Here’s the End of July 2024 check-ins on all our rotations, from MLB to FCL.
Each team section analysis will have the same items: current rotation, changes in the last month, observations, next guy to get promoted (if its in the minors), next guy to get cut, and then a few comments about relievers.
Important links for this analysis:
- Big Board:
- Nats MLB stats: at baseball-reference.com
- AAA Rochester stats: (all minor league stats at milb.com)
- AA Harrisburg stats
- High-A Wilmington stats
- Low-A Fredericksburg Stats
- FCL Nationals Stats
- DSL Nationals Pitching Stats
We’ll start with the Majors.
Rotation as of 7/31/24: Irvin, Gore, Parker, Corbin, Herz
Rotation as of 6/30/24: Irvin, Gore, Parker, Corbin, Herz
Changes since end of last Month: None. Same five guys, for better or worse.
We did however get some distressing news on the two guys we thought we’d have back by now, Grey and Cavalli. Grey was yanked after a dip in velocity in a rehab start, given another MRI and he’s got a UCL issue. He thought maybe it was just a brace insertion, but on July 25th he got Tommy John surgery. The timing of the injury is bad; he’ll miss the rest of 2024 and probably is no guarantee to even see 2025 on the field. Meanwhile, Cavalli got the flu, which started him back to ground zero in terms of his rehab, then he suffered a “dead arm” after coming back, and we havn’t seen him in weeks. Um, its now August 2024, he had the surgery in March of 2023. So we’re now at 16 months post surgery and counting. So much for a 12-month recovery period. Lastly, we’ve heard jack and sh*t about Williams, our most valuable 2024 trade piece lit on fire after his flexor issue. The last update I’ve seen as July 19th “light throwing” activities. Great, so he’ll be ready for October.
Rotation Observations: So, as for the guys we DO have in the rotation: Irvin took a step back in June, going 2-2 with a 4.75 ERA. Corbin blew up after a couple of acceptable months, pitching to a 7.27 ERA last month. Gore had an uncharacteristically awful July, walking 16 in 26 innings and going 0-2 with a 7.62 ERA. Not good. Parker? Same story: he went from a 3.15 ERA last month to a 7.89 ERA this month. Lastly we have the new guy Herz, who improved a ton from June and threw 5 starts at a 4.04 ERA with a 26/5 K/BB ratio last month. Interesting.
Next guy to get cut/demoted: So, Yes I know Corbin is awful, but this team seems hell bent on having him soak up innings until his $35M/year contract is over. If someone was healthy tomorrow, I think Herz may still make way, but on the other hand his promising July tells me he’s improving and should be given more time. However, none of our 3 injured starters is seemingly coming back any time soon, and as we’ll see in the next section, nobody from AAA is pushing for a promotion right now.
Bullpen comments: Two of our best relievers were moved in Harvey and Floro. We wish we could have moved Finnegan, but an ill-timed blow-up inning likely scared off the suiters (Baltimore? Philadelphia?) and cost us some more prospects (at least he’s still under Arb control for another year). In the place of the departed guys, the team added wavier claim Salazar and brought up newly converted reliever Adon. Get ready for some reliever blowups the rest of the way: Rainey has an ERA in the 6s, Ferrer in the 7s, and the whole middle relief corps (JBarnes, Garcia, Adon, Salazar) are middling 4.00 something ERA guys who are all the definition of a replacement level arm.
AAA Rochester
Rotation as of 7/31/24: Rutledge, Ward, Lord, Alvarez, Luckham
Rotation as of 6/30/24: Rutledge, Watkins, Ward, Lord, Alvarez
Changes since end of last month: Watkins made 3 starts then hit the DL, replaced by AA-call up Luckham, who joins Lord and Alvarez as 3/5ths of the AAA rotation promoted up in the last couple of months.
Rotation Observations: We’ll go in order of seniority. Rutledge was awful in July, has been awful all season, and it seems to me the scouting reports on the guy are holding true; he’s a 2pitch guy who needs to be moved to relief. Ward made 4 starts to a 4.04 ERA (which … normally you’d say, oh that’s not so bad), but he only threw 17.2 innings in those four starts and he managed to walk 17 in those 17.2 innings. This team wasted a roster spot on him all year last season to see what they’ve got: I’ll tell you what you’ve got: a 27yr old guy who may have been a promising starter once, but i’m not sure what you have now. Alvarez’s foray into AAA has not been good: 13ip, only 7 punch-outs and he’s very hittable (.351 BAA). The 2023 Nats minor league pitcher of the year who appears on almost zero prospect lists may be exhibiting why: its likely AA was the limit of his competence. Luckham’s first two AAA starts have been blow-outs: he doesn’t seem ready. Which leaves us with Lord: the 18th rounder who’s now a 24yr old in AAA holding his own. He threw 5 starts, 3.86 ERA, solid K/BB numbers, looks like he belongs. Amazing. He was the 531st player drafted in 2022, a college reliever out of a middling baseball school.
