Nationals Arm Race

As many expected, Sammy Solis was cut loose on 3/10/19, given his unconditional release.  Solis was a very long-serving player for this team, a 2nd round pick in 2010, and for a time was a very valuable lefty option out of the MLB bullpen.  But his 2018 struggles led many to believe he’d be non-tendered last fall, and more to believe that he had basically a 3 week try-out this spring.

It was this last scenario that led us to this point; This was a key cut-off point for cutting players and only being responsible for 1/6th of the agreed-upon salary.  So Solis departs with a $147k check for his time and faces a tough future.  He’s a tough sell to put on the 40-man roster b/c of his lack of minor league options, but should have no issues getting a MLFA deal and go pitch out of someone’s AAA team to try to re-establish his ability to get lefties out (which left him for some reason in 2018).

So, ripple effects on the Nat’s bullpen.

Here’s  the bullpen I predicted we’d go with at the beginning of spring training.

• Closer: Doolittle
• Setup: Rosenthal, Barraclough
• RH middle: JMiller, Suero, Glover
• LH Middle; Grace

other 40-man options in camp: Rainey, AAdams, AWilliams, Cordero, Bourque

Primary non-40man candidates to discuss: Nuno, Copeland

But,  there’s been some developments.

• Glover has been hurt; he’s thrown just a third of an inning so far, and seems more and more likely to be hitting the D/L.
• Miller has thrown just two innings … also struggling with injury.
• Joe Ross, our supposed 6th starter … has yet to start a game.  But he’s looked pretty darn good in relief.  Is he angling to make the team in a longer relief role?  It may also be meaningless; Voth and McGowin also aren’t starting a ton of games in MLB camp and are expected to be the bulk of the AAA roster.
• MLFA Scott Copeland has looked excellent and may be pushing for a 25-man spot if Miller/Glover start on the D/L.
• Tanner Rainey has gotten shelled, and for all we’ve heard about his arm, has zero Ks.
• Vidal Nuno seems to be the most likely person to benefit from the Solis release; who else in camp is a lefty reliever?
• J.J. Hoover is still out there too as a veteran MLFA who may get some opportunities based on past track record.
• Only Miller and Grace now remain without Options … but both seem nearly guaranteed to make the team (or the D/L).
• As noted elsewhere, Austen Williams has been great … can he make the team?
• We do have a free 40-man spot for the taking.

One other note.  Not that we’re talking about starters right now … and yes I know you’re supposed to ignore spring training stats, but you just cannot ignore what’s going on with Erick Fedde.  7 innings … SIXTEEN hits allowed to go along with five walks.  That’s nearly a 3.00 whip.  Is it time to pull the plug on the Fedde-as-starter experiment?  Is he better served throwing in relief?

If I had to predict the bullpen today?

• Closer: Doolittle
• Setup: Rosenthal, Barraclough
• RH middle: Suero, Copeland
• LH Middle; Grace, Nuno
• D/L: Miller, Glover

What is your reading of the ST bullpen tea leaves this week?

I’ll admit, I’m struggling for content this off-season.  I love nearly all the moves the Nats have made, as one of (arguably) only about 6 teams that actually seem to be trying to improve themselves in the FA market this off-season.  Thank gosh for these Inbox/mailbags to give me a chance to opine on the state of the Nationals.

Latest one from MLB.com beat reporter Jamal Collier dated 1/25/19.

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Q: With all the additions they have made, can that help in keeping Harper in Washington or is that a negative factor?

A: I can’t imagine how these moves have been a negative for anyone, Team, Fans or Harper.  If Harper was re-signed, and the team made the decision to go well over the luxury tax to do so, then the team is going to be better for it.  Lets be honest with ourselves; if there was no ridiculous luxury tax, would we even be debating this?  Yes, there’s a clear debate on value versus pay, given his injury history and general inability to stay healthy.  But we’re still talking about one of the most marketable players in the game, a guy who you build around, not try to repel away.  If the going rate is $9M/WAR … then a 4 win season (his average since arriving in the league) will make a $35M/year AAV contract “worth it.”

After watching all the other moves the team has made this off-season, which have essentially filled every hole we had, and then adding Harper back to the mix?  Yeah that’d be a hard team to beat.

I’m of the opinion (a difficult to quantify one of course), that Harper played it very conservatively in 2018 knowing he was going into a FA year.  I also wonder about his relationship with the new manager (we’ll get into that more later).  If he comes back, knowing he had security and his big pay check … wouldn’t you be betting on a massive 2019 for him?  Like another 8-10 win season?  I mean, I’d like him to do that for us and not for the Phillies.

Its just money right?  And, its not our money.  The Nats can’t draft past the 1st round anyway (quick; tell me the last time a 2nd round pick worked out for this team?), so who cares if we forgo a few draft picks.

Collier thinks signing Harper would be a positive.  duh.

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Q: What does Davey have to do in Spring Training / the early season to prove himself after last season?

A:  Is he really called “Davey?”  What is he, 12?   I’m not sure I particularly care about what he does in the Spring (with the exception of #1 below).  His regular season performance is what is going to matter obviously.  What mistakes do we think rookie manager Dave Martinez made in 2018?  For me:

• Failed to manage his veteran players from the start (see Ryan Zimmerman‘s play zero games spring training, and see Mike Rizzo‘s transactions in ridding the team of veteran relievers at the trade deadline).
• Over used starters (at one point last last season the Nats rotation led the league in both IP and pitches thrown)
• Over used crummy relievers (the fact that Sammy Solis and Ryan Madsen were ever allowed to throw as many innings as they did was crucial to the team’s demise in late innings)
• Showed poor end-game management (resulting in a -8 pythag record on the season, a 4-10 extra innings record, and an 18-24 record in one-run games)
• Had questionable management decisions in all other aspects of his job: lineup creation, shifting, double switches, strategy, etc.).

So.  One year in, with his “problem children” mostly now gone, he’ll have another shot at “controlling” the clubhouse.  He’ll have learned his lesson on starters.  He’ll have a whole new stable of relievers to abuse.   And he’ll have a year of in-game practice to learn from all the other mistakes he made.  So call 2018 a big internship for Martinez.  I suspect we’ll see him do better.

And, to be fair … he should have better relievers at his disposal, or at least some more street cred to demand for personnel moves earlier.

Collier notes the need for improved “messaging” related to Zimmerman’s 2018 situation.  But he notes spring training means nothing.  

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Q: How likely is it that the Nats go out and improve their bullpen even more before the offseason is over?

A:  At this point … i’m not sure how likely this is.  They’re pretty tapped out from a payroll perspective.  I’ve got them at about $13M under the luxury cap, Cots has them about $10.9M  under the cap.  And those cap figures do not include any of the incentives built into the contracts of the many players who could earn them.  From what I can tell, these are the “hidden” incentives that may come back to pad the 2019 salary cap figure:

• Stephen Strasburg gets $1M if he hits 180 innings (he’s done it twice, but not in his last four seasons, each of which had a month or so of D/L time).
• Max Scherzer has all sorts of award bonuses ranging from $100k to $500k for various awards he can earn.  He’s been in top 3 of Cy Young voting every year, so it seems likely some money is spent here).
• Patrick Corbin  has similar award-based bonuses.  What are the odds Corbin can repeat his 2018 performance and have another top3 Cy season?
• Anibal Sanchez can earn up to $2M if he gets to 30 starts.  He’s done it 3 times, all many years ago in his  youth, but he may get some additional bonuses for lesser number of starts.
• Trevor Rosenthal has all sorts of bonuses based on games pitched, games finished … its complicated, but if he pitches in 50 games (as he did in his last season 2017) he can earn another $4-$5M.  This is the big danger line item.
• Howie Kendrick has per-season bonuses worth $1.1M based on plate appearances.  Based on injury recovery and the buying of Brian Dozier, this seems unlikely to be met.

So …. that’s a lot of money that could hit the books and jack up the 2019 payroll very close to the cap.   So ask yourself; what do you think the team is going to do?

I think the team is going to go one of two ways:

• stand pat if the luxury tax is treated as a hard cap
• Sign Harper, blow way past, throw caution to the wind and keep signing guys.

Collier kind of gives a wishy washy answer,  saying well maybe!

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Q:  How would you rank the likelihood of: Nats re-signing Harper, Nats re-signing Rendon, both, neither?

A: At this point, i’ll give the following percentage likelihoods:

• Harper: 5%.  I think Harper is going to follow the paycheck and end up with literally the only team bidding on him; the Phillies.
• Rendon: 65%.  I think he likes it here, I think he’s a great bet to age gracefully, and will be the next Zimmerman “face of the franchise” kind of guy.

Collier kind of agrees, thinking the most likely scenario is signing Rendon, not Harper.

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Q: Who are the candidates for a surprise break out season?

A: A “surprise” breakout season?  Well if Victor Robles blows it out and wins the Rookie of the Year i don’t think that’s a surprise.  I’ll go with newly added reliever James Bourque.

Collier has almost the same answer as me 🙂

Its an annual tradition.  This is my 9th annual analysis of the roster moves the Nats will do to protect players from the Rule 5 draft.  See the bottom for links/summary of the first eight such posts with a quick guess as to how well i’ve done making predictions.

Lets take a look at who is eligible, who might get protected and make some predictions.  I’ve got the Nats 40-man roster at 35 now, so there’s plenty of room to add names and do their off-season work.  But, this team also needs to sign a bunch of FAs, so perhaps the Rule5 activity will be limited.  That being said, there’s some dead-weight at the end of the 40-man roster that includes some fringe players out of options for 2019 anyway, who we may try to slip through waivers as we go.  Nonetheless, its something to think about.

Another recurring theme while doing this research: a good number of the prospects we received back in late-season trades ended up being Rule-5 Eligible this coming off-season.  I suppose it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that we got players back in this category, but it does mean our trade bounty for some of our veterans might end up never playing a game for the Nats franchise.

As always, using the indispensable Nationals resource sites Draft tracker and the Big Board, and then looking up candidate acquisitions made via trade, here’s some thoughts on who might merit protection.   Also incredibly useful is Roster Resource’s Nats Roster, which keeps track of options, rule-5 status and the like.

The quick Rule-5 rules for 2017; any college-aged draftee from 2015 or before who isn’t already on the 40-man roster is Rule-5 eligible this coming off season, and any high-school aged draftee/International Free Agent from 2014 or before is newly eligible this year, assuming they were at least 18 as of June 5th of that year.  There’s always a couple of guys who have specific birthdays that move them up or down one way or the other; i’ll depend on the Roster Resource rules.

One last thing: here was our 2018 AFL Roster: Ben Braymer, Taylor Guilbeau, Jordan Mills, Luis Reyes, Tres Barrera, Carter Kieboom, Jake Noll, Daniel Johnson.  Half these guys (Guilbeau, Mills, and Reyes) are rule-5 eligible; the others (Braymer, Barrera, Kieboom, Noll and Johnson) were all 2016 draftees and thus are not part of this discussion… for this year anyway.

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Newly Eligible 2015 draft College Players this year worth consideration for protection:

• Rhett Wiseman, 3rd round left-handed hitting OF out of Vanderbilt.  Repeated High-A in 2018 and drastically improved his OPS, but it seems to be on the back of perhaps going for more of an all or nothing approach: he increased his homer output, but also struck out 122 times in 407 PAs.  The team invested a big bonus in him, and it hasn’t panned out.  I really liked this pick at the time, but then watched him hit in the CWS that year and thought he’d have a hard time adjusting to pro pitching.  So far, my amateur observation seems to be holding true.
• Taylor Guilbeau, LHP 10th rounder who repeated High-A this year but switched to the bullpen and halved his ERA.  The team named him to the AFL roster and he excelled,  giving up 2 runs in 10+ innings.  Given the team’s lack of lefty arms, I’d consider Guilbeau … but then again, he’s never pitched above High-A so he seems like a safe bet not to get picked.  But then again, he just manned up in the AFL in front of every scout in the game.
• Andrew Istler, our trade bounty from the Dodgers for Ryan Madsen.  He had very solid numbers in AA in a middle relief role, even earning a stellar AAA call-up.  He’s an undersized Duke grad, 23rd round pick who has done well.  I wonder if his pedigree makes him less likely to get picked.

