Tuesday’s News & Notes

44 Commments

1. Good to see that Gabe Klobosits lives! Same with Mason Denaburg, and a solid first outing to go with it. I hope he can rise fast. I’d be willing to bet almost every other 1st rounder is no longer in rookie ball.

   Also, I totally missed Reid Schaller getting named to Hagerstown. When did that happen? Was he injured?

2. Also, just your weekly reminder that Nick Wells, the player we got in return for giving away Austin Adams, still is missing in action. Meanwhile, Adams, as expected, has been very good for Seattle. He’s got a remarkable 30 K in 18.1 IP, the walks are still worrisome (8 so far), but his WHIP (1.04), ERA (2.95) and FIP (2.64) are all very good.

   1. There is an interesting theme going on in regards to pitchers assigned to the inverted AAA/AA paradigm for Nats .
      Dragmire in AA and Fedde in AAA?
      City isle can now play that old 60s tune. Isn’t it a Drag?? Lol

      1. Long before the debacle that’s the AAA team on the West Coast, there’s been a certain element of interchangeability between AA and AAA, especially with FAs. As for Fedde, it would not surprise me if he made one start in Fresno and then flew east the next day to be the designated emergency guy. Fresno needs fresh arms and between Fedde, Bonnell, and Baez they should be back to normal within 2-3 days.

         1. Gotcha
            Ryan 11 heading Back to big club soon should open a spot for Freeman as someone mentioned prior.
            Would be nice to know how far B- Fernandez tattered the HR off lefty Dickey today in WPB

   2. Wells is rehabbing a broken wrist

      1. Ouch not fun. May be awhile. Left wrist ??

      2. That’s good to know! Because literally no where is this information being reported. Not on MiLB that usually would indicate a player that is on the IL, or in an article documenting Wells’ injury.

         Either way, glad to know there’s an actual logic to why he hasn’t played.

   3. All the best , Alex Meyer,
      In your post baseball life forward !!

3. Should we just pencil in Rutledge for his first start on June 24, 2020? Goodness. It’s good to see that Denaburg does exist. I’m also scratching my head over Schaller, a college draftee, from one of the top college programs in the country, who somehow can’t show up on a full-season team until a year after he was drafted, and then is pretty shaky. (Note to Nats: if these guys are or have been injured, please say so. Otherwise, the appearance is that they’re unusually delayed in their professional develop.)

   Interesting that Fedde has been sent to Fresno instead of his previous holding-pattern position in Harrisburg.

   1. Pitching in the PCL would toughen anyone up, it’s good that Fedde is in Fresno.

   2. They may be short of bodies given the dearth of system depth.

   3. An uptick on Upshaw

      1. Luke. As Uncle Lou Pinella always said : don’t look at the HRs – look at the doubles.
         Nice results in DSL today. Doubles and triples.

4. Austin Adams was very good in Fresno, had one bad outing with the big club, and that was it. They jettisoned him for the 40-man spot, I think to activate some awful joke like Dan Jennings. I didn’t get it. Yet Jennings got 8 appearances, Rosenthal got 12 (nearly all of which were worse than Adams’s one). Never understood that one.

   1. You can’t find logic where none exists.

   2. The only thing I can think with Adams is that there were issues behind-the-scenes with him, and the Nats just wanted him gone. I haven’t actually heard anything to support that, but if it was just based on performance, the Nats DFAing him made little to no sense.

      1. SaoM. Look at how a tantrum reaction by Shawn Kelley was the final straw for Rizzo. Perhaps something behind closed doors only a fly on the wall knows about ??

5. Interesting to note: 8 of 9 batters in the GCL were DSL grads. I guess that’s what happens when you don’t draft high schoolers.

   1. Or kudos to Johnny DiP-/——//

6. Don’t try to make sense of any of the moves the Nationals are making. It all started with the signings of Rosenthal and barraclaugh and putting Jake noll on the opening day roster after only 2 months in Harrisburg last year. See how well he is doing in fresno?Ross has been jerked around between starter and reliever. Voth has one good game and they decide to keep him after fedde has one bad game.

   1. Voth has an uptick on gas with the days off. He should drop a few Ethel points with days in DC.
      Is Trader Jack and Elder Boone lending advice to Rizzo on these moves or is this all Rizzo??

7. I don’t get all the angst over Rutledge. These college arms are traditionally abused, so it makes sense to bring him along very slowly.

   It’s just made a whole lot worse by the f.o. acting like secret agents.

   1. Capiche and mega dittos , Mark L.
      Jackson needs a processing period .

8. Zimmerman had 2 solid singles for Harrisburg. He did throw a double play grounder into left field and still isn’t running full speed. Maybe he will DH against Detroit.

9. Finally a Denaburg sighting! And a mention of Klobosits, who seemed to be following in Glover’s IL footsteps.

   1. The difference is this is KLob’s 1st major injury. Glover was on his 2nd elbow when he was drafted. KLob was pitching very well when he went down, especially considering he was a 36th (!!) round pick when drafted.

      Glover is your classic tease, electric arm when healthy, but is almost never that.

