Nationals Arm Race

Kansas prep star (and subject of Jeff Passan’s latest book “The Arm”) Riley Pint may not go #1 overall, but he’ll be close. Photo via thatballsouttahere.com

The MLB rule-4 (Amateur) draft starts tonight, 6/9/16 at 7pm.  The MLB Network will have full coverage of the first round of picks. This post is my dumping ground of draft coverage for 2016.

This post uses last year’s format, with links to use to see draft prospect rankings, links to help cover the draft (which I personally come back to time and time again), some blurbs on local players of interest, and then links to a bunch of mock drafts.

Draft Coverage so far at NAR for 2016:

• Here’s the big post on all marquee DC/MD/VA prep players ahead of the 2016 season (only guys who are “significant” draft prospects are mentioned here).
• Here’s the same for DC/MD/VA tied College players
• After the draft happens, I’ll review both of the above posts and list who actually got picked and who’s going to school.

Draft Links of importance

• MLB.com Official 2016 Draft Central home page.
• MLB’s Awesome 2016 Draft Tracker; you can slice and dice the draft 10 different ways, search by schools and home states, etc.
• Official MLB 2016 Draft Order. Per my “evolving draft order” xls online, The Nats forfeited what would have been the #16 pick and now their first two picks are #28 and #29.  After that, they pick 58th, 94th, 124th and then +30 picks there after per round.
  
• Official Draft Bonus Pool totals for 2016.  Reds and Phillies have the most ($13M+).  Nats have $7.6M
• MLB Draft Database for all past databases.
• Fangraphs Sortable Draft Board; a great new tool Fangraphs has that lets you slice and dice their top draft board.
• Baseball-Reference Draft Tools: links to their draft database plus some custom reports.
• Baseball America’s 2016 Draft Order

Here’s a slew of Draft Prospect rankings : these are NOT the same as mock drafts; see further down for those.  You’re going to see the same locally tied names on nearly all of these lists; they’re all individually profiled further below.

• D1baseball HS top 100 players with commitments for 2016 (most of it behind a pay-wall).  UVA stands to lose three significant recruits being ranked in their top 100 right now.
  
• D1Baseball.com’s Top 150 Draft Prospects (mostly behind a pay-wall): Puk, Lewis, Groome, Pint, Ray.
  
• ESPN/Keith Law‘s May 2016 Top 100 Draft Prospects (ESPN insider): Ray, Groome, Perez, Moniak, Puk.
  
• ESPN/Keith Law‘s June “Draft Big Board” (insider only): Ray, Groome, Perez, Puk, Moniak
• Law’s last minute updated Big Board:
• ESPN/Jim Bowden‘s “Big Board” (insider only): Groome, Senzel, Moniak, Perez, Lewis
• MLBpipeline’s top 100 draft prospects: Groome, Pint, Ray, Lewis, Puk
• MLBpipeline’s top 200 draft prospects: same as above
• Minorleagueball.com’s 151 Draft prospects (by unknown author “cookiedabookie”): Lewis, Groome, Puk, Pint, Rutherford
• USAToday/Frankie Piliere‘s top 30 Draft Prospects: Puk, Lewis, Groome, Pint, Ray.
• BeyondtheBoxScore.com/Carl Triano‘s Stat-based top Draft Prospect Rankings
• Baseball America’s top 500 draft prospects: Puk, Pint, Groome, Lewis, Moniak
• Baseball Prospectus/Chris Crawford Top 50 draft prospects (Premium content)
• PerfectGame.org’s Top 100 Prospects: Groome, Pint, Ray, Rutherford, Puk (full list premium content)
• Scout.com’s Jeff Ellis draft prospect Rankings: Part 1 (1-51) and Part 2 (52-102): Rutherford, Senzel, Moniak, Groome, Ray
• Ellis’ final Prospect rankings: Rutherford, Senzel, Moniak, Groome, Ray
• MLBDraftReport’s Top 500 Draft Ranking; not doing a big master list, instead he’s doing per-position rankings

Now, some news about College Players with local ties who are serious draft candidates (meaning first couple of rounds projected or present on top 100 draft ranking lists).  Note that I’ve got a far, far larger list of local players that I’ll follow-up on after the draft; these are just the significant/top 10 round types.

