Nats Draft HS Position Players on Day Two – Wait; What?
For years and years and years, we have been accustomed to two things from the Nats during the draft – college seniors and college pitchers (and sometimes both!).
Well, both this year and last, the top pick was a HS position player. On Day Two—rounds 3-10—they took two (2) more HS position players. With ten more rounds today, it may even be conceivable that they’ll draft two more to exceed last year’s total of four (three of which were signed).
I really don’t have much more to add (but plenty to detract, natch) as I’ve been pretty clear that I’m no draftnik. But what I do know and have propounded for years is that the Nats cannot rely solely on the Dominican Republic and Venezuela for their teenage talent. So I cannot complain about them finally doing what I have been hoping for them to do.
Now, I understand that many of you have doubts about the Nats’ ability to convert those high-ceiling HS picks into major leaguers. I do too. In the tradition of modern blogging, let me steal from Will in the comments, and point out how Nats HSers have fared in terms of BA and K%:
Hayden Jennings (2012) – .218, 36%
Drew Ward (2013) – .254, 28%
Jakson Reetz (2014) – .236, 24%
Blake Perkins (2015) – .233, 22%
Carter Kieboom (2016) – .281 (!), 20% (albeit 31% in MLB)
Justin Connell (2017) – .264, 18% (!)
Sammy Infante (2020) – .219, 30%
Brady House (2021) – .289 (!), 27%
Daylen Lile (2021) – .219, 25%
TJ White (2021) – .260, 29%
Dear MASN Commenters: Bryce Harper was a JuCo pick.
This, of course, is in reference to Elijah Green and his K rate that’s akin to President Biden getting Joe Manchin to toe the party line. OK, maybe not that bad. For (far) more astute commentary/coverage, check out Todd Boss’s post.
But Will’s point is quite valid. The Nats haven’t taken very many HS picks and haven’t been able to convert them into major leaguers.
But we were told this past offseason that things were going to change, so we can at least say this much: They’re now taking more chances with high-ceiling, high-risk players. If even one (1) of these guys makes it, they’ll match the total from the past ten years.
Thanks for the shout out. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not opposed to the Nats drafting HS bats. I’m just opposed to the Nats drafting Elijah Green with their #5 pick, when there were several much lower risk (with also huge upside) college bats still on the board, like Brooks Lee, Jacob Berry, Kevin Parada, and Jace Jung.
I LOVE that the Nats have decided to draft HS bats after they neglected to do so for the better part of a decade (only 6 such picks in 8 years!!). Infante, Lile and White are really interesting picks and worth the risk (though it would be nice if there was some/more evidence of the Nats coaching staff working with hitters, rather than the apparent hands off approach they’ve taken in years past). White, in particular, coming in the 5th round is exactly the sort of player we should be after, when a 5th round college player gets you someone like Jared McKenzie, who looks like a slow version of Andrew Stevenson. So it’s great they took Brenner Cox, who looks like he could be TJ White 2.0, whom they had a pre-draft agreement with. There’s NO information out there on Nathaniel Ochoa Leyva, which is strange (did he even commit to a college?).
However, all these new youngsters entering the system has me wondering, where the heck are they going to play? There’s already a huge bottleneck in the FCL and Fredericksburg rosters. How will the Nats accommodate 20 more players? They just drafted two college seniors who play 3B in Trey Lipscomb and Murphy Staehly. They’ll both sign quickly and for cheap. But in the FCL we have Angel Geraldo getting the lion’s share of starts hitting a good .293/.368/.379 at age 21 (younger than both Lipscomb and Staehly). Paul Witt and his .295/.411/.443 have been useful as a utility option. But at age 24, he’s GOT to be playing at a higher level. Then in Fredericksburg we have another obstacle, with Sammy Infante the nailed on starter at third.
Remind me again, why did major league teams want to contract their teams? Do the Nationals need to start a 2nd FCL team like the Astros have?
Good point Will but with the club on the block for possible sale ? I’d question brass investment in Complex 2 mod squad ( no Peggy Lipton )
Because the Astros, Brewers, and Orioles said that didn’t need to draft that a by and convinced the rest of the teams to go along with the idea, no doubt pitching it as a cost-cutting measure.
