Nationals Arm Race

(Coming back to this series post Winter Meetings hoopla).  Fourth in our set of Draft class Reviews for the 2016 season.  First was the 2016 class, then the 2015 class then the 2014 class.

Web links to use while reading:

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

This review is especially important to follow because the college-age draftees in this 2013 class are Rule-5 eligible this coming off-season.  I think its a big reason why several of these guys are in the AFL right now, and their performance may or may not influence the team’s decision to protect or leave exposed.  We’ll put a pin in this post when we eventually do Rule-5 Analysis later this month.

With out further ado…

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Round 1: forfeited w/ Rafael Soriano signing, which as I noted in this June 2013 post cost the Nats a shot at one of several highly regarded pitchers drafted just behind our vacated spot (the Cardinals actually took Kaminsky, but I doubt the Nats would have; i think they would have taken Manaea).  Here’s a quick summary of 2016’s season for the guys I liked at the time in that spot (Rob Kaminsky, Sean Manaea, Ryne Stanek, Ian Clarkin):

• Kaminsky:  11-7 with a 3.28 ERA in a full season starting for AA in his age 22 year.  Was flipped in 2015 to Cleveland from St. Louis (his drafting team) in the Brandon Moss deal.
• Manaea: 7-9 with a 3.86 ERA in 24 starts for Oakland this year.  Was flipped in 2015 to Oakland from Kansas City (his drafting team) in the Ben Zobrist deal.
• Stanek: split time between AA and AAA, was removed from the rotation and struggled in relief.
• Clarkin: went 6-9 with a 3.31 ERA in High-A as a 21-yr old after losing all of 2015 to injury.

I’ve more than said my peace on how much I disagreed with the Soriano signing and its opportunity cost.  Lets move on.

Round 2: Jake Johansen, Coll Sr. RHP (Starter, now a Reliever) Dallas Baptist U. 4-1 3.19 ERA across 3 levels in 2016.  29/22 K/BB in 36 2/3 mostly middle relief innings.  1.64 whip.  Johansen started the year in Potomac, walked 11 guys in 6 appearances and was dumped back to XST.  Once the GCL started he threw a few innings in Florida before joining Hagerstown for the rest of the year.   He had 11 appearances and 19 IP in Low-A with good numbers … but at this point in his career (he’ll turn 26 in a couple of months) and given where he was drafted, the fact that he can’t seem to cut it anywhere above Low-A ball seems like a pretty succinct judgement of the pick.  I’m guessing he hangs around until he hits 6-years in the system, but any hopes of him turning into even a marginal middle reliever seem shot.  If he was anything other than a big-bonus 2nd rounder he would have likely been released already.  He’s toiling in the AFL and (as of this writing) had only given up one run in 9 innings, but had a measly 3 punch-outs against the elite hitters of the minors.  With any luck, this confidence boost will carry over into 2017.   Trending Down.

Round 3: Drew Ward, HS 3B.  Slashed .252/.348/.412 across 2 levels, ending the year in Harrisburg.  121/56 K/BB in 408 ABs, 14 homers.   Ward’s age 21 season went pretty well; he started the year in Potomac but posted an .868 OPS there in 53 games to force his promotion to AA.  He hit just .219 once he got there though, which means we’re likely seeing him back there in 2017.  His strikeout rate remains a problem: 121 Ks in 408 Abs is a 30% clip.  But the team clearly rates him; he’s in the AFL for the 2nd straight off-season and is hitting .327 against the best the minors has to offer.  And he was a 21 yr old in AA; lots of 21 yr olds are still in Short-A.  He’s also starting to get some prospect notice; generally getting ranked in the 12-15 range in the system.  I’m going to say Trending Up … lets hope he can put up .800 OPS figures in AA in 2017.

Round 4: Nick Pivetta, Juco RHP (starter) New Mexico Juco.  Traded 7/28/15 to Philadelphia for Jonathan Papelbon.  He had a solid year starting between AA and AAA and could feature for the Phillies as a 9/1 callup next year.  For all of us that can’t stand these moves for closers (see above lost 1st rounder), this may have the jeopardy of haunting us for years if Pivetta becomes a regular rotation member of an NL East rival.  Maybe they’ll leave him off their 40-man roster this coming off-season and we can Rule5 draft him 🙂

Round 5: Austin Voth, Coll Jr RHP (starter) UWashington: 7-9, 3.15 ERA in 25 starts for AAA Syracuse.  133/57 K/BB in 157 IP, 1.24 whip, 3.53 FIP, .279 BABIP.  Another year, another solid season for Voth.  I’m not sure what else there is for him to accomplish in the Minors at this point; he seems to be the pitcher that he is.  His BABIP was in-line with his career numbers, he’s slightly regressed in a K/9 rate since arriving at AAA, and his ERA seems to be in line with his career numbers.  As discussed in this space earlier this year, I’m not quite sure why the team didn’t add him at the 9/1 roster expansion date; clearly they’re going to add him ahead of Rule-5 (which they did) but instead chose to leave him on the sidelines while they had September tryouts for Mat Latos.  Clearly he’s behind several of his AAA rotation mates on the depth chart, but I feel like he could still be a valuable rotation member for the Nats or someone else.  Given our starter depth, one has to think he’s trade bait at this point (he’s behind Lopez, Giolito and Cole clearly).  He seems like the kind of guy a team like Oakland would love.  Trending Up.  Post writing update: with the firesale of Nats SP candidates, Voth suddenly is like 2nd in line for getting MLB starts, so we look forward to seeing him in a Nats uniform at some point in 2017 and seeing if he’s the 2nd coming of Tanner Roark … or if he’s more like Taylor Jordan.

Round 6: Cody Gunter, Juco 3B/RHP (reliever) from Greyson College: 0-0 in 2/3rds of an IP for GCL before getting shutdown for the season.  He looked halfway decent for Auburn in 2015 while converting from his drafted position (3B) to the mound, but 2016 is a big step-back.  I don’t know what to expect in 2017; perhaps a shot at the Hagerstown pen or an outright release.  Trending Down.

Round 7: Jimmy Yezzo, Coll Jr 1B from UDelaware.  Released on 7/22/15.  Played a full season with the Washington PA team in the Indy Frontier League, hitting .220.

Round 8: David Napoli, Coll Sr LHP (relief) from Tulane.  Released 3/16/16 after four seasons where he never got above A ball.

Round 9: Jake Joyce, Coll Sr RHP (reliever) from Va Tech.  Released in 7/7/14.

Round 10: Brennan Middleton, Coll Sr SS/2B from Tulane. Released on 6/30/15.

Round 11: John Simms, Coll jr RHP (starter) from Rice. 8-5, 3.30 ERA in 29 games (11 starts) for AA.  79/28 K/BB ratio in 92 2/3rds innings, 1.08 whip, 3.84 fip, .254 babip.  Simms was the opening day starter for Harrisburg in 2016, but never seemed destined for the rotation; he was mostly a long reliever/spot starter, never throwing even 90 pitches in an outing.  He did not go to the AFL this year after going last year; what is his planned usage going forward?  His numbers look good; is he destined to move up to AAA and be a 6th starter again?   He seems to be able to compete, so we’ll see how he does against more veteran/mature competition in 2017.  Trending Steady.

Round 12: Andrew Cooper, Juco RH relief pitcher from Sierra College.  Released on 1/12/16, not even getting a chance to compete for a spot in the High-A bullpen.  Seems like the team let him try to earn his way up on the field and it never happened.

Round 13: John Costa, Juco RH relief pitcher from Palm Beach CC.  Released 4/1/15.

Round 14: David Masters, Juco SS/3B from Central Arizona College: Slashed just .174/.259/.280 with 56/23 K/BB in 236 ABs in High-A.  6HR, 1SB.  Masters seemed to play every other day in a utility role for Potomac, posting anemic batting stats but staying with the team the whole year.  I thought he was in trouble after hitting just .226 LAST year but he stuck around the whole season.   I said this last season, but it seems like Masters isn’t long for the organization.  Trending down.

Round 15: Isaac Ballou, Coll Sr OF/CF from Marshall (via Germantown, MD). Slashed .255/.332/.386 mostly for AA Harrisburg.  77/42 K/BB in 373 AA at-bats, 6hr, 7SB.  Ballou split time between the corner OF spots and had a couple of stints covering for Syracuse.   Ballou didn’t stick as a starter in AAA, instead repeating AA for the most part.  Depending on how the MLB roster numbers shake out, he may have the same issue in 2017.  Trending Steady.

Round 16: Willie Allen, Juco Corner OF from Oklahoma/Newtown, MA.  Did not sign; transferred to Lewis-Clark State (ID), where he played for a  year in 2015, then has apparently disappeared.  He was not on their 2016 roster, and he does not appear to still be playing.

Round 17: Geoff Perrott, Coll Sr C from Rice.  Retired 1/5/2015

Round 18: Cory Bafidis, Coll Sr LH relief pitcher from Texas Wesleylan.  Released 7/7/2014.

Round 19: Niko Spezial, Coll Sr LH relief pitcher from Wake Forest.  Released 5/28/14.

Round 20: Brenton Allen, Coll Jr Corner OF from UCLA.  Released 6/21/14.

Round 21: Justin Thomas, Coll Sr LH relief pitcher from Southern Arkansas. 3-2, 4.75 ERA while repeating High-A.  36/21 K/BB in 47 1/3 relief innings, 1.37 whip, 4.50 fip, .281 babip.  Last year I liked Thomas and thought he’d easily move up to AA.  Didn’t happen; he repeated Potomac and his numbers went down.  His lefty-lefty splits aren’t especially good, which precludes his value as a lefty specialist, so I wonder what his role is going forward at this point.  I’d guess he’ll compete for AA spot but may be a release candidate.  Trending down.

Round 22: Cody Dent, Coll Sr SS from UFlorida. Released 7/15/16 after getting demoted out of High-A and hitting just .195 as a 24-yr old in low-A.  Even his pedigree (he is the son of legendary Bucky Dent) couldn’t save him.

Round 23: Garrett Gordon, Juco Corner OF.  Released in 3/26/15.

Round 24: Matthew DeRosier, Juco RHP (starter/reliever) from Southwestern College (CA).  3-3, 4.54 ERA in 14 low-A starts before hitting the D/L on 6/30/16 for the rest of the season.  59/18 K/BB in 67 1/3 innings, 1.32 whip, 3.25 fip, .325 babip.  DeRosier was in the opening day rotation for Hagerstown and lasted there for 3 months before getting hurt.  DeRosier was a young JuCo signee; he just finished his 4th pro season but he turned 22 in July, so we’re not too worried that he’s still in Low-A.  But he needs to start making some progress before he ages out of the system.  His FIP is better than his ERA, but we have no idea what the injury was.  I’d guess he’ll compete for the Potomac rotation in 2017.  Trending Steady.

Round 25: Travis Ott, HS LH starting pitcher.  Traded 12/17/14 along with Steven Souza in the Trea Turner/Joe Ross deal.  Repeated Short-A for the *third* year and was phenomenal in 2016.  Why keep him there?  I know Tampa is “conservative” when it comes to promoting pitching prospects, but keeping a talented HS pitcher in the same classification for three years running seems dumb.

Round 26: Garrett Hampson, HS SS from Reno, NV.  Did not sign; honored commitment to Long Beach State.  Had a monster collegiate career and was drafted in the 3rd round by Colorado.  Signed a $750k bonus and had an .845 OPS in Short-A Boise.   Could be one that got away.

Round 27: Bryce Harman, HS LH starting pitcher from Richmond, VA (Byrd HS).  Did not sign; honored commitment to East Carolina University.  Hit .242 his Junior year starting and was not drafted.

Round 28: Joey Webb, Coll Sr LH relief pitcher.  Released 6/25/15.

Round 29: Mike Sylvestri, Coll Sr RH relief pitcher.   Retired on 6/13/14.

Round 30: Ryan Ullmann, Coll Sr RH Starting pitcher.  Released 6/25/15.

Round 31: Willie Medina, Coll Sr SS.  Released in Jan 2015.

Round 32: Pat Boling, Coll Jr LHP: Did not sign, chose to return to U. of Georgia for his senior season.  He posted a 4.94 ERA his senior year, was not re-drafted, and does not appear he played any independent ball.

Round 33: Andrew Dunlap, HS C/RHP from Houston.  Did not sign.  Honoring a commitment to Rice University.  He has struggled to find the field for Rice, not playing in 2014 or 2015 and hitting .197 in limited PT his junior year in 2016.

Round 34: Jake Walsh, Coll Sr LH relief pitcher. Released 3/16/16, before the season started.  This one I still do not get to this day.   Look at his minor league numbers: he has a career 1.65 ERA!!   All his peripherals look good.  I just don’t get this at all.  I thought he’d be at least in the AA rotation in 2016; instead he’s out of the game.

Round 35: Lukas Schiraldi, Juco RHP from Texas.  Did not sign; instead transferred to U Texas.  Drafted in 2014 in the 15th round by Seattle; in 2016 he struggled with the jump to High-A (with the caveat that he’s in the California league).

Round 36: Reid Humphreys, HS SS from Missouri.  Did not sign.  Honoring commitment to Mississippi State.  Drafted in the 7th round in 2016 by Colorado, signed for $227k, and threw a few games in the rookie league.  Btw, he converted to the mound in college and is now a RHP reliever.

Round 37: Karsten Whitson, RH starting pitcher from Florida.  Did not sign, returned to U Florida for his senior/4th year.  Was drafted by Boston in 2014 as an 11th rounder (likely bonus; max of $100k), released on 3/9/16.  An ignominious ending to a career that started with him declining 1st round money.  As Keith Law says: “Always take the money.”

Round 38: Caleb Hamilton, HS SS from Washington State.  Did not sign; honoring commitment to U of Washington.  He was drafted in the 23rd round this year by Minnesota and signed.  He  hit .207 for their rookie league team.

Round 39: Robbie Tenerowicz, HS 2B/SS from California.  Did not sign; honoring commitment to UC Berkeley.  He was drafted in the 27th round this year by Tampa Bay and signed.   He hit .291 with some pop for their rookie league team.

Round 40: Shaun Anderson, HS RH starting pitcher from Florida.  Did not sign; honoring commitment to U of Florida.  At Florida he was a significant part of their pre-season #1 team, serving as the closer.  He was drafted in the 3rd round by Boston, signed for $700k, and then gave up 12 hits and 9 runs in his Short-A debut.  He’ll try it again fresh in 2017.

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Trending Summary:

• Trending Up (2): Voth, Ward
• Trending Steady (3): Simms, Ballou, DeRosier
• Trending Down (4): Johansen, Gunter, Masters, Thomas
• Did Not Sign in 2013 (11): Allen, Hampson, Harman, Boling, Dunlap, Schiraldi, Humphries, Whitson, Hamilton, Tenerowicz, Anderson
• Released/Retired (17): Yezzo, Napoli, Joyce, Middleton, Cooper, Costa, Perrott, Bafidis, Spezial, Allen, Dent, Gordon, Webb, Sylvestri, Ullmann, Medina, Walsh
• Traded (2): Pivetta, Ott

Executive Summary

Wow; this class is really looking poor.  Just two players who I still think are trending up in Voth and Ward.  And even though I rate Voth, I sense he’s perhaps he’s limited to being a 4-A/5th starter.  As noted before, no 1st rounder and a blatant fail on Johansen the 2nd rounder have made this class look pretty weak.  It’d look a bit better if Ward (3rd rounder) turned out, but the cashing in of the 4th rounder (Pivetta) for a short-term head case rental looks equally wasteful in hindsight.

On the bright side … it makes Rule 5 decisions pretty easy.  We’ll circle back to this post when we do the Rule5 analysis, but right now the only candidate here worth protecting is Voth.  (Update post-writing: we were right; the only one added was Voth and nobody here got drafted).

 

 

After reviewing all the 2015 pitching staffs, I projected where I thought everyone would start in 2016.

Now that the four full-season affiliates have been announced, lets see how my predictions turned out.  As always, the Big Board (maintained by SpringfieldFan) is a great resource to track everyone.

Notations here: * = lefty, ^ == new off-season acquisition.  Also, “Missing” usually means “Stuck in Extended Spring Trianing/XST” or in organizational limbo.

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MLB Predicted

• Rotation: Scherzer, Strasburg, Ross, Gonzalez*, Roark
• Bullpen: Papelbon, Treinen, Rivero*, Perez*^, Kelley^, Gott^, Petit^
• D/L: Barrett (60-day DL)
• out of organization: Zimmermann, Fister, Storen (traded), Thornton*, Janssen, Carpenter, Stammen (non-tendered)

MLB Actual Opening day

• Rotation: Scherzer, Strasburg, Gonzalez*, Ross, Roark
• Bullpen: Papelbon, Treinen, Rivero*, Perez*, Kelley, Belisle, Petit
• D/L: Barrett (60-day DL)

Discussion: only one surprise from the pre-Spring Training prediction for this team: Matt Belisle makes the team ahead of Trevor Gott.  Otherwise everyone is in the roles they were acquired to hold.  There was some question about whether Blake Treinen would get optioned early in the spring, but not now.  The order of the starters wasn’t right: Ross is being treated like the 4th starter and Roark the 3rd, I guess.

It probably wasn’t too hard to predict 12 out of the 13 spots in the MLB roster, so we won’t pat ourselves on the back too much.  Lets talk minors.

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AAA Predicted

• Rotation: Cole, Jordan, Espino, Voth, Laffey*^, THill, Arroyo^
• Bullpen: Martin, Solis*, Grace*, Brady^, Bacus, de los Santos, Runion, Velasquez^, Masset^, EDavis, Burnett*^
• Release Candidates: McGregor, Walters
• out of organization: Billings, Bleier*, Swynenberg, Fornataro, Meek, Runion, Lively, Gutierrez, Valverde, Delcarmen, RHill, Overton

AAA Actual

• starters: Cole, Jordan, Espino, THill, Voth
• spot starts/swingman: Laffey*
• bullpen: Martin, Solis*, Grace*, Runion, Massett, EDavis, Gott
• dl/restricted: Arroyo, Brady
• in AA: Bacus, de los Santos
• missing: no one
• cut/released/FAs: McGregor, Velasquez, Walters, Burnett (opted-out)

Discussion: No surprises in the Rotation: we predicted 7 guys in the AAA rotation competition and ended up with the 5 we predicted, a 6th as the swing-man/spot starter and the 7th (Arroyo) on the D/L for the time being.

The bullpen has some surprises: Gott as previously mentioned was projected in the majors; the other 6 bullpen members were in the 10 projected guys competing for the AAA spots.  Two guys got pushed to AA.  Brady starts on the D/L.  Both my release candidates did in fact get released, along with off-season MLFA Velasquez.  The real surprise making the AAA team was Masset.

Burnett opted out when he didn’t make the MLB team, but it wasn’t a stretch to predict that happening.

No real projection surprises though, all in all.  Nobody who we projected to start in AA got moved up; only a couple guys who got moved down (Bacus and de los Santos).  I’m slightly surprised de los Santos is in AA and it makes me question even more his 40-man add and usage last year (3 days of service time and now two options blown).

