The next big pundit to drop his Nats prospect rankings hit today, as the Athletic’s Keith Law released his NL East teams, including a top 20 for Washington this morning.
As far as major pundits go: we’ve now gotten (links open to my analysis here if done) Keith Law, Baseball America, Prospects1500, Prospects361 (just a top 10 back in November), Baseball Prospectus (paywall), and ProspectsLive (mostly paywall protected) released. Still waiting for MLBpipeline, hopefully more than just a top 10 from ESPN/McDaniel, and the Fangraphs guys (who wait til June usually). Once we get the MLB and larger ESPN links, I’ll re-release my own rankings, which I put out a draft of at the end of 2025.
Law is known to be a bit contrarian in his farm system and prospect rankings; so far his system rankings are showing at least 4-5 outliers as compared to the rest of the field (including his ranking the Nats 6th overall, when most other pundits so far have us middle of the road in the 15-16 range). I think these outliers result in his methodology, which has him “start over” on prospects every year and he tries not to let previous years color his evaluations. I suspect this leads him to over- and under- evaluation of players who had one-off seasons one way or the other. We’ll see how that plays out during the analysis.
So, with that in mind, here’s his top 20 for the Nats.
| Current Rank | First Name | Last Name | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Eli | Willits | SS |
| 2 | Gavin | Fein | SS |
| 3 | Seaver | King | SS |
| 4 | Travis | Sykora | RHP (Starter) |
| 5 | Harry | Ford | C |
| 6 | Jarlin | Susana | RHP (Starter) |
| 7 | Luke | Dickerson | SS/CF |
| 8 | Sam | Peterson | OF (CF) |
| 9 | Luis | Perales | RHP (Starter) |
| 10 | Alex | Clemmey | LHP (Starter) |
| 11 | Landon | Harmon | RHP (Starter) |
| 12 | Devin | Fitz-Gerald | SS |
| 13 | Ethan | Petry | 1B/OF (Corner) |
| 14 | Sir Jamison | Jones | C |
| 15 | Yoel | Tejeda Jr. | RHP (Starter) |
| 16 | Abimelec | Ortiz | 1B/OF (Corner) |
| 17 | Coy | James | SS |
| 18 | Yeremy | Cabrera | OF (corner) |
| 19 | Sean Paul | Linan | RHP (Starter) |
| 20 | Caleb | Lomavita | C |
| 21 | Kevin | Bazzell | C |
| 22 | Miguel | Sime Jr. | RHP (Starter) |
| 23 | Alejandro | Rosario | RHP |
| 24 | Christian | Franklin | OF (CF) |
Here’s some thoughts going top to bottom.
- He may be contrarian, but he’s not THAT contrarian, keeping Willits at #1.
- Fien comes in at #2, in a bit of a surprise. He called Fien “the best HS hitter in the 2025 draft” and has high hopes. So do we, Keith, so do we. The more I look at the Gore trade, the more it looks like Gore for Fien plus a bunch of lottery tickets.
- King all the way at #3. Easily the high mark for King this cycle. Law had King #2 this time last year, so he’s always liked him. He mentioned the “conflicting advice” King got last year as the reason behind his hitting troubles, something we’ve heard from multiple sources and something that Law attributes to several inexplicable hitting performances for King, Bazzell, and Dickerson last year. He was very bullish on King’s AFL performance, and also reminds us just how good he is defensively.
- Sykora, Ford, Susana come in 4-5-6 whereas most of the shops we’ve seen have them ranked 2-3-4. Fair enough. Law has never been a fan of “100mph guy who walks 4 per nine” and that describes Susana (and Perales) to a T.
- Peterson at #8, another high mark for the prospect. If we can turn an 8th rounder into a MLB regular, that’s a huge farm system win.
- Something else Law doesn’t like is weird pitching mechanics, which explains why Clemmey is down at #10 when he’s mostly in the 5-6 range elsewhere.
- He has 100mph capable Landon Harmon at #11, which is amazing considering where he lands on every other ranking right now (11-11-13-9-10-11-7-10-10-10-11-6-10-13 since drafted). It’s almost like the entire industry says, “Ok … prep RHP who throws 100mph at age 18 … got a huge bonus … he could be Justin Verlander or he could be … um… one of 1000 prep RHPs who never get out of low-A. Lets rank him #10.” Guess where I ranked him last Fall? #10! Where am I gonna rank him in a couple weeks? #10! Ok, Maybe.
