Well, here’s one of those posts that may draw a pretty angry response.
First, some facts driving this decision:
As of this writing, on 7/25/26, the Nats sit 52-52, are 3 games out of the last wild-card spot to the team they just lost to last night at home, and are staring up in the standings at another 3 teams (Miami, St. Louis, and Pittsburgh) in between us and the final wild-card spot.
We are some how 52-52 because of a historically good offense for us (2nd or 3rd best in the league based on wRC+ and fWAR), and are doing it in spite of a ridiculously bad pitching staff (28th or 29th in the league based on overall ERA or fWAR). Our relievers have a combined -2.4 fWAR for the season and have blown nearly as many saves as they have actual saves. We really only have two reliable starters and our #3 starter in a series would probably be either Alvarez or an opener in front of a guy who has an ERA in the 5s.
The trade deadline is Monday August 3rd at 6pm EST.
Between now and then, here’s our schedule:
2 more games against Arizona at home (55-49)
3 games at home vs Toronto (47-57)
4 on the road at Atlanta (61-42)
That would take us to Monday, where we start an away series against Philadelphia on the deadline day itself (56-48).
The last wild card spot would play a 3-game away series against the worst of the three divisional winners; guess who that is right now? Why, yes, it is Atlanta.
So, the decision this team faces is this. Do we:
Go all-in on chasing the last wild card spot, which is no guarantee and would buy us a 3-game away series at Atlanta, a team that’s nearly 20 games over .500 right now and is on pace for 96 wins?
Stick with “the plan” from before the season and trade who we can to continue to build prospect capital for the future?
I think you can tell what my thought process is, from the way I phrased those options.
I’m not convinced that .500 team doing it on smoke and mirrors and an entire bullpen of waiver clams and MLFAs is going to be able to keep it together all the way to the end of the season, and if we skip out on the opportunity to cash in on, specifically, Foster Griffin just to end up as an 81-81 team at the end of the season, missing out on the Wild Card spot by 2-3 games, then we’ve blown a massive opportunity to acquire pieces that may actually help us in 2027.
I think Luis Garcia should be flipped; the return will never be higher.
Foster Griffin isn’t going to extend with us; not after toiling in Japan for years to get this one shot. He’s going to hit FA t his winter and he’s going to take his one shot at a 5-year contract. He’s not going to take a “home town discount” for the Nats just because we gave him a shot. You trade him, and we can re-engage with him and resign him in the off-season for sure, but if we let him go for nothing, we get nothing (even if we give him a QO).
Abrams is a bit more difficult to swallow, b/c he’s a starting all star for a team that hasn’t had one since the teens. But, the truth is, he’s an abhorrent SS defensively who needs to move off the position and it could get ugly between player and team when that reality finally hits, and I suspect it shouldn’t be our problem. King’s progression in teh minors as a ready made replacement hit a injury snag, which has really stopped the real conversation of trading him/replacing him like-for-like tomorrow, but it still has to be out there as a conversation piece.
So there it is. I’m seeing conversations from what sound like casual fans who are getting a little excited who are saying drastic things like, “if they trade him i’m done.” Well … that’s not the way you build for the next decade.
We’ll see; maybe they get swept this weekend and the decision is made.
Good to have another slugging former Hurricane on board in Daniel Cuvet. Photo via UMiami
Despite having a few days to go until the 7/27/26 deadline for signing its 2026 draftees, the Nats have gotten everything done well ahead of schedule, and according to Baseball America’s draft tracker have now signed 18 of their 20 draft picks. Based on the financial accounting, there’s no more bonus money to dole out, so this is the 2026 class.
With this post, I have updated the Nats Draft Tracker main page for the 2026 class, and have finished off the 2026 draft tab, where you can see signing bonuses compared to slot values and the running arithmetic of the entire draft bonus usage. If you’re interested in a players’ college stats, new this year i’ve got direct links to their college stats page to save you some googling. I also have links to their social media pages (X and IG) if you wanted to follow them.
I have also added all 18 draftees and the 7 known NDFAs to the Big Board in the XST section. As they’re assigned we’ll move them to a full season or FCL roster. With these 25 signings, as well as with all the moves we’ve made in recent days, the Minor League roster now sits (as far as I can tell) at exactly 165, or the target limit. Any new signings (MLFA or NDFA) from here on out will require a corresponding minor league move as the system is full (either a move to 60-day, a move to the Dev list, or a release).
Let’s talk about the signing bonuses, and who signed for more or less than predicted. Slot values are on the Draft tracker, and for the whole draft are here. You can go back to my two review posts for my quick predictions on what the players would sign for, which i’ll draw in here.
1st rounder Hacopian took a $433k haircut on his bonus, not surprising and about what one would expect. Most of the 1st rounders, especially in the top 10, don’t sign for slot, as teams basically play their “floors” against where they get picked and enact some savings. Hacopian signed for $5.7M, which is a bit more than the 13th overall slot value, and he probably would have slipped well past 13th overall had he not signed with us (the next three picks after #11 were HS picks, then a college catcher, then more prep picks). So Hacopian probably said, “well I can say yes to $5.7 now, or run the risk of falling into the mid teens where the slots are in the $4.8M-$5.2M range, so might as well say Yes to the Nats’ offer right now.”
2nd rounder Brunson ended up signing for $588k under slot, a big surprise for me since he was drafted #42 overall and sat right in that range on most of the draft boards. I thought this was a slot pick for sure. Nonetheless, big savings here and from Hacopian that then go to the next two kids.
3rd and 4th rounder Prep kids get big over-slot deals as expected: Williams got $2.5M, about $1.5M over slot and the equivalent of a early 2nd round pick. Harris took $1.5M on a slot value of $740k to buy him out of college, about the equivalent of a later 2nd rounder.
This is what you do: we now have a 1st rounder and three 2nd round talents thanks to working the bonus figures properly.
5th rounder Cuvet signed basically for slot as predicted.
6th rounder Allen took about what I thought he’d take for a discount: I predicted $250k savings, he signs for $220k less than slot.
It took more than I thought it would to sign 7th rounder Peterson: I thought he’d go for the $150k standard 11-20th round money, but it took $250k.
Our 8th and 10th rounders both went for the standard Senior sign figure of $10k; honestly I’m happy the Nats do $10k and not the pittance of $1k that other shops do for these guys.
9th rounder Duger signed for exactly slot. I thought we might get $75k of savings here, but they didn’t need it with the big savings on Brunson, and at that point in the draft the team was probably just calling guys on their board and saying, “will you sign for slot right now?” until they got a Yes.
The 11th-20th rounders had some interesting bonus figures; in many years we just give everyone $150k and move on. Not this year.
11th and 12th rounders Moss and Dallas each got $25k more than the standard $150k, as I surmised in the review.
13th rounder Howard, a college grad student whose drafting we all questioned at the time, got $100k. This seems like a graduation gift on behalf of the team for a senior sign who at best should have gone in the 10th round for $10k. Why give him $100K? Something’s amiss here. But hey, its not my money.
14th, 19th, and 20th rounders were all college guys who took the standard $150k. 14th rounder Konstantinovsky makes sense for that figure, but the other two were odd. 19th rounder Brooks was a college senior (ok, technically a redshirt Junior) with a miserable batting average and little leverage; did it really take $150k to sign him, when they could probably get him as an NDFA next year for $20k? Our 20th rounder Siebert was a juco guy with a Tennessee commit who gook the $150kto my surprise; must not have had a great NIL deal on hand.
It ended up taking $250k to get the IFA gambit Rivero, $100k over slot. Whether or not you think Rivero is “good,” this is still a big savings over the $750k he was offered by the Dodgers in the IFA market a year ago. If the Dodgers, who I think are the preeminent player development team in the sport, were willing to pay that much and we got him for a third less, I’ll take that as a win.
The “last guy to sign who gets all the left over bonus money” seemed to be 18th rounder Ortiz, who I thought might be tougher to sign. He ended up getting $215k for an overslot deal, a weird amount that essentially was all the remaining leftover bonus money under the cap.
As expected, once the two upper prep kids signed, the two prep kids drafted in the teens (#16 Murphy and #17 Galason) got cut loose; they’re the only 2 players not to sign in this class.
Bonus pool overall usage: If i have my calculations correct, and If I ignore all the BA reported signing bonuses that seem to be exactly $2,500 off for most of the bonuses, then the Nats left just $1,115 dollars on the table. Perfect usage.
Total slot amount of $12,278,300
plus 5% overage cushion of $613,905
Total amount to spend: 12,892,225
Total bonus dollars spent plus overages on the $150k/player in the 11-20th rounds: 12,891,110
Left over: $1,115
That’s our 2026 class.
One last note: Baseball America released its updated top 100 including 2026 draftees, which included 10 players from the 2026 class …. but not Hacopian, who just missed their top 100. But, to give you an idea of where Hacopian likely fits into our system, there’s 5 Nats in the BA top 100 right now:
15. Willits
39. King
55. Susana
68. Fitz-Gerald
87. Cruz
Outside the top 100 but who have been there before: Sykora, Ford, and Fein.
I’m guessing Hacopian will start at #6 in our system, just ahead of Sykora, Ford, and Fein, and just outside the BA top 100. If he pops immediately upon starting his pro career, he should push into the top 100 quickly.
The Nationals, in addition to their 20 rounds of picks, have generally signed a 1-2 Undrafted Free Agents (NDFAs) at the end of each draft. The last few years it’s been just a couple guys per year, but this year they signed a whole slew of them, some frankly promising, and were incredibly active in the days immediately following the draft. Not since 2022 have we seen this many NDFAs come on board.
This amount of guys is notable, because by and large each additional NDFA means someone has to make way within the organization (either to a dev list, or to the 60-day DL, or to get released altogether). I discussed in a comment on Nationalsprospects.com the below, but it bears repeating and cleaning up.
