Nationals Arm Race

https://www.mlb.com/nationals/news/nationals-no-trades-2020-trade-deadline

The Nats on 8/31/20 are 12-20.  They have the second worst record in the NL.  They have the 5th worst record in the majors.  But thanks to the crazy 2020 playoff structure they sit just 3.5 games out of a Wild Card spot.  They’ve had season-ending injuries or opt-outs of multiple planned core players; they’ve lost to presumed rotation members in Joe Ross and Stephen Strasburg, they’ve lost a middle-of-the-order off-season acquisition bat in Starlin Castro.  They’ve lost both their lefty specialist relievers in Roenis Elias and Sam Freeman.  They lost an important bench bat/team leader in Ryan Zimmerman.  They’re now throwing out AAA starters twice every five games, and have had severely disappointing seasons from a slew of players they were counting on (Anibel Sanchez, Adam Eaton, Carter Kieboom, Eric Thames, Daniel Hudson, Sean Doolittle, and so on).

So what did they do at the deadline?  Zip.  Nothing.  Nada.

Maybe the farm system is now so utterly depleted (given that they’ve already called up their consensus #1, #2, #5 and #10 prospects on the year with little impact) that they couldn’t offer enough in trade to actually acquire someone they wanted.   Perhaps more to the point, the price tag it would have taken to acquire starters (given the spate of pitcher injuries this year and the competition in the area) may have been too high for the team’s taste (how pissed would you be if they had flipped someone like Jackson Rutledge or Cade Cavalli yesterday for a 3rd starter one-month rental?).   It seems foolish to think they have the cavalry coming in to help; right now the only 10-day DL player they have is Seth Romero, who is only up because they needed a lefty bullpen arm.  Brock Holt?  That’s not a savior.  Neither is Josh Harrison (though to be honest he has hit well).  So I guess the plan is to assume that all those veterans listed above who have sucked so far are short sample size regression to the mean candidates and they’ll be rebounding … within the next few days?

Meanwhile, the rest of the division at least tried to improve:

• the Braves traded for Tommy Milone.  ok that’s not that impressive a move, but its a move
• the Phillies acquired a decent middle reliever
• the Mets acquired a 3B, a C, a reliever in a flurry of deadline moves
• the Marlins of all teams acquired Starling Marte from Arizona.

Not earth shattering moves, but it is notable that the Braves lead the division with a rotation that’s being held together with scotch tape, and they just acquired Milone to fill in because he’s better than whatever else they apparently have at their disposal (remember when people shuddered at the pipeline of starters in the Atlanta system?  yeah’ they’ve all crapped the bed this year).

So, what to make of this?  Are you happy they did nothing?  did we want a sell-off?  Or do we have confidence they can turn it around and squeak into the crap-shoot playoffs for 2020?

Will Crowe gets the call. Photo via SportsTalk

Word today that Strasburg is having surgery on his wrist and is heading to 60-day DL, effectively ending his season.  Wil Crowe becomes the latest Nats top-10 prospect (behind Kieboom, Garcia, Romero ) to get called up this season and attempt to keep the team afloat.  By most rankings, the Nats current #1, #2, and #4 prospects are now active (plus wherever you think Romero ranks, anywhere between 10 and 14 on most boards).  Suddenly its looking like a youth movement in Washington.  (side note: our farm system is going to be dead last next year if all these guys exhaust rookie eligiblity).

Is Strasburg’s injury unsurpassable for this team?  Eh, probably not; he was already hurt but in his absence the team is sputtering along playing about .400 ball.

Of course, in the 2020 crazy season, .400 ball only puts them like a game out of the wild card.  Eight teams out of the NL make it, meaning that ST Louis (currently sitting at 7-8) is in playoff position.  So the Nats at 9-13 are … 1.5 games back?  My math is a little fuzzy on “games back” logic right now given differing numbers of games played.  So a weekend sweep suddenly rockets the team back into play off position.

The larger question is this: The Nats are losing piece after piece, and I wonder how long they conintue to hold on.  Both lefty relievers are done, their #2 starter done, their FA second baseman signing done.   They were already down a 5th starter thanks to Joe Ross‘ opt out.  I mean, i’m glad to see all these prospets coming up; its great to be able to actually see these guys play.  But man, can this team hold on?

Luckily for the Nats … the “class” of the division (Atlanta) is just 4 games ahead, and themselves seem to be falling apart too.  Maybe its a race of attrition until October.

