Here’s the August 2026 check-in on rotations. It has been a pretty bad month for the big-league team, but we’ve seen an interesting churn in the minors. Let’s get to it.
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, etc.
Important Pitching stats links for this analysis (I like the Fangraphs stats when looking up Fip, Babip, etc).
- Big Board, Draft Tracker, and IFA Tracker
- Nats MLB stats: at baseball-reference.com, Nats MLB stats at fangraphs.com
- AAA Rochester stats at milb.com. AAA Rochester Stats at fangraphs.com
- AA Harrisburg stats at milb.com, AA Harrisburg Stats at fangraphs.com
- High-A Wilmington stats at milb.com, High-A Wilmington Stats at fangraphs.com
- Low-A Fredericksburg Stats at milb.com, Low-A Fredericksburg stats at fangraphs.com
- FCL Nationals Stats at milb.com
- DSL Nationals Pitching Stats at milb.com
All Stats quoted are as of 8/31/26’s Nats-Marlins game, 8/30/26’s games for the Minors.
We’ll start with the Majors.
- Opening Day 2026: Cavalli, Griffin, Mikolas, Littell, Irvin
- End of April 2026: Cavalli, Griffin, Mikolas (with Poulin opening sometimes), Littell, Irvin
- End of May 2026: Cavalli, Griffin, Mikolas (still with openers), Littell (also with openers), Alvarez.
- End of June 2026: Cavalli, Griffin, Mikolas, Littell, Alvarez. Still using Openers in key spots
- End of July 2026: Cavalli, Griffin, Mikolas, Littell, Irvin (with frequent openers)
- End of August 2026: Cavalli, Irvin, Alvarez, JKent, and bullpen games
Changes since end of last Month: We traded Griffen, released Mikolas the day after he got his 10 years, released Littell finally, called up JKent, and in the absence of any other obvious starter candidates have been doing bullpen games for the 5th slot since everyone else on our 40-man roster is a reliever and Early is now on the 60-day DL.
Rotation Observations: Cavalli is turning himself into an Ace in front of our eyes: 6 August starts: 1.75 ERA, 0.88 Whip, and just 7 ER in 36ip. After years of injury issues, he’s now tied for the MLB lead in Games Started and has become our most dependable arm. Alvarez continues to defy expectations of a 12th round pick: 6 August starts, 2.45 ERA and a 0.970 whip. His BABIP for the month was not sustainable, but his impact and arsenal are inarguable. When we start talking about the 2027 rotation, his name needs to be in that discussion. Irvin remains in the rotation despite ongoing middling numbers; another 5-something ERA month. To cover for (finally) released veterans, they called up Jackson Kent, our 2024 4th rounder. He struggled in his first three starts but was excellent over the weekend. The 5th “starter” has been bullpen games, with mostly Lord and Dion doing the heavy lifting.
Next guy to get cut/demoted:
- April 2026: Mikolas
- May 2026: Irvin (but he got hurt)
- June 2026: Littell but they’ll never cut him and his salary, so i’ll go back to Mikolas
- July 2026: turned out to be Alvarez, should have been Mikolas.
- Aug 2026: With both Mikolas and Littell whacked, next in line is Irvin.
Quick bullpen thoughts: Interestingly, the team choose to cut Trevor Williams just a couple weeks after he finally came off the DL at the same time they had a gaping hole in the rotation. Why? Williams missed half of 2025 and most of 2026 and got tens of millions of dollars of Nats money to do so; he’s finally healthy so… we cut him at a time when we can’t find a bullpen guy who can get 3 guys out in the 9th?? I don’t get it; yeah maybe they’re trying to “do right” by the veteran to cut him in mid August so he can hook up with a possible playoff team, but why do we “owe” him that after we paid him $14M to give us less than 100 innings over the last two years and essentially paid him to rehab and prepare for his next contract? Perhaps this sounds callus, but I disagree with this move completely. Mikolas and Littell? yes. Williams? no.
The rest of the bullpen thoughts are repetitive: we have perhaps 2-3 relievers who are reliable, and the rest are trash. One bright spot: Will Dion, who was kind of a throw-in in the Griffen trade with Cleveland. He’s an undersized lefty who was a starter for most of his minor’s career and was pretty effective until he got to AAA, when he got moved to the bullpen. Now for us, he’s regularly giving the team 3-4 innings of nearly spotless long relief. Why don’t we look at him as a starter? As it turns out, between Lord and Dion doing 3-4 inning stints, the team hasn’t needed a real 5th starter since they whacked Littell on August 5th.