Farm systems under the latest Collective Bargaining Agreement are capped as to the number of players you can have rostered, both by level and overall. By level, the limits are:
AAA: 28 active, 33 roster-able
AA: 28 active, 33 roster-able
High-A: 30 active, 33 roster-able
Low-A: 30 active, 33 roster-able
FCL: no actual defined limits; up to the total domestic cap roster-able. Target 33 players roster-able.
(Note: there’s no limit or restrictions on DSL: these limits are domestic only)
So, 33 rostered players (either active or on the 7-day DL)*5 domestic levels = a total domestic limit of 165 players. Anyone in the following situation does not count against the 165 limit:
60-Day DL guys
Developmental List guys
40-man Roster guys.
Rehabbing players (who would otherwise get double counted on the big board).
I try to keep track of the running totals per team and for the system via XLS macros on the Big Board. As of this writing and as of the 2026 Draft I have us at 160 ( it was at 161 earlier this week before the Robert Hassell trade).
However, that 161 figure includes 40-man guys who are in the minors, who don’t count against that limit (11 guys in AAA on the 40-man right now before any call-ups post All-Star Break), so we have exactly 149 active players in domestic minors. We just drafted 20 guys, we’re probably going to sign 17-18 of them (which would put us at 167-168, meaning we’d have to shed a couple guys to get under the limit by the end of the month. However, if we have a slew of NDFAs, it’s one in, and one out. So, the more guys we sign, the more room we have to clear.
Now, players on 60 day/full season IL don’t count, nor do restricted list guys. So, it would probably be very easy to move 3 guys to one of these two lists. Just this week Erik Tolman for example moved off of the Developmental list where he’d been sitting for weeks. Hayes in AAA has spent most of the season on that list, pretty typical for backup/bullpen catcher types. There’s 3 catchers on the High-A roster; one of them can go on the dev list. And, there’s 8 guys on the 7-day DL in Low-A, some of whom who have been there since Mid April, so it seems that making space by moving guys to 60-day will be pretty easy.
However, at some point we’ll start to see some releases, since we’re adding the below NDFAs
Back to the NDFAs. Let’s run through them; these guys lasted the entire 20 round draft w/o getting picked, but who can now sign for a $20k bonus figure. I’ll do some stat-analysis and background per what info I can find.
We may add a few more NDFAs to this list, if so I’ll update.
Tony Neubeck, College grad/5th year senior LHP Starter from Indiana: Neubeck was in Indiana’s rotation all year, serving as their Ace/Friday Starter. 3rd team all Big-10. 3.95 ERA with 75 strikeouts to 27 walks over 70.2 innings. He features a Low-to-mid 90s fastball with carry, a slider, a plus-changeup and cutter. I mean, how does a Friday night starter for a major conference team completely fall through the entire draft? He sounds like someone we should have drafted in the mid-teens.
Miles Smith, Redshirt Senior RHP reliever from Kansas State. So, the interesting thing about NDFAs is that they’re lottery tickets for just $20k. Smith’s college numbers were, frankly, awful his entire career. Freshman/Sophomore years in Juco: 8.38 ERA. Jr year: 19.29 ERA. Sr. year 7.01 ERA. So why did we sign him? Because he looked pretty solid in the MLB Draft League going on right now, where he’s had 8 games, 14IP with a 3.21 ERA and 19Ks in 14IP. So what the heck.
Ciaran Caughey, Senior RHP starter from Kent State. Caughey was Kent State’s Saturday starter all year, posting a 8-2 record with a 3.39 ERA and 1.08 whip. 77/23 k/bb in 77ip. That’s solid. He finished his career with a 7ip/2h masterpiece in the MAC tournament, but Kent State fell short of the NCAAs in what many thought was a bit of a snub. Another excellent NDFA pick. He’s another who has been pitching in the Draft League.
Cooper Carlgren, Senior RHP Swingman from Lamar. Made 19 appearances and four starts with a 2-1 record and 4.44 ERA in 48.2 innings pitched with 53 strikeouts this year for Lamar. Had a solid start in the MLB Draft league to bolster his showing. He bounced around during his college career, playing two years of Juco, then one year at Washburn before finishing up at Lamar.
Tyler Papenbrock, College Grad/5th year Sr LHP swing man from Louisiana. He was a 4-year starter in NAIA before trying one year with the Rajun’ Cajuns, where he served as a long-man/spot starter this season. He was 4-0 with a 5.36 ERA, a 1.56 whip. He had 29/25 K/BB ratio in 40ip. Hilariously, on his bio page at Louisiana, his major is listed as “undeclared” despite being a Grad student. That’s code word for, “majoring in baseball.”
Trevor Moore, College Senior RHP reliever (closer) from Stanford. He pitched to a 3.92 ERA with 48 strikeouts to 23 walks over 43.2 innings. Mid-90s with cut-ride and a good slider. The Nats have a good history taking Stanford closers (Drew Storen).
Signed 7/20/26: Kaleb Kantola, a College Grad/6th year RHP reliever from Lipscomb. Kantola ia a big dude 6’7″ who missed most of two full years with injury, so he’s finishing up his 6th collegiate season. He had a 1.95 ERA as a reliever out of Lipscomb’s pen,
Note: D1baseball’s NDFA tracker lists a 7th player to us at this time, but the source has him signing with another team. BA’s NDFA tracker has us with these 6 players for now.
Westin Moss joins the team as our 11th rounder. Photo via TAMU.
Here’s part 2 of my overview of the 2026 Draft class, those players picked 11th -20th.
Here’s the two main draft tracker resources you need.
Nationals Draft Tracker: New for this year in the 2026 tab: links to instagram and twitter for each player (which we can use to verify signing if need be), as well as links to their college stats page directly.
Baseball America Transfer portal: though, none of the 11-20th college players seem to be in the portal, likely a good sign for us to get them signed.
Here’s links to major Prospect Rankings shops that I’ll reference below when assessing the “value” of the pick. Note: it’s quite rare for any of these picks to be ranked, so I’ll only include rankings if they exist.
11th Round, 316th overall: Weston Moss, a College Jr. RHP from Texas A&M
Ranks by major shops: BA=358
Moss was TAMU’s Sunday/#3 starter this season, posting a 5.46 ERA over 14 starts and 64.1 innings. 69/21 k/bb in 64IP. He was a reliever his first two years, then didn’t go drafted as a draft-eligible sophomore last year and moved into their rotation. Fringe average velocity, but he’s got a good frame and size (6’4″). Scouts think he can add velocity thanks to his mechanics, and can stay as a starter. He will sign, as most 11th rounders do, and may get a little extra cash to do so over the $150k standard.
Moss joins a solid group of 11th rounders that we’ve picked over the years, players who generally have had solid careers. 2025’s Moroknek has already been promoted this year, 2024’s Beeker was dominant out of the Low-A pen before getting hurt, 2022’s Luke Young is in the AAA bullpen, just promoted. 2010’s JT Arruda was a 6year org guy with a ton of AAA time, 2018’s Bartow made it to AA, etc.
12th Round, 346th overall: Matthew Dallas, a College Jr. LHP from Wake Forest
Ranks by major shops: none
Dallas was a major prep prospect; he started the gold medal game in 2022 for USA Baseball 18U. After sitting on the bench for Tennesee most of his freshman year he transferred to Wake Forest, where he was a rotation starter as sophomore. He was slotted into the Sunday starter spot for Wake this year, threw two games, then blew out his elbow in late March, requiring elbow surgery. The timing of the surgery is awful for Dallas: he likely cannot get back in time to even compete in the 2027 season, meaning he’d be looking at adding two full years to his college career. Given that timing, it works to the Nats’ favor; he should sign and get under the care of a pro team immediately, and when he’s healthy he’ll slot right into rookie ball instead. Tough break for him, but he can get some bonus money out of it and get on with his pro career.
13th Round, 376th overall: Cody Howard, a College Grad Student RHP from Texas
Ranks by major shops: none
Howard was a little-used RHP reliever by Texas his entire career. He only threw 16IP this season, and had an ERA in the 8s. It’s a weird pick at this juncture, especially for a 5th year senior/grad student. This smells like a pick made because he’s someone’s cousin, or a friend of a scout, and one I wouldn’t expect in the 13th round. I’ll be really curious to see what he signs for.
14th Round, 406th overall: Zack Konstantinovsky, a college Junior LHP from Rutgers
Ranks by major shops: none
Konstantinovsky (lord help me if I have to remember how to spell this guy’s name) was in Rutger’s rotation this season, mostly as their Saturday/#2 starter, and threw to a 4-5 record with a 5.48 ERA. 83/21 k/bb in 70ip, though with a .293 BAA. Not bad for the 14th round. He held his own when Rutgers went up against the likes of UCLA, and pitched admirably in the Big10 tourney before Rutgers went 2-and-out. No scouting report available anywhere; seems like a typical mid-major college starter who could have some value in the bullpen.
15th Round, 436th overall: Francisco Rivero, a Prep C from Canyon del Oro HS (AZ) (Arizona commit)
Ranks by major shops: none
Rivero is an interesting player. He tried an end-around gambit on the draft, moving from Arizona to Venezeula in order to try to establish IFA eligibility. The Dodgers signed him to a reported $700k bonus last year, but then MLB ruled him ineligible for the international draft, so he returned home to Arizona, re-enrolled in school, and here we are. He’s committed to Uof Arizona, but i’m guessing he wants to play pro, else he wouldn’t have tried the Venezeula gambit in the first place. I’d guess he signs for the $150k figure and comes on board.
16th Round, 466th overall: Anthony Murphy, a prep OF from Corona HS (CA) (LSU commit)
Ranks by major shops: BA: 159, MLB: 108, Espn: 146,
So, Murphy is essentially “Luke Williams” insurance; if negotiations with our two top HS picks Williams and/or Harris fall through, we can take that money and throw it at Murphy. He’s a significant prospect; he was the starting CF on the 2026 USA 18U national team, he’s been a starter on the powerhouse Corona HS for four years, and he’s committed to LSU, who have probably the biggest NIL budget in the sport, so you know he’s getting paid. It seems highly unlikely he comes on board. He should have been a 3rd or 4th rounder if he was going to sign; now it seems like LSU gets its leadoff hitter for the next three years as it tries to rebuild after a down 2026.
