Nationals Arm Race

First off, here’s the records of our teams after three 6-game series (link to all MiLB standings here)

• AAA: 4-14 (tied for worst in league)
• AA: 6-12 (last place in division)
• High-A: 9-9 (2 games out of 1st)
• Low-A: 1-17.

I asked Keith Law a question in his chat last week about Fredericksburg, who was 0-15 at the time, asking whether they would ever win and he thought I was exaggerating. He replied as much, posting their team batting and pitching stats in amazement.

Lets do a quick run-through who’s looking good and bad around our minor league affiliates. I use links that i store in a page here: https://www.nationalsarmrace.com/?page_id=16709 so you can use the same shortcuts i’ve collected over the years.

AAA observations:

• Who’s hot: Palka, Sanchez, and Garcia not half bad at the plate.
• McFarland in the bullpen is on a hot streak, with 9 Ks in his last 4 innings.
• Who’s not: Kieboom; just 2-15 last week, still hitting under .200 for the season. WTF.
• Not ONE of our AAA starters was even halfway decent last week. Braymer is really struggling in particular, concerning since he’s one of our 40-man covering starters.

Who is next to get called up? I don’t see ANYONE really making a statement at AAA demanding a call-up. Nobody. We have seven 40-man guys in AAA (plus two more who are on IL) and there’s no burning reinforcements for the big club.

Who is next to get demoted or released? Carlos Tocci is 1-19 on the season and the team has at least 7 outfielders on the roster … time seems short for this veteran MLFA.

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AA Observations

• Who’s hot at the plate: Jakson Reetz, of all people, 5/14 in the last week with some power.
• In the rotation: Teel, Cate and Sharp had solid weeks on the mound. Teel isn’t exactly a swing-and-miss guy but he’s getting results.
• Sanchez has 20/2 K/BB on the season right now.
• Baldonado: 8Ks, 0BB in 4ip last week. not to shabby.
• Unfortuantely, Reetz is the team leader in BA for the season at a paltry .237.
• Did you know there’s not a single 40-man player in our AA team? AA is generally where the best near-MLB ready prospects get sent by most franchises as a finishing school and we don’t have a single prospect in that category.

Who is next to get promoted? I think Klobotis is making a statement: 14/1 K/BB in 8 innings, and has given up just 2 hits on the year. I think Baldonado needs to move up as well; he was in AAA 3 years ago and now is 28 overmatching kids in AA.

Who is next to get demoted or released? I mean, nobody’s hitting on this team but 21MLFA SS/2B Osvaldo Duarte is 8-51 with 21 Ks and just 4 walks in a position that is completely replaceable.

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High-A observations

• Who’s hot: the entire outfield is crushing the ball; Rhinesmith, Connell and Canning lead the team in BA and OPS over the last week, with Rhinesmith just crushing the ball in particular going 11-20 in the last week.
• Another solid start for Cade Cavalli.
• What is going on with Rutledge? In 4 starts, he now has an ERA north of 12, he’s given up 17 hits in 10 innings and has a 10/9 K/BB ratio. I’m sorry, but this just isn’t going to cut it. It’s starting to look like he’s out of his element in High-A. And it REALLY is starting to look bad for pundits who thought he is a better prospect than Cavalli.

Who is next to get promoted? Alex Troop; who has a 0.46 whip and 12/0 K/BB in 8 innings in middle relief.

Who is next to get demoted or released? Rutledge. I think he needs to go to Low-A and regroup unless he’s hurt.

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Low-A

• At least they got a win.
• their BEST hitter by OPS is hitting .219 (Jake Randa)
• Junior Martina had a nice week.
• The team did not hit a single home run in the last series.
• The starting pitching is SO BAD in Low-A that not one single pitcher qualifies for the ERA title.
• That being said, a couple of starters actually had solid starts: Karlo Seijas: 7ip, 3hits, 8ks, 0 walks. More of that please.

Who is next to get promoted: Nobody. Not one single pitcher is making a case, nor are any of the hitters.

