Nationals Arm Race

It was just a couple weeks ago (January 9th to be exact) when Baseball America released its top 30 list for the Nats system. I reviewed it then in depth, as the first major pundit to release a top 30 rankings for our system.

So much has happened since that they had to update it.

Between the IFA signing period (where we spread around our $6M plus bonus pool on several highly-regarded prospects) and the Mackenzie Gore trade (which netted us five guys, four of which are now in our top 30), our top 30 now looks a bit different. Here’s where our new acquisitions slot into BA’s list, and who they pushed out at the bottom:

• New #5: Fien, Gavin, the star of the Gore trade. The $4.8M first round SS from last year will compete with our own $8.2M first round SS Willits for playing time in Fredericksburg this year. Though his size likely puts him immediately at 3B.
• New #9: Fitz-Gerald, Devin, the $900k 2024 SS will … also compete for playing time in Low-A this year.
• New #16: Rosario, Alejandro, the RHP pitcher who just had TJ and won’t pitch until spring 2027 at best.
• New #22: Cabrera, Yeremy*, the speedy 20-yr old CF with 43 steals last season.
• New #23: Serrano, Samil*, the headliner of our 2026 IFA class.

These 5 guys pushed down the formerly 26-30th ranked players:

• New #31: Alvarez, Andrew*, the under the radar lefty control arm who pitched really well in SSS last year in the majors.
• New #32: Glasser, Phillip*, our ML hitter of the year who got a NRI this season but who faces an uphill challenge for playing time.
• New #33: De La Cruz, Nauris, who signed for a pittance in the 2025 IFA class but who bashed the DSL last year.
• New #34: Cortesia, Brayan, who signed for a massive amount in the 2025 IFA class and who is higher on a lot of lists right now.
• New #35: McGarry, Griff, our Rule-5 pick whose pathway to being in the rotation just eased with the Gore trade.

Also newly acquired this month and presumably in the mix in this 30-40 range right now: our three other 7-figure signings from the 2026 IFA class (Suarez, Isalas, Ramirez, Angel#, and Duran, Juan) and the 5th prospect in the Gore trade Ortiz, Abimelec*, who sits 24th on MLBPipeline’s rankings right now and who might have an inside track to the starting 1B job in 2026.

I may have been critical of the Gore trade initially, but there’s a reason pundits mostly across the board liked it. These pundits may be overlooking the risk of the former Texas prospects, but the moves certainly strengthen the overall farm.

Now that we’re at the end of January, we should get ready for a ton of prospect content to come out soon. The next month should give us Keith Law, MLBPipeline, and Kiley McDaniel’s rankings. The last major pundit out there (Fangraphs/Longenhagen) has been pushing his ranks into the summer lately.

It’s been rumored all off-season, and now a few weeks before Pitchers and Catchers report, our biggest trade asset MacKenzie Gore has been traded. Announced last night, the Nats moved Gore to Texas for a package of 5 prospects.

Here’s a quick look at those 5 prospects, with their new Nats system rank and other pertinent information:

• shortstop Gavin Fien; 2025 1st rounder, Age 18. Our new #5 prospect (was Texas’ #2 prospect)
• right-hander Alejandro Rosario; 2023 college 5th rounder, Age 24, AA last year, new #11 prospect
• infielder Devin Fitz-Gerald: 2025 prep 5th rounder but over-slot bonus, age 20, new #12 prospect
• outfielder Yeremy Cabrera: 2022 IFA, just 20, our new #17 prospect
• first baseman/outfielder Abimelec Ortiz; 2021 NDFA, Age 3, on 40-man, hit AAA last year, new #24

First glance? I’m sorry, but is this all we could get? One 18yr old 1st rounder, two 20yr olds in low-A, a AA starter who missed all of 2025 AND just had TJ so he’s missing all of 2026 too, and a AAA utility guy? This is a major swing from a risk perspective, and the lack of additional higher-regarded prospects give me pause. The discovery (post publishing) that the 2nd best prospect is out for the entire 2026 season is even more demoralizing here.

I’m really disappointed with this return. We didn’t even get Texas’ best prospect in this deal. Maybe that’s me overvaluing Gore. On the one hand, Gore’s career numbers put him at a 98 ERA+. But at the same time, we’ve seen him be completely dominant for stretches. He’s valuable because he’s being paid a pittance for what he provides as a mid-rotation starter ($2.8M in first year Arb this year, $5.6M this year) and for 2 more years of control. He’s an innings eater who throws mid-90s from the left side; that’s worth a ton of the FA market and should have been worth more in trade.

When he didn’t go in the Winter Meetings, I thought the team should hold on to him until the Trade Deadline, when desperate teams who had lost starters to injury would be overpaying for mid-level starters. I was wrong; the new FO pulled the trigger on a deal they liked. I sense this was an underpay by Texas, but clearly the GM sees these younger guys and liked the deal.

An additional wrinkle: we’ve spoken before about the logjam of young shortstops projected to play in Fredericksburg in 2026 … well we just added two more guys who need playing time. We now add Fien and Fitz-Gerald to Willis, Feliz, Dickerson, and Mota, all of whom are likely projected to Low-A and who predominantly play SS.

What does this mean for the franchise? Insiders and those in the knew already knew this, but the signals have been strong that we’re on our way to bottoming out once again. My “casual Nats fan” pinged me last night with an immediate reaction to this trade, asking why we were getting rid of our best pitcher and I had to break it to him; we’re going to be bad for a while, so buckle up. This latter type of fan is the one who the Nats eventually will need to come back, to buy tickets, to bring the family for weekend games … but I sense a move like this, one which gets rid of one of the few players whose names they even know, is going to turn people off for a while.

I’m always excited to get more prospects into the system, as a prospect-heavy analysis site. Don’t get me wrong; can’t wait to do the spreadsheet work and try to noodle where I think these players will fit in my eventual top-100+ ranking that i’ll publish before the season starts. But I hate trading away assets and not getting enough in return, which I believe happened here.

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What do you think? Am I over-valuing Gore? Did we get appropriate return here? Should we have waited til the Trade deadline 2026?

We’ve been discussing our International Free Agency (IFA) class futility a bit in the comments, and today 1/15/26 is the day we announce our newest crop of international signees, so lets take a quick peek at how things have gone and who we have coming into the system today.

