Nationals Arm Race

The last of the major pundits (that i’m waiting for, ahem Fangraphs) has dropped their Nats prospect rankings for the new season. Here’s a review of the MLBPipeline Nats top 30, done by MLB’s scouting pundits Jim Callis, Jonathan Mayo, and Sam Dykstra.

Here’s a list of all the ranking lists i’m aware of and/or have reviewed this spring so far, in order of their release (and if I reviewed them, a link to that recap):

• Baseball America top 10 preliminary list for 2024 11/6/23 (NAR recap)
• Prospects361/Rich Wilson top 10 11/24/23 (NAR recap)
• MLBpipeline 12/7/23 post rule5/pre fully analysis (now redirects to updated top 30)
• Talk Nats/Stephen Mears top 30 for 2024 1/28/24 (NAR Recap)
• Baseball America top 30 2024 1/24/24 (NAR Recap)
• cbssports/Anderson top 3 prospects fy2024 1/29/24
• Baseball Prospectus 2024 top 10 1/31/24 (NAR recap)
• Prospects1500 top 50 for 2024 1/31/24 (NAR recap)
• Kiley McDaniel/ESPN Nats top 22 2/1/24 (NAR recap)
• Keith Law/the Athletic Nats top 20 2/15/24 (NAR recap)
• MLB pipeline (Callis, Mayo, Sykora) Nats top 30 3/4/24 (NAR Recap: this post)

Lastly, here’s a link to my Nationals Prospect Tracking XLS, which has all the above ranks, along with more than 230 historical rankings dating back to the very first Baseball America ranking in January of 2005 for the franchise just after moving here.

On with the review of MLB Pipeline. Here’s their top 30 in tabular format:

And here’s some thoughts.

• This is probably the list that I most agree with so far. When I put this top 30 end to end against my list (which will be forthcoming soon) it’s pretty amazing how well it lines up.
• Same Top 4 as nearly everyone else.
• Morales seems to be settling in as the near consensus #5 prospect in the system.
• I can’t argue with the set of players ranked 6th to 9th, all of whom are Center fielders. Green above Lile and Hassell kind of ignores his 2023 struggles a bit; I have him below Lile/Hassell. Vaquero at #9 seems pretty consistent; nearly every other pundit has him in the 7-9 range.
• Comment on Lile: man I hope he’s ok and doesn’t have any long term damage.
• Susana and Sykora 10-11: so now we’re starting to see a bit of the methodology that MLBPipeline adheres to; they’re a little heavy on ceiling and potential. This is probably why Green is higher than his actual on-field performance earns him right now. I like Susana and Sykora, but they’re both 19yrs old with mostly big fastballs and shiny scores on a scouting report.
• The two 2024 IFAs come in: Hurtado at #13 and Feliz at #24. I think Hurtado is a bit high at 13, but a couple others had him in that range, so it isn’t egregious.
• I’m a little higher on Young and Nunez than they are, but again its within the mid-teen range and splitting hairs to criticize that they’re ranked 18 and 19 instead of 13 and 14.
• Brzycky at #21? Don’t get that one. An injured reliever ahead of a 40-man starter in Parker?
• Kevin Made at #23 shows the drastic variations of opinion: they’re right in line with what BA said, but echelons below what guys like Law and McDaniel said.
• Henry at #25 is pretty much low man amongst the professional pundits. Ghost had him at #30 for reasons he explained post review. They are not bullish on his return from TOS.
• Can’t really complain about anyone in the 25-30 range.
• TJ White is their biggest faller from last year, as noted in the writeup.

biggest misses?

• Andry Lara; outside top 30. I’m not sure i agree with that, even with as much as I’ve criticized his placement.
• Quintana out of top 30; not egregious, just noting that most shops have him in the 19-20 range.

I’m a big Keith Law fan, always have been. But sometimes he zigs when others zag, and I feel like this year’s Nats list is in that category. HIs methodology is not quite as big a focus on the “ceiling” of a prospect, but it creeps in. He really discounts DSL Guys until they show up domestically, and if someone’s ceiling is middle infielder/4th outfielder/middle reliever … they’re not a prospect in his eyes.

Law is the 2nd to last “major pundit” to drop his list. Once the MLBpipeline guys (Callis & Mayo et al) drop their updated ranks, I’ll post my list and declare victory for the season.

Without further ado, here’s Law’s top 20 list, behind a paywall at the Athletic but I subscribe and I find it to be the best value for the money on the internet.

Ok, lets go through it.

