Nationals Arm Race

Here’s a monthly check in on our 20 prospects plus other notables in the system. Stats are for just July 2026 for the full season shops, the full-season for FCL and DSL, unless otherwise noted.

I’m writing this just after the trade deadline; no stats here for any of the 10 guys we acquired.

I’ll be using my own personal top 20 to drive the rankings, the ones I posted right after the season started and which are a bit outdated at this point.

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, High-A: Finally had a bad month, slashing just .190/.388/.222 for July. Still not bad for an 18yr old. Temperature: cooled off for sure
2. Henry Harry Ford, C AAA: was having the start to a solid month (.292/.486/.542) when he got the callup to cover for Millas’ broken finger. Is just 4-29 since his call-up. Temperature: warm for AAA performance.
3. Jarlin Susana, RHP (starter) AA: Still on the 60-day DL, and zero injury updates for 6 weeks now. This is now basically a lost season for Susana, certainly not how we thought this season would go. Temperature: still on ice.
4. Travis Sykora: RHP (starter) AA: out for the season, the injury report lists his return as 2027. No new news for months. Temperature: on ice.
5. Gavin Fien SS/3B, Low-A: regressed a bit this month from last: .238/.315/.438. So far, he has not lived up to his draft hype, though he is just 19. Temperature: cool.
6. Alex Clemmey, LHP (Starter) AA: Clemmey had a good month. 6 appearances, 1.98 ERA, 30/17 K/BB in 27 IP and just a .191 BAA. Hopeful this continues… Temperature: a little warm?
7. Seaver King, SS AAA: Missed basically the entire month with an oblique injury, but he’s off the DL as of 7/30. Let’s hope he has a solid run in August. No Abrams trade, thus no real pressure to call him up in 2026. Temperature: on ice, now off.
8. Luis Perales, RHP (starter) AAA: Perales was … great! 5 games, 1.46 ERA, .180 BAA. Still too many walks (29/16 k/bb in 24ip), but finally a solid month for the guy. Temperature: Warm.
9. Devin Fitz-Gerald, 2B/SS, AA: Improved from last month, slashed .250/.333/.306 but then got hurt. On the DL as we speak, unknown what the issues is. Temperature: Hot to get to AA, now on ice for a bit.
10. Landon Harmon, RHP (starter): Low-A: Finally off the DL after nearly 2 months there. Harmon’s first two starts back off the DL have looked short and effortless: 2 games, 5ip, 2 hits allowed, 0 runs. Bummer he’s missed so much time this season; at least he has August to build up some innings. Temperature: hopefully warming up.
11. Ronny Cruz: SS High-A. Fell off a cliff in July: .160/.292/.253. After such a torrid start, clearly has not made the jump to High-A and may be there for a bit. Reminder: he’s only 19. Temperature: cold.
12. Luke Dickerson, SS/CF Low-A: Very solid month for Dickerson: .261/.420/.507. He’s mostly splitting time between SS and CF still, and had 5 homers this month. Temperature: getting a lot warmer.
13. Ethan Petry, 1B AA: He slashed .221/.293/.441 in July, which is better than June but still not good. Temperature: now pretty cold.
14. Coy James, SS/3B, Low-A: connected for 6 homers this month, which pushed his slugging and OPS way up: .220/.280/.476 for the month. Would like to see a better BA and OBP. Temperature: warming.
15. Angel Felix, SS High-A: Treading water from June, slashing .250/.297/.429. Reminder: he’s only 19. Temperature: luke warm.
16. Yoel Tejeda Jr. RHP (starter) AA: Finally got promoted out of High-A after nearly 2 months of being the leading starter on the rotation. First two AA starts were middling; more to come in August.  Temperature: very warm for the promotion.
17. Jackson Kent, LHP (Starter) AAA: Kent almost matched his June numbers with a 4.66 ERA for July; a quick peek at his advanced numbers shows a 3.85 Fip and a .324 BABIP, so he’s a bit better than appearances. Not good enough yet to be seriously pressing for a promotion, especially since he’s not on the 40-man. Temperature: room temperature.
18. Miguel Sime Jr. RHP (starter): High-A: 4 starts, just 14 IP. 2.51 ERA, 1.12 whip; ok those are solid. He gave up FIVE hits in the month. Five. 23/11 K/BB in those 14 innings. Ok, so maybe the guy can’t find the plate, but when he does, he mostly strikes people out. .106 BAA. I wrote it elsewhere, but you have to move this guy up again, even though he’s walking nearly a guy an inning and he’s only 19. You have to find a level where they actually hit the guy. Temperature: still hot.
19. Davian Garcia, RHP (starter) AA; On the full-season DL, hopefully to return in 2027. No new news. Temperature: on ice.
20. Yeremy Cabrera CF High-A: still struggling 2 months into his High-A promotion: .207/.283/.341. It’s just hard to hit in Wilmington. Temperature: cooled off.

