The 2024 NationalsProspects.com Watchlist
For better or worse, here are the guys we’ll be watching, cursing, rooting for, and/or sending “get well” cards to for 2024.
This upcoming year will be Year Three of the rebuild. Consequently, expectations will be higher despite (or perhaps because of) the “Big Nats” exceeding projections this past season, going from 55 wins to 71 instead of, say, 65. But going from 71 wins to 81 wins (i.e., .500) will be much harder, never mind the the 84-88 win mark that’s roughly enough for teams to make the playoffs.
Perhaps the best thing would be for the Big Club to start strong so the nucleus at Harrisburg can get their feet underneath them, though I suspect one or two of them will be bumped up Rochester, given that (a) no one is blocking them (b) there may be a logjam, especially in the outfield.
After reviewing the comments made when I first threw this spaghetti against the wall drew this up, I’ve made a few changes, including (but not limited to):
- Swapped out ’23 picks for Rule 5 Picks
- Broke apart the notables
- Swapped Elijah Green for Roismar Quintana from OF to Notable Bats
- Dropped Tim Cate, Branden Boisserie, and Michael Cuevas
- Removed Amos Willingham and Jose Ferrer (exceeded rookie thresholds)
- Added TJ White at 1B
- Added Onix Vega back to C Forrest Gump pause again
- Added Jack Sinclair and Luke Young to RHP
- Collapsed the DSL Arms and Bats into one from 10 to 4 total
Now the obligatory reminders about what this is (and isn’t):
• Most of these guys will not make it past High-A – Only a handful will make it to the majors, and most of those will be bench/role/reliever-types. Despite what some of the quants may argue, finding and developing major-league players takes both time and numbers.
• It’s not a depth chart – Players are listed primarily by the highest level they’ve played, minors or majors. I’ve been tempted to alphabetize by the last name to make this point more obvious.
• It’s not a prediction of usage – The Nats like to play infielders at multiple positions in the short seasons and it’s not unusual for some pitchers to both start and relieve for quite some time before it becomes clear how they’ll be used. As the scouts will always tell you: Very few players make the majors at the same position they were playing when they were drafted.
| C | 1B | 2B/SS | 3B | OF | M*A*S*H |
| Millas | Frizzell | Baker | House | J. Young | Cavalli |
| Pineda | White | Made | Lipscomb | Wood | Henry |
| Vega | Ochoa Leyva | Brown | Morales | Hassell | Brzykcy |
| M. Romero | Glasser | Mota | Crews | Bennett | |
| Cooper | Pinckney | Collins | |||
| Lile | Aldonis | ||||
| Green | |||||
| Nunez | |||||
| Vaquero | |||||
| RHP | LHP | Rule 5 Picks | DSL Guys | Notable Arms | Notable Bats |
| Rutledge | Parker | Vasquez | Batista | Ribalta | Stehly |
| Sinclair | Herz | Arias | Portorreal | Marquez | De La Rosa |
| Schoff | Alvarez | Acosta | Roman | J. Garcia | Lawson |
| Lord | Saenz | Gallardo | Tavarez | Tolman | McKenzie |
| Theophile | M. Perez | Sykora | Thomas | ||
| Lara | Agostini | Sthele | Cruz | ||
| Grissom | Carmona | Simpson | Quintana | ||
| Atencio | |||||
| Susana | |||||
| L. Young | |||||
| Leon | |||||
| Mo. Diaz | |||||
| Jimenez |
After my admin gets around to it, this list will be posted in the tab above and in the sidebar. January will be spent building these out while waiting for the prospect books to arrive.
From time to time, I’ll let you know when I’ve finished a category or two, but you can also check to see when a category has been hyperlinked. That means I’ve finished it.
In the meantime, feel free to discuss in the comments…
Thanks for posting this, and for all the work that you put into the site. I look forward to watching the watchlist in the coming season. I’m sure that there will be cheers and groans along the way, but that’s baseball.
This has to be the winter that Luke can start using the phrase
Fords Theatre
Mike Ford destined to join Nats ??
I think the team that ended the season in Harrisburg, will be the team that starts there. I watched these guys play day after day and I do not feel that any of them are ready for the bigs right now. Their consistancys at the plate need to improve, to many bad strikeouts and no real hitting on a consistant basis. Let them learn to play with each other and then promote them together.
