Friday’s News & Notes

19 Commments

1. Fedde has given up only one earned run in 18 IP, with 17 Ks and 6 BBs. He seems to be emerging pretty clearly as the “next man up” if the big club needs a 6th starter.

   Speaking of 6th starter candidates, any word on why Jacob Turner had to leave the game after just 1.2 IP?

   What’s it going to take for Austin Davidson to be given a position in the field and a real chance?

   Very curious to see Borne reassigned to Auburn purgatory despite a 0.00 ERA. I had wondered what had become of Sundberg, who made it all the way to Hags last year after the draft but then disappeared. Good to see Fuentes getting the call as well, as he’s another of the young guns with a big arm.

   1. Local rag said he didn’t appear to have been injured, so I’m chalking it up to the rain or rearranging the starters.

      1. Thanks.

      2. I don’t remember who, but someone on the MASN broadcast last night said he was pulled to save innings so he can join the big club in Colorado as the long man.

         1. Interesting. I missed that. It’s awfully early to be saving him for next week, though.

2. I’m really surprised with how aggressive the Nats have been with player development this season, especially with the younger players. They’ve gone from exceedingly cautious for most players (around 2011-2014ish, an example is when Taylor played full back-to-back seasons in Potomac, or like when Karns, a polished college SP, got sent to the GCL to start), then over the past 2 seasons they’ve begun to show signs of being more aggressive. A few youngsters notably skipped GCL and/or Auburn. Soto skipped the DSL, Robles skipped Auburn, Pedro Avila skipped both GCL and Auburn, and probably a couple others.

   This season, though, it appears increasingly common.

   Soto, Corredor, Franco, Kieboom, and Sharp skipped Auburn this season, and I’ll be very interested to see if any DSL products go straight to Auburn. But maybe this isn’t really new, it’s just ‘new’ to us, since we finally have our IFA system finally functioning properly and churning out players.

   But then a demotion to Grant Borne happens, and you’re left wondering what is going on…
   Do you think they’re going to finally commit to using him as a SP? That’s the only explanation I can come up with, as he’s been very good in 2 games so far. Still, it feels like the conversion should have happened in ST, if that’s the case.

   1. Make Rhineharting Great Again! Geez . . .

      I’ll acknowledge up front that there’s a lot we don’t see in the stats and even in some games attended. For young players (and older ones as well), attitude and work ethic are HUGE, not to mention personal responsibility, etc. With the Latin kids, there’s also the language barrier and often nutrition.

      All of that said, you raise a lot of interesting points here. As much as it’s exciting to see kids move up through the system, we can all also name several who have been hurt by being rushed. I’ve always thought that Goodwin was really hurt by skipping Potomac. Skole only got a cup of coffee at Potomac at the end of the year so essentially skipped it as well. Not many have skipped Potomac since. (Stras and Bryce had skipped it before that pair, and Rendon wasn’t there long. Those are true star-quality guys, though.)

      Anyway, we’ll see how the new round of aggressive pushes work, particularly those to Hagerstown. I don’t think we’ll see a lot of guys skipping Potomac again, or skipping through only briefly. There was some call for them to skip Fedde to Harrisburg, but they didn’t, and the logical progression seems to have paid off for him. They sent Robles back to get more time at Potomac this year.

      Just look at the guys who struggled at Potomac, though. Giolito and Lopez both had tough years there. Taylor repeated it, and Souza spent a lot of time yo-yoing between Hags and Potomac. Mooneyham washed out there, and Johansen never really mastered that level.

      1. I’d always heard the jump from A+ to AA was the real test of a player’s talent, but I wonder if it’s now the jump from A to A+?

         1. It’s definitely A+ to AA, if for no other reason than you don’t start facing guys who are 4-6 years older and in some cases have had a cup of coffee in the majors. I’ve been thinking about this as a topic for MASN but wanted to get in a GBI in disguise first.

         2. I’ll have to think that that one. Off the top of my head, most of the Nats of recent vintage who had truly “passed” A+ have done OK at AA. Both Austen Williams and Brinley bounced back to Potomac last year but are off to good starts at Harrisburg this year. Of course Blake Schwartz couldn’t make the jump, but you could argue about how much of a true “prospect” he was. Nearly all the “prospect” hitters who have moved up to AA recently have had an adjustment period, but few have failed abjectly. I can think of more wash-outs at Potomac in recent times than I can at Harrisburg.

            Another point I meant to make above is that I think the Nats are being so aggressive with these promotions in part because of the talent gap in the organization. Most of the real “prospects” are in the lower levels. They’ve also had what seem to be deep drafts in 2015 and 2016 along with more aggressive Latin signings, so there’s a talent backup that they seem to be trying to spread out.

   2. Only thing I can think of for Borne getting dumped back to “Auburn” (i.e. XST) instead of Low-A is to get stretched out for a bit. Clearly not performance drive. Guilbeau; that’s a different story.

   3. Sometimes demotions have nothing to do with what’s going on the field.

3. Edwin Lora, come on down! You’re the next man up in the “21 Club,” youngsters who start to show their true potential around the time they would have been drafted out of college had they attended. The last member of the club from the DR was Wilmer Difo in 2014. Keep up the good work, the Nats need middle infielders.

   1. We can only hope that the bat has caught up to the glove, which ain’t bad.

      1. I had asked about Lora’s glove yesterday. How does he look compared to Mejia and Abreu?

         1. About the same as Abreu but head and shoulders above Mejia, who’s not a very good fielder.

   2. Lora may be rapidly passing Mejia and soon be breathing down the neck of Abreu (hitting only .175 at Harrisburg). Abreu would be a good exhibit on how hard it is to make the A+ to AA jump, though. That said, I was never truly sold on him as a “prospect” and wondered after seeing him play whether he was ready for the move up. His battling line at Potomac last year was pretty similar to Mejia’s, but Abreu’s numbers looked a bit better because he took a few more walks.

      Anyway, there are org guys at 2B at Harrisburg, so perhaps Lora and/or Davidson may warrant a look at that level at some point.

      1. Lora’s got wheels (23 SB last year; 6 already this year), and has shown some early pop (2 HRs and 6 EXBHs in 14 games). Realize that expectations must tempered based upon April stats, but appears there is a lot to like about Lora.

         1. Yeah, but there’s surely some serious red flags around his defense no? He’s sported an .891 (!!!!), .941 and now .957 fielding percentage. Even a .950 FPCT is extremely poor, so Lora will need to up his defense to become useful. Maybe he’ll profile as an early Ian Desmond-type SS?

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