Romero gets the call. Photo via milb.com

I first saw this tidbit on Keith Law‘s chat today and was kind of shocked.  Then i confirmed it via the nats transaction page; Seth Romero has been called up.  Thanks to a spate of injuries and ineffectiveness-driven-dl trips (ahem Sean Doolittle), the Nats bullpen suddenly has zero left handers, and Romero has reportedly been impressing the Nats brass in Fredericksburg.

So he’s up.  Big board updated as well as the Draft tracker for all our still-signed draftees (everyone is now either Washington, Fredericksburg or XST for 2020).

So, part of me is not entirely surprised at this move … despite his limited minor’s experience, he’s rule-5 eligible this coming off-season (as is all the rest of the college-aged 2017 draftees, most notably Wil Crowe), so it seemed  highly likely that the team would be adding him at some point anyway.  He’s far enough past the deadline to ensure an extra year of control.  And they have a need.  I suppose they could have tapped a few of the other options they have in Fredericksburg (Matt Cronin and Nick Wells are both lefty and both relievers) … but having Romero up seems to give a higher-ceiling guy in the pen.

I gotta say; quite a turn of fortune for Romero after all he’s gone through.  Can’t wait to see him throw against real MLB hitters.

this by the way makes for the following roster chagnes:

• 28/28 on active roster: Freeman, Doolittle to DL, Harris back, Romero called up.
• 38/40: Romero added to 40-man
• 57/60 on extended; no change here.

Samuel Infante has some pretty wide variety of initial rankings in the various prospect lists. Photo via BaseballFactory.com

Just a couple days after Fangraphs announced their mid-season updates, MLBPipeline did as well.

No changes from their Mar 2020 list other than to include three of our 2020 draft picks.  Lets talk about where they got inserted:

• 2020 1st rounder Cade Cavalli slots in at #4 in the system, which is exactly where BA and Fangraphs put him, and behind the exact top 3 that everyone has for the system (Kieboom, Garcia, Rutledge).  Consistent.
• 2020 2nd rounder Cole Henry slots in at #6 in our system per MLB, about where BA has him but ahead of where Fangraphs put him.  I think i’m ok with this ranking, given that he’s behind Wil Crowe but ahead of two very young starter prospects in Eddy Yean and Andry Lara.
• 2020 supp 2nd rounder Samuel Infante comes in at #26, well down the list and well below either BA or fangraphs.  #26 in a system is nearly non-prospect territory, and puts him below Jackson Cluff.  Who would you rather have?  Infante or Cluff?

The addition of these three guys bumps the following players off the back end of hte top 30:   Jakson Reetz, Jhonatan German and … Nick Raquet.

Henry makes fangraph’s top 10. Photo via ai.com

A small diversion from the Nats increasingly awful 4-7 (the equivalent of 11-19 in a full season) start to the abbreviated season…currently in line for the 5th draft pick in 2021 and somehow missing the “basically everyone makes the playoffs” 2020 post-season.

We posted a couple weeks ago about Baseball America’s updated prospect rankings with our 2020 draftees … now by inference Fangraphs has done the same.  They announced today that “The Board” has been updated with bonus amounts (which must have been an amazing amount of work to do, especially to track down bonuses for post 11th rounders and for all the random July 2nd picks who don’t exactly go out of their way to announce paltry bonus figures), and I noticed our 2020 picks included in their system rankings.

So, here’s some quick notes on our 2020 draftees and how they slotted in:

• 1st rounder Cade Cavalli pops up as our 4th ranked prospect, right after Jackson Rutledge.  This is basically what BA did as well.
• 2nd rounder Cole Henry is ranked 10th, as compared to BA’s 5th.  This puts him just ahead of the likes of Tim Cate and Seth Romero and seem a more appropriate ranking spot than the lofty heights that BA put him.
• 2nd round supp pick Samuel Infante is placed 18th as compared to BA’s 10th.  This puts him well below Yasiel Antuna and right in the same range as Jackson Cluff.
• 3rd rounder UCLA closer Holden Powell did not make the top 24 ranked players, as compared to BA’s ranking of 14.  This mean’s Holden is well below the other relievers ranked in our system, including Matt Cronin, James Bourque and Tyler Dyson.  Again, a more sane ranking than what BA did.

Otherwise Fangraphs’ rankings are unchanged from their Dec 2019 ranking, which means they continue to exclude some names from their list altogether that some Nats fans may call out.  Guys like Jake Irvin, Jackson Tetreault, Cole Freeman, Tres Barrera, Ben Braymer, Jhonatan German and Steven Fuentes get no love from the Fangraphs duo of Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel.

