Expect Nats to go for arms early in MLB's First-Year Player Draft

The Nationals look to stockpile their team for the future as the 2018 First-Year Player Draft gets underway tonight. The club has the No. 27 and No. 65 selections in the first two rounds.

According to Baseball America, the Nationals will have a bonus pool of $5,603,800 to work with, which ranks 27th in allotted monies league-wide.

Due to the team's on-field success in recent campaigns, they have selected in the lower half of each first round: Erick Fedde (18th, 2014), Carter Kieboom (28th, 2016), Dane Dunning (29th, 2017) and Seth Romero (25th, 2017).

A recent tendency has been to go with experience. In the last two drafts, according to Baseball America, the Nats have drafted nine of 11 players out of college programs with their early round selections.

The Nats also have gone back to drafting almost exclusively arms, a strategy they built the entire franchise on in the early stages of growth. Besides the obvious No. 1 selections of Bryce Harper and Stephen Strasburg over the years, the Nats have always mandated drafting pitchers and catchers as top priority.

Rounds one and two are tonight. Rounds three through 10 begin at 1 p.m. on Tuesday, while rounds 11 through 40 commence on Wednesday at noon.

I have seen high school right-handed pitcher Mason Denaburg out of Florida mentioned a couple of times as going to the Nats, as well as right-hander Cole Wilcox from Georgia.

It is no secret the Nats love players from the Southeastern and Atlantic Coast conferences, as well as players from Texas, California and Arizona. Their scouting departments from those regions have worked well in the past finding guys like Anthony Rendon, Romero, Lucas Giolito, Blake Perkins and Dunning.

Because the Nats recently traded away the likes of Giolito, Reynaldo López and Dunning, as well as the current team suspension Romero is under, the club will intensely go for arms early and often to build up that depth that has been a foundation since their 2005 beginnings in D.C.

Here is a look at a few major league baseball mock drafts and how they predict the Nats will pick tonight at 7 p.m. on MLB Network and into the next couple of days:

CBS SPORTS
https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/2018-mlb-mock-draft-auburn-righty-still-projected-to-go-no-1-to-tigers-in-updated-first-round/
27. Washington Nationals: OF Travis Swaggerty, South Alabama

FANGRAPHS
https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/2018-mlb-mock-draft-v-3-0/
27. Nationals - Cole Wilcox, RHP, Heritage High School (Ga.)

MINOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
https://www.minorleagueball.com/2018/6/2/17420558/2018-minor-league-ball-community-mock-draft-round-one
27. Nationals - Mason Denaburg, RHP, Florida High School

THE SPORTING NEWS
http://www.sportingnews.com/mlb/news/top-mlb-draft-prospects-mock-draft-2018-yankees-tigers-order-giants-san-francisco/18bsj3man1thh1mys96j1xmojb
27. Nationals - Seth Beer, OF/1B, Clemson

FANTASY SPORTS
https://www.fantasypros.com/2018/06/2018-mlb-mock-draft/
27. Nationals - Mason Denaburg, RHP - Florida High School