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AA Projected

• Rotation: Spann*, Giolito, Simms, Alderson, RLopez, Mapes, Gorski^
• Bullpen: Mendez, Harper*, Shackelford^, NLee*, Benincasa, Suero, Thomas*, Walsh*, Robinson^, Whiting^
• Release Candidates: Rauh, Bates, Self, Dupra
• out of organization: Purke*, Pivetta, Simmons, Demny, Ambriz, Gilliam

AA Announced

• starters: Giolito, Simms, RLopez, AWilliams, Mapes
• spot starts/swingman:
• bullpen: Mendez, Harper*, NLee*,  Suero, Fish*, Bacus,  Gutierrez, de los Santos
• In High-A: Thomas*, Robinson, Whiting, Rauh, Self
• dl/restricted: none
• missing: Spann*, Alderson, Shackelford, Benincasa, Bates
• cut/released/FAs: Gorski, Walsh*, Dupra

Discussion:

The big surprise here is that Austen Williams made the AA team; I had him at High-A.  Perhaps it isn’t THAT big of a surprise given how well he pitched last year, but it does seem to go away from the Nats’ proclivities to start guys at their prior season’s level and have them “earn” early to mid-season promotions.  He joins a pretty high powered duo of Giolito and Lopez.  Gorski was an off-season MLFA brought in for competition and he didn’t win.  Only one of my four release candidates was in fact released (Dupra): the other three got dumped to XLS or High-A, which is good for them but not good for the massive log-jam of recently drafted college arms who need spots in A-ball.

In the bullpen, we’ve talked before about the surprising release of Jake Walsh.  There’s 5 guys stuck in XST limbo for now, a couple of which are release candidates.  One name that popped out of the blue is Robert Fish, who signed an under-the radar MLFA deal in mid February and who apparently hasn’t pitched professionally in two full seasons.  He must have had a pretty good spring.

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High-A Projected

• Rotation: AWilliams, Fedde, Valdez, Dickson, Bach*, Van Orden,
• Bullpen: Johanssen, Amlung (swingman),  Napoli*, Orlan*, Glover, Brinley, Sylvestre*
• Release Candidates: RPena, Turnbull*
• out of organization: Schwartz, Howell, CDavis, MRodriguez, Cooper (just released)

High-A Announced

• starters: Fedde, Valdez, Estevez, LReyes,  Whiting
• spot starts/swingman: Sanchez,
• bullpen: Brinley, Glover, Johansen, Orlan*, Robinson, Self, Thomas*
• dl/restricted: Rauh, Sylvestre*,  Turnbull*
• missing: Bach*
• cut/released/FAs: Walsh, Dupra, Dickson, Van Orden, Amlung, Napoli*

Discussion: My High-A predictions show just how out of whack my “reading the stat lines” predictions can be, especially for starters.

In the Rotation, AWilliams earned a jump to AA.  I thought Dickson and Van Orden were solid rotation candidates; instead they got released.  Lastly, I thought both Estevez and Reyes were repeating Hagerstown; Estevez missed the whole season and Reyes posted a 4.82 ERA there last year.  Instead they’re opening day starters for Potomac.  Not even close here.

In the Bullpen, we got Johanssen, Orlan, Glover, Brinley, Sylvestre and Turnbull right (not too bad prediction wise), though the last couple guys are on the D/L and still may be release candidates.  Who did we miss on?  Robinson was an off-season MLFA (who signs MLFAs for high-A?), and Sanchez I had projected to repeat after posting a 4.86 in Hagerstown last year.

 

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Low-A Projected

• Rotation: LReyes, JRodriguez, ALee, Dickey, Hearn*, Crownover*
• Bullpen: MSanchez (swingman),  Guilbeau*, Borne*, Rivera Jr., Gunter, Peterson, Baez
• release candidate: Estevez, DWilliams, DRamos, Boghosian, Mooney, Pirro
• out of organization: Ullmann, KPerez, Mooneyham, Johns (just released)

Low-A Actual

• starters: JRodriguez, ALee, Hearn*, Crownover*, Guilbeau*, Bach,
• spot starts/swingman:
• bullpen: Rivera Jr, Peterson, Baez, VanVossen, LTorres, RPena, DeRosier,
• dl/restricted: JMorales
• missing: Dickey, Borne*, Gunter, DRamos, Mooney, Pirro
• cut/released/FAs: Amlung, Van Orden, Napoli*, DWilliams, Boghosian

Discussion

From a starter standpoint, we did a pretty good job projecting who would be in Hagerstown’s rotation.  Four of the Six projected candidates “seem” like they’re in the rotation (full disclosure, we’re kind of guessing who these teams are using as starters until we see the first turn through the rotation).  The misses?  LReyes, who surprisingly is in High-A, and Guilbeau, who I thought would be on the team but in a relief role.

In the bullpen; we missed on Sanchez (who made High-A), Borne and Gunter (both of whom are in XST for now).  In their place are a slew of guys who I was projecting to be elsewhere.  I thought both VanVossen and DeRosier were release candidates after poor 2015 seasons in Short-A; instead they’re in the opening day bullpen.  I had LTorres in the Short-A bullpen after mostly failing as a short-A starter.

Lastly there’s Bach and RPena; I had both projected in Potomac.  I thought Bach had a perfectly good Low-A season last year and has nothing yet to prove in the Sally League.  Pena returns to Hagerstown for the third time; he pitched in Low-A in 2013 and 2014.  You have to think this is a planned short stint before he returns to at least High-A.

No real surprises in the “Missing/XST” crew: Dickey is the biggest profile name here but it seems to me he was injured last  year so its hard to pass judgement on his stats anywhere.  Borne‘s numbers were basically identical to the likes of Hearn and Guilbeau’s; he missed out in the 2016 competition.  Gunter might make sense as a mid-season promotion to cover for injury.  Ramos was hurt most of the year last  year.

In the “release candidate” section, I was clearly wrong about Estevez.  DWilliams and Boghosian have already indeed been released.  And both Mooney/Pirro missed out on the full-season roster and are in XST limbo.

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Let the games begin!  Are there surprises for you guys in these rosters?

This is the 5th in the 2015 Pitching staff review series, here’s a review of Hagerstown/Low-A’s pitching staff for 2015.  Other parts of the 2015 series:

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

For some historical perspective, here’s 2013’s version (featuring Pedro Encarnaction),  2012’s version (Aaron Barrett was the feature pitcher) and 2011’s version (Taylor Jordan the feature pitcher) of this post specifically for Hagerstown/Low-A.  Had I done this post in 2014 I would have “featured” Lucas Giolito, who dominated in 2014 for the suns (10-2, 2.20 ERA).

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

Note; while its relatively easy to do reviews for the upper levels of the system, once we get lower we’re usually talking about a lot of short sample sizes.  I’ll depend on text from my “draft class” write-ups where appropriate.

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

• Opening Day Starters: AWilliams, Bach*, LReyes, Van Orden, Valdez
• End of Season starters:  Amlung, Bach*, Lee, Fedde, JRodriguez, LReyes
• End of Season spot starts/swingman:  MSanchez
• End of Season bullpen:  Napoli*, Cooper, DWilliams,  Glover, Brinley, KPerez, Peterson
• Mid-Season promotions: Mapes, Valdez,  Thomas*, Purke*, AWilliams, Orlan*, Walsh*, Rauh, Howell
• up-and-back: Amlung, AWilliams, Amlung
• down-and-back: Van Orden, LReyes, Bach*
• Mid-Season demotions:  Webb*, Ullman, JRodriguez, Dickey, Baez, Johns, LTorres, DeRosier
• End of Season DL: Estevez, DRamos, JMorales, Van Orden
• Mid-Season cut/released/FAs: Mooneyham*

Hagerstown starters.  The rotation started the season with AWilliams, Bach*, LReyes, Van Orden, Valdez.  18 guys got starts in 2015.  Here’s an overview of the starters used, starting with the original five starters, going all the way to the rehab spot starts.

• Austen Williams blitzed the Sally league (8-1 with a 2.10 ERA) and forced a promotion to Potomac mid-season, where he continued pitching well.  See High-A write-up for more.  Outlook for Next season: High-A rotation to start with an eye on quick promotion.
• Connor Bach: Posted a 6-4, 3.85 ERA with 106/69 K/BB in 110 ip (20 starts) in Low A as a member of the rotation for much of the season.  4.08 fip, .311 babip.  Not too shabby for a 21st round senior sign from a relatively unknown baseball school (VMI).  Perhaps too many walks, but nearly a K/inning in full-season ball portends well for his future.  At the very least he could move up as a lefty specialist.   Outlook for Next season: High-A rotation.
• Luis Reyes went 6-7 with a 4.82 ERA in 24 starts and 117.2 IP, both leading the Hagerstown squad.  1.42 whip, 4.87 fip.  Reyes signed relatively late for a Dominican player (at age 18) but has steadily progressed out of the DSL and through the short-season leagues.  This was his first stint in full-season ball and at age 20 could be excused for getting hit somewhat hard.  A 72/50 K/BB ratio isn’t promising; he maintained much better K/9 rates in the lower levels.  I figure he’ll repeat Low-A looking to improve his numbers and see if he can regain some of his swing and miss stuff.  Outlook for Next season: repeating Low-A rotation.
• Drew Van Orden went 5-5, 3.61 ERA for Hagerstown with 47/34 K/BB in 92ip (15 starts), 4.33 fip, .254 babip.  Not a bad season for the under-slot 2014 5th round senior sign, who’s clearly sticking around.  He was mostly a spot starter for Hagerstown this year, getting a bunch of starts during the turmoil of the rotation.  He ended the season on the DL after giving the team 92 decent innings.  His FIP is a bit weak thanks to overall lucky BABIP contact but he has given no reason not to put himself into the discussion for that same role in Potomac next year.  Outlook for Next season: High-A rotation competition.
• Philips Valdez dominated the Sally league, going 5-2 with a 1.47 ERA and quickly earned a promotion to Potomac.   See High-A write-up for more.   Outlook for Next season: High-A rotation
• Jefry Rodriguez bounced between Short-A and Low-A again this season, starting in Hagerstown, pitching most of the year in Auburn and ending in Hagerstown.  See the Short-A write-up for more.  Outlook for Next season: Low-A rotation.
• Mario Sanchez was Hagerstown’s long-man/spot starter all year, getting 8 starts in 29 appearances and posting a 4.86 ERA along the way.  70/18 K/BB ratio in 90.2 innings, 1.28 whip, 4.18 whip, .301 babip.  Sanchez is even  younger than the other DSL grads on this team (he didn’t turn 21 until after the season was over, so 2016 will be his age-21 season).  Good control (nearly 4 strikeouts per walk) but was a bit homer prone (11 homers in 90 innings).  He’s undersized (6’1″) and I wonder if he’s not destined to continue to be this rubber-armed innings eater for the organization.  Its the same way he’s been used all along; few starts but lots of IP per appearance.  I also think he needs to improve his numbers before moving up, and he’s  young enough to repeat a level without really stalling his progress.  Outlook for Next season: Low-A swingman again.
• Justin Amlung is a bit of an oddity; he’s was a 24-yr old MLFA after getting cut from the Cubs’ high-A affiliate in May of 2015.  The Nats signed him and had him repeating Low-A for his third straight year.  He (like Sanchez) served as a swing-man, getting 19 appearances and 8 starts for Hagerstown, posting a 4.22 ERA along the way.  He had a great 42/7 K/BB ratio in 64 low-A innings, 1.14 whip, 3.70 fip.  He was promoted towards the end of the season and had a nice stretch for Potomac before the seasons’ end.  He was immediately declared a MLFA but has re-signed for 2016.  Outlook for Next season: high-A bullpen/swingman.
• Matt Purke had 8 starts and 32 IP for Hagerstown during his tour of the Nats farm system in 2015: see AA write-up for more.
• Erick Fedde evenly split his season between Short-A and Hagerstown.  He was 4-1, 2.57 ERA in Short-A Auburn with 36/8 in 35ip (8 starts), 2.60 fip, .346 babip.  He then got bumped up to Hagerstown where he threw another 29 innings across 6 starts with lesser stats (1-2, 4.34 ERA).  A good  post-Tommy  John debut season for  our 2014 1st rounder Fedde, despite the rather restrictive innings limits put on him; he was limited to just 5ip per start for a total of 64ip on the season between two levels.  Given his mediocre stats in Hagerstown and the Nats historical promotion schedule, he could start 2016 in the Hagerstown rotation with a quick move up to the Potomac rotation.  I could be wrong though; looking at the state of my projected High-A rotation I could also easily see him starting the year in Potomac.  There’s just so many arms competing for the Low-A rotation he may be forced up.  Outlook for Next season: High-A rotation.
  
• Andrew Lee posted a 5-1, 1.63 ERA across 3 levels, ending up in Hagerstown where he spent most of his first pro season.  47/10 K/BB in 38.2 innings (16/5 starts), 2.19 fip, .250 babip specifically in lowA where he spent most of his time.  An intriguing arm for sure and more than held his own in 5 Low-A starts.  He’s the fastest riser so far of the 2015 draft class and he’s easily in the mix for the Hagerstown 2016 rotation.  Outlook for Next season: Low-A rotation to start; could be a fast riser.
  
• Jose Morales got blasted in two Low-A starts after three quick relief appearances in Auburn, then spent the rest of the year on the D/L.  Not much to glean from his year; is he a starter or a reliever?  He only threw 30-some odd relief innings in 2014; I think he’s being used as a long-man/spot starter arm for now.  I would guess he’ll start 2016 in XST with an eye of hooking on with Short-A again.  Outlook for Next season: Short-A bullpen.
• Ryan Ullmann got stuck in XST to start the season, hooked up with Hagerstown 5 weeks into the season, got hit hard, was dumped to Auburn, had one appearance and then was summarily released.  Quite a quick downturn of events for Ullmann, who was always going to be a long shot (30th rounder out of a small school).  Outlook for Next season: out of baseball.
• Other Guys who got starts for Hagerstown:
  • Joan Baez got 3 starts for Hagerstown in June, got hammered, and spent the rest of the year in short-season ball.  See GCL write-up for more.
  • Jeff Howell had two starts for Hagerstown before getting a few more in Potomac as he converted to the mound.  See High-A write-up for more.
  • Brian Rauh had two “rehab” starts for Hagerstown and spent most of the year in Harrisburg.  See AA write-up for more.
  • Robbie Dickey had two starts in Hagerstown before getting dumped back to Auburn.  See Short-A write-up for more.
  • Robert Orlan had one spot-start for Hagerstown; see the reliever section.
  • Wirkin Estevez spent the entire season on the D/L: he’ll compete for a Low-A rotation spot in 2016.

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

• Andrew Cooper: 2-2, 3.53 ERA with 35/16 K/BB in 63.2 relief IP for Low-A Hagerstown, 3.63 fip, .283 babip.  Improved his numbers across the board while repeating Low-A.  Still isn’t getting the K/9 we’d like to see though.  He’ll be 24 in High-A next year in what probably is a make or break season.  Outlook for Next season: High-A bullpen.
• David Napoli went 7-5, 4.01 ERA with 62/36 K/BB in 60 relief IP mostly for LowA Hagerstown.  3.57 fip, .289 babip.  He started with Potomac but spent most of the year in Hagerstown, despite turning 25 during the season.  If anything,  his numbers took a step back from his 2014 Hagerstown campaign, and given his age and the glut of arms in the system, time may be running out.  Or maybe not: i mean, he signed for $15k and basically cost the team nothing and eats innings; that kind of guy is useful to have around.  Outlook for Next season: High-A bullpen.
• Robert Orlan went 3-1, 3.00 ERA with 85/28 K/BB ratio in 72 relief IP between LowA and HighA.  Orlan bounced between Potomac and Hagerstown all season, ending up in HighA with pretty good numbers in a “more than a loogy” role.  Especially impressive is 85 Ks in just 72 ip.  He’s older for these levels, inarguably, but could put himself in a good position by continuing to succeed in 2016.  I see him in the Potomac bullpen again with an eye towards a June promotion to AA when the short-season promotions come due.   Outlook for Next season: High-A bullpen.
• Samuel Johns went 3-4, 4.31 ERA between LowA and ShortA with 39/17 k/bb in 62.2 relief innings, 4.63 fip, .290 babip in lowA.  He struggled in LowA, but then dropped back to ShortA and was dominant.  Not great, but certainly not bad for a 31st round 5th year senior as compared to what has happened to other 5th year senior signs on this list.  Maybe not the best stuff, but has been effective.  My guess is that he either makes the Hagerstown team next spring or is cut loose, but the fact that he hung around this long gives him some more room to work with.  Outlook for Next season: Low-A bullpen.
• Kevin Perez threw 36 relatively effective innings for Hagerstown after throwing 18 relatively ineffective innings for Potomac to start the year.  The team signed him as a MLFA early in 2015 after he was dumped out of the Low-A Royals affiliate but I doubt he showed the team enough to stick with him given the number of arms rising out of the short-season rosters.  Outlook for Next season: out of the organization.
• Deion Williams, went 1-2, 5.46 ERA with 22/18 K/BB in 29.2 relief innings with Hagerstown.  Williams was drafted as a SS but converted to the mound after a year or so.  Since then, he’s struggled, somehow making it onto the full-season Hagerstown roster in June after sitting in XST for two months.  There, he continued not to impress; his career ERA is now 6.12 across 103IP and the three lower levels of the minors.  I could see 2016 being a “make it or break it” year for him; he either makes the full season bullpen or he’s cut.  Outlook for Next season: Low-A bullpen competition.
• Koda Glover went 1-1, 1.80 ERA across 2 levels, getting promoted to Low-A after just 6 IP in Short-A.  Of course, in those 6ip he gave up just one hit and struck out 11, so it was pretty clear he was over-qualified for the league.  For the season: 38/2 K/BB in 30 ip (19app), 2.44 fip, .288 babips in LowA where he spent most of the year.  38 to 2 (!!)  K/BB ratio in 30 innings.  No wonder he was an over-slot deal; the 2015 draftee is one of the highest rising guys in the class so far.  Glover profiled very well and should be in the mix for a High-A bullpen slot in 2016 already.  Outlook for Next season: High-A bullpen.
• Brett Mooneyham was 0-2 with a 6.41 ERA in 19 ineffective innings for Low-A Hagerstown before the Nats finally cut the cord and released him on 6/3/15.  Mooneyham was in Low-A for the third successive season, having failed to make the cut in Potomac in each of 2013 and 2014.  You’d have to say that he’s one of the more higher-profile drafting failures of the Mike Rizzo era.  Or maybe not; the team had to go over-slot to sign Giolito and may have skimped for the rest of the draft.  Outlook for Next season: out of the organization.
• Ryan Brinley went 1-4 1.44 ERA  across 3 levels this year with a 16/1 K/BB in 31.1 ip, 3.85 fip, .292 babip in low-A (where he ended up).  Great 27th round find so far in Brinley, who may not have a ton of swing and miss but certainly seems to have some command (1 BB in 31 innings??).  Could be a nice little middle relief option going forward, someone who can keep his team in games.  I could see him in the High-A bullpen next year based on his command of Low-A.   Outlook for Next season: High-A bullpen.
• Jake Walsh threw 17 scoreless innings in Hagerstown before getting bumped up to High-A.  See High-A write-up for more.
• David Ramos threw 13 innings of middle relief for Hagerstown before getting hurt; he spent most of the summer going “rehab” assignments all throughout short-season ball before being “activated” once the full-season was done.  Not much to glean from his season; his ERAs were not pretty anywhere he went.  He’s now 24, in his fourth pro season outside of the DSL and has yet to post an ERA below 6.46 in any of his multiple stops.  Honestly, I’m surprised he made the full-season bullpen in 2015.  I’d guess he’ll take another shot at Hagerstown’s bullpen in 2016 and if he doesn’t make it, he could be facing an April 1 release.  Outlook for Next season: Low-A bullpen competition.
• Other Relievers who got less than 10 IP for Hagerstown this year:
  • Tommy Peterson: threw 6ip in the last week of the season: see Short-A write-up.
  • Tyler Mapes threw 6 shutout IP before getting bumped to Potomac: see High-A write-up.
  • Joey Webb threw 5 innings early in the season before ending up in Auburn.  See Short-A write-up.
  • Luis Torres threw 3 innings to cover in mid July: See Short-A write-up.
  • Diomedes Eusebio is normally a 1B and threw one inning at some point.

