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Players the Dodgers didn’t buy as a free agent or trade for on their postseason roster:
Will Smith – drafted 1st round 2016
Andy Pages – signed out of Dominica in 2018
Josue de Paula – signed out of Dominica in 2022
Edguardo Henriquez – Signed out of Venezuela 2018I guess you can sort of count Roki Sasaki, but he was a professional and chose them.
I have Doyle at 5. He’s super close with everyone in the 2-6 range. When I run through probabilities, the highest probability for Doyle is he ends up as a reliever – likely because injury forces him there because of the high stress of his delivery or control forces him there. I love his current results. I love everything the development staff is doing with him. Because of it, he has the highest probability to become an “ace” of all the pitchers in our system. But if I were gambling and betting on the odds, I’d bet he spends most of his career as a reliever. Mathews on the other hand has very little reliever risk. He’s most likely a number 3 starter for years to come. He could become a 2 or a 4 depending on refinement or lack thereof but he’s probably a 3. That’s where my head is at on this one.
I do think we will learn a lot more about Doyle next season when we see him handle more advanced hitters and see the results with a major league ball.
I am also going with Quinn Mathews at #2. There a group of about 5 guys that are all quite close for numbers 2-6 for me. Quinn is the most proven of that group. Aside from one outing that went really poorly maybe in spite of solid pitching from him, his rookie performance at the MLB level was extremely good. He also was better at AA than our other pitchers I am considering here for spots 2-6.
2. Quinn Mathews
Right you are 27. I expect to see 4 or maybe even 5 different names put out there for the organization’s #2 prospect in our next round of voting.
This year is tough! I am trying to fit 75 worthy names into 60 slots. It feels criminal to leave any of them out. And in addition to those 75, there are still additional guys like Miura or Honeyman or Kross who would have easily made it onto a past prospect list – albeit in the 40’s. Those guys now would be in the 80’s on my list if I went that far.
Relief pitchers are far more likely to hit up against the service time eligibility rule first before they get to the innings threshold. I think we have removed guys in the past who got there so I think we should stay consistent and remove Gastelum, Prieto, and Winquest. I had no idea Winquest was there! I guess the Yankees helped that along even though he never got in a game!
I’m not sure why we would cut ties with Pages. He’s well worth that salary – even if he’s sitting at AAA as a contingency plan. He’s a perfect backup catcher complement who is already very familiar with the staff and plays excellent defense. Plus he’s a good “team” guy. Gorman on the other hand is a very likely non tender.
Bling – I’m with you on those you commented on. Clarke at #9 is absolute insanity – especially with Mathews at 8. Mathews has shown he can be an effective rotation piece at the MLB level with at least #4 as a floor. Clarke has shown he can pitch about 15 innings between each time he is injured. I don’t know how they can be equals.
I also agree with you on Frias. Not sure how he’s #5. He needs to do a lot more proving to be that high against our group of other great prospects.
Good call on Gastellum Gagliano. He shouldn’t be on our list as he is no longer rookie eligible. He came us July 8 and never went back down. He’s far past the 45 day eligibility mark.
Bling – You are right. That’s the real point here. It no longer matters if 2 key guys both fail because what used to be 2 key guys is now 15. Lots more depth is more likely to create success.
I was thinking about this with our prospect list. It’s not like numbers 1-8 are necessarily much better than they have been in recent years. But what used to be 8 real strong prospects is now 30. The number 29 guy on my list could have been number 8 four years ago.
Thanks for getting this started “25”!
I’d like to add a rule this year that states:
Any vote for Pete Hansen inside the first 10 rounds will not need to be counted and automatically stricken from the official record.Just kidding. Kind of.
Raniel is such a good hitter that it would be hard not to put him at number 1 despite the defensive questions.
1) Raniel Rodriguez
Roby, Winquest, and Santana all are likely to be strong players in the bullpen. I could see Rajcic being a strength there too, but more than likely he’ll just be average. Who knows what Svanson is anymore? Clarke could be too I suppose. I really don’t know enough about him yet to make any real guesses. Rincon & Mautz are each JAG (just a guy). Clemente should be gone through free agency. I don’t think Hansen ever makes it.
I don’t know that anyone on the list is likely to be a strong positive as a starter next season. I would bet Molina and Cijntje will both struggle in their first partial season in the MLB. I don’t think Doyle or Franklin get promoted that high yet – at least not until September.
You didn’t put Hjerpe on your list. He could potentially be a positive as either a starter or reliever, but would have serious innings limits as a starter. You also didn’t put Eagan on there. I find him a bit fascinating and think he could get a trial run at some point if there are enough injuries. Also, don’t completely dismiss Brandt Thompson. Nobody ever talks about him. His stuff is mediocre. But he’s a real “pitcher” and he could sneak in there in the right scenario.
Those are all my best guesses anyway!
That is an interesting anecdote at the end of your article about how everyone with 15 attempts or more but 2 was over 70% efficient – with the two being very close. If people cared more about stolen bases, this one would be worth an article or at least an interview with Goforth.