10. At long last Denaburg. The outing was nice but just glad to see he wasn’t injured. I’m guessing, though, the ‘pitches-strikes’ count was off for all pitchers.

    If anyone here’s anecdotal info about home, I’d be interested. Like velocity, etc

11. (from yesterday)
    I’m just loving Matt Reistetter pitching on back to back nights!
    Get him called up to the bigs!! 😛

12. A lot of grousing here about the Nats’ developmental approach.

    Denaburg had a shoulder issue last year; so, he didn’t pitch. Makes sense to start him in the GCL now. BTW, Rays 2018 first rounder Nick Schnell (#32) is also playing in the GCL; there are a handful of other first round picks that played little or no baseball last year. Seems like the decision to wait on Denaburg was sound.

    The Nats have had a decent track record of success drafting/developing (Strasburg/Zimmerman/Fedde) talented pitchers that are undervalued because of injury concerns. It seems like they generally know what they are doing, when they bring players back from injuries. Not saying its fool-proof, but they generally want a prospect develop confidence at a professional level before pushing him upward. Generally, think that approach leads to greater long term success than the common theme here of promoting everyone after a hot stretch.

    As for Austin Adams, maybe he has it figured out in Seattle (doubtful), but at 28, hard to claim he was still a prospect when the Nats DFA’d him. Also, when a pitcher still has major control issues after 7+ seasons in professional baseball across two organizations, don’t have a problem with a team moving on from that.

    As for Fedde, his last three MLB starts were increasingly shaky. Why not let him work out the kinks in AAA? With the days off before the ASB, Voth may only get one more start while he is up. If Fedde picks it back up pitching every 5th day in Fresno, he will be back in DC after the ASB. If not, better he works out his problems in Fresno than at the MLB level.

13. I don’t have a problem with the Nats being careful with their young arms, but publicly explain it. Can you imagine if the Redskins or the Wizards didn’t play a 1st round pick for an entire season and didn’t say why? We knew Fedde and Luzardo (3d round) didn’t play their first seasons because of TJs.

    I also have a fundamental issue with using such a high pick on a high school player, particularly when the team needs help sooner than five or six years down the line. Crowe is only two years since being drafted and has shown enough that he’ll be in major-league camp for his third season. That’s what I want to see. This witness protection stuff is ridiculous. And a JUCO pitcher often isn’t that much more advanced than a high schooler.

    We’ll see. Even with all the “care” the Nats have taken with their young arms, their track record in developing MLB starters in atrocious. Right now they have one (1), a guy who was 1/1. Fedde still can’t establish himself, a guy we were told was a top-ten talent, a steal because we were waiting out his arm injury (and still paying Boras’s premium for him). Let me know when Romero, Denaburg, or Rutledge toes a major-league rubber. Only one of them has even toed a minor-league one this season, and that only once thus far, against high schooler who he should be able to dominate.

    1. Don’t agree with that the Nats track record in developing MLB starters is atrocious. They drafted/signed/developed Zimmerman, Strasburg, Ray, Giolito, Lopez, Pivetta, Luzardo, Fedde, among others. Not many organizations have developed more starting pitchers over the last 10 years. Further, the Nats haven’t picked in the top half of any draft in 8 years, and in some years, the Nats had no first round pick at all.

       Also, bringing up Romero, Denaburg and Rutledge to somehow claim that the Nats have failed to develop MLB starters is silly.

       Romero was drafted in 2017. He had TJ surgery. Even so, guess how many first round pitcher picks have reached the majors from that draft? One. The Braves started Kyle Wright for 3 games in April. His ERA was 7.07, and he’s back in the minors and struggling. For all but a few cases, it takes years to develop a starting pitcher, and all of them, are one pitch away from season-ending surgery.

       No first rounder (pitcher or player) from 2018 has reached the majors, and most are in low A.

       Rutledge was drafted 3 weeks ago. Are we expecting him to ascend to the MLB level this month?

       1. Pilchard, all good points.

14. Anyone else curious why De La Rosa, supposedly the most highly rated of the Latin signees, wasn’t in the opening-day lineup?

    1. Fresno home park should discount the beer for the beer league action lately.
       The Latin bats will get plenty of ABs in GCL
       Player development is not high speed AI warp speed
       Look at the career of Jeff Fassero when the Expos took him in.

15. Meanwhile, looks like Trienen lost his Mojo in Oakland.

    1. Treinen has a shoulder injury.

    2. Oakland will cause you to lose a lot falling between the cracks of reality.
       Just ask Annie from Bill Durham with her spirituality , deep quantum physics and great hair/ eyes !! Lol

16. Austin Adams: yes, he’s had MANY years of time to show something, but for a team so desperate for relief help, it certainly seemed like giving him a bit longer look was better than recycling the corpses of Jennings, Rodney, Venters, and whoever else is still to come. Maybe he said something about Rizzo’s momma . . .

    As for the initial bullpen they did build, I don’t want to go too off-topic on the MLB club, but I heard very respected baseball writer Richard Justice say just a couple of weeks ago that he really thought the Nats had pulled off a coup in getting Rosenthal and Barraclough to augment Doolittle on the back end. Those acquisitions were well thought of at the time, and not just in the Nats’ front office. They just didn’t work out.