Next guy to get Promoted: Amazingly, its Lord on merit. No, i don’t think they’re in a hurry to promote him, but he’s most deserving. Certainly our 40-man starters aren’t.
Next guy to get cut/demoted: I think Luckham is overmatched right now and goes back down when an opportunity presents or when Watkins comes back from DL. Alvarez is also on short leash. If it were me i’d look at both Rutledge and Ward in the bullpen, but no reason to do that now unless a slew of AA starters make noise to move up.
Bullpen comments: Salazar already got called up; he didn’t give up a run in AAA after his acquisition. La Sorsa continues to pitch well in Rochester and looks like he deserves a promotion; he’s on the 40-man (post-publish correction; he was outrighted last Dec) so maybe if the Nats get tired of Rainey sucking they’ll give him another shot. Rico Garcia is a 30yr old closer in AAA who we got as a MLFA from Oakland; he was solid in July and may merit a 9/1 callup to see if he’s worth extending.
AA Harrisburg
Rotation as of 7/31/24: Cuevas, Solesky, Lara, Theophile, Stuart (with two spot starts from Reyes)
Rotation as of 6/30/24: Luckham, Cuevas, Solesky, Lara, Theophile (plus a couple Grey rehab starts and one Reyes spot-start)
Changes since end of last month: Luckham promoted, replaced in the rotation by Reyes spot starts until we acquired Stuart in trade for Winker.
Rotation Observations: New acquisition Stuart got the 7/31 start; gave up 3 runs in 5 innings for his new team and reportedly sat 97. Ok, that sounds good. Solesky continues to keep the ERA down but have crummy peripherals (11 Ks in 26 ip) and i’m beginning to suspect the team doesn’t really plan on doing much with him. Lara: 4 starts, 2.63 ERA but interestingly just 10 Ks in 24ip. Great that Lara (just 21) is more than holding his own in AA but where’d his strikeouts go? The ERA seems like a mirage, since his BAA is in the upper .280s Theophile looks decent: 4 starts, 3.18 ERA, but i’d like to see him go deeper in games (just 17 IP in those 4 starts). Lastly we have Cuevas, who had a 6.75 ERA in July, which is about in line with his season ERA. His peripherals showed he was probably a little unlucky this month, so the team will continue to run with him.
From the DL; we saw some rehab starts from Saenz this month; if he comes back someone likely makes way. No idea what is going on with Henry. Lucas Knowles got put on the full-season DL which usually means “major arm injury.”
Next guy to get Promoted: Dare I say Lara? They’d never push a 21yr old to AAA, not given that the big club is 12 games under .500 and tanking fast. Solesky continues to be too old for AA and in need of a challenge, but I wonder if the team thinks he could survive in AAA given his lack of K rate.
Next guy to get cut/demoted: Continues to be Cuevas. But they’ve stuck with him all this time with an ERA in the 6s so I can’t see them making a rotation change here.
Bullpen comments: Grissom was promoted earlier this season and he’s pushing for another one; he had 8 appearances and gave up just 5 hits and zero runs in July. Brzycky is back and continues to be a K machine: 13 in 9 innings since returning from a long DL stint. Remember, he’s on the 40-man so the team likely bumps him up to AAA soon.
High-A Wilmington
Rotation as of 7/31/24: Atencio, Cornelio, Shuman, Davis, Susana
Rotation as of 6/30/24: Atencio, Caceres, Young, Cornelio, Shuman (plus a couple rehab starts from Cavalli and Brzycky)
Changes since end of last month: Caceres, Young bumped out of rotation, replaced by the promotions for Davis and Susana.
