Nationals Arm Race

I read a quickie piece with some Mike Rizzo quotes from the Washington Time’s beat reporter Amanda Comak on November 11th, 2012 and there was an interesting tidbit at the bottom: per Comak,  Rizzo has not been approached yet about any Washington Nationals participation in the WBC, but would approach each request on a “case-by-case basis” to determine what is in the best interests of the team.  This got me thinking about possible Nats representatives on 2013 WBC teams.

Lets take a quick look at the Nationals representatives on WBC teams from the past, talk about whether its really in the best interests of the team to even let these guys play, and then talk about who may be candidates for the 2013 WBC regardless.

(Note: I’ve added updates highlighted in red since the original 11/21/12 publication date on players mentioned here).

Washington has sent a decent number of players to play in the WBC over the years, with very mixed results for the team’s interests.  In 2006 the team sent seven different players to the inaugural WBC:

• Luis Ayala for Mexico
• Chad Cordero, Gary Majewski and Brian Schneider for team USA
• Ronnie Belliard, Alberto Castillo, and Wily Mo Pena for the Dominican Republic.

The tournament was marred for the team by a blown UCL ligament to Ayala, who had undergone elbow surgery earlier in the off-season but pitched for his home country anyway.  The team did not want Ayala to participate in the inaugural event, did not want him used by the Mexican team, and team officials were “livid” by the injury, which cost Ayala the season and cost the team its 8th inning setup guy.  Ayala recovered to pitch again in 2008 but was never as effective, and was shipped out in 2009 for a PTBNL.  Coincidentally, I suspect the team still harbors some ill-will towards Ayala to this day.  Meanwhile the other two relievers who participated both experienced regressions in form; Cordero’s ERA nearly doubled (from 1.82 to 3.19) from his breakout 2005 season while Majewski’s numbers dipped slightly before he was traded in the big Cincinnati deal of 2006.

In 2009, the team had 5 participants:

• Pete Orr playing for Canada
• Joel Hanrahan and Adam Dunn playing for the USA
• Saul Rivera and Ivan Rodriguez playing for Puerto Rico.

The WBC seemed to energize particularly Dunn, who enjoyed playing in a post-season atmosphere for the first (and only) time in his career.  Nobody suffered any injuries, but Hanrahan in particular may have been affected by his lack of a proper spring training; he posted a 7.71 ERA for the team while losing the closer spot and was shipped to Pittsburgh.  Ironically, Rivera also experienced a huge regression of form, going from a 3.96 ERA in 2008 to a 6.10 ERA in 2009 and was eventually released.

This begs the question; do we even WANT our pitchers playing on this team?  The first two WBCs have shown pretty distinctly that our pitchers have regressed greatly after playing.  This only makes sense: the spring training routines are greatly impacted to play in this event.  We may see a ton of front-office resistance to specific guys (especially those coming off injury) playing in the 2013 event.  Which could affect the eligibility of some specific players for 2013.

Now, which Nats may play for the 2013 teams?  First off, looking at the Nationals 40-man roster, we have become an amazingly heavy USA-born team (we’ll get to non-40man roster players in a moment). Thanks to the Nats big board resource (originated by Brian Oliver and now maintained by “SpringfieldFan”), which has the country of origin for players, here’s a breakdown of the home-country of our current 36 active (as of November 15th, 2012) roster players:

• USA: 27 (would be 29 if adding in our rule-5 avoidance players)
• Venezuela: 5 (Jesus Flores, Sandy Leon, Wilson Ramos, Henry Rodriguez, and Carlos Rivero)
• Cuba: 1 (Yunesky Maya)
• Columbia: 1 (Jhonatan Solano)
• Dominican Republic: 1 (Eury Perez)
• Netherlands (via Curacao): 1 (Roger Bernadina)

As you can see, the massive bulk of our team is USA born, and essentially our entire post-season starting roster was USA born as well.  That doesn’t necessarily mean that these USA-born players will actually play for team USA (Alex Rodriguez played for Puerto Rico despite being born and raised in Miami, and our own Danny Espinosa is eligible to play for Mexico by virtue of his first-generation born in the US status), but almost all of these guys will be up for consideration for the USA team.  And this only accounts for our 40-man players; as we’ll see below there’s plenty of lower-minors players from smaller countries that will participate.

Who from the Nationals franchise may make a 2013 WBC roster?  First off, thanks to James Wagner‘s 11/15/12 NatsJournal post we already know of three WBC participants; Solano is on the Columbian team, minor leaguer Jimmy Van Ostrand is on the Canadian team, and A-ball catcher Adrian Nieto is on the Spanish team.  Curacao qualifies to play with the Netherlands, and I’d guess that Bernadina would make a great choice considering the lack of Dutch players in baseball (Baseball Continuum’s projections agree.  And as of 12/4/12 he’s officially been listed as a Netherlands participant).. Venezuela is already qualified for the main draw and has a relatively strong possible team.  The Baseball Continuum blog posted an early projection of the Venezuelan team and listed Flores as a likely participant (specifically mentioning that Ramos wasn’t considered due to injury recovery; I’d suspect these two players to switch based on Ramos’ recovery and Flores’ awful 2012).   If Henry Rodriguez was healthy i’d guess he would be on that list too, but his season-ending surgery probably precludes his participation.  The Dominican Republic has perhaps the strongest depth and has no need for the recently called up Perez among its outfield depth.  Maya’s defection eliminates him from discussion for the Cuban team.  (12/4/12 update): Chien-Ming Wang has been announced as a member of Chinese Taipei’s team (for the purposes of this article I investigated all 2012 Nats).

Which leaves our large contingent of American players.  A couple of writers have started postulating on these rosters (David Schoenfield‘s very early guess as to a potential USA roster is here, Baseball Continuum’s latest projection is here).  So using these two posts as a starting point, lets go position-by-position and give some thoughts as to who may get some consideration.  Keep in mind the WBC rosters are generally very reliever heavy, since no starter is going to be “allowed” to pitch a complete game in March.

(Note: I’m still considering our Free Agents as “Nats players” for the purposes of this analysis, since this really goes position by position from our 2012 team to find candidates).

• Catcher: Kurt Suzuki isn’t nearly in the class of the likes of Buster Posey, Brian McCann, Joe Mauer, or Matt Weiters.  There are a ton of quality american backstops right now.
• First Base: Free Agent Adam LaRoche probably faces far too much competition from the likes of Prince Fielder, Paul Konerko, Adam Dunn, Allen Craig, Eric Hosmer, and Mark Teixeira to make this team.  If it were me, I’d go with Fielder and Teixeira.  But, LaRoche’s great 2012 season and his Gold Glove recognition may get him a spot.  He is a FA though, so i’d guess he won’t commit until he signs and gets the go-ahead from his new team.  Or, perhaps he uses the WBC to showcase himself?  Not likely needed; he should sign long before the WBC kicks off in March.
• Second Base: Danny Espinosa is a decent player, but not in the same league as  Shoenfield’s projection of Dustin Pedroia and Ben Zobrist.  Brandon Phillips is also in the mix for the team.
• Shortstop: Ian Desmond‘s breakout 2013 season may get him some consideration.  There’s not a lot of American quality short stops out there.  Troy Tulowitzki is the obvious leading choice (as was Derek Jeter in the first two WBCs), but is he ready to come back from injury?  Looking around the majors there are a couple other possibilities (JJ Hardy, Brendan Ryan, Jimmy Rollins and Brandon Crawford all could be alternatives as well).   I think Desmond’s combination of offense and defense, combined with Tulowitzki’s injury recovery could get him on the team.
• Third Base: Ryan Zimmerman cannot break the hegomony of David Wright and Evan Longoria right now, even given Longoria’s injury struggles this season.  Chase Headley and David Freese are also in the 3b mix.  12/4/12 update: Apparently Wright is committed, Longoria is out due to injury recovery and Headley “was not asked,” so perhaps Zimmerman is back in the mix.
• Outfielders: I think Bryce Harper is a natural to make this team, not only on talent but also because of the brand-name recognition (and TV ratings and fan interest) it would generate.  Same goes for Mike Trout.  Otherwise there’s a slew of top-end american players who can man the outfield and they read like the top of the MVP boards: Braun, Kemp, McCutchen, Stanton, Hamilton, and Granderson are all candidates to make this team.  12/6/12 update: Scott Boras has stated that Harper will skip the WBC to focus on his sophomore season.
• Starters: The two logical Nats candidates to be considered would be Gio Gonzalez and Stephen Strasburg.  But lets be honest; there is no way in hell Strasburg would be allowed to play.  Could Gonzalez make this team?  Given the depth of American starter talent right now (just off the top of my head: Verlander, Lincecum, Cain, Hamels, Halladay, Kershaw, Lee, Weaver, Sabathia, Medlen, and so on) perhaps this will be a selection of attrition moreso than a selection of availability.  So if a number of the older guys on this list beg out, perhaps Gio gets his shot.  The WBC’s location in San Francisco has already lead to Ryan Vogelsong committing to play in his home town, and could lead to other Bay Area players signing up.  I’m not sure any of the rest of our starters are really candidates, given the reputations of the above list plus the reliever-heavy nature of the roster.
• Relievers: our two most well known relievers (Tyler Clippard and Drew Storen) are possibilities; would the Nats block Storen based on his 2012 injury?  Craig Stammen‘s breakout 2012 season could get him looks, based on the reliever-heavy needs of the team.  Normally Sean Burnett may be in the loogy mix, but there’s better lefty relievers out there AND Burnett’s FA status may lead him to bow out to curry favor to his new team (Schoenfeld lists Burnett as a possible member back in July, before knowing he’s declared free agency).  The question is, would you take Clippard/Storen against the likes of this list of quality american back-of-the-bullpen arms: Kimbrel, Ventors, Marshall, League, Janssen, Papelbon, Hanrahan, Motte, Boggs, Bailey, Reed, and Nathan?  Possibly, considering that a lot of these guys probably bow out.  We’ve sent multiple relievers to each of the past two WBCs and its likely going to be the same thing this year.

