Wednesday’s News & Notes

30 Commments

1. Most important stat of the night: Robles homered, matching his 2015 season total of 4. If he gets up in the neighborhood of 12-15 this year, it will be hard to contain the hype.

   Another strong start from 19-year-old Pedro Avila, and from the oft-overlooked Tyler Mapes, who has a 1.09 WHIP after eight starts.

   1. Ryan Sullivan on Nats GM, who actually scouts the players (as opposed to the typical punditry) had a great writeup on Tyler Mapes a while back. He compared him to Craig Stammen and saw a major league future for him. So NatsGM readers no longer overlook him. 😉

      1. KW, apart from the obvious points we’ve discussed here about Avila and his vaulting over better known starters, and even college products, what I notice about him is that only once in his entire career has he had a start in which the wheels came off in an early inning. Given our experiences and frustration with Strasburg, it’s noteworthy to see a 19 year old pitching stateside who is steady and every outing is giving his innings and quality start (not in the classic sense). He threw a season high 88 pitches last night. Let’s see how soon they push him to 6 innings.

      2. Cool
         Tulane cool wave
         Anybody has value if they reaxh AA
         Gil good call

2. Has this been discussed before? But why on earth did the Nats promote Turner last season, then not use him? Those 45 days of pinch running appearances were an utter waste, and if avoided, would mean he would have long ago joined the MLB roster.

   In the meantime, we get the pleasure of seeing Danny Espinosa flirt with the Mendoza line, and watch Revere do his best to coin a new term – “the Revere line” – to describe futility.

   1. There was a certain amount of buzz on the Natosphere last year about the call-up. It all played out rather weirdly and seemed like Rizzo called Turner up but Williams didn’t play him.

      The current Nat struggles could actually play in Turner’s favor, as they would be less likely to turn to him at the end of the month if they were going well. Revere, who has been around .300 his whole career, will hit; he’s had terrible BABIP luck. Espinosa is “hitting” (I use the term loosely) about the same as he has always done. He is what he is.

      1. I understand there was some disagreement between Williams and Rizzo, but were they both too stubborn to realize how detrimental their petty pissing contest was to the franchise (particularly for Rizzo, as Williams was a bit of a lame duck)? I presume they talk to each other, and Williams outright said, “I’m not going to play Turner.” Rizzo likely tried to cajole him into using him, as it would have benefited the team but surely after a couple weeks – and not 45 days – Rizzo realized Williams wasn’t budging, and could have sent him back to Syracuse and stop his clock from ticking. Instead, Turner racked up 45 days of service time and has 40 ABs to show for it. If he’d been demoted soon after it became apparent he wasn’t going to be used, we could have promoted him just in time for that long road trip we took in early May.

         1. You understand that there was a petty pissing contest based on … what, exactly? Internet chatter from people speculating about it? And then taking your turn at speculation by imagining a conversation, and then treating it as fact?

            I’ve seen this kicking around on fan sites based on fan speculation, but I’ve seen nothing to indicate that it has even a grain of truth about it. I don’t know the reasoning behind the call up, so don’t ask me about it; I wasn’t in the room. The difference is that I don’t pretend that I do know.

            1. Sorry, I didn’t realize pretty obvious speculation would offend some so greatly! But isn’t that the point of a comments section on a baseball blog, to, you know, speculate about things? In fact, isn’t speculation the fundamental point of following prospects?

               But let’s stick to the facts. Here’s what we know:

               1. The Nats value Trea Turner a lot, or they would not have promoted him last season.
               2. The Nats are concerned with his and many other players’ service time (Harper and Rendon are two other recent examples).

               One day accrued in August 2015 puts him one day (and potentially one entire season) closer to free agency, so you’re going to want to make sure you get as much value from that one day as possible. And how do you get maximum value?
               You bench the player?
               You let him pinch hit?
               You let him pinch run?
               You use him as a late inning defensive replacement?
               Of course not. You let him start… Except the above were precisely how Turner was used for the first 37 days in the majors: 2 starts, 6 pinch hit appearances, 7 pinch runner appearances, 6 defensive replacements. And to compound matters, he wasn’t even getting regular defensive reps at SS. 9 games were played at 2B and only 5 at SS.

               So in a way I’d feel better about it all if it were a stubborn dispute between Rizzo and Williams, since Williams was a bad manager and he’s gone now. Because if it wasn’t an internal dispute, then it was presumably done for developmental reasons. If this is how the Nationals “develop” their top prospects, then I’m terrified.

            2. I have no problem with speculation – it’s just when people present their speculation and imagination as facts that it bugs me. It becomes “everyone knows that … [x]” when it’s really just a crock/someone’s fantasy that gets elevated to reality. Like the idea that Strasburg bitterly resented the Nats ever since the shutdown and couldn’t wait to get out of town.

