NationalsProspects.com

Nats Outmaneuvered for AAA Affiliate

They’re also out of coffee
The Nationals have known for 11 months that they needed to make a deal to stay either in the International League or east of the Mississippi.

They did neither.

Yesterday afternoon, Washington announced it had signed a two-year PDC with the Fresno Grizzlies, endearing themselves to …Young Republicans without trust funds …Rap Stars who went to Juilliard …Gay Nazis for Christ …charter jet operators in more than a dozen cities.

No longer will a 40-man player be able to hop a puddle jumper or literally drive himself to DC to join the team on short notice, something so obvious even Joel Sherman noticed. Even worse: if the Nats want to move a player from AA to AAA, it’s 9-12 hours with multiple layovers.

Sure, the pollyannas and MASN Commenters will point out that these travel concerns can be mitigated. And they’re right. Harrisburg is going to have a hell of a bullpen the next two summers.

The fact of the matter is this: Since the Syracuse Chiefs were bought in October 2017, the Nationals have known that this could be a possibility.

Now some folks have pointed out to me on the Twitters that they weren’t allowed to negotiate until this week. While that may be technically true—and I’m sure they’ll hide behind that factoid as deftly as Mike Rizzo claimed “We ended up going to a place that wanted us and we’re happy with.”—you have to be pretty naïve to believe that no team made any overtures to the available teams before this week.

And it’s not like there was a team in the International League who was having issues with the local government that might have been persuaded to sell.

For the sake of the fans in Fresno, my sincere wish is that the Nationals fill the Grizzlies roster with enough AAAA players to win 67 or so games. Granted, they haven’t done that in Syracuse the past four seasons, but I can still hope for it, right?

45 Commments

  1. Luke you forgot one phrase in your sarcasm. Lerner digging into the petty cash drawer for jet charters direct from west coast. We can hear the whiney players lamenting in the future: I had to catch an o dark hundred Mesa out of –// then connect on another mosquito with wings to — blank- then reach Dulles…,Airplane stories to accompany your Airplane film snapshot , Luke..

    1. Espn is so lame. SS strikes out 11 and all they point out is the quirky wild pitch similar to one from game vs Phillies. Lame , Bristol, CT

      1. Luke. The petty cash drawer might have more nickels and dimes after the deadline deals for AAA plus A suitcase joe types.

  2. I already posted my thoughts in the other thread, but I’ll reiterate how colossally stupid this is. With our bullpen in a constant state of disarray (and I don’t see it changing this winter with Rizzo at the helm), we need a AAADC shuttle. That possibility is gone now. It will now take two days for any reliever to make it from Fresno to DC. For example, Jimmy Cordero pitches like garbage again to the surprise of no one outside the Nats front office. He immediately gets demoted and Austin Adams gets promoted at approximately 11 PM EST. Well, tough shit. Next available flight is the next morning at 6 AM, which gets Adams into DC at about 4 PM, but you’d better hope there’s no delays and missed connections, otherwise Adams misses the start time. Either way, Adams just spent 10 hours traveling with no sleep. But then Adams walks the bases loaded, and he gets demoted that night for Austen Williams, and he has to do the trip all over again the other way.

    Can you imagine? Remember all those times Voth got promoted to sit on the bench just in case? Our pitchers are going to riot before season’s end.

    1. Baseball may have to implement special clause for clubs on west coast. Like an asterisk 26-27 th man
      Luke that Senator bullpen lead by Howard could be very Hum, baby as roger Craig used to say

      1. The word is bummer. Rizzo traded three arms for two injury stained years of Adam Eaton to buy time for Victor Robles. Those three arms replaced by Fedde, Crowe, Glover, Klobosits and Howard.

        1. Eaton is a left-handed hitter. Robles bats right. If anything Eaton’s replacement would be more likely to be Luis Garcia not Robles. Robles replaces MAT. Neither Robles, Garcia, nor MAT can consistently maintain an OBP above .360 the way Eaton can. Not many in baseball can. So, uber rookie Juan Soto seems more of replacement for Eaton, rather than Harper, sans the glove, arm, and speed. He can maintain his OBP above .400.