Kieboom still #1 … but not for long. Photo via Federal Baseball

Hey, we’re half a week into the season, the Nats are 1-3, are already on their 7th string starting pitcher, havn’t had their star player play b/c he apparently got a false-positive Covi19 test, managed to lose a game where Corbin gave up one hit through six innings against perhaps the best team in the majors.  Oh, and half the Marlins have tested positive for Covid19 and the Nats just basically voted as a team to boycott the next trip to Miami.

Other than that, Mrs Lincoln, how was the play?

Lets talk Prospects instead for a bit.  In the midst of the race to restart the season, Baseball America reported out its updated top 30 prospects for all teams.  Here’s the Nats version.  I’m not sure if this is or isn’t behind a paywall (I’m a BA subscriber so I don’t know but suspect it is), so here’s the overall list.

1. Carter Kieboom, SS/2B
2. Luis Garcia, SS/2B
3. Jackson Rutledge, RHP
4. Cade Cavalli, RHP
5. Cole Henry, RHP
6. Wil Crowe, RHP
7. Tim Cate, LHP
8. Drew Mendoza, 1B
9. Andry Lara, RHP
10. Mason Denaburg, RHP
11. Sammy Infante, SS
12. Yasel Antuna, SS
13. Seth Romero, LHP
14. Holden Powell, RHP
15. Tres Barrera, C
16. Eddy Yean, RHP
17. Jeremy De La Rosa, OF
18. Matt Cronin, LHP
19. Jake Irvin, RHP
20. Jackson Cluff, SS
21. Tyler Dyson, RHP
22. Reid Schaller, RHP
23. Israel Pineda, C
24. Ben Braymer, LHP
25. Cole Freeman, 2B/OF
26. James Borque, RHP
27. Joan Adon, RHP
28. Jackson Tetreault, RHP
29. Malvin Pena, RHP
30. Nick Banks, OF

So, its basically the exact same top 30 published with the BA handbook in February, but inserting the 2020 draftees.  Four of our six 2020 picks have made the top 30 list:

4. Cade Cavalli, RHP
5. Cole Henry, RHP
11. Sammy Infante, SS
14. Holden Powell, RHP

These four players push off the guys ranked 27th-30th in February, namely:

27. Steven Fuentes, RHP
28. Jakson Reetz, C
29. Nick Raquet, LHP
30. Jhonatan German, RHP

—–

thoughts overall:

• I think the placement of Cavalli and Henry at 4th and 5th makes sense.  They slot in behind the more established 1st round starter in Rutledge, but ahead of the more accomplished but more ceiling-limited Crowe.
• Infante at #11 just ahead of Antuna is … interesting.  I mean, I understand Antuna’s shine is off a bit, but we’re still talking about a guy who at Infante’s age played an entire season at full-A and who got nearly 4x the signing bonus.
• Powell placed at #14 when Cronin is #18??  Um; did you guys SEE what Cronin did to Low-A last  year in his pro debut?  Enough to get put on the damn 60-man roster a few months later.  You mean to tell me you think Powell’s side-arm closer action is projecting better than Cronin right now?
• Hey, that Nick Raquet ranking in February is aging great.
• So is that Barrera ranking; before the 2020 draft BA nearly had him as a top 10 prospect.  I know we’re weak on hitters but … damn.
• Raudy Read is nowhere to be found, but he beats out both Barrera and Reetz to make the opening day 30-man roster.  Something is amiss here.
• Talk about bad timing for a pandemic-induced cancellation of the minor league season for two guys inparticular: Seth Romero and Mason Denaburg.   Two first rounders who desperately needed playing time this year.  Ah well.

Verlander makes his 12th career opening day start, putting him in the clear lead. Photo via sporting News.

Every year I update this long-running XLS for this increasingly anachronistic relic of tracking Opening Day Starter honors for teams.  But it does make for some good trivia questions.

After this year’s opening day, which involved few fans and

• Most Opening Day Starts, Active Leaders:
  • Justin Verlander makes his 12th career Opening day start, double the next closest competitor now.
  • Next closest are two veterans, each of which who has 8 career opening day starts, neither of which made 2020 opening day starts (Clayton Kershaw and Jon Lester).
  • Special mention of Felix Hernandez, who is technically active with the Braves but is not on their 40-man roster.  He has 11 but seems like a longshot to make another.
• Current Leading Consecutive streak:
  • 3; shared by Verlander, Max Scherzer and Aaron Nola
  • Julio Teheran had a streak of 6 broken this year; he signed with the Angels in the off-season
• Number of first-time Opening Day Starters in 2020: 18 of 30
  • Soroka, Alcantara, Hendricks, Woodruff, Musgrove, Flaherty, Marquez, May, Paddock, Milone, Eovaldi, Morton, Giolito, Bieber, Boyd, Heaney, Montas, Lynn
  • This is easily the highest number of 1st time opening day starters since I started tracking this.
• Most surprising opening-day starters in 2020:
  • Tommy Milone getting the opening day start for Baltimore.  Just crazy.
  • Sonny Gray getting his 3rd career opening day start, 5 years after last getting one for Oakland.
  • Johnny Cueto getting his 5th career opening day start, also 5 years after his last.
  • Trevor May, who gets a last minute spot start filling in for the injured Kershaw.  The rich keep getting richer out in LA; he was more than adequate, quite a showing for a guy who would normally be in AAA yet could clearly make nearly every other rotation in the league.

