Prospect Digest Ranks the Top 10 Nationals Prospects
As many longtime readers know, I’ve been waiting for someone to pick up where John Sickels left off and provide a different perspective than Baseball America, which often parrots the front offices, and the MLB Pipeline, which doesn’t have to pretend it’s not the company line… because it is the company line.
Earlier this year, I gave the Minor League Ball Analyst another chance and had my low expectations met (just barely). Perhaps fine for picking your fantasy baseball team, but insufficient for learning more about players who weren’t names already.
Enter Joseph Werner and Prospect Digest:
- Victor Robles, OF
- Carter Kieboom, IF
- Luis Garcia, IF
- Seth Romero, LHP
- Mason Denaburg, RHP
- Jackson Tetreault, RHP
- Tim Cate, LHP
- Yasel Antuna, IF
- Israel Pineda, C
- Reid Schaller, RHP
Now, I realize for some of you, this may underwhelming. But take a look at what he wrote last March about Juan Soto:
The Victor Robles 2.0 Express Train to Washington got delayed – temporarily. Soto, a higher touted prospect at the time of his signing, came to terms with the organization on a $1.5 million pact three years ago. And the 6-foot-1, 185-pound corner outfielder was absurdly proficient in his much anticipated debut two years ago, slugging a combined .368/.420/.553 with 14 doubles, three triples, and five homeruns between stops in the Gulf Coast and New York-Penn Leagues. His overall production that season, according to Weighted Runs Created Plus, topped the league average mark by mind-boggling 88%. As a 17-year-old. Last season Washington bumped the teenage prospect up to Hagerstown at the start of the year. And Soto picked up right where he left off; he slugged .360/.427/.523 through his first 23 games before a string of injuries – ankle and wrist – knocked him out for pretty much the remainder of the year. Soto was sporting a 172 wRC+ through his first 96 PA. He could launch into another stratosphere in 2018, a la Robles or Ronald Acuna
Maybe that’s cherry-picking, or extremely lucky, but not too many people can brag about predicting that kind of success.
How Werner reminds me of Sickels is that in his book Werner reviews his previous year’s work and identifies the hits and misses. There’s a lot of good stuff
I’d recommend taking a look at today’s article to see what he thinks about nos. 6-10 since everybody and their grandmother has already written about nos. 1-5. And of course, discuss in the comments…
“Since 2006 only five 18-year-old prospects have received at least 200 PA in the Carolina League: Manny Machado, Elvis Andrus, Raul Mondesi Jr., Chris Marrero, and Luis Garcia, who put together the best performance as measured by Weighted Runs Created Plus.” Wow, he’s the next Manny Machado . . . or Chris Marrero! (Just a slight talent/success gap there.)
Interesting that he’s still so high on Romero, based solely on his stuff. He seems to have missed that Antuna had a TJ. I’m still holding my breath about Denaburg and his arm issues.
I hope the Cate lovers out there turn out to be correct. He just wasn’t very good in his half season as a pro, though. The early returns on a later-drafted lefty, Aaron Fletcher, were much better.
It will be interesting to see whether they give it a year or so to see is Schaller can make it as a starter, or if they push him on into relief and see if he can make a Glover-like run through the system.
As an old Expo fan the 9 th IP rally was nice for the final time in LBV
Let’s hope Cate turns out better than ole Brian Barnes from Buck Rodgers Expo days
Fletcher, Condra-Bogan, and Teel are at the top of my under-the-radar watchlist in 2019. I like them.
Tough day for Austen Williams on Monday: he gave up his second hit of the spring. Not his second run, his second hit, to go with no walks thus far. He hasn’t struck out many, but goodness, he’s been good at getting outs. He’s done everything he can to get himself in the conversation.
I’m very encouraged by Williams’s spring performance, and gather the lack of.Ks has more to do with working on getting outs without giving up HRs right and left as he did last fall. If he can keep getting hitters out without walking the ballpark, he may indeed have a big year.
So, I’ve tracked Werner’s rankings for a while now. He’s been in love with Romero for years, and didn’t even have Luis Garcia ranked last year despite most other shops ranking him in the 5-6 range. So i’m skeptical of his rankings generally.
He remains too high on Romero. Its splitting hairs to argue between ranking him 4th and say 7th (as 2080 and BA did), but you can make a pretty good argument to dump him well lower. MLBpipeline had him 15th and for good reason; he’ll be at the END Of his age 23 season with a grand total of 47IP, none above low-A.
Yeah he’s got a great arm. But the same underlying issues remain to be addressed: mechanics, conditioning, character. Oh, I read his puff piece interview with one of the beat reporters where he said all the right things; it was all BS. The fact that he had all those black marks on his character BEFORE he got drafted and then he had the audacity to break team rules again is astounding still. And a great arm without the discipline to hone his craft, take coaching, work on his diet and athleticism, and be a good team player (none of which he’s apparently demonstrated at any point since before college) means jack.
He’s got Crowe outside his top 10, lower than Reid Schaller (??) and below Jackson Tetreault (??). Ok; Tetreault had a nice 2018 in low-A and he’s shown some promise … but Crowe was drafted the same year and solved High-A to make it to AA. Meanwhile Schaller got lit up in Short-A and struck out just 16 in 29 innings despite his amazing “best in the system” fastball. Sooo… i’m sorry, but i think his rankings are mostly bunk.
Nice to see someone who is smarter than me and has spent time up close with these prospects is also high on Jackson Tetreault.
Selfishly, irrationally, I’m frustrated that Seth Romero and Yasel Antuna take up two spots on nearly all of these rankings. They looked bad last season and then they had to undergo elbow surgery. There’s just not much to say about them until they return to action.
Regular readers of this and Todd’s site know that I ranted and ranted about Romero BEFORE the draft. There were dual risks with the pick — his arm issues and his attitude. Both have become significant problems.
I’m not that down on Antuna. I’m not that high on him, either, but then after the top three or four in the Nat organization, it’s sort of throwing darts. He’ll turn 20 at the end of this summer, although this will still be his “age 19” season, and he’s already had most of a year of A-ball. The hope will be that he can fill out some during his recovery. We’ll see. I wonder if his future ends up being more in the OF.