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Wednesday’s News & Notes; Day 3 Draft Results/Discussion

Team Yesterday Today Pitching Probables
FCL Nationals Lost, 6-2 vs. FCL Cardinals, 12 p.m.
DSL Nationals Postponed @ DSL Cubs Blue, 11 a.m.

FCL Marlins 6 FCL Nationals 2
• Saenz 3IP, 2H, 1R, 1ER, 0BB, 1K
• C. Sanchez (L, 3-1) 4IP, 5H, 5R, 5ER, IBB, 2K
• Mota 2-5, R, 2B, SB, E(12)
• Soto 2-4

The FCL Marlins broke a 2-2 deadlock with a four-run 7th as they tripled up the FCL Nationals, 6-2. Dustin Saenz went the first three, giving up one run on two hits without a walk and just one whiff. The loss went to the non-rehabber Camilo Sanchez with five runs let in on five hits and an intentional walk over four innings. He struck out two. Jorgelys Mota singled, doubled, and scored a run while Elian Soto singled twice to lead the F-Nats eight-hit parade.

DSL Nationals vs. DSL Arizona Red – PPD
Wet grounds were cited for yesterday’s game being postponed. It’s not clear when or if the game will be made up.



NATS STOCK UP ON PITCHERS IN DAY 3

SSDY: Eight of the final day’s picks were pitchers – all four-year college guys – though only one was a college senior, continuing the trends of Day 1 and 2.

Round Player Position Dimensions School
11 (320) Merritt Beeker LHP 6’2″, 198 Ball State (Jr.)
12 (350) Alexander Meckley RHP 6’2″, 240 Coastal Carolina (Jr.)
13 (380) Bryant Olson LHP 6’6″, 255 Mercer (Jr.)
14 (410) Yoel Tejeda Jr. OF 6’8″, 215 Florida St. (So.)
15 (440) Sir Jamison Jones C 6’2″, 225 St. Rita HS (IL)
16 (470) Nolan Hughes LHP 6’5″, 235 Xavier (Sr.)
17 (500) Gavin Bruni LHP 6’3″, 205 Ohio State (Jr.)
18 (530) Teo Banks RHP 6’2″, 209 Tulane (Jr.)
19 (560) Ryan Minckler RHP 6’2″, 185 Niagara Univ. (Jr.)
20 (590) Colby Shelton 3B 6′, 195 Univ. of Florida (So.)

Are there any hidden gems here? No idea. But one thing that occurred to me is that perhaps the tilt toward college juniors is an effort to offset the “nowhere to go” effect of ending the FCL next week. Clearly, the Nats are not afraid of any of these guys threatening to not sign and go back into the draft. Perhaps what little leverage there was has been destroyed by reducing the number of rounds to 20.

Have at it in the comments…

22 Commments

  1. Great point Luke about the round 20 reducing leverage with under classmen .
    Tejada, Jr OF or RHP
    Even Beeker seems like a minor league reliever to lend to the loogie pile and bullpen by committee nights starts at affiliates .
    Overall this draft is sort of a yawner .

    1. agree that the “oh yeah” moment never came for me. most of my excitement will be to see if the new eyeballs have discovered something in Seaver King and Luke Dickerson. the latter seems to be the above slot guy. the two catchers could be valuable contributors but otherwise the draft guru’s declarations of this as a weak draft may be true.

      1. Interesting life resume for young Ryan Minkler. Numerous guys have utilized the infamous “ transfer portal “ in their academic
        Athletic pursuits .

    2. Interesting tid bit : Teo Banks attended HS which inspired the show Friday night lights
      He’s quite the athlete with a dad who has baseball skills too .

  3. My dog is is the early one today ?? Or did your dog Luke arise earlier for dawn patrol ?

  4. coming into 24 one of the players I was most excited about was Jorgelys Mota and the thoughts of seeing him play everyday in A ball alongside some of the other young prospects. instead he opens the season in the complex and on June 8th is batting .146 with 2BBs and 29Ks in 93 PA. he then doesn’t play for over two weeks. injured? time-out? who knows.

    since then .229 BA, 7BBs and 23Ks in 53 PAs. not exactly inspiring but if you toss the first three games back it looks significantly better and he’s hit in five straight while batting .308. he’s still striking out too much but at least is starting to take a walk at a decent rate. he’s been moved up in the batting order since his return.

    with the FCL wrapping up soon (insane) will he finish strong enough to get a look in F’burg? was that some actual coaching going on back in June? fingers crossed.

    1. FredMD makes one wonder if the blue print has changed with going with the Arizona / Danny Haas one veering away from the big bonus money rolls thrown at unknown talents gushing with Scouting brass buzz like Mora and others

  5. Yes, it was driven home over the last couple of days just how bad the draft was as I looked up these guys. Several are nephews of Nuke LaLoosh. One had a 13.2 BB/9 this season, which is truly an amazing number. I’m sure they all throw hard, and hopefully still have the original rubber bands in their elbows.

