Nationals Arm Race

Before we get too far away from May 1st … Here’s a one-month check in on our 20 prospects plus other notables in the system.

I’ll be using my own personal top 20 to drive the rankings … which I’ll post soon.

Here’s a quick check in with our top prospects and a quick heat check on how they’re doing, plus notables ranked outside the top 20 worth mentioning. All stats were as of 5/1/25.

All the stats links I use are at my Nats Links page, which I visit every day for various reasons. I won’t repeat all the stats links and transactions pages and what not; just go to the LInks page.

• #1. Eli Willits SS, Low-A: Started slow, but raised his average 50 points in the last 10 games of April. Finished the month slashing .247/.377/.398 with 18 steals in 23 games while starting at Short a few months after turning 18. Can’t ask for much more than that. Temperature: heating up.
• #2. Henry Ford, C AAA: he has not had the best month. After not making the MLB team with the though that he’d get to play full-time in Rochester, he’s slashed .200/.288/.243 in 18 starts. he has too many strikeouts and almost no power (just 3 doubles in 70 ABs). Temperature: ice cold
• #3: Jarlin Susana, RHP (starter) AA: On the 60-day DL to open the season, so we won’t see him until at least June 1. Per the Nats injury report, the last time we got an update on his off-season Lat surgery was that in late march he was throwing on flat ground. I would hope he’s made progress since. Temperature: on ice.
• #4 Travis Sykora: RHP (starter) AA: likely out for the season to rehab his July 2025 TJ surgery, though on the injury report in Spring training he was throwing 3x/week on flat ground. Maybe he makes it back for a couple of starts in August, morelikely he goes to the AFL this off-season to get some game prep for 2027. Temperature: on ice.
• #5 Gavin Fien SS/3B, Low-A: played just four games into the season and was 2-for-17 before hitting the DL with an unknown injury. Google and AI don’t know either, guessing that its something related to his off-season bone-spur removal surgery and are calling it a “wrist injury” for this year. Guessing he’s back mid-May. Temperature: on ice.
• #6 Alex Clemmey, LHP (Starter) AA: Clemmey’s base numbers (2.95 ERA) are exposed by a ridiculously low BABIP and way too many walks (17 walks in 18 IP). Remember; he’s 20 and was the opening day starter in AA. I’m not going to crush him too much, but there’s some doubt creeping into some player evaluators on Clemmey’s future. Temperature: holding steady.
• #7 Seaver King, SS AA: King had a great month in Harrisburg, slashing .286/.400/.536 with 4 HRs and 20 RBI in the middle of the order. This is a huge improvement over his performance in AA last season, and he seems to be building off of his strong AFL. Cross your fingers, but having King flourish into a top prospect worthy of his draft stature would do a ton for this team. There’s nobody blocking him for a AAA move. Temperature: red hot.
• #8 Luis Perales, RHP (starter) AAA: Perales had a 4.42 ERA and a 1.20 whip and a .182 BAA for the month, which all sounds decent. But, he’s walking too many guys and his numbers are are masking a very low BABIP and his xFIP is through the roof. This “show-me” trade where they traded Jake Bennett even up for Perales is not aging well; Bennett had a 0.86 ERA in his 5 AAA starts and just got called up to the majors for Boston. Meanwhile Perales is the sole arm on the 40-man NOT to get called up in April. Not good. Temperature: cool
• #9 Devin Fitz-Gerald, SS, High-A: A very solid first month for Fitz-Gerald in the system: .293/.435/.511 with 3 homers and 10 SBs. He’s been playing primarily 2B thanks to multiple other SS prospects in High-A, and is blocked in AA by a higher ranked prospect in King, but if the team decides to make a slew of SS-only moves to do promotions, he could be in line if he keeps up this production. Temperature: Red Hot.
• #10 Landon Harmon, RHP (starter): Low-A: He has started off his pro career with a solid month: He doesn’t have massive K/9 figures but has been very solid with a 1.88 ERA, a sub-1.00 whip, and a .174 BAA. All three of those figures lead the team in Fredericksburg for those with more than a trivial number of IP. He’s been outshined a bit in the Low-A bullpen by his fellow 2025 prep draftee Sime, but don’t let that fool you; he’s doing great. Temperature: Hot.
• #11 Ronny Cruz: SS, High-A: Cruz is probably the minor league POTY so far, earning a promotion to High-A after just two weeks with a .333/.460/.627 line to open the season in Fredericksburg, and didn’t stop once he got to Wilmington with a .354/.436/.604 line since. The 19 yr old is showing both power and speed (6 hrs and 18 SBs so far), and is likely to be in the next iterations of the top 100 prospects in all of the minors when they start getting refreshed. Juan Soto made it to the majors at 19, as did Harper; can Cruz? Temperature: Red Hot.
• #12 Luke Dickerson, SS/CF Low-A: Slashed .261/.356/.523 for the month with a ton of extra-base power (10 doubles and 3 homers) and showing major positional flexibility (he’s played 2B,SS,3B and CF so far this season). This is a massive improvement over last year and I like what I see here. A middle infielder with this kind of power will play for sure. Temperature: Hot.
• #13: Ethan Petry, 1B High-A: Petry destroyed the ball in April, slashing .329/.454/.506 while splitting time between 1B and RF. We don’t exactly have a murderer’s row of outfielders playing AA right now, so I’d imagine he’s getting moved up soon since he’s repeating the level from the end of last season and is a seasoned collegiate hitter. Temperature: Red Hot.
• #14: Coy James, SS/3B, Low-A: struggled at the plate a bit with a .182/357/377 slash, but also showed some interesting promise with 4 homers and 11 SBs for the month. That kind of 20/20 split is something to look forward to, and it seems like he may be due for a stats rebound. Temperature: luke warm hopefully.
• #15: Angel Felix, SS High-A: struggled in April: .200/.307/.294. If you hit .200 you can’t have such a low slugging or else you’re just lineup fodder with no power potential. Temperature: cold.
• #16: Yoel Tejeda Jr. RHP (starter) High-A: 0-2 with 5.48 ERA, 1.57 whip. He’s walking way too many guys (15 BBs in 23 ip) and is struggling from a consistency perspective. Temperature: cold.
• #17: Jackson Kent, LHP (Starter) AA: 1-0 with a 2.70 ERA, 0.80 whip, and 17/4 K/BB in 13 innings. He’s not going deep into starts yet, but he’s got very solid numbers. He’s almost like this year’s version of Jake Bennett. Let’s see him going 5-6 innings per start with this production and look for a mid-season promotion. Temperature: very warm.
• #18: Miguel Sime Jr. RHP (starter): Low-A: well, you can’t ask for much more than his start: 32/11 K/BB in 14.2 IP in four tandem/3-inning starts to begin his pro career. That’s too many walks but you can’t argue with the K figures. Even if he continues to walk that many guys, he won’t be long in Low-A striking out more than 2/3rds of the hitters he faces. Temperature: red hot.
• #19: Davian Garcia, RHP (starter) AA; Garcia is looking like he may have been too aggressively pushed up this off-season; he’s got 18 walks and 15 K’s in 16ip so far with poor numbers across the board. If he continues with 5.00 ERA and 1.80 whip figures, he may get sent back to High-A. Temperature: cool.
• #20: Yeremy Cabrera CF low-A: Slash of .280/.427/.561 for Fredericksburg, part of a slew of hot hitters just down I-95 from Nats park. Another 20/20 guy showing both power and speed (4hrs and 13SBs). Temperature: red hot.

