Wednesday’s News & Notes

15 Commments

1. Pimental has 74 RBIs for Fred .
   Clutch .
   More relievers for Lowery .
   Let’s see Solesky go 6 tonight

   1. No Saturday or Sunday Sthele tonight lol

      1. Polanco season over @ 9 3 IP logged . Time to look at draftees

   2. Cranz’s fastball seemed to have some zip, let’s see if the spin doctors can make him into something.

   3. The Bleacher seat crowd commentary on the lack of SS league developmental leagues hampering some young kids maturing parallels the season Pimentel is having at Fred after being a NDFA
      Way to go , Brandon !

2. The bats showed up in force yesterday! Except Elijah Green, who went 0 for 6 with 5 Ks. Mercifully, he was able to ground out in the 9th to avoid a… titanium sombrero/double platinum sombrero or just a “horn” (a phrase coined by Mike Flanagan – thanks Wikipedia!), a feat which has NEVER occurred in a 9 inning major league baseball game. So congrats to Green on settling for his second platinum sombrero of the season.

   I continue to be impressed with Jorgelys Mota’s strange turnaround. After bombing in the FCL (.191/.271/.265), he got an undeserved promotion to Fredericksburg, where he’s now hitting .293/.354/.373 in an increasingly large sample size (21 games). Unfortunately, a closer look suggests this just might be an epic run of good luck. He’s still striking out almost 10 times as often as he’s walking, and benefitting from an unsustainable .468 BABIP…

   Really encouraging to see Hassell go deep again, after struggling with lingering wrist issues for the past couple months.

   Lastly, is Trey Lipscomb really just going to be a AAAA player? Since his most recent (justified) demotion, he’s hitting an extremely healthy .308/.386/.385 line in Rochester. I’ve written off him developing power that he teased in his senior year at Tennessee. But with well above average defense, and a solid batting average (he has a career minor league batting avg of .280 in nearly 200 games), he could be a very useful player to the Nats, and possibly a starter (assuming House’s development derails). But so far his bat just hasn’t translated at all to the major league level (a .207 AVG and just .032 ISO). I hope something will eventually click with him.

   1. The Nats have to like that Lipscomb hasn’t taken the demotion personally and has continued to play hard at AAA. This is a guy who made the majors after only one full season in the minors, so it’s not surprising that he’s still got some learning to do.

      One other thing to note is that during the MLB Draft broadcast, Tony Vitello gave a shout-out to Lipscomb for taking Christian Moore under his wing and helping with his early development at Tennessee. So he’s definitely a “high character” guy.

      The fact by itself that Lipcomb can be considered “shortstop-capable” should keep him on the MLB shuttle for a while. He should have a ceiling of at least Vargas. My hope is that he could be more of a Josh Harrison, who wasn’t SS-capable but who managed to become a solid-if-unspectacular .270 MLB hitter.

      Tena seems to have a similar skills set to Lipscomb, and more power, so it will be interesting to see how things shake out between those two.

   2. Trey may never become a very great baseball player, but he has the right mix of natural athleticism and work ethic to become a super utility player for the Nats!

3. Also just bringing forward yesterday’s thread on draftees.

   Luke, I also share your curiosity that some draft picks may never throw a professional inning, given the systematic gutting of short-season ball. Some of the arms the Nats picked this draft look very dubious (seemingly velocity freaks with no semblance at all of control). I won’t be surprised if someone like Nolan Hughes, who walked an incredible 52 batters in 35 innings in college, just isn’t able to hit the strike zone in instrux with any regularity and the Nats eat his $150k bonus. He wouldn’t be the first, not thousand and first player to never make it into A ball. But without short season ball, these releases may come hard and fast.

   It’s a shame, as your rightly point out, but it will at least be interesting to observe. I hope it’s just not too late to eventually undo the damage done to player development.

   1. While its preferable for the fans of the Nats player development for the drafted players to be assigned to a league where we can follow their development (or lack of development), all of these drafted/signed players that were not sent to an active minor league team are still playing baseball.

