Let’s start with the obvious: it was easy for the Nationals to select Stephen Strasburg and Bryce Harper with the first overall picks of the 2009 and 2010 drafts, respectively. And the team was quite fortunate that its low point in the standings coincided with the appearance of two slam-dunk talents.
But that doesn’t mean it was easy for new GM Mike Rizzo to get those two Scott Boras clients under contract. Both went down to the wire. Strasburg finally agreed to terms after talk of $50MM demands. Harper, who was chosen the day before Strasburg’s memorable MLB debut, also waited until just before midnight on deadline day to get his deal done. Both commanded record-setting numbers.
The trick there was less one of talent evaluation than of relationship management and negotiating prowess. Tamping down the costs, ensuring the players came into the organization, and avoiding any long-term tensions were the priorities. Mission accomplished.
But that’s not the extent of the Nats’ remarkable run of first-round success. Let’s consider the organization’s entire stretch of selections between 2009 and 2012. By that point, the team was enjoying enough success on the field that it punted its ensuing first-rounder through the qualifying offer system.
- 2009 (1st overall): Stephen Strasburg
- 2009 (10th overall): Drew Storen
- 2010 (1st overall): Bryce Harper
- 2011 (6th overall): Anthony Rendon
- 2011 (23rd overall): Alex Meyer
- 2011 (34th overall): Brian Goodwin
- 2012 (16th overall): Lucas Giolito
Every single one of those players reached the majors for at least three seasons, which is an accomplishment in and of itself. More importantly, those drafts have collectively produced four players that have turned in one or more superstar-level campaigns. While all the selections haven’t all shaken out quite as hoped, and the Nats have cashed some in via trade, the net is remarkable.
- Strasburg: 3x All-Star, 3x top-10 Cy Young voting, 32.3 rWAR
- Storen: 334 innings, 3.02 ERA, 95 saves, 5.2 rWAR
- Harper: 6x All-Star, 2015 MVP, 27.5 rWAR
- Rendon: 1x All-Star, 4x top-10 MVP voting, 29.1 rWAR
- Meyer: considered a top prospect when he was traded for Denard Span; career derailed by injury
- Goodwin: traded away after marginal contributions in D.C.; 2.2 rWAR in 2019 with Angels
- Giolito: 2019 All-Star, 6th in Cy Young voting; traded (with Reynaldo Lopez and 2016 first-round pick Dane Dunning) for Adam Eaton
Obviously, the bulk of the benefit to the Nats comes from the major stars that spent all of their arbitration-eligible seasons in D.C. Though Rendon has followed Harper in bolting for other teams via free agency, the Nationals enjoyed many cost-efficient prime years.
Then there’s Giolito, the one that got away — sort of. It’s easy to fixate on the fact that Eaton hasn’t been as productive as hoped, due in no small part to injury. But he has been a useful player and was quite valuable at the time of the swap due to his consistent productivity and highly affordable contract. The return on the 16th overall draft selection used to nab Giolito was quite good, all things considered. That’s bolstered by the fact that Giolito has now finally emerged as a star with the White Sox.
What of the others? Well, if you could go back in time, you might just take a chance on a different player from that 2009 draft class rather than grabbing Storen. But the collegiate closer did deliver more or less what was asked of him, running quickly to the majors and providing years of good service at the back end of the Nats’ bullpen — albeit on quite the roller-coaster ride — before he was swapped out in a deal that didn’t turn out for either team.
The Meyer trade worked out swimmingly. He had developed into a quality, near-majors prospect at the time, allowing the Nats to turn him into what became three highly productive seasons from Span. The center fielder contributed 8.4 rWAR during his time in the nation’s capital. Meyer seemed poised to realize some of his potential before longstanding injury concerns finally got him for good and forced an early retirement.
Goodwin is by some measures the biggest disappointment, but it’s generally hard to expect too much from a sandwich-round selection. He provided some useful action to the Nats for a while but never locked down a real opportunity in D.C. But Goodwin was and remains at least a useful fourth outfielder type. Last year, he turned in 458 plate appearances of .262/.326/.470 hitting with the Angels. It’s still possible he’ll end up turning in more significant contributions in the years to come, though they won’t redound to the Nationals’ benefit.
What of the next several seasons after sitting out that 2013 draft? Well, Erick Fedde was tabbed by some as a Giolito-like mid-round steal who fell due to health concerns. He has reached the bigs and remains a factor but hasn’t yet fully established himself. Dunning, shipped out with Giolito, has big talent but is also dealing with health woes. That was still a strong pick, as was fellow 2016 first-rounder Carter Kieboom, who is viewed as one of the game’s best overall prospects. More recently, the Nats selected hurlers Seth Romero and Mason Denaburg, who feature among top ten org prospects.
