For the first time in five years, the Washington Nationals added just two players—IF Kelvin Gutierrez and RHP Jefry Rodriguez—to its 40-man roster ahead of the deadline to protect players from the the Rule 5 draft. I suppose you could count Wander Suero, but he was about to become a free agent so that’s really accurate to lump him together with these two, unless you happen to have noticed that none of these players were 2014 or 2013 draft picks.
Don’t get me wrong — that they’re all IFAs doesn’t bother me aside from the fact that foreign-born players are subjected to different level of exploitation by major-league baseball. So in that sense, I’m happy that these two (three) have taken one step closer to The Show because they’ve sacrificed more.
Kelvin Gutierrez is one of my current favorites and while I’ve liked what I’ve seen from Rodriguez in the past, it’s hard for me to look past his drug suspension, which begs the question why are the Nats doing so, too?
But to return to my original point… aside from Erick Fedde, which is nearly a given for a 1st-Rd pick, the 2014 draft has produced zero players on the 40-man roster and neither of the 2013 draft‘s two (2) HS picks were protected, either.
Explain to me again why Mike Rizzo, et al are supposed draft gurus?
I’ve been hearing/reading/seeing this for years, that the Nats have the knack for finding talent in the draft despite picking lower and lower. Well, perhaps they’re more like The Knack with two big hits early and not much since.
Supposedly, it takes five years to truly judge a draft, but 2012 doesn’t look much better and I’m not even going by the number of major-leaguers. I see far too many that barely made it to High-A and few that were truly good at that level, never mind AA or AAA.
So can we please just acknowledge that Washington isn’t better than anyone else when picking low? Thank you.