    The 11th-round pick, Merritt Beeker, looked decent on paper. The only real pick of note was Colby Shelton in the 20th-round, a draft-eligible sophomore who would have to be bought out of another season at U of FLA. He had 20 homers but 82 Ks, and 25 homers the season before at Bama, where he was a teammate of Andrew Pinckney. (I wonder if the front office consults the former teammates of guys on their board.)

    1. They question about draft strategy: If Shelton was such a great idea as a possible big-money steal, then why did the Nats wait till round 20 to choose him? A lot of those 11 through 19 pics seem like longshots at best.

    2. KW we both caught that Bama Pinkney link .
      How often we look at old draft boards from many years ago saying … a lot of baseball careers
      Concluded before age 22-23 .

  6. I hope this works out, but this is also how it would look if some guy came in and said “we have the new moneyball method” and ran the entire draft off an algorithm, picking by highest scrabble score in their middle name or something.

    1. I’m sure there was some interesting give and take between the new guys talking spin rate and the old ones going, “Damn, he’s 6-8!” (Never mind that’s also the range of his ERA.)

  7. This draft strategy made no sense. If we reached on guys to save, who exactly did we save to go overslot for? Nothing exciting a la Sykora so it’s really disappointing.

    Seems to me just penny pinching. Who knows, maybe they have an internal budget and whatever savings they get in this draft they can reallocate towards IFA’s?

    1. Question : I wonder if anyone in the Nats drafting room had a better idea where Schmidt would have gone IF he didn’t honor his full ride to LSU? His pulling out shifted the first and early second rounds

  8. In addition to being at least 6’2″, it seems a new feature of Rizzo’s prototypical pitcher is loose control. An interesting additional column could have been their BB/9 in college:
    11. Beeker – 3.6 in 2024 (4.4 in college career)
    12. Meckley – 4.6 (only played one season in D1)
    13. Olson – 9.8 (only played one season in D1)
    14. Tejeda – 7.8 (6.2)
    16. Hughes – 13.2 (11.2)
    17. Bruni – 7.2 (7.3)
    19. Minckler – 4.6 (5.2)

    That’s A LOT of walks!

    The strikeout rates aren’t particularly eye catching. Most of them struck out more than 9 per 9IP, but few of them (Beeker and Hughes) had really outstanding numbers (>13.5 K/9). The scouts are definitely seeing something here that doesn’t show up in the stat lines.

  9. Watched over half Seaver King’s 2024 games for Wake Forest. He has a lot of athletic talent. He is fast; his bat speed is about the best in college baseball in 2024, and he has above average tools to play SS, 3B, 2B and CF (he played all of those spots for WF last year). His plate approach is not super-advanced, which is a concern, but this was his first year of playing above D2. He tore up the Cape League last year and was also stellar for Team USA last Summer. There’s a lot to like about him. He has every tool to be an elite player. For those still scarred by the Elijah Green disaster, King makes contact.

    Otherwise, not trying to be overly critical of those that are down on the Nats 2024 draft, but think that most people down on the Nats’ draft have no clue.

    Yes, after a player is drafted, we can all go back to the 2024 stats and make an uninformed comment based on walk rate or strikeout rate (the Nats staff was well-aware of the stats), but I doubt anyone posting here saw a single game of any Nats draftee, other than King (and most likely never saw King play). Maybe someone watched Robert Cranz’s 3.1 inning outing against Florida in the Stillwater Regional (which was strong) against the Nats’ 20th round pick Colby Shelton, but other than that, anyone trying to draw a conclusion based upon a player’s college stats or even his gamelog is fooling themselves.

    If the Nats are making draft decisions based upon such a superficial analysis, then yes, the draft likely sucked. Hoping that the Nats’ analysis and evaluation was massively deeper than that. Not attempting to claim that I have any more of a clue over the quality of this draft (I don’t), but to critique it as a bad draft at this point, based on a quick review of college stats is comical. I’m sure the Nats could have won the stats Olympics with this draft, but that is not the only evaluation tool.

    If your complaint is that the Nats did not try to a steal a late-round prospect with left-over bonus money, don’t think we have any idea what its going to take to sign Lomavita, Bazzel and in particular Luke Dickerson (those three plus King are the key to this draft). FWIW, do think the Nats will have to pay more, maybe a lot more, to sign the 20th round pick Colby Shelton out of Florida (he was projected to go in the first two rounds heading into this season).

    I do know that the Nats loved Dickerson, and considered him a first round talent. Also, know that his commitment to UVA is strong, and it will take a major overslot commitment to get Dickerson. Otherwise, think that King was the best player on their Board at #10, and after the first five picks, the Nats took players with at least one elite tool, and they hoped they could develop the other ones. Will it work? Have no clue, but not going to get wound up over a 16th round pick from Xavier with a high walk rate.

    2. much appreciate the perspective on King. especially so as it includes visual based evidence

      1. Mookie Betts sure changed the landscape of how some scouts viewed talent skills

  10. Yes maturity takes many forms within the player development process like a bad of instant microwaveable popcorn .
    I can eat humble pie if one of the kids ends up late career bloomer like Jeff Fassero on the Expos or Norm Charlton in Cincy after the trade for Wayne Krenchiki . Lol!

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