco 10th/312 overall by Chicago Cubs. $142,200 slot value. Cubs seemingly ran into slot issues with both 10th and 11th rounder, and Hendrie wouldn’t take under slot. Hendrie went undrafted in 2020’s shortened draft, but then was picked in the 7th in 2021 and signed for $177,500 out of San Diego State.
Verdict: both players ended up making money by not signing; Sproat a ton, Hendrie a little bit.
Carter Stewart, RHP Fla HS. 1st/8th overall. Atlanta didn’t like Physical, offered 40% of slot value ($1.9M); initially slated to Mississippi State. Update: However, he did an about face, went to a Juco instead with the plan on re-entering the 2019 draft. When he struggled in Juco and fell to a mid 2nd round projection … he attempted an end-around of the MLB draft rules and signed to play in japan, a situation I detailed in this space. By 2021 he had graduated the Japan minor leagues into their majors, and his stats as of 2023 seem pretty solid (as a 23yr old he has a sub 2.00 ERA for his team Softbank).
Matt McLain: 2B Calif HS. 1st/25: Asked $3M, Arizona offered $2.6M didn’t budge, going to UCLA. Update: picked 17th overall in the 2021 draft and signed for $4.63M. Huge gamble and huge win.
JT Ginn: RHP Miss HS. 1st/30th: LA dodgers offered $2.4M, asking $2.9M, going to Mississippi State. Update: drafted 2nd round/52nd overall in 2020 draft, signed for $2.9M with the Mets in a well over-slot deal. So two years later he got his asking number.
Gunnar Hoglund: LHP Fla HS. 1supp/36: Pittsburgh didn’t like physical, low-balled and he declined. going to Ole Miss. 2021; was projected as a top 10 pick, hurt his arm, had TJ but still got drafted 19th overall by Toronto and signed for $3.25M. Big win.
McLean drastically improved his stock, Ginn got what he wanted, and Hoglund (despite his injury) got paid. I already detailed why I think Stewart’s deal is smart.
Drew Rasmussen, RHP, Oregon State, 1s/31st overall. Failed to sign with Tampa, who (I guess) didn’t like his medicals. He was coming back from TJ and only had a few weeks of action before the draft. Update: Went 6th round in 2018 to Milwaukee.
Jack Conlon, RHP, Clements HS (Sugar Land, Texas). 4th round/128 overall. Failed to sign with Baltimore, went to Texas A&M. Update: left TAMU, went to San Jacinto, then enrolled in Rice and sat out 2020. However, he wasn’t on the 2021 roster, and its unclear where he’s playing at this point. He seems to be out of baseball at this point.
Jo Jo Booker, RHP, Miller HS (Brewton, Ala.). 5th round/145 overall. failed to sign with LA Angels, went to South Alabama. Ended up playing 5 full seasons for South Alabama, was never drafted, posted an ERA north of 6.00 his 5th year, and is likely out of baseball.
Two players who ended up playing themselves out of any bonus dollars. Rasmussen didn’t turn down the Rays as much as they refused to tender him a contract … they must have tendered him something because they got a comp pick in 2018 draft. So he turned down 40% of first round money in 2017 to sign an under-slot deal in the 6th round of 2018 ($135k, just $10k more than the non-top 10 rounds minimum). I’d say this was a bad move by the player unless Tampa flat out refused to pay a dollar.
Verdict: 1 worsened his draft position, 2 missed out on any draft money.
Nick Lodolo: 1S/41st overall; LHP from Damien HS in California. failed to sign with Pittsburgh, went to TCU instead, draft eligible in 2019. In 2021, drafted 7th overall, signed for $5.43M.
Tyler Buffett: 7th/217 overall; RHP, failed to sign with Houston. returned to Oklahoma State, drafted in 6th round in 2017 and signed with Cincinnati
Lodolo went to school (an arm-shredder program in TCU even) and went from 41st overall to 7th overall, with probably 3x the bonus. Furthermore, by 2021 he was one of the best pitching prospects in the game. Meanwhile Buffett improved his draft position one round by going back to school.
