AFL Preview (PHOTOS)
The Arizona Fall League begins on Monday, with some interesting rule experiments – most notably allowing a righthanded batter a straighter path to first base so long as he stays on the dirt (obligatory Trea Turner reference here) and disallowing the new trend running straight through second base.
Thanks to Lee’s collegaue Jerry Kime, we have some pics to pass along of three of the Nationals’ contingent:
Thanks to Jerry (and Lee) for the pics! Always one of the best parts of the AFL.
Hoping that Hassell and Pineda can get some of that magic Millas desert pixie dust and find something in AZ, and that Lipscomb can continue to look like a real prospect. It will be interesting to see where they have Lipscomb playing defensively.
is this the O’s year or what? 100 wins and the Tides are in the AAA championship game tonight.
Was listening to Keith Law on his podcast awhile ago and he was asked why Robert Hassell was so mediocre this year at AA.
He said his swing is just fine but he is so weak physically that he gets overpowered by AA pitching. You hope the f.o. has a plan for that in the offseason.
That’s interesting about Hassell. I think they have nutrition/strength/conditioning in the Dominican and at the complex in FLA, but it seems to have been targeted more at the Latin signees. Plus Hassell came into the organization at mid-level, and I doubt they do as much of that AA, where a 20-year-old like Hassell is a rare exception.
All in all, I guess it’s good news, as conditioning seems easier to fix than skills deficiencies.
Keith Law knows a lot more about prospects than I do, but how does that make any sense? Hassell did indeed struggle to hit for power, but a lack of physical power doesn’t explain Hassell’s .225 batting average or his 32 K%. For example, Darren Baker is extremely weak physically, much more so than Hassell (only 6 career HR in 234 games!), yet he was still able to make good contact and hit .290/.356/.361 in Harrisburg. That’s a pretty miniscule ISO (.071) even compared to Hassell’s ’23 power outage (.099). Yes, strength is a problem for Hassell, but it’s just one piece of many he needs to work on. His power dropped, but his strike out rate increased, his walk rate dropped, all a bad recipe for success. There’d be a lot less concern for Hassell if he was hitting in 2023 like he was in 2022 when he was acquired (.299/.379/.467) but with like .100 fewer slugging points. But his BA dropped by .070, OBP by .060 and SLG by .150!
while this probably belongs on the previous post, I think the Nats did a good job of allowing prospects to show what they can do on the MLB level. it’s a balancing act to be sure as you owe the paying customers a legit chance at a win.
Irvin and Ferrar were promoted and stuck with mixed but not discouraging results. Willingham and Adon mostly mixed. Rutledge got a taste and held his own. Alu, Young and Kieboom all got legit looks and while they did not cement a spot on the opening day roster they’ll go into spring optimistic of a chance.
all these boys are homegrown talent, something that has been notably missing. if you allow Millas to be included with 75% of his minor league games in the organization I feel you’d have to agree this is the good start to the rebuild.
De Jon Watson is the next domino to fall in the Nats scouting and development set up: https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2023/10/02/de-jon-watson-nationals-player-development/
This is really surprising to me. I know many of us we speculating that Rizzo was cleaning house to enact a new vision for player development and scouting, but Watson was Rizzo’s handpicked guy from just two years ago. He was what I perceived to be one of the first moves in Rizzo’s wider overhaul since the firesale of ’21.
WaPo attributes it to cost-cutting measures from the Lerners. If that’s the case, that’s extremely worrying. We were running a shoestring scouting-dev operation as it was. I wasn’t worried about the guys getting pushed out. Their track records were spotty at best, but if we’re going to end up with an even leaner, under-staffed scouting and development team at precisely the time we need to be dumping as much money as possible into it, then we might be in a deeper hole than I thought. It’s also incredibly penny wise and pound foolish. The annual cost of De Jon Watson and a team of 10 is probably what we are paying Corbin for each start (I was originally going to use Strasburg, but it would take decades for them to earn Strasburg’s salary per start.)