- He’s got Fitz-Gerald a bit lower than others, probably b/c he’s a bit undersized and has 2B ceiling all over him.
- He’s super high on Sir Jamison Jones at #14, kind of a forgotten prep draftee from 2024 who took a bit more than the $150k min to sign surprisingly. Hey, if Law’s right here, all the better.
- Also super high on Tejeda, kind of a RHP slinger who couldn’t get into the weekend rotation at Florida State but who pitched a-OK in low A for us.
- I like that he recognizes the MLB playing potential for Abimelec Ortiz, who BA didn’t even have in their top 30. This guy could be in our MLB opening day lineup at 1B.
- He had interesting comments on both Linan and Swan, the two arms we got for Alex Call out of the Dodgers’ stacked farm system. He still ranks Linan #19 but lists his ceiling as a “trick-pitch reliever.” Not promising. He describes Swan as having a “golden arm who can’t throw strikes or miss bats,” another indictment.
- The list is bottomed up by Lomavita, who is #20 here but mostly in the upper teens elsewhere. Not a flattering look at his receiving.
He lists a few Honorable mentions that i’ve ranked “21-24: Bazzell, Sime, Rosario, and Franklin.
Who’s he missing?
- The highest likely player he doesn’t rank that others routinely have in their top 20s is Angel Feliz. Could be b/c Law didn’t spend a ton of time in the FCL and wasn’t impressed with his 2 months in Low-A.
- He seems almost unfairly down on Yohandy Morales … who he says has too much swing and miss as a 23-yr old in AAA. Yeah, a 23-yr old in AAA. Not a 26-yr old in AAA. Lots of 2023 draftees are still in A ball, not starting in AAA a full season. Should be higher.
- Perhaps that’s also why Andrew Pinckney is nowhere to be found; anything you can say about Morales you can probably say about Pinckney right now too.
- Not too many others that he left out: Jackson Kent maybe in the edges of his top 20. No Phillip Glasser, he with the NRI now for 2026 spring training. No recognition of Cornelio’s 2025 season. But we’re now nitpicking, because its likely most of these guys would be in his 21-30 range.
I think you hit on all the outliers and, all in all, it’s not a bad list. I’m certainly much higher on Sykora and Susana and quite a bit lower on Fien and King etc, but Law sticks to his guns and his idiosyncrasy is a big part of his value.
You’re definitely right about the weird-mechanics throughline, and I think Law is missing part of that story. Yes, weird mechanics will increase injury and reliever risk, but it also creates deception, so I think it should be a more double edged scouting note than Law has it, at least for pitchers who are getting a lot of whiffs with those mechanics.
I also think we need to reconsider what “reliever risk” looks like for guys like Susana in a world where Ferrer just got flipped for Ford.
One thing that jumped out to me is that he’s an extreme pessimist on Rosario’s health, and I have to agree that the public information is plenty worrying. My hopes, and expectations, have been that the non-public information is better because they’d have to be to justify the trade, but it will be a pretty damning failure for Toboni and co if Rosario never, or barely, pitches again. I suppose we’ll see (eventually).
Oh, and also, FG hired a couple of folks to help EL. I still expect our list to be one of the last ones they do – for one thing they’re based in AZ and tend to do most of those teams first – but I’m hoping for April instead of July this year.
SMS
6 Feb 26 at 12:24 pm
I really like Law’s list because it’s basically a “Devil’s Advocate” list for how I’d approach prospect rankings. Law loves un-realized hype (King, Fien, Dickerson), but will punish guys (Ford, Morales, Lomavita) for performing pretty well while concurrently being young for their levels. I struggle to find a consistent logic of his, but I appreciate that he backs up his claims with good information. I also especially appreciate that he doesn’t pull punches, and isn’t scared to critique the Nats’ awful coaching, whereas many other prospect watchers will avoid any overt criticism for fear of damaging their reputation/relationships.
