Nationals Arm Race

We finally get the last major pundit chiming in on the state of our system’s prospects, on this 24th day of April 2026. Eric Longenhagen and his Fangraphs crew have published their top 41 for the system. They are the last of the major pundits I track (Baseball America, MLBpipeline, Keith Law, Kiley McDaniel) plus more fringe prospect shops (Prospects1500, Prospects361, ProspectsLive, and BaseballProspectus, which hides everything behind a paywall i’m not willing to buy).

With this data, we have a complete set of “pre-2026 season” rankings for the system, and I will now work on my own such ranking. I published a top 125 at the end of last season, which had a few players ranked wildly out of place in retrospect, plus we’ve added at least 14 prospects who will feature in the top 50 or so and have released/traded at least 8-10 others who I ranked at the time, so I’ll work on a re-rank and see where things land. Ranking 125 guys out of a system that has 165 players domestically and another 30-40 in the DSL, 95% of whom won’t ever even get to Florida, may seem like a fools errand, but hey, this is what we do 🙂

Here’s the Fangraphs top 41 for our system, which seems like an odd number but is driven by the total number of our prospects who Longenhagen determines to have a Future Value (FV) of 35+ or more (FV runs on the typical scouting 20-80 scale, and anyone 50 or above is projected to be at least an “Average Everyday Player.” We’re projected to have just five of these players out of this top 41, which may temper your opinion of the system).

Fangraphs	First Name	Last Name	Position
1	Eli	Willits	SS
2	Jarlin	Susana	RHP (Starter)
3	Harry	Ford	C
4	Ronny	Cruz	SS
5	Travis	Sykora	RHP (Starter)
6	Alejandro	Rosario	RHP
7	Landon	Harmon	RHP (Starter)
8	Miguel	Sime Jr.	RHP (Starter)
9	Jackson	Kent	LHP (Starter)
10	Devin	Fitz-Gerald	SS
11	Davian	Garcia	RHP (Starter)
12	Luis	Perales	RHP (Starter)
13	Luke	Dickerson	SS/CF
14	Gavin	Fein	SS
15	Yoel	Tejeda Jr.	RHP (Starter)
16	Nauris	De La Cruz	OF (Corner)
17	Isalas	Suarez	OF (CF)
18	Samil	Serrano	OF (Corner)
19	Alex	Clemmey	LHP (Starter)
20	Abimelec	Ortiz	1B/OF (Corner)
21	Ethan	Petry	1B/OF (Corner)
22	Riley	Cornelio	RHP (Starter)
23	Sir Jamison	Jones	C
24	Caleb	Lomavita	C
25	Seaver	King	SS
26	Coy	James	SS
27	Marconi	German	SS
28	Eriq	Swan	RHP (Starter)
29	Christian	Franklin	OF (CF)
30	Yeremy	Cabrera	OF (corner)
31	R.J.	Sales	RHP (Starter)
32	Josh	Randall	RHP (Starter)
33	Andry	Lara	RHP (Starter)
34	Jorgelys	Mota	SS
35	Angel	Ramirez	OF (Corner)
36	Kevin	Bazzell	C
37	Angel	Feliz	SS/3B
38	Brayan	Cortesia	SS
39	Daniel	Hernandez	C
40	Jose	Feliz	RHP (Starter)
41	Sam	Brown	OF (Corner)

Phew. There’s a lot to talk about here. I’d say at least a third of these players are ranked completely at odds with the entire rest of the industry. So, how did we get here, and what does it mean? Well, Longenhagen’s FV driven rankings is almost entirely about Ceiling, so you’re going to see teenagers who are performing ranked well higher in his methodology than you might see elsewhere, where pundits take a more balanced floor/ceiling/age approach. I’ll call out the outliers as we go.