Summary: here’s my guesses as to which Nats (and recent ex-Nats) will play in the WBC:

• Venezuela: Ramos
• Spain: Nieto
• Canada: Van Ostrand
• Columbia: Solano
• Netherlands: Bernadina
• Chinese Taipei: Wang
• USA: Harper, Desmond, Gonzalez, Clippard.  Perhaps Zimmerman and Stammen.

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March 2013 update: here’s the post-WBC actual list of participants when all was said and done, helped by  the list of rosters via Wikipedia.  MLB reports that nine (9) Nationals are participating in the classic, though the below list (excluding Wang) totals more.  They’re not counting Solano/Columbia, having lost in the preliminaries.

• Columbia: Jhonatan Solano (AAA/Mlb in 2012)
• Spain: Adrian Nieto (low-A in 2012)
• Canada: Jimmy Van Ostrand (AA in 2012)
• Italy: Matt Torra, Mike Costanzo (both AAA in 2012, Washington MLFA signings for 2013)
• Netherlands: Roger Bernadina, Randolph Oduber (high-A in 2012)
• Chinese Taipei: Chien-Ming Wang (former Nat, non-signed FA for 2013 start of season)
• USA: Gio Gonzalez, Ross Detwiler
• Dominican Republic: Eury Perez (3/4/13 addition to DR team)

I took this discussion out of the comments section of the Giolito post in August and made it a separate discussion item, since the situation only got more “dire” with the 9/3/12 call-ups of both Christian Garcia and Zach Duke.

Before getting into the below analysis, let me say this: I’m absolutely supported all of the 40-man additions or the 9/1 call-ups; they were all required, important moves and, especially with the early-season catcher crunch, were vital to ensuring the continued success of the team through the September push.  Adding these two latest arms to a well-used bullpen, plus the 9/1/12 call-ups of of eventual 5th starter John Lannan, catcher depth in Sandy Leon and defensive replacement/pinch runner Eury Perez signal that this team used every avenue in its arsenal to win down the stretch and secure not only a playoff entry, but the #1 seed.

Garcia and Duke were new 40-man additions; to make room at the time the club put Henry Rodriguez on the 60-day dl (apropos since he just had season-ending elbow surgery).  The 40-man roster was filled to a full 40 active players, with an additional three on 60-day DL (Kimball and Ramos joining H-Rod on the 60-day list).

So, why am I worried about a future 40-man roster crunch?  Because with all these additions, we’re going to have to make some tough choices once it comes time to protect guys from the rule-5 draft.  Some have said that the expected Free Agents and Non-Tenders will immediately ease the roster crunch, but I’d counter that these players will have to immediately be filled through free-agency and aren’t going to offer the relief one may expect.

Lets do some analysis for the 43 guys (40 on 40-man plus 3 60-day DL) we’re talking about.   Here’s how these 43 guys are categorized in terms of contract status for next year:

• Seven (7) guys under contract for next year.  Werth, Zimmerman, Morse, Gio Gonzalez, Maya, Tracy, Suzuki.
• Eighteen (18)  guys who are pre-arbitration; Strasburg, Rendon, Purke, Harper, Espinosa, Ramos, Henry Rodriguez, Lombardozzi, Marrero, Mattheus, Kimball, Moore, Perez, Rivero, Solano, Garcia, Leon, Brown.  Some of these are non-tender candidates; we’ll get to them below.
• Nine (9) guys who are arbitration-eligible but who are (in my opinion) not in Non-Tender jeopardy: Zimmermann, Clippard, Flores, Desmond, Storen, Bernadina, Detwiler, Stammen, Perry.  Both Perry and Storen may or may not actually hit Arbitration status per Cots, but the logic still stands that they’d be tied to the team regardless.  Are any of these guys non-tender candidates?  See below.  [Editor’s Note] we now know that Storen DID hit super-2 status, while Perry missed out on arbitration for the year.  Most of this post was written prior to this knowledge.
• Four (4) pure FAs that immediately come off books: Mike Gonzalez, Jackson, Wang, DeRosa.
• Two (2) more guys with mutual options that, as it turned out, declined their side and became free agents anway (LaRoche and Burnett).
• Three (3) easy Non-tender guesses: I think the team non-tenders Gorzelanny, Lannan and Duke (but looks to bring Gorzelanny back as a long-man).  There are other possible non-tenders on this roster; we’ll talk about them later on.

So, on the day the FA’s clear and the 60-day guys get put back on the 40-man we’ll be at 43-6 FAs = 37 players.  So, assuming both 43-6 FAs=37 to start, perhaps down to 34 at the non-tender deadline. That leaves 6 spots opened up … but if my scenario plays out as described above with 6 FAs and 3 non tenders, that includes no less than FIVE of our primary 25-man roster all season. Which means most likely we’ll be active in the FA market looking for replacements for those five guys. First example: Who replaces Edwin Jackson? The next guys in line are Lannan and Wang; both likely gone. After that is perhaps Perry or Maya, both on 40-man but so far both proven not to be able to get out MLB hitters. So we’re going to be looking for another starter. Same goes with replacing Burnett and Gonzalez as lefties out of the pen, and replacing DeRosa as mlb-veteran utility infielder.

My point is that, yeah we have a lot of guys getting cut but we can’t just leave those spots open on the 40-man; we’ll need to immediately fill them with MLB deals in free agency. So we go from 34 open spots probably almost immediately to 38 or 39 with these eventual FA  replacement signings…. and boom, you have your roster crunch when it comes to rule5.

I have a draft version of the 2012 rule 5 pre-draft recommendations and it could get ugly, but to do some quick analysis here’s the Draft Tracker google xls: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AmkEIm1TLiXQdGhVRjRfNW81SG8xRlROQ1ZxZzNfbUE&hl=en#gid=0.  Yellow shaded cells are 2012 R5 eligible but don’t forget 2011 R5 guys who have stepped up and may need protecting. At first glance in the conversation to be protected has to include: Kobernus, Rosenbaum, Karns, Hood, and Demny. I’m not saying they all need to be protected, but some of them may.

My point is this; if the team wants to protect more than 1-2 guys, they’re looking at a one-for-one replacement on the 40-man roster.  Maybe they do DFA Marrero and Kimball, but they probably don’t want to.  Marrero is only 24.  Kimball was relatively successful before going down with shoulder surgery and is the kind of reliever that Rizzo loves.

This is the essence of the “roster crunch” that this team faces this off-season.

I havn’t seen mlb.com beat reporter Bill Ladson do an inbox response since February.  So I was excited to see one pop in this past Monday, 10/22/12.  As a reminder, I write my response before reading his, and sometimes edit questions for clarity.

Q: What are the Nationals’ plans for Tyler Moore? He is a power hitter who deserves to play every day. If Adam LaRoche returns next year, where does Moore fit in?

A: Tyler Moore indeed had excellent numbers in limited action, getting called up at the end of April to cover for a dearth of outfielders on the Nats roster.  His slash line was .263/.327/.513 for an OPS+ of 124 with 10 homers in 156 Abs.   Thats a homer ever 15.6 ABs and correlates to nearly a 40 homer pace for a full season of roughly 600 at-bats.  That is of course if you believe in what we saw in 2012 versus the continued lack of respect for Moore from the scouting pundits (who think his minor league power numbers were more a function of age than talent, and who continued to think that Moore had too many holes in his swing to be an impact MLB player).

Unfortunately though for Moore, if Adam LaRoche is re-signed there may not be an immediate place for Moore in the lineup.  LaRoche can only play 1B, Michael Morse is signed through 2013 and has become a club and fan favorite in LF.   Those are basically the only two positions Moore can play.

I think the better question here is, “Will the Nats extend Adam LaRoche?”  Because that’s the question that drives several other roster moves for 2013.  If LaRoche comes back and the team favors giving Moore more playing time, maybe they package Morse in trade.  Perhaps Moore sits and waits for another injury to give him playing time; LaRoche was incredibly healthy in 2012 and could regress for 2013.  Or, perhaps LaRoche (as basically the leading 1B power hitter on the FA market) will get a 3-4 year deal (likely) and the Nats won’t over-pay for his decline years, will install Moore at first and keep Morse in left.   Honestly, I think this last scenario is what plays out, and we’ll see Moore as your starting first baseman in 2013.

Ladson basically echos exactly what I say above.  Glad we’re on the same page.

Q: Do you think the Nationals will go after Michael Bourn this offseason?

A: No no no!  As I opined on September 13th, after seeing yet another Jim Bowden article intoning last off-season’s mantra of “the Nats need a center fielder,” the Nats HAVE a center fielder, and a darn good one, in Bryce Harper.  Harper finished the season with the 4th best UZR/150 for any CF with 500+ innings, even better than the vaunted defensive wizard Mike Trout.  It took about 5 games for his arm to be respected league wide, and he’s only 19 and will only get better.  Why would we possible move Harper off CF in the next 4-5 years?  Yes, eventually we expect a bulked up power hitting Harper to move to a corner spot, but not at age 20.  Besides, if Harper moves off CF … who makes way in left or right?  Do you move Jayson Werth to left field?  If so, then what happens to Michael Morse?  Do you move him?  Harper’s defensive value is wasted in right field.  Werth’s defensive value (while inarguably slipping) is also wasted in left field, where you can “hide” a poor defensive player who is plus-plus power.