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Notables #20 and above by level:

in AAA:

• #27 Yohandy Morales 1B/3B in AAA had another poor batting average month, but still had an .843 OPS for the month with the power he’s shown.: .217/.321/.522. Hopefully with the trades of Mead & Garcia this opens up an eventual slot for Morales.
• #30 Cayden Wallace finally earned a promotion to AAA and had the typical adjustment month: .210/.242/.306. Great for him to finally push his way to AAA, now sharing middle infield time with Glasser, King, and Lipscomb.
• #31 Phillip Glasser 2B in AAA had another great month: .351/.471/.421. Hopefully with the clear-out of players in AAA, he’ll have a clear path to full-time playing time.
• #32 Andrew Pinckney, against all odds, got called up after years of solid AAA production.
• #33 Albimec Ortiz 1B/DH in AAA hit just .211 but had an OPS > .800, and as a 40-man member got the call-up to replace Garcia upon his trade.
• The team parted ways with Hassell, and Weimer continues not to hit and likely is in the lead for “next man to get cut from the 40-man if the team needs a spot,” especially since the team opted to add Pinckney instead of recalling him. Weimer, now as of this writing, is the sole non-pitcher on the 40-man who remains in the minors post trades. Postpublish update; a few hours after writing this, the team put Weimer on release waivers.
• Riley Adams is crushing the ball … but needs an injury to get back on the 40-man/back tot he majors. They played him at 1B the other day, interesting.
• Former 40-man member Trey Lipscomb is crushing the ball too: .356/.410/ .533 in July as a middle infielder.

In AA:

• #21 Sam Peterson continues to struggle, hitting just .229 this month after hitting .221 last month. He’s definitely stalling in 2026.
• #26 Caleb Lomavita settled down a bit in July: .264/.316/.396. The team opted to keep him starting in AA when Ford got called up, instead leaving Adams as the starting C in AAA and promoting one of the AA backups. I’m guessing we won’t see a Lomavita promotion this year.
• #60 TJ White, showed some power this month with 5 homers in AA but still struggling to a .221 BA.
• Brandon Boissiere powered it up in July: .306/.378/.514.
• Isaac Lyon, the throw-in player in the Ferrer-Ford trade, has been quietly an assassin this season, earning 2 promotions and now more than holding his own in AA. July numbers: 3-1 with a 1.84 ERA in 5 starts.1.06 whip, .229 BAA.
• AA is where most of our Trade deadline acquisitions have initially landed: they’ve added 2 starters, 4 relievers and an OF. We’ll see how things shake out for next month’s version of this and the rotation post.
  
  

In High-A:

• #40 Kevin Bazzell continues to produce with a .953 OPS figure in July. Nowhere to go though.
• #61 Randal Diaz got flipped to Baltimore on 7/1 for a AAA reliever.
• Elijah Green had a nice slashline .296/.363/.444 to go with his 40 Ks in 22 games.
• Jacob Walsh rebounded in a big way for July, mashing 8 homers for a slugging percentage in the 600s.
• Jack Moroknek had his 2nd straight month of hitting in the .125 range post promotion.
• Carson Fischer was a 2025 NDFA who had a 3.18 ERA month in the High-A rotation; can’t ask for much more than that from a $10k signing.

