The Nats project House to arrive in the majors the year after next. If you're confident in Abrams what's the downside of playing him at third next year. If he hits and can play third you have a young left side of the infield for the next 5 years.
He just turned 19 over the summer and has a total of 61 games as a pro. The chances of a guy with that profile playing in the majors in 2 years, let alone at a position he's never played, are vanishingly small.
I don't understand prospect services' estimates of guys' arrival dates. If you pencil them out, you'll see they project the majors as being perpetually full of 20- and 21-year-old rookies. How many 21-year-olds played in the majors this year? Maybe 15, exactly four of whom were on opening day rosters. How about 20-year-olds? I think the answer to that might be zero.
I mean, heck, MLB - which has recently gotten much better about this after having been so bad in the past that they deleted their old ETA projections - still has an ETA on Hassell of 2023. Dude has a total of 108 PAs in AA, during which he looked overmatched. They project Noelvi Marte - one of the guys in the Luis Castillo trade, who is 20, has never played above high-A, and is blocked by two top-100 prospects at his position plus a former top prospect presently flopping but not out of runway on that org's MLB team - as arriving in 2023. What about either of those situations suggests a guy who will play in the majors next year?
