It took almost five hours, but the Nationals finally got to the 68th overall selection. There were some quality names available (favorites of mine included LHP Kent Emanuel of North Carolina, RHP Bobby Wahl of Ole Miss, 3B Chad Pinder of Virginia Tech and RHP Alex Balog of San Francisco), but the Nats settled on Dallas Baptist University RHP Jake Johansen.
Johansen throws really, really hard. He can dial it up to 99 mph. Unfortunately, he has no refined secondary options and had a 7.84 K/9 against mediocre competition this season. He was on my radar for the fourth round in the Minor League Ball mock draft as a signability guy in round 3 or 4.
Baseball America placed Johansen at 182 overall on their top 500, noting that "for a guy who can dial up a 99 mph fastball, Johansen doesn't make a huge impression on batters or scouts." They go on to note that he's got closer upside.
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I've recently complained that the Nationals' lack of organizational depth is a major reason for their mediocre start to the season. Key contributors C Wilson Ramos (twice), 3B Ryan Zimmerman, RF Jayson Werth and RHP Ryan Mattheus have all gone on the disabled list while LHP Ross Detwiler and LF Bryce Harper have narrowly avoided their own stints. None of that is even to mention 2B Danny Espinosa, who is playing with a torn rotator cuff.
Kurt Suzuki has filled in admirably for the injured Ramos, but out of that bunch, that's pretty much the only bright spot. Anthony Rendon and Chad Tracy struggled at 3B filling in for Zimmerman while Roger Bernadina and Tyler Moore have been downright awful in the corner OF spots. Super-sub Steve Lombardozzi has limped along to a -0.3 WAR, almost as bad as Espinosa's -0.4.
Finding quality depth for contenders can be quite a conundrum. For every aging veteran looking for a World Series ring there are plenty of younger guys that end up with lousy teams because they have a clearer path to playing time. I hate to think of disaster scenarios, but here is a look at the players who could become key replacements if injuries happen throughout the season. Please keep in mind - I am not considering any current injuries to the minor league guys unless they're season-long issues.
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Two weeks ago, I took a look at my pre-season top 15 prospects and how they performed through April. Now it's time to take a look at the second half of my top prospect list, mostly filled with fringe prospects and long-shots.
16) C Jhonatan Solano - With Wilson Ramos going on the DL again, Solano will get a second crack at the ML roster in 2013. He went 1/6 in three games for the Nats in April and isn't hitting much better in Syracuse - .167/.200/.208 (albeit only in 50 plate appearances). He was just reinstated from the Syracuse 7 day DL (ankle injury) yesterday, just in time to be called up. TRENDING: DOWN
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When I put together my top 15 prospect list for the Washington Baseball Annual, I knew it was a bit risky. Only five of the top ten were not injury risks before the season, and out of those five, two have already been injured this year. Through the first month of the season, the top part of the Nats' farm system has been similarly mediocre to the Nats in general.
1) 3B Anthony Rendon – I didn’t think we’d see Rendon in the big leagues this soon, but he was the first call when Ryan Zimmerman went down with a hamstring injury. Rendon put up a nice .292/.462/.500 triple slash in 65 Harrisburg plate appearances. In his limited time in DC, he struggled both at the plate (.182/.308/.227 in 26 PA) and in the field (3 errors in 22 total chances). Still, the future is bright and Rendon could certainly play his way onto the roster late in the year. TRENDING: STEADY
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It's hard to look at Kevin Keyes and not be impressed at his size. The
6'3" 225 lb 1B/OF is much bigger and stronger than you and I; he proved
this on Wednesday night, hitting an estimated 440-450 foot home run that
broke some lights at Five County Stadium, the home of the Carolina
Mudcats. Here is the link to the massive shot - the uploader does not allow it to be embedded at this time.
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Prospect-related topics are hard to come by in spring training, so I thought I’d take a look at some sleeper prospects that I’ll be keeping an eye on in 2013. Rather than sticking to guys that have been on most top prospect lists, I decided to take a look at some guys that have breakthrough years. In Austin Dicharry and Rick Hague’s cases, they have MLB talent but have battled injuries for the past few years. Jason Martinson has excellent tools up the middle but lacks plate discipline. Robert Benincasa has been blowing batters away with stuff that doesn’t blow scouts away. While these four players specifically might not break out in 2013, these types of profiles are the ones that often do (see Christian Garcia and Nathan Karns for guys that battled injuries and Craig Stammen for a reliever succeeding despite not having tremendous stuff).
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The Nationals already came out ahead in the Michael Morse trade, acquiring two righties with upside in AJ Cole and Blake Treinen. On Wednesday, they added to the previous bounty when the player to be named later was named: LHP Ian Krol. The lefty, who was once lauded by prospect gurus Kevin Goldstein and Keith Law in 2010, has fought through some self-inflicted drama as well as some minor injuries since then; the Nationals are picking him up in hopes that he'll continue to be “a joy to watch” as Goldstein mentioned and will build upon his solid 2012 season.
Krol is a pitcher, not a thrower. His mechanics are excellent, throwing from a ¾ arm slot, and he has no issues locating his three pitches. Like former Nats prospects Tommy Milone and Danny Rosenbaum, Krol lacks velocity, topping out at 90-91 MPH. In order to keep climbing up the ladder, he must continue to exhibit excellent command on the hill and induce ground balls. Krol is mentioned all the time as being a fierce competitor with a feel for pitching that is much more mature than most others. He's not afraid to attack batters inside, and uses his above average changeup and excellent curveball (called “demoralizing” by the clever Ryan Sullivan of NatsGM) to make up for his fastball velocity deficiency.