*sigh* I wish this rumor would go away.  I’m pretty sure the Yankees never said to Mickey Mantle at age 19, “Hey Mick!  We like you in center but we to move you to a corner outfielder so we can sign a sub-average hitter to lead-off and play in your position.”  Of course not, so why would the Nats do so?

Unfortunately Ladson perpetuates the ridiculous myth himself and says he thinks the team goes after Bourn and puts Harper in LF.  Just ridiculous.

Q: Any news on Cole Kimball’s recovery?  Will we see him in a Nats uniform in 2013?

A: Shoulder injuries in power pitchers are never an easy recovery.  That’s why we never really saw Kimball in the summer and why he’s currently in the AFL getting some extra time on the hill.  As of this writing he only has 3 2/3 innings, so not much to go by.  We are seeing some reports that he looks decent.  2013 prognosis?   He faces an uphill battle to make the bullpen; there’s several right handers that are now clearly ahead of him on the depth chart.  Storen, Clippard, and Stammen are locks (if not traded).  Rodriguez has no options.  Mattheus has pitched his way onto this team.  That’s your 5 righties out of the pen (Davey Johnson likes 2 lefties).   And we havn’t even talked about Christain Garcia, who pitched well enough to make the post season roster.   So the answer may be that Kimball starts in AAA and waits for an opportunity.  Ladson says he thinks Kimball can make the 2013 bullpen.  How exactly?  Who is he going to be ahead of?  Not much provided in the way of deep analysis, Bill.

Q: Do you think there is any chance the Nationals bring up Corey Brown to play center and bat second?

A: No.  Brown looks to me like the definition of a 4-A guy, and will be stashed in AAA as outfield depth until further notice.  Batting second?  Really?  We’re currently batting Werth at leadoff despite his having middle-of-the-order power.  What makes anyone think Brown deserves to bat anywhere in this lineup, let alone ahead of the power guys?  And, if Brown makes the 25-man roster which outfielder does he replace?  Certainly not the starters in Morse, Harper and Werth.  Certainly not Roger Bernadina, who more than earned his stay.  And certainly not above Moore.   Ladson agrees.

Q: What do you think about the addition of Kurt Suzuki to the roster?

A: Somewhat of a panic/reactionary move at the time, but it has worked out great for both sides.  Jesus Flores wasn’t stopping the one-way street for opposing base-runners, and we needed more of a plus-defensive guy behind the plate.  Flores did himself  no favors batting .213 either.  Suzuki immediately upped his batting stroke too,  batting .267 here after hitting just .218 in Oakland in 2012.  Clearly Suzuki and Wilson Ramos are your two catchers heading into 2013.  What do we do with Flores?  Do we dare non-tender him and give him away?  Do we tender him and try to trade him?  I’d hope for the latter, thinking that even a .213 hitting catcher has value in this league.  I hate to say it, but Ramos can’t stay on the field and we needed the insurance.  Ladson agrees, but doesn’t mention Flores’ fate.

Q: The Shark, aka Roger Bernadina, had a career year and will probably get a raise this offseason. Do you think the Nats are going to try to move him, or can we expect to see The Shark with the team next year?

A: Great question.  Do we sell-high on Bernadina and make-do with a 4th outfielder like Corey Brown or Eury Perez in 2013?  We could, if it brought us back something worth having.  We do have some rising quality OF depth that would replace Bernadina (Brian Goodwin comes to mind, perhaps even Anthony Rendon if he hits his way to the majors in 2013).    Ladson thinks Bernadina will be back.  I have no problem with that; he hit great this year, knew his role and is fantastic defensively.

Q: Do you think Davey Johnson is the best manager in Nationals/Expos history? Felipe Alou is tough to beat, but Davey has my vote on this one.

A: Why not Jim Fanning?  He led the franchise to its only prior post-season appearance.  I dunno; what exactly makes a “good” manager?  I think Johnson has absolutely done better with this team than anyone thought, so yeah that makes him a great manager (and my favorite for winning NL Manager of the Year).  Best ever for the franchise?  Why do people think Felipe Alou was so great?  His last three Expos teams each lost 90 or more games.  Who can really talk intelligently about how well Buck Rodgers mangaged the team in the mid 1980s?  The team improved 19 wins from 1978 to 1979 under Dick Williams.  Those are good managers too.  Ladson thinks Johnson is the best ever but says Alou was great.  I don’t get it.

The Nats rotation has been incredibly stable this year; only a mid-season experiment with Chien-Ming Wang interrupted a near season-long quintet of starters unmarred by injury or poor performance.  The shutdown and playoff unavailability of Stephen Strasburg is well, well documented, so we won’t talk about him here.  But two important decisions await Davey Johnson in terms of his playoff roster construction: playoff rotation and bullpen construction.  Lets take these questions one-by-one:

1. What is your playoff rotation?  Here’s the evolution of our rotation this year:

• The year started off with your starters in this order: Strasburg, Gonzalez, Zimmermann, Jackson and then Detwiler. The starters went R-L-R-R-L.
• After the All Star Break, Johnson shuffled the starters and re-ordered them to go Zimmermann, Gonzalez, Strasburg, Jackson, Detwiler (still R-L-R-R-L), ostensibly to give Strasburg a bit more rest and extend his season a few days.
• On August 3rd (around a double-header) Zimmermann and Gonzalez switched places.  Now you’ve got Gonzalez, Zimmermann, Strasburg, Jackson and Detwiler (L-R-R-R-L).  All three RHSPs are in order, as are the two LHSPs.
• On August 15th around an off day, Detwiler and Jackson switched places, probably to keep Detwiler on regular rest and probably to fix the aforementioned issue of 3 RHSPs in a row (starters now Gonzalez, Zimmermann, Strasburg, Detwiler, Jackson for L-R-R-L-R).
• On September 12th, John Lannan replaces the shut-down Strasburg in the rotation.  Now we’re Gonzalez, Zimmermann, Lannan, Detwiler and Jackson for L-R-L-L-R.

If we play out the rotation the rest of the season, barring any more rain-outs or injuries, the starters will be (Starting 9/21):

9/21: Jackson
9/22: Gonzalez
9/23: spot starter Wang, to give the rotation its regular rest.
9/24: Zimmermann
9/25: Lannan
9/26: Detwiler
9/27: Jackson
9/28: Gonzalez
9/29: Zimmermann
9/30: Lannan
10/1: Detwiler
10/2: Jackson
10/3: Gonzalez

At this point I’m going to assume that the Nats will win the division and go straight to the divisional series, which (per MLB’s playoff schedule) starts either Saturday 10/6 or Sunday 10/7.  Which day the Nats start will be critical; if the Nats are the #1 seed they’ll start Sunday; if they’re the #2 seed they’ll start Saturday.

But in either case I think we’re going to see some manipulation of the above schedule, because I think the team wants Gonzalez to start the opener.   And he cannot start an opener on 10/6 or 10/3 if he throws 10/3.   We may see him skipped on 9/28 and then throwing a start 10/1 (which I’d be happy for; that’s the last game I have tix for this year), which would put him on regular rest for either a 10/6 or 10/7 start.

After that though, there’s some decisions to be made.  The NLDS ridiculously gives the lower-seed the first two home games, so I think Johnson may want to have some options available to him for his 2nd, 3rd, and 4th starter (I think its a pretty basic assumption that Lannan is being left completely off the playoff roster; more on this later down when talking about the bullpen options).  Here’s the home/away splits of our 4 likely playoff starters (numbers as of 9/21/12).

• Gonzalez: 8-4, 2.58 ERA at home, 11-4, 3.24 ERA away.
• Zimmermann: 4-3, 3.70 ERA at home, 7-5, 2.23 ERA away.
• Jackson: 5-6, 3.72 ERA at home, 4-4, 4.04 ERA away.
• Detwiler: 8-2, 2.59 ERA at home, 2-4, 3.78 ERA away.

Interesting; Zimmermann is far more effective away, Detwiler is far more effective at home, and Jackson is just about the same either way.  This seems to imply that Zimmermann is your best bet to take the 2nd start, away from home, then line up Detwiler-Jackson-Gonzalez (or some combination thereof) at home.

Here’s another take; Johnson likes to play match-ups with certain teams.  Will the Nats opponent factor into the equation?  Assuming the Nats are the #1 seed, your likely wild-card winners right now are Atlanta and St. Louis (its hard to see a scenario where St. Louis loses its current 3 game WC lead in the next 12 days, but it could happen, but for the purposes of this article we’ll assume these two teams hold on).  How do these teams fare against lefty versus righty starters?

• Atlanta is hitting .247 as a team versus Lefties with an 86 wRC+.  That’s bad.
• Atlanta is hitting .251 as a team versus Righties with a 97 wRC+.  That’s certainly better than they do versus lefties.
• St. Louis is hitting .275 as a team versus Lefties with an 113 wRC+.  That’s basically 2nd in the majors behind the uber-hitting Rangers.
• St. Louis is hitting .270 as a team versus Righties with a 104 wRC+.  That’s roughly a 10% difference in Run Creation.