• Same top 4 as practically everyone else. Note: we’ve been discussing in the comments what really makes a rookie and have gone through some interesting scenarios. For me. service time manipulation or roster moves that burn their clock but don’t give ABs or IPs don’t count. So i’ll be including specifically Cade Cavalli and Israel Pineda in my list, and even though a commenter pointed out there’s now others technically eligible i’m not sure who else is worth mentioning.
• Lile at #5. As in, the next big guy in our entire system after the top 4 guys who all seem to be near-guarantees. McDaniel, Law, and the 1500 guys all have Lile in the 5-6 range. After much discussion and further analysis, i’m coming around to the opinion that LIle and Hassell are basically the same. I now have them side-by-side in my rankings, having elevated LIle a number of spots from where I started. Do I think Lile is the 5th best prospect in the system? Well, no but he’s close, and having him #5 and Morales #6 versus the other way around is splitting hairs.
• Law is absolute high-man on Kevin Made, having him all the way at #9. By way of comparison, BA had him at #24, in the range of guys who are “lucky if they get to AA.” In his writeup, Law thinks Made is a 12-15 homer guy in the majors who could stick at short and be a regular. Wow. Yeah that is a top 10 guy. I guess we’re all forgetting just how young he has been (20 in highA).
• Sykora to #10, very high on both him and Susana at #11. All Ceiling. It’s easy to dream on 18yr old live arms. After all our (lack of) success with these guys, its tough to get excited. I guess I have to remind myself that Sykora got a 1st round bonus, and If we had draftee him in the 1st round like we did Giolito … we’d be much higher on him.
• He has Green all the way down to #12. Law’s take on this ranking was interesting: he says Green is perhaps the best example in all of the minors of a player who is too good for complex ball, but not yet ready for LowA, and is being developmentally crushed by the loss of Short-A. I agree. It really amazes me that the sport in general fails to see the value of Short-A ball, or even another 10 rounds of a draft to fill that team. Just look at the ridiculous number of arms that poured into our Low-A team last year; I have 12 guys listed as “Starters” and another 9 listed as “Long Relievers.” 12 starters! There’s no where near enough innings to go around to try to develop 12 guys at starters. Gee, wouldn’t it be great if there was another low-A level league where you could send the lesser 6 of those starters so they could pitch every five days? So dumb.
• Cole Henry at #15. What piqued my interest in Law’s write up was this simple line: “his stuff was all the way back” after TOS surgery. But he also said that a guy like Henry is too brittle to start, but could be an awesome reliever (97-100 with two 55 pitches). That’s a drop-dead game ender, and hey, if the guy can’t stay healthy then at least we can use him.
• Quintana at #19: one of the few who rates this guy. BA and McDaniel didn’t even rank him. What do we have with him at this point? He’s only 21 and seems set to go to HighA, but he’s a corner OF limited guy who has to hit for power to earn a promotion … and that’s gonna be hard in Wilmington.
• Saenz at #20. Yes! Finally someone ranks this guy. He has been completely absent from every prospect ranking this entire spring, even the Prospect 1500 guys who go 50 deep. Why? He’s a 4th round pick, was 24 in AA last year posting a 3.43 era/1.18 whip in 25 games/23 starts. Uh, yeah, sign me up. Those were significantly better numbers than Parker (who is also a lefty), who got a 40-man roster spot out of his performance. Saenz should be going to AAA, doesn’t turn 25 until June … why is he not a prospect? Maybe its smoke and mirrors, with lesser stuff, but he’s solved every level he’s been presented with so far.

Law then mentions four guys as noteworthy, but there’s no way they’re ranked 21-24. Young, Lara, Infante, and Brown. I think it was more notes out of his many visits to see the Nats play in Wilmington, which is right around the corner from where he lives in Delaware.

So, who’d he miss?

• No mention of our two 2024 IFAs Hurtado or Felix. Not surprising.
• No Love for Lipscomb, but that’s really splitting hairs if he’s not in the top 20 but is in his top 25.
• Nothing on Nasim Nunez. Law’s methodology definitely under-rates role players like backup infielders, 4th outfielders, middle relievers, etc.
• Nothing for De La Rosa, who is as high as #13 on other lists.

I’ve buried the lede for this analysis in the title, but there’s no other way to say it. Kiley McDaniel has always been more focused on ceiling than floor in his prospect ranks, and that comes out pretty true in his list of 20-some odd Nats prospects for 2024.

We’re still waiting for two other major pundits to drop (MLBPipeline and Fangraphs) and a couple of lesser known ones (Bleacher Report if they do it, Prospects Live, and Prospect Digest) before I reveal my top 50. Also, BA added another 10 to their top 40 list, and they had some real interesting names get tacked on that i’ll mention in my eventual top 50.

Lets get right into it:

And some thoughts.

