We're almost to the one tenth post of the season and will be on Monday. The Nats have generally been what we expected. This is what we have repeated over and over but it's what we can say right now. The league might have moved around them. The NL East is sneaky bad! Should have gotten out of Houston Dusty, you enabler!
Today since I'm still trying to hold off on making statements about players let's look in the minors and at friends around the league.
MINORS
Like the majors we don't want to say much so just consider these notes on guys gotten in trade or other hots starts / cold prospects
Hot starts (batting) : Drew Millas, Trey Harris, Franklin Barreto, Brady House, James Wood, Elijah Green
This is a pretty good start for the Nats with Wood, Green, and House are along with Hassell (who hasn't played much) the most important minor league bats and they are all starting the season hot - though looking at the stats none of these are flawless starts, so hold off on the "stars are coming!!!" talk. For flawless starts, but not potential stars, we can look to Millas and Harris who were guys gotten in trades. Millas is running out of time as a prospect and Harris isn't one, but they may be able to fill some holes in the intermediate time. Barreto is the type of guy teams like the Nats like to pick up - a well thought of prospect who is getting too old for his team to keep but not too old to be useful. Might be some power here which the Nats desperately need
Cold starts (batting) : Jeter Downs, Jordy Barley, Yadi Hernandez
Not much going wrong with guys you may care about. Downs got promoted because I don't know. Sad to see Yadi struggle but he's probably at career's end. I only mention Barley because he's a guy I've been pretty consistent on not belonging in the minors but it's hard to give up on trade guys.
Hot starts (pitching) : None?
While at the plate the Nats are looking promising, early returns on the mound are less so. There aren't too many people we can even judge - a lot of these guys in relief have thrown under 3 innings so far. But know this in Low A the Nats are bad, in AAA the Nats are not good, and in High A and AA they are at best fair.
Cold starts (pitching) : Joan Adon, Corey Abbott, maybe Jake Irvin
There's also Tommy Romero. Now you might not care about Tommy Romero (you shouldn't) but along with Adon, Abbott, and Irvin that's pretty much your AAA starters (unless you count Peralta and Espino but I don't). The Nats rotation has held through almost 3 rounds. But know there isn't help on the way. There isn't even a bland decent arm the Nats might slot in if say Kuhl gets smashed again tonight.
FRIENDS
Max - after a couple middling early starts, put out a more Max like effort more recently to hold off the boo birds.
Trea - Doing ok. Hasn't homered and with no protection isn't walking as much.
Juan - excitement hid a terrible September but eyes are starting to focus on him and while he is still walking and his power is good, the average isn't there. Some bad luck but he's not hitting the ball all that hard.
Tony Two-Bags - still a lot of nothing. Still has a good eye but hasn't shown any power since getting hurt four different ways (groin, knee, hamstring, hip) in his second year with the Angles
4 comments:
read every post, but never comment, just wanted to say thanks for the roundup. certainly keeping tabs on the minors is more important than ever this year.
Thank you for the update on our friends. I wish all of them well, but see some possible lessons for Nats fans: one hitter, no matter how good, can't carry a team (Trea in Philly); stars can have bad hitting spells independent of whether they are surrounded by talent (like Xander and Manny) or the dregs of the Nats farm system (Juan in SD). SSS I admit, but still....
Max and Trea would be gone by now and it would be Juan's last year. I am very happy to have Gray, Ruiz, Abrams, Gore, Hassell, Wood and Susana to root for.
Dug into Meneses's batted ball profile yesterday, because the eye test was telling me dude should be hitting a lot better. And turns out I was right, his barrel rate, FB/GB ratio, hard hit rate, etc are all significantly better than last year, but his BABIP is about 80 points lower. Hoping warmer weather allows some of those hard hit lineouts to find the gaps (or go over the fence), because he really shouldn't be putting up the poor numbers that he has so far.
“There isn't even a bland decent arm the Nats might slot in if say Kuhl gets smashed again tonight.“
I love it’s Kuhl and not Corbin that would be the first guy down. You’re not wrong, and I know why he’s locked in to start every game this season regardless of performance. But if the Dodgers were willing to eat Bauer’s salary (for different reasons duh), can’t we do the same with this bum Corbin just for the sake of seeing someone new? For a team that’s in a rebuild, it’s all about the future, right? So why are we trotting this guy out there every five days? We know who he is, there’s no more evaluation to be done, and he’s certainly not returning to the team once his contract is up (around the time we’re anticipating to contend).
In fact you could argue that it’s a waste of resources to keep him on the team. Medical/training staff tending to his needs, catchers blocking dirt ball sliders lol. It’s a joke. For every inning he gobbled up and ensures an “L” for the day, he’s taking the spot of someone who might make a small positive difference. Might even just give fans something to be excited about.
What’s exciting about Pat Corbin?
Post a Comment