Nationals Arm Race

One of my favorite posts every off-season is to try to guess what the 2026 rotations might look like, based on 2025 performance, who’s coming back from injury, who the team may or may not pursue in FA, and how many veteran MLFAs the teams needs to fill out our perennially empty AAA rotation. Here’s that off-season thought piece, which of course takes zero FA acquisitions or trades into account as of this date, and makes some strong assumptions on the health of some arms (as noted as we go).

So, Here’s a quick analysis of where we ended 2025 and where we might start 2026 for our entire system. In each section, i’ve got the “candidates” lined up roughly from most to least-likely to be on that team, and then those that make sense to do so are pushed down to the next level.

Yes, it’s way too early to do this. I can revisit this next Spring with updated information/transactions, then use it in early April 2026 posts when we see who the rotations are, to see how decent a job we did predicting. I’m always up for proving how bad I am at player evaluation 🙂

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MLB

In House 40-man Candidates: Gore, Grey, Cavalli, Lord, Alvarez, Irvin, Parker, Ogasawara, Lao, Eder (Herz, Williams)

Thoughts: Gore, assuming he doesn’t get traded, should be next year’s Opening Day starter. I’m assuming Grey is ready to go for opening day; he’ll have the entire off-season to prepare, and I can’t see any reason why he’d be delayed, even though he only got a few rehab starts in 2025. Cavalli gave the team 10 starts at a near-league average ERA+ after a long time away and had peripherals that give some hope (velocity up from 2022, Babip of .327 meaning he was a bit unlucky, etc). So, if we got Grey back to 2023 numbers when he was an All-Star, and if Gore and Cavalli pitched to their capabilities consistently, that’s a nice little 1-2-3 start to your rotation with some upside. At worse case all three are hovering around a 95-98 ERA+ as they did this year, which are all typical 3rd-4th starters. That’s the good news.

Here’s the bad news: Irvin led the league in Earned Runs and Homers allowed, and finished dead last amongst qualified starters in FIP, fWAR, and a couple other categories. Parker would have been right there with him in dead last had he gotten a few more innings. What should you do with a guy who’s the worst starter in the league? Well duh, you should put him in the bullpen. Lord’s splits as a starter were not good: his ERA was 2 full “points” higher than as a reliever, and I think he needs to go back to the pen, as much as I like his ascension story to the majors. Alvarez’s debut couldn’t have gone better, but is he a MLB starter? Nobody seems thinks so; he got almost zero prospect love in his career, and I sense he’ll be a rotation placeholder, morphing into the classical 4-A rubber-armed multi-role lefty for this team for the next few years until he runs out of minor league options, but he held his own and (for now) is probably the 4th or 5th starter in 2026.

I don’t buy Ogasawara as a MLB-capable starter; I sense he’s heading to AAA to prove (or disprove) my theory in 2026. Waiver pickup Lao actually had great AAA numbers this year as a starter and was only up in the MLB bullpen to fill a hole at the end of the season; maybe he competes for the 5th starter job next year. Same with trade acquisition Eder, though his AAA numbers weren’t nearly as good. I don’t sense Herz or Williams will be ready to go for opening day 2026; certainly not Herz, but Williams’ “brace” surgery may get him back quicker. Even if he was 100% healthy, he was abhorrent as a starter in 2025 despite his near all-star performance the first half of 2024, and I sense he should be in the bullpen going forward. So, for now they’re all out of the running.

So, what does that leave us with? Three acceptable starters and a bunch of question marks. How much is this team willing to spend on the open market? A 66-96 team is more than one Starting Pitcher away from competing, so my guess is, another mid-level $10M/year starter, open competition for the 5th starter job, hope for incremental improvements from Gore/Grey/Cavalli, and hope for some help coming up from guys who are in AA or AAA right now.

Prediction for 2026:

• Rotation: Gore, Grey, Cavalli, a Free Agent, Alvarez or a spring training competition for 5th.
• Lord, Irvin, Parker to MLB bullpen
• DL: Herz, Williams
• Ogasawara, Lao in AAA rotation
• Eder in AAA bullpen

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AAA

In House Candidates: Lao, Eder, Ogasawara, Solesky, Sampson, Conley, Shuman, Luckham, Cornelio, Bennett

Thoughts: First off, we have four guys likely out the door here as being one year MLFAs (Sampson, Conley) who never earned their way up, and another couple guys (Solesky and Shuman) who I believe are be at the end of their 6year runs with us (both will be 28 this offseason, both had 5+ ERAs in AAA, and both seem like they’ve done all they can done in the game). So, I’m assuming these four are gone for consideration next year, at least as starters. The whole Covid year and what it did to FAs still confuses me, so I may have it wrong here, but even if they’re still under contract, neither merits another year in the rotation based on 2025 performance.

Despite being in the MLB bullpen for most of September, Lao, Eder, and Ogasawara have been primarily starters for their minor league careers and one would think the team would want to see if they can continue. Especially Lao, who had really good AAA starting numbers in Seattle’s system before inexplicably getting waived in September. However, I could also see the argument (especially for Eder) of trying them in the bullpen. I’m not sure Luckham has what it takes to succeed as a starter, so I can see him moving into the Shuman role for next year (LR/SS).

So that leaves Lao, Cornelio, and Ogasawara returning to the AAA rotation for another year, joined by Bennett rising up, and then filled out with a MLFA signing. I can’t really see the team dumping the three vanquished starters (Lord, Parker, Irvin) to AAA. We might see Susana back earlier than expected and he could fit in here relatively soon. But opening day 2026, this makes sense.

The team also still has Lara and Adon, both former starters, and one (Lara) still with some prospect love, who pitched their way out of starter roles and who both had abhorrent numbers in the pen in 2025. Could the team return to them as starters? I don’t think so, even if we need them. We need to see if they can contribute at the MLB level out of the bullpen.

Prediction for 2026:

• Rotation: Lao, Ogasawara, Cornelio, Bennett, veteran MLFA
• MLFA/released: Solesky, Sampson, Conley, Shuman
• To the bullpen: Luckham to bullpen as Long reliever/Spot Starter, Eder to bullpen as lefty specialist.

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AA

In House Candidates: Kent, Clemmey, Tolman, Choi, Atencio, Sthele (Susana, Stuart, Sykora hurt)

Thoughts: The Nats late-season promotions of basically the entire season-ending AA rotation was the latest demonstration of their typical pattern of starter handling: they like to get starters’ feet wet in the new level before the new season, so we basically already know what most of the opening day AA rotation will look like. Kent, Clemmey, and Tolman all excelled in High-A this year, earned promotions, and struggled in short AA stints. They make perfect sense to start in AA, though Tolman seems to be more suited at this point as a multi-role reliever, so I’m projecting him to the pen. Atencio sat the entire 2025 season on the AA D/L: He was assigned to Harrisburg on Opening Day, then hit the DL before he could make a start. If he’s ready to go for opening day 2026, then he’s here. He was already planned on being part of the 2025 AA rotation, so I’d imagine he’ll come right back here when healthy. If not, maybe we’re pushing Tolman back into the rotation.

Choi, the 2024 minor league rule5 pickup, was up and back from AAA without holding onto his spot and makes sense to start in AA again. I’d imagine he’d make sense to start in the rotation until Susana is ready to go: if Susana is ready opening day, then we have to make a decision on one of Choi, Sthele, or Atencio.

When Susana is ready to go, you either push Choi to bullpen, demote Atencio, or send Susana straight to AAA. I mean, why not? He had 11 AA starts this year and struck out 70 in 47 innings; what exactly does he have left to prove there? I’m sure AAA could find room (Ogasawara to bullpen, or something).

Prediction for 2026:

• Rotation: Kent, Clemmey, Choi, Sthele, Atencio
• D/L: Susana, Stuart, Sykora
• To the Bullpen: Tolman as LR/SS

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High-A

Candidates: Randall, Garcia, Meckley, Swan, Linan, Polanco, Tepper, Tejeda, Sales

Thoughts: Last year it seemed like Low-A was the place where we’d have a traffic jam; 2026 will be High-A. I count 9-10 legitimate candidates for the High-A roster next year. Lets talk about them.

Randall only had 16 low-A starts before getting pushed up to High-A and traded to us, but was also a 2024 3rd rounder from a decent baseball school (San Diego), so I can’t see him going back down; he will be in High-A for sure. Garcia got solid 2024 draft bonus and dominated Low-A before his promotion: he’s guaranteed to be in this rotation again in 2026 based on his “investment.” Meckley is kind of like Garcia but lesser on all counts; less draft bonus, lesser performance; I think he’s a victim of numbers and heads to the bullpen. Swan started this season in LA’s High-A team, finished it in ours, and showed basically the same stuff year long: good arm but wild. I think he repeats High-A but could also get socially promoted if a need arises given. He could also go into the pen and transition to a high K reliever.

Linan only gave us one High-A start before hitting the DL: he had the best numbers of the three trade acquisitions for their prior teams and probably will be one of the first to move up. But what was his injury? I’m putting either Linan on the opening-day DL, based on ending 2025 on the DL. Post publish update: Thanks to commenter Will for pointing this out: Linan has been put on the AFL roster and is pitching in Arizona, so therefore we can assume his injury was minor. I’m revamping the below prediction as a result.

Polanco just turned 24 and just finished a full season making 23 starts for Low-A; he’s moving up, with nothing left to prove in Low-A. He’s gonna either sink or swim in High-A. Tepper spent entire 2025 on the DL and his usage has been all over the road; I’m not sure he’s ready to be a starter, so I’m guessing he goes to the pen. Tejeda suddenly stopped pitching on August 3rd, but was a gun-slinging 6′ 8″ effective starter before that; i’m hoping nothing bad happened, and with Linan confirmed healthy i’ll hedge and start Tejeda on the DL. Trade acquisition Sales finished off a great year in Low-A, pitching well for both his old and new teams despite being “just” a 10th rounder; he’s solved Low-A and has to be here.

I could make the argument that Randall is less effective than Swan and those two switch places. Or, you could look at Swan’s K/9 rate and think ‘high end closer’ and put him in the pen.

If Linan is healthy, what happens? He’s a bit young yet for AA and definitely needs more High-A time, so perhaps he pushes Tejeda to the bullpen. Or, perhaps Tejeda is still hurt from whatever injury he sustained on or about August 3rd. But for now, here’s what i’m thinking:

With Linan confirmed healthy, but Tejeda not necessarily, I’m putting Linan in rotation and Tejeda on DL to start 2026. If Tejeda is indeed healthy … then someone has to head to the pen, because I think Tejeda needs to start for now. I think if this comes to pass, you’re moving Polanco to the bullpen.

Prediction for 2026:

• Rotation: Randall, Garcia, Polanco, Linan, Sales
• D/L: Tejeda
• To the Bullpen: Meckley, Tepper, Swan

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Low-A

Candidates: Sullivan, Romero, Johnson, Agostini, Farias, Feliz plus 2026 college draftees Tonghini, Maddox, Moore, Biven, Huesman, Puk

Thoughts:

Sullivan, the 2023 draftee, missed basically a year and a half, but has more or less dominated Low-A in the 9 cumulative starts he’s made there. He’ll turn 24 in May of next year and really does no good in Low-A, but there’s just too many arms so he starts in Low-A again. He returns. Same with Johnson, who made 8 low-A starts with a 5-something ERA this year as a very old 2025 draft signing. Romero made 14 Low-A starts, missing a month or so of time, with middling results; he’s heading to the bullpen. Agostini missed most of 2025 with injury but is a solid prospect; he should return if healthy.

Two new names moving up from FCL for next year should be Feliz and Farias. Feliz is looking like a solid prospect and is starting to get top-20 prospect love; he had a 2.20 ERA in the FCL this year after posting a 2.96 ERA in the DSL last year. He moves up and is an important young arm for us. Farias wasn’t great in the FCL this year but is already 23 and kind of has to move up; i’m putting him as the 5th starter in 2026 unless the team wants to compete him with one of the 2025 college guys.

All six college 2025 draftees are mentioned in Low-A to begin 2026, but I think all of them will go straight to the bullpen based on their college usage and pro potential. We’ll summarize our 2025 draft day posts here briefly; Tonghini was a setup-guy at Arizona. Maddox was a college SEC starter but a senior sign/5.56 ERA guy. Moore was a bullpen guy his first two years in college and pitched his way out of ODU’s bullpen before getting drafted, but wasn’t great as a starter. Biven was a swingman at Louisville. Huesman barely pitched at all at Vanderbilt, and Puk was a multi-inning Opener for FIU. None of our drafted college arms really project to be useful rotation pieces. The best option to start would be either Maddox or Moore if they need an arm.

Prediction for 2026:

• Rotation: Sullivan, Johnson, Agostini, Feliz, Farias
• D/L:
• To the Bullpen: Romero, Tonghini, Maddox, Moore, Biven, Huesman, Puk

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FCL

Candidates: Harmon, Sime, Lunar, Portorreal, Reyes, Carela, Gimenez

Thoughts: Harmon and Sime are our two big bonus prep arms from the 2025 draft: I suppose its possible they start in Low-A in 2026, but that typically hasn’t been the MO of this team with its high school draftees. I’m guessing they do XST, ease into pitching, start in FCL and then maybe move up to Low-A later in the summer if they blow away their fellow teenagers in the complex league.

Lunar and Portorreal repeat FCL after middling 2025 results. Both are still relatively young as a 24IFA and 23IFA respectively. I’m guessing they make way for the three more promising arms coming up from the DSL and move to the bullen.

Moving up from the DSL are the three best starter prospects from the island this year in Reyes, Carela, and Gimenez. All three pitched solidly and it will be interesting to see how they fare. Reyes is a bit older as a 23IFA, while the other two didn’t start the year in the DSL rotation but pitched their way there as 24IFAs. None of these three were big money IFA signings, so they’ll be on a short leash.