• Ok, Crews-Wood-House at the top. Like everyone else.
• Uh, where the hell is Cade Cavalli? McDaniel lists him as a 2023 prominent graduate … um, Kiley, the dude didn’t pitch in 2023. At all. And 60-day DL doesn’t count towards rookie eligibility. This is not a slight omission; it’s also drastically impacted where he ranked the entire Nats system (probably costing them 4-5 spots based on the loss of Cavalli’s future surplus value in his ranking system). It seems odd to make such a major mistake on a prospect who was clearly a top 100 guy a year ago before TJ.
• Green at #4: told you he’s focused on Ceiling and not actuals. There’s some legitimate concern out there about Green and I’m not sure i’d have him at #4 overtop of the next set of names, but that’s the methodology of McDaniel. By way of comparison, he has Green HIGHER this year than he did last year despite the ridiculous K/9 rates he put up in Low-A. Wow.
• Susana at #5. I mean, the only way i’d rank Susana #5 is if someone told me he was going to rise two levels this year and keep his ERA under 3.00. What evidence is there based on his performance so far that he’s projecting to be anything but a fire-balling 2-pitch reliever?
• Lile at #6: I’m on record saying he’s overrated in some rankings already; how can you possibly put Lile above Hassell??
• New signing Victor Hurtado at #9. Phew. That’s pretty bullish on a 16yr old who has yet to play an inning. I mean, that’s higher th an $4.9M signing Vaquero, who at least has made it to the states and got double the bonus money.
• Cole Henry at #10. I like Henry, and I want him to be the #2 starter ceiling that he was looking like when he raced up the system. But he’s an orchid. TOS is hard to come back from. I know we just saw reports he was healthy and throwing … i’ll believe it when i see it.
• De La Rosa at #13. Ridiculous. .240/.324/.361 with 129 Ks in 93 games in High-A, which he was repeating from the previous year as a 22yr old. He’s at least 10 spots too high here. Who would you rather have, right now? 22yr old DLR or 23yr old Pinckney?
• Kevin Made at #14, also too high. He better be the 2nd coming of Ozzie Smith to rate this high based on how weak his bat is.
• Rutledge all the way down at #18. That’s below Sykora (who’s yet to throw a pitch) and below Henry (who might be finished as a player). I mean, yeah i get it, he projects as a 5th starter right now and didn’t exactly light things up when he arrived, but he’s also a 1st rounder who rose 3 levels in 2023. Did they forget what made him a 1st rounder?
• The back end of his list all seems to be pushed down like 6-8 spots lower than I’d have them, but nothing egregious.

Who’s missing?

• No Angel Feliz, 2024 IFA $1.7M signing. Surprising given how much he likes ceiling.
• No Armando Cruz, $3.9M signing in 2021. The shine is off of Cruz.
• No love for Mitchell Parker, who just continues to get results year after year. Maybe one day we’ll be watching Parker sling up lefty pitches like Tom Glavine and we’ll be like, “oh well he doesn’t throw 95 so he’s still not a prospect.”
• Interestingly, left out Andry Lara. Lara is all about the Ceiling. McDaniel had him ranked #9 last year!
• TJ White: nowhere to be found after nearly being a top 10 guy last year. Why ding White for his 2023 performance but not Green?
• Alex Call and Brenner Cox were in the mid teens last year. Not really advocating that they should have been included (Call exhausted his rookie eligibility), just noting that this is the folly of depending entirely on ceiling/future value.

I always look forward to Prospects1500 and their team’s rankings each year, because they go deeper than anyone else. Some places only rank our top 10; that’s not really that hard, especially when the first four are basically the same in every publication and there’s not a ton of argument mostly about the rest of our top 10 right now. Most major shops stop at 30 (then may throw in a few “honorable mentions” or “just misseds”), which is much more difficult. Prospects 1500 go 50 deep. So its great to see who they’re throwing into the 40s. Even if I disagree with them.

Here’s the 2024 Prospects 1500 list:

Now, here’s some commentary.

