Talk:List of Washington Nationals first-round draft picks

Giving the Expos their due
Would someone please direct me to the "consensus" referred to in this edit summary? It certainly didn't take place here.

This page is a special case among the "first-round draft picks" pages in that all other MLB franchise moves took place either before the draft era or when it was only a few years old, while the vast majority of transactions on this page were done under a franchise name other than the current one. It seems quite ridiculous to say, for example, that Tim Wallach was a draft pick of the Washington Nationals.

I understand the impulse to streamline things by using only the current names of the franchises, but we must also be careful to describe historical events in the context in which they occurred, not in the context of the present. I hope we can find an acceptable compromise between these two principles. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 20:59, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
 * As you can see in Category:Major League Baseball first-round draft picks, teams are only referred to by their current names. This includes the teams that have relocated since the implementation of the Rule 4 draft. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:13, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
 * That link shows that that is the current practice. But I see no discussion of the topic, nor any consideration of the special case posed by the Expos/Nationals.  The Rule 4 draft was instituted in 1965.  Discounting the Expos/Nationals, draft history includes a total of 12 team-years for non-current franchise locations (Athletics 3, Braves 1, Pilots 1, Senators 7), but the Expos account for another 37 team-years.  Even those players who were picked by other franchises under non-current names (e.g., Gorman Thomas of the Pilots, Jeff Burroughs of the Senators) largely went on to play in the Majors with the same team under its current name, but most Expos draft picks (Bill Gullickson, Tim Wallach, Terry Francona, etc.) retired before the Nationals even existed.
 * In conclusion, 1) No discussion leading to consensus has occurred, therefore no consensus can be cited, and 2) No consideration has been made of the special case posed here. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 21:47, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I haven't searched for any discussion of the naming of this article and I'm not planning on doing so, because I know that this whole "Montreal Expos" issue on Wikipedia has been very sensitive and I don't want to get too deeply involved in it. What I will say is that it is fine for the Montreal aspect of the franchise to be mentioned in the page in an appropriate way, which we can decide upon. Saying "the then-Expos" or simply "Expos" for the appropriate parts of the team history, perhaps, considering how its done in other related pages, should suffice. As far as the page name goes, though, this is the Washington Nationals franchise, and no longer the Expos franchise, as the Expos are defunct. The Nationals website incorporates their tenure in Montreal. Therefore, the page name should remain as it is now. – Muboshgu (talk) 23:32, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
 * That is a reasonable position. Just to clarify, I would not expect you to look for any previous discussion because you are not the one who claimed that there was a consensus.  --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 00:10, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * What "special case" exists? Teams move. The Expos are the Nationals, plain and simple. The current name is the proper name. &mdash; KV5  •  Talk  •  00:15, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * The team formerly known as the Expos is now known as the Nationals. Yes, they are the same organization.  But it is anachronistic to describe pre-2005 events as having involved the Nationals.  Would you edit the 1981 NLCS article to describe it as a contest between the Dodgers and the Washington Nationals?  --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 01:15, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I think List of Texas Rangers first-round draft picks provides a good template, mentioning the former name/city where appropriate, but not going overboard with the former name where it is not necessary. Rlendog (talk) 20:16, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm glad you like it, Rlendog, as your description is only true since the changes I made two days ago. Before that, neither the word "Washington" nor "Senators" was anywhere on that page.  My changes to this page are of the same character, only you see the words "Montreal" and "Expos" a bit more because they comprise a larger fraction of franchise history.  --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 20:39, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Orphaned references in List of Washington Nationals first-round draft picks
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of List of Washington Nationals first-round draft picks's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "2016draft": From List of Pittsburgh Pirates first-round draft picks:  From List of Tampa Bay Rays first-round draft picks:  From List of Oakland Athletics first-round draft picks:  From List of Miami Marlins first-round draft picks:  From List of Detroit Tigers first-round draft picks:  From List of Los Angeles Dodgers first-round draft picks:  From List of Toronto Blue Jays first-round draft picks:  From List of Colorado Rockies first-round draft picks: </li> <li>From List of Minnesota Twins first-round draft picks: </li> </ul>

Reference named "16draft":<ul> <li>From List of Seattle Mariners first-round draft picks: </li> <li>From List of Milwaukee Brewers first-round draft picks: </li> </ul>

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 00:51, 1 July 2016 (UTC)