The Nats don't have a lot of good pitchers. Gore yes. Brad Lord probably and... uhhh Cavalli likely, Beeter looks good... uhhh Henry? Anyway Ferrer was a young lefty (and MAN they do NOT have a lot of lefties) with good fancy stats that I also liked. But they sent him away to Seattle for a catcher, Harry Ford.
So first what does this signal? Rebuild... probably
Ferrer is only 25 with plenty of team control. Given the Nats lack of LH relief he's the type of guy you keep around. Ford is a prospect still and several years younger than Ferrer. He's more the type you are planning on the next 10 years, not the next 5. However I will say Ford is basically major league ready with the bat so it's not like he is going to spend the next couple years in AAA.
But that also means he's pushing Ruiz and everyone else out (sorry Millas!) which again is very "rebuild" coded.
Second is Harry Ford any good? As a hitter yeah probably. As a catcher...
As a hitter the guy has got a GREAT eye and the question is how good can the bat be and in what way. It seems like he could hit for power. It seems like he could hit for avearge. He's one of those "fast" catchers who will run well and steal bases early in their career. If it all comes together - unlikely but anything can happen - super star! If one thing comes together - likely power - a solid player. If nothing does, still probably usable because of that eye.
But this is all based around being behind the plate and there isn't a strong consensus if that will happen. He excels at parts of the game, fielding in front of the plate, strong arm, but lags behind in, you know, the CATCHER, parts of being a catcher. Still does that first part mean he could possibly move positions? Is this a Biggio situation where we see Ford at like 2B? Hell the Nats also lack a 1B.
I think they point is if he can hit - either for power or average or both (though again more likely power) then the Nats have a lot of options to find a place for him. Catcher if he can play it, 1B, DH, 2B if they want to move someone. If he can't hit - well you have to hope he gets better behind the plate because he can still have value as an average fielding catcher with a good eye.
It's not a bad bet to take for the Nats as his ceiling is higher than Ferrer's but again it suggest the Nats are not going to worry about the next couple years. I think this may be the start of an exodus. Let's see what the next 1-2 moves are though.
3 comments:
I find it interesting that while Ford's defense was certainly not great, he was clearly seen as a consensus Top 100 prospect and basically no questions were raised about his ability to stick at catcher even though he was clearly seen as a bat-first prospect as opposed to being, say, Cal Raleigh.
Now that he's been traded to the Washington Nationals, baseball writers are all falling over themselves desperately explaining why he probably can't catch and his bat will fall off in MLB, as if they're all collectively going through cognitive dissonance: the Mariners traded him, *and* they traded him for a *relief pitcher* with a high ERA (despite every underlying metric saying that Ferrer was excellent and just handicapped by an infield defense that ranged between "awful" and "war crime"), *and* threw in a lottery ticket besides, therefore there *must* be something wrong with him.
(The idea that teams, especially successful teams making a playoff push, place high value on high-leverage relief pitchers seems to have escaped writers.)
Fangraphs has probably been the kindest - https://blogs.fangraphs.com/mariners-swap-a-ford-for-a-ferreri/ - but it really is shocking to see the baseball media basically try their damnedest to push Ford off a cliff.
I expect that, barring injury or some absolute Spring Training failure, that Ford will start 2026 as the Nats' Opening Day catcher, both because at the least it'll make him eligible to earn the Nats a PPI pick and because even the bad version of him that everyone is spontaneously afraid of is still better than Ruiz and Adams. Whether Millas is the backup or the Nats decide to bring in a defense-first veteran as backup to help teach Ford the catching game remains to be seen.
It hurts to lose Ferrer, who was the only genuinely high-leverage reliever on the team, but a team mired in full rebuild mode shouldn't be hoarding relief pitchers.
I think this is a situation that just worked out for the Nats. I disagree that this trade sends any signals about a rebuild because I think this trade likely makes them better in 2026. I think the Mariners are in the only spot that a team would trade Ford. They can't use him, they are very close to the WS, and they need lefty reliever. The Nats have a good one, so the trade happened. To be clear I think the Nats will reboot the rebuild because they probably need to, but I don't think this trade indicates anything.
I think this is solid, because the analytic line through my years of reading this great blog is that relief pitchers (except for a few rare ones) are fungible. Whereas, other players in other positions are not as fungible.
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