Going Deep with The Nats

Draft picking can be about as unpredictable as the roulette wheel. The best drafts, rightfully, are judged years into the future. Still, evaluators will grade how each team did in real-time. The new amateur draft and scouting group led by Danny Haas, VP of Amateur Scouting, received good reviews from those watching the results of the 2024 MLB Draft, along with the third best ranking by Bleacher Report at an A-. MLB Pipeline named the Kevin Bazzell pick in the third round as their favorite draft pick by the Nationals.

Brad Ciolek is the Nats’ new Senior Director of Amateur Scouting, and was a key addition to the Nats draft group, along with Reed Dunn, as they both joined Haas to form perhaps the best amateur scouting group in MLB. From 2010 to 2014, Dunn was with the Nats, and they got him back from the Braves as the new Assistant Scouting Director and National Crosschecker. 

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.

Today we have reached the point of the first and second round of the MLB Draft. Teams still don’t know who is picking which players until the names are called, and kind of like last year, we have to wait to see who is chosen ahead of the Washington Nationals. Last year, it was just waiting for the Pirates to pick at No. 1 to know the Nats were taking Dylan Crews as the second pick in the draft.

There was extra intrigue added yesterday as general manager Mike Rizzo traded Hunter Harvey, the Nats picked up a Competitive Balance draft pick, №39, to go with their №10 and №44 picks.