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Offseason Update: Sept. 23, 2018

Friday night, the big Nats were eliminated from the N.L. East race with a loss, which amazingly was not in either extra innings or at the hands of the bullpen. Yesterday, despite a combined one-hit shutout, they were mathematically elimniated from the playoffs. Just one year after we were talking about Washington possibly winning 100 games in this space, it will feel like a small victory if they finish above .500.

But I’ll leave the mortem (no need for “post-” – this team’s been dead for quite some time now) for the beat writers in DC. We’re here to talk about the minors.

STATE OF THE FARM
The story of 2018 was two-fold: Juan Soto and injuries. In fact, one has to wonder if Soto would have even happened were it not for the injury to Victor Robles on April 9th. By the month’s end, Soto was in Potomac. By mid-May he was in D.C. Not much else to tell that hasn’t been written about ad nauseum already.

The meteoric rise of Soto took away some of the virtual ink from another player: Carter Kieboom, who caught fire in May after a horrific April and was in AA after the High-A all-star break. Unlike Soto, Kieboom was humbled by AA pitching and did about as well as you might ordinarily expect from a 20-y.o.

Going in the 2018-19 offseason, the focus on the minors from outside our little bubble will be who will replace the free agents (Harper now, Rendon perhaps a year from now) and who’s trade bait. It’s awful to think that way about the guys we follow so closely, but we’re nearly 10 years into the Mike Rizzo era and the pattern is pretty clear: there are number of prospects he’s banking on to make it all the way up the ladder and that number is a single digit that can be counted on a single hand. Everybody else is cannon fodder.

For the immediate future (or until his contract is up after the 2020 season), it would seem to be Robles, Kieboom, and Luis Garcia on his shortlist for position players. Pitchers? Might just be Mason Denaburg. Maybe.

BA TOP 20 LISTS
These are just starting to come in, and thus far it’s just been Victor Robles, the #8 prospect for the International League despite playing just 40 games. Ah, the beauty of incumbency.

DSL NATIONALS
The D-Nats finished with a non-losing record (36-36) for the first time since 2014, which along with $2, gets them a cup of coffee stateside. The good news is that the team was younger than the league average for both position players (17.4 vs. 17.7) and pitchers (18.1 vs. 18.4). As you might expect from a .500 team, they were slightly above average on offense (5.07 R/G vs. 4.92) and slightly below average on the mound (5.09 R/9I vs. 5.08 R/9I) and below average on defense (.946FA vs .954FA).

Obligatory reminder that this is sight-unseen, so take all this with a large dose of sodium chloride; calcium chloride if it’s icy out.

Without further comment or delay, here are the Top 5’s, excluding three-timers:

TOP 5 BATS TOP 5 ARMS
1. Geraldi Diaz, C/DH
.273 GPA, 29BB		 1. Pedro Gonzalez, RHSP
1.46/2.39/0.95, 9.49 K/9IP
2. Andry Arias, 1B/RF
.265 GPA, 28BB, 7-3B		 2. Jose A. Ferrer, LHRP
3.60/1.67/1.30, 15.9 K/9IP
3. Braian Fernandez, CF/LF/RF
.266 GPA, 8SB/9CS		 3. Carlos Romero, RHSP
1.19/3.10/0.87, 4.8 H/9IP
4. Viandel Pena, 2B/SS
.263 GPA, 47BB		 4. Bryan Pena, LHSP
2.93/3.23/1.32, 0HR in 55⅓ IP
5. Jorge Hurtado, RF/LF
.260 GPA, 60K, 7E		 5. Charls Jameson, RHRP
0.31/3.19/1.14, 5.59 K/9IP

An honorable mention goes to Daniel Hernandez, who just missed the cut for the hitters. No such luck for the pitchers as there were no more teenagers left who had productive numbers. Folks interested in seeing the full team’s statistics can find them here.

30 Commments

  1. Time to think about the upcoming 40 man roster. The Nats are going to have to add Phillips Valdez to it, and if so, why not let him pitch a little this last week with the big club.

    1. They don’t have to. His case is fairly tenuous. He could be added or not; his peripherals are pretty much just OK and he’s getting old.

      1. Yes, Valdez will turn 27 in November. He was very quietly reliable as a starter, though, which can’t be said of too many others at Syracuse. I agree with Sao that he’s on the fence. In general, my thinking is that if they really liked him, he would be getting a look now, like McGowin and Williams.

        Speaking of unreliable AAA starters, I’m still not sold on Fedde as rotation-ready for the big club. It will be interesting to see if they feel the need to add another starter or two.

      2. Boomer knows how to hit the feeding bowl first.
        Nice DSL review along with the bottle of Dasani
        Or Mortons girl under the umbrella .
        Should be interesting how the DSL dudes sprinkle on GSL club19 like pinches of Mortons salt

      3. Luke. 8 days on the road without my dog. A bluesman could write a great say song.
        Rain on Sunday. Shall we think an asterisk next to Fedde compared to Saturday Voth 5 IP goose eggs ??
        Beware. Argentinian coffee going down the pallet.
        What June draft selection number for 2019 do the Nats seem poised to possess??
        A nice start for the DSL 18 arms cache: that phrase could ring true ? Collect 15-18… find 2… or 3….

