P-Nats offense spotlight: Sagdal, Wiseman, Gushue, Davidson, Johnson

P-Nats offense spotlight: Sagdal, Wiseman, Gushue, Davidson, Johnson
I sat down with high Single-A Potomac Nationals manager Tripp Keister as the club embarked on a road trip this weekend into Winston-Salem. Keister likes what he has seen in the work ethic of his ballclub and went over a few of the offensive players on the P-Nats and their season's work to date: First baseman Ian Sagdal: .251/.303/.397, .324 in last 10 games "He's second in the league in RBIs. He's really done well. He's gotten better offensively each month, he's raising his average each...

Luke Erickson: Finally, some promotions

Luke Erickson: Finally, some promotions
If there's one thing that marked the 2017 season in the Nationals minors, it's how few, far between and slow promotions have been. To clarify, I'm talking about upward moves from the low-to-mid minors based on merit, not the needs-based shift from Triple-A to the majors. Granted, nobody in their right mind wants to return to the days when an old-for-the-level, low Single-A guy is moved to Double-a in the space of 10 days (Bill Rhinehart, 2008) or a southpaw moved up from high Single-A to the...

Luke Erickson: Looking at the Hagerstown Suns at the half

Luke Erickson: Looking at the Hagerstown Suns at the half
For most baseball fans, the All-Star Game is considered the halfway point of the season. In the minors, that's this week for two of the four full-season affiliates - the Hagerstown Suns (low Single-A) and the Potomac Nationals (high Single-A). This week, we'll take a look at how the Suns have done and who might be moving up, then next week we'll examine the P-Nats. While winning is not the goal of the minors - development is - it's still something to shoot for and root for. For most of the...

Luke Erickson: Checking out some early-season surprises on the farm

Luke Erickson: Checking out some early-season surprises on the farm
We're roughly three weeks into the minor league seasons - still in small sample size territory, but large enough to use as a story peg take notice. Before you start champing at the bit for these guys to get promoted, remember two things: The entire league hasn't seen them yet, and there has to be a space for him at the next level. At Single-A Hagerstown, Daniel Johnson caught my eye last season by racking up nine assists and four errors last summer in 62 games for short-season Single-A...

Mike Rizzo on selecting eight position players out of first 11 picks

Mike Rizzo on selecting eight position players out of first 11 picks
The Nationals selected nine Division I college baseball players out of their first 11 picks in the 2016 First-Year Player Draft. In that lot, eight were position players, including two catchers. In a rare move for the Nationals, only three of their top 11 selections were pitchers. But when asked about that development, Nationals president of baseball operations and general manager Mike Rizzo was not surprised. "The players that we took certainly fell to us where we felt we were very, very...