Nationals Arm Race

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.

Before we get too far away from May 1st … Here’s a one-month check in on our 20 prospects plus other notables in the system.

I’ll be using my own personal top 20 to drive the rankings … which I’ll post soon.

Here’s a quick check in with our top prospects and a quick heat check on how they’re doing, plus notables ranked outside the top 20 worth mentioning. All stats were as of 5/1/25.

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: Started slow, but raised his average 50 points in the last 10 games of April. Finished the month slashing .247/.377/.398 with 18 steals in 23 games while starting at Short a few months after turning 18. Can’t ask for much more than that. Temperature: heating up.
• #2. Henry Ford, C AAA: he has not had the best month. After not making the MLB team with the though that he’d get to play full-time in Rochester, he’s slashed .200/.288/.243 in 18 starts. he has too many strikeouts and almost no power (just 3 doubles in 70 ABs). Temperature: ice cold
• #3: Jarlin Susana, RHP (starter) AA: On the 60-day DL to open the season, so we won’t see him until at least June 1. Per the Nats injury report, the last time we got an update on his off-season Lat surgery was that in late march he was throwing on flat ground. I would hope he’s made progress since. Temperature: on ice.
• #4 Travis Sykora: RHP (starter) AA: likely out for the season to rehab his July 2025 TJ surgery, though on the injury report in Spring training he was throwing 3x/week on flat ground. Maybe he makes it back for a couple of starts in August, morelikely he goes to the AFL this off-season to get some game prep for 2027. Temperature: on ice.
• #5 Gavin Fien SS/3B, Low-A: played just four games into the season and was 2-for-17 before hitting the DL with an unknown injury. Google and AI don’t know either, guessing that its something related to his off-season bone-spur removal surgery and are calling it a “wrist injury” for this year. Guessing he’s back mid-May. Temperature: on ice.
• #6 Alex Clemmey, LHP (Starter) AA: Clemmey’s base numbers (2.95 ERA) are exposed by a ridiculously low BABIP and way too many walks (17 walks in 18 IP). Remember; he’s 20 and was the opening day starter in AA. I’m not going to crush him too much, but there’s some doubt creeping into some player evaluators on Clemmey’s future. Temperature: holding steady.
• #7 Seaver King, SS AA: King had a great month in Harrisburg, slashing .286/.400/.536 with 4 HRs and 20 RBI in the middle of the order. This is a huge improvement over his performance in AA last season, and he seems to be building off of his strong AFL. Cross your fingers, but having King flourish into a top prospect worthy of his draft stature would do a ton for this team. There’s nobody blocking him for a AAA move. Temperature: red hot.
• #8 Luis Perales, RHP (starter) AAA: Perales had a 4.42 ERA and a 1.20 whip and a .182 BAA for the month, which all sounds decent. But, he’s walking too many guys and his numbers are are masking a very low BABIP and his xFIP is through the roof. This “show-me” trade where they traded Jake Bennett even up for Perales is not aging well; Bennett had a 0.86 ERA in his 5 AAA starts and just got called up to the majors for Boston. Meanwhile Perales is the sole arm on the 40-man NOT to get called up in April. Not good. Temperature: cool
• #9 Devin Fitz-Gerald, SS, High-A: A very solid first month for Fitz-Gerald in the system: .293/.435/.511 with 3 homers and 10 SBs. He’s been playing primarily 2B thanks to multiple other SS prospects in High-A, and is blocked in AA by a higher ranked prospect in King, but if the team decides to make a slew of SS-only moves to do promotions, he could be in line if he keeps up this production. Temperature: Red Hot.
• #10 Landon Harmon, RHP (starter): Low-A: He has started off his pro career with a solid month: He doesn’t have massive K/9 figures but has been very solid with a 1.88 ERA, a sub-1.00 whip, and a .174 BAA. All three of those figures lead the team in Fredericksburg for those with more than a trivial number of IP. He’s been outshined a bit in the Low-A bullpen by his fellow 2025 prep draftee Sime, but don’t let that fool you; he’s doing great. Temperature: Hot.
• #11 Ronny Cruz: SS, High-A: Cruz is probably the minor league POTY so far, earning a promotion to High-A after just two weeks with a .333/.460/.627 line to open the season in Fredericksburg, and didn’t stop once he got to Wilmington with a .354/.436/.604 line since. The 19 yr old is showing both power and speed (6 hrs and 18 SBs so far), and is likely to be in the next iterations of the top 100 prospects in all of the minors when they start getting refreshed. Juan Soto made it to the majors at 19, as did Harper; can Cruz? Temperature: Red Hot.
• #12 Luke Dickerson, SS/CF Low-A: Slashed .261/.356/.523 for the month with a ton of extra-base power (10 doubles and 3 homers) and showing major positional flexibility (he’s played 2B,SS,3B and CF so far this season). This is a massive improvement over last year and I like what I see here. A middle infielder with this kind of power will play for sure. Temperature: Hot.
• #13: Ethan Petry, 1B High-A: Petry destroyed the ball in April, slashing .329/.454/.506 while splitting time between 1B and RF. We don’t exactly have a murderer’s row of outfielders playing AA right now, so I’d imagine he’s getting moved up soon since he’s repeating the level from the end of last season and is a seasoned collegiate hitter. Temperature: Red Hot.
• #14: Coy James, SS/3B, Low-A: struggled at the plate a bit with a .182/357/377 slash, but also showed some interesting promise with 4 homers and 11 SBs for the month. That kind of 20/20 split is something to look forward to, and it seems like he may be due for a stats rebound. Temperature: luke warm hopefully.
• #15: Angel Felix, SS High-A: struggled in April: .200/.307/.294. If you hit .200 you can’t have such a low slugging or else you’re just lineup fodder with no power potential. Temperature: cold.
• #16: Yoel Tejeda Jr. RHP (starter) High-A: 0-2 with 5.48 ERA, 1.57 whip. He’s walking way too many guys (15 BBs in 23 ip) and is struggling from a consistency perspective. Temperature: cold.
• #17: Jackson Kent, LHP (Starter) AA: 1-0 with a 2.70 ERA, 0.80 whip, and 17/4 K/BB in 13 innings. He’s not going deep into starts yet, but he’s got very solid numbers. He’s almost like this year’s version of Jake Bennett. Let’s see him going 5-6 innings per start with this production and look for a mid-season promotion. Temperature: very warm.
• #18: Miguel Sime Jr. RHP (starter): Low-A: well, you can’t ask for much more than his start: 32/11 K/BB in 14.2 IP in four tandem/3-inning starts to begin his pro career. That’s too many walks but you can’t argue with the K figures. Even if he continues to walk that many guys, he won’t be long in Low-A striking out more than 2/3rds of the hitters he faces. Temperature: red hot.
• #19: Davian Garcia, RHP (starter) AA; Garcia is looking like he may have been too aggressively pushed up this off-season; he’s got 18 walks and 15 K’s in 16ip so far with poor numbers across the board. If he continues with 5.00 ERA and 1.80 whip figures, he may get sent back to High-A. Temperature: cool.
• #20: Yeremy Cabrera CF low-A: Slash of .280/.427/.561 for Fredericksburg, part of a slew of hot hitters just down I-95 from Nats park. Another 20/20 guy showing both power and speed (4hrs and 13SBs). Temperature: red hot.