• Same 1-4 as everyone else, in the same order. Nothing crazy about having Morales at #5 either.
• Daylen Lile at #6. That’s too high. Yes, Lile’s numbers fell off when he got to the big stadium in Wilmington, but his profile already means he’s not going to hit for power. He’s 5’11”, 195, a lefty hitting outfielder who BA thinks is going to struggle to stay in CF. Uh, if he’s not in CF, where you can make up for a lack of offense with dazzling defensive skills, then he’s gotta mash to occupy a corner OF spot. He’s listed as a 50 runner and a 50 fielder, and he had 21 SBs in 66 low-A games (but curiously just 2 SBs in 40 High-A games). So, he’s an undersized lefty hitting CF who won’t be ahead of at least 6 other CFs in the system (Crews, Wood, Young, Green, Hassell, Vaquero). Why is he #6? I’m surprised he’s in the top 15. I hope i’m wrong and he turns into Jacoby Ellisbury.
• They’re low on Hassell, putting him at #9. See, this is problematic to me. Hassell was the #2 prospect entering our system when he got traded, broke his hamate bone after finishing 2022 in AA at the same age where Lile is now. He’s got better tools across the board, can play CF, but didn’t even debut in 2023 until May, so basically you have to caveat a big chunk of his 2023 season at the plate. Yet he’s 9th and Lile is 6th? Doesn’t make sense.
• Susana at #10, which is in line with other shops but high for me. What’s he done except his 103 on the radar gun? Can’t teach velocity, but so far the risk on this guy seems to outweigh the rewards, and the value of a 9th inning guy with massive walk rats and a 103 mph isn’t that high.
• Cole Henry at #15. Huge variation on this guy so far: Ghost had him at #30, BA at #23, MLBPIpeline at #18 last December, which seemingly took into account his awful post-TOS surgery 2023 performance. Still, having this guy at #15 laughably puts him ahead of Rutledge, who’s a) healthy, b) has done well in AAA, and c) has made his MLB debut. If Henry had had TJ, that’s one thing. TOS is another, and this is too high.
• Speaking of, Rutledge at #17 is too low. I’m just not sure why you’d ding a guy like Rutledge after what he did in 2023. If i told you we had a pitcher who missed a year of development and in his age 24 season put up a AA line of 6-1, 3.16 ERA, 1.10 whip with 62/25 k/bb in 68IP you’d be like, wow that’s awesome. Well, that’s what Rutledge did before doing 11 so-so starts in AAA and getting roughed up in the MLB. That’s better than #17 prospect, and there’s no way he should be behind any of the 5 arms immediately above him (Henry, Herz, Sykora, Bennett, or Susana). Remember; the entire point of being a prospect is … what? To get to the major leagues. Rutledge has.
• Kevin Made at #18. Way too high. We know he’s glove-first, defined by BA as a “double plus defender.” That’s great; he’s also go grade 40 hit and power tools. That’s … that’s not good, Bob. After we acquired him he slashed just .137/.232/.192. I guess someone has to bat 9th. But is his defense good enough to account? I don’t think so, not right now, and he shouldn’t be in the top 20. We no longer live in the 1970s when “good field no hit” short stops were accepted. Today, SSs have to hit.
• I’m way lower on De La Rosa than they are at #19, but it’s a little splitting hairs when you get to the 20-30 range. At least the Nats didn’t put him on the 40-man this off-season.
• Young at #21. I get it: prospect ranking is some potential, some actual. Young is entirely actual right now. As in, he ACTUALLY might be our starting CF in 2024. At age 24. So … why would you have him ranked below someone like Andrew Pinckney, who’s a year younger and who basically only got to High-A this year? Is Pinckney more likely to blow up and rise 3 levels like Young did this year? I think, like with Rutledge, you have to balance what they’ve accomplished versus what they could accomplish properly.
• Pineda comes in at #27 … and they don’t even rank Millas in the top 50. I wonder if that’s a cut and past error, and they actually mean to rank Millas #27 and not rank Pineda. Just after this list came out, Pineda got DFA’d, cleared waivers, and was outrighted to AAA. So he’s still around, likely going back to AA. Either way, I think (as explained in other posts) that Millas is the more polished, MLB-ready catcher right now even if Pineda is 3 years younger.
• Cronin at #30. Way too high. A reliever who’s already been outrighted off 40-man and who had a 5 ERA in 2023? He’s not even in my top 50. Relievers aren’t prospects unless they’re a-ma-zing.
• They list Ferrer at #32 despite his exhausting rookie eligibility by the end of 2023. I made the same mistake earlier this off-season until i did some schedule arithmetic.

So, now we’re in the 30-40 range, which really is a deep dive into the marginal prospects in our system. By and large, nearly everyone they have from 33-40 I also have in my list, but I gnerally have them 10 spots lower into the 40s. A couple of comments though:

• Aldo Ramirez: First time we’ve mentioned his name this off season. Talk about a mess of a career: missed 2020 with Covid, then missed the second half of 2021 with elbow tendinitis. Then he couldn’t answer the bell for 2022 so the sat in XST, and when it came time in June to get assigned to the complex league it turned out he had a blown UCL. TJ surgery, all of 2022 out, not even thinking about playing until mid 2023 … and he never made it onto the field. So out of the last FIVE seasons, he’s pitched for exactly 1.5 of them. When we acquired him (July 2021) he was back half of our top 10; this was a significant prospect. Now? who knows.
• Tyler Schoff. Ranked #35. I honestly had to look him up to see who the heck he was; he was a 8th/9th inning guy in AA who got promoted at the end of the season to AAA. Wow. #35. Maybe this is for Fantasy players looking to keep an eye on saves in the future. But then where’s Willingham? Willingham actually made it to the majors and had far better minor league numbers than Schoff despite being the same age. Make that make sense.

Now we’re into the 40-50 range, and i’ll just say this: instead of picking domestic players who have actually accomplished something, nearly their entire 40-50 is IFAs who have yet to get out of the DSL. Six of the ten guys ranked 40-50 were 2023 Jan 2nd signings last year, who mostly were awful for an awful 2023 DSL team. So, in that respect, I disagree with most of the guys in the 40-50 range and they’re just ranking them based on signing bonuses.

So, who are they missing?

• Millas, as noted above
• Willingham as noted above.
• They didn’t get either of our 2023 big-money signings Hurtado or Felix … I mean, if you have a guy who got $1.3M who hit .130 then you have to rank a guy who got $2.8M but who hasn’t played yet.
• They chose to rank a bunch of 17yr old DSL kids instead of domestic players in the high-A to AA range, guys like Frizzell, Saenz, Boissiere, or Shuman.
• They ranked Relievers Cronin, Ferrer, and Schoff … but not Brzycky, who destroyed minor league hitters in 2022 before getting TJ and missing 2023. Ok.
• No room in the entire top 50 for our minor league pitcher of the year Andrew Alvarez, but enough room for least three DSL kids who signed for like $5k in Marcuto, Tavarez, and Liriano.
• Not for nothing, Lucas Knowles may not be the sexiest pitcher out there, but the guy fared really well as a swingman in AA all year.

Phew. I’ll say it again, its tough ranking 50 players. I have my list and the churn in the 40-50 range is real.

