Nationals Arm Race

We’ve been discussing our International Free Agency (IFA) class futility a bit in the comments, and today 1/15/26 is the day we announce our newest crop of international signees, so lets take a quick peek at how things have gone and who we have coming into the system today.

We’ll be using my IFA Signing Tracker to drive this conversation. I’ve built this back to the 2016 class with a slew of information per player, including links to their milb.com page, bonuses, positions, and (most importantly); their “high level” achieved. As discussed in the comments, we’ve seen very, very little production for the past decade of drafts: Working backwards, here’s an idea:

• 2025: $6.2M bonus pool, two $1M plus players plus a bunch of mid 6-figure guys. Four guys getting prospect love (the two big $ guys Cortesia and Hernandez, plus German and $10k signing De La cruz)
• 2024: $5.9M pool, about half went to two guys in Hurtado and Feliz. Feliz now on precipice of the top 10, Hurtado scuffling around after two straight weak DSL seasons. Nobody else of note from class.
• 2023: $5.2M pool, two $1M plus players in Acevedo and Solano. Solano already released, only a couple other very weak prospects showing out right now in Tejeda and Jose Feliz.
• 2022: $5.1M pool, $4.9M of which went to Vaquero. Also spent $250k on Mota. Vaquero just repeated low-A for the third year, while Mota is starting to creep up the ranks and is ahead of Vaquero on most lists right now.
• 2021: $5.3M pool, $3.9M of which went to Armando Cruz in another “put all our eggs in one basket” class. We don’t have a single player from this class ranked on any prospect list at present.
• 2020: no class – Covid: we ended up signing a couple of guys later in 2020 for that “class” but they’ve all since been released.
• 2019: $4.3M pool, we gave $1M plus to two guys (Lara, Aldonis). Also $800k to Quintana (released) and Dawry Martinez (released). Lara made the MLB but is now considered a weak prospect and likely is a AAA-ceiling guy. Aldonis is still in High-A.

2018 and 2017 fell into the “IFA signing bonus penalty phase” based on our team’s actions in the 2016 draft, where we purposely blew past the bonus pool to knowingly accept penalties in the next two years.

• 2018: $4.9M pool but with a $300k/per player signing cap; we signed a few $300k players but the best anyone did was Jose Atencio making AA before hitting MLFA. One player remains in the system at this point (Otanez).
• 2017: $4.75M pool, but we came nowhere close to it. Recently traded reliever Ferrer was the sole player to make the majors, and one other remains active (backup middle infielder Pena).
• 2016: We had a $2.3M pool and paid out at least $6.5M of bonuses that I can find, playing the IFA bonus gambit at the time. This class produced at least four MLB ers in Garcia, Pineda, Adon, and Yadiel Hernandez, but remains infamous in Nats circles for the $3.9M given to Yasel Antuna.

So, that’s the sordid decade-long history of our bonus spending.

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We have a new management team in town, so we should see a new direction and strategy in Latin America … eventually. Unfortunately, the deals announced today have been in place for months, and have been under negotiation for years, so the impact of the new group won’t fully be seen until at least next January. But, that being said, lets take a look at what we know about the 2026 class.

• Baseball America Scouting reports on Nats 2026 IFA class
• Fangraphs “The Board” top 100 2026 IFA signings with links to scouting reports
• Official Nats announcement of the 2026 class

We’ve signed 15 players today. Like several classes on this list, our 2026 class can be categorized as a “Stars and Scrubs” class, albeit with our $6.6M pool being spread out to four $1m+ players instead of putting it all on one guy as we did in the Cruz/Vaquero classes. So, we’re going to spend around $6M of that $6.6M on the top four guys. Right now, BA and Fangraphs slightly differ in the $$ figures, but I’ll use Fangraphs/Baseball America overall class ranks below (fangraphs first, then BA)

• #12/#18: Suarez, Isalas, a true CF from the DR with a $1.9M bonus
• #13/#16 Serrano, Samil*, corner OF from the DR with a $1.97M bonus.
• #45/#52: Ramirez, Angel#, corner OF from the DR $1M bonus.
• #52/#53: Duran, Juan, corner OF from the DR, $1M bonus.

So, these four guys are basically going to be the class. The BA site lists a 5th player of note, yet another outfielder named Jawel Garcia who will probably get a few hundred thousand of the remaining amount.

I’ll just point out the obvious. Our 5 best IFAs this year … are all Outfielders?? Uh, only three can play a day guys. The BA link says Ramirez was a short stop until very recently, so maybe they return him to the dirt, and a couple of these guys are a bit taller so maybe you stash them at 1B so everyone can play .. but this seems kind of short-sighted to spent all this money and purposely put the DSL manager in the position of juggling the lineup from day one to play everyone.

Hot on the heels of the Baseball America top 30 list, we get the fantasy-first Prospects1500 site’s list for the system. They’re the only shop that earnestly ranks to #50, and we often get a decent look into the down-stream prospects in our system in the eyes of an independent evaluator.

Prospects1500 is unabashedly a Fantasy site; they say it right in the subheading: “Your comprehensive dynasty League resource.” It caters to hard-core Fantasy baseball leagues who do dynasty drafting, meaning you draft prospects and keep them on your roster like a “real” team. I’ve run out of people even willing to do basic Fantasy Baseball, let alone the diehards who would do a keeper league with 18yr olds who may not show up for 7 years. That being said, it colors their rankings a bit. You’re going to see ceiling valued more than floor, you’re going to see positions of scarcity (i.e. Catchers) pushed up a bit as compared to things like corner OFs, and you’re going to see future save projections come into play with high-leverage relievers. We’ll cover them a bit below.

Here’s the top 50, along with their ranking for the same players last year at this time.

Current Rank	Jan 2025 Rank	First Name	Last Name	Position
1	3	Travis	Sykora	RHP (Starter)
2	Not yet Drafted	Eli	Willits	SS
3	5	Jarlin	Susana	RHP (Starter)
4	Not yet Traded for	Harry	Ford	C
5	Not yet Traded for	Luis	Perales	RHP (Starter)
6	17	Luke	Dickerson	SS/CF
7	4	Seaver	King	SS
8	7	Alex	Clemmey	LHP (Starter)
9	Not yet Drafted	Coy	James	SS
10	Not yet Drafted	Landon	Harmon	RHP (Starter)
11	Not yet Drafted	Ethan	Petry	1B/OF (Corner)
12	6	Yohandy	Morales	3B
13	Not yet Traded for	Sean Paul	Linan	RHP (Starter)
14	21	Angel	Feliz	SS/3B
15	37	Jackson	Kent	LHP (Starter)
16	Not yet Traded for	Christian	Franklin	OF (CF)
17	12	Caleb	Lomavita	C
18	Not yet IFA signed	German	Marconi	SS
19	Not yet Traded for	Eriq	Swan	RHP (Starter)
20	Not yet IFA signed	Brayan	Cortesia	SS
21	Not yet Drafted	Miguel	Sime Jr.	RHP (Starter)
22	Not yet Drafted	Sam	Peterson	OF (CF)
23	13	Victor	Hurtado	OF (Corner)
24	20	Andrew	Pinckney	OF (Corner)
25	18	Cristian	Vaquero	OF (CF)
26	Not yet Traded for	Ronny	Cruz	SS
27	Not yet Drafted	Yoel	Tejeda Jr.	RHP (Starter)
28	Not Yet rule-5 Drafted	Griff	McGarry	RHP (Starter)
29	11	Cayden	Wallace	2B/3B
30	Not yet Traded for	Josh	Randall	RHP (Starter)
31	Not yet IFA signed	Nauris	De La Cruz	OF (Corner)
32	45	Jorgelys	Mota	SS
33	44	Phillips	Glasser	SS
34	Not yet IFA signed	Daniel	Hernandez	C
35	outside top 50	Riley	Cornelio	RHP (Starter)
36	Not yet Traded for	Browm	Martinez	OF (CF)
37	26	Kevin	Bazzell	C
38	Not Yet MLFA signed	Orelvis	Martinez	2B
39	Not yet Traded for	Jake	Eder	LHP (Starter)
40	Not yet Traded for	R.J.	Sales	RHP (Starter)
41	16	Andry	Lara	RHP (Starter)
42	15	Elijah	Green	OF (CF)
43	outside top 50	Dashyll	Tejeda	OF (CF)
44	42	Sir Jamison	Jones	C
45	39	Andrew	Alvarez	LHP (Starter)
46	22	Kevin	Made	SS
47	28	Jose	Feliz	RHP (Starter)
48	33	Marquis	Grissom	RHP (Reliever)
49	Not Yet Drafted	Boston	Smith	C/OF
50	36	T.J.	White	OF (Corner)