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Aaron Fitt of Baseball America has his list of the Washington Nationals top ten prospects up and the top three should be no surprise. Anthony Rendon tops the list with Lucas Giolito and Brian Goodwin following. All three of them have high upside and a chance to be stars in the majors. Rendon will likely be the first to arrive if the Nationals have a spot for him. The list is an interesting collection of players and the article that accompanies it is a good read. Instead of me telling you anymore about it read it yourself.
I'm admittedly not the most knowledgeable person when it comes to international free agency. If the Nats had given a sliver of effort in chasing IFAs since Smileygate went down, I may have shown some effort following IFAs myself. My interest level did bump up a little bit just now, though, as the Nationals have signed 16 year old Dominican 3B Neivy Pilier/Nievi Pelier (I'm sticking with Neivy Pilier for now) for $225,000 (the most they've given to an IFA since Smileygate).
Pilier is certainly an interesting prospect. DPLBaseball.com described him in October as a "solid bat with occasional power, defensive skills and arm strength" and today as a "hard nose (sic) player with game instincts...(with) raw power and shows signs that average game power will come with development." DPL Baseball goes on to note that Pilier is only average with the glove, but has a very good arm, so he should be able to play the corners in both the infield and outfield as he develops. Matt Garrioch of Minor League Ball put Pilier close to the end of his 2012 MLB International Preview (61st out of 66 names), but it's always better to be low on the list than not there at all.
I like the Denard Span trade for many reasons. The Nationals have been looking for a center fielder since their inception and got one at the relatively low price of a minor league pitcher in Alex Meyer who has a ton of ML starting potential as well as bust/bullpen potential. I won't go further into the trade from a ML level since my colleague David Huzzard already went over that, but there are even more ripple effects caused by the trade when you look at it from a minor league and draft perspective.
Last year, the Nats added four players to the 40 man roster to protect them from being taken: Derek Norris, Tyler Moore, Eury Perez and Jhonatan Solano. Even so, Erik Komatsu and Brad Meyers were both taken by opposing teams (although now both have been returned to the organization). This year, the Nationals have until November 20 to finalize their 40 man roster in preparation for the Rule 5 Draft that will take place on December 6. When Mike Rizzo brought up Christian Garcia in September, one of the important players to protect from the Rule 5 draft was covered. Here's a look at some other intriguing options.
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Much has been made of Nationals’ reclamation project Christian Garcia this season, and for good reason; Garcia put up a 2.13 ERA, .789 WHIP and a nasty 7.5 K/BB ratio in 12.2 Major-League innings this year after bouncing back from two Tommy John surgeries. Garcia isn’t the only great comeback story in the Nats’ system this year, however, as Nathan Karns went from missing the entire 2010 season due to a labrum injury to winning the 2012 Nationals minor league pitcher of the year award.
The year 2012 has been pretty awesome for the Washington Nationals at the major league level, but there were quite a few disappointments amongst their good prospects. Due to the trading of four top-15 prospects in the Gio Gonzalez deal and having Bryce Harper, Steve Lombardozzi and Tyler Moore graduate to the big leagues, the Nats’ top prospect list looks much weaker than it did in December.
Some players who I expected to fall into the places left by Harper, AJ Cole,
Brad Peacock, etc. looked good this year; we’ll take a look at guys like
Brian Goodwin and
Alex Meyer in a few weeks. On the other hand, many other prospects that we’ll look at today underwhelmed in 2012 and will need to work hard this winter to bounce back in 2013. There are two categories that the disappointments fall into: injuries or poor performance. The prospects with the highest ceilings were generally the ones that had injury issues this year while the borderline guys fell into the wrong side of the border with poor performance.
Quick, what do Ryan Zimmerman, Ross Detwiler, Stephen Strasburg, Drew Storen, and Bryce Harper have in common? If you have been following this franchise as closely as I have then you would know that they are five of the Nationals eleven first round picks made since the team moved to DC. Of the players that the Nationals have drafted and who aren't on the major league roster one is retired and another never signed. Chris Marrero, Anthony Rendon, Alex Meyer, and Lucas Giolito are all still in the minors with Marrero having made it to the majors last season and it being far too early for any of the latter three.
As far as drafting has gone the Nationals have done a good job. Having five players from a five year span of first rounds on the roster sounds like a high percentage, but it isn't the entire story. Since moving to DC the Nats have also drafted Danny Espinosa, Jordan Zimmermann, Craig Stammen, Steve Lombardozzi, and Tyler Moore. The Nationals also held onto Ian Desmond and Roger Bernadina who were in the Expos farm system when they made the move to DC. Of the players currently on the 25 man roster 12 of them are from the Nats farm system.
This is not a great draft. There is no superstar player, a lack of top-end talent (or at least projectable top-end talent) and very few college bats worthy of first round selection. I generally am a fan of drafting college players over high schoolers, but this draft’s college talent basically all has flaws as big as the high school talent. I’m a little surprised in myself to see as many high school players on my list, but feel good about it.
1. OF Byron Buxton (HS) – The sky is the limit for Buxton. He’s got it all: lightning speed, a great arm, solid power and fielding and developing contact. Buxton is one of only a few players in this draft (Correa and Almora being the other 2) that I really feel have superstar potential (as in ceiling, not necessarily probability). And please don’t compare him to Donovan Tate; just because he’s a highly rated toolsy African-American high school prospect doesn’t make him the same player (or person).