We’ll be using my IFA Signing Tracker to drive this conversation. I’ve built this back to the 2016 class with a slew of information per player, including links to their milb.com page, bonuses, positions, and (most importantly); their “high level” achieved. As discussed in the comments, we’ve seen very, very little production for the past decade of drafts: Working backwards, here’s an idea:

• 2025: $6.2M bonus pool, two $1M plus players plus a bunch of mid 6-figure guys. Four guys getting prospect love (the two big $ guys Cortesia and Hernandez, plus German and $10k signing De La cruz)
• 2024: $5.9M pool, about half went to two guys in Hurtado and Feliz. Feliz now on precipice of the top 10, Hurtado scuffling around after two straight weak DSL seasons. Nobody else of note from class.
• 2023: $5.2M pool, two $1M plus players in Acevedo and Solano. Solano already released, only a couple other very weak prospects showing out right now in Tejeda and Jose Feliz.
• 2022: $5.1M pool, $4.9M of which went to Vaquero. Also spent $250k on Mota. Vaquero just repeated low-A for the third year, while Mota is starting to creep up the ranks and is ahead of Vaquero on most lists right now.
• 2021: $5.3M pool, $3.9M of which went to Armando Cruz in another “put all our eggs in one basket” class. We don’t have a single player from this class ranked on any prospect list at present.
• 2020: no class – Covid: we ended up signing a couple of guys later in 2020 for that “class” but they’ve all since been released.
• 2019: $4.3M pool, we gave $1M plus to two guys (Lara, Aldonis). Also $800k to Quintana (released) and Dawry Martinez (released). Lara made the MLB but is now considered a weak prospect and likely is a AAA-ceiling guy. Aldonis is still in High-A.

2018 and 2017 fell into the “IFA signing bonus penalty phase” based on our team’s actions in the 2016 draft, where we purposely blew past the bonus pool to knowingly accept penalties in the next two years.

• 2018: $4.9M pool but with a $300k/per player signing cap; we signed a few $300k players but the best anyone did was Jose Atencio making AA before hitting MLFA. One player remains in the system at this point (Otanez).
• 2017: $4.75M pool, but we came nowhere close to it. Recently traded reliever Ferrer was the sole player to make the majors, and one other remains active (backup middle infielder Pena).
• 2016: We had a $2.3M pool and paid out at least $6.5M of bonuses that I can find, playing the IFA bonus gambit at the time. This class produced at least four MLB ers in Garcia, Pineda, Adon, and Yadiel Hernandez, but remains infamous in Nats circles for the $3.9M given to Yasel Antuna.

So, that’s the sordid decade-long history of our bonus spending.

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We have a new management team in town, so we should see a new direction and strategy in Latin America … eventually. Unfortunately, the deals announced today have been in place for months, and have been under negotiation for years, so the impact of the new group won’t fully be seen until at least next January. But, that being said, lets take a look at what we know about the 2026 class.

• Baseball America Scouting reports on Nats 2026 IFA class
• Fangraphs “The Board” top 100 2026 IFA signings with links to scouting reports
• Official Nats announcement of the 2026 class
• MLBpipeline IFA 2026 class ranks

We’ve signed 15 players today. Like several classes on this list, our 2026 class can be categorized as a “Stars and Scrubs” class, albeit with our $6.6M pool being spread out to four $1m+ players instead of putting it all on one guy as we did in the Cruz/Vaquero classes. So, we’re going to spend around $6M of that $6.6M on the top four guys. Right now, BA and Fangraphs slightly differ in the $$ figures, but I’ll use the BA numbers for this post. Also below: overall class ranks below (fangraphs first, then BA, then MLBpipeline)

• #12/#18/#40: Suarez, Isalas, a true CF from the DR with a $1.9M bonus
• #13/#16/#26 Serrano, Samil*, corner OF from the DR with a $1.97M bonus.
• #45/#52/#50+: Ramirez, Angel#, corner OF from the DR $1M bonus.
• #52/#53/#50+: Duran, Juan, corner OF from the DR, $1M bonus.

So, these four guys are basically going to be the class. The BA site lists a 5th player of note, yet another outfielder named Jawel Garcia who will probably get a few hundred thousand of the remaining amount.

I’ll just point out the obvious. Our 5 best IFAs this year … are all Outfielders?? Uh, only three can play a day guys. The BA link says Ramirez was a short stop until very recently, so maybe they return him to the dirt, and a couple of these guys are a bit taller so maybe you stash them at 1B so everyone can play .. but this seems kind of short-sighted to spent all this money and purposely put the DSL manager in the position of juggling the lineup from day one to play everyone.

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post publish updates: added MLBpipeline class ranks, added links for Nats class from Nationals.com

Hot on the heels of the Baseball America top 30 list, we get the fantasy-first Prospects1500 site’s list for the system. They’re the only shop that earnestly ranks to #50, and we often get a decent look into the down-stream prospects in our system in the eyes of an independent evaluator.

Prospects1500 is unabashedly a Fantasy site; they say it right in the subheading: “Your comprehensive dynasty League resource.” It caters to hard-core Fantasy baseball leagues who do dynasty drafting, meaning you draft prospects and keep them on your roster like a “real” team. I’ve run out of people even willing to do basic Fantasy Baseball, let alone the diehards who would do a keeper league with 18yr olds who may not show up for 7 years. That being said, it colors their rankings a bit. You’re going to see ceiling valued more than floor, you’re going to see positions of scarcity (i.e. Catchers) pushed up a bit as compared to things like corner OFs, and you’re going to see future save projections come into play with high-leverage relievers. We’ll cover them a bit below.

Here’s the top 50, along with their ranking for the same players last year at this time.

Current Rank	Jan 2025 Rank	First Name	Last Name	Position
1	3	Travis	Sykora	RHP (Starter)
2	Not yet Drafted	Eli	Willits	SS
3	5	Jarlin	Susana	RHP (Starter)
4	Not yet Traded for	Harry	Ford	C
5	Not yet Traded for	Luis	Perales	RHP (Starter)
6	17	Luke	Dickerson	SS/CF
7	4	Seaver	King	SS
8	7	Alex	Clemmey	LHP (Starter)
9	Not yet Drafted	Coy	James	SS
10	Not yet Drafted	Landon	Harmon	RHP (Starter)
11	Not yet Drafted	Ethan	Petry	1B/OF (Corner)
12	6	Yohandy	Morales	3B
13	Not yet Traded for	Sean Paul	Linan	RHP (Starter)
14	21	Angel	Feliz	SS/3B
15	37	Jackson	Kent	LHP (Starter)
16	Not yet Traded for	Christian	Franklin	OF (CF)
17	12	Caleb	Lomavita	C
18	Not yet IFA signed	German	Marconi	SS
19	Not yet Traded for	Eriq	Swan	RHP (Starter)
20	Not yet IFA signed	Brayan	Cortesia	SS
21	Not yet Drafted	Miguel	Sime Jr.	RHP (Starter)
22	Not yet Drafted	Sam	Peterson	OF (CF)
23	13	Victor	Hurtado	OF (Corner)
24	20	Andrew	Pinckney	OF (Corner)
25	18	Cristian	Vaquero	OF (CF)
26	Not yet Traded for	Ronny	Cruz	SS
27	Not yet Drafted	Yoel	Tejeda Jr.	RHP (Starter)
28	Not Yet rule-5 Drafted	Griff	McGarry	RHP (Starter)
29	11	Cayden	Wallace	2B/3B
30	Not yet Traded for	Josh	Randall	RHP (Starter)
31	Not yet IFA signed	Nauris	De La Cruz	OF (Corner)
32	45	Jorgelys	Mota	SS
33	44	Phillips	Glasser	SS
34	Not yet IFA signed	Daniel	Hernandez	C
35	outside top 50	Riley	Cornelio	RHP (Starter)
36	Not yet Traded for	Browm	Martinez	OF (CF)
37	26	Kevin	Bazzell	C
38	Not Yet MLFA signed	Orelvis	Martinez	2B
39	Not yet Traded for	Jake	Eder	LHP (Starter)
40	Not yet Traded for	R.J.	Sales	RHP (Starter)
41	16	Andry	Lara	RHP (Starter)
42	15	Elijah	Green	OF (CF)
43	outside top 50	Dashyll	Tejeda	OF (CF)
44	42	Sir Jamison	Jones	C
45	39	Andrew	Alvarez	LHP (Starter)
46	22	Kevin	Made	SS
47	28	Jose	Feliz	RHP (Starter)
48	33	Marquis	Grissom	RHP (Reliever)
49	Not Yet Drafted	Boston	Smith	C/OF
50	36	T.J.	White	OF (Corner)