Rotation Observations: Shuman continued to confound this observer as to why he’s still in High-A: he’s 26, has little trouble getting these guys out, and should be in AA. 2.40 ERA for the month to go with his CAREER 3.21 ERA in the minors. Atencio was solid this month: 1.82 ERA even if his peripherals made that figure probably a little lucky. Caceres and Young both had ERAs in the 6s, earning their fates to be dropped out of the rotation and into dreaded LR/SS territory, but this was a long time coming for Caceres in particular. Susana was fantastic in his High-A debut; 3 starts, sub 1.00 whip, 2.40 ERA. Can’t ask for more than that out of the 20 year old. Newly promoted Davis only got one start. Lastly we come to Cornelio, who had an ERA in the 7s for the month, a 5.76 ERA for the season, and a 5.21 ERA for his career. I’m beginning to wonder what the team sees here. He had similarly mediocre numbers all last year, but got promoted anyways, and now continues to post crummy numbers the next level up. He was a 7th rounder with a decent bonus but nothing massive, but the team gives him chances like he’s a 7-figure guy. Weird.
Next guy to get Promoted: Shuman. He’s 26, should be in AA at least, and has a career minor league ERA in the mid 3s. (I did not change a word of this from last month’s post).
Next guy to get cut/demoted: Caceres; 24, almost no IFA bonus, can’t get guys out in Low-A, a 2017 signee who’s near the end of his tenure here. He may make way if someone needs a promotion from Fredericksburg. After that, Cornelio.
Bullpen comments: Here’s Cronin’s line for the month: 8 2/3rds innings, 3 hits, 0 walks 1 run allowed and 13 strikeouts. As a 26yr old former 40-man member. What the f*ck is he still doing in High-A?? I wrote nearly this exact same thing last month too. Past Cronin, there’s a slew of relievers who are unhittable in Wilmington right now: Miguel Gomez 13/1 K/BB ratio last month, Richard Gausch had a 0.88 whip last month, Chance Huff had a 0.84 ERA. So lots of options to move up if the need arises.
Low-A/Fredericksburg
Rotation as of 7/31/24: Sthele, Polanco, Tepper, Romero, Sykora ( plus a slew of spot starts from random players and two Saenz rehab starts)
Rotation as of 6/30/24: Sykora, Susana, Davis, Sthele, Polanco (plus 4 Shuman rehab starts and 1 Grey start)
Changes since end of last month: Susana and Davis promoted, replaced by Tepper and Romero (who started the year in low-A but was demoted early and has been in FCL most of season). Diaz had a couple of spot starts and was released.
Rotation Observations: Davis and Susana were (finally) promoted after both showing they had nothing left to prove in low-A. Sthele is now doing the same, giving up just 2 ER in 21 July innings. Sykora’s month might be even more impressive: in 4 starts he struck out 31 guys in 17 innings and had a .136 BAA. Finally, a high-round prep draftee who’s performing. Tepper only has one start so SSS, and Romero just got promoted and didn’t pitch in July. Polanco has struggled and may be the one who makes way for newly acquired Alex Clemmey, though they could also go to a 6-man rotation and keep giving the likes of Tepper and Romero starts.
Next guy to get Promoted: Is it Sykora? I’m not sure what else he needs to do to show he can get low-A hitters out, and they just promoted Susana who is of similar age and had similar low-A numbers. Why not? Push him up for the last month of the season.
Next guy to get cut/demoted: Sthele has bought himself some time with a solid July but has generally struggled this season. As noted above, I think Polanco makes way for Clemmey in the short term. Polanco was an IFA signing in 2021 with such a small bonus figure that it wasn’t reported, meaning that the team has almost nothing “invested” in him, and often these kinds of data points come into play with these decisions.
Bullpen comments: Matthew Bollenbacher’s month stood out to me: 16 Ks/ 0 walks in 10 innings. So did Merrick Baldo, 14/3 K/BB in 8ip and zero runs allowed.
Rookie/FCL Nationals
Rotation as of 7/25/24 (end of FCL Season): Colon, Portorreal, CSanchez, BRomero, and Saenz rehab
Rotation as of 6/30/24: Colon, Portorreal, Camilio Sanchez, Brayan Romero, and rehabbers
Changes since end of last month: None really. The FCL rotation was basically the same all year.
Rotation Observations: Romero crushed it in July; 20/2 K/BB in 14ip, which is why they promoted him to Low-A the moment the FCL season ended. Colon and Portorreal also had nice ending months, each with an ERA in the 1s. Sanchez struggled a bit, probably costing himself a shot at a promotion this season. Interestingly Aldo Ramirez, coming back from a long-injury, is now technically assigned to FCL and had an era in the 10s for July, which included one spot start. I’m afraid he just hasn’t come back from injury and may be a lost cause.