A quick reminder: we trade MacKenzie Gore for 3B Gavin Fien, 1B Abimelec Ortiz, SS Devin Fitz-Gerald, RHP Alejandro Rosario and CF Yeremy Cabrera. And I wondered if we got enough. If these top prospects continue to shine that trade is going to look like a steal. Especially with Gore struggling in his Texas debut a bit.

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Notables #20 and above by the Level they started 2026:

in AAA:

• #27 Yohandy Morales 1B/3B is destroying AAA pitching right now: .341/.406/.518 for April. There’s not really any room for a 1B/DH guy at the MLB level right now, but at some point the team may fully cut ties with Luis Garcia or Curtis Mead and give Morales a shot.
• #32 Andrew Pinckney OF continues his solid AAA hitting: .282/.363/.493 in April. That’s nearly identical to his 2025 season slash line in AAA of .269/.348/.431. I’m trying to think of a comp for Pinckney; a player we had who produced in the minors for years w/o getting a shot then finally came up and killed it … maybe someone like Tanner Roark?
• #36 and #37 are Cornelio and Alvarez, who both have MLB call-ups and then got sent right back. If they were better arms, they’d be in the rotation instead of Mikolas and Littell … perhaps in a month.

In AA:

• #30 Cayden Wallace 3B/2B is absolutely destroying the ball in AA right now: .292/.379/.584 for the month. Six homers, a ton of extra base power, getting walks. He’s played mostly 3B, can play 2B (where he did most of last year making way for House). Thus he’s kind of blocked moving up due to Morales & Glasser. However, it’s great to see some major production from the former top 10 prospect.
• #71 Brandon Boissiere OF started the season super strong .289/383/.526 then did something really bad to himself, in that the team moved him to the 60-day DL on 4/28/26. He’s one of those guys who seemed to be ‘this close’ to getting released, but now we don’t know what to make of the situation.

In High-A:

• High-A is a weird roster to start; there’s the aformentioned Fitz-Gerald, Petry, Feliz and Tejeda, then there’s really a gap to the next best prospect on the roster. What High-A has a lot of are guys who used to be ranked highly but who have seen their stock fall: think Bazzell, Vaquero, White, and especially Green. That being said, looking for positives:
• #29 Josh Randall had a solid April on the mound: 2.70 ERA, 21/3 K/BB in 23innings and awesome peripherals 0.80 whip and.186 BAA. That’s promotional material.
• For the month: Elijah Green: 21 games and 84 ABs. Of those 84 ABs he struck out an astonishing 52 times. He’s averaging 2.5 strikeouts a game.

In Low-A:

• #81 Alexander Meckley RHP starter had a solid month: 2.18 ERA, 26/11 K/BB in 20ip.
• Unranked Jack Moroknek had nearly as good of a line at the plate as Ronny Cruz: .344/.456/.563. Lots of power, lots of walks. The 2025 11th rounder has started his pro career nicely.