The State of the Nationals Farm
It’s been a couple of years since I’ve done this post, so this is probably a good time to dust it off while we’re in a lull.
Yesterday, WaPo’s best sports columnist wrote about the need to find a star. I’m not sure I agree with that per se because winning is what makes a player a star.
Barry Svrugla (if you didn’t click through before and thought “Tom Boswell” – hey you made it out of the MASN comments!) correctly identfies the usual suspects: Dylan Crews, James Wood, and Brady House. Aside from making the comp of Keibert Ruiz to Wilson Ramos—which is like equating Davey Johnson to Davey Martinez—I think he’s right in that the rebuild is probably going to take another year or two.
The core of Josiah Gray, MacKenzie Gore, Cade Cavalli, and Jackson Rutledge is not bad. But if we’re being truly honest, this a group of 3’s and 4’s that might become a No. 2 pitcher on a contending team.
Unless Washington gets the mound equivalent of a Juan Soto, the Nats are going to have to trade for more pitching or (*gasp*) sign a top-tier free agent to get their next 1-2 punch. I think it’s too much to ask or wish for Cavalli and Rutledge to become the next Strasburg/Zimmermann, given how much older they are than their counterparts at the same stage of development.
That brings us to what I would hope to be the less-bad news: With a fair amount of promising position players on the horizon, particularly in the outfield, that may actually be possible. (Note the double qualifier).
Still, I’d feel much more confident if Washington had some pitchers worth trading with instead of for: The two key trades Rizzo made in building the World Series beast – for Gio Gonzalez in 2011 and Adam Eaton in 2016 – involved six pitchers.
“Barry Svrugla (if you didn’t click through before and thought “Tom Boswell” – hey you made it out of the MASN comments!)”
Hahaha, you read my mind!
I tend to agree that next year is not the first year of the window. After a bit of a false dawn in August, we’ve seen that this team is still full of holes. Wood, Crews, House, et al are the future of this team, and if they don’t pan out, we’re pretty much doomed, so we need to give them the time they need to find their footing in the majors. Ideally, they do it quickly, like Soto, and become above average regulars early into next season. But more likely, it takes a couple seasons before they reach that point. To accommodate that, we must leave space for them to eventually fill, which means another year of retreads at 3B, CF, LF and 1B, and likely another losing season.
We could try to speed up the process by signing, say, Jordan Montgomery or Sonny Gray to a 3-4 year at $20m AAV, and plug perhaps the most pronounced hole, but it’s a risky strategy. In the best case scenario, that probably gets us close to or in a WC spot, but with a rotation/bullpen like ours, we are EXTREMELY ill-suited for playoff success. More likely though, several prospects stall out, and we pull an Mets/Angels and pay a bunch of money for no success. I think next off season is the one to spend big. The team will have a much clearer idea of which prospects are going to stick, and will hopefully be looking at how to make this nearly .500 team into a playoff contender by bringing in that “star” (or better yet, 2 or 3 very good players). The Angels can tell you, stars don’t win ballgames, well balanced teams do.
I definitely hope the Nats go after one or two Montgomery/S. Gray-level SPs this offseason. That can be free agents or trade. Will that get them closer to the playoffs? Yes, although it’s hard to say how close. As I’ve written on Todd’s site, they have a greater deficit right now in run prevention than they do in run generation, and Rutledge and a recovering Cavalli aren’t really going to provide marked improvement.
I agree that the Nats’ top prospects aren’t ready to conquer the world next season, at least at the beginning. Wood and House made big strides in certain aspects of their games in 2023, but they’ve still got to find higher-level consistency, as does Crews. I would think that the hope is that this trio (and perhaps Lipscomb as well) can be promoted by the later part of 2024 so they can see what they have. Abrams, Ruiz, and Garcia have been allowed to play through MLB growing pains, and this next crew will have the same.
Here’s the point I keep making, though: the Reds didn’t think their young hitters were as close to ready as they were, and they’re going to miss a playoff spot this year for the simple reason that they didn’t spend enough to upgrade their pitching. That’s my fear for the Nats in 2024. Maybe it’s a pipe dream that they would be that close, but maybe not.
