{"id":19471,"date":"2026-04-09T10:34:35","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T14:34:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=19471"},"modified":"2026-04-09T10:42:49","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T14:42:49","slug":"reactions-to-full-season-roster-announcements-and-rotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=19471","title":{"rendered":"Reactions to Full Season Roster Announcements and Rotations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Parker-mitchell-wp-mlb-debut.avif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"3150\" height=\"2100\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Parker-mitchell-wp-mlb-debut.avif\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-18428\"\/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Parker reacclimating himself with the buses in AAA. Photo via WP<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>With the staggered starts now in place for MLB, AAA, and then the rest of the full-season minor leagues, we no longer get the massive data dump of roster releases like in year&#8217;s past. We get MLB, then AAA, then the rest. So, I&#8217;ve kind of held onto this post for a bit. We also had to wait for all the leagues to get totally through one rotation so I could write this reaction piece.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here&#8217;s some reactions to the five Full-season roster announcements. I&#8217;m primarily focusing on the starting rotations, and just for fun i&#8217;m <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=19242\">pulling in my 2026 Rotation predictions piece<\/a> written last October to talk about just how far off I was. I&#8217;ll throw in some commentary on each rotation, and I&#8217;m also adding in commentary on some notable position player assignments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>MLB predicted for 2026: Gore, Grey, Cavalli, a Free Agent, Alvarez<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>MLB Actual 2026: Cavalli, Mikolas, Irvin, Griffen, Littell<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Rotation Thoughts<\/strong>: Well, that didn&#8217;t go how I thought it would last fall.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>I thought the team would hold onto Gore through the 2026 trade deadline and flip him then (wrong: they found a trade partner willing to part with some top-end prospects)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I thought Grey would be healthy (nope: flexor strain, on top of an entire year lost to TJ.  not good)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I thought Alvarez&#8217; September would earn him a spot as the sole lefty worthy of the rotation (nope: by all accounts reading the tea leaves from sping training coverage this team never really considered him, or Parker, for the 5th starter spot.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I figured we&#8217;d sign just one FA, not three. <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>And I certainly didn&#8217;t think Irvin would earn a spot after his awful 2025. <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>Lots of &#8220;wrong&#8221; in there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Losing Grey was a bummer; Flexor Strain often turns into more. I know he&#8217;s not an Ace in this league, but he has promise, and would be a solid 4th starter on a good team.  Unfortunately, we&#8217;re not a good team, so he was our opening day starter two years ago. Lets all just hold our collective breath and hope these three veteran FAs pitch well enough to net talent at the trade deadline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In my prediction piece, I thought the team would push all three of Parker, Irvin, and Lord to the bullpen. Lord&#8217;s relief splits were so much better than his starter splits that it made too much sense, while the others could hopefully morph into better starters. Instead, the team sent Parker down, along with (initially) four other 40-man members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Other Roster thoughts<\/strong>: MLB Bullpen, Roster reactions: I <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=19473\">already posted on this topic around Opening day<\/a>. TL\/DR: the bullpen is a collection of waiver claims and MLFAs nobody&#8217;s heard off and the team sent down or cut loose prospects instead of playing them at the MLB level. And, through the first week we&#8217;re not exactly seeing a murder&#8217;s row of relivers coming out of the pen. After a promising opening series, the bullpen has looked worse than awful, and it may be a long season of up-and-down options\/call-ups from the AAA core.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>AAA predicted for 2026: Lao, Ogasawara, Cornelio, Bennett, veteran MLFA<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>AAA actual: Alvarez, Parker, Perales, Cornelio, Lara\/Champlain<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Rotation thoughts<\/strong>: We thought we had a clean set of 40-man starters set to go in AAA when the opening day MLB rosters were announced, but then the team DFA&#8217;d Linan and has had to scramble in the opening weeks of the season to find a 5th starter. The first turn through was a brief stint from former 40-man member Lara, but the real candidate seems to be MLFA signee Champlain, who&#8217;s basically always been a starter. This is an experienced, expectations-heavy crew; Parker hasn&#8217;t been in AAA since late 2023 and (for me) should be in the MLB bullpen. Same with Alvarez: not sure what he has to prove in AAA after a stellar 2025 (his first two starts in 2026 confirm that so far).  