Summary

It was a successful season for Hagerstown hurlers; I count 6-7 guys who earned promotions by pitching well in Hagerstown.  A good number of them should feature in 2016 for either Potomac or Harrisburg.  This didn’t help the Suns much, as they finished both halves right around .500, not quite good enough for a playoff spot.  2016’s staff will have some familiarity to it; I think a good portion of the 2016 opening day rotation will look just like the 2015 end-of-season rotation, mirroring the Nats recent habit of having players repeat levels in overlapping seasons and doing mid-season promotions.

 

This is the 4th in the 2015 Pitching staff review series, here’s a review of Potomac/High-A’s pitching staff for 2015.  Other parts of the 2015 series:

• Washington/MLB 2015 review
• Syracuse/AAA 2015 review
• Harrisburg/AA 2015 review

For some historical perspective, here’s 2013’s version (featuring Taylor Jordan), here’s 2012’s version (Nathan Karns the feature pitcher) and 2011’s version (Danny Rosenbaum the feature pitcher) of this post specifically for Potomac/High-A.  Had we done this in 2014, we would likely have “featured” Gilberto Mendez for his good work closing.

Note; while its relatively easy to do reviews for the upper levels of the system, once we get lower we’re usually talking about a lot of short sample sizes.  And i’m sure there’s people reading this who saw every pitcher on this post throw in 2015; by all means feel free to comment if you believe i’ve mis-characterized someone here.  Of all the write-ups I expect readers here to have better opinions of Potomac players by virtue of actually seeing them week in/week out, so definitely pipe up.

All stats are courtesy of either milb.com’s Potomac 2015 Stats page or via Fangraph’s Potomac 2015 page.   Also useful here are the Big Board and the Nats Draft Tracker since so many of these lower-minors guys are recent draftees.  And here’s the Baseball America Minor League Free Agent (MLFA) tracker.  And here’s a list of the official MLB MLFA declarations for 2015, though these are more useful for the AAA and AA squads frankly.

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

• Opening Day rotation: Pivetta, Rauh, Schwartz, Suero, Spann*
• End of Season Rotation: Mapes, Dickson, AWilliams, Spann*, Howell
• End of Season spot starts/swingman: Dupra, Thomas*,  Valdez
• End of Season bullpen:  Self,   Walsh*, Johansen, Orlan*, MRodriguez
• Mid-Season promotions: Dupra, Bacus, Suero, Pivetta, Mapes, Giolito, Purke*, Simms, Rauh, Roark
• up-and-back: Mapes, Spann*, Dupra
  
• down-and-back: Thomas*, Rauh
• demotions: KPerez, Napoli*, Amlung, Orlan*
• D/L: RPena, Turnbull*, Sylvestre*,  Lopez
• cut/released/FAs: Mirowski, Henke, Encarnacion, Schwartz (retired), CDavis

Potomac starters.  The rotation started the season with Pivetta, Rauh, Schwartz, Suero, Spann*.  19 guys got starts in 2015.  Here’s an overview of the starters used, starting with the original five starters, going all the way to the rehab spot starts.

• Nick Pivetta was your opening day starter, and by the end of the season he had gotten promoted and traded.  He earned his promotion, going 7-4 with a 2.29 ERA in 15 starts for Potomac.  He was not as successful upon his promotion to AA, but that was still enough to catch the eye of Philadelphia and be the bounty for them ridding themselves of Jonathan Papelbon‘s ego and contract.  If he was still with the team, he would have been the ‘featured” player above and not Mapes for his dominant season in High-A.  Outlook for Next Season: Philadelphia’s AA team in Reading, where he gets to go against Harrisburg and all his old teammates a few times a year.
• Brian Rauh threw 7 excellent High-A starts before getting promoted to AA, where he spent most of the year.  See AA write-up for more.  Outlook for Next season: AA rotation or bust.
• Blake Schwartz had three High-A starts, struggled, and retired.  After a fantastic 2013 season in Potomac, he just never could make the jump to AA and (not that I’ve ever talked to him or anything) perhaps got discouraged after not really progressing further up the chain.  Outlook for Next season: retired, out of baseball
• Wander Suero pitched pretty effectively for Potomac in the first half in a swingman role, getting 16 appearances and 5 starts and posting a 2.41 ERA, 1.20 whip, and a 3.27 FIP.  Not much in the way of swing and miss though; 39/18 K/BB in 56 innings.  After moving up, he struggled in AA but inched up his K/9 rate while focusing more on middle relief.  No reason to think he can’t compete in AA in 2016, and is still relatively young (he turned 24 just after the season ended so he’ll still be 24 all next year).  Outlook for Next season: AA bullpen, perhaps High-A bullpen again if he gets squeezed in a numbers game.
• Matthew Spann bounced between High-A and AA all year, posting mid 4 ERAs in both places.  See AA write-up for more.  Outlook for Next season: AA rotation.
• Reynaldo Lopez led the team in IP and starts for 2015, going 6-7 with a 4.09 ERA in 99 IP across 19 starts.  His stats: 4.09 ERA, 1.22 whip, 2.95 FIP and 94/28 K/BB in those 99 innings, all as a 21-yr old.  It isn’t hard to see why Lopez is highly ranked on “top 10” lists for Nats prospects; he more than held his own in High-A as one of the younger hurlers in the league.  The team held him back in XST for a few weeks to keep innings off his arm.  While most scouting reports think he’ll eventually end up in the bullpen (no third pitch, iffy mechanics, big arm), he’s obviously worth giving more chances to stick as a high-velocity starter (in the same vein as Yordano Ventura for example).  Outlook for Next season: AA rotation.
• John Simms threw an excellent half season for Potomac before getting bumped up mid-season; see AA writeup for more.  Outlook for Next season: AA rotation.
• Lucas Giolito threw an dominant half season for Potomac (86 ks in 69 innings) after being kept in XST for the first 5 weeks of the season (so much for those pre-2015 interviews where he proclaimed that he had no innings limits, eh?) before also getting bumped up mid-season; see AA writeup for more.  Outlook for Next season: AA rotation.
• Austen Williams blitzed the Sally league and forced a promotion to Potomac mid-season, where he continued pitching well.  In High-A he was 4-6 with a 2.59 ERA, 1.09 whip, 3.22 fip and 41/17 K/BB over 63 high-A innings.  The 2014 draftee is looking like a nice little find.  There does seem to be a bit of fortuitousness in his numbers (.253 BABIP and a delta between his ERA and FIP), so I could see the log-jam in the AA projected rotation keeping Williams back in Potomac for the first half of the 2016 season.  Outlook for Next season: High-A rotation to start with an eye on quick promotion.
• Philips Valdez dominated the Sally league and earned a promotion after two months.  In Potomac he bounced in and out of the rotation, getting 10 starts across 22 appearances and posting a 3.77 ERA in High-A.  Other numbers: 1.44 whip, 3.26 fip, 48/25 K/BB in 59 High-A innings.  Valdez has been around for a while; this was his *seventh* season in the Nats organization.  He just turned 24.  But he has relatively few innings on his arm; just 260 IP across those seven seasons (he missed the entirety of 2012).  He’s looking like he could be a low-profile decent starter going forward, though he may run out of time in the system before the team is faced with a tougher decision on how to keep him.  For now, I think he repeats High-A to start, is tried out as a full time starter, and we’ll see if he can push forward to AA in 2016.  Outlook for Next season: High-A rotation
• Tyler Mapes so far is a pretty good 2014 draft success story; he was a 30th round *senior sign* out of Tulane who was basically unhittable in Short-A last year, threw 6 clean innings in Low-A and was bumped up to High-A (the first 2014 draftee to get promoted that high) after just a couple of weeks.  Once in Potomac, he continued to pitch well in a swing-man role; 30 appearances, 8 starts, a 2.38 ERA across 90 innings, 1.22 whip, 2.78 FIP and 75/17 K/BB over 96 innings in High-A.  Not too shabby.  If it were me, I’d push him right to AA and stick him in the rotation, but as noted before I’m projecting an awful lot of starters to be in that Harrisburg rotation right now.  I’m curious to see how things shake out for someone like Mapes; he didn’t last to the 30th round as a favor to the Nats; is there something limiting in his capabilities that will cause him to suddenly top out like a lot of late-round senior signs?  We’ll see.  Outlook for Next season: AA rotation.
• Ian Dickson was hurt the first half of the season and finished 2015 the exact same place he finished 2014: in the Potomac rotation with decent to effective numbers.  2015 totals for Dickson: 3-3, 3.60 ERA in 12 appearances/8 starts.  We see a problem though: 31 ks and 39 (?!) walks in 40 innings in Potomac this year.  Wow; that’s a walk an inning.  He never saw this kind of walk rate before, so hopefully its just a remnant of whatever injury kept him out the first half of the year.  Nonetheless, he seems like he’ll be back in Potomac a third year until he can solve his walk rate issues.  Outlook for Next season: High-A rotation.
• Dakota Bacus began the season in Potomac, had 5 starts and 8 appearances and got bumped quickly to Harrisburg, where he played most of the season.  See AA write-up for more.
• Jeff Howell is a pretty interesting player.  He’s a career minor league backup catcher, having toiled in the lower minor leagues since 2005.  He signed on with Washington in 2012 and hung around as a backup between the levels for a couple of years.  Then suddenly, at the age of 32, he decided to try his hand on the mound.  Perhaps he was inspired by other Catchers-turned-Hurlers like Jason Motte.  He (presumably) hung out in XST for most of the season learning how to pitch, then threw a couple of games in the Rookie league, then for Hagerstown, then finally for Potomac at season’s end.  He struggled once he got to Potomac, giving up 9 runs in 13 innings but more importantly walking 17 guys while he was there.  He’s now a MLFA and one may think that he’d re-up with Washington since we’re the ones who gave him a shot.  We’ll see how the off-season goes.  He may choose to pitch elsewhere where he can be guaranteed a rotation spot (a tough one in our system, since we’re completely overloaded with arms from pitching-heavy drafts over the past few years).   Outlook for Next season: continuing his conversion to pitcher in another organization.
• Others who got starts in Potomac for 2015:
  • Matt Purke got three brief starts in Potomac before settling in Harrisburg for the year; see AA write-up for more.
  • Rehab starts for Potomac in 2015: Barrett, Roark, Janssen and Carpenter (though technically Roark’s were not rehab but “stretching out” starts).

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

• Justin Thomas was the bullpen leader in IP for Potomac in 2015, throwing 57 innings across 28 games, posting a 3.43 ERA, 1.21 whip, a 2.84 FIP and getting 50/18 K/BB in those 57 innings.  He’s a lefty but was used more as a long-man, not being limited to just short stints.  He’s looking great considering his limited draft pedigree (senior sign out of a small college in the 21st round) and I see no reason not to keep bumping him up the chain.  Outlook for Next season: AA rotation.
• Jake Johanssen was 1-7 with a 5.44 ERA, 1.81 whip, 4.69 fip with 48/27 K/BB in 48 relief innings for Potomac.  Johanssen was our top draft pick in 2013, has already been “demoted” from a starter to the pen, and now seemingly can’t perform in a relief role either.  Where do you go from here with him?  You and I know that his large bonus is a “sunk cost” and shouldn’t dictate his usage, but teams don’t seem to see it that way.  Just look at how long the Nats kept Brett Mooneyham around after it became clear he wasn’t capable of performing, even at lower levels of the minors?  I see Johanssen repeating High-A and trying to get his career back on track.  Outlook for Next season: High-A bullpen.
• Derek Self seems to be taking a step back in his career; after posting a 1.69 ERA through half a season in Potomac last year, he more than earned a promotion up to AA where he more than held his own.  However after just 14 innings in AA this year, he got dumped back to Potomac, thus repeating High-A for the third straight year.  He was solid again; a 4/1 K/BB ratio in middle relief, but where is his Nats career going at this point?  Obviously he needs to be in the AA bullpen next year, but you could have also said that last year and it didn’t work out.  There’s going to be a lot of AA bullpen competition; if he gets squeezed out does he get cut in 2016?  we’ll see.  Outlook for Next season: AA bullpen competition/Release Candidate.
• Brian Dupra is in a similar boat as Derek Self; he’s now 27 and spent most of his third successive year in Potomac.  He was promoted mid-season to AA but didn’t last long after getting hit hard.  Final Potomac stats for 2015: 2.79 ERA in 42 mostly later bullpen innings.  I think he’s going to be in a similar situation as Self this coming spring; if he cannot cut it at AA (and there’s plenty of competition for that bullpen), he may get cut loose entirely.  Not that it should matter, but it should be noted that Dupra was a senior sign for limited bonus money out of Notre Dame in 2011, so it could be a “make the team or get cut” situation.  Outlook for Next season: AA bullpen competition/Release candidate.
• Cody Davis was struggling early in the season, with a decent ERA but ugly peripherals (4.55 fip, 10/15 K/BB in 21 ip) and was released towards the end of June as upwards player movement started to need bullpen spots.  The undrafted MLFA signing from 2011 played parts of 5 seasons for the system but seemed to fall apart this year as he repeated High-A.   It does not look like he picked up anywhere and may be done.  Outlook for Next season: out of baseball.
• Manny Rodriguez only threw 21 innings between two different D/L stints this year, and then was released soon after the end of the season.  It seems that the team believed he never recovered from the injury that cost him two full seasons early in his minor league career.  Outlook for Next season: out of baseball.
• Jake Walsh threw 17 scoreless innings as a late-inning/closer in Low-A before getting bumped up to High-A in July.  From there out he posted a 3.66 ERA in 19.2 innings across 9 appearances with a 19/10 K/BB ratio.   There’s something odd going on with Walsh; why was he even in Low-A to start 2015?  He posted a sub-2.00 ERA across low- and high-A LAST YEAR, yet didn’t start in Potomac nor get considered for the AA rotation despite being a senior sign in 2013.  He now holds a CAREER 1.65 ERA and seems to me to more than have earned a shot at a look at a higher level.  Outlook for Next season: AA bullpen.
• Kevin Perez spent the 2nd half of the year in  Hagerstown after struggling early on in Potomac: see Low-A write-up for more.
• Robert Orlan spent most of the season in Hagerstown but posted a 2.20 ERA in Potomac in 16.1 August innings:  see Low-A write-up for more.
• Justin Amlung, similarly to Orlan above, spent most of the season in Hagerstown but posted an excellent 1.84 ERA in Potomac in 14.2 July and August innings:  see Low-A write-up for more.
• Other Relievers of note who had less than 10 IP for Potomac this year:
  • David Napoli had 8 IP for Potomac before getting demoted to Hagerstown:  see Low-A write-up for more.
  • Matt Purke threw 7 IP for Potomac during his tour of the Nats farm system in 2015: see AA write-up for more.
  • Erik Davis threw 3 re-hab IP in 2015; see AA write-up for more.
  • Tanner Roark threw one 4Ip start during his “stretch out” minor league stint; see MLB write-up for more.
  • Brenden Webb, normally an Outfielder, threw a 3Ip mop-up game (really?  they couldn’t find ONE reliever out of the 32 guys who threw innings for Potomac this year?)
  • MLBers Aaron Barrett, Casey Janssen and David Carpenter each had some re-hab innings; see MLB write-up for more.
  • A few guys spent the entire year on the D/L: Ronald Pena, Kylin Turnbull, Hector Sylvestre: all are looking at repeating Potomac next year if/when healthy.

Summary

Potomac certainly saw a lot of churn in its pitching staff; 32 total pitchers used (19 different starters including rehab starts by relievers).  Their leading IP was Lopez, who didn’t even hit 100 IP on the year.  There were at least 6-7 arms who earned their promotions to AA mid-season, a great sign for the rising tide of pitching talent in the system.  Lots of guys with ERAs that start with a “2” in the season-ending stats.  It didn’t help Potomac in the standings; they finished both halves several games under .500 and out of the playoffs.  This will create quite a competition for the AA staff next year: my projections at this point show at least 6-7 rotation candidates, 8-9 bullpen candidates and another 3-4 guys who are right at that age where they may be summarily cut if they don’t make the AA team in 2016.  Harsh, but good for the Nats, who could use all the bullpen help they can get.

The next in a series: previously we reviewed the 2015 season stats for the 2015 draft class and the 2014 draft class.  Unlike these other two posts, this one was a bit easier to write.  Why?  Because I had done this analysis for the 2013 class previously … back in 2013.  All I had to do was cut-n-paste that post and all 40 draftees were already listed with key details.  Ahhh.  I may continue this with previous classes since it was easier to compile.  Hopefully I didn’t miss any obvious promotions for key guys like I did previously.

Web links to use while reading:

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

Without further ado:

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Round 1: forfeited w/ Rafael Soriano signing, which as I noted in this June 2013 post cost the Nats a shot at one of several highly regarded pitchers drafted just behind our vacated spot.  In retrospect, here’s a quick summary of the careers so far of the guys I liked at the time in that spot (Rob Kaminsky, Sean Manaea, Ryne Stanek, Ian Clarkin):

• Kaminsky: so far, looks pretty good.  Career 2.22 ERA across multiple levels, finishing this year in High-A.  Flipped this  year to Cleveland from St. Louis (his drafting team) in the Brandon Moss deal.
• Manaea: looks awesome after some injury issues in 2013.  Finished 2015 going 6-0 with a 1.93 ERA for Midland in AA and was a key prospect going to Oakland in the Ben Zobrist deal.  I really liked him in 2013 and thought his hip injury bumped him down the line from being the top 10 talent he was initially projected to be, and nothing he’s done professionally has countered that.
• Stanek: dominated high-A for Tampa Bay this year, finished the year in AA.
• Clarkin: drafted by the Yankees, pitched his first full season of pro ball in low-A (impressive), giving Charleston 16 decent starts.  Hurt his elbow in 2015 spring training and didn’t pitch all year, but is apparently recovered and is now pitching in the AFL.

I dunno.  I hate to sound like a repeating record on the Soriano signing, but it looks even worse know knowing who we could have had.  Knowing how Mike Rizzo loves college arms, you have to think he was likely looking at either Manaea or Stanek, and both those guys are looking like mid-rotation starters perhaps by mid 2016.  All for an overpriced malcontent closer we didn’t need and who was eventually supplanted from the role by the same in-house option (Drew Storen) who the team AGAIN tried to supplant with another unnecessary over-priced malcontent (this time Jonathan Papelbon) in 2015 to disastrous results.  Do you think Rizzo and Lerner have learned their lesson by now?

Back to the analysis.

Round 2: Jake Johansen, Coll Sr. RH Starting Pitcher Dallas Baptist U..  1-7, 5.44 ERA  with 48/27 K/BB in 48 relief IP, 4.69 fip, .358 babip for Potomac this year.  He was pushed to the bullpen full time for 2015 yet was, frankly, awful in relief.  This is on top of his 5.19 ERA in 2014 in Hagerstown.  This pick is looking more and more like a disaster.  I don’t see any silver linings here, other than his K/inning rate (which is thrown off by his 4.5 walks/9 inning rate for his career).  Trending Down.

