Below is an analysis of the prospects in the Washington Nationals farm system. Scouting reports are compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as from my own observations. The KATOH statistical projections, probable-outcome graphs, and (further down) Mahalanobis comps have been provided by Chris Mitchell. For more information on thes 20-80 scouting scale by which all of my prospect content is governed you can click here. For further explanation of the merits and drawbacks of Future Value, read this. -Eric Longenhagen

The KATOH projection system uses minor-league data and Baseball America prospect rankings to forecast future performance in the major leagues. For each player, KATOH produces a WAR forecast for his first six years in the major leagues. There are drawbacks to scouting the stat line, so take these projections with a grain of salt. Due to their purely objective nature, the projections here can be useful in identifying prospects who might be overlooked or overrated. Due to sample-size concerns, only players with at least 200 minor-league plate appearances or batters faced last season have received projections. -Chris Mitchell

Other Lists
NL West (ARI, COL, LAD, SD, SF)
AL Central (CHW, CLE, DET, KC, MIN)
NL Central (CHC, CIN, PIT, MIL, StL)
NL East (ATL, MIA, NYM, PHI, WAS)
AL East (BAL, BOS, NYY, TB, TOR)

60 FV Prospects

Relevant/Interesting Metrics
Slashed .280/.376/.423 with 37 stolen bases in 2016.

Scouting Report
Scouts rightly venerate Robles’ heavenly feel to hit. He identifies balls and strikes consistently, makes mid-flight adjustments to breaking balls, casually wields plus bat speed and has feel for the barrel. He’s one of the better pure hitting prospects in the minor leagues, spraying high-quality contact to all fields and then wreaking havoc on the bases. Robles is also a plus-plus runner whose routes in center field are fine, if perhaps a bit circuitous at times. But, just on his speed, he projects as a 55 defender in center field rather conservatively, which allows him to vigilantly guard both outfield gaps. There’s a chance he’s plus there at peak if his reads (especially on balls hit toward shallow center) improve. He also has a plus-plus arm.

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Mike Harkey saw his career go south in 1991. Coming off a rookie year where he went 12-6, with a 3.26 ERA for the Cubs, the former fourth-overall pick suffered a shoulder injury that essentially squelched a promising future. He persevered after surgery, pitching parts of another six seasons, but he was never the same.

The what-could-have-been hurler doesn’t blame anyone for what happened.

“I think it’s one of those things where everybody is preordained,” said Harkey, who is now the bullpen coach for the Yankees. “X amount of pitchers are going to get hurt, and it was just my turn. I don’t feel I was ever overused. I threw every Friday night at Cal State Fullerton, and when I got to pro ball I pitched every fifth day.”

Four games into his 1991 campaign, he succumbed to the inevitable. His shoulder had begun barking the previous September, but thinking it was tendonitis — “I always had a high tolerance for pain” — he soldiered on. As he said when we spoke last summer, he didn’t know how bad it was until he couldn’t pitch anymore.

Harkey doesn’t begrudge his fate, but he does admit looking back. Read the rest of this entry »

Each week, we publish north of 100 posts on our various blogs. With this post, we hope to highlight 10 to 15 of them. You can read more on it here. The links below are color coded — green for FanGraphs, brown for RotoGraphs, dark red for The Hardball Times and blue for Community Research.
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The 2015-16 free-agent class was big, full of talent and ultimately resulted in seven $100 million contracts — along with another seven worth $50 million or more. This offseason led to more contracts (a total of eight, precisely) in the $50 million to $100 million range; however, among the entire class, only Yoenis Cespedes received more than $100 million.

As Cespedes himself could tell you, a player’s value can change significantly in a season. Despite having aged a year, Cespedes received $35 million more in guarantees this winter than he did last. While Cespedes had a strong 2016, though, many of his free-agent peers who signed big contracts last offseason have proven to be big disappointments.