There’s a strong argument for following the Mets model. Throw a ton of money at free agents, then burn it all down if it doesn’t immediately yield results, with the added benefit of and essentially overhauling your farm system in the process. The problem is that the Mets had to eat a pretty big loss on guys like Scherzer and Verlander, but it was a pretty clever way to rebuild without accepting being very bad for 4+ seasons (the Nats’ current model).
I don’t get the impression that Rizzo is that kind of GM, and that the Lerners are the type to take risks and eat losses like Steve Cohen is. But its a way to somewhat minimize risk of signing Montgomery and/or Gray, if the prospects were to all stall out next season.
As I was just busting the chops of a guy in the Des Moines Airport wearing a phillie hat about Bryce Harper : it took Howie Kendrick to help win a WS …
I’m sure that Georgia guy Carter K will relish his tater in ATL last night for the rest of his life . You think his brothers were in stadium ??
Crews Wood Hassell and the rest of the Nasty Nats will get along in time with fans hearts .
I don’t think that there’s a strong argument for following the Mets model, except for the important one that it’s not my money.
I don’t want to move prospects because the Nats system, although improved, is top heavy so moving the top prospects really hurts. Another problem is that several of the prospects (House; Green; Susana; Henry) have lost some of their luster due to injury or struggles. I haven’t lost hope in any of them, but moving them now is a “sell low” move. My thought is that the Nats sign one player from the Jordan Montgomery/Shota Imanaga tier and one from the “bounceback” tier (say, Frankie Montas). Nola, Giolito, and Snell make me nervous and Gray is too old (turns 34 on 11/7).
NOla is a Cajun Tiger alum !!
In case Cole Henry fades into history with the likes of Stan Spencer Justin Wayne and Josh Karp .
I’d agree — both trades I cited were to get the proverbial missing piece. The Nats are more than one piece away from being a contender.
What John is thinking is pretty much what I am. Sign one Montgomery-level guy and one bounceback guy. Of course Kuhl was the bounceback guy this season and was embarrassingly bad. There are NO guarantees with pitching contracts, as we know too well.
I also agree that the trade stock is devalued right now. I wouldn’t put House in the devalued list, although their heavy “load management” of him remains concerning. He’d have significant trade value, but unless they have real health concerns about him, I see him as one of the untouchables right now, along with Wood and Crews.
Hassell, Green, Pineda, Cruz, de la Rosa, all the sore-armed pitchers — no trade value. One piece I might part with who does have a little value is Lile, but probably not enough by himself to amount to much. Vaquero has value, but he also has so much untapped potential that you’d be risking selling low.
That’s where internal evaluation comes in. One of my favorite trades remains Meyer for Span. The Nats correctly determined that Meyer wasn’t going to reach his advertised potential and got a solid, established everyday player for him.
Another rough comp I would make is that Irvin and Rutledge are in a similar situation as Milone and Peacock were when they were included in the Gio trade, and actually had better numbers than the current duo. I wouldn’t mind packaging them if you could get a higher-level starter in return. Of course another key piece of that trade that people seem to forget is Gio’s willingness to sign an extension.
following the literal definition of the post it’s safe to say the state of the minor league system has never had such depth of hitters. pitching is a bit thin but there’s no telling what we have in Sykora or even Susana. this makes sense given their recent draft history and the nature of the return from the tear down trades.
at the top I’m not sure we’ve gotten to where Rizzo wants in staffing and scouting/analytics. hopefully the extension came with full authority moving forward.
I think the model is anti-Mets and more Cardinals.
Where can I find the MASN comments? What date? Thanks.
Any date, any story. TBH, WaPo is almost as bad. The stupid in both places will come out within a few comments.
I haven’t been able to see comments on the MASN site for a while. I’m pretty sure that’s because I won’t let the site put cookies on my computer. I’m OK with not seeing the comments.