Historically, here’s the all-time record holders:

• Most Ever Opening day Starts: Tom Seaver with 16.  Tied for 2nd place with 14 is Jack Morris, Randy Johnson and Steve Carlton
• Most Consecutive Opening Day Starts: Jack Morris, all of whom’s 14 opening day starts were in a row.

Hope you enjoy this useless trivia!

Romero back in consideration. Photo via UHcougars.com

Nats have announced their 60-man roster for the new, weird 2020 season, and the announcement has all sorts of new and weird names.

As I’ve updated the Big Board for all these moves, here’s some observations about those names added surprisingly, and those equally surprisingly left behind.

First off; the team has named their “28-man” roster and we have some telling facts as to who did and did not make it

• SP: Scherzer, Strasburg, Corbin, ASanchez, JRoss, Voth
• RP: Doolittle*, Hudson, Harris, Rainey, Suero, Elias*, Harper, AWilliams
• C: Suzuki, Gomes
• INF: Turner, Cabrera, Kendrick, Castro, Thames, Zimmerman, Difo, CKieboom
• OF: Eaton, Robles, Soto, Taylor
• 60-day DL: Sanchez (achilles)

So, we first see the end of the original spring training “battles.”  Austin Voth has indeed beaten out Erick Fedde for the 6th starter spot.  Austen Williams has held off other 40-man guys like Aaron Barrett and newly acquired Kyle Finnegan for the last bullpen spot.  Wilmer Difo was gifted the last utility man spot over Adrian Sanchez, who apparently has torn his Achilles Heel and probably mises the entire season.  And lastly (no real suprise here but) Michael Taylor has apparently beaten out Andrew Stevenson for the 4th outfielder spot.  No other real surprises here.

This leaves the remaining 10 players who are on the “40-man” but not on the active 28-man roster:

• SP: Fedde, McGowin, Braymer*
• RP: Finnegan, Barrett, Bourque
• C: Read, Barrera
• INF: Noll
• OF: Stevenson

So right now the 40-man sits at 38 players.

Next, we have this new list of players now on the “60-man” roster.   Here’s a nice primer on how the 60-man roster will work, but in essence the 60-man pool defines who can and cannot play on the major league team in 2020, and 60-man additions/removals now involve waivers as if they were already 40-man players.

So, who is now on the Nats’ 60-man roster?  A whole slew of original 2020 Spring Training NRIs plus a bunch of new ones.  Here’s the list by position:

• SP: Cate*, Crowe, Espino, Fuentes, Irvin, Romero*, Rutledge
• RP:  Abad, Adon, Bacus, Cronin*, Eppler, Freeman*,Guerra, Quackenbush, Wells*
• C: Castillo, Reetz
• Inf: Garcia, Snyder
• OF: Bonifacio, Hernandez

So that’s another 22 players on top of the 38 40-man guys, equaling exactly 60 players.  Nine of these players had to be newly-invited to spring training (see the june transactions for these players), and they all happened to be arms.  Here’s some thoughts on these 9 newly invited players.