So, it seems like if we play Atlanta, we want to load up on Lefties while if we play St. Louis we want to load up on Righties.  This would seem to indicate that, if Atlanta is our opponent we’ll want to go Gonzalez-Zimmermann-Detwiler-Jackson-Gonzalez again, meaning Atlanta has to face 2 lefties in the first 3 games plus 3 out of 5.  If we play St. Louis, you’d think that we’ll want to switch up Detwiler and Jackson so that St. Louis gets L-R-R-L-L.  The idea being that once we get home, even though we’re lefty-heavy we’ll have the advantage.

However, with the #1, #2 and #3 seeds far from settled with a week and a half to go, lets also look at the same logic for both Cincinnati and San Francisco, since its conceivable at this point we could be playing either of these teams (use the same links in the Atlanta links above to see these statistics):

• Cincinnati is hitting .268 as a team versus Lefties with an 107 wRC+.   Both Tied for 6th in the majors.
• Cincinnati is hitting .248 as a team versus Righties with a 89 wRC+.
• San Francisco is hitting .268 as a team versus Lefties with an 96 wRC+.
• San Francisco is hitting .270 as a team versus Righties with a 98 wRC+.

Conclusions?  Cincinnati matches up very well against lefties and struggles against righties, while San Francisco is a pretty well balanced team with no real weakness against either side.

One last factor is post-season experience, of which this group has very little.  Jackson is the sole guy with any post season experience, it being last year with potential opponent St. Louis.  I cannot see Johnson bumping any of the guys who are pitching better than him though, at least in a short series, based on this veteran experience (we’ll revisit this though in a 7-game series, where the identity of the 4th starter is incredibly important, as he only goes once in that series).

In any scenario, I think your first two starters away are going to be Gonzalez and Zimmermann.  After that will depend on the opponent.

2. What is your playoff bullpen?  By virtue of the fact that we don’t need a 5th starter, the team can carry an extra player.  Here’s the bullpen as it sits now, divided into “regulars” and 9/1 call-ups:

• Regulars: Burnett, Clippard, MGonzalez, Gorzelanny, Mattheus, Stammen, Storen
• Sept 1 callups: Duke, Garcia, Wang (and technically Lannan).

I think this decision is pretty simple; you keep the 7 “regulars” and add in power arm Christian Garcia, who has been lights out since arriving, as an extra middle-relief guy.  There’s no reason to have minor league starters Duke, Wang or Lannan on the post-season roster; the only function they’d have is as long-men, but the regulars include two such arms already in Stammen and Gorzelanny.

The possibility exists that Johnson will opt for an extra bench guy instead of an 8th bullpen arm, but I doubt he’d choose that route.  Your “extra” bench guys right now are Leon (3rd catcher), Brown and Perez (ofs), and one of either DeRosa or Tracy (technically it was DeRosa who got added off the DL after roster expansion; he likely would have been delayed in the minors had this happened earlier in the season).  I can’t see any reason to keep any of these guys on a post-season roster at the expense of an 8th reliever.  Tracy gets a few ABs a week and can only play 1B, while DeRosa can provide cover at multiple positions and seems to have more value.  I could be wrong though; Tracy continues to deliver timely pinch hits in the clutch (as he did this past weekend).

Man, it feels good to talk about playoff baseball!

I know it seems silly to criticize the team with the best record in the NL, but I thought the question was worth asking, given a couple things I read this week prospects related.  Given the drain of prospects in the last 6 months (through the Gio Gonzalez trade and through graduation to the majors for several of the team’s better prospects), its safe to say that our cupboard is relatively thin right now.  This point was highlighted to me by two recent online articles;

1. ESPN’s Keith Law posted a mid-season review of farm systems on the Rise or Fall (sorry, insider only), and stated the obvious about our system.  His summary: Yes we got Lucas Giolito but it was essentially at the expense of any other high-end talent in the 2012 draft.  And, a lot of our high-end guys are taking significant tumbles on boards due to lack of performance or injury (see later on for a look at our top 10 prospect performances).

2. Baseball America’s Jim Callis posted an updated Midseason top 50 prospects post 2012 draft and included where he’d put the top-end talents drafted (including international signees) in his weekly Ask BA feature on July 16th.   Of note to me was the fact that Washington, even with the signing of the high-end Giolito, does not have a SINGLE player in his mid-season 50.   Luckily for us, our NL East competition didn’t fare too much better, with a grand total of 5 players between our divisional rivals.  This compared to teams like Seattle (5), Kansas City (4), and the rich-keep-getting-richer Rangers with 3 guys likely to become impact players within a year or two.

Why is this a concern if the team is in first place?  Two primary reasons:

1. If you’re not going to matriculate your prospects and depend on them for production, then you need to utilize them in trade to acquire needed talent.  There’s plenty of trade rumors right now mentioning the Nats desires for a starter to cover for Stephen Strasburg‘s innings limit.  But who are we going to trade to acquire said pitcher?   I’d go as far as saying that there’s not one guy on our 2012 top 10 prospect list (not including Harper and Lombardozzi of course) who, at this point in 2012, could be the centerpiece of a marquee acquisition.  Who is trading for our #1 prospect Anthony Rendon right now? 

2. This team has a LOT of money committed to players over the coming years, and won’t be able to depend on hefty production from salary controlled guys forever.  They will need a stream of up-and-coming players to offer cheap alternatives to free agents and players who have become too expensive.  For example; in the year 2016 the team has $47M committed to just THREE players right now, before considering at least that much in arbitration for just Strasburg, Bryce Harper and Jordan Zimmermann.  $47M is nearly the team’s payroll just a few years ago!  Yes we will naturally grow payroll and revenues with success and the renegotiation of the MASN contract, but constructing a 25 man roster is about making choices.  The last thing we want is to see this team become the 2012 Philadelphia Phillies; a bloated, old team with a ton of injuries and the 2nd highest payroll in the league at $175M, but mired in last place.

For context of this discussion, here’s a list of Baseball America’s top 10 prospects for this team for 2011 and 2012 (compiled after the Gonzalez trade), and a status of where they are as of now:

Year	Nats Rank	Name, pos	Status
2011	1	Bryce Harper, of	In majors
2011	2	Derek Norris, c	Traded
2011	3	Danny Espinosa, ss/2b	In majors
2011	4	A.J. Cole, rhp	Traded
2011	5	Wilson Ramos, c	Out for Season (two knee surgeries)
2011	6	Sammy Solis, lhp	Out for Season (Tommy John)
2011	7	Cole Kimball, rhp	60-day DL (shoulder surgery)
2011	8	Eury Perez, of	.299/.325/.342 in AA Harrisburg in his 6th pro season
2011	9	Chris Marrero, 1b	60-day DL (torn hamstring)
2011	10	Brad Peacock, rhp	Traded

That’s 2 guys who are starters in the Majors, 3 traded for Gonzalez, 4 guys on long term DL stints and Eury Perez with his meager .667 OPS in AA, in his 6th pro season.  How about 2012’s list?

Year	Nats Rank	Name, pos	Status
2012	1	Bryce Harper, OF	In majors
2012	2	Anthony Rendon, 3B	Out for Season (broken ankle, his 3rd major leg injury in 4 years)
2012	3	Brian Goodwin, OF	.324/.438/.542 in low-A.  Stellar season so far
2012	4	Alex Meyer, RHP	7-4, 3.10 Era, 1.13 whip and 107/34 k/bb in 90IP in low-A Hagerstown.  Just promoted
2012	5	Matt Purke, LHP	Long term DL (Shoulder concerns); hasn’t thrown in 5 weeks.
2012	6	Sammy Solis, LHP	Out for Season (Tommy John)
2012	7	Steve Lombardozzi, INF	In Majors
2012	8	Destin Hood, OF	.223/.296/.313 in AA Harrisburg, in his 5th pro season
2012	9	Chris Marrero, 1B	60-day DL (torn hamstring)
2012	10	Michael Taylor, OF	.225/.314/.333 in High-A Potomac in his 3rd pro season

2012’s list includes 4 major injury concerns, two guys under-performing (Hood and Taylor), and two guys matriculated to the majors.  The two players putting up good statistical seasons may come with astericks though; Alex Meyer was compiling his stats in low-A, going against guys 2-3 years younger than himself.  His promotion to High-A was overdue and should be telling, to determine if his future lays as a dominant 12-6 starter or a high-leverage reliever.  Brian Goodwin’s excellent season is a great sign of things to come … but again, in Low-A.  I know he was a Juco signee, but he’s 21 now, turning 22 in November and is the same age as college juniors getting drafted now.  If he continues to produce upon promotion to better competition, I’ll feel better.

Now, I know there’s guys in our system who are coming back from injuries (i.e. Nathan Karns), or who are putting up good numbers despite being lower draft picks (i.e. Matt Skole, Cameron Selik, Danny Rosenbaum), and we have some guys who we acquired through trades and who are having surprisingly good seasons in the minors (i.e., Zach Walters, Ryan Perry and Corey Brown) but are these kinds of players going to step up and either be a) next year’s top prospects or b) eventual productive major leaguers?  I know we all love Rosenbaum for example, but most scouts think he’s a marginal prospect at best (and his lack of inclusion on our top 10 lists reinforces that notion).

This sudden lack of depth was one of the reasons I wasn’t the biggest fan of drafting Giolito.  With the new draft rules and specific limits on bonuses, combined with the significant injury issues we’ve had with high end draftees Rendon and Purke in 2011’s draft, I thought the team should have gone the safer route.  Yes I’m sure Mike Rizzo did a ton of due diligence and was confident in Giolito’s long term health.  But missing on three first rounders (or in Purke’s case, a first round talent given a significant bonus and a 40-man deal) could lead to a significant hole in player development for this team right at a time a couple of years from now when they desperately need a MLB-minimum impact guy.

