Victor Robles the top prospect for the Washington Nationals has been called up by the National League East leaders. The club announced that the move was official Thursday afternoon.
Washington does not have to worry about not making the playoffs, which makes it a good time to have Robles, who is just 20 and never played higher than Double-A, get his feet wet in the big leagues.
Another reason is that the outfield for the Nationals is banged up. Adam Eaton the starting center fielder will sit out the rest of the season. His replacement Brian Goodwin has been battling a groin injury and recently suffered a setback.
At the same time, Washington has Howie Kendrick in left and center is now patrolled by Michael Taylor. Sitting on the bench is Alejandro de Aza and the team also has called up Andrew Stevenson and Rafael Bautista to provide more options to fill in during the final month of the season.
Washington is 19 games in front of second place Miami with just 22 games left on the schedule. They have 86 wins and Miami has just 65, which means the magic number of the Nationals is just five.
Therefore in a couple of days the NL East title will be won and pressure relieved until the playoffs begin.
That also makes for a good time to have others play in the outfield to gain experience so first teamers can recover from injuries to be ready when October rolls around.
Having a top prospect join the major league team can be risky. However, the Dodgers did it with Cody Bellinger and it has worked well, as did the Red Sox with Rafael Devers despite concerns he was not ready for the big leagues.
Robles, who is 20, plays center field and hit .300/.382/.493 with 10 home runs, 47 RBIs, 37 doubles, 8 triples, 27 steals and 73 runs scored. His stats were for teams in both Class and Class AA this season.
Washington is clearly of the opinion he is ready for the majors and hopes he can adjust to the big difference from not only talent standpoint but the media coverage and spotlight status one has when playing for a MLB club.
