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The Preliminary 2016 Watchlist


Well, here we are again for the sixth pass at the next season’s watchlist, which seems to get smaller every year as the big club continues to deal away guys and/or drafts lower. Now, for the obligatory explanation of its origin and tenets…

Prospect rankings to me are like listicles — yes, they are effective in generating pageviews, but they often lead to pointless arguments about whether [your favorite player] is better than [the other commenter’s favorite player].

So five years ago, I came up with this idea of listing the players that have shown some promise for one reason or another, listing them out by position. Guys that were worth watching a little more closely than the others.

Longtime readers know I do not care about draft position or how much a player’s bonus was. Both are a function of the game that’s played each June between the players, the clubs, the agents, and the rules. I am aware there are other factors; I understand higher-drafted player get more chances.

Now for the caveats…

• It’s not a depth chart. It’s ordered by the highest level played to date. The guys at the top of the column are not necessarily better than the guys at the bottom.

• It’s (mostly) based on 2015 usage. The Nats don’t have a lot of CI prospects and have a history of both rotating MIs between 2B and SS as well as trying to develop utility players.

• It’s preliminary. I can’t spend the time that I used to on this site, so I’m now relying on folks to call me out in the comments. That doesn’t mean that I’ll take every suggestion and/or accede to every complaint, but I’ll “listen.”

So without further ado, here’s the list, ready for your dissection discussion.

C 1B 2B SS 3B OF
Severino Skole Difo Turner
 Ward Ballou
Kieboom Marmolejos-Diaz Bostick Abreu Gutierrez Bautista
Read Kerian Mejia Lora Franco E. Martinez
Tillero Ortiz Dulin
 Schrock Keller
Stevenson
Robles
Agustin
Florentino
RHPs LHPs DSL Bats DSL Arms Notable Arms
 Notable Bats
Cole Grace Corredor Avila Br. Harper Goodwin
Giolito N. Lee
 Perdomo Peguero Bacus Vettleson
Voth Bach
 Ventura Y. Ramirez J. Rodriguez Mesa
Simms
 Guilbeau Medina Chu
 Baez Wiseman
De Los Santos Borne Evangelista
 Duran Serrata
 Reetz
Mapes
R. Lopez
A. Williams
P. Valdez
A. Lee
Fedde
Rivera
Peterson
DeRosier
Valerio
Harmening

37 Commments

  2. I’d like to see someone write up Agustin,and Marmolejos-Diaz, both have good numbers for their ages. Also Bryan Mejia, has had great offensive production, minus the inability to take a pitch. Also want to see if Ballou,can develop into a 4th outfielder type,he really picked it up late last season. And, of course can Reynaldo Lopez ever get his mechanics ironed out ?

    1. GG will
      This is a good sign. Many names escape mentioning
      Hearn can join the LHP arms list
      GCL has DiNatale , Perkins and the Italian Trojan
      Alum .
      11 days until rule 5
      ……

  3. Oh,and Pedro Avila, what does he have other than what I can only assume to be a mid-upper 90’s fastball ?

  4. Luke. Interesting you are seeing the versatility
    In Schrock .Dulin comes with that asterisk GG attached
    Post season : go home and put in some weight .
    Thanksgiving might have helped .
    Mapes is the quiet guy rising in list for RHP.
    Interesting to see in April if sens get Estarlin
    Mesa Bautista, Keller and Webb to join Vettleson.
    I am so glad JoZimm went to the AL and closer to
    Wisconsin !

    1. Reetz is in the notable bats. Were he not a catcher on this year’s list, he wouldn’t have been in that category — serious dropoffs in walk rate and slugging %.

      As for Hearn, I could easily add him because the Nats are hurting for LHPs, never mind a starter.

      1. Thanks! I know Reetz had a pretty bad year, but I still see him getting talked up on occasion. Who knows?

        The LHP group is definitely ugly. I met Hearn briefly at an Auburn game and he seemed like a good guy, so I vote to include him on that basis!

  6. Asterick on this list : blood still in stomach of Luke
    Digesting three days of eating. Lol.
    There are probably brass who would admit they
    Don’t have the depth chart etched in their memories
    Every season .

  7. Pretty big drop for Reetz, in the ‘other pile’.

    The Nats gave him $800,000 so you know he’ll get lots of chances and he’s still a young pup.

  8. Thanks for making time to keep this site going Luke! I like Glover, Watson and Hearn better in SSS than some of the other 2015 draftees who made the list. If going to have Grace then would probably have Solis too since he is also still a rookie and probably has more potential. Would consider Perkins above Wiseman since he’s 3 years younger and neither was overly impressive in SSS. Don’t know that Serrata, Ortiz, DeRosier, Harmening, Mesa, and Tillero have done enough to make the list.

