OT: Raise the Jolly Roger: Tanking underway

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I can't stress this enough. Pitching, pitching, pitching. And catchers, if you can the right player/value.

I like what Cherington did in his first draft. He nailed it IMHO with Gonzales at 7. That kid is Kevin Newman but with much higher hitting upside. Maybe the few detractors that say he's a product of the high altitude hitting environment will be proven right. Maybe Pitt will screw up his development but he has absolutely tore the cover of the ball wherever he's went, including the Cape which is anything but high altitude.

After you got a mostly consensus top 5 player, Cherington smartly shifted to finding upside arms in the next few rounds. 5 straight pitchers. Would have been nice to snag a lefty or 2 as we don't have much in the system but overall the direction of Cherington seems to be that of rebuilding the P depth and defensive aspects. Which is what we desperately need more than anything to compete with a shoestring budget.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

That does remind me of one thing: I'm more than ok with taking a catcher on day 1 of the draft in the right circumstance as you say, but I really hope we aren't seeking a catcher in any trade right now. We should be focused on young and controllable pitching along with upside. If there's a catcher as part of a package, I can live with it, but I think it's foolish to target a catcher in a trade as a centerpiece for a number of reasons, but really they all revolve around one: it's extremely rare to develop/have a guy like Realmuto. This means that teams aren't going to part with the highest ceiling catchers in their system, and crucially, I think it also means that solid defensive catchers are relatively easy to get for very little.

Stallings is more than serviceable as a 1A catcher and now we have some ok depth behind him as well. There's not going to be a golden bullet solution unless we finish with an extremely high pick again and there's another Adley Rutchsman available. If we see a high ceiling guy for a high pick, I'm fine taking the chance, but I'm not enamored at the prospect of using trade surplus to get a guy, which is seemingly where the focus of the beat writers is, especially Biertempfel. For example, Toronto has some decent prospects and is a good fit, but with the value Musgrove has, we should be trying to get them to cave on moving Simeon Woods Richardson. If there's a bigger deal that has a lotto ticket C prospect in it, sure, but otherwise, stick with what we've got and address the problem with a defensive free agent in a few years if we have to.

 

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I agree 100% regarding Stallings. He's cheap, great defensively and isn't a black hole at the plate. As far as I'm concerned, he can be the guy for the next few years if need be. I'm more concerned with pitch selection, framing and overall defensive impact from the catcher. Getting somebody who can do that AND hit is a wonderful bonus but I'd rather forgo the hitting from the catcher and get somebody who is going to frame us more strikes and throw a solid # of guys out on the bases.

Hitting is something I feel like we have a nice stable of, between the MLB level and potentially down through the entire system.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

Yeah, there's the possibility of robo umps which would change the dynamic of the catcher position entirely, but until that day, I think it's just relatively easy to punt on the offensive part and get a cheap, good defender. And in the meantime, Stallings is better than that anyways, so seeking out a guy via trade who might be similar or a step up from Stallings in an absolute best case scenario just doesn't make a ton of sense to me. Catchers can also come out of nowhere, have mid-career boosts or collapses, etc. The Realmuto type is insanely rare. The better move is to improve organizational depth as much as possible, and if we want to take some shots in the draft to that end, so be it, but the best trade pieces need to be used otherwise.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

Rule 5 is underway, we took a guy who looks like he can be a power bullpen arm with a slider:



Edit, minor league portion:



So essentially a Nick Burdi pick where we can delay activation while he rehabs, eventually find a role in the pen, and another bullpen option. Not surprising or objectionable in terms of using the rule 5 draft.




Last edit. We have two open spots on the 40-man, so looks like this guy will take up one. Soriano won't have to be added until he comes off IR. Spitzbarth is just in the system now, not requiring an add to the 40 man until we want to promote him.

 

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Pirates hire new pitching development coordinator, make changes to baseball ops | TribLIVE.com

I like it. A pitching mind that understands K's are the best way to get people out. No chance for an error. No baserunners. Pitching to contact should be a thing of the past.