• Connor Jones, UVA RHP via Great Bridge; at this point perhaps the 2nd or 3rd best college pitching prospect thanks to fall-offs from a number of other candidates.  Probably a mid-1st rounder, though some pundits (Keith Law) have him rated far lower.
• Buddy Reed, OF from Florida via Finksburg, MD (NW of Baltimore).  Probably a late first rounder or sandwich pick, perhaps lower.
• Matt Thaiss, UVA C who has shot up the rankings; now projected as early 2nd rounder.  Keith Law likes him as a late 1st rounder.
• Mike Shawaryn: RHP for Maryland; stock has really fallen this season; now perhaps just a 4th rounder.  A late season push improved his draft status somewhat.
• Andrew Knizner, C from NC State by way of Glen Allen, VA: gritty ballplayer who has played his way into perhaps 5th round discussions.
• Errol Robinson, SS from Ole Miss by way of Maryland; struggled badly this season, dropping his stock from early 2nd round projections; no idea where he’s project to go now.

Local Prep players of note who are serious draft candidates:

• Joe Rizzo, INF for Oakton HS.  Remains the highest ranked local draft prospect, projecting as anywhere between a mid-1st rounder and an early 2nd rounder.  South Carolina commit.  MLBpipeline.com’s write-up profiles his draft prospects the best.
• Khalil Lee LHP/OF for Flint Hill.  Some have him 2nd-3rd round, others have him projected 4th-5th.  Part of the confusion is where to play him; he was an undersized speedy CF candidate… then suddenly flashed low 90s off the mound as a lefty starter this year.  Liberty commit.
• Zack Hess, 1B/OF from Liberty Christian Academy (Lynchburg).  3rd round projection.  LSU commit.
• Noah Murdock, a RHP from Colonial Heights (Richmond).  4th round projection by rank, UVA commit.
• Garrett Stallings, RHP from Grassfield HS.  Not generally listed but may be rising, Tennessee commit.

Re-draft players of interest to Nats fans:  these are re-drafts that have come back up.  See the Draft Tracker for underclassmen draftees from last year and/or Prep draftees from 2013 who are now draft eligible again.

• Garrett Hampson, SS from Long Beach State.  Nats 2013 26th round pick, now projecting as a 5th or 6th rounder.
• Reid Humphreys, RHP/OF two-way player from Mississippi State.  Nats 2013 36th rounder, now projecting as a 4th/5th rounder.
• Shaun Anderson, RHP from Florida.  Nats 2013 40th rounder, now projecting as a late 3rd rounder.
• John Reeves, C from Rice.  Nats 2015 20th rounder who started 56 games for the CWS-bound Rice team and hit above .300; looks like a good choice to return to school.
• Alec Rash, RHP from Missouri: Nats 23rd round pick in 2015.  Quit baseball altogether last fall to pursue collegiate basketball.
• Blake Smith, RHP from WVA: Nats 24th round pick in 2015: posted a 2.20 ERA as West Virginia’s closer for the season with 8 saves and 25 appearances.
• Mack Lemieux, LHP from Jupiter HS and then Palm Beach State CC.  Nats 14th round pick in 2015.

Mock Drafts

Every year I say i’ll stay away from the Mock Draft links … and every year I come back.  Here’s a running collection.  DCProSports.com has a master list of Mock drafts at this link that has many more than I’ve got listed below.