One last interesting item of note: at the present moment, the ENTIRE 40-man roster that’s not in the majors are relievers. As of this writing: we’re at 39/40. Take away 26 active players and 2 more 15day dl guys that’s 11 guys left. They’re entirely relievers in AAA. Talk about throwing stuff against the wall to see what sticks.
AAA Rochester
- Opening Day 2026: Alvarez, Parker, Perales, Lara, Cornelio
- End of April 2026: Alvarez, Perales, Lara, Cornelio, Champlain (with Ogasawara and Penrod spot starts)
- End of May 2026: Perales, Lara, Cornelio, Champlain, Kent
- End of June 2026: Perales, Lara, Champlain, Kent, Penrod as an opener
- End of July 2026: Perales, Lara, Champlain, Kent, then a slew of openers/rehab starts/bullpen games.
- End of August 2026: Champlain, Cebert, Lyon, Herz doing rehab, then 9 different openers/bullpen games.
Changes since end of last Month: The AAA rotation has been rather difficult to keep track of. Going from August’s relatively stable rotation to now: Perales converted to reliever, Lara the same, and JKent promoted. In their place, towards the end of the month the team promoted Cebert and Lyon to be “conventional” starters, but the rest of this “rotation” has been openers and bullpen games. Fair enough; the major league team needs bullpen arms more than it needs Cornelio going 5 innings, so that’s where we are and perhaps we revisit everyone next spring.
Rotation Observations: Champlain held his own: 5 “starts” with a 3.00 ERA and decent numbers. Cebert and Lyon only got one start each upon promotion so too early to tell. Herz had just one rehab start in AAA so not really worth talking about. Sorting the stats by pure IP for the rest of the long men of note: Simpson had 8 appearances and 21ip; 2.30 ERA and good K/BB numbers. Cornelio has been pretty unhittable since going down; 8 games, 14IP, 27/4 K/BB in that time; not sure why he’s not getting called backup ahead of others. Zak Kent has struggled badly; he’s a 28yr old waiver claim with a 7 ERA in AAA and i’d have to think he’s #1 on the “Next guy to get DFA’d” list when needed.
Next guy to get promoted:
- April: Alvarez and Cornelio. Verdict: both have been promoted, Alvarez is staying there.
- May: Perales and his sub 2.00 ERA could play in the majors and our terrible bullpen
- June: Kent the only deserving candidate right now, but he’s not getting promoted anytime soon.
- July: Perales; had a good month and is on 40-man so no roster move.
- Aug: Cornelio should go back up; both June and July’s candidate are now in majors.
Next guy to get cut/demoted:
- April: none really, Champlain had the least investment
- May: Lara clearly.
- June: Back to Champlain, who looks like he may be stuck at a ceiling of effectiveness in AA
- July: Back to Lara.
- Aug: Zak Kent
Quick bullpen thoughts: In the “weirdest stat lines i’ve seen in a while,” here’s Justin Lawrence’s August splits: 12 appearances and 11.1 IP with a 6.35 ERA (ok that’s bad). In those 11.1 IP he’s given up just 6 hits (good) and another 8 walks for a WHIP of 1.24 (ok that’s ok). He has 21 Ks in those 11.1 innings (wow) and his BAA is just .150. Somehow, he gave up 8 Earned Runs along the way of these stats. Amazing. He gave up more ERs than he gave up HITS this month.
AA Harrisburg
- Opening Day 2026: Clemmey, Garcia, Luckham, Ogasawawara, Swan
- End of April 2026: Clemmey, Garcia, Luckham, Ogasawara, Kent
- End of May 2026: Clemmey, Luckham, Ogasawara, Lyon, Randall (spot starts from Van Scoyoc)
- End of June 2026: Clemmey, Luckham, Lyon, Randall, Van Scoyoc
- End of July 2026: Clemmey, Lyon, Randall, Maddox, Tejeda (along with 3 rehab starts and a couple of bullpen games)
- End of Aug 2026: Clemmey, Randall, Tejeda, Hartle, Susana (Cebert, Lyon for a bit, 2 rehab starts from Herz)
Changes since end of last Month: Lyon and Cebert promoted, Maddux demoted. In their place we have Hartle (trade acquisition) and Susana (finally off the DL). Swan is off the DL but is doing short inning stints for now.