Round 3: Drew Ward, HS 3B. Slashed .249/.327/.358 with 110/39 K/BB in 377 Abs, 6hr for High-A Potomac.  Missed a month with an injury, but otherwise took incremental steps back on his performance from his 2014 campaign in Low-A.  Where’s the power?  Slugging .358 isn’t great, especially for a corner infielder.  But there doesn’t seem to be anyone else really preventing him from suiting up for Harrisburg as the starting 3B in 2016.  Also worth remembering; he’s a HS draftee so he was a 20-yr old in High-A; quite young.  That tempers any criticism.   He’s in the Arizona Fall League, a good sign for the team’s opinion of him, so even my opinion may be slightly conservative. Trending Steady.

Round 4: Nick Pivetta, Juco RH Starting Pitcher.  7-4, 2.29 ERA for Potomac in 2015 before getting traded to Philadelphia for Jonathan Papelbon.  Was working on a nice improvement over his 2014 campaign for Hagerstown (13-8, 4.22 ERA).  Was bumped up to Philly’s AA affiliate in Reading PA and struggled to finish out 2015.

Round 5: Austin Voth, Coll Jr RH Starting Pitcher: 6-7, 2.92 ERA and 148/40 k/bb across 157 ip (28 starts) for AA Harrisburg.  3.07 fip, .284 babip.  Another excellent campaign after his three-level jump in 2014.  He’s now regularly mentioned in the back-end of Nats top 10 prospect lists and seems like he could be one of the first options considered in 2016 if a MLB starting pitcher gets injured.  Looks like a steal of this draft and could be the best player to come out of it by the time all is said and done.  Trending Up.

Round 6: Cody Gunter, Juco 3B: 1-0 4.15 ERA, 23/8 K/BB in 21.2 IP for Short-A Auburn, 3.84 fip, .259 babip.  Gunter was drafted as a 3B and after two non-descript seasons in Auburn converted to the mound.  so far, results look promising; he maintained a K/inning ratio with good control and could be better based on the ERA-FIP delta.   I see him getting pushed to the Low-A bullpen in 2016.  Trending Steady.

Round 7: Jimmy Yezzo, Coll Jr 1B.  Slashed .192/.250/.256 with 36/13 K/BB in 49 games at Potomac, with just one homer, before the team pulled the plug and released him on 7/22/15.  Yezzo showed some power in Low-A in 2014 (13 homers in 123 games) but clearly not enough to justify keeping him around as a 1B-only player.  This was always going to be the jeopardy with drafting him; he was positionally limited from the start and, despite a great college campaign, couldn’t make the transition in pro ball.  Immediately after his release he picked up with a Frontier League team, finishing out the season, so hopefully he gets another shot.

Round 8: David Napoli, Coll Sr LH relief pitcher.  Went 7-5, 4.01 ERA with 62/36 K/BB in 60 relief IP mostly for LowA Hagerstown.  3.57 fip, .289 babip.  He started with Potomac but spent most of the year in Hagerstown, despite turning 25 during the season.  If anything,  his numbers took a step back from his 2014 Hagerstown campaign, and given his age and the glut of arms in the system, time may be running out.  Or maybe not: i mean, he signed for $15k and basically cost the team nothing and eats innings; that kind of guy is useful to have around.  See McGregor, Scott for AAA the last couple of years.  Trending Down.

Round 9: Jake Joyce, Coll Sr RH relief pitcher.  Released in July 2014 as the 2014 signees started reporting to Vermont after just one season in Auburn where he posted a 5+ ERA.  A cheap, senior sign who had to do more to impress and stick around as Napoli has done.

Round 10: Brennan Middleton, Coll Sr SS/2B. Slashed .198/.252/.264 for half a season while repeating LowA despite his age and was summarily released in July 2015.  Senior sign, low bonus figure, poor performance all contributed.

Round 11: John Simms, Coll jr RH relief pitcher.  6-6, 2.74 ERA with 48/25 K/BB in 88.2 (15 starts) for Potomac.  4.15 fip, .236 babip.  Earned a mid-season promotion and ended the season with 6 starts in Harrisburg’s rotation.  Excellent season-over-season improvement for Simms, who will look to do the same thing in AA’s rotation for 2016.  The team clearly sees the same potential and sent him to the Arizona Fall League this year.  Trending up.

Round 12: Andrew Cooper, Juco RH relief pitcher.  2-2, 3.53 ERA with 35/16 K/BB in 63.2 relief IP for LowA Hagerstown, 3.63 fip, .283 babip.  Improved his numbers across the board while repeating LowA.  Still isn’t getting the K/9 we’d like to see though.  He’ll be 24 in High-A next year in what probably is a make or break season.  Trending Steady.

Round 13: John Costa, Juco RH relief pitcher.  Released 4/1/15 after being injured most of 2014.  Without knowing the details, I’d guess that whatever injury he suffered was a career ender, that he couldn’t show enough improvement in spring training 2015 to merit keeping around.  Tough break.

Round 14: David Masters, Juco SS.  Slashed .226/.311/.285 with 69/40 K/BB in 354 Abs, 2hr, 3SB mostly in LowA, missed most of May and June.  Did earn a promotion to HighA in August to finish out the season.  With so many MIF in the system and the likes of Chris Bostick blasting homers in the AFL, Masters may not be long for the organization.  Trending down.

Round 15: Isaac Ballou, Coll Sr OF/CF.  Slashed .271/.344/.397  with 82/47 K/BB in 431 Abs, 8homers 21steals CF/LF as  he jumped two levels (from HighA to AAA) in 2015.  A nice season from the local product (hails from Germantown, MD, went to Marshall U).  An .876 OPS in AA greased the skids for him to move up the line.  He has some speed (56 career SBs in 322 games) and can hit and can play all three OF positions; can he push the likes of Matt den Dekker for a  utility OF spot on the big club?  Maybe not for 2016, but a strong AAA campaign would help.  Trending up.

Round 16: Willie Allen, Juco Corner OF from Oklahoma/Newtown, MA.  Did not sign; transferred to Lewis-Clark State (ID).  Allen was an odd case at the time; it was literally impossible to find information on him.  But he’s definitely playing college ball at Lewis-Clark now.  Now known as “William Allen” if you’re trying to find him in various databases, fyi.

Round 17: Geoff Perrott, Coll Sr C.  released/retired (2015): never played in 2014 and no record of his official release in milb.com, but clearly he’s done playing.

Round 18: Cory Bafidis, Coll Sr LH relief pitcher.  Released July 2014 once the 2014 draftees started showing up in Auburn.  This release has troubled me; he had decent numbers in 2013, then got axed after just 6 innings in 2014.  Seemed too fast to me.

Round 19: Niko Spezial, Coll Sr LH relief pitcher.  Released in May of 2014, even before the draft.  Only threw 19 innings in 2013 and none in 2014, not getting a full-team assignment and likely just losing out on the anticipated numbers game.

Round 20: Brenton Allen, Coll Jr Corner OF.  As with Bafidis, Released in June 2014 once the 2014 draftees started showing up in Auburn.  He only hit .197 in Auburn in 2013 and was clearly replaceable with new 2014 OF draftees.

Round 21: Justin Thomas, Coll Sr LH relief pitcher.  1-6, 3.43 ERA with 50/18 K/BB in 57.2 relief ip for Potomac. 2.84 fip, .300 babip in HighA.  Oddly, he’s a lefty but he has much better L-R splits than loogy splits.  But, he also wasn’t really used as a loogy, accumulating 57 innings in 28 games.  He was more of a swing-man/innings sponge for the team despite never getting an official start.  Good peripherals, good K/9 rates, I see him moving up to the AA bullpen easily.  Nice find in the 21st round.  Trending up.

Round 22: Cody Dent, Coll Sr SS.  Slashed .193/.257/.224  with 42/12 K/BB in 161 abs, 1hr, 2sb, mostly in LowA.  Played 3B, got moved up to HighA and then went 0-24 in Potomac.  He didn’t play after 7/31 but did not appear on any injury report; he was on the TIL for basically the rest of the season.  The son of Bucky Dent seems to be getting similar treatment as Ryan Ripken and Cutter Dykstra (also sons of former MLBers); he’s hanging around despite poor numbers.  How long can it last with all the MIF options moving up the line?  Trending down.

Round 23: Garrett Gordon, Juco Corner OF.  Released in March of 2015; hit just .230 in Auburn in 2014 as a corner OF and, as with Allen above, was deemed replaceable with the 2015 crop of players rising up.

Round 24: Matt DeRosier, Juco RH relief pitcher.  0-2, 3.58 ERA with 30/7 K/BB in 27IP (7 starts) mostly in the GCL, having gotten dumped out of Auburn after a couple of poor starts.   2.02 fip, .435 babip in Auburn, so perhaps it was a short-sample-size that was unflattering.  He needs to put together a nice string of healthy starts somewhere outside of complex ball though.  Trending down.

Round 25: Travis Ott, HS LH starting pitcher.  Traded 12/17/14 along with Steven Souza in the Trea Turner/Joe Ross deal.  Despite his sterling short-A 2014 season, Tampa had him repeat the NY Penn league, where he was 6-3 with a 3.90 ERA in 13 starts.  Odd.

Round 26: Garrett Hampson, HS SS from Reno, NV.  Did not sign; honored commitment to Long Beach State.

Round 27: Bryce Harmon, HS LH starting pitcher from Richmond, VA.  Did not sign; honored commitment to East Carolina University.

Round 28: Joey Webb, Coll Sr LH relief pitcher.  Released 6/25/15, losing out in the numbers game when the 2015 short-season college draftees started flowing in.

Round 29: Mike Sylvestri, Coll Sr RH relief pitcher.   Retired on 6/13/14 after struggling in low-A.

Round 30: Ryan Ullmann, Coll Sr RH Starting pitcher.  Released 6/25/15, in a similar fashion to Webb above.

Round 31: Willie Medina, Coll Sr SS.  Released in Jan 2015 after a mediocre season between LowA and ShortA in 2014.

Round 32: Pat Boling, Coll Jr LHP: Did not sign, chose to return to U. of Georgia for his senior season.  It does not look like Boling was re-drafted, nor does it appear he played any independent ball.

Round 33: Andrew Dunlap, HS C/RHP from Houston.  Did not sign.  Honoring a commitment to Rice University.

Round 34: Jake Walsh, Coll Sr LH relief pitcher.  2-1, 1.96 ERA, 32/14 K/BB across 36ip as he was promoted from LowA->HighA.  3.51 fip, .273 babip in Potomac.  After starting the 2015 season with 17 scoreless innings for Hagerstown, he got bumped up and spent the rest of the season there.  Despite his lowly draft status, Walsh has now impressed at every stop and owns a career 1.65 ERA across the various Rookie/A-ball levels.  Maybe its time to give this guy a shot at AA?  At the very least he looks like a left-handed specialist in training.  Trending up.

Round 35: Lukas Schiraldi, Juco RHP from Texas.  Did not sign; instead transferred to U Texas.  Drafted in 2014 in the 15th round by Seattle, but he has since struggled as a low-A starter, with two straight seasons of 5+ ERA.

Round 36: Reid Humphreys, HS SS from Missouri.  Did not sign.  Honoring commitment to Mississippi State.

Round 37: Karsten Whitson, RH starting pitcher from Florida.  Did not sign, returning to U Florida for his senior/4th year.  There’s plenty of cautionary stories about Whitson, who turned down 1st round money and eventually was drafted by Boston in 2014 as an 11th rounder (likely bonus; max of $100k).  His pro season looks like its a struggle right now; he had just 7IP in 2014, and was listed as “inactive” for all of 2015.  Hate to see such a promising arm apparently fizzle out.

Round 38: Caleb Hamilton, HS SS from Washington State.  Did not sign; honoring commitment to U of Washington.

Round 39: Robbie Tenerowicz, HS 2B/SS from California.  Did not sign; honoring commitment to UC Berkeley.  Washington sure loves 2nd basement from Cal-Berkeley, doesn’t it?  See Tony Renda in 2012 or Jeff Kobernus in 2009.  I’m sure we’ll revisit Tenerowicz when the time is right.

Round 40: Shaun Anderson, HS RH starting pitcher from Florida.  Did not sign; honoring commitment to U of Florida.

 

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Trending Summary:

• Trending Up (5): Voth, Simms, Ballou, Thomas, Walsh
• Trending Steady (3): Ward, Gunter, Cooper
• Trending Down (5): Johanssen, Napoli, Masters, Dent, Derosier
• Did Not Sign in 2013 (11): Allen, Hampson, Harmon, Boling, Dunlap, Schiraldi, Humphries, Whitson, Hamilton, Tenerowicz, Anderson
• Released/Retired (13): Yezzo, Joyce, Middleton, Costa, Perrott, Bafidis, Spezial, Allen, Gordon, Webb, Sylvestri, Ullmann, Medina
  
• Traded (2): Pivetta, Ott

Executive Summary

The 2013 class is being whittled down quickly; of the 39 initial names, 11 never signed and another 13 have already been cut loose.  That only leaves 15 guys to draw conclusions from.  I think its safe to say the loss of the 1st rounder and the failures of our 2nd rounder severely dampen this draft, but Voth and Simms give us some promise.  I also like what we’re seeing out of long-shots Thomas and Walsh, with some lingering hope that the  youngster Ward could make the leap.  Meanwhile, two important names out of this draft (Pivetta and Ott) were used to acquire important players; especially Ott’s role in acquiring two every day players of the planned 2016 25-man roster.

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cut-n-paste of Working XLS of data:

Round	Player/Pos	Level	2015 Level	2015 Basic Stats
2	Johansen, Jake RHP	COL sr	Potomac	1-7, 5.44 ERA
3	Ward, Drew 3B	HS (3)	Potomac	.249/.327/.358
4	Pivetta, Nicholas RHP **	JUCO	Traded (2015)
5	Voth, Austin RHP	COL jr	Harrisburg	6-7, 2.92 ERA
6	Gunter, Cody 3B	JUCO	Short-A	1-0 4.15 ERA
7	Yezzo, James 1B	COL jr	released (2015)
8	Napoli, David LHP	COL sr	LowA	7-5, 4.01 ERA
9	Joyce, Jake RHP	COL sr	released (2014)
10	Middleton, Brennan SS	COL sr	released (2015)
11	Simms, John RHP	COL jr	Potomac	6-6, 2.74 ERA
12	Cooper, Andrew RHP	JUCO	LowA	2-2, 3.53 ERA
13	Costa, John RHP	CC	released (2015)
14	Masters, David SS	JUCO	High-A->LowA	.226/.311/.285
15	Ballou, William (Isaac) CF	COL sr	HighA->AA->AAA	.271/.344/.397
16	Allen, Willie CF	JUCO	did not sign: Lewis-Clark State (ID)
17	Perrott, Geoffrey C	COL sr	released/retired (2015)
18	Bafidis, Cory LHP	COL sr	released (2014)
19	Spezial, Niko LHP	COL sr	released (2014)
20	Allen, Brenton LF	COL jr	released (2014)
21	Thomas, Justin LHP	COL sr	Potomac	1-6, 3.43 ERA
22	Dent, Cody SS	COL sr	LowA mostly	.193/.257/.224
23	Gordon, Garrett RF	JUCO	released (2015)
24	Derosier, Matthew RHP	JUCO	GCL->ShortA	0-2, 3.58 ERA
25	Ott, Travis LHP*	HS	traded (2015)
26	Hampson, Garrett SS	HS	did not sign: Long Beach St.
27	Harman, Bryce RF	HS	did not sign: East Carolina
28	Webb, Joey LHP	COL sr	released (2015)
29	Sylvestri, Michael RHP	COL sr	retired (2014)
30	Ullmann, Ryan RHP	COL sr	released (2015)
31	Medina, Willie SS	COL sr	released (2015)
32	Boling, Pat LHP	COL jr	did not sign: Georgia
33	Dunlap, Andrew RHP	NA	did not sign: Rice
34	Walsh, Jake LHP	COL sr	LowA->HighA	2-1, 1.96 ERA
35	Schiraldi, Lukas RHP	JUCO	did not sign: Texas
36	Humphreys, Reid SS	HS	did not sign: Mississippi State
37	Whitson, Karsten RHP	COL jr	did not sign: Florida	.248/.307/.376
38	Hamilton, Caleb SS	HS	did not sign: U of Washington
39	Tenerowicz, Robbie 2B	HS	did not sign: UC Berkeley
40	Anderson, Shaun RHP	HS	did not sign: Florida	1-2, 5.45

 

The title of my previous post was pretty simple: “Nats 2014 Draft == failure.”  And it resulted in a rather spirited debate in the comments about the 2014 draft, the 2008 draft in hindsight, etc.

In that debate, I postulated my benchmarks for judging whether or not a team’s draft was “good” or not.  Here were the six guidelines I stated for judgement, going round by round/section by section in the draft:

• a. 1st rounder: future MLB above average regular to all-star
• b. 2nd rounder: future MLB regular
• c. 3rd-5th: expect at least one future MLB player in at least a backup/bullpen role
• d. 6th-10th: hope for at least one player to reach the MLB level.
• e. 11th-20th: hope for at least three players who matriculate to AA or higher
• f. 20th and above: hope for one-two players to matriculate to AA or higher

Lets go back through all 10 Nats drafts and see whether these guidelines hold up.  For each of the 6 requirements, we’ll give a quick “yes/no the condition was met” for each year.  Critical to this analysis is the Nats DraftTracker XLS, milb.com and baseball-reference.com for searching for old players.  Also useful is the Baseball America executive database, which populated the staff in charge of each draft.

Editors Note post-posting: I’ve added in the total known bonus amounts, per suggestion in the comments.  Data taken from the Draft Tracker.  Actual figures are likely higher because most bonus figures past the 10th round are unknown (but likely minimal).  Also per good suggestion, I’m adding in the draft position for context, since its far easier to get a future all-star if picking in the top 5 versus later on.

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2005: Owner: MLB.  President: n/a.  GM: Jim Bowden.  Scouting Director: Dana Brown.  Drafting 4th overall.  Total Bonus $ spent: $3,990,500

• a. Yes: 1st rounder Ryan Zimmerman: MLB above average regular (former all-star)
• b. n/a: we had no 2nd rounder; forfeited for Vinny Castilla
• c. Yes:  4th rounder Justin Maxwell turned into a 4th outfielder.  No 3rd rounder.
• d. Yes: 6th rounder Marco Estrada has turned into a decent starter (albeit for someone else after we released him)
• e. Yes: 11th rounder John Lannan and 12th rounder Craig Stammen turned into MLBers, far above expectations here.  18th rounder  Tim Pahuta had long ML career for us, playing 3 years at AA.
• f. Yes: 33rd rounder Ryan Butcher was a 6yr MLFA who left the org but now has MLB experience with Atlanta.  No other 20th+ round draftees made it out of A-ball, but Butcher’s MLB matriculation makes up for it.

2005: Success, inarguably.  6 guys matriculating to the majors is a winning draft, especially considering the lack of a 2nd or 3rd round pick, the ownership confusion, and the budget restrictions put on the team.