One thing to keep in mind: the team loves using the FCL as a rehab weigh-station, so it’s entirely possible the “rotation” ends up being 4 guys and a rotation rehab start; they did this for a while this year.

Prediction for 2026:

• Rotation: Harmon, Sime, Reyes, Carela, Gimenez
• D/L:
• To the Bullpen: Portorreal, Lunar

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DSL

Candidates: Torrellas, De La Cruz, Robles, Mejia, Carrasco, Reynoso, plus 26IFA class

Thoughts: Torrellas, De La Cruz, and Robles finished 2025 in the rotation. Mejia and Carrasco were in the rotation to start 2025 but pitched their way out; they could get another shot but seem more likely to head to the pen. Reynoso is an unknown, having pitched in 2024 then missed all of 2025; i’d guess he’s bullpen bound.

The team signed 6 arms last January; not one of them featured in the 2025 rotation. Perhaps we’ll see some of them step up, but it doesn’t seem likely. Not one 25IFA arm had decent numbers this season. However, they also didn’t feature a single 24IFA signing in the 2024 rotation, preferring to bring them onboard a bit more slowly. The Nats havn’t really focused big bonus dollars on arms lately; just one non-trivial bonus amount in the last several drafts (Jose Feliz for $120k in 2023, then several guys in the 2021 class who are already gone), so it’s little surprise they struggle to find competent starters in the DSL.

Prediction for 2026:

• Rotation: Torrellas, De La Cruz, Robles, plus two 25IFA or 26IFAs.
• D/L:
• To the Bullpen: Mejia, Carrasco, Reynoso

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Ok, so that’s what we’re looking at. This may change as we do MLFA releases and signings this coming off-season, or if we add/remove players via trade.

I hope I didn’t miss anyone, but let me know if i’m missing someone obvious and/or if you think i’m crazy.

This is the 6th and last monthly review of all our rotations for the 2025, checking in on the latest month’s worth of production and doing some analysis. For this final post, instead of isolating September’s performance (since the Minor teams only played part of the month), we’ll look at these pitchers’ season-long performance and give the beginnings of some 2026 thoughts as to what next year might look like (a post I like writing a bit later, but which i’ll start the leg work on here).

Each team section analysis will have the same items: current rotation, changes in the last month, observations, next guy to get promoted (if its in the minors), next guy to get cut, and then a few comments about relievers.

Important links for this analysis:

• Big Board
• Nats MLB stats: at baseball-reference.com
• AAA Rochester stats: (all minor league stats at milb.com)
• AA Harrisburg stats
• High-A Wilmington stats
• Low-A Fredericksburg Stats
• FCL Nationals Stats
• DSL Nationals Pitching Stats

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We’ll start with the Majors.

• Opening Day 2025: Gore, Irvin, Parker, Soroka, TWilliams
• End of April 2025: Gore, Irvin, Parker, TWilliams, Lord
• End of May 2025: Gore, Irvin, Parker, Soroka, TWilliams (back to the original)
• End of June 2025: Gore, Irvin, Parker, Soroka, TWilliams
• End of July 2025: Gore, Irvin, Parker, Lord, Ogasawara
• End of Aug 2025: Irvin, Parker, Lord, Cavalli, Alvarez
• End of Season 2025: Irvin, Lord, Cavalli, Alvarez, Parker/Gore

Changes in last Month: Gore returned from a late August DL trip and the team did a couple of weeks of 6-man rotation. Then they dumped Parker to the bullpen to go back to a 5-man plan when it was clear Alvarez’ debut wasn’t entirely a gimmick. Then Gore hit the DL again, pulling Parker back into the rotation to finish off the season.

Rotation Observations: The team finished 66-96, third worst in the league (though it won’t matter for the 2026 draft, as the Nats will pick 11th no matter what happens in the lottery thanks to being a revenue payor and participating in the 2025 lottery). A big reason for this record is the rotation; they ranked collectively 27th in total fWAR and 29th in ERA (ahead of only the 43-119 Colorado Rockies, who also get kicked out of the 2026 lottery despite the 3rd worst record in the modern age). Parker was demoted to the bullpen, laying the likely groundwork of being replaced in the 2026 rotation. But Irvin was just as bad, finishing dead last in several categories for qualified starters this year.

For the year, Gore had the best ERA+ of the group at 98, but seemed to tail off as the year went on. Physical Fatigue wearing down as a long season went on? Mental Fatigue of playing for a crap team? Lord’s splits as a starter were pretty bad all in all; he was 2 full ERA points better as a reliever. Cavalli’s return was on a par with Gore’s from a performance perspective, a good starting point for 2026. Alvarez had a 2.31 ERA and a 3.39 FIP in his five September starts: that’s something that clearly earns him a shot at next year’s rotation, even if most would think its unsustainable.

Bullpen comments: For the season, most of our existing bullpen was either mediocre/league average, or god-awful. It’ll be interesting to see what kind of cattle call we’ll have for replacements. Or if we have one at all: maybe its just a Rizzo thing to try to build bullpens that way. However (and this kind of buries the lead of my 2026 rotation prediction piece), I feel like 3/5ths of the rotation at the end of this year heads to the 2026 bullpen, perhaps buttressing it and giving us some performance next year.

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AAA Rochester

• Opening Day 2025: Alvarez, Lara, Ogasawara, Choi, Solesky
• End of April 2025: Alvarez, Lara, Solesky, Shuman, Cavalli (rehab)
• End of May 2025: Alvarez, Solesky, Shuman, Cavalli, Sampson
• End of June 2025: Alvarez, Solesky, Shuman, Cavalli, Sampson
• End of July 2025: Alvarez, Solesky, Cavalli, Conley, Ogasawara
• End of Aug 2025: Alvarez, Conley, Luckham, Sampson, Cornelio
• End of Season 2025: Sokesky, Sampson, Shuman, Eder (Luckham DL, Conley and Cornelio restricted)

Changes since end of last month: The last month of AAA was chaotic, with lots of last minute paper moves to move guys on and off the restricted list or the DL to finish the season. Alvarez got deservedly called up, he was replaced by Eder coming off the DL (which he hit almost as soon as we traded for him). Then, Luckham hit the DL, replaced by Shuman. Cornelio and Conley got stashed on the restricted list at season’s end: they were replaced by Solesky coming back off the DL briefly and then the end of the season hitting before they could return Cornelio. So, really, the “rotation” for Sept was primarily Sampson, Conley, Cornelio, Luckham, and a grab bag of starts from a slew of others.

Rotation Observations: 18 guys got starts in AAA this year, 12 of which were actual AAA starters (3 were rehab starts, 3 more were “Openers” in bullpen games). Of those 12, I’d only categories a couple as even being competent in terms of performance: Alvarez and Ogasawara (not surprisingly, both ending the season in the majors). The rest were a slew of ERAs in the 5’s and 6s (if not higher). I’d be expecting a wholesale reshuffle of AAA next season. We’ll likely we’ll be seeing a big contingent of 40-man arms pushed down to AAA in 2026 combined with the typical Nats cattle call of veteran 30-something MLFAs like this year’s Pilkington, Sampson, and Conley.

Next guy to get Promoted: Nobody on this list pitched well enough in aggregate to push for even a shot at the 2026 MLB rotation via a ST invite, though (again, burying the lead on a future post) Cornelio likely is getting added to the 40-man to avoid Rule-5 and may be in MLB camp. But, his 8-game stint wasn’t fantastic to finish out 2025 and will start 2026 in AAA.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: I’m guessing 2025 MLFA Sampson and Conley’s time here is done. Solesky may be at MLFA as well, depending on the deal he signed before last season. Shuman turns 28 in December and was a 2019 draftee, which I believe means 6-years MLFA for him as well, so we should see lots of churn in this rotation next year.

Bullpen comments: There were a slew of Sept callups from the bullpen, but perhaps more notably is which 40-man arms the team left in AAA to finish out the season. Salazar (Waiver claim), Loutus (waiver claim), Brzycky (NDFA), and Lara (19IFA) all had relatively awful AAA numbers this season, and one has to think they’re amongst the first guys to get DFA’d when the team needs to find its first four slots for its 60-day DL guys in the off-season moves coming up (which happens right after the World Series concludes). Of the rest, only Davila had anywhere close to decent numbers.

But, this is more of an indication of just how much the AAA team has fed the MLB bullpen this year: 8 of the 9 guys in the MLB bullpen at year’s end was promoted up this season. So, bravo for the production.

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AA Harrisburg

• Opening Day 2025: Shuman, Luckham, Saenz, Susana, Atencio
• End of April 2025: Luckham, Saenz, Susana, Choi, Soroka (rehab)
• End of May 2025: Luckham, Saenz, Choi, Cornelio, Conley (with multiple Gomez openers)
• End of June 2025: Luckham, Choi, Cornelio, Conley, Stuart with Lara, Sykora at end of month.
• End of July 2025: Luckham, Choi, Cornelio, Bennett, Huff/Schultz openers (with Sampson, Sykora, Lara each getting 1 start)
• End of Aug 2025: Bennett, Susana, Tolman, Kent, Clemmey
• End of Season 2025: Bennett, Tolman, Kent, Clemmey, Choi

Changes since end of last month: The only move of September was to put Susana on the DL with thankfully a non-arm injury, and replace him with Choi.

Rotation Observations: The performance of the guys in the Harrisburg rotation was awesome this year, with stellar season-long performances from Bennett, Cornelio, Susana, and Luckham for big chunks of the year. Clemmey and Kent’s promotions didn’t go very well for the last 5-6 turns of the season, but they both more than earned their spot and will be 1A and 1B in next year’s rotation. I would imagine that Susana misses the first part of the 2026 season with his Lat surgery and will get a month in AA once he’s going before heading to AAA next year where he belongs. Sykora and Stuart are both likely out for the entirety of 2026. Tolman (like Bennett) missed huge chunks of the last few years and had a rough debut in AA, but should be there to start 2026.

Next guy to get Promoted: Bennett likely has done “enough” to start next year in AAA; he turns 25 in December, lost all of 2024 and a huge chunk of 2025 to injury, barely pitched in 2023 as well, and its time for him to get a full season in.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Choi was demoted out of the rotation and only put back thanks to injuries, but his overall numbers really weren’t that bad on the season.

Bullpen comments: there’s definitely some promising arms in the AA bullpen; Schultz, Huff, Vasquez, and Amaral all were promoted up from High-A this season. Schultz and Huff made spot starts and threw a ton of multi-inning appearances.

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High-A Wilmington

• Opening Day 2025: Clemmey, Cornelio, Kent, Sthele, Tepper
• End of April 2025: Clemmey, Cornelio, Kent, Sthele, Arias
• End of May 2025: Clemmey, Kent, Sthele, Sykora, Bennett, Stuart (rehab) plus a bunch of spot starts
• End of June 2025: Clemmey, Kent, Sthele, Bennett, and four rehab stars from Ogasawara/Lara
• End of July 2025: Clemmey, Kent, Sthele, Tolman, Susana rehab starts plus Tejeda and Garcia late.
• End of Aug 2025: Sthele, Garcia, Meckley, Randall, Swan plus a slew of spot starts
• End of Season 2025: Sthele, Garcia, Meckley, Randall, Swan

Changes since end of last month: None; the last month was very stable.

Rotation Observations: Sthele was the only guy to go the whole season in the rotation: 7-7, 4.22 ERA, 1.11 whip, and a 82/24 K/BB in 138IP. Is that enough to get promoted? Probably not, but do you have him repeat High-A? Two of our three High-A starter acquisitions (Randall, Swan) finish off their seasons on our High-A team giving the Nats mediocre-to-bad stints. Garcia & Meckley were both Nats 2024 draftees; Garcia a bit more heralded (6th rounder $425k bonus) than Meckley (12th rounder, $150k bonus), but both finished off with middling High-A numbers after good (Garcia) to mediocre (Meckley) Low-A numbers.

Next guy to get Promoted: Sthele could get socially promoted; not sure what he’s got left to prove in High-A, even if he may not cut it in AA.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: None of these guys are getting sent back down; its either the rotation or the bullpen at this level

Bullpen comments: I have two main comments about the High-A bullpen: first, we know Wilmington is a pitcher’s park in a relative pitcher’s league, so there’s lots of guys in Wilmington with decent numbers (most of them already promoted to AA). Of those ending the year on the roster, Shout-out to Aldonis, Arguelles, and Glavine perhaps as having halfway decent seasons.

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Low-A/Fredericksburg

• Opening Day 2025: Polanco, Meckley, Tejeda, Roman, DGarcia
• End of April 2025: Polanco, Meckley, Tejeda, Roman, DGarcia with Bennett making his 2025 debut
• End of May 2025: Polanco, Meckley, Tejeda, Roman, DGarcia with two “rehab” starts from Bennett/Sykora
• End of June 2025: Polanco, Meckley, Tejeda, Roman, DGarcia, Romero
• End of July 2025: Polanco, Meckley, Romero, Sullivan, Johnson
• End of August 2025: Polanco, Romero, Sullivan, Johnson, Sales
• End of Season 2025: Polanco, Romero, Sullivan, Johnson, Sales

Changes since end of last month: None.

Rotation Observations: Polanco was the sole guy to make it the entire season in the Low-A rotation, turning 24 at season’s end. He was good but not great; 3.71 ERA, 1.25 whip, .225 BAA, but got passed over several times to get moved up. Romero came off the DL and then proceeded to walk more guys than he struck-out for the season; he turns 24 before next season and is at a cross-roads. Sullivan finished the season healthy and with a 3.23 ERA in 7 starts. Our 2024 draftee Johnson is a super interesting case, getting just $2k to sign out of UMBC and dominating (as he probably should have) in the FCL, but struggled in a month or so in the Low-A rotation to finish out the season. Lastly trade acquisition Sales finished off a great year in Low-A, pitching well for both his old and new teams.

