The deadline is past. It is! It was 4PM yesterday. Really I think it should be midnight of the 31st but it's not my league. Anyway let's look at what the Nats got knowing that they needed almost everything in the minors. What they had was a couple of middle infielders (Garcia and Kieboom) and a few RHP arms (Cavalli, Rutledge, Henry) and nothing else.
Brad Hand for Riley Adams
C - 25 (June) - Becomes 10-15 type in Nats org
A big guy catcher who is athletic for his size so he could stick in the position. Seen as a power bat but has only intermittently shown it in the minors (including this year in Buffalo). Strikes out a ton. If he can be patient and powerful he can be useful but he's at an age and defensive skill set that he might not get a lot of chances to try. Nats probably got him with the idea - throw him out there see what happens, but with Ruiz here too he's more likely to be in AAA coming up occasionally to the majors to strike out too much.
Max Scherzer and Trea Turner for Keibert Ruiz, Josiah Gray, Gerardo Carrillo, and Donovan Casey
Ruiz - C - 23 (July) - 1 in Nats org
There's too many here. I'll be briefer. Throwback batter who doesn't K or walk. Not a great catcher, but can hang there for a few years. Expectation would be a starting catcher with a good but possibly empty average. If he develops any other batting skill - great. If not - he still probably is an average ML bat and that's good for C.
Gray - RHSP - 23 (24 in Dec) - 2/3 in Nats org
Productive but not as loved as numbers should indicate, AAA stats this year have a lot of luck behind them but still ready for major league trial. Very wild and homer prone in a very short period in majors, but every stop has been brief. Seems to be at least a 4/5 in the majors, a better prospect than Ross/Fedde but not likely to be an ace.
Carrillo - RHSP 22(23 in Sept) - about 10 in Nats org
Big arm. Hurt. Almost certainly too wild to keep as a starter. Will probably transition to relief after a year or two if he doesn't click.
Casey - OF - 25 (Feb) - 25+ in Nats org
Good OF but strikes out WAY too much and stats are probably as much a function of maturity than talent. Likely eaten alive in the majors. Org filler.
Kyle Schwarber for Aldo Ramirez
RHSP - 20 (May) - 10 in Nats org
Lottery ticket - a lot to like (throws strikes, has some hit and miss stuff, can really limit homers), a lot not to (already has major injury, not really dominant). Best case - he's ok and comes back next year to show stuff in A+ that sets him on a MLB 2024 path. Worst case - very hurt and he's repeating A in 2023 working back health. We all know with pitching prospects the latter is more likely than the former.
Daniel Hudson for Mason Thompson and Jordy Barley
Thompson
RHRP - 23 (Feb) - 15-20 in Nats org
Classic big guy big arm. Way wild without the amazing stuff usual to keep a guy like this going as a starter so they moved him to relief and he got better. well more control at least. Kind of guy you look at and love but hasn't shown anything to get excited about other than talent. Seems hittable and without great K stuff. Hurt early on. I don't know, some people like this. I don't see it.
Barley SS - 21 (Dec) 25+ in Nats org
Very fast. Was very raw, getting to a little raw and more can't hit. Likely nothing here but age gives him a couple more years to get it.
John Lester for Lane Thomas
OF - 26 in Aug - unranked in Nats org
Andrew Stevenson? Like a AAAA talent across the board. Org Filler, maybe a 5th OF here and there. What would you expect for Lester.
Yan Gomes and Josh Harrison for Drew Millas, Seth Shuman, and Richard Guasch
Millas
C - 23 (Jan) - 20-25ish in Nats org
good catcher - shows some patience at the plate but not much else so far. Catchers get more time.
Shuman
RHSP - 23 (Dec) - unranked in Nats org
Has performed in the minors but history suggests he won't miss enough bats to make it up to the majors. If no one says "ooh watch this guy" then probably ignore the numbers.
Guasch
RHSP - 23 (Apr) - 30ish in Nats org
Has stuff but wild and hittable. If he doesn't get it - like the other arms will transition into a relief role.