In Low-A:

• #38 Sir Jamison Jones had another sub .200 batting month.
• #39 Rafael Ramirez Jr bounced back with a solid .286/.444/.405 month.
• #41 Cristian Vaquero finally got off the DL, and got demoted to Low-A for his troubles. He only hit .229 in F’burg when he got there, and his career seems stalled.
• #51 Dashyll Tejeda, took a step back in his second Low-A month, hitting just .204.
• Unranked Jordan Williams, a 26yr old NDFA signed earlier this year, continues to hit and needs to be socially promoted.
• Unranked Elian Soto continues to hit: .271/.386/.458 for July, though without much power. His brother, he is not, but he’s showing some value.
• Note: just as I was getting ready to publish, the first 2026 draftee got moved to a full-season team in CA Cashel Dugger, 9th rounder this year.
  

In FCL, whose season ended in mid July, here’s seasonal stats for the 25IFA class that moved up from the DSL from 2025. Some good, mostly bad.

• #23 Marconi German; .246/.425/.486 for the season with some power and improvement from June->July.
• #36 Brayan Cortesia: .243/.381/.257 for the season: that’s just 2 XBH in 144 ABs. That’s not good.
• #42 Daniel Hernandez: .190/.238/.215 for the season, getting worse as he went along. Ugh.
• #46 Browm Martinez: .271/.431/.430; that’s solid, but not a ton of power.
• #47 Victor Hurtado .259/.410/.407, really turning it around in July.
• Maxim Medina pitched twice at the end of the FCL after dominating DSL this year and got absolutely shelled: 4.2 IP, 10 runs
• Juan Lopez‘s K/BB numbers are hilarious: 37ip: 46Ks and 33walks. He’s an older IFA; signed last year but already 21, so that may explain things.

In DSL, here’s the seasonal hitting stats for the four marquee 2026 IFA signings:

• Isaias Suarez OF (corner): ..198/.390/.337; struggling to start his career. At least he’s getting BBs.
• Angel Ramirez OF (corner): .205/.346/.375; about in line with the first month.
• Samil Serrano OF (cf): .297/.413/.517 so far; looking really good.
• Juan Duran 1B: .327/.431/.478; came back a bit from a hot July, still a .900 OPS for the season.

In the DSL, the remaining big money 2025IFA signings who are still there:

• Ronny Bello SS: .291/.404/.455, adding even more power from June, clearly earning a promotion to FCL in 2027.
• Esnaider Vargas: Of/DH: ..292/.355/.458, a solid year so far.
• Jonierbis Garces: OF (corner): .266/.408/.316; had a really good July to increase his BA and OBP; little power.
  
  

As of 5:45pm, I thought perhaps our all-star starter Foster Griffin may be sticking around, since we hadn’t heard of any moves ahead of (what I thought was the ) 5pm EST deadline for trades. I guess it was 6pm EST, because we jammed in one last trade.

Griffin heads to Cleveland for four guys:

• Josh Hartle, LHP AA starter with a 3.86 ERA in 19 starts this season
• Will Dion, LHP reliever with some MLB and a solid 25/3 K/BB ratio
• Kendeglys Virguez, a RHP reliever with a 14.3 K/9 rate this year who just got moved to AA
• Nick Mitchell, a 22yr old OF with decent numbers in AA (.240 with some power, some speed)

The best prospect of course is the AA starter Hartle, who slots just into the back of our top 30 prospects on MLBpipeline.

Is this a great return? No, not really on the face of it. Is it an understandable return? Yes it is. Yes, Griffin was an all-star, one of the best pitchers this season by most measures. He’s also a FA in two months and rebuffed extension talks before getting moved, because of course he did. He toiled in Japan for years to get this shot, now he’s in his age 30 season and he has one big chance in open free agency to get that “one big career deal” that sets him up. He doesn’t want a one-year QO; he wants a 4-5 year deal that sets him up for life.

Should the Nats have kept him, offered him a QO and taken the comp pick instead of what they got? Maybe. As a “large market” team that’s stayed below the luxury tax, under the current system our comp pick would have been just before the 3rd round starts in 2027, somewhere around the 75th overall pick. Would that be better than what we just got? Debatable. Our 3rd rounder this year (Luke Williams, drafted 78th overall) is a prep SS who we probably don’t see until 2030; is that the kind of player you’d rather have instead of the four we got, all of whom are already in AA or higher?

