Nationals Arm Race

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.

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.

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 the last 2 remaining “big pundits” in the space released their top 30 today, as Sam Dykstra, Jim Callis, and Jonathan Mayo put pen to paper and released our Nats top 30 list.

Links to past major pundits include: Keith Law, Baseball America, Prospects1500. Others just do top 10s or are behind firewalls. One last big one remains: Fangraphs, who is churning them out now team by team.

Here’s the top 30 in tabular format

MLBPipeline rank	First Name	Last Name	Position
1	Eli	Willits	SS
2	Travis	Sykora	RHP (Starter)
3	Harry	Ford	C
4	Jarlin	Susana	RHP (Starter)
5	Gavin	Fein	SS
6	Luis	Perales	RHP (Starter)
7	Seaver	King	SS
8	Luke	Dickerson	SS/CF
9	Devin	Fitz-Gerald	SS
10	Landon	Harmon	RHP (Starter)
11	Alex	Clemmey	LHP (Starter)
12	Ethan	Petry	1B/OF (Corner)
13	Yoel	Tejeda Jr.	RHP (Starter)
14	Jackson	Kent	LHP (Starter)
15	Alejandro	Rosario	RHP
16	Miguel	Sime Jr.	RHP (Starter)
17	Coy	James	SS
18	Christian	Franklin	OF (CF)
19	Andrew	Pinckney	OF (Corner)
20	Yeremy	Cabrera	OF (corner)
21	Marconi	German	SS
22	Sam	Peterson	OF (CF)
23	Angel	Feliz	SS/3B
24	Abimelec	Ortiz	1B/OF (Corner)
25	Ronny	Cruz	SS
26	Eriq	Swan	RHP (Starter)
27	Sean Paul	Linan	RHP (Starter)
28	Caleb	Lomavita	C
29	Yohandy	Morales	3B
30	Nauris	De La Cruz	OF (Corner)

Thoughts.

• We seem to have settled on a “Big 5” in the system, with nearly every pundit having the same 5 guys at the top in some order. Willits has separated himself as #1.
• This is the highest i’ve seen Sykora kept with his TJ surgery amongst rating systems, which implies that he’d be #1 over Willits if he was healthy. That’s probably not saying anything ground breaking.
• The next 4 guys: all trade bounty. Our entire top 20 now is Draft or Trade acquisitions; you have to go down to #21 to find the first IFA in German Marconi. Hopefully the new regime has a plan to return our relatively disastrous IFA system into something that generates talent.
• They have King and Dickerson 7 and 8. I think that’s still high for both, but its inline with where others have them. I understand the narrative, especially surrounding King, but Dickerson didn’t have the benefit of an AFL season where he raked to remind people of his potential.
• Remember what I said previously about ranking Prep RHP with big bonuses? Harmon: #10. Yup, right where I said he’d be.
• They’re a little low on Clemmey … he’s 2 years out of HS, and spent those two years moving up 3 levels of the minor leagues. Why would anyone rank him below a kid we just drafted who’s pitched exactly zero pro innings? Remember; had he gone to college Clemmey would be a College Junior right now just starting his draft-year season … for us he’ll be the opening day starter in AA where he’s already got a month of experience.
• Just like Keith Law, they’re incredibly high on Tejeda, ranking him #13. wow. Reading his scouting report, they’re putting the 6’8″ starter at mid 90s, which plays up with his height, with 2 decent secondary pitches and a 60 grade on his slider. They say 4th or 5th starter ceiling. Can’t wait to see what he does in 2026.
• They’re also pretty high on Jackson Kent, noting his 18 K/BB ratio but only giving him a 50 for his control (weird). Another guy who’ll be in AA in 2026. Can’t wait to see this crew run through Richmond (June 9th-14th) to get a look at some of them.
• Ironic they have Franklin and Pinckney ranked right next to each other: they’re basically the same prospect at this point. AAA Outfielders with some pop.
• They’re not fans of Sam Peterson, top 10 on other lists but at #22 here. They say 4th OF.
• Lomavita all the way down at #28; that seems way too low. Then again, Law didn’t have him in his top 20 nor in his Honorable Mentions, so maybe the shine is off of him, especially since Ford is now the heir-apparent
• Morales gets dumped even further; man this guy is just not respected by these shops for getting to AAA at age 23 and holding his own.

Outside the top 30 guys include

• Any 2026 IFA signing
• Kevin Bazzell; he’ll need a productive season to get back
• Sir Jamison Jones; Law loves him at #14
• Jorgelys Mota; maybe a solid High-A season will help.