Next guy to get Promoted: Romero already promoted.
Next guy to get cut/demoted: Nobody pitched egregiously bad to get cut here.
Bullpen comments: The best relievers from the month was Angel Roman, and he was already promoted to Low-A.
Rookie/DSL Nationals
Rotation as of 7/31/24: De la Cruz, Reynoso, Vera, Feliz, Thomas, with Juan Reyes as an “opener.”
Rotation as of 6/30/24: De la Cruz, Reynoso, Vera, Thomas, Feliz (with Hernandez getting a couple spot starts)
Rotation Observations: MILB’s dsl nats stats page can’t do splits, and i’m probably already at 3000 words, so we’ll use full season stats to discuss. The DSL rotation has been relatively stable all year, with just 7 guys getting all the starts. And we’re seeing some widly crazy stat lines. The Ace continues to be Feliz, who has a 48/10 k/BB and a sub 3 era for the season. Jhoan Thomas has 24 ks and 24 walks in 26IP yet somehow has a sub 4 era. Now for the funny lines: Vera has 35 walks and 17Ks in 19ip. Yeah, that’s a little wild. De La Cruz Reynoso all have middling ERAs in he 6s with bad peripherals. Not much else to write home about with the 2024 DSL rotation. Hernandez seems to have been removed from the rotation with this 26 walks in 13ip, and Reyes has 5 starts but only 6IP so he’s being used as an opener of sorts.
Next guy to get Promoted: Feliz.
Next guy to get cut/demoted: Vera. Just can’t walk 2 guys an inning.
Bullpen comments: nothing worth mentioning.
That’s it for July 2024.
Good writeup as usual, Todd…you are right, Saenz is taking Cuevas’s spot in the Harrisburg rotation as the right-hander is moved to the bullpen
Mick Reinhard
2 Aug 24 at 10:16 am
Nicely done as always. A couple thoughts. La Sorsa is no longer on the 40 man, he was outrighted back in December. Of course, Ward goes out and has a great start out of nowhere last night lol. Like you I continue to be baffled by their handling of Cronin and Shuman.
James
2 Aug 24 at 10:53 am
Fun read, Todd – I look forward to these every month. You do seem a bit angrier than usual with what you perceive as obvious incompetence and malfeasance by the organization, but hey. It’s August, it’s hot, and it’s BEEN a brutally hot summer.
John C.
2 Aug 24 at 11:00 am
Have been watching the ’23 drafted pitchers after the 11th round. To with,Amaral,Stehle and Tepper.What’s your consensus on those three,in particular,Amaral.IMO,Amaral is the sleeper here. Stehle is still in survival mode. Amaral has improved in July. Thanks.
Scott
2 Aug 24 at 11:10 am
I really don’t understand what the Nats’ end game is with Guasch, Shuman and Cronin (but you could extend this to Bollenbacher, Baldo, Huff, Gomez, C. Romero, etc.). If I’m calculating correctly, all 3 are eligible to be MILFAs this winter. With the rather sorry state of the 7th and 8th guys out the bullpen in Harrisburg and Rochester, what’s keeping them in purgatory in Wilmington? There’s literally nothing to lose with these three, except well, losing them in the winter for nothing.
It just seems like a willful underutilization of the assets we have. And if it’s not intentional, and Nats brass are genuinely unaware that Matt Cronin is having unarguably the best season of any relief pitcher in minor league baseball, well that actually causes a lot more concern than the former.
But then again, this is precisely the story of Kyle Finnegan. He put up very good numbers in the A’s system, but for whatever reason, didn’t advance up the affiliate ladder. His 6 years of service came up, the Nats signed him, and the rest is history. And it’s little things like this that separate crappy orgs like the A’s from others. And it’s so perplexing why this approach seems targeted at certain players, and not a systemic issue with long-delayed promotions… I’d love to understand the org’s thinking on these guys.
Will
2 Aug 24 at 11:27 am
La Sorsa: damn, how did I miss that? He’s outrighted in one of my documents, but I never did it on the big board. My apologies.
Todd Boss
2 Aug 24 at 11:41 am
JohnC: perhaps because I wrote most of this at like midnight last night, i exhibited not a lot of patience. But yes, having 26yr olds in A-ball does nobody any good. Same with having 24yr olds in Low-A (which we have many). You’re either moving up or you’re moving out.