Ryan Campos isn’t exactly fast, but he’s fast for a catcher and he can be quite sneaky with his steals. No one expects him to run so they don’t always pay attention to him. Molina used to do the same thing, except he was truly slow.
No surprises really so far. Maybe a little with Mitchell. I didn’t realize he was walking at quite that high of a rate.
Raniel is quite the beast thus far in his career. If this was 4 years ago, people would be talking about him nonstop. He still gets a ton of press, but he gets masked some by all the rest of the season of prospects in the system.
I would think it would take a lot to get Paredes. He is one of the best at 3B in the game. Shaw might not be too difficult to get. It’s a possibility anyway.
I like the Brewers chances. The way they are approaching hitting seems entirely sustainable and repeatable in tense playoff situations.
Anyone but the Cubs. And hopefully not the Yankees or Dodgers.
I’m hoping for either Brewers or Braves in the NL and Rays, Red Sox, or Guardians from the AL. If I had my pick, I think I’d like to see Brewers vs Red Sox.
ZTR – my assumptions are similar to yours except I don’t believe Herrera gets traded. I think they’d be selling low now vs selling high a year ago.
My guess is Gorman, Stanek, and Bruihl are released and everyone else returns. I’m less sure on Bruihl than the other two. Prieto stays on the roster until someone forces him off. I think they’ll sign 2 veteran bullpen arms and try to find a stopgap third baseman if one is available. They might trade away Crooks if they can find a great fit for him, but probably won’t find one. Otherwise, I think they will run it back. The main difference now is that they will have some strong pitching reinforcements on the horizon. Last season, it was more on the position player side (Wetherholt, Baez, Bernal, Jordan and Saggese). Now, it will be Hjerpe, Cijntje, Fitts, Molina, Henderson, Santana, Doyle, Franklin, Eagan, and Fajardo. Plus, they will hopefully have Jesus Baez and maybe Tai Peete, Josiah Ragsdale, or Chase Davis become ready to step up on the position side. I’m a fan on waiting until at least September for Raniel Rodriguez or Jack Gurevitch (probably Doyle too).
Not a ton of specifics but a few things seemed interesting:
Jesus Baez will get a lot more reps at 3B in the future. No surprise there, but good to hear it said.
Raniel Rodriguez is going to have opportunities at other positions potentially. Nothing specific committed, but Chaim was clear there were options for him to move around and not options for Crooks to move around.
It was clear they weren’t going to skip steps with players unless there was a really good reason to do so.
Chaim appears to be very pleased with Marmol and how he kept development the focus.
While Chaim didn’t want to take anything off the table, it sounds like in general, they don’t expect a lot of personnel changes amongst players or staff.
Chaim talked about the opening at 3B and how he’d like to upgrade there. Sounds to me like they will move on from Gorman. It remains to be seen if anyone gets brought on.
Chaim named off very few players at the ML level specifically. He talked about Leahy and Liberatore some. Just a little bit about Herrera, Burleson, Hjerpe, and Walker. Named a couple of others like O’Brien, but nothing really said.
Yes Brian, that trade was unquestionably a win for the Cardinals. The Cardinals were able to harness Soriano’s changeup into an effective weapon to turn him from a pretty bad reliever last season to an average reliever this season and the Nationals seem to have not done anything right with Granillo as he flamed out in a big way.
I have been right a lot of times on prospects. Granillo is probably the most wrong I’ve ever been (maybe Carlson, but there were a lot of weird external factors and mismanagement with him). I thought Granillo would be our future closer. I was almost certain he’d at least be a back of the bullpen guy.
It’s hard to tally these as if it were regular predictions. Some of the posters posted regular predictions, while others tried Bold Predictions as the thread indicated. When someone picks what seems reasonably likely or has a decent chance as any of happening, that isn’t “Bold”. Maybe we need 2 threads next year.
Anyway, here are mine:
1. Jordan Walker is a top 3 finisher for the Gold Glove.
It’s possible this happens. He was solid out there this season (and much improved) and there aren’t a lot of good right fielders.
JJ Weatherholt leads the team in hits, RBIs, runs, and sadly, errors.
He was good, but not quite that good. Plus, he missed some time due to injury. Fourth in hits, fifth in RBIs, and tied for third in runs. I’m glad he didn’t lead in errors. Not even close on that one. Just 2 of them all season.
Matthew Liberatore finishes in the top 10 for Cy Young.
LOL. Way too bold on this one.
Our best reliever by FWAR for the season isn’t even on the opening day roster.
I actually got this one right. Graceffo was the FWAR leader and he didn’t make the opening day roster.
No position player with over 250 at bats has a batting average above .250.
We only had 2 (Burleson & Walker), but that was 2 too many for my prediction. Fairly close though. Here’s a good example of what I was saying up top. I might have predicted 2 or 3 if I was predicting. But because this is “bold predictions”, I went with zero.
Andre Granillo becomes the Nats best reliever and I get to say I told you so.
Boy oh boy was this one so much not the case. Andre was terrible for the Nats. Not sure what happened to him as I didn’t watch him hardly at all given the different affiliation.