Rotation Observations: Clemmey was awful this month. 7.99 ERA, a ton of walks. I’m not sure what to do here. Reports are that his velocity is way down, and so now his BAA is .319 but he’s still walking a ton of guys. Something has to give here. Randall had a 6.27 ERA this month with meh peripherals; nothing much to cheer for here. Tejeda got pulverized this month; ERA in the 9s and a .345 BAA. Trade acquisition Hartle was excellent: 1.83 ERA in four appearances with a 1.02 whip and 20/8 K/BB in 19.2 innings. Lastly we have the return of Susana; just one game so too early to tell, but I can’t imagine he’ll be doing anything else but finishing the season in AA and then heading to the AFL to get more innings.
Next guy to get promoted:
- April: Ogasawara, then Kent. Kent was promoted over Ogasawara
- May: clearly Ogasawara.
- June: Van Scoyoc (and he was promoted on 7/1, but was then demoted back mid-month).
- July: Nobody is ready, but Clemmey probably pitched the best and is the longest-serving AA guy. Maybe another month of this and they could consider him, but at his age, there’s no reason to push him to AAA right now.
- August: Hartle
Next guy to get cut/demoted:
- April: Luckham.
- May: still Luckham.
- June: Chemmey
- July: Luckham, who got removed from rotation. Now likely Randall.
- Aug: Randall still isn’t good, but Clemmey and Tejeda are concerning.
Quick bullpen thoughts: There’s definitely a couple of arms to point out in AA since we acquired a bunch of them in the trade deadline. In particular: Joe Glassey (who we traded Franklin for even up) has this month: 9 games, 10 IP, 1 (one) hit, 10/1 K/BB. He had a 0.20 whip and a .031 BAA for the month. I’ll take that. Our other received asset was Virquez, who was the 3rd guy in the Griffen trade. He’s been not good for us since arriving in AA: 8ip 5/7 K/BB in that time. Lastly a mention of Holden Powell, who got demoted from AAA earlier this year but who is pitching well in what could be his last year here; the 2020 draftee is inching up on 6years with us.
High-A Wilmington
- Opening Day 2026: Bruni (Sullivan), Maddox, Randall, Tejeda, Polanco
- End of April 2026: Maddox, Randall, Tejeda, Polanco, Lyon
- End of May 2026: Maddox, Tejeda, Polanco, Bruni, Meckley
- End of June 2026: Maddox, Tejeda, Meckley, Sime, Tepper
- End of July 2026: Sime, Tepper, Fischer, Sthele, Sullivan (plus 3 rehab starts, and a slew of one-offs).
- End of Aug 2026: Maddox, Sime, Fisher, Sullivan, Biven (likely Sales coming back into the rotation in Sept)
Changes since end of last Month: Maddox was demoted down from AA, Tepper hit the DL, and the team released Sthele. Biven has been doing openers in the interim, plus Susana got 3 rehab starts before returning to the AA rotation.
Rotation Observations: Maddox is clearly in a difficult tweener spot: he gave up 1 run in 23 innings for the month. Honestly, he wasn’t really that bad in AA and I think he needs to go backup there. Unfortunately for him the team acquired an entire rotation of AA starters at the deadline, so there’s a bit of a log jam. Sime continues to strike guys out at ridiculous rates (26 ks in 14ip in August) but is still walking guys at a walk an inning. Somehow he maintained a 1.26 ERA for the month. Fischer continues to hang around despite being an NDFA last year. Sullivan struggled badly in August with an ERA in the 9s. Biven has been operating as an Opener and had 5 “starts” for the season, mostly giving way to others. RJ Sales had a few rehab starts in Fredericksburg and is back on the active roster; i’d imagine he’ll take either Sullivan or Biven’s spot.
Next guy to get promoted:
- April: Randall: he did indeed get promoted
- May: None. Tejeda if I had to name one.
- June: Maddox (Promoted on 7/1), should have been Tejeda (who was also promoted on 7/22)
- July: Sime
- Aug: Maddox
Next guy to get cut/demoted:
- April: Polanco
- May: still Polanco but likely Bruni makes way for Sime. (Polanco indeed finally dumped to bullpen)
- June: Meckley (indeed he was demoted on 7/8)
- July: Tepper
- August: Sullivan
Quick bullpen thoughts: In the organization’s continual efforts to find relievers, High-A’s bullpen is now filled with MLFAs. Montero, Roberts, Stuart, Dannelly, Jimenez and Hughes all in this category, to go along with a minor league Rule5 guy in Huizi. Hopefully they find some diamonds in the rough here.