Who is next to get demoted/released? There’s a slew of hitters with really ugly lines right now: Jeremy Ydens is 4-41 on the season, Kevin Strohschein is 8-50 with 13Ks and a walk … and 1 RBI. He’s the 1B. Nothing positive in F-burg.

July 6th came and went, and the Nats signed their #1 overall pick without too much fanfare, giving Mason Denaburg a nice bump over his slot value and wrapping up the 2018 Draft Class.

Here’s a table of the 29 players we successfully signed, with known bonus amounts.  The MLBpipeline Draft Tracker is the most up-to-date resource for this data now that Baseball America has taken most of its stuff behind a paywall.

Round+JA7:J38	Overall	Name	Position	Col/HS	College or Cmtm	State	Signed?	Bonus Amt	Slot Value
1	27	Denaburg, Mason	RHP (Str)	HS	Florida	FL	Yes	3000000	2472700
2	65	Cate, Tim	LHP (Str)	Coll Jr	Uconn	CT	Yes	986200	986200
3	101	Schaller, Reid	RHP (Rel)	Coll So	Vanderbilt	TN	Yes	555100	555100
4	131	Irvin, Jake	RHP (Str)	Coll Jr	Oklahoma	OK	Yes	550000	414500
5	161	Canning, Gage	OF	Coll Jr	Arizona State	AZ	Yes	308900	308900
6	191	Karp, Andrew	RHP (Str)	Coll Sr	Florida State	FL	Yes	200000	239600
7	221	Day, Chandler	RHP (Rel)	Coll Jr	Vanderbilt	TN	Yes	188300	188300
8	251	Cropley, Tyler	C	Coll Sr	Iowa	IA	Yes	10000	157200
9	281	Driskill, Tanner	RHP (Str)	Coll Sr	Lamar	TX	Yes	10000	144400
10	311	Shaddy, Carson	2B	Coll Sr	Arkansas	AR	Yes	10000	136900
11	341	Bartow, Frankie	RHP (Rel)	Coll Jr	Miami	FL	Yes	125000
13	401	Wilson, Cody	OF (Corner)	Coll Jr	Florida Atlantic U	FL	Yes	125000
14	431	Fletcher, Aaron	LHP (Str)	Coll Jr	Houston	TX	Yes	125000
15	461	Lee, Evan	LHP (rel)/OF	Coll So	Arkansas	AR	Yes	125000
16	491	Teel, Carson	LHP (Str)	Coll Jr	Oklahoma State	OK	Yes	125000
18	551	Rhinesmith, Jacob	OF (CF)	Coll Jr	Western Kentucky	KY	Yes	125000
20	611	Vega, Onix	C	JC J1	Broward College	FL	Yes	125000
21	641	Tapani, Ryan	RHP (Str)	Coll Sr	Creighton	NB	Yes	10000
22	671	Daily, Cole	SS	Coll Jr	Notre Dame	IN	Yes
24	731	Marinconz, Kyle	SS	Coll Jr	Cal Poly San Luis Obispo	CA	Yes	60000
25	761	Vann, Chris	LHP (Str)	Coll Sr	Mercer	GA	Yes	3000
26	791	Morse, Colin	RHP (Str)	Coll Sr	Shenandoah	VA	Yes	3000
27	821	O'Connor, Pablo	2B	Coll Sr	Azusa Pacific University	CA	Yes
28	851	Chisolm, Blake	1B	Coll Sr	Sam Houston State	TX	Yes
29	881	Pogue, Colton	SS	Coll Sr	Pittsburg State U	KS	Yes
30	911	Vickers, Trey	SS	Coll Sr	Wichita State	KS	Yes
31	941	Quintana, Jonathan	OF	Coll Sr	Barry U	FL	Yes	3000
32	971	Maley, Alec	RHP (Str)	Coll Sr	Kentucky	KY	Yes	3000
38	1151	Milacki, Bobby	RHP	Coll Jr	Arizona Christian U	AZ	Yes	25000

Summary of the 29 drafted players:

• One High Schooler, 13 College Seniors
• 16 Arms (including Evan Lee) and 13 Bats
• Of the 16 arms, 4 were relievers in College and are (presumably) already routed to that role in the pros.
• Thus, 15 College players with eligibility remaining
• As of this writing, two guys have already been double promoted to Hagerstown; 11th rounder Frankie Bartow, UMiami’s closer this past season, and 5th rounder Cage Ganning, OF from UCLA.
• I count $6,800,500 in total bonus money paid out, more than their bonus pool figure of $5,603,800 and a bit more than their 5% cushion figure above the bonus pool figure of $5,883,990
• A few of the lower level bonus figures have yet to be disclosed; i could see Cole Daily getting a $125k bonus or near to it since he got bought out of his senior year, but the rest of the players w/o known bonuses were College Seniors who probably each got the same $3,000 bonus that other College Seniors got in rounds 20 and up.
• As of this writing, 2 have yet to be assigned, 15 went to the GCL, 9 went straight to Auburn, and 3 played a week or so in the GCL before getting to Auburn.

Verdict on this class overall: I like the fact that they threw out a ton of max $125k bonuses in the rounds 11-20; that certainly wasn’t the case last  year and it may have bought them some good players.  I’m ok with Denaburg as their 1st rounder and wasn’t as hung up on picking a more “famous” name at that point in the draft.  Unlike in 2017, I liked who they got in the rounds 3-6 area, and I think they may have a real player in 10th round senior sign Carson Shaddy.    In the rounds 11-20 they got a number of weekend starters from good schools to sign for the $125k figure, one of which has already forced his way to be twice-promoted.  Of course, when nearly half your draft dollars go to one kid, and that kid is a high schooler who probably is playing in our minor leagues for the next 5 years … its going to be quite a while til we really know if this was a winning class or not.

 

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Here’s a table of the 11 guys who did not sign:

Round+JA7:J38	Overall	Name	Position	Col/HS	College or Cmtm	State	Signed?
12	371	Lawson, Graham	RHP (Rel)	Coll Jr	South Carolina	SC	Won't
17	521	Chapman, Ridge	RHP (Str)	Coll Jr	South Carolina	SC	Won't
19	581	Linginfelter, Zach	RHP (rel)	Coll So	Tennessee	TN	Didn't
23	701	Hamilton, Cole	C	JC J1	Linn Benton CC	OR	Won't
33	1001	Haney, Jack	C	HS	Cedartown HS	GA	Didn't
34	1031	Baca, Tyler	OF	HS	The Linfield School (CA)	CA	Didn't
35	1061	Binelas, Alex	1B	HS	Oak Creek HS (WI)	WI	Won't
36	1091	Blessie, Bo	RHP	HS	Robert E Lee HS (TX)	TX	Won't
37	1121	Wilcox, Cole	RHP	HS	Heritage HS (GA)	GA	Won't
39	1181	Nardi, Andrew	LHP	JC J2	Moorpark Col (CA)	CA	Didn't
40	1211	Menhart, Michael	RHP	HS	Richmond Hill HS	GA	Didn't

Quick Summary here:

• The big misses here of course are the 12th and 17th rounders from South Carolina, both of whom announced on twitter within a few minutes of each other of their intent to return to school.
• 19th rounder Zach Linginfelter was a draft-eligible Sophomore from Tennessee who made it into their weekend rotation late in the season and had the easy decision to return to school, where he probably is a weekend starter all next year and could easily find his way into the top 10 rounds.
• 6 of the 11 non-signees were 30th+ round prep players who were never going to sign … either because they were 1st round rumored kids with million dollar price tags or because they were legacy picks
• 2 of the non-signees are Juco guys who were a little hard to find info on: Cole Hamilton and Andrew Nardi.  Nardi seems to have a committment to go to Arizona; can’t blame him for heading to a good program.  Hamilton doesn’t even have a perfectgame.org profile and too common of a name to research on twitter.

No major misses; highest non-signed player was a 12th rounder.