Eligible but not mentioned here: Ian Sagdal, who (like Wisemann) is still in High-A and is a power-less 1B.   Angelo La Bruna is a part-time SS who was a senior sign, did not appear in 2018 but is still listed as active.  Matt Crownover may be lefty, but he also repeated High-A for the 3rd year in 2018.  Grant Borne, Tommy Peterson and Ryan Brinley missed all of 2018 with injury.   Andrew Lee basically missed all of 2017 with injury and still hasn’t even gotten out of Low-A.  Jorge Pantoja has bounced around the A-levels for four years now, ending last year with a 4.68 ERA in High-A.

The key college-eligible players out of this draft have long since been called into 40-man service, released or traded.  Andrew Stevenson and Koda Glover are the biggest remaining names from this draft for the team.

 

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Newly Eligible 2014 High School-age drafted players under consideration for protection

• Jakson Reetz, 3rd round C from 2014.  Reetz was paid a big bonus out of HS, and has basically never hit at any level.  He played all of 2018 as the backup C in Potomac and slugged just .323 for the year.  His career BA is .233 across 5 pro seasons and nearly a thousand plate appearances.  Suffice it to say, had he not been paid $800k out of HS, he’d have been released long ago.  He’s certainly not going to get picked in Rule-5.
• Weston Davis, RHP 11th rounder.  He missed all of 2015… and then all of 2018.  Through 5 full pro seasons he has just 124.2 innings pitched.  He’s still hanging around, and will look to make it out of XST next year.

The Nats generally don’t pick HS players, so the picking here is always slim.

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Newly Eligible 2014 signed IFAs under consideration for protection:

• Joan Baez went 9-9 with a 3.79 ERA as a full time starter for Potomac this year.  We’ve heard about Baez’s arm for a while.  He repeated Potomac again after walking as many as he struck out in 2017, and indeed he’s improved on that ratio.  I think he’s a decent bet for someone to look at, but his lack of upper-level experience probably keeps him from getting picked.
• Telmito Augustin, a LF who hit pretty well for High-A this year (OPS of .822).  But he’s never even gotten to AA, and like many of the “holdovers” he’s a corner OF type who is competing with a ton of MLB veterans for roster spots.  I don’t think he’s a threat to get drafted.
• Steven Fuentes, who forced a mid-season promotion to High-A where he posted a 3.00 ERA in 45 middle-relief type innings.
• Andruw Monasario, the 2B prospect the Nats received from the Cubs in the Daniel Murphy trade.  He was an IFA2014 signee and is newly Rule-5 eligible.   He repeated High-A in 2018, has no power (6 career homers), little speed (48 SBs in 349 career minor league games), and is only mentioned here b/c he was trade bounty for Murphy.
• Gilbert Lara, the 3B prospect the Nats received from Milwaukee in the Gio Gonzalez trade.   He played all of 2018 in Low-A, had decent numbers and is very unlikely to be taken.  He’s only mentioned here for similar reasons to Monsario.

Others in this category: Tomas Alastre , who posted a 5.23 ERA in 23 starts in Low-A.  Malvin Pena basically missed two full seasons and only just made it to Low-A.

Our biggest 2014 IFA signing is now safely ensconced on the 40-man roster; Victor Robles.

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Rule-5 Eligible hold-overs of note: 2014 or prior college draftees still hanging out in the system, or 2013 and prior HS/IFAs.

• Taylor Gushue, a 2014 Draftee out of Florida who has now made his way all the way to AAA. Even though he didn’t really hit that well in AA (.212), he still made his way to the top level of the minors.  The Nats only have 3 catchers on the 40-man and one of them (Severino) has no options left, so they’re going to need some depth.  I think Gushue may be a consideration to add.
• Drew Ward, who drew a promotion to AAA in July but struggled and was sent back to AA.  I thought he was a candidate to get protected last year but he missed the draft.  Now?  I’d guess he slips through again, despite being a lefty corner player that the team needs to back up Ryan Zimmerman simply because there’s a glut of such veteran players on the market every year now, and they can be had for just a couple million bucks.  A 40-man spot is much more valuable.  I think Ward plays out his term in 2019 and makes his way to MLFA.
• Austin Davidson is a corner OF and 13th rounder in 2014 who is beginning to show some promise.  He had a solid OPS of .846 in 94 AA games this year.  But, like Ward (who is about a half a step ahead of him), he faces competition from above.  Not a real threat to get drafted.
• Alec Keller: a 2017 17th rounder in the same boat as Ward and Davidson above him; corner OF, decent numbers, no chance of getting Rule-5’d.
• Tyler Mapes, a great story who continues to make waves.  He was a 30th rounder in 2014, missed all of 2017 with injury but came back with a vengeance in 2018, dominating Potomac and holding his own with a 3.95 ERA in AA.  I like his chances of pushing towards AAA in 2019, but don’t quite think he’s a scare to get plucked.
• Luis Reyes: finally made it to AA this year, and got shelled (12 starts, 5.18 ERA).  Nonetheless the team included him in their AFL roster, where he got even more shelled (4 starts, 12 innings, 22 runs allowed).  I think whatever jeopardy he had of getting picked is long gone.
• Jordan Mills: a 2017 MLFA signing who really came on this year as a lefty reliever in AA.  He was also sent to AFL in perhaps a final audition for the bigger club; there he did pretty well, holding his WHIP under 1.00.  I think he’s one to protect.
• James Bourque was (finally?) moved to the bullpen in 2018 and immediately turned into a monster: he struck out 52 in 33 high-A innings, got moved to AA and posted a 0.92 ERA in 19 2/3rds innings.  I think he shows a ton of promise; enough to protect?

Others in this category: Aldrem Corredor, a 1B who has hung around since 2012 in the system.  David Masters completed his *fourth straight* season in Potomac in 2018.  Dakota Bacus has been on this list for 3 years running, is now a 27-yr old RHP middle reliever just completing his 4th season in AA.  Jose Marmolejos i suppose theoretically is still eligible; he was on the 40-man, got outrighted in July and subsequently had a sub .700 OPS in AAA (low for a 1B).

Austen Williams got added late in the year; he would have been in this category.

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So, who would I protect?

So, remember, if someone gets drafted they have to stick on someone else’s ACTIVE, 25-man MLB roster the entirety of 2019.  So it has to be someone who could theoretically stick on a MLB roster.  Given that statement, and looking at what the Nats are light on, I think they add three arms:

• Bourque
• Mills
• Istler

Who would I additionally consider?

• Baez
• Gushue
• Mapes

Here’s some other opinions in the Natmosphere on the same topic:

• District On Deck thinks Bourque is a lock, Augustin and Ward under consideration.
• MLB.com listed every organization’s top ranked prospects who are Rule5 Eligible: Augustin, Bourque, Alastre, Marmolejos and Ward are top-30 prospects being exposed.
• TalkNats has a bunch of the players listed but doesn’t make a prediction; seems to imply they think Bourque, Istler, and Agustin might get protected.
• WP’s Chelsea Jane seems to suggest Marmolejos, Augustin, Bourque, plus perhaps others.

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For a fun trip down memory lane, here’s the same Rule 5 Protection analysis post for 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, and 2010.

By year, here’s who I predicted we’d add and who we did add.

• 2018: Predicted: Bourque, Mills,Istler.  Actual: just Bourque.
• 2017: Predicted: Gutierrez, Gushue, Ward, Baez.  Actual: Gutierrez and Jefry Rodriguez.
• 2016: Predicted Voth, Bautista.  Actual: Voth, Bautista, Marmolejos, Read and Skole.
• 2015: Predicted Kieboom, Bostick, Marmolejos-Diaz.  Actual: Kieboom, Bostick, Lee
• 2014: Predicted Cole, Skole, Goodwin.  Hedged on Grace, Martin and Difo.  Actual: Cole, Goodwin, Difo, Grace.
• 2013: Predicted Solis as the only lock (Souza already added).  Possibles mentioned in order Barrett, Taylor, Grace, Holland.  Actual: Solis, Barrett, Taylor.
• 2012: Predicted Karns and McCoy, with Hood and Rosenbaum as maybes.  Actual: Karns and Davis.  I think we were all surprised by Davis’ inclusion, despite his good AA numbers that year.
• 2011: Predicted Norris as a lock, guessed strongly on Moore, Meyers and Komatsu.  Actual: Norris, Moore, Solano, Perez.    This was poor analysis on my part; I did not consider the IFAs newly eligible.
• 2010: Predicted Marrero, Meyers and Mandel.  Actual: Marrero, Carr and Kimball.
• 2009: pre-dates my blog and thus no predictions, but Actual was Jaime, Thompson and Severino.
• 2008: I might be wrong, but I don’t see any evidence of the team protecting *anyone* prior to the Rule-5 draft.  A bit of an indictment of the farm system at the time, I’d say 🙂

I havn’t been doing regular check-ins with the minor league staffs for a few years, but I have always maintained little “cheat sheet” notes on the staffs of the levels day in/day out (thanks in no small part to the daily work of Luke Erickson over at Nationals Prospects of course).

It occurred to me, doing updates this week, that the four full season rotations have been about as stable as I can ever remember them this year.  So I thought i’d do a quick swing through the four staffs, with quick notes on who has looked good or bad and what we may see in terms of movement going forward.

Syracuse (stats link here: http://web.milb.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?t=t_ibp&cid=552&stn=true&sid=t552)

• Opening day rotation: Voth, Milone*, Fedde, EJackson, Vargas
• Current rotation: Milone*, Voth, Fedde, EJackson, Vargas
• spot starts/swingman: Simms, Goforth
• bullpen: Collins*, Cordero, CSmith, Miller, Adams, Valdez
• promotions: Torres, Gott, Suero
• up-and-back: Adams, Voth
• demotions: Long,
• dl/restricted/TIL: Barrett, Satterwhite

Rotation thoughts: A month in and the only change we’ve seen to the AAA rotation was the flipping of Milone and Voth thanks to Voth’s brief call-up earlier this week.  Voth has absolutely re-made his career so far this year, going from possible “first man to be DFA’d” off the 40-man to a guy who is forcing his way into the conversation the next time the Nats need a starter.  For May he’s posted a 0.76 ERA, a 0.68 WHIP, has a 30/3 K/BB ratio in 23 innings and has given up just 13 hits.  Man, is he found gold for a team who has traded away an awful lot of pitching prospects over the past couple of seasons?

The veteran insurance policies Jackson and Milone are both pitching about as I’d expect them to be: Milone slightly better, with better base-runner control, Jackson with more wildness and worse stats.   Erick Fedde has not been either good or bad, giving up a hit an inning and maintaining a 4-1 K-BB ratio but not showing any real dominance.  My guess is that he’ll be sticking in AAA for a while.

The last guy in the rotation may be the most interesting: Cesar Vargas was a low-key spring MLFA signing after bouncing around San Diego’s system last year.  He’s come out in 2018 looking serviceable and might be putting himself ahead of the veterans in the pecking order.

Bullpen thoughts: John Simms has looked great in a long-man role.  He’s quietly been serviceable at every level in his journey upwards and you have to wonder if he’ll eventually push for a 9/1 call up.  Most of the rest of the bullpen is too SSS to make real judgements, though we have seen three relievers get pushed to the majors right now (Torres, Gott, Suero) and fourth who was up and is now in AAA (Adams).  Cordero still shows the same issues that have plagued him for a while; he’s got 16/8 K/BB in 11 innings.  Barrett remains  with the system and we hope he can get back to his former self; he’d certainly help out at the MLB level.