Like with the BA list, lots of churn here:

• Only 22 of this top 50 were even ranked last year.
• Of those 28 new guys:
  • 8 are new draftees
  • 4 are Jan 2025 IFA signings
  • 10 are Trade Acquisitions
  • 1 is an off-season MLFA signing (Orelvis Martinez)
  • 1 is our Rule-5 acquisition in December (McGarry)
  • 2 were in our system last year just outside their top 50
• Of their top 50 last year? 18 of the 50 are no longer eligible:
  • 9 graduated/exhausted rookie eligibility
  • 4 hit MLFA status (De La Rosa, Acosta, Choi, Naranjo)
  • 2 were released (Baker, Quintana)
  • 1 was traded (Bennett)
  • 1 was a Rule5 pick we returned (Reifert … remember him?)
  • 1 was DFA’d and claimed (Brzycky)
• Furthermore, there were 8 guys ranked in last year’s top 50 who didn’t make it this time:
  • Tyler Stuart, #14 last year and unranked this year (probably the biggest “Whaaa?” in this ranking)
  • Rafael Ramirez Jr.
  • Orlando Ribalta
  • Armando Cruz
  • Seth Shuman
  • Brennar Cox
  • Andres Chapparo
  • Brandon Pimental

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Ok lets do some quick analysis of the list. Obviously I’m not going to talk about all 50, so i’ll scan down the list and hit some highlights

• Sykrora at #1. We just had a list that dropped him to #5, but these guys keep him at 1-1. It’s obviously a projection of him returning 100% to form and getting to the majors in 2027.
• The rest of the top5 as expected.
• Dickerson way too high at #6, based on his pro debut.
• I’d have put Clemmey above King and Dickerson based on what he accomplished at his age.
• Our three big prep bonus babies come in at #9, #10, and #21. BA had them #9, #11, and #19 so similar thinking.
• The first big surprise was having Linan all the way up at #13. I like Linan that high (I had him #11 on my post-2025 season list), but BA had him all the way down at #23. Big arm, young guy, but 3 DL trips in 2025 give some pause.
• Angel Feliz a bit lower than I’d like to see him at #14; I think he’s edge of the top 10.
• Jackson Kent, who got some criticism in the last post … is also #15 on this list, same ranking as BA.
• Another big surprise: Eriq Swan at #19. BA didn’t even have him in their top 30. I had him too high in my post-season first cut, and early 20s seems right.
• Sam Peterson, the darling of the BA list, down at #22. I think he should at least be in the mid teens.
• Hurtado at #23 when BA didn’t have him at all. Seems like a bonus amount ranking still. Same with Vaquero at #25.
• Wallace and Randall keep their spots in the top 30 here by the skin of their teeth. I think this is about right for both.
• They’ve got Mota too low: #32 when BA has him at #20.
• Glasser comes in at #33, likely depressed b/c he’s not projecting to be a huge fantasy star.
• Cornelio is probably too low at #35; the guy’s on the 40-man roster, which mean’s he’s almost guaranteed to produce in the majors in 2026.
• First mention of under-the-radar trade acquisition Browm Martinez (that name is going to drive me crazy). He’s at #36.
• MLFA signing Orelvis Martinez at #38: i’m not surprised we don’t see more MLFA edge prospects showing up. He turned 24 just after the season ended, having exhausted his 7 years of service in his prior club. He’s now completely in FA years ahead of where a college draftee would be thanks to the early signing of the IFA market.
• Andry Lara at #40. I mean, really? Is he a prospect at all anymore?
• Green stays on the list like fellow big $$ signees Vaquery and Hurtado.
• Andrew Alvarez way too low at #45 … he should be 20 spots higher.
• 2025 Draftee Boston Smith debuts on any prospect chart at #49 … thanks to his Catcher eligiblity.
• TJ White rounds up the list at #50 … for some reason. He hit .231 repeating High-A for the third year as a corner outfielder … I guess its b/c he’s still just 22.

Best players missing:

• Tyler Stuart, as discussed above
• Davian Garcia: solved low-A in his first pro season and held his own in high-A rotation for a few turns. I’ll take that over a reliever who got shelled in AAA. He’s 2 years younger than Swan and had better numbers than him .. but Swan is #19 and Garcia is in the 50s?
• Armando Cruz: I mean, if we’re ranking Hurtado, Vaquero and Green, might as well throw this guy in there as well.

The first big scouting shop just released their top 30 prospects for 2026, and it’s a doozy. There’s big deltas between theirs and what we know of so far from other shops, lots of recognition of players who had break-out seasons in 2025, and lots of new names from this time last year. Let’s take a look.

I’m going to add in their ranking from 2025 as part of the below table and part of the discussion.

Current Rank	Jan 2025 Rank	First Name	Last Name	Position
1	Not yet drafted	Eli	Willits	SS
2	3	Jarlin	Susana	RHP (Starter)
3	Not Yet Acquired	Harry	Ford	C
4	Not Yet Acquired	Luis	Perales	RHP (Starter)
5	2	Travis	Sykora	RHP (Starter)
6	6	Alex	Clemmey	LHP (Starter)
7	5	Seaver	King	SS
8	11	Luke	Dickerson	SS/CF
9	Not yet drafted	Coy	James	SS
10	15	Angel	Feliz	SS/3B
11	Not yet drafted	Landon	Harmon	RHP (Starter)
12	40	Sam	Peterson	OF (CF)
13	Not yet drafted	Ethan	Petry	1B/OF (Corner)
14	16	Andrew	Pinckney	OF (Corner)
15	36	Jackson	Kent	LHP (Starter)
16	22	Yohandy	Morales	3B
17	Not Yet IFA signed	German	Marconi	SS
18	8	Caleb	Lomavita	C
19	Not yet drafted	Miguel	Sime Jr.	RHP (Starter)
20	Outside top 40	Jorgelys	Mota	SS
21	Not yet drafted	Ronny	Cruz	SS
22	Not yet Acquired	Christian	Franklin	OF (CF)
23	Not yet Acquired	Sean Paul	Linan	RHP (Starter)
24	35	Yoel	Tejeda Jr.	RHP (Starter)
25	Outside top 40	Riley	Cornelio	RHP (Starter)
26	Outside top 40	Andrew	Alvarez	LHP (Starter)
27	Outside top 40	Phillips	Glasser	SS
28	Outside top 40	Nauris	De La Cruz	OF (Corner)
29	17	Brayan	Cortesia	SS
30	Not yet R5 drafted	Griff	McGarry	RHP (Starter)

