Nationals Arm Race

We’re through the super regionals, and have a CWS field. Here’s a recap of the supers and a preview of the CWS field.

Resource links to help with this:

• Your final top 25 heading into the post-season according to d1baseball, baseballamerica, and usatoday Coaches poll.
• WarrenNolan’s RPI rankings (Note: these are dynamic and change with every game, so a team’s RPI two weeks ago won’t match what it is now).
• Here’s D1Baseball.com’s Tournament Central, my favorite place to track the tourney.
• Here’s the NCAA.com field of 64 Bracket with some great data points at NCAA.com

First, lets recap the Supers.

• #16 West Virginia v Cal Poly: West Virginia absolutely pulverized Cal Poly, winning 12-2 and 17-1 to get to Omaha and sing Bob Denver one more time with the crowd.
• Troy v Arkansas Little Rock: Troy made fast work of A-LR, winning 12-2 and 7-2 to get to Omaha in a dream.
• #5 North Carolina v Southern California: USC came to hit, winning the first game before UNC pulled it back to force the decider. In the 3rd game, UNC scored once in the 8th and twice in the 9th to walk it off.
• #4 Auburn vs Ole Miss: Ole Miss won two close games on the road to head to Omaha.
• #3 Georgia vs #14 Mississippi State: Georgia won a ridiculous 13-12 game to open the Super Regional, then held on for an 11-9 win to secure Omaha.
• #6 Texas vs #11 Oregon: Texas blew away Oregon to open the super regional, then scored twice in the 8th to take the lead and made it stick to get to Omaha.
• #7 Alabama vs St. Johns: Alabama blanked St. Johns to open the series, then beat them 7-2 in a suspended match to move on.
• #15 Kansas vs Oklahoma: Oklahoma blew out Kansas 8-1 to open, t hen destroyed them again 13-2 in the suspended 2nd game to move on.

Super Regional Predictions versus Actuals

• predicted: WVA, Troy, UNC, Auburn, Georgia, Texas, Alabama, Oklahoma
• actuals: WVA, Troy, UNC, Ole Miss, Georgia, Texas, Alabama, Oklahoma

Prediction summary: 7 for 8. Only missed Ole Miss vs Auburn

Stats/Observations of the 8 Super Regionals.

• 6 out of 8 Super Regional Hosts to advance. Kansas and Auburn missed.
• Only 1 regionals went to the 3rd/deciding game; the UNC-USC matchup.
• Conference Breakdown of the eight Advancers:
  • SEC: 5 of the 8
  • ACC: 1: UNC
  • Sun Belt: 1 Troy
  • Big12: 1 West Virginia

Fun fact: not one team from 2025’s CWS field made it back to Omaha. Last year’s field was: Arizona, Arkansas, Coastal Carolina, Louisville, LSU, Murray State, Oregon State, and UCLA. Not only did none of these 8 return … none of them even made it back to a Super Regional! In fact, half of them didn’t even make the 2026 field of 64 (Arizona, Louisville, Murray State, and LSU, which didn’t make the field for the first time since 2011). I heard an interesting theory as to why, and it relates to the transfer portal. The transfer portal is open, right now, while the best 8 teams in the country and all their coaches are in Omaha trying to win a national title. Instead of recruiting and talking to transfer candidates for next year’s team, they’re preparing for one last tournament. So they’re at a massive disadvantage to players who may take the first “good” offer they get.

It seems like a simple fix: keep the transfer portal closed until the season is over. Duh.

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So, your 2026 CWS Field (with original national seeds driving the teams):

• Group 1 (1,4,5,8): #16 West Virginia, Troy, #5 North Carolina, Ole Miss
• Group 2 (2,3,6,7): #3 Georgia, #6 Texas, #7 Alabama, Oklahoma

Once again, its a really, really lopsided CWS. Group 2 is stacked with three national seeds and four teams from the SEC, while group A has just one National seed and the random Troy team that made it.

RPIs of the CWS field: Here’s the Live/updated RPI of the field, plus the pre-CWS tournament RPI for those teams who were seeds.

• #3 Georgia: #5 (started #7)
• #5 UNC: #4 (started #4)
• #6 Texas #3 (started #5)
• #7 Alabama #6 (started #6)
• #16 West Virginia: #14 (started #17)
• Ole Miss #9 (started #13)
• Oklahoma #16 (was #20)
• Troy #26 (was #28)

We’re still looking at a pretty strong CWS field, with four teams out of the top 6 in RPI still playing.

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Prospect Watch in the Super Regionals:

There were so few 1st rounders competing in the Super Regionals as compared to years’ past that I didn’t even bother to do this section this year.

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My CWS Predictions

Top half: I don’t like how UNC struggled so i’m tempted to say Ole Miss, but they’ll have an easier 1st round matchup against Troy, which may serve them well. I’m still gonna say Ole Miss.

Bottom Half: Well, with all four teams in the SEC, we have some history from the regular season. Georgia-Oklahoma in game 1; they did not meet in the regular season, so advantage GA. Texas beat Alabama 2 out of 3 in a home series, so advantage Texas. Then, Georgia/Texas didn’t meet either, so advantage GA again. That puts Georgia in the title game. Alabama won 2 of 3 at Oklahoma earlier this year, so advantage to them in the first elimination game. Then Alabama would play Texas again, so i’m thinking its Georgia-Texas in the regional final.

Final: Georgia over Ole Miss.

Each year we have basically three categories of mock drafts and Draft Board Ranks:

• The way too early drafts, which are done any time in 2025 for the 2026 draft all the way to those done within the first couple of months of the spring season. I reviewed the Phase 1 version of mocks about a month ago.
• The “starting to get down to business” mock drafts, which start to really look at those who are rising and falling due to 2026 performance, those who have had injury issues, plus those who have clarified their “going to school” status.
• The “week leading up to the draft” Mocks where the major pundits are working the phones to get for-real intel into who the teams are looking at, and sometimes we get mocks the day of that nearly nail the top 10.

We’re now well into Phase 2; that is this analysis. In fact, there’s been so many i’m publishing now and may do another version of this as more mocks come in the rest of the month.

Macro Draft Class statements: the pundits are reporting:

• The top of the draft is weaker than in year’s past
• Class Strengths include College bats, Prep Pitching for depth.
• Weaknesses seem to be prep bats after the top 3-4 names, college arms this year for sure.

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So, let’s get to it. For each Mock i’ll list the top 5 names plus who they project to the Nats at #11 with some commentary. I’ll spell out player names the first time they’re used, then just use last names going forward. Also, I’m adding more commentary to each mock in this section, and will identify names who the Nats would purposely be skipping in each mock who I think they’d give serious thought to taking.