Who is making a push for promotion?  Voth

Who is in jeopardy of a demotion (or worse): Smith, Cordero

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Harrisburg (stats = http://www.milb.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?t=t_ibp&did=milb&cid=547)

• Opening day rotation: Dragmire, JRodriguez, Darnell*,  LReyes, Estevez
• Current Rotation: Dragmire, JRodriguez, Long, LReyes, Estevez
• spot starts/swingman: AWilliams, Darnell*
• bullpen: Fleck, Guillon*, BHarper*, RMendez, Self,  Ames
• promotions: Valdez
• dl/restricted: Brinley, Bacus
• Missing from 2017: NLee*

Rotation thoughts: The only substantive change in the rotation from the first pass through was to replace Darnell with Long.  Dragmire and Jefry Rodriguez  have both excelled thus far, though Rodriguez’s stats look more like a guy who might be pressing for promotion (more Ks, fewer hits).  Dragmire is showing more of what he displayed last year at AA and he may need the additional challenge of AAA soon.  Estevez and Reyes are not faring as well thus far, with elevated ERAs and WHIPs.  And Long, upon his demotion from AAA, has been poor in his three AA starts, with just 6 punch-outs and a 1.85 WHIP in 13 innings.  Rodriguez seems like the first starter in line for promotion.

Bullpen thoughts:  Austen Williams has looked great since getting moved out of the rotation.  Kaleb Fleck has some interesting stats: he’s got an 18/1 K/BB ratio in 10 innings but has an ugly 5.91 ERA (I’m sure his FIP is like 3 points lower).  Fleck is too good for AA; he spent all last  year in AAA and isn’t proving anything here.  Bryan Harper‘s return from injury is going ok .. he’s got nearly a 2.00 WHIP though.  Long serving Nats farmhand Dakota Bacus got shelled in four appearances and currently sits on the D/L; he had excellent numbers in 2017 but is getting a bit long in the tooth for AA and I wonder if he’s running out of time.  One big name still sits in XST: Nick Lee, who looked promising before injuries derailed his progress.

Who is making a push for promotion?   Fleck, JRodriguez, AWilliams

Who is in jeopardy of a demotion (or worse): Bacus

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Potomac

(stats link: http://www.milb.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?t=t_ibp&did=milb&cid=436)

• opening day rotation: Crownover*, Sharp, Baez, Mapes, Crowe
• starters: Crownover*, Sharp, Baez, ?, Crowe
• spot starts/swingmen: Pantoja, Howard*, Guilbeau*, McGowin
• bullpen: JMills*, Bourque, Klobosits, RPena, Peterson, Rivera
• demotions: Fuentes
• dl/restricted: Borne*, Mapes
• Missing: Romero*

Rotation thoughts: The only change to the opening day rotation literally happened yesterday, with Mapes dropping to the D/L and (likely)  McGowin (freshly taken off the AA D/L and demoted to Potomac) likely to take his place.  Mapes has the best starter ERA … but the worst WHIP.  Crownover may have the nicest looking stat line, with a nifty 28/4 K/BB ratio and solid peripherals.  Perhaps the most important high-A arm may be Wil Crowe and so far he’s more than handling high-A; the 2017 2nd rounder  has a great whip, good ratios and is looking like an excellent draft pick.   Baez and Sharp fill out the rest of the rotation; both showing mid 4 ERAs and not really being good enough or bad enough to comment on thus far.  The one big notable missing name here is Seth Romero, who should be featuring in this rotation as we speak but instead apparently still sits not at XST but at home in Houston.  Its hard to prove the “i told you so” guys wrong when it literally took less than a season for his well-publicized maturity issues to come to the forefront.

Bullpen thoughts:  Some good and some bad in the bullpen; Rivera and Howard have gotten dinged so far, while Bourque, Mills and Pantoja look solid.  Bourque in particular now boasts a 22/4 K/BB ratio in 12 relief innings; like that ratio.  36th rounder Klobosits still looking solid; how exactly was he still around that late in the draft if he’s already succeeding in high-A?

Who is making a push for promotion?  Bourque

Who is in jeopardy of a demotion (or worse): Rivera perhaps

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Hagerstown (stats = http://www.milb.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?t=t_ibp&did=milb&cid=563

• Opening day rotation: BHill/Braymer*, Raquet*/Acevedo, Tetreault/Bogucki, Alastre/Troop*, Stoeckinger*/Johnston
• Current rotation: Troop*, Raquet*, Acevedo, Tetreault, Alastre, Stoeckinger*
• spot starts/swingman: Johnston, Bogucki, Held, Braymer*
• bullpen: McKinney, Brasher, Fuentes
• promotions: Guilbeau*
• dl/restricted: Howell, BHill
• Cut/Released/FA from 2017: Engelbrekt (retired)
• missing from 2017/XST: YRamirez*, DeRosier, CPena, Simonds, Barnett*, Morse, Dickey, WDavis,

Rotation thoughts: It was clear to this observer that the first few turns through the rotation were in the “tandem starter” configuration, with each of the names in the “opening rotation” throwing roughly 3-4 innings each.  That has now settled into the current 6-man rotation, all of which now seem to be getting the lion’s share of the innings each time through.   Of the “starters,” only really Raquet has acquitted himself well, though i’m concerned about the lack of swing and miss in his game (19/8 K/BB ratio in 27 innings supporting a 2.28 ERA and a 1.05 whip).  The rest of the starters are struggling: Stoeckinger hasn’t walked a soul yet in 24 innings … .but has given up 37  hits for an ugly 7.50 ERA.  Tetreault, Alastre and Acevedo  each have ERAs north of 7.00.   Troop and Hill (both 2017 top-10 round draftees) have been less bad but have room for improvement.

The “tandem” starters have been a different story though.  Bogucki and Braymer each have been solid, with Braymer sporting a 23/2 K/BB ratio and a 0.81 WHIP and Bogucki sporting a 20/3 K/BB ratio.  I wonder how long it’ll be before these guys become the “starters” instead of the “finishers.”

Bullpen thoughts: There’s really only a couple of real “relievers” in Low-A, but one of them has been quite solid.  McKinney has a 14/1 K/BB ratio in just 8 2/3 innings and has yet to give up an earned run.

There’s still a slew of guys technically in “XST” or assigned to the Short-A roster who could fill in here, most of whom have prior Low-A experience and could contribute.

Who is making a push for promotion?   Braymer, Bogucki, McKinney

Who is in jeopardy of a demotion (or worse): Acevedo, Alastre

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That’s a quick run through the systems.  Did anyone want to point out someone in particular who they think needs to be talked about?

We do this every year.  We argue about it every year.  This is now the 8th version of this post (see the bottom for links/summary of the first seven).  Thanks to long-since implemented service time changes the Rule-5 draft remains mitigated in importance.  Yet here we are talking about it again, because we’re some of the few people out there who obsess about the edges of the 40-man roster, and who have meticulously studied our prospects for years and who don’t necessarily want to see the promising ones head out the door for a pittance.   So here we are.

Next Monday at 8pm is the deadline to set 40-man rosters ahead of the Winter Meetings, which include the Rule-5 draft.  With so many teams purposely tanking there’s going to be lots of usage of the draft this year.  Lets take a look at who is eligible, who might get protected and make some predictions.  I’ve got the Nats 40-man roster at 35 now, so there’s plenty of room to add names and do their off-season work.

As always, using the indispensable Nationals resource sites Draft tracker and the Big Board, and then looking up candidate acquisitions made via trade, here’s some thoughts on who might merit protection.   Also incredibly useful is Roster Resource’s Nats Roster, which keeps track of options, rule-5 status and the like.

The quick Rule-5 rules for 2017; any college-aged draftee from 2014 or before who isn’t already on the 40-man roster is Rule-5 eligible this coming off season, and any high-school aged draftee/International Free Agent from 2013 or before is newly eligible this year, assuming they were at least 18 as of June 5th of that year.

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Newly Eligible 2014 draft College Players this year worth consideration for protection:

• Austen Williams: he has featured at High-A 3 years running, got moved to AA for the 2nd year running this year and still continues to struggle with that leap.  I don’t think he’s a candidate to protect but is worth mentioning since he’s a long-serving starter in the organization.  The team sent him to the AFL perhaps as an audition for consideration.
• Tyler Mapes: the 30th round pick continues to be found gold for this team … but he missed the entire 2017 with an injury.  Because of that he’s clearly not a rule-5 danger, but he could fit into the teams plans as a rotation member in AA or AAA this year.  He has a career 2.68 ERA in the minors, vastly outperforming most of the rest of his draft class.
• Taylor Gushue: the 2017 trade acquisition had a solid year in High-A, is a catcher in a system that needs them, and seems like a lock to add.  He wasn’t set to the AFL for nothing.

Not mentioned: several other draftees from this class that are marginal prospects right now: Dale Carey, Matthew Page, Austin Davidson, Alec Keller, Robbie Dickey, Weston Davis, James Bourque.  All these guys are still in the lower minors.  Dickey represents the biggest investment ($400k signing bonus) and is one of the biggest disappointments from this draft.

Erick Fedde would have been the big name here to protect had he not already been added.  Trea Turner was also a 2014 college draftee.

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Newly Eligible 2013 High School-age drafted players under consideration for protection

• Drew Ward: he is literally the only 2013 HS draftee remaining in the system and is an interesting protection case.  He had a great 2016 (making the All Star team and shining in High-A) but has not translated that success to AA.  But, he’s only 22, and a 22-yr old struggling in AA isn’t that surprising.  Question is; do you protect him?  He’s blocked at the major league level by Anthony Rendon but that means little in a game where his value might be in trade versus production for the big league squad.  It wouldn’t surprise me if he got protected.

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Newly Eligible 2013 signed IFAs under consideration for protection:

• Edwin Lora: SS who has progressed neatly one level at a time for 5 years.  But he’s a career .238 hitter.  We need a backup utility fielder and he fits the bill, but he doesn’t seem to be ready.  I also don’t see him as a threat to get drafted.
• Kelvin Gutierrez, 3B recently of the AFL who has shown some promise.  He’s a lock to get protected based on his production and his presence in Arizona.
• Luis Reyes, RHP who started 26 games for Potomac this year.  He’s a bit wild, but he’s also a solid starter who projects to AA in 2018.  Is that enough to be a draft threat?   Maybe.
• Anderson Franco, 3B: highly touted on prospect boards, but hit just .201 for low-A this year.  Not a draft candidate but someone to watch/hope for a rebound 2018.

Not mentioned: many 2013 IFA signings throughout the lower levels of the system.  This includes Aldrem Corridor, Joshual Ramirez, Luis Vilorio, Oliver Ortiz, Francys Peguero.  Honestly, I had not even heard of most of these guys and wouldn’t be surprised if I had their eligibility wrong.  They’re mostly in the very low minors.

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Rule-5 Eligible hold-overs of note: 2013 or prior college draftees still hanging out in the system, or 2012 and prior HS/IFAs.

• Wander Suero: the 2010 IFA exploded onto the scene this year as the closer in AA and then AAA, posting a 1.79 ERA for the year and heading to the AFL.  He was already added to the roster two weeks ago.
• John Simms: I’ve always liked this guy; he’s now worked his way to AAA and made 8 starts there last  year.  He isn’t a big K/9 guy, perhaps is seen as an org arm, but he’s got a good pedigree (Rice) and has made it to the cusp of the majors.  Is that enough to protect him?  Probably not.
• Spencer Kieboom: he struggled enough in 2016 to get DFA’d in early 2017 … but then he hit pretty well in AAA this year.  Is that enough to get him back into the mix?
• Dakota Bacus: he pitched pretty darn well in relief across High-A and AA this year, and was sent to AFL to get more innings.  Is he an option to add?  He didn’t have the numbers that Suero did, but perhaps the team thinks he could be an option out of the pen.
• Kyle McGowin: an interesting case since he was sent to the AFL: he struggled badly in 2017, getting demoted to AA at one point and posting a 5.95 ERA for the year.  I don’t think we’d shed a tear if he was drafted, but I don’t think he’s meriting a 40-man spot right now.
• Joan Baez; power arms don’t grow on trees, and even though he was “only” in high-A this year he’s well known enough to perhaps merit protection.

