With the arrival of Stephen Strasburg, the Nats’ pitching rotation — for the next couple of weeks anyway — looks like Strasburg, John Lannan, Livan Hernandez, Luis Atilano, and J.D. Martin. It’s pretty clear, though, that more changes are on the way.
Scott Olsen and Jason Marquis will be back fairly soon. Chien-Ming Wang and Jordan Zimmermann are likely to pitch before October. Craig Stammen is still in the picture, though currently at Syracuse. Garrett Mock and Matt Chico are still on the 40-man roster, as are Shairon Martis and Aaron Thompson. That’s a lot of starters or potential starters, and we’re only looking at the 40-man.
One prominent scout I know just saw Hagerstown, the Nats’ low-A affiliate in the South Atlantic League, and came back raving about left-handed starter Dan Rosenbaum.
“This kid can locate the ball,” he said. “Excellent feel. He throws four pitches for strikes, with solid mechanics. Rosenbaum throws a plus change and plus curveball and has terrific command of his fastball on both sides of the plate. He should be in the Washington rotation with Strasburg in a couple of years.”
Now, it’s a short drive from Hagerstown to Washington, but systemically, it’s a long way. If Rosenbaum projects to be an effective major league starting pitcher by 2013, and he’s at low A now, what’s in between?
Quite a bit, actually.
Another lefty, Tom Milone, is having a solid year at Double-A Harrisburg, in many ways a season quite similar to his 2009 campaign at Potomac. At 23, he’s maybe a shade older than some of the organization’s other arms. But he’s a college guy from USC, and with a 5-to-1 strikeout to walk ratio, may not be far from the big league roster.
Right-hander Brad Meyers is still on the Nats’ radar. The former fifth round draft choice is also at Double-A following a notable ’09 split between Potomac and Harrisburg: 11-3, with a 1.72 ERA in 23 starts and 136.1 innings. There are others worthy of mentioning; I’m only scratching the surface.
A couple of points here: One, the state of the system, from purely a starting pitching consideration, is in pretty good shape; and two, the ball club has some attractive trade chips should they decide to seek a veteran position player either later this summer or next offseason.
When the club moved from Montreal, the farm system was a shell, a husk of what had once been one of baseball’s best. They’re not back to where they once were, yet, but rotation-wise, they’re making measurable progress.
The long-term outlook for this team has brightened considerably, beyond what you saw on Tuesday. No crystal ball is necessary.
Phil Wood is a contributor to Nats Xtra on MASN. Contact him at [email protected].
