Nationals Arm Race

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

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

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

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

AAA observations:

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

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

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

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AA Observations

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

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

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

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High-A observations

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

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

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

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Low-A

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

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

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

We already did a quick reaction to the first day/first two picks and then the top 10 rounds.  Here’s a more holistic look at our 2017 draft class.  The team announced yesterday that it had already signed an amazing 25 guys, and I think that number is likely to rise to at least 33 players (assuming all top 10 round players and all College seniors sign).  That’s quite a few more than I initially projected.

I did want to make a statement though, following up on a back-and-forth in the comments on previous posts about 3rd rounder Nick Raquet (who, unsurprisingly to me, has already signed though no word on his bonus amount).  Some asked why I was so critical of the pick.  We’ll, here’s why: its about opportunity cost.  Raquet was indeed ranked on some boards (#145 in BA’s pre-draft list) but was absent from practically every other credible draft service (MLBpipeline.com for example ranked 200 players and didn’t rank him at all).   ESPN/Keith Law, MinorLeagueBall, 20/80 and Fangraphs all had him totally off their lists.  Baseball Draft Report had him in the 300s.

The Nats drafted him #103 overall, at the end of the 3rd round.

I have nothing against Raquet personally, nor his school in general (which I denigrated during the comments due to its lack of baseball pedigree).  What I have a problem with is taking a player in the third round who:

a) was a far inferior player versus where he was drafted,

b) if the team really, really wanted him would have been available probably 3 or 4 rounds later, and

c) the team chose to take in lieu of many, many better ranked players at the time of the pick.

You could make the same arguments, by the way, about our 4th rounder: a senior in Cole Freeman who again by BA’s rank was drafted at least two rounds too early and by anyone else’s rankings was drafted 5 rounds too early.

The drafting of these two players in the 3rd and 4th cost the team the opportunity to draft two far, far better players in those slots.  I don’t have a problem punting draft picks in the 6-10th round range if you’ve drafted quality players in 1-5 … but to purposely punt on 3rd and 4th round implies that their round 1 and 2 picks (Seth Romero and Wil Crowe) were both going to be over slot guys.  And that astounds me; Romero was kicked off his college team; how is he in a position to command more dollars than his slot?  Where’s he gonna player if he doesn’t sign?  Indy ball?  And Crowe is a 4th year player with a TJ on his resume who I suppose could go back for a 5th collegiate season, but really that’d be flushing a crucial year of development down the tubes, plus burning a year on his surgically repaired arm … with little chance he could improve his bonus amount or draft ranking over where he got drafted this year.  How are either guy demanding over-slot money?

I liken the situation to playing Fantasy sports.  When your buddy in your league drafts a kicker in the 8th round you mock him mercilessly.  Why?  Because that same kicker was going to be there 4 rounds later and because wasting an 8th round pick on a kicker is a sign of poor team management and a lack of understanding of how fantasy works.  Its the same thing wasting a 3rd rounder in the fashion the team just did.

So, frustration over punting two high draft picks so as to pay two other high draft picks more money than I think they’re worth leads me to the end of this diatribe.  We’ll have our answer soon enough; if Raquet signs for a piddling amount of money (his slot value is $522,300), and if Freeman similarly signs for under-slot (he’s at $390,000) then you’ll have confirmation of the punting on these picks.  I suppose both guys could sign for at or near slot, which would imply that they were worth the draft pick; if that happens i’ll be shocked.

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Anyway, back to the draft class review overall.  Here’s a quick table 1-40 before doing some breakdowns:

 

