5th Spot, who ya got?

The Nats rotation 1-4 is set (as long as everyone makes it out of Spring). Max, Stras, Corbin, and Lester - though probably in a different order to take advantage of the R-L flips.  The 5th spot though, is wide open and the Nats have a lot of options. From one angle - you have 3 former fringe Top 100 level prospects who are trying to break through in the age range where it's possible. That's good. From another angle - you have 3 fringe Top 100 level prospects that who have tried and failed up to this point and now, at the end of the age range you'd give them are go, are taking one last shot probably to fail.

First up is Joe Ross. He gets first shot because he actually succeeded previously, putting up what was a combined very good full season in 2015-2016. But starting in 2016 the next few years would be marred by injury; first the shoulder, then Tommy John, and a lot of bad pitching. Theoretically fully healthy in 2019 Ross was decidedly unimpressive and then he sat out 2020. The recent issues each year he's tried to pitch have been something different.  First too many homers, then striking out nobody, then loss of control.

Next is Erick Fedde.  A super high draft pick with injury questions (his last college season ended with TJ), he healed up his first year and then moved up through the system though not super impressively. Dying for relief help in 2017 they moved him to the pen but decided to move him back to a starting role again. He got a chance at the end of 2017 to show his stuff and it was all bad. Since then he's had varying sizes of cups of coffee in the majors and his results have gotten better each time. Unfortunately he hasn't gotten good and his stats suggest the improvement is more smoke and mirrors than actual progression. While not a guy that gives up a lot of hits he walks too many and gives up too many homers while striking out too few. 

Then we have Austin Voth. Voth was a guy who worked himself into the starter conversation a few years ago by being the best guy available in the upper levels of an admittedly shallow system. His time in the majors has been a roller coaster, bad then good then bad again. The good year had some real improvement all around - more Ks, fewer walks, fewer homers - but it was only 43 IP and the regression back to "normal" in 2020 suggests small sample size more than anything.

The rest is a hodgepodge of worse choices.  Rogelio Armenteros is the name most often brought up. He is a slightly more interesting guy than the ones the Nats had coming into this year actually reaching double digits in K/9 in the minors. Jefry Rodriguez is a familiar name - he's not good. There are a couple "ok AAA starters" and a couple "interesting guys in college who didn't get drafted in the short draft". But anything other than the guys already named would be a shock looking at the talent, or lack thereof. Guys like Cavalli, Rutledge, Henry, and Cate have some talent but are here for the experience not to break into the rotation.  

My take is this is one of the rare instances where you go ahead and use Spring Training to make your decision for you. Usually Spring Training is too short and weird to put any stock in what you see stat-wise. Guys playing 1/3rd games trying to work on particular stuff isn't a major league petrie dish. For every one guy whose power surge or strikeouts look great and then they show it in the majors, there are 10 that don't. But here you have 3 guys you know very well who are about the same age and haven't been particularly good when looking at the whole of the last three years. You can make a case for each;  Ross the one with major league success, Fedde the guy with improving results, and Voth the guy with the most recent actual good major league stint. You can throw in Armenteros as the 4th option - the youngest by a year with almost no major league experience to push you one way or another. But these are all weak cases overwhelmed by everything else you see. There is no good choice here and more importantly, no obvious one. In that case - throw them out there and let the Spring decide. For once that's ok.