So, Here’s some macro facts from just BA’s top 30 today versus one year ago:

• 12 of the 30 are new to the Organization since Jan 2025
  • 5 from the 2025 Draft (Willits, James, Harmon, Petry, Sime)
  • 5 from Trades (Ford, Perales, Franklin, Linan, Cruz
  • 1 from the 2025 IFA class (Marconi)
  • 1 from Rule-5 in December (McGarry)
• 2 of the top 30 were outside of the top 30 last year but in the “honorable mention” 30-40 range (Tejeda, Peterson)
• 5 of the top 30 were not listed in BA’s top 30 (or even their extended top 40) last year (Mota, Cornelio, Alvaraz, Glasser, and De La Cruz)
• 11 of LAST year’s top 30 are no longer eligible:
  • 9 Graduated with enough MLB time: Crews, House, Cavalli, Lile, Hassell, Millas, Rutledge, Nunez, Lord)
  • 1 have been traded (Bennett)
  • 1 were DFA’d and are gone (Brzycky)

So, for as much as I’ve criticized the player development of the Rizzo regime … that’s an awful lot of guys matriculating to the majors and being productive parts of the MLB team. Perhaps you can quibble about how much they’re “contributing,” but when you push 9 prospects to the MLB roster in one year … that’s a win. Of course, many of these guys are the ones who are supposed to be contributing: of these 11 graduates, six were 1st rounders and another three were 2nd rounders. I have harped ad naseum about the Rizzo regime “blowing” basically every 2nd round pick (and a bunch of 1st rounders) for a decade straight … but now some of them are actually making it.

Ok, so that being said, lets run through some comments/observations on this list.

• #1 Willits has either been #1 or #2 on every ranking since his arrival. No surprise he’s top here. BA has him arriving 2028 at age 20, which is CJ Abrams’ last year before FA. Something tells me we’re not going to get to that point with CJ on this team, which means we’ll be putting a stop-gap at SS (Nunez?) or maybe Willits blasts through the minors Bryce Harper style and is starting at age 19.
• BA keeps Susana just above new high-profile acquisitions Ford and Perales despite his injuries last year. Other shops have him perhaps in-between the two.
• Sykora slots in at #5, just below the two guys we’ve just acquired. That implies he was #3 before we got these two guys in trade. I took some grief for dropping Sykora to 5th on my own list at the end of 2025’s season … when I republish that ranking in April I probably will adjust it slightly.
• There’s probably an implicit “gap” between our current top 5 and even to #6, Clemmey. The next 5 ranked guys are all relatively young as compared to the AA and AAA heavy top 5.
• King comes in at #7 … probably on the back of a few hot weeks in the AFL. That seems to be consistent where other shops have him ranked right now. I was very down on King in September, and now have rebounded, perhaps drinking the AFL kool-aid. I mean, we want the guy to succeed right?
• Dickerson somehow retains his top 10 ranking despite an awful season at the plate in 2025 and faces a positional conundrum shortly: who plays SS for Low-A next season? Luke may be finding another position. Luckily we already knew he was like a SS/CF coming out of HS.
• Our big money RHP 2025 prep kids (James, Harmon, Sime) come in ranked #9, #11, and #19 respectively. James (the 5th rounder) is highest here, over 3rd rounder Harmon (both got the same $$ figure). I know some pundits struggle to rank these kinds of guys: prep RHP are the riskiest of risky in the sport.
• The first big out of nowhere name: Sam Peterson at #12, one slot ahead of Petry. This guy blew up in 2025, nearly posting a 3/4/5 slash line in High-A as an 8th round pick the year before. That’d be some found gold right there if he continues to contribute. Also: 18/0 SB/CS in High-A and he plays a true CF. Sounds like a Jacob Young-type (an unheralded 7th round defense-first college bat).
• Pinckney at #14 just seems high. I just don’t see where he goes with this organization. He’s, what, 8th on the OF depth chart? (Wood, Hassell, Crews, Young, Wiemer, Lile, Franklin ahead of him): only 3 of them can play at a time. Seems like we should move him.
• Lomavita at #18 seems a bit low, and the acquisition of Ford really changes the trajectory of the entirely of our Catcher depth chart right now. I don’t think Ford is on the MLB team to open the season with just a few MLB ABs, but he’ll be starting in AAA. Which means Millas is either on the MLB bench or on the AAA bench. I’m not sure where Adams fits in; he signed a split contract (meaning he has negotiated his minor league salary), meaning they’re anticipating going to the minors … but he has no options left, which means he’ll have to pass through waivers to get off the 40-man. Should be interesting to see how this shakes out. My initial guess? Ruiz/Millas in MLB, Ford/Adams in AAA, Lomavita/Romero back in AA, Bazzell/Rombach in High-A, with all the starters just waiting to see if Ruiz can keep his starting job.
• Next up on the surprise inclusion list: Jorgelys Mota, 3B in Low-A. He’s starting to get noticed. He’s also part of a major log-jam in Low-A: the following guys are all solid prospects in the 18-20 year old range who play on the right side of the infield: Willits, Dickerson, Feliz and Mota. That’s 4 guys for 2 spots in Low-A where they all belong. Maybe one of them is pushed up to High-A, or maybe they all juggle ABs and IPs in Fredericksburg, maybe Dickerson goes to CF.
• Cornelio’s great 2025 finally gets him onto the BA list at #25. He was the Nats Minor League Pitcher of the Year and deservedly gets included in the BA top 30.
• Alvarez, who has almost never been considered a prospect, comes in at #26. I’m super curious to see how Alvarez’ 2026 shakes out. Is he really in the mix for a MLB rotation spot? I mean, Small Sample Size of course but in 5 late season starts he had a 2.31 ERA that was decently supported by his FIP (3.39). Do you stick him in the bullpen? Does he have the right kind of stuff to be in a MLB pen? Or, do you put him in AAA again to keep him stretched out? I dunno. Good problem to have I suppose.
• Phillip Glasser gets ranked by a major shop for the first time ever, after his Nats Minor League Hitter of the year season in 2025. He’ll be a starting corner OF in AAA in 2026, but he’s got the same problem Pinckney does: positional congestion. Of course, Lile looked completely blocked at the beginning of 2025 as well, then hit so well you kind of have to find a spot for him in the lineup. So, things can change.
• Nauris De La Cruz gets the #29 spot after mostly solving DSL pitching this year; final slash line .294/.448/.450. He’ll be state-side in the FCL to start 2026. Hopefully Florida food will help him fill out (6’0″ and 160?!).
• Our new rule-5 pick Griff McGarry comes in at #30; he should make the MLB bullpen and graduate pretty quickly.