A quick reminder: we trade MacKenzie Gore for 3B Gavin Fien, 1B Abimelec Ortiz, SS Devin Fitz-Gerald, RHP Alejandro Rosario and CF Yeremy Cabrera. And I wondered if we got enough. If these top prospects continue to shine that trade is going to look like a steal. Especially with Gore struggling in his Texas debut a bit.

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Notables #20 and above by the Level they started 2026:

in AAA:

• #27 Yohandy Morales 1B/3B is destroying AAA pitching right now: .341/.406/.518 for April. There’s not really any room for a 1B/DH guy at the MLB level right now, but at some point the team may fully cut ties with Luis Garcia or Curtis Mead and give Morales a shot.
• #32 Andrew Pinckney OF continues his solid AAA hitting: .282/.363/.493 in April. That’s nearly identical to his 2025 season slash line in AAA of .269/.348/.431. I’m trying to think of a comp for Pinckney; a player we had who produced in the minors for years w/o getting a shot then finally came up and killed it … maybe someone like Tanner Roark?
• #36 and #37 are Cornelio and Alvarez, who both have MLB call-ups and then got sent right back. If they were better arms, they’d be in the rotation instead of Mikolas and Littell … perhaps in a month.

In AA:

• #30 Cayden Wallace 3B/2B is absolutely destroying the ball in AA right now: .292/.379/.584 for the month. Six homers, a ton of extra base power, getting walks. He’s played mostly 3B, can play 2B (where he did most of last year making way for House). Thus he’s kind of blocked moving up due to Morales & Glasser. However, it’s great to see some major production from the former top 10 prospect.
• #71 Brandon Boissiere OF started the season super strong .289/383/.526 then did something really bad to himself, in that the team moved him to the 60-day DL on 4/28/26. He’s one of those guys who seemed to be ‘this close’ to getting released, but now we don’t know what to make of the situation.

In High-A:

• High-A is a weird roster to start; there’s the aformentioned Fitz-Gerald, Petry, Feliz and Tejeda, then there’s really a gap to the next best prospect on the roster. What High-A has a lot of are guys who used to be ranked highly but who have seen their stock fall: think Bazzell, Vaquero, White, and especially Green. That being said, looking for positives:
• #29 Josh Randall had a solid April on the mound: 2.70 ERA, 21/3 K/BB in 23innings and awesome peripherals 0.80 whip and.186 BAA. That’s promotional material.
• For the month: Elijah Green: 21 games and 84 ABs. Of those 84 ABs he struck out an astonishing 52 times. He’s averaging 2.5 strikeouts a game.

In Low-A:

• #81 Alexander Meckley RHP starter had a solid month: 2.18 ERA, 26/11 K/BB in 20ip.
• Unranked Jack Moroknek had nearly as good of a line at the plate as Ronny Cruz: .344/.456/.563. Lots of power, lots of walks. The 2025 11th rounder has started his pro career nicely.

We’re a month into the 2026 full seasons, believe it or not, so its time to bring back the monthly check-in on the rotations, from the MLB to DSL (once they start). This always ends up being one of the main posts I look forward to researching and writing each month, and we’ll continue the format from years’ past.

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

Important 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 (not yet started for 2026)
• DSL Nationals Pitching Stats at milb.com (not yet started for 2026)

All Stats quoted are as of 4/30/26’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

Changes since end of last Month: Butera has been using Poulin as an “opener” for Mikolas, but technically he’s still the pitcher expected to go the most innings on that day in the rotation. Otherwise, the rotation has not changed for the first month of the season.

Rotation Observations: We have two solid starters in Griffin and Cavalli. Griffin is getting national attention for his start and is looking like a steal that may fetch a pretty penny at the trade deadline. Cavalli’s numbers are a bit deceiving (3.82 ERA and 1.66 whip) but his peripherals show us what’s really going on: a 2.84 FIP thanks to a ridiculous .419 BABIP he’s carrying right now. His walks are a bit high, but nothing he’s throwing is leaving the yard (just a 3.3 FB/HR percentage). Dare I say it? Cavalli is looking like the 1st rounder we’ve been waiting for, for years.

Irvin is about what we expected: a 5th starter quality guy who has good days and bad.

Then there’s the problem children. Mikolas and Littell are tied for the league lead in Earned Runs allowed so far, and every 4th flyball Littell throws ends up in the stands. Mikolas has been so bad that the manager has relied on an opener to get through the first inning AND AAA call-ups to mop up innings knowing that he can barely get through the order once. Littell is even worse: he’s got a FIP north of 9.00 … and that’s with a BABIP of .268! He’s actually set to get worse. The team has $7m tied up in Littell but just $2.25M in Mikolas, and he looks washed up. I think he gets another month, tops, before the 37-yr old is released.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Mikolas

Bullpen comments: Not great. When you open the season with a slew of MLFAs and waiver claims as your bullpen, you’re asking for trouble. Plus, the starters have been so bad that the bullpen has been taxed to the point were every single 40-man arm except Perales has been put to use … and we’re a month into the season. We’ve already lost Waldichuk for the year and our two best arms Beeter and Henry) are on the DL. This seems like its going to get bad, fast. The 3 arms in AAA available for call-up include Rutledge and Fernandez, who were awful in short MLB stints.

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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)

Changes since end of last Month: Parker got the call-up and stuck, which necessitated the promotion of late-spring MLFA signing Champlain to move to AAA (where he probably should be anyway). Ogasawara came up for a couple spot starts to cover for when Alvarez and Cornelio covered innings in MLB, but he’s back in AA (where he probably should be).

Rotation Observations: Cornelio’s era/fip aren’t great but he’s got a 32/13 K/BB in 21IP. I’d expect this kind of swing and miss to get him the majors first amongst the 40-man starters. Lara and Champlain have probably been the most effective of the starters so far, with ERAs in the mid 3s, a 28/4 K/BB, and workable FIPs. That’s great news for Lara’s sake, in that he was DFA’d in January but didn’t get claimed; he seems like he’s earning his way back onto the 40-man and may get a chance sooner than later. Alvarez is experiencing a bit of a letdown after not making the MLB roster, but he’s on the 40-man and was pretty effective in his brief callup. Perales is walking too many guys, but remains the highest ranked prospect starter of the bunch. However, his middling numbers are masking a very low BABIP and his xFIP is through the roof.

Next guy to get promoted: I’d have to think Alvarez would be the next starter promoted if they needed it, but with Parker already up there they seem like they’ll continue to use Alvarez and Cornelio as they have; middle long relief. Maybe the team eventually cuts bait with both Mikolas and Littell and both Alvarez and Cornelio will get the call.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: none of these guys are pitching their way out of the rotation due to 40-man status or prospect status. The team has the least invested in MLFA Champlain, so if someone in AA really needed moving up, I’d guess Champlain would make way.