I'd also like to think this moves the needle towards Rocker. As it should be.

Barring a big step back for Kumar or an absolutely insane start for Leiter, there is no way you can conclude the latter as the better prospect. He's done very little at the collegiate level (hence requiring much more projection) whereas Rocker has flashed 2 pitches that are 60+ offerings already (slider is a 70) and more importantly has a year + of tape to go on. Plus being the MVP of the CWS is the icing on the cake. He absolutely dominated the best that came his way. And he's only going to get better.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

Back in action after being out for several games, potentially/presumably with covid (several guys on the team had it):



That swing...

 

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Bucs Mock Draft:

2021 MLB Draft Top 300 Prospects — Prospects Live

Top Baseball Draft Prospects

1.1 - Kumar Rocker - RHP - Vandy

-Elite upside. I think potential HOF'er if everything clicks. 70-65-50 go his slider, FB, and change up which is said to be improving as we speak. Also heard he's working on a cutter. If he can improve his command on the FB and peak that change up as a 55/60, he'll be well on his way.

The BIG advantages in favor of Rocker is we've seen him do it over a full season, in the CWS, where he just happened to throw a 19K no-no, win MVP, and help lead Vandy to another title. As a freshman. Both Leiter and Hill, as of now, have next to no live game action to go on. And Hill also has some injury woes, which I personally hate seeing this early. Especially elbows/shoulders. It's always possible Rocker regresses or gets hurt and/or the previously mentioned 2 have elite seasons, boosting their already top 5/10 stocks.

I love Rocker's aggressiveness and fire on the mound. He's an absolute horse who has the body and loose arm which should hopefully push the needle towards durability. His slider is disgusting an he already spins it with solid command. FB is electric, just needs to tidy up the command on that one. Also needs to keep an eye on the overall weight and conditioning but given his father was a pro athlete and Rocker seems to be pretty damn mature, I wouldn't have too many worries there.

All I can say, is he's the best P prospect, IMO, since Strasburg.

Barring some major changes in the spring (as mentioned above), I would be very disappointed to see us pick anyone else as of now.

2.36 - Anthony Solemato - LHP - NJ (HS)

-Some of the comps they're throwing around sound pretty damn appealing to me! Unlike Rocker I've not seen this kid pitch so I'm simply guessing based on what I've read.

The one area where we are really hurting in the minor leagues is left handed pitching, specifically SP.

We got the big fish with the 1OA, a proven college veteran. I don't mind chasing a HS arm here especially if this kid looks good in the spring/summer. One also can't assume he would still be available at 36th but he's ranked 47th and 35th in the 2 links above.

Love those quirky deliveries. Screws with a lot of hitters.




Comp B.65 - Noah Cardenas - C - UCLA

-Very strong defensive C already which I like to see in prospects at this position. Seems to have more road to go as an offensive threat (strong freshman year but poor 2nd season/Cape). However, with the DH coming to the NL in the near future I think having an elite defensive C who can manage a staff/call a game is going to become even more important.

This is a shot in the dark of course but I do think we need to take a shot at C fairly early in the draft. Like LHP, we don't have much to bank on in the minors right now.

Might not seem like a sexy pick but if yo can get a C who is in the upper 3rd of the league defensively the need for an offensive force diminishes pretty significantly.

 

[DaBadGuy7]

 

[turd]

Keep on kicking that can.

 

[ImporterExporter]

YES!!!!

Nats have some good prospects. Probably didn't get anyone in the top 15 though.

 

[ChaosAgent]

Good-ish deal.

Bell is worth basically nothing outside of his 2019 1st half, especially now with the DH not coming to the NL in '21. He is an inferior player to Moran, full-stop.

Just quickly glancing at the return: I see Yean is the high-upside guy they coveted and Crowe as being rotation depth. Both were top 10 in the Nats system, although it's immediately obvious that it's a cruddy system. So whatever.