The ship sailed on keeping these guys on Sunday night, so we were going to move him for something, and this sounds like the best deal we could get.

One last side note: the Nats also made an under the radar smart trade, moving the buried AAA outfielder Franklin for another arm.

Clearly there’s a trend here: the bullpen construction project in the off-season of MLFAs and waiver claims just didn’t work. Now they’re going to try building a bullpen from prospects and (hopefully) some strategic FA signings for 2027.

Working on the big board updates and 40-man machinations now.

Btw, I hate that my July rotation piece got buried by these two trade pieces; it takes a significant amount of time to do that post. Bummer 🙂

Before we moved Curtis Mead, I wrote a bit about “should we trade assets” at the trade deadline. The decision basically was whether to keep everybody in order to make a possibly futile run at the final Wild card, so that we could earn ourselves a 3-game away series in Atlanta.

Well, we just got SWEPT in a 4-game series in Atlanta, as a pretty clear preview of what we were actually fighting for, and before the final game of the sweep was done, the GM had clearly red the tea leaves properly and the team had moved Luis Garcia. He was held out of Sunday’s game .. but still boarded the team charter to Philadelphia since the trade wasn’t finalized, so he got the news mid-flight, and then had to catch a shuttle up the coast to join his new team.

The return for Garcia:

• Yovanny Cruz, 26yr old 40-man RHP reliever who just made his MLB debut
• Jake Bird, 30yr old 30-man journeyman RHP reliever who’s in his 5th pro season but who still has 2 years of arb control.
• Jack Cebert, a 2025 15th round RHP starter from Texas Tech who just got to AA
• Ben Grable, a 2025 11th round RHP reliever from Indiana who also just got to AA.

Two 40-man players coming over; one replaces Garcia and Poulin goes to the 60-day to make room for the other.

We part ways with the longest serving player in our organization, an IFA we signed in 2016 as a 16 yr old who has certainly run the gamut of ups and downs in this org. He was a serious non-tender candidate just last December, but for reasons discussed in my post on the topic then, the team kept him and things paid off. He’s mashing this year, slashing .283/.313/.560 as of the trade, well ahead of his career slash line of .368/.301/.431. He LEADS the NL in slugging percentage amongst qualified hitters, which is amazing to see. He’s also an abhorrent fielder, going from -17 DRS at SS in 2022, then getting moved to 2B, where he got progressively worse over the next 3 years, culminating with a -17 DRS figure in 2025 (that’s awfully hard to do at 2B), which then led to him going to 1B this year.

To his credit, he’s slugged his way into supporting his starting at 1B. He’s also a severe platoon guy, posting a .918 OPS figure against RHP this season versus just a .627 OPS against LHP. Despite hitting well this season, his OPS is still a meager .313, but he goes to a park where his pull-happy swing could net him homers in bunches.

My cynical take? We took a non-tender candidate with a career .301 OPS who’s been relegated to 1B and turned him into 4 arms. No, these are not 4 arms who are going to challenge for the Cy Young necessarily, but we’ve turned Garcia into two relievers who can help today, a pretty solid looking AA reliever, and a AA starter who could turn into something.

I like this trade, and I like what the front office is thinking.

Here’s the July 2026 check-in on rotations. We’re writing this one day before the trade deadline, and as of this writing we have not seen any moves that change the below personnel. Hopefully this post doesn’t age poorly.

Each team section analysis will have the same items: current rotation, changes in the last month, observations, next guy to get promoted (if its in the minors), next guy to get cut, etc.

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

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

All Stats quoted are as of 7/31/26’s games.

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We’ll start with the Majors.

