Baseball America Ranks The Top 10 Nats Prospects

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1. This sure has been a busy week for us seamheads. At the very least next year we WILL have minor league baseball, just don’t know how long of a season. It all depends on the timing of when we get the vaccine.

   Cruel shoes on the Brandon Snyder snark.

2. The math doesn’t seem to pencil on Cavalli ranking above Rutledge, but 1) Lacy Lusk has always been slightly more bearish on Rutledge’s command than other evaluators I’ve read and 2) it doesn’t really matter anyway, does it? Lusk does seem to love Antuna, whom he suggested in the chat might have ranked as the organization’s best prospect with a full, healthy minor league season.

   I’m not ready to completely write Crowe off as a major league contributor, but after seeing him pitch a few times last year, I’d be fairly stunned if he tops out as any better than a swingman/long reliever. He’s not as good as A.J. Cole was, and A.J. Cole wasn’t very good with the Nats. If there’s no more than nine people in the system with at least a decent shot at being better than that, well…I mean, I just don’t think that’s true.

3. There are only two guys on this list who have played full-season pro ball in the last two years: Cate and Crowe. Antuna played in a full-season league in 2018, and Rutledge pitched for part of 2019 in a full-season league. The rest is just, um, guessing.

   I know that prospect families and friends read this site, so I don’t want to be too harsh. I truly hope all of “our guys” make it. But there’s a reason that most “experts” think the Nats have one of the least-talented systems, and the lack of experience that they’ve pushed to the top of this list is telling. Cavalli wasn’t great in college. He still has a lot to show me. Rutledge dominated in his brief pro sample, as did Cronin, who isn’t even listed. Mendoza hit better than Antuna or de la Rosa. The Nats also thought enough of Cluff to push him to a full-season league, and to have him in the 60-man camp. Fuentes was very good at AA at a relatively young age, was in the 60-man camp, and has been added to the 40-man. How does he rate behind guys who literally haven’t pitched? Adon also got added to the 40-man when there seemed to be little reason to fear losing him in Rule 5, so the team likes something about him.

   We’ll see. Looking forward to Luke’s top 10 polls, although I may struggle to come up with 10 hitters. The pickings are very slim with position players.

4. Also, is Crowe still a “prospect” according to BA but Romero isn’t, or did they just not rank Romero? I’ve never been a particular Romero fan, but he’s probably got a higher ceiling than Crowe, and the team thought enough of both of them to push them on to the majors in 2020. In fact, if we’re going on “ceiling,” Romero is still one of the higher-ceiling players in the organization. I mean, his college numbers blew away Cavalli’s.

5. Wait. What’s going on with Antuna being ranked at #4? Others bemoan Denaburg for living off a reputation, but Antuna has a much longer track record of really bad performances. Did some sort of Juan Soto-esque developmental earthquake happen to Antuna that only those in instructionals saw? Because there’s little to support Antuna being in the Nats top 30 prospects, much less the top 4.

   1. I guess there are 3.85M reasons for that?

      This is what sucks so much now: We have absolutely no independent assessments. Ordinarily, there’d be the likes of 20/80, perhaps myself (though this year would have been significantly fewer than the usual 50-60 games), and other prospect followers.

      BA, in theory at least, could be talking to other front offices and/or scouts about a given prospect. But only the Nats had access to the workouts in Fredericksburg and refused to share with the other MLB teams. This is why I don’t put too much stock in Byron Kerr’s single-source stories. It’s not like a coach, who draws his paycheck from the Nationals, is going to disparage a prospect on an outlet that’s owned (albeit partially) by the Nationals.

      1. They have to have some insight into instructionals, otherwise Antuna rising up the list pretty considerably makes no sense.

         Last year, Antuna ranked 9th (which I considered too high), but was behind Denaburg, Lara, Mendoza, Cate and Crowe. I get why Crowe dropped, but there’s no other explanation why suddenly Antuna (a year older with exactly 8 plate appearances in two years) would leapfrog those other 4 players.

         I was frankly surprised that the Nats added Antuna to their 40 man roster. This is a player that had a measly .624 OPS in low A ball two whole years ago. The Nats released Luis Aquino, with a similar bonus pedigree, and not drastically different levels of performance a couple years ago.

         Altogether, this has me strongly suspecting Antuna looked really good in instructionals. Like really, really good. Because Low A ball failures don’t normally get attention from big league clubs.

      2. I made this point over at TalkNats and there was a bit of confusion about it — why wouldn’t the Nats be honest if their prized prospect isn’t actually very good?

         IMO, actually selecting Fuentes, Antuna, and Adon to the roster this month — and leaving the rest of the eligibles exposed — says a lot more than Mark Scialabba’s Mad Libs (“His swing is fluid/compact/effortless/smelly. […] His fastball has great life/movement/action/tater-tots.”)

         1. Oh, that’s easier than a drunken frat boy… (A) because someday they may have to trade him. (B) because it’s PR that even the Nats can’t screw up: the fan base wants to think there’s talent to replace/push their major-leaguers

            Now, my question is: If the Nats are so good at drafting why are they only protecting players they did not draft?

