Thursday’s News & Notes

24 Commments

1. Curious that Luckham got a promotion ahead of Lara.

   I’m also surprised to see Infante released. He’s been no doubt a disappointment, but as a HS pick, he’s still pretty young. He just turned 23 a month ago, and was hitting a quite solid 118 wRC+ in Fredericksburg (even if he should have been far further advanced then low A).

   Looking at the sad state of Nationals’ infield options, and the new crop of players joining from the draft, roster spots are limited. But Infante wouldn’t have been first on my chopping block. John McHenry, an undrafted free agent, has a career AVG of .174 and is presenting hitting .131 this season. Murphy Stehly, 2 years older than Infante (25), is currently batting .214 in Wilmington, a bitterly disappointing season after a highly promising 2023. Paul Witt, almost 3 years older than Infante, turning 26 in October, is batting .200 between Harrisburg and Wilmington this season, with a career minor league AVG of .213.

   1. I guess you can surmise that some are cut out to be organizational guys and some aren’t.

   2. And Infante signed for over slot, so he must’ve been pretty highly regarded. Supp 2nd-rder Sammy Infante’s bonus from @Nationals is $1 mil (slot 71 value = $884,200). Florida HS SS, raw power, strong arm, chance to stay at SS. Miami recruit.
      @MLBDraft

2. Big press release by the Nats on the signing of Lomavita. Can’t find anything on the numbers.

   On Monday Dickerson changed his team from UVA to the Nats so we should hear something very soon.

   1. per Todd Boss Lomavita signed for under slot value leaving 1.4M and change to sign the remaining kids

      1. Wrong. You are forgetting the 5% overage, so it is more like 2M. Most of that went to Dickerson who signed for $3.8M

3. Also, who could have predicted the 2020 draft would have transpired the way it did? Cavalli and Henry might be permanently damaged goods, and while Powell is healthy at the moment, it looks like injuries may too have damaged him beyond repair. Infante is gone, and Brady Lindsly looks every part of the organizational depth catcher that he was meant to be. Meanwhile, the 5th (and last) round pick, who signed for a fraction of his slot value, Mitchell Parker, looks every part a major league pitcher, even if he’s faded in recent weeks.

   Strange draft.

   1. It was indeed a strange draft, at a strange time (COVID summer). I was skeptical of the Cavalli pick because he gave up hits at a high rate in college and there seemed to be better players on the board. Can’t fault how he progressed, though, until falling victim to Nats Elbow.

      I loved the Henry pick, though he was a steal. Other teams seemed to (rightfully) have more concerns about the medicals than the Nats did, though. Sigh.

      Hated the Infante pick. It was another case of the Nats trying to act smarter than everyone else. He wasn’t in the top 150 on most boards, and he was already turning 19 in a summer where he wouldn’t play. They gave him a million anyway.

      I was pleased with the Powell pick, but injuries have completely derailed him. Lindsly was a big under-slot so they could overpay Infante, but kudos to him for making it to AAA.

      I thought Parker was an intriguing pick, and I was right about that one. He had the funky delivery and got huge K numbers in JUCO. They found him while scouting Rutledge, and he’s turned out to be better.

4. What a reversal ! Polanco gets hit hard
   CV brought out his offense in the shallacking
   Maybe it was just Lords Day vs Lara’s day to take the bus plane or Uber to Rochester .
   Yes so many on the chopping block in the infield . Infante had his chances much like Winder Diaz had his at Wilmington however fleeting
   Still the future holds which mysterious free agent pieces fit in the championship drive build . Which Daniel Murphy , Max or Werth types / leaders .

5. Sammy Infante is the first of what I suspect will be several struggling infielders to be released as the crop of shiny new draftees arrives. He was once one of those, an over-drafted, over-paid high schooler, one of several cases where the Nats thought they saw something that others didn’t. Infante was turning 19 as he was drafted, and it was the COVID summer, so he didn’t play until his age-20 year, in which he hit only .215 in the complex league. He swung wildly for the fences at 21, connecting for 17 homers but whiffing 127 times in the process. He’s hit only six homers since.

   So now he’s just turned 23 and has been released. Here’s hoping that he invested his $1 million signing bonus.