Bullpen comments: Yean and Gott are the two guys in the AAA bullpen with MLB experience who could get call-ups relatively easily, and both are pitching relatively well in AAA. Penrod has 14 walks and 14 strikeouts in 10 innings; that’s some Nuke Laloosh work right there. The rest of the bullpen in AAA are guys with ERAs in the 5-6 range; it’s ugly.

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AA Harrisburg

• Opening Day 2026: Clemmey, Garcia, Luckham, Ogasawawara, Swan
• End of April 2026: Clemmey, Garcia, Luckham, Ogasawawara, Kent
• Reminder of the AA Disabled List: Sykora, Susana, Rosario, Stuart, Swan

Changes since end of last Month: Swan got hurt and was replaced by Kent, but Ogasawara only managed to get one start in the month as he bounced up and back; the rest of the starts were openers/bullpen games started by relievers.

Rotation Observations: Clemmey’s base numbers (2.95 ERA) are exposed by a ridiculously low BABIP and way too many walks (17 walks in 18 IP). He’s young (he’s 20), and he’s still a prospect, but he’s just walking too many guys. Garcia is looking like he may have been too aggressively pushed up this off-season; he’s got 18 walks and 15 K’s in 16ip so far. Kent looks very solid in his first four starts, even if they were pretty short, and he continues to be an underrated starter prospect in the system. Luckham may have permanently established his ceiling as a pro; he’s been tried out in AAA twice now and has gotten shelled; now he’s 26 and in his 5th pro season.

Next guy to get promoted: Ogasawara has already been the guy who gets the first call up and would be again. After him, its probably Kent.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Luckham.

Bullpen comments: Connor Van Scoyoc has been effective in long relief and could slot in as a spot starter if need be. Luke Young is having a solid start to the season. Erick Mejia probably should be in AAA; not sure why he got dumped down to AA after finishing last season there. Holden Powell may be running out of time; he’s in his 6th pro season and is repeating AA for the fourth year.

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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

Changes since end of last Month: Bruni was the opening day starter, but really only because Sullivan was apparently a late scratch that day. Sullivan was then sent down and replaced by the promoted Lyon. Bruni remains a LR but hasn’t started again.

Rotation Observations: Randall is the class of the group right now, with a 2.70 ERA, a 0.80 whip, and a 21/3 K/BB ratio. The 2024 3rd rounder was our bounty (along with the injured RJ Sales) for former closer Finnegan last year, and he’s already looking like he needs to be pushed to AA. Maddox is holding his own so far with decent if not spectacular numbers. Tejeda is walking too many guys and if he can clear that up he’ll have similar numbers to Maddox. Polanco is the oldest of the group and is getting shelled; he’s got a .338 BAA and has given up 6 homers in 17IP so far. That’s not good, especially since Wilmington is a pitcher’s park. Lyon has two starts but just 4 IP, so it seems like the team is still trying to figure out who their 5th starter is. They’ve got a couple of candidates on the 15day (Sthele and Tepper), so maybe one will come back soon.

Next guy to get promoted: Randall

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Polanco

Bullpen comments: Aldonis and Hill have been pitching the best out of the bullpen, but most of the High-A pen is getting shelled. Whips north of 1.6, and more than a few ERAs in the 8s and 9s. Six of the relievers in Wilmington were MLFAs or Rule5 draftees, thus brand new to this org and presumably grabbled due to a gap in our pitching development pipeline. Hopefully there’s reinforcements bubbling up from Low-A soon.

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Low-A Fredericksburg

Note: Low-A has been doing mostly “tandem” starts, with each guy named going 3IP each night.

• 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

Changes since end of last Month: The initial five “starters” have stayed relatively consistent, even if the “2nd guy in” has switched around slightly.

Rotation Observations: We’re seeing some really promising stuff out of Low-A right now. 2024 big-bonus prep kid Sime has exploded onto the scene with crazy K numbers: he’s got 32ks in 14IP. He’s also got 11 BBs in those 14Ip, so not all is great, but he’s only given up six hits in his first 5 starts. Harmon, our other 2024 big-money prep pitcher, doesn’t have 16 k/9 figures but has been very solid with a 1.88 ERA, a sub-1.00 whip, and a .174 BAA. There’s several other names here who have solid numbers to build on: Fischer and Meckley are the oldest of this group at 23 and 22 respectively and are showing signs that they’re close to solving the level. Portorreal is the only guy who doesn’t seem to be getting ‘tandemed” and he’s easily the worst of these starters: just 9 Ks in 18ip.

Next guy to get promoted: Meckley.

Next guy to get cut/demoted: Portorreal

Bullpen comments: Jared Beck line for the month: 12IP, 19Ks 16 walks, 3 hits and a hilarious 0.81 BAA. Well, if you don’t throw it over the plate they can’t ever get a chance to hit it. I once walked 8 straight times to open a Babe Ruth season; my OBP remained north of .500 for basically the entire year as a result. Bryant Olsen another one: 21/10 K/BB in 11 innings. Sullivan is a weird one: he started the year in High-A, got demoted, and he’s fallen apart to the tune of an ERA in the 12s.

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That’s it for April 2026.

It’s never too early to do a mock draft. Well, yes of course there is, but what’s the fun in that?

Here’s a smattering of super-early mock drafts and ranks that i’ve seen. I think these have value because they give you an idea of what the industry is hearing about the very top guys, plus we can see who’s highly ranked now but who may drop to the Nats #11 pick range (which has happened with us more than a few times to our great benefit, ahem, Anthony Rendon). These links run from December to the end of April.

For each mock i’ll list the top 5, then (if they go that deep) who they project to #11. I won’t repeat full names past first mention for space.