Like with the BA list, lots of churn here:

• Only 22 of this top 50 were even ranked last year.
• Of those 28 new guys:
  • 8 are new draftees
  • 4 are Jan 2025 IFA signings
  • 10 are Trade Acquisitions
  • 1 is an off-season MLFA signing (Orelvis Martinez)
  • 1 is our Rule-5 acquisition in December (McGarry)
  • 2 were in our system last year just outside their top 50
• Of their top 50 last year? 18 of the 50 are no longer eligible:
  • 9 graduated/exhausted rookie eligibility
  • 4 hit MLFA status (De La Rosa, Acosta, Choi, Naranjo)
  • 2 were released (Baker, Quintana)
  • 1 was traded (Bennett)
  • 1 was a Rule5 pick we returned (Reifert … remember him?)
  • 1 was DFA’d and claimed (Brzycky)
• Furthermore, there were 8 guys ranked in last year’s top 50 who didn’t make it this time:
  • Tyler Stuart, #14 last year and unranked this year (probably the biggest “Whaaa?” in this ranking)
  • Rafael Ramirez Jr.
  • Orlando Ribalta
  • Armando Cruz
  • Seth Shuman
  • Brennar Cox
  • Andres Chapparo
  • Brandon Pimental

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Ok lets do some quick analysis of the list. Obviously I’m not going to talk about all 50, so i’ll scan down the list and hit some highlights

• Sykrora at #1. We just had a list that dropped him to #5, but these guys keep him at 1-1. It’s obviously a projection of him returning 100% to form and getting to the majors in 2027.
• The rest of the top5 as expected.
• Dickerson way too high at #6, based on his pro debut.
• I’d have put Clemmey above King and Dickerson based on what he accomplished at his age.
• Our three big prep bonus babies come in at #9, #10, and #21. BA had them #9, #11, and #19 so similar thinking.
• The first big surprise was having Linan all the way up at #13. I like Linan that high (I had him #11 on my post-2025 season list), but BA had him all the way down at #23. Big arm, young guy, but 3 DL trips in 2025 give some pause.
• Angel Feliz a bit lower than I’d like to see him at #14; I think he’s edge of the top 10.
• Jackson Kent, who got some criticism in the last post … is also #15 on this list, same ranking as BA.
• Another big surprise: Eriq Swan at #19. BA didn’t even have him in their top 30. I had him too high in my post-season first cut, and early 20s seems right.
• Sam Peterson, the darling of the BA list, down at #22. I think he should at least be in the mid teens.
• Hurtado at #23 when BA didn’t have him at all. Seems like a bonus amount ranking still. Same with Vaquero at #25.
• Wallace and Randall keep their spots in the top 30 here by the skin of their teeth. I think this is about right for both.
• They’ve got Mota too low: #32 when BA has him at #20.
• Glasser comes in at #33, likely depressed b/c he’s not projecting to be a huge fantasy star.
• Cornelio is probably too low at #35; the guy’s on the 40-man roster, which mean’s he’s almost guaranteed to produce in the majors in 2026.
• First mention of under-the-radar trade acquisition Browm Martinez (that name is going to drive me crazy). He’s at #36.
• MLFA signing Orelvis Martinez at #38: i’m not surprised we don’t see more MLFA edge prospects showing up. He turned 24 just after the season ended, having exhausted his 7 years of service in his prior club. He’s now completely in FA years ahead of where a college draftee would be thanks to the early signing of the IFA market.
• Andry Lara at #40. I mean, really? Is he a prospect at all anymore?
• Green stays on the list like fellow big $$ signees Vaquery and Hurtado.
• Andrew Alvarez way too low at #45 … he should be 20 spots higher.
• 2025 Draftee Boston Smith debuts on any prospect chart at #49 … thanks to his Catcher eligiblity.
• TJ White rounds up the list at #50 … for some reason. He hit .231 repeating High-A for the third year as a corner outfielder … I guess its b/c he’s still just 22.

Best players missing:

• Tyler Stuart, as discussed above
• Davian Garcia: solved low-A in his first pro season and held his own in high-A rotation for a few turns. I’ll take that over a reliever who got shelled in AAA. He’s 2 years younger than Swan and had better numbers than him .. but Swan is #19 and Garcia is in the 50s?
• Armando Cruz: I mean, if we’re ranking Hurtado, Vaquero and Green, might as well throw this guy in there as well.

The first big scouting shop just released their top 30 prospects for 2026, and it’s a doozy. There’s big deltas between theirs and what we know of so far from other shops, lots of recognition of players who had break-out seasons in 2025, and lots of new names from this time last year. Let’s take a look.

I’m going to add in their ranking from 2025 as part of the below table and part of the discussion.

Current Rank	Jan 2025 Rank	First Name	Last Name	Position
1	Not yet drafted	Eli	Willits	SS
2	3	Jarlin	Susana	RHP (Starter)
3	Not Yet Acquired	Harry	Ford	C
4	Not Yet Acquired	Luis	Perales	RHP (Starter)
5	2	Travis	Sykora	RHP (Starter)
6	6	Alex	Clemmey	LHP (Starter)
7	5	Seaver	King	SS
8	11	Luke	Dickerson	SS/CF
9	Not yet drafted	Coy	James	SS
10	15	Angel	Feliz	SS/3B
11	Not yet drafted	Landon	Harmon	RHP (Starter)
12	40	Sam	Peterson	OF (CF)
13	Not yet drafted	Ethan	Petry	1B/OF (Corner)
14	16	Andrew	Pinckney	OF (Corner)
15	36	Jackson	Kent	LHP (Starter)
16	22	Yohandy	Morales	3B
17	Not Yet IFA signed	German	Marconi	SS
18	8	Caleb	Lomavita	C
19	Not yet drafted	Miguel	Sime Jr.	RHP (Starter)
20	Outside top 40	Jorgelys	Mota	SS
21	Not yet drafted	Ronny	Cruz	SS
22	Not yet Acquired	Christian	Franklin	OF (CF)
23	Not yet Acquired	Sean Paul	Linan	RHP (Starter)
24	35	Yoel	Tejeda Jr.	RHP (Starter)
25	Outside top 40	Riley	Cornelio	RHP (Starter)
26	Outside top 40	Andrew	Alvarez	LHP (Starter)
27	Outside top 40	Phillips	Glasser	SS
28	Outside top 40	Nauris	De La Cruz	OF (Corner)
29	17	Brayan	Cortesia	SS
30	Not yet R5 drafted	Griff	McGarry	RHP (Starter)