Totally agree with Paul,re: starting lineup at Harrisburg in April. Don’t want anyone to be ‘Rhineharted’ next year.
I noted on an earlier post that the general perception is that AA is still a teaching level, while AAA is more of a holding-pen level. I don’t know how much that still holds true, but there’s no doubt that the young stars (we hope) of the future still have learning to do.
At the same time, as John C. has previously noted, there’s going to be (already is) grumbling in the fan base to get these guys to the majors faster because there’s not much else to look forward to with the big club right now. The Nick Senzel signing isn’t going to have folks lining up to buy tickets.
The Nats have been dealing with the consequences of too-rapid promotion with Luis Garcia, so it will be interesting to see whether they’ve learned a lesson there. That said, every player is different, both skills-wise and maturity-wise, so they really need to be handled on a case-by-case basis.
Luke mentioned some potential logjams in the organization if they promote cautiously. I see only a couple, at least at the start of the season. Pinckney looks ready for AA, but it wouldn’t be a terrible thing to rotate four prime OFs at Harrisburg. De La Rosa and Lile didn’t exactly set the world on fire at Wilmington, so it wouldn’t hurt them to stick around Delaware for a while. The bigger rub comes at 3B, if they truly want to keep Morales on the left side for the time being. Or will they defer to House and move Morales to 1B? Morales sure looks like he belongs at AA as well. And where will Lipscomb play if 3B and 1B are occupied? Will they give him more time at SS to try to develop into a “SS-capable” super-utility guy to replace Vargas? If Lipscomb had hit better in the AFL, I would say that they’ll push him on to AAA, but he didn’t.
I’d agree that when a prospect leaves AA he has been groomed to the extent that the club can provide. AAA is still the tougher level and the final test to see if they can succeed in the show.
Garcia skipping that level was most likely due to the 2020 shutdown of Milb and it may have been detrimental in the long run. he wasn’t walking enough in AA so that may be something they will never get with him and they may have figured let’s to see what they had.
to that point what they do with Jacob Young will be interesting. if they see him as a prospect AAA is the place to see if he can develop some power.
I like moving Morales to 1B as long as House is hitting in AA. Also like moving Lile to 2B with the crowded Prospects in the OF.
At the AAA OF level, I see that the Nats just re-signed Derek Hill, who is out of options. He figures to be part of the “holding pen” OF in Rochester along with at least one (or both) of Call and Young, both of whom still have three options and will be valuable organizational/shuttle depth. None of those guys will necessarily be “blocking” any of the rising stars, but at the same time, it looks like at least two-thirds of the Rochester starting OF is already stocked.
I think Hill was signed by the Rangers, as well as Gerardo Carrillo for that matter
Oops, you’re right, I misread the thing on Hill.
While the ceiling for Crews, Wood, House, and Morales seems to be ‘All Star’, they need to master AA first.
Morales is so intriguing, as he’s only played professional ball for a few months but hasn’t really struggled yet.
Crews is probably a Nat first; the offseason should have done him wonders.
Crews got walloped by BABIP “bad luck” at AA at the end of a very long spring/summer for him. I have more confidence in his contact tool than I do in that of any of the other top Nat prospects, which should indeed grease a smoother developmental path for him.
As for the Watchlist itself, I would suggest moving Quintana (again) to 1B, both because of the lack of people there and because he played 48 games in 2023 at 1B versus only 24 in LF. His future doesn’t appear to lie out in the big green pasture.
Maybe flip Ochoa Leyva to “Notables,” as I don’t know that he’s a first baseman, although they don’t seem to know what he is. They drafted him as a SS. In 2023, he played 10 games at that position, 6 in LF, and 12 at 1B. They drafted a couple of shortstops, though, so who knows where he’ll end up. One would think that the OF at Fredericksburg is going to be crowded, and that Marcus Brown will be at SS.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see Brown at short in A+
That’s quite possible with Brown. They’re desperate for genuine SS play all the way up the system. Gotta make sure they don’t rush him at the plate, though. His defense is said to be stellar, but they’re not sure if he’ll hit . . . which has been said about shortstop prospects since before all of us were born!
while it’s hard to argue that the pleasant surprise of the ’23 class was Pinckney, I’m optimistic that Brown will be another one we are talking about next season