Next guy to get Promoted: Sales by performance, Polanco and Johnson by age.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Romero probably has pitched himself into a corner.

Bullpen comments: By Season’s end, the “bullpen” in Fredericksburg was pretty bloated, with 12 bullpen arms to go with the 5 rotation guys. When FCL ended, the team called up a slew of guys from the affiliate team to go along with a handful of the 2025 draftees. None really got any semblances of useful stats.

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FCL/Rookie

• Opening day: Feliz, Portorreal, Farias, Johnson, Rehab starts
• End of May 2025: Feliz, Portorreal, Farias, Johnson, Lunar
• End of June 2025: Feliz, Portorreal, Farias, Lunar, Sullivan (rehab)
• End of Season/End of July 2025: Feliz, Portorreal, Farias, Lunar, Johnson

Changes since end of last month: none; season ended in July.

Rotation Observations: The team moved up Johnson and Farias, left the other three guys in the FCL once the season ended, which is as good of an indication of what those guys did this year.

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DSL/Rookie

• Opening day: JReyes, De La Cruz, Robles, Carrasco, Mejia
• End of June 2025: JReyes, De La Cruz, Robles, Carrasco, Torrellas
• End of July 2025: JReyes, De La Cruz, Robles, Torrellas, Carela
• End of Season/End of Aug 2025: JReyes, De La Cruz, Robles, Torrellas, Carela with Gimenez

Changes since end of last month: none; Season ended in August.

Rotation Observations: Basically, there’s 3 good starter prospects here (Reyes, Carela, Gimenez) and three who’ll be back next year (De la Cruz, Robles, Torrellas). Reyes looked the most promising, but all three solid starters should come stateside for 2026. Depending on how many IFA arms we sign next January, Robles is probably the first to go.

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That’s it for 2025 Rotation reviews.

Next up (and I was kind of writing it as I did this piece, which is why this one is so late) I’ll do a too-early glance at what the 2026 rotations might look like.

Hey there Readers

I’m going to use this opportunity to give some incremental updates and call out some improvements I’ve made to a couple of the main online Nats Data Resources I maintain. Just in case you hadn’t been to these resources in a while.

As always, any suggestions for improvements or errors noticed are always appreciated.

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Big Board

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/186nm-v5F-zTCoR2Be7TFYM3e2cZ-gYi2WVqJLEkHdmc/edit?usp=sharing

The Big Board shows our entire system, from MLB to DSL, with players generally in their starting spots at any given time, rotations kept in the order they appear, and bullpen arms kept roughly in their roles. The 2025 Rosters are now frozen for the end of the season, and I’ve created the 2026 Roster and 2026 Release page to start keeping track of player transactions (first one for the new tab was Darren Baker’s requested release).

MLB has recalled all 40-man players, and restored all 7 and 15-day DL players to the active roster, so MLB shows at 40/40 right now. The five 60-day DL guys won’t be returned until the World Series is over; that will correspond with the technical separation of these FAs to be: Bell, Law (who himself is on the 60-day), deJong, Alfaro, 25MLFA Pilkington, and 24MLFA Stubbs, so I don’t imagine we’ll have any DFA’s to return the 60-day DL guys at the onset. However, the exact terms of these MLFA deals can vary, so they actually may be multi-year deals. AAA also cleared up all its DL and Restricted list in late September, but the lower leagues have not, so there’s still a slew of DL and Restricted names on those rosters.

There’s a small number at the top of the Big Board, which keeps track of the total number of players under contract in the four domestic minor leagues. It attempts to keep track of this number to see how it compares to the 165 total system limit, which the team flirted with a couple times this season. That’s the main improvement I’ve added to the Big Board lately, in addition to the color coding of Promotions and Demotions throughout the season. Each player is also a link to their milb.com page (for minor leaguers) or their baseball-reference.com page (if they’re primarily MLBers).

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Draft Tracker

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Qd5DS9GlmkQOEh_zGhOvlhHK0EegqY1uJB4mLGmRBaY/edit?usp=sharing

I made a relatively large addition to the Draft Tracker this year: I added the “High Level” column to each player. I did this because I have dreams of doing a massive analysis trying to quantify what makes for a “good draft” by looking at the lower rounds to see what expectations are for these players. For example: if you draft a college guy in the 15th, where do you “expect” that player to get to? If they never get out of Low-A, that seems to have “met expectations” for that player, but if they get to AA is that a win?

Anyway, this analysis stalled once I started getting into the 2019 and prior drafts, where we went to 40 rounds instead of the current 20. I’ve been critical of the sport for cutting these 20 rounds (and cutting the entire Short-A level), but must admit it was kind of shocked at how many of our draftees never got out of Short-A. For example; in 2017 we drafted 33 players; here was the high-level breakdown:

• MLB: 5: Romero, Crowe, Tetreault, Cousins, Klobotis, Raquet
• AAA: 3: Freeman, Dunlap, Johnston
• AA: 2: Connell, Troop
• High-A: 4
• Low-A: 10
• Short-A: 6
• FCL: 2

A slew of the Low-A top-outs were in Short-A in the draft year of 2017, got assigned to Low-A to start 2018, and were released directly out of that league. So, the question is, is this a typical distribution expectation for a 40-round draft? Was this generally speaking a good or bad draft (hint: this was an awful draft, even with 6 guys getting to the majors, since 3 of them made the majors for other teams and the other three combined gave us a career -1.0 bWAR).

I initially replaced the Rule5 Eligible column with this high level, thinking that Rule5 eligible was a useless field, but then immediately returned it. Thank god for backups.

My big “value add” to the Draft Tracker generally is to have year-specific Draft worksheets where I keep track of the exact Bonus dollars as they’re announced, which gives us some insight into the negotiations for later-signing guys. I also have schools, commits, social media links, NDFAs, etc. I have done this same analysis for “local draft guys” (i.e. DC/MD/VA players) in the past, but kind of have petered out on tracking local players in general over the past few years. Also of note; the player names are links to milb.com pages/baseball-reference.com pages for convenience as with the Big Board.

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IFA Tracker

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ksPorXhEHhtkNAGqxrJWqUFkvioMgoWhBU50uaZstc8/edit?usp=sharing

A couple years ago I had the brilliant notion to create an IFA tracker in the same format as the Draft Tracker, because, well, why not; its an important way we ingest talent and we sign 20+ players a year.

My big value add to the IFA tracker this year was to add in High Level, as I did with the Draft tracker. This analysis led to a pretty obvious observation; a huge majority of these players never get out of the DSL. Like, a massive percentage. Take our 2018 class; we had 38 signees. here’s their highest levels:

• DSL: 16
• FCL: 13
• Low-A: 3
• High-A: 4
• AA: 2
• None higher

Five of these guys are still active, having resigned after their initial 7year stint expired after 2024, but who may be re-hitting MLFA this off-season. One may still pan out; Atencio, who was solid for us as a AA starter in 2025 then missed the entirety of 2025 with injury but who is still just 24. But, will he re-sign? did he already? The Covid year throws all this analysis into doubt.

Nonetheless, this is a lot of players churned through DSL and FCL for very little payoff.

The last time we even got a MLB player out of an IFA draft was in 2019 (Andry Lara), before that 2017 (Ferrer). There were more in 2016 and prior, but I havn’t gone back to do “high level” analysis that far back because it becomes pretty difficult to track down these players at some point: the DSL rosters aren’t nearly as comprehensively kept as the domestic rosters. Also, bonus dollar figures are incredibly tough to come by, even in recent years. For example, I know that our IFA 2025 pool was $6.2M, but I could only account for about $4.9M of bonus dollars being spent. We had 10 signees with no dollar amounts announced; were they all $10k? More? Less? Did we really leave $1.3M of bonus dollars on the table? I certainly hope not.

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Nationals Prospects Ranks

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Xs9fmb-dctE90hTS3bdozznETS-Oc3GsMuGzRo2faUc/edit?usp=sharing

This is more of a collection of Prospect ranks, but I also publish my own ranks (recently discussed here with my post-season 125 rank). It’s a good place to kind of see the trends of other sites and how they’re ranking our guys. I also do a ton of value add here, putting in starting levels each year, bonus amounts,

There’s now 270 ranks dating back to pre Washington Nationals days. We’ll get a slew of updated ranks over the course of the off-season, with the major pundits mostly publishing in Jan/Feb of next year. I’ll re-do my top 125 at that time, add in the missing 2025 with non-trivial bonus dollars plus the 2026 IFA class, remove MLFAs and other releases we make this coming off-season, and (maybe) will even attempt to do the impossible: rank all 150+ minor leaguers in one spot.

You can see i’ve already highlighted in my recent 125 rank the players who I need to revisit, who might be too high or too low. I’ve also added in placeholders for another 10 players who probably all slot into the 80-90 range (those being the rest of the 2025 class plus some of the higher-bonus dollar 2025 IFAs).

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Anyway, happy off-season. Can’t wait to see what the new regime has in mind.

Next big update to these docs will come at the end of the World Series, where all MLB and MLFAs are declared. I’ll try to keep up with the releases and the signings as best that I can, with the caveat that milb.com doesn’t always have the best record keeping.

As far as I can tell, anyone who we drafted in 2019 should become a new 6-year MLFA, and 2018IFAs also should hit MLFA unless they’ve agreed to some extension. We have a slew of 2019 draftees and 2018IFAs on our rosters who probably become new MLFAs on 11/1 or thereabouts.

• AAA: Cluff, Arruda, Solesky, Shuman, Cuevas
• AA: Naranjo, Knowles, Santos, Vasquez, Atencio
• High-A: De La Rosa, Colomenares, Otanez
• Low-A: Rivero

Here’s Part 2 of My end of 2025 look at our system; the prospects ranked 61-125. Thanks for the feedback on the first 60 (Part 1 was here) … I’ve highlighted a few players that I may have too low (Glasser,Bazzell, Vaquero) and/or too high (Schnell, Lao) and that’ll help make this list next spring a lot tighter.

So here’s part 2: the guys ranked 61st to 125th. Yes I realize ranking prospects outside a certain threshold (top 50?) becomes kind of ridiculous. Certainly you’re splitting hairs as to whether a 23yr old hitting .210 in Low-A is even a “prospect” or not. But, with just 160 or so players in the whole domestic system, you’re getting dangerously close to attempting to just rank every single player we have under contract. Maybe I’ll get there at some point, but for now, I’ve gone from ranking 100 or so in March to 125 now, basically by just pushing down everyone who had a ranking earlier this year who got “layered” by one of the 15-20 or so guys we drafted or acquired in June and July. It probably wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to literally add all the AAA org guys, all the bullpen arms in A-ball, and the DSL guys to the bottom of this list and have a completely comprehensive ranking of every minor leaguer.

That being said, I’m super curious to hear from those who might think I’m way off on some of these 60+ guys and why. And, am I completely missing someone at this point? Still possible; there’s probably a couple of DSL guys or FCL players who had better than I noticed numbers who should be here. Looking forward to a crowd-sourced improvement on this data.

Key links guiding this:

• Big Board: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/186nm-v5F-zTCoR2Be7TFYM3e2cZ-gYi2WVqJLEkHdmc/edit?hl=en&gid=1488309175#gid=1488309175
• Draft Tracker: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Qd5DS9GlmkQOEh_zGhOvlhHK0EegqY1uJB4mLGmRBaY/edit?gid=0#gid=0
• IFA Tracker: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ksPorXhEHhtkNAGqxrJWqUFkvioMgoWhBU50uaZstc8/edit?usp=sharing
• This full ranking in a Google Sheet online: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Xs9fmb-dctE90hTS3bdozznETS-Oc3GsMuGzRo2faUc/edit?usp=sharing

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OK here we go. We’ll go groupings of 10 players at a time:

61 (nr) Murphy Stehly 3B
62 (nr) Garrett Davila RHP (Reliever)
63 (nr) Jake Eder LHP (Starter)
64 (101) Branden Boissiere OF (Corner)
65 (25) Kevin Made SS
66 (41) Marquis Grissom RHP (Reliever)
67 (46) Brayan Romero RHP (Starter)
68 (94) Elijah Nunez OF (CF)
69 (48) Tyler Schoff RHP (Reliever)
70 (nr) Enmanuel Carela RHP (Starter)

Discussion: I threw some more relievers in here; Davila is a 28yr old AAA reliever MLFA who probably “shouldn’t” be a “prospect” but who had good enough numbers this year to possibly warrant a late season call-up. I wonder if he re-ups with the team for2026. Marquis Grissom slots in here, having a bit of tarnish on his previous rank despite getting to AAA. Lastly Schoff is here despite previously better rankings on account of having season-ending back muscle surgery in May.

We’ve also got some interesting starters in this group; We got Eder in the same deal as the aforementioned Sam Brown; he’s on the 40-man and has been a starter his whole career; not great career minor league numbers but as a lefty he seems like a future reliever. Romero spent nearly the whole season in the Low-A rotation with middling numbers. Carela was a mid-season rotation replacement in the DSL and had a 2.01 ERA for the season across 12 appearances and a slew of starts; he’s a 2025 IFA for the minimum bonus amount, the kind of “found gold” guy who would be amazing if he developed into anything of use.