So, Here’s some macro facts from just BA’s top 30 today versus one year ago:

• 12 of the 30 are new to the Organization since Jan 2025
  • 5 from the 2025 Draft (Willits, James, Harmon, Petry, Sime)
  • 5 from Trades (Ford, Perales, Franklin, Linan, Cruz
  • 1 from the 2025 IFA class (Marconi)
  • 1 from Rule-5 in December (McGarry)
• 2 of the top 30 were outside of the top 30 last year but in the “honorable mention” 30-40 range (Tejeda, Peterson)
• 5 of the top 30 were not listed in BA’s top 30 (or even their extended top 40) last year (Mota, Cornelio, Alvaraz, Glasser, and De La Cruz)
• 11 of LAST year’s top 30 are no longer eligible:
  • 9 Graduated with enough MLB time: Crews, House, Cavalli, Lile, Hassell, Millas, Rutledge, Nunez, Lord)
  • 1 have been traded (Bennett)
  • 1 were DFA’d and are gone (Brzycky)

So, for as much as I’ve criticized the player development of the Rizzo regime … that’s an awful lot of guys matriculating to the majors and being productive parts of the MLB team. Perhaps you can quibble about how much they’re “contributing,” but when you push 9 prospects to the MLB roster in one year … that’s a win. Of course, many of these guys are the ones who are supposed to be contributing: of these 11 graduates, six were 1st rounders and another three were 2nd rounders. I have harped ad naseum about the Rizzo regime “blowing” basically every 2nd round pick (and a bunch of 1st rounders) for a decade straight … but now some of them are actually making it.

Ok, so that being said, lets run through some comments/observations on this list.

• #1 Willits has either been #1 or #2 on every ranking since his arrival. No surprise he’s top here. BA has him arriving 2028 at age 20, which is CJ Abrams’ last year before FA. Something tells me we’re not going to get to that point with CJ on this team, which means we’ll be putting a stop-gap at SS (Nunez?) or maybe Willits blasts through the minors Bryce Harper style and is starting at age 19.
• BA keeps Susana just above new high-profile acquisitions Ford and Perales despite his injuries last year. Other shops have him perhaps in-between the two.
• Sykora slots in at #5, just below the two guys we’ve just acquired. That implies he was #3 before we got these two guys in trade. I took some grief for dropping Sykora to 5th on my own list at the end of 2025’s season … when I republish that ranking in April I probably will adjust it slightly.
• There’s probably an implicit “gap” between our current top 5 and even to #6, Clemmey. The next 5 ranked guys are all relatively young as compared to the AA and AAA heavy top 5.
• King comes in at #7 … probably on the back of a few hot weeks in the AFL. That seems to be consistent where other shops have him ranked right now. I was very down on King in September, and now have rebounded, perhaps drinking the AFL kool-aid. I mean, we want the guy to succeed right?
• Dickerson somehow retains his top 10 ranking despite an awful season at the plate in 2025 and faces a positional conundrum shortly: who plays SS for Low-A next season? Luke may be finding another position. Luckily we already knew he was like a SS/CF coming out of HS.
• Our big money RHP 2025 prep kids (James, Harmon, Sime) come in ranked #9, #11, and #19 respectively. James (the 5th rounder) is highest here, over 3rd rounder Harmon (both got the same $$ figure). I know some pundits struggle to rank these kinds of guys: prep RHP are the riskiest of risky in the sport.
• The first big out of nowhere name: Sam Peterson at #12, one slot ahead of Petry. This guy blew up in 2025, nearly posting a 3/4/5 slash line in High-A as an 8th round pick the year before. That’d be some found gold right there if he continues to contribute. Also: 18/0 SB/CS in High-A and he plays a true CF. Sounds like a Jacob Young-type (an unheralded 7th round defense-first college bat).
• Pinckney at #14 just seems high. I just don’t see where he goes with this organization. He’s, what, 8th on the OF depth chart? (Wood, Hassell, Crews, Young, Wiemer, Lile, Franklin ahead of him): only 3 of them can play at a time. Seems like we should move him.
• Lomavita at #18 seems a bit low, and the acquisition of Ford really changes the trajectory of the entirely of our Catcher depth chart right now. I don’t think Ford is on the MLB team to open the season with just a few MLB ABs, but he’ll be starting in AAA. Which means Millas is either on the MLB bench or on the AAA bench. I’m not sure where Adams fits in; he signed a split contract (meaning he has negotiated his minor league salary), meaning they’re anticipating going to the minors … but he has no options left, which means he’ll have to pass through waivers to get off the 40-man. Should be interesting to see how this shakes out. My initial guess? Ruiz/Millas in MLB, Ford/Adams in AAA, Lomavita/Romero back in AA, Bazzell/Rombach in High-A, with all the starters just waiting to see if Ruiz can keep his starting job.
• Next up on the surprise inclusion list: Jorgelys Mota, 3B in Low-A. He’s starting to get noticed. He’s also part of a major log-jam in Low-A: the following guys are all solid prospects in the 18-20 year old range who play on the right side of the infield: Willits, Dickerson, Feliz and Mota. That’s 4 guys for 2 spots in Low-A where they all belong. Maybe one of them is pushed up to High-A, or maybe they all juggle ABs and IPs in Fredericksburg, maybe Dickerson goes to CF.
• Cornelio’s great 2025 finally gets him onto the BA list at #25. He was the Nats Minor League Pitcher of the Year and deservedly gets included in the BA top 30.
• Alvarez, who has almost never been considered a prospect, comes in at #26. I’m super curious to see how Alvarez’ 2026 shakes out. Is he really in the mix for a MLB rotation spot? I mean, Small Sample Size of course but in 5 late season starts he had a 2.31 ERA that was decently supported by his FIP (3.39). Do you stick him in the bullpen? Does he have the right kind of stuff to be in a MLB pen? Or, do you put him in AAA again to keep him stretched out? I dunno. Good problem to have I suppose.
• Phillip Glasser gets ranked by a major shop for the first time ever, after his Nats Minor League Hitter of the year season in 2025. He’ll be a starting corner OF in AAA in 2026, but he’s got the same problem Pinckney does: positional congestion. Of course, Lile looked completely blocked at the beginning of 2025 as well, then hit so well you kind of have to find a spot for him in the lineup. So, things can change.
• Nauris De La Cruz gets the #29 spot after mostly solving DSL pitching this year; final slash line .294/.448/.450. He’ll be state-side in the FCL to start 2026. Hopefully Florida food will help him fill out (6’0″ and 160?!).
• Our new rule-5 pick Griff McGarry comes in at #30; he should make the MLB bullpen and graduate pretty quickly.