Cornelio more than earned his spot on this roster with his meteoric rise in 2025; should be interesting to see if he sticks. My off-season predictions were understandably shredded when the team released Lao (to go to Japan) and traded Bennett (straight up for Perales). Ogasawara got pushed down with so many 40-man players pouring into AA to be the richest guy in the Eastern league.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Other roster thoughts<\/strong>: the team, by virtue of sending down so many 1B\/OF types, now has a massive logjam of players in AAA who need playing time. AAA now has Ortiz, Chapparo, Hassell, Crews, and Franklin, all of whom are on the 40-man and aren&#8217;t in AAA for their health. On top of that you have well regarded OF prospects Pinckney and Glasser with little room to play, and then so many 1B types has pushed Morales to 3B &#8230; that&#8217;s like 7 guys for 5 spots night in and night out. At least they alleviated the pressure a little bit by releasing Mervis &#8230; but a 40-man guy is now sitting regularly in AAA.  So far, it seems like Pinckney is the odd-man out, with the more flexible Glasser playing mostly 2B.  Pinckney may be another sign of something I alluded to previously; he was clearly a favorite of the previous front office, getting spring training NRIs out of nowhere despite being basically less-than 4A talent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Bullpen features basically three 40-man guys on their last chance (Rutledge, Ribalta, Fernandez). If these guys couldn&#8217;t beat out the any one of the waiver claims currently in MLB, that really is an indictment of where they are. They&#8217;re joined by four 2026 MLFAs (one step above a waiver claim) in Yean, Gott, Penrod, and Montes de Oca (already hurt). There&#8217;s three former starters in the pen (Lara, Shuman, Tolman), so it should be interesting to see who gets the 5th starter spot long term once Eder got DFA&#8217;d and traded for basically nothing (ok, they got &#8220;cash&#8221;). Technically it looked like Lara got the start when they first needed a 5th starter, but i&#8217;m guessing it may actually be Chander Champlain, an end of spring training MLFA who pitched to a 7.84 ERA last year as a AAA starter in the PCL. Could be an interesting year of churn in AAA with the new regime so freely grabbing guys off the MLFA\/waiver wire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>AA predicted: Rotation: Kent, Clemmey, Choi, Sthele, Atencio<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>AA Acutal: Clemmey, Garcia, Luckham, Ogasawawara, Swan<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>AA D\/L rotation: Susana, Sykora, Stuart, Rosario, Kent.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Rotation thoughts<\/strong>: Gee, kinda wish our AA rotation was our DL list and not who we&#8217;re actually throwing out there.  That&#8217;s two top-5 prospects, a near top-10, and two current\/former mid teen prospects.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Happy to see both Swan and Garcia moved up. Where is Kent?? I thought he was a key member of this rotation but he&#8217;s nowhere to be found to start the season (answer: he&#8217;s on the DL, put there after the season started, though apparently not yet onto Milb.com&#8217;s register). Luckham and Ogasawara were pushed down to AA thanks to too many 40-man guys coming down from MLB, and that ended up impacting a couple arms here: I initially predicted Choi to be here but he was a MLFA after last season &#8230; and remains a MLFA. Same with Atencio; he elected MLFA as well and is out of the system (not sure how I screwed that up). Nonetheless, AA a major prospect and two promising arms to watch.  I&#8217;ll have to time it right in the rotation when Harrisburg comes to visit Richmond so I can see one of the better prospects throw.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Other roster thoughts<\/strong>: the AA non-pitching roster has a lot of holdovers from the end of 2025, and a lot of down-ballot but still important prospect depth.  Lomavita&#8217;s pathway to the majors has been severely impacted with the Ford acquisition; how will he react? Is Seaver King mid-2025 version of AFL-version? Is Wallace a top 10 prospect or a mid-30s prospect? Is Sam Peterson the real deal? Lots of fun questions for this roster.  The day before this writing Made broke his leg (or something similarly bad) and went straight to the 60-day DL, opening up probably the last chance for DC-native Cortland Lawson to get a chance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The bullpen, like AAA&#8217;s, features a growing collection of MLFAs and rule5 guys, including a few signed on the eve of the season and newly introduced to Nats fans when the rosters were revealed and we were like, &#8220;Uh, who is that guy?&#8221; Gaston? Van Scoyoc? Tebrake? Linarez?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>High-A predicted: Randall, Garcia, Polanco, Linan, Sales<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>High-A Actual: Bruni, Maddox, Randall, Tejeda, Sullivan<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Rotation thoughts<\/strong>: From predictions, Garcia made AA, Linan got flipped, and Sales started the year on the 60-day DL, so that opened up some spots.  Polanco seems like he&#8217;s the LR\/SS, and Sullivan got promoted up a level from where I thought he&#8217;d be last fall.  It&#8217;s great to see Tejeda keeping a spot and not getting pushed to the bullpen.  It should be good to see what Maddox can do; he didn&#8217;t really pitch last year.  Lastly, we have a guy in Bruni who got the opening day start who was not only just a reliever last year, but struggled.  