Ok so wrapping it up. They got, as you'd hope, some guys who WILL play in the majors for Max and Trea. It would be surprising if Ruiz didn't end up playing several years - even if it's as a single hitting back-up catcher and Gray will probably end up at least in the back of a rotation for a few years. Both of these are low-end projections in my book. The high ends are limited though, Ruiz might hit around .300... but probably won't walk or hit for power and isn't a great enough catcher to make up for that. Gray no one seems to think has ace stuff, who am I to say different. So you are topping out at a starting average catcher and a #3 rotation guy.
Aldo Ramirez is probably the next most interesting guy to me. There are some big hurdles, most noticeably the broken arm, but if you get lucky you could get a really good pitcher. Yes you could get nothing but a lot of these guys are going to be nothing without any big promise.
Millas is vaguely interesting as a "Catchers can take time to develop" guy and I like a guy who plays catcher well in the org. They seem to get even more time.
Carrillo and Guasch are the usual failed starters that usually end up as failed relievers but maybe you get a good relief year out of them? I mean you can get real lucky and they end up a good reliever but yeah probably not. Mason Thompson is there now and just a Tanner Rainey to me. But we'll see if I'm right real soon!
As for the rest: Casey, Thomas and Shuman are org fillers (and if you don't know what I mean by that - you need guys to play to fill rosters - they can't all be real prospects. A few are guys who might be, but most are guys who never were but were good enough to keep moving up levels). Riley Adams won't hang and Jordy Barley might be out of the minors in a couple years.
These guys make the Nats minors better but they don't quite by themselves set up the next window of success. But we'll talk more about this next time.
15 comments:
So--as you had to point out for those too woozy over the trades to read carefully--you didn't quit the blog and you didn't die. The eulogies (for both!) were premature.
Given your assessment, am I to understand the Nats' four farm clubs (about 75 games under .500 collectively)
should improve significantly, but the big league club not all?
How does Cavalli compare to Gray? Maybe higher ceiling, lower floor?
Good assessment Harper. Right here, this is why people are disappointed: we traded a top 5 SP and a top 5 SS and got this in return.
I understand the argument of why we traded Max and Trea. I understand that we needed to restock our farm. I get all of that. But it sounds like we gave up those pieces for a decent catcher and a #3 starter, best case scenario. Plus, they were fan favorites. If that counts for anything anymore. I suppose I was hoping for more of sure thing in a prospect instead of some guys with a ceiling as high as just above replacement level.
I’m a huge Rizzo fan. But this is tough to stomach. Every site graded this as better for the Dodgers and worse for the Nationals (A/A+ and C-/C+, respectively). There are winners and losers in every trade. Time will tell on this one I suppose. But remember, we gave up Souza for Trea. That was highway robbery by Rizzo. But this one? He got taken to the cleaners IMO. Again, don’t hate the reason for the trade, just the return.
@Harper, What do you think the odds are that the Nats resign Max this off-season? I'm still holding out hope that we bring him back in free agency, but deep down I have a feeling that it won't happen.
@Ole PBN
I get that some people love being pessimists, and some people love being optimists, but you have parts of this just wrong.
We didn't give up a top 5 SP and a top 5 SS for this return -- we gave up the option to pay $35M for a half season and one post season of a top 5 SP and a season and a half and two post seasons of a top 5 SS in exchange this return.
And neither of these guys has a ceiling just above replacement level! Their expected outcomes are league average-ish contributors (~2 WAR), and their realistic ceilings (2SDs above expectation) include all star appearances. Are the chances that they'll be good as Trea and Max less than 1 in a thousand? Yes. But it's not about who you'd want in a space jam scenario.
And yeah, this isn't a Souza for Trea+Ross trade where folks cannot believe we got such a good deal. But we absolutely didn't get clearly the worst of it. This trade is pretty much fair value.
Most sports pundits are idiots and have no accountability or consistency to their takes over time. They look at a fair trade and give LAD an A because they're expected to win the WS (and this season counts for real), and we're getting a C because we're in sad sell mode. I can't speak to what else may have been available from SDP and others, so if someone has inside info and wants to make a supply/demand argument that we made the wrong choice and could have done a little better (like to the tune of an extra 45FV prospect or different 50/55 headliners that you'd prefer for whatever reason), then ok that's perfectly fair, but if you just look at look at the surplus value estimates, we did just fine.