It doesn’t seem remotely likely that the latest run of selections will have anything close to the impact of the 2009-12 crop. But Rizzo and co. were working with much loftier draft selections in those days. And they set an impossibly high standard, even accounting for the advantages of the early selections. Any way you cut it, the Nats secured value exceeding 100 wins above replacement — whether directly or as acquired by trade — in those four years of first-round drafts.
tedtheodorelogan
Those numbers just show how overrated Harper is compared to Rendon.
Brixton
Rendon makes 9M more a year, and hit FA 2 years later? Ur comment doesnt make sense
Vladguerrerojr20
I think he’s talking about the fact that Rendon has only made 1 Allstar appearance, despite finishing top 10 in MVP voting 4x. By comparison, Harper has made 6 straight allstar appearances, even though he has only recievee MVP votes twice and finished in the top 10 once (and won).
bravesfan
Brixton, your comment is confusing. To date in both their careers, Harper has earned more money and is younger. If I remember correct, Rendon will be roughly 36 when his contract expires which will be well past his earning power to sign another lucrative contract. If he’s lucky, he signs for 1 or 2 year mediocre deals until he’s maybe 40? Harper contract expires when he’s 38 ish and is ultimately more secured money… I think we can all agree that Rendon is the much better player and the fact he’s paid significantly less than Harper is a tad odd. Thus making Harper overrated… which is what the original comment seems to state.
Brixton
Yes, but Rendon makes considerably more on a per-year basis, so its a moot point, Harper stressed long term security and was younger and more marketable, and Rendon is a better player who expressed he didn’t want to play into his 40s, so he ‘only’ got 7 years at a much higher rate.
nymetsking
Rendon’s AAV compared to Harper’s has nothing to do with the original post. The point was that comparing the attention/press each gets is not proportionate. Harper gets way more attention than Rendon and Rendon’s the better and more valuable player.
JustCheckingIn
It’s almost like when a national publication plasters a 16 year old as the next Willy Mays, they kinda have a reason to keep pushing how great said player is..
VonPurpleHayes
Question that I mean to ask without any sarcasm or malice: Does being talked about more in the media equate to being rated higher? Because while Bryce Harper definitely gets more media coverage, I haven’t heard one expert claim that Harper was better than Rendon.
There are a lot of personalities in sports that just get all the coverage for a variety of reasons. They aren’t always the best players in the game. Harper certainly isn’t and I don’t hear anyone claiming he is. Ironically sometimes I think he’s a bit underrated because the people that are (rightfully) sick of hearing about him claim how overrated he is.
I guess the tl:dr point of this ramble is that media coverage does not, in my opinion, say anything about how a player’s talent is viewed. I think everyone in the media would say Rendon is the better player right now.
And I fully expect Rendon to get more now than he did in Washington, simply because LA is a bigger market.
SalaryCapMyth
Harper gets way more NEGATIVE attention. Do you know how often I come across “Harper is overrated” comments?
@Vlad. Third base is really stacked. Of course Tendon doesn’t make to many all-star appearances when you have players like Arenado in the same league.
VonPurpleHayes
I agree with both points made here.
extreme113
You didn’t menthol Giolito only dropped to them because of injury and they took a gamble on him at that pick.
hOsEbEeLiOn
Chris Sale also dropped due to injury concerns. Sometimes scouts don’t have a clue.
toolsandstuff
Scouts have zero say when it comes to injuries, that on clubs medical staff. Some fake GM’s don’t have a clue. To trash “scouts” while you probably seek State Farm insurance is a joke. Get your info and facts straight before making uninformed comments
Jeff Todd
I did mention it at the end w/r/t Fedde. Regardless, every pick has a mix of talent and concerns. I don’t think they lucked into him at all. They were bold in picking him since he could’ve gone to college and it took some finagling and negotiating.
toolsandstuff
“Bold picking a college guy”? Or were you talking about Lindor? College guys much less risk, less development time usually, less bold than H.S. Selection
johnnydubz
I still think it’s funny that Bryce Harper confirmed baseball is WWE when he said he was bringing a championship to Washington and naturally they won
JustCheckingIn
…except Harper wasn’t there anymore… BUT HE WON IT!
GoAwayRod
Just to play devils advocate here:
Throw out Harper and Strasburg. They were consensus #1 picks. All the Nats did to get them was suck at the right time. It’s not like getting either was some smooth, shrewd move. And to second guess the others:
After Storen in 2009: Aaron Crow @ 12, AJ Pollock @ 17, Shelby Miller @ 19, Randall Grichuk @ 24. Mike Trout, obviously, @ 25. Imagine getting Stras and Trout in the same draft.
After Rendon in 2011: Francisco Lindor @ 8, Javier Baez @9.