Guess we're rolling with Moran at 1st and hoping for a Mason Martin breakout.

 

[ChaosAgent]

YES!!!!

Nats have some good prospects. Probably didn't get anyone in the top 15 though.

They got 2 guys in the top 10, but they do not have good prospects. They were ranked as the worst system in baseball.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

At first sight this has the appearance of the kind of trades that people faulted Huntington for, in the sense of selling to make sure and recoup some value. I don't have any idea who these guys are, other than a pretty negative assessment of the Nationals farm in general. I've said this a couple times recently in the thread I'm pretty sure, but I've gone over to the "Bell isn't too good camp", so I think there's a real risk that keeping him could lead to his value tanking even more. It's not an easy call and I don't really see a lot to be excited about in the package. One thing I really hope is that this doesn't mean Moran is the 1B going forward.

 

[TNT87]

 

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They got 2 guys in the top 10, but they do not have good prospects. They were ranked as the worst system in baseball.

Who the hell was I thinking of???

Yean seems like he could have a decent ceiling at least.

 

[ImporterExporter]

Cherington is going hard after pitching.

And a good day to you sir!

 

[DJ Spinoza]

It looks like Yean is the intriguing guy and Crowe is a depth-type guy who can go right into the rotation. In fairness to BC, Yean is the type of higher risk, higher ceiling player that people want to target, but he's young and inexperienced so the jury will be out for some time.

Without much information from last year, I think that's about all you can say. The tag on Crowe seems to be dependable #4 starter, which we don't currently have in the sense of where he's at years-of-control-wise. But he could just as well be a filler type.

The gamble of the deal is probably that Bell will not significantly rebuild value, which is reasonable enough to make. It should be the start of an aggressive sequence of moves, IMO, but I continue to be worried that we might be gearing up to just punt completely on 3 years of Hayes. We should be working to accelerate the window of competition, with a weak division and a ton of flexibility. Bell very well could have nothing to do with that, but there's no way to conclude much from this kind of deal. Much like the Marte deal, albeit with worse prospects, this is clearly about "building." For what remains unclear.

 

[ChaosAgent]

At first sight this has the appearance of the kind of trades that people faulted Huntington for, in the sense of selling to make sure and recoup some value. I don't have any idea who these guys are, other than a pretty negative assessment of the Nationals farm in general. I've said this a couple times recently in the thread I'm pretty sure, but I've gone over to the "Bell isn't too good camp", so I think there's a real risk that keeping him could lead to his value tanking even more. It's not an easy call and I don't really see a lot to be excited about in the package. One thing I really hope is that this doesn't mean Moran is the 1B going forward.

He's the 1B for this year where they'll stink anyway, but I'm hoping for a Mason Martin breakout or, I dunno, our MI depth forces us to move Cruz there or something.

I really don't see how Martin wasn't rated higher. 35 HRs at age 19-20 is fantastic. His K/PA rate was high of course, but just over 30% - nothing too crazy.

 

[The Great Mighty Poo]

 

[ChaosAgent]

It looks like Yean is the intriguing guy and Crowe is a depth-type guy who can go right into the rotation. In fairness to BC, Yean is the type of higher risk, higher ceiling player that people want to target, but he's young and inexperienced so the jury will be out for some time.

Without much information from last year, I think that's about all you can say. The tag on Crowe seems to be dependable #4 starter, which we don't currently have in the sense of where he's at years-of-control-wise. But he could just as well be a filler type.

The gamble of the deal is probably that Bell will not significantly rebuild value, which is reasonable enough to make. It should be the start of an aggressive sequence of moves, IMO, but I continue to be worried that we might be gearing up to just punt completely on 3 years of Hayes. We should be working to accelerate the window of competition, with a weak division and a ton of flexibility. Bell very well could have nothing to do with that, but there's no way to conclude much from this kind of deal. Much like the Marte deal, albeit with worse prospects, this is clearly about "building." For what remains unclear.