• MLBPipeline’s first mock Dec 2025: Roch Cholowosky, Grady Emerson, Justin Lebron, Drew Burress, Jacob Lombard. Nats at #11 take Liam Peterson, RHP, Florida 
• Baseball America’s first mock Dec 2025: Cholowsky, Emerson, Lebron, AJ Gracia (a 1B/OF from UVA), Derek Curiel. Nats at #11 take Ace Reese, 3B from Mississippi State.
• Bleacher Report first mock Feb 2026: Cholowsky, Emerson, Lebron, Burress, Curiel. Nats take Peterson.
• PrepBaseballReport 3/1/26 early mock: Cholowosky, Lebron, Lombard, Jackson Flora (UCSB rhp), Carson Bolman. Nats at #11 take Coleman Borthwick, a prep RHP/3B committed to Auburn.
• D1Baseball 3/5/36 Early march mock: (they use the above Prep Baseball Report mock data)
• Baseball America Mar 2026 mock 1.0 3/9/26: Cholowosky, Emerson, Lebron, Lombard, Flora. Nats at #11 take Eric Booth Jr., OF, Oak Grove (Miss.) HS
• BA Staff Draft 3/23/26: Cholowosky, Lebron, Emerson, Lombard, Van Lackey (fast-rising C from Ga Tech). Nats at #11 take AJ Gracia from UVA.
• BA Mock 2.0 4/13/26: Cholowsky, Emerson, Lackey, Lombard, Flora. Nats at #11 get Ace Reese, 3B, Mississippi State. Big bat, projected pro 1B so has to keep hitting. Has been 5-6 in draft ranks in the class, but is a risk taking a non-premium position here. This pick also leaves leBron on the table, which is crazy to have said a month ago.
• BA Staff Draft 2.0 4/27/26: Cholowsky , Emerson, Flora, Lackey, Lombard. Nats at #11 get Drew Burress, OF from Georgia Tech. Burress was top 5 early in the cycle and has dropped a bit. Understandable: he’s “only” slashing .360/.484/.611 as of 4/27/26 with more walks than Ks. (sarcasm). In their draft we leave the likes of Curiel, Lebron, and Reese on the table.
• BA’s Top 400 Draft ranks 4/29/26; Ranks aren’t the same as mocks, but it is useful to see where BA ranks these players independent of team drafting proclivities. Their top 5: Cholosky, Emerson, Lackey, Flora, Lombard, and #11 on their board is Drew Burress, so that’s relatively consistent with the BA staff draft.

Conclusions: Cholowsky is #1 on every single mock, without fail. Not one pundit has moved him off the top, and his performance so far in the college season has kept him there. The major name flying up the board this spring is Van Lackey, and it seems like he’s going #2 or #3. Nearly everyone has prep phenoms Emerson and Lombard in their top 5 as well. The top arm now seems to be Flora across the board.

Falling out of top-5 contention and now likely in the conversation for the Nats pick at #11 include Burress, Lebron, Gracia, and Curiel primarily. Also throw in there Tyler Bell and Liam Peterson, both college guys who were ranked higher but have had injury issues this year. If Mike Rizzo was still drafting, I would almost bet money on him taking Derek Curiel if he was here, just based on how “famous” he is (he was a 1st round talent out of HS before becoming perhaps the wealthiest NIL player in the country at LSU). But the new crew went prep-heavy in 2025 and may do so again in 2026.

I don’t really see any prep kids right in the 10-12 range on any of these mocks, and our new front office may be looking to go young again. One mock has us taking Eric Booth, but others have him ranked in the 6-10 range and going before he drops to us. If you want to see who the highest ranked Prep kids are by BA, here’s that list. It goes Emerson, Booth, Lombard, relatively big gap, then Spangler (who has a strong commit to Stanford) and a LHP out of florida named Rojas who’ll be 19 at the draft and is a Miami commit. Neither of those seem like Nats guys, not when there’ll be a slew of college players that make sense. But, if they get slot savings at #11 on someone like Rojas who is ranked in the teens, that lets them throw money in later rounds at prep kids who have slipped, which is how we ended up with the likes of Harmon, Sime, James, Fitz-Gerald, Fien, Jones, etc.

We finally get the last major pundit chiming in on the state of our system’s prospects, on this 24th day of April 2026. Eric Longenhagen and his Fangraphs crew have published their top 41 for the system. They are the last of the major pundits I track (Baseball America, MLBpipeline, Keith Law, Kiley McDaniel) plus more fringe prospect shops (Prospects1500, Prospects361, ProspectsLive, and BaseballProspectus, which hides everything behind a paywall i’m not willing to buy).

With this data, we have a complete set of “pre-2026 season” rankings for the system, and I will now work on my own such ranking. I published a top 125 at the end of last season, which had a few players ranked wildly out of place in retrospect, plus we’ve added at least 14 prospects who will feature in the top 50 or so and have released/traded at least 8-10 others who I ranked at the time, so I’ll work on a re-rank and see where things land. Ranking 125 guys out of a system that has 165 players domestically and another 30-40 in the DSL, 95% of whom won’t ever even get to Florida, may seem like a fools errand, but hey, this is what we do 🙂

Here’s the Fangraphs top 41 for our system, which seems like an odd number but is driven by the total number of our prospects who Longenhagen determines to have a Future Value (FV) of 35+ or more (FV runs on the typical scouting 20-80 scale, and anyone 50 or above is projected to be at least an “Average Everyday Player.” We’re projected to have just five of these players out of this top 41, which may temper your opinion of the system).

Fangraphs	First Name	Last Name	Position
1	Eli	Willits	SS
2	Jarlin	Susana	RHP (Starter)
3	Harry	Ford	C
4	Ronny	Cruz	SS
5	Travis	Sykora	RHP (Starter)
6	Alejandro	Rosario	RHP
7	Landon	Harmon	RHP (Starter)
8	Miguel	Sime Jr.	RHP (Starter)
9	Jackson	Kent	LHP (Starter)
10	Devin	Fitz-Gerald	SS
11	Davian	Garcia	RHP (Starter)
12	Luis	Perales	RHP (Starter)
13	Luke	Dickerson	SS/CF
14	Gavin	Fein	SS
15	Yoel	Tejeda Jr.	RHP (Starter)
16	Nauris	De La Cruz	OF (Corner)
17	Isalas	Suarez	OF (CF)
18	Samil	Serrano	OF (Corner)
19	Alex	Clemmey	LHP (Starter)
20	Abimelec	Ortiz	1B/OF (Corner)
21	Ethan	Petry	1B/OF (Corner)
22	Riley	Cornelio	RHP (Starter)
23	Sir Jamison	Jones	C
24	Caleb	Lomavita	C
25	Seaver	King	SS
26	Coy	James	SS
27	Marconi	German	SS
28	Eriq	Swan	RHP (Starter)
29	Christian	Franklin	OF (CF)
30	Yeremy	Cabrera	OF (corner)
31	R.J.	Sales	RHP (Starter)
32	Josh	Randall	RHP (Starter)
33	Andry	Lara	RHP (Starter)
34	Jorgelys	Mota	SS
35	Angel	Ramirez	OF (Corner)
36	Kevin	Bazzell	C
37	Angel	Feliz	SS/3B
38	Brayan	Cortesia	SS
39	Daniel	Hernandez	C
40	Jose	Feliz	RHP (Starter)
41	Sam	Brown	OF (Corner)

Phew. There’s a lot to talk about here. I’d say at least a third of these players are ranked completely at odds with the entire rest of the industry. So, how did we get here, and what does it mean? Well, Longenhagen’s FV driven rankings is almost entirely about Ceiling, so you’re going to see teenagers who are performing ranked well higher in his methodology than you might see elsewhere, where pundits take a more balanced floor/ceiling/age approach. I’ll call out the outliers as we go.