Interesting rumor that surfaced today: MASN’s Roch Kubatko tweeted that the Nats offered four players over the winter for centerfielder Adam Jones.  Those four players reportedly were John Lannan, Steve Lombardozzi, Drew Storen and an unnamed “center fielder.”  You’d have to guess the CF was lower-end, certainly not Eury Perez or Brian Goodwin (I’m not even sure we CAN trade Goodwin yet; there’s a set amount of time that has to pass before you can trade recently drafted guys).  The only other two starting CFs in the minors right now are Michael Taylor (our high-A center fielder) and AAA’s Corey Brown.   If I had to guess it would have been Brown, given his removal from the 40-man and his general struggles.

No time-frame was offered for this proposed trade; was it before or after the team swung the Gio Gonzalez deal?  If this was before, you wonder if we end up making the Gonzalez deal (probably; there’s no overlap in players and we’d have really needed another starter).  If this was after, perhaps it indicates how little the organization thought of Lannan even before the events of spring unfolded.

The articles make it seem that this would have been disastrous for the O’s: Lannan is stinking it up in AAA and Storen is hurt.  Its hard not to agree.  But I’d look at it another way; this would have been three 25-man roster guys plus a 4th OF (assuming it was Brown) who looks like he’s turning it around.  I think Lannan is a serviceable 5th starter in this league and just got caught in a numbers game out of spring, and that he’s better than he’s pitching in AAA.  At the time of this deal we wouldn’t have known that Lombardozzi would have this hot start; we only knew that he was young and seemed over-matched last September.

A concern in this story to me is the mention of Storen in the talks.  This is now the 2nd or 3rd time we’ve seen his name mentioned as being trade bait (one other that comes to mind was the proposed Zack Greinke trade.  At some point Storen is going to stop being the team player he clearly is now and become jaded, knowing that his front office is actively trying to get rid of him.

Nonetheless: Jones for that clutch of players seems like it is a steal for the Nats in hindsight.  If this deal had been swung, we’d certainly have a different look to the offense, but would be struggling with some serious depth holes right now (as if we aren’t already).

Thoughts?

Editor’s Note: this post was originally published in January of 2012: I have updated it as I have received new information several times since.  But some of the information and statements may be dated based on when it was initially written (like the Yu Darvish comment in the intro).  Over the years I’ve also added in more leagues and more details on existing leagues, including Wood bat leagues and Independent leagues.

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I’ve always wondered, since we hear so much about players’ tearing up winter leagues or hear wonderful stat lines from players coming over from foreign countries (as we are now in the Yu Darvish mania).  So what is the talent-equivalent of the various leagues outside of the conventional MLB-AAA-AA-A-rookie levels?  I did a bit of digging around, asking questions and came up with the following approximations.  Feel free to debate if you think otherwise.

Foreign Pro Leagues

• Japan: the Nippon Professional Baseball League rates, by various accounts, as a mid AAA-level talent league.  Baseball Prospectus’ Clay Davenport did a stat-heavy analysis in 2002 and concluded that the NPB was at least AAA level, perhaps close to MLB level.  However, the prevalence of mediocre players from the US going to Japan and being super-stars seems to indicate that Japan is no better than AAA, and may be a bit weaker.  And, not to claim this is about talent levels per race, but there have only been a very small number of Japanese-born players who were really impact players upon arriving here.
• Cuba: per Dave Cameron (mentioned in a chat, need the link) the “general consensus” is that the Cuban pro league is about a High-A level of talent.  I wonder if it isn’t higher though, given the immediate impact that a number of Cuban ex-patriots have had immediately upon their arrival in the US (Yasiel Puig, Jose Abreu being exhibits 1 and 1-a).  I wonder if this will start rising now that the embargo has eased and the Cuban government has begun allowing its players to legally play elsewhere.
• Taiwan/China: Taiwan had its own thriving baseball league for a bit, but merged it into the main Chinese league in 2003.  Given the small numbers of Taiwanese-born players who have made it to the majors, and the fact that the league serves mostly as a feeder into the Japanese league, its safe to say that the Chinese league is no better than a high-A level of talent.
• Korea: As with the Chinese leagues, Korea mostly feeds into the Japanese league.  High-A talent levels.  Might be on the rise though, as more and more 4-A/AAA veterans decamp for Korea instead of Japan.  That may be driven more by money than by competition though.
• European Leagues: Believe it or not, there are thriving baseball leagues all throughout Europe.  They even have multiple levels of play in certain countries (the Netherlands in particular).  However, based on the levels of talent of players that typically play in Europe, its hard to put the talent levels at anything close to our own Rookie leagues.  In fact, I’d suspect that most European pro teams are no better than a low division 1 college baseball program (such as GW or Catholic U’s teams).
• Mexican Summer League: listed as a AAA-quality league in places like Baseball-Reference, but studies have shown it isn’t anywhere close.  A-level talent.
• Leagues elsewhere: there’s leagues just about every where else; wikipedia searches turn up baseball leagues in Australia, Asia, the far pacific.  I didn’t do any research here, assuming that these leagues are one slight notch above amateur leagues in the US.

Winter Leagues

Davenport also did a bit of analysis on the various winter leagues in 2004; I’ve taken his recommendations and adjusted them based roughly on observation over the past few years, since the winter leagues have been shifting in terms of talent attracted in recent years.

Most players who go to winter leagues fall into one of three categories:

1. Natives of the country looking to provide support for their home town teams and home leagues (the Nats own Ramos, Flores, Pudge, Severino and Perez being good examples)
2. Players looking to get in additional work after an injury-filled year curtailed their seasons.
3. Players looking to work on a new pitch, a new swing or some other experimental part of their game.

So, the talent levels in these various leagues are usually all over the road.

• Dominican Winter League: Seemingly the “best” winter league, having the most ex-patriots playing in the US.  Davenport’s studies from earlier in the decade showed that the talent level is roughly equivalent to AAA talent, an opinion that I still maintain.  Our own Yunesky Maya tore up the DWL last winter, but struggled to be just a serviceable pitcher in Syracuse all year.
• Puerto Rico Winter League : seems to be the 2nd strongest Winter League, but with slightly fewer MLBers than in the DWL.  So we’ll call it AAA level, but weaker.
• Venezuela Winter League: The talent levels have dropped for a while, ever since political turmoil has taken over the country.  This is highlighted especially close to home in 2011 with the Wilson Ramos kidnapping case.  However, Nats farmhand Ryan Tatusko was kind enough to provide his opinion on the talent level and calls it “AAA talent.”   I think at best its a low AAA, as the league is clearly lower quality than Puerto Rico.  This last season’s version of the VWL seemed to be more talented that past versions though; perhaps this league is looking to challenge the DWL for pre-eminence in the winter leagues.
• Mexican Winter League: Its really hard to tell; the winter leagues are quite a bit better than the summer league, at least per Davenport’s studies.  Now?  I’d guess the MWL has degraded a bit and is probably on a par with Venezuela in terms of talent.  AA-level at best.

Other US-based Professional Leagues

• Arizona Fall League: the AFL rates somewhere between a AA and AAA level by and large, though for several reasons it rates as a very heavy hitter-league (pitcher workloads and ball-parks mostly).  Most of your pro teams send their top prospects from levels below AA and a number of AA and AAA (and even some guys who have MLB experience).  All told, that equates with a “good” AA league.  And since AA leagues are morphing into being populated with a team’s best prospects while AAA leagues are becoming repositories for “spare parts” for the MLB team, more and more the lines are blurred between AAA and AA in terms of “which team could really beat the other.”  Nationals fans saw this pretty clearly during Stephen Strasburg‘s minor league career; he was hit in AA but absolutely dominated AAA teams that seemed to be populated with backup catchers and backup infielders.
• Independent Leagues: generally rates somewhere around an A-ball or slightly higher equivalent, depending on the league.  They’re usually full of guys who got cut from the MLB rosters and a collection of older veterans trying to hang on.  So, the younger players are (arguably) below rookie-league/short-A levels but the veterans are probably in the AAA level, bringing an average to somewhere in the A-ball range.  Maybe that’s overrating the talent level in these leagues: if the guys typically playing there were that good … they’d still be on affiliated low-A and/or rookie league teams.   Here’s some quick estimates by league:
  • Atlantic League: High AA
  • American Association: High A
  • Can-Am League: High A
  • Frontier League: Low A