Notable Players left off the BA top 30:

• Eriq Swan: I may have the trade-acquisition over-rated on my list.
• Orelvis Martinez, AAA MLFA signing who MLBpipeline has at like #20 right now
• Andry Lara: I’ve been down on him for a while but many still hold out hope.
• Daniel Hernandez: an interesting omission given that he’s as high as #13 elsewhere and was a big-money IFA signing, but he struggled in his first DSL Season (don’t worry, he was super young upon signing)
• Cristhian Vaquero: I’m guessing he’s still hanging around in the 30-40 range on BA’s list, like he does on others.
• Josh Randall: Edge of the top 30 type on many lists.
• Tyler Stuart: TJ knocks him off for a bit; hopefully can get back.
• Cayden Wallace: hard to believe how far he’s fallen. Maybe he can put together a solid season and regain some prospect status. Would love to see him hit to his capabilities and fill the 2B slot in the bigs so we can move some guys around.
• Victor Hurtado: that $2.8M in 2024 IFA bonus not looking good
• Elijah Green; phew he’s getting up there as our biggest 1st round bust ever, if not already there.

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Writer’s note: corrected Ronny Cruz’ acquisition method in the top section; he was acquired in the Soroka trade, not via the draft. Thanks to @Will in the comments for the correction.

The Nats new GM reached back out to his old team and made a trade you just don’t see that often; prospect for prospect, two minor leaguers (essentially) for each other, both of whom are at the cusp of MLB production.

Jake Bennett heads to Boston straight up for Luis Perales a 22yr old RHP starter who got a cup of coffee with Boston this year.

From a prospect ranking perspective, MLBpipeline had Bennett as our #11 and now has Perales as our new #5, so in theory our farm system improves marginally. In reality, whether it was Bennett or Perales in our AAA rotation to start 2026, both would be expected to matriculate up this year. Perales is only 22 as an international signee, and has more upside/more risk, while Bennett is considered more floor/more consistent.

Keith Law had some interesting analysis in the immediate wake of the trade, noting that Bennett (and the Nats pitching dev staff) had done little to improve upon his offerings in his time here (either in terms of velocity or adding breaking pitches), whereas Boston has had success in helping its arms improve. Something to think about; Boston must have seen something it thinks it can improve upon with Bennett, while Toboni rolls the dice on a higher upside arm that he’s familiar with.

Here’s what our rough SP depth chart looks like right now on the 40-man:

• Likely opening day rotation: Gore, Grey, Cavalli, Alvarez/Irvin/Parker competition
• Likely starters->bullpen: McGarry, Lord, Williams
• To the DL: Herz
• To AAA: Perales, Lao, Eder, Cornelio

That’s not a bad AAA rotation to start, adding to it Luckham, Shuman, and Ogasawara as 5th candidates

Anyway, odds are we’re not done seeing trades. Big question is whether he will move Gore now or try to leverage desperate teams at the 2026 trade deadline … and if he can convince other teams that Abrams is really a shortstop.

It’s that time of year. Its “Rule-5 time!” November 18th 2025 is the official “Deadline to File Reserve Lists” on the off-season calendar, which is a fancy way of saying the deadline to add certain minor leaguers to the active 40-man roster to protect them from the Rule-5 draft, which occurs in a few weeks at the December annual meetings.

We do this post every year, and it’s now perhaps our longest running post topic. Its our annual deep dive into our older prospects to see who the team may be thinking about protecting. Here’s links to past years posts on this topic: 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010. I also publish a post-Rule5 compilation post with all the prior selectees and draftees after we see what the team does on the 18th.

Many people think Rule-5 is a waste of time for fringe prospects who don’t matter. For those of us who pore over minor league box scores, hoping to find a diamond in the rough of our 160+ minor leaguers who might some day be wearing red and white Nationals home jerseys, its a deep-dive into what might be for these players and an always-fun exercise looking at what may be the edges of our farm system.

As a reminder, Rule 5 eligibility is as follows for any player not on a 40-man roster:

• Signed at 18-years-old or younger, has been in the organization for five seasons post draft/signing
• Signed at 19-years-old or older, has been in the organization for four seasons post draft/signing

So, generally speaking this translates to for 2025:

• College players drafted/signed in 2022 or before
• High Schoolers drafted in 2021 or before
• IFAs signed in 2021 or before unless they were already 18 at signing, then 2022 or before.

(I say generally speaking because there are some IFAs who get signed later in the year, or who might have turned 19 by the time they sign and turn Rule-5 one year earlier than we thought. This hasn’t happened with us for a few years).

Heading into this year’s Rule-5 selection piece, the Nats have quite a bit of room on the 40-man, thanks to a slew of DFAs and a few FAs who expired off the roster. As of this writing, we’re at 34/40 on the 40-man roster. I don’t think that means we’re adding 6 guys at this deadline, but I don’t sense this front office cleared that much room for the heck of it this early in the off-season. We also have a brand new GM and front office, who brings a new approach to the Rule-5 Process. Boston has not been very active ahead of the Rule-5 deadlines; 2 protected last year, 2 the year before, none in 2022. So I’m not expecting a massive set of additions.

Important Links for Rule-5 consideration:

• Nats Draft Tracker looking at the 2022 class and older
• Nats IFA Tracker; looking at the 2021 class and older
• Nats Big Board: you can search for “22D” or “21IFA” to quickly find the players in that class
• Roster Resource: the Options/R5 column has a red “R5” for all Rule-5 candidates; I use this to cross-reference my work to make sure we’re both in sync, though they sometimes have errors.
• 2025 MLFA List from Baseball America: 34 MLFAs for us this year
• 2025 Nov 2025 Minor league Transactions, which shows the 34 MLFAs we had along with all the other 11/6/25 transactions
• 2025 AFL Rosters, since we usually send a couple R5 candidates there. This year the R5 guys were Bennett, Aldonis.

Here we go. There’s several categories of players to consider; we’ll go one by one.

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Group 1: Newly Eligible 2022 draft College Players this year. Holy cow there’s a lot; we’ve still essentially have our entire 2022 draft class still playing, so there’s lots to discuss.