• 1-2-3 Willits-Susana-Ford is mostly unassailable. You can quibble about not having Sykora higher, but basically every other shop has the exact same top 5 right now (these 3 plus Sykora and Fein).
• Ronny Cruz at #4. that’s crazy high; most others have him in the mid 20s if at all. Prophetic? he’s already been promoted to High-A at age 19 and showed up there and hit 2 more homers in his first three games, likely pushing Angel Feliz off Short for now.
• Rosario at #6 is also well above where anyone else has him, and I really don’t get this ranking. He didn’t pitch in 2023 after getting drafted. Sure, he looked awesome in his 2024 pro debut as he should have; he was a 3-year starter in Miami’s rotation pitching in A-ball. The problem is this: he missed all of 2025 with injury, gets traded, and THEN gets Tommy John. So he’ll miss all of 2026 and may not be ready for 2027. How is that possibly the 6th best prospect in our system? He’s going to be Rule-5 eligible this coming December with a grand total of 88 pro innings!
• He’s got Sime way higher than others, but from what we’ve seen so far in Fredericksburg this may be warranted (23 Ks in 11 innings). Sime sits right behind Harmon, who has also come out of the gate shining for F-burg.
• Jackson Kent at #9. Ok, so I like Kent, and I think his numbers aren’t flattering his capabilities so far, but top 10 in the system? For a command and control lefty? Seems high.
• He’s clearly high man on Davian Garcia at #11, who surprisingly made the AA rotation to start 2026 after barely pitching in Wilmington. Maybe there’s something to Longenhagen’s madness.
• He loves Sir Jamison Jones … who has been kind of forgotten with the Willits draft, all the other HS guys pouring in, and all the trade acquisitions. But he’s holding down the fort as starting Catcher in Low-A with all these other teenagers, which must make for a fun time on the bus rides.
• He’s got two 2026 IFA signings in his top 20 (Suarez and Serrano). Hard to pass judgement here, other than to say that Longenhagen is probably the most plugged-in guy to the DR scene.

We’ve talked about nothing but elevated prospects so far. Well, for all the guys above who are super high, there had to be guys who got knocked down.

• Gavin Fein; Top 5 on every other board and as high as #2 on Keith Law’s board … is #14 here. Interesting. He struggled in his pro debut last year, got traded, then immediately got hurt for us, with little idea of how bad it is. We know he had off-season surgery on a bone spur, which can explain his pro debut crummy numbers; is this a follow-on injury? Nobody knows.
• Alex Clemmey: What the heck is he doing at #18? Ok, so no he can’t find the plate right now, but he’s a 20yr old in AA for the second year in a row. If he was in High-A right now with a 2.47 ERA like he had last year, he’d likely be top 5. You can’t punish a guy for punching way above his weight class and not putting up sub 2.00 numbers.
• He’s a bit low on Ethan Petry, likely thinking he’s a 1B-limited bat. Fair enough. He’ll hit until he doesn’t. There’s nobody blocking his path in AA in the “1B-corner OF” realm from a top-end prospect perspective with a MLFA, a Rule-5 draftee, and a minor trade acquisition starting at 1B, LF, and DH respectively.
• Here’s where things get weird: Seaver King is at #25. Ok, that just seems ridiculous. Even if you thought he was over rated via his 2025 season … we’re still talking about a 1st round pick who is a starting SS in AA with solid numbers.
• Angel Feliz is way down at #37, nearly out of his rankings, despite mostly being an upper teen in other places. I wonder what Eric sees here.

Ranking to 41 should capture every name one could think of … but there’s some curious omissions here:

• Yohandy Morales: totally missing. Which we’re starting to see more and more of, as some believe he may be in the Andrew Pinckney camp of stalled AAA players who couldn’t even turn themselves into 4-A taxi squad guys.
• Sam Peterson; completely missing as well, and a bit more shocking. This is a guy who was top 10 in other lists, a true CF with power and speed. Not sure what we’re missing here.
• No love for our POTY Glasser, but no surprise either.
• Previous Bonus babies like Hurtado and Vaquero have dropped out.
• Shockingly, no Elijah Green. (kidding).

Conclusion: Interesting list here. It made me question some of the spots i’ve got players ranked at in my current top 100 and something draft rankings spreadsheet. I may have to go back to the drawing board.

When the team chose to go to war for the 2026 Opening day with a bullpen that featured

• 5 Wavier claims (Poulin, Varland, Waldichuk, Schultz, and yes Lovelady counts here)
• 1 MLFAs (Perez), and
• 2 trade acquisitions with negligible MLB service time (Beeter, Granillo)

… one could probably have been a little concerned about how they’d fare.

Well, 3 weeks in, we have our answer. They’ve already made use of every other reliever on the 40-man at some point (Rutledge, Ribalta, and Fernandez … yet another Waiver claim) plus have made use of two starters (Parker and Alvarez) to eat innings with varying success.

As Mark Zuckerman pointed out, with Fernandez’s ridiculously awful outing last night (where he gave up 2 hits, 2 walks, threw a pitch to the backstop, and bounced so many balls in the dirt that his catcher Millas seemed completely fed up when one of them caught him flush in the hand), the team has now used 21 pitchers already, including one mop-up inning from outfielder Joey Weimer.

21 pitchers. That’s hard to do when you only have 25 arms on the entire 40-man roster, and four of them are on the 60-day DL.

Already, the Nats bullpen is last in the league in fWAR, 29th in FIP, 27th in ERA, 30th in K/9.

Clearly, this isn’t sustainable. But, I’m not entirely sure where they go from here. It’s one thing when you build a bullpen as Rizzo did so frequently in the past, from a combination of holdovers, veteran FAs, and call-ups. At least there you weren’t rolling the dice with 75% of the pen. But with so many trash-heap players, who other teams didn’t even think were worthy of keeping a 40-man spot, let alone a 26-man active roster spot, this was always going to be a recipe for disaster.

There’s zero 40-man help remaining in Rochester; the only two guys they haven’t called up are starters Perales and Cornelio … who aren’t exactly locks to be able to come in and pitch effectively in relief after being on longer rest. There’s a couple more MLFAs there with MLB time who aren’t pitching half bad (Yean and Gott), but the rest of the AAA bullpen isn’t exactly inspiring confidence either.

It could be a long season.

With the staggered starts now in place for MLB, AAA, and then the rest of the full-season minor leagues, we no longer get the massive data dump of roster releases like in year’s past. We get MLB, then AAA, then the rest. So, I’ve kind of held onto this post for a bit. We also had to wait for all the leagues to get totally through one rotation so I could write this reaction piece.

Here’s some reactions to the five Full-season roster announcements. I’m primarily focusing on the starting rotations, and just for fun i’m pulling in my 2026 Rotation predictions piece written last October to talk about just how far off I was. I’ll throw in some commentary on each rotation, and I’m also adding in commentary on some notable position player assignments.

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• MLB predicted for 2026: Gore, Grey, Cavalli, a Free Agent, Alvarez
• MLB Actual 2026: Cavalli, Mikolas, Irvin, Griffen, Littell

Rotation Thoughts: Well, that didn’t go how I thought it would last fall.

