The Washington Nationals “war room” set-up for the draft looked different, felt different, and it was different.
Everyone was asked to wear a coat and tie versus the business casual dress code in the past. This draft room was stealth and with very few leaks — and trust me, we tried. The main name floated out there was Bryce Rainer, the high school kid from Harvard-Westlake (Lucas Giolito‘s alma mater), and the type of athletic archetype that general manager Mike Rizzo might have chosen in the past. So when Rainer was available at pick №10, it seemed like a no-brainer. But it wasn’t. The Nats went with Seaver King, the slightly smaller-sized, 6’0″
freak athlete, with a big-time college pedigree and impressive wood bat numbers.
This war room was definitely being run by Danny Haas, who was hired from Arizona as the new VP of Amateur Scouting. It’s now his room. Brad Ciolek was hired from the Orioles as the Nats Senior Director of Amateur Scouting, and Reed Dunn was hired from the Braves as the Assistant Scouting Director and National Crosschecker. Mark Baca was the lone holdover from the previous group that Kris Kline ran for years. Baca is now the West Coast Crosschecker and was all over the Nats’ №39 pick, catcher Caleb Lomavita from the University of California, Berkeley. Alex Morales took over as the Southeast Crosschecker and Area Supervisor who had King in his sights.
Prep shortstop, Luke Dickerson, from northern New Jersey’s Morris Knolls High School, was taken five picks after Lomavita with the №44 overall pick (second round) in the draft. Dickerson was scouted as first round talent by the San Francisco Giants and the New York Yankees per Jim Callis of MLB Pipeline. Per our sources, Dickerson will be repped by CAA as his agency.
A power-hitting shortstop, Dickerson’s 18 homers in his senior year tied Mike Trout for the most in New Jersey high school history — but there’s a twist to that. Trout hit his 18 dingers in 2009 when there were no stringent metal bat standards, as BBCOR was phased-in during 2011. While hitting 18 homers in a high school in Georgia, Florida, or California is not as big of a deal, try doing that in a cold weather state like New Jersey. There are actually temperature warnings on using metal bats in temps below 60°F. Morris Knolls only played 33-games this year, and 15 of them were in the month of April, and they are a northern NJ team, not a southern New Jersey team like where Trout played at Millville and separated by 140 miles.
Dickerson’s 5-tool combo in high school had him with a .467 batting average, .585 OBP, 1.086 SLG, 1.671 OPS, 27 stolen bases, 46 RBIs, 64 runs scored, and zero strikeouts. WHAT?!? It’s possible they didn’t post strikeouts because zero is hard to believe.
Dickerson is a fast runner with some 6.3 times in 60 yards to his credit. He was just two runs shy of scoring exactly 2-runs per game for every game of his season. He had only 105 at-bats because they pitched around him so much and he had two games where he only got 1 at-bat. He homered at a pace of 1 HR per 5.8 at-bats. Did we mention that Dickerson was also a star on the ice hockey team with 38 goals scored and 20 assists this season. He didn’t even finish his hockey season until early March. You would have to go back to Nyjer Morgan or Tom Glavine to find dual baseball/hockey talent like that.
“Definitely [my] biggest strength is being athletic in the field, and being able to play up the middle.”
— Dickerson said after being drafted
There was extra intrigue added on Saturday as Rizzo traded Hunter Harvey, and the Nats picked up the Competitive Balance draft pick to go with their №10 and №44 picks. That is where the Nats got that pick to snag Lomavita at pick 39. So the Harvey trade turned into Lomavita, and Cayden Wallace, who was the 49th player taken in the 2022 MLB draft where he attended the University of Arkansas.
There was an almost complete overhaul in the Washington Nationals draft room. Rizzo really beefed up the front-end of his draft department with stars from other teams.
Per a source, and this is a direct quote, “The entire draft process was overhauled to create a more efficient flow. Key to this is stats, metrics, age, medical history, live evals, and development models to fit the system. It’s a complete overhaul from what existed before.”
As part of the Harvey trade, the Nationals received the Royals’ competitive balance draft pick (№39 overall) and the accompanying slot money ($2,395,000) that went with it, from Kansas City. The Nats’ bonus pool for the MLB Draft increased to $13,895,100 from $11,500,100. The Competitive Balance draft picks selections are the only types of draft picks that can be traded. Keep in mind that only smaller-market and lower-revenue teams are eligible for those ‘bonus’ draft picks.
With Haas, he followed a similar path as in the 2023 draft to maximizing the talent to get potentially three first-round talents, like the Nats did last year when they snagged Yohandy Morales in the second round and Travis Sykora in the third round. Both Morales and Sykora were thought to be first round talents, and Morales slid into the second round, and Sykora slipped on signability fears which the Nats took care of by paying him ‘fringe’ first round money ($2.6 million) as a signing bonus which was well over the $1.2 million slot value.
While ‘need’ said, get a shortstop, a catcher, a second baseman, and pitching while avoiding outfielders, it really did work out that way on Day 1 of the draft except for the pitching. A source tells us that the Nats view King and Dickerson as shortstops of the future, King will have a 2026 ETA while Dickerson would be around 2028-2029 for his arrival as he will be turning 19 years old at the beginning of August. This gives the Nats that needed depth for the future with CJ Abrams potentially headed to free agency after the 2028 season, and Luis Garcia Jr. after the 2027 season.