• Joan Adon; may seem like a curious choice, but he’s Rule5-eligible this coming off-season (a 2016 IFA) and showed some promise as a full time starter last year in Hagerstown.
• Tim Cate has impressed so far, forcing a promotion last year to high-A.  He’s only ever started for the team, but as an undersized lefty may be a bullpen piece at some point going forward.  He’s the kind of guy who could feature in the MLB pen this year before returning to the rotation next summer in AA.
• Tyler Eppler was a MLFA signing who was pretty effective as a starter in AAA in 2018, then missed all of last year.  I’ll bet he could be a spot starter or middle relief guy right now in the majors.
• Jake Irvin could be a bit of an aggressive invitee; he only pitched at Low-A last year and I’m not sure he’s ready for MLB hitters.  He’s not in rule-5 jeopardy for another year; a curious call-up.
• Jackson Rutledge is another perhaps pre-mature call-up; he was our 2019 1st rounder and only threw 37 pro innings last  year.  Do they really plan on featuring him in the majors this year?
• Matt Cronin was basically unhittable last year, giving up just 2 runs in 22 innings in his pro debut at Low-A … but it was Low-A.  Of course, he is a reliever and may be able to feature in short stints effectively, but he is some what surprising to see called up here.
• Steven Fuentes is a favorite among Nats prospect-watchers, who missed time last summer thanks to a PED suspension but still put up stellar numbers and somehow passed through rule5 after showing some pretty dominant stuff there.
• Seth Romero is who he is; we’ve all drawn our lines in the sand with him.  He’s likely here because of the investment the team has made in him, and the fact that he’ll be rule5 eligible this off-season.  I sense the team is rapidly attempting to figure out just what they have with the guy before they consider whether to protect him on the 40-man roster next fall.
• Nick Wells is another interesting call up; he’s through six pro seasons now and has yet to get out of A-ball.  But he’s a lefty and perhaps the team sees some lefty reliever in him.

——

Lastly, here’s some of the players who did NOT get added to the 60-man (at least not yet; If i understand the rules correctly they can be added later, but someone else on 60-man then has to correspondingly be dumped):

• Original 2020 NRIs like Jacob Wilson, Carlos Tocci, Taylor Gushue, Brian Bonnell and Jhonatan German: most of these guys are still under contract, but a couple (Tocci and Bonnell) were MLFAs and might be on the cut line.
• Other MLFA signings who didn’t make the cut, guys like Jecksson Flores and rule5 addition Manuel Geraldo; wonder where they stand going forward.
• Mario Sanchez; after all the consternation of whether to protect him, and whether he was a MLFA or not … he’s not on the 60-man
• A slew of long-serving minor league farm hand hitters, guys like Cole Freeman, Nick Banks, Rafael Bautista, Rhett Wisemann; what does the future hold for these guys?
• Jackson Tetreault; he was so good in high-A but struggled in AA, and is passed over for guys who didn’t even make it to high-A last year.  He’s also rule5 eligible; not that I think he’s in jeopardy of being taken, but I wonder where he stands with the org now.
• Drew Mendoza: he’s gotta be loving the new DH rule; if he’s the hitter he’s supposed to be, why isn’t he in camp somewhere?

————

Good to have some moves to analyze.

I alluded to this in comments on the previous thread…. but it is a question worth asking.

Here’s the rough timeline for the 2020 season:

• Friday, June 26: Transactions freeze ends at noon ET
• Sunday, June 28: Teams must submit 60-man player pool names by 3 p.m. ET
• Wednesday, July 1: Teams report to Training Camp 2.0
• Friday, July 24: New Opening Day
• Monday, August 31: Trade deadline (usually July 31)
• Tuesday, September 15: Players must be on big league roster to be eligible for postseason

So, notably, here we sit not even to July 1 yet, and we have the following issues:

• One third of MLB teams have already reported players or staff testing positive out of their facilities.   The Rangers front-office staff had a run after being mandated to report to work (that was nice of their management)
• Florida and Arizona are hot-spots for a new “wave” of CoronaVirus outbreaks.   Here’s Florida’s map of cases showing a huge up-tick over the past few days.
• Arizona in particular now leads the WORLD in per-capita cases.  Here’s Arizona’s chart of cases lately.
• Toronto is in Canada.  Canada has a) banned “non-essential” travel to and from the US, and b) requires 14-day quarantine of incoming visitors.  So where precisely is Toronto going to play?

MLB has a plan, of course.  And true to MLB fashion, its vague and arguable throughout.  Per the “contingency plan” they can stop the season if:

1.  if restrictions on travel throughout the country are imposed;
2. if the season poses “an unreasonable health and safety risk to players or staff to stage those games,”; and
3. if the competitive integrity of the season is compromised by the number of players who are available.

Those aren’t “or” clauses; they’re “and” clauses.  Meaning all 3 need to take effect.  #2 in particular seems particularly vague enough to basically never be agreed as being true by the 35-40% of this country that still seems to think this pandemic is a joke or a media invention.

I mean, what do you do if the virus hits a team and knocks out a third of their roster?  You can’t possibly ask them to keep playing with a bunch of minor leaguers.  That clearly compromises the integrity of the season.  Meanwhile, we already have players like our own Ryan Zimmerman make pretty cogent arguments that they’re in really tough spots personally to expose themselves to three months of high-risk travel and group settings (If you’re Zimmerman, with an immuno-compromised parent and a small child at home … what would YOU do?)