• Trey Lipscomb (AAA): well, the first player to cover is … a weird one. Lipscomb just got outrighted off the 40-man roster, and he immediately becomes Rule-5 eligible. Clearly the Nats won’t be protecting him, so there’s no point in analyzing him. Per my contact at Fangraphs, this is a rarity but does happen, and such a player has gotten plucked in Rule-5 before, which seems odd b/c the exact same team that picked him could have just put in a waiver claim on him a couple weeks ago and retained the flexibility of optioning him all next year instead of the Rule-5 limitations. So, odds are he doesn’t get picked in rule-5 either.
• Kyle Luckham (AAA): 5.46 ERA in 7 AAA appearances this year, and has very little prospect cred. I think he’s likely a AAA ceiling guy, and I can’t see him as a Rule-5 drafting prospect since he’s not tooled up.
• Riley Cornelio (AAA): had a great 2025, solving High-A and AA and ending the year in AAA with similar numbers there to Luckham. What makes him different is the fact that the organization has continued to promote him year after year, and the industry has taken note of his progress. However, I admit that I’m “higher” on Cornelio than others in the industry. BA has zero professional scouting reports on him, but did note he added 2-3 mph from 2024-2025 on his fastball. At the very least I think someone would risk picking him as someone who could deal out of the bullpen. I think we’d be fools not to protect him, and I’d bet he’s pushing for a MLB rotation spot by mid 2026.
• Marquis Grissom (AAA) briefly was looking like a solid RP prospect, but then proved to be pretty hittable in AAA this season. Might still be someone who can grow into a middle reliever in the bigs, but he didn’t show enough this year for a team to think about carrying him all 2026.
• Jake Bennett (AA): one of our top 3-4 prospects right now, was unhittable for the entirety of 2025 after missing a year with TJ, and he’s a big part of the future. He’s going to be the #1 protection name submitted.
• Tyler Stuart (AA): solid prospect, out for all of 2026 with TJ, thus no chance he’s picked. If he had an injury-free 2026, he probably would have made it to AAA and we’d be protecting him.
• Chance Huff (AA); bonus-limited 8th rounder who was workable in AA this year, but who has no chance of getting picked because he’s not a prospect arm.
• Cayden Wallace (AA): he was the marquee prospect who we got for Hunter Harvey and was immediately in our system top 10, getting a NRI to spring training and having some talking about him possibly being better than House. An up-and-down AA season in 2025 pinched a lot of that talk, but this is still a 2nd rounder who can play on the dirt and can hit. He could be a backup infielder for a bad team’s MLB roster today. I think he is protection material.
• Johnathon Thomas (AA): a backup undersized 19th round outfielder in AA who’s behind nearly a dozen other outfielders on the depth chart isn’t a threat to get protected. I don’t think he’s getting picked either.
• Max Romero (AA): even in a catcher-thin system, you can’t protect a guy unless he can at least hit .200 right?
• Murphy Stehly (AA): the 10th rounder in 2022 is actually now 27 yrs old and he hit the crap out of the ball this year in AA. Great story, but not likely to get plucked just based on his drafting pedigree and age.
• Luke Young (AA) a middle relief RHP in AA with mediocre numbers; that just screams “org arm.”
• Courtland Lawson (High-A), Jared McKenzie (High-A): bench bats in High-A aren’t candidates. Somewhat surprised they’re still in the system.

Summary: Bennett a lock. Cornelio a strong candidate. Wallace a maybe.

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Group 1-A: 2022 NDFAs

• Matt Suggs (AA): the sole 22 NDFA we have remaining of nine we signed. He was the 3rd backup in AA this year and seems like he’s hanging around until he hits 6yr MLFA.

Summary: no candidates in this section.

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Group 2: Newly Eligible 2021 High School-age drafted players under consideration for protection

• TJ White (High-A): just finished his 3rd straight year in High A and still doesn’t have an OPS above .650. Not a candidate.

Summary: no candidates in this section

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Group 3: Newly Eligible 2021 signed IFAs under consideration for protection

• Armando Cruz (High-A): you can’t possibly think of protecting a guy who just hit .177 in High-A because he had a $3.9M bonus investment, could you? Well, we’ve done it in the past; Yasel Antuna was almost in the identical situation here. Luckily we have a new GM who could probably care less about these kinds of prior investments.
• Guys still in Low-A or Rookie Ball: Emmanuel Ramirez, Gabriel Agostini, Brayan Romero, Brian Polanco (who might have actually been eligible last year b/c he signed at 19), and Angel Roman: not candidates.

Summary: Cruz, if they’re fools.

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Group 4: Rule-5 Eligible Drafted/Domestic hold-overs of note from prior years

• Christian Franklin (AAA): solid 800+ OPS for us after being acquired in trade for Soroka. Most shops have him ranked in the 11-15 range of prospects for the system, and he’s a good OF depth piece. I think he’s a lock to get protected b/c he could be a backup OF for a slew of teams right now, and at the very least he’s someone the team could be looking to use in trade given our logjam of outfielders.
• Brad Lindsly (AAA): He got 58 ABs in 2025 as the 2nd or 3rd C on the AAA roster and probably made half a dozen trips to the “Developmental List.” He’s basically a bullpen catcher with a playing contract.
• Holden Powell (AAA): made it to AAA and then walked a guy an inning.
• Seth Shuman (AAA): got shelled in AAA, lost his rotation spot. He was a 2019 draftee but somehow didn’t get MLFA declared.
• Brandon Boissiere (AA): had a nice year in AA at age 25; probably not enough to be protected.
• Erik Tolman (AA): developmentally behind after missing a year with injury, mostly succeeded in High-A this year. Not a candidate, despite being lefty. Perhaps if he was closer to the majors.
• Jack Sinclair (AA): 5+ era as a 26yr old in AA: he may have hit his ceiling.
• Dustin Saenz (AA): lost his rotation spot, might be converted to lefty reliever, but not terribly impressive this year.
• Brendan Collins (High-A): kind of like Tolman in that he basically missed a whole year. Side-arming middle reliever seems like AA may be his limit.

Fun fact; Jake Irvin (2018 4th rounder) is now our oldest remaining originally drafted player. He’s the sole player remaining from the 2018 draft active for the Nats; nobody older. For almost the entire life of this team, the answer to this question was either Ryan Zimmerman or Stephen Strasburg.

Summary: Franklin a lock.

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Group 4A: 2021 and older NDFAs,

• Tyler Schoff (AAA): spent most of the season on the 60-day DL, seems like he’ll get another year with us.
• Peyton Glavine (High-A): missed all of 2024, decent in 2025 but a year behind developmentally.

Summary: no candidates here

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Group 5: IFAs: 2019 and older (we didn’t really have a 2020 IFA class)

• Kevin Made (AA): lots of promise, little delivery. We’ve talked about him ad nauseum in the comments. If he was a more consistent bat, he’d be a top 10 prospect, in AAA and probably pushing the likes of Tena and Nunez off the 40-man roster to be our go-to backup middle infielder. But he’s not, so he’s not.
• Pablo Aldonis (High-A): stellar numbers in High-A as a lefty reliever, after missing all of 2024 due to injury. This is an interesting one; great numbers and clearly good stuff, but hasn’t ever gotten out of A-ball. I’d think he is safe from being drafted in the major league phase for sure, but the Nats sending him to the AFL also put a big shiny target on his back. His AFL numbers werne’t too bad: 11ip, 6 games 2 “starts,” 14/5 K/BB and a 1.33 whip. It seems nonsensical for a team to pick him and think he’s gonna stick in their bullpen for an entire year, especially since we’re not talking about a well known MLBpipeline top30 guy.
• guys in Low-A or Rookie ball: Victor Farias, Andy Luis, Juan Abreu

Summary: Aldonis a maybe.

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So, where does that leave us? Summarizing the Groups:

• Group 1 Protection Candidates: Bennett a lock. Cornelio a strong maybe, Wallace a maybe.
• Group 1A Protection Candidates: none
• Group 2 Protection Candidates: none
• Group 3 Protection Candidates: Cruz, if they’re fools
• Group 4 Protection Candidates: Franklin a lock
• Group 4a Protection Candidates: none
• Group 5 Protection Candidates: Aldonis a maybe

My Prediction: Team protects Bennet, Franklin.

