Nationals Arm Race

We introduced a new segment this year, based on our team having the 1st overall pick (which is abbreviated “1-1” meaning 1st round, 1st pick) of the 2025 draft. Since we’ll get our choice of players for the first time in a generation. I’m putting in periodic updates about the candidates to go 1st overall.

Here’s a one-month check-in on the top College candidates, who now have four weeks worth of competition, along with links for the top prep candidates in the mix.

In early March, Keith Law posted his first look at the top candidates and included a couple of new names at the top that we’ll add to the names we looked at in our first of this series two weeks ago.

Aggregation Stats for all of College

• Fangraphs Standard Hitting, Advanced Hitting
• Fangraphs Standard Pitching, Advanced Pitching
• Baseball-Reference College Home Page
• NCAA Division 1 Baseball Stats Home Page
• D1Baseball.com Stats Home Page

Link Block for the top guys under 1-1 consideration

• Jace LaViolette, CF, Texas A&M. TAMU stats & Box Scores, MLBPipeline rpt, BA draft rpt
• Jamie Arnold, LHP, Florida State. FSU stats & box Scores, MLBPipeline rpt, BA draft rpt
• Tyler Bremner, RHP, UC Santa Barbara. UCSB stats & box Scores, MLBPipeline rpt, BA draft rpt
• Aiva Arquette, SS, Oregon State. OSU stats & box scores, MLBPipeline rpt, BA draft rpt
• Cam Canarella, CF, Clemson. Clemson stats & box scores, MLBPipeline rpt, BA draft rpt
• Liam Doyle, LHP, Tennessee. Tennessee stats & box scores, MLBPipeline rpt, BA draft rpt
• Gavin Kilen, 2B, Tennessee. Tennessee stats & box scores, MLBPipeline rpt, BA draft rpt
• Ethan Holliday, SS/3B, Stillwater HS (OK). MLBPipeline rpt, BA draft rpt
• Seth Hernandez, RHP, Corona HS (CA). MLBPipeline rpt, BA draft rpt
• Kayson Cunningham, SS, Johnson HS (TX). MLBPipeline rpt, BA draft rpt

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Here’s some commentary:

• LaViolette: One month in, and he’s still only hitting .235. His OBP is ok (.414) and his Slugging solid (.515). He had a great Friday night against New Mexico State last weekend, but took o-fers in mid-week games against UTSA and Texas-Southern, which is an abomination. Mid-week starters are like the 4th or 5th starters, and UTSA/Texas-Southern aren’t exactly SEC quality opponents. He’s playing his way, not only out of the 1-1 conversation, but maybe even out of the top 10.
• Arnold: After two solid games to open the season, he gave up 2 runs in 5IP against the non-powerhouse Georgetown Hoyas on 2/28, then hasn’t pitched since. He was scratched against Lipscomb with “illness” for his 3/7 start. At least it wasn’t b/c of an arm issue. We’ll see how he bounces back as they open ACC play against Boston College next Friday. BC just hammered UVA, so they’ll be an interesting out.
• Bremner: he bounced back after two middling starts to shut down Fresno State with 7ip, 3hits, 1run, but only 4Ks. He then gave up three runs to Cal State Northridge, not an impressive outing. He needs to show some 7ip, 3hit, 10k, 0BB outings and fast if he wants to be a top 10 draft pick.
• Arquette got the Keith Law Treatment, whose TL/DR summary is this: “he’s too big to play SS, struggled when i saw him, but he’s probably the best college hitter right now.” Through 4 weeks of play, he’s sporting the healthy slash line of .400/.492/.640. And he’s doing it against what probably is the toughest early season schedule out there as Oregon State embarks on its non-affiliated life post PAC-12.
• Canarella has decent if not sparkling stats so far. .288/.431/.462. Not a ton of power/XBH so far (just 1 HR). He was more well regarded last year and isn’t re-pushing upwards to regain his top spot so far.
• Doyle is pushing his name upwards so far this year. Through 4 starts, he’s got “oversized little leaguer” stats right now. 20.1 IP, 6 hits, 1 run given up for a 0.44 ERA. But he’s got a 47/5 K/BB ratio in those 20.1 IP, which means that of the 61 batters he’s retired thus far, 47 have been by whiff. Wow. His 4 opponents: Hofstra, Samford, Oklahoma State, and St. Bonaventure. Ok so not the greatest competition, but against OK State he still had 9Ks in 4 1/3rd IP.
• Kilen has popped up on radars b/c of silly stats he’s putting up in Tennessee’s early season. He’s got an obscene slash line right now of .463/.589/1.093 slugging for an OPS figure north of 1.600. And he’s not even the biggest OPS figure on his team. He’s got 8 homers in 16 games to go with a ton of other XBHs. Is he a top prospect? He’s an undersized 2B with a hot start; we’ll see if he can keep things going.
• Holliday has nothing new that I can find; its March so his HS season probably hasn’t started yet, but his HS stats would be useless anyway.
• Hernandez; same as Holliday. All we can hope for is a scouting trip like what Law posted for Cunning ham.
• Cunningham had a snippet in Law’s latest scouting notebook. TL/DR: “he’s probably not even 5’9″, has almost no power but has a great bat, and is more like a mid-1st rounder.” We may not bother covering him much further given who else is here and since we’re only projecting the best possible 1-1 candidate. A 5’8″ prep SS isn’t going 1-1.

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Quick Tangent: did you see that George Mason scored TWENTY-THREE runs in the 2nd inning of their mid-week game against Holy Cross? 23 runs. Here’s the box score. The sequence of events is actually pretty hilarious. The inning included:

• Eight (8) walks
• Five (5) HBP
• Five (5) infield hits, bunts, or fielders choices
• Eight (8) hits that left the infield, several of which were bases-clearing doubles.

