TheGoodBits

Darren Baker is hitting .318 at AAA. No particular reason I point that out.

The Lerners are not cheap with players.

We won’t have any issue signing Crews. The issue with the Pirates is small market/budget and cheap owners. If he’s pushing back on them drafting him, it’s because he wants to slip to us. You’ve got to go to *at least* 11th in the draft to find an arguably better situation.

It’s always been odd to me that pitchers just stop hitting when they get to college or minor leagues. Like the pitchers that get drafted or recruited to D1 ball are the high school team’s best athletes. A lot of them are great hitters too. Definitely tough to play both ways and they’d have to put in more work to do it, but the value a team could get from having a solid two way player (or hell, two of them) is tremendous. Provides so much roster flexibility.

I was more speaking to Rizzo’s historic preference. Of course we do a decently long list of drafted pitchers so it’s certainly not an all or nothing proposition. Personally I think I’d prefer Skenes but if we ended up Crews we would be in a great spot with talent.

Worth remembering that the Nats historically have preferred buying pitchers and drafting hitters. Though that’s certainly caught up with them now with being stuck with Strasburg’s contract and deferrals, Scherzer’s deferrals, and Corbin’s contract.

The thing with Skenes that will be interesting is how much better he makes us, like, immediately. Nats got a tough break with Cavalli having TJS this year but Gore-Skenes-Gray seems like a pretty legit 1-3 by September and going into next season.

ESPN mock draft claims Crews might try to force himself past Pittsburgh. Having trouble pasting the link and the text from my phone but a notable sentence: “I’ve been hearing since February that the Pirates have been aggressively looking into the non-Crews options, even after it became clear he was the consensus best prospect.” He notes that the Nats have Crews 1 Skenes 2 on their board, but the mock has Skenes going 1 and Nats taking Crews.

Haven’t seen anything about him starting, but he told a reporter yesterday he might be good to pitch today.

I really don’t think that’s accurate. But also having a really hard time finding info on it. Anything you can link to me would be appreciated. I’m super out of the loop on everything since I ditched twitter (which I do highly recommend btw). nvm found this, which seems to say something different than what I saw before: https://www.mlb.com/news/draft-rule-changes-with-new-cba

Is it confirmed we cannot get better than the 7th pick this year? I see rules alluding to teams that pay CBT unable to get a lottery pick one than one year in a row (that’s not us for the last couple years) and teams that receive CBT unable to get a lottery pick for more than two years in a row (that’s also not us). We had top 6 picks for two straight years now, but only one of those years was under lottery rules and we don’t seem to meet the criteria above for being disqualified for lottery for next year. Unless I’m reading it wrong.

This is Green’s first season in pro ball out of high school. Yeah he had some K% red flags coming in so it’s easy to focus a lot on them. But agree with the thoughts above, it’s about showing progress at each level. Shows coachability and growth. We didn’t draft him for the player he is, we drafted him for the guy we think he can be in 3-4 years.

Yeah my point wasn’t so much about housing projects as it was about the city running a cost-benefit analysis of finding a stadium. In order for it to make sense you need a broader revitalization effort like what happened around Nats park. Space limitations around RFK (because so much around there is currently residential) really would make it tough to justify imo. Now if DoD decided it no longer needed or wanted Fort McNair…

My only issue with this as it relates to a site in DC is where it would go. We all talk about RFK but look at what is around that area now. It’s almost 100% residential. I can absolutely understand how people who live there wouldn’t want to drop a stadium there. And because of this, there’s also not really a place to develop a mixed use “mini city” so it really limits the possible benefits for the city.

I think it’s a sustained 5k+ more per game than it has been in recent years (controlling for team record/competitiveness). But it will take a full rebuild of the team to rebuild the fan base.

At this rate I might buy twitter with loose change I find between my couch cushions.

Lane Thomas is trying to pitch his way into a regular spot in the bullpen.

Interior OL will be a critical spot for us for the next 5+ years given what the eagles are doing in this draft.

Without being too caught up in sunk costs, if any team offered us a 2nd this year for Young I’d do that deal in a heartbeat. I guess it’s always possible he regains his former form but even so, he’s set to hit free agency after this year. The team would be trading for a year of extremely questionable performance. Washington recouping a 2 would be a tremendous steal based on his current state.

I’m incredibly skeptical that his playing weight was actually 175 last season if he couldn’t get over 170 in an offseason training program leading up to the draft where his weight was a critical concern. Players usually drop some weight during the season. He might have been playing at 160. With his thin frame, there’s realistically not a path to getting him to 180 without losing some twitch and speed. He’s always going to be a liability against the run… it just is what it is.

I have not paid one bit of attention to this draft but I did watch a college football game last year and Nolan Smith jumped out to me watching it live. So I’ll say I’d like him to be our pick.

Patriots should take Levis just to continue their trend of taking mediocre QB4 in the mid teens.

Hunter Harvey and Kyle Finnegan are under contract through 2025. Mason Thompson is under contract through 2027. Once we add this year’s draft pick we could have a stacked top of the rotation for the next 4-5 years (and it’s not hard to add in a #4-5 guy via FA or slot in another prospect). Nats big issue is they are really short on middle of the lineup bats. The offensive talent that has been acquired in recent years is at least 1-2 years away from the big leagues. Even then none of them are guaranteed. And it is hard to add a lot of really good big league ready offensive talent via trade/free agency. If it were 1-2 spots sure but not the 4-5 we realistically have to fill.

Gore may be an ace. But so will the guy they draft. He’ll be on on the roster by September.

Stroud falling would be intriguing to me but man if he fell to 16 that would tell me that the rumors around him were legit, and give me significant pause in taking him as well.