A few things that stood out to me: I already pointed this out over at NatsProspects, but I’m closely watching the scouting reports on King’s defense. Law claims he’s already a “plus-plus” defender (which he also attaches to Willits; how many SS can have “plus plus” defense?), meanwhile MLB Pipeline talked about how King would need to move off SS soon. Most others have remarked on King having average/above average defense. I’m very curious to see more accounts, because you couldn’t have a wider variance of takes on one skill set.
Basically not rating Rosario is a surprise. Some writers were claiming Rosario was the real prize of the Gore trade, and Law has him as the least valuable prospect of the 5… it is very concerning he still hasn’t gotten surgery. I hope Toboni did his homework on his medicals.
Yoel Tejeda is such a weird inclusion. He’s been perfectly cromulent for a 14th rounder, but I’ve seen little to suggest he’s a prospect with real upside. Also, Law HATES injured pitchers (one thing he’s consistent about, see Sykora, Susana, Rosario), but Tejeda disappeared in early August not to be seen again. Was it another unreported injury? Did he get shut down for usage (he did see a big uptick in IP switching from relief in college). But it’s something to monitor.
I’m really disappointed with his write up on Lomavita, who might have been the player Law saw play more than any other last season, weirdly spending almost the entire season in Wilmington. The write up reads like an afterthought. Yes, we know his defense was bad, but there’s no more insight than one could gather from reading his defensive statline: “More surprising is that he didn’t catch that well, right down to basics like receiving, while his throwing was fine and he did show some agility back there.” I’m fascinated by Lomavita’s defensive showing. He might’ve led the minors in catching errors, and yet Law, himself, and a half dozen other prospect watchers said Lomavita was one of the best defensive catchers in the 2024 draft class. What’s going on here? Give us some first hand insight!
Will
6 Feb 26 at 3:22 pm
every list will alert me to something new and because of the data and reports from other scouts Law’s never disappoints.
as I commented on Nats Prospects Law thinks the 2024 draft class could be fruitful for the Nats. since that was the first under a somewhat new regime that says a lot about the scouting. maybe too bad Haas and Ciolek are no longer going to be in the room where it happens.
FredMD
7 Feb 26 at 9:49 am
The success of the 2024 draft class hinges a TON on the success of King and Dickerson. King presently has a career minor league slash of .250/.305/.343 and Dickerson .208/.315/.326.
I get that there’s loads of potential there, but you need to really buy into that potential and ignore the results to date for that 2024 draft class to look like an above average one.
I do think it’s a shame that Haas and Ciolek jumped ship before Toboni was brought in, but that speaks to their quality/reputation. It’s the guys who stuck around who were unwanted by other clubs. It’s good there’s few holdovers remaining.
Will
7 Feb 26 at 1:46 pm
maybe but 30% of his list is from that draft class. topped only by players acquired by trade since the new admin took over
I’m kinda surprised that you have not chimed in on his love for Peterson
FredMD
7 Feb 26 at 6:22 pm
It’s true. 6 is an impressive number, but again they’re almost all uniformly underperforming (you can add Bazzell and Lomavita to that group too), with the exception of Petersen, who even I, one of his biggest fans, wouldn’t place at 8 overall! Law really, REALLY likes that 2024 draft class. Which again is really strange, because at the time Law wasn’t high on any of these guys, except Bazzell (who he’s low on now).
Having 6 guys on the list got me wondering how the other recent draft classes stacked up, and 2025 has 5 picks. But what’s damning is 2023 (1, Sykora) and 2022 (0), and with only Crews and Lipscomb (who likely wouldn’t have ranked anyway) graduating from those two classes.
Will
9 Feb 26 at 9:54 am
the 2022 class deserves some love for bringing Lord, Cornelio and Bennett, the last one securing Perales.
2023 is top three or bust for sure.
FredMD
9 Feb 26 at 12:16 pm
Speaking of depth of classes, BA just released some interesting analysis of the upcoming 2026 draft class:
https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/how-scouting-departments-grade-the-2026-mlb-draft-class/
Basically, they surveyed all 30 scouting directors and they arrived at a “grade” evaluatoin of the class in general … and its the highest such grade they’ve seen in the years they’ve been doing this survey. College pitching weaker, College Hitters very strong, Prep pitching “historically” strong, and prep hitters very solid.