• Keith Law Mock 1.0 5/7/26: Grady Emerson (prep SS, Texas HS), Roch Cholowsky (SS UCLA), Vahn Lackey (C Georgia Tech), Jackson Flora (RHP UC Santa Barbara), Eric Booth Jr (prep OF, Miss HS). Nats at #11 take Chris Hacopian, SS/3B from Texas A&M (and thus leaving Peterson, Bell, and Lebron on the table). Law is the first mock drafter who does NOT have Cholowsky going 1-1 in this cycle, and freely admits that the team drafting 1st overall (the White Sox) may be sending smoke signals to the Cholowsky camp to tamper down bonus demands. I think they’d be fools not to take the UCLA shortstop, who entered the season the consensus 1-1 candidate and has done absolutely nothing but produce and keep that reputation. Meanwhile, as I’ve mentioned in prior posts there’s a big “gap” in prep prospects right in the section where the Nats draft, which really makes it seem like we’ll be drafting a college bat.
• Jim Callis MLBpipeline First Officiail Mock 5/8/26: Cholowsky, Emerson, Lackey, Jacob Lombard (prep SS , Florida HS), Flora. Nats at #11 take Jared Grindlinger, OF/LHP, Huntington Beach (Calif.) HS. This would be a shock overdraft, as he’s ranked well outside the 1st round on draft boards right now. In this mock, picking Gridlinger would leave in particular Curiel on the table, but also the likes of Hacopian, Flukey, Bell, etc. Grindlinger reclassified from 2027, so he’d be super young like Willits, but may also go under-slot which would allow for more over-slot prep draftees in rounds 2-5.
• Baseball America Mock Draft 3.0 5/11/26: Cholowsky, Emerson, Lackey, Lombard, Flora. Nats at #11 take Drew Burress, OF, Georgia Tech. Burress has been in the top 10 of this draft since the beginning of the cycle, and BA has mocked Burress to the Nats now a couple of times with these exercises. In this mock, the Nats would be passing on the likes of Bell, Curiel, Gridlinger, Lebron, etc. But, BA has some of these players now in the 20s, implying that a 6.1M slot value would sign for something 33% less 10 picks later. Players like Peterson and Reese, who have been mocked to the Nats earlier in this cycle, are now nearly out of the 1st round.
• Keith Law Draft Ranks 5/14/26: Cholowsky, Lackey, Flora, Bell, Emerson. As Law notes immediately in the write-up, this is a rank, not a mock. He’s got Bell in particular in the top 4, but i’ve seen mocks with Bell going in the 20s. That’d be such an amazing steal for that team if indeed Bell is this good. He also ranks Lombard (regularly in the top 5 on these mocks) way way down at #17, so I can imagine what he thinks of a team popping him that early. Some of the names associated with the Nats at #11 are deep into the 20s on this list (Hacopian, Gracia), while others are much higher (Burress in particular).
• Espn/Kiley McDaniel Mock Draft 1.0 5/14/26: Cholowsky, Emerson, Lackey, Lombard, Flora. Nats at #11 take Grindlinger, same as the MLBpipeline mock above. McDaniel reports that the consensus decision at 1-1 is now nearly a 50/50 proposition with Emerson rising fast. Grindlinger is reported as a two-way player, better on the hit side but still promising on the arm side (as a pitcher-only prospect he’s a comp-to-early 2nd rounder). In this scenario, the Nats would be passing on Peterson, Curiel, Lebron.
• ESPN/Kiley McDaniel top 150 Draft Ranks 5/17/26: Cholowsky, Emerson, Lackey, Flora, Booth. #11 is Grindlinger as it turns out. McDaniel’s draft board isn’t entirely in sync with his recent mock draft, showing Lombard out of the top 5, which is consistent with many of the draft rankings despite is frequent placement in the top 5. His rank exposes one of the big disagreements between pundits: where to rank Tyler Bell? McDaniel ranks him #29 while Law ranks him #4. That’s a really, really wide gap.
• Jonathan Mayo/MLBpipeline 5/21/26 Mock: Cholowsky, Emerson, Flora, Lombard, Lackey. #11 Nats take Justin Lebron, SS from Alabama. Lebron has been “polarizing” this season b/c he started the mock draft season as an easy top 5 pick but has struggled this season, badly. As of the beginning of SEC play he’s only slashing .266/.384/.522. I say “only” since he’s got 14 homers … and 38/39 SBs. He wasn’t on a bunch of pre-season AA lists for nothing. Question is: what’s his true hit tool? .266 this year or his .314 last year? In this scenario Nats would leave players like Peterson, Curiel, Gracia, Gridlinger, and Bell on the board, all names we’ve seen them associated with in prior mocks. This really highlights to me just how wide open this area of the draft is this year.
• Dan Zielinski III from Baseball Prospect Journal released his Mock 1.0 on 5/23/26: Cholowsky, Emerson, Lackey, Lombard, Flora. Basically the same top 5 as most everyone else at this point. He’s got Nats at #11 on Gridlinger, though he’s have us skip over in particular Cameron Flukey, the Coastal Carolina #1 starter who is probably the 2nd best arm on the board. I know you don’t draft for Need … but do we “need” yet another prep SS? Maybe its time to infuse more pitching into the system, since every one of our prospect stars this season seems to be a hitter.
• Baseball America Top 500 Draft Board 5/27/26: Cholowsky, Emerson, Lackey, Flora, Lombard. #11 ranked is divisive Kentucky SS Tyler Bell. Bell projects as a well rounded SS who can play all over the dirt in a pinch, with solid marks for all five tools but no 60s or 70s anywhere. He was a 2nd rounder out of HS, went to college, and now projects as a mid 1st rounder. He hurt his shoulder in the first week of the season and played through it a bit, which has hampered his draft stock/stats, something to think about from a value perspective. Bell at #11 could be a solid pick.
• Baseball Prospectus Draft board 5/28/26: entirely behind a paywall. If anyone has an account let me know.
• ESPN/Kiley McDaniel Mock 2.0 5/29/26: Cholowsky, Emerson, Lackey, Lombard, Flora. Same 5 as the last few mocks, in slightly different order. He puts the Nats on Gridlinger, like a few others, saying “Grindlinger has been tied to this spot for a while.” In this scenario Burress is long gone, but the Nats take the prep SS over the likes of Hacopian, Bell, Flukey, Lebron.
• MLBPipeline Top 200 Draft Prospects 5/29/26: Cholowsky, Emerson, Lackey, Lombard, Flora. #11 ranked player is Coastal Carolina’s ace Cameron Flukey, though as we know player ranks tend to fluctuate with day in and day out performance. If Flukey dominates in the CWS regional (CCU is an underdog in their regional) we could see him pop up a bit.
• Jonathan Mayo Industry survey 6/1/26: Cholowsky, Emerson, Lackey, Lombard, Flora again. We’re definitely starting to see some consistency here. This wasn’t a ranking, but more of a survey.
• D1Baseball Top 250 draft board 6/4/26: Lackey, Cholowsky, Flora, Hacopian, Bell. D1’s list is only D1 players, no Prep players, and is weird in that they have Lackey over Cholowsky, basically the only service that does so. I also think they have some players too high/too low in comparison to others.
• Post-D1 regional MLBPipeline mock 6/5/26: Cholowsky, Emerson, Lackey, Lombard, Flora. Same top 5 as everyone. He’s got Nats on Gridlinger once again, but says that if Burress or Hacopian are available they could go here. In this scenario, the Nats leave Flukey, Curiel, Reese, Bell, and Lebron on the table.
• Baseball America published a Top 500 Prep-only list 6/5/26: that’s just a crazy amount of analysis, even given the modern day of travel teams and showcases for these kids. 500 prep kids ranked. The top 5 prep kids go as expected: Emerson, Lombard, Booth, Rojas, and Nats favorite Grindlinger. There’s a smattering of Virginia-based kids, not a ton as this seems to be a pretty down year for prep kids in the state.
• Baseball America’s Mock 4.0 6/8/26: Cholowosky, Emerson, Lackey, Lombard, Flora. Again, same top 5 names. Nats at #11 once again projected to Grindlinger. In this mock, they’d leave Lebron, Reese, Hacopian on the list. I wonder if Hacopian would tempt them.

Conclusion: most of these mocks have the same 4-5 names within the top 5 picks.

• Cholowsky: has been 1-1 on practically every mock draft
• Emerson: nearly always in the top 2
• Lackey: seems to be consistently the next player taken after Cholowsky/Emerson are done.
• Lombard and Flora are the two names that most frequently round out the top 5, albeit sometimes with interlopers.

Names most frequently mocked to Nats at this point: Grindlinger, Hacopian, Burress, though in later mocks Burress is mostly gone by the time Nats pick at #11.

The busiest weekend in College Baseball has past; here’s a run down of the opening weekend of the College Baseball playoffs. There were a TON of upsets, including a historic one, and a lot of great games to recap.

Resource links to help with this:

• Your final top 25 heading into the post-season according to d1baseball, baseballamerica, and usatoday Coaches poll.
• WarrenNolan’s RPI rankings are a very important part of the seeding and selection process, as we’ll discuss in a bit.
• Here’s D1Baseball.com’s Tournament Central, my favorite place to track the tourney.
• Here’s the NCAA.com field of 64 Bracket with some great data points at NCAA.com

Here are Quick Regional Recaps of the 16 regional action, ordered by National Seed super Regional matchup. that means, the pairs of regionals being reviewed (#1 UCLA regional and #16 West Virginia regional) will determine that Super Regional. The eventual winning team is bolded.

• #1 UCLA regional: an absolute stunner as the top seed not only loses its first round, but for just the 3rd time in my memory fails to advance out of its own regional. They didn’t even get to the regional final! St. Marys beats them twice to eliminate the nation’s only team ranked #1 all year, but then the Gaels couldn’t take out #3 seed Cal Poly, who shocks the field and advances to the super regional. Pundits say this says a ton about Big 10 baseball and how weak it is. That may be fair. UCLA still endeavored to play a tough non-conference schedule (they were #28 in SoS so it’s not like they played a bunch of weaklings). But they came up short.
• #16 West Virginia regional: this was one of those regionals you’ll remember for a while. #3 seed Kentucky was in the driver’s seat, but host WVA scored 5 in the 9th late on Sunday to force the winner-take-all game Monday, then walked it off in the bottom of the 10th. Afterwards, the entire crowd sang John Denver’s Country road in unison along with their team, a video that gave me chills. I tell you what, it doesn’t get any better than this. West Virginia moves on, somehow.
• #8 Florida Regional: baseball powerhouse Florida was in full control of this regional … until they weren’t. Troy, one of the last teams into the tournament and one that many thought should have been left out for (In particular) Mercer, beat Florida on their home field twice in the final to head to the super as a #3 seed. Troy beat Florida 16-11 and then 10-2, results that are going to have Fla’s coach looking for pitching in the transfer portal for sure.
• #9: Southern Miss regional: Southern Miss hosted, but they didn’t show up, going two-and-out. UVA was eliminated by powerhouse Jacksonville State (kidding), and the region’s #4 seed Arkansas Little Rock advanced to the super regional.
• #5; UNC regional: North Carolina cruised to the regional title without really being pressed, beating ECU twice. VCU impressed with a win over Tennessee, but otherwise this was a simple region.
• #12: TAMU regional: Texas A&M was in the driver’s seat, then suddenly Southern California couldn’t make an out. USC, after losing its first game 5-4, won by the following scores in order: 19-6, 15-4, 14-3, and 7-1, the last two beatings over host TAMU to advance. USC was an RPI anomaly heading into the event, with a top 10 RPI but just a 1-11 record against Q1 schools. Well, they’re 3-11 now, and I wouldn’t want to face this offense. Phew.
• #13 Nebraska regional: to little surprise, the over-seeded Nebraska team fell to both baseball powerhouses in ASU and eventually winner Ole Miss, who cruised to the regional title.
• #4: Auburn regional: All credit to Milwaukee, who beat Auburn to open the region and made them beat them two more times before falling. #4 National seed Auburn survives somehow and advances.

And, the eventual CWS Bottom Half:

• #3 Georgia cruised to the regional title, giving up just five runs in three games. They are as advertised, and are now the CWS title favorites.
• #14 Mississippi State scored 39 runs in three games, blasting their way to the super regional.
• #11 Oregon got to beat a couple of their old Pac-10 teammates en route to the regional title.
• #6 Texas advanced in their own regional without having to deal with UCSB ace Jackson Flora, who they indeed saved for an anticipated winner’s bracket game two. Unfortunately, UCSB’s pitchers not named Flora pooped the bed against little-known Tarlton State and thus Flora was wasted on hapless Holy Cross, who he crushed for his final collegiate start. Quick: can you name where Tarlton State is, or what conference they play in?
• #7 Alabama wasn’t too troubled in its regional win, beating all three of its opponents on the way to the title.
• #10 Florida State hosted a crazy regional where the two lower seeds both won on opening day. Coastal Carolina had saved their ace Cameron Flukey for game 2, but a huge weather delay cut short his outing to just 3 1/3, wasting his final college start. FSU survived, but couldn’t overcome St. Johns of all teams, who wins as a #4 seed.
• #15 Kansas. Bravo to Kansas, who nearly everyone thought would lose to Arkansas in this regional. Instead, Kansas beat them twice to move on.
• #2 Georgia Tech scored 22 in its opener and topped #2 seed Oklahoma to take over the regional, but the Sooners had other plans, beating them late Sunday and then getting a walk-off homer in the bottom of the 10th to eliminate the #2 overall seed. Here’s the video; its at the 4:30 mark. He pulverized it to straight away cf, 390 and a 20 foot fence. Phew.

