The Washington Nationals Thread: The Future is Near!

[Always A Commander Never A Captain]

2 hours ago, TheGoodBits said:

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. 

 

I don't think that's quite right. I think they prefer both buying and drafting pitchers over hitters. Rizzo was assistant GM in 2007 and 2008, then full GM in 2009 and on.

 

From 2007 and on, I think Rizzo has taken pitchers with his top two picks 7 times, while taking batters with the top two picks only 1 time. So he has no problem double dipping on pitchers, but doing so with batters is rare.

 

Of Rizzo's 2nd rounders, 50% of them are hitters and 50% pitchers.

Of Rizzo's 1st rounder, only 29% have been hitters to 71% pitchers.

 

So he drafts more pitchers than hitters, and he's fine double dipping into pitchers instead of double dipping into hitters.

[Warhead36]

You can never have enough good pitchers and when this franchise was at its best, contending for the pennant every year, their identity was strong starting pitching.

[Warhead36]

I will say we picked a good year to get the #2 pick. We can get either Crewes or Skenes. Both are going to be studs.

[@DCGoldPants]

hoping Pittsburgh makes it easy for us by taking either Crewes or Skenes and we take the other. Seems like both guys won't spend that long in the minors.

[JamesMadisonSkins]

We have a decent little pipeline of starting pitchers ... and we also have a solid pipeline of outfielders.

 

I guess at the end of the day we can't go wrong. I do wonder if we draft Crewes, what that means for all the future bats in our outfield farm system. They can't all start/play in the coming years, so some of that could be used as trade bait to get a starting pitcher when we are competitive again. 

 

Skenes gives us a very good young starting core at pitcher. Crewes gives us a borderline elite pipeline in the outfield. 

 

Crewes is likely a more sure thing, but talent like Skenes doesn't come along often. Both are established college studs, so there's even less risk than a top-tier talent that might need several years to develop in the minors. 

 

Win/Win situation. Really going to be interesting to see what Pittsburgh does at the top, and if they go with a below-slot player. If we had to choose between Crewes and Skenes, that would be really interesting to see. 

Edited June 27, 2023 by JamesMadisonSkins

[Riggo#44]

 

[ixcuincle]

Should have stuck to my convictions. Bet .50 on the Nats by accident on the train and pulled out when it was 2-1 Mariners.

[@DCGoldPants]

9 hours ago, Riggo#44 said:

 

Oooh. That's cool. A few months in Rochester and then enough time here for a handful of starts at the end of the season. 

[Riggo#44]

38 minutes ago, @DCGoldPants said:

Oooh. That's cool. A few months in Rochester and then enough time here for a handful of starts at the end of the season. 

It's good to see Rutledge work through his early struggles and start to show some. I'm a little worried about his walk rate, but he's made leaps and bounds as an effective pitcher.

[Ball Security]

Rutledge has been a great prospect success story these past two years. He’s earned the chance to make starts for Washington in September. Ultimately, I do think that he and Irvin could make a lights out back of the bullpen.

[ixcuincle]

Saw Rutledge work out in bowie before the sens game. Good to see. 

[Always A Commander Never A Captain]

MLB.com is now listing Skenes as the #1 prospect with Crews #2. They still give both an overall grade of 65, so I suppose that's just splitting hairs.

 

https://www.mlb.com/news/mlb-pipeline-top-250-draft-prospects-list-2023?t=mlb-draft-coverage

https://www.mlb.com/prospects/draft/

 

Still really happy with either. You can't go wrong there.

[JamesMadisonSkins]

They were talking on SXM Fantasy this morning about dual-position players and whether or not there will be more Shohei Ohtanis type dual-players coming through now that teams might be less focused on specialization and more interested in that dynamic. I guess in the past good hitting pitchers in HS/College have never been pushed to develop hitting at the professional level.

Then they talked about Skenes, and how he hit .300 with 14 HRs 2 seasons ago with Air Force, but didn't bat as much this year because LSU focused more on his pitching. I didn't dive deep enough on Skenes to know whether or not that is a repertoire that he can build out. Of course hitting .300 and 14 HRs at Air Force when you're pitching to a 2.7 ERA or whatever he had in 2022 is one thing, doing it at the pro level is another. But the fact that he might have the ability to hit at the MLB level is pretty cool. Wonder if Rizzo would consider developing both at the next level or just have him focus on being an elite level pitcher.

[Ball Security]

8 minutes ago, JamesMadisonSkins said:

They were talking on SXM Fantasy this morning about dual-position players and whether or not there will be more Shohei Ohtanis type dual-players coming through now that teams might be less focused on specialization and more interested in that dynamic. I guess in the past good hitting pitchers in HS/College have never been pushed to develop hitting at the professional level.

Then they talked about Skenes, and how he hit .300 with 14 HRs 2 seasons ago with Air Force, but didn't bat as much this year because LSU focused more on his pitching. I didn't dive deep enough on Skenes to know whether or not that is a repertoire that he can build out. Of course hitting .300 and 14 HRs at Air Force when you're pitching to a 2.7 ERA or whatever he had in 2022 is one thing, doing it at the pro level is another. But the fact that he might have the ability to hit at the MLB level is pretty cool. Wonder if Rizzo would consider developing both at the next level or just have him focus on being an elite level pitcher.