2013 or before College Draftees that are Rule-5 holdovers include David Masters, Isaac Ballou, Justin Thomas, Matthew DeRosier, Robert Benincasa, Derek Self, Brian Rauh, Ronald Pena, Robert Orlan, Steven Perez, Bryan Mejia, Osvaldo Abreu, Wirkin Estevez, Hector Silvestre, Jefry Rodriguez.  Perhaps at some points in their careers some of these guys seemed like locks, but for now they all toil in the lower minors (for the most part) hoping to put themselves into contention.

MLFAs who are technically Rule-5 eligible:  Yadiel Hernandez,  Irving Falou, Greg Ross, Jaron Long, Jordan Mills.  Long in particular has worked in AAA for three years now, but may be considered an org arm at this point.  Ross looked promising for a while, but struggled badly in 2017.

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So, who would I protect?

• Wander Suero (already added)
• Kelvin Gutierrez
• Taylor Gushue
• Drew Ward
• Joan Baez

Who would I consider: Kieboom, Bacus.  Maybe.

If they added these four additional guys they’d be at 39/40 on the roster, still leaving them immediate room for a FA signing or trade.   But there’s more than a few names on our 40-man currently that could be cut (starting with Voth, Gott, Bautista).  So we could see some manouvering this off-season.

Did I miss anyone?  this is kind of tough analysis without a massive white board with every name in the organization listed … something none of us have time to do for free.

Nats official protection announcement: Gutierrez and Jefry Rodriguez in kind of a shocker.

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For a fun trip down memory lane, here’s the same Rule 5 Protection analysis post for 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, and 2010.

By year, here’s who I predicted we’d add and who we did add.

• 2017: Predicted: Gutierrez, Gushue, Ward, Baez.  Actual: Gutierrez and Jefry Rodriguez.
• 2016: Predicted Voth, Bautista.  Actual: Voth, Bautista, Marmolejos, Read and Skole.
• 2015: Predicted Kieboom, Bostick, Marmolejos-Diaz.  Actual: Kieboom, Bostick, Lee
• 2014: Predicted Cole, Skole, Goodwin.  Hedged on Grace, Martin and Difo.  Actual: Cole, Goodwin, Difo, Grace.
• 2013: Predicted Solis as the only lock (Souza already added).  Possibles mentioned in order Barrett, Taylor, Grace, Holland.  Actual: Solis, Barrett, Taylor.
• 2012: Predicted Karns and McCoy, with Hood and Rosenbaum as maybes.  Actual: Karns and Davis.  I think we were all surprised by Davis’ inclusion, despite his good AA numbers that year.
• 2011: Predicted Norris as a lock, guessed strongly on Moore, Meyers and Komatsu.  Actual: Norris, Moore, Solano, Perez.    This was poor analysis on my part; I did not consider the IFAs newly eligible.
• 2010: Predicted Marrero, Meyers and Mandel.  Actual: Marrero, Carr and Kimball.
• 2009: pre-dates my blog and thus no predictions, but Actual was Jaime, Thompson and Severino.
• 2008: I might be wrong, but I don’t see any evidence of the team protecting *anyone* prior to the Rule-5 draft.  A bit of an indictment of the farm system at the time, I’d say 🙂

(We got interrupted on this series by last weekend’s baffling pitching roster moves.  We continue today with Hagerstown and tomorrow with XST).

We’re looking at the four full-season staffs, guessing the roles, and talk about the changes of the staffs from the end of last year til now.  Last up: Hagerstown (I may add a “5th” to talk about the 40 some-odd guys in XST or unassigned right now)

See here for Syracuse 2017 review, here for Harrisburg 2017 review, here for Potomac 2017 review.

Quick links for rosters for each full season affiliate:

• Syracuse Roster
• Harrisburg Roster
• Potomac roster
• Hagerstown roster

And don’t forget the invaluable work of SpringfieldFan maintaining the Nats Big Board, now in its 12th season!

Note: in the below list, “missing” means that the player was on a 2016 roster, is still listed as active but is not found anywhere on a 2017 full-season roster as expected.  Most are still sitting in Extended Spring Training (abbreviated XST throughout) with the intent of getting assigned as injuries or releases occur, but some may be release candidates.   Other abbreviations I use often: MLFA == Minor League Free Agent, OOO = Out of the Organization.

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Low-A/Hagerstown 2017

• projected starters: Watson*, WDavis, MMills*, CPena, Sharp
• Actual rotation as it seems: Watson*, Acevedo, WDavis, CPena, Sharp (maybe MMills*)
• spot starts/swingman: VanVossen, Bourque, Bogucki
• bullpen: Held, Howard*, Pantoja, Simonds (JMills* recent acquisition)
• dl/restricted: none
• cut/released/FAs from 2016: Walby (waived), Avila (traded for Norris)
• missing from 2016: JMorales, ALee, DeRosier, Howell, Dickey

Discussion

3/5ths of the end-of-season 2016 Auburn rotation moves up to Hagerstown (it would have been 4/5ths had the team not flipped Dane Dunning over the off-season) for the season: Weston Davis and McKenzie Mills look to continue excellent professional debuts in Low-A.   Sterling Sharp and Carlos Pena (both of whom share names with more famous former pro athletes) are both making the jump straight from Rookie Ball (though Sharp got one end-of-season start for Auburn last year).  They join who I like to call the most under-rated prospect in our system Tyler Watson in what could be a very talented Hagerstown rotation.  Watson doesn’t turn 20 until the end of May yet starts his 3rd pro season and has really yet to be challenged; he has a career 2.14 ERA against mostly older competition and could find easily find himself in high-A before he turns 21.

There’s another 4 guys I list as spot starters who all at least notionally “started” last year in Short-A (i.e., participated in the tandem starting system they use in Auburn).  Competition may still remain for the longer term rotation in Hagerstown.  The rest of the bullpen contains holdovers from last year (Held, VanVossen, Pantoja and Howard).  I’m slightly surprised to see Bourque beating out the slew of guys who at least were on last year’s year end team (the “missing” guys listed above): he struggled badly in Low-A last year.  And its also surprising to see Pantoja here; he dominated low-A and forced a mid-season promotion; what does he have left to prove in Low-A?

Who am I focusing on: Watson of course, but I also like Davis and M.Mills longer term.

 

 

Third in our set of Draft class Reviews for the 2016 season.  First was the 2016 class, then the 2015 class.

Web links to use while reading:

• Stats are pulled from milb.com and/or fangraphs.com; put the player name into the search bar to get his seasonal stats
• The MLB.com Draft Tracker (which I believe is the best draft tracker out there) is the best place to get draft class information.
• The Big Board and the Draft Tracker are the goto resources for prospects for any Nats fan.
• More obscure stats on players are sometimes found at places like thebaseballcube.com, perfectgame.org, their college websites, twitter accounts for the players, and good old fashioned deep-dive googling.
• My historical list of Nats prospect rankings, updated for all 2016 mid-season rankings.

With out further ado…

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Round 1: Erick Fedde RHP (starter) COL jr from UNLV.  8-5 with a 3.12 ERA in 23 games (22 starts) across 2 levels.  123/29 K/BB in 121 IP.  1.21 combined whip, 3.22 fip and .316 babip in Potomac.  Fedde began the year in the Potomac rotation and struggled in his first 6-7 starts.  Then something clicked; from late May through his eventual promotion to AA in early august, he threw 10 straight starts giving up 0 or 1 earned runs, driving his ERA down from somewhere in the 6.60 range in May to a sub 3.00 ERA for the year in High-A.  His final Potomac start may have been his best: 10 strikeouts, 5 hits and 1 unearned run in 7 innings.  In his limited time in AA, he had one blow-out but was other wise also solid (in his last start of the season he had 12 strikeouts in 6 innings).  Fedde looks completely back to his first round projection form and may quickly add his name to the list of guys in AAA pushing for a promotion to the majors.   Trending up.

Round 2: Andrew Suarez LHP (starter) COL jr  from Miami (FL).  Did not sign: 2nd round signee for San Francisco in 2015.  Spent most of 2016 starting for SF’s AA team in Richmond and looked solid.  He may need another year in AA.

Round 3: Jakson Reetz, C  Norris HS (NE).  Slashed .230/.346/.357 splitting time at C in Hagerstown.  79/38 K/BB, 4homers, 4SBs.  Reetz’ first foray into full-season ball did not result in appreciably better results all around at the plate.  He improve his slugging percentage with more XBH, but his average remains poor.  79 Ks in 283 ABs is a hefty percentage.  This was his age 20 season, playing in Low-A, and there’s not a ton of competition for the High-A catcher job next year, so he likely moves on up, but i’m a bit down on him at this point.  Perhaps unfairly.  Truth is, he got a big bonus and the team will give him plenty of room to grow.  Trending down.

Round 4: Robbie Dickey, RHP (reliever) from Blinn College (TX). 2-0, 3.48 ERA for two levels relieving.  26/18 K/BB in 20 2/3rds innings.  1.89 whip, 5.60 fip, .345 babip while in Hagerstown.  Dickey started the season in Short-A, his third successive year in Auburn.  This time though he forced his way up, featuring as a reliever now instead of a starter, giving up 1 hit in 8 innings and quickly getting pushed up to Hagerstown.  Once there, he quickly got hurt and when he returned his control left him; he walked 15 but struck out 15 in 12 2/3 low-A innings.  He now has 46 walks in 78 professional innings and we may begin wondering when he’s going to put things together.  2017 is a make-or-break season for Dickey; he’s going to be (believe it or not) rule-5 eligible after next season and he’s yet to come close to mastering Low-A.  I’m guessing he’s in the Hagerstown bullpen and as an upper round pick will be given a few more chances before the team cuts bait.   Trending down.

Round 5: Drew Van Orden RHP (starter) COL sr from Duke.  Released 3/16/16.  Now this kind of surprised me.  No he wasn’t a dominant swing and miss guy in 2015 (47 Ks in 92 IP) but he gave the team a bunch of innings at a 3.61 ERA clip.  I guess he’s a victim of the pitcher-heavy drafts of this time frame.  He’s also a victim of being a low bonus, low investment senior sign.

Round 6: Austen Williams RHP (starter) COL jr from Texas State.  Went 5-13 with a 5.45 ERA in 26 starts for High-A and AA.  78/48 K/BB in 140 1/3 innings, 1.74 whip, 5.00 fip and .339 babip while in AA.  Williams was in the opening day AA rotation after a stellar 2015 but was demoted back to High-A after two months of AA struggles.  Once back in High-A, he couldn’t repeat his 2015 success there and got hit hard.  His Potomac ERA was 3 points higher this year than it was last year.  His 2015 season put him on the prospect map (around 20th on Nats prospect lists) and his 2016 season has caused his name to vanish.  Now what?  I guess you start him back in AA again and hope that the 2nd time around is better.  Trending down.

Round 7: Dale “D.K.” Carey OF (CF) COL sr from Miami (FL).  Slashed .209/.341/.331 while playing all three OF positions for Potomac.  84/63 K/BB ratio in 326 ABs, 7 homers, 5 SBs.  A ton of walks jacked up his OBP and helped off set his poor BA in High-A this year.  Carey’s problem is that the OF spots are scarce the higher you go.  He played along side the best hitting prospect in our system (Victor Robles) and 2015 2nd round pick Andrew Stevenson has already passed him by.  He may be victim of a numbers game in 2017, all the more so since he was signed for a relative pittance as a senior.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see him get cut loose at the end of spring training 2017.  Trending down.