There’s four positional players in here: Kevin Made takes a huge tumble from being a top-30 guy to this mid 60-s range: guy just can’t hit. Stehly meanwhile gets plopped into the rankings despite being a 2022 10th round senior sign, a 5th year senior out of Texas who nobody thought would go anywhere. Instead, he was the starting 3B in AA this year, with an OPS north of .900 and moving a top-10 prospect Wallace to 2B before getting a season-ending injury. Bravo; he’s the kind of prospect you root for. Lastly we have Boissiere, who was one step from a release in spring training but instead found some power this year and slugged his way to be the starting 1B in Harrisburg, holding a .810 OPS there. Lastly there’s Nunez, who didn’t necessarily merit a move to High-A but who hit decently once he got there: .808 OPS with speed and the ability to play center. He may still be too high, but once you get to the 60s it’s splitting hairs.

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71 (nr) Darrel Lunar RHP (Starter)
72 (nr) Adam Bloebaum RHP (Reliever)
73 (nr) Erick Mejia RHP (Reliever)
74 (61) Schultz Thomas RHP (Reliever)
75 (100) Gabriel Agostini LHP (Reliever)
76 (nr) Travis Sthele RHP (Starter)
77 (nr) Alexander Meckley RHP (Starter)
78 (89) Liam Sullivan LHP (Starter)
79 (nr) Austin Amaral RHP (Reliever)
80 (nr) Merritt Beeker LHP (Reliever)

Here’s the section where I threw in a bunch of relievers with solid numbers. Bloebaum was an Indy league signing last May; he had a 0.67 ERA this season; you read that right. He gave up just 2 earned runs in 27 IP across low and high-A, and one of them was on a solo HR he gave up in his last appearance in June before hitting the season-ending DL trip. I can’t find any injury announcement, even on his twitter, but interestingly Bloebaum is a big Driveline pitching guy, which I didn’t necessarily know before. Is a 30yr old converted infielder a “prospect?” If you can answer that, then you have Erick Mejia here. He got a ton of work this year, and moved all the way up to AAA but is a MLFA this off-season unless he re-ups with teh team. Schultz was a multi-role guy for Harrisburg all year with solid numbers, getting several “opening” starts while the AA rotation was in flux mid season. Agostini has made it back from a major arm issue last year and is here based on potential he showed in 2022 as a starter. Amaral had sneaky good numbers for a 2023 16th rounder in AA all year and could be a big find for the team. Beeker absolutely dominated Low-A this year, to the point where I have little understanding why he wasn’t promoted up; 1.85 ERA and 78 Ks in 63 relief innings.

This also seemed like a great area to put some of our remaining full-season rotation guys, namely Sthele, Meckley, and Sullivan. Sthele has become something of a punchline at Luke’s site; he just keeps on throwing. Two straight seasons where he’s been in the rotation the entire season despite middling ERA and ancillary numbers. You know who else that sounds like? Riley Cornelio. Meckley was a relatively unheralded starter picked up in the 12th round of the 2024 draft out of Coastal Carolina; he was a mainstay in the High-A rotation all year alongside Sthele. Lastly we have Sullivan, who was dominant in Low-A but was too old for the level, being on the comeback trail from injury. I like Sullivan’s chances the best of these three going forward.

Lunar is one of just three 2024 IFAs to make it stateside so far (along with previously mentioned Feliz and backup outfielder Tavarez); he pitched in the rotation for the FCL the entire season with middling results, but is mentioned here basically because he’s here ahead of the rest of his IFA class. If you wanted to argue he should be lower, i’d probably not argue.

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81 (nr) Bryan Polanco RHP (Starter)
82 (49) Carlos Tavares 1B/OF (Corner)
83 (nr) Greyson Gimenez RHP (Reliever)
84 (nr) Victor Farias RHP (Starter)
85 (57) Kyle Luckham RHP (Starter)
86 (83) Michael Cuevas RHP (Starter)
87 (51) Brenner Cox OF (CF)
88 (nr) Luke Johnson RHP (Starter)
89 (56) Chase Solesky RHP (Starter)
90 (nr) Erik Tolman LHP (Starter)

Here’s another section where we threw a bunch of starters in with various levels of success this year. Polanco somehow survived an entire year in the Low-A rotation despite turning 24 at the end of the season. Farias spent time in the FCL rotation and was moved up to be a Long Reliever in Low-A. Luckham probably has shown himself to be a AA-ceiling starter, now having two straight years of solid AA numbers but getting hit hard when moved to AAA. He doesn’t have the K/9 right now to be an effective reliever either, so I’m not sure what to do with him. Luke Johnson had great numbers as a way-too-old FCL and Low-A starter, as a 2024 senior sign for almost no money; hopefully he gets a shot in Wilmington next year. Solesky drops down after an excellent 2024 that even saw him sent to the AFL; in 2025 he was a starter for the entire year in AAA with a 5.00 ERA and perhaps has hit a plateau in terms of his progression. Tolman looked great coming off the loss of the entire 2024 season to injury, dominating High-A .. as she should have as someone who turned 26 this year. He needs more AA time to see if he’s a player we use going forward at the higher levels. He is lefty, which goes to his benefit, and perhaps his 2025 should have him slightly higher, but he’s in this range b/c he did it against kids 3-4 years younger.

Greyson Gimenez had fantastic numbers in the DSL … as a 21yr old. So, he needs to come stateside in 2026 to see if this was for real. Cuevas finally was taken out of the rotation this year and was a decent AA setup guy; can he do more?

We have a couple of outfielders in here on different trajectories: Brenner Cox was socially promoted to High-A, couldn’t hit there, went back to Low-A, still couldn’t hit, and ended the year with a .156 BA across the two levels. That’s not good. Luckily for Cox he got a massive bonus so he’ll get more time to work things out. Tavares hit really well in FCL last year; not so much this year in Low-A, hitting just .153. He signed for almost nothing as a 2023 IFA, so he’s in jeopardy already of an off-season release.

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91 (76) Jeremy De La Rosa OF (Corner)
92 (105) Holden Powell RHP (Reliever)
93 (58) Angel Roman LHP (Reliever)
94 (106) Jackson Cluff SS
95 (62) T.J. White OF (Corner)
96 (50) Max Romero Jr. C
97 (nr) Chance Huff RHP (Reliever)
98 (103) Juan Obispo OF (CF)
99 (63) Marcus Brown SS/2B
100 (66) Rony Bello 2B/3B

We’ve finally moved past arms, and now have a slew of positional players in this range. Lets talk about them, because they include a bunch of names who used to be higher.

De La Rosa has slowly fallen off, and further down, prospect lists; he was as high as #13 on Fangraphs list in mid 2024, believe it or not. After another middling season at the plate (hitting .200 in High-A), he’s now basically a non prospect. Cluff improved his slash line this year as a fill-in AAA shortstop, but is now 28, was drafted in 2019, and may be hitting MLFA. White repeated High-A for the third successive year, losing some of the power he found last year but not really improving on his .650 OPS. Romero is the classic “hanging around catcher who can barely hit but keeps moving up the ranks because every team needs a twice-a-week backup to their actual catching prospect” guy, spending this year in AA. Obispo is a $600k IFA signing in Jan 2023 who repeated the DSL for the third time this year with marked improvement. Which is good … and bad. Why did it take him 3 turns in the DR? Marcus Brown looks like Troy Tulowitzki … but hits like Troy’s 2nd cousin Bubba. I suppose he has a chance to be the next Jackson Cluff; a pure SS who can barely hit but who plays the dirt as needed. Bello got a decent chunk of bonus money in jan 2025 but was relegated to the bench in his first DSL season primarily by two guys we’ve already talked about in Marconi and Cortesia, but his investment guarantees more time.

I’ve got three arms in here: Angel Roman got 13 starts this year in low-A before mercifully getting sent to the bullpen. Unfortunately he was even worse as a reliever than he was as a starter. He’s only even listed on this page because he’s a Lefty, and may have a future as a lefty reliever. Speaking of relievers, Holden Powell solved AA this year and got a bit roughed up in AAA as a middle relief->setup guy. He’s here because he made it to AAA, even if that might be his ceiling. Lastly we have Chance Huff, who was used kind of like a utility knife in AA this year, getting a few spot starts along with longer relief. He held his own; not amazing, but enough that he might have some future.

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101 (52) Manuel Cabrera 1B/3B
102 (78) Leuris Portorreal RHP (Starter)
103 (54) Nick Peoples OF (Corner)
104 (80) Mikey Tepper RHP (Starter)
105 (71) Dustin Saenz LHP (Starter)
106 (75) Seth Shuman RHP (Starter)
107 (79) Gavin Dugas 2B
108 (85) Brandon Pimentel 1B
109 (nr) Vasquez Samuel RHP (Reliever)
110 (93) Andy Acevedo OF (CF)

So, in the 100+ range, we’re mostly talking about guys who used to be more highly ranked who have fallen due to declining performance. Fittingly, 9 of the 10 guys in this section were ranked higher last year but struggled this year.

On the “Starter” front, Saenz was in and out of the AA rotation this year and had passable ERA, but his swing and miss is lacking, and a 26yr old undersized RHP reliever seems like the first one to go. Shuman posted a 6.24 ERA as a 27-yr old this year and seems like a release candidate. He was in and out of the AAA rotation, but between pending veteran MLFA signings and rising Arms from AA (like Bennett, Susana, Tolman) who need to get to AAA sooner than later, I’d imagine his spot is in serious jeopardy. Tepper made just 2 starts and hit the season-long DL: it may be unfair to drop him 20-something spots, but that’s life. Portorreal gets credit for being part of the 2023 IFA crew that’s made it state-side, pitching in the FCL all season, but with little success.

I threw Vasquez in here with his solid AA relief numbers, but recognizing that he’s a Rule5 pick who was left available for a reason; he may be considered a dime a dozen in terms of capabilities and ceiling.

Cabrera has been moved completely off the 2B/SS and played almost entirely 1B and 3B this season; a .592 OPS isn’t going to cut it like that. Dugas was already super old upon his drafting; now he’s a 25yr old finishing up a .181 season in High-A and may be done for. Pimentel hit just .194 this year and as a NDFA with almost no investment, he’s in danger of an imminent release. With all due respect to Peoples, he’s now finished his 3rd pro season and his career minor league BA is .192. Acevedo is basically here on the back of his $1.3M signing bonus in 2023; he hit just .188 in the FCL this year.

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111 (86) Joe Naranjo 1B
112 (65) Luke Young RHP (Reliever)
113 (60) Jack Sinclair RHP (Reliever)
114 (107) J.T. Arruda 2B
115 (92) Viandel Pena 2B
116 (99) Johnathan Thomas OF (CF)
117 (82) Jared McKenzie OF (CF)
118 (81) Elian Soto 1B/OF (Corner)
119 (98) Carlos Batista OF (Corner)
120 (84) Leodarlyn Colon RHP (Reliever)
121 (64) Everett Cooper 2B/LF
122 (68) Lucas Knowles LHP (Reliever)
123 (90) Yoander Rivero 2B
124 (95) Matt Suggs C
125 (104) Nathan Ochoa Leyva OF (Corner)

Every one of the rest of these guys is here because I managed to put them in my top 100 list back in March. Some have fallen significantly. I can’t really see any of these guys being actual “prospects” anymore, but instead of deleting them off the list they’re in the 100+ section.

We’ll talk about them in groups.

Relievers: Young earned a promotion this year but was just kind of a meh RHP middle reliever in AA. Same with Sinclair; i suppose Young’s numbers were slightly better than Sinclair’s so perhaps they should be reversed. Colon was a starter in FCL last year but now is full time relief. Knowles seems like one of those lefty rubber armed multi-role types that every team needs in the minors; he’s 27, in AA, still hanging around.

Infielders: Naranjo was a super-young MLFA last year, having signed internationally at age 16. He’s a sub 6-foot 1B who slugged less than .300; i wonder if he signed for more than one year. Arruda is kind of like Cluff-lite, in AAA but with no real pathway to the majors. Pena ended the year in AAA for some reason; as a backup 2B in AA he hit .201 this year and is basically Arruda with 2 more years of control. Cooper hit just .140 this year repeating Low-A. Rivero got moved to 2B, where he backed up our better players in Low-A while hitting .201 and ending the year on the 60-day DL.

Backup Catchers: I guess I could have also included all our backup catchers here instead of just Suggs. Basically every one of these guys is in the same boat: Lindsley and Stubbs in AAA, Suggs and Farmer in AA, Colmenares in High-A, or Fagnant/Hollified in Low-A: generally speaking these guys have batting averages in the .180-.200 range, play once a week backing up the starter, and are there more for defensive skills than prospect status.

Outfielders: Thomas actually earned a promotion to AA this year, but his primary skill seems to be stealing bases, not actually getting on base. McKenzie took a big step back while repeating High-A, hitting just .167 there this year. Juan’s brother Soto hit just .139 playing 1B/LF combo. Batista wasn’t much better, hitting .140 in FCL this year. Both Soto and Batista were decent-money 2023 IFAs who are getting socially promoted based on their bonus as opposed to their talent, but that’s going to run out at some point. Lastly we have the 125th ranked Ochoa Leyva, who had just a .493 OPS this season as he covered 2B/LF for Low-A.

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Phew. Hope you’ve enjoyed this. I’d say, “did I forget anyone” but … man when ranking 125 of the players in our system, we’re getting a massive percentage of the total rosters of all our domestic teams (147 active players plus another 18-20 on the 60-Day DL), not to mention the 30 or so guys we have in the DSL. Maybe in the future we’ll rank all the way to 200.

It occurred to me … you know when the right time to do prospect evaluation is? It isn’t in March or April ahead of the next season, its right now. Well, at least until we see off-season churn, add new signings in January, add prospects in trade, etc. But for now, we’ve just finished the last of the minor league seasons, 2025 performance is fresh in our minds, we’ve added a slew of new prospects via the trade deadline and the Draft, and now’s a great time to pass judgement on the seasons we just saw.