After Meyer in 2011: Joe Ross @ 25, who I think they traded for anyway.
After Goodwin in 2011: Jackie Bradley @ 40, Michael Fullmer @ 44, Trevor Story @ 45, Blake Snell at 52.
After Giolito in 2012: Corey Seager @ 18, Michael Wacha @ 19, Marcus Stroman @ 22, Jose Berrios @ 32, Joey Gallo @ 39, Lance McCullers @ 41
Specifically in the case of Gio, while his “ceiling” is clearly higher than the others here, wouldn’t Wacha or Stroman have done more to help the Nats inside their Stras/Harper window?
Obviously, every team misses more than they hit in baseball and it takes years to be able to truly second-guess these decisions.
I just like to do this when someone writes a gushy piece about somebody’s “amazing run of first rounders.” Especially when like half of those picks pretty much busted or went away before contributing anything to the team that drafted them.
If they had taken Stroman, for example, instead of Gio… would they have dealt a contributing mid-rotation arm at the major league lever for Adam Eaton? Probably not. So a better pick there would have averted that disaster of a trade. Or at least involved a different piece.
Jeff Todd
There are millions of caveats and alternative universes and whatnot. That’s why I focused on the big picture here, which is that they managed to generate an immense amount of value in four years of first-round picking.
Not trying to hold it up as evidence of supreme wisdom or anything … just a nice run.
GoAwayRod
I’m not taking exception to anything you said. This is just the kind of thing that I would literally do with any historic draft recap, because it ALWAYS could have been better. But especially here, because the only real “HIT” here was Rendon, as again, Stras and Bryce really just fell into their laps.
Pretty sure 30 out or 30 MLB teams would have made those two picks, just because of the associated hype and the probability of a GM losing his job if he went against the grain. It would be like not picking LeBron James because you really love Dwyane Wade. You’d be right about Wade being great… and you’d STILL get fired and never work again.
tommy-9
I agree with this. You cant credit them for an amazing run of picks when their team was so god awful that Stras and Harper fell into their laps.
Halo11Fan
Is scoring on two number one picks that EVERYONE would have picked #1 such a big deal?
As far as scoring on a #6 pick. Again, is that so hard?
Everyone else is pretty ordinary. I’m not impressed.
GoAwayRod
My thing with the Rendon pick is… two spots later the Indians took Lindor.
So at that point, is Rendon really “the right pick?”
Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE Rendon as a player. I love the bat-t0-ball skills in this high-strikeout era we’re in. But it’s LINDORRRRRRRRRRRRR!
Halo11Fan
You’d love to get a Rendon at six. But really, that the only pick of the draft that stands out to me. And one pick does not make a drafting strategy brilliant.
I’m not impressed.
Rangers29
Yeah, I think a great draft should string together a bunch of “scrappy” guys. What I mean by that is, not superstars, but a bunch of guys that were lower in a draft, that actually produced at the MLB level. I’d honestly rather have 5 guys that put up productive seasons after round 10, than one Rendon. The Adam Eatons of the world, guys like Teoscar Hernandez or Mitch Moreland. Not superstars, but good players, I think a few of those guys are more valuable than one Rendon in a draft. I love Rendon, but that’s my opinion.
nymetsking
I get your point about getting value from those later picks, but I’d rather have a top 20 player than 5 “productive” players. One type grows on trees, the other, no so much.
Vizionaire
rendon has accrued hire war numbers. 29.1 vs. 27.6.
toolsandstuff
In that situation Rendon was college draft they felt would get to ML sooner than London, high school guys usually take longer. Riz looking to win sooner than later so went with college draft. Tons goes into why players picked. Easy for us to say 10 years later.
ABCD
White Sox had a great run of 1st rounders from 1987-1990.
Jack McDowell
Robin Ventura
Frank Thomas
Alex Fernandez
That’s well over 100 WAR in their first seven seasons.
Iknowmorebaseball
Overall number one draft picks translate into your team is horrible and not just horrible but the worst in all of baseball. Imagine you’re a Dodger fan and wanting your team to lose out almost all their games so they could be the worst team and pick the first overall pick next year. How stupid is this.
JustCheckingIn
How many teams project to be 100 win teams and then are the worse in the league?
You have a somewhat valid point- you win at sucking- but cmon the fans rooting for 1-1 woulda needed a miracle for their team to break 500 most years
Phiilies2020
The Dodgers having 4 or 5 straight ROY’s in the early 90’s is one of the most impressive things related to scouting and drafting I’ve seen before.
Halo11Fan
And what kind of career did those guys have?
Piazza was drafted as a favor, was an obvious PED user, I don’t think his drafting had anything to do with scouting or drafting.
ImAdude
What kind of careers did Karros, Piazza, Mondesi, Nomo and Hollndsworth have? They all had decent to very good careers. Played a lot of years.