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2006: Owner: MLB.  President: n/a.  GM: Bowden.  Scouting Director: Brown.  Drafting 15th overall.  Total Bonus $ spent: $5,222,000

• a. No: 1st rounder Chris Marrero looks like a 4-a guy at best and 1st rounder Colten Willems never made it above A-ball.
• b. No: the team failed to sign 2nd rounder Sean Black and 2nd rounder Stephen Englund never made it out of low-A.
• c. No: none of their 3rd-5th picks made the majors.  The highest one of these guys got was 5th rounder Corey VanAllen, who did pitch in AAA after passing through the rule-5 draft and finished out his 6-years with the org.  VanAllen is in Indy ball in 2014.
• d. No: they didn’t even sign their 7th, 9th or 10th round picks.  The closest they got to a MLBer here was 6th rounder Zech Zinicola, who played at AAA for quite a while, was rule-5 picked and returned, and now sits in Baltimore’s AA team.
• e. Yes: 12th rounder Cole Kimball made it the majors briefly, while 17th rounder Erik Arnesen, 18th rounder Adam Carr and 13th rounder Hassan Pena all toiled in AAA for several years. 
  
• f. Yes, sort of.  We’re all well aware of the success of 41st rounder Brad Peacock, but he was picked under the “draft-and-follow” system that no longer exists.  So while yes it was a 41st round pick, in our current system Peacock wouldn’t have been picked at all and/or wouldn’t have signed but would have been picked the subsequent year based on his great first-college juco season.   Of the rest of the 20th+ round picks, one guy had a couple months in AA (26th rounder Brett Logan) to serve as a backup catcher; he hit .102/.170/.122 in 20 games in 2007 and was released.

2006: Failure: 3 guys who have MLB appearances but near zero impact for this team.  Peacock enabled the Nats to get Gio Gonzalez but I think we see now that Peacock wasn’t the driving prospect in that deal (now that Derek Norris has made an all-star team).

For as much as went right for the team in the 2005 draft, it went wrong in 2006.  Was the lack of signing their 7th, 9th and 10th round picks evident of “fiscal restraint” demanded by the other 29 owners?  Clearly to me, the focus on HS drafted personnel in this draft has Bowden’s hands all over it, and almost none of them panned out in the slightest.

 

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2007: Owner: Ted Lerner group.  President: Stan Kasten.  GM: Bowden.  Scouting Director: Brown.  Assistant GM/VP, Baseball Operations: Mike Rizzo.  Drafting 6th overall.  Total Bonus $ spent: $7,619,300

• a. No: The team went one-for-three on its first rounders: Michael Burgess got to AA in his fourth pro season but never further, was flipped for Tom Gorzelanny.  Josh Smoker‘s failure has been well documented here.  But Ross Detwiler, for all the complaining about his usage and role in this space, did make the majors and looked like a good 4th starter (in 2012).  I still believe he could start in this league and is better than a long-man.   However, the condition is that a first round pick turns into a successful regular, and this crop failed in all regards.
• b. Yes.  2nd rounder Jordan Zimmermann is now a 2-time all-star and is probably the best 2nd round pick the organization has ever had.  His successes make up for their other 2nd rounder Jake Smolinksi who has made his MLB debut but not until he became a 6-yr MLFA.
• c. Yes.  4th rounder Derek Norris made the 2014 all-star team for Oakland.  3rd rounder Stephen Souza has debuted in the majors and looks quite promising (albeit blocked) for our AAA team.  5th rounder Brad Meyers toiled for us in AAA for years before being released this spring after a long injury recovery.
• d. Yes: 10th round pick Patrick McCoy made it to AAA for us, signed with Detroit as a MLFA and debuted this year.  We should note for the record though that 6th rounder Jack McGeary was paid as if he was a low-1st rounder and failed pretty spectacularly here.
• e. Yes: 20th rounder Jeff Mandel was a long-serving org arm at AA and AAA.   11th rounder Bill Rhinehart was looking like a find, appearning on Nats system prospect lists for a while and getting to AAA before getting flipped for Jonny Gomes.
• f. Yes: 28th rounder Boomer Whiting made it to Syracuse before getting released in 2011.   48th rounder (!) Kyle Gunderson was flipped for Logan Kensing in 2009 and made it to Miami/Florida’s AAA squad before getting released.  
  

2007: Success: despite the 1st round failures and the McGeary disaster, the breadth of success in the other categories and the production of the remaining guys weighs out.

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2008: Owner: Lerner.  President: Kasten.  GM: Bowden.  Scouting Director: Brown.  Assistant GM/VP, Baseball Operations: Rizzo.  Drafting 9th overall.  Total Bonus $ spent: $4,766,500

• a. No: as is well documented, the Nats failed to sign 1st round pick Aaron Crow.
• b. No/Inc: 2nd round pick Destin Hood has already passed through Rule-5 waivers once, but has found himself in 2014 and is hitting great for Syracuse (2014’s AAA line: .308/.353/.502).  It does make one wonder if he’s worth adding to the 40-man once the season is over to keep him; he’s finishing his 7th pro year and is in line for minor league free agency.
• c. Yes: 3rd rounder Danny Espinosa has his critics, but he’s at least a MLB backup or possibly more.  5th rounder Adrian Nieto has stuck with the White Sox after getting plucked in the Rule-5 draft last year and hasn’t been half bad.
• d. Yes: 10th rounder Tommy Milone has shown his capabilities as a MLB starter.  d. 6th-10th: hope for at least one player to reach the MLB level.  6th rounder Paul Demny remains in the system (on the D/L in Harrisburg) but doesn’t seem like he’ll go much higher at this point.
• e. Yes: 16th rounder Tyler Moore has put in meaningful at-bats for the Nats for a few years now.  And 19th rounder Steve Lombardozzi looks to be a solid utility/backup infielder in this league for years.  Lastly I wonder if the team gave up on 15th rounder J.P. Ramirez too soon; he was paid like a 2nd round pick but was released prior to his MLFA period.  He may have only made it to high-A, but his last season was somewhat decent.
• f. No: as far as I can tell, nobody of note came in rounds 20 or above from this draft.

2008: Failure: How would you judge this draft?   We failed to sign the first rounder, which for me is a huge negative.  The second rounder may or may not ever debut in the majors, which is also for me a huge negative because of the huge prevalence of 1st and 2nd rounders on MLB rosters.  But we got four (5 counting Nieto) other MLBers out of the rest of the draft, including some very deep-dive picks that you rarely find (Moore and Lombardozzi, aside from Peacock, are the two lowest round picks to ever make it to the majors for this team).

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2009:  Owner: Lerner.  President: Kasten. GM: Rizzo.  Scouting Director: Brown.  Drafting 1st overall.  Total Bonus $ spent: $18,806,000

• a. Yes: no arguing about either first round pick here: both Stephen Strasburg and Drew Storen have pitched at all-star levels in their careers.
• b. No: 2nd Rounder Jeff Kobernus may have made his MLB debut, but he’s nowhere close to being a “regular” in the majors right now and doens’t seem to be trending that way either.
• c. No: 3rd round pick Trevor Holder was a gross over-draft (albeit with known reasons; the team committed an *awful* lot of money to the first two guys on this list) and was released in 2013.  4th rounder A.J. Morris looked quite promising for us, was flipped in the Gorzelanny deal, and this year is pitching effectively for Pittsburgh’s AAA squad after being taken in the minor league Rule-5 portion last off-season.  And the Nats failed to sign their 5th rounder.  So even if Morris pans out as a MLB-capable player, he’s doing it for someone else.
• d. Yes: 9th round pick Taylor Jordan was effective for the team last year and may yet figure in the team’s plans despite his mysterious D/L trip right now.  And 6th round pick Michael Taylor has rocketed up the prospect lists for this team, is crushing AA pitching right now, is on the team’s 40-man roster and may very well get a look as 2015’s starting center fielder.
• e. Yes: 12th rounder Nathan Karns made the org look quite intelligent when he gave spot starts in 2013 after rocketing up the farm system after finally recovering from arm issues.  I wonder if the success they had with Karns was the first impetus for Rizzo to take more gambles on high-end-but-injured arms.  13th rounder Patrick Lehman has bounced around as an org arm for years.  11th rounder Juston Bloxom played a couple years in AA before getting released this year.  16th rounder Sean Nicol is splitting time between AA and AAA this year.   Finally, I wanted to note something I never knew before studying this: the Nats drafted Marcus Strohman in the 18th round out of HS; this is the same Strohman who went in the first round three years later to Toronto and who is currently holding down a rotation spot for the playoff-pushing Blue Jays.  Wow.  He’s listed as a SS on the draft-tracker but clearly is a MLB-calibre starter.
• f. Yes: 22nd rounder Danny Rosenbaum has been Syracuse’s “ace” for three seasons now.  And a slew of guys drafted in the 20s stuck around for years as middle relievers (Mitchell Clegg, Matt Swynenberg, Evan Bronson, Rob Wort, and Shane McCatty).  You just can’t ask for more out of your picks in rounds 20-30.

2009: Success: I’ll take a couple of misses in the 2nd and 3rd rounds given the amount of talent they picked up in the middle and late rounds.  Great draft.  6 guys who have debuted in the majors with at least another one likely coming soon.

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Note: from 2010 onwards, most of the judgement calls are still “in progress.”  We’ll use projections and “small sample sizes” to pass judgement.  It is what it is.  Feel free to criticize in the comments about using projections and national pundit scouting reports to make judgements.

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2010:  Owner: Lerner.  President: Kasten.  GM: Rizzo.  Scouting Director: Kris Kline.  Drafting 1st overall.  Total Bonus $ spent: $11,413,200

• a. Yes: 1st rounder Bryce Harper has turned into everything the hype suggested.  Fun fact; when he went on an rehab assignment in Potomac, he was the 2nd youngest guy on the roster.  Remember that when you criticize the guy for not being better than he already is: if he was “playing by the rules,” he’d be jsut finishing his junior year of college.
• b. No/Inc: 2nd rounder Sammy Solis has been one injury issue after another.  He missed all of 2012 with Tommy John, came back slowly in 2013, but now sits on the AA D/L with another “elbow” issue.  He was protected on the 40-man roster last fall, but you have to wonder what’s to come of him.  He’s finishing his 5th pro season and he’s got exactly one start above A-Ball.
• c. Yes/Inc: 4th rounder A.J. Cole was paid like a late first rounder, and after some struggles he’s really come onto the scene this year.  He was already really young for AA and “solved” it, and is now in AAA holding his own.  The other guys in this category are less impressive: both Rick Hague and Jason Martinson are repeating AA and not really hitting well enough to push for promotions.  This could be a side-effect of the huge amount of money committed to Harper and Cole.
  
• d. Yes: 9th round pick Aaron Barrett went from unknown/unrecognized prospect to the Nats 40-man roster last fall to being lights-out middle reliever in the major league pen this year.  As a 9th round college senior pick.  8th rounder Matthew Grace may be next; after toiling as a mediocre starter, he became a reliever in 2013 and has been lights out in AA and AAA this year.  And he’s not just a LOOGY: 56 IP in 33 appearances and he’s given up just 6 ER in that time.
• e. Yes: 15th round pick David Freitas, after getting traded to Oakland for Kurt Suzuki, got traded again to Baltimore and now is in AAA.   12th round pick Robbie Ray has made his MLB debut for Detroit after going over in the Doug Fister deal.  11th rounder Neil Holland toils in the Harrisburg pen admirably.
• f. Yes: 23rd rounder Colin Bates and 26th rounder Christopher Manno both are in the Harrisburg pen.  22nd rounder Cameron Selik made it to AA before hitting his ceiling and being released earlier this year.   And 32nd rounder Randolph Oduber is a starting OF in Potomac with decent splits and a shot of moving up.

2010: Success: It may have been a no-brainer to take Harper, and it may have been an example of the “checkbook” winning in their picks of Cole and Ray, but you have to hand it to this team; they bought two high-end prep guys out of their college and they’re both looking like huge successes.   And they got a MLB servicable reliever out of a college senior sign who they paid just $35,000 in bonus money.  Great work.

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2011: Owner: Lerner.  President/GM: Rizzo.  Scouting Director Kline.  Drafting 6th overall.  Total Bonus $ spent: $11,325,000

• a.  Yes: 1st rounder Anthony Rendon was on everyone’s “all star snub” lists this year, while their other 1st rounder Alex Meyer remains one of the top pitching prospects in the game and seems likely to debut later this year.   Their supp-1st rounder Brian Goodwin remains on every pundit’s prospect lists even if he seemingly has been passed on the organizational “future starting Center-fielder” depth chart.   There’s no chance the team leaves him exposed in the upcoming rule-5 draft, so he’ll have at least three more years to prove he belongs.
• b. n/a: forfeited for Adam LaRoche signing.
• c. No/Inc: Right now our 3rd through 5th picks are looking iffy; 4th rounder Matthew Purke was paid like an upper first rounder and has been a massive disappointment.  Right now he’s recovering from Tommy John and faces an uncertain future.  4th rounder Kylin Turnbull has gotten lit up in high-A this year, his second crack at the league.  5th rounder Matt Skole may be the most promising of the bunch; he crushed 27 homers in his first season of full-season ball only to miss all of 2013 because of a freak injury.  Can Skole continue developing and make the majors on a full-time basis?  Can Purke at this point?
• d. Yes: With the call-up of 6th rounder Taylor Hill earlier this year, this category is met.  Which is good because the rest of the 6th-10th rounders from this year are struggling.  Two are already released/retired, one is MIA and the lone remaining active player (Brian Dupra) is struggling as a starter/swing-man in AA.  But Hill is a huge win; a college senior draftee on minimal bonus rocketing through the minors and forcing his way onto the 25-man roster.
• e. Yes/Inc:  It is far too early to fully judge this category, but it is looking promising despite the fact that the team failed to sign SIX of its ten picks beween the 11th and 20th round.  11th rounder Caleb Ramsey is already in AA.  16th rounder Deion Williams is on the mound (not a SS as in the Draft Tracker) and is struggling in short-A.   18th rounder Nick Lee is struggling in Potomac this year but has shown a huge arm and seems like he’ll eventually convert to loogy (especially considering his undersized stature); I can see Lee making it far as a matchup lefty reliever with swing-and-miss stuff.  The lone failure at this point is 12th rounder Blake Monar, sort of inexplicably released after a decent 2012 season in Short-A.   
  
• f. Yes: 30th round pick Bryan Harper earned his way to Harrisburg.   45th round college senior pick Richie Mirowski also made it to AA, where he wasn’t half bad last year, though at the moment he’s back in Potomac.   And there’s three other players drafted in the 20th or higher who are active on Potomac’s roster this year and who may get moved up.   Decent production out of the bottom of this draft so far.

2011: Projected Success: As discussed before, I believe the selection of Rendon was a “no-brainer” based on a unique set of circumstances that occured on draft day, but credit the management team for having the stones to pick him when other GMs didn’t.   I’m sure the Mariners (especially) would like a re-do on that draft (they picked 2nd overall, got soft-tossing local product Danny Hultzen, who was sidelined last year with all sorts of shoulder issues and is no sure bet to ever make it back.   They rolled the dice with Purke and so far seem to be losing, but Purke was himself a 1-1 talent at one point (remember, he had his $4M+ deal with Texas pulled thanks to MLB-stewardship at the time) and was probably worth the risk.   I’d like to see Skole reach the majors in some capacity before declaring this draft a full success.

 

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Note: from here onwards, everything is a projection and is based on scouting the stat lines.  I’m going to sound negative where others sound positive and vice versa.  Hey, its better than writing nothing.

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2012: Owner: Lerner.  President/GM: Rizzo.  Scouting Director Kline.   Drafting 16th overall.  Total Bonus $ spent: $4,503,500

• a. Yes/inc: 1st rounder Lucas Giolito (so far) has shown himself to be at full speed post TJ surgery and is mostly in the top 10-15 of every professional scouting pundit’s list for best prospect in the entirety of the minors.  He’s got a #1 starter ceiling, a huge frame and three plus pitches.  He’s projecting to be everything you’d hope for from an upper first rounder.
• b. No/inc: It is hard to squint at 2nd rounder Tony Renda at this point and project him as a future “MLB regular.”  Sure he’s hitting .297 in Potomac, and sure his numbers at the plate have not varied much in his three pro seasons.  Unfortunately he’s vastly undersized and he has no power in a time where pro middle infielders are expected to provide serious pop.   Maybe he can forge a career like Jamey Carroll or like a Jose Altuve, but the odds are against him.  I don’t mean to discount the guy because he’s 5’8″ but we all know there’s a significant bias in the industry towards undersized guys.  Heck, a pitcher is considered “short” if he isn’t 6’2″ these days.
• c. No/inc: So far the guys picked 3rd-5th are also struggling.  3rd rounder Brett Mooneyham‘s struggles are well documented here.  4th rounder Brandon Miller continues to show great power but has missed much of this season with a hamstring injury (he’s on rehab in the GCL as we speak).  Lastly 5th rounder Spencer Keiboom suffered a blown UCL that basically cost him the whole 2013 season.  He’s got great numbers in low-A this year but is two years too old for the league.  Keiboom’s talents more centered on his defense than his bat, so he may still push forward as a future backup catcher.  But until he does, this category falls in the “no” side.
• d. Maybe/inc: The leading hope for some MLB success out of our 6th-10th round picks right now resides in one of two middle relievers: 7th round pick Robert Benincasa or 9th round pick Derek Self.   You never know; one of these guys could turn into the next Aaron Barrett.  8th round SS Stephen Perez made the all-star team this year in Potomac and could feature as a future utility infielder.  The team has already released its 6th round pick Hayden Jennings, and their 10th rounder (local Rockville product Craig Manual) was a college senior catcher who is backing up other catchers in the system for the time being).  He may continue to hang around but unless he gets a starting gig he’s going to get replaced by someone newer.
• e. Yes/inc: 17th rounder Blake Schwartz has already made it to AA, where he struggled and he now sits back in Potomac (where he was great last year, go figure).  11th rounder Brian Rauh got a spot-start in AA last year but has bounced in and out of the Potomac rotation this year.  16th rounder Ronald Pena is working his way off injury but faces a long road to move up thanks to a lack of swing-and-miss stuff.   The team has already released four of its 11th-20th round picks; the remaining out-field players (12th rounder Carlos Lopez and 19th rounder Bryan Lippincott) both seem to face long odds as college senior draftees still residing in the low minors to even make it up to AA at this point.  To be fair, Lopez missed most of 2013 with an unknown injury, so we’ll give him a slight pass.   Lippincott sits in XST right now.
• f. No/inc: 33rd rounder Mike McQuillan has hung around and currently serves as a utility guy/bench player for Potomac.   A couple of relievers remain on squads: 29th rounder Leonard Hollins is hurt but is on a full-season squad, and 30th rounder Robert Orlan was with Hagerstown to start the season but is back in Auburn.   The rest of the 20th round and up guys features carnage; eight college senior draftees already released to go along with 10 unsigned (mostly high schoolers) picks in the later rounds.  One unsigned pick looks interesting; all-american freshman UNC player Skye Bolt may be a big-time 2015 draft pick.   But otherwise, I’m predicting that we dont’ get even a AA player out of the last  20 rounds of this draft at this point.

2012: Projected Failure: Frankly, this is looking like it may be a one player draft.  At this point, I don’t think you can look at *any* other player in this draft and project even a bench/fringe 25-man roster guy besides Giolito.  Now ask yourself: if Giolito fulfills expectations and becomes an “ace,” a top 15-20 arm in the majors while the rest of this draft basically becomes high-A and AA filler, does that change your opinion of the draft success/failure?