Someone on GMU also, in a move that probably had their coach screaming, STOLE THIRD BASE while up 13 in the inning. I’m surprised there weren’t more than 5 HBP.

Last funny item from the box score: Attendance: 25. Those Patriot fans really come out to support the team!

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So, who’s in the lead to go 1-1? I’m liking what i’m seeing out of Doyle. Arquette maintaining his production. Want to see what happens with Arnold. Maybe Holliday is getting back in the mix just by virtue of the likes of LaViolette and Bremner falling.

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.

It figures that one of the biggest pieces of franchise news hits at the exact moment I get into my car for a day and a half long business trip (I was in Tysons yesterday meeting with a client, then playing some pickleball at the new club off of Tyco road). So, apologies for being a little late to this.

Amazingly, in a news announcement that came out of complete left field, The Washington & Baltimore franchises have agreed to part ways after the 2025 season and end their MASN marriage.

Some salient details from the various announcements I’ve seen and some commentary:

• The teams have ripped up their 2022-2026 agreement, which was (of course) in dispute anyway, and have agreed on a one year 2025 MASN deal worth an undisclosed amount, but if they honor the terms of the agreement for 2024 it should be around $58.3M.
• There’s been so many hearings and appeals and what not that it’s not entirely clear what the Baltimore Franchise actually still owes the Nats: They only settled the 2012-2016 amount ($296M) in June of 2023. The implication is that the teams are still thus fighting about the amounts due for 2017-2021 and 2022-26, each of which is separately about a $300M payment.
• It’s important to know just how combative and argumentative Baltimore has been throughout this entire process. They were never supposed to go to court to dispute the agreement; they sued anyway. Then they whined about the law firm MLB used. Then they whined about the team reps involved. Then, after the law firm was replaced and three new team reps were included … the group came to the same conclusion, and Baltimore appealed again, refusing to pay. It took another four years before the team finally, begrudingly was forced to pay.
• While I find it tough to be sympathetic to multi-billionaire owners who clearly are not losing money on this team (why could they afford a $200M payroll 4 years ago but a third of that now?), the fact that they’ve had to fight over these figures for a decade is patently ridiculous, and MLB should have stepped in LONG, LONG ago.
• Selig should have forced this to completion more than a decade ago, but i think he was afraid of Angelos and his tendency to sue. He was right.
• I honestly thought MLB would force the divesture of this MASN partnership when the Baltimore team sold … and honestly i’m shocked this popped up now. What’s changed?
• This was a ridiculously one-sided deal from the get go, and never should have been agreed to. MLB certainly has learned its lesson with these bullsh*t territorial rights agreements, and with promised expansion coming I’ll bet you a dollar they’re already working on freeing areas like Charlotte (from Atlanta) and Portland (from Seattle) to avoid this nonsense in the future.
• Even in 2005, when this deal was struck, Anyone with a brain and a car KNEW there was not a real territorial control from Baltimore over the DC suburbs. Imagine today if I told you that you needed to be in Baltimore for a 7:05pm start time on a Tuesday, and you lived in, i dunno, Centreville. What time would you leave to avoid traffic to get to Baltimore on time? Noon? I mean seriously. If you left Centreville at 4pm, headed east on 66, around the beltway, then up 95 … you wouldn’t get there in three hours. You’d be better served taking a flight out of IAD to BWI and renting a car. So, Baltimore had no real fan base coming from huge swaths of the DC area for its games, and became a weekend touristy visit. Nobody’s buying season tickets to that team who lives in Virginia. So, I struggled with this from the get go.
• The cancellation of this deal now has basically robbed the Nationals of the golden years of RSN money. Again, hard to be completely sympathetic to the billionaire Lerners, but for years they’ve gotten nothing but legal bills while comparable markets got massive amounts of money to help run their franchise. The DC area is ranked amongst the top 10 markets in the US for all major factors (6th in MSA, 6th in DMA) and generally compares with the following markets from a size/wealth perspective: Philly, Dallas, and Houston. You want to know what those three teams get from their RSN deals? Philly=$125M. Texas Rangers = $110M. Houston = $73-$80M). DC has had to fight just to get around $60M a year. That’s real money, and has real impacts on a team.
• Now, of course, we’re seeing the collapse of RSNs, with half the teams around the league basically without a deal at all. I have to suspect this is what’s leading to the collapse of this deal altogether; Baltimore probably is looking at its RSN revenues and going white with shock, since its driven by a sh*tty Baltimore market and the complete underutilization of the Washington market (have you seen the MASN production values for Nats games? Its like Wayne’s World-quality sets and production value). And, of course, we’re in a new wave of streaming and cord cutting and the overall decline of conventional viewing patterns. Something likely gave, and even at a $50M clip the Baltimore owners probably balked and chose to walk away rather than continue to fight.
• Remind me again … how the hell is Baltimore considered a “small market team” and given comp draft picks year after year … when we are legally obligated to get the exact same amount of TV revenue as they are, yet DC is considered a major market??
• WP’s Barry Svrluga posted a scathing article basically calling out Lerner for the loss of “cover” for this deal going south, and he’s not wrong. This franchise no longer has any ‘excuses’ for not spending. Frankly, the last couple of years have been ridiculous, and they should have been more active to supplement the team. He also notes the patently ridiculous point that this team has yet to sell naming rights for the stadium (worth $20M a year usually) or jersey patches (worth $15M/year for some teams). Why?? We’re the ONLY DAMN TEAM in the league without either deal right now. Can you spell incompetent?
• This handcuff of a deal had to be a massive displeaser for potential buyers of this franchise, so bravo to Lerner’s for getting out of it. I’ll bet this increased their franchise value by hundreds of millions of dollars overnight.
• Speaking of selling, One has to think that this breakup was toasted with champagne by Ted Leonsis and his Monument network. I’ll bet Leonsis’ first call was to Lerner to basically say …. “so, you still interested in selling??” If the Lerner’s want out (and one has to think they do), then Leonsis is the way to go. He’ll immediately add to his two other pro franchises, immediately take the broadcasting in-house and get the “inventory” of an entire season of games for his network, and be able to do bundled/combo packages of Nats/Caps/Wizards players all cross-promoting. I mean, it makes too much sense not to happen right? Oh, and it’ll take Leonsis about 15 minutes to finally put a professional broadcasting studio together to do proper pre-game/post-game for the Nats, something that they’ve … never had.