Notable Players left off the BA top 30:

• Eriq Swan: I may have the trade-acquisition over-rated on my list.
• Orelvis Martinez, AAA MLFA signing who MLBpipeline has at like #20 right now
• Andry Lara: I’ve been down on him for a while but many still hold out hope.
• Daniel Hernandez: an interesting omission given that he’s as high as #13 elsewhere and was a big-money IFA signing, but he struggled in his first DSL Season (don’t worry, he was super young upon signing)
• Cristhian Vaquero: I’m guessing he’s still hanging around in the 30-40 range on BA’s list, like he does on others.
• Josh Randall: Edge of the top 30 type on many lists.
• Tyler Stuart: TJ knocks him off for a bit; hopefully can get back.
• Cayden Wallace: hard to believe how far he’s fallen. Maybe he can put together a solid season and regain some prospect status. Would love to see him hit to his capabilities and fill the 2B slot in the bigs so we can move some guys around.
• Victor Hurtado: that $2.8M in 2024 IFA bonus not looking good
• Elijah Green; phew he’s getting up there as our biggest 1st round bust ever, if not already there.

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Writer’s note: corrected Ronny Cruz’ acquisition method in the top section; he was acquired in the Soroka trade, not via the draft. Thanks to @Will in the comments for the correction.

Hello my fellow Nats fans. Happy New Year from all of us (i.e. “me”) at Nationals Arm Race. I posted this on 1/1/26, then the site immediately took a dump, but seems to be back now, so lets try this again.

Thanks for continuing to read what I have to write, to have awesome conversations in the comments, and to be fans of the sport and the team.

I wondered what would be a useful post for 1/1/26. I think i’ll ask some open ended questions and ask for predictions in the comments.

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Topic 1: Will the Nats Executive Youth Movement work?

I have yet to write at all about the youth movement in the Nats front office because, well, It’s certainly worked in the past for other/better franchises than ours (Theo Epstein was 28 when he took over Boston in 2002, Jon Daniels the same age when he took over Texas in 2005, and both had great success), so I don’t really have anything to say there from a criticism or support perspective.

Now, perhaps the combination of all three of these key figures being so young is concerning.

• Paul Toboni, 35, as President of Baseball Operations
• Anirudh Kilambi, 31, as General Manager
• Blake Butera, 33, as Manager (youngest in 50 years)

Toboni came from Boston, Kilambi came from Philly, and Butera came from Tampa. All three of those franchises are in far better places than we are, and each brings much needed experience to this team.

• Toboni’s role in Boston? Amateur Scouting and Player Development
• Kilambi’s role in Philadelphia? R&D, Data, Analytics, and Player analysis
• Butera’s role in Tampa? Senior Director of Player Development and head of their Farm system

See a trend here? I do. So the question is this: What do you see this brain trust doing with the team going forward? And, do you think it will move the team in a positive direction?

Here’s my 2 cents: The Rizzo regime blew nearly a decade of drafts and left this team with the gaping hole of player development that it’s just starting to get out of. Unfortunately, he had to trade practically every major star we had in 2021 and 2022 to cover for these player development failures … and now those players are starting to push into Arbitration. Now we have a new approach heavy on data (the Nats were not exactly considered at the forefront of data usage in the league), heavy on development (where we’ve failed badly for a while), and heavy on amateur scouting (which Rizzo, despite his pedigree coming up as a scout in Arizona, grew out of in his later years).

I sense this group is going to start over, probably has pitched the ownership group a 5-year plan starting with this year’s IFA crop to be announced in a couple weeks, and then moving onto the 2026 draft, and in the meantime will trade most anything not nailed down for more prospects to help build from the bottom up. This also signals to me that the MLB product will get worse before it gets better. And it leads to my second topic:

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Topic 2: Will Gore and Abrams be on the roster on Opening Day 2026?

Clearly the industry expects Gore to be moved this off-season, with his name atop most trade candidate analysis pieces. But … he didn’t move at the Winter Meetings when the buzz was hottest. The best time to get the most value out of a player is either:

• At the Trade Deadline, when contending teams make irrational decisions in pursuit of playoffs
• At the Winter Meetings, when everyone’s in the same building and you can play teams off each other.

Since he didn’t move at the Winter Meetings, I’m now thinking Gore sticks with us until next trade deadline and we roll the dice he stays healthy and improves the first half of next season.

Now, as for Abrams? He’s one of the worst fielding SS in the league but produces at a solid 106-107 wRC+ level the last two seasons. The SS free agent crop this off-season is pretty weak … but its not like the league can’t look up Fangraphs fielding stats themselves and see what the rest of us see. Nonetheless, His trade value is as a SS, and he needs to stick there until some rival executive swallows his analysis and says to himself, “ok we’ll deal with the defense to get the offense.” I’ve seen other blogs make the argument that Nasim Nunez should start at SS for us in 2026 and we should move Abrams to 2nd … The dumbest thing you could possibly do with a tradeable asset is to make him LESS valuable in trade by moving him to a less desirable position.

So, all that said, I’m guessing Abrams also sticks with us, plays out the first half, and we look to move him to a team that could use him at either SS or 2B and let THEM make the argument to him that its time to move off SS. I mean, if you’re Abrams and you’re looking at a 100-loss team that’s going to be this way for another couple years, and you get an offer to join a contender but you have to move to 2B … you’d have to be a fool not to jump.

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Topic #3: Are we going to see more Starter Acquisitions for the 2026 Rotation?

At the end of the 2025 season in my 2026 rotation wrap-up/prediction post, I thought the 2026 rotation would look like this:

• Gore, Grey, Cavalli, a Free Agent, and one from Alvarez/Irvin/Parker/Williams for the 5th.

Since then, we’ve made some moves. We signed a FA (Foster Griffen), we picked a Rule-5 Starter (Griff McGarry), and we’ve acquired a hard-throwing starter in trade with MLB experience (Luis Perales), all three of whom change this equation. I think if you laid out the Nats 40-man starter depth chart right now it’d look something like this:

• Gore, Grey, Cavalli
• Griffin locked in as the #4
• Williams (as much as I hate to admit it) the early favorite for #5, if only to see if he gets some trade value in his walk year.
• McGarry as Rule-5 is making the team, but seems likely to be in a SS/LR role. Maybe he beats out Williams for the 5th starter.
• Alvarez proved he can pitch in the Majors and as a lefty gives the rotation/bullpen flexibility. Or, maybe he wins the 5th starter role and puts both Williams and McGarry in the pen.
• Irvin, Parker, Lord: all seem better suited for the bullpen. All have options but it’d seem foolish to put any of them back in AAA.
• Herz to the DL
• Perales, Cornelio, Eder as the 1-2-3 in AAA. We just lost Lao to Japan apparently, though I’ve only seen that on social media posts and not officially in the transaction pages.

So, the salient question for the front office is this: Are you happy with this configuration, or are you making more moves? If they move Gore pre-season, that almost guarantees a Rule-5 pick and/or Alvarez is in the rotation to start the year, unless we want to roll the dice with more 5.75 ERA production from one of Irvin/Parker/Lord.

I sense this front office isn’t done making trades or signings yet.

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Anyway, Happy New Year and hope to get your thoughts on these three topics to kick off January.

Hey team … Luke Erickson let me know the comments aren’t working. My apologies.

The whole blog was down last week, but came up after updating the version. Now everything is updated, and the comments don’t work. I’ve got my hosting provider looking at it now.

Apologies; look forward to chatting with everyone ASAP. I’ll re-post my last one once we’re through this and can engage again.

Hello my fellow Nats fans. Happy New Year from all of us (i.e. “me”) at Nationals Arm Race.

Thanks for continuing to read what I have to write, to have awesome conversations in the comments, and to be fans of the sport and the team.