  3. By my count, the Nats could have as few as 8 guys on the opening day roster next year who were here for opening day 2018. That’s a pretty astonishing turnover rate.

        1. Just asking as the guy said to the taxi driver.
          Goodness knows brass will sign the usual cadre of AAA-A types for Fresno including probably some holdovers like Dominguez , Sierra, Walker, …..a few ex- Royal farm hands too. Lol

        2. Corbin is going to get paid a lot of money over five-plus years based on one good season. He’s going to get paid like a #1 or a #2, and I just don’t think the Nats have the level of need to pay that much for him. He’d be nice to have, but I don’t think he fits into the price/need equation.

          One year of Bumgarner actually intrigues me. The Giants have been clinging tightly to their legends, but MadBum is one of the few who has any trade value left. As desperate as the Giants are for OFs, I could see pitching a deal built around Michael Taylor and a couple of mid-level prospects, or some of the arms that don’t seem to figure in the Nats’ future — Voth, Valdez, Adams, etc. Don’t know if that would be enough to get it done, but it’s a conversation worth having.

      2. MadBum is coming off 2 years with injuries. This is his walk year, age 29. The Giants likely are going to rebuild after firing their GM. If Harper re-signs, Eaton, MAT, or Robles becomes expendable. Either could be packaged in a trade.

  4. Pretty good summary of the DSL.

    I’d add Edangel Tovar into the mix too for an honorable mention. After an abysmal start to the season hitting .125/.146/.150 in June, he seemed to find his swing, batting .323/.380/.468 from July 5th onward. He was also one of the few batters to display some pop, tying Arias for the team lead with 3 HR. He’s also age appropriate, turning 18 mid way through the season.

    All in all, what’s most notable about the team is how few repeats there were this year. Of the batters of note, only Diaz played in the DSL last year. On the arms side, both Gonzalez and Romero repeated, but were both playing stateside by the end of the season.

    1. One more thing about the DSL- the Nats have done a very good job at finally expanding their Latin presence. We’re finally seeing some non-Dominican IFAs enter the system. Tovar, B. Fernandez, Hurtado, D. Hernandez, Jameson, C. Romero (incidentally the majority of the notable players) are Venezuelan, and Pedro Gonzalez is Panamanian. Plus some Nicaraguans (Theophile and Hansack). The Nats seem to have invested in scouting beyond the DR.

      2. We all know that so many kids want to get out of Dodge( VZ) with the horrible embrace of
        Socialistic / societal and economic destruction ..

    2. T&T on DSL. Tovar and Tatis ( both linked to legacy MLB bloodlines ). Reminds me of the old Hollywood moniker for Taylor and Turner films in black and white

  5. Following up on Luke’s comment about who is on the very, very short untouchable list, I’d posit that it’s even shorter than Luke makes it. If the Nats re-sign Harper, they’d be nuts not to trade Robles, unless they’re thinking of moving Bryce or Soto to 1B once Zim’s contract is up.

    I think the same equation is at work in the INF. If they re-sign Rendon, they don’t need both Kieboom and Garcia. They do need one of them, at 2B, and presumably Kieboom will get the first crack at it.

    They’d trade Denaburg in a heartbeat, even if he shows well coming off the TJ, a la Luzardo. They’ve got this weird thing with starter prospects where they either trade them before they’re fully hatched (Luzardo, Ray, Pivetta, Giolito, Lopez, Dunning, et al.) or hang onto them too long until they have no value (Cole, Taylor Jordan, Taylor Hill, Voth). I fear that Fedde is getting close to entering the latter camp.

    1. Err, no TJ for Denaburg. Sorry, it’s Monday. I’m not keeping the sore-armed first-rounders straight. Denaburg can’t be traded for six months after the draft (the Trea Turner rule), but he’s fair game after the Winter Meetings.

      1. Suarez was decent but not great this year for the Giants, but better than Fedde has been at the MLB level thus far. The Nats SHOULD have been able to figure out how to sign both. Considering the lack of lefty starters on the Nat horizon, Suarez was a significant whiff.

      1. I think this is more likely. Resigning Harper doesn’t solve the problem of a long term CF, a position Soto and Harper are incapable of playing.

        6 cost controlled years of Robles is waaaaayyyyyyy more valuable than Eaton for 3 years/$29m, even if Robles only turns into half the player he’s projected to be. Eaton is still a below average CF, and an extremely fragile player. The only possible reason I’d consider trading Robles instead is that you’d be selling super low on Eaton right now. But Robles will still be the better player in the long term.

    4. KW. Soto makes sense for instruction along with Harper who might have the better hands coupled with some who question his OF sabermetrics or whatever that new phrase is.

  6. Don’t agree KW about your comment re the Nats signing Harper. With Harper, Eaton, and Soto in the outfield, there is no one even slightly resembling a center fielder. I think Eaton is the outfielder to be traded, possibly for a starting pitcher.

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