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2013: Owner: Lerner.  President/GM: Rizzo.  Scouting Director Kline.  Drafting 30th overall.  Total Bonus $ spent: $2,678,100

• a. n/a: No 2013 first rounder thanks to the supurfluous signing of Rafael Soriano.  As noted at the time, the Nats missed out on players like Sean Manaea, Ryan Stanek or Ian Clarkin, all of whom were available at the time of their lost 1st rounder.  Manaea in particular has flourished, rising up prospect list charts and sporting a healthy K/9 rate in high-A this year.  I’d like to call this in and among itself a failure (given my reservations about paying for saves in general), but have to admit that Soriano has been pretty durn good this year.
• b. No/inc: 2nd rounder Jake Johansen thus far has not lived up to advance billing in his first year in full-season ball.  He’s averaging just 4.5 innings per outing and sports a 5.00 ERA and less than a K/inning.   I can understand the difficult adjustment to pro ball, but I don’t get how his vaunted velocity and size combination aren’t resulting in more swing-and-miss.    He’s given no indication that he can avoid what scouts have been saying all along (that he’s destined for the bullpen), he’s way too wild and way too hittable.
• c. Yes/inc: the Nats collection of 3rd rounder Drew Ward, 4th rounder Nick Pivetta and now especially 5th rounder Austin Voth are making this management team look very smart.  All Voth has done since forcing his promotion to High-A is give up 10 hits and ONE earned run in 33 innings over five starts.  That’s just ridiculous.  And he’s doing it while maintaining a 36/5 K/BB ratio.  There’s zero reason for him to still be in Potomac at this point.  I don’t know what Voth’s ceiling is, but its getting pushed.
• d. No/inc: Thanks to the new CBA’s rules, most 6th-10th rounders are throw-away/college senior picks these days.  So it’ll be awfully hard to depend on one of them turning into a 25-man roster guy.  The best bet out of this draft will be having either 6th rounder Cody Gunter or 7th rounder James Yezzo eventually matriculating to the majors.  The other guys in this category were 15k bonus college seniors, one of whom (9th rounder Jake Joyce has *already* been released).  Do we think either Gunter or Yezzo projects as a major leaguer?  Not right now: Gunter’s struggling in short-A for the 2nd year in a row and Yezzo is an undersized 1B showing little power.
• e. Maybe/inc: Right now the pickings for the guys taken 11th-20th look pretty slim too.  Three were senior signs who have already been released and we failed to sign our 16th round pick Willie Allen (though can’t fault the Nats for that: doing research on him for last year’s draft review showed all sorts of inconsistencies with him, including whether he’s even still playing baseball in college).  But 11th rounder John Simms is looking like a great find; he’s already in the AA rotation and holding his own (though you could argue it was out of need, not performance).  Among those left, 10th rounder Brandon Middleton and 15th rounder Isaac Ballou are starting and playing well in Hagerstown, 12th rounder Andrew Cooper is strugging in low-A, 13th rounder John Costa has yet to debut for the team thanks to TJ surgery, and 17th rounder Geoffrey Perrott was a senior catcher who got a grand total of 13 at-bats in 2013 and has remained in XST so far thisyear, perhaps to serve as a bullpen catcher for others remaining in Viera and perhaps because he was hurt most of last year and may still be recovering.  If Simms continues to rise and we get a couple more longer-lasting prospects out of this crew, we’ll convert this to a success.
• f. Maybe/Inc: The Nats picked seven college seniors in the 21st round or above and so far they’re all with Hagerstown.  Middle infielders Cody Dent (22nd rounder) and Willie Medina (31st rounder) both hit in the .220s last year, are hitting in the .220s (or worse) this year, and seem like they may not last the season.  However the pitchers in this bunch are looking better and better.  28th rounder Joey Webb has a 2.53 ERA, 30th rounder Ryan Ullmann has as 3.10 ERA and got a high-A up-and-back call-up, and 34th rounder Jake Walsh dominated Low-A and earned a call-up to Potomac.  Only 29th rounder Michael Sylvestri seems to be in trouble among these senior signs; after struggling in Short-A last year, he gave up a ton of runs in 6 mid-relief outings and is currently in re-assignment purgatory.  What of the non senior-signs?  24th round pick Matthew Derosier is struggling in short-A and 23rd round outfielder Garrett Gordon seems like he’s a bench player in Auburn.  But a revelation may be 25th round prep draft pick Travis Ott.  He holds a 2.10 ERA through 6 starts in Auburn despite being quite young for the league.  So, the trend seems good that we’ll get value out of the bottom part of this draft.

2013: Projected Failure: Sorry to say; no first rounder, a middle reliever out of your 2nd rounder, perhaps a 5th starter out of the 3-5 rounds, and some org filler from the bottom of the draft?  How many players from this draft do you realistically project to make the majors?

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2014: Owner: Lerner.  President/GM: Rizzo.  Scouting Director Kline.   Drafting 18th overall.  Total Bonus $ spent: $4,149,900

• a. Maybe/inc: 1st rounder Erick Fedde may project as a MLB rotation guy, but he’s not projecting as an ace level arm.  So if he comes back from surgery 100%, if he keeps moving up the chain, if he makes the majors and if he has an impact we’ll give this a yes.  Lots of ifs.
• b. n/a:  we failed to sign our 2nd rounder Andrew Suarez.
  
• c. Maybe/inc: The hopes here fall on 3rd rounder Jakson Reetz and 4th rounder Robbie Dickey, since our 5th rounder was a senior lefty out of non-baseball powerhouse Duke.   How do we dream on Reetz and Dickey?  Maybe Reetz turns into our next Derek Norris while Dickey turns into the next Austin Voth.  Lets hope so, because both so far have had rather inauspicious starts in the GCL (Reetz batting .220 and Dickey posting an ERA in the 12s).   To be fair Reetz is a kid and Dickey isn’t much older, so we have a long way to go before passing true judgement.
• d. No/inc: We failed to sign the 8th round pick Austin Byler (and from reading the tea leaves, it didn’t seem like we were ever even close).  Our 7th, 8th and 10th round picks were low-bonus college seniors with little hope of advancing.  So this category falls squarely on the shoulders of 6th rounder Austin Williams, who looks ok so far in Short-A.
• e. Far too Early: most of these guys who did sign are 15 games into short seasons.
• f. Far too Early: most of these guys who did sign are 15 games into short seasons.

2014: Not promising: An injured first rounder, no 2nd rounder, really just a handful of non senior-signs elsewhere in the draft.  As I opined in the previous post discussion, I just don’t like the looks of this class.

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So.  5200 words later, I think I actually like my guidelines.  I think though that the new CBA forces teams into making a bunch of “throw-away” picks in the 6th-10th rounds, so my criteria needs to be adjusted downward for that category in the last few years.  Otherwise I think it holds.

What say you?

Editor’s Post-posting thoughts.  Based on the analysis above, the franchise has 5 successes and 5 failures (or projected failures) in ten drafts.  After up and down drafts the first four years, we had three straight successes in 2009-2011, but now I feel like we’ve had three successive failures from 2012 onwards.  Here’s a sobering thought about those successes and failures: lets talk about bonus money spent.

• In the 5 drafts I call successes, the team spent (chronologically): $3,990,500, $7,619,300,  $18,806,000, $11,413,200 and $11,325,000 in bonus money.
• In the 5 drafts i’m calling failures/projected failures: $5,222,000, $4,766,500, $4,503,500, $2,678,100, $4,149,900

See a pattern?  With the exception of the unbelievable 2005 draft, the Nats have had successes when spending big money and failures when they don’t.  Maybe its just that simple.

I think, to be fair, it is also worth nothing the three distinct “eras” of Nats draft philosophy:

• Era 1: 2005-2008: MLB hamstrung budgets and Lerner penny pinching era.  2 successes, 2 failures.
• Era 2: 2009-2011: Lerner’s realize the Tampa Bay way: spending through the draft is the best way to acquire talent.  3 successes
• Era 3: 2012-present: the new CBA spells out draconian draft bonus policies.  3 failures.

Era 1 may be just the way it used to go; sometimes you’d get wins in the draft, other times you’d strike out.  Era 2 was the glory years of Nats drafting, though the cynic may point out that picking three consensus 1-1 talents and spending 8 figures in bonus money wasn’t that hard.  Era 3 is more troubling: why has this management team not done better in the CBA/limited bonus era?

 

We’re a month into the minor league season and nearly five turns through each minor league system rotation, so lets take a look to see how our starters are doing.

As with the major league rotation review, I’ve assigned grade letters to roughly judge each start done by our minor league staff, and then i’ve tacked on their overall stats for context.  Note that I generally give grades to those that get the starts in games, as well as those who pitch “starter length” outings.  You’ll see this much more frequently in the low-A section, where Hagerstown clearly has a “two-starter” system going for many of its guys; one guy will throw 5 innings, then the next guy throws 4.  So nearly the entire Hagerstown roster is getting “starter grades” right now.  I should also caveat that this analysis is “scouting the box score” analysis; I’ve not had a chance to see any of these guys in person, so I can’t comment on the luck factor involved with anyone (stats versus ability) other than inference analysis between ERA and FIP.

For each team I’ll list the current rotation as best as I can make it, then have a second section where we list the guys with spot-starts or who were in the rotation but are no longer (D/L trips, promoted, demoted, etc).  Then we’ll discuss, and then list those guys who are pushing for promotions and those guys who are in jeopardy of getting demoted (or, worse, released).

(Note: I wouldn’t be able to do this data tracking or this post without the great daily work by Luke Erickson at www.nationalsprospects.com.)  All stats here are as of 5/2/14, which means I grabbed one May start’s worth of stats for a couple of guys here and there.

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AAA/Syracuse:

Pitcher	Start Trend Line	W/L	ERA	Whip	FIP	K/BB Ratio	# of innings	Apps/Starts
Roenicke	A (3ip),F,B	0-2	5.84	1.54	4.10	7/7	12	5/3
Tatusko	A/short,B-,B+,A,B	1-3	2.36	0.83	3.87	15/7	26.2	5/5
Treinen	A-> upandback,C/short,B+	0-0	0.87	1.16	3.58	8/5	10.1	3/3
Hill	A,A+,C,A,C	3-1	2.35	0.91	3.68	29/4	30.2	5/5
Poveda	F,F,A,F	1-3	9.82	2.07	5.13	12/10	18.1	4/4

 

Laffey	A (took Treinen’s spot),A+,D+	2-0	1.80	0.67	1.92	14/2	15	3/1
Rosenbaum	D,A,C-,D/inc (injury)->D/L	1-1	4.50	1.35	4.18	9/5	20	4/4

Rotation Discussion:

A month in and the Syracuse Chiefs are mired in last place (though to be fair, only 3 games separate the entire division).   Opening day starter Danny Rosenbaum is already on the D/L with a possible torn UCL, possibly the latest in an epidemic of Tommy John surgeries throughout baseball (there’s been at least 14 MLB pitchers to go under the knife for this already in 2014 and quite a few more minor leaguers; I have a draft post on this topic coming).  His replacement in the rotation is journeyman and Ian Desmond-relative Josh Roenicke, who has struggled in his spot-start duties.  However, Roenicke isn’t the least effective starter in AAA; that distinction goes to late spring training acquisition Omar Poveda, who has gotten pretty well battered so far in his four starts.  One of these two guys likely is making way for recently demoted Taylor Jordan (well, assuming Jordan even makes it to AAA anytime soon; Doug Fister‘s return is complicated by the Nats needing another starter in-between; Jordan likely is sitting in AAA limbo until tuesday 5/6, then will settle into the AAA rotation).

Meanwhile, we’re seeing excellent springs so far out of Ryan Tatusko, Blake Treinen (albeit in a SSS thanks to his being bounced up and down out of the Nats bullpen), Aaron Laffey and especially Taylor Hill.  Hill’s excellent 29/4 K/BB ratio stands out, as well as his sub 1.00 whip so far in 5 starts.   I think its fair to say that nobody expected him to have rocketed up the system like he has, given the fact that he was a college senior draftee with limited bonus and limited leverage.  I think its also worth noting Tatusko’s production in a swing-man role; quite similarly to his trade-mate Tanner Roark, he continues to produce at an advanced/MLFA age … could he be another “found gold” pitcher in our upper farm system?

We should also note that we have yet to see Brad Meyers, who remains on the D/L and has only thrown about 6 professional innings since 2011.

Bullpen Notables

The Syracuse bullpen has seen plenty of traffic to and from the majors: Aaron Barrett started in the majors and has seen time in Syracuse.  Ryan Mattheus and Xavier Cedeno have already both been up and back.  Nobody in the pen has much more than about 10 innings pitched, so we won’t make too many rash judgements.  So far Christian Garcia looks decent; his 12/2 K/BB ratio in 10 innings is promising but he currently sits on the D/L with an unspecified injury.   Meanwhile Daniel Stange has struggled with his control; he has 10 walks in 12 innings.   We’ll talk more about bullpen guys deeper into the season.

Most Deserving of a promotion: Hill and perhaps Laffey, both of whom are pitching dominantly right now.   But neither are 40-man guys, and that (especially for Laffey) hurts him.  Laffey as a starter in AAA has been great, but he might be more useful as a lefty-match up guy.  Cedeno has been getting the MLB-bullpen covering call-ups but if Laffey was on the 40-man instead, it probably would have been him instead.

Most in Jeopardy of a demotion/release: Poveda for sure; his cash-only acquisition isn’t looking promising considering that a rotation spot is needed soon for Jordan.  Roenicke needs a couple of good outings to get his numbers up; with only 12 innings its hard to pass too harsh a judgement.  But, with very little push from the current AA rotation, its hard to see a reason why the organization needs to make a move anytime soon (see the next section for more).

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AA/Harrisburg:

Pitcher	Start Trend Line	W/L	ERA	Whip	FIP	K/BB Ratio	# of innings	Apps/Starts
Schwartz	F,F,B+,F,D+	0-4	6.08	1.99	5.1	15/10	23.2	5/5
Rivero	D-,B,B-,F,B+	1-4	5.06	1.69	4.85	13/9	21.1	5/5
Gilliam	F,B-,D,A	0-0	5.09	1.36	6.05	13/9	17.2	5/4
Purke	F,D,F,F	0-5	9.30	2.11	6.55	14/13	20.1	5/5
Cole	B-,A,D,F	2-1	3.63	1.57	2.82	16/4	22.1	5/5

 

Dupra	B+	1-0	0.00	0.9	4.35	3/3	3.1	1/0
Perry	F -> d/l	0-0	5.63	1.5	3.07	6/3	8	5/0
Jackson	A -> promoted	0-0	0.00	0.52	2.01	7/0	7.2	5/0
Bates	B	0-0	5.68		1.66	2.97	12.2	6/0

Rotation Discussion:

Well, there’s not much joy in Harrisburg in terms of the rotation right now.   The team is already 7.5 games out of first and is in dead last in the Eastern League.  Four of the five starters in Harrisburg are, well, just awful right now.   I should note that the stats above do include one extra start for Matthew Purke; it didn’t help his cause.  Newly acquired Felipe Rivero has not acclimated well to Harrisburg, to say the least.  Blake Schwartz has not adjusted well to the jump to AA after his excellent season in Potomac last year.  The one bright spot seems to be A.J. Cole by ERA/FIP, but he’s still putting an awful lot of people on base (1.57 whip).

Sammy Solis remains on the AA D/L, along with a handful of other long-serving names in this organization (Paul Demny, Rafael Martin and Pat Lehman).

Bullpen Notables

Zach Jackson already earned his promotion via 7 scoreless innings, though to be fair he really should have been in AAA to start (he’s a veteran minor leaguer and has been pitching at the AAA level for nearly a decade).  Matt Grace is faring well thus far, as is Richie Mirowski, while Gabriel Alfaro needs to get his control under control (he’s got 9 walks in 11 1/3 innings).

Most Deserving of a promotion: none of these guys are pushing for a promotion, now that Jackson is back in AAA where he belongs.

Most in Jeopardy of a demotion/release: You have to think that Purke may be in jeopardy of being coverted to relief at this point.  Alfaro was a MLFA signing out of the Mexican league and may not be long for the organization if he keeps pitching this badly.   Gilliam was a throw-in to the Gio Gonzalez trade and is old for the level; he may get pushed out if someone from Potomac makes a case for promotion (which, thankfully for him, has yet to be the case; read on).

 

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High-A/Potomac

Pitcher	Start Trend Line	W/L	ERA	Whip	FIP	K/BB Ratio	# of innings	Apps/Starts
Rauh	B-,F-,C+,C-	1-1	4.43	1.57	4	15/7	20.1	5/4
Rpena	F,D,F/inc,A-,A-	2-0	6.43	1.48	5.71	5/8	21	5/5
Mooneyham	F,C-,A-,D/short,B-	2-1	3.32	1.63	6.71	7/19	19	5/4
Bacus	A+,A+,A (into rotation for Encarnacion)	1-1	2.08	0.69	4.7	15/3	17.1	6/0
Simms	(newly promoted; no Apr starts)

 

Dickson	B+,F,B+,A	0-2	6.23	1.38	5.37	21/7	21.3	7/0
Encarnacion	C+,B,F,D- ->d/l	1-2	4.00	1.94	5.88	14/12	18	4/4
Lee	F-,F-,D,A -> d/l	0-2	10.05	1.74	2.33	23/8	14.1	5/4
Fister	B (rehab)	0-0	0.00	1.5	2.16	3/0	4	1/1
Dupra	A+,B+,A,A-> promoted	3-0	0.53	0.71	1.31	23/1	17	5/0

Rotation Discussion:

Potomac is sitting in 1st place easily with the rest of its division struggling so far.   But Its hard to see how they’re doing it with a rotation putting up numbers like this.  The only guy getting starts for Potomac in April with a respectable/impressive FIP was Nick Lee, and he’s on the D/L.  But even Lee’s numbers look completely weird: he had a 10 (ten!) ERA in his 14 innings, but an astounding 23 ks in 14 innings.  His numbers are completely spiked by two successive awful outings and he currently sits on the D/L with an unspecified but hopefully short-term injury.  Dakota Bacus earned his way into the rotation with a series of excellent long-relief outings; he replaces the also-injured opening day rotation starter Pedro Encarnacion, who himself struggled with his control (12 walks in 18 innings) before hitting the D/L.  Otherwise there’s not much notable in the Potomac rotation to talk about: Brett Mooneyham‘s advanced numbers show just how bad he’s really pitched; he currently has a 7/19 K/BB ratio in 19 innings.  He has more than twice the number of walks as he has strikeouts!  That’s not a recipe for success long-term.

Kylin Turnbull remains on the Hagerstown D/L, continuing to be a complete 2011 draft-day disappointment.

Bullpen Notables

The best reliever in Potomac thus far this season has already been bumped up; Brian Dupra posted a nifty 23/1 K/BB ratio and earned his way to AA.  Robert Benincasa already has 5 saves with good numbers.  Derek Self has great numbers and has given up just three base-runners in 10 innings thus far.  So the Nats are getting some great relief.  Gilberto Mendez hasn’t walked a guy yet and is one of the youngest guys in the league, so he’s clearly holding his own after posting a 0.91 ERA in low-A last year.

Most Deserving of a promotion: Outside of Dupra, its hard to pinpoint someone that really is pushing for a promotion out of this squad right now.  Bacus is pitching well but he’s just got a month of high-A experience; lets see how he does for a half season.  I could see the late-inning crew of Self, Benincasa and Bryan Harper possibly getting moved up sooner than later.  But none of the starters really are making a case for promotion right now.

Most in Jeopardy of a demotion/release:  Clearly for me the guy in trouble is Mooneyham; you just can’t be walking that many guys and have as little swing-and-miss capabilities to counter-balance  your wildness.   Before his injury, Encarnacion was struggling with his command too; I can see him back in low-A.  Lastly Ronald Pena just is not fooling anybody right now; he’s got just 5 Ks in 20 innings and would be in more jeopardy if there weren’t other candidates ahead of him to replace at this point.