            1. I hope there aren’t many people out there that still believe the Nationals are good at drafting. I think we’re average (in the 10-20 range). We’re pretty good at developing pitching, and seem to put all our eggs into that basket, which compounds the fact that we’re dreadful at developing bats.
               Our reputation was artificially inflated by drafting two generational talents and consensus number 1 picks. But a decade removed from drafting Harper, our track record has been pretty good at developing value from our first round pick (Rendon, Giolito, Goodwin, etc. have turned into above average MLB players). But it’s basically everything after the first round that we’ve been pretty awful at. Our most valuable pick from round 2-5 from 2011-2020 (around 40 picks) is Austin Voth (1.4 WAR, 5th round), Nick Pivetta (1.2 WAR, 4th round), and Jesus Luzardo (1.3 WAR 3rd round, who we didn’t even really develop at all).

            2. @Will, I’m just hoping that the fact in 2019 and 2020, the Nats’ top targets fell to them after they’d expected them to go around the tenth pick or so, augurs well for them to develop more along the likes of Strasburg and less along the lines of, you know, almost everyone since Strasburg.

               At least the international program seems to be humming along. Way too early to really know what we have in Lara, De La Rosa, Quintana, Marte, or Yean, but some intriguing tools there. And Lara, who is 6-foot-5 and won’t turn 18 for a few more months, could be a monster if he stays healthy.

            3. “could be a monster if he stays healthy.”

               Wait. I thought we were done playing “Scialabba Mad Libs”…

6. I’m also very surprised by Antuna’s helium. I hope there’s something to it, as the Nats REALLY need some position prospects to pan out, but I’ll remain unconvinced until he plays in some actual games. It will be interesting to see if they trust their eyeballing of Antuna and Adon enough to skip A+ and send them to Harrisburg.

   Of course players #1, 3, & 5 on their list have yet to throw a pitch in a real pro game. To my mind, they’re all overrated until they actually do something.

   Frankly, one also has to wonder about the quality of play at the Fredericksburg camp, and in the Nats’ instrux, when there is such an overall lack of quality and depth in the organization. The Nats called up several pitchers from Fredericksburg who didn’t look ready to face MLB hitters.

   However, if we are going by success in that camp, why isn’t Romero on the BA list, as I noted above? The club thought he was good enough to make his MLB debut while skipping A+, AA, and AAA. Plus we’ve always been told what a high ceiling he has. Yet he’s not one of the top 10 in a significantly depleted system?

   1. Evaluators have always (IMO unfairly) tended to discount guys who pitch in relief. I wonder if the thinking is that the Nats have moved Seth Romero into a bullpen role (which may not actually last beyond this wacky season!) so therefore he’s not really a top-ten type anymore.

      I think I’ve made this point before, but it’s interesting to watch the organizational #17 (Treinen) or #22 (Suero/Rainey) or whatever prospect, or guys who aren’t even ranked (Finnegan), end up sticking for years in an important relief role while #5 (Eury Perez) or #8 (Matt Skole/Drew Ward/Nick Banks) or whatever prospects either premiere and then bust or just tumble into obscurity. Obviously it’s always going to be a crapshoot, but it’s like there’s a steel ceiling above which relief prospects cannot ever ascend…except Blake Treinen’s been worth 8 rWAR for his career and is looking for a multiyear eight-figure guarantee this winter, and Eury Perez cost -0.2 rWAR and is now out of baseball. Relief prospects don’t get no respect, no respect at all…

7. And don’t forgot what the Nats have had to trade — again and again and again — to acquire the relievers who they didn’t develop. I’m very high on Cronin, and what they potentially have in Powell. Cronin would be in my overall top 10 list and certainly will be one of my top 5 arms. I wasn’t clear this season whether the intention was to leave Romero in the bullpen, or if they just moved him there temporarily because of injuries to Elias, Freeman, and Doolittle. But regardless, starter or reliever, he’s still one of the highest-ceiling prospects in this diminished system.

   Fuentes is sort of like Suero, just poking through the system without recognition because he doesn’t throw 95+, but getting out more guys than those who do.

8. I think baseball writ large is discovering that these funky relievers who don’t necessarily throw 97 but have a ton of deception and/or movement on their stuff have been a market inefficiency for a little while now. Suero throws nothing that’s straight and at his best, he’s landing each pitch within about a millimeter of where he meant to put it. (At his worst, well, he’s not doing that.) Fuentes, from what I’ve seen of him and heard about him, is much the same way, albeit with a bowling ball sinker rather than a cutter. And both of these are big guys (I don’t care what Fuentes is listed at, 6-foot-2 is almost certainly an underestimate of his height and 175 pounds is *definitely* an underestimate of his weight) who stand tall on the mound and go right after hitters.

   The Nats have never had much interest in “gimmick” pitchers like Pat Neshek or Peter Moylan, but they’ve had some interesting results with guys who rely on deception, movement, and command over pure “here it is, hit it” velocity — the Matts Albers, Belisle, and Thornton come most readily to mind, in addition to Suero. There’s always going to be a place for guys who can rear back and blow 100 by you, but even Tanner Rainey eased off the throttle a little this past season and suddenly he was one of baseball’s most dominant relief pitchers.

9. Good thoughts above. Guessing Antuna’s ascension is attributable to his performance at the “alternate training site”. How much stock to put in that is a worthy discussion. We will find out if the Nats’ faith in Antuna is based upon his hefty signing bonus or Yasel starting to live up to expectations.

   Perhaps, I am wildly overrating him, but do not understand how Matt Cronin is not the list. Realize that relievers generally do not get rated on the same scale as starting pitchers or position players, but Cronin is a lefty that gets outs. If there was a market where you could bet which player will log more MLB service time, I would take Cronin over almost anyone else on that list. Barring injury, pandemic shutdown or a labor stoppage, Cronin will be a MLB pitcher next year, and he will stay in MLB for a long time.

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