  3. So I guess we countdown the days until 2020. All AAA teams but Nashville, Salt Lake and Tacoma are signed until 2020, with Pawtucket, Scranton, Syracuse, Memphis and Oklahoma City excluded too due to their MLB ownership.
    http://minorleaguesource.com/pdc.html

    With those out, I’d like to see the Nats push hard to extend their reach into Virginia/Carolinas. That would open the possibility to Charlotte, Durham and Norfolk, but I have no idea what sort of relationship the White Sox, Rays and O’s have with those clubs.

    Having been to a Durham game, it was a nice ballpark, and would be a good way for the Nats to extend their reach into fan void between Atlanta and DC. But since the Rays have had Durham as an affiliate since 1998, it seems unlikely.

    Does anyone know about the possibility of switching teams into other leagues?

    1. It’s possible but what would seem more logical is to create a third AAA league and then realign so that there are 10 teams in each. But good luck getting folks to agree to how to split that up.

      2. It’d be pretty easy, no?

        There’s already a strange presence of mid western teams in the PCL. Remove Iowa, Memphis, Nashville, New Orleans, Omaha from the PCL, and take the midwestern IL teams (Columbus, Indianapolis, Louisville, Toledo) out too. That leaves one awkward not so obvious cut remaining from the IL; but given Gwinnett County is pretty damn far from the rest of the Northeast teams, and much closer to the likes of Nashville, Memphis and Louisville, it would be fair.

        Problem solved.

      4. Interesting that the Colorado Springs affiliate vanished from existence for fans. Any AA cities earning a bump to AAA??

      5. Luke. There has to be some minor league brain storming going on with MLB heads to help out the zany coordinating whacky needs of big clubs being fed by the upper levels even if that might mean allowing some teams to co-op rosters or as our learned colleague hinted @: if Lerner could grab the Orioles MHC inc from the Bird land in the MASN drawn out legal
        Matter then many people would be happy.
        And if that happens. All NFL players will stand proud with their hands over their hearts during the National Anthem. !!

  4. Look for Harrisburg to be stocked with all the guys on the 40 man roster next year. It’s a quick trip to DC from the island.

    1. It’ll actually make Harrisburg a really interesting team next year.

      Previously, AAA was used for career AAAA veterans and AA for actual prospects. Both groups stood a chance of promotion to the big leagues at any given time, but AAA was used more for short notice promotions, when someone would get injured or demoted, while promotions from AA were rare and merit-based (Soto, J. Rodriguez).

      Out of necessity, Harrisburg will become a combination of both, and strangely, we might see a bunch of prospects from Potomac (L. Garcia, Agustin, Corredor, Wiseman, Sagdal, and Fuentes, Tetreault, McKinney, Klobosits, Bogucki, Howard and Braymer) that we’d have expected to start the season in Harrisburg in ’19 but not really be immediately MLB promotion candidates, go to Fresno instead?

      Take Garcia for example: assuming Kieboom doesn’t start the season in DC, he will remain in Harrisburg, as he’d probably be their first call if Turner gets hurt. That blocks Garcia from getting playing time in AA, so he’d have to stay in Potomac or get gulag’d to Fresno.

      This will be even more pronounced with pitchers, who shift much more frequently than hitters.

      What a headache.

      2. You just hit on the biggest problem with, oh they can just stay at Harrisburg. The Nats now have a ton of lottery pick type arms that need to be tested but will be blocked at Potomac by guys who should be at AAA. And really, what good is a AAA affiliate if not to quickly fortify the big club?

      3. It’ll be easier on the hitters than the pitchers. Braymer was as dominant as any High-A left-hander this year, but I’m far from convinced he’s ready to pitch to guys with major league experience in parks like El Paso, Albuquerque, and Reno.

      1. Hey, before this devolves… it’s not unreasonable to call us out for complaining. Maybe that’s a little harsh but it’s not like we’re being compared to other fan bases.

