Jim Rassol-USA TODAY Sports
Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Washington Nationals. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as our own observations.
This is the fourth year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but we use that as a rule of thumb.
A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.
All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here.
Other Prospects of Note
Grouped by type and listed in order of preference within each category.
One-Tool Position Players
Jackson Cluff, SS
Andrew Pinckney, 3B
T.J. White, 1B
Israel Pineda, C
Cluff is a 27-year-old org shortstop with unbelievably quick defensive actions. He’s a 30 hit/40 power guy and should get a cup of coffee at some point. Pinckney, a 6-foot-4 2023 draftee out of Alabama, is a plus runner with a 30 hit tool. White is a switch-hitter with power and a 20 hit tool. Pineda looked like a workman’s backup as a young prospect, but he’s been at or below the Mendoza Line three of the last four years; he was outrighted off Washington’s roster and went unclaimed during the offseason.
Throwing Hard
Brendan Collins, RHP
Marc Davis, RHP
Samuel Vasquez, RHP
Collins is a 24-year-old righty with a drop-and-drive delivery that gives his mid-90s fastball flat angle. He’s missing a ton of bats at High-A and has peaked at 98 mph. Davis is a deceptive righty with a vertical fastball that tops out at 96 and plays with his breaking ball at the top of the zone in a confounding way. A minor league Rule 5 pick from Cleveland, Vasquez’s mid-90s fastball is surprisingly hittable.
Projectable Pitching
Darrel Lunar, RHP
Leuris Portorreal, RHP
Brayan Romero, RHP
Leodarlyn Colon, RHP
Lunar is an athletic, projectable righty who has been up to 96 during DSL tune ups. Portorreal is a very projectable 18-year-old righty currently sitting in the 88-91 mph range with a combination of rise and run that doesn’t miss bats. He’s mechanically smooth and has four pitches already, but he’s given up almost twice as many hits as innings pitched so far in 2024 in part because his fastball is pretty hittable. Romero is a Colombian righty sitting 93-96 with sink and tail on the complex. He’s thrown strikes so far this year, but he’s 22 and we want to see him perform against full-season bats. Colon is a big, 6-foot-4, 19-year-old righty sitting 88-92 with huge extension and big downhill plane.
Older or Injured Pitching
Thomas Schultz, RHP
Dustin Saenz, LHP
Brad Lord, RHP
Marquis Grissom Jr., RHP
Cole Henry, RHP
Aldo Ramirez, RHP
Schultz is a 6-foot-6 2023 senior sign out of Vanderbilt who is having success in a multi-inning relief role while sitting 92-95 and mixing in three different breaking balls. Saenz is a changeup-oriented 24-year-old pitchability lefty who sits about 90. He hasn’t pitched yet in 2024 due to injury. Lord is a low-release maven with a rise-and-run fastball that plays up around the hands of righty batters. Grissom was Washington’s 2022 13th rounder out of Georgia Tech. He has a changeup-driven profile and is having success at Wilmington despite none of his other pitches generating much swing-and-miss. Henry was once a Top 100 prospect but injuries seem to have taken their toll, as his stuff is down compared to the three-pitch monster he was at peak. Acquired from Boston in the 2021 Kyle Schwarber trade, Ramirez hasn’t pitched since September of that year but looked like a potential no. 4 starter when he was healthy.
System Overview
Monitoring Washington’s rebuild goes beyond just the farm system and extends to the big league roster, where many of the Nationals’ former high-profile prospects have been growing and learning for the last couple of years. CJ Abrams began to turn a corner last season and that has continued in 2024, as he looks like the rare power-hitting shortstop that was foretold when he was acquired. MacKenzie Gore has taken a step forward this year, Luis García Jr. (who’s still just 24) is finally producing above the league average on offense, and Lane Thomas has been good since coming over from St. Louis for Jon Lester in 2021. Keibert Ruiz has been a bummer on both sides of the ball, but for the most part, Mike Rizzo and Co. have hit on the centerpieces of the trades they’ve made since they began to tear down the World Series roster of a half decade ago.
The problem is that two juggernauts sit atop the division and show little to no sign of slowing down. Even if every single highly regard prospect above pans out exactly as hoped, Washington still needs depth (especially on the pitching side) that this system is not yet in a position to provide, both to weather injury attrition (which it is already experiencing) and to facilitate the trades that would truly enable Washington to contend.
Maybe Elijah Green and/or Yohandy Morales (who Eric was sky-high on prior to last year’s draft — this is a pretty extreme re-eval for him) will produce commensurate with their bonuses, but the opportunity cost of those two picks looms large in this top-heavy system, which has high-end impact at its apex but below-average overall depth. Things are getting better here. With Wood and Crews approaching prime time, it’s an exciting time to be a Nationals fan. It will probably take the Phillies and Braves aging out of contention to truly clear a path for this team, but within the next three years or so that feels plausible. Recall that Rizzo’s ability to pick veteran pieces to plug in around his young stars has tended to be very good (Josh Harrison, Asdrúbal Cabrera, Howie Kendrick, etc.), so while you have to squint to see an entirely homegrown contending lineup and rotation here, we’re inching closer to a moment when the Nationals can start quilting those guys into their younger core.