17th Round, 496th overall: Isaiah Galason, a prep SS from Houston County HS (GA) (Georgia Tech)
Ranks by major shops: BA: 345, Espn: 210
Galason is still a solid prep prospect, but not in the same range as Murphy. He’s still “Luke Williams” insurance though, in that he’s a top prep prospect who could be bought out of college for the right price. He’s an undersized SS with 70 speed but who BA’s scouting reports think may be a 2B longer term. Good hit tool, not a lot of power. He’s defense-first but also has a quick twitch bat that drives the ball, if not out of the park. Seems unlikely that he signs.
18th Round, 526th overall: Avery Ortiz, a college Jr. SS/2B from Oklahoma State.
Ranks by major shops: none
Ortiz was OSU’s starting SS … for 2 games, when he had a “lower body” injury that kept him out for nearly 2 months this season. He got back for 3 games in April, then out again until mid May. He missed a ton of time in 2025 as well, and likely is set to leave OSU unfulfilled; i can’t imagine going back for another season after he’s struggled to stay on the field all this time. He’s a sub-6-foot infielder, likely a SS/2B combo. No scouting report on him anywhere. I’d guess he’s going to sign, give pros a shot, even though he’s got eligibility left.
19th Round, 556th overall: Jack Brooks, a college senior OF (CF) from Oregon.
Ranks by major shops: none
Brooks has no scouting detail anywhere, and his stats don’t offer much promise: he slashed .236/.370/.391 while starting nearly every Oregon game this year in the outfield. He was a SS in high school, and i’d guess his primary skill is plus defense in the outfield. But a .236 hitter as a red-shirt junior seems like this may be a character guy, or a favorite of a local scout.
Siebert looked like he was the closer for his Juco team at Johnson County in Kansas; they went 67-3 this season. He’s been there two years, and has committed in the transfer portal to go to Tennessee. Does he want to skip a shot at the SEC for pro ball and $150K? I’m guessing this is a tougher sign; he may want a shot at better baseball. Plus, its SEC and Tennessee NIL money; probably not as much as a $150k signing bonus but it won’t be nothing. Tougher sign.
So, of the 10 guys we drafted here, i’m guessing:
Six (6) are most likely to sign (Moss, Dallas, Howard, Konstantinovsky, Rivero, Brooks
Two (2) are maybes (Ortiz, Seibert)
Two are no-way signing unless negotiations blow up with our two upper-round Prep kids (Murphy, Galason)
Which would leave us likely with a 17-18 player draft class, about what we’d expect.
Chase Brunson was our 2nd rounder out of TCU. Photo via Yahoo Sports
Here’s a run through the first 10 picks we made this weekend. This post shows the ranks of our players on the various draft boards, plus a summary of any scouting reports/draft analysis I could find from the major pundits/shops.
Here’s the two main draft tracker resources you need and that I’m updating this week in as close to real-time as I can given my current employment status :-):
Nationals Draft Tracker: this is the long-running Google XLS with all our picks dating to 2005. There’s two tabs here: the main page with every pick, then a deeper-dive 2026 Draft pick with slot bonus breakdowns and other information on each pick. New This year: i’m going to embed direct links to college stat pages for easy reference, since i’m looking them up anyway. For Prep kids, just a link to their Perfect Game profile, which will have video clips.
MLB’s Draft Tracker, the best of various options of Draft Trackers out there.
As of this writing, I have updated the Draft Tracker main page for the 2026 class, and have populated the 2026 detailed tab.
Here’s links to major Prospect Rankings shops that I’ll reference below when assessing the “value” of the pick.
1st Round, 11th overall: Chris Hacopian, a College Jr. 2B from Texas A&M
Ranks by major shops: BA=11, Law=34, MLB=14, ESPN=13, Fangraphs=8, Prospects1500=9
See here for the quick post I made specifically about Hacopian and my reaction. I won’t repeat that info here, but will note the interesting discrepancy of Hacopian on the ranking boards presented here. Every shop has him between 8-14 except … our friend Keith Law, ever the contrarian, whose writeup on Hacopian doesn’t really say anything critical of him except to note that he missed a month and hasn’t moved well since he returned. It’s almost like he dumped Hacopian way down when he got hurt, then never revisited him upon his return. I wonder where Law would have him if he had never gotten hurt. I can’t imagine, based on the consensus of his ranking in the class, that this is an under-slot pick by any means, so I’d expect him to sign at or near slot. Maybe he saves a little bit off of the $6.1M figure, money that we can throw at the two prep kids.
2nd round #42 overall: Chase Brunson, a College Jr. OF (CF) from Texas Christian
Ranks by major shops: BA=47, Law=24, MLB=50, ESPN=38 Fangraphs=52, Prospects1500=37
Brunson slashed .304/.462/.556 this year, and was a 3-year starter in CF for TCU. He’s got 50s or 55s across the board for every tool, showing promise everywhere but not a stand-out tool in any of the 5 disciplines. Law likes him the most, saying he’s got 20/20 capabilities with even more power there, and even if he can’t stay in CF he’s got the arm strength for RF. By all accounts he was better in 2025 but made adjustments this season, perhaps because he split time in CF with another 1st round talent teammate in Sawyer Strosnider. That caused him to slip from being a late 1st rounder to an early 2nd rounder, and I sense this could be a steal for us. I’d guess this is another slot pick, no real savings here.
3rd round #78 overall: Luke Williams, a Prep SS from Franklin Regional HS (near Pittsburgh, PA)
Ranks by major shops: BA=99, Law=outside top 100, MLB=90, ESPN=57, Fangraphs=67, Prospects1500=83
Williams is a Vanderbilt commit (one shop has him going to UVA but everywhere else says Vandy), but a 3rd round selection with a slot value of slightly more than $1M should buy him out of that with enough cash. I’m guessing he goes a bit over-slot, especially since Vandy is a premier college destination for players and they have a ton of money. Both BA and MLB put 70 grades on him for speed and arm strength. He’s a true SS with enough arm to handle CF if he can’t cut it there, and he’s got more than a bit of power with 50s there. The big worry here is an underdeveloped hit tool, but that’s not uncommon for a prep kid.
4th round #106 overall: Cooper Harris, a Prep RHP from Flower Mound HS ( a suburb of Dallas, TX)
Ranks by major shops: BA=83, Law=55, MLB=76, ESPN=110, Fangraphs=76, Prospects1500=76
Across the board, we seemed to get real value from this pick. Law likes him a ton, describing him as a 3/4 starter with clean mechanics who a good franchise can easily develop. Is that the Nats? We’ll see. He’s super young (he just turned 18 before the draft), sits 94-96, has a huge spin rate that naturally misses bats. BA gives him a 60 fastball and two 55s on his primary breaking pitches, which sounds like a good sign. I suspect a Texas kid with a commit to Texas will need more than 4th round money, so look for this to be an overslot deal too. As much as prep RHP are risky, this isn’t a 100mph kid with crazy mechanics; this sounds like a player who is getting guys out without the max effort that leads to injury.
5th round #138 overall: Daniel Cuvet, a College Jr. 3B from University of Miami
Ranks by major shops: BA=97, Law=87, MLB=120, ESPN=152, Fangraphs=unranked, Prospects1500=unranked
Cuvet, for those who pay attention to such things, was a consensus pre-season All American heading into this season after hitting 24 homers as a freshman and then posting a .372/.450/.708 slash-line as a sophomore. He’s a big dude: 6’3″ 240, with 70 grade power. The “ding” on him was swing and miss, which he seemed to be cleaning up early this season with more walks than Ks (30/33 K/BB in his 41 games. His season was cut short by a stress fracture in his back, something that had been bugging him all year and dampening his stats even before he hung ’em up. He stopped playing by the end of April, and missed the rest of the season. Question is this: is he ready to turn pro, or does he want to go back to school to try to increase his stock? It’s no guarantee; he could get hurt again next year and be looking at a teen-round bonus, or he could get squeezed based on lack of remaining eligibility. He played too much in 2026 to redshirt. So, odds are he’ll sign for something likely around slot and move to a pro organization to rehab and move forward. A healthy Cuvet looks really promising, and reminds one of Yohandy Morales, another slugger from Miami who was a 3B in college but who probably becomes at 1B in the pros. If he returns to his sophomore year form, this could be a steal of a pick in the 5th.
6th round #167 overall: Cooper Allen, a College Jr. RHP (starter) from UNC-Wilmington
Ranks by major shops: unranked anywhere.
The first of our underslot picks to pay the prep players, Allen was UNC-Wilmington’s Saturday Starter this season (aka their #2 starter), started 15 games and went 8-4 with a 2.79 ERA for the team. 96/23 K/BB in 87 IP, solid BAA of .210. Seems like a solid college pitcher. His scouting report at BA reports that he sits 90-91, with a mid-80s cutter that he uses to get guys out. He’s undersized (6’1″ 205) and seems to rely less on velocity and more on pitching to get guys out. He’s a college junior with eligibility left, but isn’t a huge prospect, so I’m suspecting he’ll take a haircut on his slot value ($410k) and will turn pro, with little left to prove in college. He is not currently in the transfer portal.
7th round #196 overall: Gage Peterson, a College Jr. RHP (starter) from Appalachian State
Ranks by major shops: BA: 344. Nobody else has him ranked.
Peterson went 8-1 and posted a 3.28 ERA in 15 starts and 85 innings, with a 29.4% strikeout rate and 10.7% walk rate for App State as their Sunday Starter (aka their #3), who he joined for his junior year after two years at a Juco. He sits 90-94 but is a big frame guy who BA thinks can throw much harder. 107/34 K/BB in 89 innings; that’s solid. He’s a big guy (6’5″) who scouts seem to dream on. BA’s scouting report thought he was an 8th-12th rounder; we got him in the 7th, which tells me he’s taking something closer to the $150k range instead of slot of $322k. He is not currently in the transfer portal.