I wondered what would be a useful post for 1/1/26. I think i’ll ask some open ended questions and ask for predictions in the comments.

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Topic 1: Will the Nats Executive Youth Movement work?

I have yet to write at all about the youth movement in the Nats front office because, well, It’s certainly worked in the past for other/better franchises than ours (Theo Epstein was 28 when he took over Boston in 2002, Jon Daniels the same age when he took over Texas in 2005, and both had great success), so I don’t really have anything to say there from a criticism or support perspective.

Now, perhaps the combination of all three of these key figures being so young is concerning:

• Paul Toboni, 35, as President of Baseball Operations
• Anirudh Kilambi, 31, as General Manager
• Blake Butera, 33, as Manager (youngest in 50 years)

Toboni came from Boston, Kilambi came from Philly, and Butera came from Tampa. All three of those franchises are in far better places than we are, and each brings much needed experience to this team.

• Toboni’s role in Boston? Amateur Scouting and Player Development
• Kilambi’s role in Philadelphia? R&D, Data, Analytics, and Player analysis
• Butera’s role in Tampa? Senior Director of Player Development and head of their Farm system

See a trend here? I do. So the question is this: What do you see this brain trust doing with the team going forward? And, do you think it will move the team in a positive direction?

Here’s my 2 cents: The Rizzo regime blew nearly a decade of drafts and left this team with the gaping hole of player development that it’s just starting to get out of. Unfortunately, he had to trade practically every major star we had in 2021 and 2022 to cover for these player development failures … and now those players are starting to push into Arbitration. Now we have a new approach heavy on data (the Nats were not exactly considered at the forefront of data usage in the league), heavy on development (where we’ve failed badly for a while), and heavy on amateur scouting (which Rizzo, despite his pedigree coming up as a scout in Arizona, grew out of in his later years).

I sense this group is going to start over, probably has pitched the ownership group a 5-year plan starting with this year’s IFA crop to be announced in a couple weeks, and then moving onto the 2026 draft, and in the meantime will trade most anything not nailed down for more prospects to help build from the bottom up. This also signals to me that the MLB product will get worse before it gets better. And it leads to my second topic:

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Topic 2: Will Gore and Abrams be on the roster on Opening Day 2026?

Clearly the industry expects Gore to be moved this off-season, with his name atop most trade candidate analysis pieces. But … he didn’t move at the Winter Meetings when the buzz was hottest. The best time to get the most value out of a player is either:

• At the Trade Deadline, when contending teams make irrational decisions in pursuit of playoffs
• At the Winter Meetings, when everyone’s in the same building and you can play teams off each other.

Now, I’m thinking Gore sticks with us til next trade deadline and we roll the dice he stays healthy and improves the first half of next season.

Now, as for Abrams? He’s one of the worst fielding SS in the league but produces at a solid 106-107 wRC+ level the last two seasons. The SS free agent crop this off-season is pretty weak … but its not like the league can’t look up Fangraphs fielding stats themselves and see what the rest of us see. Nonetheless, His trade value is as a SS, and he needs to stick there until some rival executive swallows his analysis and says to himself, “ok we’ll deal with the defense to get the offense.” I’ve seen other blogs make the argument that Nasim Nunez should start at SS for us in 2026 and we should move Abrams to 2nd … The dumbest thing you could possibly do with a tradeable asset is to make him LESS valuable in trade by moving him to a less desirable position.

So, all that said, I’m guessing Abrams also sticks with us, plays out the first half, and we look to move him to a team that could use him at either SS or 2B and let THEM make the argument to him that its time to move off SS. I mean, if you’re Abrams and you’re looking at a 100-loss team that’s going to be this way for another couple years, and you get an offer to join a contender but you have to move to 2B … you’d have to be a fool not to jump.

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Topic #3: Are we going to see more Starter Acquisitions for the 2026 Rotation?

At the end of the 2025 season in my 2026 rotation wrap-up/prediction post, I thought the 2026 rotation would look like this:

• Gore, Grey, Cavalli, a Free Agent, and one from Alvarez/Irvin/Parker for the 5th.

Since then, we’ve made some moves. We signed a FA (Foster Griffen), we picked a Rule-5 Starter (Griff McGarry), and we’ve acquired a hard-throwing starter in trade with MLB experience (Luis Perales), all three of whom change this equation. I think if you laid out the Nats 40-man starter depth chart right now it’d look something like this:

• Gore, Grey, Cavalli
• Griffin locked in as the #4
• Williams (as much as I hate to admit it) the early favorite for #5, if only to see if he gets some trade value in his walk year.
• McGarry as Rule-5 is making the team, but seems likely to be in a SS/LR role. Maybe he beats out Williams for the 5th starter.
• Alvarez proved he can do the same and as a lefty gives the rotation/bullpen flexibility. Or, maybe he wins the 5th starter role and puts both Williams and McGarry in the pen.
• Irvin, Parker, Lord: all seem better suited for the bullpen
• Herz to the DL
• Perales, Cornelio, Eder as the 1-2-3 in AAA. We just lost Lao to Japan apparently, though I’ve only seen that on social media posts and not officially in the transaction pages.

So, the salient question for the front office is this: Are you happy with this configuration, or are you making more moves? If they move Gore pre-season, that almost guarantees a Rule-5 pick and/or Alvarez is in the rotation to start the year, unless we want to roll the dice with more 5.75 ERA production from one of Irvin/Parker/Lord.

I sense this front office isn’t done making trades or signings yet.

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Anyway, Happy New Year and hope to get your thoughts on these three topics to kick off January.

The Nats new GM reached back out to his old team and made a trade you just don’t see that often; prospect for prospect, two minor leaguers (essentially) for each other, both of whom are at the cusp of MLB production.

Jake Bennett heads to Boston straight up for Luis Perales a 22yr old RHP starter who got a cup of coffee with Boston this year.

From a prospect ranking perspective, MLBpipeline had Bennett as our #11 and now has Perales as our new #5, so in theory our farm system improves marginally. In reality, whether it was Bennett or Perales in our AAA rotation to start 2026, both would be expected to matriculate up this year. Perales is only 22 as an international signee, and has more upside/more risk, while Bennett is considered more floor/more consistent.

Keith Law had some interesting analysis in the immediate wake of the trade, noting that Bennett (and the Nats pitching dev staff) had done little to improve upon his offerings in his time here (either in terms of velocity or adding breaking pitches), whereas Boston has had success in helping its arms improve. Something to think about; Boston must have seen something it thinks it can improve upon with Bennett, while Toboni rolls the dice on a higher upside arm that he’s familiar with.

Here’s what our rough SP depth chart looks like right now on the 40-man:

• Likely opening day rotation: Gore, Grey, Cavalli, Alvarez/Irvin/Parker competition
• Likely starters->bullpen: McGarry, Lord, Williams
• To the DL: Herz
• To AAA: Perales, Lao, Eder, Cornelio

That’s not a bad AAA rotation to start, adding to it Luckham, Shuman, and Ogasawara as 5th candidates

Anyway, odds are we’re not done seeing trades. Big question is whether he will move Gore now or try to leverage desperate teams at the 2026 trade deadline … and if he can convince other teams that Abrams is really a shortstop.

So, now that we know we’re picking #11 (which … we may have already known anyway), lets take a quick peek at some of the names being thrown around at the top of the 2026 draft. December 2025 is a very long way from June 2026, but some of these names will remain at the top of the board.

