This upcoming year will be Year Three of the rebuild. Consequently, expectations will be higher despite (or perhaps because of) the “Big Nats” exceeding projections this past season, going from 55 wins to 71 instead of, say, 65. But going from 71 wins to 81 wins (i.e., .500) will be much harder, never mind the the 84-88 win mark that’s roughly enough for teams to make the playoffs.
Perhaps the best thing would be for the Big Club to start strong so the nucleus at Harrisburg can get their feet underneath them, though I suspect one or two of them will be bumped up Rochester, given that (a) no one is blocking them (b) there may be a logjam, especially in the outfield.
After reviewing the comments made when I first threw this spaghetti against the wall drew this up, I’ve made a few changes, including (but not limited to):
- Swapped out ’23 picks for Rule 5 Picks
- Broke apart the notables
- Swapped Elijah Green for Roismar Quintana from OF to Notable Bats
- Dropped Tim Cate, Branden Boisserie, and Michael Cuevas
- Removed Amos Willingham and Jose Ferrer (exceeded rookie thresholds)
- Added TJ White at 1B
- Added Onix Vega back to C Forrest Gump pause again
- Added Jack Sinclair and Luke Young to RHP
- Collapsed the DSL Arms and Bats into one from 10 to 4 total
Now the obligatory reminders about what this is (and isn’t):
• Most of these guys will not make it past High-A – Only a handful will make it to the majors, and most of those will be bench/role/reliever-types. Despite what some of the quants may argue, finding and developing major-league players takes both time and numbers.
• It’s not a depth chart – Players are listed primarily by the highest level they’ve played, minors or majors. I’ve been tempted to alphabetize by the last name to make this point more obvious.
• It’s not a prediction of usage – The Nats like to play infielders at multiple positions in the short seasons and it’s not unusual for some pitchers to both start and relieve for quite some time before it becomes clear how they’ll be used. As the scouts will always tell you: Very few players make the majors at the same position they were playing when they were drafted.
| C | 1B | 2B/SS | 3B | OF | M*A*S*H |
| Millas | Frizzell | Baker | House | J. Young | Cavalli |
| Pineda | White | Made | Lipscomb | Wood | Henry |
| Vega | Ochoa Leyva | Brown | Morales | Hassell | Brzykcy |
| M. Romero | Glasser | Mota | Crews | Bennett | |
| Cooper | Pinckney | Collins | |||
| Lile | Aldonis | ||||
| Green | |||||
| Nunez | |||||
| Vaquero | |||||
| RHP | LHP | Rule 5 Picks | DSL Guys | Notable Arms | Notable Bats |
| Rutledge | Parker | Vasquez | Batista | Ribalta | Stehly |
| Sinclair | Herz | Arias | Portorreal | Marquez | De La Rosa |
| Schoff | Alvarez | Acosta | Roman | J. Garcia | Lawson |
| Lord | Saenz | Gallardo | Tavarez | Tolman | McKenzie |
| Theophile | M. Perez | Sykora | Thomas | ||
| Lara | Agostini | Sthele | Cruz | ||
| Grissom | Carmona | Simpson | Quintana | ||
| Atencio | |||||
| Susana | |||||
| L. Young | |||||
| Leon | |||||
| Mo. Diaz | |||||
| Jimenez |
After my admin gets around to it, this list will be posted in the tab above and in the sidebar. January will be spent building these out while waiting for the prospect books to arrive.
From time to time, I’ll let you know when I’ve finished a category or two, but you can also check to see when a category has been hyperlinked. That means I’ve finished it.
In the meantime, feel free to discuss in the comments…