AFL/Offseason Update: Nov. 16, 2021
The 22-y.o. retired just two of seven batters faced and didn’t make it out of the 1st. He was charged with the aforementioned three runs on four hits and two walks. He threw 32 pitches, 20 for strikes.
His teammates – Drew Millas and Jackson Cluff – accounted for the other out, as Millas threw out the first baserunner to reach – via walk – in the bottom of the 1st.
Millas, who was the catcher, natch, batted seventh for Surprise and went 0-for-1 with two walks, a run scored, and an RBI via a sac fly.
Cluff, playing shortstop, was the No. 9 hitter and was 1-for-2 with a walk. He had two putouts and one assist in the field.
The loss drops the Sagauros to a percentage-point lead over Glendale (.600 to .593). Surprise (15-10) returns home today to host Scottsdale (11-16).
NATS NAME NEW DIRECTOR OF PLAYER DEVELOPMENT
The search for a new player development director did not venture much past the DC limits, as Jesse Dougherty passed along word last night that De Jon Watson will be named the Nationals’ director of player development.
You will, of course, be shocked to learn Watson, 55, was hired away from the… wait for it… Arizona Diamondbacks in 2017. However, for those looking for a silver lining, Watson was previously the assistant general manager in charge of player development for the Dodgers from 2008 to 2012 and has held scouting roles for both Cleveland and Cincinnati. He is also the son of R&B/Funk legend Johnny “Guitar” Watson.
Rutledge sure does seem a long ways off from prime time. He’ll probably have to start next year at High A Wilmington as AA looks too ambitious.
What to make of Jackson Cluff; his OPS in the AFL a robust .907. Could his 2022 start in Rochester?
Another Longwinded old ex – po connection with De Jon Watson – Gary Hughes
It’s Elementary , my dear Watson .. you may be the best Nats GM after Rizzo fades into retirement..
And if course Johnny had a song named I don’t Want to be President
It’s extremely disappointing to hear that Rizzo’s solution to the Nationals’ decline is to just promote from within. Watson’s appointment aligns with the promotion of Lee Mendelowitz’s internal promotion to become the new Head of Research and Development (https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2021/11/12/lee-mendelowitz-nationals-research-development).
The Nationals’ research, scouting and player development has been dreadful for a decade now. The most valuable draft pick for the Nationals in the past ten years is Austin Voth. Austin Voth has been worth 0.9 WAR. Let that sink in. The next most valuable player is Erick Fedde, worth 0.6 WAR.
And yet, the guys tasked with scouting and player development get rewarded for this historically poor track record….
The team clearly needs to overhaul how it’s doing things. The skills needed to keep a 90 win team in contention are very different to those required to blow up that team and rebuild from scratch. As time goes on and more decisions are made as to how the Nationals are going to do this rebuild, I’m increasingly less confident in the team’s ability to get through this quickly and painlessly as possible.
But, hey, maybe Rizzo will stumble into a repeat of Strasburg/Harper as back-to-back #1 picks!
Extremely discouraging. I hope they will at least bring in some people from the outside to help. Even if they are not in charge, it would be something.
Ah yes, the Stras/Harper/Rendon method — just draft guys who don’t need no stinkin’ development!
But good grief, yes, it’s been a huge struggle otherwise. As I’ve noted before, it’s been a chicken/egg thing: were they decent draftees with poor development, or were they poor draftees in the first place with little hope of developing? Either way, with a decade of futility, they desperately need infusions in both scouting and development. Promoting from within a struggling organization is not a good sign.
I think it’s pretty clear it’s both scouting AND development that are lacking. You don’t just draft 350 players, many of whom were highly regarded before joining the org, and have literally none of them pan out unless there serious deficiencies at both levels.
My theory about this is that the Nationals used to have a relatively good set up in the first half of Rizzo’s tenure. He clearly had some innovative ideas and good scouting methods, and exploited comparatively inferior franchises in the early days. Think: Guzman for Ramos, Souza for Turner+Ross. But the game has evolved and gotten a lot smarter. Unfortunately, Rizzo has infallibly fallen back on those innovative ideas that got him to where he is today, doubling down on the wrong lessons. While Strasburg and Harper were good enough to paper over the deficiencies since the game passed him by. It’s funny that 14 years after leaving the Diamondbacks, that joke about his infatuation with his old club still lives on today! Where are the new ideas supposed to come from now?
The article about R&D and the promotion of Mendelowitz is even bleaker. Basically, half the team has voluntarily left for greener pastures (or in Mondry-Cohen’s case nothing at all), so Rizzo wasn’t even able to promote the best from within, but literally one of the only people remaining that he could!
Oh, I agree — there HAD to be at least SOME talent among all those guys drafted. There has also been a weird aversion to devoting higher picks to hitters, for years. Also, there have been some questionable higher picks, the we’re-smarter-than-others variety: Renda, Blake Perkins, Freeman, Infante. I’m not knocking these guys, two of whom are still in the system, just saying that they were much lower down other draft boards from where the Nats picked them.
Blake Perkins 7 year fA on list
DeJon Watson had input on the kids Rizzo agreed on from LA in MaX / TT trade ?
Rutledge — sigh. But hey, at least he’s actually on a mound somewhere, unlike Romero or Denaburg. Sigh.
Speaking of poor development… we’d better hope Cavalli doesn’t turn into a pumpkin next year, or our hopes of getting something – anything! – out of our first round picks continues to not inspire much confidence.