So, here’s my top 125 Prospect Ranks for the National system, right now. I’ll list these in groups of 10, list where I had them ranked in Mid-March before the season started. I ended up writing so much that I broke this into two posts: Part 1 will be the top 60, then we’ll dive into the 61-125th ranked guys.

We’ve had a ton of prospect churn this season; we’ve graduated 10 prospects from my top 100+ list in March, including four of our top 10. Crews, House, Cavalli (who as of this exact writing needs one more start to officially graduate via IP, even though he graduated via Service time a year ago), Hassell, Lile, Lord, Nunez (another Service time vs Plate appearance guy), Rutledge, Henry, and Millas all hit MLB rookie eligibility limits this year (150 PAs or 50IP). We released another 10 guys who I had ranked in March, which mostly goes to the folly of trying to rank anyone above the top 50 or so.

Key links guiding this:

• Big Board: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/186nm-v5F-zTCoR2Be7TFYM3e2cZ-gYi2WVqJLEkHdmc/edit?hl=en&gid=1488309175#gid=1488309175
• Draft Tracker: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Qd5DS9GlmkQOEh_zGhOvlhHK0EegqY1uJB4mLGmRBaY/edit?gid=0#gid=0
• IFA Tracker: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ksPorXhEHhtkNAGqxrJWqUFkvioMgoWhBU50uaZstc8/edit?usp=sharing
• This full ranking in a Google Sheet online: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Xs9fmb-dctE90hTS3bdozznETS-Oc3GsMuGzRo2faUc/edit?usp=sharing

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The blocks will be in the form Current Rank (March 2025 Rank) Name position

Here’s my current top 10 for the system:

1 (nr) Eli Willits SS
2 (4) Jarlin Susana RHP (Starter)
3 (9) Alex Clemmey LHP (Starter)
4 (17) Jake Bennett LHP (Starter)
5 (2) Travis Sykora RHP (Starter)
6 (6) Yohandy Morales 3B
7 (nr) Ethan Petry 1B/OF (Corner)
8 (11) Caleb Lomavita C
9 (nr) Coy James SS
10 (nr) Landon Harmon RHP (Starter)

Discussion: So, I (like many shops) have Willits immediately going top. This is partly due to the injuries that Susana and Sykora suffered, and partly buying into the hype. Pretty much every other major shop has put Willits as #1 in our system upon his drafting too. In fact, the only shop that didn’t immediately have him #1 in our system was Fangraphs, and I’d bet they’d reconsider with Susana’s Lat surgery.

I kept Susana #2 once we found out it wasn’t Shoulder/Elbow. I know he’s still missing time in 2026, but it could be worse. I’ve dropped Sykora from a close #2 to 5th on the list behind our BA player of the year Clemmey and Bennett on the back of his outstanding season.

I remain baffled why Morales is so low on other rankings (#17 in BA, #20 MLBpipeline). I might be bullish on him, but I can’t see dropping him much below this. Petry’s inclusion to the AFL speaks volumes for the 2025 draftee; something tells me he’s going to be a pretty fast moving bat in this system. Lomavita looks like he could push Kiebert Ruiz for a job sooner than later, hitting for solid numbers in a pitcher’s park for most of 2025. I’ve filled out my top 10 with two speculative picks in the two highest profile prep players we overpaid for in the 2025 draft. These ranks could look pretty embarrassing in a year’s time, but are in line with BA/MLBPipeline’s initial rankings, so I’m happy with them.

Four of our top 10 were 2025 draft picks, an indication of just how important the 2025 draft will be to this organization going forward.

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11 (nr) Sean Paul Linan RHP (Starter)
12 (nr) Eriq Swan RHP (Starter)
13 (19) Angel Feliz 3B/SS
14 (nr) Cornelio Riley RHP (Starter)
15 (nr) Christian Franklin OF (CF)
16 (5) Seaver King SS
17 (12) Luke Dickerson SS/CF
18 (26) Jackson Kent LHP (Starter)
19 (39) Sam Peterson OF (CF)
20 (nr) Davian Garcia RHP (Starter)

Discussion: Linan and Swan seem like they’re going to be the crown jewels of the 2025 trade deadline, but finishing the year in High-A with solid 2025 numbers. Feliz is our highest performing 2024 IFA class member so far, being one of only 3 guys from that class to get off the island so far, and the only one to really make an impression state-side. He’s going to likely get pushed to 3B as he rises alongside more pure middle infielder prospects like Willits and Dickerson.

Cornelio Riley deservedly was just named the Nats 2025 Minor league Pitcher of the Year and has exploded onto the prospect radar: I did not even rank him in my top 100 last year, having held his first two seasons in relative disdain for his mediocre numbers and social promotion. How wrong do I look based on his 3-level rise this year? Franklin is an interesting one, arriving as a AAA level corner OF in a system full of OF prospects and raked. I’ve dropped Dickerson five slots from March, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but he’s probably lucky to remain this high based on a .208 hitting season. Kent ended the year in AA in his first pro season, tiring at the end but looking promising. Peterson nearly had a .300/.400/.500 season in High-A as a 2024 8th rounder from a little-regarded baseball school (Iowa). Maybe he should be higher, closer to Franklin. Garcia may be a little high here as a 2024 draftee who struggled a bit in High-A once he got there, but his Low-A debut was really promising.

Lastly, i’ve dumped King from #5 to #16. Is that fair given that he was in AA most of the time? Probably not, but it’s a good representation of how disappointing his season was in retrospect given his draft slot and bonus. I’ll bet most shops don’t dump him much past the early teens, and perhaps #16 is harsh, but there’s some serious concerns here.

As with our top 10, half this group wasn’t even ranked in March, with trade acquisitions and fantastic performances from two guys not on the prospect radar pushing their way in here. Unfortunately, that’s tempered by the plummeting of the two biggest names from the 2024 draft in King and Dickerson.

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21 (nr) Marconi German SS
22 (nr) Miguel Sime Jr. RHP (Starter)
23 (nr) Ronny Cruz SS
24 (67) Yoel Tejeda Jr.  RHP (Starter)
25 (28) Andrew Alvarez LHP (Starter)
26 (14) Tyler Stuart RHP (Starter)
27 (20) Andrew Pinckney OF (Corner)
28 (7) Cayden Wallace 2B/3B
29 (29) Brayan Cortesia SS
30 (nr) Randall Josh RHP (Starter)

Discussion: German is looking like the jewel of the 2025 IFA class so far, with a stellar DSL season where he slashed .283/.479/.513 and made the DSL All Star team. Cortesia at #29 was a bigger bonus guy and had a better average in the DSL, but had just 4 XBH (0 homers) in 40 DSL games. Both show promise.

Sime is the fourth of our four big bonus Prep 2025 draftees; he got a bit less than James and Harmon, and is a bit lower regarded from a potential perspective, but still projects as a flame-throwing starter. Cruz came over with Franklin in the Soroka trade a couple months ago and joins a slew of 18-19 yr old SS prospects (Willits, Dickerson, Feliz, James all ranked above him) competing for playing time. Tejeda was great all year but was shelved w/o notice with about a month to go in Low-A; hopefully nothing wrong there.

I’m definitely high-man on Alvarez, even given the fact that he’s made his MLB debut. For whatever reason, none of these shops rate a lefty starter who has held his own in AAA for two years then has a completely respectable debut stint in the majors. Call me crazy, but isn’t the point of prospects to get to the majors and contribute?

I’ve dropped Stuart 10 spots due to his TJ, which likely means we won’t see him til 2027. Should I have Pinckney higher? He’s a CF-capable 20-homer AAA hitter who’s a year younger than Franklin, who i’ve got 10 spots higher. Perhaps … but something just seems to be holding him up. Randall was the third of three High-A starters we nabbed in the trade deadline this year (alongside Swan and Linan) but had the roughest go of it in Wilmington (6.44 ERA). I keep him in the top 30 … for now.

Lastly, a word on perhaps my biggest “miss” of my May rankings: Cayden Wallace. I had him at #7 in the spring, thinking honestly that he might actually push House for his AAA third-base job. I was not alone in this regard, with other major shops generally having him in the 10-12 range. He punted the 2025 season; hitting .242/.310/.376 (with much of that production in one hot month). I can’t see him moving up to AAA next season (not with both Tena and Lipscomb as 3B capable players currently on the roster), at least not to open the season. Furthermore, there’s already three 2B on the AAA roster now (Baker, Arruda, Pena), so he’d struggle with playing time there as well.

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31 (44) Jose Feliz RHP (Starter)
32 (nr) Nick Schnell OF (Corner)
33 (nr) Sauryn Lao RHP (Starter)
34 (nr) R.J. Sales RHP (Starter)
35 (45) Dashyll Tejeda OF (CF)
36 (72) Sir Jamison Jones C
37 (21) Cristian Vaquero OF (CF)
38 (22) Victor Hurtado OF (Corner)
39 (87) Jorgelys Mota SS
40 (nr) Nauris De La Cruz OF (Corner)

Discussion: This group heavy on youngsters who may be moving further up soon. (Feliz, Tejeda, Jones, Mota, De la Cruz). It’s also notable how quickly our farm system thins.

Feliz is looking like the best arm out of the 2023 IFA class, having dominated the FCL this year. I look forward to seeing what he can do in full-season ball next year. Schnell may seem like an odd pick for a “prospect,” but the MLFA is still only 25 and bashed his way to AAA this year. The Rochester outfield (Schnell, Pinckney, Franklin) must have looked pretty harsh to opposing pitchers during the last half of the season.

Lao is an interesting one. He was DFA’d by Seattle a few weeks ago despite spending the entire season in their AAA rotation in Tacoma with a 3.19 ERA. He’s only 25. I think he might be a sneaky good contender for the AAA rotation to start next season, with an eye on covering in the majors quickly. He got called up to pitch out of the bullpen for the homestretch, but he’s no 4-A reliever.

Sales was probably the least heralded starter we got at the 2025 trade deadline, but he had some of the best numbers, with a 2.85 ERA in 22 low-A starts this year. He’s a college starter from UNC-Wilmington who will clearly be in our High-A rotation to start next season.

Both Tejeda and Jones are 19yr olds who may be ranked a bit high based on their 2025 performance, but who are promising. Jones is being brought along as a Catcher, which adds to his eventual value. Meanwhile, Vaquero and Hurtado remain primarily “bonus baby” prospects, and continue to leak downwards on the charts. I laugh at anyone who credibly tries to rank Hurtado in the top 20 of our system after hitting .236 while repeating the DSL. Mota could be a sneaky good prospect for us, as he hit well in Low-A while playing a ton of 3B while making way for the likes of Dickerson & Willits. He can play SS as needed.

Lastly, a word on Nauris De La Cruz, who gets a debutant ranking here after a very solid DSL debut. He signed for a pittance outside the normal signing period (they didn’t announce his 2025 IFA signing bonus, meaning it was at best $10k and likely less), but slashed .294/.448/.450 for the season. He may be a bit older than the normal DSL kid, but he still will move stateside having played mostly CF for the DSL nats.

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41 (nr) Clayton Beeter RHP (Reliever)
42 (42) Robert Cranz RHP (Reliever)
43 (nr) Browm Martinez OF (CF)
44 (47) Phillips Glasser SS
45 (nr) Juan Reyes LHP (Starter)
46 (16) Kevin Bazzell C
47 (53) Jose Atencio RHP (Starter)
48 (96) Pablo Aldonis LHP (Reliever)
49 (40) Orlando Ribalta RHP (Reliever)
50 (37) Daniel Hernandez C

Discussion: Yes, this is the first time you’re seeing relievers. I have an awfully hard time ranking relievers in the top 30, let alone the top 40. Why? Well, look no further than the makeup of the current Nats bullpen: 2 MLFAs (Ogasawara, Pilkington), 2 waiver claims (Poulin and Lao), 2 trade acquisitions (Thompson, Beeter), and two high-profile Nats failed starter prospects (Rutledge, Henry).

So, yes, I know Cranz had awesome numbers. I know Beeter and Ribalta have MLB time this year. They’re still 4-A guys who seemingly could be a 6-era or a 2-era guy in a MLB pen. Lets talk about the rest of these guys. Aldonis converted to relief this year and completely dominated across 3 levels, finishing the season with a 1.45 ERA to post some of the best numbers of any reliever in the system.

Martinez is a lottery ticket trade acquisition who was hitting .400 in the DSL when we acquired him, but who immediately hit the DL and that’s that. His ranking is incredibly speculative. Glasser gets the nod here on the heels of just being named the Nats 2025 Minor league Hitter of the Year. I still think he’s got Org Guy stink on him, but if he makes the majors as a bench guy in the same Jake Alu vein, then more power to him.

Juan Reyes was the star of the DSL rotation this year … but at age 20. It’s entirely possible his success in 2025 was “too old for the level,” but he signed for nothing and has pitched his way into an FCL look next year. Atencio missed the entire 2025 season with injury but was a 3.41 ERA starter last year in AA, so hopefully picks up where he left off.

Daniel Hernandez was a 7-figure 2025 IFA signing who is a Catcher, and he hit like one this year, posting a .552 OPS figure in his debut DSL season. #50 may be generous here.

Lastly, there’s Bazzell, who takes a mighty tumble down the ranks. He spent the entire season in Low-A despite being a 3rd round pick from a major baseball conference and put up some pretty anemic numbers, even for a catcher. Zero homers and a .283 slugging percentage. Keith Law ranked this guy #6 in our entire system earlier this year.

