The NationalsProspects.com Top 10 Position Players

14 Commments

1. What I found especially interesting about this exercise was the surprising consensus that Wood is a superior prospect to Crews. I expected more people to prefer Crews. Crews had a dreadful stint in Harrisburg, but had an inversely impressive stint in Fburg and the FCL. Similarly, Wood had a fantastic stint in Wilmington to start the season, but struggled in Harrisburg, albeit not as glaringly as Crews did. But Wood’s 34 K% and .248 AVG there has me slightly worried.

   Still, Wood is half a year younger than Crews, so the fact that Wood easily outperformed Crews at the same level is what swayed me. However, Crews’ 1.068 OPS in Fredericksburg was insane (and FWIW .100 points higher than Wood’s insane .972 OPS in Wilmington).

   Unfortunately, the real “loser” in all of this is Brady House. There’s an argument to be made that House outperformed both Crews and Wood offensively. House’s wRC+, which weights performance according to the level, was 137. Crews’ was 135, and Wood’s 134, meaning they were all essentially identical offensively, but House still came out a hair ahead. But the perhaps biggest factor is that House is a year young than both Crews and Wood!

   One small note for editorial canine overlords: Hassell was rated 2nd in last year’s top bats rankings.

   1. Well Done!!!

      1. Luke a simple question
         How many times have we seen Winter meetings @ Nashville Opryland in the last 25 years ?
         Plus
         We have no idea how the reenergized PD staff will cold nitro the farm system with new free agent names

   2. I agree with the curiosity about the consensus of Wood over Crews. We were told all during the run-up to the draft that Crews is a “generational” player. Is it too much to hope that we have three of them? FWIW, nearly every national prospect list has Crews over Wood.

      I thought House was the highest-ceiling hitter in the 2021 draft and was thrilled when he fell to the Nats. He’s still yet to show the consistent big power, which finally came for Wood this season. I’m still concerned that they felt the need to “load manage” a strapping young fella for a third of the games of the season, so who knows what injury risk they were dealing with (still his back from 2022?).

      It’s not hard to close your eyes and imagine Wood and House as 40-homer guys and Crews as a Rendon type with 25 homers and 40 doubles. It’s the stuff that dreams are made of.

   3. Roddy off to pitch for Bucs Indy affiliate
      Maybe we hear T Mahle rumors in the winds ?

2. totally agree with Luke regarding ranking. Ruth, Williams, Cobb and DiMaggio can’t be ranked nor can prospects. the good news is that we finally have a system that has not one but multiple grade A prospects. more will fail than succeed, you need the numbers

3. Yes, “more will fail than succeed”, but nice to have a multitude of prospects. Hoping to see a much better season from Hassell in 2024, unless he indeed “becomes” Peter Bergeron.

   1. Don I was thinking more like Pirate draftee Doug Frobel the Canuck who passed through the expo chain for a few clicks .
      But let’s not put the cart before the horse with Hassel yet .

4. I didn’t have Jacob Young in my list but that doesn’t mean I am not thrilled that he got a shot at the show. that will never be taken away.

   wherever he’s played he has been in the lineup every day. I believe this is a testament to showing up every day prepared to help his team win. I admire this.

   I’m not convinced he won’t have a successful MLB career but I feel that playing every day in Rochester is the best course of action. if he is in DC on opening day and succeeds I will be thrilled to be proven wrong.

5. I would argue that, given the level and hitting environments, Wood’s OPS at Harrisburg was MUCH more impressive than Crews’s at Fredericksburg. Harrisburg is usually very tough for hitters. Not so for Wood and House.

6. I share Luke’s curiosity about the lack of love of Pinckney, who ascended rapidly in almost tandem superb stats with Morales. Yes, it was a small sample size, and yes, he wasn’t talked up that much around draft time, before or after, even by Kline and Rizzo. There’s a lot to like about how he started out, though.

   Luke also made an interesting point on T. J. White vs. Elijah Green. Both are still very young and have time to turn things around. In fact, it seemed curious that they kept White at A+ all season despite his struggles while they demoted Green, Cox, and others.

   Here’s hoping that they all can figure things out and that the system will have an embarrassment of riches. Green was in long conversation as a 1/1 pick after all, as were House and Crews in their years. There’s a heck of a lot of raw talent here.

   1. I think your last paragraph explains the conundrum on the rankings. imagine the criteria for this list was “list the players that straight up would bring the greatest return in a trade”. it would be quite different IMO

   2. White should ascend higher than Green

7. I think the Green vs White comparison is pretty enlightening, in terms of how much deference, if any, we owe to the scouting prowess of the teams and the various national reporters.

   Green, despite striking out a third of the time as a high school senior, was uniformly rated in the top half of the first round and often talked about as the highest upside hitter in the draft. He was then drafted 5th by the Nats and dutifully slated into all of the team’s top prospect lists. Since then we’ve acquired some very highly rated prospects AND Green certainly hasn’t produced any new reasons for optimism, so he’s slid down a bit but most rankings have him somewhere in the second tier; a legit prospect but not a top guy.

   I get that many folks here, as well informed and relatively analytical fans, simply trust what they themselves can see. That’s mostly the stat-line and while Green’s overall stats were just mediocre, his k% is strikingly bad. Off the charts. That’s one of the most important stats to track in the minors and examples of eventual major league success after striking out 40% of the time in low-A are extremely rare (and it may in fact be an empty set). From that point of view, though he is still too young and too athletic to write off just yet, he should be considered a fringe prospect who is very likely to bust completely.

   In this story, White is a comparable asset. White was drafted in the 5th round to a full slot bonus, so he was not immediately org filler, but also not expected to be much more than a fringe prospect. Then he outperformed in his first full season; wRC+ of 118 despite being almost 3 years younger than his league. All of a sudden he was a legit prospect. Fast forward one year and it doesn’t look so great (wRC+ of 59 in 2023). But he’s only a few months older than Green and playing at a higher level. His K% is also 5.5 pct points better (so still high, but not record setting). Looking at just their stat-lines, it’s fair enough to hold them equivalent.

   But I’d argue that picture is incomplete and it would be silly to ignore the possibility that people who spend their whole lives watching baseball and projecting how players will improve in the future know things that I can’t figure out from aggregate stats or watching a couple dozen games.

   Maybe as players turn 25, or play their 4th full season, I can see weighing our evaluations more and more in favor of the actual results. But if you’re comparing two 19 year olds, both of whom struggled this year, and you’re even considering preferring the one with better production two seasons ago over the one that’s been scouted as a blue chip prospect, well, I think you’re making a huge mistake and could benefit from a little epistemological humility.

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