• Fangraphs/Scott Moore‘s Mock #1: Groome, Senzel, Lewis, Puk, Pint.
• BaseballAmerica/Hudson Belinsky‘s Mock #1: Groome, Senzel, Pint, Puk, Perez.
• BaseballAmerica/Hudson Belinsky‘s Mock #2: Puk, Lewis, Pint, Moniak, Ray.
• BaseballAmerica/John Manuel Mock #1: Puk, Lewis, Pint, Moniak, Groome.
• BaseballAmerica/John Manual BA Mock #4: Moniak, Puk, Ray, Lewis, Pint
• Manual Mock #5: Moniak, Puk, Lewis, Pint, Ray
• ESPN/Keith Law Mock #1 (Insider only): Puk, Lewis, Groome, Pint, Ray.
• ESPN/Keith Law Mock #2 (Insider only): Puk, Lewis, Groome, Moniak, Perez.
• ESPN/Keith Law Mock #3: Puk, Lewis, Groome, Pint, Ray
• ESPN/Keith Law Final Mock: Moniak, Puk, Lewis, Pint, Ray
• D1baseball.com/Frankie Piliere Mock #1: Puk, Lewis, Groome, Pint, Ray.
• D1baseball.com/Frankie Piliere Mock #2: Puk, Lewis, Ray, Groome, Perez
• MLBPipeline.com/Jim Callis Mock #1: Puk, Senzel, Lewis, Moniak, Ray.
• MLBPipeline.com/Jim Callis  Mock #2: Puk, Senzel, Lewis, Moniak, Perez.
• MLBPipeline.com/Jim Callis Final Mock: Moniak, Senzel, Ray, Puk, Collins
• MLBPipeline.com/Jonathan Mayo Mock #1: Puk, Senzel, Lewis, Groome, Perez.
• MLBPipeline.com/Jonathan Mayo Final Mock: Moniak, Senzel, Ray, Puk, Rutherford
• MinorLeagueBall Mock #1 Part one and Part two: Lewis, Puk, Groome, Rutherford, Moniak
• Scout.com/Taylor Ward Mock #1: Groome, Senzel, Rutherford, Lewis, Ray
• Scout.com/Taylor Ward Mock #2: Puk, Ray, Lewis, Groome, Rutherford.
  
• Scout.com/Jeff Ellis‘ Mock #1: Groome, Hansen, Puk, Moniak, Pint
• Scout.com/Jeff Ellis‘ Mock #2: Senzel, Perez, Ray, Groome, Rutherford
• Scout.com/Jeff Ellis‘ Mock #3: Garrett, Groome, Rutherford, Senzel, Perez
• Scout.com/Jeff Ellis‘ Mock #4: Puk, Perez, Ray, Moniak, Rutherford
• Scout.com/Jeff Ellis‘ Mock #5: Puk, Lewis, Pint, Moniak, Rutherford
• Scout.com/Jeff Ellis final Mock: Moniak, Puk, Lewis, Pint, Ray
• NatsGM.com/Ryan Sullivan‘s Mock #1: Puck, Senzel, Lewis, Groome, Perez
• Si.com/Chris Crawford‘s Last minute Mock Draft: Puk. Lewis, Groome, Pint, Ray
• Baseball Prospectus; have not seen any mock drafts from BP this year.
  
• PerfectGame.org Mock Drafts are Insider/Premium only; this link is to their 2016 Draft Coverage home page.
  

Todd Boss’ Mock draft?  Based on my vast level of expertise (sarcasm) and the thousands of man hours i’ve put in scouting players in person and cultivating industry sources (also sarcasm), and instead reading the tea leaves of the gazillion other mock drafts, I’ll take this as my initial guess for the top 5: Puk, Lewis, Groome, Pint, Moniak

The only thing that gives me pause is this: Puk *stunk* in the regional.  4 and a third, 5 hits and 5 runs given up to UConn.  Sorry; if you’re going to go 1-1 you need to do an outing like 7ip, 4hits, 10ks, 0 walks in your swan song.  I wonder if that was enough to have Philly move to a different pick.  And Perez just got popped for failing a drug test, instantly removing him from top-5 consideration.  So, given Puk’s stinker most of the last minute mocks have Philly off of Puk and doing Moniak as an under-slot deal.  And I can’t disagree.  So my final mock will be: Moniak, Puk, Lewis, Pint, Ray

And this top 5 means that Groome and Pint (who I think are the two best talents in this draft) fall to teams outside the top 5 and they’re going to be absolutely ecstatic.