The smart teams have 2 FCL clubs. The Nats have all these players not playing in Florida because the roster is overstuffed.
Imagine
Did happen
Grissom Jr hmmmm
Nathaniel Ochoa Leyva is a “shortstop” the size of Brady House. I saw something that said he had a college commit to Purdue, but he played in the MLB draft league instead and slashed an underwhelming .224/.354/.269 in 31 games, with no homers. He turned 19 in May, so next year will be his age-20 season, with the clock ticking a little faster on him, as with Infante.
Several draftees who have transferred a few times including the Sun Devil who began @ Kevin Costners alma mater CSF. He could be an interesting pitching prospect to follow ?
Did Klassen transfer to UC-SB because of spray hittter BB?
All in all, this seems like a risky/underwhelming draft class, even by the Nats’ standards. The only one who seems to have a relatively high floor is Bennett, but they took him over to much more highly rated guys in Tidwell and Priellip, no doubt saving their pennies to pay Green’s ransom. I like taking a college bopper in Lipscomb, but my enthusiasm is tempered when I remember other 3d/4th round college boppers named Wiseman, Banks, Mendoza, and Hague.
Also, they took three outfielders in the first five picks. This is the position where they have de la Rosa, White, Lile, Quintana, and $5 million man Vaquero. I guess they’re looking hard to find their next Home Run Derby champion who they can’t afford to keep . . .
I’m in the minority it seems here. But this is one of my favorite Nats drafts. I feel like for too long the Nats were conservative taking high floor college guys with minimal upside. That did not work. Now they are taking bigger swings on high ceiling, low floor guys.
I’m a fan of the Elijah Green pick. Nothing against Parada or Lee but if Green connects he is more dynamic. If Green hits just .240 at the big league level but can connect on 30 homers/30 steals and play an above average outfield he is worth the risk. If he can hit better than that he should have been no.1. But I think he has value if he hits less than Parada and Lee who have to hit to have impact.
I also not a big fan of the Jake Bennett pick. I feel like there were higher ceiling arms available. He seems like a safe high floor big 12 guy with minimal stuff the Nats love to get after round 1.
I love the Brenner Cox pick. He’s a tall, lanky kid who most teams passed on due to a strong commitment. He could be the best player of this class. Another toolsy outfielder. High ceiling, no floor type lol.
But between Vaquero, Green, and Cox, the Nationals will have some of the toolsiest young outfielders in the minors. There hope is that at least one breaks into a stud. Then the risk will be rewarded.
But the Nats are definitely doing a new strategy. Position player heavier. We will see how it all shakes.
It is an interesting strategy for a team that has had very little success in drafting/developing above-average MLB contributors over the past decade to largely eschew “safer” picks and instead take a couple of big risks atop a pile of filler. Better hope they break the trend, because we need them to hit.
Um, I’d say that “very little success” is actually generous. “Zero” is more like it, over a decade of drafts. Which is why the Harold Reynolds comment that several of us mentioned yesterday had us nearly falling off our couches.
In partial fairness, success rates of any organization developing high school picks is very, very low, particularly guys taken beyond the upper reaches of the 1st round. Even with Kieboom, who was a model of progression through the organization, much better than any other high schooler the Nats have had, he still hasn’t come close to “making it.”
I guess it actually makes a lot of sense, in a sort of twisted way. We weren’t able to even develop the “safe” college arms we drafted, so maybe doing the opposite will yield opposite results?
It’s a stretch, because if we’re failing at developing much more sure things like Seth Romero, Erick Fedde, or Rutledge, then how on earth are we going to develop guys who need to learn fundamentals of the game? But as KW has pointed out, it can’t really get worse than its been for the the past decade. As I’ve pointed out many times, the most valuable player drafted and developed by the Nationals in the past decade is Erick Fedde, worth a whopping 1.5 WAR across six season. No other player has generated >1.0 WAR for the team in ten years. And unless Tres Barrera goes absolutely wild with his bat, this stat won’t change for a long time, as they are the only two players on the big league roster drafted by the Nats.
