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Tag Archives: Victor Robles

Victor Robles Speeding His Way to the Majors

2017 Articles Leave a Comment

In a much-anticipated move, superstar prospect Victor Robles was promoted to Double-A Harrisburg Monday night, making him the youngest player in the Eastern League even before fellow top prospect Rafael Devers was promoted to Triple-A. Robles promotion resulted in a flurry of theories (and finger pointing emojis) among Nats fans, mainly regarding Robles’ status as a trade chip. Earlier in the week, fellow top outfield prospect Andrew Stevenson received the call to the big leagues following a Chris Heisey injury and Ryan Raburn going on the bereavement list. There weren’t many, but some were calling for Robles to get the promotion in place of Stevenson. While an immediate Robles call-up would be premature, his promotion to AA makes the idea slightly less farfetched. With the calls for Robles’ promotion this weekend, I got thinking: What would a Robles call-up in 2017 look like?

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What to Watch for in the Second Half, Minor League Edition

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With the All-Star break a week behind us we’ve entered the dog days of summer, and the second half of the baseball season is in full swing. Most minor leagues are already well into their latter halves, but the beginning of the major league second half is nonetheless extremely significant for therm. The trade deadline is fast approaching, and the number one commodity moved at the deadline is of course prospects. Additionally teams will typically promote prospects around the time of the All-Star break, and when you consider September call-ups, minor leaguers are always a couple of phone calls away from a life-changing event. For an organization with as many major league needs and impact prospects as the Nationals the second half is especially uncertain; and so with that said I hope to give you a picture of what to look for and expect out of the Nationals farm over the course of the second half.

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Who Would the Nationals Protect in an Expansion Draft?

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Today is the NHL’s expansion draft. If you’re unfamiliar, here’s a quick primer of the NHL expansion rules: each team is allowed to select a certain number of its players to protect. Any others are eligible to be selected by the expansion team, which must select exactly one player from each team.

So, in the spirit of keeping things topical, I decided to take a crack at seeing who the Nationals would protect in an expansion draft. MLB had its own expansion draft 20 years ago when the Arizona Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay Devil Rays joined, and therefore has its own set of rules.

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Unchained Melody: The Ballad of Wilmer Difo

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To most of you, Wilmer Difo is a light-hitting utility infielder with goofy hair and even goofier walk-up music. But to a limited few, (probably just me, and Luigi de Guzman), he’s so much more. I dare not speak for Luigi (who’s more than capable of speaking for himself) but to me, he embodies the Washington Nationals past, present, and future. However, you can’t tell the story of Wilmer Difo without first telling the story of Carlos Alvarez, also known as Esmailyn “Smiley” Gonzalez.
 

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Re-Sign Jayson Werth

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The Golden Age of Washington Nationals baseball began in the winter of 2010. Out of the blue and in the dead of night, the Nats gave their first one-hundred million dollar contract to Jayson Werth. The words “potentially burdensome” were used in the first paragraph of Adam Kilgore’s write-up to describe the 7 year, $126M deal in the Washington Post. Everyone expects now, as they expected then, that Werth’s tenure with the club will end when that contract comes to an end at the end of the season.

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Nats Power Rankings: May 22

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Welcome back to the latest in a series, in which we review the previous week in Nationals baseball and power rank the players according to their performance. This is an extremely unserious exercise; at no point should it ever be confused with actual baseball analysis. Don’t worry, I will do my best to make sure that is obvious. Without further ado: your Washington Nationals, ranked according to power.

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The Nationals Have a Good Problem With Their Outfield Depth

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One thing that is apparent when looking at the Washington Nationals’ depth chart for outfielders is that the organization has a problem. Fortunately, it is a good problem to have, as the Nationals have managed to build and maintain a solid crop of outfielders that may very well help the team as it approaches a pivotal point in its future.

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