Quick Reactions to Four Full Season Rosters

Andrew Alvarez got the opening day start for AAA Rochester. Photo via Fred Nats

Today on April 1st, we got the three remaining full-season rosters for our affiliates. This is not an April Fools Prank

Here’s quick links to the data (though Luke Erickson has already done a great job of distilling the information for us at this post for AAA and this post for the other three).

Here’s the direct links to official Press Releases and/or other social media roster announcements:

The Nats Big Board is now up to date for all four rosters. I’ve slotted in all the players in the roles I think they’re set to take for now (will adjust this as we get real games to see who’s actually in what job), and moved all others to XST.

Here’s some random thoughts of each roster, from AAA to low-A

AAA

There’s not enough playing time to go around for our 40-man middle infielders. One from Baker, Nunez, and Lipscomb (all of whom are 2B/SS guys) has to sit. Opening day it was surprisingly Baker not starting.
They only really have 3 true outfielders on this roster: their bench bats/DH types are 1B only (Yepez, Cordero) or backup middle infield (Cluff) thanks to the team keeping a 3rd catcher.
They’re carrying a 3rd catcher in Lindsly, and Knizner declined his option to leave and now is the backup in AAA. Interesting. Maybe he’s actually the starter in AAA since he was kept in MLB camp longer than Millas. Will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Paul Witt was a catcher, then an outfielder, now he’s being called a 3B. What’s more amazing is that he’s made it to AAA despite a career .210 batting average as a NDFA from the Covid 2020 year.
With the team finally acknowledging that Adon and Rutledge can’t start, the rotation was pretty easy to figure out. Alvarez, Lara, Ogasawara got the first three slots, and (we’ll find out the rest soon) but the other two starters kind of have to be Choi and Solesky. They already threw Plinkington and Adon in middle relief … so perhaps that was their “throw day” and they’ll start later this week, but we’ll see. Likely starter Stuart starts on the DL, otherwise rule-5 pick Choi may be in AA.
I like Solesky pushed to AAA. I was worried about exposing him to Rule5, perhaps a dumb take, but now he’s got an opportunity to shine in Rochester.
It’s go-time for back-end relievers Sinclair and Romero; if they can continue to light it up while MLB’ers falter, they’ll get promoted in no time.

As it turned out, the team kept Wallace in AA, meaning there’s no 3B push for playing time split in AAA with House.
(Yes, I know some of you readers think that’s dumb, that House hasn’t proved he’s the man yet, etc etc, just trying to think like a Nats player development executive who gave House $5M of the team’s money three years ago).
AA seems to have four guys who all play basically the same position now: Wallace, Glasser, Lawson, and Arruda. All four seem to be the kinds of players who played SS in the past but who now are better suited to be 2B/3B types. I wonder how the playing time will shake out. Does the team keep Wallace at 3B, or do they have him start to work on 2B with the assumption that 3B is blocked?
Maxwell Romero now starting Catcher in AA. I may have to push him up my prospect rankings.
The AA roster shows that we have somewhat of a “gap” in our player dev pipeline. No fewer than 8 of the 28 rostered players in AA are MLFA signings from last off-season or the one before. That’s a lot.
Where is Kevin Made? Is he hurt?
Just one 40-man guy in AA: the converting to relief Cole Henry. I would imagine he’ll move up to AAA as soon as he shows he’s got it.
The rotation in AA should be: Shuman, Luckham, Saenz, Susana, Atencio. It’ll certainly be interesting to see how Susana holds up here. He did not look good in the breakout game. Saenz and Luckham probably have the most to prove.
Knowles on the 60-day to start, otherwise he’d be in the SP mix. Cuevas lost his rotation spot last year and could replace a faltering guy. We’ll see.