Anyway, so that’s some stream of consciousness for today. Bravo for this happening, sorry it didn’t happen a decade ago when it should have, and no more excuses not to spend money.

Did you know we’re already two weeks into the D1 college season?

Let’s look at the first two weeks of the season for some of the top-ranked candidates to go 1-1, and draw some ridiculous and wildly speculative short-sample-size driven conclusions. 🙂

Actually, more seriously, I wanted to take a bit of time to do the first part of this post, which is to capture direct links for the players in question to have a quick resource I can refer back to. So, hope you enjoy this as well to save you some googling.

I’ll focus on probably just 5-6 players right now, maybe add more if players pop this spring. Obviously can’t do this for the HS guys in the mix like Holliday but if we can find something for them i’ll add it.

Link Block:

• Jace LaViolette, CF, Texas A&M. TAMU stats & Box Scores, MLBPipeline rpt, BA draft rpt
• Jamie Arnold, LHP, Florida State. FSU stats & box Scores, MLBPipeline rpt, BA draft rpt
• Tyler Bremner, RHP, UC Santa Barbara. UCSB stats & box Scores, MLBPipeline rpt, BA draft rpt
• Aiva Arquette, SS, Oregon State. OSU stats & box scores, MLBPipeline rpt, BA draft rpt
• Cam Canarella, CF, Clemson. Clemson stats & box scores, MLBPipeline rpt, BA draft rpt

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Two week check-ins:

• LaViolette: starting slow; slashing .211/.444/.737 through two weekend series. Playing CF despite his size/projection to be a corner OF in the pros, batting 2nd. Only has four hits through 6 games but all four were XBH, pushing up his slugging and OPS. They’ve played Elon and Cal Poly on neutral fields, not exactly powerhouses, so a little disappointing of a start.
• Arnold: FSU’s #1/Friday night starter: Can’t ask for a better start: 2 starts, 2 wins, 11IP and just 3 hits allowed. He went 6ip/1h against my alma mater JMU in the opener, then went 5ip/2h against Penn last weekend. Obviously Penn isn’t a baseball powerhouse but JMU can be frisky. In both games he was on a short pitch count and could have gone longer.
• Bremner: UCSB’s #1/Friday starter: went 3 hitless innings to open against Campbell (rumor had it the weather was super cold), then 3 runs in 3IP against a weaker Seattle University team. Keith Law was on hand and wasn’t complementary of what he saw.
• Arquette is on fire to start, playing SS and batting 2nd for OSU. Through two weekends he’s slashing .440/.559/.880 as OSU played in two top-notch tourneys to open their season. There’s definitely something to like about this guy.
• Canarella has been playing CF and batting third for Clemson to start, but got subbed out of one game and missed another early in the season. He had labrum surgery (!!) in the off-season and there was some question if he’d be ready to go in Feb, and its also why some boards have him out of the top of the draft for now. So far, a slow start: .250/.333/.375 with almost no power. It’s also fair to say their opening weekend tournament was about as tough as it could be (they played OK State, Arizona, and Ole Miss). I wonder if he’s really even in the mix for the upper half of the first round.

Where do these players’ teams rank btw? Per D1baseball’s updated rankings post-weekend results,

• TAMU #1 (holding at #1)
• FSU #7 (up from #9)
• UCSB #20 (up one from #21 pre weekend)
• OSU #9 (down from #7 before weekend)
• Clemson #13 (up 1 from #14 pre weekend)

So all these players are playing for top teams in solid divisions, which guarantees good competition when we get to conference play.

So, that’s a quick check in. Arnold and Arquette look great, LaViolette starting slow, Canarella may still be hurt, and Bremner seems like he may drop out of 1-1 contention unless he starts blowing away sub-par competition.

With the final two qualifying-offer attached FAs signing yesterday (Bregman and Pivetta), we’re doing a double duty post today; recapping the Qualifying Offer (QO hereafter) crop for this offseason, then publishing the now-finalized draft order for 2025.

First; QOs. We’ve come a long way since the first QO season, and we’ve come a long ways since the awful 2015 season when so many veteran FAs (our own Ian Desmond headlining) got royally screwed by the QO. So, how did the crop fare this year?

Here’s a link to my full QO worksheet with a lot more detail than the below table. It is in chronological order, so scroll to the bottom. But, here’s a summary table:

Year	Player	Old Team	New Team	Draft Pick Forfeited	Signing Date	New Contract	AAV change	Q.O. Screw the player?
2024	Juan Soto	New York Yankees	New York Mets	2-70,4S-143	12/9/2024	15yr/765M	29.95	No
2024	Corbin Burnes	Baltimore	Arizona	2-59	12/30/2024	6yr/$210M	13.95	No
2024	Alex Bregman	Houston	Boston	2-53	2/12/2025	3yr/$120M	18.95	Not really
2024	Max Fried	Atlanta	New York Yankees	2-71, 4S-144	12/10/2024	8yr/$218M	6.2	No
2024	Willy Adames	Milwaukee	San Francisco	2-54,5-155	12/9/2024	7yr/$182M	4.95	No
2024	Pete Alonso	New York Mets	New York Mets	none	2/5/2025	2yr/$54M	5.95	Sort of
2024	Anthony Santander	Baltimore	Toronto	2-49	1/20/2025	5yr/$92.5M	-2.55	Not really
2024	Teoscar Hernandez	Los Angeles Dodgers	Los Angeles Dodgers	none	12/30/2024	3yr/$66M	0.95	No
2024	Sean Manaea	New York Mets	New York Mets	none	12/23/2024	3yr/$75M	3.95	No
2024	Christian Walker	Arizona	Houston	2-63, 4S-142	12/20/2024	3yr/$60M	-1.05	Not really
2024	Nick Martinez	Cincinnati	Cincinnati	none	11/17/2024	1yr/21.05M	7.05	No
2024	Nick Pivetta	Boston	San Diego	2-63	2/12/2025	4yr/$55M	-7.3	Yes
2024	Luis Severino	New York Mets	Oakland	2-48	12/6/2024	3yr/$67M	1.25	No

So, what’s the breakdown of the 13 QO-attached Free Agents this year?

• 4 Resigned with their old team, negating the QO and draft pick loss
• 9 signed with new teams, thus triggering draft pick compensation and IFA money loss
• 5 of the 13 in my opinion had some level of “impact” to their Free Agency by virtue of the QO attachment, even if its arguable:
• Nick Pivetta was probably the most impacted; he took $7.3M less in AAV than if he’d just signed the one year deal.
• One QO attached signing was ludicrous: Oakland/Sacramento signed a reliever Luis Severino to a 3yr/$67M basically to get the union off their backs for hoarding money. Honestly; someone needs to divest this team from its ownership.
• The Rich get richer: four of the signing teams were so far over payroll that they gave up two draft picks (Mets, Yankees, SF, Houston)
• 13 total draft picks were surrendered, which we’ll talk about in a bit in how it impacts a team like the Nationals.
• Boras represented 6 of the 13 players: 2 of the re-signed, 2 got the expected massive deals (Soto and Burns), but if i’m his remaining two clients (Alonso and Bregman) I’d be pretty underwhelmed by what happened this off-season. Alonso got just a 2year deal, Bregman a 3-year deal (albeit with opt outs each year). At least both can go back to FA soon w/ zero attachment.
• CAA Sports represented 4 of the 13: Fried and Adams did well, Walker got less in AAV than the QO but signed early so you can’t say the market played him. But they also represent Pivetta, who signed a deal worth $13.75/year AAV when he could have gotten a $21M QO for 2025. A mis-read by the player and the agent.

I continue to not be a fan of the QO system. I believe it artificially suppresses salaries for veteran FAs. I also believe FAs generally speaking are morons and continually misread their markets. Year after year we see players get screwed by this system.

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So, now that all the QO assigned players are signed, there’s no more draft pick gains and losses, and we now have a basically finalized 2025 draft order. I believe I have this correct and updated for all the moves, but here’s my working XLS of all the drops and adds for the first five rounds due to draft pick comp, comp picks, etc.

As it stands now, here’s how the Nats will be picking:

• 1st round: #1 overall
• 2nd round: #49 overall
• 3rd round: #80 overall: this moved up 9 spots thanks to lost picks
• 4th round: #111 overall:
• 5th round: #142 overall
• 6th round: #171 overall
• +30 every round subsequent

So, we’ll get three picks in the top 80 in 2025, which should add nicely to our existing slate of prospects.

Law just released his top 20 for the Nats system.

Keith Law has always been somewhat of a contrarian in these prospect rankings, and for good reason. His methodology for each year basically throws out last year’s results and starts over, which allows him to break free of a “prospect-retention” paradigm that plagues some ranking shops. This logic eliminates players like Elijah Green, who has performed so terribly in low-A but who was so highly regarded (and highly paid) as an upper-1st rounder in 2022. It also basically eliminates high-bonus IFA guys who have scuffled in the low minors (a methodology I agree with as well). As a result, Law often ends up with some names ranked in places that we havn’t seen before, which we’ll cover below.

Law also proven himself, especially this year, as a talent evaluator who isn’t afraid to dream on newly drafted players, especially college players, and may have some of them over-drafted.

Law’s stuff is behind a paywall, so y ou miss out on his per-player evaluations (which are insightful), but here’s his top 20:

Rank	Last Name	First Name	Position
1	Crews	Dylan	OF (CF)
2	King	Seaver	SS
3	Sykora	Travis	RHP (Starter)
4	House	Brady	SS/3B
5	Susana	Jarlin	RHP (Starter)
6	Bazzell	Kevin	C/3B
7	Clemmey	Alex	LHP (Starter)
8	Cavalli	Cade	RHP (Starter)
9	Dickerson	Luke	SS/CF
10	Stuart	Tyler	RHP (Starter)
11	Lomavita	Caleb	C
12	Morales	Yohandy	3B
13	Wallace	Cayden	3B
14	Lile	Daylen	OF (CF)
15	Lara	Andry	RHP (Starter)
16	Hassell III	Robert	OF (CF)
17	Made	Kevin	SS
18	Bennett	Jake	LHP (Starter)
19	Diaz	Randal	SS/3B
20	Cranz	Robert	RHP (Reliever)

As is tradition, lets run through this list top to bottom.