A quick one today; Baseball Prospectus released both their Nats top prospect list and the Organizational rankings. Now, interestingly, BP’s stuff is normally 100% behind a paywall, and i’m just not inclined to pay for their stuff anymore (unlike the subscriptions I maintain for BA, ESPN+, the Athletic, D1Baseball, etc). I just never see stories that interest me. But, for reasons inexplicable, BP’s link actually revealed their top 10 for the system. I’m not sure how much further they rank, but we get their top 10.

And, their top 10 is super interesting. Here’s a quick cut n paste of BP’s top 10. If anyone out there has the rest .. i’d love to see it.

The Top Ten:

1. Dylan Crews, OF
2. James Wood, OF
3. Brady House, 3B
4. Cade Cavalli, RHP
5. Yohandy Morales, 3B
6. Jarlin Susana, RHP
7. Travis Sykora, RHP
8. DJ Herz, LHP
9. Andrew Pinckney, OF
10. Robert Hassell III, OF

Here’s some quick commentary. Clearly BP likes young arms.

• Same 1-4 as basically everyone else.
• Morales is generally settling in as #5 on a lot of lists now. That’s great news for a 2023 draftee, and it’ll be interesting to see what the team does with him positionally since House is pretty entrenched at 3B. The guy is 6’4″ 250lbs. Phew, that’s a 1B for sure. No chance he’s moving to a corner OF spot at 250lbs.
• Susana at #6. Easily the highest we’ve seen so far for Susana. Ok, so why is he so high? well its easy: He’s 6’6″ and can hit 103 and he’s still 19 (turns 20 in March). Aggregate 2023 numbers: 1-6, 5.14 ERA, 1.52 whip. 17 starts but only 63IP; he generally went 4 innings a stint. Was fantastic in June, then got shelled in July and Aug. He’s ranked this high b/c you can’t teach 103mph, plain and simple.
• Sykora at #7. BP again the high rank on this guy. Electric fastball, secondary pitches and control needs work. Typical for a prep draftee. This is a ranking entirely driven by ceiling, but so much can go wrong with a guy like Sykora its hard for me to put him this high.
• Herz at #8. Nobody else has him even in the top 15. He certainly pitched well enough in 2024. Interestingly, BA lists his changeup as a 65, easily his best pitch. Can’t be effective with a change like that unless you’re a starter, and unless you can command the fastball though, two issues he has right now.
• Pinckney at #9, again easily high ranking for this guy. He was a below-slot senior draftee who blew through the lower minors as a 22yr old (now 23). Is he really our 9th best prospect?? A senior draftee who was probably a 6th round projection six months ago is a higher ranked prospect than an upper 1st round talent like Green who has two 70-grade tools? Or an IFA who got nearly $5M in 2022 and who is already stateside in Vaquero?
• Hassell dumped down to 10, in a “what have you done for me lately” move.

Well, I guess BP really likes young power arms and old college bats.

I don’t normally include Nats blogger prospect list analysis since, well, lets be honest we’re bloggers, not nationally-connected scouting specialists who spend months as their full time job calling scouting directors and texting MLB GMs to get their intel. Plus, i’m doing this as a fan and I hate to criticize another fan’s work. But when I saw respected long-time nats blogger Stephen “Ghost” Mears post a top 30 … and knowing how much I like top 30 prospect lists, I couldn’t help myself, and have included his list here along with the big boys.

By including this list, I promise to generate my own list for the system as well. Fair is fair. I’ve got a preliminary top 50 ranking right now for our system, which I’ll continue to tweak now that the BA scouting reports are updated.

Here’s the pre-2024 list of prospect ranks that have been published so far.

• BA’s pre-read top 10, announced 11/6/23 (link now defaults to top 30 released today; no changes from the top 10 in Nov to now, a slight indictment perhaps of the BA process)
• Prospects361 top 10, released 11/24/23
• MLBPipeline top 30, post rule5/pre off-season analysis released 12/7/23. Note, the MLBPipeline link always defaults to the current, but i retain the rankings at the time of the capture into an XLS
• Baseball America 2024 top 30 1/24/24:

Here’s Ghost’s list:

And here’s some commentary.