ACTUAL DRAFT Results: Moniak, Senzel, Anderson (??), Pint and Ray.  Just like everyone predicted.

Who are the Nats going to take at #28 and #29?

No frigging idea.  Lots of these Mock drafts attempt to guess, to put some names with the Nats down that far.  But consider the 2011 draft.  Everyone had Anthony Rendon going 1-1.  Suddenly he slips and the Nats grab him at #6 in a total gift.  The point is this: we have no idea how even the top 5 picks will go, so predicting what’s going to happen at pick #6 is folly, let alone #28.  Nats will take BPA, probably will mix up a safer pick (aka college arm) with a riskier pick (aka a high school bat) and go back to back $2M bonus slots.  I also like the running theory that the nats will get the Scott Boras special and “package” two Boras clients together at 28/29 and basically split the bonus pools.  Names often mentioned here include Kyle Funkhauser and the prep pitcher/basketball player Matt Manning.  One would be an over draft, one would be a steal if he gets here.  We’ll see.

UVA’s Connor Jones is a likely first rounder in this year’s draft. Photo via UVA sports

For the fourth year running (here’s 2013’s wrap-up, 2014’s wrap-up, and 2015’s wrap-up), we’re going to keep an eye on “local” draft prospects leading up to the 2016 amateur draft.  By “local” I essentially mean anyone who hails from the DC/MD/VA areas plus anyone who is playing their college ball in the DC/MD/VA irrespective of where they hail from.

Here’s a list of DC/MD/VA college players draft-eligible in 2016 of note from our area.  We’re now to the point where HS seniors we covered previously in this blog are becoming college Junior draft eligibles; here’s our 2013 draft wrap up mentioning a number of these 2016 draft eligible players.

Major Local College Draft Prospects for 2016

These are the big-time names that we’ve been hearing may be 1st or 2nd rounders this year with Local Ties.

• Connor Jones, UVA RHP via Great Bridge; a 1st round talent in 2013 who desired to go to college and he hasn’t disappointed; took over as the Friday starter by mid 2015, finished with a 7-2 record and a 2.96 ERA in 16 starts.  Pitched well in the CWS, getting an unlucky loss against Vanderbilt in the final.  Playing in the Cape Cod league this summer, on the 2015 Collegiate National team and on the MLB.com 2016 draft short list already.  Collegiate Baseball News pre-season 2nd team All-American.
• Mike Shawaryn: RHP for Maryland; went 13-2 with a 1.71 ERA as Maryland’s friday starter as a sophomore.  He was named to Baseball America’s 2nd team All America in 2015.  2015 Collegiate National team.  He could be a very high draft prospect as a junior.  Didn’t pitch well for Team USA in summer 2015.  Collegiate Baseball News pre-season 1st team All-American.
• Matt Thaiss, UVA C who led the team in hitting as a sophomore and is on the 2015 National Collegiate team.  Impressed while playing for Team USA in summer of 2015, with a top-2 round projection.  Collegiate Baseball News pre-season 3rd team All-American.
• Buddy Reed, OF from Florida via Finksburg, MD (NW of Baltimore).  Not previously on the radar list despite hailing from Maryland b/c he attended a prep school in Rhode Island.  But he’s playing for Florida and is on the 2015 National Collegiate team.  Collegiate Baseball News pre-season 1st team All-American.
• Errol Robinson, SS from Ole Miss via St. Johns Prep in DC: hit .297 and started every game for Ole Miss as a sophomore.  Getting a lot of attention in his junior year, with Ole Miss’ high national ranking and the general dearth of capable shortstops.

Other Local College draft eligibles w/ Local Ties

Some of these guys will get drafted, others may not.  But they’re all draft eligible, having gone to 4-yr programs 3 years ago.