• Opening Day 2026: Cavalli, Griffin, Mikolas, Littell, Irvin
• End of April 2026: Cavalli, Griffin, Mikolas (with Poulin opening sometimes), Littell, Irvin
• End of May 2026: Cavalli, Griffin, Mikolas (still with openers), Littell (also with openers), Alvarez.
• End of June 2026: Cavalli, Griffin, Mikolas, Littell, Alvarez. Still using Openers in key spots
• End of July 2026: Cavalli, Griffin, Mikolas, Littell, Irvin (with frequent openers)

Changes since end of last Month: Irvin returned after a couple months off to make his late July start, bumping Alvarez from the rotation. Also, we acquired Connelly Early, whos’ on the DL but who will be in this rotation when he returns, so someone is making way in August.

Rotation Observations: Griffin’s final start of the month yesterday in Atlanta ballooned his July ear to about 3.50 and jumped his seasonal ERA slightly above 3.00; totally understandable given the trade rumors and the importance of this series in Atlanta. There’s also rumors that the team is talking to Griffin’s camp about an extension; you know when the absolute worst time is to discuss a contract extension? In the middle of the damn season, when you’re also a trade acquisition candidate and you’re thinking about getting moved to a legitimate title contender. Cavalli continues to cruise along; in 5 July starts he was 3-0 with a 3.08 ERA, and more and more he’s looking like the guy we drafted. Mikolas was awful in July; four appearances, 6.62 ERA, had to have an opener in two of his “starts.” The team is 9-13 in his appearances, and he’s managed to lose two games where the team scored 6+ runs. Littell was serviceable in July: 3.86 ERA, rebounding from a tough June. Alvarez kind of pitched himself out of the rotation with an iffy July of an ERA above 5, but then again he was always going to make way for Irvin’s return.

Not for nothing, but I just have to wonder. If Lord and Irvin hadn’t gotten hurt, would we have already cut ties with Mikolas? Or is Early’s return going to be the impetus?

Next guy to get cut/demoted:

• April 2026: Mikolas
• May 2026: Irvin (but he got hurt)
• June 2026: Littell but they’ll never cut him and his salary, so i’ll go back to Mikolas
• July 2026: turned out to be Alvarez, should have been Mikolas.

Quick bullpen thoughts: The bullpen stats for July are grim, and include a series of ugly stat lines from guys now banished from the team. They DFA’d Granillo on 7/5, Lawrence on 7/21, and then just for kicks DFA’d Krook twice in two weeks. So far so good for Yean, Cosgrove, and Palmquist, who were all solid in the month. Our “Closer” Beeter, who at this point is the sole remaining bullpen guy who was on the opening day roster, got 5 saves in July but a 4.91 ERA to go with it. Kranick is holding on for some reason, with his 11 ERA for July. It’s just laughable what this front office has done with the bullpen this year. Maybe Trevor Williams’ return will help.

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AAA Rochester

• Opening Day 2026: Alvarez, Parker, Perales, Lara, Cornelio
• End of April 2026: Alvarez, Perales, Lara, Cornelio, Champlain (with Ogasawara and Penrod spot starts)
• End of May 2026: Perales, Lara, Cornelio, Champlain, Kent
• End of June 2026: Perales, Lara, Champlain, Kent, Penrod as an opener
• End of July 2026: Perales, Lara, Champlain, Kent, then a slew of openers/rehab starts/bullpen games.

Changes since end of last Month: None really; the team kept both Cornelio and Alvarez up for nearly all of July, keeping the other four guys consistent for the month for the most part.

Rotation Observations: Perales was … great! 5 games, 1.46 ERA, .180 BAA. Still too many walks (29/16 k/bb in 24ip), but finally a solid month for the guy. Perales, Christian Franklin, and recently acquired Kyle Nicholas remain the only 40-man guys who have not appeared in the majors this season, as the team wears out the ROC->DCA shuttle. Can’t say the same for Lara: 6 games, 6.16 ERA, 1.68 whip. Luckily for Lara, already outrighted, there’s nobody pushing for his spot. Champlain got the job done despite not having big whiff rates: 5 appearances, 3.18 ERA but just a 0.79 WHIP rate; he was stashed on the Dev list yesterday to make way for Brad Lord’s pending rehab start, but he seems likely to return for his next start. Kent almost matched his June numbers with a 4.66 ERA for July; a quick peek at his advanced numbers shows a 3.85 Fip and a .324 BABIP, so he’s a bit better than appearances. Not good enough yet to be seriously pressing for a promotion, especially since he’s not on the 40-man.