College Leagues

• Regular NCAA Division I College Teams are probably not even as good as a Rookie league team, when balancing the entirety of the roster’s depth.  I had this debate with my father recently, noting that the best Div-1 team in one recent year (South Carolina) was led by a pitcher (Mike Roth) who was a 31st round draft pick in 2011.  College teams only have 11.7 scholarships to use to field a team.  A good chunk of college teams are guys on partial scholarships or are complete walk-ons.  Good college teams may each have a number of pro prospects, but usually only 1 or 2 legitimate prospects.  On the flip side, even a rookie-level team is ENTIRELY comprised of players who were drafted, and will include high school players who signed in lieu of going to college because they were considered good enough at the time to risk signing.  A college team may use a hot pitcher to beat a pro team in a theoretical 3-game series every once in a while, but a team full of professional hitters are eventually going to utterly dominate typical college bullpens, Sunday starters and mid-week players.
• Top end NCAA Division 1 College Teams, as in teams that are populated with a ton of future Pro talent, are likely the equivalent of the Advanced Short season Short-A leagues like the NY Penn league.  The absolute best Div-1 teams (like a friday night match-up between nationally ranked SEC teams) may broach the equivalent of low-A teams, as discussed in this 2015 Kiley McDaniel chat here.   When a college junior is highly drafted, most scouts advise that they go to at least high-A as a first stop, often saying that they’d be wasting their time in Low-A.  Does this imply that high-end Division 1 teams are more the equivalent of Low-A teams?  It seems so, at least at the upper cream of the crop level.  Consider the talent level on the 2014-2015 Vanderbilt team with multiple first round picks, or the 2018 Florida/Oregone State teams (each of which had 3 first rounders); I’d guess that team on a whole could easily compete with some short-league teams comprised mostly of 20th and 30th round college draftees and perhaps higher.  (Post publishing update May 2016: this question came up in quora.com and LA Dodger’s pitcher Brandon McCarthy provided a great answer not to terribly different from mine here.  He thinks the best Div-1 teams would have a chance in a 7-game series against a low-A team, but would probably fall short due to pitching depth.
• Juco, Division II, Division III: Generally speaking a notch below the low-end Division I teams for obvious reasons.  Perhaps you could make an exception for some of the higher-end Juco leagues out there (like the league that Bryce Harper played in for one year to establish draft eligibility) and claim they’re of a low-division I quality, but that might be a stretch in the grand scheme of things.  So if these leagues aren’t even as strong as a low Division I team, they’re not even close to a pro-level quality.  (Post-publishing update Apr 2016); read the excellent commentary from former Juco player James  Pidutti, who gives some great context for the wide variety of talent in the Juco ranks these days).

 

Summer Wood-Bat Leagues

We have a thriving college wood bat league industry going on, with college players scattering all over the continent to play summer league baseball with wood bats.  Some of these leagues are better than others; you can write a whole analysis just to try to rank the leagues (in fact, I have, but I’ve yet to publish it because I’m not sure I have it exactly right), so I’ll just use general groupings to try to rank these leagues.

• Cape Cod League: By far the most dominant wood bat league.  These teams are basically Division I all star teams of players, and the numbers speak for themselves.  1100 alumni have played in the majors (about one out of every seven current major leaguers).  More than  half of the first round draftees last  year were Cape Cod players.  They are the self-proclaimed “greatest amateur league in the world” and there’s no argument.  So how would a Cape Cod team fare when stacked up against a pro league?  I’d put these a step above the best division 1 teams and say these are High-A equivalent teams.
• Northwoods League: After a step down from Cape Cod is Northwoods, who just had their 141st alumni debut in the majors.  The calibre of players is significantly lower than in the Cape: a quick gander at the rosters for 2015 found just a handful of players from “power conference” teams on each roster.  So I’m putting these teams at the same level as a “run of the mill” Division I team, or below a Rookie League team.
• The next tier of collegiate leagues, including Coastal Plains, New England Collegiate, West Coast, California Collegiate and the Alaska League: less talent than in Northwoods and thus even further away from any pro level.
• There are many more college leagues not mentioned here that probably rate as having even less talent than the already named leagues.  That includes our local leagues the Cal Ripken League and the Valley League.

Semi-Pro and Amateur Teams

I’m guessing that when the old Class-B/Class-C/Class-D leagues died out in the 50s, those players then began percolating into what we now see as an improved and thriving College baseball industry, Semi-Pro leagues scattered around the country, and the (now) official Indy league designation.  I always attribute the death of these low-class leagues to the advent of Television, which replaced the (usually) one source of nightly entertainment for small towns across America, which before the mid 50s would have been baseball.

Here in the DC area, there’s a “semi pro” league that is the combination of two long-standing leagues (the “Industrial League” and the “Credit Union” league) that features very good baseball.  Ex division-1 players, ex Pros, good baseball.  Back in the 50s this probably was a class-D level league (assuming that class-B was what has become the rookie leagues and class-C has morphed into the Independent leagues).

Summary

Here’s a table summarizing the above data, along with some clarifications from the comments after-the-fact, in order of best to least quality.  (Note; the cut-n-paste below is from 2012; see the descriptions above for some updates to league talents…).

League	US Pro Equivalent Estimate
Japan (NPB)	Mid AAA
Dominican Winter League	Mid AAA
Puerto Rican Winter League	Mid-Low AAA
Venezuelan Winter League	Low AAA/High AA
Arizona Fall League	Low AAA/High AA
Mexican Pacific (Winter)	High AA
Atlantic League (Ind)	High AA
Mexican Summer	High-A/Low AA
Cape Cod League	High-A
Cuba	High-A
Taiwan/China	High-A
Korea	High-A
American Association (Ind)	High-A
Can-Am League (Ind)	High-A
Frontier League (Ind)	Low-A
Top Division I (SEC)	Short-A
Other Independents	Rookie Ball
Division I run of the Mill	Below Rookie Ball
Northwoods League	Below Rookie Ball
European (Dutch, Italian)	Low Division 1
Other upper Tier Wood Bats	Low Division 1
Other Foreign (eg Australia)	Div II/Div III
Juco	Div II/Div III

Do you agree/disagree with these ratings?  Please feel free to comment and discuss.

 

 

 

The Nats have not had a consistent, quality, and reliable center fielder since 2005 (and even then it was arguable).  When the team moved here, Brad Wilkerson played most of the season in center field, put up a 103 ops+ and hit a bunch of homers while running around pre-game with packages of Skittles in his pocket.  Jim Bowden traded Wilkerson with a couple other guys for one year of Alfonso Soriano.  Since, then, here’s some of the guys who have played CF for us on a regular basis:

Preston Wilson
Endy Chavez
Ryan Church
Nook Logan
Marlon Byrd
Alex Escobar
Brandon Watson
Ryan Langerhans
Justin Maxwell
Brandon Watson
Lastings Milledge
Roger Bernadina
Elijah Dukes
Nyjer Morgan
Willie Harris
Corey Patterson

Half these guys are out of the league now, most of the rest are marginal players or backup outfielders.  In 2011, we had innings from Rick Ankiel, Jayson Werth and even Laynce Nix (who managed to put in 8 innings in center field but somehow not have a single play, resulting in a neutral zero for UZR/150).  But none of these guys is a long term CF solution, each for different reasons.

Is this the off season we end the madness and finally get a long term solution in center field?

I put together a spreadsheet of every Center Fielder option in the major leagues, threw in their age, salary, contract details, and three measures of their 2011 performance (OPS+, UZR/150 and bWAR).  That spreadsheet is here, for reference.  I’ll pull out the relevant details for each section below.

I’ve divided the CF options to consider into several categories below.

1. Current Washington CF options in-house

Player	Age	Team	Current Contract	2011 Salary	2011 OPS+	2011 UZR/150 CF only	2011 bWAR
Bernadina, Roger	27	Washington	Pre-Arb	$414,000	82	-16.6	0.8
Werth, Jayson	32	Washington	7yr/$126M->2017	$10,571,000	97	3	2.1

Bernadina, despite his defensive reputation, was actually rather awful in CF this year while putting up an 82 OPS+.  He’s now had more than a 1000 major league at-bats to show his worth.  The team should DFA him and move on.  Werth actually had a decent UZR/150 in center, albeit in a small sample size, hence why the team seems to be considering using him there on a more regular basis.  We also have a couple of other internal options in the minors:

• Corey Brown: though his successful designation to AAA says more about his future than I could say.  He’s gone from trade chip prospect to organizational guy in 2 seasons.
• Eury Perez: just ADDED to the 40-man, but more for protection purposes than because he’s ready.  He’s an option perhaps in mid-season 2013.
• Bryce Harper: I’d love to see Harper groomed to play CF and don’t understand why the team hasn’t taken more of an effort to do so.  His value as a power-hitting CF would far eclipse his value in a corner OF spot.  As it stands now though, he’s not a full time CF and he probably won’t be on the MLB roster until late June, IF he earns it.

So, we could stand pat, use Werth primarily in CF and pursue a corner outfielder in free agency.  But that still leaves a lead-off hole in our lineup and then probably also leaves a RF hole…

2. Franchise Players/Entrenched Starters/Longer Term Contract

Player	Age	Team	Current Contract	2011 Salary	2011 OPS+	2011 UZR/150 CF only	2011 bWAR
Ellsbury, Jacoby	27	Boston	Arb 2nd yr	$2,400,000	146	15.7	7.2
Granderson, Curtis	30	NY Yankees	5yr/$30M->2012	$8,250,000	138	-5	5.2
Hamilton, Josh	30	Texas	2yr/$24M->2012	$8,750,000	128	-3.3	3.6
Jones, Adam	25	Baltimore	Arb 2nd yr	$3,250,000	114	-8.5	1.7
Kemp, Matt	26	LA Dodgers	8yr/$160M->2019	$7,100,000	171	-4.7	10
McCutchen, Andrew	24	Pittsburgh	Arb 1st yr	$452,500	127	3.3	5.5
Pagan, Angel	29	NY Mets	Arb 4th yr	$3,500,000	93	-16	0.2
Victorino, Shane	30	Philadelphia	3yr/$22M->2012	$7,500,000	129	5.7	5.1
Young, Chris	27	Arizona	5yr/$28M->2013	$5,200,000	103	12.9	4.8

For the most part this is a list of the best CFs in baseball.  There’s almost no chance any of these teams are giving up these players in trade; they’re cornerstones, MVP candidates, or key players.

Angel Pagan isn’t a great CF, but he’s clearly the entrenched starter for the Mets, a team clearly in financial chaos.  Likewise, perhaps someone like Adam Jones could be put into the “franchise player” category (he’s not nearly the player as the rest of these guys), but he’s also entrenched in Baltimore.

