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Three Nats Make the MLB Pipeline Top 100

For the second straight year, the Nationals have multiple players in the MLB Pipeline Top 100.

The usual suspect—Cade Cavalli—has dropped out, as have Robert Hassell and Elijah Green. James Wood remains from 2023 while Brady House returns after a one-year absence.

The Coming Thing, a.k.a. Dylan Crews, completes the triad and comes in at the highest position at #7 for the preseason editon of the Top 100, one of 78 or so set for 2024. The Nats’ #1 pick in the 2023 draft (#2 overall) nevertheless dropped from #4 in the final 2023 list. He finished 2023 in AA Harrisburg, which is where he should start 2024 given that he played only 20 games there, but one can envision a scenario in which he’s sent to Rochester to avoid qualifying for Super Two status “work on his defense.”

Likewise, Wood dropped from #7 to #14, which is still higher than the #17 mark from MLB’s first Top 100 list of 2023. He spent more than half the season there, so it’s a little more of a coin flip whether or he returns – heads if they want him to lower the K rate, tails if they want to keep him in tandem with Crews.

House returned to the Top 100 during the 2023 season after injuries shortened his 2022 season to just 45 games. He’s now ranked #48, down from #40 in the final 2023 list. Given how carefully his workload was managed, it seems unlikely that he’ll start 2023 other than Harrisburg but with the current seatwarm…er, third basemen (or guys playing third base) his path is unblocked.



Earlier this week, MLB Pipeline ranked the Top 10 by position, with House ranked #6 for 3B and Crews ranked #4 and #7 for Wood among the outfielders.

Only 18 days until we can shift from prospect ranking season to pitchers and catchers report. In the meantime, you can ogle what the DC clubbies get to wash this summer.

28 Commments

  1. There’s a lot of strange choices at the top of MLB Pipeline’s list. Skenes being #3 is pretty silly, even if Skenes is the best pitching prospect to come around in a long time. The injury potential should dent every pitching prospect’s ratings, especially Skenes with the absurd over-use of him in college. Remember, TINSTAPP.

    Colson Montgomery at #9 is also pretty crazy. Montgomery is 21 and just hit .244/.400/.427 in AA. Compare that to others in the top 20 and you’ll find he’s one of the oldest players with some of the worst numbers. He’s still a very good prospect, but has no business being in the top 10.

    It’s also a bit comical that Max Clark has been placed ahead of James Wood, after putting up a line of .224/.383/.377 in a shortened season, peaking at low A. There’s a lot of emphasis on potential that’s still 4 years away…

    In general, the drop of Wood is a bit strange. After the ’23 draft, they did an updated prospects list, where Wood was placed 7th. I don’t really know what happened since August or so that justified Wood dropping (especially at the expense of some of the aforementioned names).

    1. I would challenge Callis and friends with this question: who that they’ve ranked above him would you trade Wood for? My answer would be Holliday and maybe Skenes. That’s it. As high as I am on Crews, I wouldn’t trade Wood for him. Despite the hype, Chourio is a pipsqueak next to Wood. MLB is sold out for big power right now, and there’s no one on this list with bigger power potential than Wood. House might be #2 on the power potential list. Don’t take my word for it; ask Keith Law about the monster shots he saw them blast out of the Wilmington graveyard.

      It’s interesting that Skenes is the only pitcher in the top 22. There are six between 23 and 33, but clearly only one guy on this whole board is thought of as true ace potential. If/when healthy, Cavalli supposed has similar stuff to this level of prospects. (Of those pitchers, #26 is Cade Horton, who the Nats passed on in 2021 for Green. Passed over SS Brooks Lee is at #18.)

      2. Regarding pitchers, it’s not surprising that SPs are so sparse at the top end. We seem time and time again elite pitching prospects get injured and never return close to pre-injury levels.

        These were the top 5 SPs in 2021: MacKenzie Gore (#6 overall, now with the upside of an above average SP), Nate Pearson (#10, at best an above average reliever now) and Casey Mize (#11, probably at best an average SP), Sixto Sanchez (#15, may never throw a pitch again, he’s thrown 1 professional inning since 2020), Ian Anderson (#18, at best an average SP now). Each of them have been ravaged by long term injury. It’s why TINSTAAPP was coined over 30 years ago. Pitching injuries have always been a risk, and it’s seemingly only gotten worse in recent years.