Here’s a first look at the 2026 draft class. I’ll split the players into college and prep, and delineate between players who have consistently been in the early 1-1 talk versus those who have fallen out of the discussions.

Right now the class is looking very hitter heavy, with most of the names thrown around at the top being position players. Cholowsky is getting some separation for 1-1, but probably changes as we get closer to the draft, since it is the Chicago “Cheapskate” White Sox picking 1-1, and they may very well be looking at spreading out the dollars and fighting with his representative about a ten-figure signing bonus.

More likely, we’ll see someone at #11 who was previously in the top-5 mix but who fell for some reason or another, not unlike how we ended up with Anthony Rendon in 2012 or Brady House in 2021. Rendon is an interesting call back: he was also basically the best hitter in the college game as a sophomore (as was Cholowsky last year), then had an injury plagued junior season that dropped him to us; might happen again.

College Upper 1st round names in the mix for 1-1

• Roch Cholowsky, SS, UCLA. D1-AA 2025 as Soph. BA’s College POTY in 2025 as a Sophomore, clear 1-1 candidate in early 2026 draft considerations. Only 60-grade guy on the board from ProspectsLive. #1 on MLBpipeline’s first list, called consensus 1-1.
• Justin Lebron, SS, Alabama: .316/.421/.636 line with 18 home runs and 17 stolen bases in 2025. #3 on MLBP’s first board.
• Drew Burress, CF, Georgia Tech. D1-AA 2025 as Soph. #2 on ProspectsLive Sept2025 board, undersized 5’9″ but good EV, lefty, fast. Slight concerns on CF vs Corner. Some disagreement in the industry on rank; some have top 10, others further down.
• AJ Gracia, OF (corner) UVA via duke: big corner-bopper bat profile, transferring to UVA from Duke with their new coach, starting to get top-5 buzz.

College Candidates who have fallen out of  1-1 contention

• Liam Peterson, RHP, Florida; leading college Arm of the class. 6’5″ upper 90s. 2x Team USA pitcher. Up to #4 on BA’s list Oct2025, but #13 on MLBpipeline’s list.
• Derek Curiel, OF, LSU:  .345/.470/.519 as starting Freshman/lead off hitter in 2025, draft-eligible as Sophomore in 2026. Playing CF for LSU in 2026, should stay there as long/lanky 6’2 180 guy. power limited, but great hit tool.
• Cameron Flukey, RHP Coastal Carolina. D1 3rd team AA 2025 as Soph, Fri starter for CCU CWS team. 2nd best arm in pitching-weak draft class.
• Chris Hacopian, SS, Texas A&M; 3B in the pros, 6’1″ some defensive questions but big bat.
• Daniel Cuvet, 3B, Miami. D1-AA 2025 as Soph.
• Evan Dempsey, 2-way FGCU: D1-AA 2025 as Soph.
• Lucas Moore, OF, Louisville: D1-2nd team AA 2025 as Soph

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High School Upper 1st round names in the mix for 1-1

• Grady Emerson, SS, Argyle HS (TX). Texas commit. BA’s #1 ranked HS 2026 draft prospect in 2025. U18 USA baseball team 2025. Remains top HS prep player in MLBPipeline’s first rankings.
• Jacob Lombard, SS, Gulliver Prep HS (FL); UMiami commit, big baseball factory HS. Projected top 10, rising.

High School guys whose stock has fallen:

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• Tyler Spangler, SS, De La Salle HS, Concord (CA): Stanford commit, 6’3″ free swinger, may move to 3B, solid defender. Up to #3 on BA’s oct2025 board
• Kevin Roberts, RHP/OF Jackson Prep (FL): same HS as Konnor Griffen, huge guy 6’5″ Florida commit, primarily hitter but can hit 94-95 on mound as well.
• Rocco Maniscalco SS/2B (Oxford, Ala., HS). Reclassified to 2026, won’t turn 17 until May 2025, super young.
• Tyler Spangler, SS, De La Salle HS, Concord, Calif.
• Brady Harris, a prep OF from Jacksonville committed to Florida who is a power-hitting plus defender

sources:

• D1Baseball 2025 All Americans June 2025
• CBSsports/RJ Anderson Names to Know at top 2026 draft candidates 7/15/25
• BA’s first 2026 mock draft, July 2025.
• BA’s 2026 Top 100 Draft Board as of July 2025.
• ProspectsLive Sept 2025 Top college guys
• USA Baseball U18 roster for 2025
• ProspectsLive Oct 2025 Top College guys.
• BA’s Oct2025 top 100 Updates
• MLB Pipeline’s Dec 2025 top 100 draft candidates

The next stop on the off-season transaction bus is the “Non Tender Deadline,” by where players under club control (whether it be pre-arbitration or arbitration-eligible) need to be offered contracts (tendered) by 11/21/25 or else they officially get cut-loose and become free agents. The players don’t have to SIGN said contracts, just be offered one.

Its the same and DFA’ing a guy, of which we’ve already done a ton of so far this off-season. In fact, technically every single pre-Arb player is a tender decision this week as well, though only the Arb-eligible guys are being analyzed here.

So, do we actually have any non-tender candidates on the roster at this point? Yeah we do.

Lets run through the arbitration-eligible players from high-to-low 2025 salary and make some guesses.

Resouces in use to write this:

• Cots for 2025 salaries
• MLBTraderumors for 2026 arbitration estimates.
• Also, since this is the first time we really start talking about Options w/r/t player roster flexibility, here’s Roster Resource and the list of players’ options.
• Here’s the Big Board for depth chart squinting

Like last year, we had 9 arb-eligible candidates to discuss heading into the off-season. The team DFA’d a couple of non-tender candidates early in Alfaro and Thompson, both of whom refused outright and are on the open market. Of the remaining seven, here’s some thoughts (they’re listed in order of 2025 salary):