Nobody else of note: MLBpipeline does a pretty conservative list.

The next big pundit to drop his Nats prospect rankings hit today, as the Athletic’s Keith Law released his NL East teams, including a top 20 for Washington this morning.

As far as major pundits go: we’ve now gotten (links open to my analysis here if done) Keith Law, Baseball America, Prospects1500, Prospects361 (just a top 10 back in November), Baseball Prospectus (paywall), and ProspectsLive (mostly paywall protected) released. Still waiting for MLBpipeline, hopefully more than just a top 10 from ESPN/McDaniel, and the Fangraphs guys (who wait til June usually). Once we get the MLB and larger ESPN links, I’ll re-release my own rankings, which I put out a draft of at the end of 2025.

Law is known to be a bit contrarian in his farm system and prospect rankings; so far his system rankings are showing at least 4-5 outliers as compared to the rest of the field (including his ranking the Nats 6th overall, when most other pundits so far have us middle of the road in the 15-16 range). I think these outliers result in his methodology, which has him “start over” on prospects every year and he tries not to let previous years color his evaluations. I suspect this leads him to over- and under- evaluation of players who had one-off seasons one way or the other. We’ll see how that plays out during the analysis.

So, with that in mind, here’s his top 20 for the Nats.

Current Rank	First Name	Last Name	Position
1	Eli	Willits	SS
2	Gavin	Fein	SS
3	Seaver	King	SS
4	Travis	Sykora	RHP (Starter)
5	Harry	Ford	C
6	Jarlin	Susana	RHP (Starter)
7	Luke	Dickerson	SS/CF
8	Sam	Peterson	OF (CF)
9	Luis	Perales	RHP (Starter)
10	Alex	Clemmey	LHP (Starter)
11	Landon	Harmon	RHP (Starter)
12	Devin	Fitz-Gerald	SS
13	Ethan	Petry	1B/OF (Corner)
14	Sir Jamison	Jones	C
15	Yoel	Tejeda Jr.	RHP (Starter)
16	Abimelec	Ortiz	1B/OF (Corner)
17	Coy	James	SS
18	Yeremy	Cabrera	OF (corner)
19	Sean Paul	Linan	RHP (Starter)
20	Caleb	Lomavita	C
21	Kevin	Bazzell	C
22	Miguel	Sime Jr.	RHP (Starter)
23	Alejandro	Rosario	RHP
24	Christian	Franklin	OF (CF)

Here’s some thoughts going top to bottom.

• He may be contrarian, but he’s not THAT contrarian, keeping Willits at #1.
• Fien comes in at #2, in a bit of a surprise. He called Fien “the best HS hitter in the 2025 draft” and has high hopes. So do we, Keith, so do we. The more I look at the Gore trade, the more it looks like Gore for Fien plus a bunch of lottery tickets.
• King all the way at #3. Easily the high mark for King this cycle. Law had King #2 this time last year, so he’s always liked him. He mentioned the “conflicting advice” King got last year as the reason behind his hitting troubles, something we’ve heard from multiple sources and something that Law attributes to several inexplicable hitting performances for King, Bazzell, and Dickerson last year. He was very bullish on King’s AFL performance, and also reminds us just how good he is defensively.
• Sykora, Ford, Susana come in 4-5-6 whereas most of the shops we’ve seen have them ranked 2-3-4. Fair enough. Law has never been a fan of “100mph guy who walks 4 per nine” and that describes Susana (and Perales) to a T.
• Peterson at #8, another high mark for the prospect. If we can turn an 8th rounder into a MLB regular, that’s a huge farm system win.
• Something else Law doesn’t like is weird pitching mechanics, which explains why Clemmey is down at #10 when he’s mostly in the 5-6 range elsewhere.
• He has 100mph capable Landon Harmon at #11, which is amazing considering where he lands on every other ranking right now (11-11-13-9-10-11-7-10-10-10-11-6-10-13 since drafted). It’s almost like the entire industry says, “Ok … prep RHP who throws 100mph at age 18 … got a huge bonus … he could be Justin Verlander or he could be … um… one of 1000 prep RHPs who never get out of low-A. Lets rank him #10.” Guess where I ranked him last Fall? #10! Where am I gonna rank him in a couple weeks? #10! Ok, Maybe.
• He’s got Fitz-Gerald a bit lower than others, probably b/c he’s a bit undersized and has 2B ceiling all over him.
• He’s super high on Sir Jamison Jones at #14, kind of a forgotten prep draftee from 2024 who took a bit more than the $150k min to sign surprisingly. Hey, if Law’s right here, all the better.
• Also super high on Tejeda, kind of a RHP slinger who couldn’t get into the weekend rotation at Florida State but who pitched a-OK in low A for us.
• I like that he recognizes the MLB playing potential for Abimelec Ortiz, who BA didn’t even have in their top 30. This guy could be in our MLB opening day lineup at 1B.
• He had interesting comments on both Linan and Swan, the two arms we got for Alex Call out of the Dodgers’ stacked farm system. He still ranks Linan #19 but lists his ceiling as a “trick-pitch reliever.” Not promising. He describes Swan as having a “golden arm who can’t throw strikes or miss bats,” another indictment.
• The list is bottomed up by Lomavita, who is #20 here but mostly in the upper teens elsewhere. Not a flattering look at his receiving.