Hell, even in 2022 it's almost a wash. We should be able to buy 2.5WAR on the open market for the $20M we'd be paying Trea (maybe as part of a 90M/3 deal to Max, for example), and the Zips on these two guys for 2022 are 1.3 WAR for Gray and 1.7 for Ruiz, for which the team will pay them a combined $1M. Trea could beat 5.5 WAR next year, but this will be the first year that he does, so it's also not like it's slam dunk that he will.
And then we get 5 more years of these two. I mean, jesus christ. Other teams are trying too. Trades are mostly about moving value between windows and positions -- you can't hold out for deals where everyone in the world can see that you have the best of it. That doesn't work in life either, by the way.
On the WP site, someone observed: $200 milliion isn't what it used to be. So true. All professional sports have become this way: you can't fill all the positions unless you have a good, cheap, controllable set of players to average down the cost of signing the stars. Some fans can only see the value in the stars, but Max and Trae can't play all 9 positions. If we have made no moves: none of the players except Trae would be playing for us next year and we wouldn't have the 12 potentially complementary pieces needed to field an entire team.
More maddening to me is the inability of commentators (professional and those writing in) to see that today's stats don't tell you how someone young is going to play in 1, 2, 4 years from now. Maybe 32 year-olds never get better (although some do), but young talent evaluated based on small sample sizes doesn't tell you what a scout sees. Does anyone remember that Robles was going to be the star of the future...and that Soto was less important, maybe even expendable because we could count on Robles? So let's do analysis based on what we know, but also maybe some humility about forecasting the future ...and maybe a little optimism that one of more of these acquisitions will evolve into a star who might be just as beloved--but way cheaper--than Trae?
Not sure why people assume that we took a "lesser" LA offer because Max didn't want to go to SD or Rizzo is a bad negotiator. Its true that SD has the better farm system/set of prospects...but that doesn't tell us what they were putting on the table when Rizzo was playing one team's offers against the other. I am inclined to believe that SD was NOT offering their #1 and #2 ranked prospects and that Rizzo actually used SD to bid up the LA offer. We would have gotten nothing if he walked away and kept Max and Trae.
Finally, emotions are running high in the moment...but our 2022 prospects as a team can't be known until: 1/ we see who improves by playing every day during August and September; 2/ we see who improves with better coaching in the minors; and 3/ we see what dollars buys what players in free agency. Unlike some owners--the Lerner's are willing to put a $200 million team on the field every year.
Thank you for letting me vent my frustrations about the many silly things being said in the heat of the moment.
SM - I mean subtracting the guys they lost and adding the guys they got they are clearly worse... for the rest of this year. For upcoming years there is more talent ready soon so they should be slightly better but the base is what you see now which is like a.. 70 win team? So a 73 win team? There's work to be done getting guys healthy, drafting and signing guys (in a year or two)
GCX - That's how I see it - Cavalli could in theory still bust out before the majors (more bc of injury than talent) but he has ace potential.
Ole PBN - market has changed a lot in just the past 3 years. Trea probably gets you Ruis and like 2/3s of a Gray. Max 1/3 of a gray and the live arm. rentals just aren't fetching what they used to. I agree more with Anon @ 9:19 - this was as close as the best the Nats can do I do think the Dodgers got a little bit better from the deal but only a little, and that's probably because they didn't have to buy but the Nats had to sell.
Anon @7:38 - Felt like a goodbye. I think he comes back only if it's the best opportunity / salary combo and I doubt that'll happen. Probably will get more years & $ with a better team.
Steve Grossman - vent away. The Nats were only going to get something BIG back for Trea. They could have maybe manuevered a single 15ish type prospect but that didn't match up. For all the moves there aren't a lot of desperate feeling teams out there. Only one deal was made for a guy like that I think (Austin Martin) and would we have rathered have Martin and a lesser Voth? Or Ruiz and Gray?
Yes, we don’t know what SD offered, but given there was a deal close to in place wondering if Rizzo’s hands were tied a bit—since Max might’ve wanted to go to LA because they’re further ahead, are probably more likely to extend him, and have more history. Or it could’ve also been a smokescreen.