With Brady House viewed as the third baseman of the near-future for the Nats, and Abrams at shortstop, Garcia at second base, and possibly Morales at first base, there is no clarity of how King will impact this roster, but the draft room believes it will be at some point as a shortstop. But certainly with King and Dickerson, the fear of turnover in the middle infield can be tempered some.
“Being able to play together growing up and now maybe being able to play together as professionals is going to be something super cool.”
— King said of his playing days with Brady House in Georgia and talked about how he attended House’s draft party
While House was a phenom in High School, King didn’t have the big D-1 offers or draft hype. He went to Wingate college, a D-II school, and dominated. He got an invite to play in the prestigious Cape Cod League and dominated with a wood bat. With a transfer to Wake Forest, and a pre-season draft ranking of №7 by Baseball America, King had a slow start for Wake Forest but then caught up and finished with a strong .954 OPS and a draft ranking at №14 to №17 on most of the big boards..
The Nats have King as a premium athlete, 70 runner, 65 raw, and they think he’s a shortstop. While he didn’t get enough hits, he had the .954 OPS with an 11.9 K%. He made his contact but had a very low BABIP due to a higher percentage of groundballs and a factor of bad luck BABIP. The good news is he has a great history of wood bat play in Cape Cod and killed it at Harwich last year slashing 424/.479/.542/ with a 1.021 OPS. His athleticism had him as a track-and-field star in high school where he was one of the best high jumpers in the country. A source tells us that King will be repped by Excel Sports Management.
“Some of our special-assignment scouts were watching [King] one night. The regular shortstop had an injury, and they got on the phone, called us and said, ‘We think he’s going to play shortstop tomorrow.’ We popped into [North Carolina] as quick as we could.”
— Haas said last night
“[King] made a fantastic play at shortstop — and that one play convinced us that he was definitely a shortstop long-term.”
“He plays at a speed that very few guys do when he wants to … He’s just an incredible athlete, and we’re happy to have him.”
While King wasn’t on the TalkNats radar at all, we sourced a report that the Nats were not going after pitchers after being rumored to have ties to ECU’s Trey Yesavage. With JJ Wetherholt and Nick Kurtz off the board early, our source was telling us that it was going to be an underslot move, and there were the persistent Cam Smith and Lomavita rumors. I was waiting to hear Rainer’s name called at pick 10, and was in shock when they said King’s name. Even King didn’t know he was going to be taken by the Nats.
To snag Lomavita at the top of the second round was a huge win for the Nats. And you have to be very pleased with Dickerson who is as gifted of an athlete as you will find.
Lomavita, 21, is a native of Honolulu, and graduated from the St. Louis School (Hawaii), where he was named Gatorade Hawaii Baseball Player of the Year in 2021. That is the same high school that produced big leaguers Benny Agbayani, Jordan Yamamoto and Brandon League. In college this year, Lomavita hit .322 with 13 doubles, one triple, 15 home runs, 52 RBI, 12 walks, 12 stolen bases and 51 runs scored in 55 games. He posted a .395 OBP, .586 SLG, and was one of eight catchers in NCAA Division I with 10 or more stolen bases and 10 or more home runs. He led his team with 133 total bases, which ranked fifth-most in the Pac-12. Per a source, Lomavita will be repped by Scott Boras and his agency.
“Being Caleb off the field, being a giving, loving, caring guy is an absolutely great characteristic to have — but when I get on the field, it’s strictly business.”
— Lomavita said about being drafted
“I mean, when somebody told me that I have a shot to make money while I’m doing something I love [playing baseball], it’s like a dream come true. It’s like Disneyland.”
The №18 draft prospect was the top catching prospect according to Baseball America, and Lomavita was a Dick Howser Trophy (top collegiate player) semifinalist, garnered First-Team All-Pac-12 and All-Pac-12 Defensive Team honors. He has a low center of gravity at 5’11”, 200-pounds and is a right-handed hitter. All of Lomavita’s draft grades by MLB Pipeline were 50-or-over on the 20/80 scale.
Per Baseball America’s final draft rankings, King was ranked 17, Lomavita at 18, and Dickerson at 56. PJ Morlando was at 52 on that list and was taken in the first round at pick 16 by the Marlins, which was 36 spots earlier than projected. As mentioned, Dickerson was being vetted as a first round pick also. Lomavita was clearly a first round talent who slid 21 places to the Nats, and Dickerson moved up 12 spots higher than his Baseball America ranking, with King 7-spots higher. Was Lomavita’s slide at all a factor that he was being advised by the Boras Agency? Who knows, but it worked for the Nats.
Remember, draft evaluators are rarely right. Trout being a great example of that, and on the other end, how has Spencer Torkelson, Brady Aiken, and Mark Appel worked out?
There are comps on King from Mookie Betts to Masyn Winn, and Trea Turner — but remember, King has not played one pro game yet. Those are some lofty cleats to fill. You hope that Haas and his group were right about King and that he will be a star one day.
Round-3 of the draft starts at 2 pm EDT today and will run through Round-10 which will complete Day-2 of the MLB Draft. Follow back for updates. The Nats will have the fifth pick in each round.