First, let’s take a quick look at the contracts signed last year. The table below includes not only the actual amounts of the contacts themselves, but also an estimate of the value said player would have been expected to provide starting with the time he signed. To calculate this estimated value, I began with each player’s WAR forecast from last year’s FanGraphs Depth chart projections, started with $8 million per win with 5% inflation, and applied a standard aging curve. The rightmost column indicates whether the player in question was expected to outperform or underperform the cost of his contract.

There’s about a $94 million surplus among these deal. That said, there were also nine qualifying offers made to the players — which attached draft-pick compensation to the signings — while seven of the contracts included opt-out clauses. Those two factors might wipe out any surplus value.

At this time last year, the numbers indicated that Jason Heyward was a colossal bargain, a four-win player just entering his age-26 season. Heyward, as well as Ben Zobrist and Wei-Yin Chen, made Dave Cameron’s free-agent bargain list. Based on the projections, both Justin Upton and Alex Gordon seemed like decent bets to pay off. Cameron wasn’t buying on Upton, however, placing him among the free-agent landmines along with Jordan Zimmermann and Chris Davis.

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Back in December, Bryan Price opined in these pages that young pitchers should throw more, not less. The Cincinnati Reds manager was referring to the minor leagues — youthful amateurs are a different story — which is essentially finishing school for up-and-coming hurlers. In Price’s view, “throwing is the only way for them to learn the craft.” For that reason, they should “carry a heavier workload.”

Price uttered those words at a winter-meetings media session, which limited his ability to elaborate on, and clarify, certain salient opinions. With that in mind, I recently followed up with the former pitching coach to give him that opportunity. Injuries and causation was the first subject he addressed.

“I don’t see anything in our baseball community — our pitching community — that suggests protecting these kids by decreasing their workload leads to a lessening of the number of injuries that require surgery,” said Price. “We have yet to put a finger on how we’re going to cure, and completely avoid, the Tommy John issues, the ulnar collateral ligament issues. Perhaps it’s training methods, and kids playing year round now, as opposed to playing seasonal sports. That would be my guess, but I don’t know that as a fact.

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Personally, I prefer the DH-less game. I like when managers are forced to make more in-game decisions — in particular, when they must decide whether to allow a starting pitcher to take one last at-bat before exiting. I like that starting pitchers who are perhaps pitching too aggressively up-and-in are held accountable by stepping into the batter’s box. In an age of elevated pitching injuries, I like that the pitching spot allows pitchers a breather when working through the lineup multiple times. I like that each player who wields a bat must also wear a glove. And as a former beat writer, and as a fan of the game, I like that the game moves a little more quickly without the DH.

But it seems the adoption of the DH by the NL is inevitable, having become part of the game at the amateur level and every professional level besides the NL. Entering the most recent collective-bargaining cycle, it seemed like the DH-to-the-NL could be in play.

I bring up the DH today because Pedro Alvarez is still available. I bring up the DH today because the NL’s leading home-run hitters last season, Chris Carter, had so little appeal on the market this offseason that he considered playing in Japan before agreeing to a one-year, $3-million deal with the Yankees. I bring up the DH because Adam Lind (142 wRC+ in 2014, 119 wRC+ in 2015) settled for a one-year, $1.5-million deal with the Nationals in mid-February. I bring up the DH because, as Dave Cameron wrote earlier this offseason, the industry is not valuing bat-only players.

The players seemed to have largely kicked the can down the road in the most recent CBA. Their objectives seemed modest in nature, focused primarily on the qualifying offer. And the changes to QO compensation did mark a small victory for the union. Despite a declining share of revenues, players are nevertheless enjoying record average salaries. Perhaps the status is quo is good enough for the majority of players.

But if the union is seeking small victories, it’s a little surprising the DH wasn’t more of a focus. It didn’t seem to be a significant negotiating topic in CBA talks despite indications from Rob Manfred that there was growing interest from his perspective, and with Tony Clark suggesting that he was open to the idea when speaking with the St. Louis Post Dispatch back in 2015.

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