Verdict: 1 drastically improved his draft pick and money, 1 improved his draft position one round.
2015: 6 guys did not sign.
Kyle Funkhouser: 1st/35th overall: RHP from Louisville, failed to sign with LA Dodgers, turning down an above-slot $2M. 4th rounder in 2016, signed with Detroit.
Brady Singer, 2nd/56th overall: RHP Florida HS. failed to sign with Toronto, went to Florida and was 1st rounder in 2018, signed with Kansas City
Jonathan Hughes, 2nd/68th overall: RHP Georgia HS. failed to sign with Baltimore, went to Georgia Tech and not even drafted in 2018…
Kyle Cody, 2nd/73rd overall: RHP U Kentucky. failed to sign with Minnesota, drafted in 6th round in 2016 and signed with Texas
Nicholas Shumpert, 7th/220th overall. SS Colorado HS. failed to sign with Detroit. Went to San Jacinto CC, drafted in 28th round 2016 by Atlanta and signed.
Kep Brown, 10th/311 overall. RF South Carolina HS, failed to sign with LA Dodgers. went to Juco, then to UNC-Wilmington, not drafted in 2018.
Funkhouser was the biggest “whoops” here; a poor spring took him from his pre-season top 10 draft position all the way out of the first round, but he still demanded upper 1st round money. He didn’t get it … and then fell to the 4th round the next year. That was a big fail. Singer clearly improved on his 2nd round status by going to college. Cody slipped from being a 2nd rounder to a 6th rounder. The other three guys drastically fell on draft boards; one of them going from a 10th rounder to not even being drafted.
Verdict: 1 improved, 5 hurt draft stock
2014: 6 failed to sign
Brady Aiken: 1/1 overall, RHP from San Diego HS. failed to sign with Houston, went to IMG Academy in FL, drafted 1/17 by Cleveland
Andrew Suarez: 2nd/57 overall LHP from U-Miami, failed to sign with Washington. Drafted 2nd round/61st overall in 2015 by San Francisco
Trevor Megill; 3rd/104th overall RHP from Loyola Marymount. failed to sign with Boston, drafted 7th/207 in 2015 draft and signed with San Diego
Jacob Nix: 5th/136 RHP from Los Alomitos HS; couldn’t sign when Tampa lost bonus money, sued, FA, signed with San Diego
Zack Zehner: 7th/204 OF from Cal Poly, failed to sign with Toronto. Drafted 18th round 2015 and signed with NYY
Austin Byler, 9th/274 1B from nevada-Reno. failed to sign with Washington, drafted 11th round in 2015 and signed with Arizona
Aiken became quite the rarity; the first #1 overall baseball pick to fail to sign in 30 years. But his lack of signing cascaded and cost the Astros both their 5th rounder Nix and another player later on thanks to the new draft rules on bonus pools; Nix ended up being declared a FA in a face-saving move by MLB so as not to admit that their new bonus cap circumvention rules were BS. Aiken had no where to go but down from 1-1 so he obviously cost himself money. The others all fell, if only slightly in Suarez’s case.
Verdict: 1 didn’t count, 5 lowered draft stock
2013: 8 failed to sign
Phil Bickford: 1/10 RHP California HS. Toronto failed to sign. went to Southern Nevada juco, drafted 1/18 by SF and signed.
Matt Krook 1s/35 LHP calif HS. Miami failed to sign, went to Oregon State, drafted 4th round by SF in 2016
Ben DeLuzio 3rd/80 SS from Fla HS. Miami failed to sign. Went to Florida State, played 4 years … undrafted out of college, NDFA with Arizona
Ben Holmes, 5th /151 LHP Oregon State. Philly failed to sign. went 9th round in 2014
Jason Monda 6th/181 OF Washington State. Philly failed to sign … then accused him of NCAA violations. he wasn’t drafted again and quit to go to Med school
Stephen Woods 6th/188 RHP NY HS: Tampa failed to sign, went to Suny-Albany, drafted 8th round 2016 by SF and signed
Dustin DeMuth 8th/230 3B from Indiana, Minnesota failed to sign, became 5th rounder in 2014 and signed with Milwaukee
Ross Kivett 10th/291 2B from kansas State. Cleveland failed to sign, became 6th rounder in 2014 and signed with Detroit
Bickford fell 8 slots year over year but still fell. DeMuth and Kivett both improved their stock. The rest fell, drastically in some cases.