8th round #226 overall: Max Hansmann, a College Senior RHP (starter) from Evansville
Ranks by major shops: none.
Our first senior/bonus pool savings pick, Hansmann was the Friday night starter for Evansville. He had solid numbers: 4-3 in 15 s tarts, 3.99 ERA.1.38 WHIP. A K/inning. But we’re talking about Evansville and the Missouri Valley Conference, so impressions should be tempered. I don’t think this is a $1k signing, but I can’t imagine him getting much more than $10k. Boston Smith was a senior draftee who got $50k last year; I’d expect Hansmann to be somewhere in-between. I cannot find any scouting reports on him, even on BA, which kind of tells you what you need to know about the guy. He is not currently in the transfer portal.
9th round #256 overall: Cashel Dugger, a College Jr. C from UCLA
Ranks by major shops: BA: #333
Dugger’s rank is entirely driven on his defensive capabilities and skill at handling a pitching staff. He slashed .251/.378/.382 this season, and has never slugged .400 in his career. His BA scouting report basically says he’s set to have a long career as a backup catcher in some organization, which is what it is. I can’t imagine he signs for a ton of money (slot is $216k), and I can’t imagine he agreed to be picked unless he intended to go pro. UCLA as a team kind of peaked this year, sitting at #1 the entire season with a slew of top players, and for Dugger to stick around for a rebuilding season may seem out of the cards. I’ll bet he signs for something slightly below slot but a bit above the $150k standard 11-20th round figure. He is not currently in the transfer portal.
10th round #286 overall: Nick Williams, a 5th year Senior OF from Michigan State
Ranks by major shops: none
Williams was Michigan State’s leading hitter this season, slashing .333/.434/.540 with a bit of power and a few SBs. He’s probably limited positionally to a corner due to his size and lack of speed, but could be a nice older presence on a team. Odds are this is a super bonus saving pick, in the $10k or less space. But, he seems like a nice pick here.
So, that being said, Here’s what I think the team does with its bonus dollars.
Over Slot picks: Williams, Harris
Slot picks (or close to it): Hacopian, Brunson, Cuvet
Under Slot picks: Allen (250k savings), Peterson ($150k savings), Hansmann ($225k savings), Dugger ($75k savings), Williams ($190k savings)
So that would give the team right around $900k to work with before the 5% cushion of an additional $600k. Can $1.5M get both Williams and Harris signed? Maybe: if Hacopian takes a haircut off his $6.1M slot, that extra money could seal the deal. Say Hacopian signed for $5.5m; that’d be an extra $600k to throw at the two HS players and could get it done, bringing both of them into the $1.75m range easily.
I’ll post the 11th->20th round picks analysis/overview in the next post later this week.
CJ Abrams is a well-deserving all-star. Photo via wikipedia.
This is a running post with all star notes for the team, updated for 2026. It includes a complete history of our All Star selections dating to the franchise’s beginnings in 2005, and may look familiar as I recycle the old content every year.
Nats All Star Game Trivia: updated for 2026.
All-time leader in Nats all-star appearances: Bryce Harper and Max Scherzer, both with 6 appearances with the Nats. (these numbers are only appearances with us, not including other franchises)
All-time leader in All-Star Game starts: Harper, who had 5 starts.
Total number of Starters in the history of the Franchise: Now is 12; Harper 5 times, Scherzer 3 times, and one each for Soriano, Murphy, Zimmerman and Abrams with his 2026 selection.
Most all-star players named in a single year: 5 in both 2016 and 2017.
Least all-star game players named in a single year: 1 in multiple years during the “dark years” of 2006 through 2011, and again in the early 2020s as the team rebuilds.
Most unlikely All-Star: Probably Dmitri Young or Cristian Guzman, both being the “someone has to make the all star team” nominations in our 100 loss period in the late 2000s.
Nationals All-Star Representative: CJ Abrams*, James Wood, Foster Griffin (late addition)
Snubs: none.
Narrative: Abrams is named the starter after beating out Mookie Betts in a final fan vote to be the starter. It is the first time we’ve had a starting SS all-star in the history of the franchise, and just the 12th time we’ve had a starter since the franchise moved to DC. Wood was in the running for starting as well but eventually fell behind in the race. There really wasn’t any other obvious snubs: the next best performing player on the roster is the unheralded off-season FA signing from Japan Griffin, who sits in the top 10 of most pitching categories at the halfway point and whose last start prior to the All Star Break got him to 10-2 with a 2.77 ERA. He was deservedly added as an injury replacement in the week leading up to the event. Ironically, all three players have been the subject of heavy trade rumors both leading up to the season and through out the season, as the team stays within shouting distance of the last wild card spot well into July.
Nationals All-Star Representative: James Wood, MacKenzie Gore (both 1st timers)
Snubs: CJ Abrams
Narrative: No surprises here; both Wood and Gore have been near league-best this season. Is it surprising the team got two ASG representatives as a last-place team? Absolutely. Last year’s AS rep Abrams, if we were a 1st place team instead of last place, likely would have gotten his 2nd AS naming since he enters the AS break with a 144 OPS+ figure but is skipped due to the deep SS field in the National League. Wood also got into the HR derby (which we didn’t separately cover this year) but went one-round and out.
Nationals All-Star Representative: CJ Abrams, Kyle Finnegan (both 1st time)
Snubs: Trevor Williams (on dl)
Narrative: Abrams was initially our sole representative until Finnegan was added at the last minute as an injury replacement. Williams should have been the named representative, sitting in the top 10 in most pitching categories, but got hurt a few weeks before the ASG and probably won’t return for weeks afterwards. We have a couple other players putting up decent seasons (Winker, Irvin) but none really All Star worthy.
Four Ex-nats appeared in the 2024 ASG, three of them starters (Harper, Turner, Soto). Amazingly Reynaldo Lopez represented Atlanta. Erick Fedde didn’t make the ASG but is considered one of the best trade prospects of the year. Wish we could have gotten these two guys to pitch like this for us.
Narrative. The Nats were bad this year, and were one of those teams that had to dig deep to find a sole representative. Grey was our opening day starter and was our best starter for the bulk of the year. We had some other players who ended up having decent seasons (Candelario, Thomas, Harvey) but they would have too much competition in their respective positions to earn a spot.
Nationals All-Star Representative: Juan Soto (2nd)
Snubs: Josh Bell
Narrative. Soto gets his 2nd ASG appearance, probably more on reputation than performance for 2022. He’s only hitting .243 as of the naming, but is getting on base at nearly a .400 clip thanks to his league-leading walk figure. Meanwhile, the best hitter on the team by far is Bell, who is snubbed from making his own 2nd ASG appearance likely a couple of weeks before he’s traded to a contender. Well, when you’re a last place team, you’re only getting one guy on the roster. Soto also gets into the Home Run Derby, which he wins. However, the story of the week was the leaking of contract talks breaking down, with Soto turning down a $440M deal and the team announcing they’re entertaining trade talks. Soto was traded a few weeks after the All-Star game, in a deal so monumental it has its own wikipedia page. We end up getting MacKenzie Gore, Robert Hassell III, C.J. Abrams, James Wood, Jarlin Susana, Luke Voit for Soto and Josh Bell package; Gore, Abrams, and Wood become all-stars within just a couple of years.
Nationals All-Star representatives: Trea Turner, Juan Soto, Kyle Schwarber, Max Scherzer* (substitute addition)
Possible Snubs: none
Narrative: The Nats scuffle into the all-star week on fumes thanks to losing 7 of 9 against NL West teams and suffering perhaps one too many injuries. Scherzer was not initially named, which I immediately listed as a huge snub. But then not only was he added as a replacement player … he was then named the damn starter. How is that possible? Anyway, among our other named players Schwarber’s injury prevents him from playing, but Soto gets into the Home Run derby, where he upsets #1 seed Shohei Ohtani before losing in the next round.
2020
Nationals All-Star representatives: (No Game)
Who would have made it: Juan Soto
Narrative: Covid-19 forced the cancellation of the ASG and the shortening of the season from 162 to 60 games. Nonetheless, the season that Juan Soto put up should have been recognized, even un-officially. He hit .351/.490/.695 in 47 games for an astounding 221 OPS+ figure, the 33rd best ever season posted by this figure. But, since Soto got hit with Covid and had to miss the first two weeks … he did not qualify for batting titles and was left out of the ASG and MVP conversations.
Nationals All-Star representatives: Max Scherzer, Anthony Rendon
Possible Snubs: Juan Soto, Stephen Strasburg, Howie Kendrick, Trevor Rosenthal (just kidding)
Narrative: Rendon finally is named to an all-star team, having played in the shadows of other more well-known NL third basemen for years. Arbitrary Endpoints: Rendon is 7th in baseball among hitters in total fWAR since 2014. 7th. In the entire league. And this is his first ASG. Meanwhile Scherzer is the obvious pick, though i’m not sure he gets the start this year. Scherzer leads the NL in bWAR … but Hyun-Jin Ryu is having an amazing season and could get the nod (indeed, he has). Soto’s numbers are solid, as good as his rookie campaign, but he started slow and the story-line surrounding the Nats this season has overshadowed his production. Strasburg actually has more bWAR than Rendon … but his numbers are solid, not all-star good. Kendrick would never have gotten a nod, but he should be a shoe-in for comeback player of the year for the season he’s having. Others of note: Sean Doolittle was amazing for most of the first half but has tired and his numbers slipped. Patrick Corbin‘s debut season has been solid, not flashy, and he has the same issues as Strasburg had.
Post publishing update: neither of our two representatives are actually going to Cleveland. Rendon staying home to rehab a nagging quad injury, and Scherzer is traveling but will not pitch b/c he threw a start just ahead of the game. Both players were replaced by non-Nats … which was a shame b/c a like-for-like with Strasburg for Scherzer seemed like the right thing to do.
