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FanGraphs Releases Top 22 Nats List

In the old world order, this would have been a post about John Sickels’s take on the Nationals prospects, who has become a free agent after Vox Media pulled the plug on him, no doubt because he refused to rely on vacuous maps or endless quotes of Tweets, but time hurries on (and the leaves that are green turn to brown)…

As noted in the comments, this edition is more thoughtful than the last (photo illustration in case they play Fox News historian) but the overall prognosis is similar: three guys who appear to be future major-leaguers with low-to-medium risk.

FanGraphs uses a 20-80 scale where 40 is a bench guy, 50 is an everyday player, 60 is an All-Star, etc. For pitchers, it’s a little different – the scale is based on starters, not relievers and ranges from 40 (FIP ~5; #5/6) to 45 (4.20; #4/5) to 50 (4.00; #4) to 55 (3.70; #3/4) to 60 (3.30; #3) to 70 (>3.00; #2). Eighty-grade pitchers on their scale are your top 1-3 arms in the game. I’d recommend reading their primer, which explains this in more detail.

Before we go any further, here’s the breakdown of FanGraphs’ Top 22 by the scale:

65 Victor Robles
60 Carter Kieboom
50 Luis Garcia
45 Mason Denaburg, Wil Crowe
40 Tim Cate, Yasel Antuna, Seth Romero, Israel Pineda ,Gage Canning, Tanner Rainey, Malvin Pena, Telmito Agustin
35 Reid Schaller, James Bourque, Sterling Sharp, Taylor Guilbeau, Jeremy De La Rosa, Jordan Mills, Joan Adon, Ben Braymer, Brigham Hill

Here are some notable nuggets I spotted in the writeups:

• If it weren’t for his injury, Robles would finally have graduated (agreed) and Juan Soto might not have been pushed up so quickly (maybe; not sure even a healthy, productive Robles would have prevented his rise).

• While not stated explicitly, Carter Kieboom’s struggles after his promotion from Potomac may have been influenced by fatigue, given he played in three times as many games in 2018 vs. 2017 (144 vs. 48).

• Like many, they’re high on Wil Crowe and make comps to Joba Chamberlain. I’ll have to take their word on his “improving his pitch efficiency,” which must be a comparison to the pitch counts in college vs. the 90-plus in five-or-so innings I routinely saw.

• Yasel Antuna apparently had his TJ in August but, given how few of UCL rebuilds are on position players, his recovery time isn’t as clear-cut. They called him the “riskiest hitting prospect on this list.”

• Seth Romero also had his TJ in August, but may not pitch at all in the regular season. They believe he may be sent to Arizona, which Washington does have a history of using as a rehab (see: Reyes, Luis; Solis, Sammy).

• Sterling Sharp could be the common-in-comments, rare-in-real-life late bloomer as he is tall, lanky, from a cold-weather state, and attended a smaller college. Sharp has long been considered one of, if not the, best athletes in the system and that athleticism enables him to do things like vary his the timing of his delivery.

• Let’s end with a direct quote: Seven of the twenty-two prospects we wrote up for this list have had UCL reconstructions, by far the greatest number and highest rate of any club we’ve covered so far.

15 Commments

  1. Surprised to see Sharp rating relatively low on this list when Baseball America seems rather high on him. 2019 will be telling, I think.

    1. Vox Media pulled the plug on him. His site had been on the “SB Nation Network,” which heavily cross-promotes its sites though they vary from awful to mediocre. Much of this is due to how SB Nation does business, which has gotten even worse lately. (There are worse things to do with your time then to read Laura Wagner’s stories on this subject, which you’ll find within and under those two stories). It would appear he just wasn’t delivering the traffic that they demanded, which was probably unrealistic given that this interest is a niche that already has a big-ass elephant in the room.

      I can’t speak for him but it seems unlikely that he’d try to strike out on his own after twice getting dropped from sports websites (he wrote for ESPN from 1996 to 2005). He appears to prefer to focus on the content and let the flacks promotions folks do that work. It’s also been almost three years since he did the BPB annual and from what I recall of his injury that made the last BPB (2016) so late, he might not have the stamina/will.

      Ideally, I’d like to see him get picked up by the Athletic — even if I’m conflicted about how they’re poaching the best sports writers from the newspapers — so that he can pick up where he left off, and perhaps even make a bit more coin. Like most of the people here, I’ve been a fan of his work and a customer, too.

      1. Interesting. No offense to Sickels, but he had to know that SB Nation’s “approach” would be problematic for him. I agree; the Athletic might make sense.

          1. Safe to say that Potomac might see an April combination in outfield of Agustin in LF, Canning / Upshaw in CF and maybe Esthay in RF with maybe Meregildo helping out with his various position gloves ?

          2. Leave it to Papa Lerner to do biz with Boras with Rizzo at the table.
            Interesting side bar thought. Rizzo dealt Perkins in deal for Herrera resulting in Jones being retained to patrol Burg CF and Conversely Chuck Taylor rule 5d to Mann Fresno or Burg

      2. What an interesting core group one can pencil infor GCL 19 just off the
        interesting coreguys off DSL18

    1. One of those guys who seemed to outperform his peripherals pretty consistently. Good luck to him.

    2. Good pickup for rangers.
      The TJ for Antuna reenforces the presence of Daily and Marinconz @ Hags. Maybe Franco repeats Hags in April 19?

  4. Hot stove winter ember burning on low.
    New Years Day pondering. : Potomac 2019 June ?:
    O’Conner , Canning , Esthay
    Upshaw ( for his wheels and leather ) Freeman ( super utility dude ) Scudder, K Williams , Lara, Lora, Garcia , Meregildo , A Franco , Shaddy, Caufeld, Dunlap , Marinconz ???

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