Verdict: 2 improved, 6 fell
2012: 8 failed to sign
Mark Appel 1/8 RHP Stanford by Pittsburgh. failed to sign, was 1/1 in 2013 with Houston
Teddy Stankiewicz 2/75 RHP from Texas Hs. failed to sign with Mets, went Juco, 2/45 in 2013 by Boston
Alec Rash, 2/95 by Philadelphia from IA HS. went to Missouri, 2015 drafted in 23rd round by Washington but still didn’t sign; quit baseball and started playing NCAA basketball
Kyle Twomey, 3/106 LHP Calif HS Oakland. Drafted 13th round 3 yrs later out of USC by Chicago Cubs.
Brandon Thomas 4/136 OF from Ga Tech; didn’t sign with Pittsburgh, drafted 8th round one year later and signed with NYY
Colin Poche 5/162 LHP texas h s. failed to sign with Baltimore, went to Dallas Baptist, undrafted Jr year, drafted 14th round 2016 by Arizona
Nick Halamandaris 8/251 1B Calif HS. failed to sign with Seattle, played 4 years at cal, undrafted jr and Sr year, NDFA with Seattle, played one season
L.J. Mazzilli 9/280 2B from UConn. 4th rounder in 2013 signed with NY Mets
Appel managed to improve from 8th overall to 1st overall. Stankiewicz also improved his stock about a round’s worth. Mazzilli improved from a 9th rounder to a 4th rounder. The others all fell.
Verdict: 3 up, 5 down.
Summary: of the 50 players who failed to sign, passing judgement even on the players where its far too early to really tell:
30 hurt their draft stock by failing to sign (15 HS, 15 coll)
1 didn’t really count b/c of the Houston 2014 draft bonus shenanigans (Jacob Nix, HS)
15 improved their draft stock/money
4 from 2024 too early yet to tell.
So, 2 out of every 3 times a kid turns down the money they’re costing themselves in the long run. But, its also worth noting that a huge percentage of these players who declined to sign were at the very beginning of the new rules … in the last few years, the success rate of players has gone way up. I attribute it to players now understanding better the rules of the system.
Seaver King should be the highest-ranked player we’ve picked up this month. Photo via opendorse
We’re now past both the 2024 Draft and the 2024 Trade Deadline. Lets summarize the draft results, the trade deadline deals, and then discuss the impact all these new players seem to have on our “top 30” ranks and perhaps on the team in the future.
2024 Draft Results. We signed 20 of our 21 picked players, only missing out on the 20th pick, who seemed to be picked as insurance in case our 2nd rounder Luke Dickerson failed to come to terms. Based on the immediate ranking adjustments, the following 2024 draftees will soon slot into our various top 30s in roughly the following spots:
5-7 Range: #1 pick Seaver King, who probably starts at SS and 3B in High-A next year.
7-10 Range: #1s pick Caleb Lomavita, who hopefully is catching full time at High-A next year.
16-20 Range: #3 pick Kevin Bazzell, who probably gets some C cycles in High-A next year.
Low 20 range: #2 pick Luke Dickerson, who the Nats seem higher on than others. FCL next year.
23-25 Range: #4 Pick Jackson Kent, who should be in the Low-A rotation next year.
28-30 Range: #8 pick Sam Peterson, who BA slotted in at #29 right out of the gate. Low-A OF.
So, that’s 6 guys pushing the typical edge of the prospect list downwards. For Baseball America’s immediate impact analysis, the above 6 guys meant that #31-36 became Cruz, Nunez, Baker, Alvarez, Lord, and Brown. To give an idea of how the draft strengthens farm systems.