• It goes without saying that so far, Law is tops on Seaver King, having him at #2 in the system. We knew this was coming b/c when Law released his top 100 for the entirety of the Minors two weeks ago, King was listed ahead of Sykora. Law projects him as a SS in the majors, with great speed, sneaky power, but his hit tool is the best. Can’t wait to see him in Wilmington this year.
• The rest of the top 5 is as expected, in about the expected order. He’s worried about Sykora’s mechanics (but, to be fair, Law is worried about a lot of pitcher’s mechanics), worried about House’s lack of BB rate in AAA, and worried about Susana’s inability to get LHB out.
• Quick deeper dive into Susana, because I think some of this stuff is fascinating. Here’s his fangraphs page. For the entirety of 2024, he had a BABIP of .372. .372!! That’s ridiculous, and is why his ERA was in the 4s but his FIP was in the 2s. You don’t often see a full 2-point delta between pitchers’ ERA and FIP. Here’s his MILB stats page with 2024 splits. Law pointed out that LHB had a .407 OBP against him last year; he had a 1.98 WHIP against lefties versus a 0.97 whip against righties. He attributes this to his 3/4 slot and lack of command. It sounds to me like he needs to develop a change-up that can keep lefties off-balance. The thing is, these are fringe issues with a guy who also hits 100, holds upper 90s deep into games, and doesn’t have a ton of effort in his delivery. I cannot wait to see what he does when he hits AA.
• Coming in at #6: Bazzell. Phew, by far the high man on this guy. Most other shops have him in the 14-15 range. I sense his ranking is assuming that Bazzell hits like he did in college AND plays Catcher; if he’s playing 3B he’s not quite as high of a prospect. With both Bazzell and Lomavita drafted in the same draft, one has to think one is going to Low-A and the other to High-A. I find it kind of interesting that Law has Bazzell so much higher than Lomavita, who was drafted ahead/paid out more in the same draft. Honestly, this is too high for Bazzell.
• He has Dickerson inside the top 10, entirely on tools. I also think this is too high, especially for a cold-weather prep kid who hasn’t yet taken a pro at bat. Like with IFAs, I like to see at least some production in the FCL before saying someone is a top 10 prospect.
• Some love for Tyler Stuart, one of a handful of AAA starters we were just talking about as generally being underrated by prospect watchers (along with Lord and Alvarez). Remember: Baseball America had Stuard #25.
• Morales at #12. Law had Morales ranked #6 this time last year, and in his writeup he freely admits that a) Morales had a hand injury all year and b) he “seemed” ok once he returned in August. So, like all the other shops that have dropped him … i’m just kind of at a loss. I have him #6 on my list, right now, and I don’t plan on dropping him.
• He has Lile down at #14. And, it’s almost like he was reading the comments i’ve been making about him. Here’s a direct quote from Law about Lile: “Lile might be a tweener, lacking the power for an outfield corner and with just a fringe-average defense in center, leaving him in Fourth Outfielder Town, which is only two stops away from DFAville.” EXACTLY what i’ve been saying for a while now in the comments. Honestly, if Lile blows up and starts hitting .330 this year, we should just trade him. There’s more and better outfielders already in the majors, and more and better CF prospects in the minors behind him.
• He’s just slightly lower on Lara than most others. Unlike Susana above, his BABIP upon reaching AA was really low, which blows up his FIP as compared to his actual ERA. His per-pitch scouting report basically shows him with slider as his #1 pitch, and the other three being 40s or 45s. That’s not good. I’ll be curious to see how this plays out, but Law is predicting him to be a 2-pitch middle reliever despite being so young and projecting to the AAA rotation.
• Hassell at #16. I think Its time for me to just admit that Hassell may not be the top-end prospect I have hoped for. Law prints a shocking stat: “He didn’t have a single extra-base hit off a lefty in 76 PA last year, and had just three (all doubles) off them in 2023, for a .218 slugging percentage off southpaws over two years.” That is patently amazing. Here’s his 2024 splits. Indeed: 61 ABs versus LHPs last year and zero XBH for a slash line of .213/.319/.213. Here’s something else interesting: he was legitimately good leading off (.285/.363/.381) but patently awful when batting lower in the order. Is that someone who’s literally pouting b/c he’s not leading off? So strange. Nonetheless, its hard to ignore this, and a full season in AAA with lefty specialists may do even more to expose him.
• Made at #17: i just don’t get it. I have him in the mid-30s and even that’s a stretch. But Law seems to admit the same, saying, “This is almost a placeholder — he has enough of a base of other skills to be a utility infielder, as long as he starts to hit the ball harder. If he doesn’t do that, he’s not a prospect.” At this point, i’m leaning towards the latter, having him buried in the mid 30s. Honestly, if you had to rank SS in our system right now, you’d go MLB starter: Abrams, MLB backups: Nunez/Rosario. AAA depth: Lipscomb, Made, then you have mid-minors prospects with promise like Cruz, King, and Diaz, Ramirez (who should be your AA, High-A, and Low-A starters in 2025), then you’ve got prep/DSL prospects with promise like Dickerson and Feliz. So, not a lot of pure prospect depth in the system of for-real guys who project to stick at SS … but if Made is hitting .220 in AA and you have 1st rounder Seaver King waiting in the wings producing in High-A … what are you gonna do? Made may only be 22 but he’s certainly at a cross-roads where he has to prove he’s not the next coming of Nasim Nunez.

Ok, so here’s where I have to eat some crow, having blasted BA’s list. Because the last two guys on Law’s list are surprises for sure.