 

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Low-A/Hagerstown

Pitcher	Start Trend Line	W/L	ERA	Whip	FIP	K/BB Ratio	# of innings	Apps/Starts
Pivetta	A,A-,F,F,B+	3-2	4.57	1.48	4.36	13/10	21.2	5/5
Voth	A,D,A-,D/short	0-2	2.91	1.38	2.7	26/10	21.1	5/5
Giolito	D-,A+,A,C-,C-	1-0	2.95	1.22	3.62	24/11	21.1	5/5
Anderson	A,A+,F,D-	3-0	6.33	1.36	4.98	13/6	21.1	5/3
Johansen	B,B+,F,C-	2-0	5.21	1.53	3.84	17/11	19	4/4

 

Suero	D,A,B,A	3-0	1.20	0.88	3.53	13/2	21.2	5/0
Cooper	B,A+,D	2-0	2.81	1.31	2.57	11/1	16	5/0
Jthomas	A+,A-	1-2	2.53	1.22	4.51	4/5	10.2	5/0
Ullmann	B+	0-0	0.00	0.8	2.67	9/2	10	4/0
Hollins	A-	2-0	4.35	1.74	3.86	9/7	10.1	8/0

 

Silvestre	B+,inc (inj)->d/l	0-0	3.00	1.33	2.24	7/2	6	2/2
Simms	A,A,A,A+->promoted	0-0	0.98	0.82	2.05	20/2	18.1	5/0
Spann	B+,A-,B+,B+->promoted	2-0	1.20	1.13	2.77	15/4	15	4/0

 

Rotation Discussion:

Hagerstown is taking the South Atlantic league by storm, leading its division by 5.5 games already.   And they’re getting some great pitching.  The team clearly seems to be doing “combo starts” with some of its guys: that’s why someone like Wander Suero has as many IP as the 5 guys in the “rotation.”  So, when it comes to judging starts nearly the entire staff in Hagerstown has “start length” outings to assign grades to.   I like what I see out of Austin Voth so far, and Lucas Giolito is clearly holding his own in full-season ball (both these guys feature more than a K/inning, which is great to see especially out of the undersized Voth).  Meanwhile we’re seeing some worrying wildness out of Jake Johansen, which will not quell the “he’s too big to be a starter so he’s destined for the bullpen” crowd.

Bullpen Notables

John Simms (11th rounder in 2012) and Matthew Spann (booty for the team’s sticking its nose into the David DeJesus waiver situation last year) have both already forced promotions thanks to excellent results.  Otherwise there really isn’t much in the way of a traditional “bullpen” in Hagerstown to talk about.

Most Deserving of a promotion: I’d say Voth and Jake Walsh, who older guys who are mowing guys down in Low-A and may need to be challenged by better/older hitters.

Most in Jeopardy of a demotion: One of the older guys on this staff (Dixon Anderson) isn’t putting up the numbers he needs to be putting up as a college senior 2011 draftee in low-A.  Youngster Nicholas Pivetta is also struggling with the jump to full-season ball out of JuCo and may be dumped back to XST at some point.  But it should also be said that we’re kind of squinting for bad performances out of the Low-A squad; both these guys’ numbers are better than practically anyone in AA right now.

 

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Top Prospect Review

From a trending perspective for our top 10 prospect arms (in rough order of their typical rankings on prospect lists):

• Giolito is succeeding so far, though isn’t as dominant yet to be pushing for a promotion to High-A
• Cole is holding his own and is the best AA starter right now, but again isn’t entirely pushing for a AAA promotion just quite yet.
• Solis has yet to appear thanks to a late spring training injury.
• Rivero has really struggled since his arrival
• Johansen has shown some wildness and not as much swing-and-miss stuff as he did in short-season ball.
• Purke has been awful and it may be time to move him to the Pen.
• Voth has been excellent and is probably the closest to a promotion.
• Barrett and Treinien have both earned promotions to provide MLB cover, and when in AAA have been effective
• Jefry Rodriguez is in XST and didn’t make a full-season team.

Conclusions:

So far, I must say i’m a bit disappointed in the performance of the AA squad, but its great to see the promise of the Low-A squad.  I’m slightly worried about how our closer-to-the-majors top prospect arms are looking; lets re-visit in a month and see how it looks.

 

OK here we are.  We did seven comprehensive pitching staff reviews (the GCL review is here, which has links to the other 6 reviews) in order to arrive at this post.

So, without further ado, here’s what I’m predicting for all seven systems right now, absent any more deals (like say for a MLB lefty or another starter or trading a closer to Chicago):

 MLB Level

• MLB Rotation: Strasburg, Gonzalez (L), Zimmermann, Fister, Detwiler (L)
• MLB Bullpen: Soriano, Storen, Clippard, Stammen, Blevens (L), Ohlendorf, Roark
  MLB out of Org: Haren, Duke (L), Abad (L), Krol (L), HRodriguez

Discussion: the 5th starter competition could shake out so many different ways, that it almost is not worth predicting.  I can see any of the following scenarios playing out:

• Detwiler gets one last shot at the 5th starter as the incumbent, pushing Jordan to AAA and Ohlendorf/Roark to the bullpen (my current prediction).
• Jordan wins the 5th starter, pushing Detwiler to the bullpen as a power lefty by virtue of his lack of options.  This would push (likely) Roark to AAA.
• Roark wins the 5th starter, continuing his blistering sub 2.00 ERA pace from September, pushing Detwiler to the bullpen and Jordan to AAA.
• Less likely, Karns wins the 5th spot, which pushes Detwiler to the bullpen and Roark & Jordan to AAA.
• Even more less likely, Ohlendorf wins the spot, which pushes Detwiler to the bullpen but lets Roark stay as the long man/spot-starter.
• Mike Rizzo shocks us again with another starter acquisition; Detwiler goes to the bullpen, Ohlendorf stays as long man, and Roark & Jordan are in AAA.

Why am I predicting Detwiler will win the rotation spot?  Partly because of options, but partly because I’ve sort of come back around on him after looking more closely at his 2013 season.  He had a decent to good 2012; he posted a 118 ERA+ and even if his advanced FIP/SIERA didn’t indicate he was quite that good, he was still more than a servicable 5th starter.  Then in his first seven 2013 starts he was also very good (he had a 2.53 ERA in his first 7 starts and 42 2/3 innings … he got hurt in his 8th start).  The rest of his season was a mess, with him fighting injury and ballooning his seasonal ERA from 2.53 to more than 4.00 in five more starts.   If he comes back healthy to start 2014, why wouldn’t we expect more of the same performance that he had at the start of 2013?  For these two reasons, I think Detwiler breaks camp as the 5th starter.  Now …. I have zero confidence that he’ll remain healthy enough to keep his spot in the rotation, but that’s a problem for another day.  And a problem for which this team has plenty of coverage.

Another scenario that could affect this predition: Rizzo acquires yet another lefty reliever (latest rumors were about Scott Downs before he signed elsewhere, but I’m sure a trade could be arranged), which complicates any of these predictions because it means one less spot for either Ohlendorf or Roark.  For a team that seems so obsessed with left-handed relievers, we sure have let a bunch of them go in recent years (Duke, Abad, Krol this year, Gorzelanny, Lannan, Burnett and Gonzalez last year).  Maybe we should just hang on to one or two of these guys?  I will say this: I do NOT believe that the Nats will choose Xavier Cedeno and his 6 2013 MLB innings for the Nats over Roark just because he’s left handed at this point.

Personally, I think Roark and Ohlendorf pitched like big leagers last year and deserve to stay in the majors until they prove otherwise.  Ohlendorf’s recent $1.25M deal seems to indicate he’s more likely to stick than Roark, but perhaps the long-man/spot starter competition is open as well.  This pushes previous stalwards in the bullpen (specifically Ryan Mattheus ) to AAA.   I will say this though: if you expect to win, you have to go north with your 25 best guys no matter how much they make or their option status.  And at the end of last year, that undoubtedly included Tanner Roark.  So thats why I’m going with Roark in the pen to start the season.

One other wrinkle; does Rizzo trade one of Storen or Clippard to Chicago, who desperately needs a closer?  This seems less likely, especially for a team that has World Series aspirations, but the truth is this team is paying a LOT of money into its bullpen ($25M and counting), has three closer-quality guys, and potentially a log jam of righties (see the AAA bullpen prediction for more).  I see this as less likely unless Chicago sends back pieces that we really need, but rumors get started because GMs are talking, so maybe this still happens.  But if a guy like that is traded, then that re-opens a slot for the deposed Mattheus or possibly the newly healthy an electric Garcia.   I think these are lesser possibilities and both those guys are pushed to AAA to begin the season.

I’m sure this section garners plenty of discussion; have at it in the comments 🙂

AAA Level

• AAA Rotation: Jordan, Karns, Rosenbaum (L), Young, MLFA or two?
• AAA Bullpen: Barrett, Mattheus, Garcia, Davis,  Cedeno (L), Robertson (L), Herron (AA?), Alfaro, Stange, Delcarmen
• AAA Release candidates: Meyers, Lehman
• AAA out of Org: Maya, Tatusko, Clay, Mandel, Torra, Broadway, Crotta, Lowe, Kimball, Accardo, Bramhall, Romero (L)

Discussion

So, the projected AAA rotation has one hold over in Rosenbaum, two “promotions” in Jordan and Karns, and then a whole bunch of question marks.  Is Chris Young healthy enough to pitch this year?  Is Brad Meyers?  Right now i’ve got Meyers as a release candidate, figuring that he hasn’t been healthy in two years and may be finished.  I have to think that the team will give a couple of lower-level free agents minor league contracts to try to pitch their way back into the league, much as they have done with the likes of Zach Duke, Ross Ohlendorf and Young in the last couple of off-seasons.  There’s plenty of guys out there who may make sense; a quick glance at the current list of free agents offers intriguing names (think of someone like a Joe Saunders or a Barry Zito or an Aaron Harang; do you think these guys are getting guaranteed contracts for 2014?).  I’m predicting that at least one or two of these types of guys get MLFA deals and end up in the AAA rotation, though I suppose at least one guy i’m projecting from the AA rotation could start in AAA.

The AAA bullpen has a couple of MLB-quality arms in Ryan Mattheus and Christian Garcia who we know can contribute at the MLB level but who end up here because of a numbers game at the big club.  The AAA closer likely is Aaron Barrett, newly added to the 40-man and looking to make his mark.  Erik Davis is here, who I kind of soured on last season but his numbers in small MLB samples were good and I think he can contribute in a Craig Stammen sort of way going forward.  We have a couple of hold-over loogies in Xavier Cedeno and Tyler Robertson, the latter of which successfully passed through waivers and was outrighted to Syracuse last month.   We already have three off-season MLFA signings (Gabriel Alfaro, Daniel Stange, Manny Delcarmen) who all project as righty middle relievers, making it seemingly less likely that the team will retain some of its own MLFAs (the likes of Ryan Tatusko and Jeff Mandel being longer serving Nats minor leaguers who pitched decently in 2013).

But as you can see there’s more candidates here than there is room on the Syracuse roster (10 for 7 spots, and that’s assuming that Pat Lehman doesn’t make the cut either).  There will be injuries and D/L stints among these guys, but there may also be some releases next March.

Still, a AAA rotation led by Jordan and Karns (and possibly Ohlendorf and/or Roark if another move is made at the MLB level) leaves Syracuse with a pretty good staff to start the season.  And I like the fact that we have one reasonably accomplished MLB starter (Jordan) waiting in the wings to go along with a guy who might get there soon (Karns), to go with potentially a couple other former major league guys who are working their way back.

AA Level

• AA Rotation: Cole, Hill, Solis (L), Schwartz, Treinen (AAA?)
• AA Bullpen: Benincasa, Mirowski, Holland,  Swynenberg, Grace (L), Bates, KPerez, Gilliam (swingman), Spann (L)
• AA release candidates: Perry, Selik, Demny, RMartin
• AA out of Org: Broderick, Ray, McCoy, Frias, Holder, Bray

Discussion

We’ll see this trend again and again; despite the fact that the likes of A.J. Cole and Taylor Hill reached AA last year, the organization seems to like seeing these guys “beat the level” a second season in a row before moving guys up.  And so I see these guys in AA again.  Sammy Solis here is no surprise; he’s nearly 26 and has been mentioned as a MLB bullpen candidate already.  Meanwhile for the time being i’ve got Blake Treinen here, repeating the level, but can also see him moving up to AAA.  His numbers were good but not *that* good last year, and I left him in AA assuming that the team will try out some re-treads in the AAA rotation.  Lastly Blake Schwartz gets a deserved promotion after leading Potomac in IP, wins and starts last year.

In the bullpen I think Robert Benincasa is your closer to start, with Richie Mirowski and Neil Holland continuing to put up dominating late-innings relief.  All three guys should be pushing for promotions to AAA.  We’re a little light on lefties here admittedly.  A couple of injury-prone guys in Ryan Perry and Cameron Selik are listed as release candidates in the face of a number of guys meriting placement here.  Paul Demny and Rafael Martin have been around forever and may also be release candidates at this point, but they also could (at least in Demny’s case) convert to relief and try to rekindle their careers.  Lastly, there’s newly acquired Matthew Spann, the bounty for the Nats gambit on David Dejesus near the end of last season.   He’s a lefty who looks like he could start but i’ve got him in the bullpen for now.

High-A Level

• High-A rotation: Purke (L), Anderson, Mooneyham (L), Encarnacion, Bacus, Turnbull (bullpen?) (L)
• High-A bullpen: Wort (AA?), Holt (AA?), Fischer, Henke, Mendez, Harper (L), Davis, Thomas (L), RPena (swingman), Dickson (swingman)
• High-A release candidates: Dupra, Rauh (starter?), Meza (L)
• High-A out of org: Pineyro, Hawkins

Discussion

I don’t think there’s too many surprises in this rotation: Matthew Purke leads the line and should push for a promotion mid-season.  If he doesn’t dominate High-A at this point it may be time to think about moving him to the pen.   The same can be said about Brett Mooneyham and especially Kylin Turnbull, two guys who (by now) should have accomplished this level.   Otherwise the rest of this projected rotation are three guys who succeeded in Low-A in 2013: Dixon Anderson, Pedro Encarnacion and Dakoda Bacus.

In the bullpen, at this point i’m not sure who the closer candidates are to start the season.  Perhaps Greg Holt starts in the role.  Perhaps low-A phenom Gilberto Mendez gets a shot at closing.  Both Holt and Rob Wort may belong in AA at this point; Wort began 2013 there but there’s a lot of relievers in that AA section who would have to get hurt/be released to make room for these two guys right now.  There’s a couple of decent swingmen candidates here in Ronald Pena and Ian Dickson both started for long stretches in Hagerstown and could be useful guys in Potomac.    There’s a lot of names in the mix here for this bullpen; from here on down there could be plenty of releases come the end of spring.

 

Low-A Level

• Low-A rotation: Giolito, Johansen, Voth, Lee (high-A?) (L), Orlan (L)
• Low-A bullpen: Self (high-A?), Selsor (swingman), Ullmann, Pivetta, Simms, Hollins, Napoli (L), Bafidis (L), Suero (swingman), Valdez, Walsh (L), Aries
• Low-A release candidates: Joyce, Waterman, Boyden
• Low-A out of org: McKenzie, Smith

Discussion

I like this rotation, a lot.  Two of our best prospects, a third guy in Austin Voth who impressed last year, a guy in Nick Lee who probably deserves a high-A rotation spot and then Auburn’s staff leader in Robert Orlan.  Jake Johansen may find himself needing a promotion quickly, if he’s all that he’s cracked up to be.

The bullpen is going to be tough; basically every college aged short-season guy who pitched well in 2013 is named in this bullpen competition.  There’s a couple of interesting DSL graduates in Wander Suero and Phillips Valdez, some big arms in Ryan Ullmann and Nick Pivetta, and some polished college-aged lefties in David Napoli, Cory Bafidis and Jake Walsh.   I have 15 names here for 7-8 spots; Viera’s extended spring training could be busy this year.

 

Short-A Level

• Short-A rotation: Barrientos, JRodriguez, Silvestre (high-A?) (L), and then 2013 draftees and/or drop-downs from Low-A
• Short-A bullpen: DWilliams, Cooper, KRodriguez, Derosier, Webb (L), Spezial (L), 2013 draftees and drop-downs from Low-A
• Short-A release candidates: Sylvestri, Grisz
• Short-A out of org: Hudgins, Simko, Dicharry

GCL Level

• Rookie Rotation: Ott (L), 2013 draftees and DSL graduates
• Rookie bullpen: RLopez, 2013 draftees and DSL graduates
• Rookie release candidates: DRamos, MRodriguez

Discussion

Its frankly impossible to predict the short-season squads, since (especially Auburn) they exist to park newly signed draftees.  However, I do see a ton of guys who competed and succeeded in the GCL this year who won’t necessarily make the Hagerstown squad, and I see them forming a good chunk of the Auburn squad.   The rest of the Auburn squad will be populated with upper-end 2014 draftees and losers from the Hagerstown pitching staff competition.  More of the same with the 2014 GCL squad, which was heavily tilted with DSL graduates this year.  The Nats tend to focus on college arms and thus only small college guys are generally put in the GCL in their draft year.

This is the 7th and final in the 2013 Pitching staff review series.  I don’t like double posting stuff this comprehensive but I wanted to get this out before the w/e.  This is the review of the GCL/Rookie league’s pitching staff for 2013.  Other parts of the 2013 series:

• Washington/MLB’s 2013 review
• Syracuse/AAA’s 2013 review
• Harrisburg/AA’s 2013 review
• Potomac/High-A’s 2013 review
• Hagerstown/Low-A’s 2013 review
• Auburn/Short-A’s 2013 review

For some historical perspective, here’s 2012’s version (Lucas Giolito was the feature pitcher) and 2011’s version (Jack McGeary the feature pitcher) of this post specifically for Auburn/Short-A.  Yes, Giolito was the GCL “man of the year” for the second year in a row.  This may be unfair to many of the DSL grads who pitched great for the GCL this year, especially the likes of Jefry Rodriguez and Wander Suero.  Also; good luck finding a picture of Jefry Rodriguez to use for your blog; any google search with “Rodriguez” and “baseball” is so over-inundated with pictures of more famous Rodriguez’ (Alex, Ivan, even Henry) that I gave up looking.

All stats are courtesy of either milb.com’s GCL’s 2013 Stats page or via Fangraph’s GCL 2013 page.  Also useful here are the Big Board and the Nats Draft Tracker since so many of these lower-minors guys are recent draftees.

A caveat before starting this post: this is short-season ball, so nobody’s got more than a few dozen innings.  The staff leader had 49 innings.  So yes this is absolutely going to be some “Small Sample Size” analysis.  Which in some cases is unfair to the player (to the good or to the bad).  It is what it is.

