{"id":19736,"date":"2026-07-12T11:54:04","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T15:54:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=19736"},"modified":"2026-07-12T11:54:05","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T15:54:05","slug":"nats-take-dc-native-hacopian-with-2026-1st-round-pick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=19736","title":{"rendered":"Nats take DC native Hacopian with 2026 1st round pick"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Hacopain’s TAMU profile pick is … jacked. Photo via MLB network<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So, one of the challenges of having a draft on a Saturday is, it’s awfully hard to find time to do a full comprehensive reaction in a timely manner. So, this will be somewhat brief, but wanted to get a conversation out there real quick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this year’s first round, the Nats at #11 take Chris Hacopian<\/strong>, 2B from TAMU. He’s a DC area native; born in Gaithersburg, grew up in Potomac, went to Churchill, and spent his first two college seasons locally at Maryland (click here for his PG profile<\/a>). He was at UMD with his older brother, and upon his graduation Hacopian entered the transfer portal and went to TAMU. Hacopian was ready for better competition than what UMD gave him; he destroyed big 10 pitching his sophomore year. He wasn’t awful in the Cape Cod league after his sophomore year (he destroyed the NECL after his freshman year).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His junior season at TAMU he slashed .319\/.405\/.578<\/a> with more walks than Ks and some power (11 homers). He played 3B and SS for Maryland, and initially was set to play SS for Tamu as well, but ended up at 2B instead thanks to some limitations in his arm strength and lateral motion. I think he’s profiling as a 2B\/LF type in the pros. His leading tool is his Hit tool, where he was one of the best pure hitters in the draft and has a 60 grade from MLBpipeline<\/a>.com. They give him a current 50 power grade, but something tells me this guy can improve on that as well. I think he’s a pro hitter who won’t chase, hits the ball hard, can power it up when he wants to, and who should move through the ranks quickly. He had some injury issues this year, and by most accounts is a stiff, awkward athleticism guy who may struggle to stick even at 2B. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hacopian was mocked to the Nats pretty frequently in the end, with the major pundits all over the pick. The way the 1st round worked out, if the Nats were after a college hitter, then they got the one that made the most sense; Burress, Gracia, and Bell all went just before Hacopian, and the next three picks were all HS guys (Gringlinger, Condon, Lombard). They passed on the toolsy Lebron, as well as Ace Reese, who went 24th and was clearly not in the near-top10 level. They also passed on all the prep projects, which is interesting and indicative of what this new front office is thinking after last year’s prep-heavy draft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My judgement: the way the draft worked out, he was the “right” pick if the target was a College bat, with all the other candidates going before him. He could be a fast mover, maybe in the majors by end of 2027.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, one of the challenges of having a draft on a Saturday is, it’s awfully hard to find time to do a full comprehensive reaction in a timely manner. So, this will be somewhat brief, but wanted to get a conversation out there real quick. In this year’s first round, the Nats at #11 take […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4324],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-draft","category-prospects"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19736"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19736\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19738,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19736\/revisions\/19738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}