• #19: 2024 5th rounder Randal Diaz. This is a first time ranking anywhere for Diaz, and coming out of the 2024 draft he was not one of the handful of guys I even was projecting into the top 50. It’s one thing to rank our top bonus guys in our top 20 automatically (King, Lomavita, Dickerson, and Bazzell). It is another to do down-ballot prospect ranking, especially for under-slot 2nd day guys like Diaz and Cranz. I guess Diaz has gotten some attention lately thanks to his making the Puerto Rican national team; if he’s a sneaky good 2nd day draft pick for us, all the better. He’ll presumably get the Low-A starting SS job and we’ll see how it goes.
• #20 2024 7th rounder Robert Cranz. BA also rated Cranz relatively highly, having him come in at #24. Law thinks Cranz is a 4-pitch guy who may start. But, again, as i said in the BA review … if he is a 4-pitch starter quality guy, why didn’t he frigging start in college?? I took a quick glance at OK State’s baseball stats for 2024: they had two guys who were full time Fri/Sat starters, then gave Sunday and midweek starts to a slew of guys while keeping Cranz basically as a stopper, not even the closer (just 2 saves). I mean, yes there’s value to a guy like that, but there’s more value to having a guy who can go 6ip with 1r. So I repeat the same thing I asked in the last post; if Cranz was this good, why the F wasn’t he starting in college? Are Oklahoma State’s baseball staff so stupid as to think that a middle reliever provides more value than a starter? Because more and more, that’s what its looking like; a patent failure in talent evaluation at that program.

Honorable mentions: these clearly aren’t the guys ranked 21-25, but he calls out a few notables. Sam Peterson, Angel Feliz (who i’ve mentioned already and who is in my top 20), Ramirez, Vaquero, and Sir Jamison Jones.

players not on his top 20 of note:

• Feliz: who did produce as a big $ IFA and who is at the back-end of my top 20.
• Lord, mentioned before as not really being a flashy guy but who produced like crazy in 2024.
• No love for Pinckney, even if the Nats have given him a NRI invite two years in a row.
• No mention of our 2025 IFA signings, which is common with law; he’s like me and wants to see some production and not just ranking of the signing bonus.
• Green, as discussed ad nauseum.

Honestly, just giving a top 10 for a system is almost like taking a remedial course in college just so you can get an A on your transcript. In year’s past McDaniel has gone much deeper (22 prospects in 2024, 28 in 2023, 32 or more in 2022), so maybe we’ll get a more comprehensive list eventually, but for now, here’s his top 10 for the Nats system.

Quick thoughts.

• Four of these players are in his top 100, a high mark for any of the overall top 100 lists.
• He retains confidence in House, unlike Law, BA, and MLBPipeline.
• Interestingly he has Sykora below Susana, also a first in this off-season.
• King at #5 is now pretty standard after the top 4 names.
• Clemmey and Cavalli remain on his top 200, though one has to think Cavalli’s last year of being a prospect is 2025. He’s either going to produce in the majors or become our most high profile 1st round failure since Romero
• This is the highest we’ve seen either Lile or Lomavita.
• Wallace at #10 means he’s creeping up, and it’ll be super interesting to see how the organization handles/juggles playing time for both Wallace and House if they’re both in AAA. One has to make way for the other, especially since House is the better bet to be a longer-term 3B in the majors.

Not making the top 10, but who are top 10 calibre on other lists:

(This is not criticism of this top 10, which is pretty solid honestly, but here’s some players who have made top 10 lists on other shops so far this year):

• Hassell
• Morales
• Lara
• Dickerson
• Chapparo (which was on a fantasy-focused list, so that’s an outlier)

I’m not sure you’re making an argument for any of these five over Lile or Wallace. Ok, maybe if it was ME i’d make an argument over Lile, but i’m low-man on Lile and high-man on Hassell.

One last thing: McDaniel’s callout for prospect ot watch is Dickerson, which we’ve heard a couple times already. Super excited to see what he can do in 2025.

The first of the five “major” shops/pundits that evaluate and rank prospects (BA, MLBPipeline, Law, Longenhagen, and McDaniel) released their top 30s for systems today…. and boy is the Nats list weird.

I’ll go through the list as always, offering up opinions and observations.

First off, here’s their top 30.

ba	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	Cavalli	Cade	RHP (Starter)
8	Lomavita	Caleb	C
9	Wallace	Cayden	3B
10	Lile	Daylen	OF (CF)
11	Dickerson	Luke	SS/CF
12	Hassell III	Robert	OF (CF)
13	Bennett	Jake	LHP (Starter)
14	Bazzell	Kevin	C/3B
15	Feliz	Angel	3B/SS
16	Pinckney	Andrew	OF (Corner)
17	Cortesia	Brayan	SS
18	Millas	Drew	C
19	Lara	Andry	RHP (Starter)
20	Rutledge	Jackson	RHP (Starter)
21	Brzykcy	Zach	RHP (Reliever)
22	Morales	Yohandy	3B
23	Green	Elijah	OF (CF)
24	Cranz	Robert	RHP (Reliever)
25	Stuart	Tyler	RHP (Starter)
26	Hernandez	Daniel	C
27	Nunez	Elijah	OF (Corner)
28	Vaquero	Cristian	OF (CF)
29	Lord	Brad	RHP (Starter)
30	Romero	Brayan	RHP (Starter)

Here we go.

top 10

• Same top 4 as everyone else, albeit dinging House a little bit. BA notes the same concerns that Law had with House, namely that he had like a 3% walk rate in AAA. I don’t think he’s ready for the Majors and can’t quite believe he’ll win the job out of MLB camp this spring, which would give him time to add some patience to his approach and not start his service time clock so early.
• Clemmey up at #6. I might be a little high on Clemmey in comparison to where i’m seeing him in other shops (the 5 rankings I have for him so far this off season go 6-7-6-6-6). Fair enough; he’s a young 19yr old who struck out 123 in 92 low-A innings. That doesn’t suck.
• Unlike some ranking shops who have given up hope on Cavalli, BA has him right there at #7. I’ve got him slightly lower based on fear that he’s not ever coming back, but BA has stayed strong.
• They’re super high on Lomavita at #8. This is a trend that we’ll see in this BA list the rest of the way; very bullish on brand new kids who have shown almost nothing yet at the pro level.
• I remain low-man on Lile, as discussed here multiple times, but BA having him at #10 tracks with most other shops.