If it was Todd Boss the GM, i’d go four: Bennett Franklin, Cornelio, and Wallace.

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Two things I’ll update to this post when they happen:

• Nats Actual Rule-5 protection results: on 11/18/25, the Nats added three: Bennett, Franklin, and Cornelio. So, they added Cornelio in a surprise to this observer, but didn’t add Wallace, which was always going to be a stretch.

• Actual Rule-5 draft results in Dec: will be added later, likely in a new post.

11/6/25 was a big moving day in baseball: its 5 days after the World Series ended, and on the same day all 60-day DL guys (in the majors and minors) have to be returned to active roster status, and all free agents are declared. In the majors, that means the “exclusive” bargaining period ends (which is almost never used anymore), but more importantly to this site and this audience, it means that dozens of prospects that we’ve sometimes tracked for 6-7 years are now cut loose.

Here’s a look at the churn at both the 40-man level and in the minors. All these moves are now updated on the Big Board, as well as the Draft Tracker and the IFA tracker and my internal Nats Prospect Rankings page, which saw a slew of guys I had ranked just a few weeks ago get cut loose. I’ll talk about them below in a bit.

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Major League Free Agents

• Josh Bell 1b/DH 11/2/25: FA
• Paul deJong 2b/3b 11/2/25: FA
• Derek Law rhp 11/2/25: FA

In other words, the three guys the team couldn’t even trade for a bag of balls at the trade deadline.

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40-man DFA’s

• CJ Stubbs c 10/30/25: DFA’d, cleared waivers, outrighted to AAA
• Ogasawara, Shinnosuki rhp 10/30/25: DFA’d, cleared waivers, outrighted to AAA
• Mason Thompson rhp 10/30/25: DFA’d, cleared waivers, outrighted to AAA, refused assignment, FA
• Eduardo Salazar rhp 10/30/25: DFA’d, cleared waivers, outrighted to AAA, refused assignment, FA
• Jorge Alfaro c 10/31/25: DFA’d, cleared waivers, outrighted to AAA, refused assignment, FA
• Zach Brzycky rhp 11/6/25: DFA’d, claimed by Miami, gone
• Ryan Loutos rhp 11/6/25: DFA’d, claimed by Seattle, gone
• Trey Lipscomb 3b 11/6/25: DFA’d, cleared waivers, outrighted to AAA

So, that’s 11 total guys removed from the 40-man with FAs and DFAs. We added back our four 60-day DL guys (Grey, Herz, Williams, Millas), which puts us at exactly 34/40 as of this writing. That’s a ton of room for the next phase of the off-season (Rule5 and Free Agency).

Most surprising out of this list? Probably Brzycky, who was a NDFA and kind of “found gold” for the player dev staff. He didn’t get a ton of MLB time and I’m surprised they cut him and kept other relievers for the time being. It’s no surprise to me he got claimed.

There’s not a ton of “fat” left on the roster now; most of the guys I had listed early on my “next guys to cut” are now gone. I could still see the team part ways with a couple of waiver claim/MLFA relievers that made their way onto the active roster (Fernandez, Pilkington), but the next cuts after that will be deep.

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MLFAs declared

Here’s the meat of this post. As of 11/6/25, all 6-year MLFAs were declared. Generally speaking, this means the following are now declared MLFAs:

• anyone drafted in 2019
• Most IFAs signed in 2018 under a certain age.
• Some older IFAs signed in 2019: if you were already 18 you’re like a draftee.
• Furthermore, anyone we’ve signed as a MLFA along the way one a one-year deal, or who hasn’t already resigned on some other deal we’re unaware of, is also newly declared.

So, from the massive list of 11/6/25 minor league transactions, here’s what that looks like. We’ll go level by level:

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From AAA: no fewer than 16 guys hitting MLFA.

2B	Arruda, JT#
CA	Stubbs, C.J.
DH	Yepez ,Juan
SP	Solesky, Chase
LF	De La Cruz, Carlos
SU	Cuevas, Michael
LR	Conley, Bryce
MID	Adon, Joan
SP	Sampson, Adrian
MID	Dunshee, Parker
MID	Acosta, Daison
SS	Cluff, Jackson*
MID	Davila, Garrrett*
MID	Mejia, Erick#
CF	Schnell, Nick
CA	Mejia, Francisco

Some of these guys I absolutely had ranked in my end of year ranking. The highest was Schnell, who I had just outside my top 30. I had Acosta and Davila in the 50-60 range, Erick Mejia in the 70s, and then a few more in the 80-90 range. Only four of these MLFAs from AAA were home grown (Arruda, Cuevas, Adon, and Cluff). Nonetheless, 16 guys off a 31 player roster is a huge number gone.

AAA now has 15 players remaining; and basically the entire 2025 pitching staff is gone. Interestingly, there are a couple names who seem like they should have been declared MLFAs but who remain; Pena (an 17IFA, Orelvis Martinez (just signed as a 26 MLFA), and Seth Shuman (a 19Draftee who should have been declared). I don’t entirely trust these rosters or milb.com transactions, so its possible these guys were also declared MLFAs and missed the announcement, or its possible they’ve already re-signed for 2026. Especially with Shuman, I hope he’s back in the fold.

Also worth mentioning here, a shoutout to Darren Baker, who was released a bit earlier in the off-season to pursue other opportunities.

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From AA: 8 guys

SP	Atencio, Jose
CF	Williams, Donta’ *
CL	Santos, Junior
CF	DeShields, Delino
MID	Vasquez, Samuel
LR	Knowles, Lucas*
1B	Naranjo, Joe
LR	Choi, Hyun-Il

Just two of these 8 were home grown (Knowles and Atencio). I had Atencio ranked relatively high on my end of season ranks (#47) and I had high hopes that the team might retain his services. I had a couple of these guys in the 100+ range (Vasquez, Knowles, Naranjo). Lastly I thought the team could hold onto Choi a bit longer, but perhaps not.

I don’t see any players remaining on the AA roster who seem like they should have been declared. The oldest draftee/signee is Kevin Made, a 19IFA who was young and retains one more year of control.

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From High-A: Six guys.

SU	Otanez, Johan
CA	Colmenares, Jose
LR	Caceres, Bryan
LR	Arias, Wander
SU	Montero, Euri
DH/CF	De La Rosa, Jeremy*

I think it goes without saying that, if you’re not out of A-ball by the time you’ve had 6 seasons in the minors, you’re not really a prospect. And, true to form, the only one of these six guys who I even mentioned in my rankings was De la Rosa, and that’s only because at one point a couple years ago he was in the top 30 range.

Wilmington still has a couple of rostered guys who seem like they should have been declared MLFAs: setup man Yeuris Jimenez and maybe Adam Bloebaum, who was signed as a “MLFA” in 2025 but may really be an “NDFA” for eligibility purposes. Pablo Aldonis (currently in the AFL) was a 19IFA but was young and gets one more year.