• 1-2-3 Willits-Susana-Ford is mostly unassailable. You can quibble about not having Sykora higher, but basically every other shop has the exact same top 5 right now (these 3 plus Sykora and Fein).
• Ronny Cruz at #4. that’s crazy high; most others have him in the mid 20s if at all. Prophetic? he’s already been promoted to High-A at age 19 and showed up there and hit 2 more homers in his first three games, likely pushing Angel Feliz off Short for now.
• Rosario at #6 is also well above where anyone else has him, and I really don’t get this ranking. He didn’t pitch in 2023 after getting drafted. Sure, he looked awesome in his 2024 pro debut as he should have; he was a 3-year starter in Miami’s rotation pitching in A-ball. The problem is this: he missed all of 2025 with injury, gets traded, and THEN gets Tommy John. So he’ll miss all of 2026 and may not be ready for 2027. How is that possibly the 6th best prospect in our system? He’s going to be Rule-5 eligible this coming December with a grand total of 88 pro innings!
• He’s got Sime way higher than others, but from what we’ve seen so far in Fredericksburg this may be warranted (23 Ks in 11 innings). Sime sits right behind Harmon, who has also come out of the gate shining for F-burg.
• Jackson Kent at #9. Ok, so I like Kent, and I think his numbers aren’t flattering his capabilities so far, but top 10 in the system? For a command and control lefty? Seems high.
• He’s clearly high man on Davian Garcia at #11, who surprisingly made the AA rotation to start 2026 after barely pitching in Wilmington. Maybe there’s something to Longenhagen’s madness.
• He loves Sir Jamison Jones … who has been kind of forgotten with the Willits draft, all the other HS guys pouring in, and all the trade acquisitions. But he’s holding down the fort as starting Catcher in Low-A with all these other teenagers, which must make for a fun time on the bus rides.
• He’s got two 2026 IFA signings in his top 20 (Suarez and Serrano). Hard to pass judgement here, other than to say that Longenhagen is probably the most plugged-in guy to the DR scene.

We’ve talked about nothing but elevated prospects so far. Well, for all the guys above who are super high, there had to be guys who got knocked down.

• Gavin Fein; Top 5 on every other board and as high as #2 on Keith Law’s board … is #14 here. Interesting. He struggled in his pro debut last year, got traded, then immediately got hurt for us, with little idea of how bad it is. We know he had off-season surgery on a bone spur, which can explain his pro debut crummy numbers; is this a follow-on injury? Nobody knows.
• Alex Clemmey: What the heck is he doing at #18? Ok, so no he can’t find the plate right now, but he’s a 20yr old in AA for the second year in a row. If he was in High-A right now with a 2.47 ERA like he had last year, he’d likely be top 5. You can’t punish a guy for punching way above his weight class and not putting up sub 2.00 numbers.
• He’s a bit low on Ethan Petry, likely thinking he’s a 1B-limited bat. Fair enough. He’ll hit until he doesn’t. There’s nobody blocking his path in AA in the “1B-corner OF” realm from a top-end prospect perspective with a MLFA, a Rule-5 draftee, and a minor trade acquisition starting at 1B, LF, and DH respectively.
• Here’s where things get weird: Seaver King is at #25. Ok, that just seems ridiculous. Even if you thought he was over rated via his 2025 season … we’re still talking about a 1st round pick who is a starting SS in AA with solid numbers.
• Angel Feliz is way down at #37, nearly out of his rankings, despite mostly being an upper teen in other places. I wonder what Eric sees here.

Ranking to 41 should capture every name one could think of … but there’s some curious omissions here:

• Yohandy Morales: totally missing. Which we’re starting to see more and more of, as some believe he may be in the Andrew Pinckney camp of stalled AAA players who couldn’t even turn themselves into 4-A taxi squad guys.
• Sam Peterson; completely missing as well, and a bit more shocking. This is a guy who was top 10 in other lists, a true CF with power and speed. Not sure what we’re missing here.
• No love for our POTY Glasser, but no surprise either.
• Previous Bonus babies like Hurtado and Vaquero have dropped out.
• Shockingly, no Elijah Green. (kidding).

Conclusion: Interesting list here. It made me question some of the spots i’ve got players ranked at in my current top 100 and something draft rankings spreadsheet. I may have to go back to the drawing board.