Low-A Fredericksburg
- Opening Day 2026: Portorreal, Hughes/Meckley, Sime/Lyon, Harmon/Beck, Fischer/Conradt
- End of April 2026: Portorreal, Meckley/Hughes, Sime/Johnson, Harmon/Conradt, Fischer/Sullivan
- End of May 2026: Portorreal, Sime, Johnson, Fischer, and Tepper doing rehab the whole month
- End of June 2026: Portorreal, Johnson, Fischer, Manning, De La Cruz plus rehab starts from Herz, Williams, Tepper.
- End of July 2026: Johnson, De La Cruz, Harmon, Meckley, Millikan, Reyes (with a bunch of openers)
- End of August 2026: De La Cruz, Harmon, Meckley, Reyes, Portorreal (plus rehab starts from Sales and Herz)
Changes since end of last Month: Johnson released (more on that in a second), Millikan turned more into a long-relief guy. Replaced by Portorreal, who came off the DL after 5 weeks or so.
Rotation Observations: Luke Johnson, 10th rounder out of UMBC who has been more than holding his own, was inexplicably released mid month. He had a 3.35 ERA this season as a 24yr old swing man repeating Low-A. For a team that has multiple players with ERAs in the 7s or higher, it makes zero sense to release this guy at this point in the season … unless there’s a dreaded “off the field” reason for it. I’m sure someone knows something, but that’s what that had to be.
De la Cruz struggled once again; a 7ERA for the month on top of an abhorrent July. Harmon did five 3-inning starts and is rock solid; he gave up 2 earned runs for the month, one via a solo homer in early August. Its too bad he’s not more stretched out thanks to injury, else he’d be ripe to promote. Meckley was just ok, he should be better having been demoted down from High-A. Reyes’ first three full season starts went well: 1.74 ERA in 3 games/10ip. Portorreal’s return from the DL was solid: lets see if he can continue.
Next guy to get promoted:
- April: Meckley; indeed he was promoted
- May: Fischer
- June: Fischer, who was actually promoted 7/1. Should be Johnson
- July: None. The low-A rotation is a mess. Gus Hughes as a long reliever is best option to promote this month and indeed he was.
- Aug: Harmon
Next guy to get cut/demoted:
- April: Portorreal: he has turned it around greatly.
- May: Probably Johnson if we had to pick someone; they’ve already settled the tandem starters and demoted guys to the pen
- June: Portorreal (put on Dev list mid-month in July)
- July: Meckley or De la Cruz. Probably Meckey since he’s 3 years older.
- Aug: Meckley again, and De La Cruz again.
Rookie FCL
The FCL season ended on July 23rd.
- Opening Day 2026: Weaver, Reyes, Martina, De la Cruz, Robles
- End of May 2026: Reyes, De la Cruz, Robles, Lopez, Bothwell
- End of June 2026: Reyes, Robles, Lopez, Bothwell, Gillis, Millikan
- End of Season 2026: Reyes, Robles, Lopez, Bothwell, Millikan, Medina
Rookie DSL
The season ended mercifully on August 29th. Our DSL Nats finished 14-40 for the season, 3rd worst in the DSL.
Reminder: The Milb.com DSL site can’t do month splits, so this is kind of running full-season analysis.
- Opening Day 2026: Manzueta, Medina, Sarit, Reynoso, Carela
- End of June 2026: Manzueta, Medina, Sarit, Carela, Salas
- End of July 2026: Manzueta, Sarit, Carela, Reynoso, Thomas
- End of Season 2026: Manzueta, Sarit, Carela, Reynoso, Thomas
Changes since end of last Month: No changes really; a couple of guys were “Long relievers” probably doing tandem starts with some of these guys (Carrasco, Salas, and Ruiz).
Rotation Observations: Some big ERA numbers in this group: Reynoso and Manzueta both had double digit ERAs for the season. Reynoso walked 40 and sruck out 25 in 25innings; that’s hilarous. Manzueta struck out 39 and walked 39 in his 35 innings. Thomas not much better with an 8.71 ERA. Sarit had a solid BAA of .176 but couldn’t find the plate. Carela had more walks than Ks (22 to 21). Long Relivers Carrasco and Salas had ugly ERAs; Ruiz was the best of them with a 4.41 figure
Best stat line of the season: Edinson Hernandez. 10 games, 8innings. He walked 23 guys in 8 innings and gave up 19 runs for an ERA figure of 19.13 and a 3.75 whip. It’s like he’s in a slow pitch softball league.