Next guy to get promoted:

• April: Alvarez and Cornelio. Verdict: both have been promoted, Alvarez is staying there.
• May: Perales and his sub 2.00 ERA could play in the majors and our terrible bullpen
• June: Kent the only deserving candidate right now, but he’s not getting promoted anytime soon.
• July: Perales; had a good month and is on 40-man so no roster move.

Next guy to get cut/demoted:

• April: none really, Champlain had the least investment
• May: Lara clearly.
• June: Back to Champlain, who looks like he may be stuck at a ceiling of effectiveness in AA
• July: Back to Lara.

Quick bullpen thoughts: I mean, what is there to say? The AAA bullpen is half guys who couldn’t outproduce anyone else in our sh*tty MLB bullpen (Kent, Lawrence, Varland, Schultz, Henry), a newly acquired 40-man reliever who has an ERA in the 8s since acquisition (Nicolas), aged MLFAs still hanging on (Penrod, Pilkington, Young, Mejia), and org guys who seem like AA/AAA ceiling (Sinclair and Tolman). The only two “prospects” are 2023 8th rounder Simpson, who just got promoted to AAA a week ago, and 2024 7th Rounder Cranz, who started the year in Wilmington and who has struggled since arriving at AAA. This is why I don’t usually bother even looking at bullpen guys in the minors sometimes.

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AA Harrisburg

• Opening Day 2026: Clemmey, Garcia, Luckham, Ogasawawara, Swan
• End of April 2026: Clemmey, Garcia, Luckham, Ogasawara, Kent
• End of May 2026: Clemmey, Luckham, Ogasawara, Lyon, Randall (spot starts from Van Scoyoc)
• End of June 2026: Clemmey, Luckham, Lyon, Randall, Van Scoyoc
• End of July 2026: Clemmey, Lyon, Randall, Maddox, Tejeda (along with 3 rehab starts and a couple of bullpen games)

Changes since end of last Month: Luckham finally taken out of the rotation, replaced with the promoted Maddox. Van Scoyoc’s opener duties were replaced by 2 rehab starts from Irvin and another from Williams, then the team promoted Tejeda on 7/22 to be the team’s 5th starter.

Rotation Observations: Well, don’t look now but Clemmey had a good month. 6 appearances, 1.98 ERA, 30/17 K/BB in 27 IP and just a .191 BAA. I’ll take that. Isaac Lyon, the throw-in player in the Ferrer-Ford trade, has been quietly an assassin this season, earning 2 promotions and now more than holding his own in AA. July numbers: 3-1 with a 1.84 ERA in 5 starts.1.06 whip, .229 BAA. Looks great to me. Randall’s 2nd month in AA was rough: 6.875 ERA and lots of hits given up. Riley Maddox had a nice introduction to AA; the command and control guy 2025 8th rounder in his first pro season had a 3.86 ERA in four starts. I’ll take that. Tejeda only had one AA start in July; 3 Runs in a 5ip start, so nothing really to analyze.

Next guy to get promoted:

• April: Ogasawara, then Kent. Kent was promoted over Ogasawara
• May: clearly Ogasawara.
• June: Van Scoyoc (and he was promoted on 7/1, but was then demoted back mid-month).
• July: Nobody is ready, but Clemmey probably pitched the best and is the longest-serving AA guy. Maybe another month of this and they could consider him, but at his age, there’s no reason to push him to AAA right now.

Next guy to get cut/demoted:

• April: Luckham.
• May: still Luckham.
• June: Chemmey
• July: Luckham, who got removed from rotation. Now likely Randall.

Quick bullpen thoughts: Like AAA, the AA bullpen remains a hodge podge of “throw ’em against the wall to see who sticks” relievers for the most part. Of the 12 bullpen guys in Harrisburg as of this writing, less than half were drafted/developed by us (Luckham, Powell, Huff, Schultz, and Young), and none of them are really “prospects” at this point. Powell and Young were demoted earlier this year, Luckham is barely holding on to his job. The rest of the bullpen are Rule5 guys, MLFAs, and waiver claims. Again, this is why I almost never bother ranking relievers in my “prospect” ranks.