• Luis Garcia: $4.5M in 2025, projected for $7M in 2026 and still has a 4th Arb year thanks to just hitting the Super-2 cutoff. RJ Anderson at CBSsports listed Garcia as one of the 10 biggest non-tender decisions any team faces, and for good reason. $7M for what he gives us seems like a lot. He’s barely league average in OPS+, had a .289 OBP last year, gives us really, really bad defense (-17 DRS in 2025 … as a 2nd baseman?!), and has had “challenges” on the base paths and showing hustle. He’s probably more suited to play 1B … but you don’t put a guy with a .701 OPS figure at 1B. Another wrinkle: Garcia has zero options remaining, which doesn’t really mean that much since he’s clearly entrenched in the lineup, but it does remove any 26-man roster flexibility. However, if you cut Garcia, who are you replacing him with? Tena? Nunez? We have three guys at AA who could have stepped up in 2025 (Made, King, Wallace) and made a play for 2B, but all three need more minor league time. So, for me, for the time being I think he gets tendered and 2026 turns into his make or break season, unless the FO is committed to buying a replacement.
• MacKenzie Gore: $2.89M in 2025, projected for $4.7M in 2026. I’m slightly surprised Gore’s projected arb salary is this low; ask yourself what he’d get on the open market, right now. He’s our most valuable trade chip, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him part of a big GM-meeting bonanza trade. The 2025 all star is a lock to be tendered.
• Josiah Gray: $1.35M in 2025, projected for $1.35M again in 2026. Miss a year, pick right back up where you were. I guess Gray has no real recourse to demand more than $1.35M in salary after a year where he was paid that to basically recover from surgery. No real discussion here; obviously a 2nd or 3rd starter for $1.35M is a bargain, even if he ends up doing a 95 ERA+.
• Riley Adams: $850k in 2025, projected for $1.5M in 2026. There’s certainly a lot of animosity amongst some readers here towards Adams and his 59 OPS+ given that we have Millas, and have had Millas, waiting in AAA for years. Certainly Adams did himself no favors when he couldn’t step up and take the catcher job upon Ruiz’ concussion issues last year. Instead, Millas came up and slugged to a 127 OPS+ figure before breaking his index finger in mid August, ending his 2025 season. However, the truth is that we can’t depend on Ruiz right now, and it seems short-sighted to cut one of the only 3 catchers you have on the 40-man roster and the next closest legitimate catching prospect is a 2024 draftee in Lomavita, even if he was decent in AA. If you cut Adams, you’re basically guaranteed to be shopping for a backup Catcher on the FA market, and can you get something better than Adams there? I think you tender him for insurance, and if you find a better insurance policy who you can option to AAA as needed, you cut him at that point.
• CJ Abrams: $780k in 2025, projecting to $5.6M in 1st year of Arb. No surprise here; he basically had an identical year at the plate in 2025 as he had in 2024 when he was an All Star, only this year he didn’t manage to get himself sent home from school for misbehavior at season’s end. Like his double play partner Garcia, he’s awful defensively (-6 DRS, -11 total zone) with a slew of throwing errors, and it seems like it’s just a matter of time before he moves to 2B (though it may take a couple years, since all our best SS prospects are in Low-A). In the meantime, obviously you tender the guy.
• Cade Cavalli: $760k in 2025, projecting to $1.3M in 2026 first year of arb. Hard to believe, but he’s already arbitration eligible. This is what happens when you let a guy do all his injury rehab on the60-day DL. As for tendering, no argument here; he’s going to be in the rotation, he’s a 1st rounder, and he’s a huge part of the future.
• Jake Irvin. $774k in 2025, projecting to $3.3M in 2026. Ouch; $3.3M for one of the worst starters in the league? $3.3M projection seems high; how did Gore only get $2.89M in his first Arb year with far better 2024 numbers? I dunno; this seems like its a high projection. Nonetheless, some are calling this a clear non-tender. Ok sure, but what choice does the team have? Yes he had awful numbers, but he took the ball every 5 days and ate up the innings. His first two seasons in the Majors weren’t half bad: 92 ERA+ and in 2024 a 1.19 WHIP in 33 starts. One would think he could get back to that level of performance, which would be a bargain at $3.3M. Personally I think the team should eventually put him in the bullpen if he can’t get back to a 4th starter level, and would a $3M middle reliever be too much? Perhaps. But, if you non-tender the guy you’re telling me that one of these healthy current 40-man arms is taking his place: Lord, Williams, Lao, Eder. Not seeing it. Unless the new GM is planning on a big FA splash, but then the team still needs relievers. I’d tender him.

So, of the 7 guys:

• Locks to tender: Gore, Gray, Abrams, Cavalli
• No good reason not to tender right now: Garcia, Irvin
• In jeopardy of being Non-Tendered: Adams

Conclusions: Honestly, for the arguments made above, I’d tender all seven right now, and if you can find a replacement for Adams or Irvin, so be it. I can’t see cutting loose all three of Garcia, Irvin, and Adams.

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Post non-tender deadline update: On 5pm on 11/21, the Nats announced they tendered all seven candidates. So, nobody cut loose yet.

Post Publishing updates: corrected Josiah Gray’s name per JohnC comment.;

Here’s a complete history of my predicted Rule-5 additions (with links to each prediction piece), along with the Actual players the team protected (with links as well), to show my (lack of) predictive powers. It’s updated for 2025 and has narratives about each class and how the players turned out later on with updates for the last year of performance.

• 2025: Predicted: Bennett, Franklin. maybe on Cornelio, weak maybe on Wallace. Actual: Bennett, Franklin, Cornelio
• 2024: Predicted: Lara, Hassell, maybes on Alvarez, Cronin. Actual: Lara, Hassell
• 2023: Predicted: Parker, Lara, and Herz (maybe on Henry) Actual: Parker, Herz, Henry, and Brzycky.
• 2022: Predicted: Cronin, maybes on Alu, Millas, Rutledge, Ferrer. Actual:  Cronin, Alu, De La Rosa, Rutledge, Ferrer, Irvin.
• 2021: Predicted Cate, Casey. Actual: Casey and Lee.
• 2020: Predicted Pineda, Adon. Actual Adon, Antuna.
• 2019: Predicted Braymer, Sharp.  Actual: just Braymer.  And…. Sharp got picked in the Rule-5 draft by Miami.
• 2018: Predicted: Bourque, Mills, Istler.  Actual: just Bourque.
• 2017: Predicted: Gutierrez, Gushue, Ward, Baez.  Actual: Gutierrez and Jefry Rodriguez.
• 2016: Predicted Voth, Bautista.  Actual: Voth, Bautista, Marmolejos, Read and Skole.
• 2015: Predicted Kieboom, Bostick, Marmolejos-Diaz.  Actual: Kieboom, Bostick, Lee
• 2014: Predicted Cole, Skole, Goodwin.  Hedged on Grace, Martin and Difo.  Actual: Cole, Goodwin, Difo, Grace.
• 2013: Predicted Solis as the only lock.  Possibles mentioned in order Barrett, Taylor, Grace, Holland.  Actual: Solis, Barrett, Taylor.
• 2012: Predicted Karns and McCoy, with Hood and Rosenbaum as maybes.  Actual: Karns and Davis.  I think we were all surprised by Davis’ inclusion, despite his good AA numbers that year.
• 2011: Predicted Norris as a lock, guessed strongly on Moore, Meyers and Komatsu.  Actual: Norris, Moore, Solano, Perez.    This was poor analysis on my part; I did not consider the IFAs newly eligible.
• 2010: Predicted Marrero, Meyers and Mandel.  Actual: Marrero, Carr and Kimball.
• 2009: pre-dates my blog and thus no predictions, but Actual was Jaime, Thompson and Severino.
• 2008: I might be wrong, but I don’t see any evidence of the team protecting *anyone* prior to the Rule-5 draft.  A bit of an indictment of the farm system at the time, I’d say 🙂

How many of the above players who were added to “save” them from the Rule-5 draft actually turned into impactful players for the Nationals? Lets work backwards:

• 2025: Bennett, Franklin, Cornelio: too early, we’ll revisit next November.
• 2024: Lara, Hassell. both made it to the majors in 2025; Hassell ended up sticking on the roster for a while as basically an extra outfielder covering for injury, but struggled at the plate. Lara got absolutely shelled in the majors, and didn’t do much better in AAA, and I’m not sure what the plan is for him going forward.
• 2023: Parker, Herz, Henry, and Brzycky. The fact that we got two MLB SPs the next year makes this the greatest Nats Rule5 draft ever, by a sizeable margin, even if neither Parker or Herz turned into awesome starters. A huge portion of these Rule-5 addition guys sit on the 40-man for 2-3 years, stalled out in the minors, but not this year. Parker got called up to cover for Grey and did spectacularly, giving the team 29 starts at a 94 ERA+ figure in 2024. He stepped back a bit in 2025, but may be a decent bullpen option going forward. Herz did something similar, coming up to cover for Williams and giving the team 19 starts with a 97 ERA+ figure, but blew out his elbow in ST 2025. Both were fantastic rule-5 additions and are solid candidates for the rotation for years to come. Henry converted to relief and looked for a while like a decent 7th/8th inning guy, but still has some room to grow. Meanwhile, Brzycky came back from injury and pitched his way up to AAA, but curiously his K/9 was way down and he wasn’t nearly as impactful as one thought; the team tried to sneak him off the 40-man in Nov 2025 and he got claimed.
• 2022: Cronin, Alu, De La Rosa, Rutledge, Ferrer, Irvin. Some good, some bad so far out of this crew. The Good: Irvin spent most of the last three years in the rotation, even if he struggled in 2025. Ferrer has turned into a critical bullpen arm, taking over the closer role after we traded away other candidates. The replacement level: Rutledge pitched great all year in 2023 to rocket up the system and even get some MLB cycles, but has tanked as a starter all year in 2024. Finally converted to relief, he stuck in teh MLB bullpen all of 2025 but had awful numbers. Alu looked ok as a bench guy in the MLB, but went back down and got outrighted back to AAA, where he went back to being “org guy” and ended up playing out the MLFA string. Cronin got DFA’d rather quickly, but had really solid 2024 stats. He may be a change-of-scenery guy. The bad: De La Rosa did little, was probably way too young to protect, and has got outrighted right back off the 40-man, where he played out the MLFA string.
• 2021: Casey and Lee: Casey was DFA’d mid 2022, outrighted, then demoted to AA for most of 2023 before hitting MLFA. He never once played in the majors for us. Lee got hurt in 2022, made a few starts in AA, got outrighted (ironically to make room for the 2022 Rule5 guys) then was converted to relief for 2023 where he struggled badly in 2023. He was a bad rule5 protection selection; someone who was “good” for a brief second and had crazy K/9 numbers but who couldn’t come close to sustaining it at the higher levels of the minors.
• 2020: Adon, Antuna: Adon toiled in the lower minors for most of 2021, made it to the majors for a spot start and looked solid. His performance since? Absolutely abhorrent: 1-12 with a 7.10 ERA in 2022 before mercifully being sent down. 2023 was not much better. His final option year in 2024? Another 7+ ERA year in AAA. Meanwhile, Antuna was a disaster, had to move off of SS and hit .230 in High-A with none of the power he’d need to present with his move to a corner OF position. The team seems to be clinging to the guy simply based on his massive signing bonus. Finally at the end of 2023 he hit MLFA; final career minor league totals: .224/.326/.675 and the only level where he even came close to an .800 was rookie ball.
• 2019: Braymer; got DFA’d mid-season 2021 and outrighted after struggling in both seasons. Never amounted to much after that.
• 2018: Bourque: got shelled in AAA in 2019, waived in 2020, then left the team as a MLFA.
• 2017: Gutierrez, Jefry Rodriguez. Gutierrez never really did anything for us and was traded to KC in the Kelvin Herrera deal. Rodriguez threw a bunch of mediocre starts and was flipped to Cleveland in the Yan Gomes deal; he’s now back with us as a MLFA for 2022.
• 2016: Voth, Bautista, Marmolejos, Read and Skole. A ton of guys; anyone impactful? Voth has competed for the 5th starter job for years but has a career 83 ERA+ and was waived; he then went on to Baltimore to succeed, a pretty black mark for this team’s usage of him (since Baltimore ins’t exactly known for being a pitching development team). Bautista never did much for us: 33 career MLB plate appearances. Read had a PED suspension and a handful of MLB games. Marmolejos was a 1B-only guy who showed some gap power in AA but never above it. Skole was inexplicably protected as an age 26 corner infield guy whose profile seemed to mirror dozens of veteran free agents readily available on the market; he hit .222 in 2017 and then hit MLFA.
• 2015: Kieboom, Bostick, Lee: This was Spencer Kieboom, the catcher, not his younger brother Carter. S.Kieboom was a AAA catcher who was worth protecting but he played just a handful of games in his MLB career. Chris Bostick didn’t last the full 2016 season before being DFA’d. Nick Lee lasted even less, getting DFA’d in July.
• 2014: Cole, Goodwin, Difo, Grace. All four players ended up playing in the majors for various lengths … but all four were role players for this team. AJ Cole was tried out as a 5th starter season after season, finally flipped to the Yankees when he ran out of options. Goodwin was another guy who couldn’t seem to break our outfield, but who has had spells of starting with some success elsewhere. Difo was our backup IF for years, and Matt Grace pitched in the Washington bullpen for years before getting outrighted and leaving via MLFA in 2019.
• 2013: Solis, Barrett, Taylor. Sammy was good until he wasn’t, and his time with the 2018 Nats was his last. Barrett remains with the team after multiple surgeries, but is a MLFA this off-season and may be forced into retirement after so many injuries. Michael A. Taylor is an interesting one; he had a 2.7 bWAR season for the Nats in 2017, nearly a 20/20 season when he finally got full time playing time in CF. He won a Gold Glove this year for Kansas City, one season after we DFA’d him because we all thought Victor Robles was a better option.
• 2012: Karns and Davis.  Karns had one good year as a starter in the majors … for Tampa. Career bWAR: 3.0. Davis pitched a little for the team in 2013, then got hurt, then never made it back to the majors.
• 2011: Norris, Moore, Solano, Perez.  This was a big year; Norris was a big part of the Gio Gonzalez trade and made the all star team in 2014 for Oakland, but didn’t play much afterwards. Tyler Moore was great in his first year as our backup 1B/bench bat type, but never replicated his 2012 season. Jhonathan Solano was always our 3rd catcher and saw sparing duty until he got cut loose. Eury Perez played in just a handful of games for us before getting DFA’d and claimed by the Yankees in Sept 2014.
• 2010: Marrero, Carr and Kimball. Marrero was a 1st rounder who “had” to get protected to protect the team’s investiment; he just never could get above AAA. Adam Carr and Cole Kimball were both relievers who looked promising after their 2010 minor league seasons but did relatively little afterwards: Cole never made the majors, while Kimball hurt his shoulder and never recovered.
• 2009: Jaime, Thompson and Severino. three pitchers, none of whom did much. Jaime was a 2004 IFA who has a grand total of 13 MLB innings. Thompson was waived a year after being protected. Severino got a cup of coffee in 2011 then hit MLFA.
• 2008: Nobody added. Not one eligible pick or signing from the 2004/2005 draft was considered worthy of protecting.

Conclusion: So, after more than a decade of rule-5 additions, who would you say is the most impactful player we’ve ever added? Candidates:

• Brian Goodwin: career bWAR for the Nats: 0.0 (across 3 seasons)
• Michael A. Taylor: career bWAR for the Nats: 3.5 across 7 seasons, with one 2.7 win season
• Sammy Solis: career bWAR for Nats: 0.2 across 4 seasons
• Jake Irvin: career bWAR: 3.0 for 2023 and 2024, gave some of that bWAR back in 2025.
• Mitchell Parker: bWAR of 0.7 for 2024 but -1.2 in 2025
• DJ Herz: bWAR of 0.7 for 2024, missed all of 2025 with TJ.

I’m tempted to say Irvin despite having slightly less bWAR than Taylor, if only because I expected Irvin to be a rotation guy for us for several more years. However, his 2025 performance gives me pause, so now I’m thinking Taylor is the answer.