The Nats are real... ly mediocre!
That's the first takeaway getting to Memorial Day and 1/3* of the way through the season. Reading a season can be hard because we want to put weight on the more recent games but that's not how a season works. The first 18 games count just as much as the next 18 as much as the next 18. For the Nats that means 5-13, 10-8, and 8-10 all have meaning. Terrible + OK + Meh = Mediocre.
The Nats have done this through acceptable pitching, especially when you subset down to the better arms, and just enough offense to be ok. They are better than bad teams (12-11 against under .500 teams) but clearly not near real competitive squads (11-20 against .500+ teams). For most Nats fans this low bar is a pleasant surprise. There seemed to be a good chance the Nats would challenge for worse team in baseball and they clearly won't. They aren't the clearly worst A's or clearly 2nd worst Royals, and while they may end up 3rd worst, they seem at home in a giant blah pile from 24 to 28 and anywhere in that stretch is reasonable. The key is that there isn't much feeling they will fall and there is a long way to go to catch the worst teams. But squint your eyes at the team and maybe you even see them getting up to the next group which would get them into "best of the bottom third of baseball". Even if it's only a rung or two up a tall ladder there seems to be only up to go.
This feeling is cemented in when arguably the biggest reasons are two starters pitching well. Gray, with the best ERA but probably getting a bit lucky, and Gore, probably the actual best pitcher. Even if you take a dim view - these guys are their FIP ERA and a weaker #2 (Gore) and blah #4/5 (Gray) you still have two pitchers to build around that are not old. That's huge. If you want anything to work out well it's young starting pitching.
The future also includes guys not on the Nats and you do hear positive rumblings. Now this is in part because the Nats actually had several real prospects. When one falters another one might be doing well so you can always here positive takes on what's coming. But you don't need to hit on all, or most, or even some. You can hit on one or two, I mean REALLY hit, and that's enough. Let's look at some names you might have heard about.
Millas - The C surprise who suddenly got it in AA ball, was moved up to AAA a couple weeks ago and has struggled. As the Nats have their catcher of the future Millas is more insurance / trade bait.
Pineda - Hurt and doing poorly in High A
Downs - Hurt and doing poorly in AAA
Baker - Dusty's kid who based on all the stats is catching every break is still catching them but there isn't a place for him in the majors unless you want to unseat Garcia or Abrams or DFA Vargas who has hit very well. He's likely stuck in AAA until September which will make him prove this can last.
Alu - got his shot. He is what he is - a marginal major leaguer
Kieboom - healthy and up in AAA and doing nothing that makes you think he's going to be in the majors soon.
House - set the world on fire in late April, May has been more quiet and he's settled in at low A for now.
Antuna - crashing and burning
Rutherford - you might not have heard this name but way back when he was a legit prospect in the Yankees system (18th pick). But he got traded to the White Sox and was slow to move up and was kind of stuck in AAA so he opted for FA and the Nats picked him up, stuck him in AA and he's just turned it up a notch. Something to keep an eye on.
Hassel - Was Hurt. Still slowwwly working his way back to where he was
Wood - Ding Ding Ding! Ruled High A just moved up to AA
de la Rosa - the OF prospect before the real OF prospects got here. Working at it in High A
Green - set the world on fire in early April - since big trouble with the swings because of the misses.
Rutledge - Not too bad in AA. Expect a move to AAA soon
Henry - Was Hurt. Carefully being ramped up but has looked very good in extremely small amount of work so far
Susana - Still unhittable in Low A but this year extremely wild
Cronin - hitting some bumps in the road in AAA.
As you can see the offensive prospect depth is decent, but the pitching prospect depth is weak. So so far they might be really hitting on one (Wood) they have a decent shot to still hit on another (Henry) and there might be a surprise brewing in another (Rutherford). If Wood or Rutherford don't pan out there are several other guys that might turn it on. Maybe they do REALLY hit on two? Probably not but that's still ok if they sort of hit on 2-3-4. Pitching is more a high-wire act. If Henry slows down then the Nats are really relying on getting a surprise from Rutledge or nailing the draft. There isn't much else here.