I dunno.  I think its a frigging mess.  As much as I like baseball and want a season to discuss and analyze, as much as I want to see Max Scherzer vs Gerritt Cole on opening day … part of me thinks we’re gonna get to mid-July and there’s going to be huge roadblocks to play.   We’ll see I suppose.

When our 60-man roster is announced i’ll do another post to talk about it.

Post-publishing addition: I completely forgot to add in concerns  about (some of which was mentioned in the comments):

• our foreign players actually being able to fly HERE
• our foreign players actually being allowed to fly home.
• state-based flying restrictions just announced.
• the fact that the DC mayor has apparently banned large gatherings and the Nats may not be able to train at home.

just so many issues.

Thanks to uncertain times, the 2020 draft class from a “local” perspective has been … well gutted.

Not one player that I can find with ties to Maryland or Washington DC was drafted.  Just two players with ties to Virginia were drafted in the 5 round 2020 draft (who i’ve listed in the section below), both Virginia Tech players.  Not one UVA player selected, meaning they retain a huge chunk of their class heading into next season, not the least of which is Nate Savino, who reclassified to skip his senior  year of HS, go to school … only to have the season cancelled.

how many of these players are NDFA candidates?  Hard to say; but some will be looking at pressure/competition for their partial scholarships, which means we’ll see some movement.

—

First draft of this post?  6/9/17, when a freshman (!) was named 2nd team all-Met.  A few years on-wards we know that freshman in particular (Jack Bulger) has become a significant national prospect, one of the best prep prospects to come out of the DC area since the 2016 class (which saw two upper round picks in Joe Rizzo and Khalil Lee)  plus state POTY Jake Agnos, an eventual collegiate all American.

The College players are mostly drawn from my 2017 Local High School draft coverage, listing guys who were HS seniors in 2015 who went to 3-year programs and who are now draft eligible.

Major Local College Draft Prospects for 2020

• Ian Seymour, LHP from Virginia Tech (via Westborough MA): 2nd round, #57 overall pick
• Taylor Carson, C/1B from Virginia Tech (via Duluth, GA): 4th round, #130 overall pick.
• Andrew Abbott, LHP UVA (via Halifax Co).  2019 Collegiate National team extended-roster selection.  Went undrafted in 2020 despite being ranked #116 by MLBpipeline.

Lesser Local College draft eligibles w/ Local Ties

• See https://www.mlb.com/draft/tracker/2020/all/state/virginia for full Virginia listing
• see https://www.mlb.com/draft/tracker/2020/all/state/maryland for full Maryland draft prospect listings
• Nats 2016 Draftee Matt Mervis just signed as an NDFA with the Cubs.

DC/MD/VA Local Prep players for 2020

• Nate Savino, LHP from Potomac Falls.  Potomac District POTY in 2018 as a sophomore.  UVA commit.  Diamond Elite summer team.  Showing 92 from the left-hand side as a sophomore in HS games; wow.  NovaNine as a sophomore.  PG Junior Nationals 2018.  1st team all state VHSL Class 5 2018 as sophomore.  Player of the Year Class 5 Region D in 2018 as a sophomore.  1st team USA Today all-state 2018 as Soph.  Gatorade POTY for Virginia in 2019 as a Junior.  All Region 5C as Junior in 2019.  U18 National Team.  #4 on BA’s 2020 prep list, a legitimate upper-first round talent.  Nov 2019 update: Savino has decided to graduate early and will enroll at UVA.  By most accounts he was projected possibly as a 1st round, top 10 pick in the 2020 draft; this move means he’s passing up at least $4M in signing bonus dollars to go to a school in UVA which, frankly, does not have a great history of developing top-end starters.
• Jack Bulger, C from DeMatha.  2nd team All-Met as a *freshman* in 2017.   Early commit to Vanderbilt.  Team Elite Prime.  At 2018 PG Junior Nationals.  Also at the Cary, NC PDP 2018 event despite only being a rising Junior and was named in the highlights article.  HM All-Met 2018 as a sophomore, 2nd team USA Today all-state 2018 as Soph.  Gatorade POTY for Maryland in 2019 as Junior.  1st Team USA Today HS AA in 2019 as junior.  Wow.  U18 National Team.
• Collin Bosley-Smith, RHP Wilson HS.  2nd team All-Met 2018 as a sophomore.  USA Today DC POTY in 2018 as a sophomore.  Gatorade POTY in DC in 2019 as a junior.  Early commit to Duke.  Mid-Atlantic Red Sox summer team.
• Eddie Eisert, SS O’Connell HS.  1st team all WCAC as sophomore in 2018.  1st team all VISAA Division I as a junior.  Early NC State commit.
• Ryley Johnson, OF from Colgan (Manassas).  1st team all Class 6 Occoquan region as a sophomore in 2018.   Richmond braves summer team.   2nd team VHSL class 6 all-state in 2018 as sophomore.   All Region 6C as junior.  1st team VHSL All-6A 2019 as junior.   ECU commit.
• Ryan Calvert, RHP/1B from LaPlata HS.  Prepbaseballreport Maryland POTY in 2019 as junior.  Evoshield Canes summer team.
• Riley Eikhoff, RHP from Patriot HS (brother of former Patriot and UVA player Nathan Eikhoff); All Region 6D in 2019 as junior.  Evoshield Canes National summer team.  UVA commit.
• Jordan Peyton, SS from Riverdale Baptist via Colonial Beach VA.  PG Junior Nationals 2018, early commit to Radford.
• Alex Greene, OF from DeMatha as well.  written up at 2018 PG Junior Nationals, ranked 12th in the entire class, early UVA commit.  Richmond Braves summer team.  2nd team All-Met 2018 as a sophomore.  USAtoday all-state in 2018 as Sophomore.
• Josh Moylan, 1B/3B from Spalding HS.   2019 Area code games, early commit to ECU.

