The following is an analysis of the prospects in the Washington National Farm System. The scout report compiles information provided by industry sources and my own observations. This is the fifth year we divide between two expected relief characters, the abbreviation we see in the “Position” column below: MIRP for multi-set relief pitchers and SIRP for single-set relief pitchers. Listed ETAs are usually associated with years that must be added to the 40-player lineup to avoid being eligible for Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments were made where it looked right, but we took it as experience.
A quick overview of what FV (future value) can be found here. A more in-depth overview can be found here.
All ranking prospects below also appear on the board, and the website provides each organization with a resource for sortable reconnaissance information. It has more detailed information than this article (as well as track and field data from various sources) and integrates a list of each team so readers can compare potential customers across farm systems. Can be found here.
Other prospects to note
Grouped by type and listed in order of preference for each category.
Hit tool problem
Sam Peterson (Cf)
Elijah Green
Cayden Wallace, 2b/3b
Rafael Ramirez Jr.
Andrew Pinckney,
Maxwell Romero Jr.
Petersen is an extra-average midfielder who was Washington’s eighth round last year. He has been 48% hard times so far this season, but one-third of his bats are on rehabilitation missions in Florida, so pair it with healthy salt. His swing always requires entering the batting area, and he is often late to the contact point, but the defensive clips make him a prospect. Green once again stood out in 40% of the clip when the Nationals decided to demean him to rookie Ball in mid-May to make his swing completely reworked. A few weeks ago, a large SEC program was trying to ask him for football. Several 2024 injuries have made Wallace a former second-round draft pick, hard to assess (slant labor, rib fractures, back problems), but has since been hit from Kansas City as part of the Hunter Harvey trade. This year, in theory healthy, Wallace has been trying to catch up with the fastball (he played against them for the past two years.197) and has been easy to come. At its peak, he looked like a steady part-time cornerman, but now his bats look really slow. Ramirez is a viable shortstop with average strength coming from the Lane Thomas trade. Last year, he accounted for more than 30% of the time and has not competed in 2025 due to injuries. Pinckney, Alabama’s 6-foot-4 2023 recruiter, is a runner with average power and 30 hit tools. Romero is a 24-year-old left-handed catcher who has taken over 30% of his second straight season (his first game in Harrisburg).
Depth mitigator
Holden Powell, RHP
Daison Acosta, RHP
Junior Santos, RHP
Powell is the second largest savings in UCLA history, the first-year NCAA annual plug and is a close-up for the 2019 U.S. university team. Powell stuffed the tail’s 94mph fastball and had sliders higher than the mid-80s, but his arm strokes were long and difficult to repeat, so he encountered enough strikes to keep him away from the main part of the list. When the Nathan popped up Acosta at the 2023 Minor League 5 draft, he was the last time he became the GCL starter for the METS system in 2017. Now, thanks to the 30th grade fastball order, he is a wild reliefer and it is difficult to get his footing higher than Double-A. Santos is a 6-foot-7-inch and 250-pound prospect known for being tough youngsters in the Metropolitan system, but his stuff is smooth at mid-speed, and his stuff doesn’t ticke when the Metropolitan Metropolitan will move him to a bullpen. He joined the minor league deal in Nat State and participated in Harrisburg as a 93-96-year reliance.
DSL batsman
Nauris de la Cruz, of
Esnaider Vargas, RF
Adrian Tusen, Miff
De La Cruz, 17, is a left-handed outfielder who has a difficult figure to swing and has so far been having a strike. Vargas and Tusen are part of what I call DSL’s second unit. They are not as representative as other batsmen, maybe two-year-old DSL guys, but they are both very young and beautiful. Vargas has some of the best bat speeds on the roster, and Tusen is arguably the most projectable after Victor Hurtado.
Rookie Arm
Marlon de la Cruz, RHP
Darrel Lunar, RHP
Yaiker Torrelles, RHP
Jose Sanchez, RHP
De La Cruz, 19, is a 6-foot-2 correctness with an advanced pitch base. Depending on the outing, he will peak in the 95-97 mph range and flash good sliders, but now the course is usually below average. De la Cruz was well built and triggered a strike. He is a good development sleeper. Lunar is a lean 19-year-old right and is the hardest thrower in the FCL lineup (92-95, touch 97), though his heater effect drops due to tail movement and below-average commands. Torrelles is an explosive little athlete who produces an extension of nearly 7 feet despite being 5-foot-11. He hit 97 in DSL this year on a brief outing. His curve ball is 20 mph slower than his heater and is still developing. Sanchez is a remodeled outfielder who currently sits only above the 80s, but his figure and sporty composition are exciting as he is a predictable 6-foot-3 with extra-long leverage.