GCL starters.  The rotation started the season with Suero, Jefry Rodriguez, Silvestre, Voth and Valdez.  It ended with JRodriguez, Silvestre, Suero, Ott and a slew of 5th/6th starters here and there.   Lets take a look at the starters:

• Wander Suero dominated the GCL this year, throwing lots of 4-5 innings outings in relief of other “starters” and leading the team in IP.  Final numbers: 8-1 with a 1.65 ERA.  His first season in the USA after 3 DSL seasons was a huge success and his age (22) should help him move upwards.  Outlook for next season: Low-A bullpen/spot-starter.
• Jefry Rodriguez was the opening day starter and made 12 starts all told for the GCL, going 3-0 with a 2.45 ERA anda a 43/20 K/BB ratio in 48 innings.  The 19-yr old DSL graduate looked great all year, even if he averaged only about 4 innings an outing.   He improved his K/BB rate marketdly from his 2012 DSL season and should keep on moving upwards.  Outlook for next season: XST and then Short-A rotation (I don’t think he can crack the low-A rotation).
• Hector Silvestre was the staff ace, going 7-0 with a 1.82 ERA in 13 games (8 starts) over a team leading 49 1/3 innings.  He was absolutely dominant all August, throwing 26 scoreless innings to finish out the year (including the playoffs).  The 20-year old lefty has a ton of potential.   Outlook for next season: XST and then Short-A rotation.
• Austin Voth had two quick outings in the GCL before moving on up to Auburn.  See the short-A writeup for more. Outlook for next season: Low-A rotation.
• Philips Valdez had a few starts but worked mostly out of the pen en route to a dominant 1.95 ERA and 0.87 whip in 32 IP.  He’s another older DSL signee who, like Suero, could make an impact a couple levels above GCL next year.  Outlook for next season: Low-A bullpen competition, perhaps falling back to Short-A.
• Nick Pivetta started 3 games in Viera but averaged less than 4 innings a start before getting bounced up to Auburn.   See the short-A writeup for more.   Outlook for next season: Low-A bullpen.
• Deion Williams failed in Auburn and got just 13 innings in the GCL this year.  He’s young (just turned 21) so he has a bit of time to sort things out.  Outlook for next season: XST and another shot at Short-A in the bullpen.
• Lucas Giolito went 2-1, 1.94 ERA with 39/14 k/bb in 36 2/3 innings, 28 hits mostly in the GCL.  All Nats prospect fans should know of Giolito’s status these days; he has come back from surgery, pitched effectively in the rookie league and was lights out in 3 starts in short-A (one run conceded in 14 innings).  Per comments and scouting reports his velocity is back, he seems healthy, and he could be just a season away from being breathlessly talked about as one of the best prospects in the game.  Outlook for next season: Low-A rotation.
• Travis Ott went 3-0, 4.03 ERA with 32/12 K/BB in 29 innings in the GCL, 24 hits.  The rare mid-20s round high schooler who signs, Ott was used as a starter in the GCL and was mostly good all year.  His seasonal numbers were skewed by one bad outing where he gave up 6 earned runs in 1 2/3 innings in mid-July.  This tall, lanky left-hander (6’4″ 170lbs) seemingly has room to grow and is very young; he turned 18 at the end of June.  Looks like the Nats might have a find here.   Outlook for next season: XST  and repeating GCL; he’s only 18 and could use the seasoning.
• A slew of relievers got one start here and there; its kind of hard to assign GCL guys to “the rotation” when they get a start and only pitch 3 innings.  Instead, they’re discussed in the reliever section.
• Rehabbing Starters from other levels: Brad Meyers got two re-hab starts for GCL this year, Chris Young, Ryan Mattheus, Cole Kimball, and Sammy Solis got one each.

GCL Relievers: this section is done mostly by IP, though we’ll start with the clear “closer” for the GCL Nats.

• Jake Walsh got 8 saves in 16 games, posting a 1.40 ERA with 17/5 K/BB in 19 1/3 innings closing in the Rookie League.  He was promoted to Hagerstown on 9/3/13 to provide lefty bullpen coverage in the playoffs.    He was probably too old and too experienced for the rookie league but showed enough promise to get a two-level call-up for the post-season.  Outlook for next season: low-A bullpen loogy competition.
• Kelvin Rodriguez was a middle reliever for the GCL nats, throwing 29 innings across 13 outings and posting a 3.07 ERA.  He wasn’t quite as dominant as some of his DSL graduates, and I suspect it will keep him (despite his age) in XST to start 2014.   Outlook for next season: XST and then Short-A bullpen.
• Matt Derosier was 2-1, 2.43 ERA with 20/5 K/BB in 19 relief innings mostly in the GCL, 24 hits.   Derosier may have been a Juco guy but he’s young; he turned 19 in July of this year.  After a brief stint to start the season in Auburn he pitched in middle relief for the GCL Nats, getting at least 4 long enough stints to earn a “grade” in my monthly starter grades.   He posted good, solid numbers, nothing flashy, nothing bad.  A 4/1 K/BB ratio is great.  He’ll move up next year, looking to stick as a younger member of the bullpen in short-A.  Outlook for next season: short-A bullpen.
• David Ramos posted an ugly 6.35 ERA in 22 middle relief innings for the GCL Nats.  His first state-side season could be his last, given his age (22).  Outlook for next season: XST and repeating the GCL bullpen, release candidate.
• Joey Webb went 2-0, 1.89 ERA with 25/6 K/BB in 19 innings in the GCL, 13 hits.   Webb comes from a very small baseball school (NAIA’s Menlo College in California) and may not have been ready to compete with a bunch of Division I guys in Short-A, despite already being 23.   Outlook for next season: short-A bullpen.
• Elliott Waterman bounced down and then back out of the GCL this year.  See the short-A write-up for more.  Outlook for next season: Low-A bullpen loogy competition, release candidate.
• Niko Spezial went 1-0, 3.32 ERA with 21/8 K/BB in 19 relief innings mostly in the GCL, 16 hits.  Spezial started the season with Auburn but got the quick demotion after just 3 1/3 relatively non-descript innings.  A college senior draftee, he did not belong in the rookie league.  Nonetheless he pitched effectively for the record-setting GCL Nats.  Spezial needs to show how he fares against someone his own age, which hopefully he’ll get a chance to do in 2014.   Outlook for next season: short-A bullpen, release candidate.
• Michael Boyden posted a 4.61 ERA with 15/14 K/BB in 13 2/3 innings, 17 hits for GCL.  14 walks and 17 hits equates with a balloned 2.27 whip for this 23-year old in the rookie league (which means he’s likely throwing against guys 4-5 years younger than he is).  It is hard to understand why he was back in the GCL after having shown he could handle Short-A in 2012.  Either way, his control issues from last year caught up with him in 2013 and I don’t think he’ll be long for the organization.   Outlook for next season: Low-A bullpen loogy competition, release candidate.
• Ryan Ullmann started in the rookie league, being a senior coming from an NAIA school, but by season’s end he was in the Auburn rotation.  See the short-A write-up for more.    Outlook for next season: Low-A bullpen.
• Cory Bafidis briefly worked in the GCL bullpen.  See the short-A write-up for more  Outlook for next season: Low-A bullpen.
• Justin Thomas threw 3  innings in Viera during his tour of the Nats farm system in 2013.  See low-A post for more.  Outlook for next season: High-A bullpen competition.
• Other Relievers who got 10 IP or less:
  • Rehabbing relievers from other levels: Pat Lehman, Rafael Martin, Cameron Selik, Brian Broderick, each of whom got a handful of innings.
  • Mike Sylvestri was dominant in his 9 innings of GCL work after getting demoted from Auburn.  See Short-A write-up for more.
    
  • Luis Reyes was called up from the DSL to make an appearance in late August; he gave up 3 runs on 4 hits in 4 innings and was sent back to the D.R.
  • Andrew Cooper threw 2 innings in Viera then bounced up to Auburn.  See Short-A write-up for more.
  • John Simms threw 2 innings in Viera then bounced up to Auburn.  See Short-A write-up for more.
  • Lastly, infielder Kyle Attl threw 1/3 of an inning somewhere along the line, giving up a homer before getting an out for an ERA of 27 and a FIP of 42.20 on the season.

Summary

The GCL Nat’s record breaking season was borne on the backs of a slew of arms rising to the GCL from the DSL, and despite some of them being slightly “old” for the level they helped the team achieve greatness in 2013.  This also marks a great collection of DSL graduates that should start matriculating upwards, moreso than we’ve had to follow in quite a while.

(Editor’s Note: I corrected Jefry Rodriguez’ name after the fact; thanks to commenter Melissa).

This is the 5th in the 2013 Pitching staff review series, here’s a review of Hagerstown/Low-A’s pitching staff for 2013.  Other parts of the 2013 series:

• Washington/MLB’s 2013 review
• Syracuse/AAA’s 2013 review
• Harrisburg/AA’s 2013 review
• Potomac/High-A’s 2013 review

For some historical perspective, here’s 2012’s version (Aaron Barrett was the feature pitcher) and 2011’s version (Taylor Jordan the feature pitcher) of this post specifically for Hagerstown/Low-A.

All stats are courtesy of either milb.com’s Hagerstown 2013 Stats page or via Fangraph’s Hagerstown 2013 page.   Also useful here are the Big Board and the Nats Draft Tracker since so many of these lower-minors guys are recent draftees.

Hagerstown starters.  The rotation started the season with Anderson, Mooneyham, Pineyro, Pena and Encarnacion.  It ended with Turnbull, Encarnacion, Bacus, Voth, and Johansen (with Dickson in the rotation most of the last half of the season as well).  There were quite a few changes along the way; I counted 8 pitcher promotions throughout the year, including 6 starters.  Lets take a look at the High-A starters for 2013, starting with the original five and then counting down by the number of starts.

• Dixon Anderson got the ball opening day and threw 15 decent starts for the Suns, even making the all-star team.  He started to struggle in June, hit the D/L at the end of that month and never re-appeared.  As you might imagine, its hard to find out injury news for guys in the low minors, so the extent of his injury is unknown to me at this time.  Which makes it kind of hard to predict where he’ll be next year.  He had good component ratios and was a college draftee from a good baseball school, so you’d think he’s ready to move up.  Outlook for next season: High-A rotation if he’s healthy.
• Brett Mooneyham absolutely dominated low-A ball, posting a 1.94 ERA and going 10-3 in 93 innings before mercifully being pushed to Potomac.  And this comes as no surprise; a 3rd round pick from a Pac-12 baseball power should dominate a bunch of kids 2 years his junior.  I’m not sure what was left to prove in Hagerstown, especially when it became clear he was overpowering the league.  To be fair, he did have a 6 week D/L stint that factored in; but once he came back and dominated towards the end of June he should have been pushed up.  Outlook for next season: High-A rotation.
• Ivan Pineyro threw 13 good starts for Hagerstown, was promoted, then got 3 starts in High-A before he was flipped for Scott Hairston.   Outlook for next season: in the Chicago Cubs organization.
• Ronald Pena started in the rotation for Hagerstown, then was pushed to the bullpen to become the long-man by June.  He ended the season with decent enough numbers: 4-3 with a 3.48 ERA in 28 appearances (10 starts).  His component ratios weren’t that great: 55/34 K/BB in 88 innings, but he did give the Suns a great playoff stint in long relief.  Where does a guy like this go from here?  Outlook for next season: high-A bullpen in a similar long-relief/spot starter role.
• Pedro Encarnacion was the staff leader for Hagerstown this year, leading the team in starts, wins (technically tied with Mooneyham), innings pitched and K’s.   The DSL graduate posted a 10-9 W/L record with 113/37 K/BB in 128 innings.   He had a 1.19 whip on the year, and his FIP (3.50) flattered his ERA (3.58).   Encarnacion right now represents the most accomplished DSL graduate in the entire system (when speaking of pitchers anyway), perhaps the best DSL pitching prospect we’ve had the entire time the team has been in Washington (who is more accomplished?  Atahualpa Severino?), and I see no reason for him not to keep climbing the ranks next year.    Outlook for next season: High-A rotation.
• Nick Lee joined up with Hagerstown in mid May and gave the team 17 decent starts before hitting the D/L to make way for new acquisition Dakota Bacus in August (more on him later).   He had impressive K rates (102 strikeouts in 91 innings) and a FIP (3.54) that flattered his ERA (3.95).   He had a number of sparkling outings interspersed with a couple of failures, but for the most part was consistent this year.  Outlook for next season: High-A rotation competition, possibly dropping back to Low-A if the numbers game doesn’t work out (he’s young; he’s still 22).
• Kylin Turnbull lasted just three high-A starts, giving up 10 runs in 17 innings and was demoted to low-A.  Repeating Hagerstown, he was again poor, putting in just 5 mediocre-to-bad starts before being sent to XST, where he toiled for a few weeks before joining up with Auburn to start the short-season.  He pitched to a 1.96 ERA in four short-A starts and earned a promotion back to Hagerstown, where he finally settled down and finished out the year.  Unfortunately he laid an egg in the playoffs, but a lot of our guys did.  On the whole in Hagerstown for the year, he performed ably; a 3.58 ERA in 16 starts.    Outlook for next season: Attempting High-A’s rotation again, but i’m wondering if he’s cut out to start.  Despite his draft pedigree (4th rounder in 2011) he may be eventually bound for the bullpen as a lefty specialist.
• Ian Dickson was acquired in early June from the Cubs when the Nats finally DFA’d Henry Rodriguez.  I define this transaction as “getting something for nothing.”  Dickson joined the Suns bullpen, showed his big arm, then was mostly a starter for the rest of the season.  All in all for the Suns he had 16 appearances (10 starts) and posted a 4.39 ERA with more than a K/inning.  Meanwhile his K/BB ratio was fantastic for such a strikeout guy (71/17 in 65 2/3 innings for the Suns this year).  Is he a starter?  Outlook for next season: High-A swingman/spot-starter.
• Matt Purke over-matched low-A in 6 starts (posting 41 K’s in 29 innings) and was pushed to Potomac in early July.  See the high-A writeup for more. Outlook for next season: High-A rotation.
• Others who got just 1-2 starts for Hagerstown:
  • Austin Voth is an exciting 2013 draftee who blew through both short season teams to end up in the low-A rotation and get the opening playoff start.  See the short-A writeup for more.
  • Jake Johansen is, as we all know, the Nats top draft pick from 2013.  He (like Voth) pushed his way to low-A this season.   See the short-A writeup for more.
  • Dakota Bacus came to the team in late August in trade for Kurt Suzuki; he spent most of the year in Oakland’s low-A team and performed ably.  He posted a 3.65 ERA in 121 innings but showed a bit of a wild streak.   Outlook for next season: High-A rotation competition.
  • Blake Schwartz blitzed through 4 starts in low-A and was quickly promoted to Potomac.  See the high-A write-up for more.  Outlook for next season: AA rotation.
  • Brian Dupra earned two promotions on the season to end up in Potomac’s bullpen.  See the high-A write-up for more. Outlook for next season: High-A bullpen competition, possible release.
  • Reynaldo Lopez gave Hagerstown a spot start, getting called up from Auburn.  See Short-A write-up for more.
  • Ryan Mattheus got a rehab “start.”  See MLB write-up for more.

Hagerstown relievers.  We’ll start with the closers and work backwards by IP from there.  I will say this; when considering the future of middle relievers in low-A ball, everything is a crap shoot.  Most of these guys are already “org guys” before they’ve even really started their careers and its really difficult to project where they may go.   Unfortunately, lots of these guys may end up being post spring-training releases to make way for the newer crop of draftees.

• Robert Benincasa led the Suns in saves despite being promoted mid-season.  See the high-A write-up for more.   Outlook for next season: AA/High-A bullpen.
• Gilberto Mendez dominated low-A this season, arriving in June, posting a 0.91 ERA and striking out 33 in 29 2/3 innings while earning 7 saves.   No reason to think the 2011 DR signing isn’t moving on up.  I like this guy; so far he’s pitched pretty well at every level he’s hit.   Outlook for next season: High-A bullpen, possibly the closer if Benincasa is in AA.
• Derek Self couldn’t make the leap to High-A, and spent most of the season in Hagerstown.  He posted decent numbers in low-A:  a 3.41 ERA in 31 2/3 innings pitching mostly towards the back of the bullpen.   Outlook for next season: trying the high-A bullpen again, possibly falling back to the low-A bullpen.
• Travis Henke toiled most of the season in Hagerstown and got a late-season promotion.  In Low-A he posted a 2.72 ERA in nearly 60 innings of mostly longer relief.  He’s yet another decent find out of a small college (Arkansas – Little Rock) for the Nats scouting department. Outlook for next season: high-A bullpen.
• Bryan Harper earned his keep in low-A this year, posting a 3.97 ERA in 45 innings.  He’s got to work on his control though; 32 walks in those 45 innings completely counter balance his nice K/9 ratio.  Outlook for next season: high-A bullpen competition as the matchup-lefty.
• Cody Davis continued to pitch extremely well for an undrafted free agent signing, succeeding in his third straight season and third straight promotion.  For Hagerstown in 2013; a 2.76 ERA in 42 innings, more than a K/inning, nearly a 4/1 K/BB ratio and an even better FIP (2.33) than his ERA.  He’s clearly earned a shot at the next level.   Outlook for next season: High-A bullpen.
• Brian Rauh started the year in Hagerstown’s bullpen as an 8th inning guy, didn’t really pitch that well but was pushed up to Potomac anyway.  See the high-A write-up for more.  Outlook for next season: High-A bullpen, perhaps a starter.  Perhaps a release candidate.
• Christian Meza lasted about 5 weeks in Potomac, putting up a 6.62 ERA and greater than a 2.00 whip before getting demoted back to Hagerstown.  For Hagerstown he was better but still not great; a 4.00 ERA over 31 innings.  To be fair, his K rate was excellent and his FIP in such a short sample size was decent, but giving up 2 base runners an inning as a reliever is a no-no.  He’s entering his 5th pro season and has thus far been unable to succeed above low-A ball; he may face a do-or-die spring training in 2014.   He is a lefty though, and the lower parts of the system seem to lack lefty matchup guys, so this could be a saving grace.  Outlook for next season: trying the high-A bullpen again, possible release candidate.
• David Fischer started the year in Hagerstown but was quickly bumped up to Potomac, where he served as a long-man out of the pen.  See the high-A write-up for more.  Outlook for next season: High-A bullpen.
• Will Hudgins started the year in Hagerstown’s bullpen, was demoted to Auburn, and abruptly retired in July.   Odd in my opinion; his stats didn’t look that bad.  Outlook for next season: out of baseball.
• Other relievers who didn’t get enough innings to really pass much judgement:
  • Justin Thomas bounced around the system in his first pro year, pitching at 4 different levels.  He only threw a grand total of 22 innings on the year so its hard to pass too much judgement.  He was a college senior draftee so you’d have to think he’s better suited for full-season ball in 2014.  Outlook for next season: High-A bullpen competition.
  • Chris McKenzie threw 12 innings of 5.25 ERA ball and was released, ending a 4 year tenure in the organization.  
  • Jason Smith got lit up in 7+ innings and was released.
  • Corey Bafidis stopped in to Hagerstown for two appearances before heading to Auburn.  See the short-A write-up.
  • Leonard Hollins had one appearance in low-A, got sent back to XST and spent the season in Auburn.    See the short-A write-up.
  • Jake Walsh had 1 IP during a brief callup in August, then joined the Suns for the playoffs.  See the GCL write-up for more.

Summary

The Suns were the first half champs on the backs of good (if over-aged) starting pitching.  It is what it is; the Nationals are drafting older players, focusing on college guys, and its just natural that our low-A team is going to trend older.   Based on what I see here, there’s going to be quite a competition for the High-A spots in 2014.  There’s going to be more guys than spots, both in the rotation and in the bullpen.

A lot of the names who featured for the Suns in the playoffs may very well be back to start 2014, giving the team an excellent chance of repeating as first half champs in 2014.