We may not have a top 3 pick, but we have top picks in the s ubsequent rounds where we can find this breadth of talent.
Todd Boss
11 Feb 26 at 1:19 pm
I’m guessing you are working up an article on the Fangraphs top “100” and perhaps Szymborski’s ZiPS top 100. The ZiPS looks about as positive as I’ve seen on the Nats top prospects. 5 in the top 69, including Clemmey and Yeremy Cabrera. Omits Willits and Fien due to system design that doesn’t consider high school data and gives limited credit for college. Also deems Devin Fitz-Gerald a top 10 3rd base prospect mostly due to the thin ranks of 3rd basemen (he’s #271 overall). I thinking about these results, it seems that a data-driven ranking model may like the data / analytics approach of Toboni and DeBartolo. Ford, Cabrera, and Fitz-Gerald are all Toboni pick ups (Susana, Sykora are also top 100).
JCA
17 Feb 26 at 2:03 pm
Honestly, I don’t really care about “top 100” lists in the minors. I especially don’t care about ZIPs. They have Yeremy Cabrera listed in the zips top 100 … but not Eli Willits.
Come on.
Understood they disclose their methodology … but if you want to present a credible “top 100” list you can’t ignore prep prospects who are in the top 20 on conventional rankings so that you can put in players who literally are outside the top 40 on standard lists.
Todd Boss
18 Feb 26 at 8:29 am
I think it’s absolutely justifiable to exclude some classes of prospects from the projection due to lack of information. It’s no shade on Willits (or Fien or Harmon etc) – they just don’t have HS data and I can’t imagine the error bars for career projections based on fewer than 60 PAs of low-A.
There do exist methodologies that would make sense – like creating an initial prior based on draft/ifa bonus – but simply excluding them is a perfectly fine option.
And I think it’s interesting that Zips is so high on Cabrera. I have him as an FV40 and ranked around 30th. He’s young, but not that young, and his results at low-A were good, but not that good. His swinging strike rate is low (10.9%) but that doesn’t sound like enough to justify this ranking. I’m very curious if Zips has access to non-public EV data or something that would complete the picture. And, if so, I could see moving him up to the 15th-20th range.
Also, I saw that FG dropped another top 100 today from OOPSY, another projection system. And, interestingly, it lists Perales (73rd) and not Bennett. That’s another case where my intuition goes the other way, but the consensus does seem to prefer our side of the deal.
SMS
18 Feb 26 at 12:32 pm
That’s their methodology. Fine. I suppose I could create a methodology that won’t rank anyone until they had 1000 pro at bats under the same theory. I mean … until you’ve hit a thousand times against pro pitching, do we REALLY know how good you are? But what value is that?
Our system’s strength right now is in super-young talent, and this system purposely ignores half of it. So, from a descriptive perspective
There’s also ranking systems out there that are Fantasy focused … and in fantasy baseball certain Stats are way, way overvalued (SBs and Saves in particular). So, those systems will give a middle reliever in AAA a ton of “value” since he may be in line for future save opportunities. Does that make any sense in terms of actual prospect value? Middle relievers if they have amazing seasons might contribute 1 total war … but a starter might give you that value in a week.
Todd Boss
19 Feb 26 at 11:57 am
I know you’re trying to set up an absurd parallel with the 1000 PA cut off, but honestly a projection like that (assuming it was an improvement over existing ones among that limited subset of players) would absolutely add value to prospect discussions.
No one is claiming these computer generated lists are the end-all, be-all, and they’re certainly less impactful on my thinking than the expert curated ones (especially FG’s and Law’s, both of whom really ground their takes in independent scouting and analysis), but I think it’s very interesting that both Zips and OOPSY both have Cabrera comfortable in their top 100s, and, to a lesser extent, that Clemmey and Fitz-Gerald and Perales pop that high in one of them. And that King and Dickerson and Petersen don’t (to pick 3 names from KL’s top 10).
It’s not either/or, and these systems have shown themselves to be credible, or at least as credible as probabilistic information ever is. Why ignore them?
I’m more on the same page with respect to fantasy focused systems, because they aren’t even trying to project about what I care about. But that’s not the case for the ones that FG published.
SMS
20 Feb 26 at 1:01 pm