Nationals Promote Wilmer Difo for Some Reason
A few weeks ago, the Padres promoted one of their best remaining prospects, Austin Hedges, to join the Major League club to serve as Derek Norris‘ backup. It was a bit of an odd move, given that Hedges might have just been figuring out how to hit professional pitching, but the Padres wanted to upgrade their roster and saw more short-term value in having Hedges catch a couple of times per week in the big leagues.
Well, apparently, the Washington Nationals are going to try a similar trick, as Ken Rosenthal reports that the team is promoting infield prospect Wilmer Difo, with outfielder Jayson Werth potentially heading to the DL.
Sources: #Nationals expected to promote IF Wilmer Difo. Werth a candidate for DL.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) May 19, 2015
Difo spent all of last year in low-A ball, started this year in high-A, and was promoted to Double-A a few weeks ago. He’s consistently hit well, showing both contact and some power, but he has a grand total of 33 games above low-A ball in his career — even though he just turned 23 — so to say it’s been a quick rise would be an understatement. But now the question is what the Nationals are going to do with him?
Shortstop is blocked by Ian Desmond, who while struggling at the moment remains one of the best players at the position in the game. Yunel Escobar has hit well while playing both second and third base, but has primarily settled in at third in Anthony Rendon’s absence, leaving second base to Danny Espinosa, who is also hitting far better this year than he has in prior years. Neither Escobar nor Espinosa need replacing, so Difo is apparently coming up to serve as a utility infielder until Rendon returns, at which point the team won’t even need him in that role.
Difo is an interesting player, and could potentially be a starter for the Nationals as soon as next year, but he doesn’t have a clear role on the 2015 Nationals, and having him sit on the bench in the big leagues isn’t going to help speed up his development. I’m not entirely sure why promoting a prospect to sit on the bench is becoming a trend, but it probably shouldn’t be. In the end, this likely won’t matter much at all, but it’s a little weird to see another prospect promoted at a time when the big league team doesn’t need him to actually play.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
I can’t explain Difo, but think the explanation given in the article for Hedges is a bit of an oversimplification. I’ve read from several sources that the Padres was to get Hedges used to catching in a major league environment – and get the pitchers used to him – with the idea of easing him into an eventual starting role later this year (if Norris is traded) or next April. Now I wouldn’t do this if I were the Team Dictator, but the Friars’ rationale seems more nuanced than the “Padres trying to maximize short-term value” headline that Dave has been using.
Are there advantages to promoting certain prospects before the Super-2 cutoff: prospects less likely to bring in big bucks in arbitration later?
Yeah, money in arbitration. You don’t have to pay an extra year, that will save money for a team.
B.Badler just tweeted that the Nats only have 3 minor leaguers on the 40 man, so not much of a choice.
The other two — Matt Den Dekker and Brian Goodwin — are actual outfielders, who could replace the guy going on the DL. They also have Craig Stammen, who is out for the year, but isn’t on the 60 day DL yet, so opening up an extra spot would be easy.
Rizzo continues to mystify. Maybe he thinks one of his middle infielders can play outfield, but beside that, I don’t have a clue. Seems like he just wanted to call up the best available player, no matter the depth at the position
Calling up the best player available seems like…not a bad way to do things, if it’s just for a short-term replacement. Two weeks (or 9 days, if they DL Werth retroactively) isn’t likely to stunt his development too much.
The Nats also have a number of guys on the bench who can play left field, at least, and no middle infield depth beyond Dan Uggla. Michael Taylor will be the main fill-in anyway, so they don’t necessarily need an outfielder to fill the spot.
Yeah, mystify, like that time he traded a bag of balls for Doug Fister. Or that time he flipped Matt Capps for Will on Ramos. Or that time he got Giolito while picking middle of the 1st round.
You can question his managerial hires, but Rizzo is a good GM.
The active roster for the Nats already has backup outfielders. They however only have Dan Uggla as a backup infielder. I repeat. Uggla as an infielder…
Werth has no structural damage and can be placed on the DL retroactive to 5/15. The team has days off on 5/21 and 5/28. They only have 9 scheduled games in the time period Werth would be out. Why not let Difo get a sniff of the majors and add some flexibility to the roster without having to tweak your 40 man at all?
Is it possible they dont think Desmond is simply struggling at the moment, but is actually not good anymore?
If that were the case, the infield would be Escobar-Espinosa-Uggla… oh wait. They’d have to start Uggla. Maybe you’re right.
I’m pretty sure that even if the Nationals think Desmond is not good anymore, they don’t think he is Uggla-not good. But then again, they are the team employing Uggla, so who knows?
Well, This could be seen as the Nationals are showing and gathering attention around Difo so other teams may get interested. but in other note, Having a just 3 minors player on the 40 man dont let them with a lot of choices… but in my believe its not a secret that Difo is a great young talent and im sure that he will be capable of hitting in any level.. Congrats DIFO.. now make it happen.
I’ll tell you why. They have Robinson, Moore and Taylor to play the outfield. They have uggla and nobody else to play the IF. Difo is also a switch hitter, so he offers pinch hitting value. Plus, if Espi or Yunel gets injured or needs a day off, they have to put in uggla, who is fucking horrific. Difo would also get in the game in the case of a blowout, which has been happening frequently for the nats.
This makes no sense and I think there has been a mistake. The guy has under 100 AA appearances in his career, and in one word you’d call them “promising” but not “ready.”
I know he got an at bat last night, but I still believe everyone is mistaken right now.
The Nats could have added Emmanuel Burriss to the 40 man and called him up from Syracuse. He’s had some success there this year and last. would have been nice given his DC roots and, more importantly, not interrupted Difo’s time in AA.
Fella got a hit in his first big league at bat.
Some of Dave’s pieces, if they were comments on this site, would receive a plethora of downvotes.