I wouldn’t do it with Skenes. He has too much potential as a generational starter to spend time on hitting which is a lot further behind.

 

There is a HS player from Vienna who is a prospective mid first rounder who I’d love see get developed as a 2-way player.

 

Over the years the Orioles drafted guys where they had to make a decision. Wieters was a reliever at GA Tech. Many had Markakis pegged as a pitcher. Mychal Givens was a SS. Adam Loewen made a comeback as an OF after he had arm trouble.

 

What Ohtani is doing, performing at a high level at both, is truly remarkablez

[JamesMadisonSkins]

9 minutes ago, Ball Security said:

What Ohtani is doing, performing at a high level at both, is truly remarkablez

 

Yeah, I don't think they were saying it was replicable by any means. More about whether executives would explore it more now that Ohtani has paved the way.

Even their comment on Skenes was more about how someone like him COULD be developed as a dual-thread in the future should it become more accepted, not so much that he would be asked to do that now. But it just surprised me to learn he was a pretty good college hitter 2 years ago.

[Always A Commander Never A Captain]

I think it's worth noting that with Skenes being only a pitcher, his fastball suddenly got really nasty. Seems like the decision to not dual develop was correct.

[JamesMadisonSkins]

What is the gut instinct around here for who we think we'll be staring down at #2?

 

I was rooting hard for Crewes to fall to us but now I think I'm leaning Skenes. Obviously we can't go wrong either way, just wondering what everyone thinks will happen? National media seems to be slightly shifting towards the Pirates taking Skenes 

[JamesMadisonSkins]

As a Freshman Skenes batted .410 with 11 HR and 43 RBI ... looks like he was a closer with a 2.7 ERA and 11 Saves in 26.2 IPs ... 10.9 KOs/9

As a Sophomore Skenes batted .314 and hit 13 HR and 38 RBI ... Went 10-3 with a 2.73 ERA in 85 IPs ... and 10.1 KOs/9

As a Junior Skenes transferred from AF to LSU ... did not bat ... went 12-2 with a 1.93 ERA in 122 IPs ... 15.1 KOs/9

 

So at Air Force he was a "really good" pitcher and a "really good" hitter ... at LSU he became an elite pitcher against elevated talent and dropped the bat. Wonder if that's due to progression/resources/training versus actually dropping one element of the game.

Edited June 28, 2023 by JamesMadisonSkins

[JamesMadisonSkins]

By comparison, here are Dylan Crews stats (holy smokes)

 

Freshman: .362 avg., 18 HR, 42 RBI in 63 games

Sophomore: .349 avg., 22 HR, 72 RBI in 62 games

Junior: .426 avg., 18 HR, 70 RBI in 71 games

 

Have there been college stats that good for a hitter any time recently? How does anyone hit .380 over 196 college games at the highest level of college baseball?

[Ball Security]

https://www.ncaa.com/news/baseball/article/2019-11-07/16-best-college-baseball-players-1999?amp
 

A range of success in the big leagues. I remember the hype around Ackley.

[Ball Security]

Not a bad road trip at all. Hey Seattle, if you want to get back in it, we have a pitcher that just shut you down for seven innings.

 

 

[Ball Security]

On 6/27/2023 at 10:01 PM, Riggo#44 said:

 

Rutledge had a really rough looking line in his Rochester debut. Five ER in 3.2 IP. He walked too many guys (6), but was close to getting through 4 with only 1 run as they couldn’t complete a DP. He had three of his walks in the fourth inning and lost half his walks on 3-2 counts.  Hopefully just a bump in the road for him.

[TheGoodBits]

22 hours ago, JamesMadisonSkins said:

 

Yeah, I don't think they were saying it was replicable by any means. More about whether executives would explore it more now that Ohtani has paved the way.

Even their comment on Skenes was more about how someone like him COULD be developed as a dual-thread in the future should it become more accepted, not so much that he would be asked to do that now. But it just surprised me to learn he was a pretty good college hitter 2 years ago.

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. 

[Riggo#44]

So, interesting note. The Athletic this morning, MLB Pipeline, and ESPN have the Pirates taking Skenes.

 

Only Law has us taking the big right hander.

[Dan T.]

So I heard this about Skenes and it makes me want him to be a Nat even more.

 

I didn't watch the college World Series final but saw some highlights, including the LSU celebration after the last out.  It showed Skenes coming out of the dugout carrying a teammate on piggyback, and I'm thinking "dude that is not smart, you could strain something lugging that big lunk into the dog pile."

 

Then I learned that earlier in the game, LSU's catcher Alex Milazzo had to leave the game after he broke his leg on a play at home plate.  Milazzo is who Skenes is carrying on his back so that his battery-mate could celebrate on the field with his team. 

 

How is THAT for being a good teammate?

 

Mensch.