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51 (69) Daison Acosta RHP (Reliever)
52 (23) Elijah Green OF (CF)
53 (32) Darren Baker 2B
54 (33) Zach Brzykcy RHP (Reliever)
55 (nr) Sam Brown OF (Corner)
56 (43) Randal Diaz SS/3B
57 (27) Armando Cruz SS
58 (24) Rafael Ramirez Jr. SS
59 (55) Hyun-Il Choi RHP (Starter)
60 (13) Andry Lara RHP (Starter)

This is the section where we see a slew of more heralded prospects now getting pushed down after years of unproductivity. Elijah Green being the headliner, but joined by Baker (recently DFA’d), Brzycky (who was always too high, even for a reliever, before getting blasted in the majors), Cruz (who hit just .177 in High-A this season), Ramirez (who barely played this year after missing a ton of time on the DL), and especially Andry Lara, who was absolutely tattooed in AAA this year to an 8.92 ERA, which was nearly as bad as his MLB ERA of 8.79 in a few mop-up appearances. Yes, I know he’s only 22 and I know he throws hard, but it must be straight as an arrow to get hit as hard as he has.

is Baker a prospect at all? It’s hard to see where he goes from here; likely he plays out the 6-year string with us and moves on. He’s still got some positional value (he can play several positions in a pinch) but if the team needs backup middle infielders they’re likely moving on other names at this point.

Choi was a minor league rule5 guy who went from the opening day AAA rotation to mostly pitching out of the AA rotation all year. I don’t see a lot of ceiling here. I think he gets whacked again in AAA next year and moves to the bullpen.

Lets talk instead about the two guys in this group who seem to be moving up: Brown and Diaz. Brown was seemingly a throw-in from the Angels in the Chafin/Garcia trade, but he got to AA here as a 24yr old 2023 12th round pick and hit; .307/.384/.472 from the left side in his time here playing 1B/RF. Not bad. The other guy in this section I like a bit more: Randal Diaz was a 5th rounder in 2024 who never appeared last year and played the whole season in F’burg. He’s listed as a SS but we know Short was primarily manned all year by either Dickerson or Willits, so Diaz moved around. A lot: he played games at every infield position plus Left and Right at some point this year. We know the Nats love positional flexibility. Problem is, he didn’t hit as well as he needs to; just .229. We’ll see.

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Stay tuned for Part 2, ranking #61 to #125.

The 2025 minor league seasons may not entirely be over, but the Arizona Fall League rosters have been released, so let’s take a quick peek at who in the Nationals system has been sent.

Typically, the Nats send a hodgepodge of players who fit into one of three categories:

• Pitchers who were injured for a lot of 2025 and who need innings
• Pending Rule-5 guys who they want to see challenged against the AFL’s best
• Seemingly lesser so; our top prospects.

So of the 8 guys announced so far, what are we seeing?

Pitchers

• Aldonis, Pablo, lefty reliever who dominated in both Low-A and High-A this year in a setup reliever capacity. He’s a 19IFA so he’s been Rule5 eligible for years, but got a late start to his career so he’s now pushing up on 6yrs MLFA. Is he in the “pending Rule5 guy” category? Probably: he got plenty of innings this year.
• Amaral, Austin, He’s had a really nice season, first as the High-A closer and lately as a AA setup guy. Not a ton of K/9 but a lot of weak contact, getting BAA .216 for the season. He’s a 23 draftee so not yet rule-5, and seemed to get plenty of innings this year (69ip), so an interesting pick.
• Bennett, Jake, who finally came of the DL after missing half of 2023 and all of 2024; he’s been excellent all year as they ramp him back up. He’s in the “injured guy who needs more innings” category, in that he only got 70 for the year as a starter. He’s also newly Rule5 eligible this coming off season and is a pretty obvious protection candidate.
• Linan, Sean Paul: he only threw 3 innings for Wilmington before he hit the D/L, and thus only has 77 IP for the season as a starter. He’s in AFL to get some more work. Glad to see he’s not seriously injured; usually these “one start and DL” types are more serious.
• Simpson, Jared*, lefty reliever with weird numbers this year: 6+ era, 64/57 K/BB in 52ip. Got lots of work this year, clearly needs to work on his command; why is he in AFL? He’s a 2023 drafee and thus not Rule5 eligible til next off-season. Weird pick.

Batters

• King, Seaver. Our 1st round 2024 pick struggled all year, likely over promoted to AA, and certainly could use more work. He does check the one box of the team sending a “top prospect,” though King’s prospect ranking is sure to take a hit after his 2025 season.
• Petersen, Sam, who had a brilliant season at the plate and now holds a career slash line in the minors north of the vaunted .300/.400/.500 marker. This is probably a “show me” AFL challenge posting to see if Peterson can cut it against the top talent there.
• Petry, Ethan, our 2nd rounder from this year who many think will be a fast mover. This might be an aggressive AFL posting for a kid who was hitting aluminum bats a couple months ago, but he’s considered to be a mature hitter. Classifies as the top prospect category.

Who could make sense for an AFL stint this year:

Potential Rule5 guys to consider: there’s a few players who have taken steps up this year who are newly rule5 eligible, but none seem immediately to be an obvious protection candidate. Bennet and Cornelio are the pretty clear newly-eligible Rule5 guys who could have gotten plucked. Luckham in the same boat, ending the year in the AAA rotation. On the IFA side, the 2021 class is now coming due and even tough there’s a couple of important names on that list (Polanco and Romero, both in the Low-A rotation all year), the biggest money guy is Armando Cruz, who hit .177 this year in High-A and isn’t a candidate to get picked.

There’s some Rule5 holdovers who also might now make sense to look at: Boissiere, Tolman, Powell, Sinclair, etc. But no one really pressing. Kevin Made?

Injury guys who could use the work: scouring the AA and High-A roster, I don’t see any names that pop out as players who knowingly missed a ton of time.

Show-Me popup prospects: we’ve already talked about Peterson in this category. Our Low-A stars are too young (Willits, Dickerson, Feliz), Bazzell didn’t perform well enough.

So, that’s the 2025 slate.

Here’s the five month check-in with all our top 20 (and some) prospects. This mostly does an August focus on the prospects being mentioned, but sometimes mentions season-long stats, which are as of 9/1/25 as best as possible.

This is our prospects as I ranked them prior to the season: If i was to re-rank prospects today a big chunk of these guys would be graduated or moved. Plus, we picked up at least six guys who will feature in our top 30 at the trade deadline; i’ll put those after the top 20 in a special section to highlight their pre-Nats stats.

#1. Dylan Crews OF (CF/RF): Returned from a couple months off, played about half of August and was not good. .218/.317/.309. He’s providing positive defensive contributions so he’s somehow got a positive bWAR for the season, but this isn’t what we were expecting. He’s still plagued with a ridiculously low BABIP; .248 for 2025, on par with where he was last year. He’s at a 40% hard-hit percentage, but is over 50% ground balls. I dunno what to say here. Temperature: remains cold so far professionally.

#2 Travis Sykora RHP (Starter): Tommy John surgery. Temperature: on ice til 2027.

#3 Brady House 3B: Cooled off considerably from July to Aug, slashing just .22/.230/.278 for the month and has been losing ABs to the likes of deJong. Tangent: why the F is this team giving ABs to deJong, Bell, or any other random dude who’s going to be a FA this off-season? It makes no sense. Bell should be DFA’d tomorrow and you bring up Yepez or Morales immediately to see what they can do. You’re 30 games under .500; time to see if our AAA hitters can cut it in the majors in games that are meaningless. Temperature: cooling off as the season grinds on.

#4 Jarlin Susana RHP (Starter). Had an awesome month in August, then grabbed his arm and exited his last start. Apparently just a tendinitis issue, but it sure looked worse. On the DL, likely done for the season, and the team has to wonder how he’ll bounce back. He’s now our most important pitching prospect by a mile. Temperature: on ice for the rest of 2025, hopefully nothing more serious than reported.

# 5 Seaver King SS. Bottoming out as the season winds down; .209/.275/.282 in August. Not really the production we expected out of a top 10 1st round pick. Should he still be in High-A? Temperature: ice cold.

# 6 Yohandy Morales 1B maintained his July slash line through August, going .298/.394/.489. I’m frankly pissed that we’re still playing Josh Bell full time at this point. Morales needs to be in the majors, right now, starting at 1B and seeing what he can do. Temperature: hot.

#7 Cayden Wallace 2B/3B: well, he had no where to go but up, and up he did in August: .359/.413/.587 for an OPS north of 1000 in the month. He had one game where he went 4-5 with 2 homers and 11 TB, but he also had a 7 game hitting streak in the middle of the month to help out. Lets see if he can keep this up, if he’s figured something out. Temperature: red hot in August.

# 8 Cade Cavalli RHP (Starter): Didn’t exactly “earn” his way into the Majors other than being the only starter on the 40-man roster, but has performed well in his MLB stint so far. Temptingly good actually. We discussed it more in the Pitching post, but save for one weird start in NY he’s been quite solid. Wow, can he be a contributor in 2026? Temperature: Warm?

#9 Alex Clemmey LHP (Starter): Promoted to AA as a 20yr old; wow. Got shelled in his first 3 starts; no surprise. Went 6ip with 1H in his most recent start; that’s what i’m talking about. Clemmey should be higher on our prospect lists this coming off-season and could be in the majors next year at this pace. Temperature: staying hot.

# 10 Robert Hassell III OF (CF): Seems to have officially supplanted Jacob Young as our starting CF, which is saying something given how good a defender Young is. Slashed .246/.306/.386 in August, which is ok but not awesome, but enough to keep him in the starting lineup. Amazing how Hassell was nearly being written off in some quarters at this time a year ago, now he may have secured a starting job in the majors. Temperature: warming up.

#11 Caleb Lomavita C: had a solid month in August at the plate: .288/.325/.411. I’d like to see a bit more power, but he’s maintaining a decent slash line in AA in his first pro season, so can’t really ask for much more. Temperature: Improving.

# 12 Luke Dickerson SS/2B: put up his third straight month of hitting in the 100s, and now has to fend with the drafting of Willits pushing him to 2B. Or, frankly, the bench, if he doesn’t step up. Temperature: ice cold

# 13 Andry Lara RHP (Reliever): 10.70 ERA in August. I’m not sure what his future holds. On the one hand he’s only 22 and on the 40-man, on the other hand he’s having an absolutely awful 2025 and i’m surprised he’s not getting DFA’d. Temperature: ice cold.

#14 Tyler Stuart RHP (Starter): Tommy John. out til 2027. Temperature: on ice for a while.

#15 Daylen Lile OF (CF/RF): with Crew’s return, ABs have been tough to come by with 5 outfielders on the roster, but Lile’s bat has kept him in the lineup. For august: .304/.353/.418. That will keep you in the lineup. Temperature: warming up

#16 Kevin Bazzell C: has continued his solid July with an even better august: .333/.400/.350. Still want more power out of him, but can’t argue with .333. Temperature: warming.

#17 Jake Bennett LHP (Starter): 5 starts in AA, 0.77 ERA. I don’t care that they’re still babying his innings, he’s really shutting down the league. Only nit: not a ton of Ks; just 12 in 23 IP last month. I wonder if that’s who he is, or if he’s pitching more to contact trying to stay longer in games. Either way, He should be in AAA next season as a 25yr old and may really put his name into the mix for the Majors soon. Temperature: red-hot

#18 Brad Lord RHP (Starter/Reliever): has been inserted into the rotation to cover for injuries and may have finally reached a plateau he cannot overcome. In 2025 in the majors as a starter: 5.79 ERA. As a reliever? 2.79 ERA. I think we know what he should be in the majors. Temperature: cooled as a starter

#19 Angel Feliz SS: did not start off low-A well: .200/.271/.320 while trying to find innings at SS on a team with both Willits and Dickerson. He’s only 18, and a lot of his 24IFA class are still on the island, so no real complaints. Temperature: cold but young

#20 Andrew Pinckney OF (CF or corner): continued hitting in AAA; .317/.372/.515 with 5 homers in August. See above comments on Morales: why is this guy still in AAA? We have a 1B and a DH slot in the majors … frigging use Pinckney and Morales in those spots now. Temperature: hot.

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Trade Acquisition Update. here’s the 10 prospects we’ve acquired with their season stats and levels. They’re listed in rough order of their prospect ranking, with some quick comments on their Aug performance here:

• Linan, Sean Paul: SP: had one 3-inning start then hit the DL in High-A.
• Franklin, Christian: OF (CF): tearing it up in AAA: .296/.381/459 in August.
• Swan, Eriq: SP: 4 starts, 5.03 ERA in High-A to start. Meh.
• Cruz, Ronny: SS: in FCL, season complete.
• Randall, Josh: SP: 5 starts, 6.17 ERA in High-A to start. Meh.
• Beeter, Clayton: RP: fantastic august in AAA bullpen: 18/0 K/BB in 13ip as an 8th/9th inning guy
• Sales, R.J.: SP 5 low-A starts, 3.86 ERA, good start to Nats career.
• Eder, Jake RP; on the AAA DL the entire month.
• Martinez, Browm, OF: in DSL, on DL, season complete.
• Brown, Sam: 1B/LF: crushed it for AA in August: .365/.436/.573 for an OPS > 1.000. Awesome.

The first 6 of these 10 guys are already in our top 30 on both BA and MLBpipeline lists. I like Sales and Martinez for the back-end of that list at some point. Eder might be a 4-A lefty reliever, and Brown might be a throw in. But we got 10 guys into the system in a week, which is great.

