2024-2025 Offseason News
When it comes to drafting in the later rounds, historically, the Nationals' track record has been less than ideal. In fact, the last really good player the Nationals drafted outside the first round, prior to the start of the rebuild, was Jordan Zimmerman. Zimmerman was a 2nd-round compensation pick in the 2007 draft, who went on to become one of the Nationals' top starting pitchers from 2009-2015.
To show you how abysmal their late-round drafting was during the Nationals' contending years, in 2013, the Nationals drafted only one player outside the first round who played for any significant length for the Nationals' major league team (Austin Voth, a 5th-round pick). In 2014, none of the players drafted outside the first round made any significant impact on the organization.
The good news is, when you look at this 2024 draft, we already have three players contributing for the Nationals Single-A affiliate, the Fredericksburg Nationals, who recently won the Carolina League championship. I am referring to these players who were drafted in the 7th round or later.
The first player drafted in the later rounds who is already making an impact is the Nationals 7th-round draft pick, Robert Cranz. Shortly after being drafted, Cranz was able to appear in four games and pitch six innings while striking out seven batters and posting a 0 ERA with a 0.50 WHIP. He also earned the W in game one of the Carolina League championships.
The second player I am referring to is their 8th-round pick, Sam Petersen, who appeared in seven games while posting a batting average of 0.364 and an OPS of 0.991. The last late-round pick to make some noise is the National's 12th-round pick, Alexander Meckley. Meckley managed to pitch in three games with five strikeouts and posted an era of zero with a WHIP of 1.41, all while picking up the W in game two of the semi-finals, thus helping advance the Fredericksburg Nationals to the Carolina League championships.
This may be a small sample size, but it is encouraging that the Nationals' late-round drafting has been improving and that these players are excelling in crucial games. Maybe these players can impact the Washington Nationals in the future, not just the Fredericksburg Nationals.
When drafting in the later rounds, the talk is not about whether these guys will be part of the future or not, but the conversation should be about whether they can create value. An example of this is when the Nationals packaged up Brad Peacock (41st-round pick), Tommy Milone (10th-round pick), Derek Norris (4th-round pick), and A.J. Cole (4th-round pick) to acquire Gio Gonzalez from the Oakland A's in 2012. None of these guys had stellar careers in the majors, but they created enough value so that the Nationals could use them as trade pieces to fulfill a position of need.
Late-round draft success is not defined by whether they can contribute in the future and help the Nationals win a world series, but it's whether these picks can continue to play well in the minors and create value within the Nationals organization, and, so far, these players are off to a good start.
No one knows whether these guys will turn into a Tarik Skubal-type player (9th-round pick of the Tigers in 2018), a Jacob Young scrappy type, or just a player who played well enough in the minors to be used as a trade piece to acquire a veteran like Gonzalez. But the good news is, when drafting players in the later rounds, any one of these turnouts is considered a success, and the potential for these three is there.
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