Expectations out of this lot? I’m hoping King turns into someone who can push Luis Garcia when the time is right and maybe Garcia’s pushing arbitration dollars. I’m hoping one of Lomavita or Bazzell makes a for-real push to the upper minors and bolsters our C depth. I’m hoping we get some found-gold in one or two of the starters we got. But, unlike the last couple of drafts, where our 1st rounder was supposed to be a bonafide future superstar, I’m just not that wow’ed by anyone in our draft this year. Maybe its b/c of the lack of brand name awareness this year. We know the pundits seem to really like this draft, so we just have to be patient.
Then, along came the trade Deadline. The Nats were able to move four of the really obvious guys on the trading block (Harvey, Winker, Thomas, and Floro). An ill-timed blow-up inning seems to have cost the team the shot at trading closer Finnegan, and of course what could have been our best trade chip in Trevor Williams blew any shot at a prospect haul when he strained his flexor tendon two months ago. Other FAs to be who also missed out at netting us prospects; Corbin (ha-ha), Gallo (hurt), and the crew of Robles/Rosario/Barnes/Senzel (all DFA’d/released due to under-performance before they could be flipped). The four guys we did trade netted us the following players (and the rough area the acquisitions will slot in from a prospect perspective):
7-9 range: Cayden Wallace, 3B in AA, netted in Harvey trade. Also got the supplemental draft pick that turned into Lomavita
15-17 range; Tyler Steward, RHP Starting pitcher in AA, netted in Winker trade.
6-8 Range: Alex Clemmey, a 19yr old LHP Starting pitcher in Low-A netted in Thomas trade. High-risk/high-reward prospect.
23-25 range: Rafael Ramirez, a 19yr old SS in Low-A, netted in Thomas trade. Another high risk/high-reward.
Outside top 30: Jose Tena, a 23yr old AAA 2B/3B with some MLB time. At one point he was near the Cleveland top 10, now has dropped back. He has great AAA numbers this year, better than a lot of our middle infield guys. So this isn’t a throw-in. He could legitimately push Vargas as a backup middle infield option.
Outside top 30: Andres Chapparo, a 25-yr old 1B/3B AAA guy who was a MLFA signing in the off-season. Acquired for Floro. Did we really just trade Floro for a month of a MLFA? I’d like to think we retain some control over Chapparo for more than the rest of 2024. He’s destroying AAA this year and is on his way to hitting 20+ homers for the 3rd straight year in the minors. Listed as 3B, but the guy is 5’11”, 200lbs, which screams out “immobile 1B or DH basher.” Plus we already have House, Kieboom, Dunn and a couple others sharing 3B in AAA.
So, that’s quite a haul. Probably 9-10 guys who will slot into our top 30s at either MLB, BA, or elsewhere picked up in the last month. Four of them project as top 10 guys, really helping to bolster the depth in this system. King remains the highest ranked of any of them, but you have to be excited to see what guys like Clemmey, Wallace, and Dickerson can do.
Expectations here? Well, I like the fact that we got two established AA guys. Last year we acquired a solid AA guy in Herz and now he’s in the majors; we could see the same thing out of Steward or Wallace in a year. I like that we got two AAA talents who can bolster that lineup. And I like the lottery tickets that slot into low-A because why not, and because Cleveland is one of those teams that doesn’t shy away from drafting and developing prep and DSL kids well.
One last tidbit. Our Trade partners this year were … odd. We traded with four teams:
Kansas City/Harvey: last trade was in 2021, a minor cash deal. Last time we did anything of substance in trade with KC was 2018.
New York Mets/Winker deal: last move with them was 2018, a minor cash deal. Before that was the random Jerry Blevins deal in 2015, who seemingly got moved because he took the Nats to arbitration over like $200k, beat the team, and was dealt a few weeks later.
Cleveland/Thomas: last move with them also was 2018, the Yan Gomes deal that turned out a lot better for us than it did them.
Arizona/Floro: we havn’t traded with Arizona since 2011, nearly the entire Rizzo tenure here.