      They are training at the Nats Palm Beaches facility. Would assume that they are playing games essentially everyday with similarly situated players at the nearby training facilities (Astros, Marlins and Cardinals).

      I hated minor league realignment (among the many reasons Jeff Luhnow, the Astros GM who first proposed minor league contraction), but its erroneous to assume that the Nats farm players who aren’t at F’Burg are just sitting around playing video games. Guess time will tell if waiting to assign these players to actual minor leagues rather than sending these players to the Palm Beach facility to train is a less effective way to develop players, but my uneducated guess is that for pure developmental purposes they are about the same.

      1. I can’t remember who, I thought it was Keith Law, but a quick google search didn’t yield any results. But someone was writing about how the contraction of the NYPL and other short season leagues has had a profoundly negative impact on player development, and used Elijah Green as the posterchild for this. Basically, there’s now a huge chasm between the FCL and Low A ball, so that guys who aren’t yet totally polished either stagnate in the FCL for multiple seasons or fail in A ball. It’s not just Green, but Vaquero, Cox, Peoples, etc. HSers or IFAs that are struggling massively in A ball now. I’d assume the Nats aren’t unique in this situation.

         So all that to say, no, I don’t believe that the instructional facilities are comparable to the previous development model. But the minor league re-org was never about improving the development model, it was always about cost-saving measures, so it’s not surprising it doesn’t actually improve player development.

         But I’ll see if I can find that article, and post it here if I can (other posters, please help me out. I think Luke, Todd or KW had also referenced this before).

4. It’s way early, but the good news about Seaver King is that he makes contact:
   2 Ks in his last 40 plate appearances. Also, 5 SBs and no CS. Even with his 3 hit game last night, he’s been a little unlucky with his BABIP.

   OTOH, King does not talk walks… 1 walk so far. He has yet to find his power stroke: 2 extrabase hits in his first 11 games. Expect the power to come. Not sure if King will ever be a selective batter.

   King is still getting acclimated to professional baseball, but there are some things to like and some things to improve upon.

   1. I too look for prospects to walk at a reasonable rate, pitch recognition seems like something that is hard to teach. but I wonder if with the increased use of analytical data, hitters are looking for their specific pitch regardless of when it comes along. the top prospects still have the ability to lay off balls out side the zone but the end result may be more swings early in the count. time will tell if the norms for this data point are adjusted.

5. Just as a organizational approach on who they draft, the Nationals seem to put less stock in selective swing decisions. Nearly all of the Nationals top prospects are not on base machines. You look at other teams top 30s, such as the Dodgers and everyone makes good swing decisions and are taking walks. Even the guys with low BA’s have solid OPS due to taking shares of walks.

   The Nationals have drafted players who aren’t on base machines. They seem to value hard contact and aggressiveness in the zone. Both King and Lomavita while looked at as good hitters are very aggressive in the zone and didn’t walk much in college. Similarly to big leaguers like Ruiz and Abrams. Not taking walks really puts pressure on you to be a good hitter for average. Modern day baseball doesn’t necessarily love that prototype unless you are truly an above average hitter. The Nationals have never seemed to love drafting hitters with great eyes. Even the one player who the college data suggested had a great eye that they drafted, Dylan Crews, his minor league data doesn’t suggest the amazing eye he had in college. But maybe he shows different at the highest level.

   I do find the approach interesting though.

6. Went up to Harrisburg Tuesday for what’s become an annual trip. Very impressed with Robert Hassell 3 – smacked a tater. @ith 1 out, 2nd & 3rd, a frozen rope lined to center, he came up and snared just off the ground, keeping the runners at their base. Several other catches, showed good range. He could be a platoon partner for Jacob Young (.245/.300/.349 vs RHP) in the bigs.

   Also YoYo crushed one, but it was caught against the 405 marker in CF. Thought for sure it was going out.

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