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Low-A: just 3 guys

2B	Rivero, Yoander
MID	Dowdell, Kevin*
SU	Kane, Tommy*

Rivero was home grown, the other two were 2025MLFAs. Rivero, coincidentally, was the last remaining 2018IFA player we had, closing the books on what turned out to be a really awful IFA class. The most accomplished player out of the 2018 IFA class was either Rodney Theophile (MLFA last year after getting to AA) or oft-injured Jose Atencio, who made it to AA but missed all of 2025.

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Nobody was cut loose from the FCL team, and just one name from DSL who, frankly, I didn’t even realize was rostered. Sometimes the team sneaks these signings without much in the way of announcement.

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All in all, 34 MLFAs declared on 11/6/25. With all the outrights and MLFAs, the domestic system is now down to 139 players.

Of the 125 players that I ranked at year’s end, 16 of them are now MLFAs.

I think the biggest “shock” to the system is just how much of this year’s AAA squad is now gone. There’s not nearly enough players set to rise up from AA, and there’s not enough guys who would be dropping down from MLB right now (34 on the 40-man, meaning just 8 would move down not including known DL guys). This spells a ton of new MLFAs set to come into the fold this coming spring.

Baseball America is always one of the first (if not the first) shops to put out an early top 10 for teams In November. They then follow it up with their more comprehensive Handbook and top 30 towards the end of January. But, it’s good to get a read on where they think things are at the top. For what its worth, last year BA did not change its top 10 rankings from Nov 2024 to its eventual release in Jan 2025, so it seems likely this is their top 10 for us.

Here’s their top 10 for 2026, and where BA had these players ranked in Mid August, after all the trades and drafting had settled.

Current Rank	8/13/25 Rank	First Name	Last Name	Position
1	1	Eli	Willits	SS
2	2	Jarlin	Susana	RHP (Starter)
3	3	Travis	Sykora	RHP (Starter)
4	4	Alex	Clemmey	LHP (Starter)
5	9	Seaver	King	SS
6	15	Jake	Bennett	LHP (Starter)
7	5	Luke	Dickerson	SS/CF
8	7	Coy	James	SS
9	16	Angel	Feliz	3B/SS
10	11	Landon	Harmon	RHP (Starter)

Here’s some quick observations of this top 10.

• This seems like a very “conservative” top 10, one that’s mostly based on youth, ceiling, and promise. Four of these 10 guys didn’t play above rookie ball, if at all, in 2025.
• A reminder: doing a top 10 is easy. Doing a top 30 is harder.
• BA has no changes to its top four players from mid August, despite a year gone for Sykora and a likely delay in the start of his 2026 season for Susana. I’m not sure I agree with this honestly, especially since Susana was hurt more than once in 2025.
• They elevated Seaver King to #5, despite his season-long malaise, but perhaps with the benefit of seeing his performance in Arizona. Interesting. Is it fair to just “throw out” his entire 2026 at this point thanks to some ill-advised piece of advice from an unnamed Nats player development staffer? My ranking him at #16 just after the season is looking like a take that won’t age well, and I will be putting him back into the top 10 with my own pre-2026 ranking at some point next spring.
• Bennett gets the expected bump well back into the top 10.
• Despite major struggles, Dickerson only drops a couple spots. His ranking is going to be a point of discussion with all these shops this off-season: i’ve seen him as high as #3, and as low as #27, on lists so far this off-season.
• Our two 2025 draft $2M+ bonus prep kids James and Harmon are 8 and 10
• Feliz continues to march up the boards, now inside the top 10 of a major ranking for the first time.

Most of us have labeled Seaver King at best a disappointment so far in his career, and at worst a failed pick, after getting picked 10th a couple years ago, having now seen the glittering debut performance of possible Nats picks Trey Yesevage or the high prospect ranks of the likes of Braden Montgomery.

But, he’s destroying the ball in the AFL, a league that’s “supposed” to basically be like playing in a AA-level all star game every day.

What’s going on in Arizona?

MLB.com’s Sam Dykstra had the following to say in today’s “Early Standouts from the AFL” email newsletter about King:

Seaver King peaking late: Few Fall Leaguers needed a good autumn as much as the Nationals’ 2024 first-rounder and No. 7-ranked prospect.

While other members of his Draft class surged to the Majors this summer, King hit just .244/.294/.337 with six homers in 125 games between High-A Wilmington and Double-A Harrisburg — two notably pitcher-friendly ballparks. Here in the desert, the right-handed-hitting shortstop has looked much more like his Wake Forest self. He’s 13-for-31 (.419) with two homers, five doubles and only three strikeouts through seven games.

King has been routinely on fastballs, batting .533 against them in the early going while he shoots balls to the gaps. He could stand to pull the ball a little better with his homers going to right-center and right, but with an early hard-hit rate of 71.4 percent and three barrels in 14 batted balls, he is finding the right part of the bat generally in the early small sample. Add in good speed — he has two recorded Sprint Speeds above 30 ft/sec — and King is pushing his stock back up headed into his second offseason.

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A discussion about Park Factors in our Minor League system

We know Wilmington is a super pitcher’s park .. I’m not sure I realized that Harrisburg was as well. I went digging for Park factors; here’s Baseball America’s 2024 Minor League Park factor data. Here’s all our parks in one spot:

Team	Level	Org	Runs PF	Runs Mult	HR PF	HR Mult	wOBA PF	wOBA Mult
Rochester	AAA	WSH	86	0.931	75	0.873	93	0.963
Harrisburg	AAA	WSH	88	0.939	107	1.037	95	0.974
Wilmington	High-A	WSH	93	0.965	84	0.922	98	0.988
Fredericksburg	Low-A	WSH	97	0.984	104	1.018	100	1.001

So, basically, every one of our full season parks is a pitcher’s park. And, as you move up the chain, each higher level’s park is actually harder from a wOBA perspective than the last. Wilmington, which we keep hearing is a death valley for hitters … is really just death for homers (which explains why our team leader in high-A for homers was just 7 this year). It’s 98 for wOBA in general. Harrisburg is actually worse for Runs and wOBA; it just has a spike for HRs due to its pretty easy pull power alleys (325 down the lines, 350 to LCF and RCF).

Aside: When looking at this HR park factor for AAA, by the way, it definitely puts a different spin on the 2025 HR production of the likes of Schnell (21 hrs in 95 AAA games) or Pinckney (20 hrs in 125 AAA games).

Anyway, back to King; We also read in another blog a quote from King from a fellow draftee prospect about approach and patience, something that my fellow Nats bloggers have used to basically draw the conclusion that the entire Nats player development staff is incompetent because King got a tip from a buddy and has had a nice first week in the AFL.

I like that he’s showing power to the opposite field, AND he’s showing speed to the point where a prospect maven is pointing it out. I’m not going to suddenly jump the guy 10 spots in my prospect rankings … but something tells me MLBpipeline may, based on this report.

Can’t wait to see where he goes from here. But i’ll ask this question tot he group? If he finishes the AFL with his current slash line (.419/.486/.774) will it change your mind on his prognosis? He’s only about 7 games through a 30 game season.