The second to last of the major pundits dropped their Nats top 30 today on 3/4/25; here’s a review of the list as I’ve been doing with other major pundits.
The final one outstanding is Fangraphs/Eric Longenhagen, who didn’t release until May last year and is only about a third of the way done with the teams as we speak. I’m not going to wait for his ranking to release my rankings, which are going 90+ deep right now for our system.
For now, here’s the MLBPipeline list. I think its safe to say this is the sanest list I’ve seen yet, with very little wildcards or shock names. It very much aligns with my personal list, as we’ll discuss.
Here’s the top 30 in table format:
| Rank | Last Name | First Name | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Crews | Dylan | OF (CF) |
| 2 | Sykora | Travis | RHP (Starter) |
| 3 | Susana | Jarlin | RHP (Starter) |
| 4 | House | Brady | SS/3B |
| 5 | King | Seaver | SS |
| 6 | Clemmey | Alex | LHP (Starter) |
| 7 | Dickerson | Luke | SS/CF |
| 8 | Cavalli | Cade | RHP (Starter) |
| 9 | Lomavita | Caleb | C |
| 10 | Lile | Daylen | OF (CF) |
| 11 | Wallace | Cayden | 3B |
| 12 | Hassell III | Robert | OF (CF) |
| 13 | Morales | Yohandy | 3B |
| 14 | Bazzell | Kevin | C/3B |
| 15 | Stuart | Tyler | RHP (Starter) |
| 16 | Feliz | Angel | 3B/SS |
| 17 | Lara | Andry | RHP (Starter) |
| 18 | Bennett | Jake | LHP (Starter) |
| 19 | Hurtado | Victor | OF |
| 20 | Cortesia | Brayan | SS |
| 21 | Kent | Jackson | LHP (Starter) |
| 22 | Brzykcy | Zach | RHP (Reliever) |
| 23 | Lord | Brad | RHP (Starter) |
| 24 | Grissom | Marquis | RHP (Reliever) |
| 25 | Green | Elijah | OF (CF) |
| 26 | Pinckney | Andrew | OF (Corner) |
| 27 | Vaquero | Cristian | OF (CF) |
| 28 | Reifert | Evan | RHP (Reliever) |
| 29 | Made | Kevin | SS |
| 30 | Peterson | Sammy | OF (CF) |
Here’s some thoughts.
- Same top 4 as everyone else.
- Really, the same top 5 as everyone else.
- House down below the two arms; no surprise.
- Clemmey at #6, like a lot of the shops. I like him a little lower b/c he’s so young, but he’s a high ceiling guy for sure.
- They’re by far the highest on Dickerson, and have not wavered on him being this high since their December update. I’ve got him at #12, have seen him as low as #17. I’m hesitant to have a guy top 10 who hasn’t faced a pro pitch yet, but they arent.
- They’ve got Lile at #10, which is in line with most other shops. I’ve beaten the Lile horse to death at this point.
- Morales: dumped down to #13. They had him at #9 in December, and he was at #5 a year ago. Ok I get that Morales clearly was layered by breakout performances (Sykora and Susana) and 2024 draft picks (King, Dickerson, Lomavita) but he should have kept pace. We’ve had this conversation at length, no need to rehash it.
- I think they’re a little low on Lara at #17, but not egregiously so.
- Cortesia at #20: that’s aspriational for a 16yr old DSL kid, but he did get 1st round money ($1.9M) so we’ll see how his 2025 goes.
- They’re by far the high man on Jackson Kent at #21.
- They really, really like Grissom Jr and have him 20 spots higher than I do. Nobody else has him in their top 30; he’s at #24 here. This is probably the biggest issue I have with their top 30.
- They’re also high-man on Sam Peterson, having him at #30 despite him not getting assigned out of XST last summer.
Who they’re missing:
- Chaparro apparently doesn’t rate anybody’s prospect lists. Why? He’s still a rookie, he destroyed AAA pitching last year (albeit lots in the PCL), and made the majors at age 25. Come on; you’re ranking middle RHP relievers in AA but not a guy who got 30 games in the majors last year? What are we doing?
- The same story to a lesser extent for Baker: not ranked.
- No love for Cruz and his $3.9M bonus
- No Rutledge (who BA has at #20), finally acknowledging that he may be out of chances to contribute.
All in all, a solid list, very much in line with my rankings as they’ve now settled, and hard to criticize a ton.
I agree with almost all your comments, and have little new to add on the couple of issues where we differ.
Re guys they’ve missed: MLB uses rookie status as a filter, and Chaparro has more than 45 days of service time. So he’s out of the consideration set.
Baker should be eligible, but I have him around 40th, so I don’t really miss him here. Same with Cruz, who I don’t even have top 50 despite his storied glove. I have Rutledge barely inside my top 30, but if we get to mid-May and he’s not showing something serious, I’ll be basically ready to cross him off. I can hardly fault Pipeline for being a few months ahead of that schedule.
