Well, we’re past the trade deadline and the 2026 draft, where we got a near top 10 pick added to the system.
How are we looking? The first shop to do a post-trade deadline and post Draft prospect inclusion is the trusty old Baseball America shop; here’s their updated top 30 with some commentary.
Here’s a link to their updated top 30 if you’re a BA subscriber, other wise the table below shoes their 8/10/26 rank along with their 7/1/26 rank.
| 8/10/2026 | 7/1/2026 | First Name | Last Name | Position |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | Eli | Willits | SS |
| 2 | 2 | Seaver | King | SS |
| 3 | 3 | Jarlin | Susana | RHP (Starter) |
| 4 | 4 | Devin | Fitz-Gerald | SS |
| 5 | 5 | Ronny | Cruz | SS |
| 6 | 6 | Travis | Sykora | RHP (Starter) |
| 7 | Pre-Acqu | Chris | Hacopian | 2B |
| 8 | 7 | Luis | Perales | RHP (Starter) |
| 9 | 9 | Miguel | Sime Jr. | RHP (Starter) |
| 10 | 10 | Jackson | Kent | LHP (Starter) |
| 11 | 25 | Samil | Serrano | OF (Corner) |
| 12 | Pre-Acqu | Chase | Brunson | OF (CF) |
| 13 | 12 | Landon | Harmon | RHP (Starter) |
| 14 | 8 | Gavin | Fein | SS |
| 15 | 18 | Coy | James | SS |
| 16 | Pre-Acqu | Cooper | Harris | RHP (Starter) |
| 17 | Pre-Acqu | Jack | Cebert | RHP (Starter) |
| 18 | 20 | Luke | Dickerson | SS/CF |
| 19 | 13 | Alex | Clemmey | LHP (Starter) |
| 20 | Pre-Acqu | Ben | Grable | RHP (Reliever) |
| 21 | 21 | Alejandro | Rosario | RHP |
| 22 | 16 | Sam | Peterson | OF (CF) |
| 23 | 27 | Yoel | Tejeda Jr. | RHP (Starter) |
| 24 | Pre-Acqu | Luke | Williams | SS |
| 25 | 11 | Ethan | Petry | 1B/OF (Corner) |
| 26 | Pre-Acqu | Josh | Hartle | LHP (Starter) |
| 27 | 15 | Yohandy | Morales | 3B |
| 28 | Pre-Acqu | Yovanny | Cruz | RHP (Reliever) |
| 29 | 19 | Yeremy | Cabrera | OF (corner) |
| 30 | 17 | Cayden | Wallace | 2B/3B |
| 31 | 23 | Angel | Feliz | SS/3B |
| 32 | 24 | Caleb | Lomavita | C |
| 33 | 26 | Jorgelys | Mota | SS |
| 34 | 28 | Marconi | German | SS |
| 36 | 30 | De la Cruz | Marlon | RHP (Starter) |
| MLB | 14 | Harry | Ford | C |
| MLB | 22 | Riley | Cornelio | RHP (Starter) |
| MLB | 29 | Andrew | Pinckney | OF (Corner) |
Ok, so lets talk about the additions and notable changes.
- The Draft netted us 4 new top-30 prospects: Hacopian, Brunson, Harris, and Williams. Our first 4 rounders.
- The Trade Deadline also netted us 4 new top-30 prospects: Cebert, Grable, Hartle, Cruz.
- As of this ranking, 3 guys were in the MLB and are not included: Ford, Cornelio, Pinckney (though Pinckney would have been pushed off the end of the previous top 30 with all these new names coming in).
- No changes in the top 6 from 7/1 to 8/10, even though Susana seems to be on track to miss the entire season with a murky injury that’s never really been disclosed. Update: maybe not; apparently he’s on track to return next week … just in time for the season to be over.
- Hacopian slots into his first ranking at #7. Our farm system has come a long way when our first rounder comes in so low. Here’s some comparisons to other top draft picks and where they debuted in our farm system:
- Willits: 2025 1st round, 1st overall: Went right in at our #1
- King: 2024 1st round, 10th overall: debuted at #7 on BA’s first list post draft
- Crews 2023 1st round, 2nd overall: was #2 on Fangraphs (behind Woods), #1 most everywhere else
- Greene 2022 1st round 5th overall: was #5 on Fangraphs, #4 on BA’s first list
- House 2021 1st round 11th overall: went right to #2 behind Cavalli
- Cavalli 2020 1st round 22nd overall: Went to #4 to start
- Rutledge 2019 1st round 17th overall: started at #4 in the system.
- Denaburg 2018 1st round ?th overall: started at #4 on multiple shops
- Romero 2017 1st round ?th overall: Started at #5
- Kieboom 2016 1st round-S: 6-7th
- Dunning 2016 1st round-S: 7th-8th
- As noted elsewhere, Jackson Kent #10 is going to get called up to pitch in the MLB rotation, above Perales.
- Samil Serrano is the first player with a significantly improved relative ranking to 5 weeks ago, going from #25 to #11 on this list. No surprise, with him slashing .300/.418/.523 in the DSL in his debut season after signing for $1.9M in January. It would be great to develop someone out of the DSL.
- Gavin Fein gets dumped 6 spots for his struggling 2026 season, fair.
- Coy James actually moved up a few spots relatively. It pays to play the infield.
- Fein: .238/.330/.406 with 9 homers splitting time between CF and RF.
- James: .230/.345/.438 with 18 homers playing all around the dirt.
- Our highest ranked prospect acquired in trade is AA starter Jack Cebert, ranked #17 here.
- Alex Clemmey takes a dive, from #13 to #19. Understandable given his season performance, even if he’s had some decent games lately.
- Sam Peterson takes a dive as well, from 16->22. The Nats don’t think so; they just promoted him to AAA and he’s started hot.
- The biggest drop has to be Ethan Petry, who was on the cusp of the top 10 in early July and got dropped 14 spots in this ranking. Ouch.
- In the same vein, Morales got dropped from 15 to 27 after struggling for the last two months. That seems awfully harsh.
- The last two guys on the current top 30 are also hitters who have gotten dropped: Cabrera and Wallace. Cabrera I get; he’s now finishing his 5th pro season and is struggling with the promotion to High-A, but Wallace’s dinging doesn’t make sense. he’s had a really solid season and is now in AAA.
Ford, Cornelio, and Pinckney if they were still on the list probably would come in at around 20, 25, and 30ish respectively. None of the three are graduated yet in terms of ABs or IPs, probably just some BA thing where they don’t rank guys in the majors.
Five guys got pushed out of the top 30 with all this churn: assuming they’re still in the same order:
- 31: Angel Feliz
- 32: Caleb Lomavita
- 33: Jorgelys Mota
- 34: Marconi German
- 35: Marlon De la Cruz
In terms of overall farm system rankings, I’ll be super curious to see where we sit now. One week after ranking our top 30 in July, BA put us at the #4 farm system in all of baseball, and that was before adding 8 more guys. The three teams ranked above us (Milwaukee, Tampa, LA Dodgers) are all in first place and were absolutely “buyers” at the trade deadline, meaning the combination of us adding and them all subtracting gives this team a real chance at getting to the #1 spot, which is crazy.
In all the time i’ve tracked prospects and Farm system rankings, going back well before our time in DC, the Nats farm system has been ranked #1 exactly ONCE by any shop: the 2012 Baseball America Handbook release just before we moved a bunch of guys to acquire Gio Gonzalez. Do we have a chance to get there again?