• Same 1-4 as most shops. Most pundits call our system “top heavy” which keeps us from being ranked higher in the overall organization ranks. Fair enough. If Henry had progressed as expected and a couple of these uber expensive IFAs recently were closer to Juan Soto than … well some guy named Juan who isn’t a prospect, we’d be higher ranked. And closer to contention.
• Despite Hassell’s 2023 struggles, Ghost has him at #5. Lets hope he rebounds in 2024. Remember, he was our clear #2 prospect in most major publications last spring.
• He remains a little high on Bennett at #9 despite no 2024. The only thing i’m worried about with Bennett (well, besides the fact that he had his arm cut wide open in August or whenever) is that he really didn’t do well in high-A once he got there. A 2nd round major conference draftee should have STARTED in High-A last year. Instead he toyed with kids in Low-A for nearly two months before going to Wilmington and, well frankly, getting hit. 6 starts, 5.57 ERA, 1.62 whip before he blew the UCL. How many of those starts were with a strained UCL? Who knows. He’ll turn 24 before he throws another pitch, will be back in Wilmington, and will be behind schedule. Is that a top 10 prospect? Not for me. Too much risk.
• Jacob Young #10. Ok. so, prospect lists are a combination of floor and ceiling. What is Young’s floor? Well, before 2023 he had no real floor. So now we know, he’s a gritty Lenny Dykstra undersized CF spark plug who can make sh*t happen. But what’s his ceiling? He got 4 whole games in AAA before getting called up to cover for a thin OF at the MLB level and he didn’t do half bad. Better numbers than Alex frigging Call, that’s for sure. Young had 13 SBs in 33 games; that’s Vinny Coleman SB rates. But the MLB OF has too many guys right now; Robles kind of has to play CF for the arb salary he’s getting, Garrett earned the corner OF spot, and of course so did Thomas. You don’t want Young riding the pine in the majors, so he’ll be in AAA again to start 2024. What’s his ceiling? Can he hit .290 with mid .350 OBP and 50 SBs in the majors? If that’s the case, then heck yeah he’s #10 prospect, maybe higher.
• Green down to #11. That’s too low for a guy with three tools in the 60s and a team admitting they’re futzing with his swing. Talking about Ceiling; he has as much ceiling as Crews and Wood by BA scouting reports, and he has a power/speed combo that’s Ronald Acuna-esque. But his hit tool grade right now is like that of a high schooler.
• Ghost has our new IFAs at #17 and #22. Fair enough. He has our new Rule5 guy at #24, right inline with BA. Fine by me; i’m almost to the point of ignoring prospects until they get to the domestic leagues. Quick; can anyone tell me the names of our two 7-figure IFA signings last January? Or how they performed last summer in the DSL? Yeah, I didn’t think so (by the way, its Andy Acevedo and Edwin Solano, both signed for $1.3M. DSL 2023 lines respectively: .170/.299/.248 and .117/.224/.133. that’s right: Solano hit .117; 15 for 128 with exactly two extra base hits all season. That was money well spent.
• Drew Millas at #18 but Pineda out of the top 30. Here’s a quick comparison of our two other 40-man catchers right now. Millas 26, switch hitter, spent around 2/3rds of last year in AAA, solid offensive numbers, good speed, average defender, 28% CS rate. Pineda is 23, was in AAA at the end of 2022 but was sent back to high-A in 2023 and struggled at the plate. Based on pure stats, Millas is better. But he’s also got 3 years on Pineda and that really discounts Pineda’s 2022, which is mostly why BA has Pineda higher than Millas right now. Right before publishing, Pineda got DFA’d off the 40-man and i’ll bet someone picks him up, so it may not matter, but its certainly a weird choice to cut to make room for Joey Gallo when they have waiver wire RHP relievers who had ERAs in the 5s and 6s last year who they could have cut instead.
• TJ White at #19. Why?? .170/.277/.279 in 2023 with no position and missed half the year. That’s not a recipe for success.
• Andry Lara at #25, after BA didn’t rank him at all. Ok, so on the bright side his whip went down in High A, and he’s still only 21, and we know he finished strong in 2023. His aggregate numbers for his career still suck.
• Cole Henry at #30. This is a ranking that says, “well, I don’t think he’s ever going to be healthy again, but on the off-chance he is, he’s still ranked.”

Unmentioned in the top 30: Acevedo, Made, and Pineda as mentioned. Nothing egregious.

All in all, not a bad list. I agree with big chunks of the rankings of players hoenstly.

The first major shop to release a significant ranking for the 2024 prospect season has come out, and it is the standard bearer Baseball America. This year i’ll keep a running list of every ranking that i’ve seen and just build on it as i post. So far, here’s what we’ve seen:

Here is a list of Every Nats prospect list i’ve ever captured. It was last uploaded 1/25/24 to capture the data from last June to today. There’s now 223 ranking lists in this xls, dating to the Baseball America Nov 2004 ranking for our 2004 prospects (#1 prospect for the system in Nov 2004? Mike Hinckley. ouch).

Here’s the pre-2024 list of prospect ranks that have been published so far.

• BA’s pre-read top 10, announced 11/6/23 (link now defaults to top 30 released today; no changes from the top 10 in Nov to now, a slight indictment perhaps of the BA process)
• Prospects361 top 10, released 11/24/23
• MLBPipeline top 30, post rule5/pre off-season analysis released 12/7/23. Note, the MLBPipeline link always defaults to the current, but i retain the rankings at the time of the capture into an XLS
• Baseball America 2024 top 30 1/24/24: this post

Still to come: Baseball Prospectus, MLBPipeline, Eric Longenhagen/Fangraphs, Keith Law/the Athletic, Prospects1500, Bleacher Report, CBSSports, ProspectsLive, and Prospect Digest. So, lots to come.

Here’s a direct link to the Baseball America 2024 Nats top 30, which is behind a paywall but i’m a subscriber so I’ll list them here. It has detailed scouting reports on all 30 players, which is great especially for the new IFAs.

Here’s some analysis, going from top to bottom.