Round 8: Jeff Gardner, LF COL sr from Louisville.  Released 6/6/16.  As predicted, Gardner failed to make Hagerstown and then failed to prove he could earn an Auburn job and was released once the 2016 signings came in.

Round 9: Austin Byler, 1B COL jr for Nevada (Reno).  Did not sign: became an 11th round by Arizona in 2015.  He ended 2016 with Arizona’s high-A Visalia team after serving a PED suspension that cost him the first two months of the season.

Round 10: Matthew Page, RF/1B COL sr  from Oklahoma Baptist U.  Slashed .267/.348/.419 while earning a promotion from Low-A to High-A.  99/53 K/BB in 415 ABs.  11 homers, 3 SBs.  Yes that’s a lot of Ks.  But Page is turning into a nice little pick up.  He had an OPS above .800 and slugged 10 homers in 88 games for Hagerstown before earning a promotion to Potomac.  Playing 1B exclusively this year (he was drafted as a RF) he really struggled power-wise once he got to High-A (just 3 XBH in 30 games), but he earned the promotion in the first place.  I don’t think there’s anyone to push him off the position to start next year at Potomac … but he’s gotta rebound and show he can hit in High-A like he did in Low-A.  Trending Steady.

Round 11: Weston Davis RHP (starter) Manatee HS (FL).  Went 3-6 with a 2.67 ERA in 11 starts for Auburn.  33/11 K/BB in 54 IP, 0.93 whip, 3.07 fip, .236 babip.  Davis missed all of 2015 after signing out of HS in 2014, was in the Auburn opening day rotation and stayed there the whole season.  He turned 20 during the season but more than held his own against the older competition.  He looks pretty promising after missing a whole year and barely pitching his draft year.  My one nit is his K rate; just 33 in 54 IP.  He should be in the Hagerstown rotation to start 2017.  Trending Up.

Round 12: Domenick Mancini RHP (reliever) from Miami-Dade CC South.  Released 6/27/15.

Round 13: Austin Davidson, 3B COL jr  from Pepperdine.  Slashed a healthy .272/.377/.443 between Low- and  High-A in 2016.  46/49 K/BB ratio in 316 ABs, 9 hrs and 5 SB.   Davidson was stranded in XST to start the year then returned to Hagerstown in late April only to play sparingly until June.   From there he played pretty consistently both for Hagerstown and then for Potomac (he got promoted in early July for the 2nd Half).  He had solid numbers and a great OBP in both land a solid enough slugging even without a ton of homers.  He also had more walks than strikeouts, which I believe is the first time I’ve seen that for any hitter profiled in these posts.  His problem seems to be positional; he’s listed as a “DH” on Milb.com, was drafted as a 3B but played in the field sparingly this year (some 2B, some 3B).  I’d guess he’s pegged for a 2B slot, but then that has him competing with the generic “middle infielder” type who is dotted all over these low-minors rosters.  Nonetheless, he’s not going to get cut when he’s one of the few guys posting .800 OPS figures in the system, so i’m trending him up.  I figure he’ll do the Potomac to Harrisburg thing in 2017 assuming he continues to be a tough out.  Trending up.

Round 14: James Bourque RHP (starter) COL jr from Michigan.  5-6 with a 5.03 ERA in 17 games/13 starts for Hagerstown.  55/23 K/BB in 68ip.  1.53 whip, 4.89 fip, .327 babip.  Bourque missed all of 2015 with injury and then hung around XST until early June.  From there he featured in the Hagerstown rotation for the most part, but his role seemed to be “spot starter” instead of rotation guy.   He didn’t have the best numbers, no two ways around it.  Maybe it was rust.  I’m guessing he’ll get another shot at the Hagerstown rotation in 2017 but may be a release candidate.  Trending Down.

Round 15: Ryan Ripken 1B COL soph from Indian River State (FL).  Slashed just .201/.241/.254 between Low-A and Short-A.  73/20 K/BB in 374 ABs, 3HR, 1SB.  Ripken started the year in Hagerstown but hit just .190 and got dumped back to Short-A.  He’s now got three pro years under his belt and is hitting just .205 for his career, mostly in short-season ball.  Its hard to see him continuing to get chances even given his family pedigree.   Trending down.

Round 16: Cole Plouck LHP (reliever) from Pima CC (AZ): Released on 6/29/15.

Round 17: Alec Keller CF COL sr from Princeton by way of Richmond VA and Freeman HS.  Slashed .285/.338/.374 playing a full season (mostly in LF) for Potomac.  78/35 K/BB, 3homers, 14SB.  Keller more or less replicated his High-A numbers posted in the 2nd half of 2015; solid average, not a ton of power.  Keller’s issue is that the tryouts for the AA outfield are looking tough; he may be hard pressed to get a promotion in a corner OF spot without any power.  I’m guessing he makes AA as a 4th outfielder in 2017.  As I noted last year though, he’s performing great for a senior sign from an Ivy league school.  Trending Steady.

Round 18: McKenzie Mills,  LHP (starter), Sprayberry Senior HS (GA). 4-5, 3.71 ERA in 12 starts for Short-A.   46/28 K/BB in 53 1/3 innings, 1.33 whip, 4.03 fip, .269 babip.  Mills was the #2 starter in Auburn to start the season … and was the #2 starter at the end of the season.  He posted a solid season; not awe-inspiring but pretty good for a guy who doesn’t turn 21 until next month.  He addressed the issues that plagued him in 2015 and his hits/inning figure looks great.  I’d like to see how he does in full season ball and project him in the Hagerstown rotation in 2017.  Trending Steady.

Round 19: Clay Williamson,  OF (RF) COL jr from Cal State Fullerton.  Released 6/29/15.

Round 20: Bryan Langlois, RF COL jr from Pepperdine: Apparently retired Jan 2015 (per the Big Board), but he doesn’t have an official transaction listed in MILB.com.  He didn’t play for us after 2014 despite not being officially released.

Round 21: Connor Bach, LHP COL sr from Virginia Military Institute by way of Centreville HS in Clifton.  Went 0-1 with a 7.30 ERA in 5 relief appearances in Low-A and then was released on 6/1/16.   This one was another shocker for me; he was in Hagerstown’s rotation the whole of 2015 and was good; what happened to him in 2016?   Miami picked him up 6 days after we released him but he was similarly bad for them and they cut him loose a month later.  Such a strange set of circumstances.

Round 22: Daniel Salters, C COL soph  from Dallas Baptist: did not sign: drafted by Cleveland in the 13th round of 2015 draft.  He was in High-A and AA for Cleveland this year.

Round 23: Chris Riopedre, SS COL jr, East Tennessee State.  Released on 6/25/15.

Round 24: Kyle Simmons RHP (reliever) COL jr Texas Lutheran U.  Released on 5/3/16 after not appearing in 2015 and failing to make a full season squad in 2016.

Round 25: Kyle Bacak C COL sr  from Texas Christian U.  Released 1/20/15.

Round 26: Chase McDowell RHP (reliever) COL 5S  Rice (TX): Retired 4/9/15

Round 27: Conor Keniry SS COL sr Wake Forest U.  Released on 4/2/16 after playing sparingly in 2015 and failing to make either Hagerstown or Potomac as a backup infielder.

Round 28: Kida De La Cruz, RHP (reliever) from Volunteer State CC (TN). Released on 3/26/16 after throwing just 19 innings in two seasons in the GCL.

Round 29: DJ Jauss, RHP COL 5S from U. Mass. Amherst: Released 3/26/15.

Round 30: Tyler Mapes RHP COL sr from Tulane U. (LA).  went 12-10 with a 3.19 ERA for AA Harrisburg.  25 games/25 starts.  78/39 K/BB ratio in 155 innings.  1.25 whip, 4.22 fip, .283 babip.  Mapes was the #2 starter in Harrisburg all  year and continues to be a fantastic draft pickup for this team.  Who would have thought a 30th rounder college senior who probably signed for a few thousand dollars would be on the brink of the AAA roster?  He doesn’t have the best strikeout numbers, which may define a glass ceiling for him, but he should continue to matriculate to AAA next year.  That being said, its crowded at the top, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s back in AA.   Trending up.

Round 31: Samuel Johns RHP COL 5S U. Evansville (IN).  Released 1/12/16.  What was surprising about this release was the timing; why not let him compete in spring training for a Hagerstown spot?  The January release is an odd one.

The rest of the 2014 draft class was HS kids who were long shots to sign and a Juco kid in the 40th who already had a transfer agreement to a good baseball school; one more piece of evidence to perhaps shorten the draft to 35 or even 30 rounds?  Here’s a quick summary.

Round 32: Elliott Cary: CF Clackamas HS (OR): did not sign: honored commitment to Oregon State.    Started 24 games as a freshman but did not play in 2016 (injured?).
Round 33: Clay Casey: CF DeSoto Central HS (MS): did not sign: was initially set to attend Ole Miss, but then changed his mind and attended Northwest Mississippi CC to be draft eligible in 2015.  He didn’t get drafted though, so he then enrolled at the U. of Houston.  Update: things didn’t work out there, so he transferred to D2 Delta State University, where he had a successful 2017 season in what was his “junior” year.
Round 34: Evan Skoug: C Libertyville HS (IL): did not sign: honored commitment to TCU.  At TCU he has been a starter since day 1 and was named Freshman All-American.  As a sophomore he slashed .301/.390/.502 and was 2nd team all-conference.  I’d say its safe to say he has made himself some money in College.
Round 35: Tommy Doyle RHP Flint Hill School in Oakton: did not sign: honored commitment to Virginia.  At UVA, Doyle played an integral part in getting UVA out of the regional his freshman year but did little else for the team as UVA surprisingly won the CWS.  As a sophomore, he had a 5.07 ERA all told as he was convered from mid-week starter to “closer” towards the end of the season.  I’m guessing he’s back in the rotation for his junior year as the Cavaliers are a bit short on starters.
Round 36: John Henry Styles, LHP Episcopal HS (TX): did not sign: honored commitment to Stanford.  There, he’s had almost no playing time, getting 5 appearances as a freshman and just one as a sophomore.
Round 37: Quinn Brodey, LHP Loyola HS (CA): did not sign: honored commitment to Stanford.  There he was a 2-way player as a freshman but moved to the OF as a sophomore, slashing .280/.302/.445 this year and being named All Pac-12.
Round 38: Stuart Fairchild RF Seattle Prep (WA): did not sign: honored commitment to Wake Forest.  As a sophomore this year he started every game and slashed .293/.403/.470.
Round 39: Jon Littell, OF Stillwater HS (OK): did not sign: honored commitment to OK State.  As a sophomore this year, he slashed .258/.332/.343.
Round 40: Jacob Hill LHP JUCO Orange Coast Coll. (CA): did not sign: transferred to U San Diego, then was drafted by Cleveland in the 32nd round of 2015 and also did not sign.  He went back to San Diego for his senior year, only threw 8 innings in 2016 and was not drafted.

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Trending Summary:

• Trending Up (4): Fedde, Davis, Davidson, Mapes
• Trending Steady (3): Page, Keller, Mills
• Trending Down (6): Reetz, Dickey, Williams, Carey, Bourque, Ripken
• Released/Retired (15): Van Orden, Gardner, Mancini, Plouck, Williamson, Langlois, Bach, Riopedre, Simmons, Bacak, McDowell, Keniry, De La Cruz, Jauss, Johns
• Did Not Sign in 2014 (12): Suarez, Byler, Salters, Cary, Casey, Skoug, Doyle, Styles, Brodey, Fairchild, Littell, Hill

Executive Summary

At this point just 7 of the 40 players are trending in what can inarguably be considered a positive fashion; 15 of the 28 players signed have already been cut loose and another 6 of them are  heading that way.  Is this destined to be a one-player draft?  Who else besides Fedde is projecting as a major leaguer?

