With the season headed towards the 80 percent completion mark during the mid-game on Saturday, this is a good time to look at some of the positives with the Washington Nationals at this point in time. We want to look at the draft, player development, the deadline trades, and stand-out players.
Some will judge the season by the record. Some by the stats. Some by the progress. Some by the promise. Some will find a way to turn to the negative. That is what you get when you judge the team. President of Baseball Operations and General Manager Mike Rizzo has rebuilt the Nationals before — and to a World Series win. He can do it again.
The Draft 2024
When you look at the draft held in July, you have to look at the hirings of Danny Haas, Brad Ciolek, and Reed Dunn as the Top-3 in the restructured draft department. When Rizzo overhauled the department and went top-heavy, you could tell that he was ready for a different approach to the draft. The Nats received rankings of a B+ from evaluators with the third best draft.
Of course the best way to evaluate a draft is years down the road when we see what the players actually accomplished. The team stocked up on middle infielders, catchers and relief pitchers — Rizzo said it was always about drafting the best players available. Three first round talents were acquired within the first three picks with Seaver King, Caleb Lomavita, and Luke Dickerson. More on Lomavita when we discuss the deadline trades.
Player Development
Fans and evaluators alike had been pessimistic about the Nationals ability to draft and develop players for most of the past decade. Before the trade deadline of 2021, the Nats farm system was barren and full of tumbleweeds. The farm system was ranked last in MLB at that time, and just two years removed from a World Series win.
Then the draft of Brady House in mid-2021, and a few acquisitions from a sell-off at the trade deadline breathed some air back into the near-lifeless system. But it was an infusion of talent — not player development that changed things initially. Of course last year, the Nats drafted Dylan Crews who is now the Nats’ No. 1 prospect as well as he is Top-5 in all of baseball.
Before this season, DeJon Watson was replaced by the youthful Eddie Longosz as the VP of Player Development, and the remaining prospects from the Juan Soto trade made large strides including James Wood to the No. 1 prospect in baseball, and pitcher Jarlin Susana to top of the farm rankings for pitching prospects in the Nats’ system. While Robert Hassell III fell back due to wrist injuries, the Soto trade has looked great for the Nats so far with MacKenzie Gore and CJ Abrams as the fourth and fifth pieces from that trade, and performing at the big league level.
Before Wood graduated from prospect status earlier this month, Baseball America ranked the Nats’ farm system 4th in all of baseball. After Wood graduated, MLB Pipeline moved the Nats to 10th overall but that seems low given the emergence of 2023 draft pick, Travis Sykora, and the current draft class, and the prospects who were acquired from trades like Alex Clemmey, Cayden Wallace, and Tyler Stuart — just to name a few.
On MLB Pipeline’s Top-30 Nationals prospects, they re-did all of their rankings and Sykora jumped to No. 3 in the Nats’ system and Top-100 of all players. But they are certainly low on several players and undervaluing the Nats’ system overall. You can see some down-and-out players like 2022 No. 5 overall draft pick Elijah Green finding success in the past two months in Longosz’s new system, and likewise, T.J. White at High-A Wilmington has been killing baseballs for about two months after a great Spring Training but a poor April and May. There are others who are thriving including Daylen Lile, now at Double-A, and pitchers Andrew Alvarez and Brad Lord have shoved forward as key pitchers who were promoted to Triple-A.
There is so much talent that the Top-30 cannot contain them all. Popular twitter evaluator, NationalsSource, published a Top-50 to recognize more names that also highlighted the new talent at the Dominican Summer League like Angel Feliz, Dashyll Tejada, Victor Hurtado, and pitcher Jose Feliz.
The 2024 Trade Deadline
When the Nats fell out of any reasonable chance of a playoff berth at the end of June, the team was back to sell-off mode. And this time they would dangle players with more than one-year of team control remaining like Hunter Harvey, Kyle Finnegan, and Lane Thomas as well as rentals like Jesse Winker and Dylan Floro. All but Finnegan was traded, and Rizzo and his front office staff got very creative in structuring deals.
Before the draft in early July, Harvey was traded to the Kansas City Royals for Wallace and a competitive balance draft pick — the only draft picks that can be traded. The Nats used that 39th overall pick to get Lomavita, the highest ranked catcher in the draft. For Thomas, the Nats got Clemmey, Jose Tena, and Rafael Ramirez Jr. from the Cleveland Guardians. For Winker, he went to the Mets for Stuart who just got promoted to Triple-A this week and was throwing a perfect game into the 7th inning yesterday. For Floro, Rizzo had a deal that fell apart per our sources, and pivoted to a deal with Arizona in which their GM, Mike Hazen, confirmed that the deal was so last minute that neither team was able to do physicals. The Nats got power hitting DH, Andres Chaparro, who made his MLB debut this past week and tied an MLB record with three extra-base-hits in a debut. Tena is also up with the big league club and doing well so far. On the surface, it looks like Rizzo and their staff might have fleeced a bunch of teams. The Harvey trade, as I previously wrote, was 4-D Chess for the complicated foresight, and creativity to add to the success of that trade.