   1. “He was once one of those, an over-drafted, over-paid high schooler, one of several cases where the Nats thought they saw something that others didn’t. Infante was turning 19 as he was drafted”

      Sorry, my threads are getting crossed. You’re not talking about Dickerson, right? (I’m kidding, just the similarities are pretty uncanny, even down to Dickerson turning 19 in two weeks.)

6. What to do about 3B for the Nats for the rest of the season? Lipscomb is struggling too much and needs to regain his footing in the minors if he is ever to develop into a major leaguer. The options are few. One option is to wrangle a passable veteran third baseman that another team doesn’t mind losing, as a throw in to a deal this week. Or take a chance on a MLB-ready third baseman who is young and has team control as a primary target of a team trade (he wouldn’t be a top prospect but one with some real potential). You could also call up Kieboom. Yeah I know, ugh. But he is having a decent year and could be a better fill-in than Lipscomb for the remainder of the year, and he has first base versatility. What else?

   1. Kieboom has probably earned one last look though I don’t hold out any real hope. but frankly, yanking Lipscomb up and down tells me the Nats don’t view him as a top prospect so if he stays and struggles so be it.

      1. Not sure how anyone could view Lipscomb as a “top prospect”. Would expect Lipscomb to improve, but it appears his ceiling would be a multi-positional reserve MLB player, along the lines of Ildemaro Vargas. See no sign that his bat will ever justify projecting Lipscomb as a everyday player, particularly at a corner IF spot, where power is a necessity.

         1. while he has never shown the plate discipline I deem necessary to succeed, the buzz on him coming out of spring training said he had already won over more than a few fans. I agree with your assessment

         2. I’ve said all along that I hoped Lipscomb would be good enough that they didn’t have to re-sign Vargas, or a Vargas type. Lipscomb is already better than a Difo/Sanchez type of option. But I agree that he probably could benefit from more AAA time to refine his batting eye.

            That said, we know he works hard in the winter. He was a workout partner with Wood last winter, and look where they are now. I expect both of them to work hard to keep refining their games.

            For the short term, I got nuttin’. Lipscomb is at least a plus defender at 3B, which Kieboom isn’t.

         3. 3B are collectively hitting .239/.305/.380 this season. I don’t think it’s too far fetched to think Lipscomb could hit somewhere around there. Does that make him a “cornerstone for the future”? No. But it would make him a league average player, which is extremely important. You can’t have All Stars at every position, but if you can have league average/2ish WAR players to complement the stars, then you’ve set your roster up well.

            My two biggest concerns about Lipscomb are 1) the complete lack of power and 2) his defense. Lipscomb was the defensive player of the year last year, but he hasn’t looked like an elite defender to my eyes, nor to Statcast’s, which rates him about average. That’s probably not helped by being earlier jerked around the infield. But I’d hoped that, much like Jacob Young is doing, Lipscomb’s glove would carry him even if the bat was still very much a work in progress. Speaking of which, Jacob Young is currently tied for THE BEST DEFENSIVE PLAYER IN ALL OF BASEBALL. That’s bonkers.

7. Dickerson just signed for $3.8 million, which is $1.7 over slot. I think the Nats are tapped out not. Todd is the expert here, I await his numbers.

   1. Wow. Sounds like that is a record deal for a player drafted outside the first round (in terms of overslot).

   2. Just checked the last 5 drafts and $3.8 would be the largest bonus paid to a 2nd round pick. Would guess that this is the largest bonus ever paid to any 2nd round pick. Had heard that Nats loved Dickerson. Guess that proved to be true.

   3. About $300 or $400K. Some of which will likely go to Sir Jamison Jones. They might get Tejeda. Doubtful on Shelton.

   4. Holy cow! That’s A LOT of money for a HSer that wasn’t particularly highly regarded by anyone except the Nats. $3.8m is the slot for the 22nd overall pick. No one was calling Dickerson a 1st rounder before the draft. Good for him and kudos to his agent. But I hope this doesn’t prevent us from signing one (or more) of the remaining unsigned picks.

8. Jamison Jones just signed, haven’t seen the money yet. That’s 19 out of 21 signed.

9. Think with the 5% overage, after $3.8 for Dickerson, Nats have just short of $500k extra to add to $150k base for Tejada, Jones, and Shelton.

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