So, interesting that we traded with teams we havn’t done business with in years. Who are the teams we’ve gone the longest without making a deal with? We havn’t traded with Colorado since 2009 (the Joe Biemel deal), We havn’t done business with Houston since 2007 (and even that was the swap of two minor leaguers), but the most hilarious one? We havn’t traded with Baltimore since 2001.
As usual we loaded up on College players. The two HS picks were a 2nd rounder and a speculative pick on a 15th rounder, which again is pretty on-brand for our typical draft.
Of the 19 college: 16 were Soph/Jrs with eligibility, just 3 were “Senior Signs” or Grad students.
Compare this to last year, when we drafted eight college seniors. Now, perhaps this is a remnant of the Covid year working its way through the system (meaning, many of last year’s seniors were actually 3rd year eligible due to the lost 2020 season). However, we’ve drafted a ton of guys who still could go back to school if they don’t like the number. Top 10 rounds i’m not too worried, but a few of these mid-teen guys may pass (see below) for various reasons.
My guesses on over/under slot from top 10: 6 Under, 4 slot, 1 over.
The top 10 rounds are what really counts for over/under slot, and here’s pick by pick what I think happens:
1st King. Slot $5.9M: I think he signs for less, like $1.5M less, since he projected mid-teens.
1-S: Lomavita. Slot $2.3m: signs for slot, maybe a smidge more b/c he’s Boras client and of course he will get it, since Boras has extracted ridiculous $ from us for years.
2nd Dickerson. Slot $2.1m: I think he goes overslot, like maybe $400-$500k over.
3rd Bazzell. Slot $980k: I think he goes for slot, maybe a smidge more.
4th Kent. Slot $676k: signs for slot or close to it.
5th Diaz. Slot $490k: Underslot, by perhaps $200k
6th Garcia. Slot $372k: underslot, by perhaps $100k
7th Cranz. Slot $290k: slightly underslot by maybe $75k
8th Peterson. Slot $230k: Sighs for slot
9th Ross. Slot $198k: senior sign for $10k, saving $188k or so
10th Johnson. Slot $185k. small college sign for $10k, saving $175k or so.
Honestly, I only see one obvious over-slot pick in the top 10 in Dickerson, and he’s already at $2.1M slot, so just giving him another few hundred thousand puts him into 1st round money, which should be what he needs to forgo college. Working the numbers above, I see savings of about $2.2M, giving $500k of it to Dickerson, leaving about $1.7M in overages for rounds 11-20. Which we’ll get to in a bit when talking sign-ability below.
11 Pitchers, 10 position players overall
But, 7 position, 4 pitchers in top 10, and our first 4 picks were position players.
Good balance in the draft overall, but the top of this draft was entirely about hitters. Which is interesting, since we have not really focused on big-time arms at the top of the draft now for a few years running. To wit:
2024 draft: 5 of the first 6 picks were position players.
2023 draft: 6 of the first 7 picks were position players
2022 draft: 5 of the first 6 picks were position players.
2021 draft: 4 of the first 5 picks were position players.
Compare to
2019 (4 of top 6 arms)
2018 (6 of top 7 arms)
2017 (9 of top 10 picks arms)
Is this a pivot in draft strategy for the franchise? It seems like it. For years Rizzo drafted a gazillion arms and used them as trade currency to acquire position players. Now it seems like the strategy is reversed, with the bulk of our prospect depth coming in bats. We have more top OF prospects than we know what to do with, and we face a pending OF log-jam (Wood, Young in bigs now, with Crews, Hassell, Lile coming soon, and guys like Green, Vaquero, Cox maybe in the distant future, and that’s before remembering we also have Thomas, Call, Garrett on the 40-man). Not to mention we have an All-Star SS, a 1st rounder at 3B in AAA, now another decent 3B prospect in AA, and we just drafted three SS/3B projected guys in the first 3 rounds of the 2024 draft.
As for Arms, we grabbed a slew of them in the teens, which has served the team well in previous drafts. We’ve picked up guys who have flown through the minors despite being drafted in the high teens, an amazing feat considering how difficult is has been for our 2nd rounders to amount to anything historically (a rant for another time).