The other guy of note that they’ve left off is Rafael Ramirez Jr, who MLB had 20th on our list last year. I have him 27th right now, so it’s a pretty minor miss, but an 18 year old SS who put up a bad but not atrocious line in full season ball is more interesting to me than non-premium draft picks like Sam Peterson.
It always seems out of whack how quickly these guys get enamored with all the newly drafted players. And then when 80% of them run into a rough patch over the next year or two, they all tumble down the lists. If there was a futures market on these lists, especially Pipeline, I could make a fortune shorting every single ranked draftee outside the 1st or maybe the 2nd round.
SMS
6 Mar 25 at 12:29 pm
Oh, also, slightly off topic, but they just dropped the future’s game roster.
It’s pretty much everyone you’d expect, but in my top 50 there are 5 folks left off after you remove players we know are hurt (Sykora and Bennett), everyone on the 40 and guys who haven’t played stateside yet.
The remaining are: Vaquero, Ramirez Jr, Quintana, Schoff, and Glasser.
Vaquero is obviously the most interesting snub, since he was on the roster last year and is still in MLB’s top 30 for the team.
Beyond that, it’s just an interesting datapoint as to who the team is thinking about as lower priority among the fringe prospects. Though it could also obviously be injury or availability issues for any of these guys.
SMS
6 Mar 25 at 12:52 pm
As I said over at NatsProspects, this might be my favorite/closest to my estimation yet. It’s neither egregiously high on upside, nor too over-emphasizing performance/readiness.
Speaking of Bennett, where is he? He had TJ in September 2023, which makes him over 18 months removed from it. That’s deep into the conservative recovery period for TJ, which tends to be 12-18 months. Similar to Cavalli, shouldn’t we be seeing more signs of life from both of them?
Will
6 Mar 25 at 2:07 pm
Speaking of wounded arms, Cole Henry has been one of the best relievers in camp. I certainly understand why sites aren’t ranking him, though.
It’s always interesting to see who gets attaboy appearances in spring games. It’s usually a sign that they’re high on someone. Randal Diaz, who Law likes but who hardly anyone else has ranked, got an attaboy appearance, even though he plays the same position as the Nats’ top pick, who hasn’t gotten an appearance at SS. Neither has the legendary Kevin Made.
Brad Lord had another strong appearance today, against several Cardinal regulars. As we’ve discussed, he’s never going to get prospect love mostly because of his lack of pedigree.
Guy they’re going to wish they traded while people still think he’s prospect: Lile. (Of course I might have said the same thing about Lara at this time last year, so you never know.) As we’ve discussed, I just don’t think Lile is going to have the power surge he needs to be a corner OF. Between the AFL and early spring, Hassell is hinting that he might be able to take that step toward more pop.
KW
6 Mar 25 at 4:44 pm
Also, I think you found a photo of Zac Veen, not RH3.
Also just a note on Jackson Kent. I’m actually a bit surprised more lists haven’t featured him. Cortesia and Dickerson’s positions here and on other lists show just how much prospect watchers like shiny new objects. And Kent was hyped up pre-draft. Nearly every list had him around 130-140th in the 2024 draft rankings (which is a lot better than Robert Cranz, who no one ranked at all, yet still popped up on a couple lists).
Petersen was the same story, albeit a bit less hyped, falling around 180-200th in those same draft lists. It’s easy enough to overlook it, but he DID feature beyond XST. In 7 games for Fredericksburg, he batted an impressive .364/.400/.591, which is rather similar to his college line. A lot to be excited about, especially for an 8th rounder. He’ll be one I’ll be watching closely this season.
Will
7 Mar 25 at 3:55 am
@Will: Hassell picture; that’s awesome. I think the picture that I had was from NBCSports originally, but that’s hilarious if they had the wrong guy. I just grabbed his profile shot from X and updated the post. Won’t make that mistake again 🙂
Kent: the rankings i have for him across all pundits: 28th (me), 21st (mlbpipeline), 36th (Baseball America), 37th (prospects1500). Unraked by Law (who went 20) and Espn (who only went 10). I’d like to see him in actual games and my 28th was a hedge.
Todd Boss
7 Mar 25 at 10:11 am
@KW – Henry has looked amazing. Plus stuff. Plus command. I have to keep reminding myself that it’s 5 innings and that these games don’t count.
But man, I’ll be ready to dream on him as dominant reliever if he can stay healthy and effective for like 10 or 15 innings through mid-May. And when (if) that happens, he’ll be back up to around 20th or 25th on my list for as long as he holds on to his prospect eligibility.
SMS
7 Mar 25 at 12:10 pm