Stand-out Players on the MLB Roster
The top of the FanGraphs WAR tells you the stand-out players with Luis Garcia Jr., Jacob Young, Abrams, Alex Call, and Wood leading the way. Sure, Abrams was expected to be the star of the team, and his first half progress got him an All-Star team pick — but he has been the polar opposite in the second half by batting well under Mendoza (sub-200 batting average) with too many chases outside the strike zone, and some bad defense at times. But with 20 percent of the season remaining, maybe some hometown cooking in Atlanta this weekend will get Abrams going as he sees his family and friends in Georgia where he grew up.
Certainly Garcia, Young, and Call were positive surprises. In fact Garcia was teetering on the edge of being a DFA during Spring Training, and he came into camp in great shape with improved defense and his brain engaged in every play. He has turned into a player who could actually win a Silver Slugger and is ranked as the second best defensive player on the Nats.
“I know I was a little bit hard on [Garcia] in the beginning — but this is all him. He has done the work, and he’s reaping the benefits right now. I am going to keep him going. I want him to finish strong the rest of the season — but he’s been great.”
— Manager Dave Martinez said this week
For Young, he did not make the team out of Spring Training, and found himself getting an April callup due to an injury. He has turned in the best of baseball defensive stats, and should win the Gold Glove if voting is done by the true stats. He also excels at baserunning and that has made him an elite dual-threat player. If he can hit for higher than .250 and take more walks to get his OBP above .325, he would be All-Star calibre. But keep in mind, Young is just a rookie.
Then you have Call who told Dave Jageler in a pregame show on a Nats’ radio broadcast that he made adjustments in mechanics and mental approach that turned his game around. He got called up for the second time this season at the trade deadline to replace Winker, and Call has been en fuego ever since with a .430 OBP and .972 OPS this season. He sees a lot of pitches and works walks like Soto, seriously. He just has the ability to foul off pitches and knows the strike zone.
With Wood, we knew he would be good but he started off slow from his July 1 callup until the All-Star break — but since then, he has been en fuego. Wood is batting .309 with a .392 OBP, and a .919 OPS. On top of that, Wood’s -4.0 OAA as a defensive liability in the month of July is league neutral for the month of August and trending up. It is possible by the end of the month that Wood could have a positive OAA for the month of August.
How’s about the young pitching on this team with Jake Irvin as the team’s No. 1 in a mold of Jordan Zimmermann and looking every bit of the bulldog that JZim was during his MLB career. The two pitchers did not grow up far apart in Wisconsin and neighboring Minnesota. These extreme northerners share a lot in common.
Then you have the two rookie callups this season, Mitchell Parker and DJ Herz who are also products of the Nats’ player development system. Neither were on the radar as far as contributing to the big league team — and both made their MLB debuts this season due to injuries on the roster. Both have exceeded any reasonable expectations.
“You’re seeing really the development of four major league starters kind of coming together in the same season, which is unlikely to happen often.”
— Rizzo said this week on the Sports Junkies radio show
“I think that’s the biggest pro for me, the state of our pitching at the big league level, at the upper minor league level, and at the lower minor league level has never been better for us, and never flourished as much. We’ve never had as much depth as we have right now.”
In total, you could probably pencil in the four young starters of Irvin, Parker, Herz, and Gore for the 2025 rotation. Find a veteran star to put in front of them, and you could be looking at exciting times. And yes, there is the pitching depth that the Nats have coming up in the minor leagues.
Overall
In a losing season, it is usually difficult to pick-out the positives. But this season, the Nats have added to their youth movement and their core going forward. For the first time, Rizzo added Young and Garcia to what he considers his core for the future. With what Rizzo called his chance to make some “shrewd offseason acquisitions,” this team could find itself in contention, sooner than later, if they make the right acquisitions.
When the Nats add Crews and House to this lineup, we could see most of the future core of this team before any free agent or other acquisitions.
Of course by having a losing record this season and missing the playoffs, the Nationals are eligible for the draft lottery, and have another great opportunity to add some more blue chip draft picks to their system at the 2025 MLB Draft.
As Rizzo also said, the future is bright, and you can see the light at the end of the tunnel.