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Thus, your Super Regionals are (with the presumed host listed first):

• #16 West Virginia v Cal Poly
• Troy v Arkansas Little Rock: one of these two teams will be in Omaha. Amazing.
• #5 North Carolina v Southern California
• #4 Auburn vs Ole Miss
• #3 Georgia vs #14 Mississippi State
• #6 Texas vs #11 Oregon
• #7 Alabama vs St. Johns
• #15 Kansas vs Oklahoma

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Stats/Observations of the 16 regionals.

• 9 out of 16: Seeds/Hosts to advance, but the two top seeds (UCLA and Georgia Tech) are out.
• 6 regionals went to Monday extra game; lots of close regionals this year.
• Conference Breakdown of the 16 advancers:
  • SEC: 7 advancing (12 made the tourney)
  • Big12: 2 advancing (West Virginia, Kansas)
  • Big10: 2 advancing (Oregon and USC, both former Pac12)
  • ACC: Just 1 UNC (of the 9 teams that made the tourney, a pretty awful showing)
  • One each from Sun Belt, Big West, Ohio Valley, and Big East.
• Seed breakdown of advances
  • #1 seeds/hosts: 9
  • #2 Seeds: 3 (Southern California, Ole Miss, Oklahoma)
  • #3 Seeds: 2 (Cal Poly and Troy)
  • #4 Seeds: 2 (Arkansas-Little Rock, St. Johns)

Super Regional Prospect Watch. Man, lots of top prospects are gone, many surprisingly so. In fact, there’s only one name here that’s even projected to be a top 15 pick; Alabama’s Lebron. So, not a lot of star power in the supers.

• West Virginia v Cal Poly
• Troy v Arkansas Little Rock
• North Carolina v Southern California
• Auburn vs Ole Miss: Auburn is led by 2B Chris Rembert, a late 1st rounder, while Ole Miss’ ace is Cade Townsend, also a late 1st rounder.
• Georgia vs Mississippi State: Miss State’s Ace Reese is a late 1st round 3B prospect.
• Texas vs Oregon
• Alabama vs St. Johns: Alabama’s SS and leading hitter is Justin Lebron
• Kansas vs Oklahoma

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Super Regional predictions: Here’s what i think happens when these Regional champs meetup next weekend:

• #16 West Virginia v Cal Poly; hard to see WVA losing.
• Troy v Arkansas Little Rock: Troy is the better team, by far.
• #5 North Carolina v Southern California: I’d like to think UNC can hold the line, but USC impressed.
• #4 Auburn vs Ole Miss: they did not face each other in SEC play, but Auburn is the better team.
• #3 Georgia vs #14 Mississippi State: Georgia swept Miss State on their field in conference play, beat them in the SEC tournament, and I see no reason to think they’ll lose this Super Regional. I think its safe to say that Georgia was the CWS favorite at the beginning of this tournament, given that they’re the best team in the best conference, but now without UCLA and Georgia Tech they’re easily the team to beat.
• #6 Texas vs #11 Oregon; I favor the SEC team here, even if Oregon is good.
• #7 Alabama vs St. Johns; this one may get ugly.
• #15 Kansas vs Oklahoma; Kansas has been surprising teams all year, even if Oklahoma is more battle tested. I’ll go with OK.

Predicted CWS field: West Virginia, Troy, UNC, Auburn, Georgia, Texas, Alabama, Oklahoma

Before we get too far away from June 1st … Here’s a monthly check in on our 20 prospects plus other notables in the system. Stats are for just May 2026 unless otherwise noted.

I’ll be using my own personal top 20 to drive the rankings, the ones I posted right after the season started so they don’t take into account fast starts from players like Fitz-Gerald or Cruz.

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.

• #1. Eli Willits SS, Low-A: Slashed .342/.457/.526 for May, with 2 homers, 10sb. Yeah, that’ll do. That’s not bad for a kid who should be getting measured for his HS cap and gown right now. This team is not shy about promoting players; how long does he stay in Low-A? Temperature: red hot, imminent promotion candidate.
• #2. Henry Ford, C AAA: He is still not hitting. He was off in April, and May wasn’t much better. .234/.372/.344. that’s not a ton of power, even for a catcher. Luckily Kiebert Ruiz has “remembered” how to hit at the MLB level so there’s not a ton of pressure. One has to wonder what the heck is going on here? We’re talking a significant prospect, well regarded across the industry. I wonder if he’s got a knock we don’t know about. Temperature: pretty cold
• #3: 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 5/5 a month ago and he was “continuing his throwing progression” in Palm Beach. His return has now just been listed as “2026,” which could mean tomorrow or September. I don’t think anyone though this was a season long injury, and the loss of both Susana and Sykora for an entire season really is putting this franchise back. Temperature: on ice.
• #4 Travis Sykora: RHP (starter) AA: likely out for the season, the injury report lists his return as 2027. Temperature: on ice.
• #5 Gavin Fien SS/3B, Low-A: he made it back off the DL, still not entirely sure what the injury was, but he’s been really struggling. .180/.305/.280 for May. I wonder if he came back too soon from injury. Temperature: ice cold.
• #6 Alex Clemmey, LHP (Starter) AA: Clemmey continues to struggle in AA; 5.26 ERA this month, 15 walks in 22 innings. I’m not sure what to do here; he has nothing to prove in High-A; he’s just got to ride it out here. Temperature: pretty cold.
• #7 Seaver King, SS AAA: King continued his torrid start to the season, slashing .415/.475/.604 the first half of the month in AA before forcing the promotion. So far in AAA? .325/.378/.525. He also played at 2B recently (not that a SS can’t seamlessly move to 2B anyway, but still a notable signal) possibly indicating the team is thinking of bringing him up to play there instead of the Mendoza-line hitting Nunez.. Temperature: red hot; player of the year candidate.
• #8 Luis Perales, RHP (starter) AAA: Perales, who is the sole remaining 40-man arm from opening day who hasn’t pitched in the majors, was stellar this month: 1.53 ERA in 4 games. but, he’s still not pitching that many innings: 17ip in 4appearances. Also, if he throws 101, where are the Ks?? 11 Ks in 17 ip? Nonetheless, its improvement. Still, the Nats are “losing” this trade right now. Temperature: warming up nicely.
• #9 Devin Fitz-Gerald, 2B/SS, High-A: he’s blowing up High-A; .287/.368/.634 for the month of May with 9 homers. He has a higher OPS than Petry. He’s playing about 50% at 2B, 25% at SS, and 25% at 3B. He’s a little undersized so it seems like 2B may be his destination, but with this kind of power I’ll take it. Temperature: Red Hot, POTY candidate.
• #10 Landon Harmon, RHP (starter): Low-A: He hasn’t pitched since April 24th, hit the 7-day DL in early May and has sat there. It’s reportedly an oblique injury and is “not serious” but its been a while. At least its not a shoulder/elbow. Temperature: On Ice
• #11 Ronny Cruz: SS High-A, Cruz blasted his way to High-A early … and has seen the league catch up to him in a big way. May slash line: .141/.200/.196. Was it too much, too soon? Could be. Temperature: Ice cold
• #12 Luke Dickerson, SS/CF Low-A: came back to earth this month after a nice April. Slashed: .185/.368/.310. Lots of walks and strikeouts, not much else. If you’re going to whiff at this rate, you need to hit a ton of bombs. Temperature: pretty cold.
• #13: Ethan Petry, 1B High-A: Petry spent another month in High-A crushing the ball: .288/.355/.606. I just have to ask: why is he still in High-A? The guy playing 1B for Harrisburg (Sam Brown) is hitting .228 with almost no power, so it’s not like he’s blocked. This is a 2nd rounder from a major college program; it shouldn’t be long before he’s up. Temperature: Red hot still.
• #14: Coy James, SS/3B, Low-A: Improved slightly at the plate, still not playing how we want. .229/.339/.396for the month. He has shown his fielding versatility though, hitting 4 positions so far this year (2B,SS,3B,LF). Temperature: still cold.
• #15: Angel Felix, SS High-A: May numbers improved slightly over April: .250/.337/.375. However the new knock is his defense: he’s made 9 errors in his 18 games played at 3B so far this season. That’s not good. Temperature: cool.
• #16: Yoel Tejeda Jr. RHP (starter) High-A: He was adequate in May with a pedestrian 4.34 ERA and more Ks than IP. But nothing special. Temperature: luke warm.
• #17: Jackson Kent, LHP (Starter) AAA: Kent blitzed through his first 3 AA starts in May, and earned a promotion to AAA. His first two AAA starts were a struggle, but his achieving AAA as a 2024 draftee is impressive. Temperature: Hot to earn the promotion.
• #18: Miguel Sime Jr. RHP (starter): High-A: Sime had an ugly era/whip in Low-A for the month but continued to strike out 2 guys an inning, so the team promoted him. As discussed extensively in the comments, If you can just throw it past everyone at the level you’re never going to develop alternate pitches. Temperature: hot.
• #19: Davian Garcia, RHP (starter) AA; Garcia was placed directly on the “Full Season” injured list on 5/29, with no passing through either the 7-day or 60-day. That’s not good, and indicates a serious arm injury. No word anywhere on what happened to him, even with AI scouring the internet for clues. Temperature: on ice.
• #20: Yeremy Cabrera CF High-A: Started May in Low-A with this ridiculous line: .483/.564/.897 and earned a promotion. In High-A so far? Not as great: 236/.323/.309. Hopefully he adjusts to th e level and returns to form. Temperature: hot.

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Notables #20 and above by level:

in AAA:

• #27 Yohandy Morales 1B/3B continues to destroy AAA pitching: May slashline: .361/.431/.691. We’ve talked about him extensively. My take is simple: the “scouting reports” we’re getting on him make no sense, and you can’t leave someone in AAA who’s OPS is north of 1,100 forever.
• #33 Albimec Ortiz 1B/DH in AAA had an even bigger may OPS figure than Morales. We’ve struggled to score runs for years, now suddenly a bunch of randoms in the majors are leading the league in runs scored while guys are finally hitting in AAA. A weird season.

