Nationals Arm Race

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.