If there’s a complaint in what I’ve said before wondering why he didn’t go there it’s in that more teams wised up and started valuing cheap control more. Rizzo seems to have done about as well as can be expected, with the caveat that his hands might’ve been tied with SD because of Max’s 10-5.
At the superficial, initial reaction level I’m a bit skeptical of position players switching to pitching late becoming successful starters and initial scouting on Ruiz suggested he didn’t have much power but his MiLB stats this year might suggest otherwise. A high-contact, power-hitting catcher could be a perennial All-Star, but wonder if they might eventually move him to 1B since it sounds like he’s mediocre defensively.
I'm excited to see what Ruiz brings us. Given that they appear to be starting him in AAA, perhaps they see a few things they want him to iron out prior to call up. This very well could be correctable defensive issues. Of course, it could just be logistics and we see him in a few days.
I was really happy to see Davey let Fedde handle his own problem last night. 108 pitches over 6 (and getting through the order a third time) is what we will need much more of next year if he's going to keep his job. Of course, the Cubs lineup is not the challenge it was a few days ago, but he did what he needed to do to keep us in the game.
Unfortunately, the same can't be said for Ross the night before. Joe continues to be hot and cold, which might be expected after all the time off. I was hoping he would start to lock it in by now, but hasn't happened yet.
Well, the Josiah Gray era starts tonight, so everybody batten down for all the hot takes about how Rizzo is either a genius or a fool depending on a one-game sample size.
The irony here is that there's a nonzero chance that Gray, if he merely fulfills expectations ("midrotation starter"), is the best pitcher in the Nats' current (meaning 2021) rotation.
@Steven Grossman - Agreed 100% with your third paragraph. I understand that Rizzo was working multiple phones with multiple teams including LA, SD, and apparently an AL team as well. There's no reason in the world to assume that he took anything but the best possible deal. What I can't wrap my head around is that some people are so fixated on the idea that the Nats were underpaid that they assume that there MUST have been a better deal available for Max and now they're writing a narrative that Max vetoed a trade to the places offering a better deal because even they can't justify claiming "Rizzo deliberately took a lesser deal because...reasons."
Looking at this offseason's starting pitching FAs (as I still very firmly believe that the Nats need to add a starter unless we somehow hit the jackpot on Stras, Gray, and Cavalli all at once), the first thing that hits me is that Marcus Stroman is going to make a whole lot of money because everybody else available as an UFA is either old (such as Max or Zack Greinke) or nothing special. About the only targets I can see going after with any seriousness are Max, Stroman, or Robbie Ray (maybe Rodon, but I'm not sure if I believe in his resurrection, or Jon Gray, but he openly is asking to stay in Colorado--though the idea of having two separate J. Grays in the rotation entertains me). Otherwise, 2022 seems like a year where we have a lot of starting pitching questions to answer: Does Strasburg come back healthy or broken? Can Corbin fix what ails him? Is Espino at all for real? Do we have something good in Gray and/or Cavalli?
I think it's best to defer judgment until after this offseason.
Right now I assume we're looking at a future core of:
- Pitching Core: Gray / Cavalli / Rutlidge (?). I get the sense there's no Giolito there, but maybe a bunch of 2/3 types?
- Offensive Core: Soto / Garcia / Ruiz + maybe Kieboom blooms late (or Robles?).
That's a... steep decline, at least in proven production. Tough pill. But, there's a good bit of room to maneuver now and no team seems to be running away with the NL East. I'm trying to guess if there's any chance we can compete next year (would be funny if we somehow competed this year, but not impossible sadly)?
- Pitching there's no workhorse which is disheartening, but hopefully a healthy Stras / returned to grace Corbin can lock some bits down while we fill the gaps with Fedde/Ross. Maybe we sign a Gaussman-type to a 3-4 year deal?
- I'd guess we're pushing now to lock up Soto long term, right? Then bring in a few vets to start to compete again (say Schoop, Castallanos) along with another slugger / locker room type.
- I assume we deal some depth in the farm now. Too many C's all the sudden. Not really sure where that heads though.