1. I thought the team would hold onto Gore through the 2026 trade deadline and flip him then (wrong: they found a trade partner willing to part with some top-end prospects)
2. I thought Grey would be healthy (nope: flexor strain, on top of an entire year lost to TJ. not good)
3. I thought Alvarez’ September would earn him a spot as the sole lefty worthy of the rotation (nope: by all accounts reading the tea leaves from sping training coverage this team never really considered him, or Parker, for the 5th starter spot.
4. I figured we’d sign just one FA, not three.
5. And I certainly didn’t think Irvin would earn a spot after his awful 2025.

Lots of “wrong” in there.

Losing Grey was a bummer; Flexor Strain often turns into more. I know he’s not an Ace in this league, but he has promise, and would be a solid 4th starter on a good team. Unfortunately, we’re not a good team, so he was our opening day starter two years ago. Lets all just hold our collective breath and hope these three veteran FAs pitch well enough to net talent at the trade deadline.

In my prediction piece, I thought the team would push all three of Parker, Irvin, and Lord to the bullpen. Lord’s relief splits were so much better than his starter splits that it made too much sense, while the others could hopefully morph into better starters. Instead, the team sent Parker down, along with (initially) four other 40-man members.

Other Roster thoughts: MLB Bullpen, Roster reactions: I already posted on this topic around Opening day. TL/DR: the bullpen is a collection of waiver claims and MLFAs nobody’s heard off and the team sent down or cut loose prospects instead of playing them at the MLB level. And, through the first week we’re not exactly seeing a murder’s row of relivers coming out of the pen. After a promising opening series, the bullpen has looked worse than awful, and it may be a long season of up-and-down options/call-ups from the AAA core.

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• AAA predicted for 2026: Lao, Ogasawara, Cornelio, Bennett, veteran MLFA
• AAA actual: Alvarez, Parker, Perales, Cornelio, Lara/Champlain

Rotation thoughts: We thought we had a clean set of 40-man starters set to go in AAA when the opening day MLB rosters were announced, but then the team DFA’d Linan and has had to scramble in the opening weeks of the season to find a 5th starter. The first turn through was a brief stint from former 40-man member Lara, but the real candidate seems to be MLFA signee Champlain, who’s basically always been a starter. This is an experienced, expectations-heavy crew; Parker hasn’t been in AAA since late 2023 and (for me) should be in the MLB bullpen. Same with Alvarez: not sure what he has to prove in AAA after a stellar 2025 (his first two starts in 2026 confirm that so far). Cornelio more than earned his spot on this roster with his meteoric rise in 2025; should be interesting to see if he sticks. My off-season predictions were understandably shredded when the team released Lao (to go to Japan) and traded Bennett (straight up for Perales). Ogasawara got pushed down with so many 40-man players pouring into AA to be the richest guy in the Eastern league.

Other roster thoughts: the team, by virtue of sending down so many 1B/OF types, now has a massive logjam of players in AAA who need playing time. AAA now has Ortiz, Chapparo, Hassell, Crews, and Franklin, all of whom are on the 40-man and aren’t in AAA for their health. On top of that you have well regarded OF prospects Pinckney and Glasser with little room to play, and then so many 1B types has pushed Morales to 3B … that’s like 7 guys for 5 spots night in and night out. At least they alleviated the pressure a little bit by releasing Mervis … but a 40-man guy is now sitting regularly in AAA. So far, it seems like Pinckney is the odd-man out, with the more flexible Glasser playing mostly 2B. Pinckney may be another sign of something I alluded to previously; he was clearly a favorite of the previous front office, getting spring training NRIs out of nowhere despite being basically less-than 4A talent.

The Bullpen features basically three 40-man guys on their last chance (Rutledge, Ribalta, Fernandez). If these guys couldn’t beat out the any one of the waiver claims currently in MLB, that really is an indictment of where they are. They’re joined by four 2026 MLFAs (one step above a waiver claim) in Yean, Gott, Penrod, and Montes de Oca (already hurt). There’s three former starters in the pen (Lara, Shuman, Tolman), so it should be interesting to see who gets the 5th starter spot long term once Eder got DFA’d and traded for basically nothing (ok, they got “cash”). Technically it looked like Lara got the start when they first needed a 5th starter, but i’m guessing it may actually be Chander Champlain, an end of spring training MLFA who pitched to a 7.84 ERA last year as a AAA starter in the PCL. Could be an interesting year of churn in AAA with the new regime so freely grabbing guys off the MLFA/waiver wire.

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• AA predicted: Rotation: Kent, Clemmey, Choi, Sthele, Atencio
• AA Acutal: Clemmey, Garcia, Luckham, Ogasawawara, Swan
• AA D/L rotation: Susana, Sykora, Stuart, Rosario, Kent.

Rotation thoughts: Gee, kinda wish our AA rotation was our DL list and not who we’re actually throwing out there. That’s two top-5 prospects, a near top-10, and two current/former mid teen prospects.

Happy to see both Swan and Garcia moved up. Where is Kent?? I thought he was a key member of this rotation but he’s nowhere to be found to start the season (answer: he’s on the DL, put there after the season started, though apparently not yet onto Milb.com’s register). Luckham and Ogasawara were pushed down to AA thanks to too many 40-man guys coming down from MLB, and that ended up impacting a couple arms here: I initially predicted Choi to be here but he was a MLFA after last season … and remains a MLFA. Same with Atencio; he elected MLFA as well and is out of the system (not sure how I screwed that up). Nonetheless, AA a major prospect and two promising arms to watch. I’ll have to time it right in the rotation when Harrisburg comes to visit Richmond so I can see one of the better prospects throw.

Other roster thoughts: the AA non-pitching roster has a lot of holdovers from the end of 2025, and a lot of down-ballot but still important prospect depth. Lomavita’s pathway to the majors has been severely impacted with the Ford acquisition; how will he react? Is Seaver King mid-2025 version of AFL-version? Is Wallace a top 10 prospect or a mid-30s prospect? Is Sam Peterson the real deal? Lots of fun questions for this roster. The day before this writing Made broke his leg (or something similarly bad) and went straight to the 60-day DL, opening up probably the last chance for DC-native Cortland Lawson to get a chance.

The bullpen, like AAA’s, features a growing collection of MLFAs and rule5 guys, including a few signed on the eve of the season and newly introduced to Nats fans when the rosters were revealed and we were like, “Uh, who is that guy?” Gaston? Van Scoyoc? Tebrake? Linarez?

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• High-A predicted: Randall, Garcia, Polanco, Linan, Sales
• High-A Actual: Bruni, Maddox, Randall, Tejeda, Sullivan

Rotation thoughts: From predictions, Garcia made AA, Linan got flipped, and Sales started the year on the 60-day DL, so that opened up some spots. Polanco seems like he’s the LR/SS, and Sullivan got promoted up a level from where I thought he’d be last fall. It’s great to see Tejeda keeping a spot and not getting pushed to the bullpen. It should be good to see what Maddox can do; he didn’t really pitch last year. Lastly, we have a guy in Bruni who got the opening day start who was not only just a reliever last year, but struggled. I wonder if he sticks in the rotation, or if he’s actually really in the rotation, or if someone else (Polanco?) was supposed to go opening day and got hurt last minute.