Nationals All-Star representatives: Bryce Harper*, Max Scherzer*, Sean Doolittle
Possible Snubs: Juan Soto, Trea Turner, Anthony Rendon
Narrative: For the home-town All Star Game, Harper gets the starting nod from the fans despite his abhorrent season at the plate (his slash line on 7/8/18: .219/.371/.475). However, by making the ASG, Harper now keeps his promise to participate in the Home Run Derby one last time before hitting free agency. There’s no real “snubs” on this Nationals team; The #2 player on the team in terms of seasonal bWAR is Trea Turner but he’s not exactly having a head-turning season. He was named to the “last 5 ballot” but was a huge long-shot to make it (update; he didn’t: the very deserving Jesus Aguilar did). Anthony Rendon is having his typical under-rated season and got no love from the voters over the more famous Nolan Arenado (a common refrain when it comes to Gold Gloves/Silver Sluggers too). None of our starters besides Scherzer are really deserving; Stephen Strasburg was having a decent but not spectacular season but missed a month and is on the D/L. Nor is any of the bullpen past Doolittle. Its an odd-season where a team-wide malaise is contributing to the team hovering at .500 at the All Star Break. Only Juan Soto really is deserving … but he was never going to make the ASG (not when recent more spectacular rookies failed to make it) and thanks to his missing all of April and most of May he wasn’t on any ballots and may struggle to win the RoY over guys who have played longer this season. Scherzer is named to the team on 7/8/18 was named the NL starter for the 2nd year running on 7/16/18.
Nationals All-Star representatives: Bryce Harper*, Daniel Murphy*, Ryan Zimmerman*, Max Scherzer*, Stephen Strasburg
Snubs: Anthony Rendon, Gio Gonzalez
Narrative: For the second year in a row, the Nats are well and properly represented in the All Star Game. We have three starters named in the field, including Zimmerman who beats out a slew of 1B sluggers in the NL to not only make the team but get his first start. Its also likely i’ll be editing this post and adding in Scherzer as an additional starter; he is the obvious choice to start the game for the NL given his first half production (7/10/17 update: yes indeed we did). Rendon is having a very quiet solid season and is in the “last 5” popular vote, but he seems unlikely to win given that last year’s MVP Kris Bryant is also in the voting (Update: neither guy got in). Gonzalez misses out despite having a better first half than Strasburg by nearly any statistic; he’s having a career year but seems unlikely to get rewarded with his 3rd ASG appearance. There’s no other real snub from our 2017 team; certainly there’s nobody in the bullpen meriting a spot, and Trea Turner‘s torrid 2016 2nd half did not translate into the 2017 season (not to mention, he’s had two separate D/L trips). Once again i’m slightly perturbed that Harper continues to refuse to participate in the HR derby; why the reticence? Its a fun event that is quickly becoming better than the actual game itself and practically every other slugger is participating. Is he afraid to lose? On a larger scale, i’m really happy to see (finally) that deserving rookies are named: Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger are both named and are both on the inside track for ROY awards; too many times in the past we see deserving rookies unnamed. On July 10th, the fourth Nat starter was named: Scherzer got the starting pitcher nod, a first for the Nats. August Update: Rendon’s omission is looking even more ridiculous; he’s top 5 in the league in bWAR.
Nationals All-Star representatives: Bryce Harper*, Stephen Strasburg, Daniel Murphy, Wilson Ramos, Max Scherzer (named as replacement for Strasburg on 7/8/16),
Possible Snubs: Danny Espinosa, Tanner Roark
Narrative: The four obvious candidates from the Nats this year were all initially correctly selected, though voting shenanigans out of Chicago elected Ben Zobrist over Daniel Murphy by a scant 500 votes. I thought perhaps Strasburg would have a chance to start the game, given his 12-0 record, but it seems the team pre-empted any such thought when Scherzer’s naming occurred. For the first time writing this post, I can’t really name any “snubs” and the team has (finally?) earned the proper respect it deserves in terms of naming its players properly. Espinosa had a week for the ages just prior to the end of voting but really stood little chance of selection in the grand scheme of things. He’s not really a “snub” but is worthy of mention based on his resurgent year. At the break, Espinosa ranked 3rd in NL fWAR but 7th or 8th in bWAR thanks to differing defensive value metrics, so maybe/maybe not on him being a “snub.” As pointed out in the comments, even I missed the sneaky good season Roark is having; he’s 12th in the NL in bWAR at the break and 9th in fWAR but was left off in favor of any number of starters that stand below him in value rankings. Unfortunately for fans (and for Harper’s “Make Baseball Fun again” campaign, he opted to skip the Home Run Derby again. I guess its kind of like the NBA superstars skipping the dunk contest; the Union should really do a better job of helping out in this regard. The new format is fantastic and makes the event watchable again; is it ego keeping him from getting beat by someone like Giancarlo Stanton?
Nationals All-Star representatives: Bryce Harper*, Max Scherzer
Possible Snubs: Yunel Escobar, Drew Storen
Narrative: Harper not only made it in as a starter for the 2nd time, he led the NL in votes, setting a MLB record for total votes received. This is no surprise; Harper’s easily in the MVP lead for the NL thanks to his amazing first half (his split at the half-way point of the season: .347/.474/.722 with 25 homers and an astounding 225 OPS+). I guess he won’t be earning the “Most overrated player” award next year. That Harper is electing to skip the Home run derby in a disappointment; his father is nursing an arm injury can cannot throw to him in the event. In a weird year for the Nats, the only other regular worth mentioning is newly acquired Escobar, who is hitting above .300 and filling in ably at multiple positions that, prior to this year, he had never played. Storen is having another excellent regular season … but at a time when mandatory members from each team often leads to other closers being selected (there are 5 NL closers and 7 AL relievers), the odds of him making the All-Star team were always going to be slim. Scherzer deservedly makes the team and probably would have been the NL starter; he’s got sub 2.00 ERA and FIP and leads all NL pitchers in WAR at the mid-way point of the season. But his turn came up in the final game of the first half, making him ineligible for the game and forcing his replacement on the roster.
As a side note, the 2015 All-Star game will go down as the “Ballot-Gate” game thanks to MLB’s short-sighted plan to allow 30+ online ballots per email address. This led to severe “ballot stuffing” by the Kansas City Royals fans, led to MLB having to eliminate 60 million+ fraudulent ballots, but still led to several Royals being elected starters over more deserving candidates.
Nationals All-Star representative: Jordan Zimmermann (Update post-publishing: Zimmermann strained a bicep, and had to withdraw from the ASG. For a bit it looked like the Nats wouldn’t even have a representative, until Tyler Clippardwas named on 7/13/14).
Possible Snubs: Adam LaRoche, Anthony Rendon, Rafael Soriano, Drew Storen
Narrative: Zimmermann’s been the best SP on the best pitching staff in the majors this year, and thus earns his spot. I find it somewhat odd that a first place team (or near to it) gets just one representative on the team (as discussed above). Rendon tried to make the team via the “last man in” voting, but historically Nationals have not fared well in this competition (especially when better known players from large markets are in the competition, aka Anthony Rizzo from the Chicago Cubs), and indeed Rendon finished 4th in the last-man voting. LaRoche is having a very good season, almost single handedly carrying the Nats offense while major parts were out injured, but he’s never going to beat out the slew of great NL first basemen (Joey Votto couldn’t even get into this game). Soriano has quietly put together one of the best seasons of any closer in the game; at the time of this writing he has a 1.03 ERA and a .829 whip; those are Dennis Eckersley numbers. But, the farce that is the all-star game selection criteria (having to select one player from each team) means that teams need a representative, and deserving guys like Soriano get squeezed. Then, Soriano indignantly said he wouldn’t even go if named as a replacement … likely leading to Clippard’s replacement selection. The same goes for non-closer Storen, who sports a sub 2.00 ERA on the year. Advanced stats columnists (Keith Law) also think that Stephen Strasburg is a snub but I’m not entirely sure: he may lead the NL in K’s right now and have far better advanced numbers than “traditional,” but its hard to make an argument that a guy with a 7-6 record and a 3.50+ ERA is all-star worthy.
Nationals All-Star representatives: Bryce Harper*, Jordan Zimmermann
Snubs: Stephen Strasburg, Ian Desmond
Narrative: Harper comes in 3rd in the NL outfielder voting, ahead of some big-time names, to become only the second Nationals position player elected as an All-Star starter. He was 4th in the final pre-selection vote, so a big last minute push got him the starter spot. Harper also becomes the first National to participate in the Home Run Derby. Zimmermann was 12-3 heading into the game and was on mid-season Cy Young short lists in July in a breakout season. Strasburg’s advanced stats are all better than Zimmermann’s, but his W/L record (4-6 as the ASG) means he’s not an all-star. It also probably doesn’t help that he missed a few weeks. Desmond loses out to Troy Tulowitzki, Everth Cabrera and Jean Segura. Tulowitzki was having a very solid year and was a deserving elected starter, while Cabrera and Segura are both having breakout seasons. Desmond was on the “Final vote” roster, but my vote (and most others’ I’m guessing) would be for Yasiel Puig there ([Editor Update: Desmond and Puig lost out to Freddie Freeman: I still wished that Puig finds a way onto the roster but ultimately he did not and I believe the ASG was diminished because of it). Gio Gonzalez, Ryan Zimmerman, and Rafael Soriano are all having solid but unspectacular years and miss out behind those having great seasons.
