Good, Bad, Interesting… 2019 Season Final

11 Commments

1. Great summary, and I don’t see many obvious oversights or omissions. I just wanted to chime in to note how historically good some of our GCL bats were. To start, the GCL is a notoriously offense-depressed league; basically the opposite of the PCL. The league average was a measly .238/.334/.345. So, it’s pretty remarkable when a player puts up PCL-esque stats. On the GCL, we had three players doing just that: Junior Martina (.338/.461/.515), Leandro Emiliani (.299/.467/.480) and Viandel Pena (.359/.455/.481). Each of these players batted .300 OPS above average! That’s absolutely massive. It’s especially impressive that Viandel Pena, the youngest of the trio, still only 18 years old, and playing a defense-first position (primarily 2B and SS).

   So, once you consider how massively above average these three players were, you can begin to mount a case that these three players had arguably the three best offensive seasons in the entirety of the minor leagues. No, not just the Nationals, but every single team at every single level.

   FanGraphs measures this through wRC+. It measures a player’s offensive contribution relative to their league. Therefore, a player in the PCL with a .900 OPS will be worth a lot less than a player with a .900 OPS in the GCL, because that’s so much harder to do. If you sort players across all levels by wRC+, you find Leandro Emiliani at 8th over all 175, Viandel Pena in 12th at 171 and then Junior Martina doesn’t show up for some reason (I think due to his last minute promotion to Auburn but would sit in 29th at 165, factoring in his Auburn stats). This is out of 1467 players. It’s no small sample size. These were historically great seasons. Then once you consider Emiliani and Pena’s ages, 19 and 18, it’s even more cause for excitement. Kevin Cron sits in 4th place with an absurd, even for the PCL, .777 SLG. But he’s 26 and stalled out for 4 straight years at the upper minors. And at number 1 you have Logan Porter a 24 year old inexplicably wasting away in the Appy League.

   I’m really excited to see how these three come out next year in Auburn (or maybe even an aggressive promotion to Hagerstown?), because we might have a few extremely interesting prospects on our hands.

   1. Great analysis. Thanks.

   2. Terrific writeup Will, I had no idea the GCL was such a no offense league, makes the numbers even more impressive.

      1. Same is true for the DSL; hence the two guys who hit 5HR had to get in somehow.

2. Luke : what is interesting about the interesting : Marte came on to be GCL precious bat over Diaz
   Perhaps McKinney was banged up early year and did not right his ship to be solid as a Sycamore
   Bob Trumpy on his WLW radio show in the 1980s would bet people the proverbial hot fudge sundae : this is a bet , Luke, Alastre is a horse next campaign
   There is a fraternity of brothers who still pledge Eric Senior in their house. Time is ticking on him…

   1. Interesting ? Big Tuna spent so much time on the sideline

3. Overall, the Nats’ farm teams overachieved considering (other than AAA and the GCL) the dreadful lineups they trotted out there. Fortunately, there were a LOT of pitchers who had solid seasons in addition to the few who had great campaigns. Next year, the Nats to have a few of the “pretty goods” have break out seasons and become top prospects.

4. Please trade Marmeljos so he will got a shot!

5. Luke — Thanks for calling out Denaburg as “bad.” He was, and at one level or so lower than he should have been. Maybe he’s hurt; maybe one day we’ll find out, after he has some great comeback story.

   Tetreault may have been “bad” (relatively speaking) at AA, but he was terrific at Potomac, so I think there’s still good reason for hope there.

6. Karl’s comment is in line with something I was thinking: while there were lots of good pitching stories this year, it’s hard to point to too many legit MLB field prospects. Yes, there are several guys who look like they might be potential MLB bench guys in the right situation: Yaddy, Orange, Ward, Reetz, Gushue, maybe Noll, Banks, Freeman. I guess we could still consider Stevenson in this group despite multiple short cups of coffee. (Difo, Sanchez, Read, and S. Kieboom are pretty established as AAAA shuttle types.) But who in the system beyond C. Kieboom can you somewhat confidently project as an everyday player for a contending team? We’re told that Garcia is a fairly high-level prospect, but he struggled this year while playing way over his head age-wise, so it’s hard to judge. The Nats gave high post-draft placements to Mendoza, who responded reasonably well (albeit with not a lot of power), and Cluff, who didn’t. The still-young Pineda struggled at Hags, and Antuna missed the season. It’s still too early to tell about some of the GCL guys, or to completely dismiss some of the college-drafted hitters who struggled at Auburn.

   So we’re left with Kieboom, who is nearly ready; Garcia, who seems to be still at least two years away; and Mendoza, who, if he’s going to make it as an MLB 1B, is going to have to get balls over fences a lot more often.

   In fairness, within the last year, the organization has graduated a star-level player in Soto and an above-average player in Robles, and Kieboom looks like he could be in at least the above-average category (and Robles could still turn into a star). If they produce three quality regulars in two seasons, that’s better than they’ve done in a long time. But the next levels of the pipeline look very hazy.

   1. Yeah, even Carter Kieboom didn’t show a great bat in the second half (his average was fine, but he was hardly hitting any home runs). Jakson Reetz was impressive at High-A, and it’ll be good if he gets a real tryout in the Arizona Fall League. Junior Martina and Viandel Pena were fantastic in rookie ball. There are some other notables, certainly, like Jacob Rhinesmith, Leandro Emiliani, and Nick Banks. But there’s nobody I’m champing at the bit to see fighting for a roster spot next spring.

      The pitching is another story. I’m genuinely excited about our pitching pipeline for the first time in a while, not just in terms of guys who look like they could be up-and-down relievers (every system has those), but guys who look like they have a chance to carve out a career as major league starters. Next year, Michael Tejera will be working with the likes of Tim Cate, Carson Teel, Nick Raquet, Jackson Tetreault (again), and perhaps Jackson Rutledge before too long. Sterling Sharp will hopefully bounce back in Arizona. He, Steven Fuentes, and Mario Sanchez are strong prospects to be added to the Nationals’ roster to protect them from selection in the Rule 5 draft this winter. Hopefully Wil Crowe does to Triple-A what he did to Double-A after getting socked in the mouth at that level last year. Ben Braymer…eh, maybe he’ll come around, too.

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