In AA:

• #21 Sam Peterson is putting it together; in May: .297/.390/.554.
• #30 Cayden Wallace continues to produce. May: .275/.333/.505
  
  

In High-A:

• #40 Kevin Bazzell blasted the ball this month: .378/.472/.511 with 5 homers in 14 games played.
• Elijah Green cut down on his K’s this month! Just 41 Ks in 25 games. (In april it was 52 Ks in 21 games).

In Low-A:

• #39 Rafael Ramirez Jr had a nice month. .323/.500/.508. I’ll take that from a SS.
• Unranked Jack Moroknek put up another good month; .293/.397/.586. Second straight month mentioning him.
  

In FCL:

• #47 Victor Hurtado, known more for his bonus figure than his production, had a nice month. .293/.397/
  .586
  
  

Here’s the May 2026 check-in on rotations. In the interest of time, which I’m pressed for this month badly, I’ll skip the bullpen comments and just focus on starters this post.

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, etc.

Important Pitching stats links for this analysis (I like the Fangraphs stats when looking up Fip, Babip, etc).

• Big Board, Draft Tracker, and IFA Tracker
• Nats MLB stats: at baseball-reference.com, Nats MLB stats at fangraphs.com
• AAA Rochester stats at milb.com. AAA Rochester Stats at fangraphs.com
• AA Harrisburg stats at milb.com, AA Harrisburg Stats at fangraphs.com
• High-A Wilmington stats at milb.com, High-A Wilmington Stats at fangraphs.com
• Low-A Fredericksburg Stats at milb.com, Low-A Fredericksburg stats at fangraphs.com
• FCL Nationals Stats at milb.com
• DSL Nationals Pitching Stats at milb.com

All Stats quoted are as of 5/31/26’s games.

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We’ll start with the Majors.

• Opening Day 2026: Cavalli, Griffin, Mikolas, Littell, Irvin
• End of April 2026: Cavalli, Griffin, Mikolas (with Poulin opening sometimes), Littell, Irvin
• End of May 2026: Cavalli, Griffin, Mikolas (still with openers), Littell (also with openers), Alvarez.

Changes since end of last Month: Irvin suffered a right shoulder strain while pitching his best game of the season (of course he did), and hit the DL. Though reported as mild, per the injury report he’s yet to resume any throwing and is just doing strength and conditioning stuff. Alvarez took his spot (as opposed to other options like Parker or Cornelio or Lord) and has continued to be decent.

Rotation Observations: Griffen’s numbers came back to earth thanks to one horrid outing. He’s still got decent looking ERA and WHIP, but a troubling 4.88 FIP that makes me wonder if we’re not going to see more regression to the mean. Cavalli really bore down in May, cutting his walk rate in half and thus his WHIP from 1.6 to 1.1. Love it. Despite Irvin’s excellent start where he got hurt, he had a rough month. Mikolas was actually decent in May; a 3.52 ERA in his five “starts.” Even though he got hit around in his first June appearance. Lastly Littell was actually our best pitcher in May; pitching to a 2.35 ERA in 6 games/30IP. Amazing given what he did in April.

Next guy to get cut/demoted:

• April 2026: Mikolas
• May 2026: Probably Irvin before he got hurt. Now it’s likely Alvarez who makes way unless he starts throwing nothing but shutout innings. Mikolas has stayed his execution.

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AAA Rochester

• Opening Day 2026: Alvarez, Parker, Perales, Lara, Cornelio
• End of April 2026: Alvarez, Perales, Lara, Cornelio, Champlain (with Ogasawara and Penrod spot starts)
• End of May 2026: Perales, Lara, Cornelio, Champlain, Kent

Changes since end of last Month: Alvarez called up to cover for Irvin. That spot was filled by the promotion of Jackson Kent. Just a comment here: Kent was a 2024 4th rounder who signed for under slot and who has almost no prospect buzz; now he’s in AAA.

Rotation Observations: Perales, who is the sole remaining 40-man arm from opening day who hasn’t pitched in the majors, was stellar this month: 1.53 ERA in 4 games. He’s still not pitching that many innings: 17ip in 4appearances. Also, if he throws 101, where are the Ks?? 11 Ks in 17 ip? Weird. Champlain isn’t getting a ton of K/9 but he is effective: 3.45 ERA for the month for the late spring training MLFA signing. Cornelio & Alvarez’s numbers weren’t great this month, but they’ve also been on the commuter shuttle back and forth, a lot. Lastly we have Lara, who was outrighted and was out of the rotation for a while, and now we remember why. 7.85 ERA for the month in 6 starts and it seems like he should go back to the bullpen.

Next guy to get promoted:

• April: Alvarez and Cornelio. Verdict: both have been promoted, Alvarez is staying there.
• May: Perales and his sub 2.00 ERA could play in the majors.

Next guy to get cut/demoted:

• April: none really, Champlain had the least investment
• May: Lara clearly.

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AA Harrisburg

• Opening Day 2026: Clemmey, Garcia, Luckham, Ogasawawara, Swan
• Reminder of the AA Disabled List: Sykora, Susana, Rosario, Stuart, Swan, now Garcia
• End of April 2026: Clemmey, Garcia, Luckham, Ogasawara, Kent
• End of May 2026: Clemmey, Luckham, Ogasawara, Lyon, Randall (spot starts from Van Scoyoc)

Changes since end of last Month: Kent got promoted, replaced by newly promoted Lyon. Then, Garcia hit the DL and was replaced by newly promoted Randall.

Rotation Observations: Ogasawara had another solid month with a 2.31 era, and it’s kind of dumb why the team is keeping a 28yr old veteran IFA in AA. Clemmey continues to struggle in AA; 5.26 ERA this month, 15 walks in 22 innings. I’m not sure what to do here; he has nothing to prove in High-A; he’s just got to ride it out here. Luckham continues to confound how he retains his rotation job; 6.31 ERA for the month. Lyon has struggled in his two AA starts since promotion, while Randall’s AA debut was stellar (5ip 2H 0 runs). Lastly, Long Man/spot starter Van Scoyo had a solid month: 23/2 K/BB in 23IP, a 3.80 ERA.

Next guy to get promoted:

• April: Ogasawara, then Kent. Kent was promoted over Ogasawara
• May: clearly Ogasawara.

Next guy to get cut/demoted:

• April: Luckham.
• May: still Luckham.

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High-A Wilmington

• Opening Day 2026: Bruni (Sullivan), Maddox, Randall, Tejeda, Polanco
• End of April 2026: Maddox, Randall, Tejeda, Polanco, Lyon
• End of May 2026: Maddox, Tejeda, Polanco, Bruni, Meckley

Changes since end of last Month: Randall and Lyon were promoted, replaced by LR/SS Bruni and newly promoted Meckley

Rotation Observations: It was mostly a rough month for the starters in Wilmington. Lyon had the best stats and got promoted for it, but the rest? phew. Tejeda was the best of the rest with a pedestrian 4.34 ERA and more Ks than IP. Maddox and Meckley both had ERAs right around 5. Bruni and Polanco? They’re in the 7s. It’s no wonder the system promoted Miguel Sime Jr just after the month ended.

Next guy to get promoted:

• April: Randall: he did indeed get promoted
• May: None. Tejeda if I had to name one.

Next guy to get cut/demoted:

• April: Polanco
• May: still Polanco but likely Bruni makes way for Sime.

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Low-A Fredericksburg

Low-A spent most of the first 6 weeks of the season doing tandem starts, but as players hit the DL or hit ineffectiveness, we’ve seen the rotation really settle into something more conventional.

• Opening Day 2026: Portorreal, Hughes/Meckley, Sime/Lyon, Harmon/Beck, Fischer/Conradt
• End of April 2026: Portorreal, Meckley/Hughes, Sime/Johnson, Harmon/Conradt, Fischer/Sullivan
• End of May 2026: Portorreal, Sime, Johnson, Fischer, and Tepper doing rehab the whole month

Changes since end of last Month: Meckley promoted, Hughes struggled so they’re both out from April. The Sime/Johnson tandem was the split up. Harmon hit the 7-day DL with a non-serious Oblique injury, but Conradt was put on the full-season DL with a very serious injury. Lastly Tepper made 4 rehab starts in Low-A this month, enough so that he was basically on the team. Minor league rehab sessions can be up to 30 days for pitchers, so he’s got a few more days as of this writing before heading back to High-A. The team just promoted De la Cruz from the FCL; he may take Tepper’s spot.

Rotation Observations: Fischer, a 2025NDFA from UMiami, is dominating; 0.90 ERA, 0.90 whip in 6 May starts. Portorreal turned things around in a big way, even if he’s only doing 2-3 IP/start. Sime had an ugly era/whip but continued to strike out 2 guys an inning, so the team promoted him. Frankly, I don’t think he’s ready for the next level, not when he’s walking more than a guy an inning, but the fastball plays. Luke Johnson: 3.12 ERA but too many baserunners. He’s too hittable (.304 BAA). Tepper’s 4 rehab starts were stellar as expected.

Taking a quick peek at some of the guys still doing “tandem” longer relief sessions: Manning had 7 games/15IP, and a 20/2 K/BB. That’ll work. Sullivan had 2 starts and 6 appearances with a middling 4.86 ERA.

Next guy to get promoted:

• April: Meckley; indeed he was promoted
• May: Fischer

Next guy to get cut/demoted:

• April: Portorreal: he has turned it around greatly.
• May: Probably Johnson if we had to pick someone; they’ve already settled the tandem starters and demoted guys to the pen

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Rookie FCL

Reminder: FCL guys are basically throwing 2-3 IP stints, so a month’s of work is usually 12-14 IP. This is small sample size analysis.

• Opening Day 2026: Weaver, Reyes, Martina, De la Cruz, Robles
• End of May 2026: Reyes, De la Cruz, Robles, Lopez, Bothwell,

Changes since end of last Month: Martina got a start the first week, but likely is hurt (hasn’t thrown since 5/11). The team added Bothwell into the mix so we show a 6-man “rotation” right now that has these guys mostly stacked up for tandem starts. Weaver made one start and hasn’t pitched since May 8th; not a good sign.