Nationals All-Star representatives: Stephen Strasburg, Gio Gonzalez, Ian Desmond, BryceHarper
Possible Snubs: Adam LaRoche, Craig Stammen
Narrative: The two SPs Strasburg and Gonzalez were the obvious candidates, and my personal prediction was that they’d be the only two candidates selected. Gonzalez’ first half was a prelude to his 21-win, 3rd place Cy Young season. The inclusion of Desmond is a surprise, but also a testament to how far he’s come as a player in 2012. Harper was a last-minute injury replacement, but had earned his spot by virtue of his fast start as one of the youngest players in the league. Of the “snubs,” LaRoche has had a fantastic come back season in 2012 but fared little shot against better, more well-known NL first basemen. Stammen was our best bullpen arm, but like LaRoche fared little chance of getting selected during a year when the Nats had two deserving pitchers selected.
Possible Snubs: Danny Espinosa, Michael Morse, Drew Storen, Jordan Zimmermann
Narrative: While Clippard was (arguably) the Nats best and most important reliever, I think Zimmermann was a more rightful choice. He was 10th in the league in ERA at the time of the selections and has put in a series of dominant performances. Meanwhile Espinosa was on pace for a 28-homer season and almost a certain Rookie-of-the-Year award (though a precipitous fall-off in the 2nd half cost him any realistic shot at the ROY), and perhaps both players are just too young to be known around the league. Lastly Morse is certainly known and he merited a spot in the “last man in” vote sponsored by MLB (though he fared little chance against popular players in this last-man-in voting).
Possible Snubs: Adam Dunn, Josh Willingham, Ryan Zimmerman, Stephen Strasburg
Narrative: Capps was clearly deserving, having a breakout season as a closer after his off-season non-tender from the Pirates. The 3-4-5 hitters Zimmerman-Dunn-Willingham all had dominant offensive seasons as the team improved markedly from its 103-loss season. But perhaps the surprise non-inclusion was Strasburg, who despite only having a few starts as of the all-star break was already the talk of baseball. I think MLB missed a great PR opportunity to name him to the team to give him the exposure that the rest of the national media expected. But in the end, Capps was a deserving candidate and I can’t argue that our hitters did anything special enough to merit inclusion.
Nationals All-Star representatives: Ryan Zimmerman
Possible Snubs: Adam Dunn
Narrative: The addition of Dunn and Willingham to the lineup gave Zimmerman the protection he never had, and he produced with his career-best season. His first and deserved all-star appearance en-route to a 33 homer season. Dunn continued his monster homer totals with little all-star recognition.
Narrative: The first of two “hitting rock-bottom” seasons for the team; no one really merited selection. Zimmerman was coming off of hamate-bone surgery in November 2007 and the team was more or less awful across the board. Rauch performed ably after Cordero went down with season-ending (and basically career-ending) shoulder surgery. Guzman’s selection a great example of why one-per-team rules don’t make any sense. Guzman ended up playing far longer than he deserved in the game itself by virtue of the 15-inning affair.
Possible Snubs: Ryan Zimmerman, Shawn Hill (though I wouldn’t argue for either)
Narrative: Young gets a deserved all-star appearance en route to comeback player of the year. Zimmerman played a full season but didn’t dominate. Our 2007 staff gave starts to 13 different players, most of whom were out of the league within the next year or two. Not a good team.
Nationals All-Star representatives: Alfonso Soriano*
Possible Snubs: Nick Johnson, Ryan Zimmerman, Chad Cordero
Narrative: Soriano made the team as an elected starter, the first time the Nats have had such an honor. Our pitching staff took massive steps backwards and no starter came even close to meriting a spot. Cordero was good but not lights out as he had been in 2005. Soriano’s 40-40 season is a poster child for “contract year” production and he has failed to come close to such production since. The team was poor and getting worse. Johnson had a career year but got overshadowed by bigger, better first basemen in the league (a recurring theme for our first basemen over the years).
Nationals All-Star representatives: Livan Hernandez, Chad Cordero
Possible Snubs: Nick Johnson, John Patterson.
Narrative: The Nats went into the All Star break surprisingly in first place, having run to a 50-31 record by the halfway point. Should a first place team have gotten more than just two representatives? Perhaps. But the team was filled with non-stars and played far over its head to go 50-31 (as evidenced by the reverse 31-50 record the rest of the way).
Hacopain’s TAMU profile pick is … jacked. Photo via MLB network
So, one of the challenges of having a draft on a Saturday is, it’s awfully hard to find time to do a full comprehensive reaction in a timely manner. So, this will be somewhat brief, but wanted to get a conversation out there real quick.
In this year’s first round, the Nats at #11 take Chris Hacopian, 2B from TAMU. He’s a DC area native; born in Gaithersburg, grew up in Potomac, went to Churchill, and spent his first two college seasons locally at Maryland (click here for his PG profile). He was at UMD with his older brother, and upon his graduation Hacopian entered the transfer portal and went to TAMU. Hacopian was ready for better competition than what UMD gave him; he destroyed big 10 pitching his sophomore year. He wasn’t awful in the Cape Cod league after his sophomore year (he destroyed the NECL after his freshman year).
His junior season at TAMU he slashed .319/.405/.578 with more walks than Ks and some power (11 homers). He played 3B and SS for Maryland, and initially was set to play SS for Tamu as well, but ended up at 2B instead thanks to some limitations in his arm strength and lateral motion. I think he’s profiling as a 2B/LF type in the pros. His leading tool is his Hit tool, where he was one of the best pure hitters in the draft and has a 60 grade from MLBpipeline.com. They give him a current 50 power grade, but something tells me this guy can improve on that as well. I think he’s a pro hitter who won’t chase, hits the ball hard, can power it up when he wants to, and who should move through the ranks quickly. He had some injury issues this year, and by most accounts is a stiff, awkward athleticism guy who may struggle to stick even at 2B.
Hacopian was mocked to the Nats pretty frequently in the end, with the major pundits all over the pick. The way the 1st round worked out, if the Nats were after a college hitter, then they got the one that made the most sense; Burress, Gracia, and Bell all went just before Hacopian, and the next three picks were all HS guys (Gringlinger, Condon, Lombard). They passed on the toolsy Lebron, as well as Ace Reese, who went 24th and was clearly not in the near-top10 level. They also passed on all the prep projects, which is interesting and indicative of what this new front office is thinking after last year’s prep-heavy draft.
My judgement: the way the draft worked out, he was the “right” pick if the target was a College bat, with all the other candidates going before him. He could be a fast mover, maybe in the majors by end of 2027.
Roch Cholowsky may not be the consensus 1-1 pick any more. Photo via BA
I published the “way too early” Phase 1 Mock draft post in April, covering all the very early mocks plus those that hadn’t really taken into account a big chunk of the spring season. Then, I published Phase 2 mock draft review on 6/8/26, with a deeper dive into analysis and some macro draft thoughts. That Phase 2 post ended up being rather lengthy; we’re still technically in that “weeks leading up to the draft” portion of the Mock Draft season, without a ton of movement. However, by the time you read this HS is done, College is done, and top prospects are sitting at home fielding phone calls from interested teams (1st rounders aren’t likely to go spend a couple weeks playing summer wood bat, but lesser players may in order to get some last minute impress-the-scouts views).
Since the mocks continue to roll in, here’s another post. This time, I’m separating out the “Draft Class Ranks” from the “Mock Drafts” since they have different aims. I’ve captured these draft boards mostly so that I can reference them in my 2026 draft class post, to kind of show where players were ranked that we ended up picking.
I’ll just be adding all the “final” mocks to this post since the draft starts two days after I posted.
Here’s the mocks, starting with those released right after my last post
The Athletic/Keith Law Mock 2.0 6/10/26: Lackey, Bell, Cholowsky, Emerson, Flora. This is a crazy departure from basically every other mock we’ve seen in the cycle. Nats at #11 are on Chris Hacopian, the TAMU 2B with ties to the DC area (Churchhill HS then two years at Maryland), though he also mentions Jared Grindlinger as a name that the Nats are tied to at this pick. In Law’s mock, other names we’d like to see like Burress are gone.
CBSSports/Mike Axisa 6/12/26 mock: Cholowsky, Emerson, Lackey, Lombard, Flora. Pretty standard. Nats at #11 on Grindlinger, saying that the Nats were heavily scouting his last few HS games.
MLBPipeline/Jonathan Mayo One-month away Mock 6/12/26: Cholowsky, Emerson, Lackey, Lombard, Flora. No real change for Mayo over the last few mocks for the top 5. Nats at #11 he now has Justin Lebron, the very tooled up Alabama SS who has been all over the map this draft season, from an early top 5 pick to late 1st round. In this scenario, both Burress, and Hacopian are gone, as is Bell (who Law has going super early), the Nats leave Grindlinger alone, and pass on college guys like Curiel, Flukey, and Reese.
Baseball America Staff Draft 6/15/26: Lackey, Cholowsky, Emerson, Booth, Curiel. Nats “GM” at #11 got Ryder Helfrick, C from Arkansas. The guys just after the Helfrick pick: Gringlinger, Hacopian, Gracia, Reese, and Lebron… basically 5 guys who I think are better picks than Helfrick. BA warns that this is not a “mock draft” but instead what their staff picking at those spots would do, but Curiel in the top 5 seems crazy.
ESPN/Kiley McDaniel Who they should pick Mock 6/18/26: Cholowsky, Emerson, Lackey, Flora, Lombard. So, the classic top 5 we’ve been seeing for months. McDaniel says the top 3 are a tier, then the next two, then 6 and up. He’s got the Nats at #11 on Liam Peterson, the RHP friday starter from Florida. First time i’ve seen anyone project Peterson to the Nats, who would be leaving Flukey, Gringlinger, and Curiel on the table with this pick. McDaniel points out that the Boston-alum heavy front office was “good at identifying pitching it could optimize” and Peterson could slot in. I have to tell you, I don’t hate getting a top college pitcher at this point in the Nats farm system development … which is super SS heavy.
MLBPipeline/Jim Callis Mock on 6/18/26: Cholowsky, Lackey, Emerson, Lombard, Booth. First guy that I can think of that inserts Booth into the top 5 (he has Flora 6th). He has Nats on Hacopian, though notes that the industry knows that the team is “in” on Gringlinger. This mock has the two-way prep star falling to #19.
