Organizational Rankings: Future Talent – Washington

It’s been a slow climb back to respectability for the former Montreal Expos franchise, now known as the Washington Nationals. Years of league control slashed the organization’s budget, which was certainly felt in both the player development and scouting/draft areas.

With a modest budget, the big-league club relies on a lot of young players. Outfielder Elijah Dukes has been around for a while but he’s still just 25 years old. The Rays organization gave up on him due to ongoing make-up/attitude issues and the Nationals organization made a smart decision to jump on him while his value was low. Shortstop Ian Desmond has been touted as the Next Great Thing for a few years now, but he’s finally ready to make good on the hype. Unfortunately, the club made a poor decision to give incumbent shortstop Cristian Guzman a contract extension, which has now become the elephant in the room. The best young fielder on the team, though, is third baseman Ryan Zimmerman, who is now in his fifth full season in the Majors. The 25-year-old infielder is the club’s best hitter and one of only two high first round picks that the club has made good on in the past 10 years.

The other good pick is Mr. Stephen Strasburg, although the 2009 first overall pick in the entire draft has yet to throw an regular season pro pitch (He did throw in the ’09 Arizona Fall League, a developmental league for prospects). Although he may already be better than any of the other pitchers currently in the Nationals’ starting rotation, Strasburg is probably headed for the minors (double-A or triple-A) for the first month or so. The club has another talented, young pitcher in Jordan Zimmermann, but he was derailed by Tommy John surgery and will not be back at full strength until 2011. Southpaw John Lannan is entering his third full season in the Majors and is a sign that the club can find diamonds in the rough. The former 11th round pick from 2005 has been an innings-eater over the past two seasons and is still just 25.

There are a few more good, young players on the way in catcher Derek Norris, reliever Drew Storen, and shortstop Danny Espinosa but the depth in the system is still not great, especially on the mound. The club has not shown much willingness to spend on international players. The draft results have also been quite modest considering the club’s high ranks in the draft orders. Decisions to re-sign fringe veterans like Guzman and Ronnie Belliard – dime-a-dozen players in the free agent market – have robbed the rebuilding club of valuable supplemental draft picks.

Scouting director Dana Brown, who held the position for eight years, has moved on to a new role with the Toronto Blue Jays so the drafts will now be overseen by Kris Kline. Doug Harris is the club’s director of player development; that role has been a bit of a revolving door over the past five years so some stability might be good for the organization.

The club has shown an ability to acquire talented, young players, whose values have slipped (Dukes, Lastings Milledge, now in Pittsburgh), in trades but it has yet to truly master the amateur draft or player development. A lack of desire to play ball in the international market is also hurting an organization that was once well-known for its pursuits overseas (Vladimir Guerrero, Orlando Cabrera, to name just a few). More money needs to be spent on scouting, signing and developing in-house talent. Signing free agents like Adam Kennedy and trading for players like Nyjer Morgan serve a purposes – but only to act as placeholders for inexpensive, team-controlled prospects already developing in the pipeline. This organization is starting to figure it out, but it still has a long way to go.