This is the 6th in the 2015 Pitching staff review series, here’s a review of Auburn/Short-A’s pitching staff for 2015.  Other parts of the 2015 series:

• Washington/MLB 2015 review
• Syracuse/AAA 2015 review
• Harrisburg/AA 2015 review
• Potomac/High-A 2015 review
• Hagerstown/Low-A 2015 review

For some historical perspective, here’s 2013’s version (featuring Jake Johanssen),  2012’s version (Brett Mooneyham was the feature pitcher) and 2011’s version (Nathan Karns the feature pitcher) of this post specifically for Auburn/Short-A.  Had we done this series in 2014, we likely would have featured Reynaldo Lopez, who had a 0.75 ERA in 7 starts and 36 innings.

All stats are courtesy of either milb.com’s Auburn’s 2015 Stats page or via Fangraph’s Auburn 2015 page.  Also useful here are the Big Board and the Nats Draft Tracker since so many of these lower-minors guys are recent draftees.

A caveat before starting this post (and we’ll say this same thing in the GCL post): this is short-season ball, so nobody’s got more than a few dozen innings.  So yes this is absolutely going to be some “Small Sample Size” analysis.  Which in some cases is unfair to the player (to the good or to the bad).  It is what it is.

Auburn Pitching Staff movement throughout the year (* == lefty)

• Opening Day Rotation: Dickey/LTorres, JRodriguez, Fedde, Crownover*, Baez, Mills
• End-of-Season Rotation: Gilbeau*, Borne*, Baez, DeRosier, Hearn*, Crownover*
• End-of-Season spot starts/swingman: Valerio
• End-of-Season bullpen: Mooney, Pirro, Overton, Boghosian,  MRivera, Johns, LTorres, Van Vossen
• Mid-Season promotions: LReyes,  Bach*, KPerez, DWilliams, Glover, JMorales, Lee, Brinley,Fedde, Peterson, JRodriguez
• up-and-back: Johns, LTorres
• down-and-back: Feliz, Dickey
• demotions: Reynoso*, Mills*, Baez, Gunter
• dl/restricted: Bourque, AMartinez, McDowell, Sylvestri
• cut/released/FAs: Ullman, Webb*, Plouck*

Auburn starters.  The rotation started the season with several “tandem” starter pairs, not quite going to a full A/B starter set but getting relatively close.  Here’s an overview of the 12 starters used in 2015, starting with the original starters, going all the way to the rehab spot starts.

• Robbie Dickey had two bad starts in Hagerstown before getting dumped back to Auburn in time to get the ball on opening day.  From there the jury is kind of out: for the entire year: 6.65 ERA, 16/17 k/bb in 23ip (6 starts).  He was incredibly wild and then didn’t pitch after 7/25/15, accumulating just 23 IP on the year.  Was he hurt?  There was no record of a D/L trip, just an assignment back to XST after a while.  All in all, a pretty disappointing season for our 2014 4th round pick.  Where does he go from here?  Is the team just being too impatient with him, yanking him from Hagerstown after just a few innings?  Outlook for Next Season: attempting the Low-A rotation again.
• Jefry Rodriguez bounced between Short-A and Low-A again this season, starting in Hagerstown but pitching most of the year in Auburn.  At the end of the season, he led Auburn in both IP and starts.  All told; 4-10 with a 5.42 ERA between the two levels.  While he maintained a 2-1 K/BB ratio in Short-A, he was nearly 1/1 in Low-A (27/25 K/BB in 42.2 low-A innings).  The team likes him as a starter … but this is the 2nd year in a row he’s posted a 6+ ERA in low-A.  He’s still young though (he turned 22 mid-season) so I can see him repeating his 2015 season; in the Low-A rotation.  If he struggles again though, I think it may be time to move him to the bullpen and look at converting him to a late-innings reliever.  He can definitely strike guys out (67 Ks in 68 Short-A innings against college competition), so perhaps there’s a new stage in his career if he can’t figure out starting.  Outlook for Next season: Low-A rotation.
• Erick Fedde threw 8 effective starts in Auburn, going 4-1, 2.57 ERA in Short-A Auburn with 36/8 in 35ip (8 starts), 2.60 fip, .346 babip.  He then got bumped up to Hagerstown where he finished out the season.  See Low-A write-up for more.  Outlook for Next season: Low-A rotation to start.
• Matt Crownover went 1-4, 3.81 ERA in Short-A with 34/9 K/BB in 49.2 ip (13 app, 10 starts), 3.40 fip, .301 babip.  His whip was decent on the year (1.17), mostly due to his great K/BB ratio (4/1).  Nothing bad but nothing mind blowing out of Crownover’s numbers in Short-A.  Not a bad return for an under-slot ACC lefty starter.  I see him competing for the Low-A rotation; there’s no reason not to keep him moving up as a college draftee from the ACC.  Outlook for Next season: Low-A rotation competition, likely in the pen.
  
• Joan Baez bounced around the system a bit in 2015, getting 5 starts in Auburn to the tune of a 7.13 ERA.  See GCL write-up for more.
• McKenzie Mills got hit hard in 4 appearances in Auburn before spending the rest of the season int the GCL.  See GCL write-up for more.
• Taylor Guilbeau went 3-3, 3.54 mostly in Short-A after starting briefly in the GCL with 31/9 K/BB in 51 ip (11/10 starts) .2.89 fip, .356 babip.  His FIP looks solid based on his competition but he may get bumped to the bullpen to focus on being a lefty reliever thanks to the large number of arms in the system.  I put him behind his fellow 2015 draftees Crownover and  Hearn in this regard thanks to his senior sign status and low club investment (fairly or otherwise; it is what it is).  Outlook for Next season: Low-A rotation competition, likely in the pen.
• Taylor Hearn went 1-5, 3.56 in Short-A with a 38/13 K/BB in 43ip (10/10 starts), 3.40 fip, .346 babip.  Hearn joined his fellow lefty first 10 round starters in the Auburn rotation a couple of weeks into the short season and was completely effective, averaging nearly a K/inning with decent control.  He’s done nothing to jeopardize his advancement for 2016 and should compete for a low-A rotation gig.  Outlook for Next season: Low-A rotation competition.
• Grant Borne went 1-4, 3.59 in Short-A with 32/7 K/BB in 47.2 ip (15 apps, 5 starts), 2.99 fip, .321 babip.  Its amazing how similar Hearn, Crownover, Guilbeau and Borne’s numbers were, each profiling as a command/control lefty starter in Short-A.  Outlook for Next season: Low-A rotation competition with the rest of his fellow lefty 2015 draftees.
• Mariano Rivera Jr. got 3 starts before it was clear he needed to be pushed to relief; see the reliever’s section.
• Matthew DeRosier had two bad starts in Auburn before getting dumped back to the GCL; see the Rookie league write-up for more.
• Maximo Valero had 4 appearances and one start in Auburn after a late season promotion: see the GCL write-up for more.

Auburn Relievers: taking a look at the relief corps.  We’ll organize relievers by going by IP from most to least.  Anyone with less than 10 IP will get cursory analysis at the end.

• Luis Torres was Dickey’s “tandem” starter for a while, getting zero “starts” but pitching mostly longer stints usually on the same schedule as Dickey.  We saw this with several others and will treat them as “relievers” for the purposes of this post.  Season stats: 5-1, 5.66 ERA, 4.54 fip, 1.37 whip, 22/17 K/BB in 35 innings.  Torres got bumped up at season’s end to provide a bit of cover in Low-A but didn’t merit the promotion based on his production.  In his age 21 season he showed he still has some work to do and regressed badly from his 2014 production in Short-A.  Where does he go from here?  I think he’s destined to miss out on the Hagerstown bullpen, spend more time in XST and try Short-A again in 2016.  Outlook for Next Season: short-A bullpen.
• Mariano Rivera Jr, went 1-2, 5.45 ERA in Short-A with 26/3 K/BB in 33IP (19 app, 3 starts).  2.70 FIP, .388 babip.  Rivera was tried as a starter and quickly failed, getting moved to the pen, where he was much better.  Starter ERA: 13.00.  Reliever ERA: 2.63.  His seasonal ERA isn’t nearly as bad as it looks thanks to some bad luck; his FIP is good and his K/BB rate looks good as well.  He profiles like his father; slight, live arm, good stuff as a reliever.  I can see him moving up the ladder as a back-of-the-bullpen reliever.   Perhaps a disappointment that a 4th round pick was relegated to the bullpen after just three starts … but could be a quick moving arm on a team that clearly needs them.  Outlook for Next Season: low-A bullpen/closer.
• Adam Boghosian went 3-0, 4.28 era across 2 levels with 16/18 k/bb in 27ip, 5.59 fip, .162 babip in short-A.  Anytime you have more walks than strike-outs, its a bad thing.  And he posted a mediocre ERA despite an unbelievably low babip; his numbers are likely even worse with a longer sample size.  Another senior sign that may get the axe once full-season rosters get set next spring.  Outlook for Next Season: low-A bullpen/release candidate.
• Cody Gunter went 1-0 4.15 ERA, 23/8 K/BB in 21.2 IP for Short-A Auburn, 3.84 fip, .259 babip.  Gunter was drafted as a 3B and after two non-descript seasons in Auburn converted to the mound.  So far, results look promising; he maintained a K/inning ratio with good control and could be better based on the ERA-FIP delta.   I see him getting pushed to the Low-A bullpen in 2016.  Outlook for Next Season: low-A bullpen.
• Kevin Mooney, was 1-0, 5.40 ERA in Short-A with a 15/13 K/bb in 21.2 innings, 4.95 fip, .333 babip.  Not a great debut for the local kid Mooney, who was last seen blowing both super-regional games that enabled UVA to surprisingly make its way to the CWS (where even more surprisingly they ended up winning).  Far, far too many walks given how many punch-outs he had, his FIP was still way up there even given a BABIP not really that out of line.  Needs to step it up if he wants a full-season job.  Outlook for Next Season: low-A bullpen competition/release candidate.
• Tommy Peterson was 0-0, 2.66 in Auburn with 13/4 K/BB in 20 relief innings, 2.83 fip, .318 babip as part time closer.   Not too many innings to judge on here; looks like a good option for the Hagerstown 2016 bullpen.  He was one of the few Auburn hurlers from the 2015 class to get the bump up to low-A in 2015.  Outlook for Next Season: low-A bullpen competition.
• Connor Overton went 1-1 with a 3.72 ERA (13/5 K/BB in 19.1 IP) after getting cut loose from Miami’s short-A squad and quickly getting snapped up last July.  He’s an oddity; a 22-yr old MLFA already making the rounds of the lower minors.  He briefly got called up to AAA at season’s end but is currently un-attached.  With Washington’s glut of arms, i’m not sure he did enough to make the team think he was worth keeping on for a full-season spot and I think the Richmond product goes elsewhere (Atlee HS in Mechanicsburg and then ODU in Norfolk).  Outlook for Next Season: in another organization.
• Sam Johns blitzed short-A (1.42 ERA in 19 innings) after struggling in Hagerstown.  See Low-A write-up for more.
• Matt Pirro was 0-0 3.71 ERA  across two levels, ending in Short-A.  14/11 k/bb in 17ip, 4.52 fip, .372 babip in short-A.  Not great numbers; too many walks, but his ERA/FIP likely the result of a bit of unlucky babip.  In a battle to stay employed though going into next year by virtue of his senior sign status.   Outlook for Next Season: low-A bullpen/release candidate.
• John Feliz didn’t get a ton of innings in 2015: throwing just 17.1 across both short-season squads.  In Auburn he had a 4.38 ERA in 12 innings and didn’t pitch after July 28th (but didn’t go on the D/L).  He may have been hurt and just not officially gone on a D/L.  More or less a lost season for Feliz, who just turned 22, was an old IFA and has yet to perform outside of complex ball.  He may not get too many more chances; I see him getting one more shot at Short-A before getting cut loose.  Outlook for Next Season: short-A bullpen/release candidate.
• Ryan Brinley was unhittable in 10 innings in the NY Penn league and was bumped up; see the Low-A write-up for more.
• Other Relievers who had less than 10 IP in 2015
  • Jose Morales got blasted in two Low-A starts after three quick relief appearances (8ip total) in Auburn, then spent the rest of the year on the D/L.  See Low-A write-up for more.
  • Andrew Lee struck out 12 guys in 8 innings in the NY Penn and was bumped up.  See Low-A write-up for more.
    