MLBPipeline Callis & Mayo tag team a Mock 6/26/26: Cholowsky, Lackey, Emerson, Lombard, Flora. Pretty standard. Nats at #11 they have Kentucky SS Tyler Bell, who is picked over the likes of Gringlinger, Hacopian, Reese, and Lebron in this mock.
CBSSports/Mike Axisa 6/26/26 mock: Cholowsky, Lackey, Emerson, Lombard, Bell; from his last mock he moves up Lackey a spot, and puts Bell at #5 after a strong CWS finish. He also describes Bell as an underslot guy at this position, which seems fair given that he’s got a torn labrum in his non-throwing shoulder that he’s played with all year that will require immediate surgery . Nats at #11 still on Gringlinger, saying the Nats would let him be a 2-way player to start his pro career.
BA Mock 5.0 post CWS and Combine 6/29/26: Cholowsky, Emerson, Lackey, Lombard, Flora. Standard top 5, though he says Cholowsky isn’t certain 1-1 anymore, and that Pittsburgh at 5 could do an underslot deal instead of picking the obvious Flora. Nats at #11 on Ace Reese, the power-hitting 3B from Mississippi State. He recognizes the industry all says Gringlinger, but BA says the Nats are moving more towards college bats now. Grindlinger falls to #20 as a result.
Prep Baseball Report Staff Mock (via D1baseball) 7/2/26: Lackey, Emerson, Cholowsky, Flora, Lombard. Sorry, but this just seems out of touch with reality. There’s zero chance Tampa passes on Cholowsky if he somehow doesn’t go 1-1, and there’s little chance the Giants pass on Lombard. There’s a reason these mock drafts look similar; its because the pundits have relationships with GMs and know who they’ve been sending cross checkers out to see. They also put a guy at #6 who I’ve literally never heard of. Nats at #11 take prep lefty Gio Rojas, leaving a slew of top 10 names on the board.
MLBPipeline’s Jonathan Mayo Mock 7/2/26: Cholowsky, Emerson, Lackey, Lombard, Booth; Booth jumps Flora in this mock. Nats at #11 get Reese. They leave Curiel, Bell, Hacopian, Lebron, and Gringlinger on the board to take Reese, which seems unlikely.
Keith Law’s Mock 3.0 7/6/26: Emerson, Lackey, Cholowsky, Lombard, Flora. Law’s research now shows CWS at 1-1 have Cholowsky “a distant third” for the pick, At #11 he has the nats taking Hacopian, as he did a month ago, saying that the Nats staff loves Grindlinger but is concerned about the amount of dev time needed for a 2-way 17 yr old.
Not a mock, but Kiley McDaniel posted the “one big question” each team faces with its 1st round pick on 7/6/26. The Nat’s conversation talks about how recent Boston draft proclivities at the top may show up in the Nats draft this year.
Baseball America Staff Draft v4.0 7/6/26: Cholowsky, Lackey, Emerson, Flora, Booth. Nats at #11 got Reese.
Prospects1500 Mock Draft 7/7/26: Cholowsky, Emerson, Lackey, Lombard, Booth. At #11 they mock Carson Bolemon, a prep LHP from Southside Christian (HS) in South Carolina to the team. This seems crazy; he’s ranked in the 20s and has not once appeared in any mock draft conversation for the team.
ProspectsLive team did a podcast/video mock 7/8/26: Cholowsky, Emerson, Lackey, Flora, Booth. Nats at #11 they go with Grindlinger.
Baseball Prospect Journal Staff Mock Draft 7/8/26: Cholowsky, Emerson, Lackey, Flora, Lombard. nats at #11 get Trevor Condon, OF, Etowah (Ga.) HS, another name that basically nobody is mentioning to the Nats in particular, or this high. At least the boards have him reasonably within the realm of the #11 range.
Fangraphs/Longenhagen Mock v1.0 7/8/26: Emerson, Lackey, Cholowsky, Flora, Booth. Like other major pundits, he’s reading the tea leaves and seeing that Cholowsky may be slipping and that Booth has taken over Lombard’s spot int he top 5. In this draft, Drew Burress drops to the Nats at #11, and if this happens I’d think the team would be ecstatic.
Final Mocks from Pundits
Baseball America Mock 6.0 final mock 7/8/26: Cholowsky, Emerson, Lackey, Booth, Flora. We’re seeing Lombard with some late slippage, and Booth seems to be the name now stepping into the top 5. As with their previous mock, they have Nats on Reese. Gringlinger drops to #19.
ESPN/McDaniel Final Mock Draft 7/10/26: Cholowsky, Emerson, Lackey, Booth, Burress. Wow, first time we’ve seen Drew Burress in the top 5; just a day before Longenhagen had him dropping to us at #11. In this mock, Nats at #11 get Derek Curiel, the famous hitter from LSU. I’d be a-ok with this scenario.
The Athletic/Keith Law’s Final Mock 7/10/26: Emerson, Lackey, Cholowsky, Lombard, Flora. Nats get Hacopian.
Fangraphs/Longenhagen Final Mock 7/11/26: Cholowsky, Emerson, Lackey, Flora, Booth. Nats get Bell.
MLBPipeline/Jonathan Mayo’s Final Mock 7/11/26: Cholowsky, Emerson, Lackey, Flora, Booth. Nats get Lebron
MLBPipeline/Jim Callis Final Mock 7/11/26: Cholowsky, Emerson, Lackey, Flora, Curiel. Nats get Hacopian
CBSSports/Mike Axisa Final Mock 7/10/26: Cholowsky, Emerson, Lackey, Lombard, Booth. nats get Gracia.
Baseball Prospect Journal/Logan Quinton Final Mock: Cholowsky, Emerson, Lackey, Booth, Flora. Nats get Condon (BPJ is the only shop that is on Condon here)
The draft runs from July 11 to 13th this year, so we’re just a few days away.
My predictions right now?
Top 5: Cholowsky, Emerson, Lackey (in some order), then Booth, Flora.
Nats at #11: It’s looking like a college bat: whoever is left from Reese, Curiel, Burress, Hacopian.
Actual Draft Results post draft:
Top 5 went Cholowsky, Emerson, Lackey, Flora, Curiel. Nats get Hacopian.
Jim Callis nailed it perfectly; only guy to have Curiel in top 5, he had the top 5 in order, and he got Nats pick right. Only Keith Law besides Callis got Nats/Hacopian.
Sime keeps mowing them down in High-A. Photo via BA
Since we’ve been talking about Baseball America ranks this week … and since BA just named the Nats overall system 4th best in the sport, lets see how they’re ranking our prospects in this Mid July update.
Baseball America does the best job of reshuffling prospect lists during the season, and I’m here for it. They did a mid May update that we covered here, and now we get a July 1 update just before the draft (where we’ll presumably add in at least a few more top 30 system prospects).
For now, this is a great way to gauge these players’ 2026 seasons… in some cases. After a point (as we’ll see) BA just kind of gave up and cut-n-pasted from the previous ranking.
Here’s their current top 30, with ranks pulled in from 2 months ago and from January to show evolution in 2026:
7/1/2026
5/18/2026
1/7/2026
First Name
Last Name
Position
1
1
1
Eli
Willits
SS
2
4
7
Seaver
King
SS
3
2
2
Jarlin
Susana
RHP (Starter)
4
5
Pre-Acqu
Devin
Fitz-Gerald
SS
5
3
21
Ronny
Cruz
SS
6
7
5
Travis
Sykora
RHP (Starter)
7
6
4
Luis
Perales
RHP (Starter)
8
8
Pre-Acqu
Gavin
Fein
SS
9
9
19
Miguel
Sime Jr.
RHP (Starter)
11
20
15
Jackson
Kent
LHP (Starter)
12
11
13
Ethan
Petry
1B/OF (Corner)
13
15
11
Landon
Harmon
RHP (Starter)
14
12
6
Alex
Clemmey
LHP (Starter)
15
10
3
Harry
Ford
C
16
22
16
Yohandy
Morales
3B
17
17
12
Sam
Peterson
OF (CF)
18
28
30+
Cayden
Wallace
2B/3B
19
14
9
Coy
James
SS
19
13
Pre-Acqu
Yeremy
Cabrera
OF (corner)
20
16
8
Luke
Dickerson
SS/CF
21
18
Pre-Acqu
Alejandro
Rosario
RHP
22
21
25
Riley
Cornelio
RHP (Starter)
23
23
10
Angel
Feliz
SS/3B
24
24
18
Caleb
Lomavita
C
25
25
Pre-Acqu
Samil
Serrano
OF (Corner)
26
26
20
Jorgelys
Mota
SS
27
27
24
Yoel
Tejeda Jr.
RHP (Starter)
28
19
17
Marconi
German
SS
29
30
14
Andrew
Pinckney
OF (Corner)
30
30+
30+
De la Cruz
Marlon
RHP (Starter)
Here’s some thoughts going down the list.
Having King now ascended to #2 in the system seems appropriate, even with his June swoon. Too bad we have the NL starting All Star short stop blocking his path to the majors. A good problem to have. His dip in performance has slowed the calls for him to get promoted.
Honestly, I don’t understand why they have Susana so high; he’s got an unspecified injury with no timeframe for return and has been doing “throwing programs” for months. I don’t think anyone thought his injury would cost him an entire season, but it’s leaning that way.
Ronny Cruz’s trajectory has dipped slightly, but he’s still top 5 after his torrid 2026 start.
They’re holding firm on Gavin Fein, and I hope he pays off. Moving him off SS lowers his value, and i’m surprised he’s still in the top 10.
Based on what you’ve seen in 2026, would you have Luis Perales at #7? I wouldn’t. Raise your hand if you want Jake Bennett back.
I like the recognition that Jackson Kent is now nearly a top 10 prospect, flourishing in AAA.
Clemmey taking a dive, as we’ve discussed a ton, going from #6 in January to #14 now. Honestly, that seems fair given what he’s struggled to do since his AA promotion.