• BA has the same basic top 4 for us as nearly every other shop at this point.
• Cavalli is now 25 and is the oldest guy on the top 30. A big portion of our future fortunes sit on his shoulders and his ability to come back at the #2 starter that he was purported to be prior to TJ.
• Morales up to #5 is great to see, especially given our (crummy) track record of 2nd round picks.
• Rutledge at #6 is great news. A year ago he was in the mid-teens at best on most lists. Now he’s on the verge of losing his rookie status in 2024. Based on where he was in 2022, even if he’s a 5th starter that’s found gold.
• Green down to #9. Ok so 139 strikeouts in 75 low-A games isn’t a good thing. His scouting report at BA is an interesting read. Here’s how they grade his tools: Scouting Grades Hit: 30 | Power: 60 | Run: 70 | Field: 55 | Arm: 60. that’s two 60s and a 70. Nobody has 60 power and 70 run; that’s like Eric Davis type combos. He’s a project.
• Our two big IFA signings this month (Victor Hurtado and Angel Feliz) come in at #12 and #24. Ok that’s good. They were both reasonable signings for IFAs; not the $4M for a 16yr old kind.
• We also picked up a new prospect with our Rule5 draftee, Nasim Nunez. Coincidentally, I wonder if Nunez’ drafting spells the end for Kieboom; he’s got no options, they’ve bought a starting 3B and a starting 1B, and he can’t play middle infield like Vargas and Nunez. Heck, even Alu has more positional flexibility than Kieboom.
• Both Bennett (TJ – out all of 2024) and Sykora (prep kid who threw zero innings in 2023) are ahead of DJ Herz. Herz, lest anyone forget, is just 23, solved AA, is on the 40-man roster and is certain to get looks this year. Um. what are we looking at here boys?
• Jacob Young at #18 … well I should hope so!! All he did was rise 3 levels last year and may very well be the starting CF if Robles gets hurt, again.
• Pineda and Millas back to back at 21 and 22. I think the BA staff has guidelines that say, “ok when you get to the mid 20s, just throw in their top-level catcher depth b/c we know they’ll get looks eventually).
• Kevin Made absolutely fell apart after we acquired him, and plummeted down the list. Hope he can recover.
• Mitchell Parker bringing up the rear at #30. So, #30 is where you put polished lefties who are on the 40 man who have solved three minor league levels by the age of 24. Got it

Missing names of note:

• Andy Acevedo and Edwin Solano; both were $1.3M IFA signings last January, and who did near nothing all summer in 2023.
• Brennar Cox. As high as #11 on some lists last year. Geeze. Why do we ever draft prep kids?
• Andry Lara; finally someone ranks him realistically.

All in all, not much to complain about with this list.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The second early publisher of prospect top 10s is Prospects361, written by Rich Wilson, with a definite fantasy focus. I believe he ranks deeper than 10, but you can only see 10 without a premium account.

Pre-2024 Prospect Lists and Analysis:

• Baseball America’s short list/top 10
• Prospects 361/Rich Wilson (this post)

Here’s his top 10 list for us.

Quick reaction to this top 10 list.

• Nothing really shocking here, despite Wilson’s fantasy tint. For the most part this is a defensible list.
• In the lead-up to the list, he does notice that a lot of our top prospects took steps back or struggled in 2023. And yes he’s right. Hassell didn’t seem right all year. Cavalli missed the entire season with TJ. Bennett GOT TJ. Green strikes out half the time he bats. Susana can’t find the plate. So yeah there’s some angst in the system.
• His top 3 are basically the same as anyone elses right now: Crews, Wood, House.
• Putting Vaquero 4th is ridiculous … and is one of the two really notable fantasy-tinged picks in this list. He’s doing analysis for dynasty leagues who are drafting 18 and 19yr olds, and in those leagues guys like Vaquero are getting snapped up.
• He’s dinged Green down to 8th, whereas most have him a bit higher. He has to figure out how to not strike out.
• 10th was Sykora, entirely on draft bonus amount and hype.

The highest players he doesn’t have ranked would include the likes of:

• Rutledge, who still maintains rookie status. I guess when you’re a 6th starter in the majors, you’re less valuable than an 18 yr old who hasn’t thrown a pitch in pro ball.
• Lile, who MLBpipeline is super-high on.
• Bennett, though to no surprise since he is missing all of 2024.

As was posted yesterday (early this morning?) by Luke over at NationalsProspects.com, BA released its list of known 2023 Minor League Free Agents by team this week. The Nats had no fewer than 30 (!) players listed on BA’s list, to go along with a couple of guys who elected FA a bit earlier this off season plus one guy in Sean Doolittle who was technically declared a MLFA but who announced his retirement in September.

Nats Big Board is now updated; go to the “2024 Releases” tab to see the 30-some odd names just declared FAs.

This massive number of names to me is indicative of one main fact w/r/t our player development lately: we have been signing an inordinate number of MLFAs to one year deals to cover the upper levels of the system. By my count, 19 of these names were signed as MLFAs ahead of the 2023 season. Some of them got MLB playing time as experienced vets (Derek Hill, Anthony Banda) and some of them are still on the 40-man (Meneses, Vargas, and Weems were all MLFAs). But we’ve depended on so many of these guys lately, especially to fill the AAA rosters.

