NationalsProspects.com

Vote for Your Favorite Arms

Favorite-Arms2
Well, thanks to an unusually busy December thus far (which could make for painfully longer January), we’re finally getting around to voting on Washington’s minor-league pitchers, a.k.a. the arms.

Like before, send your Top 10 list to enfieldmass-top10arms[at]yahoo[dot]com (link will open your preferred email client) or post them in the comments.

I’ll then tally the votes, weighting them in reverse order (#1 = 10 points, #2 = 9 points… #9 = 2 points, #10 = 1 point) and then post the results along with the requisite comments and/or snark.

Now, one of the things that came out of Tuesday’s post was a lovely little exchange on Twitter between myself and his holiness John Manuel of Baseball America. In case he deletes his response (folks have been known to do that), BA ignores service time in favor of ABs for position players (130), IP for starting pitchers (50), and appearances for relievers (30).

I bring this up because there is one rather notable pitcher who has exceeded his rookie eligibility – A.J. Cole. If you were under the impression that all September activity does not count, that’s not quite accurate. September doesn’t count towards service time, but IPs and ABs do.

Now, to make matters worse, baseball-reference.com is listing players that I’m 99% sure have not exceeded either limit of service or playing time (like this guy). This may very well explain why BA ignores that loophole; it is easier to calculate.

However, I still think rookie-eligible is the standard because these kind of exceptions usually aren’t a big deal. Let’s be honest: Cole and Wilmer Difo are in the conversation primarily because the upper levels of the Nationals minors have been thinned (or aged) out.

So A.J. Cole is off the table with four other pitchers are gone via trades this month, so this ought to be a very interesting exercise. So vote early (но не часто, спасибо), and let’s see how this goes.

CORRECTION
I got the 50 and 45 mixed up in my head. Cole is eligible.

33 Commments

  1. Your site, your rules; but I don’t quite understand where you are coming from with A.J. Cole. He only has a total of 47.2 MLB IP (9.1 in 2015 and 38.1 in 2016). Are you saying the days he pitched in September count toward his service time and that in conjunction with his non-September service time that puts him over the service time rule? The MLB.com website (for all it’s flaws it is usually pretty good about who officially still has rookie eligibility left) lists A.J. as No. 10. It does not show Difo at all which makes sense based on his service time.

  2. 1. Fedde
    2. Voth
    3. Glover
    4. Watson
    5. Brinley
    6. Luzardo
    7. Simms
    8. S. Fuentes
    9. Y. Ramirez
    10. W. Davis

    HM: DSL Rotation (Chu, Guillen, Infante, Sisnero, each of whom was very good this year, if slightly old), Jhonatan German, Borne, Howell, Peguero, Pantoja

    That list got really difficult after #6. It hasn’t helped that we’ve drafted pitching pretty miserably the past couple years.

    1. Add Andrew Lee to the honorable mention list. He’d have been around #7 if there were any information about his injury, but given he was out since May, it sounds like it’s pretty serious.

      1. I had great hopes for Andrew Lee. My understanding is that he had a TJ at some point before he was drafted. Obviously a second one would be very bad news, although we have no idea what has happened to him. On the flip side, he was quite a slugging 1B his last year in college, so who knows how his career might shake out.

        Let’s see, Lee as a Jr. at Tenn.: .306/.388/.590. He had nine homers and nine saves.

    3. I’ve actually hit a wall after four. I have a hard time voting for anyone who has yet to throw a pitch.

  3. 1. Fedde
    2. Voth
    3. Glover
    4. Watson
    5. Mapes
    6. W. Davis
    7. A. Lee
    8. Baez
    9. Mills
    10. Luzardo
    Cole would have been No. 5. “Honorable” Mention in case there are more trades: Brinley, Grace, Cordero, Crownover, Peterson.

  4. 1. Fedde
    Big Gap
    2. Koda Glover
    3. Austin Voth
    4. Tyler Watson
    5. Matt Crownover
    6. Ryan Brinley
    7. McKenzie Mills
    8. Jimmy Cordero
    9. Jesus Luzardo
    10. Gilberto Chu

  5. I’ll say this exercise certainly is a bit more “who the heck knows?” than usual. That said:

    1. Erick Fedde
    2. Koda Glover
    3. Austin Voth
    4. Tyler Watson
    5. Jesus Luzardo
    6. Andrew Lee
    7. Joan “The Night the Drove Old Dixie Down” Baez
    8. McKenzie Mills
    9. John Simms
    10. Jake Johansen

  6. Who the heck knows, indeed:

    1. Fedde
    2. Glover
    3. Voth
    4. Watson
    5. Jaron Long
    6. Mapes
    7. Simms
    8. Weston Davis
    9. Brinley
    10. Jimmy Cordero

    I have hopes for both of the wounded-wing draftees, Luzardo and Williamson (sub-3 ERA as a starter in the ACC), but I want to see them actually do something before ranking them. I’ve been big on Andrew Lee all along but have no idea where he stands. Guys whose numbers caught my eye include Tommy Peterson, Kyle Simonds, Jacob Howell, and Francys Peguero (9.9 K/9). McKenzie Mills and Yonathan Ramirez should progress along with Watson and W. Davis to make for a very young rotation at Hagerstown.

  7. OK, I’ll give it a try. Fedde, Glover, Watson, Baez, Y. Ramirez, Voth, Lazardo, Crownover, Brinley, and Cordero

    1. He’s among my HMs. WHIP of 1.000 and ERA of 2.19 are a great start as a pro. He just needs to get his Aggie buddy Nick Banks in gear.

  9. Fedde
    Voth
    Glover
    Cole
    Luzardo
    Watson
    Davis
    Mills
    Baez
    Brinley

    It. Wasn’t just losing Giolito and Lopez that made this hard, but Dunning, Avila and Hearn really killed the depth of the system. I struggled quite a bit after 6.

      1. You would have to think that the trade of Avila was a vote of confidence in Watson/Davis/Mills/Ramirez, who are around the same age and all advancing well.

  11. Luke, perhaps you could crank the list up to 11 (places) to account for Mr. Congeniality who gets bumped from the top 10 by Cole’s reentry into the race.

Comments are closed.