NationalsProspects.com

The payoff from last summer’s selloff came yesterday as the Boys in Durham™ released their first Top 100 Prospects List of 2023 (is that preseason or post-postseason?). Joining Cade Cavalli from last year, which saw three Nats make the Initial Top 100, are James Wood (11), Robert Hassell (57), and Elijah Green (58). Keibert Ruiz …

The Nationals love their legacies, though for the first time in a while, they went for a brother instead of a son. Elian Soto, brother of Juan, is the biggest name in the 2023 class as he was reportedly given a $225K bonus in addition to a $200K scholarship. However, outside of the “Natmosphere,” the …

Hibernation, as longtime commenter and e-migo Souldrummer suggested, seems to be in order as things have slowed down considerably, this being just the second post of 2023. The last BA transaction update had one signing: journeyman RHP José Mujica. Two days ago, the big club converted a waiver-wire pickup (A.J. Alexy) into a turning-19 RHP …

Here’s my semi-regular offseason post to let you know the site has not gone dark. There’s just not much news.

It turns out that only two of the four places I went to last summer on my baseball road trip had enough usable pictures, and I’ll be posting these shortly.

I’ve resisted the urge to cover the dumpster dives signs of Michael Chavis and Dominic Smith, as the beat writers and the rest of the Natmosphere have this covered like a blanket over a Junebug. Even if one or both end up in Rochester, this only confirms what we already know:

• The Nats are content to fill the upper levels with placeholders rather than move up OG’s (as it should be)
• Mike Rizzo’s directive is to keep payroll as low as possible until the team’s sale (J-101: Report on what they do while quoting what they say; remark on the difference).

Until something else breaks, I return you to your winter loathing.

Apparently, this is an even-year thing, as when I went looking for past editions it was 2020, 2018, and 2014. I do recall that early on it was ten ’10, eleven for ’11, etc. Anyway, with time on my hands and the prospect of no news until next year, let’s take a look at ten …

It seems so long ago that I first drew this up, and yet it was only a little more than a month ago. Sadly, the two most notable changes are effectively dumpster dives – the selection of Thad Ward via the Rule 5 Draft, and picking up fallen-but-somehow-not-former prospect Jeter Downs, who lived up to …

It’s Festivus for some of us, the home stretch for those who celebrate Hannukah, and the Friday before Christmas and Kwanzaa for others.

By tomorrow morning, every state in the lower 48 will be at or below 20 degrees according to the National Weather Service. That means hell Florida will freeze over unless Bugs Bunny was successful.

So in addition to staying safe, stay warm. And my hope, as always, is that by the time you read this, you’re where you want to be, with whom you want to be, and all your to-dos are done.

And in the immortal words of William Shatner: “Don’t drink and drive – do one or the other.”

Shalom or Happy Sangria Day, depending on either your religion or the proximity of your family, iykwitm…

We haven’t gone dark. It’s just really, really, really slow.

I’m not sure why this has become the new normal. If you look at the URL string, you’ll see that this is the fourth time in the past four years it’s been so slow that I’ve had to run back-to-back posts that effectively say “I got nothing.”

Because of the timing of Christmas this year, I don’t expect anything to happen between now and Boxing Day, if not New Year’s Day. I hope I’m wrong – frequently posts “create” news to shake loose – but if not, you can expect one or two posts before I finalize the 2023 Watchlist.