        Regarding the players passed up in the 2021 draft, it’s not just Horton and Lee. Of the hitters taken after Green, you have Jace Jung at 60, Jett Williams at 45, Chase DeLauter (local kid from Frederick, who went to JMU) at 31, Justin Crawford at 77, Cole Young at 37, Spencer Jones at 84, Drew Gilbert at 53, Xavier Isaac at 58, Jordan Beck at 81, and Zach Neto, who put up almost 2 WAR in the majors already. That’s just the hitters. Among the arms, you have Dylan Lesko at 56, Noah Schultz at 50, and Robbie Snelling at 36. That’s 15 players taken in the first round after Green that are still considered top 100 prospects, where the prospect quality drops precipitously with each successive pick (there’s very likely even more. Roman Anthony went in the 2nd round and is ranked 24th, but I didn’t bother to go through all these picks).

        It’s still too early to definitively write off Green, but it looks like incredibly unlikely odds at this point. As has been repeated ad nauseum at this point, his 40+ K% is unprecedented. Otherwise, our hopes for some impact players from that draft lie almost exclusively with Bennett and Lipscomb.

        1. I didn’t hate the Green pick in the way that I hated the Romero pick, as he was a damn fool who had disaster written all over him. And I could understand the appeal of Green’s tool chest. He had been talked of for much of the winter as a potential 1/1. I’ll never forget that the Fansgraphs write-up gushed about him that he could be a 40/40 guy who could stick in CF. (To which I noted somewhere that Mike Trout and Willie Mays never had a 40/40 season, so that would be an interesting development.)

          But . . . soon the buzz increased that Green had a lot of contact issues. Many teams backed off of him. I remember Ghost at NatsTalk being adamant that the Nats could NOT blow a #5 pick and that Green was too risky. I agreed with that sentiment. I didn’t want Green. But there’s also no guarantee that they would have gotten the alternative pick right, either. They were said to be more fond of Kevin Parada and Jacob Berry, both of whom have made AA but not particularly set the world on fire. Brooks Lee looks like the better alternative. Among the higher-rated players.

          Some national prospect list (Fangraphs?) noted of Green that there’s no precedent of a player with a 40% K rate at that stage in his career making any real contribution at the MLB level. I hope he has that enlarged and on his wall for this winter of his discontent. He’s very young (turned 20 last month) to say that it’s now or never for him, because it’s not. But we’ll find out in 2024 whether he’s put in the work to try to get back on track.

          1. Maybe the Nats signed Joey Gallo to give Green hope that there is a future at the MLB level for someone with a 40% K rate.

          2. LOL re: Gallo and Green. If Green can post a couple of 40-homer seasons in the majors, I guess we’d learn to live with it.

      3. Call this January bored in between chores , routine , late night Western novels with green tea but
        That trade between the Twins and mariners sure raised an eye brow . Perhaps setting a trade value bar for certain valued middle infielders .
        The Twins came away with two interesting A level prospects plus a serviceable starter who might get flipped in the near future .
        Meanwhile we await P/C report date and any player development staff hiring additions to the new focus on P/D.

      4. We know we are in the middle of a rebuild when an ole foe met Gsselman signs coming off Japanese League Samari adventure
        He must have loved the cuisine !

        1. Maybe Gallo can have a good first half as the Guardians put together a competitive club eventually needing a $5 million lefty bat in their line up
          They have a great farm system

    2. Will anybody laugh at me for suggesting Nats scoop up Trey Cabbage from Angels ?

    3. All the eyes on the big 3
      Wood Crews and House
      But I’m very curious to see Pickneys over all game rise !

      1. Fill the void at Rochester with Boyd ( Matthew ) on a two way pact ? Why not
        Kick the tires like Junior Sales on Hee Haw

    5. This may never happen but Joey Gallo should spend time in March with Brian Daubach .

    6. If there are any Senator / Nats fans who will be downtown this Saturday and would love to coffee clutch , discuss baseball and the memory of Harrisburgs own late Marian Tyler
      Let me know here since I’m inThe Burg for business all day night Saturday upcoming
      Expo Ebbe

    7. Baseball chat , coffee clutch
      Yellow Bird cafe if any Nats fans out and about
      Let me know here
      Harrisburg

    9. Now we await pitchers and catchers reporting
      Hitting coaches staying the same as 2023??
      New staff assignments ??
      Only the shadow knows ..

    2. Mornin sunrise walk to FNB to pray on stadium grounds
      May the Sens win the EL 2024
      Or at least make post season

    1. Thank you providing the justification to only do a couple of them… back to the RHPs…

  4. So it’s distinctly possible that LeCroy could have both Morales and Lipscomb
    Stationed in his infield by August 24?
    Carter Kieboom meanwhile gets shopped around the league ?

  5. Apologize if this was already posted:

    The Nats extended spring training invites to Dylan Crews, James Wood, Brady House, Robert Hassell III, Trey Lipscomb and Darren Baker.

    1. That’s interesting news. I do love that they frame these things as “invitations.” “The Nationals invited Dylan Crews to Spring Training, but he turned them down, citing a conflict with his schedule.”

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