Halo11Fan
I don’t give credit to the Dodgers ability to draft talent to Nomo anymore than I give credit for the Ms getting Ichiro or the Angels developing Ohtani.
Karros was a ten war player. Mondesi was pretty good, But who was better in that time, Salmon and Anderson or Mondesi and Karros. It’s not close. Then add Erstad. Then add Glaus. Then add Lackey and Washburn.
Not saying the Angels are awesome, just that the class you are talking about is not all that impressive. There are many many more impressive classes.
nymetsking
It took a lot of Tommy begging and lying about Piazza being a C for them to even have an interest in signing him.
Afk711
I can argue their current run is even more impressive with Seager, Bellinger and Buehler leading the way
Iknowmorebaseball
Yes all of that but you still need luck and you didn’t mention that one. To get that many rookie of the years in a row one must understand that to accomplish this the entire national league had to run dry with rookies having great years. I remember a couple of those Dodgers who won the rookie of the year award didn’t have very impressive years to today’s standards, but still an absolute amazing achievement.
Rangers29
Another team that has had some first round picks produce from the 2010’s is the Orioles. Machado, Bundy, and Gausman all in back to back to back year is pretty good. This article sent me down a worm hole of trying to find teams with first round luck from the 2010’s.
ABCD
The Cubs have been not too shabby from 2011-2015. All those guys have at least a couple more seasons of control.
nymetsking
IDK that Bundy or Gausman are what you’d hope to come out with when you’re selecting them 4th overall.
Halo11Fan
There is a reason teams tank, it’s so they can get high draft choices. It’s not all that hard to land very good picks when you are picking #1.
Amazing is not exactly the word I would use.
Cincyfan85
I still can’t believe they traded so much for Adam Eaton.
chubias
Eaton is one of those trades that seems worse that it was.
First, he was better than people remember. During his tenure with the White Sox, Eaton was quietly great. He posted 13.5 fWAR, average a wRC+ of 120, and basically never missed a game after becoming a regular. Too many people make a big deal out of his last season with the White Sox being worth 6 WAR; too few people mention that he was easily projected for 4 WAR and had posted roughly the same in 2014 and 2015. At 4WAR, 120 wRC+ he about like 2017 Andrew McCutchen, 2018 Benintendi, or 2019 Harper, Harper now is actually a pretty good comp. Harper’s 27; Eaton was 28. Harper’s put 12.8 fWAR over the last 3 seasons vs. Eaton’s 13.5 fWAR. Harper showed much larger upside, but that was 5 years ago, whereas Eaton was coming off his big season.
Of course, Eaton didn’t have the following that Harper does, which cuts both ways. Good for ticket sales and visibility of the franchise, but also could be a distraction, particularly if he has a bad season or five.
Second, his contract was super cheap. Even though he missed the better part of two of his three seasons, he is still at about $8M/WAR.
Third, he fit exactly what the Nationals needed; high-OBP, capable in center, low strike-out.
It’s not too say that they didn’t trade a lot of value for Eaton. Only that he was better than his name recognition, young, and on a very team friendly deal that allowed the Nationals spend in other areas (which they did).
BSpar
Actually the nats were trying to get McCutchen from the Pirates but wouldn’t give up I think Diffo. So they pivot to the Pale hose.
johndietz
All I see from this list is the Nationals had two chances to select Mike Trout in 2009.
ABCD
And 20 other teams had a shot. Can’t blame the Nats though on Strasburg. He was the guy that year.
I wonder if the Cubs would have still picked Brett Jackson if Trout was still available. Probably.
Halo11Fan
From everything I have read, only two teams were on Mike Trout. The Yankees and The Angels.
The A’s might have taken Trout if given another chance, but that’s about it.
mrgreenjeans
Jackson Rutledge will 100% reach the standards of some of the successful pics of the Nats.. this kid is AA or better ready already
AmaralFan1
Folks like to write off Seth Romero… but I think he’s going to shock people this year. By all accounts he has worked through his issues and was pitching well in spring training. If it all clicks he is a 2-3 rotation guy.
Melchez
Angels 2009 1st round picks… they had 5 of them
Grichuck
Trout
Skaggs
Richards
Kehrer
102 WAR
Red Sox 2005 1st round picks… 4 of them
Ellsbury
Hansen
Buckholtz
Lowrie
64 WAR
04 to 07 Tigers
04 Verlander
05 Maybin
06 Miller
07 Porcello
110 WAR
and these teams didn’t have a true number 1 pick.
BSpar
IIRC Rendon was actually being considered as the top overall pick that year.
BSpar
Mike Rizzo is one heck of a guy! As a GM he does a great job and really knows baseball. One of my favorite GM’s ever in any sports.