  • Koda Glover struck out 11 guys in 6 innings in the NY Penn and was bumped up.  See Low-A write-up for more.
  • Mick VanVossen spent most of the season in the GCL; see rookie league write-up for more.
  • Cole Plouck got sent to Auburn, had two appearances in 10 days, gave up just 2 hits and one run in 5 innings … and then was released.  He had decent 2014 numbers in the GCL; this one is curious to me.  I guess the team saw all they needed to see in XST.  Outlook for Next Season: out of baseball.
  • Joey Webb was released 6/25/15, losing out in the numbers game when the 2015 short-season college draftees started flowing in.  He, like Plouck, clearly were not impressive enough during XST to merit any further consideration after run-of-the-mill 2014 seasons.  Outlook for Next Season: out of baseball.
  • Yorlin Reynoso pitched one game in the first week of the season, walked 6 guys and got demoted to the GCL.  See Rookie write-up for more.
  • Ryan Ullmann got stuck in XST to start the season, hooked up with Hagerstown 5 weeks into the season, got hit hard, was dumped to Auburn, had one appearance and then was summarily released.  Quite a quick downturn of events for Ullmann, who was always going to be a long shot (30th rounder out of a small school).  Outlook for Next season: out of baseball.
  • David Ramos threw 2.1 innings of rehab ball for Auburn before returning to Hagerstown: see low-A write-up for more.
  • Two guys (James Bourque, Anderson Martinez) both spent the whole season on the D/L; both are starters who should compete for spots in 2016 after the lost season.  Outlook for Next Season: Short-A rotation competition.
    
  • Another two guys (Chase McDowell, Michael Sylvestri) were put on the “restricted list” at some point in 2015, usually indicating voluntary retirement.  Outlook for Next season: out of baseball.

Summary

Auburn was not a good team this year; they were 35-58.  And a lot of that was due to the “brain drain” of the pitching staff; inside of a short season 11 guys got bumped up and beyond.  Some of them quickly dominated Short-A and earned their promotion, others trickled up as the season moved on.  In the end, the staff was anchored by a quartet of college lefty 2015 draftees with strikingly similar numbers, and it should be interesting to see how this group performs moving forward.

Following in the footsteps of the stat review of the 2015 draft class, here’s the same analysis for the 2014 draft class, looking at their 2015 numbers and making some snap judgements.

I last did this project in 2013 (got too busy this time last fall at a new client), so this is the first time I’ve really run through the 2014 draft class in this detail.  In fact, getting into the lower picks I don’t even recognize some of the names, having only really focused on the top 10 guys at the time.  Its definitely interesting to see where they stand one year on.

Web links to use while reading:

• Stats are pulled from milb.com and/or fangraphs.com; put the player name into the search bar to get his seasonal stats
• The MLB Draft Tracker (which I believe is the best draft tracker out there) is the best place to get draft class information.
• The Big Board and the Draft Tracker are the goto resources for prospects for any Nats fan.
• Baseball-reference.com’s draft database
• My working XLS in Google for all this data.

Unlike the 2015 draft class analysis, we’ve already shedded a large number of 2014 draftees.  And mostly we have full seasons worth of work on which to judge.

Without further ado:

Round 1: Erick Fedde RHP COL jr from UNLV.  4-1, 2.57 ERA in Short-A Auburn with 36/8 in 35ip (8 starts), 2.60 fip, .346 babip.  He then got bumped up to Hagerstown where he threw another 29 innings across 6 starts with lesser stats (1-2, 4.34 ERA).  A good  post-Tommy  John debut season for Fedde, despite the rather restrictive innings limits put on him; he was limited to just 5ip per start for a total of 64ip on the season between two levels.  I’m not sure why they were so restrictive: he threw many more innings in his college career (90, 96 and then 76 before getting injured in 2014).  I guess the theory was to limit him to half his pre-injury innings limit first  year back, with a goal of getting back to that level of production in 2016.  You Look for him to be in the Potomac rotation on perhaps a 90-100 innings limit for 2016 (or, exactly what Giolito did his 2nd year back from TJ surgery in 2014).  Trending up.

Round 2: Andrew Suarez LHP COL jr  from Miami (FL).  Did not sign: returned to Miami for his senior year where he led his team to the CWS before getting shelled in Omaha.  Drafted in the 2nd round again, slightly later than the Nats did and signed for slot for San Francisco.  He did not significantly improve his draft position by playing college another year, but may have gotten more cash (we do not know what bonus amount he declined in 2014).

Round 3: Jakson Reetz, C  Norris HS (NE).  Slashed just .212/.326/.248  between ShortA/GCL with 37/13 k/bb in 113 Abs, 0homers 3sb just 36 games.  A curious season for Reetz: why was he at short-A to begin with?  He seemed to play mostly half and half time with an older DSL grad catcher and seemed outmatched in the league; why not just bring him back to Florida for another year of seasoning?  Definitely a set-back year for Reetz.  What do they do with him next year?  Try him at Low-A after doing poorly in Short-A?  Have him repeat the rookie league for the third time?  Where’s the power?  a .248 slugging percentage is incredibly weak.  Trending Down.

Round 4: Robbie Dickey, RHP  from Blinn College (TX).  0-3, 6.65 ERA starting in Hagerstown and getting demoted to Auburn.  16/17 k/bb in 23ip (6 starts).  He was incredibly wild and then didn’t pitch after 7/25/15, accumulating just 23 IP on the year.  Was he hurt?  There was no record of a D/L trip, just an assignment back to XST after a while.  All in all, a pretty disappointing season for our 4th round pick.  Where does he go from here?  Is the team just being too impatient with him, yanking him from Hagerstown after just a few innings?  Trending Down.

Round 5: Drew Van Orden RHP COL sr from Duke.  5-5, 3.61 ERA  for Hagerstown with 47/34 K/BB in 92ip (15 starts), 4.33 fip, .254 babip.  Not a bad season for an under-slot senior sign, who’s clearly sticking around.  He was mostly a spot starter for Hagerstown this year, getting a bunch of starts during the turmoil of the rotation.  He ended the season on the DL after giving the team 92 decent innings.  His FIP is a bit weak thanks to overall lucky BABIP contact but he has given no reason not to put himself into the discussion for that same role in Potomac next year.  Trending Steady.

Round 6: Austen Williams RHP COL jr from Texas State.  12-8, 2.58 ERA while making the jump from Hagerstown to Potomac (with one AAA spot-start).  106/33 K/BB in 139.2 ip (25 starts).  He was 8-1 for Hagerstown before getting bumped up and continued to be effective all year.  Great season for Williams, putting his name on the map in the organization and starting to get some notice in the prospect rankings (he was #14 in the farm system in J.P. Schwartz‘s topprospectalert post-2015 rankings and in the upper 20s for Scout.com and MLB.com).  In the mix for a AA rotation spot in 2016.  Trending up.

Round 7: Dale Carey CF COL sr from Miami (FL).  Slashed .234/.340/.345 for Hagerstown with 91/66 K/BB in 415ABs, 8 homers, 10/9 SB/CS playing CF.  Another under-slot/cost savings senior sign who is sticking around, Carey showed some power but not great overall numbers playing CF this year.  He’ll be pushed out of CF by budding uber-prospect Victor Robles unless Carey can earn a promotion, which may be hard to do.  Needs to show a better hit tool if he wants to keep a job.  Trending Steady.

Round 8: Jeff Gardner, LF COL sr from Louisville.  Slashed .226/.296/.345  in Hagerstown with 90/38 K/BB in 403ABs, 5 homers, 8/7 SB/CS playing LF.  Unlike his fellow senior sign and outfield partner Carey, Gardner is stuck in the unathletic corner and isn’t showing nearly the power or bat that he needs to stick around.  He’ll get pushed out of a corner job in Hagerstown for 2016 and may lose out in a numbers game.  Trending down.

Round 9: Austin Byler, 1B COL jr for Nevada (Reno).  Did not sign: returned to Nevada for his senior season, led his team into the CWS playoffs and showed a ton of potential .. .but slipped out of the top10 rounds.  He was the first pick of the non-bonus controlled rounds, in the 11th by Arizona, meaning his fortunes dipped slightly by staying in college another year.  One last unfortunate footnote; a quick google search shows that Byler was suspended for PED-usage at the end of the 2015 season.  Whoops.

Round 10: Matthew Page, RF COL sr  from Oklahoma Baptist U.   Slashed .270/.362/.384 between ShortA and LowA, with 54/39 K/BB in 263ABs, 2 homers, 6 sbs.  Not a bad return for a $30k bonus on a college senior from a small school.   He isn’t lighting the world on fire, but he’s keeping his head above water.  He’ll compete with his fellow senior sign OFs Carey and Gardner for a spot in the 2016 Potomac outfield.  Trending Steady.

Round 11: Weston Davis RHP Manatee HS (FL).  He did not play (injured) in 2015.  He had just 16 IP in all of 2014 for the GCL Nats.  No word on the nature of the injury, but 16IP in two pro years is never a good start to a career.  Trending down.

Round 12: Domenick Mancini RHP from Miami-Dade CC South.  He was released 6/27/15; no 2015 stats after 14.2 IP in 2014.  He lost out in the numbers game thanks to the massive influx of college arms competing for Short-A roster spots.

Round 13: Austin Davidson, 3B COL jr  from Pepperdine.  Slashed just .202/.302/.314 for Hagerstown with 47/26 K/BB in 258 Abs, 6 homers, 6/7 sb/cs playing 2B and 3B.  His bat definitely took a step back in Low-A and there’s a glut of middle infielders in the 2015 class.  He may not be long for the organization.  Trending down.

Round 14: James Bourque RHP COL jr from Michigan.  dnp – injured; no IP in 2015.  He was in the Auburn rotation for 2014 and pitched adequately, but never got started in 2015.  Lets hope he makes it back to compete for a job in 2016.  Trending Steady.

Round 15: Ryan Ripken 1B COL soph from Indian River State (FL) Slashed .250/.296/.391 with 15/5 K/BB in 92ABs while repeating the Gulf Coast league.  A curious case; why so little playing time at age 22, repeating the GCL?  The team had all spring to evaluate him yet put a senior nominal slot signee (David Kerian) at 1B in Auburn instead of Ripken.  Is he hurt?  Is he just being rostered because of his name?  Trending down.

Round 16: Cole Plouck LHP from Pima CC (AZ): went 1-0, 1.80 ERA in a 5 inning stint in Auburn… and then was released on 6/29/15.  Why??  Such a strange case; why send him to Vermont if you’re going to release him a few days later?  Understood if he gets lit up maybe, but it just seems odd timing.  It does not look like he’s picked up elsewhere, so perhaps it was a “retirement.”

Round 17: Alec Keller CF COL sr from Princeton.  Slashed .294/.341/.374 while getting promoted from LowA->HighA.   63/30 K/BB in 425 Abs, 0 homers, 11/9 Sb/cs playing CF.  Not bad for a most unlikely college senior sign.  If he can keep the average and OBP up and perhaps improve his SB success rate, he could put himself in a pretty good position.  Trending up.