He lists a few Honorable mentions that i’ve ranked “21-24: Bazzell, Sime, Rosario, and Franklin.

Who’s he missing?

• The highest likely player he doesn’t rank that others routinely have in their top 20s is Angel Feliz. Could be b/c Law didn’t spend a ton of time in the FCL and wasn’t impressed with his 2 months in Low-A.
• He seems almost unfairly down on Yohandy Morales … who he says has too much swing and miss as a 23-yr old in AAA. Yeah, a 23-yr old in AAA. Not a 26-yr old in AAA. Lots of 2023 draftees are still in A ball, not starting in AAA a full season. Should be higher.
• Perhaps that’s also why Andrew Pinckney is nowhere to be found; anything you can say about Morales you can probably say about Pinckney right now too.
• Not too many others that he left out: Jackson Kent maybe in the edges of his top 20. No Phillip Glasser, he with the NRI now for 2026 spring training. No recognition of Cornelio’s 2025 season. But we’re now nitpicking, because its likely most of these guys would be in his 21-30 range.

It was just a couple weeks ago (January 9th to be exact) when Baseball America released its top 30 list for the Nats system. I reviewed it then in depth, as the first major pundit to release a top 30 rankings for our system.

So much has happened since that they had to update it.

Between the IFA signing period (where we spread around our $6M plus bonus pool on several highly-regarded prospects) and the Mackenzie Gore trade (which netted us five guys, four of which are now in our top 30), our top 30 now looks a bit different. Here’s where our new acquisitions slot into BA’s list, and who they pushed out at the bottom:

• New #5: Fien, Gavin, the star of the Gore trade. The $4.8M first round SS from last year will compete with our own $8.2M first round SS Willits for playing time in Fredericksburg this year. Though his size likely puts him immediately at 3B.
• New #9: Fitz-Gerald, Devin, the $900k 2024 SS will … also compete for playing time in Low-A this year.
• New #16: Rosario, Alejandro, the RHP pitcher who just had TJ and won’t pitch until spring 2027 at best.
• New #22: Cabrera, Yeremy*, the speedy 20-yr old CF with 43 steals last season.
• New #23: Serrano, Samil*, the headliner of our 2026 IFA class.

These 5 guys pushed down the formerly 26-30th ranked players:

• New #31: Alvarez, Andrew*, the under the radar lefty control arm who pitched really well in SSS last year in the majors.
• New #32: Glasser, Phillip*, our ML hitter of the year who got a NRI this season but who faces an uphill challenge for playing time.
• New #33: De La Cruz, Nauris, who signed for a pittance in the 2025 IFA class but who bashed the DSL last year.
• New #34: Cortesia, Brayan, who signed for a massive amount in the 2025 IFA class and who is higher on a lot of lists right now.
• New #35: McGarry, Griff, our Rule-5 pick whose pathway to being in the rotation just eased with the Gore trade.

Also newly acquired this month and presumably in the mix in this 30-40 range right now: our three other 7-figure signings from the 2026 IFA class (Suarez, Isalas, Ramirez, Angel#, and Duran, Juan) and the 5th prospect in the Gore trade Ortiz, Abimelec*, who sits 24th on MLBPipeline’s rankings right now and who might have an inside track to the starting 1B job in 2026.

I may have been critical of the Gore trade initially, but there’s a reason pundits mostly across the board liked it. These pundits may be overlooking the risk of the former Texas prospects, but the moves certainly strengthen the overall farm.

Now that we’re at the end of January, we should get ready for a ton of prospect content to come out soon. The next month should give us Keith Law, MLBPipeline, and Kiley McDaniel’s rankings. The last major pundit out there (Fangraphs/Longenhagen) has been pushing his ranks into the summer lately.