• Luke Gillingham a senior at Navy who was named Collegiate Baseball News pre-season 2nd team All-American.  There’s some history of Navy grads making the majors, including Mitch Harris and Oliver Drake in 2015.
• Charlie Gould, a rising Sr at William & Mary.  Collegiate Baseball News pre-season 3rd team All-American, pre-season all-CAA.
• Michael Morman, a 5th year senior/grad student at Richmond.  Collegiate Baseball News pre-season 3rd team All-American.
• Daniel Pinero, UVA middle infielder who started 60 games and hit .300 as a sophomore.
• Alec Bettinger, UVA RHP via Hylton: 50ip and 4 mid-week starts as a sophomore, could take a bigger role with the graduation/drafting of so many UVA arms in 2015.
• Jack Roberts, UVA RHP via James River HS: struggled to a 6.08 ERA in 23 innings as a sophomore.
• Andy McGuire, RHP from Texas via Madison HS: converted to middle relief at Texas, had 12 IP in 13 appearances in 2015, but does not appear to be on the Texas roster in 2016.  No idea where he is now.
• Thomas Rogers, LHP from VCU via Lake Braddock: Initially went to UNC, transferred to VCU in the fall of 2014 and sat out 2015 per NCAA transfer rules.  Will be a draft eligible sophomore.
• Tyler Ramirez, OF from UNC via Suffolk VA (Cape Henry Collegiate).  Playing in Cape Cod league summer 2015.
• Aaron McGarity, RHP from Virginia Tech (home town also Blacksburg).  Playing in Cape Cod league summer 2015 and made the All-Star team; prospects looking up.
• Andre Scrubb, RHP from High Point U by way of Woodbridge VA (Hylton HS).  Playing in Cape Cod league summer 2015.
• Luke Scherzer, RHP from Virginia Tech by way of Midlothian VA (Powhatan HS).  Playing in Cape Cod league summer 2015.
• Nick Walker, OF from Old Dominion by way of Chesapeake VA (Kellahm HS).    Playing in Cape Cod league summer 2015.
• Kit Sheetz, LHP Virginia Tech by way of Midlothian VA (James River HS).  Playing in Cape Cod league summer 2015.  Not sure he’s actually still at Va Tech; missing from 2016 roster.
• David Ellingson, RHP from Georgetown U.  Playing in Cape Cod league summer 2015.
• Andrew Yacyk, inf from Liberty U via Hagerstown.  Playing in Cape Cod league summer 2015.
• Andrew Knizner, C from NC State via Glen Allen, VA (Hanover HS).  Playing in Cape Cod league summer 2015.
• Nick Cieri, C/IB from U Maryland, played in Cape Cod league and made the all star team.
• Logan Farrar OF/2B from VCU
• Parker Bean, RHP/OF from Liberty
• Zack Rice: OF from UNC via Suffolk HS in Norfolk: converted to pitching at UNC: had a 2.31 ERA in 20 appearances in 2015.
• Bryce Harman, jr 1B from ECU via Chesterfield, VA (Lloyd C. Bird HS).  Huge power potential but 1B-only guy, still projects as top 5-10 rounds in 2016.
• Garrett Brooks, sr OF (CF) from ECU via Chesapeake VA (Western Branch).  Could be a classic round 6-10 senior sign this coming spring as a capable player who struggled early but is coming on late.
• Luke Bolka, jr LHP from ECU via Mechanicsville, VA (Atlee HS).  Drafted late out of HS, has big K/9 numbers in small sample sizes and could easily feature as a matchup lefty reliever.
• Mac Caples, jr OF from Virginia Tech by way of Midlothian VA (James River HS).

Sources used to kick off this post (which I started the day after the 2015 draft and update through out the 2015 spring awards season and the 2015 summer baseball showcase season):

• Collegiate Baseball News pre-season 2016 All-american teams.:

• 2015 USA Baseball College Team Roster
• Cape Cod 2015 Roster Analysis, looking for local guys
• BaseballDraftReport.com’s 2016 college preview

Please let me know if you feel there are draft-eligible players with local ties who I should be following.  I don’t want to leave anyone out!