What the heck is going on with Harry Ford? #3 in January, now #15.
Great to see Cayden Wallace showing up; he was just promoted to AAA where, I guess, he’ll play short stop? I mean, House is the 3B, Glasser has played the entire season at 2B. Maybe Glasser (listed as a SS) will move over and Wallace plays 2B. I can’t imagine the team will sit one of them on the regular so that Lipscomb (the only true SS on the AAA roster) can play at this point.
Both Coy James and Luke Dickerson were top 10, now nearly out of the top 20. Both are young, and have some time, but not a good pro career start really for either.
Lomavita’s excellent June apparently too late for him to get any change from the last ranking; he sits at #24 still.
Marlon De La Cruz gets the last spot, pushing out Davian Garcia (the only player ranked 6 weeks ago not listed). Fun fact; this is the first time he’s been ranked by any shop for this team, ever. He’s a 2024 IFA who signed for so little that they didn’t bother to register it, and now he’s in the LowA rotation.
Willits continues his torrid trajectory towards the majors. Photo via Federal Baseball
Here’s a monthly check in on our 20 prospects plus other notables in the system. Stats are for just June 2026 unless otherwise noted.
(Note: I wrote this before the July 4th holiday, with its slew of moves/DFAs/promotions, so I know i’m missing some details).
I’ll be using my own personal top 20 to drive the rankings, the ones I posted right after the season started and which are a bit outdated. If I was to re-rank the top 10 right now versus what’s below, i’d probably go Willits, King, Fitz-Gerald, Sykora, Susana, Cruz, Kent, Petry, Sime, and then maybe a wild card like Morales or Lomavita.
All the stats links I use are at my Nats Links page, which I visit every day for various reasons. I won’t repeat all the stats links and transactions pages and what not; just go to the Links page.
Eli Willits SS, High-A: Slashed .246/.418/.590 for an OPS north of 1.000 and the continued streaking up prospect boards (he’s now #3 on MLBPipeline’s overall minor league list). Reminder: he’s 18, doesn’t turn 19 until December. Also named to the Futures game roster along with Sime. Temperature: red hot, POTY candidate, another promotion candidate.
Henry Ford, C AAA: had a .244/.426/.415 split for the month, good for a halfway decent looking OPS figure, thanks to a slew of walks bolstering the OBP. Still not impressing, which is why his prospect stock is falling fast. He’s now at least down to 7th or 8th in the system. Temperature: still cool.
Jarlin Susana, RHP (starter) AA: On the 60-day DL to open the season, and is still there. Per the Nats injury report, the last update was 6/12 reporting that he was throwing off a mound. What gives here? It took him 5 weeks to go from throwing on flat ground to the mound. Did the team hide the severity of his injury? Temperature: still on ice.
Travis Sykora: RHP (starter) AA: out for the season, the injury report lists his return as 2027. Temperature: on ice.
Gavin Fien SS/3B, Low-A: Finally had a good month at the plate, .294/.380/.529. He’s still entirely playing OF, despite all the middle infielder promotions out of low-A, which lowers his value a little bit. He’s splitting time between CF and RF. Temperature: warming up.
Alex Clemmey, LHP (Starter) AA: Clemmey had another mediocre month; 5.53 ERA, too many hits, too many walks. I’m not sure what to do here; is it possible he’s hit a ceiling? Temperature: pretty cold.
Seaver King, SS AAA: After a torrid start to the season, King cooled this month, slashing just .256/.323/.389. he’s playing a lot of 2B, presumably in case the Nats want a stretch bat to take over. But, unless he continues to hit, he’s not coming up anytime soon. Temperature: cooled for a bit.
Luis Perales, RHP (starter) AAA: Perales reverted to earlier bad form, and continues to remind us that the Bennet-for-Perales trade sucked. 20/11 k/bb in 21 innings and a 6.53 ERA. Temperature: cold.
Devin Fitz-Gerald, 2B/SS, AA: AA has been a wake-up call for Fitz-Gerlad; he hit just .132 this month. Temperature: Hot to get to AA, now cold.
Landon Harmon, RHP (starter): Low-A: He remains on the 7-day DL in Low-A with an oblique strain that continues to be described as “not serious.” He hasn’t thrown since April 24th, meaning he’s now working on 9 weeks out of action. Temperature: On Ice, starting to be concerning.
Ronny Cruz: SS High-A. After a tough first month, he’s picking it up. 263/.314/.400. Not awesome, but not terrible. Temperature: luke warm?
Luke Dickerson, SS/CF Low-A: .253/.451/.413. Dickerson took a TON of walks this month, ironic since our discussions on this platform included criticism of the amount of Ks he was taking. Well, this month he still struckout a lot, but only hit one out to go with 27 BBs in 22 games. Interesting. At least he’s back on the dirt, playing mostly middle infield now, moving around all three skill positions. Temperature: meh. Not sure what to think here.
Ethan Petry, 1B AA: his promotion to AA has not gone well: he hit just .172 in June Temperature: Hot to get to AA, now cold.
Coy James, SS/3B, Low-A: No real change here; .243/.360/.365 for the month. Not really living up to the prospect hype so far. Temperature: still cold.
Angel Felix, SS High-A: Meh slash line of .265/.315/.422 . Showed a little bit of pop. May be impacted by being moved of SS thanks to Willits. Temperature: cool.
Yoel Tejeda Jr. RHP (starter) High-A: He cleaned up this month: 1.38 ERA and 33/11 K/BB in 22 ip and probably merited a promotion; perhaps another month of work and he’ll be up. Temperature: hot.
Jackson Kent, LHP (Starter) AAA: . Jackson Kent’s first full month in AAA went swimmingly: 3-2 with a 3.70 ERA and solid K/BB numbers (28/7 in 24ip). Is it possible that Kent will be the first 2024 class draftee to get to the majors? Temperature: Pretty warm
Miguel Sime Jr. RHP (starter): High-A: Sime’s first month in High-A was … interesting. 5 starts, 17ip, 2.60 ERA and 27ks in 17ip, so he still is throwing it by people. But, he also has 16 walks in those 17ip, which has bloated his Whip a bit to 1.50. Named to the Futures game roster. Temperature: hot.
Davian Garcia, RHP (starter) AA; On the full-season DL, hopefully to return in 2027. Temperature: on ice.
Yeremy Cabrera CF High-A: has struggled upon his promotion; hit just .205 this month. Temperature: hot to get to High-A, now cold.
Notables #20 and above by level:
in AAA:
#27 Yohandy Morales 1B/3B in AAA finally had a bad month: .230/.287/.437.
#31 Phillip Glasser 2B in AAA had a great month: slashing .438/.491/.500. He’s back on track. .
#33 Albimec Ortiz 1B/DH in AAA is hitting just .225.
Also, not for nothing: 40-man members Hassell (.203) and especially Weimer (hitting just .125) are not doing themselves any favors.
In AA:
#21 Sam Peterson is struggling, hitting just .221 this month.
#26 Caleb Lomavita had a monster June; 8 homers powering his slash line to .286/.352/.762. Too bad Ford blocks his path to AAA.
#30 Cayden Wallace is producing at a very high clip once again: .329/.346/.633. He can play 2B, 3B, and has even been playing a bunch of SS this season.
#60 TJ White, newly promoted to AA this month, hit just .154 for the Senators in June.
In High-A:
#40 Kevin Bazzell continued to hit this month, slashing .300//.345/.440. Not bad for a catcher, but see above; Lomavita in AA is crushing, and Ford in AAA can’t be sat. So there’s a log jam.
#41 Cristian Vaquero remains on the DL, but has started rehab. Somehow he’s been on the DL since early May and I never saw it; he’s been on the “active” roster on the Big Board for weeks.
#61 Randal Diaz played well this month: .304/.420/.411, somehow getting playing time in a crowded middle infield in Wilmington.
Elijah Green cut down on his K’s this month once again, down to 34 for t he month (in 21 games). His astounding figures for the season? 67 games, 243 ABs, and 127 Ks. He’s striking out at a 52% clip for the season. I’ve just never seen anything like it before.
Unranked but recently promoted Jacob Walsh hit just .206 for the month.
Unranked but recently promoted Jack Moroknek hit just .125 upon his promotion.
In Low-A:
#38 Sir Jamison Jones hit just .125 this month.
#39 Rafael Ramirez Jr took a step back slashing .226/.368/.371.
#51 Dashyll Tejeda, newly promoted, held his own his first month in full season ball: .246/.364/.393
#94 Manual Cabrera got promoted up from FCL and has been hitting well: .288/.377/.458. He’s playing mostly 3B
Unranked Hunter Hines got demoted, then destroyed Low-A with an OPS > 1.000. may want to put him back up.
Unranked Jordan Williams, a 26yr old NDFA signed earlier this year, has been cruising: .349/.472/.512. Williams is an interesting one: he didn’t finish his NCAA eligibility until he was 25.
In FCL, here’s hitting stats for some of our notable hitting prospects recently moved up from the DSL.
#23 MarconiGerman; .238/.432/.413 in june.
#36 Brayan Cortesia: .288/.447/.288. that’s not a lot of power.
#42 Daniel Hernandez: .222/.323/.259. Not good.
#46 Browm Martinez: .259/.474/.389. Nots of walks.
#47 Victor Hurtado struggled in june: .237/.387/.271
In DSL, here’s hitting stats for the four marquee 2026 IFA signings:
Isaias Suarez OF (corner): .207/.452/.207 in 11 games
Angel Ramirez OF (corner): 211/.333/.649 in 38Abs so far.
Samil Serrano OF (cf): 310/.397/.517 in 58ABs so far.
Juan Duran 1B: 357/.438/.956
In the DSL, the remaining big money 2025IFA signings who are still there:
Ronny Bello SS: .294/.387/.412; big improvement over last year.
Esnaider Vargas: Of/DH: .278/.371/.519: providing some more pop this year for sure.
