BA Unveils Its Top 30 Nats Prospects
Ordinarily, this is revealed with the release of the handbook, which apparently is late or lost in the mail; hard to tell these days.
Before we go further, ze list (last year’s ranking, if applicable):
| 1. RHP Cade Cavalli | 11. SS Jackson Cluff (16) | 21. RHP Tyler Dyson (17) |
| 2. RHP Jackson Rutledge (3) | 12. SS Sammy Infante | 22. RHP Jake Irvin (15) |
| 3. RHP Cole Henry | 13. LHP Seth Romero (10) | 23. RHP Joan Adon (23) |
| 4. SS Yasel Antuna (9) | 14. C Israel Pineda (19) | 24. C Jakson Reetz (28) |
| 5. RHP Andry Lara (7) | 15. C Tres Barrera (11) | 25. RHP Sterling Sharp |
| 6. OF Jeremy De La Rosa (13) | 16. OF Daniel Marte | 26. OF Andry Arias |
| 7. LHP Tim Cate (5) | 17. LHP Ben Braymer (20) | 27. LHP Jackson Tetreault (24) |
| 8. RHP Mason Denaburg (8) | 18. RHP Holden Powell | 28. OF Nick Banks (26) |
| 9. LHP Matt Cronin (14) | 19. RHP Steven Fuentes | 29. RHP Reid Schaller (18) |
| 10. 1B Drew Mendoza (6) | 20. OF Roismar Quintana | 30. RHP Bryan Sanchez |
| YOUR AD HERE | ||
| Graduated — Carter Kieboom, Luis Garcia | ||
| Traded — Wil Crowe, Eddie Yean | ||
| Released — Nick Raquet | ||
| Left via Free Agency — James Bourque | ||
| Dropped Out — Cole Freeman, Malvin Peña, Jhonatan German | ||
As usual, the BA list begs some questions…
- How does a guy with zero innings north of Florida (and just 20⅓ IP in one season) stay in the Top 10?
- Given the dearth of position players—especially corner infielders—how did Mendoza fall out of the Top 10?
- Why is a pitcher who will not pitch in 2021 ranked for 2021?
- Who the hell is Bryan Sanchez?
For the fourth straight year, there will be eight players who are or will turn 25 by the end of the year with one turning 26 before Memorial Day and three turning 27 before Thanksgiving.
The collegiate draftee count drops to 14 from 16 last year, while the number of HS guys* remains steady at three (Infante replaces Carter Kieboom to join Reetz and Denaburg), as does the number of JuCo picks at two (Rutledge and Tetreault).
* Fun fact: Michael Cuevas and Justin Connell are the only other HS picks still in the Nats system.
IFAs still make up a third of the list while pitchers comprise 3/5ths (that’s 18 if you made it here from the MASN comments).
We’ll have to wait for the handbook itself for the other little tidbits, like the sleeper pick, the trade bait breakout prospect, or the ranking of the system against the rest of MLB (#23 last year). Earlier this week, Cavalli (#25) and Rutledge (#35) were named among the top RHP prospects.
For those wondering, BA says the 2020-21 IFAs will be added to these Top 30 Lists later on this year. “Expect an update closer to Spring Training.” It’s not clear if that means the usual Spring Training timeframe or not.
So at least BA corrected a couple of their obvious mistakes from last year, namely Steven Fuentes’ omission. However, I’m still puzzled by the omissions of our excellent 2019 GCL trio of Leandro Emiliani, Viandel Pena and Junior Martina.
I get that you shouldn’t draw too many conclusions from GCL baseball. The variance in age and experience among players and the usually very small sample sizes makes it hard to make any real conclusions about a player. But BA just added Bryan Sanchez, a pitcher who had a pretty awful 24 IP in the DSL (a 5+ ERA and almost as many walks as Ks) and no big bonus pedigree either, as the only track record to go off. So I’ll take that as an opportunity to rant again.
As a reminder, Emiliani batted .299/.467/.480 as a 19 year old 1B.
Viandel Pena at 18 years and one of the youngest players in the entire GCL, batted .359/.455/.481 as a MIF. And Martina, a 22 year old 16th rounder, batted .338/.461/.515 playing mostly 2B and 3B.
How these guys don’t get more attention than significantly older players (Dyson, Mendoza, Cate, Irvin), players with significantly worse stats (Denaburg, Antuna, Arias, D. Marte), or both (Cluff, Adon, Banks, Tetreault), confuses me.
It’s literally BA’s job to catch these less heralded prospects, and they’re all state-side so there’s no way they weren’t able to see them back in 2019. Nor would they be hard to miss. They were each in the top 10 best hitters in the GCL.
We almost have to take with a pinch of salt the progress of outfielders from the mouth of Gary Thurman in the last year of instructional reps and the other incubation activity .
Nats sure need some contributions from the Latin outfield cast .