Lots of positional flexibility in the guys we drafted
This seems to be a trend with the Nats, and the league in general. If you look at the guys we signed last off-season, they all had multi-position capabilities. Look at the position players we just picked up and you see a lot of the same:
King: played 4 positions for Wake this year (CF, SS, 3B, 2B)
Lomavita: Catcher only
Dickerson: Prep SS, but projects to be 2B, CF capable
Bazzell: played both C and 3B. If he can play 3B, he can play at least 1B and maybe 2B
Diaz: SS and 3B this year
Peterson: CF but can play all 3 OF positions
Ross played 1B, LF, RH this year.
Jones: HS C but projects to 1B/corner OF slugger
Banks: CF in college but can play all 3 OF positions.
Shelton: college SS but played 3B and can cover anywhere on the dirt
So that’s good.
Signability: Of the 11th-20th rounders: 6 look easily sign-able, 2 look like they’ll be tougher signs, 2 would need a lot more money
I’m going to assume that we sign all top 10 round picks, because that’s just what happens now. Nearly 99% of the picks in the top 10 rounds have signed since the slot bonus system went in place.
Here’s a quick summary of 11-20 and sign-ability:
11th Beeker: Signable, maybe a little above $150k
12th Meckley, signable for $150k
13th Olson, signable for $150k or less even
14th Tejeda, may be tougher to sign, in that he’s a RS soph with 2 years of eligibilty.
15th Jones, may be tough to sign as a HS kid with a big name college commitment, but he’s also not a top 100 prep recruit. Maybe he signs if he gets a 7-figure bonus.
16th Hughes: senior draftee, signable at $150k or less even.
17th Bruni: signable
18th Banks: signable
19th Minckler: tough sign in that he just got an offer to go to ASU
20th Shelton; intriguing over-slot discussion, see below.
Do we have enough money to get both Jones and Shelton? Maybe. If my above accounting is right, we might have about $1.7M in spare bonus money. BUT, that’s before we add in the 5% buffer, worth another $700k or so. So, that’s about $2.4M total. Could we get Shelton for $1.5M and Jones for $1M? That’d be roughly mid 2nd round money for Shelton and top of 3rd round money for Jones. Maybe, Maybe. That’d make for a heck of a successful draft if they could pull it off.
Regional breakdown of players:
This team for years has been super heavy in the southwest regions (Texas, Oklahoma). This year i see a bit of a departure.
West Coast: 2: one from AZ, one from CA (Lomavita, Kent)
Southeast: 6: 3 from FL, 1 from GA, 1 from SC, 1 from NC (Garcia, Tejada, Shelton, Olson, Meckley, King)
Southwest: 4: 1 from TX, 1 from OK, 1 from LA, 1 from MS (Bazzell, Cranz, Banks, Ross)
Northeast: 3: 1 from NJ, 1 from NY, 1 from MD (Dickerson, Johnson, Minckler)
Midwest: 6: 2 from OH, 2 from IN, 1 from IL, 1 from IA (Diaz, Peterson, Beeker, Jones, Hughes, Bruni)
So that’s interesting. that’s basically 9 players from “cold weather” states in the northeast and midwest. Just a couple from their typical heavy hunting grounds of TX and OK.
Conference breakdown of college players
Here’s a conference breakdown of the schools the 19 college draftees came from:
Pac12: 2 (Arizona and Cal)
ACC: 2 (Florida State, Wake Forest)
SEC: 2 (Florida, Ole Miss)
Big12 2 (Ok state, Texas Tech)
Big10: 2 (Iowa, Ohio State)
MEAC: 1 (Ball State)
SBC: 1 (Coastal Carolina)
Atlantic Sun: 1 (FGCU)
MVC: 1 (Indiana State)
Southern 1 (Mercer)
MAAC 1 (Niagara)
AAC 1 (Tulane)
Big East 1 (Xavier)
America East 1 (UMBC)
That’s a lot of players from a lot of pretty random baseball conferences. Remember; the entire CWS was from the ACC and the SEC.