Coincidentally, look at Ellsbury‘s stats.  Young, cheap, a 146 ops+, a 7.2war and a 15.7 UZR/150.  Is there a more complete player in baseball right now?  Matt Kemp certainly out hit him, but Ellsbury had the best UZR rating for any full time CFer in the majors while putting up his 30/30 season.

3. Recent Acquisitions

Player	Age	Team	Current Contract	2011 Salary	2011 OPS+	2011 UZR/150 CF only	2011 bWAR
Bourn, Michael	28	Atlanta	Arb 3rd Yr	$4,400,000	104	-6.2	5
Cabrera, Melky	26	San Francisco	Arb 4th yr	$1,250,000	121	-9.7	2.9
Jackson, Austin	24	Detroit	Pre-Arb	$440,000	89	8	2.4
Rasmus, Colby	24	Toronto	Arb 1st year	$443,000	89	-10.7	0.2
Schafer, Jordan	24	Houston	Pre-Arb	$414,000	74	-4.3	0.2

These guys aren’t necessarily the best CFs out there, but each of them was more or less just acquired, so presumably they’re not going anywhere ELSE this off-season.  Schaefer just got busted for drug possession, and seems to be in competition with Jason Bourgeois (listed later on), but both really underperformed this year and are not really good options for the Nats.

4. Younger Starters and Up and coming prospects

Player	Age	Team	Current Contract	2011 Salary	2011 OPS+	2011 UZR/150 CF only	2011 bWAR
Bourjos, Peter	24	LA Angels	Pre-Arb	$414,000	115	8	5
Cain, Lorenzo	25	Kansas City	Pre-Arb	$414,000	73	-38.8	0.1
Fowler, Dexter	25	Colorado	Arb 1st yr	$424,000	105	-6.8	1.2
Gomez, Carlos	25	Milwaukee	Arb 3rd Yr	$1,500,000	82	27.5	1.7
Jay, Jon	26	St. Louis	Pre-Arb	$416,000	114	3.2	1.3
Jennings, Desmond	24	Tampa Bay	Pre-Arb	$414,000	128	-7.1	2.3
Maybin, Cameron	24	San Diego	Pre-Arb	$429,100	103	11.6	2.9
Peterson, Brian	25	Miami	Pre-Arb	$414,000	105	13	0.5
Revere, Ben	23	Minnesota	Pre-Arb	$414,000	73	15.1	0.8
Stubbs, Drew	26	Cincinnati	Pre-Arb	$450,000	86	-2.2	2.9
Sweeney, Ryan	26	Oakland	Arb 2nd yr	$1,400,000	91	-5.9	0.8
Trout, Mike	19	LA Angels	Pre-Arb	$414,000	88	0	0.9

This is a list of mostly 2nd tier CFers in this league, but for the most part they’re pre-arbitration or still relatively affordable, and teams aren’t about to give up on them.  Peter Bourjos represents the Angel’s biggest problem in trying to find playing time next year for Mike Trout: he hits the ball well, he has great defense and he’s only 24.  However the Angels are dying for a catcher, which just so happens to be a strength for this team. Bourjos mostly batted at the bottom of their order, but seems like a natural leadoff hitter.

I put Sweeney in this list only because the entire starting Oakland OF hit free agency, and they’ll need to start SOMEONE in the outfield in 2012.   Lorenzo Cain looks set to be KC’s starter with the Cabrera trade, so I list him here despite his poor numbers in 2011 (besides that Kansas City isn’t exactly in a position to be trading away prospects right now).  Peterson looks like he could take over for Miami in center (see further down for a discussion on this effect on Chris Coughlan).

Best possibilities: The Nats sacrifice a catcher and a decent prospect haul for Bourjos.

5. Awful Contracts/Poor players/Veterans not interested in

Player	Age	Team	Current Contract	2011 Salary	2011 OPS+	2011 UZR/150 CF only	2011 bWAR
Davis, Rajai	30	Toronto	2yr/$5.75M->2012	$2,500,000	67	-17.5	-0.9
Gutierrez, Franklin	28	Seattle	4yr/$20M->2013	$4,312,500	53	27.1	-0.4
Hunter, Torii	35	LA Angels	5yr/$90M->2012	$18,000,000	115	-39.3	2.2
Milledge, Lastings	26	Chicago WS	Arb 2nd yr	$500,000	97	-82.2	-0.3
Morgan, Nyjer	30	Milwaukee	Arb 1st year	$450,000	111	13	2
Rios, Alex	30	Chicago WS	6yr/$64M->2014	$12,500,000	65	-7.4	-1.5

The list above includes two Washington castoffs (Milledge and Morgan), one of the worst contacts in baseball (Rios), two severe under performers (Davis and Gutierrez), and a guy who really doesn’t play CF anymore (Hunter).  There’s no appealing trade options here.

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Ok. now that we’ve seen who is likely NOT going to be options for us in 2012, lets look at those that could be options.

1. Cleveland’s CF log jam

Player	Age	Team	Current Contract	2011 Salary	2011 OPS+	2011 UZR/150 CF only	2011 bWAR
Brantley, Michael	24	Cleveland	Pre-Arb	$421,800	96	-12.8	2.2
Carrera, Ezequiel	24	Cleveland	Pre-arb	$414,000	72	-1.5	-0.5
Crowe, Trevor	27	Cleveland	Pre-arb	$435,700	61	66.6 *	-0.1

(Crowe’s 66.6 uzr/150 was a very small sample size and isn’t indicative one way or the other of his defensive prowness).

With Cleveland’s re-signing of Grady Sizemore to a one year incentive laden deal (guaranteed $5M, with $4M more in incentives), suddenly Cleveland has too many center fielders.  Sizemore, Carrera and Bradley all played about equal numbers of innings in center for the team last year, with Crowe throwing in a few more.  Brantley was essentially the starting left fielder but got 400-some innings in Center, and seems set to do the same this year with him and Sizemore switching back and forth.  That leaves Carrera and Crowe as “extra” outfielders for the team.  Crowe is a former 1st rounder who seems to have peaked as a 4-A guy, while Carrera just earned a callup for the first time in 2011.  For now both look like nothing better than 4th outfielders, so we’re looking elsewhere.

Best possibilities here: none

2. Veteran Trade Possibilities

Player	Age	Team	Current Contract	2011 Salary	2011 OPS+	2011 UZR/150 CF only	2011 bWAR
Borbon, Julio	25	Texas	Pre-Arb	$490,000	72	-9.6	-0.3
Bourgeois, Jason	29	Houston	Pre-Arb	$423,000	89	-6.2	2.3
Byrd, Marlon	33	Chicago Cubs	3yr/$15M->2012	$5,500,000	96	3.3	1.7
Coghlan, Chris	26	Miami	Arb 1st yr	$490,000	81	-12	-0.1
Gardner, Brett	27	NY Yankees	Arb 1st yr	$529,500	89	6.6	4.4
Gentry, Craig	27	Texas	Pre-Arb	$416,000	84	35	1.4
Quenton, Carlos	28	Chicago WS	Arb 3rd Yr	5,050,000	124	1.7 *	3.2
Span, Denard	27	Minnesota	5yr/$16.5M->2014	$1,000,000	91	17.6	2.6
Torres, Andres	33	San Francisco	Arb 2nd yr	$2,200,000	82	17.3	1.3
Upton, BJ	26	Tampa Bay	Arb 3rd Yr	$4,825,000	115	1.4	3.8

It is from this list that most of the current Nats trade rumors come.  Here’s some thoughts, roughly in alphabetical order:

• Julio Bourbon seems like a potential non-tender for now: Endy Chavez got most of the CF innings for the team but Hamilton can cover it well enough (as he did in the playoffs).  But they also have Craig Gentry.  Neither is that great an offensive player, but Gentry is a pretty good defensive player.  None of them solve our issues.
• Jason Bourgeois was mediocre both at the plate and in the field, and now Houston has acquired Schafer in trade, so he might be available in trade.  But what does he bring that Bernadina doesn’t?  We don’t need a replacement guy.
• Former Nat Marlon Byrd could be an interesting candidate; he wasn’t that bad in 2011, but is scheduled to get a salary bump in his last year.  He’s good in center, good at the plate, and plays in Chicago, which is going to be rebuilding and probably would take prospects in trade.  But, he’s 33, slowing down, and is a one-year solution.  Is that worth it?  Upton will be younger, better offensively, better defensively, and is reaching his peak, not going past it.
• Coughlan may be spare parts to Miami, that they have discovered the decent Brian Peterson.  But, as with others on this list, he’s not exactly in high demand.  He’s similar to Bernadina as well; 80-ish OPS+ and sub-average defense in CF.
• Brett Gardner is listed here since he’s a center fielder stuck in LF in New York, and since we think that the Yankees could be talked into a trade since they’re hurting in a couple of areas where we have prospect depth.  However, he’s also one of the few pre-arbitration starters on that team and even a team with $200M payroll sees the value in a cost contained player.  I think trading for him is an impossibility.  Someone suggested Peacock and Desmond for Gardner as a trade in a Keith Law chat and he openly laughed at it.  So the Nats have to ask themselves what it would take to get someone like Gardner before entertaining this question.
• There’s only two guys on this list with an OPS+ over 100; BJ Upton and Carlos Quenton.  I included Quenton here because his name persistently pops up in various blogs as a trade possibility. However, a quick check of his Fangraphs page shows that he isn’t a center fielder.  He doesn’t have a single Major League inning in center, ever.  So he’s not a center fielder, and doesn’t solve our issues.  (His 1.7 uzr/150 is in Right Field, not center).  The only way he’d make sense is if we went with Werth full time in Center and put him in RF.  But even given that, he’s only under club control for one more year before hitting FA, so he’s essentially a rental.
• Denard Span is signed to a very club-friendly contract, is a fantastic defender, and wasn’t half bad at the plate this year.  Why is he available?  Because he went down in June with what appeared to be a mild concussion, and was out 2 months.  And in his absence, the Twins promoted 23-yr old Ben Revere, who seemed to ably hold down the job.  The Twins might be in rebuilding mode after a 90 loss season and could entertain some longer-term moves.  We’ve traded with them in the past and they definitely have some needs (a closer for one)  Drew Storen for Denard Span?  Jon Heyman tweeted on 11/19 though that the Nats already asked about both players and were rebuffed.  We’ll see if that’s just a negotiating ploy.
• Andres Torres just lost his job in San Francisco with their acquisition of Cabrera, and could be on the trading block.  He’s great in the field but can’t hit, as is our own FA Rick Ankiel, and if the team was going to settle you would think we’d re-sign one of our own.
• BJ Upton, of course, is listed as our trade candidate #1, for the obvious reasons.  He’s easily the best centerfielder available.  Decent OPS+, better than average Uzr/150, and a pretty good 3.8 war.  He’s not going to be cheap, hence the reason that cost-conscious Tampa is considering a non-tender.  We could trade for him, to guarantee that we get him before the free-for-all that would occur if he hit the open market, but (rightly so) how much would we want to give up for a guy who probably wants to hit the open market in a year’s time?  Would we demand a negotiating window to try to extend him?