High-A

Three of our more important prospects start in High-A: 2024 1st rounder King, 1st-Supp Lomavita, and 4th rounder Kent (who makes his pro debut).
Wilmington’s lineup is YOUNG. 5 of the 9 guys who I think start opening day are 20 or 21 in High-A. Cruz, King, Green, Cox, and White. Wow; all five of those guys have single-syllable names like me.
Both Green and Cox get “socially promoted” like the Football coach’s idiot son.
White set to repeat Low-A for the third time.
Both the above sentences exhibits #1 and #1A why drafting HS players is risky.
I wonder if LSU-product Gavin Dugas could be a player. I was listening to the new Nats podcast with Dan Kolko and Ryan Zimmerman called 11th inning (it’s actually quite good) and Zimmerman was talking about the his opinion of Dylan Crews from spring training. He talked about how Crews carries himself like a 10year veteran when it comes to preparation and training … making the comment that the LSU program does a great job preparing these guys. Dugas was a monster in college, a guy who stayed til he was a senior and provided a ton of leadership. Would love to see him make it as a hard-contact 2B.
The rotation looks like it’ll be Clemmey, Tepper, Davis, Sthele, and 2024 draftee Kent. Cornelio may have run out of rope with his 5.51 ERA last year.
We’re missing a couple of big names though who should be in this rotation instead: Bennett and Sykora. Bennett coming off of TJ, Sykora coming off some minor off-season surgery, so both are in XST for a bit. They probably would have replaced Sthele and Tepper.
The bullpen is a motley collection of NDFAs, 8-9th rounders, MLFAs and Rule5 guys.

Low-A

As expected, Lomavita starting Catcher at one A-ball roster and Bazzell at the other. We’ll see who wins the race going forward. If Bazzell is as good as Keith Law Thinks, we’ll know soon enough.
Former decent prospect Quintana demoted from High-A to F-burg to presumably DH.
Name to keep an eye on: Carlos Tavares. 2023IFA signing for only $10k, one of the few to even make it to FCL for 2024, where he had an OPS of .869 last year and now is in Low-A as a 19yr old who doesn’t turn 20 til the season is over. Listed as an OF but played mostly 1B last year.
2024 draftee Diaz will slate into the starting lineup here and comprise part of the left side of Fredericksburg’s infield presumably. Diaz getting some prospect buzz.
2024 9th rounder Jackson Ross, a 5th year senior who got just $2k, breaks camp with the Low-A team. Bravo.
Big Money signing Vaquero back here, repeating Low-A, seeing if he can improve on .190. Hey, get enough of a signing bonus (ahem Green) and you’ll get promoted eventually.
Just like in 2024, the team seems to use Fredericksburg’s 60-day DL as its dumping grounds for injured minor league arms. There’s already 3 guys on there to start 2025 (Sullivan, Agostini, and Camilio Sanchez).
The rotation should be Roman, Polanco, Tolman (coming off 60-day dl last year), 2024 6th rounder Davian Garcia, and 2024 7th rounder Robert Cranz. Cranz appeared on both BA and Law’s top 30 list.
Most of the bullpen are 2024 middle round draftees, and there’s still a handful more in XST who have yet to get assigned anywhere.
There’s not too many players still sitting in FCL who i thought should be in Low-A honestly. The most notable/high profile player there right now is Luke Dickerson, who wasn’t goign to be starting at SS in Low-A anywya.
Notables missing from the Low-A roster who were there last year: Rafael Ramirez Jr (we got him in the Lane Thomas trade), Brayan Romero (the random guy who popped up on the BA top 30 list earlier this year), Sykora as discussed before, Starter Pablo Aldonis (who was on the 60-day dl last year), and a slew of middle relievers and bench players who likely are going to comprise the majority of the cuts we’ll start to see as the team starts to add DSL guys to FCL rosters and/or adds the 2025 draft class.

On the Big board, i’m leaving FCL for now, though technically FCL=XST. I went ahead and moved all the 2025IFAs to DSL just to stick them there; DSL now has 42 players on it, which is a ton and we’ll see some churn (promotions to FCL and releases).

thoughts?