Why do you judge drafting off who you trade away? How about the position players we've drafted/signed as international free agents that we've kept? Zimmerman going back before Rizzo's time. Harper I guess was a no-brainer. Rendon was a great pick. Soto was obviously an amazing scout. Robles looks to be the same. MAT is a contributor. Kieboom and Garcia are coming.
As for Souza...he got us Trea Turner! And Joe Ross as a bonus.
Because up the thread:
Mike Rizzo has led ten drafts as the #Nats GM, 36 of his draft picks have made the majors, only the Twins, Tigers, and White Sox were worse over that time.
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/draft?year=ten&round=&pos=&team_id=120&mlb=
our internal development system is not good. we have traded a lot of prospects for established talent yes but even those guys usually flame out. our ability to develop pitching has to be the worst among decent teams
So I went back and did a memory check on drafted position players who were traded. After Rendon and Harper, I think the only position player drafted who became a contributor here is Taylor. You go from Taylor to C Kieboom, more or less. That's a position player drought, no? As you say, RZ was before Rizzo got here and Turner is what we got for Souza.
No question that the saving grace on position players has been DiPuglia and the Dominican signings. Soto, Difo, Robles, Sanchez, plus depth like Read.