Crowe brings Kingham to mind pretty much immediately.

Also you have to say that this saves Nutting money right now. It's the right move but I never like the 'saves Nutting money' signals.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

He's the 1B for this year where they'll stink anyway, but I'm hoping for a Mason Martin breakout or, I dunno, our MI depth forces us to move Cruz there or something.

I really don't see how Martin wasn't rated higher. 35 HRs at age 19-20 is fantastic. His K/PA rate was high of course, but just over 30% - nothing too crazy.

Yeah, that could be fine. I doubt Moran is worth much of anything unless it's as the additional piece in a deal. Hell, there's an argument to be made that he might scrape some value and be dealable at the deadline. I don't think we should be looking at Cruz at 1B anytime soon, since his arm and speed make him still valuable in the OF. That's a bridge to cross when the time comes, but in any case Martin certainly has more of an opportunity now.

I agree re: Kingham and Nutting.

At the end of the day, a Bell deal is kind of a paradigmatic example of where things are at I think. It sucks. Bell sucked last year, and has been wildly inconsistent with no meaningful signs that that would ever change (here or elsewhere). There was talk he could be non-tendered. There's no reasonable path where a Bell trade would result in an impactful package, so in that sense at least I am glad we recouped two pitchers, because if you are going to add some more depth, you might as well do it there. Hopefully Yean has some real helium and there's a different tune to sing about this in 18 months other than "meh."

 

[Empoleon8771]

Yeah, no strong feelings on that deal. Bell has been shit with the Pirates outside of that really hot stretch in the 2019 season. He's a 2.6 WAR player over a sample size equal to 3.5 seasons and is coming off a horrid year.

Getting 2 50 FV pitching prospects for Bell, one of which seems MLB ready, is fine.

 

[DJ Spinoza]

As always, Adam Berry with the quickest and most helpful distillation of info:



If you read around on Yean, he clearly already had some helium heading into 2020, so he's probably the big target here. I wouldn't read a ton into Crowe, though if I were inclined to, I would say that it could be an indication that more than just Musgrove could be on the block to move this offseason. But Yean clearly seems like the player to pin some hopes on. To me he sounds a bit like a lite version of Thomas.

I'll say this as an "overall" type of comment: I'm more than happy to just have Cherington go all the way with ripping off a bandaid right now, and scooping up what he can for the sake of moving on. If you deal Musgrove, then Taillon is basically the only real "figurehead" type player from older teams that's still around. These kind of "mood changers" aren't really relevant to thinking about deals, but they are obviously impactful and important in other ways.

At this point I sort of prefer decisive action and playing out the consequences sooner rather than later. I remain convinced that we should be aggressively trying to maximize the window around Hayes as a star talent, but there is more than one way to do that. For example, next year we can be more aggressive in terms of getting prospects moving through the system – i.e., let's see how Priester might look in AA by the end of the year. I'm not going to pretend to have a blueprint mapped out, but I suppose what I'm getting around to saying is that I could totally stomach a full season in the tank if it's clear that we are starting to build for 2022. What I don't want to have happen, though, is building for 2024, because that's wasting a lot of opportunity with a window that is at least pretty wide open, in the sense that nobody else in the division is really racing to do much. Have to go one step at a time, but if step one is aggressively moving on from multiple guys - Musgrove, Moran, Brault, Frazier, Polanco (all in one manner or another, not suggesting they'll all be gone by March) - then let's get on with it.

 

[ChaosAgent]

The thing that's so damning about Bell is that he and the team focused so intensely on converting him to 1B and he just...couldn't. He's only a DH and not a good one given his offensive performance for 85% of his career.

Some guys just don't have "it" defensively. Like Pedro post-throwing yips. Or Adam Dunn.

Guys like Moran or Osuna move over there and are better pretty much instantly.

I'll never forget that riverball in June 2019 though. That was a thing of beauty.