Round 18: McKenzie Mills,  LHP, Sprayberry Senior HS (GA).  0-5, 7.27 ERA  with 24/28 K/BB in 34.2 ip across two levels.  He posted a 4.46 fip, .405 babip  while in Short-A then got dropped back to the Rookie league.   Rough season for Mills, who couldn’t make the jump to short-A, then struggled when back in rookie ball.  Just way too many walks to be effective, but likely hangs around a bit longer since he can just hang out in XST and try to pick back up on next year’s short season squads again.  Trending down.

Round 19: Clay Williamson,  RF COL jr from Cal State Fullerton.  Slashed .211/.318/.316  in 5 Auburn games and then was released 6/29/15 as the 2015 signees started rolling in.   Never really impressed in 2014 (hitting .236 in short season) and may wish he had stayed in school instead of signing as a 19th round junior draftee.

Round 20: Bryan Langlois, RF COL jr from Pepperdine: no 2015 stats, was in XST the entire season.  He had 141 mostly non-descript ABs in Auburn last  year, then never got assigned this year.  But, he wasn’t released either; is he injured?  Converting to a new position?  Trending down.

Round 21: Connor Bach, LHP COL sr from Virginia Military Institute.  Posted a 6-4, 3.85 ERA with 106/69 K/BB in 110 ip (20 starts) in Low A as a member of the rotation for much of the season.  4.08 fip, .311 babip.  Not too shabby for a 21st round senior sign from a relatively unknown baseball school.  Perhaps too many walks, but nearly a K/inning in full-season ball portends well for his future.  At the very least he could move up as a lefty specialist.  Trending up.

Round 22: Daniel Salters, C COL soph  from Dallas Baptist: did not sign: returned to DBU for his junior season and then was drafted by Cleveland in the 13th round of 2015 draft.  He had a good 2015 short-season, so going back to school definitely helped his career.

Round 23: Chris Riopedre, SS COL jr, East Tennessee State.  Went 1-4 in one game for Auburn this year and then was released on 6/25/15.  He only hit .214 in Auburn last  year, and the team drafted a ton of MIF players in 2015, but it does seem harsh to make the kid go all the way to Vermont just to release him after *one game*.

Round 24: Kyle Simmons RHP COL jr Texas Lutheran U.  Assigned to GCL but dnp – injured and no IP in 2015.  He had just a 5.03 ERA in limited innings last year in the GCL and now missed this year.  As a small college junior draftee, he’ll be entering his 3rd pro season with just 19 poor innings of rookie ball performance; hard to see him making an impact.  Trending down.

Round 25: Kyle Bacak C COL sr  from Texas Christian U.  He went 4-28 for Auburn last year and was released 1/20/15.

Round 26: Chase McDowell RHP COL 5S  Rice (TX): retired 4/9/15 after putting up a 4.50 ERA in 28IP for Auburn last year.  If I had to guess, he probably lost out on a full season job, was looking at sitting around in XST until June and (as an older guy, a 5th year senior) may have looked at the guys in camp who were all 4-5  years younger and called it quits.  I had a friend who did exactly this: graduated a 4-year program as a highly decorated college player, then was sent to short-season ball.  He got all the way to Idaho or some random place and looked at his teammates: he said they were all just as good as he was but all 3 years younger and mostly Dominican.  He had a college degree, a job waiting for him and came to a quick realization that he could push for several years of below-minimum wage money looking at an uphill battle where his age worked against him, or he could just face reality and start his life.  You wonder how often this really happens.

Round 27: Conor Keniry SS COL sr Wake Forest U.  Slashed .250/.323/.310 while moving up from ShortA->LowA.  27/10 K/BB in 116ABs, 1hr, 3sbs as 2B.  Not bad; he was clearly the backup middle infielder “guy who can play any infield position in a pinch” guy for Hagerstown.  Can he stay in that role?  Maybe, maybe not.  He’ll have plenty of competition for that spot in 2016 thanks to a slew of 2B/SS draftees in 2015 plus rising DSL players.  Trending Steady.

Round 28: Kida De La Cruz, RHP from Volunteer State CC (TN).  Went 0-0, 5.43 ERA in just 1.2 IP for GCL in 2015.  But he has no injuries listed.  He threw 18 rather non descript innings for the GCL last year too.  Perhaps they just don’t bother with D/L postings for kids on teams based out of spring training facilities since the lines seem rather blurred between “XST” and “GCL.”  There were 4 or 5 guys this year who spent the entire year in “Extended Spring Training” or “To Be Determined” fashion, including a couple of very long-serving minor league arms (see the final column in the Big Board link).  Either way, De La Cruz is now 21, has 20 innings in GCL with more walks than strikeouts; hard to see him making an impact.  Trending down.

Round 29: DJ Jauss, RHP COL 5S from U. Mass. Amherst: was released 3/26/15 after getting hit hard in the GCL last season.  Just no room for a guy who is now 25 who couldn’t cut it in the rookie league.

Round 30: Tyler Mapes RHP COL sr from Tulane U. (LA).  Went 7-3, 2.23 ERA with 75/17 K/BB in 96.2 ip (8 starts) between  LowA->HighA, 2.78 fip, .324 babip.  Ended the year in Potomac’s rotation.  What a great result set for a 30th round college senior sign.  At one point he was even up in AA, though he had no appearances.  Good K/BB ratio, good peripherals.  Great find from the draft team.  Trending up.

Round 31: Samuel Johns RHP COL 5S U. Evansville (IN).  Went 3-4, 4.31 ERA between LowA and ShortA with 39/17 k/bb in 62.2 relief innings, 4.63 fip, .290 babip in lowA.  He struggled in LowA, but then dropped back to ShortA and was dominant.  Not great, but certainly not bad for a 31st round 5th year senior as compared to what has happened to other 5th year senior signs on this list.  Maybe not the best stuff, but has been effective.  My guess is that he either makes the Hagerstown team next spring or is cut loose, but the fact that he hung around this long gives him some more room to work with.  Trending Steady.

The rest of the 2014 draft class was HS kids who were long shots to sign and a Juco kid in the 40th who already had a transfer agreement to a good baseball school; one more piece of evidence to perhaps shorten the draft to 35 or even 30 rounds?  Here’s a quick summary.

Round 32: Cary, Elliott CF Clackamas HS (OR): did not sign: honored commitment to Oregon State.
Round 33: Casey, Clay CF DeSoto Central HS (MS): did not sign: honored commitment to Mississippi
Round 34: Skoug, Evan C Libertyville HS (IL): did not sign: honored commitment to TCU
Round 35: Doyle, Tommy RHP Flint Hill School (VA): did not sign: honored commitment to Virginia.  At UVA, Doyle played an integral part in getting UVA out of the regional but did not really factor after that.
Round 36: Styles, John Henry LHP Episcopal HS (TX): did not sign: honored commitment to Stanford
Round 37: Brodey, Quinn LHP Loyola HS (CA): did not sign: honored commitment to Stanford
Round 38: Fairchild, Stuart RF Seattle Prep (WA): did not sign: honored commitment to Wake Forest
Round 39: Littell, Jon OF Stillwater HS (OK): did not sign: honored commitment to OK State
Round 40: Hill, Jacob LHP JUCO Orange Coast Coll. (CA): did not sign: transferred to U San Diego, then was drafted by Cleveland in the 32nd round of 2015 but had no 2015 innings as far as I can tell.

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Trending Summary:

• Trending Up (5): Fedde, Williams, Keller, Bach, Mapes
• Trending Steady (6): Van Orden, Carey, Page, Bourque, Keniry, Johns
• Trending Down (10): Reetz, Dickey, Gardner, Davis, Davidson, Ripken, Mills, Langlois, Simmons, De La Cruz
• Did Not Sign in 2014 (12): Suarez, Byler, Salters, Cary, Casey, Skoug, Doyle, Styles, Brodey, Fairchild, Littell, Hill
• Released/Retired (7): Mancini, Plouck, Williamson, Riopedre, Bacak, McDowell, Jauss

Executive Summary

While I still think this draft was a failure for the lack of Suarez and Byler signings, we are seeing some great surprises from later picks Keller, Bach and Mapes.  Reetz and Dickey under-performance hurts the class too.  Fedde’s return was good, but he needs to make himself into a legit #3 starter prospect for me to start thinking more favorably about this class.  However, 19 out of 40 picks either never signed or are already gone after just one year, and another 10 are trending towards a release instead of production .. this can’t be good.  Lotta red in that trending summary.

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PS: I created an XLS to do this analysis; if you prefer, you can see my working XLS in Google for all this data which is also listed as a link to the right (2015 Stats for 2014 Draft Class); quick XLS below:

Round	Player/Pos	Level	2015 Level	2015 Basic Stats
1	Fedde, Erick RHP	COL jr	ShortA	4-1, 2.57 ERA
2	Suarez, Andrew LHP	COL jr	did not sign: returned to Miami
3	Reetz, Jakson C	HS	ShortA->GCL	.212/.326/.248
4	Dickey, Robbie RHP	JUCO	LowA->ShortA	0-3, 6.65 ERA
5	Van Orden, Drew RHP	COL sr	LowA	5-5, 3.61 ERA
6	Williams, Austen RHP	COL jr	LowA->HighA (with 1 AAA spot start)	12-8, 2.58 ERA
7	Carey, Dale “D.K.” CF	COL sr	LowA	.234/.340/.345
8	Gardner, Jeff LF	COL sr	LowA	.226/.296/.345
9	Byler, Austin 1B	COL jr	did not sign: returned to Nevada
10	Page, Matthew RF	COL sr	ShortA->LowA	.270/.362/.384
11	Davis, Weston RHP	HS	GCL (DL)	dnp – injured
12	Mancini, Domenick RHP	CC	released (2015)
13	Davidson, Austin 3B	COL jr	LowA	.202/.302/.314
14	Bourque, James RHP	COL jr	ShortA	dnp – injured
15	Ripken, Ryan 1B	COL soph	GCL	.250/.296/.391
16	Plouck, Cole LHP	CC	released (2015)	1-0, 1.80 ERA
17	Keller, Alec CF	COL sr	LowA->HighA	.294/.341/.374
18	Mills, McKenzie LHP	HS	ShortA->GCL	0-5, 7.27 ERA
19	Williamson, Clay RF	COL jr	released (2015)	.211/.318/.316
20	Langlois, Bryan RF	COL jr	XST	no 2015 stats
21	Bach, Connor LHP	COL sr	LowA	6-4, 3.85 ERA
22	Salters, Daniel C	COL soph	did not sign: returned to DBU
23	Riopedre, Chris SS	COL jr	released (2015)	.250/.250/.250
24	Simmons, Kyle RHP	COL jr	GCL (DL)	dnp – injured
25	Bacak, Kyle C	COL sr	released (2015)
26	McDowell, Chase RHP	COL 5S	retired (2015)
27	Keniry, Conor SS	COL sr	ShortA->LowA	.250/.323/.310
28	De La Cruz, Kida RHP	CC	GCL	0-0, 5.43 ERA
29	Jauss, DJ RHP	COL 5S	released (2015)
30	Mapes, Tyler RHP	COL sr	LowA->HighA	7-3, 2.23 ERA
31	Johns, Samuel RHP	COL 5S	ShortA->LowA	3-4, 4.31 ERA
32	Cary, Elliott CF	HS	did not sign: Oregon State
33	Casey, Clay CF	HS	did not sign: Mississippi
34	Skoug, Evan C	HS	did not sign: TCU
35	Doyle, Tommy RHP	HS	did not sign: Virginia
36	Styles, John Henry LHP	HS	did not sign: Stanford
37	Brodey, Quinn LHP	HS	did not sign: Stanford
38	Fairchild, Stuart RF	HS	did not sign: Wake Forest
39	Littell, Jon OF	HS	did not sign: OK State
40	Hill, Jacob LHP	JUCO	did not sign: U San Diego