Looking for the Right Tools in the Nationals’ Shed

For the ardent Nationals’ fan looking to tomorrow, it is an art form to cull among among the five tool phenoms that never make the show and the workaday players who squeeze out every drop of talent to become stars. Gauging the stars of the future is unlikely to ever become a science and certainly not something the scouts cannot predict. Which leaves the fan the incomparable joy of rooting for the ones who make it against all the odds, the ones who come out of nowhere like The Natural and leave everyone wondering how it ever came to be.

The Nationals made a splash last season by signing a bevy of highly rated young ball players led by Ross Detwiler, the lefty from Missouri State taken 6th overall. He was complemented by lefthanders Josh Smoker and Jack McGeary, and outfielder Michael Burgess. They joined the more pedestrian talent to give the Nationals the ninth best talent pool in the minors according to Baseball America.

Now a year later the luster has worn off these top prospects as the scouting reports are replaced by hard numbers from their first minor league season. For all of them their first taste of professional baseball has been bracing to say the least. The talent is still there, but the way will not be as easy and certain as it looked when the toolsy scouting reports jumped off the pages of Baseball America and Perfect Game Crosschecker.

Nationals fans have been almost as disappointed as the players themselves. It is easy to forget that tools are not the only variable in predicting success. It is the man who hefts them that ultimately determines the outcome. Work ethic is what is required to make the most of the intrinsic talent.

September callups in Washington this year saw none of the Baseball America top ten prospects on the MLB roster. Yet the Nationals’ minor league system has been almost as successful as predicted. The weight has been carried by the work horses, however, not the show horses. The best of the bunch of the hard working, blue collar crowd is a young pitcher, Jordan Zimmermann, who was ignored by the big baseball schools and played Division III baseball for the University of Wisconsin at Stephens Point. But there was something in Zimmermann that believed he could take his game to a higher level.

All of the great pitchers–Seaver, Clemens, and Ryan–added the extra speed from strong legs and Zimmermann realized that if he wanted to compete with the best, then he needed to hit the weight room. “It was a work ethic thing,” admitted Zimmermann earlier this year talking to Harrisburg announcer Terry Byrom. Hard work is what added the muscle to his lower body and almost 10 mph to the fastball he first showcased in the Northwoods League.  He led that wood bat league in ERA the summer before his junior year. But the Nationals were still able to take him in the second round because he never got the exposure playing in Division III.

Zimmermann liikely will move all the way up the charts after being rated the seventh best Nationals minor league talent to start the season. In his first full minor league season he was pitched to a 10-3 record, 2.89 ERA and 134/47 K/BB ratio in 134 innings. That effort should put him atop Baseball America’s ranking of Nationals’ prospects in the off season–something that would have been handed to Aaron Crow no doubt had he signed.

Like Zimmermann, Roger Bernadina has worked hard to make the most of what is remarkable speed and strength. Born in the Netherlands and growing up in the Caribbean, Bernadina loved soccer and other sports, but ultimately chose baseball though his lack of exposure to the game limited his instinctual feel. Signing as an undrafted free agent at only 17 the lack of training showed. But in the last two seasons the 24-year old Bernadina has begun to make the most of the talent by working in the off-seasons and listening to capable coaches like John Stearns.

To start the 2008 season Bernadina was almost returned to A-ball, but after a good spring was given a crack at Double-A Harrisburg. He has never looked back. He blistered AA and AAA pitching all season–.335/.400/.490 with 40 steals –and has earned two callups to Washington. In this latest September callup he has finally relaxed at the plate and started to spray the ball around the park and take advantage of his speed. His defensive skills will keep him in the majors, but it is the bat that will determine whether he becomes the leadoff hitter the Nationals desperately need, or just another utility player.

None of the Nationals first-time September call-ups, Luke Montz, Shairon Martis, or Bernadina has a Baseball America blue blood baseball pedigree. They were largely overlooked in the prospect rankings of Baseball America for Detwiler, Smoker, McGeary, Burgess, and Marrero. Those players are going to have to learn something from the guys who made it in 2008. It is “work ethic” that is the difference between perennial number one prospects like Roger Salkeld who never make it, and less hyped talents like Albert Pujols that do.

Nationals fans can only hope that all of their most talented prospects have been paying attention in class. Ross Detwiler was told this season by his coach Randy Knorr that the only way to learn is through failure. Like McGeary and Smoker, Detwiler’s late season stats showed marked improvement, but at the end of the season he and the others will have had their first taste of failure. What they learn from it will determine whether their headlines will always be about the promise they showed or whether they work to put some “lightning” in their bats, the extra muscle behind the fastball.