Or maybe it is another Orioles roster we put out next year. Better front load a contract like crazy for Soto if that's the case and just lock him in...
I think it really comes down to how the team plays the offseason. It's possible, and would be even be"reasonable", if the team rolls into 2022 with a payroll around 140M and a "let the kids play and see what we got" roster.
For example:
Ruiz (C), Bell (1B), Garcia (2B), discount-ish FA SS for $15M, Kieboom (3B), Soto (RF), Robles (CF), a $10M FA in LF
Stras (SP1), Corbin (SP2), Gray (SP3), Ross (SP4), Fedde (SP5)
Would only add up to $113, assuming arbs of $9M for Bell, $3M for Ross and $15M for Soto. We actually have some workable bench and bullpen pieces on rookie contracts, some assume another $15M-20M for FAs after the $8M for Harris and we're only up to around that $140M number.
So that's plausible team but it would be extremely frustrating because it's a team that's only competitive if we get really really lucky in terms of development and injury bounce back and it basically means the team is 100% pocketing the savings from this sell off.
It's also not that far off from a real (thought of course not dominant) contender. If we bring in a top of the rotation arm (Max on a 3 year deal seems like the best available option to me), go up to 25M on the SS FA and bring in a league average-ish infielder at $15M to compete with Garcia and Kieboom (and probably replace the worse of the two in ~40% of development outcomes) -- that would cost an extra 55M, put the payroll where we've had it before, still be comfortably under the tax line, and we have as good a shot as anyone else in the division.
So let's see what Rizzo, and really the Lerners decide to do. For now, I'm ok with these trades, even Trea, but I will be pissed if what we traded for was just a season of increased profits.
Kieboom has two months to prove he's not the second coming of Cory Kasto. Interested to see Garcia, Gray, Ruiz get more time. Maybe the pressure comes off Robles a bit too and he starts hitting.
It'd be a great story if they continued to compete after that sell-off but not holding my breath.
Yeah, I think the most important thing about the next two months is to see to what extent we can categorize the young guys after giving them two solid months to play. Is Hernandez somebody we can count on as a solid bench piece at 1B/PH/LF for 2-3 more years? Or is he a AAAA guy? Do we think Robles can be, even if not great, at least his 2019 self going forward (2019 Robles was worth 2.5 fWAR with plus baserunning and excellent defense; that's a very useful MLB player)? Is there any chance Kieboom starts to get it, or has he firmly convinced us that it's time to sell low on him to a buyer who hopes them might be able to fix him? Can Gray step right in to being a #3-ish kind of guy? Is Espino the next Tanner Roark, or at least a better option for #5 than Fedde? Is Garcia ready to claim a slot, or is he still a maybe?
Basically, I'd like the last two months to provide some certainty for management to decide if 2022 is going to be a "we'll sign some vets to pad out the roster on 1-2 year deals, compete if we get some lucky breaks, and sell off the vets if we don't" year, or if it's going to be "we're probably going to suck, so we're going to play the young guys everywhere and let them sort out who's a keeper and who isn't" kind of year.
A team needs stars, yes, but it also needs a solid supporting cast and depth. The younger players on this team may not have the upside of stars (Ruiz the exception, if the defense comes through), but they may well be the core of that quality supporting cast. It's a lot easier to throw the bankroll at that one star in FA to complement Soto if you've got four 2-3 win guys hanging around on cheap contracts.
@Dezo I think that's right.
All replacement players on rookie deals gets you 60 wins for $13M. Spending $180M more in FA should bring expectations up to around .500. Beyond that you need players on rookie deals and/or cheap extensions generating more wins than they cost. (Or you need an owner who will just pay what it takes.)
Soto is a 6 WAR player on a 2 WAR deal next year. If, for example, Ruiz, Garcia, Robles, and Gray can all deliver 2 WAR apiece, then we are sitting at 94 wins and very much in play to win the division.
We need four guys to step up to league average. The bad news is that none are guaranteed. But the good news is that we have around 8 guys with a legit shot at it.
(That's assuming we spend the money to bring in some good FAs. If we're trying to compete with the 140M version of this team, we pretty much have to run the table on these young players.)
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