Nationals Arm Race

This is the Nats Farm authority draft tracker.  with the signing of their #3 and #8 round picks, the Nats have really locked in basically every non-marquee draft pick of their 2010 draft.  Who is left?

#1: Bryce Harper.  Thanks to Mr. Boras, don’t expect any movement until August 15th at 10:30pm.

#2: Sammy Solis, a Jr Lefty from USanDiego.  6’5″ 240 big lefty, #48 Baseball America prospect so perhaps a slight overdraft on our part at the top of the 2nd round.  Slight injury concern (ruptured disc in back cost him his sophmore season).  9-2, 3.00 era with 87/26 k/bb in 87ip.  Sits 89-92, touches 93.  Sounds kinda like a Detwiler with more bulk and thus less injury prone.

#4: AJ Cole; the most interesting of our draft picks.  Cole was a 1st round talent projected, signed with Miami.  He’s drawing comparisons to Justin Verlander in terms of his size/frame and his fastball (93-94, reportedly touching 98).  This is a great test of the ownership group; will they offer overslot money on a high-end talent?  Keith Law thinks its 50-60% that they sign him.

This would make for a pretty good drafting class if they get all three of these guys remaining.

They’ve already signed #3,5,6,7,10 positional players (all college juniors) and they’re all in Vermont playing short-A ball right now.

I was looking at the spreadsheet of draft picks and wonder though.  Why does any team bother drafting a High School kid in the 40th-50th round who has a division 1 college scholarship commit?  Is it just to impress the kid and make him feel good about himself?  I guess some of these guys pan out; 2006 we drafted Brad Peacock in the 41st round out of High School, probably gave him $1000 to sign, and he’s still plugging away.  He’s in Potomac now and isn’t doing too badly.

Welcome to nationalsarmrace.com!

Not that the moribund Washington Nationals necessarily needed another blog, but I couldn’t resist.

Ever since the Nats rolled into town in 2005, I’ve developed an unhealthy obsession with the team, and more interestingly its rotation, bullpen, farm system and player development.  Over the past couple of years specifically, I’ve begun to track the pitchers (mostly the rotations) of our various farm systems and take interest in the development of pitching talent as it rises through the ranks.  Hence the name of the blog “Nationals Arms Race.”  I do periodically write for Brian Oliver and his standard-bearing natsfarm.com blog and do not wish to replicate what he does in the least.  But periodically i do like to talk about the major league rotation instead of the prospects and never felt comfortable with those topics on a prospect-centric blog.

I hope to have a pitching-focused blog that talks about the current Nats MLB rotation, the 40-man spotholders, prospects and who may be coming up next month or next year.  I’ll talk about pitching in general, some observations and some advanced stats.  I will post random musings about the Nationals in general and hope that my close friends with whom I regularly converse about baseball will chime in and offer their 2 cents about their own favorite teams (generally, the Phillies, Yankees and Dodgers).  I’ll talk about pitchers around the majors and baseball in general here and there.

I hope you find my writing interesting and topical.  You can always unsubscribe I suppose 🙂

Thanks, todd