Todd Boss
2 Aug 24 at 11:50 am
@Scott: 2023 11thround and up pitchers: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Qd5DS9GlmkQOEh_zGhOvlhHK0EegqY1uJB4mLGmRBaY/edit?usp=sharing
– Sthele: has struggled most of year, but had a good July. Looking up.
– Sullivan: put on full-season DL on 4/24, sounds like a major injury.
– Tepper: i like that he’s working his way into the rotation.
– Amaral: looking promising as well, i think he can get a run in the rotation too.
– Baldo: great numbers but he’s 24 in low-A. Yes he was a senior sigh, but he needs to move up.
part of the issue is just lack of availability of starting cycles. Thanks to the elimination of short-A, we just have too many starters. And that’s before looking at the low-A DL, which has an entire rotation of starters hurt.
Todd Boss
2 Aug 24 at 11:54 am
Great overview, Todd. Thanks again for putting these together.
I’ve likewise been disappointed with Alvarez since his promotion, but he’s a pitchability guy and you need to give him some time to figure out the new puzzle. His AA results last year weren’t very good, and he came back this year much improved. I give him plenty of rope to figure it out (and I probably protect him from R5 too, though that’s part of a larger conversation).
I agree that Luckham is overmatched, but don’t really think he’s a prospect. They’ll shift him back and forth based on which other rotation pieces are injured or available. Competent upper minors, org guy starter. And that’s fine. Hell, that’s amazing for a 15th round draft pick. Good for him and good for the team. He’s just never going to be on a 40-man roster.
And I’ll add my voice to the chorus on Shuman and especially Cronin. I assume it has to do with their health and recovery because all the other explanations make the front office look like fools. Maybe there’s some record Cronin is near for A+ pitching dominance and the team is only concerned about his innings count this season, so they’re giving him a chance to chase it? I don’t know, but his results are borderline comical at this point.
SMS
2 Aug 24 at 12:58 pm
Going into the season, I felt pretty good about “future” arms the Nats had at the MLB level but was quite concerned about the pipeline. That script has flipped. Back then, Gore was thought to be a developing #1-2, Gray a returning All-Star possibly a 2-3, Irvin a surprise looking to solidify his place in the rotation, and Cavalli likely to be back strong by mid-season.
Well . . . Gore has flashed high-level talent at times but has faded, so we still don’t have a solid read on his ceiling. Irvin continues to look like a solid piece for the future. But Gray is likely out for next year and Cavalli’s glacial return has been quite concerning. As Todd said, he basically will have missed two seasons.
Now for the good news. Parker and Herz have sort of come out of nowhere to be (maybe) MLB starters going forward, certainly better than the failing other options Rutledge, Adon, and Ward, who all look like bullpen fodder at best. Lord is a similar out-of-nowhere guy like Parker and Herz who is on the cusp, and I think Stuart is a great addition and cut from the same cloth. If his velo boost sticks, he’s even more interesting.
Lara and Susana were two high-ceiling disappointments last year (and Lara in 2022 as well, “playing up” the whole time), but they’ve now found their mojos and are living up to their reps. Both could be knocking on the MLB door next season. Remember, the Nats (correctly at the time) passed over protecting Lara from the Rule 5 draft last December. He’ll be a certain addition this fall and likely starting 2025 at AAA.
Sykora has lived up to his bonus at low A, with nothing left to prove, as Todd notes.
Barring more injuries (knock wood!), the Nats will have four young, high-ceiling guys in Lara, Stuart, Susana, and Sykora, and another returning in Bennett. That’s one of the best crops of healthy (knock wood) high-ceiling arms in recent times. I don’t mean to slight others who still have a good chance, but these guys will be the focus. And we won’t have to wonder whether we’ll see Cole Henry again.
At the MLB level, though, it still feels like they will need to sign at least one high-level free agent starter. Do they need two? How much do they trust Parker and Herz going forward? Are they more Roark, or Lannan/Detwiler?
KW
3 Aug 24 at 9:19 pm
Terrific start by Herz on Saturday, against a likely playoff team. If he can be THAT guy on a regular basis, that would be huge.
Adon made a hash of his relief appearance, though. At what point are they going to admit that he’s not that good?
KW
4 Aug 24 at 8:39 am
Really nice start by Parker today against the Brewers as well. It would have been a “cruise control” Curly W if Robert Garcia hadn’t crapped the bed in the 8th. With a couple of exceptions (Doolittle) the Nats never seem to be able to find LHRP that can actually get LH batters out. He faced two lefties, both of whom singled. The only outs that he got were against RH batters.