• Thomas Trinca, OF from Centreville.  2nd team All 6A-North region as a freshman in 2017.  Stars Baseball summer team.  All Region 6D in 2019 as junior.  1st team VHSL All-6A 2019 as junior.  George Mason commit.
• Shane Saunders, OF from Osborne Park.  All 6-A North Region 2018 as Sophomore.  Stars Baseball summer team.  All Region 6D in 2019 as junior.  Canes Gold summer team.
• Matt Frye, Util Lee HS.   2nd team Class 5 Region D all-region 2018 as a sophomore.
• Jake Maske, OF DeMatha.  USAtoday all-state in 2018 as Sophomore.
• Nathan Cmeyla, C from Briar Woods HS.  PG Junior Nationals 2018.  1st team Class 5 Region D all-region 2018 as a sophomore.  1st team All 5C as junior in 2019.
• Teddy Merritt, RHP from McLean.  2nd Team All 6-A North Region 2018 as Sophomore.
• Cameron Mozingo-Morales, 1B/RHP from Osborne Park.   2nd Team All 6-A North Region 2018 as Sophomore.   Stars Baseball summer team.
• Robert Kelley, RHP from Marshall.   2nd Team All 6-A North Region 2018 as Sophomore.  All Region 6D in 2019 as junior.
• Malik Kabra, OF from Robinson.  1st team all Class 6 Occoquan region as a sophomore in 2018.
• Joe Vogatsky, RHP/3B from Kettle Run HS POTY.   VA Class 4C POTY in 2019 as junior.  Early commit to JMU.  1st team VHSL All-4A 2019 as junior.
• Julian Heitman, SS Oakton HS.  Stars Red summer team.
• Jacob Cassady, RHP from Lake Braddock; All Region 6C as junior in 2019.
• Braden Mack, C from Potomac.  All Region 5D as a junior in 2019.
• Ben Thomas, OF from Potomac.  All Region 5D as a junior in 2019.
• Ethan Snyder, DH from Broad Run.  1st team VHSL All-5A 2019 as junior.

Extended DC/MD/VA Prep players (outside DC Area) on the radar.

