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All Quiet on the Minor-League Front

With all eyes and interest on the Shohei Otani contract—and its rather familiar deferral of paymemts [insert Bobby Bonilla joke here]—there’s not very much to pass along to our little corner of the Natmosphere.

I suppose it’s a bit of a story regarding the new vice president of amateur scouting, but you’ll forgive me for not joining the knee-jerk chorus of praise (seriously, must every blog contain long blockquotes of what Mike Rizzo said on talk radio?) – especially when we just went through this with DeJon Watson.

I will say, however, there was a Gen. Westmoreland-level statement that bears repeating:

The challenge is significant. For all their success during their run of contention from 2012-19, the Nationals haven’t had much success at all in the draft over the last decade.

In a related story, Detective Holmes remains severely constipated. Have at it in the comments, but not at each other, ok?



19 Commments

  1. No shite , Sherlock about that constipation . Even in another MASN article Eddie O was excited about Green .
    Leave it to the canines to give their body language in the winter time in relation to the major spin going on to give helium to prospect balloon reputations .

    1. Here is the puff piece on Green that Jeff mentioned:

      https://www.masnsports.com/blog/nats-expecting-bounceback-for-green-don-t-sleep-on-elijah

      What else are they going to say? “The kid can’t make contact even if they put it on a tee.” I see that FanGraphs has a 20 hit grade on Green, not anywhere near the 40 claimed in the article. (Maybe it was a 40 coming out of high school?)

      In this season of believing in a mystical elf who comes down chimneys, I want to believe in Green. I really do. He has all the physical talent in the world, and he’s maintained elite exit velo among the whiffs. But . . .

      Perhaps having Crews, Wood, and Hassell attracting more attention on up the pipeline will give Green a chance to mature with less glare from the spotlight. Let’s hope he truly is working as hard as the article indicates. I’m not holding my breath, but it’s quite blow if you have a #5 pick overall not pan out.

      1. it will be a disappointment but it is hardly unprecedented. I’ll root for the kid to make it and if not hope that he is prepared for the rest of his life outside of baseball.

        I’m pretty sure the Nats knew it was a risk, also sure some may disagree with taking it over a lower ceiling/higher floor prospect.

      2. Does he need Lasik Ete Surgery? With all the skills he apparently has, it is “dumbfounding” how he seems to whiff at an astromical rate in the low minors!!!!

          1. Your dog is stirring , Luke .
            Jim hickey has an old student in the stable
            Dylan Floro 2016 Rays pen .
            Being an old fan of Tim Wallach CSF Titan alum
            – love all Titan alums .

    2. You know I’ll eat crow if Elijah rises and becomes 21 “ Black Jack “ Royal flush
      Now his wrist injury has been discussed on this platform but how much different was it compared to Hondo Hassell?

  2. I’d like to see Zuckerman a bit more reflective on progress made since this article he wrote over two years ago: https://www.masnsports.com/blog/nats-must-start-turning-draft-picks-into-quality-big-leaguers

    “Things do look better now, though the problem is far from solved. The Nationals still need more future big league talent in their system. And to do that, they’re going to need to be better at scouting, drafting and then developing players.

    To that end, organizational changes appear to be coming.

    “We’re certainly going to make some changes in the player development and scouting ranks, just to get some new ideas and some fresh looks and some fresh sets of eyes in there,” Rizzo said Sunday. “And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. Ten or 12 years with the same staff shows the cohesion, and then when you make some nice tweaks to get a new set of eyes and some new ideas is never a bad thing.”

    With basically a complete overhaul of the guys brought in since 2021, what does that show?

  3. Jeter Downs DFA’d. Try not to yawn. With the lack of infield depth in the upper minors, I assume that they’ll try to keep him.

    Any time you question what the Nats got for Soto, or even for Trea and Max, just remember Downs, Alex Verdugo, and Connor Wong for future HOF Mookie Betts (and the carcass [and contract] of David Price).