John C.
4 Aug 24 at 6:05 pm
SP depth: amazing really … mid-last season we were hoping the depth chart would be Cavalli, Grey, Gore, Henry and question marks. Now? Parker and Irvin just total found gold, Herz looking like it as well for the past few weeks.
Now it looks like we’re going to go into spring training 2025 with: Gore, Irvin, Parker, Herz, and hopefully Cavalli. Five young guys, all cost controlled. And backing them up you might very well have someone like Lord, or newly acquired Stuart, maybe even Lara (who looks very, very competent at AA).
And that’s before even thinking about FAs or the other starters on our 40-man (Rutledge, Adon, Ward, Henry).
Todd Boss
5 Aug 24 at 10:57 am
Stuart was dominant yesterday at AA. He’ll likely be in the big league camp next spring, as will Lord. Lara will have to be added to the 40-man so definitely will be there as well.
With that rising depth, Rutledge, Adon, and Ward need to be moved off starting for good. It’s past time.
I still think the Nats will FA sign or trade for a starter. They’ll have a massive amount of salary room with which to do so.
KW
5 Aug 24 at 11:54 am
Did anyone happy to catch a radar reading from Stuart yesterday? I’m curious if he matched the 96/97 from the previous start.
Also, agree on signing or trading for an SP1. There’s always room for more pitching. And everyone in our depth chart from Gore on down has their options. If somehow too many folks are ready and healthy, well, Herz or Parker or Lara or whoever will just have to wait.
SMS
5 Aug 24 at 12:35 pm
I am fully on board with the notion that the next Nats playoff team needs a starter who’s not in the org. I would be comfortable with Gore and Irvin starting a playoff game, but I’m not sure about anybody else who is big league ready or close to the big leagues. I’m not yet sure *this* is the proper offseason to for a big starter acquisition, but sometimes you don’t have a choice.
What’s interesting to me to think about is the alternate history of the 2023 MLB draft. Most of us were thinking that the Nats would take Skenes at #2 but PIT made that impossible. How would we feel about the pitching staff if Skenes was pulling his Strasburg 2.0 performance for the Nats instead of the Pirates? I think we’d more or less feel set with the rotation–we’d have three young, cheap, controllable guys at the top of the rotation in Skenes, Gore, and Irvin, plus a plethora of guys who could fill out the last two slots. And there are so many such guys that you’d feel sufficiently insured against injury and poor performance.
What this thought experiment reveals, I think, is what SMS said: we need someone who can slot in at the top of a rotation. Is such a person a free agent this offseason? What about next offseason? I’d be worried about trading away too much depth to get one–but that might be a sensible thing to do if you think depth is easier to buy with dollars than a top-of-the-rotation arm.
Derek
5 Aug 24 at 1:39 pm
@Derek, there’s Corbin Burnes and then a whole lot of question marks. injuries have hit the other potential #1s Bieber, Buehler, Fried. I’m not sure how you value Snell. have to think the Giants have the inside track since they can negotiate prior to opt out.
Burnes will cost a bundle in view of all this uncertainty
FredMD
5 Aug 24 at 3:40 pm
Burnes is obviously a good pitcher. But the K% declining every year since 2020–from an elite 36% in 2020 a meh 23% in 2024 (albeit with still excellent results) would give me huge pause. For me, he profiles as exactly the kind of guy you’d want to sign as a “last piece”: you want him to be good for deep playoff runs in years 1 and 2 and you might be willing to accept the inevitable dropoff after that in exchange.
That doesn’t mean the other options are better, but I don’t think Burnes fits the Nats timeline so well.
Derek
5 Aug 24 at 3:57 pm
well if Burnes doesn’t float your boat then I doubt any of these 25-26 FAs will
Dylan Cease, Zac Gallen, Blake Snell, Framber Valdez, Justin Verlander, Clayton Kershaw, Jordan Montgomery, Nathan Eovaldi, Brandon Woodruff (mutual option), Kodai Senga (opt-out), Chris Bassitt, Aaron Civale, Nestor Cortes, Zach Eflin, Jon Gray, Merrill Kelly, Mitch Keller, Dustin May, Tyler Mahle, Michael Kopech, Freddy Peralta (club option), Marcus Stroman (vesting option), Lucas GIolito, Sean Manaea, Michael Wacha, Wade Miley, Lance Lynn, Seth Lugo (club option), Kyle Gibson, Kenta Maeda, Germán Márquez, José Urquidy, Ranger Suárez, Tyler Anderson, Frankie Montas, Marco Gonzales, Steven Matz, Miles Mikolas, Chris Paddack, Cal Quantrill, Erick Fedde
FredMD
5 Aug 24 at 6:48 pm
Thanks for that list. It definitely makes me think a trade is the way to get a top-of-the-rotation guy.