A bit off topic, but FanGraphs just posted an interview with the Yankees pitching coach, Matt Blake, about how they worked with Nestor Cortes to turn him into an All Star SP: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/yankees-pitching-coach-matt-blake-on-the-remaking-of-nestor-cortes/
It’s a super interesting article to understand how some other orgs handle player development, even for cast off minor league free agents. I’ve never, ever, ever seen anything like this sort of insight in the Nats org. In fact, just a few days ago Austin Voth was gushing about how different it’s been with the Orioles, enjoying his own post-Nats bounce back, saying “I was kind of blown away by all the data that they have here: The video guys and how they can break down stats and pitches. And individually things for each pitcher. That was big for me.”
Unfortunately, one thing the Nats have been able to do is trade away young players to get MLB guys. You could argue that this draft gives them the flexibility to do that if the new ownership doesn’t want to wait. It’s also just as likely they’ll have a(nother) fire sale in a couple of weeks. So much hinges on the team’s sale and Juan Soto, which I’d rather not think about it or waste energy worrying about it.
What really bothers me is that the economics of the game have changed so much that fielding a winning team isn’t as critical or even relevant. They’ll make money either way.
We were fortunate that the Lerner’s goal was to win. And, working under some financial and management constraints Rizzo got it done. If the new owners are all about the money then we’re screwed. If they’re wanting to win and create a long term commitment to fielding a team that consistently contends then I’m excited to see it through with Rizzo. He catches way too much criticism for running a team that won as much as anyone from 2012-19.
Hating the GM/manager of one’s favorite baseball team is a time-honored tradition. It’s why I often say that, at any given time, the 30 dumbest people in the world are the 30 MLB GMs. I base that on the fact that, judging from fan commentary, literally ANYONE else could do a better job.
The next 30 dumbest people in the world? The 30 MLB managers, of course.
In an attempt to be somewhat positive, I’ll agree with Breezy that I would be intrigued with the Brenner Cox pick . . . if the Nats had a history of developing such guys. Cox sounds like a similar situation to T. J. White last year where he didn’t spend as much time on the showcase circuit, and even then he was doing it as a two-way player. Between pitching and being the starting QB, he didn’t get a lot of exposure as a hitter. He looks like an impressive all-around athlete . . . but then so did Destin Hood. (Oops, sorry, I said I was going to be positive.)
Since we’re no longer able to draft sure-fire guys (Harper, Strasburg), it’s nice to see the Nats take a “risky” pick on a high schooler with a lot of potential. Too many times we’re taking guys college guys who never seem to rank as high in the top 300 as we’re drafting them, this year included. Green ranked 3 and taken 5 is the lone exception (well, save for our 20th rounder, who will likely never sign).
Bennett – ranked 68, taken with 45th pick
Lipscomb – ranked 136, taken with 84th pick
Jared McKenzie – pretty much a wash, ranked 142, taken 141.
Riley Cornelio – ranked 244, taken 201.
Brenner Cox – unranked, taken 111th
Ochoa Leyva -unranked, taken 171st
Chance Huff – unranked, taken 231st
Maxwell Romero Jr – unranked, taken 261st
Murphy Stehly – unranked, taken 291st
Stehly (5th yr SR), Huff (SR) their age likely why not ranked.
Just curious why the Nats draft team seems to rank people so differently. Could that be why we don’t develop people? We’re bad at evaluation?
Last year was similar, only House (ranked 8th, taken 10th) was higher ranked than draft position (Lile – ranked 80, taken 47, Boissere ranked 159, taken 82, Saenz ranked 189, taken 112). Mack Anglin was ranked 217 and taken 383 but never signed.
MLB.com isn’t the sole authority.
FanGraphs (top 187) and Prospects1500 (top 400) has the following rankings, respectively:
Green: 11, 2
Bennett: 55, 77
Lipscomb: 85, 123
Cox: 130-160 (Fangraphs only clustered players after #126), 287
McKenzie: 140-170 (same deal), 150
Cornelio: NR, 177
Huff: NR, 253
Romero: NR, 376
All remaining not ranked.