We’re now past both the 2024 Draft and the 2024 Trade Deadline. Lets summarize the draft results, the trade deadline deals, and then discuss the impact all these new players seem to have on our “top 30” ranks and perhaps on the team in the future.
2024 Draft Results. We signed 20 of our 21 picked players, only missing out on the 20th pick, who seemed to be picked as insurance in case our 2nd rounder Luke Dickerson failed to come to terms. Based on the immediate ranking adjustments, the following 2024 draftees will soon slot into our various top 30s in roughly the following spots:
- 5-7 Range: #1 pick Seaver King, who probably starts at SS and 3B in High-A next year.
- 7-10 Range: #1s pick Caleb Lomavita, who hopefully is catching full time at High-A next year.
- 16-20 Range: #3 pick Kevin Bazzell, who probably gets some C cycles in High-A next year.
- Low 20 range: #2 pick Luke Dickerson, who the Nats seem higher on than others. FCL next year.
- 23-25 Range: #4 Pick Jackson Kent, who should be in the Low-A rotation next year.
- 28-30 Range: #8 pick Sam Peterson, who BA slotted in at #29 right out of the gate. Low-A OF.
So, that’s 6 guys pushing the typical edge of the prospect list downwards. For Baseball America’s immediate impact analysis, the above 6 guys meant that #31-36 became Cruz, Nunez, Baker, Alvarez, Lord, and Brown. To give an idea of how the draft strengthens farm systems.
Expectations out of this lot? I’m hoping King turns into someone who can push Luis Garcia when the time is right and maybe Garcia’s pushing arbitration dollars. I’m hoping one of Lomavita or Bazzell makes a for-real push to the upper minors and bolsters our C depth. I’m hoping we get some found-gold in one or two of the starters we got. But, unlike the last couple of drafts, where our 1st rounder was supposed to be a bonafide future superstar, I’m just not that wow’ed by anyone in our draft this year. Maybe its b/c of the lack of brand name awareness this year. We know the pundits seem to really like this draft, so we just have to be patient.
Then, along came the trade Deadline. The Nats were able to move four of the really obvious guys on the trading block (Harvey, Winker, Thomas, and Floro). An ill-timed blow-up inning seems to have cost the team the shot at trading closer Finnegan, and of course what could have been our best trade chip in Trevor Williams blew any shot at a prospect haul when he strained his flexor tendon two months ago. Other FAs to be who also missed out at netting us prospects; Corbin (ha-ha), Gallo (hurt), and the crew of Robles/Rosario/Barnes/Senzel (all DFA’d/released due to under-performance before they could be flipped). The four guys we did trade netted us the following players (and the rough area the acquisitions will slot in from a prospect perspective):
- 7-9 range: Cayden Wallace, 3B in AA, netted in Harvey trade. Also got the supplemental draft pick that turned into Lomavita
- 15-17 range; Tyler Steward, RHP Starting pitcher in AA, netted in Winker trade.
- 6-8 Range: Alex Clemmey, a 19yr old LHP Starting pitcher in Low-A netted in Thomas trade. High-risk/high-reward prospect.
- 23-25 range: Rafael Ramirez, a 19yr old SS in Low-A, netted in Thomas trade. Another high risk/high-reward.
- Outside top 30: Jose Tena, a 23yr old AAA 2B/3B with some MLB time. At one point he was near the Cleveland top 10, now has dropped back. He has great AAA numbers this year, better than a lot of our middle infield guys. So this isn’t a throw-in. He could legitimately push Vargas as a backup middle infield option.
- Outside top 30: Andres Chapparo, a 25-yr old 1B/3B AAA guy who was a MLFA signing in the off-season. Acquired for Floro. Did we really just trade Floro for a month of a MLFA? I’d like to think we retain some control over Chapparo for more than the rest of 2024. He’s destroying AAA this year and is on his way to hitting 20+ homers for the 3rd straight year in the minors. Listed as 3B, but the guy is 5’11”, 200lbs, which screams out “immobile 1B or DH basher.” Plus we already have House, Kieboom, Dunn and a couple others sharing 3B in AAA.
So, that’s quite a haul. Probably 9-10 guys who will slot into our top 30s at either MLB, BA, or elsewhere picked up in the last month. Four of them project as top 10 guys, really helping to bolster the depth in this system. King remains the highest ranked of any of them, but you have to be excited to see what guys like Clemmey, Wallace, and Dickerson can do.
Expectations here? Well, I like the fact that we got two established AA guys. Last year we acquired a solid AA guy in Herz and now he’s in the majors; we could see the same thing out of Steward or Wallace in a year. I like that we got two AAA talents who can bolster that lineup. And I like the lottery tickets that slot into low-A because why not, and because Cleveland is one of those teams that doesn’t shy away from drafting and developing prep and DSL kids well.
One last tidbit. Our Trade partners this year were … odd. We traded with four teams:
- Kansas City/Harvey: last trade was in 2021, a minor cash deal. Last time we did anything of substance in trade with KC was 2018.
- New York Mets/Winker deal: last move with them was 2018, a minor cash deal. Before that was the random Jerry Blevins deal in 2015, who seemingly got moved because he took the Nats to arbitration over like $200k, beat the team, and was dealt a few weeks later.
- Cleveland/Thomas: last move with them also was 2018, the Yan Gomes deal that turned out a lot better for us than it did them.
- Arizona/Floro: we havn’t traded with Arizona since 2011, nearly the entire Rizzo tenure here.
So, interesting that we traded with teams we havn’t done business with in years. Who are the teams we’ve gone the longest without making a deal with? We havn’t traded with Colorado since 2009 (the Joe Biemel deal), We havn’t done business with Houston since 2007 (and even that was the swap of two minor leaguers), but the most hilarious one? We havn’t traded with Baltimore since 2001.