Next guy to get promoted:
- June: Medina (indeed, promoted mid July)
- July: none.
- Aug: Nobody; i wouldn’t promote a single arm off this team.
Next guy to get cut/demoted:
- June: Manzueta
- July: Manzueta or Sarit, who’s a year older and repeating the level with no good results.
- Aug: I’ll be shocked if Manzueta and Reynoso are on the team come June next year.
That’s it for August 2026.
Thanks for all the work, Todd. When it comes to moves that we don’t understand/agree with, remember that they’re doing as well as they can given that at any particular time the 30 MLB POBO/GMs are among the 60 dumbest people on the planet (the other 30, of course, are the MLB managers) [insert Rocky Bridges quote here].
John C.
1 Sep 26 at 12:23 pm
Thanks, as always, for the write up, Todd!
I have one question, and one quibble. First, the question: given the AAA starter situation is such a mess, are these bullpen games actually working for them? They’re literally atop the international league’s 2nd half standings. A I think AAA has looser roster rules, but I’d be interested to go back and look at the usage pattern. Maybe there’s something that can be applied elsewhere. (Though it does need to said that the main problem with the ML bullpen is talent and not usage.)
And my quibble – I 100% disagree about Trevor Williams. For years, whenever I complain that another team has signed a free agent that would be useful for the Nats to a contract I think is undervalued, I get told that there are all kinds of intangibles that go into players’ decisions – it’s not a simple as being the highest bidder. To whatever degree that’s true (and it’s certainly at least true occasionally), being known as an organization that goes out of the way to do right by its players is maybe the most important reputational asset I can imagine.
Yes, this bullpen could use TW, and we’ll probably lose a couple more games this season with him gone. But those innings, given instead to the 20 or so replacement-ish relievers currently on the 40, have informational value. And I have to believe that any future FA who isn’t getting a 9 figure deal is going to see the way Toboni handled Littel, Mikolas and TW and be encouraged.
Also, to pile on John C’s point – I think current season form and surface level production, even including process stats like K% and WHIP, is just like the 4th or 5th most important piece of information from the team’s POV. The fact that, for us, it’s necessarily number one with a bullet is what drives a lot of that disconnect that we see. And while I’m very willing to speculate when we see something like Luke Johnson’s release, I really hesitate to reach for off-field issues as an explanation of lsat resort (barring any actual reporting about them). By design, Fredericksburg’s rotation is not the 5 starters that they think will pitch best next week. And his 3.35 ERA (while being 2 years old for level) probably didn’t give them much pause at all, if they don’t think his stuff can develop any further. There doesn’t have to be anything more to it than that.
SMS
1 Sep 26 at 1:09 pm
Trevor Williams: I have two conflicting opinions:
1. Williams got an awful lot of money to rehab himself back on our dime with basically zero production for this team in 2026. And
2. Yes, in a lost season i’d rather see kids pitch than a veteran who is out the door the moment the season ends.
In this case, the ridiculousness of having him on the DL for months, so as to come back and pitch in like 4 games, just got to me.
As for Luke Johnson; I wrote what I wrote. Practically the entire bullpen in Low-A right now are MLFAs and NDFAs who are as old or nearly as old as Johnson … I’d like to think that teams rationally act as you say, and make decisions entirely based on stats and analysis. But they just don’t. The bonus figure paid to a player always matters. Johnson got nearly no bonus, but a guy like Vaquero got nearly $4m. Johnson had a 3.35 ERA in Low-A and got cut; Vaquero is now repeating Low-A for the FOURTH season, and he’s still there. We saw this ad nauseum with Seth Romero. We still see it with Elijah Green. We saw it for years with Rutledge. I was kind of hoping a new GM and staff wouldn’t be wedded to whatever nonsense bonus figures were given out 5 years ago by the guy who got whacked, but i’m apparently wrong.
AAA pitcher usage: I think my quibble is that they’ve turned ALL their possible starters into 2-inning guys. Cornelio, perales, Lara in AAA, Lord and Dion apparently in the majors. Is that because those guys literally can’t get through the lineup more than once? also, is Rochester atop the standings b/c they’ve buried multiple 30homer hitters in AAA all year or because of pitcher usage? I dunno, not having done time-wide analysis in a while.