Makes one wonder , Will , if that 2019 GCL trio will be @ high A Wil ( aka Good Will Hunting ? )
C Sanfler for sure
Rah rah
I get where your coming from. However, with a few years of top 3-4 draft picks, and young big $ international signs, half or more of the top 30 list would be gone each year. Many of those players playing at the high A to AAA level can be wiped out no matter how well they perform simply based on the numbers. If your drafted high enough say 1-3 at any age with the big bonus $, those are the guys that stick on the list for years. They can stink it up and still never lose their top 10-15 spot. Cate is a perfect example. As a #2 pick, he has not dominated at all with a 5.02 era between low and full A, and a 3.31 in High A. BA and others have him at #7-8, while other pitchers much higher on the list have blown his numbers away. That does not mean that Cate should not be on the list, but #7-8? Its all about how high you are drafted period. For those guys, “Performance” is irrelevant. Will Crowe (traded), stunk it up in his first outing in AA 6.15 era, AAA 6.17 era and his outings in MLB a whopping 11.88 era and he stayed in the top 4. Romero never played above High A, got moved up to the 40 man and stunk it up in MLB with a staggering 13.50 era in 2.2 innings, yet still a top 10 rank. It’s a numbers game. There are also players that are performing reasonable at much higher levels at ages younger than expected. They’re prospects also with projection and promise. If they are not on the top 30 list, you would simply have the “Top 3 draft picks and 18 and under list”. But this is what the writers drool over. They don’t care much about anyone not drafted in the top 3. Its to bad these others players that outperform the “Big bonus Boys” don’t get the love from the people that come up with the list or the writers. You would think they would learn by now since Tom Brady was not a top draft pick and he’s not to shabby. Probably would have not made their list!
Yes and if Tom Brady chose to play pro baseball he might have been on same squad as Vlad Guerrero and Jose Vidro
This spring we bay just have to see how the downward depth chart effects affiliate roster settlements
If Noll goes to ROCH then maybe M Duarte goes to BURG
Etc etc etc
Meanwhile our dogs Hybernate..
Nat Guy, I agree with you 100%. Our 18th round pick is showing more potential than all of the earlier outfield picks. Someone said he gained over 20 pounds during the long off season and is crushing over 400 foot bombs during BP.
I get where you’re coming from. Reputation tends to stick a lot longer than it should (see: Romero and Denaburg). But there’s still a bunch of unheralded later round players on this list too:
Cluff: 6th rounder
Barrera: 6th round
Braymer: 18th round
Dyson: 5th round
Sharp: 22nd round
Tetreault: 8th round
Plus non-big bonus IFAs:
Marte: $300k
Adon: $50k
Arias and Sanchez: both unreported so probably in the low 5 figures
Arias was teammates with Viandel Pena in 2019 GCL. Arias is 5 months older than Pena and plays a non-premium position (corner OF), and batted .195/.321/.310, while Pena had an OPS 300 points better at .359/.455/.481 while also playing a premium position (3B, SS and 2B).
I know I’m being nitpicky, but there’s not much else to discuss at the moment. So I’ll just happily gloat a bit as Pena and Emiliani rise through the system!
Interesting, just found that Viandel Pena signed for $175k, which makes this even more puzzling. He did have some hype at the time of hype at the time of signing…
I agree with Will. Everybody’s going to need to upgrade these lists after the 2 month mark of the season, when they are actually playing.
Made me look. Bryan Sanchez is 18, from the Dominican Republic, and pitched a whopping 24 innings in the DSL in 2019.
Well being an ole Ex-po fan and Fat mouth and belly LaSorda just passed : we bring up the Dodgers acessment of young Bad Vlad Guerrero who hitched a ride to a try out on the back of a motorcycle Bare foot : “ Son , your swing is too long !”
DONALD B. Here’s one for you. Tetreault was drafted in 2017 in the 7th round and signed for 5 th round money and he still can’t get any love. Of the 32 first and second round Big Bonus $ pitchers taken, 27 played their first year. Tetreault outperformed 20 of those top 27 with a 2.58 era and dominated High A with a 1.91 era which got him moved to AA. He was the youngest and second fastest mover to double A at only 22+ years old (Will Crowe #2 pick) and the youngest pitcher at this time on the AAA roster. Check this out. Between 2006 and 2016, Tetreault and only five other 22 year old pitchers posted a 24%-26% strikeout % and a walk % between 6% and 8% in the South Atlantic League (min 100 inp). That’s over 10 years!! He did not even get an invite to the 60 man in Fredericksburg. However, the Nats grew a conscience and he did get an invite for a week or 2 at instructs. He absolutely dominated, throwing 4 innings with 12 batters faced, 8 ks, 0 bb, and 1 infield hit. There is a reason the Nats have earned the right to be rated MLB’s 30th and worse farm system. They don’t care about development when they can buy their players on the free agent market! Sure the top 3 draft picks have no need to worry, they will be taken care of, but other prospects can only hope and pray to be traded from that system.