Eight of these newly declared MLFAs were home-grown, which means they’ve been in our system for a long, long time. Many were once well-regarded prospects and we’ve discussed them in this space for years. For all these players, the Draft Tracker and IFA trackers are now updated to indicate their departure. These releases officially cut ties with most of the 2016 IFA class and 2017 Draft class.

• Jake Noll: 16D 7th rounder. Earned a 40-man spot, couldn’t hold on to it.
• Wilmer Perez: 16IFA Catcher who has bounced around levels for years as a backup catcher.
• Yasel Antuna: 16IFA with a massive bonus who never paid off and clogged our 40-man roster for years. A perfect example of teams ignoring simple Economic theory w/r/t Sunk Costs and continuing to treat signing bonuses as “investments” instead of the transactional cash payments they really are.
• Jose Sanchez: another 16IFA backup SS who filled in at High-A and AA this year.
• Alex Troop, 17D 9th rounder who became the classic lefty Long Reliever/Spot Starter rubber-armed guy who soaked up innings for both AAA and AA for this team for years. I could see him re-upping if given the opportunity; he ended up being in the AA rotation for a big chunk of 2023.
• Pedro Gonzalez, 17IFA middle RHP multi-inning reliever who just kind of soaked up innings for Low-A this year.
• Jackson Tetreault: 17D 7th rounder who always seemed to fly under the radar, but got a bunch of starts in AAA in 2022 and looked like he could be a find, getting promoted to the big club. But, he got hurt, missed most of 2023, and now he’s in career limbo. Like Troop, I wonder if he’ll re-up with the team.
• Malvin Pena, a 14IFA (wow) who’s been pitching in this organization for nearly a decade. Had decent numbers as a AA middle reliever.

Other notable names declared MLFAs:

• Gerardo Carillo: the 3rd guy out of 4 prospects in the LA Dodgers Turner/Scherzer deal. Just never seemed like he could find the plate.
• Donovan Casey, the 4th guy out of 4 prospects in the LA Dodgers Turner/Scherzer deal. Was on the 40-man, couldn’t make it.
• Alameo Hernandez: I liked this guy this year, solving AA as a starter at age 24 and moving up to AAA. I really hope they re-sign him.
• Matt Adams, who stuck with AAA for the entire season despite being 37 and having made millions as a major leaguer. I wonder if he was auditioning for a coaching role.

There’s still some guys who were 16IFA classes or older who remain on the roster despite them seemingly being at the end of their 6-7 years of minor league service. The oldest such name is a 13IFA Luis Reyes, who still is listed as active. Jordy Barley was a 16IFA and remains, as does guys Niomar Gomez and Gerardi Diaz. Either they’ve been declared MLFAs and MILB.com’s site isn’t updated (which happens all.the.time.) or they’ve signed multi-year deals to remain.

Fun fact: The oldest remaining originally drafted player for the team remains Stephen Strasburg, 2009 draftee. After that, the next oldest is Carter Kieboom, 1st rounder in 2016. Zero players now remain with the system for the entire 2017 draft with the MLFA declaration of guys like Troop and Tetreault (this was the Seth Romero draft).

We havn’t even returned the 60-day DL players back to the active roster, and Baseball America goes and drops its first pre-2024 analysis. They released their pre-2024 top 10, plus their list of “best tools” and their stab at a 2027 roster for the team.

Here’s the top 10 and some quick thoughts.

• No surprise on top 3. Wouldn’t surprise me to see all three start in AA in 2024, all three move up together, and all three debut in the majors by mid-season.
• Cavalli at #4 isn’t terribly surprising … if he shows that he’s got pre-TJ stuff upon his return, he could/should be back up to #2.
• Morales really had a solid debut, bumping him above some more familiar names. Its about time we had a 2nd round pick work out for us.
• Rutledge’s 2023 season, which shocked this observer, has him now just outside the top echelon of our prospect royalty. Talk about a turnaround from his 2022 season.
• Hassell’s season just seemed to drag him down, post hamate-bone surgery. Remember, it wasn’t too long ago that he was the #2 prospect in the system. I’d really like to see him regain that luster.
• Vaquero remains more hype than production, but at least he’s stateside now.
• Green’s K numbers have officially taken the shine of his star. He’s dropped to #9 here, and that’s low enough that he’s no longer a sure thing.
• Susana somehow comes in at #10, despite ending the season injured and repeating a level.

Players outside the top 10 looking in. Only one real nit:

• I’d put Lile above Susana at this point.
• I guess Bennett is going to be in the mid teens for the next year and a half with TJ recovery.
• Sykora? Where do you put him?
• DJ Herz? Who would you rather have right now? Herz or Susana? Just saying.

FYI, the Big Board now has a 2024 tab, and i’ve caught it up to today’s moves, which were to return the 60-day DL guys to the 40-man roster, which required the DFA of Matt Cronin. More moves to follow, since we’re definitely looking at some rule-5 protections in a week or so.