Best alternatives here: Upton, Span, Byrd, Gardner.

3. Free Agents; actual Cfers

Player	Age	Team	Current Contract	2011 Salary	2011 OPS+	2011 UZR/150 CF only	2011 bWAR
Ankiel, Rick	31	FA (Wash)	FA	$1,500,000	81	11.6	2.1
Cameron, Mike	38	FA (Mia)	FA	$7,250,000	74	17.7	-0.8
Cespedes, Yoenis	25	FA (Cuba)	FA	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a
Chavez, Endy	33	FA (Texas)	FA	$1,250,000	95	9.3	0.8
Crisp, Coco	31	FA (Oak)	FA	$5,250,000	91	-6.7	2.1
Hairston, Scott	31	FA (NYM)	FA	$1,100,000	112	6.1	1.6
McLouth, Nate	29	FA (Atl)	FA	$7,000,000	89	-28.9	0.7
Patterson, Corey	31	FA (STL)	FA	$900,000	70	5.5	0.9
Wise, Dewayne	33	FA (Tor)	FA	$414,000	44	22.2	-0.4

Here it is; the list of FA center fielders.

• Ankiel is the known quantity; he hit .239 but was very good in center.
• Mike Cameron may be 38 but he’s still an excellent CFer; unfortunately his offense was awful.
• Cespedes is a complete unknown quantity; scouts compare him to a younger Sammy Sosa with power and speed.  But the Cuban leagues equate roughly to a High-A level of talent, so you’d be paying $30-$40M for a guy who’s still 2 years away.  This doesn’t help us in 2012.
• Former Nat Endy Chavez put together an excellent season in Texas; I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see him re-sign with the team and make another playoff run.  In fact, if I was Chavez I’d take less money to do so.
• Coco Crisp: barely a center fielder anymore and a 91 ops+.  Stay away.
• Scott Hairston had a 112 OPS+ as a 4th outfielder for the Mets, but in limited time.  Pagan was clearly the starter and Hairston bounced around the field.  He’s more of a utility player than a starter,but that didn’t hamper his brother this season.
• McClouth has had such a bad couple of seasons I’d be surprised if anyone gives him a major league contract.  Maybe he really should be in the next category (for “cf’s that aren’t really center-field capable anymore).
• Patterson was 8 for 56 after a mid-season trade to St. Louis.  He’s in the same boat as McLouth; he’s looking at a minor league contract for a team ready to take a flier on him.
• Wise‘s bat is so bad, he’s got a career 62 ops+.

Where’s the long-term solution here?  Answer: there doesn’t seem to be one.

Best possibilities: pursue Chavez and get him to leave Texas, or to sign Hairston and hope that he can put together those kind of numbers for a full season starting in CF.

4. Free Agents: not really CFs any more

Player	Age	Team	Current Contract	2011 Salary	2011 OPS+	2011 UZR/150 CF only	2011 bWAR
Dejesus, David	31	FA (Oak)	FA	$6,000,000	93	-76.2	0.6
Johnson, Reed	34	FA (Chi Cubs)	FA	$900,000	122	-35.1	1.3
Jones, Andruw	34	FA (NYY)	FA	$3,200,000	122	-24.6	0.9
Pierre, Juan	33	FA (CWS)	FA	$8,500,000	80	-10.7	0
Ross, Cody	30	FA (SF)	FA	$6,300,000	105	-2.6	1.6
Sizemore, Grady	28	FA (Cle)	1yr $5M 2012	$7,666,667	95	-17.2	0.5

(Sizemore already re-signed for Cleveland to join their log jam of CF-eligible outfielders).

All these guys are listed as CF-capable by MLBtraderumors, but really none are CFs anymore.  A cursory glance at their UZR/150s should indicate as much.  Only Cody Ross really could still hold his own in Center.  I like Cody Ross; he’s used to the NL East, he’s a great clubhouse guy, and he’d improve his offensive numbers by getting out of San Francisco.   I’m not sure if Ross solves our problem; the rest of these guys are corner-outfielders mostly in the same category as our own corner-OF free agents Laynce Nix and Jonny Gomes.

Best Possibilities: Ross.

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Conclusion

All signs indicate that the team is either going to work a trade.  But I wouldn’t mind a one-year stop gap signing either in order to not deviate from “the plan” in order to overpay for someone.

If we’re willing to burn some prospects, I’d say our priorities are (in order): Upton, Gardner, Bourjos and Span.

If we’re going for a one-year stop gap, I’d say our best options are Byrd, Ross, and Hairston.

If we’re willing to sacrifice offense to find a plus-defender in CF, then I say we just re-sign Ankiel and wait another year.  Or perhaps consider Chavez or Torres.

Per a tweet from The Nationals official account late friday 11/18, the Nats have protected:

• 1B Tyler Moore
• C Derek Norris
• C Jhonatan Solano
• OF Eury Perez

The first two were predictable, especially Norris, who has been on the Nats top prospect lists for several years now.  Moore has two 30-homer seasons running and could be putting his name in the mix for at least a bench spot soon.

The other two names were perhaps also predictable, once both international free agent signings were understood to be eligible, but may also indicate some directions this team may be going.  Solano wasn’t on anyone’s radar a year ago, when he was first eligible for the Rule5 draft.  He was a late 2005 international FA signee at the later age of 20, putting him first Rule-5 eligible last year.   However this year he eventually took over as the full time catcher at AAA and held his own, hitting .275 in 255 ABs and solidifying his being the first line of defense if either Ramos or Flores gets hurt.  So protecting him and keeping him at the ready in Syracuse is important.  This could also pave the way for a transaction involving (most likely) Flores, with Solano coming up to back-up Ramos for a year or so until Norris is MLB ready.  A quick look around the league easily shows that the catcher depth charts are weak, everywhere, and Solano could easily have gotten snapped up had he not been protected.

Perez is a wise addition.  Frankly I didn’t realize (nor did Zuckerman, or anyone else that was looking at this) that he was rule-5 eligible.  He signed with the Nats as a 16yr old in the Dominican Republic and just finished his 5th pro year, meaning (sure enough) he was rule5 eligible this year.  Shame on us for not noticing.  Perez has been on many top-10 prospect lists, has been steadily moving up the system and could be a mid-season 2013 candidate for the big team.  He may still be green enough to not really appear on our own OF depth chart radar, but that doesn’t mean someone else with major holes in the outfield (ahem, Oakland Athletics) wouldn’t have scooped him up without protection.

My predictions for protection included Moore and Norris, Komatsu and Meyers.  I would not be surprised in the least if Meyers was picked up by a team looking for starting pitching help.  He’s got a similar pedigree to Brian Broderick, who we snatched from St. Louis last year in an attempt to find pitching.  I’m slightly surprised the team decided Meyers was not worth protecting.  He’s been a solid starter steadily advancing through the system and seems to have fully recovered from his injury issues of a couple years past.  He was 6-5 with a 3.48 ERA once arriving in AAA last season, having dominated in his first 6 AA starts to earn the promotion.  He’s projected for the 2012 Syracuse rotation again though and isn’t mentioned as a candidate for the Nat’s rotation competition this coming spring (absent a FA signing we seem to basically be full-up, and Meyers probably is the 3rd or 4th best pitcher slated for AAA).  So the Nats clearly decided they could part with their 9th best starting pitcher in the system, given the talent they’ve drafted recently (Purke, Meyers) and the talent they have rising up quickly (Cole, Solis, Ray).  Fair enough.

Meanwhile, it seems that the team is rolling the dice with Komatsu, who was putting in a strong AA season in Milwaukee’s system before coming over in the Hairston trade and finishing the season hitting .234 in Harrisburg.  Upon further review, I’d say that the odds are that nobody’s selecting a right fielder with very little home-run power in the Rule 5 draft.  Maybe that was a bad prediction 🙂