               And yeah, it’s a pet peeve, so if I come off as a humorless drudge about the whole thing I’ll cop to that. Nobody’s perfect 🙂

            3. Calling Turner up and then not playing him made absolutely no sense from both:

               a) player development standpoint;
               b) team economic standpoint.

               That is indisputable. That move would be akin to calling up Giolito, starting his service time clock, and then not using him for a month and a half.

               Fair to surmise that there was disconnect between the front office’s decision to call up Turner, and the Matt Williams’ decisions on playing time.

            4. John, fair enough. Also perhaps I could have phrased it better. I didn’t mean to suggest it happened exactly that way I described it. Though I think there was clearly a difference in opinion between Rizzo and Williams. It’s just puzzling why it played out like it did for 1.5 months.

         2. I may be in the minority, but I’m skeptical that Turner would have started this season in the majors even if he hadn’t been called up last year. There still would have been team-control and “super 2” issues. More significantly, there still would have been defensive issues, as his six errors thus far attest. He’s still learning. Also, it seems clear that the team wanted a look at Espinosa at SS, either to satisfy their own interests, or to showcase him, or both. Danny and Drew would seem redundant on the bench.

            1. He wouldn’t have started the season in the majors. He’d have followed the Rendon and Harper path, i.e. a promotion in late April to stave off arbitration and Super 2.

               Rendon was promoted on April 21
               Harper on April 28.

            2. But they were still going to give Espinosa his chance, and they were still going to work on Turner’s defense, plus Dusty doesn’t seem to be the champion of the kids that Davey was. So it’s still quite possible that Trea would have stayed at Syracuse until a similar May/June time frame anyway.

               The good news is that, with the exception of a bad streak a couple of weeks ago with a lot of Ks, Turner is playing well enough to still prompt enthusiastic debates about when he should be called up.

   2. The best thing about Turner is that he is a *winner.* He is a catalytic player whose teams will perform better around him and the Nats will get derivative benefit. It’s May 18 and the Nats have got to show more offensive output. Turner is solution one, from the leadoff spot and stealing bases like a wildman. I can’t wait till he gets to DC and we get to watch his impact on the lineup.

      1. Agree Grissom

3. What’s the deal with the morning game times for Cuse’s AAA and Harrisburg’s AA opponent? Are those teams hosting school field trips? A 10:35 am start on Wednesday seems so bizarre. Particularly, since Leigh Valley is known to draw reasonably large crowds for its night games.

   1. Lehigh Valley is facing a bus ride to Toledo.

4. This time of year it’s always refreshing ton see players who have underperformed show up and start to deliver. Taylor Guilbeau had his best outing of the year control-results wise last night. Anytime a Nats lefty gives three innings like that, given the continued dearth in the system, it’s welcome news. At 23, and with the draft coming, he’s got to step it up.

5. One guy whose situation does not track organizational ambitions is Trevor Gott. He was billed as a pitcher who could deliver up to two innings, but even as his ERA is steadily lowering, he continues as an understudy for people like Martin and a retread (Massett). I hope the Nats have not soured on the key return for Escobar. That said, Luke, what happened to Michael Brady? Injured, or being reconverted in XST?

   1. The one time I saw Gott on TV in the spring, control was his big issue. His pitches had great movement, but he couldn’t locate them. I heard a report that his velocity has been off considerably this year, but I don’t know if it’s true. His K numbers are down from what he did in the minors before his call-up last year, but they are similar to what he averaged in the majors. He made 48 big-league appearances last year in his age-22 season, so he had the look of someone who had arrived. Even now at 23 (turns 24 in August), he’s still young among the guys at AAA. There’s time for him to figure things out.

   2. Gott was a risk acquisition, no doubt. If he’s able to solve his control issues, he could be a strong back of the bullpen arm for many years at a relatively low cost. But that light needs to go on at some point. Meanwhile, no word on Michael Brady, who has yet to pitch this year.

6. Does anyone know who Keith Law picked for the Nats in his first mock? I have not seen anything about it yet.

   1. Carter Kieboom and Alec Hansen.

      Does anyone know when the PTBNL in the Revere deal gets identified?

      1. Thank you. Hopefully, Hansen is not another Johansen if that happens.

         The Storen trade was January 8th, so six months would be July 8th. I believe they could make it cash as well.

         1. Yes, I believe you are right that cash was one of the options. Rizzo likes to pluck obscure pitchers from A-, though.

7. The Post just posted an article on Lopez:

   https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/nationals-journal/wp/2016/05/18/how-reynaldo-lopez-became-a-hard-throwing-nationals-prospect/

   1. Lopez had his best outing of the year today in Harrisburg’s 3-1 win over Erie.

      6 IP 4 H 1 BB 1 ER 9Ks.

   2. Interesting article, especially the bit about why he signed so late (to stay in school).

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