  6. So looking at the 2018 Chiefs statistics page here: http://www.milb.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?t=t_ibp&cid=552&stn=true&sid=t552

    My guess is that if the Nats 2018 AAA affiliate was based in Fresno, some combination of Bautista, Stevenson, Sanchez, Matt Reynolds, one of (Severino/Kieboom/Read), Collins, Gott, Solis, and Glover, would have spent most of the year in Harrisburg so that they could be called up at a moment’s notice. They’re going to need a lot more David Goforths and Moises Sierras next year.

    My gut says that the SPs can stay in AAA (albeit in the hitter-friendly PCL) since the team can do more to plan ahead. But I would imagine that when a rainout gets made up the next day, the Nats will use two rotation arms for the DH and slot in an emergency call-up next time through the rotation. So if Scherzer is scheduled to start Friday, and Stras is scheduled to start Saturday, but Friday’s game gets rained out, Scherzer and Stras pitch the doubleheader, then a AAA starter gets called up to start the following Wednesday.

  7. FWIW, the Fresno Grizzlies won their division and played in two rounds of the playoffs this year. Hope their fans enjoyed it. They’re probably getting an even worse team than Syracuse has normally fielded . . . which is kind of a scary thought. They’ll be the Orioles of the PCL.

  8. Seems to me that Nashville knew it was in the driver’s seat and demanded a long-term agreement, which Texas met.

    Assuming the Nats plan is to ride out the two years and try to sign on with an International League affiliate in 2020, it’s going to be tough. The teams that make the most sense — Durham and Charlotte, have been with Tampa Bay and ChiSox for more than 20 years. Columbus and Buffalo’s major league affiliations make too much sense to count on them switching…short of praying like hell, seems like the only option is to purchase or establish a new eastern based AAA team — perhaps in Pawtucket.

    One thing that I am confident in predicting, the Nats won’t be in Fresno in 2021.

  9. For clarity’s sake, I need to point out that A LOT of the pitchers being mentioned as potentially being on the shuttle to AAA are now out of options. By my count, these guys won’t have options left in 2019: Solis, Glover, Grace (had none left for ’18), Gott, Adams, Cordero (all of his were already burned when the Nats got him on a DFA, and the Nats have already DFA’d him once), Voth, and Collins (the Nats have already DFA’d him once). I believe that Fedde, Suero, Rodriguez, A. Williams, and McGowin will still have options. Please correct me if I’ve got some of these wrong.

    All of this to say that the AAA bullpen likely will look a lot different next year, as will the one with the big club. These last few games may be meaningless in the standings, but they’re a big deal for guys who are about to be out options.

    2. Cordero will have an option (he has one this year that has not been burned, so it’ll be operative in 2019) and I believe Glover will too. I think Adams has one left too because he had just been added to the 40-man when the Angels traded him.

      1. Glover may not have burned one of the options because he got hurt rather than optioned. But he’s likely to be on the 25-man. I think you’re right about Adams, that he got traded before the Angels burned his first option.

        I’m confused about Cordero because the Nats got him on a waiver claim deal after the Phils DFA’d him, then the Nats DFA’d Cordero last year before he cleared waivers. Both of those DFAs seem to have been to clear 40-man spots, though. However, the Nats did select his contract this August, then optioned him. So I see him being optioned in ’16, ’17, and ’18 and therefore out of options. (I’m not arguing this, just trying to figure it out myself.)

        1. The Phils dumped Cordero not because he was out of options but because they wanted to clear space. He has already been optioned this year, but he hasn’t spent 20 days in the minors on optional assignment, which would burn the option year. Same reason Solis has an option this year after being optioned in 2017.

  10. Nashville signed a 4 year contract with the Rangers. Seems the difficulty probably came from Nats only wanting to do 2.

  11. I don’t think it should be a surprise that the Lerners treated their minor league situation like a major league manager.

  12. Forget Rochester … still kind of far and its small potatoes. Mark Lerner screwed this deal up by procrastinating as he is renowned for … he needs to go out and behave like an aggressive Lerner great white and buy out Maryland Holding LLC. Screwing the Orioles out of a AAA franchise in 2020. A AA franchise and an Advanced A franchise. Putting everything within reasonable driving distance of Nationals Park mostly in Maryland with Norfolk in Virginia leaving only the short-A franchise.

Comments are closed.