Hopefully you recognize the title of this post as a quote from one of the most entertaining movies of all time, “Midnight Run.”
News that should surprise practically nobody who follows Nats prospects dropped over the Labor Day weekend: 2017 lightning rod 1st rounder Seth Romero will likely miss the *entirety* of the 2019 season as he undergoes Tommy John surgery.
Just to recap Romero’s stellar tenure with the Nats thus far:
- He gets kicked off his college team, multiple times for multiple different knuckle head moves (drugs, curfew, fighting with teammates, etc)
- The Nats telegraph their 2017 first round pick to basically every draft-predicting pundit and select Romero with the 25th overall pick in the 1st round.
- They pay him an *over slot* bonus for some fool reason, despite the fact that he (like a college senior) has no college team to return to.
- He throws just 22 professional innings in 2017, including six short-A starts with a (short sample size ugly ERA of 5.40).
- He’s sent home from spring training for “multiple team rule violations,” and misses fully two months of the 2018 minor league season.
- He finally debuts in 2018 in Low-A (a 1st rounder of his stature should be in at least High-A in his first full pro season), throws 6 starts of 3.91 ERA.
- He hits the D/L in early July, misses another 6 weeks
- Comes back mid-August, throws 2 innings, is removed from the game … and then three weeks later we find out about his TJ.
Grand total pro starts to this point: 14 (two of which were of the 2-inning “pseudo start” varieties). Age he’ll be in spring training 2020 when he’s ready to go again? 23, turning 24 as soon as the 2020 season starts.
Extent to which this entire situation has blown up in the Nats’ faces: very high.
I’m really beginning to question this group’s ability to execute on first rounders in the new CBA. I focus on the 1st rounders because, really, that’s where you spend the most money and that’s really the one pick you cannot afford to screw up. Here’s the Nats first picks since the new CBA went into effect:
- 2012: Giolito, Renda, Mooneyham
- 2013: No 1st rounder, Johansen, Ward
- 2014: Fedde, Suarez (who didn’t sign), Reetz
- 2015: No 1st rounder, Stevenson, Perkins, Wisemann
- 2016: Kieboom, Dunning, Neuse, Luzardo
- 2017: Romero, Crowe, Raquet
- 2018: Denaburg, Cate, Schaller
I’m sorry, but tell me which of these sets of players is a “success?” 2012? Nope; Giolito may pan out, maybe not, but he’s been at best the definition of inconsistent in 2018 … and for another team. 2013? Absolutely not. 2014? Fedde looks like maybe a 5th starter right now and Suarez didn’t sign; how do you not sign a 2nd rounder under the modern draft rules? 2015? A 5th outfielder, a guy who may have peaked in low-A and a corner org-guy. That’s not a win.
2016 looks pretty damn good … except that three of these four players were traded to other teams to make up for other team deficiencies! Dunning is projecting like a mid-rotation guy perhaps, Neuse looks solid, but Luzardo is now being called perhaps the best lefty prospect in the minors. All gone. At least they managed to retain Kieboom. But its ironic that perhaps their best draft in the last 7 years essentially ends up benefiting primarily other teams. Ok, yes that’s unfair given that we traded these guys to get assets to help us now, but its worth noting that the two guys we flipped Neuse and Luzardo for are now traded and injured, and the guy we acquired for Dunning (and others) missed essentially the entirety of 2017. Yeah you can’t predict injuries, blah, blah, but given how 2018 has turned out don’t you wish you had these moves back at this point? Do you think this team would have done any differently in 2017 and 2018 without those moves? Just a thought.
2017? Crowe looks like a great pick. Nothing personal against Raquet, but I hated the pick when it happened, and he’s done little to impress since. In High-A this year he struck out just 36 guys in 55 innings, had a .319 Batting average against (giving up an astounding 72 hits in 55 innings) and finished the season with a 4.91 ERA (greatly helped by his managing to throw a 1-hit shut out his last start). I mean, where do you go from here with him? He’s not a starter; do you dump him to the bullpen and have him repeat High-A?
2018? Obviously too soon to pass judgement, but where the hell is Denaburg? He got assigned to the GCL team in mid July and never appeared. Cate ended the year in the low-A rotation, which would normally indicate a nice season, but he posted ugly ERAs in both Short-A and Low-A with mediocre peripherals. Schaller was drafted as a reliever but stretched out as a starter professionally and struggled; a 5.90 ERA and just 16 Ks in 29 short-A innings. Not good.
Conclusion: I’m not sure this front office can draft anymore. And after watching them him and haw at the trade deadline and then eventually get little to no return for departing vets, i’m not sure they are effectively managing things either. And lastly, having the GM come in and trade away two veteran players in order to save his rookie manager’s face smacks of having your big older brother come in and slug the neighborhood bullies because you’re too weak to handle your own problems.
All in all, not a very good 2018. I’ve been a defender of Mike Rizzo in the past, but a lot of these moves are reminders that he has some weaknesses as an overall GM. He’s now on his 6th manager in 10 years in charge (Acta, Riggleman, Johnson, Williams, Baker and now Martinez, not counting a few interim games post-Riggleman resignation). He’s clearly struggling to handle the draft correctly. Scott Boras routinely goes over his head to management to make bad moves (its no surprise that Romero was a Boras client), and as a result of poor roster construction they’ve gutted the farm system over the past few years only to completely lose the plot in 2018, the year they were supposed to win it all.
At what point do you really question the direction of this team under Rizzo?