2025 Draft Acquisition update: a slew of our 2025 draftees have already debuted; here’s how things are going for those in full-season ball (in order of their draft round):

• 1st Willits, Eli: SS: great start: .333/.417/.357 so far in Low-A, starting at SS.
• 2nd Petry, Ethan: 1B/LF: also a great start: .274/.391/.370 in Low-A, playing mostly 1B/LF.
• (our three other prep draftees Harmon, Sime, and James all are in FCL and have not played)
• 8th Maddox, Riley SP: has one brief appearance but is getting a start this week
• 9th Henseler, Wyatt 2B/3B got pushed up to High-A after hitting .351 in Low-A as a sr sign, only hit .118 in 9 high-A games so far
• 13th: Biven, Tucker, a few games in low-A bullpen so far.
• 14th Hollifield, Nick C: decent start as a backup C in Low-A: .286/.397/.304 so far.
• 15th Walsh, Jacob 1B; struggling at .117 in pro debut in Low-A.
• 18th Puk, Owen RP: a few innings in Low-A bullpen

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Notable Prospects #20 and above who are going to be ranked much higher the next time I do a list.

in MLB:

• #28 Alvarez finally got promoted and had a great MLB debut. Lets see if he can continue.
• #38 Millas finally got some PT in the majors as some have clamored for … and frigging broke his finger, ending his season. They’ve already put him on the 60-day DL, icing him even if he could come back in a few weeks.

In AAA:

• All props to Cornelio for now making it to AAA and holding his own. he’s probably the Nats Pitcher of the year, following in Alvarez’s footsteps.

In AA:

• #25 Made: remember when i was all excited b/c he hit the crap out of the ball one month? well, he remains cold, hitting just .209 in August.
• Jackson Kent, 2024 4th rounder, is now in AA. That’s awesome to see. He’ll make a big jump from his preseason prospect ranking.
• Brandon Boissiere is finally holding his own at the plate, maintaining a .800 OPS in AA this season.
• The team keeps giving Schultz and Huff spot starts/opener duties when the rotation needs a break; maybe these are possible conversions back to starters? Schultz in particular seems really effective this year, maintaining a .179 BAA all season.

In High-A:

• #39 Sam Peterson last played on Aug 13th, and sat for a week before that. No DL trip, no news. He’s been one of our best hitters all year but its curious why he would just get benched like this w/o a DL trip for so long.
• Like Peterson, High-A has also buried Yoel Tejeda on the “non playing, non DL list” for the basically the entire month. I guess they just don’t need the roster room.
• 2024 draftee starter Davian Garcia got moved to High-A deservedly, but has struggled since arriving.

In Low-A:

• Every time I see 2024 10th rounder Luke Johnson have a successful start, i’m ecstatic. Reminder: he signed for exactly $2,000. He could have refused to sign and gotten ten times that as an NDFA; why he agreed to sign for that is kind of beyond me, but he’s holding his own and I hope he continues.

In FCL:

• Season Complete: a few guys have been moved to Low-A, most done for the year.

In the DSL:

• Season complete, and I havn’t seen a single promotion state-side from the 2025 roster. Probably not a huge surprise since FCL is done too and none of these guys can go straight to F-burg.

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That’s August. One more of these to go at the end of the season.

This is the 5th monthly review of all our rotations for the 2025, checking in on the latest month’s worth of production and doing some analysis.

I popped into baseball-reference.com to start this work, and realized we’re now 30 games under .500. The Nats went just 9-19 in August, including an 8-game losing streak to finish out the month to go along with our best starter hitting the DL. There’s no sugar coating it; this team has taken a significant step backwards from “the rebuilding roadmap” that led them from horror in 2008 to glory in 2012. I’m not sure what’s next.

Each team section analysis will have the same items: current rotation, changes in the last month, observations, next guy to get promoted (if its in the minors), next guy to get cut, and then a few comments about relievers.

All seasonal stats quoted are as of 8/31/25, though we mostly focus on the past 30 days of stats.

Important links for this analysis:

• Big Board
• Nats MLB stats: at baseball-reference.com
• AAA Rochester stats: (all minor league stats at milb.com)
• AA Harrisburg stats
• High-A Wilmington stats
• Low-A Fredericksburg Stats
• FCL Nationals Stats
• DSL Nationals Pitching Stats

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We’ll start with the Majors.

• Opening Day 2025: Gore, Irvin, Parker, Soroka, TWilliams
• End of April 2025: Gore, Irvin, Parker, TWilliams, Lord
• End of May 2025: Gore, Irvin, Parker, Soroka, TWilliams (back to the original)
• End of June 2025: Gore, Irvin, Parker, Soroka, TWilliams
• End of July 2025: Gore, Irvin, Parker, Lord, Ogasawara
• End of Aug 2025: Irvin, Parker, Lord, Cavalli, Alvarez

Changes since end of last Month: Two big changes. Our Ace Gore hit the DL at the very end of the month with what’s being described as “minor shoulder inflammation” and he hopes to return this season. On the one hand; why bother returning? We have less than a month left and we’re in last place. On the other hand, if the team wants to flip him this off-season, he really needs to get back into the rotation and not end the season on the DL. However … if you’re an interested team, did the price to acquire Gore this coming off-season just take a massive hit? Yeah it did. Honestly, for those who want to keep Gore this may be a godsend of an injury timing. This may guarantee he stays with the Nats until next trade deadline, when presumably nothing has changed, we’ve spent no $$ this coming off-season and we’re 10 games under .500 once again.

Elsewhere in the rotation, Ogasawara gave us two predictably bad starts covering for Williams before Cavalli was deemed healthy enough to get out of AAA. Gore is set to be replaced in the September rotation by long-serving AAA starter Andrew Alvaraz, which is a great recognition of the work he’s done for this team at AAA and I hope he has a decent debut.

Rotation Observations: Gore’s August was about as bad as his July, so maybe the DL trip will be helpful. Irvin had an 8.78 ERA in August, he leads the league in homers allowed, and looks like he’s ready for a vacation. Parker now leads the league in losses thanks to an 0-5, 10.21 ERA month. Lord’s move into the rotation has not been good: 5 starts, 7.06 ERA. As much success as he had in AAA as a starter, I think the team has discovered he needs to stay in the bullpen. Lastly the most important development; how did Cavalli look? I mean, not great all things considered; he had 5 starts, a 5.11 ERA, a 1.581 whip. 22/7 K/BB, 6 homers in 5 games. However, he was the best Nats starter of the month.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Parker is pitching himself out of the 2026 rotation, if he hasn’t already.

Bullpen comments: There’s not much joy in Mudville. The Washington bullpen collectively has a -0.2 fWAR for the season at this point and had a collective 4.88 ERA for the month. In other words, they’re just as bad as the starters.

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AAA Rochester

• Opening Day 2025: Alvarez, Lara, Ogasawara, Choi, Solesky
• End of April 2025: Alvarez, Lara, Solesky, Shuman, Cavalli (rehab)
• End of May 2025: Alvarez, Solesky, Shuman, Cavalli, Sampson
• End of June 2025: Alvarez, Solesky, Shuman, Cavalli, Sampson
• End of July 2025: Alvarez, Solesky, Cavalli, Conley, Ogasawara
• End of Aug 2025: Alvarez, Conley, Luckham, Sampson, Cornelio

Changes since end of last month: Lots of moves this month. Solesky hit the DL, replaced by a long-overdue promotion of the 33-yr old Sampson from AA. Cavalli and Ogasawara both got promoted up, replaced by similarly promoted Luckham and (most importantly from a farm system perspective) Cornelio.

Rotation Observations: Alvarez finally gets the promotion after one last solid month, giving AAA 5 starts with a 2.96 ERA. 33-yr old Sampson looked excellent in 5 starts, but begs the question, So What? Anyone in AAA over the age of 30 is there for one reason: to sop-up meaningless minor league innings that our own prospects couldn’t fulfil. So, when 31-yr old Conley posts a 7.50 ERA for the month, i’m looking for him to get replaced. As for actual prospects, Luckham gets another shot at AAA (this is his 3rd try) and at least kept his ERA under 5.00 this time. Lastly; Cornelio has made it to the minor’s highest level after an excellent two-promotion 2025 (his MILB picture still shows him in Wilmington); 5 starts, 5.32 ERA, 1.31 WHIP, .277 BAA. Not bad, something to build on. I’ve maligned Cornelio’s development for years, but now the 7th rounder is in AAA to stay.

Next guy to get Promoted: Alvarez was the most deserving, and is now in MLB. Next? Would Sampson and his middling K/9 rate get shelled in the majors?

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Solesky hit the DL so he’s off the table to get cut. We’re now into the last few weeks so frankly nobody’s getting cut at this point, but the two 30-somthing arms Conley and Sampson are basically finishing out the string to MLFA in a few weeks.

Bullpen comments: We now have five 40-man arms in the AAA bullpen, soon to be six when they re-demote Mason Thompson. What a churn. Salazar, Brzycky, Loutus, Fernandez, Lara, and Thompson. Are any of these guys going to produce going forward? Some of these guys have BAAs that would lead the majors.

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AA Harrisburg

• Opening Day 2025: Shuman, Luckham, Saenz, Susana, Atencio
• End of April 2025: Luckham, Saenz, Susana, Choi, Soroka (rehab)
• End of May 2025: Luckham, Saenz, Choi, Cornelio, Conley (with multiple Gomez openers)
• End of June 2025: Luckham, Choi, Cornelio, Conley, Stuart with Lara, Sykora coming in at end of month.
• End of July 2025: Luckham, Choi, Cornelio, Bennett, Huff/Schultz openers (with Sampson, Sykora, Lara each getting 1 start)
• End of Aug 2025: Bennett, Susana, Tolman, Kent, Clemmey

Changes since end of last month: A slew of moves here. Luckham and Cornelio promoted up, replaced by High-A promotions Kent and Clemmey (two big development promotions). Choi was mercifully dumped out of the rotation, replaced by fellow LR/SS Tolman (also promoted from High-A). Lastly, Susana came back off the DL to replace opener starts and one-offs from the likes of Huff, Schultz, and Sampson, but more on Susana in a moment.

Rotation Observations: Bennett finally in AA … and he dominated this month. 5 starts, a 0.77 ERA. They’re still limiting his IP per start, which will prevent him from winning any POTM awards since he’s not qualifying for any wins. One nit on Bennett; he’s not getting any Ks. In August he got just 12 Ks in 23ip. Clemmey’s AA debut was one to forget: a 13ERA in his first 3 AA starts. Well, welcome to the big time kid. He turned 20 like 6 weeks ago so i’m not worried. How about another top prospect in Kent? His AA debut is somewhere in between Bennetts and Clemmey with a 6-ERA, but at least he’s keeping his K rate up. We saw Kent’s performance start to wane a bit in High-A before he got promoted, so this isn’t a surprise either. He’s at 113ip in his first full pro season and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him rested before the season is out. Tolman has earned two promotions this year to get to AA at age 26 after a lost season to injury; he struggled this month but has some time.

Lastly, lets talk about Susana. We got an UCL scare earlier this year but it turned out to be non surgical. He rehabbed, then gave us five AA starts with some eye-popping numbers (in 5 starts he had 41 Ks in 21 innings… Jeeze). However … he grabbed his arm and fell to the ground in his last start, a move that normally spells Tommy John doom. However, reports are that he suffered “only” some soreness in his triceps and not in his elbow. So… we’ll see. I wonder if he pitches again this season.

Next guy to get Promoted: I got both Sampson and Cornelio promotions right last month. This month? Not as straight forward; there’s nobody at this point with 3 weeks left who should be promoted. Bennett needs to finish out the season w/o anymore tumult, and the rest of the guys need to not get hurt.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Choi was demoted out of the rotation as I predicted; if another needs to go it seems to be Tolman, who I’d guess will be a reliever next year.

Bullpen comments: Daison Acosta was deservedly promoted after a dominant August (21/3 k/bb in 11 ip) as the AA closer. Junior Santos has taken over as closer and has been nearly as good.

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High-A Wilmington

• Opening Day 2025: Clemmey, Cornelio, Kent, Sthele, Tepper
• End of April 2025: Clemmey, Cornelio, Kent, Sthele, Arias
• End of May 2025: Clemmey, Kent, Sthele, Sykora, Bennett, Stuart (rehab) plus a bunch of spot starts
• End of June 2025: Clemmey, Kent, Sthele, Bennett, and four rehab stars from Ogasawara/Lara
• End of July 2025: Clemmey, Kent, Sthele, Tolman, Susana rehab starts plus Tejada and Garcia late.
• End of Aug 2025: Sthele, Garcia, Meckley, Randall, Swan plus a slew of spot starts

Changes since end of last month: Lots of changes here. Four of the five starters from July were promoted (Clemmey, Kent, Tolman, plus returning Susana to AA), so we needed four new guys. Luckily the Nats acquired a ton of arms at the trade deadline and could slot in two new acquisitions here in Randall and Swan immediately. Then, Garcia continued in the rotation from the tail end of last month. Meckley was a mid-month promotion.

Rotation Observations: First off, lets talk about the new trade acquisitions Randall, Swan, and Linan. Linan made one start, gave up 3 R in 3IP and hit the DL. Randall made 5 starts with a 6.17 ERA though better peripherals. Swan had a 5.03 ERA but a low BAA … likely because he can’t find the plate (14 bb in 19ip). Sthele continues to get by on smoke and mirrors and a 4 K/9 rate. Garcia’s success in Low-A has not translated to High-A; he has more walks than Ks in Wilmington. Lastly, Tejeda made one start at the beginning of the month, gave up 4 in 5, then … has done nothing. No DL trip, no mid-week work, nothing. I dunno why they’re not DL-ing the guy if he’s not pitching. But whatever. Not a lot of joy in the High-A rotation this month.

Next guy to get Promoted: We got Tolman right from last month. This month nobody deserves a promotion.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Sthele reverted back to having a “bad” month this time, but really nobody stood out as needing action at this point.

Bullpen comments: Anthony Arguelles had 15 Ks, 0 walks in 8 appearances/10 IP this month. Can’t ask for much more than that. Pablo Aldonis was just as good: 13/1 K/BB and a 1.20 ERA.