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High-A Wilmington

• Opening Day 2026: Bruni (Sullivan), Maddox, Randall, Tejeda, Polanco
• End of April 2026: Maddox, Randall, Tejeda, Polanco, Lyon
• End of May 2026: Maddox, Tejeda, Polanco, Bruni, Meckley
• End of June 2026: Maddox, Tejeda, Meckley, Sime, Tepper
• End of July 2026: Sime, Tepper, Fischer, Sthele, Sullivan (plus 3 rehab starts, and a slew of one-offs).

Changes since end of last Month: Lots of churn here. Maddox and Tejeda were promoted, while Meckley was demoted, leaving 3 spots open in this rotation. Fischer filled one of them Swan made 2 rehab starts, Williams 1, and the rest of the month was filled with starts from Sullivan, Polanco, and the return of Sthele.

Rotation Observations: Sime is the most important name here, so we’ll start with him: 4 starts, just 14 IP. 2.51 ERA, 1.12 whip; ok those are solid. He gave up FIVE hits in the month. Five. 23/11 K/BB in those 14 innings. Ok, so maybe the guy can’t find the plate, but when he does, he mostly strikes people out. .106 BAA. I wrote it elsewhere, but you have to move this guy up again, even though he’s walking nearly a guy an inning and he’s only 19. You have to find a level where they actually hit the guy. Tepper hasn’t been great since returning to high-A: 7.65 ERA for the month. Fischer is a nice story; promoted on 6/30, the 2025 NDFA had 5 solid starts with a 3.18 ERA even if he’s not striking anyone out (11 Ks in 28ip). Sthele’s first start back in High-A in 2026 wasn’t great but he made 22 starts here last year with decent numbers, so odds are he stays here for the rest of the way. Sullivan looks like he is back in the Wilmington rotation after having started here in April, but unless he improves it won’t be for long: 2 starts in June; 7ip and 5ER.

Next guy to get promoted:

• April: Randall: he did indeed get promoted
• May: None. Tejeda if I had to name one.
• June: Maddox (Promoted on 7/1), should have been Tejeda (who was also promoted on 7/22)
• July: Sime

Next guy to get cut/demoted:

• April: Polanco
• May: still Polanco but likely Bruni makes way for Sime. (Polanco indeed finally dumped to bullpen)
• June: Meckley (indeed he was demoted on 7/8)
• July: Tepper

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Low-A Fredericksburg

• Opening Day 2026: Portorreal, Hughes/Meckley, Sime/Lyon, Harmon/Beck, Fischer/Conradt
• End of April 2026: Portorreal, Meckley/Hughes, Sime/Johnson, Harmon/Conradt, Fischer/Sullivan
• End of May 2026: Portorreal, Sime, Johnson, Fischer, and Tepper doing rehab the whole month
• End of June 2026: Portorreal, Johnson, Fischer, Manning, De La Cruz plus rehab starts from Herz, Williams, Tepper.
• End of July 2026: Johnson, De La Cruz, Harmon, Meckley, Millikan, Reyes (with a bunch of openers)

Changes since end of last Month: More churn. Portorreal put on the Dev list, Sthele finishing off rehab and heading back to High-A, Fischer and Manning promoted. They’ve been replaced by the demoted Meckley, Harmon back off the DL, and the newly promoted Millikan, who came up once FCL was done.

Rotation Observations: Johnson was meh: 4.38 ERA in 4 appearances/12 innings. De la Cruz does not look ready for Full season ball: 5 starts, 16ip, an ERA in the 10s, and an 11/18 K/BB ratio. Phew. Harmon’s first two starts back off the DL have looked short and effortless: 2 games, 5ip, 2 hits allowed, 0 runs. Bummer he’s missed so much time this season; at least he has August to build up some innings. Meckley has been terrible; his July low-A numbers were worst than De la Cruz: ERA in the 11 range. Millikan’s first full-season start was awful, but he’ll likely have all of August. Juan Reyes joined Millikan with a promotion from the FCL upon its completion, had one good start and hit the DL.