Rotation Observations: De la Cruz had a 0.75 ERA in 6 games and got promoted. Reyes looks promising: .122 BAA but a few too many walks. Lopez, Bothwell, and Reyes all have decent looking ERAs in the 3s and decent peripherals.

Next guy to get promoted:

• May: Reyes

Next guy to get cut/demoted:

• May: Robles

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Note: the DSL just started its league on 6/1, so we don’t know their rotation yet. We’ll cover that on July 1.

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That’s it for April 2026.

So, Keith Law released an updated Top 50 minor league prospects today, and something really struck me after reading his analysis. We’ve talked about this particular issue in the past in the comments after analyzing the rankings, but now its time to put all the scouting reports on the table openly.

Here’s how Law described Seaver King in his write up today from a defensive standpoint:

“He’s a 70 defender at short with plus bat speed, above-average power and an aggressive approach at the plate that should produce a lot of contact but maybe not many walks.“

70 defender at Short. The scale only goes up to 80. A 70 grade is a plus-plus grade indicating that the player is among the absolute best in the game at that particular skill. Keith Law does not throw out those grades lightly.

Meanwhile, here’s what we have on the books as grades and quotes from the other major pundits in the space.

Fangraphs/Eric Longenhagen. Here’s his top 41 prospects published earlier this year, where he gave King a 30 present/45 future grade on his defense, and a 60 arm, writing the following:

“He isn’t yet a polished shortstop defender (he’s seen his first pro action at second base in 2026) and can be error-prone both fielding and throwing … It’s going to be important for King’s shortstop defense to polish up because his future big league fit is likely in a utility role.”

This was published in April 2026 and is already aging poorly, but a 30 present grade for his defense is wildly different from what Law is reporting. Wildly.

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Baseball America is a bit more middle of the road. In their January 2026 write-up, they gave him a 55 Arm and a 50 Field, then wrote the following:

“King played more third base and center field at Wake Forest, but he settled in as a reliable everyday shortstop with an above-average arm. He has the athletic ability to adapt at the position and learn its nuances..”

How about the boys at MLBPipeline? Their current scouting report is here. Current defensive grade: Arm 55, Field 50, exactly the same as BA, and had this to say about his defense in general:

“He played third base and center field at Wake but has been focused on shortstop in the pros. His athleticism could make him average there, but he has the arm strength to move back if needed.”

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So, what is it? Is King’s defense a 30 or a 70? Is it really a 55 like BA/MLB say and both Law and Longenhagen are smoking something?

Better question, one that has been articulated before in the comments … how is it possible that two professional scouts watch the same guy and come to such wildly different conclusions? I mean, it’s one thing for Jonathan Mayo to watch a Seaver King game and go, “eh, 55” while Jim Callis sits right next to him and says, “nah i like him, i’m going 60.” It’s entirely another for two guys to come to such a completely different opinion.

Its College Baseball post-season time, something we’ve followed in this space for years. Here’s a quick guide to the CWS 2026 post season. The field of 64 was announced on Memorial Day Weekend at Noon, so here’s a preview of this coming weekend’s 16 regional events.

First off, some resources for you.

• Your final top 25 heading into the post-season according to d1baseball, baseballamerica, and usatoday Coaches poll.
• WarrenNolan’s RPI rankings are a very important part of the seeding and selection process, as we’ll discuss in a bit.
• Here’s D1Baseball.com’s Tournament Central, my favorite place to track the tourney.
• Here’s the NCAA.com field of 64 Bracket with some great data points at NCAA.com

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Your top 8 seeds and favorites to make Omaha, in order, along with their D1Baseball Rank, RPI and their Strength of Schedule (SoS) denoted:

1. UCLA (51-6): D1Baseball #1, RPI #1, SoS #25
2. Georgia Tech (48-9): D1Baseball #2, RPI #2, SoS #15
3. Georgia (46-12): D1Baseball #3, RPI #7, SoS #24
4. Auburn (38-19), D1Baseball #5, RPI #3, SoS #1
5. North Carolina (45-11-1), D1Baseball #4, RPi #4, SoS #13
6. Texas (40-13) D1Baseball #6, RPI #5, SoS #9
7. Alabama (37-19). D1Baseball #16, RPI #6, SoS #3
8. Florida (39-19), D1Baseball #10, RPI #11, SoS #2

UCLA has put in one of the most dominant seasons we’ve seen in some time, and has never NOT been ranked #1 on any poll at any point during the season. They’re 51-6. here’s their 6 losses:

• 2/15/26 vs UC San Diego on the first Sunday of the season
• 2/24/26 vs San Diego State, a mid-week Tuesday game
• 4/14/26 vs UC Santa Barbara, another mid-week Tuesday game
• 4/26/26 vs Sacramento State, a Sunday series finale
• 5/9/26 vs Oregon, the Saturday game of their marquee series of the season
• 5/14/26 At Washington, the “Friday” game of their last league series of the season.

As for the rest of the top 8 seeds, Georgia Tech won the ACC tournament and #3 Georgia won the SEC tournament, so no surprise there. You can quibble slightly with Georgia’s RPI versus its ranking, but winning the SEC gives them that spot. Auburn gets seeded ahead of several other higher ranked SEC schools mostly because of its RPI and SoS, but they’re just 17-18 against Q1 schools, meaning I suspect they’ll be favored to get to Omaha but will go 2-out once they’re there. Same with Alabama, who is also .500 in Q1 games and is the only top 8 seed that seems to be out of line with their ranking. UNC is basically the 2nd best ACC team. Texas probably would have been above Auburn had they done better in the SEC tourney. Lastly we have Florida, who sneaks into a top 8 seed ahead of its rival Florida State, who has a slightly worse Q1 record and who lost too early in the ACC tourney.

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The National seeds 9-16 and the other regional hosts go as follows:

• #9: Southern Miss (44-15). D1baseball ranked #7, RPI #12, SoS #35.
• #10: Florida State (38-17): D1Baseball ranked #12, RPI #8, SoS #5
• #11: Oregon (40-16), D1Baseball ranked #15, RPI #15, SoS #29
• #12: Texas A&M (39-14), D1Baseball #11, RPI #14, SoS #17
• #13: Nebraska (42-15), D1Baseball #20, RPI #10, SoS #40
• #14: Mississippi State (40-17), D1Baseball #17, RPI #13, SoS #7
• #15 Kansas (42-16) D1baseball #13, RPI #19, SoS #60
• #16 West Virginia (39-14), D1Baseball #9, RPI #17, SoS #56

Are there any hosting snubs here? Yeah probably. I’d say Arkansas has the biggest beef here: they’re ranked 14th, just made the SEC tourney final, are a bit depressed in RPI but have a 18-13 Q1 record. But it’s splitting hairs; who would you take out? WVA is screwed as the #16 seed playing into UCLA when they’re ranked top 10 and just made their conference final. Maybe Nebraska is a little weak here, but they won the Big 10 and have to get some props. The highest ranked RPI team not hosting is USC out in California … but they went just 1-11 in Q1 games.

Conference Breakdown

As usual, the SEC and ACC dominate the field with 12 and 9 teams respectively. Every team in the ACC with a 14-16 conference record or better made the field, which included a couple of arguable bubble teams in UVA and NC State. Meanwhile, the SEC got 12 teams in, including Kentucky with its 13-17 conference record ahead of Vanderbilt. Big12 got 6 teams and the Big 10 got 4 teams to round out the rest of the power conferences. Big Baseball conference Sun Belt got a record 5 teams as well, led by Southern Miss and joined by Coastal Carolina, Troy, Louisiana, South Alabama, and Texas State.

Local DC/MD/VA local teams in the tourney:

Once again, it is kind of a down year for DC/MD/VA baseball in terms of top-ranked teams; not one local team finished the year anywhere close to the top 25. UVA has some down-ballot votes but that’s it; they were shredded when their coach took a huge contract and left the program. Several local teams are in the field of 64 from the state however: Virginia, Virginia Tech, VCU, Liberty plus neighbor schools that usually have VA kids like West Virginia, ECU, CCU).

Snubs and Surprises in the field

The biggest snub seems to be Mercer; they’re RPI #28 and there’s a slew of at-large teams with lower ranks that got picked over them. their SoS hurts them, and they left themselves in jeopardy after getting upset in their conference tourney.

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Quick Regional Thoughts

Here’s one sentence or so on each regional

1. UCLA should have no issues advancing; Virginia Tech gets a 3,000 mile flight to play in this regional.
2. Georgia Tech has to fend off a top 25 edge case team in Oklahoma but shouldn’t have any issues.
3. Georgia gets a weak ACC also ran in Boston College and Liberty; easy regional.
4. Auburn has to fend off UCF and a team in NC State that probably shouldn’t have made the field.
5. North Carolina gets a mid-pack SEC team in Tennessee and VCU. Tennessee has a late 1st round starter Tegan Kuhns who could cause issues if they save him, but UNC is favored here.
6. Texas has a joke of a regional with UCSB, Holy Cross, and Tarleton State. UCSB likely holds their 1st round pick Jackson Flora for the Texas matchup, but they don’t have much after him.
7. Alabama’s #2 seed is Oklahoma State, who can be plucky but not a challenge. They’re the most vulnerable of the top 8 seeds.
8. Florida gets their buddies Miami for a fun regional, but should advance. Florida and Miami met early in the season at Miami and Florida won both weekend games (the Sunday game got rained out).
9. Southern Miss has UVA in their regional, who would be a decent foe but who are a long ways from home. Some may think an ACC team is favored here, but Southern Miss is a tough team.
10. Florida State should have been a top 8 seed and will have to deal with Coastal Carolina’s ace Cameron Flukey to advance. But, Flukey can only pitch once, so advantage FSU.
11. Oregon has a cakewalk of a regional against two former Pac12 foes in Oregon State and Washington State.
12. Texas A&M has to be happy with their #2 being Southern California, who is an RPI darling who can’t beat any big teams (1-11 in Q1 games). Their #3 team Texas State might be more formidable.
13. Nebraska will struggle with SEC battle-tested Ole Miss in their bracket, along with the college baseball legends from Arizona State, who also has a 1st round projected starter who may get burned before they face Nebraska. Upset watch here, unless both Ole Miss and AZ State burn their aces in game one.
14. Mississippi State has to love this regional; Cincinnati and Louisiana? Really?
15. Kansas beat West Virginia for the Big 12 tourney title and for their trouble will get Arkansas, who likely blows them away.
16. West Virginia gets both an ACC and SEC team in Wake Forest and Kentucky. This should be a dog-fight. Wake as a #2 seed here is my slight favorite b/c of the strength of the conference.