All this is not enough by itself but it's not a bad place to be in depending on what you need in the majors.
What we think about where the Nats are there tomorrow!
*Exactly!
8 comments:
Good post.
Only one other point about the future: the #2 draft pick ought to be mentioned here. The prospect gurus suggest that three players available in this draft (Crews, Skenes, Langford) would have been 1-1 in the last handful of drafts. The "rumblings" are that the Nats like Crews best and Skenes second best, which means they will have the chance to get one of the two guys they like best no matter what the Pirates do at #1. Kiley McDaniel ranks Crews as a top-20 MLB prospect and Skenes between 20-30. So, assuming nobody gets hurt between now and draft day, the Nats draft pick will probably be the second-best prospect in the system after Wood. Skenes, in particular, would make the Nats' pitching outlook a whole lot better as he has true ace potential (though that potential could be wiped out at any time on any single pitch, but such is life).
I mostly agree with your overall take, Harper.
The ML team is bad, but not the worst. Biggest upside surprise is also the most important -- Gray and Gore. Prospects are coming along OK, but happy talk is easy because someone is always running hot. Be cautiously optimistic, but not overly excited, about 2025. Plenty still needs to go right.
But... Millas has "struggled" through 23 PAs of AAA. Alu "got his shot" with 14 PAs in the Show. Pineda is "doing poorly" through his 9 PAs of rehab. I agree it's unlikely that any of those guys will go on to have 5+ WAR careers, but there's no new information in their most recent results.
And with House, given it's only 128 PAs, I'd rather just use the whole season (OPS of .900, one of the best dozen players in his league) instead of looking for a trendline, but if you are going to parse his huge April from his league average May, you should note that it was actually just a couple of very cold weeks -- his OPS the second half of May is back around 1.000.
Finally, on the pitching depth, you're missing a couple of possibles in Jake Bennett and Dustin Saenz. Bennett is our 2022 2nd rounder, and while he's a college draftee and therefore someone you'd hope would dominate at low-A, he has absolutely cleared that bar. His ERA is under 2 and FIP under 3. 11 K/9. Fewer than 2 BB/9. Saenz was the 4th round pick in 2021, and he's been almost as dominant at high-A. 10 K/9. 2.2 BB/9. ERA just over 2 and a FIP of just over 3. Neither is young for their level, and Saenz is repeating after being promoted to Wilmington last July but those guys should both be promoted soon and we'll learn more as they rise in the system. In any case, they are at least as likely to become significant pieces as the less heralded names on your list of hitters (like Antuna, of course, but even guys like JLDR).
I get that it's hard to count on any prospect, especially before they excel in the high minors. But if you give Cavalli and Rutledge like 75% chances to be SP 3/4s and let Henry, Bennett, Susana and Saenz fill in the gaps, we'd need to sign at most one frontline starter through FA. I think that's enough to call the rotation portion of the rebuild a success.
Agree with anons 1 and 2 that your take on the ML team is fair. But as anon 2 says, you're missing the two minor league pitchers who've actually done quite well so far this season.
Also, that Jake Alu take? -- I mean, I'm not expecting the guy to be the next George Brett or Anthony Rendon, but to declare his fate sealed based on the 13 MLB ABs he got in the week and a half he wore a Nats uni is pretty harsh.
Someone characterized Harper's viewpoint as: negative or pessimistic evaluations can be justified even if there is a small sample size (SSS), but positive or optimistic evaluations can only be justified if there is consistent evidence over a lengthy period of time. Is that a correct assessment of the article and the rebuttal comments....or something else I am missing here?
dc rl - I don't know what to tell you about Alu. A lot of the fan excitement comes from last year AAA stats that don't exactly follow his history. This year is more in line and those stats say he' not really going to be anything. I'm also not sure also who you displace to give him his chance? Maybe if they deal Candelario (which I wouldn't) they could put him at 3B but it seems like he'll have a chance later in OF which didn't seem like his position.