Next guy to get promoted:

• April: Meckley; indeed he was promoted
• May: Fischer
• June: Fischer, who was actually promoted 7/1. Should be Johnson
• July: None. The low-A rotation is a mess. Gus Hughes as a long reliever is best option to promote this month.

Next guy to get cut/demoted:

• April: Portorreal: he has turned it around greatly.
• May: Probably Johnson if we had to pick someone; they’ve already settled the tandem starters and demoted guys to the pen
• June: Portorreal (put on Dev list mid-month in July)
• July: Meckley or De la Cruz. Probably Meckey since he’s 3 years older.

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Rookie FCL

Reminder: The Milb.com FCL site can’t do month splits, so this is kind of running full-season analysis.

• Opening Day 2026: Weaver, Reyes, Martina, De la Cruz, Robles
• End of May 2026: Reyes, De la Cruz, Robles, Lopez, Bothwell
• End of June 2026: Reyes, Robles, Lopez, Bothwell, Gillis, Millikan
• End of Season 2026: Reyes, Robles, Lopez, Bothwell, Millikan, Medina

Changes since end of last Month: Gillis pitched twice, got hurt, and the team finished the season with the above five plus the first guy to get promoted from the DSL this season in Medina.

Rotation Observations: Reyes had a solid FCL season, with a sub 4.00 ERA and 50ks in 41IP, and more than deserved his promotion at FCL’s end. Same with Millikan: 2.23 ERA in his FCL time, and he’ll see how he fares in the Low-A rotation. As for the rest of these guys: Robles needs more seasoning with 22ks and 20 walks. He’s just 19 so he’s got time. Lopez’s K/BB numbers are hilarious: 37ip: 46Ks and 33walks. He’s an older IFA; signed last year but already 21, so that may explain things. Lastly there’s Bothwell, who is 26 in the rookie league, an Indy league signing. He was generally awful this season with an era above 9.00, and I can’t quite believe he hasn’t been released yet (oh, wait, he was released on 7/31, the day i’m writing this). Lastly Medina pitched twice and got absolutely shelled: 4.2 IP, 10 runs. Phew.

Next guy to get promoted:

• May: Reyes (ended up being De la Cruz)
• June: Millikan
• July: Reyes and Millikan, both promoted after FCL ended)

Next guy to get cut/demoted:

• May: Robles
• June: Bothwell
• July: Bothwell again, and he was released on 7/31

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Rookie DSL

Reminder: The Milb.com DSL site can’t do month splits, so this is kind of running full-season analysis.

• Opening Day 2026: Manzueta, Medina, Sarit, Reynoso, Carela
• End of June 2026: Manzueta, Medina, Sarit, Carela, Salas
• End of July 2026: Manzueta, Sarit, Carela, Reynoso, Thomas

Changes since end of last Month: Medina too good and was promoted, so they put Reynoso back into the rotation. Thomas technically replaced Salas as the starter all month, but Salas still got a ton of innings doing tandem start work.

Rotation Observations: Not a lot of positives in this rotation. The BEST of these five guys is Sarit with a 5.48 ERA. . It gets worse from there; Carela at 6.04, Thomas 6.48, Salas 7.29, Reynoso in the 8s, Manzueta above 9. It’s no wonder this team is just 10-32, one of the worst three teams of the league.

You know what? The Nats deserve this. They have not signed an IFA to a non-trival bonus figure in years. Year after year, all their dollars go to hitters. The most recent time they’ve spent even 6 figures on an IFA arm was in 2023 with Jose Feliz, and even that was just a $120k bonus. The last time they spent a 7figure bonus on an arm was in 2019 with Andry Lara. So, no surprise we’ve struggled to have DSL arms make their way into our system.

Next guy to get promoted:

• June: Medina (indeed, promoted mid July)
• July: none.

Next guy to get cut/demoted:

• June: Manzueta
• July: Manzueta or Sarit, who’s a year older and repeating the level with no good results.

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That’s it for July 2026.