Deep starter
Davian Garcia, RHP
Robert Cranz (Rhp)
Hyun-il Choi, RHP
Travis Sthele, RHP
Erik Tolman, LHP
Garcia is Nats’ sixth round of 2024 on the Florida Gulf Coast, with his shorter right-right hands, and very high slots that produce skilled pitchers. He may end up being a heavier long-term reliefer. Cranz was the seventh round of Oklahoma State last year. For a batsman, the angle on his fastball is really hard to match, and so far it has produced over 30% of the rate in A ball, even if it is 91-92 at a rate of 91-92. If Cranz can find above-average courses (his circuit breaker is currently playing 40 and 45 grade products), he will be a major league reliefist. Choi was selected from the Dodgers from the Little League Rule 5, the starter of the South Korean sidearm, deployed the Eastern/Western offense with a cutter and deployed the fastball at the top of the area. He has high athleticism, but he only hits 89-90 and lives in the “In-depth Introduction Talent Band”. Sthele is the 2023 round 12 of Dexas, assigned to Aigh-A Wilmington. He is an ultra-efficient striker with something above average. Tolman is a left-handed in the 26-year-old ASU, and his 90s low fastball/slider combo may be enough to make him a third-placed 40-man left-handed. He had success as a swingman, but was only recently promoted to Wilmington.
System Overview
Well, it’s a fun 24-hour for this franchise, which fired general manager Mike Rizzo and manager Davey Martinez yesterday. Mike Debartolo is former senior vice president and assistant General Motors (GM), who has been appointed interim general manager. The change comes a week before the Major League Baseball Draft where the Nationals will receive their first overall draft pick this year. In baseball, it will be different for those who effectively hand over the card to make the final decision. It is not always GM or POBO, although it is often involved in the decision in the first round (especially at the top of the first round), regardless of its title. Amateur Scout Danny Haas’s National Vice President and Senior Director of Amateur Scout Brad Ciolek is more familiar with Pick no no Washington’s choice. 1 Rizzo, but no doubt Rizzo was involved in the process of communicating with the agent and ownership of the decision and is no longer in the room. The thinking here is continuous – not all the scout reports collected under Rizzo walked out of the door with him, but there were some personnel dominoes falling down at a very inconvenient time, which added a certain degree of difficulty to make the Nath must be nailed.
The first player Washington chose is most likely to be in the absence. 3 in the system behind Sykora and Susana, due to staff graduation. Although Sykora’s situation was blurred by his situation at the last start before the list publication, no one could touch on their ascension and proximity combination in this draft class. The Naths don’t have any campaign methods at this year’s draft, but the 1.1 bonus slots are so big that they may be able to gain creativity and throw away money in later rounds, though who knows if the GM changes will have any effect on how comfortable they become indifferent. In the final round, Washington had a hot tool question mark in the early stages (Brady House, Elijah Green), and the results were mixed. This made them play a role with the first draft pick for Ethan Holliday (a mediocre 73% contact rate on display box circuits).
In most respects, the system is still no more than average, but definitely better than a year ago. Its signs of life are related to developmental tilts. Last year there was a league-low pitcher on the Nationals. This year, despite losing some pitcher graduations in 2024 (Mitchell Parker, DJ Herz), there are still 18 pitchers, including several people with the “arrow” type within a year of the selection. If the team is going to compete with the Metropolitan, Braves and Phillies, it’s a positive sign for an organization that needs to make pitches from within, they all enjoy a series of combinations of finance and development.
The cornerstone of Washington’s reconstruction efforts have always been professional reconnaissance. They nailed the Juan Soto trade, which won them James Wood, Mackenzie Gore, CJ Abrams, Jarlin Susana and Robert Hassell III. At this moment, the entire core of the major league team comes from the industry. Other deals, such as Max Scherzer/Trea Turner’s deal with Los Angeles, are also more mixed and do not have a great role-playing contingent support for timber, etc. The original draft of this section went on to ask, “What is the reasonable deadline for this front-end organization to produce a truly competitive playoff lineup?” I spit, the end window of the team control window (after 2027) and the Abrams (after 2028) are a natural deadline, but I think we now have the answers from the Lerner family.
Can they add this year’s deadline? They don’t have much way to trade participants in their expiration transactions. The basic statistics for Josh Bell and Amed Rosario beat their surface performance, and Kyle Finnegan was an All-Star last year, despite losing Velo’s tick bug. But unless the club is interested in moving to his ARB era and being a free agent after the 2027 season, Luis García Jr. feels they’re selling low to him because García is more talented than this year’s surface stats.
Internationally, the Naths have suffered some very compelling mistakes over the past few years. Maybe it’s too early to call Cristhian Vaquero a missed, but it’s not a good thing given the bonus they offer him and the opportunity cost of doing so (it’s hard to have a strong signing course when one gets nearly $5 million). Victor Hurtado is in the same bucket, while Armando Cruz ($3.9 million in 2022) and Andy Acevedo ($1.2 million in 2023) cook more clearly. Here, it seems like a strategic shift has taken place as NATS spread their bonuses to more players in 2025, and there is a very interesting DSL group that points out the prospects for several position players. Scuttlebutt in the international scouting community is that Washington will adopt a similar strategy for at least the next few years and avoid giving any player $3 million or more.