Interestingly, when i shook out all the rosters on opening day, there were half a dozen names missing who I figured were headed for release … instead, a big chunk of them were added to Wilmington a few days later and are on the DL to start. Biven, Arguellas, Collins, Sthele, Tepper, and Dugas are all in that same category … wouldn’t have been surprised to see any of them released, but instead they’re on the High-A DL.

Other roster thoughts: There were a couple of kind of surprising roster assignments when the High-A roster was announced. I’ll kind of go through them one by one:

• Hunter Hines made this team. Hines was a negligible bonus senior draftee in 2025 but not only made a full season squad but made High-A right out of the gate. Bravo there.
• Devin Fitz-Gerald straight to High-A; this was one way to fix the log-jam of high-end SS prospects in Low-A; send one of them up. Looks like he’ll move to 2B for Feliz.
• Also in High-A is Angel Feliz, as we suspected. Feliz likely splits time with Jorgelys Mota at 3B/DH if i’m reading the roster right.
• I wonder if Elijah Green is there to play, or for social promotion. We’ll soon see. He got the early starts in Center, and picked right up where he left off (4 ks in first 8 ABs). It got even worse: he had a 5-k game the day before this drops, giving him 11 Ks in his first 16 ABs. He’s only 22, so High-A isn’t a reach, but with a new regime not wedded to keeping mistakes of the past, one has to wonder if/when Green gets released.
• Marcus Brown popped up out of nowhere 2 days in; he wasn’t on the social media roster releases then suddenly was subbed into a game 2 games in.
• The Bullpen is super heavy on MLFAs and rule5 minor league phase guys: 6 of the 12 guys. I don’t think this Front Office was impressed with what they saw down on the farm in terms of arms. However its safe to say

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• Low-A predicted: Sullivan, Johnson, Agostini, Feliz, Farias
• Low-A actual: Portorreal, Hughes/Meckley, Sime/Lyon, Harmon/Beck, Fischer/Conradt

Rotation thoughts: My 2025 predictions were awful. Sullivan in High-A, Agostini and Farias were released, and Feliz is in XST. I was sort of surprised to see both our high-end bonus picks from 2025 (Harmon and Sime) here to start; the prior regime would have absolutely started them in XST and FCL. so, bravo to see them thrown to the wolves.

The first turn through the rotation looked like a ton of “tandem starting,” where two (or in some cases three) guys each go 3 innings/50 pitches. We’ll see how this shakes out; I’d guess the leaders in the clubhouse are Portorreal, Sime, Harmon, Johnson, and Lyon. But we’ll see.

Other roster thoughts: Well, if you’ve got half a dozen SS prospects who all need playing time, you do what Low-A is doing with them. Signed as SS but playing elsewhere early on includes Ronny Cruz (2B), Luke Dickerson (3b), Coy James (LF), and Gavin Fein (RF). Trade Acquisition SS Ramirez hurting for time early on. A good problem to have: good SS can move around.

Fredericksburg is suuuuper young. Half the lineup and two of the starting pitchers are teenagers.

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Who’s still in XST or missing?

Per the big board, which has been a bit challenging to keep up with this spring. there’s just a few names still hanging in XST purgatory.

• Jackson Ross, 1B 9th rounder from High-A last year.
• Brenner Cox, OF 4th rounder; career .177 BA who got squeezed out of the A rosters and may be done.
• Juan Abreu, a middle reliver from Low-A last year who’s without an assignment so far.
• 5-6 IFAs who clearly are headed to the DSL eventually, but there’s so many players listed there right now they’d overflow the XLS. I’d imagine we’re going to see at least 20 cuts from the DSL roster in the coming weeks.

One of these random files I have maintained since 2005 is a history of our Opening days. Now that we’ve had both our opening day on the road and our 2026 home Opener, here’s that data updated for 2026.

Home Opener Attendance and Weather through the years

The weather for 2026’s home opener was solid: 62 and partly cloudy is a heck of a lot better t han it has been in the past. 2011? 41, overcast, windy. 2022 a 4+ hour delay, 52 and rainy.

I think the best weather we ever had for a home opener may have been the infamous Philly invasion: 1pm 80-degree and sunny day. Too bad it was ruined by so many South Jersey bros who had been drinking for 3 hours by the time they got to the stadium.

• 2026: 41,161 (2:45 fri game, 62, partly cloudy)
• 2025: 41,231 (4:05 thurs game, 57, sunny, slight wind)
• 2024: 40,405 (4:05 tues game, 53, cloudy, slight wind)
• 2023: 35,756 (105 thurs game, 45 degrees and sunny)
• 2022: 35,052 (7:05 thurs game (pushed back from 4:05, then delayed to 8:21 weather. 52 degrees, cloudy, rainy)
• 2021: 4,801 (4:05 tuesday game, 74 degrees, partly cloudy, 5mph wind)
• 2020: 0 (7:09 thurs game, 90, partly cloudy, 7mph wind)
• 2019: 42,263 (1:07 thurs game, 56, partly cloudy, no wind)
• 2018: 42,477 (1:08 thurs game, 42, partly cloudy, slight wind)
• 2017: 42,744 (1:05 monday game, 66 and cloudy, slight wind)
• 2016: 41,650 (4:05 thursday game, 60 and 1.5hr rain delay)
• 2015: 42,295 (4:05 monday game, 75 and gorgeous)
• 2014: 42,834 (1:05 friday game, 50s and overcast)
• 2013: 45,274 (1:05 monday game, 60 and beautiful)
• 2012: 40,907 (1:05 thursday game 56, partly cloudy)
• 2011: 39,055 (1:05 thursday game, 41 degrees and overcast)
• 2010: 41,290 (1pm game monday, beautiful weather 80s and sunny): This was Phillies Invasaion
• 2009: 40,386 (3pm game on a monday, chilly 53degr and overcast).
• 2008: 39,389 (season and stadium opener), 8pm sunday night, Braves, nat’l tv clear but cold.
• 2007: 40,389 (in rfk, 1pm game vs Florida, 72 degrees
• 2006: 40,516 (in rfk, tuesday day game vs Mets, 72 degr and sunny)
• 2005: 45,596 (in rfk, debut of entire franchise, 62 degr and clear, evening game).

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Home opener Results and Box Scores

The Nats are just 6-16 all time through 2026 in their home openers, a pretty interesting stat given that for most of the 2010s they were one of the best teams in the sport.