I wonder if he sticks in the rotation, or if he&#8217;s actually really in the rotation, or if someone else (Polanco?) was supposed to go opening day and got hurt last minute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Interestingly, when i shook out all the rosters on opening day, there were half a dozen names missing who I figured were headed for release &#8230; instead, a big chunk of them were added to Wilmington a few days later and are on the DL to start.  Biven, Arguellas, Collins, Sthele, Tepper, and Dugas are all in that same category &#8230; wouldn&#8217;t have been surprised to see any of them released, but instead they&#8217;re on the High-A DL.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Other roster thoughts<\/strong>: There were a couple of kind of surprising roster assignments when the High-A roster was announced.  I&#8217;ll kind of go through them one by one:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Hunter Hines made this team.  Hines was a negligible bonus senior draftee in 2025 but not only made a full season squad but made High-A right out of the gate. Bravo there.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Devin Fitz-Gerald straight to High-A; this was one way to fix the log-jam of high-end SS prospects in Low-A; send one of them up.  Looks like he&#8217;ll move to 2B for Feliz.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Also in High-A is Angel Feliz, as we suspected.  Feliz likely splits time with Jorgelys Mota at 3B\/DH if i&#8217;m reading the roster right.  <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I wonder if Elijah Green is there to play, or for social promotion. We&#8217;ll soon see. He got the early starts in Center, and picked right up where he left off (4 ks in first 8 ABs).  It got even worse: he had a 5-k game the day before this drops, giving him 11 Ks in his first 16 ABs.  He&#8217;s only 22, so High-A isn&#8217;t a reach, but with a new regime not wedded to keeping mistakes of the past, one has to wonder if\/when Green gets released.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Marcus Brown popped up out of nowhere 2 days in; he wasn&#8217;t on the social media roster releases then suddenly was subbed into a game 2 games in.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Bullpen is super heavy on MLFAs and rule5 minor league phase guys: 6 of the 12 guys. I don&#8217;t think this Front Office was impressed with what they saw down on the farm in terms of arms.  However its safe to say <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Low-A predicted: Sullivan, Johnson, Agostini, Feliz, Farias<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Low-A actual: Portorreal, Hughes\/Meckley, Sime\/Lyon, Harmon\/Beck, Fischer\/Conradt<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Rotation thoughts<\/strong>: My 2025 predictions were awful.  Sullivan in High-A, Agostini and Farias were released, and Feliz is in XST.  I was sort of surprised to see both our high-end bonus picks from 2025 (Harmon and Sime) here to start; the prior regime would have absolutely started them in XST and FCL.  so, bravo to see them thrown to the wolves.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The first turn through the rotation looked like a ton of &#8220;tandem starting,&#8221; where two (or in some cases three) guys each go 3 innings\/50 pitches.  We&#8217;ll see how this shakes out; I&#8217;d guess the leaders in the clubhouse are Portorreal,  Sime, Harmon, Johnson, and Lyon.  But we&#8217;ll see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Other roster thoughts<\/strong>: Well, if you&#8217;ve got half a dozen SS prospects who all need playing time, you do what Low-A is doing with them.  Signed as SS but playing elsewhere early on includes Ronny Cruz (2B), Luke Dickerson (3b), Coy James (LF), and Gavin Fein (RF).  Trade Acquisition SS Ramirez hurting for time early on.  A good problem to have: good SS can move around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fredericksburg is suuuuper young.  Half the lineup and two of the starting pitchers are teenagers.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>Who&#8217;s still in XST or missing?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/spreadsheets\/d\/186nm-v5F-zTCoR2Be7TFYM3e2cZ-gYi2WVqJLEkHdmc\/edit?usp=sharing\">Per the big board<\/a>, which has been a bit challenging to keep up with this spring. there&#8217;s just a few names still hanging in XST purgatory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Jackson Ross, 1B 9th rounder from High-A last year.  <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Brenner Cox, OF 4th rounder; career .177 BA who got squeezed out of the A rosters and may be done.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Juan Abreu, a middle reliver from Low-A last year who&#8217;s without an assignment so far.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>5-6 IFAs who clearly are headed to the DSL eventually, but there&#8217;s so many players listed there right now they&#8217;d overflow the XLS.  I&#8217;d imagine we&#8217;re going to see at least 20 cuts from the DSL roster in the coming weeks.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With the staggered starts now in place for MLB, AAA, and then the rest of the full-season minor leagues, we no longer get the massive data dump of roster releases like in year&#8217;s past. We get MLB, then AAA, then the rest. So, I&#8217;ve kind of held onto this post for a bit. We also [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,4324],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlbpitching","category-minorspitching","category-prospects"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19471"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19499,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19471\/revisions\/19499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}