• Quade Tomlin, 2B from Liberty Christian Academy.  1st team All 4-A region as a freshman in 2017.  1st team all-state VHSL as a freshman in 2017.  2nd team all state VHSL Class 4 2018 as a sophomore.  Evoshield Canes National summer team.  2019 Area code games.  Liberty commit.
• Jeremy Wagner, OF/RHP from the Miller School (Albemarle) POTY as Junior.  Early Austin Peay commit.  VISAA divisoin II POTY 2019 as a junior.
• Nic Britt, SS from Greenbriar Christian (Chesapeake).   Evoshield Canes summer team, early commit to UVA.   PG Junior Nationals 2018.
• Rylan Brown, OF from Greenbriar Christian (Chesapeake).   Evoshield Canes summer team.  PG Junior Nationals 2018.  1st team VISAA Division II all-state 2018 as a sophomore.
• Tanner Schobel, SS Waslingham Academy (Williamsburg). PG Junior Nationals 2018,  2nd Team USA Today all-state 2018 as soph.  VISAA Division III POTY as Junior in 2019.  Early Virginia Tech commit.
• Harrison Clifton, LHP Steward HS Richmond.  Early commit to Clemson.
• Garrett Payne, RHP Miller School in Charlottesville,  early commit to NC State.  All VISAA Division II all-state 2019 as junior.
• Nick Noonan, OF from Deep Run HS.  2nd team all-state VHSL 5A as a freshman in 2017.  2nd team all Richmond Metro in 2017 as a freshman.
• Tristan Gordan OF from Page County HS.  1st team all VHSL 2A in 2017 as a freshman.  Again 1st team all VHSL Class 2 as sophomore as his team wins the state title.
• Drew Stanley, RHP from Hickory HS (Chesapeake): Class 5 Region A POTY as a sophomore in 2018 (!).  Canes Mid-Atlantic summer team.  2nd team VHSL all-state Class 5 2018 as sophomore.  1st team all-Tidewater 2019 as junior.
• Zian Honaker, RHP from Salem HS (Salem).   Winning pitcher in the Class 4 state final in 2018 as as sophomore; 12-0 in his career at this point.
• Elijah Dunlap, RHP from Riverheads.  All State VHSL Class 2 as a sophomore in 2018.
• Trey Carter, OF from Carlisle HS in Martinville.  PG Junior Nationals 2018.
• Alex LaRou, RHP from Cosby HS. PG Junior Nationals 2018.
• Carter Trice, SS from Lee Davis HS in Mechanicsville.  PG Junior Nationals 2018.
• Jackson Cherry, OF Jefferson Forest HS.  2nd team all state VHSL Class 4 2018 as a sophomore.  Canes mid-atlantic summer team.  1st team VHSL All-4A 2019 as junior.  Mercer commit.
• Philip Forbes V, 2B Menchville.   2nd team VHSL all-state Class 5 2018 as sophomore.  1st team VHSL All-5A 2019 as junior.
• Lucas Carmichael, util Matoaca.   2nd team VHSL all-state Class 5 2018 as sophomore.
• Andrew Ward, OF Fluvana County.  1st team VHSL all-state Class 3 2018 as a sophomore.
• Blake Fisher, ? Highland School.  1st team VISAA Division II all-state 2018 as a sophomore.
• Jon Sawyers, ? Atlantic Shores HS.  1st team VISAA Division II all-state 2018 as a sophomore.
• Michael Stewart, RHP/1B from Collegiate (Richmond).  1st team VISAA Division I in 2019 as junior.  Early commit to JMU.
• Nigel Williams, 2B/SS from Collegiate (Richmond).  1st team VISAA Division I in 2019 as junior.
• Ethan Chenault, RHP from The Miller School (via Forest, VA).  1st team VISAA Division II in 2019 as junior, early commit to UNC-Wilmington.
• Ethan Firoved, LHP First Colonial HS (Virginia Beach).  1st team VHSL All-6A 2019 as junior.  1st Team all-tidewater 2019 as Junior.  Class 6 Region A Co-Player of the Year 2019 as junior.
• Aiden Tierney, C/OF Colonial Forge HS (Fredericksburg).  1st team VHSL All-6A 2019 as junior.
• Zach Dzarnowski, C Hickory HS.  1st team VHSL All-5A 2019 as junior.
• Tyler Warren, OF Atlee HS.  1st team VHSL All-5A 2019 as junior.
• Bailey Reynolds, 1B from Libery Christian Academy.  1st team VHSL All-4A 2019 as junior.  Dirtbags summer team,  uncommitted.

Sources used

• 2017 WP All-Met team looking for freshman, and there was one.  Amazing.
• 2017 All 6-A regional teams (using NovaBaseballMagazine’s summary link), looking for named freshmen.
• 2017 VHSL all-state teams in 2017 looking for freshmen.
• 2017 All Richmond Metro looking for freshmen.
• 2017 Local Player Draft preview, looking for top-end prep players who went to College and are now draft-eligible Juniors
• Fangraphs Feb2018 early 2020 rankings.
• 2018 6-A North Region teams, looking for sophomores.  2018 All Class 6 Occoquoan All-region team, looking for Sophomores.
• 2018 All-District teams, looking for sophomores
• 2018 Class 5 Region A all-region team looking for sophomores.
• 2018 NovaNine looking for sophomores.
• 2018 NovaNine best sophomores specifically.
• VHSL 2018 All State teams looking for sophomores
• 2018 PG Junior Nationals rosters.
• Washington Post All-Mets 2018 looking for sophomores.
• 2019 Virginia All 6D region, All 6C team, all 5C team, all 5D team, all 4C team,  looking for juniors.
• 2019 All VHSL state teams, looking for juniors.
• Evosheild Canes rosters for 2019
• 2019 All Tidewater team.
• 2019 U18 National team roster
• 2019 Area code Games roster