His fate is not decided by 13 ML at bats. It's decided by what we see in his minor league career and what we hear from the talent evaluators PLUS the 13 ABs. The 13 ABs were a chance to say the former two were wrong - he could be a good major leaguer. Didn't happen. Maybe he gets another shot or maybe he hits so well in AAA again you start to change what you think about his minor league career.
SG - That's pretty fair but you aren't considering the reasoning behind it. Nearly all baseball players fail (at the goal of being impactful major league players). Most in the minors, some in the majors. If the small stats back-up failure that holds more weight to me than if they buck it.
The preponderance of evidence up to this point suggests A. This small amount of evidence also suggests A. OK good - on same track.
The preponderance of evidence up to this point suggests A. This small amount of evidence suggests B. Need to look into this more.
It takes someone with real star potential and who maintains that potential for small good stats to be seen as backing-up success. Someone who may not have a preponderance of evidence suggesting he might fail. Extremely High draft picks fall into this category. Young guys doing exceptionally well in minor league levels above their usual age groups. Guys like that. Wood follows suit there. I'd be enthused by his 42 AA games and if he hits well in say his first two weeks in AA I'd say that justifies optimism.
Look at the Nats lineup now and you find well thought of int'l guys and high draft picks that did well quickly in the minor leagues. The guys that aren't that (Meneses, Thomas, Call) generally don't lead teams. Thomas might be an exception - a late bloomer - but exception is the key here. And "late bloomer" still meant hitting great at 23 in AAA. And this is a lineup that's not very good!
The point about the draft is not that we can rely on the #2 pick to be part of the MLB future. I am with you, Harper, that we don't have a minor league track record for any draftees, which means we must Curb Our Enthusiasm (though this is hard to do for Nats fans given that the franchise had "sure thing" prospects in Strasburg and Harper that both worked out pretty well).
The point I was trying to make, instead, is that things have *changed* with respect to the value of the #2 pick: the #2 pick has increased in value since the beginning of the season because the players at the top of the draft board have had great (and some might say, historic) seasons. Crews was a 1-1 candidate before the season and has played awesome in the toughest conference. Skenes (I think) was considered a first-rounder and is now talked about in the same breath as Strasburg and Gerrit Cole as a "generational" pitching prospect. Whereas at the beginning of the season you might have hoped the #2 pick could net you a top 50 prospect, on 5/30/23 we *know* that the #2 pick will be in the top 30 and possibly the top 20. That is a positive development akin to someone like House or Green having a great start to the season and climbing way up prospect lists. In other words: good developments can happen outside the minor leagues, and what's happening with the 2023 MLB draft is a good development. I agree, we shouldn't make too much out of it, but this increase in value of the #2 pick is, in my view, of a similar magnitude to a lot of the other prospect changes you discuss in the post.
A no better example of the "need to look into this more" evaluation and sorting process is what seems to be going on currently in Low A Fredericksburg.
Brady House--the Great Bright Hope of so many Nats fans--seems to be coming around with his bat again, as you noted. What's curious is that he's only played 30 of his team's 45 games. (There appear to be no injury issues.) Green, by the way, has played 39 games.
The curious part is who is eating into House's playing time: A soon-to-be 25 year-old Murphy Stehly, drafted in 2022, who's shown so far (20 games) to be a high average, more-walks-than-strikeouts guy without House's power.
I suspect the Nats have already made up their mind about House--probably a promotion to High A later in the season--but still. . . Stehly?
Another player the Nats will be watching carefully, I think, is Daylen Lile, a 20 year-old center fielder drafted out of high school in 2021--15 picks (47 overall) before the Padres selected James Wood (62 overall). Lile gets on base, excellent base stealer and has some power (not Wood's, though). The upside appears to be there, but how long can you wait?
In short, an organization really cannot wait. Like the Nile's annual flooding in the Pharaonic era, another draft class is about to flood the prospect fields.
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