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Prospect Watch. By region, here’s some guys to watch that are like top 50 college prospects in this year’s draft:

1. UCLA regional: Roch Cholowsky is the leading 1-1 overall candidate for UCLA. UCLA also has a late 1st round arm in Logan Reddeman and 3B Roman Martin. 3 1st round talents will help you go 51-6.
2. Georgia Tech regional: GaTech’s catcher Vahn Lackey is likely going top 5. Drew Burress has been top5 in this cycle and has been mocked to the Nats in some drafts.
3. Georgia regional: (no 1st rounders in this regional)
4. Auburn regional: Auburn is led by 2B Chris Rembert, a late 1st rounder.
5. North Carolina regional: Tennessee’s ace is late 1st rounder Tegan Kuhns.
6. Texas regional: UCSB’s Jackson Flora is an upper 1st rounder.
7. Alabama regional: their SS and leading hitter is Justin Lebron, who might be in the mix for the Nats at #11.
8. Florida regional: Fla’s ace is Liam Peterson, likely the 2nd or 3rd arm off the board.
9. Southern Miss regional: UVA’s Eric Becker and AJ Gracia have 1st round buzz.
10. Florida State regional: Coastal Carolina’s ace Cameron Flukey is a mid 1st rounder.
11. Oregon regional: (no 1st rounders in this regional)
12. Texas A&M regional: TAMU is led by SS Chris Hacopian, who has mid 1st round projections. The Aggies also have a power hitting 1B in Gavin Grahovac, who may be end of 1st/supp-1st pick and another late 1st pick in Of Caden Sorrell.
13. Nebraska regional: Ole Miss’ ace is Cade Townsend and AZ State’s ace is Cole Carlon, who may meet in game one of the regional.
14. Mississippi State regional: Ace Reese for the hosts is a late 1st round 3B prospect.
15. Kansas regional: Arkansas’ ace is 1st rounder Hunter Dietz and they have 1st round Catcher prospect Ryder Helfrick as well.
16. West Virginia regional: Kentucky’s SS Tyler Bell is a 1st rounder.

Top 1st round prospects whose team outright missed the post season:

• LSU had a shockingly bad year. Derek Curiel is likely a mid-1st rounder.
• TCU just missed the bubble, so no post-season scouting of both their 1st round outfielders Sawyer Strosnider and Chase Brunson.
• Louisville had a down year; OF Zion Rose is a late 1st rounder.

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We’ll circle back next week with Regional recaps and Super Regional projections. We probably will also return with a check-in on the 1-1 candidates in our regular series.

Baseball America just released an updated top 30 rank for all 30 teams in the majors, their first release of updated ranks since they published their big off-season material in January. Unlike some pundits, who barely bother to move prospects in-season, the BA staff did a massive overhaul of our ranks, seemingly re-evaluating the entire top 30, moving prospects in some cases 20+ spots based on the first 6 weeks of the season, to give our system a pretty radical overhaul.

Here’s the current ranks as of today; I’ve included their rank in the Jan 2026 data for comparison purposes, and will then list the next 10 or so names mentioned 5 months ago who are not in the announced top 30 today. I’ll also comment on the movement.

BA 5/18/26 rank	BA 1/28/26 rank	First Name	Last Name	Position
1	1	Eli	Willits	SS
2	2	Jarlin	Susana	RHP (Starter)
3	26	Ronny	Cruz	SS
4	8	Seaver	King	SS
5	9	Devin	Fitz-Gerald	SS
6	4	Luis	Perales	RHP (Starter)
7	6	Travis	Sykora	RHP (Starter)
8	5	Gavin	Fein	SS
9	24	Miguel	Sime Jr.	RHP (Starter)
10	3	Harry	Ford	C
11	15	Ethan	Petry	1B/OF (Corner)
12	7	Alex	Clemmey	LHP (Starter)
13	22	Yeremy	Cabrera	OF (corner)
14	11	Coy	James	SS
15	13	Landon	Harmon	RHP (Starter)
16	10	Luke	Dickerson	SS/CF
17	14	Sam	Peterson	OF (CF)
18	16	Alejandro	Rosario	RHP
19	20	Marconi	German	SS
20	18	Jackson	Kent	LHP (Starter)
21	30	Riley	Cornelio	RHP (Starter)
22	19	Yohandy	Morales	3B
23	12	Angel	Feliz	SS/3B
24	21	Caleb	Lomavita	C
25	23	Samil	Serrano	OF (Corner)
26	25	Jorgelys	Mota	SS
27	29	Yoel	Tejeda Jr.	RHP (Starter)
28	40+	Cayden	Wallace	2B/3B
29	37	Davian	Garcia	RHP (Starter)
30	17	Andrew	Pinckney	OF (Corner)

Here we go. Any stats are as of 5/18/26.

• Willits stays top, as he should. He’s slashing .270/.412/.440 for the season in Low-A when, had he been a normal kid, would be finishing off his High School regular season. He’s also got 24 steals in the first 36 games of the season, on pace to hit a century of SBs (which would have led the entire minor leagues in 2025). No notes.
• Susana stays #2 despite no appearances and no real timeframe for his return. The latest news as of May 5th was that he was “continuing his throwing program.” I mean, ok? it was a Lat surgery, not an arm/shoulder, so that’s one thing. But I was not expecting him to miss months of 2026.
• Ronny Cruz is everyone’s new favorite Nats prospect, and BA gives him major props, moving him from #26 in January to #3 now. Cruz was in the Mike Soroka deal last trade deadline, coming over along with Christian Franklin in a classic “one established prospect and one lottery ticket” trade. Well, that lottery ticket is looking like it’s hitting the Powerball for sure right now.
• Seaver King now in the top 5 as he has a monster slash line right now in AA (.336/.427/.562). It seems like it’s just a matter of time before he gets moved up; the guy playing SS in AAA right now is Trey Lipscomb, who unfortunately seems to have peaked as not even a “4-A guy” having already been outrighted off the 40-man. The “story” on King is that someone in the Nats player development staff tried to get him to “pull the ball in the air more” last year (according to Keith Law), and it took until the AFL for him to get back on track. I hope whoever this Nats PD guy was, is no longer. There remains disagreement in the pundits about just how “good” his defense is (Law says “plus-plus defender” while Longenhagen has him as a 30 grade defender right now … i’m not sure who’s not seeing what the other is seeing here).
• Devin Fitz-Gerald has not shied away from the aggressive promotion to High-A, and is crushing the ball in a pitcher’s park/pitcher’s league. He’s slashing .307/.423/.650 with 11 homers as a 20-year old. He’s played mostly 2B thanks to Angel Feliz’s presence in Wilmington, but has starts at SS and 3B this season. He’s one of 5 prospects we got in the Gore trade, and is the clear leader in the clubhouse for value in that trade. He’s not blocked in AA at all (2B currently manned by a MLFA in Kevin Pichardo, and the guys on the AA infield bench are org-guys who i’m surprised are still in the system).
• Gavin Fein has slipped down a bit from January thanks to a wrist injury that cost him most of April. Jury still out, but he’s just turned 19 so hard to criticize. He’s listed as a SS but has thus far only played RF for Low-A; I wonder if he moves back to the dirt with some coming mid-season promotions (Willits can’t stay in Fredericksburg all year, can he?)
• The next big riser after Cruz is Sime, going from #24 to #9. 44 Ks in 21 innings will do that for you, as will the 101mph fastball he used to strike out J.J. Wetherholt in the Spring Breakout game. Same Wetherholt who was a top-5 prospect in the entire minors and who just got called up. Big arm, big velocity, but not a big track record so far for managing his pitch counts; he’s got 8 starts but just 21 total innings as he is struggling to keep the ball in the strike zone.
• Harry Ford’s awful start has him drop from #3 to #10 on BAs’ list. I had him #2 before the season and that’s aging like … well not aging well at all.
• Petry has earned a jump up the board with a nifty 3/4/5 slash line … he should get promoted ASAP frankly. In fact, AA Harrisburg just put their starting 1B Sam Brown on the DL, so there’s a natural spot open for Petry to get moved up, perhaps by the time you read this since i’m writing this on the monday off-day for the Minors that serves as a nice little promotion travel day for guys.
• Clemmey’s ugly start (28 walks in 28 innings) has dropped him a bit down the board. Every time I write about him I remind people of his age (he’s 20 in AA), but that’s only going to tell part of the story. There’s something missing here in 2026.
• The third major riser in these ranks is Yeremy Cabrera. He absolutely torched Low-A for a month to earn a promotion to High-A. I thought perhaps his promotion would spell the end of the strikeout machine Elijah Green, but they’re still sharing the OF in High-A for now. He’s the 3rd of 5 prospects in the Gore trade, which is looking more and more like a steal the better these guys play.
• Luke Dickerson, despite some decent numbers (an .815 OPS) and others not so decent (45 Ks in 36 games) drops a bit on BA’s list to #16.
• Jackson Kent drops a couple of slots, mostly due to getting layered by the likes of Cruz/Sime/Cabrera, but he’s a sneaky solid prospect putting up very solid numbers in AA right now: 2.35 ERA, 0.88 WHIP, .176 BAA, and a 38/8 K/BB ratio in 30 innings. Maybe we’re looking at the next Andrew Alvarez or Mitchell Parker for the system: an unheralded lefty starter who dominates all the way up while getting little top-prospect buzz until suddenly he’s in the majors.
• Some love for Cornelio, putting him at #21 in recognition of his ascent to the majors. Remember guys … that’s the whole point of prospects! To get them to the majors so they contribute.
• Amazingly … Yohandy Morales was ranked #19 in January and is now #22 on this list. Reminder: his AAA slash line right now is .348/.435/.589. And he plays on the dirt. How is this production DROPPING his prospect ranking? He’s 24! in AAA! Where he’s been since May 23rd of last year. Did Morales like insult the mothers of all these prospect evaluators in the industry? Morales is one injury away from someone like Garcia or Mead from getting added to the 40-man and probably playing every day in the majors. In fact, if the team was smart right now they’d move Garcia back to 2B (where Nunez has a 53 OPS+ figure) and would put Morales into the 1B/DH carousel.
• We mentioned Angel Feliz as being the one who’s blocking Fitz-Gerald from playing his natural SS position; BA doesn’t like Feliz’ start to the season and has dumped him more than 10 spots. Interesting; he’s not hitting THAT bad (.243/.335/.371) to warrant such a precipitous drop.
• Cayden Wallace is the sole player outside the top 40 from January who’s back into the top 30 today, thanks to his excellent start to 2026. He’s slashing .276/.345/.546 with a ton of homers and playing primarily 3B. He’s kind of blocked from moving up (Glasser at 2B and Morales at 3B in AAA), but could see a move if we see a cascading set of promotions that sees Morales head to MLB.
• Davian Garcia is a bit of a divisive prospect, but has moved up 10 spots since January despite somewhat iffy AA numbers to start the season. His ERA is ok at 3.90 but he’s walking nearly a batter an inning and his whip is 1.66.