Here’s 11-20.

• Ok, here’s where this starts to go off the rails. You have Dickerson at #11, who has zero pro at bats, and Hassell #12, who’s ended the season in AAA before he turned 23. Um. What are we doing here? Hassell likely gets MLB at bats THIS YEAR, even if he’s hitting .200 in AAA, because he’s now on the active roster. Dickerson may not even make the Low-A team in April. I get that prospect lists are a balancing act between floor and ceiling … but this one seems crazy to me.
• BA remembers how good Bennett was, and kept him exactly at #13, which is where they ranked him in Jan 2024. I wonder how quickly he gets back to High-A. Fairly or not, I’ve got him well lower on my rank, as do most other shops.
• The first appearance of 2025 IFA class star Brayan Cortesia on any ranking list, coming in at #17. With all due respect to his $1.9M bonus, this is way too high. Then again, I’m loath to rank a player anywhere in the top 30 these days until they make it to the FCL.
• Drew Millas at #18. Why? He’s frigging 27 and he’s a backup catcher as a ceiling and has been for five years. That’s not a prospect anymore; that’s called an org guy.
• How the hell is Andry Lara so low? I dunno, maybe i’m the only guy impressed by a guy with an ERA in the 3s as a 21yr old in AA never missing a start? Ok, maybe he’s not a top 5 prospect, but tell me you’d rather have Bennett (6 slots higher) than Lara right now.
• Rutledge at #20 ; they still have faith. I don’t. Unless he’s moving to the bullpen, what makes anyone think they’ll see anything different out of the guy in 2025?

21-30 … with obvious caveats about players in this range… but man there’s some crazy names here.

• Brzycky at #21: i’m on record saying this is too high for relievers, but whatever.
• Morales at #22. Wait, what?? Every other shop so far, including me, has him in the 8-9 range. #22?? In August of 2024, BA had him at #6 in the system, and in their scouting report they explicitly say that he had a thumb injury that hampered his production this year. Bennett misses a y ear to TJ and doesn’t get dinged a single slot, but Morales (who finished strong post injury) gets knocked down nearly 20 spots?? This makes no sense. But don’t worry, this isn’t even the dumbest ranking yet.
• At #24 I give you Robert Cranz. In case you don’t recognize the name, he was a 7th round pick in 2024, signed for $100k UNDER slot, was a reliever in college and went straight into Fredericksburg’s bullpen, where he threw a handful of playoff innings. #24 in the system. I didn’t have him in my top 90. In the scouting report it says the Nats may make him a starter … uh, if he could start, why didn’t he do so in college?? This ranking makes zero sense to me.
• Meanwhile, one slot later they have Tyler Stuart at #25, who STARTED 25 games last year between AA and AAA. I just don’t get it; you’d rank a college reliever with 6 pro innings higher than a starter who “solved” AA at age 24?
• Daniel Hernandez, 2025 IFA signing at #26. Sure.
• #27 Nasim Nunez, who had so few PAs last year that he still remains rookie eligible for shops like BA, who ignore service time. I wouldn’t have him this high, but wouldn’t be upset if someone ranked him in the 30s.
• Like Stuart, Brad Lord’s rise to AAA seems to be greeted at BA with a sniff. He’s at the back end of their top 30. Perhaps its just me impressed by what Lord has done. I think the knock on Lord is a lack of a 4th pitch. But, he’s a sinker guy, so often guys like this don’t bother learning two fastballs since their value is getting hitters to drive the ball into the ground.
• Rounding out the top 30, one last laugher; Brayan Romero. I almost wonder if this ranking is a joke to see if anyone’s paying attention. He posted a 5.52 ERA in Low-A this year as a 22yr old. Ok, so I understand he missed a season and he’s tooled up. But really.

Players they don’t have in their top 30 that I do:

• Chapparo: he’ll probably be on the MLB team, whether that counts for anything or not.
• Victor Hurtado and Armando Cruz: so we love Cortesia and his big bonus, but one-season-in Hurtado? Or Cruz, who (earned or not) ended the season in High-A?
• Darren Baker: I guess MLB-roster backup infielders aren’t as valuable as low-A middle releivers.
• Andrew Alvarez. Making AAA just doesn’t mean what it used to.
• Jackson Kent: wasn’t he the heralded arm out of the upper rounds of our 2024 draft? MLBPipeline has him in the mid 20s.
• Don’t forget about Rafael Ramirez

So, there you are. Strange one, this list was.

You know we’re getting close to Spring Training when the annual press release goes out announcing Non-Roster Spring Training Invitees (NRIs). The Nats announced the initial crop this week, immediately forgot at least a couple guys who have ST invites on their transactions page, and probably will add more as they sign up veteran FAs, but for now here’s who we have:

(Note: the NRIs are color coded purple on the Big Board for tracking)

• Starting Pitchers: Brad Lord, Tyler Stuart, Konnor Pilkington, Jarlin Susana, Joan Adon,
• Relief pitchers: Daison Acosta, Marquis Grissom Jr., Clay Helvey, Jack Sinclair,,
• Catchers: Andrew Knizner, Caleb Lomavita, Max Romero Jr., and Brad Lindsley (left off Nats announcement)
• Infielders: Brady House, Yohandy Morales, Cayden Wallace
• Outfielders: Daylen Lile, Andrew Pinckney, Franchy Cordero (left off press release)

The list includes a huge chunk of our projected AAA roster: i’d say of the 16 NRIs listed here, 14 of them will be in AAA to start the year. In fact, the only ones who won’t be in AAA are Susana and Romero, both probably heading to AA.