Derek
5 Aug 24 at 7:37 pm
I brought up the point of them trying add a starter from elsewhere, but I’ll be the first to admit that doing so, and getting it right, ain’t easy. There are a whole lot more Corbin contract success levels out there than there are Scherzer ones. FWIW, Burnes reminds me of Corbin, a guy who might be good for the first year or two of his contract but likely won’t age well.
Also, the injury risk for pitcher signees (and pitchers in general) seems to be at an all-time high.
I can’t see the Nats trading for a true top-of-the-rotation guy, in part because such a package likely would have to include Crews or House.
So what about a “Gio trade” for a #2-3 guy? Well, that took two young back-end starters who had already reached the majors (Parker and Herz = Milone and Peacock), a high-ceiling high school bonus-baby arm (Sykora = Cole), and a fairly highly drafted high school hitter (Lile = Norris). To fill the other rotation hole, the Nats overpaid for Edwin Jackson. They had signed the corpse of Chien-Ming Wang earlier. There are a lot of Jackson (journeyman) and Wang (injured and never the same again) types on the list above.
KW
6 Aug 24 at 9:37 am
A trade of which prospects?
As I think you’re realizing, a top-of-the-rotation guy is exceptionally rare. If Burnes doesn’t fit that definition, then you’re looking at like 10 total players of which like 6 are actually somewhat feasible: Webb, Kirby, Skubal, Skenes, Greene, and maybe Gilbert and Ragans? (I’ve eliminated guys like Glasnow, Wheeler and Nola due to their age/contracts). Since these guys are exceptionally rare and generally good for 5+ WAR/season, I’d expect other teams would demand a package akin to the one we got for Soto, so you’re looking at something like Crews (the Wood-equivalent uber-prospect), Morales (Hassell equivalent as the tumbling former top-ish prospect), Susana (as Susana) and another arm, like Sykora/Lara (as the Gore-piece, though this is where the package would be significantly lighter, as neither Sykora or Lara were top 10 prospects like Gore). That’s an insanely hefty price to pay, and just shifts our needs from an ace to a number of other places around the field.
We need to retain all of our prospects. We haven’t yet advanced to the stage the Orioles are in, where a bunch of their recently graduated prospects have cemented their place in the starting line up, rendering other players in their position superfluous. We need Wood to start playing like Gunnar Henderson and Crews like Adley Rutschman, before we can entertain selling off other OF prospects.
I’m not head over heels about any of these arms, but this is actually a surprisingly good and deep SP FA class. Burnes is the centerpiece, but Cease and Gallen are young-ish for a FA and have been aces by most people’s definitions (top 20-ish SPs in the game over the past 2+ seasons). (BTW, Keller signed a deal until 2028 with the Pirates, otherwise, he’d have been a good target too).
Will
6 Aug 24 at 9:49 am
because he has been handled so gingerly it might be easy to overlook the improvements in Susana’s performances this year. K’s up, BBs and Hits down, increased innings per start. if you’re looking for ace potential in the system, I’d list him first
FredMD
6 Aug 24 at 9:58 am
I’m loving what we’re seeing out of some of our lower minors pitching prospects right now.
– Susana: 26/3 K/BB since moving to high-A. Awesome.
– Sykora; couldn’t ask for a better pro debut; 86ks in 57ip!
– Lara; Solid respectable numbers in AA as a 21yr old.
Plus we just added two intriguing arms in Stuart and Clemmey, the 2nd rounder from just last year who Cleveland just stuck into their low-A rotation as a 19yr old.
and that’s not talking about Lord, Luckham, or Alvarez, all of whom are now in AAA with varying levels of success.
plus maybe we get some guys back from injury (Cavalli 1st rounder, Henry, Bennett both 2nd rounders), or perhaps a rebound year from any of the 5 starters on the Low-A full season DL.
Lots to be excited about.
Todd Boss
6 Aug 24 at 11:56 am