    1. I wouldn’t be so dismissive of the Betts trade in comparison to the Turner/Scherzer deal. As it happened a year and a half later, it’s still a bit early to make any definitive judgements, but the Dodgers were acquiring one year of Betts, while the Dodgers acquired two seasons of Turner+Scherzer (1.5 seasons + 0.5 seasons), meaning the value of acquiring Turner/Scherzer (and therefore package offered) was greater than Betts.

      Gerardo Carrillo and Donovan Casey are complete writeoffs at this point, so it’s fully down to Ruiz and Gray. Ruiz and Gray have been worth a combined 3.2 fWAR for the Nats in nearly 5 combined years of play. Not great!

      Whereas, Verdugo hasn’t been anything special, but he was still worth 3.8 WAR in his his first two seasons for the Red Sox – more than Gray and Ruiz combined – while Downs was a writeoff and Wong basically irrelevant (though still with some very modest upside).

      Of course there’s still a pretty good chance both Ruiz and Gray turn a corner in 2024 (I sure hope so!!), but given that the Scherzer/Turner package was more valuable than the Betts package, the return to date has somehow been worse than the one the Red Sox got. I’m optimistic that Gray and Ruiz can together outperform the 3.2 WAR Verdugo put up in his 3rd and 4th seasons, but it’s not a given.

      1. I still have good hope for Gray and great hope for Ruiz. The issue, as it has been throughout the system, is that there isn’t much evidence of fine tuning by the coaching staff. And yes, those two were always the fulcrum of the trade.

        Casey was already 25 and stuck at AA at the time of the trade, with some reasonable power but a strikeout problem. There wasn’t too much expectation of a ceiling from him, although he flashed briefly at Harrisburg before fizzling.

        Carrillo was the lottery ticket, one that never came close to cashing. He was a starter already at AA at age 22 at the time of the trade, with good K numbers but control issues. In other words, he was the kind of guy who has always tantalized Rizzo and his crew but who has almost never paid off (although we still have our fingers crossed about Herz).

  4. @Will your math is a bit of a reach (the trade happened with two months to go in a six month season, so it’s more like 1.35 + .35, so 1.7:1 in terms of player time) but the principle is correct, that the Dodgers arguably traded for more in the Max/Trea trade than in the Betts trade. Fair.

    But I also note that for your calculation of Verdugo > Ruiz/Gray for the first two years uses fWAR (Verdugo 3.8 fWAR his first two years in Boston). If one uses B-R (rWAR), Gray (3.1) and Ruiz (1.3) totaled 4.4 WAR in 2023 alone. They also put up 2.1 rWAR in 2022 (Ruiz 1.6, Gray 0.5). Verdugo also did better by rWAR, totaling 4.4 in his first two years with Boston. But that was well short of the 6.5 rWAR for Gray & Ruiz their first two years in DC. By fWAR Vergugo’s 3.8 does edge out Ruiz and Gray’s 3.1 through their first two seasons.

    Which confirms to me the basic internet principle that the more valid WAR to use for calculation is the one that tracks closest to the point that one is advocating. Although I’ve never particularly liked the way that fWAR evaluates pitchers, my thumbnail technique is to simply average the two WAR. By average, Verdugo put up 4.1 WAR in the two seasons and Ruiz/Gray 4.8 in theirs.

  5. Speaking of trade returns, are we ever going to see Aldo Ramirez again? The only thing I can find is that he had TJ in the spring of 2022. How would that sit him out for two whole seasons? (Even if it was his second one.)

    1. Speaking of tantalizing, when the Nats traded for Aldo Ramirez he was considered the ‘best arm’ in the Red Sox system. The only good news is he is still in the system and only 22.

      1. Ramirez before the trade, in full-season A ball as he turned 20 that May: 8 starts, 2.03 ERA, 1.13 WHIP, 9.3 K/9, 2.3 BB/9. WAY ahead of hyped guys like Lara and Susana at the same age/level.

        Ramirez after the trade: ERA balloons, arm falls off.

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