The Top-Five Nationals Prospects by Projected WAR

Earlier today, Kiley McDaniel published his consummately researched and demonstrably authoritative prospect list for the Washington Nationals. What follows is a different exercise than that, one much smaller in scope and designed to identify not Washington’s top overall prospects but rather the rookie-eligible players in the Nationals system who are most ready to produce wins at the major-league level in 2015 (regardless of whether they’re likely to receive the opportunity to do so). No attempt has been made, in other words, to account for future value.

Below are the top-five prospects in the Nationals system by projected WAR. To assemble this brief list, what I’ve done is to locate the Steamer 600 projections for all the prospects to whom McDaniel assessed a Future Value grade of 40 or greater. Hitters’ numbers are normalized to 550 plate appearances; starting pitchers’, to 150 innings — i.e. the playing-time thresholds at which a league-average player would produce a 2.0 WAR. Catcher projections are prorated to 415 plate appearances to account for their reduced playing time.

Note that, in many cases, defensive value has been calculated entirely by positional adjustment based on the relevant player’s minor-league defensive starts — which is to say, there has been no attempt to account for the runs a player is likely to save in the field. As a result, players with an impressive offensive profile relative to their position are sometimes perhaps overvalued — that is, in such cases where their actual defensive skills are sub-par.

5. Austin Voth, RHP (Profile)

IP K/9 BB/9 HR/9 FIP WAR
150 6.5 3.4 1.0 4.43 0.5

Even though he features just a fringe-average fastball, Voth has had considerable success in his two seasons of affiliated baseball, producing strikeout and walk rates of 27.9% and 6.5% over 173.0 innings. And while he pitched in college, he’s also generally skewed towards the young side of average relative to his levels, so it’s not as though he’s merely preying on less experiences competition. He ended the 2014 season with Double-A Harrisburg and profiles as something better than a replacement-level starter entering 2015.

4. Matt Skole, 3B (Profile)

PA AVG OBP SLG wRC+ WAR
550 .219 .303 .347 84 0.9

There are compelling features to Skole’s game. He’s produced impressive home-run figures in situations that can’t be entirely dismissed because of park factors, and has also recorded a career walk rate (15.9%) roughly double the minor-league average. While the power is encouraging, work by Chris Mitchell on his KATOH methodology reveals that walk rates in the low minors aren’t significant. Moreover, with regard to the projection here, Skole is benefiting from a defensive forecast informed entirely by the third-base positional adjustment — and not at all, in other words, by his fielding ability. If, as McDaniel notes, he really is below-average at third base, then the projection ought to be duly adjusted mentally.

t2. Sammy Solis, LHP (Profile)

IP K/9 BB/9 HR/9 FIP WAR
150 7.2 3.1 1.0 4.05 1.1

A projection for Solis that’s prorated to 150 innings might be misleading: owing to a number of injuries, he’s recorded fewer than 180 innings total over a five-year career in the minors. When he has pitched, however, he’s pitched well — including even this past season, when he produced strikeout-to-walk ratio of 17:3 in 18.1 innings across four levels. Both the numbers and the scouting opinions appear to remain optimistic about Solis’s abilities on a per-inning basis. His capacity to compile innings is the challenge.

t2. A.J. Cole, RHP (Profile)

IP K/9 BB/9 HR/9 FIP WAR
150 7.0 2.7 1.0 4.05 1.1

Cole is a bit of a polarizing figure insofar as he has exhibited better velocity than most prospects while also throwing strikes — a generally encouraging combination of skills, that — but also, as McDaniel notes, lacks a plus secondary pitch and has perhaps given cause for some to wonder about his makeup. Perhaps because of the velocity, Steamer projects very little decay in his strikeout rates from the high minors to the majors. Still, the present value is something like a win above replacement level.

1. Lucas Giolito, RHP (Profile)

IP K/9 BB/9 HR/9 FIP WAR
150 8.6 3.5 0.9 3.77 1.6

Steamer’s league adjustments are generally robust, such that even a top prospect who’s acquitted himself quite well — if he’s done it in the low minors, there’s little chance of him receiving a particularly encouraging projection. That’s the context, in other words, in which Steamer has projected Giolito, who was a 19-year-old last year playing in the Class-A South Atlantic League, to produce a nearly major-league-average pitching line in 2015. Very encouraging, that.





Carson Cistulli has published a book of aphorisms called Spirited Ejaculations of a New Enthusiast.

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