Here’s the list of players that BA ranked somewhere in the 27-40 range in January who are no longer in the top 30:

• Linan & McGarry: traded and released
• Christian Franklin: was #27 now probably in the low 30s. He’s not really any different from where he was last year; kind of the 7th man on a 7-man OF depth chart on the current 40-man roster, and not really doing anything to improve his lot on life right now in AAA.
• Alvarez was at #31; probably at the same relative spot now.
• Glasser: was #32 but is putting up just a .583 OPS figure in AAA right now playing mostly 2B. He certainly earned his promotion to Rochester and started out last year great, but not much since.
• Others in that 30-40 range include DSL types like De la Cruz, Cortesia, injured arms like Swan and Stuart, and the bonus baby Vaquero, who’s got a mid .500 OPS in High-A.

Highest player I ranked who’s nowhere to be found on either Jan or May 2026 BA list?

• Josh Randall: 4.86 ERA in high-A, but his peripherals make him look a little better. I had him #29 on my list, odds are i’d re rank him 10 spots lower right now.
• Albimec Ortiz, who is on the 40-man and is doing 1B/DH duties in AAA. He’s closer to a DFA than he is to a promotion and this ranking looks terrible just 6 weeks into the season.
• Rafael Ramirez Jr, who was kind of the forgotten prospect in the Lane Thomas trade nearly 2 years ago, has been toiling in the shadow of all our more heralded prospects in Low-A. He can play anywhere on the infield but has struggled to get onto the field ahead of Willits, James, and Dickerson (and not to mention Fein, who’s been relegated to RF to get playing time). Even given that, his numbers are solid so far this year: .269/.432/.433 with more walks than Ks. Maybe we need a promotion to get him more PT.
• Kevin Bazzell is back to producing; the catcher in High-A has a .827 OPS so far this year. Unfortunately, he’s completely blocked upstream, with Ford in AAA and Lomavita in AA requiring full-time play.
• Daniel Hernandez joins three other 2025 IFA guys who are ranked prospects (German, De la Cruz, and Cortesia) in the FCL league that just started. We finally get to see some domestic production from the four best players from that class right now.

With the benefit of all the other pro pundits, all the off-season moves, and really trying not to have April stats color my opinions too much, here’s my “104 ranked prospects” for the system.

When I did this at the end of the 2025 season, I got lots of good feedback that i had some guys way too high or low. Hopefully I’m not so drastically off this time around as well. I went 125 deep at the end of 2025, which seems crazy. how did I get back to 104? Well, since the Sept post we’ve lost 33 of those 125 players:

• 2 were traded (Bennett, Linan,
• 15 became MLFAs and left the system; highest one was Nick Schnell in the low 30s.
• 2 were DFA’d and got claimed/Traded (Brzycky, Eder)
• 2 were released to pursue other opps or by their request (Lao, Baker)
• 12 were outright released; these are the embarrassing ones; how do you rank a guy who the team flat out released? The highest ranked release I had ranked in Sept 2025 was Armando Cruz, who I had ranked 57th basically clinging to the $3.9M the team wasted on him in 2021.

But, we’ve also added 12 players in the off-season who are now somewhere in the top 100:

• 4 2026 IFA signings, the highest of which is Serrano at #37.
• 8 prospects acquired in trade, including four of our top 10 in Ford, Fien, Perales, and Fitz-Gerald.

125-33+12 = exactly 104, and that’s exactly how many I’ve ranked in this iteration.

Nonetheless, posting this a week into May seems dumb, and next year i’ll do a better job of posting this before the season starts and won’t wait for Fangraphs’ ranking to finish. I’m basically posting this now so the work doesn’t go to waste.

Here’s my full list as it stands today:

TB rank	First Name	Last Name	Position
1	Eli	Willits	SS
2	Harry	Ford	C
3	Jarlin	Susana	RHP (Starter)
4	Travis	Sykora	RHP (Starter)
5	Gavin	Fein	SS
6	Alex	Clemmey	LHP (Starter)
7	Seaver	King	SS
8	Luis	Perales	RHP (Starter)
9	Devin	Fitz-Gerald	SS
10	Landon	Harmon	RHP (Starter)
11	Ronny	Cruz	SS
12	Luke	Dickerson	SS/CF
13	Ethan	Petry	1B/OF (Corner)
14	Coy	James	SS
15	Angel	Feliz	SS/3B
16	Yoel	Tejeda Jr.	RHP (Starter)
17	Jackson	Kent	LHP (Starter)
18	Miguel	Sime Jr.	RHP (Starter)
19	Davian	Garcia	RHP (Starter)
20	Yeremy	Cabrera	OF (corner)
21	Sam	Peterson	OF (CF)
22	Alejandro	Rosario	RHP
23	Marconi	German	SS
24	Eriq	Swan	RHP (Starter)
25	Christian	Franklin	OF (CF)
26	Caleb	Lomavita	C
27	Yohandy	Morales	3B
28	Jorgelys	Mota	SS
29	Josh	Randall	RHP (Starter)
30	Cayden	Wallace	2B/3B
31	Phillips	Glasser	SS
32	Andrew	Pinckney	OF (Corner)
33	Abimelec	Ortiz	1B/OF (Corner)
34	Riley	Cornelio	RHP (Starter)
35	Andrew	Alvarez	LHP (Starter)
36	Brayan	Cortesia	SS
37	Samil	Serrano	OF (Corner)
38	Sir Jamison	Jones	C
39	Rafael	Ramirez Jr.	SS
40	Kevin	Bazzell	C
41	Cristian	Vaquero	OF (CF)
42	Daniel	Hernandez	C
43	Nauris	De La Cruz	OF (Corner)
44	Isalas	Suarez	OF (CF)
45	Angel	Ramirez	OF (Corner)
46	Browm	Martinez	OF (CF)
47	Victor	Hurtado	OF (Corner)
48	Tyler	Stuart	RHP (Starter)
49	R.J.	Sales	RHP (Starter)
50	Clayton	Beeter	RHP (Reliever)
51	Dashyll	Tejeda	OF (CF)
52	Juan	Duran	OF (Corner)
53	Isaac	Lyon	RHP (Starter)
54	Robert	Cranz	RHP (Reliever)
55	Schultz	Thomas	RHP (Reliever)
56	Jose	Feliz	RHP (Starter)
57	Marquis	Grissom	RHP (Reliever)
58	Austin	Amaral	RHP (Reliever)
59	Liam	Sullivan	LHP (Starter)
60	T.J.	White	OF (Corner)
61	Randal	Diaz	SS/3B
62	Sam	Brown	OF (Corner)
63	Leuris	Portorreal	RHP (Starter)
64	Elijah	Nunez	OF (CF)
65	Brenner	Cox	OF (CF)
66	Johnathan	Thomas	OF (CF)
67	Tyler	Schoff	RHP (Reliever)
68	Erik	Tolman	LHP (Starter)
69	Andry	Lara	RHP (Starter)
70	Brayan	Romero	RHP (Starter)
71	Branden	Boissiere	OF (Corner)
72	Kevin	Made	SS
73	Elijah	Green	OF (CF)
74	Juan	Reyes	LHP (Starter)
75	Pablo	Aldonis	LHP (Reliever)
76	Orlando	Ribalta	RHP (Reliever)
77	Enmanuel	Carela	RHP (Starter)
78	Darrel	Lunar	RHP (Starter)
79	Adam	Bloebaum	RHP (Reliever)
80	Travis	Sthele	RHP (Starter)
81	Alexander	Meckley	RHP (Starter)
82	Merritt	Beeker	LHP (Reliever)
83	Bryan	Polanco	RHP (Starter)
84	Carlos	Tavares	1B/OF (Corner)
85	Greyson	Gimenez	RHP (Reliever)
86	Kyle	Luckham	RHP (Starter)
87	Luke	Johnson	RHP (Starter)
88	Holden	Powell	RHP (Reliever)
89	Max	Romero Jr.	C
90	Huff	Chance	RHP (Reliever)
91	Marcus	Brown	SS
92	Juan	Obispo	OF (CF)
93	Rony	Bello	2B/3B
94	Manuel	Cabrera	SS
95	Nick	Peoples	OF (Corner)
96	Mikey	Tepper	RHP (Starter)
97	Seth	Shuman	RHP (Reliever)
98	Gavin	Dugas	2B
99	Luke	Young	RHP (Reliever)
100	Jack	Sinclair	RHP (Reliever)
101	Elian	Soto	1B/OF (Corner)
102	Leodarlyn	Colon	RHP (Reliever)
103	Everett	Cooper	SS
104	Matt	Suggs	C

In the interests of not making this too long of a post, I’ll provide some commentary in batches of picks:

• 1-5: I’ve got the same top 5 as all pundits not named Longenhagen. Not much to note here. As we’ll discuss more later, with the benefit of April’s production there’d probably be different names in my top 5 now.
• 6-10: I’ve kept this a conventional list, so Clemmey and King remain high. I’m trusting that Perales is all that he’s been promised, and i’ve put our big dollar prep RHP Harmon right at #10 so that its consistent with most other shops ranking of him. King is making huge strides now, and probably moves into the top 5 in the next ranking along with Cruz (he was just named into BA’s latest top 100)
• 11-15: Ronny Cruz is going to start showing up on top 100 lists, so I’ve moved him to just outside the top 10 for now. If I was fully taking into account his April performance he’d be ranked 5th. I’ve also kept Dickerson here despite his 2025 struggles due to scouting reports remaining glowing, and have a couple of our younger stars in here as well.
• 16-20: four of the five end up being starters, including two guys in AA in Garcia and Kent who could be the part of the next crew of low-ceiling starters to push for the majors in the Irvin-Parker-Herz mold. Also, Sime has started incredibly hot and is looking nearly unhittable in Low-A; he’d be 10 spots higher taking April fully into account.
• 21-25: I’ve got a couple of injury-riddled starters here who might be higher in Rosario and Swan; i think people ranking Rosario anywhere in the top 20 are fools. Franklin remains here as the best of the AAA-addled corner OF we seem to have collected there this year.
• 26-30: Three college bats who have been much more heralded than they are now in Lomavita, Morales, and Wallace. I’ve given up fighting the Morales fight; he was #6 on my post-2025 list and honestly I have no defense of why i’ve pushed him this far down. Of course as I write this he’s raking in April in AAA so i’ll look like a fool when he heads to the majors and supplants Luis Garcia at 1B/DH. Randall’s AA debut looks great; he may be higher soon.
• 31-35 has two 4-A starters (Cornelio, Alvarez), and apparently two 4-A corner outfielders (Pinckney and Ortiz). They’re joined by Glasser, who may be our hitter of the year but will struggle to get any further in the system.
• 36-40 has a couple of DSL bonus-baby ranked players in Cortesia and Serrano; Serrano was our highest ranked 2026 IFA signing and is very well regarded by those in the know (Longenhagen had him #18). We also have two other pretty young players in Jones and Ramirez Jr here.
• 41-45: this is the range where we stick DSL types who have had one good season there, or who signed for big money but we just don’t know how good they will be. That includes Hernandez, De la Cruz, Suarez, and Rodriguez here.
• 46-50: Two injured arms who probably should be higher in Stuart and Sales, a solid reliever in Beeter who will be off these “prospect” lists soon, plus the $2.8M Hurtado who at least has made it to FCL in his 3rd pro year but needs to “do something” soon.
• 51-55: Three promising looking minor league relievers in Lyon, Cranz, and Schultz. Lyon is now leading the High-A roster and I continue to be amazed that we fetched both Ford and Lyon for a reliever with a 4.46 ERA last year (yes, I know he’s pitching better in 2026, but the point remains).
• 56-60: Three more relievers in Amaral, Grissom and Sullivan, plus TJ White, who has struggled for years but is finding his footing this year.
• 61-70: a hodge podge of players, including some failed starters and a MIA former top prospect in Cox who we now know is converting to be a pitcher after hitting sub .200 for three years in the low minors.
• 71-80 includes a couple of very high profile prospects who seem to be playing their way out in Made and Green, along with a few DSL starters who were solid in their first year and who might work their way up the ranks soon.
• 80-90: A couple of system starters in Meckley and Luckham, maybe they should be higher. We also have some hold-over starters here like Polanco and Johnson.
• 90-104: Backup catchers, backup middle infielders who used to be more heralded, and low-ceiling relievers.

A few more interesting tid bits:

• The highest player I have ranked who does not appear on a single other ranking list is 2026 IFA signing Juan Duran, who got $1m from us in January and who i’ve put at #52.
• The next three players on my list after Duran (Lyon, Cranz, and Schultz) also fail to appear on any other lists, likely b/c they’re essentially promising looking relievers who would never appear within a top 30 of a major shop.
• Pretty much everyone I have ranked about 75 only appears on my own ranking lists for the last couple of cycles. They’re ranked b/c they showed some promise, or earned promotions in the last couple of seasons. Mostly though, they’re “org guys” for now unless they blow it up and make a leap that hasn’t been really evident in their performances thus far.

With the beginning of May begins the Florida Complex League (FCL) competition, and the release of the official Nats FCL roster for 2026. As I keep the Big Board, I often put players without clear assignments in the Extended Spring Training (XST) column, when really they probably were always on the FCL roster throughout the off-season, as teams play it loose with the 165 minor league domestic player limit. As I write this, the Big Board shows 159 players total on the non-60 day/non-Restricted lists for all 5 of our domestic minor league teams, but during spring training with all the Non Roster Invitees (NRIs) that numbers welled to like 180 or so.

Anyway, even though FCL has been rained out its first two days (Florida in Springtime!) the rosters have been set, and there’s definitely some interesting information to be gleaned from what the FCL looks like to start 2026. Here’s some of those comments.

• Nats 2022 4th round prep draftee Brenner Cox is now a pitcher. After four years of hitting ineptitude in the low minors (including a combined .156/.249/.270 figure in 2025 between Low and High-A) the former outfielder is moving to the mound to see if he can make it work. I hope he resurrects his career.
• Both Elian Soto and Carlos Tavares are still listed as Outfielders. Soto played 1B in 39 of his 49 games last year, while Tavares was demoted back to FCL from Low-A last year, where he played 1B in 49 of his 55 games. I’ve kept both as 1B on the Big Board despite what the MILB.com rosters say.
• Soto and Tavares being in FCL creates a log-jam in the FCL infield, since they also have 1B/3B Manual Cabrera and 3B-only Luis Arias on the roster. Honestly, I’m surprised Tavares still is rostered after hitting just .153 in Low-A and getting moved back to the FCL at age 20. I’d guess they go Cabrera at 1B, Arias at 3B, Soto at DH, and Tavares on the bench.
• They’ve promoted essentially their projected starting Outfield from the DSL in Nauris De La Cruz, Browm Martinez, and Victor Hurtado. All three are promising prospects; Martinez came to us in the Rosario trade with the Yankees last year and immediately hit the DL, so we’ve yet to see him play.
• The two highest ranked prospects from the DSL last year (Marconi and Cortesia) also are here and should be the starting 2B and SS middle infield.
• There’s 4 catchers on the roster, including top prospect Daniel Hernandez. One of them is a recent 23-yr old MLFA in Brady Cerkownyk who probably should be on a dev list in Low-A but starts in West Palm Beach.
• Gavin Dugas is alive; he’s on the FCL roster rehabbing. He was a very old senior sign in 2023 and turns 26 in a few days .. he needs to push his way into AA at least this year.
• We will have an entirely new starting rotation from 2025’s season closing five of Feliz, Portorreal, Farias, Lunar, Johnson.
  • Portorreal was the opening day starter in Low-A
  • Farias was released at the end of March
  • Luke Johnson is doing tandem starts in Low-A
  • Both Feliz and Lunar are on the FCL 60-day DL (Lunar is full-season already, implying a major arm injury).
• Reading the tea-leaves of the arms they’ve promoted from FCL … they promoted exactly five pitchers, all of whom were either starters or long relievers on the 2025 DSL roster. I’d have to thus guess that these are going to be the 5 “starters” for FCL: De La Cruz, Lopez, Reyes, Robles, and Torrellas. This makes sense; 4 of these 5 finished the DSL season in their rotation and the fifth (Lopez) was probably the most effective long reliever on the team.
• There’s now an astonishing eight (8) MLFA signings on the FCL roster. There was not a single MLFA signing on the season-ending FSL roster last season; the roster was (save for one prospect received in trade) 100% in-house drafted or IFA signed players. That’s quite a turnaround in terms of roster management for this new organization.
• While doing the FCL roster work for the Big Board, I learned for the first time about one additional MLFA signings the team has made: Noah Dean was signed on 3/30/26. I continue to be amazed at how poorly the milb.com pages work with each other, and how poor of a job they do at keeping up with these transactions.
• Nearly all of these MLFAs are way too old for the FCL; one guy is 28 with AAA time (Shortridge). Clearly they’re part of the now-in-full-effect MLFA middle reliever churn that the team will be doing for the rest of the year, and I’d guess they’ll keep moving guys up and onward.
• Speaking of milb.com issues: I have just one remaining player in XST on the Big Board with all these moves: Jackson Ross. The 2024 9th rounder hit well at Low-A last year, not so much when he got promoted to Wilmington. Now we have no idea where he is: his last listed transaction was the May 2025 promotion to Wilmington. However, he’s not on the 2026 Wilmington Roster, isn’t on the FCL roster .. and is still listed as Active. If I had to guess, i’d guess Ross either voluntarily retired over the off-season or got released and the transaction didn’t get properly recorded. That’s happened more than a few times in my big Board administrative time. Maybe he’ll suddenly pop up on the Wilmington roster though; hope so, since he only got a season’s run with the team.
• I count 13 graduates from the DSL to the FCL:
  • 2 catchers Hernandez and Figueroa
  • 2 infielders Marconi and Cortesia
  • 4 Outfielders: De la Cruz, Hurtado, Martinez, Obispo
  • 5 Starters: De La Cruz, Lopez, Reyes, Robles, and Torrellas
• Coincidentally, this leaves (if I’ve got the board right) 38 players in the DSL counting the new 2026 IFA class. 19 arms and 19 position players, including 9 outfielders. I’d imagine we’ll see 8-10 cuts from the DSL roster before they start play.
• Players to watch: My highest ranked DSL prospects who got promoted are:
  • #23 Marconi German
  • #36 Brayan Cortesia
  • #42 Daniel Hernandez
  • #43 Nauris De la Cruz
  • #46 Browm Martinez
  • #47 Victor Hurtado
• Not one of these newly promoted ranked prospects is one of the projected starters, even though I ranked past 100 players. The two best arms coming up are probably Lopez and Reyes; the other three didn’t exactly light the DSL up last year, so we’ll see what happens.