Washington Nationals news & notes: Yasel Antuna & future; Reboot, rebuild, whatever update…

Antuna’s Es and Future:

Signed to a $3.85M bonus out of the Dominican Republic in 2016, Yasel Antuna was added to the Nationals’ 40-man roster in 2020 to guard him from choice in that yr’s Rule 5 Draft, however this winter he was DFA’d to clear a spot on the 40-man, then outrighted to Triple-A Rochester, after the 23-year-old in-turned-outfielder put up a .227/.307/.385 line with 17 doubles and 11 residence runs in 125 video games and 523 plate appearances at Excessive-A Wilmington and Double-A within the Nats’ system this previous season.

Antuna shifted from the infield to the outfield this season after committing 36 errors in 96 video games at brief for Wilmington in 2021, and he’s struggled to hit for common within the minors, so the transfer was not utterly sudden.

Picture by Chris Bernacchi/Diamond Photos through Getty Photos

So what was the membership pondering with the newest strikes with the nonetheless comparatively younger prospect?

Washington’s GM Mike Rizzo shared his ideas on the roster maneuver when he spoke on the Winter Conferences earlier this month.

“We nonetheless assume [Antuna is] younger sufficient to nonetheless be a superb participant for us,” Rizzo defined.

“We wanted roster flexibility on the 40-man. We thought that due to the extent he was at and the efficiency and the numbers that he had at that stage that he would make it via the waiver interval, and so we optioned him again to Triple-A. We’re going to proceed to work with him. He’s had a place change, and it’s usually powerful to regulate to that, however we nonetheless have excessive hopes for him.”

Reboot – Standing Report:

A yr and a half into the reboot the membership kicked off with a sell-off of expiring offers (and a year-plus of management of Trea Turner) on the Commerce Deadline in 2021, and 6 months after the (hopefully) franchise-altering commerce of Juan Soto (and Josh Bell) this previous summer season, GM Mike Rizzo talked on the Winter Conferences in San Diego, CA earlier this month about the place issues stand within the course of because the membership builds its roster for 2023 and past.

Coming off a 55-107 season, and third consecutive fifth-place end within the five-team NL East, Rizzo acknowledged that the 2022 marketing campaign was a disappointing run they hope they received’t replicate any time quickly.

“Clearly 55 wins final yr was a significant disappointment,” Rizzo stated. “We thought we have been higher than that popping out of Spring Coaching. We’re judged by wins and losses on the large league stage. And that’s at all times the factors that we’re cognizant of, and we wish to win.

“We’re uninterested in the rebuild time period, reboot time period, no matter we’ve referred to as it. The vital half is for our younger gamers to progress and to get higher, and in the event that they do progress, and get higher, it places us on the suitable highway and it wins us extra video games.

“So I feel that if the query is are we anticipating to win extra video games this yr than we did final yr, by all means we’re.”

And the way are the Nationals measuring the progress of the rebuild or reboot or no matter on the main league stage and within the group as an entire?

“All of it comes right down to the place the system goes and the way are the younger gamers progressing,” Rizzo stated, “and from the yr earlier than to final yr we received 74 extra video games all through our minor league system, so we noticed some progress there, we noticed the infusion of 5-6 younger gamers on the large league stage, we noticed the infusion of 10-12-14 prospects being pushed into the higher ranks of our good, younger gamers, so…

“We see ourselves as a company on the rise, and I feel we’ll see on the large league stage a far more aggressive crew, and I feel that the minor league system is one thing that — we’ve very excessive hopes for these gamers within the minor league system. We’ve bought — we really feel we’ve bought among the most fun, tooled-up gamers within the recreation, we’ve bought plenty of ‘em, and we’re wanting ahead to seeing them progress.”