Round	Overall	Name	Position	Col/HS	College or Cmtm	State	Slot Value
1	25	Seth Romero	LHP	Col Jr	Houston	TX	2530400
2	65	Wil Crowe	RHP	Col Sr	South Carolina	SC	946500
3	103	Nick Raquet	LHP	Col Jr	William & Mary	VA	522300
4	133	Cole Freeman	2B	Col Sr	LSU	LA	390000
5	163	Brigham Hill	RHP	Col Jr	TAMU	TX	291200
6	193	Kyle Johnston	RHP	Col Jr	Texas	TX	226100
7	223	Jackson Tetreault	RHP	J2	State Col Florida Manatee	FL	178100
8	253	Jared Brashner	RHP	Col Sr	Samford	Fl	149600
9	283	Alex Troop	LHP	Col Jr	Michigan State	MI	138000
10	313	Trey Turner	RHP	Col Jr	Missouri State	MO	131300
11	343	Justin Connell	OF	HS	American Heritage School	FL
12	373	Jackson Stoeckinger	LHP	J2	Col of Central Florida	FL
13	403	Eric Senior	OF	J2	Midland Col	TX
14	433	Anthony Peroni	C	J2	Mercer County CC	NJ
15	463	Bryce Montes de Oca	RHP	Col Jr	Missouri	MO
16	493	Jake Scudder	1B	Col Sr	Kansas St U	KS
17	523	Jared Johnson	LHP	J1	Palm Beach State Col	FL
18	553	Nick Choruby	OF	Col Sr	Texas A&M U	TX
19	583	Jonathan Pryor	OF	Col Sr	Wake Forest U	NC
20	613	Jake Cousins	RHP	Col Sr	Pennsylvania	PA
21	643	Leif Strom	RHP	J2	Pierce College	WA
22	673	Nelson Galindez	LHP	HS	Haines City HS	FL
23	703	Jamori Blash	1B	J2	Cochise Col	GA
24	733	Tim Richards	SS	Col Sr	Cal State Fullerton	CA
25	763	David Smith	RHP	Col Sr	Cal St Long Beach	CA
26	793	Kameron Esthay	OF	Col Sr	Baylor U	TX
27	823	Darren Baker	SS	HS	Jesuit HS	CA
28	853	Nic Perkins	C	Col Jr	Drury University	MO
29	883	Alex Dunlap	C	Col Sr	Stanford	CA
30	913	Austin Guibor	OF	Col Jr	Fresno St U	CA
31	943	Jeremy McKinney	RHP	Col Sr	Indiana St U	IN
32	973	Phil Caulfield	2B	Col Sr	Loyola Marymount U	CA
33	1003	Adalberto Carrillo	C	Col Jr	U Southern California	CA
34	1033	Bennett Sousa	LHP	Col Jr	Virginia	VA
35	1063	Jackson Cramer	1B	Col Sr	West Virginia	WV
36	1093	Gabe Klobosits	RHP	Col Sr	Auburn	AL
37	1123	Kody Gratkowski	3B	HS	Fairhope HS	AL
38	1153	Jake Boone	SS	HS	Torrey Pines HS	CA
39	1183	Kai Nelson	OF	HS	Fieldston HS	NY
40	1213	Max Engelbrekt	LHP	Col Sr5	Oregon St U	OR

Here’s some breakdowns (note I wrote this prior to the team signing a bunch of these Juco guys plus a couple of HS guys):

• 11 College Juniors, 16 College Seniors/5th year Seniors, 7 JuCo guys, 6 High Schoolers
• 20 Pitchers, 20 hitters.  The pitchers broke down 12 RHP, 8 LHP.
• 9 of the top 10 rounds are pitchers though: these are the guys nearly guaranteed to sign.
• I count about 29 that i think are locks to sign; every guy in the first 20 rounds, plus all the 9 college seniors drafted in rounds 21-40.
  • Of these 29 guys: 17 are arms, 12 are bats.
• I’m only guessing that one Prep guy signs: 11th rounder Justin Connell.
• I count at least 4 under-slot guys: Nick Raquet, Cole Freeman ,8th rounder Jared Brashner and 10th rounder Trey Turner.  So that’s where the cost savings will come from to pay Romero, Crowe and perhaps Connell.

So, even though the draft splits even 20/20 bats and arms its heavily tilted at the top and in the signability department towards arms.  This should make for some serious carnage in the lower ends of our minor league ranks.  The Auburn roster is half stocked with late-round college seniors drafted in 2016 and rising IFAs from the DSL last year; I could see some moving of those guys down to GCL as needed and a shedding of 20th-some round 2016 signees to make room for all the guys they’ve picked up this year.  But the more I look at this draft, the more it looks like a one or two-player draft at the top.  Is that ok?  Sure; it is basically what the team did in the Lucas Giolito draft, and the industry was on record saying that the strength this year was college arms.  It should be interesting to see how quickly Romero moves up the ranks.