NRIs are important. Believe it or not, more than a dozen of 2024’s NRIs eventually played in the majors last year, some with pretty significant roles. So this group collectively will play a big role for the 2025 team. Traditionally 3-4 will make the team out of ST to open the season, while others get called up.

NRIs generally fall into several categories:

1. Top Prospects getting their first shot with the big boys: this describes at least Susana, Lomavita, House, Morales, Wallace, and Lile. I suppose Pinckney is here as well since he doesn’t qualify for any of the other categories.
2. Starters to eat split squad innings: I would throw Lord and Stuart in this bucket, along with Adon.
3. Catchers, because we need people to catch all these ST bullpen sessions: Knizner, Romero, Lindsley
4. Veteran MLFAs who were promised the NRI as a condition of signing: Helvey, Plington, Cordero
5. Under-the-Radar relievers who might be useful middle relievers: Acosta, Grissom, Sinclair

Is Adon still a prospect? After four option years, what exactly does the team need to see here? Perhaps they’re planning on converting him to relief, so he’d fall into category #4.

The team has already signed a dozen MLFAs for 2025, but only a couple have NRIs. This in and among itself is a message, but some of the non-NRIs are surprising.

• We have a MLFA 28yr old catcher CJ Stubbs on the AAA roster right now: no NRI.
• Andrew Alvarez is slated to be in the AAA rotation; no NRI.
• We’ve heard people rave about reliever Carlos Romero: no NRI.
• The only lefty reliever in AAA Garvin Alston? no NRI.
• We’ve signed several aged 28-30 MLFAs who got assigned to AA straight away, an indication they’re just org arms.
• We’ve also signed several younger relief arms this month, all in the 23-25 range, newly 6-year FAs after being young IFA signings; these kind of guys may need more seasoning and aren’t candidates to join the bullpen.
• A few rule-5 candidates we talked about at length but no NRI include Solesky, De la Rosa, Made, and Shuman, which probably tells us what we need to know about the organization’s thought about these guys.

Who’s likely to make the team out of this list? Probably a bit early to predict, but I only count 9 total relievers on the entire 40-man right now, one of whom is out with TJ. So, there’s opportunities here for especially the arms who can slot into bullpen spots.

We didn’t really talk about the top prospects in camp. Of them, House seems the most likely to win a starting job, based on the lack of a FA 3b signing. We’ve litigated him to death; no he’s not ready, he probably needs to prove himself for a half season in AAA. The rest of the prospects all seem slated for either AA or AAA to get more time in the minors. I’m intrigued by Morales’ potential … but the team has basically bought itself enough 1B/DH cover that it seems unlikely for him to break camp.

Thoughts?

The class of 2025 is now set.

Two first-ballot hall of famers in CC Sabathia and Ichiro Suzuki will join last-gasp 10th ballot electee and Virginia native Billy Wagner in Cooperstown later this year. They’ll be part ofa 5-man class, joined by selectees David Parker and Dick Allen.

Here’s some quick thoughts.

1,. Billy Wagner

In my HoF fake ballot post, I said i wouldn’t have voted for him. I went back and searched all my fake ballot posts going back to 2017 … and I’ve never really vacillated from this stance. In a couple of posts I said, “eh, maybe” on Wagner but I was never a yes. I think its a product of my reliever bias in general, whether it’s evaluating the value of a closer or the value of a prospect.

Nonetheless, you can’t argue with his dominance. A 187 CAREER ERA+ is nothing to shake a stick at, and I’m glad he’s in.

2. CC Sabathia

Sabathia becomes a first ballot Hall of Famer. I’ve always liked Sabathia and its a great honor to cap his career. Funny how nobody ever accused him of being a PED guy. He was more likely to be accused of being an all-you-can-eat buffet violator, not a drug test violator.

However, here’s a thought exercise for you. Here’s two arbitrary players overall career stats.

• Player A: 256-153 W/L, 3.85 career ERA, 117 career ERA+. 531 career games, 2448 career Ks. 3 ASG, 4 times in the Cy Young top 5 voting. 276 post season innings, 3.81 post season ERA.
• Player B: 251-161 W/L, 3.74 career ERA, 116 career ERA+. 561 career games, 3093 career Ks. 6 ASG, 5 times in Cy Young top 5 but won one. 130 post season innings, 4.38 career postseason ERA.

One of these players is first ballot hall of famer CC Sabathia. The other is Andy Pettitte, who never got above 27% support for the Hall. When you go to baseball-reference and scroll down to “Similarity Scores” for Pettitte … guess who is #1? You guessed it: Sabathia.

Does this make sense to you?

3. Ichiro Suzuki

The obvious storyline here is the one gutless BBWAA anonymous voter who left Suzuki off his ballot. There’s not a soul in the sport who can support denying Suzuki a vote. So he joins a small group of players who were denied unanimous induction by either one vote (Derek Jeter) or a handful of votes (Griffey missed 3 votes, Cobb 4, Seaver 5, Ryan 6, Ryan 8). Did you know that Babe Ruth was ommitted on NINE ballots in 1936?? Can you imagine the outcry in today’s social media landscape? The hated Ty Cobb got more votes than Ruth on the original HoFame ballot.

Anyway.

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Next closest on the ballot were Beltran with 70% in his 3rd try, and Jones with 66% on his 8th try.

I support both candidates. Yes Beltran was embroiled in the Houston trash can banging scheme, but his career was clean during a time when PED was rampant. Jones was the next coming of Willie Mays until he wasn’t; I like both guys, and both have a good shot of going in soon. The 2026 ballot doesn’t exactly have inspiring first-time candidates: the highest bWAR new candidates are Cole Hamels (just 163 career wins) and Ryan Braun (with his testosterone test nonsense), so voters may lean into existing candidates a bit more. But, that’s a conversation for a year from now.