    1. Let’s go back in time. Expos gave up three arms for Mark Langston rental with only the big unit truly panning out all the way to the HOF . Flash forward to the Eaton / controlled contract deal where Lucas G has turned the corner in the AL Central but not out of the woods. Lopez still in the woods. Dunning coming back from TJ.
       Nothing against Adams but he is pitching in low leverage situations on a team which has tossed the heavy contracts over the ships railings .
       Crossed fingers on the bullpen reset . Suero May continue a non Wandering effort each call out of the pen.
       Not yet to July 4 th and mid season classic break.

17. Pilchard–Of the guys you mentioned, the only one who is currently starting regularly for the Nats is Strasburg, and the only other one who started regularly for them in the past was Zimmermann, drafted 12 years ago, pre-Rizzo. Fedde is still questionable whether he will pan out. Not all the rest have really succeeded elsewhere. Every time I see Pivetta against the Nats, I’m not impressed (although of course they just gave him away for the DC Strangler.) But even when the guys the Nats have drafted did have major-league talent, they’ve often made the wrong decisions in evaluating their talent internally and traded the wrong one (Ray instead of Jordan, for example).

    Romero was at the time, and will remain, a questionable pick, injury or no injury. He did have a history of elbow issues, but they weren’t as widely discussed as his knucklehead issues. Giolito dropped to them because of elbow issues and subsequently lost a year of development because of surgery. Luzardo fell to them because he already had a TJ, as did Fedde. They took a lot of chances on these guys. Not a lot of them have paid off in-house. As for Denaburg, we were told at the time of the draft that the arm issues that might have caused him to drop weren’t really a thing . . . and then he didn’t pitch competitively for an entire year. When that happens, you lose some of the perceived advantage of drafting a younger player. (Although he was spared the arm shredding of some college coaches.) (We were also told that Purke’s injury history wasn’t really a thing . . .)

    Yes, they’ve drafted several starters who have succeeded or are starting to succeed . . . but not for the Nats. And even those who are succeeding are generally taking a long time to do so (seven years for Giolito, five years and counting for Fedde).

    1. I’m with you KW. They took big chances on Giolito and Luzardo and then dumped both of them in trades where they didn’t get nearly enough in return. Giolito was particularly maddening: first sign of trouble with his development and they practically give him to the White Sox for a complimentary player. The Eaton and Doolittle trades both look akin to Detroit trading a young John Smoltz for a half season of Doyle Alexander. Bad enough to do that once–idiot Rizzo has potentially done it twice. It was recently reported that the Nats have the 2nd fewest number of draftees to make the majors post-2011. Thst why they’re paying $200 million a year in salaries just to stay a .500 team.

       1. Giolito was the key to the Eaton trade.

          Luzardo was the key to the Madson /Doolittle trade.

          So, the Nats traded starting pitching for a three-year+ starting OF, their three year closer and a set up guy; all of whom have had at least some success for the Nats (acknowledge that it’s fair argument whether those trades were wise in retrospect). Even so, they used starting pitchers that the system developed and turned that talent into major league assets that helped the team win. It’s not like they DFA’d Luzardo and Giolito, making their development a wasted effort. The Nats drafted and developed starting pitchers to build their team either as players for the Nats or as pieces in trades. Makes no sense to dismiss the Nats development of talent into key trade pieces.

          The reason why the Nats selected the high-risk/high reward guys like Luzardo, Giolito and Romero is because they drafted late in the first round because the team has consistently won after 2012.

          Romero is an easy target in a vacuum, but not so much when the pick is given some context.

          Let’s look at the next 4 arms taken after Romero (who went #25) in the 2017 draft:
          – #27 Brendon Little – Cubs: has been sent back to rookie ball in 2019. Yes, he is playing for the Cubs AZL team right now.
          – #28 Nate Pearson – Jays: Was just promoted from class A to AA.
          – #30 Alex Lange – Rays: 1-9 with a 7 ERA in A ball in 2019.
          – #31 Drew Rasmussen – Brewers: Missed 2018 with TJ surgery is in low A.

          Those are some pretty highly regarded franchises, and the pitchers taken after Romero have done nothing notable, and are not close to helping on the MLB level. At #25 in the 2017 draft, there aren’t sure things left, Nats took a chance with Romero, but it’s not like they passed on Walker Buehler (who also had TJ surgery the year after he was drafted) when they took Seth.

          1. Little is rehabbing an injury in the GCL, much like Romero will do whenever he comes back.

             Also, Lange just got promoted to AA despite the poor numbers.

             Pearson is a consensus top 100 prospect.

             Rasmussen, while not dominant in AA, is still in AA despite it being his first professional season.

             Either way, compared to those four other pitchers, Romero is the furthest behind developmentally at this point. Yes, hindsight is 20/20, but we shouldn’t also pretend that none of this was unexpected. Romero had huge red flags around him both due to health and character, and both of those flags have been severely exposed.

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