Todd Boss
1 Sep 26 at 4:17 pm
But those bonuses aren’t assigned at random! They heavily correlate to projectable tools, and we can’t be surprised that high bonus guys still are rated as promising, even when they’re struggling on the field. Teams are not trying to win minor league games and “folks who give us the best chance to win tonight’s game in A ball” is not equivalent to “folks who have the best chance to contribute in the majors eventually”.
Look, I won’t be surprised if Vaquero is released tomorrow, and I won’t pretend that team execs never get caught up in sunk cost fallacies – they’re human like the rest of us – but it also seems very probable to me that Vaquero projects to significantly more expected surplus value than Johnson if your cold hard stats and analysis included the information that the team has and we don’t.
I’m just aware that occasionally players and their friends and family read blogs like this. And without any qualifiers, “off field issues” sounds really bad. Low motivation, trouble maker, bad character etc. Seth Romero stuff. Of course, it could mean he got an offer to coach at a high school somewhere and asked for his release. but that’s not how it reads. In the absence of any reporting, I’d really rather assume an innocuous cause like the player asked for his release, or just wasn’t deemed good enough at baseball.
SMS
1 Sep 26 at 5:39 pm
I do occasionally remind myself of the fact that my not being able to see a logical reason for a move =/= there wasn’t a logical reason.
John C.
2 Sep 26 at 12:41 pm
Hi,Todd. Am still following the ’23 teen round draft pitchers. Stehle is gone,Tepper on rehab, Sullivan is posting abhorrent numbers and Amaral is staying anonymous.All are Rule 5 eligible,and who do you think survives after the season. Thanks.
Scott
2 Sep 26 at 9:43 pm
@Scott: 2023 arms: None will be protected obviously; the only one needing protection consideration (Simpson) just got called up; it seems pretty obvious to me the team knew this and wanted to give him a run out now ahead of what probably was a decision to protect him anyway come Mid Nov.
The rest? No reason to cut ties with any of them. Even Sullivan with his 6 ERA … he’s a lefty and has good K/9 rates; they’ll try him as a reliever first before outright cutting him.
Todd Boss
3 Sep 26 at 9:20 am
@SMS: Bonuses at the time of the signing indicate what you say. Bonus figures after a player has 1200 minor league at bats (Vaquero) or 1400 minor league at bats (Green) should no longer matter, because that’s more than enough time for us to really “know” what a player is. That’s kind of my point. Baseball teams have always viewed those bonus dollars as an “investment” instead of what it should be: A sunk cost. If the dollars were a true investment, then the player would still have value … who would pay any money right now for either Vaquero or Green? They wouldn’t. I’ll bet we could, at best, get a low-end minor league pitcher in trade for either guy right now.
Basic economic theory (yes I was an Economics major in college) says this: rational actors from an economic perspective should never consider past costs when deciding upon future choices, and Baseball in general has a hard time with this concept since bonus dollars are regulated and limited.
As for alleging an off the field issue with Luke Johnson … I hope i’m wrong. I really hope the team didn’t look at his $2,000 signing bonus and say, “eh well we have nothing invested in the guy and he’s a marginal prospect, so let’s just cut him.” Right now the minor league system (which can have 165 players under contract) has I think 146 players…. so it’s not like he got cut so the team could add another player to a roster. He had solid stats. I have no idea what his scouting report says, or what kind of velocity he has; all we can go by is the stats, and his stats are fine. So his release makes no sense to me. He’s not hurt. But all evidence points to something that’s not in the box scores.
Todd Boss
3 Sep 26 at 9:32 am
I agree that his stats look fine, and that his release must be driven by something that isn’t in the box scores. But, as you yourself point out, that includes things like his velocity. Which is why it feels unnecessary to speculate about disciplinary issues.
I’m also really surprised by that roster count. I mean, I know you’re on top of tracking it, so I’m sure you’re correct. But we just had a draft and multiple bulk trades. How are we 20 players down?
SMS
3 Sep 26 at 12:19 pm
@SMS: they have released literally dozens of players since the draft. The 2nd tab over on the Big Board is the releases; they released 20 players just in August.
At the point of the draft, they were right at the 165 player limit once they got all the 18 draftees signed plus the NDFAs. Since then its been carnage.
There’s a little number at the top of the big board’s main page that does the count.
Todd Boss
3 Sep 26 at 5:01 pm