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Low-A/Fredericksburg

• Opening Day 2025: Polanco, Meckley, Tejeda, Roman, DGarcia
• End of April 2025: Polanco, Meckley, Tejeda, Roman, DGarcia with Bennett making his 2025 debut
• End of May 2025: Polanco, Meckley, Tejeda, Roman, DGarcia with two “rehab” starts from Bennett/Sykora
• End of June 2025: Polanco, Meckley, Tejeda, Roman, DGarcia, Romero
• End of July 2025: Polanco, Meckley, Romero, Sullivan, Johnson
• End of August 2025: Polanco, Romero, Sullivan, Johnson, Sales

Changes since end of last month: Meckley bumped up, replaced with new Trade acquisition Sales.

Rotation Observations: Polanco was competent this month; solid numbers, nothing to write home about. Romero had 19 Ks and 18 walks in 19 innings, yet somehow had only a 2.12 ERA for the month. Amazing. Both Sullivan and Johnson are too old for the level and have solid seasonal numbers, even if August’s weren’t that great. Most important development: new guy Sales looked decent in his Nats debut: 5 starts, 3.86 ERA, 29 ks in 23 ip.

Next guy to get Promoted: Liam Sullivan has one of the best K/9 rates in the minors and is 23 in Low-A. Move him up. He’s a lefty who can start or soak up innings and could move fast.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Luke Johnson may not be long for the rotation.

Bullpen comments: I’m not sure what Merritt Beeker needs to do at this point to get the heck out of Fredericksburg. 38 games this year, 1.85 ERA, 78 Ks in 63 ip as a 23yr old 2024 draftee. Um, why isn’t he higher up?

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FCL/Rookie

• Opening day: Feliz, Portorreal, Farias, Johnson, Rehab starts
• End of May 2025: Feliz, Portorreal, Farias, Johnson, Lunar
• End of June 2025: Feliz, Portorreal, Farias, Lunar, Sullivan (rehab)
• End of Season/End of July 2025: Feliz, Portorreal, Farias, Lunar, Johnson

Just a reminder that FCL ended; no more analysis. The team did promote Farias and Johnson post-season and they’ve both gotten Low-A time.

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DSL/Rookie

• Opening day: JReyes, De La Cruz, Robles, Carrasco, Mejia
• End of June 2025: JReyes, De La Cruz, Robles, Carrasco, Torrellas
• End of July 2025: JReyes, De La Cruz, Robles, Torrellas, Carela
• End of Season/End of Aug 2025: JReyes, De La Cruz, Robles, Torrellas, Carela with Gimenez

Changes since end of last month: The last few weeks of the season saw solid middle reliever Greyson Gimenez given a couple of starts, otherwise the DSL rotation was unchanged from last month.

Rotation Observations: There’s no splits for DSL guys, so i can’t isolate the last month without doing a ton of XLS work that frankly I don’t want to bother doing since I barely consider these guys prospects until they show up in Florida. Heading into 2026, i’m most interested in seeing Reyes, Carela, and Gimenez moving to the FCL.

Next guy to get Promoted: Reyes: he was a 23IFA and is a 20yr old in DSL: time to come stateside. This is exactly what I wrote last month and it remains true for the final month.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: The two moved out of the rotation so far this year (Mejia and Carrasco) are both 25IFAs, where as everyone else in the rotation right now is a 23 or 24IFA.

Bullpen comments: Juan Lopez remains the only reliever that looks like he could move stateside right now, but with FCL done it won’t happen until next spring.

Happy Labor Day weekend!

We’ve touched on Expansion a couple times in the past few weeks in this space, and in the comments we’ve talked about a couple of interesting “what-ifs” related to the side effects of Expansion, namely:

• What happens if we put MLB teams into existing AAA markets?
• How would two new MLB teams build out their affiliate farm systems?

I’ve given these topics some thought in the past, but never put pen to paper in this space, so what better time than the present. First, I did a little XLS work to build what i’m calling the MLB Pyramid. I cross-referenced all full season minor league teams to their Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) to see where there’s under-served markets that might be suitable for eventual minor league team relocation.

Here’s that spreadsheet, and then here’s some quick macro market analysis.

First off, if you’re looking at the Google XLS link, here’s a guide to the color coding:

• i’ve got the markets that currently have a MLB team highlighted in Yellow.
• Then, I’ve highlighted the 6 leading expansion markets that keep getting bandied about in Green.
• lastly, i’ve highlighted in Red the Markets that either have NO baseball, or which clearly don’t have a big enough team right now.

You can filter on the level to find the 30 teams in each level if you want to see them in one place, which is a fun exercise. If you filter on MLB though the count isn’t 30 since several markets have 2 teams and I don’t have Canadian teams here.

So, what does this pyramid tell us? Some interesting information.

MLB Market Consideration Thoughts

• The largest area w/o a MLB team technically is Riverside, but as part of the larger LA market it won’t get a third team. Just like Brooklyn won’t get a 3rd team, despite NY being the largest MSA in the country.
• Orlando is thus the largest stand-alone MSA without a MLB team. And, it doesn’t have ANY organized full season baseball. It doesn’t even have a spring training facility. Is it fair to characterize Orlando as basically a city serving its two massive theme parks, and as such one that cant’ really support 80 home dates of a baseball team? Maybe, maybe not; it hosts an NBA team just fine.
• The two leading expansion cities per the tea leaves (Nashville and Salt Lake) trail a slew of other markets, and if a team went into SLC it’d immediately be the smallest market in the sport, well behind even Milwaukee. This is problematic, but unavoidable; no matter where you put a team it’s going to be a “small market” and not able to immediately compete with the Houstons and Philadelphias of the world.

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Ok, so lets assume Nashville and Salt Lake City get MLB teams. Guess what? Both cities have established AAA teams. So, what happens to them? Well, it depends.

• The team could just dissolve, though this seems highly unlikely given that AAA teams are worth around $50M right now.
• More likely, the AAA team would relocate. When the last round of expansion happened in 1998, both Denver and Phoenix had existing AAA teams. What happened to them? Well, initially the Denver Zephyrs moved to New Orleans and the Phoenix Firebirds moved to Tucson. Interestingly, both of those teams have since moved; New Orleans’ franchise is now in Wichita, while Tucson’s moved to Reno.
• Ironically, New Orleans and Tucson now are amongst the largest markets in the country without affiliated baseball of any sort, and could both be targets for a new AAA team if/when the existing teams have to relocate.

Where else would a new AAA team make sense? Well, scanning down the markets:

• If Orlando and Portland don’t get teams, they’d both make good AAA sites. Portland has had AAA baseball in the past, though area residents don’t speak fondly of the experience.
• San Jose remains a major, growing market that’s further from the San Francisco ballpark than Nationals park is from Camden Yards, yet the Giants maintain territorial control.
• Several AAA teams technically live in the same MSA as their MLB teams: Atlanta, Minnesota, Seattle, and Houston’s AAA teams play in Gwinnett, St. Paul, Tacoma, and Sugar Land respectively. However, neither Nashville or Salt Lake are “big” enough to have both a MLB and a AAA team in the same spot.

If, for some reason, MLB went into two totally blank markets instead (say, Orlando and Raleigh), then there’s zero impact to any existing AAA or other team, and you’d have to basically come up with brand new AAA teams from existing markets. What do you do then?

• If you wanted to “promote” an existing AA market to AAA, there’s a couple that make a lot of sense. San Antonio and Richmond both have AA teams now but are more than big enough to support AAA baseball. Richmond was a AAA affiliate for decades before the Braves bought the team and moved it to an Atlanta suburb, while San Antonio is technically in the market for a MLB team itself and could more than support AAA.
• However, if you made Both Richmond and San Antonio AAA markets, you’d screw up the AAA league structure, giving both the International and Pacific Coast league odd numbers of teams. PCL has two divisions of 5, while IL has two divisions of 10, so this might be problematic unless you moved one to the other. And there’s zero teams in either league who geographically make sense to move.
• If you wanted two to IL (which would give it 22 teams, and would make for more unbalanced divisions) you’d probably go Richmond and Hartford.
• If you wanted to go two to PCL markets you could probably promote San Antonio and one of Tulsa/Little Rock, which would give PCL two divisions of 6, which is nice and neat.

MLB teams want their AAA franchises to be somewhat close, and putting two teams in the Texas/Oklahoma area kind of splits the difference between an eastern and western team. So that works.

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If you displace two AA markets with AAA teams, then you’ve got further cascading franchise disposition to deal with. Here’s the fun part; we still have to “find” markets for two more AA, High-A, and Low-A teams, in addition to two more spring training facilities (one in Florida, one in Arizona). What would that look like? Lets take a look.

AA Minor league expansion

In the lower leagues, we get a lot more geographically focused. AA has three leagues: the Eastern League, the Southern League, and the Texas League. So, there’s really no west coast leagues out there. Furthermore, if you look at where the High-A leagues are (East Coast, Upper Midwest, and the Northwest), there’s really only one option: you have to move two High-A South Atlantic teams into the AA Eastern League:

• Wilmington and Brooklyn’s teams are in the biggest High-A markets and make the most sense given the geographic layout of the Eastern League. There’s AA teams that span from New Hampshire to Richmond, and putting these teams right in the middle makes sense.
• There’s North Carolina markets that are tempting, like Raleigh or Greensboro, but these teams are probably irked by the trip south to Richmond as it is.

High-A expansion

Again, since the three High-A leagues are so geographically clustered (Carolina, California, and Florida), the only real option is to take two Low-A teams in the Carolina League and move them into the South Atlantic league. There’s several decent options; two teams in the Charlotte suburbs, Charleston (which used to be High-A before the re-org), Myrtle Beach (same), Columbia, South Carolina, or even Fredericksburg. These were all solid High-A markets before getting “demoted” and some could get the call.

Low-A expansion and below

Because we’ve poached so many east coast teams, we’d have to basically “find” two new markets somewhere in the mid-Atlantic coast to replace the two lost Low-A franchises.

Both would make sense in Virginia; one in Charlottesville, one in Ashburn/Leesburg? Or, you could go find some closed Short-A teams that make sense (though many of them are now lost to time).

Lastly, some teams have rookie teams outside of their complexes; if these two teams wanted to go that route they could put teams in two non-served western markets Casper WY and Fort Collins.

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Anyway, this kind of empties the notebook on a text file I’ve had sitting around for a decade. Thoughts? Interesting?

We talked about Manfred’s expansion floating last week, and lots of pundits out there are doing the same thought exercises related to where two new teams might pop up (Salt Lake City and Nashville … or maybe Portland and Charlotte), and then how we’d realign to go to an NFL-style 8 division format.

However, I got fed a little interview with John Smoltz, hall of fame Braves pitcher and now excellent broadcaster, and he had some awesome ideas.

Here’s his proposal:

Fewer Divisions, not More.

Don’t go 8 divisions of 4 teams each … go 4 divisions of 8 teams each. Then, keep the divisional focus in scheduling and make the adjustments so you’re more geographically sound. So, borrowing from my previous post, we could combine some of my proposed divisions to look something like this

• AL East/Southeast: Boston, Toronto, New York, Baltimore plus Kansas City, Colorado, Houston, Texas
• AL Central/West: Minnesota, Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago and Seattle, Salt Lake City, LA, Oakland/Las Vegas
• NL East/Southeast: Philly, Pittsburgh, New York, Washington and Miami, Tampa, Nashville, Atlanta
• NL Central/West: Milwaukee, Chicago, Cincinnati, St. Louis and LA, Arizona, San Diego, San Francisco

Honestly, i’d just abandon the geographical terms and go with some NHL-style division names. I’d probably pick four historical names for the divisions with ties to one of the teams in that division.

• the AL Ruth Division for the AL East
• the AL Cobb Division for the Central/West
• the NL Aaron Division for the NL East division
• the NL Mays Division for the NL Central/West

Each team in these divisions play each other in 3 home/away series (that makes for 18 games * 7 opponents = 126 games), then you get one 3-game set against each team in opposite AL division alternating home/away year by year (8*3 = 24 games), then that leaves 12 games/4 series that can either go against your designated NL rival or maybe like the NFL you rotate around chunks of the opposite league and play exactly 4 of them each year on a rotating basis. Something like this.

However, this isn’t the awesome part.

Declare First Half and Second half winners!

Brilliant. Winners of both halves get byes in the October playoffs, then are joined with Wild Cards determined somehow (that’s the hard part).

The real brilliance is this: by having a first half and a second half, you get stuff we don’t have now:

• A playoff race from Mid June to Mid July that we don’t have now with real implications.
• Another playoff race at the end of the year which we have now. We have a playoff race now of course in September, but this one won’t have the same feel since the first half winners won’t be part of it necessarily.
• Teams that finished dead last in the first half don’t have to “give up” at the trade deadline and can regroup. This is his big reason: he’s tired of seeing teams give up in July.
• If a team wins both halves, they get a playoff bye or some other incentive.
• Wild Cards can be given based on several factors; 2nd place teams in the races, or if a team manages to have the best overall record but doesn’t win either half they are guaranteed a playoff spot as well.

Let’s assume that we want the same number of playoff teams that the 32-team expansion/NFL style schedule dictates; that being 6 teams. Here’s how this could look:

• AL East 1st Half Winner
• AL East 2nd Half Winner
• AL West 1st Half Winner
• AL West 2nd Half Winner
• Two AL Wild Cards: the two teams with the best full season records, or perhaps the two teams with the best individual half records.

Playoffs could go like this

• Two best half records get byes. If they’re the same team, go to next best team.
• If same team wins both halves, you’d go with 2nd best team.
• Wild cards play into the two lowest ranked half winning teams.

It would take some noodling to figure out the wildcards honestly. Maybe you just go 1st half winner versus 2nd half winner and eliminate wildcards … though this is a revenue non-starter since playoffs generate so much cash for the owners.

Some thoughts.

what do you th ink? Do you like half winners?