• 2026: L Dodgers d Nats 13-6
• 2025: L Phillies d Nats 7-3
• 2024: L Pirates d Nats 8-4
• 2023: L Braves d Nats 7-2
• 2022: L Mets d Nats 5-1
• 2021: W Nats d Braves 6-5
• 2020: L Yankees d Nats 4-1
• 2019: L Mets d Nats 2-0
• 2018: L Mets d Nats 8-2
• 2017: W Nats d Marlins 4-2
• 2016: L Marlins d Nats 6-4
• 2015: L Mets d Nats 3-1
• 2014: L Braves d Nats 2-1
• 2013: W Nats d Marlins 2-0
• 2012: W Nats d Reds 2-0
• 2011: L Braves d Nats 2-0
• 2010: L Phillies d Nats 11-1
• 2009: L Phillies d Nats 9-8
• 2008: W Nats d Braves 3-2
• 2007: L Marlins d Nats 9-2
• 2006: L Mets d Nats 7-1
• 2005: W Nats d Diamondbacks 5-3

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Nats Season Openers.
We are slightly better in Season openers: Record: 9-13. We’ve been home 13 times, away 9 times.

• 2026: Away: Nats d Cubs 10-4. WP Lord, LP Boyd (Starters Cavalli, Boyd).
• 2025: Home: Phillies d Nats 7-3, WP Alvarado, LP Poche (Starters: MaKenzie, Wheeler)
• 2024: Away: Reds d Nats 8-2. WP: Montas. LP Grey (Starters: Grey, Montes).
• 2023: Home: Braves d Nationals 7-2. WP: Luetge, LP Corbin (starters: Fried, Corbin):
• 2022: Home: Mets d Nationals 5-1. WP: Megill, LP Corbin (starters same):
• 2021: Home: Nationals d Braves 6-5. WP: Hudson, LP Smith (starters Scherzer v Smyly):
• 2020: Home: Yankees d Nationals 4-1. WP: Cole, LP Scherzer (starters same):
• 2019: Home: Mets d Nationals 2-0. WP: deGrom, LP Scherzer (starters same):
• 2018: Away: Nats d Reds 2-0. WP Scherzer, LP Bailey (starters same):
• 2017: home: Nats d Marlins 4-2. WP Strasburg, LP Phelps (Starters Strasburg, Volquez):
• 2016: away: Nats d Braves 4-3. WP Treinen, LP O’Flarity (starters Scherzer, Teheran):
• 2015: home: Mets d Nats 3-1. WP: Bartolo Colon. LP: Max Scherzer
• 2014: away: Nats d Mets 9-7. WP Aaron Barrett, LP Familia (starters Strasburg, dillon Gee):
• 2013: home: Nats d Marlins 2-0. WP: Stephen Strasburg. LP: Ricky Nolasco.
• 2012: away: Nats d Cubs 2-1. WP Clippard, LP Marmol (starters: Strasburg and Ryan Dempster):
• 2011: home: Braves d Nats 2-0. WP: Derek Lowe. LP: Livan Hernandez.
• 2010: home: Phillies d Nats 11-1. WP: Roy Halladay. LP: John Lannan
• 2009: away: Marlins d Nats 12-6. WP: Nolasco, LP; Lannan
• 2008: home: Nats d Braves 3-2. WP: Rauch. LP: Moylan (Starters: Tim Hudson and Odalis Perez)
• 2007: home: Marlins d Nats 9-2. WP: Dontrelle Willis. LP: John Patterson
• 2006: away: Mets d Nats 3-2. WP: Glavine, LP: Hernandez.
• 2005: away: Phillies d Nats 8-4. WP: Lieber, LP: Hernandez.

Now that the 2026 Opening Day is past us, and I’ve updated my internal spreadsheet that tracks Opening Day starters over the years, which lets me bring you the following useless Trivia realted to Opening Day starters.

Here’s a link to my Opening day starter xls, which is also updated along the right hand side in the Links section. It is also worth noting that Baseball Reference of course maintains similar information. Here for example is the canonical opening day list of lineups (pitchers and players) for the Washington Nationals franchise. And here’s the list of all 30 teams’ opening day lineups for the 2025 season, with similar data for all past seasons). I can’t quite find a similar resource to just the starters across all 30 teams, but I’m sure it’s there somewhere, so I continue to maintain this XLS and the streak/trivia information.

Ok, that being said, here’s some useless trivia related to Opening Day Starters:

• First time Opening Day Starters for 20262: 13 of the 30 teams used first-time starters this year. That’s in line with the past few years (12 in 2025, 14 in 2024) and continues the trend of overall churn in starting pitching in the sport.
• Current Active Leader of Opening Day Starts: this remains the ageless Richmond-native Justin Verlander, with 12. He did 9 in Detroit, then another 3 in Houston. Clayton Kershaw was #2 but has now retired. Tied for 2nd now is Chris Sale (who extended his streak this year with Atlanta) and our former Ace Max Scherzer (who will slot into the back-end of Toronto’s rotation as he chases one more ring).
• Current Active Consecutive streak: Logan Webb, who made his 5th straight for San Francisco and was quickly bombed by the powerful Yankees lineup on the Netflix day before the real opening day nonsense that broke a ton of traditions.
• Current Leader of Consecutive Opening Day Starts: Verlander made 7 straight with Detroit; Webb is creeping up on him, and we have a slew of guys who just made their 3rd or 4th straight opening day starts … including Detroit’s Tarik Skubal, who seems like a great candidate to push for this record if/when he joins a new team.

Historical records:

• Most Opening Day Starts in History: Tom Seaver (16).  Tied for 2nd place with 14 is Jack Morris, Randy Johnson, Steve Carlton, Walter Johnson
• Most Consecutive Opening Day Starts in History: Jack Morris; all 14 of his starts were in a row, Mr. Durability, and Mr. Hall of Famer thanks to the Veteran’s committee.

Nats Records:

• Max Scherzer is the Nats franchise leader in Opening day starts with 6. Do you think he’ll go into the Hall of Fame wearing a Nats hat? I tend to think so; he elevated himself to HoFame levels during his time in Washington.
• Strasburg is 2nd with four: he took the ball opening day in the 3 seasons before the Scherzer acquisition, then got it in 2017 mid Scherzer contract. Reminder: $35M of the Nats $92M opening payroll is going to Strasburg, who will get another $35M next year too in what may be the worst free agency contract ever handed out.
• Cade Cavalli becomes the 10th player in the Nats 22 year history to take the ball on opening day.
• Odalis Perez remains the most unlikely Opening Day starter, getting the ball in our bottoming-out year of 2008.

Lastly, here’s some interesting team observations for 2025’s Opening day Starters

• Cavalli is the 4th straight different Opening day starter we’ve had, not really a surprise to Nats fans who are watching the second straight reboot of the franchise. Cavalli seems likely to lead the line again though, since his competitors have either been traded (Gore) or are injured again (Grey) and our top starter prospects remain lower in the minors or hurt.
• Some teams have consistency, others are just all over the road. Cincinnati threw Virginia-born Andrew Abbot; he’s their 11th different opening day starter in 12 years.
• Other teams who can’t find a consistent ace: Tampa Bay (8 different guys in last 9 years),
• Texas had a crazy run where they used 15 different starters in the 16 years running from 2009 to 2024, but have now thrown Eovaldi 3 years’ running.

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