    1. Unfortunately, this is a common theme — guys listed because the position is lacking age-appropriate-to-the-level guys and is not deep… Ortiz, Mesa, and Tillero all fit this description. I think you may also be on to something about Perkins and Watson — they may be notable simply because the Nats have so few American-born teenagers.

      1. Love Ortiz flexibility
        Non tender ( cue Elvis strain : love me non tender
        Heisey replaces Tyler Moore
        Jose non tendered : next in brewer catcher ??
        Anyone want to take a flier on Mike Minor?

  10. I’d love to see Bryan Harper make the big league roster, if only so they’d have to get their full names listed on the back of their shirts.

    Or they could opt for BRYC. HARPER and BRYA. HARPER

  11. Man, that’s a thin list of position players. Looks about right to me, though. The only one I would suggest adding is Perkins, although if you’re omitting him until he actually does something, that’s fair enough.

    Pitchers: the biggest missing person I see is Glover. He may be the first from the 2015 class to reach the majors. Among the LHPs, why the suggestions of Hearn over Crownover? Both are about in the same pool as Guilbeau and Borne, though, and Watson is behind them. Let’s hope all take a step forward in 2016.

    Among the pitchers a few levels up, I might suggest Rauh among the Notable Arms, as he continued to progress without much notice and posted numbers at least as good as others who got more attention.

    1. Hi KW, most of the 2015 LHPs stats were so close and the sample sizes so small that I considered age a lot at this point. Watson was only 18 and Hearn 20; Crownover, Guilbeau and Borne were all 21 or 22.

      1. Age is a good point. Truth be told, though, I don’t think we have enough of a professional sample size to get too excited about any of these lefties yet. None of them got moved up to Hagerstown, and that may be as high as any of them get next season. Watson will do well to establish himself at Auburn at 19.

  12. This comment should bring the termites out of the
    Winter wood :
    If zobrist signs elsewhere and escobar traded elsewhere
    / let’s bring back Anddrubsl E . Two switch hitting
    Infielders while the third difo heals and heats up
    In Cuse
    Agree , gang ??

    1. Mets signed him to start alongside former Pirate Neil Walker at shortstop. Mets will be very, very weak defensively up the middle, hurting their vaunted young pitching staff and helping the Nats rise quickly back to a solid first place start.

      So? NO disagree. Like Espinosa at short with Escobar at second unless he’s traded … don’t think Turner is ready yet. Doesn’t really know how to take a pitch. Looks an awful lot like Espy and Desmond when they were young pups before the league figured them out.

  14. Luke – what are you hearing about Adrian Sanchez? MILB.com shows his status as “Free Agent” and that he elected for free agency on 6 November; however that is not correct in that he signed another one-year deal with the Nats in October. I’m just wondering where MiLB got that information from.

    1. I’m not seeing where Adrian Sanchez re-signed in October of 2015… October 2014, yes, but 2015, no. Baseball America’s FA tracker doesn’t list him. After doing this for several years, I’ve become accustomed to the fact that not every player will be accurately reported upon… or at all.

      1. Luke – I spoke directly to Adrian who told me that he had resigned plus I confirmed that with one of the Nats coaches I know. I’m just trying to figure out where MiLB.com got their info from.

        1. That I couldn’t tell you. It would not surprise me to learn that MiLB.com is run with a skeleton staff during the offseason (and in-season, it’s prolly interns, given the industry’s history of exploiting the supply of people willing to work for free to “get a foot in the door”), in which case, it’s very easy to envision a scenario where they ran an algorithm to mark everyone that wasn’t marked as re-signed as a free agent.

          In general, when there’s a conflict of info, I tend to favor BA over MiLB.com

      3. Goodness we need the wibter meetings action
        Discussing Sanchez is like watching xmas story
        For 24 hours !! Lol

      4. And? Ladson and his crew put Kieboom as the #3 catcher on the depth chart? Really? Over Severino? I sometimes wonder if Bill be drinking when he makes the depth charts.

  15. Rizzo personally signed A Sanchez so the loyalty
    Is there
    Shocked that nats resigned Moore unless Dusty feels
    He can spur him on
    Too bad nats did not ink ole expo farm hand
    Doug Bochtler to be bullpen phone answering lol

    1. Who you got to back Zim up at first base other than T-Mo? Let’s face it Tyler is the superior defender over Lurch Robinson. So, in the absence of Skole it makes sense. T-Mo still hits more XBH and singles as does Skole. We’ll see how Skole and Cox do in AAA as bookends at first and third. That will be something to watch.

  16. Guess its too late to put Cox out up ahead of Ward … but then maybe he doesn’t belong on a watch list?

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