NationalsProspects.com

Vote for Your Favorite Bats

The winter meetings are fast approaching, but we’re in the midst of what has now become the new normal: waiting for news.

So let’s check the next offseason box and rank our favorite Nationals position players, a.k.a. bats.

Four of last year’s Top 10 graduated this past summer, and the top-ranked player from 2024 (Seaver King) is most likely going to be leap-frogged by a 1/1 pick (Eli Willits). After that, it seems like a free-for-all.

Here’s how it goes… Send me your Top 10 list of minor-league position players (there’s only one 40-man guy who has rookie status, so you need not worry about overlooking anyone this year) to enfieldmass-top10bats[at]yahoo[dot]com (link will open your preferred email client) or post them in the comments.

Later this week, I’ll compile the votes and weight them in reverse order (#1 = 10 points, #2 = 9 points… #9 = 2 points, #10 = 1 point). When it feels like I’ve got a sizable number of submissions (or it’s just time to make a new post), I’ll update this post to close the polls.

Just a reminder: “bat” is shorthand for “position player.” You don’t need to factor in defense, so Caleb Lomavita remains eligible. As per usual, it’s difficult to think of a glove-first for the Nats; the opposite is far, far, far more common.

We’ll then have the 15th annual NationalsProspects.com Top 10 Bats list.

This is where I usually comment on what might happen at the Winter Meetings, but it really is anyone’s guess. The status quo is probably a safe bet, given that most of the moves over the past 4-5 months have been as audacious as ordering a vanilla shake to go with a grilled cheese sandwich.

16 Commments

  1. 1. Eli Willits
    2. Ethan Petry
    3. Orelvis Martinez
    4. Seaver King
    5. Yohandy Morales
    6. Caleb Lomavita
    7. Angel Feliz
    8. Sam Petersen
    9. Luke Dickerson
    10. Christian Franklin
    The “Will Way” Honorable Mention Award: Phillip Glasser

    Other HMs: Cayden Wallace, S. Brown, Dashyll Tejeda, Vaquero, all the DSL guys (German, Cortesia, B. Martinez), ’25 picks yet to play (Coy James, Boston Smith)

    This is an interesting list. It feels deeper than in past years, but with way less high end talent.

    Martinez’s inclusion here might surprise people but it’s hard to overstate how much of a coup his signing was. Everyone was dumbstruck when the Jays released him, because he was as recently as 2024 a consensus top 100 prospect. He had a very bad 2025 (but compare his season to King’s: Martinez had a .74 wRC+ in AAA at age 23, King had a 78 wRC+ in AA at age 22), but in nearly every season before that he was considerably above average while being considerably below average age. He turned 24 2 weeks ago, so he’s not even washed up. Most recently, he’s played mostly 2B and 3B, so there’s not much to block him from getting a real chance to prove himself in DC.

    1. Your ranking of Martinez got me to take deeper look at him, but unfortunately I can’t share your optimism.

      Yes, he was an FV50 as recently as 2024 and I agree that one bad year shouldn’t crater a prospect’s value. But Martinez’s “bad year” came on the heals of a PED suspension. I’m not as harsh on PEDs as a character issue as I am on some other behaviors (eg domestic violence) but even the rosiest take on it has to include a pretty huge grain of salt for his pre-suspension performance.

      After his return, his YoY AAA K% was up by 4.5 percentage points and his ISO was down by over .080. Pretty worrying for a player who was tagged as “without a defensive position” even when he was on top 100 lists. And his most recent good year wasn’t even that great – a 124 wRC+ in AAA. That’s good but it’s House / Hassell / Franklin good, not anything superlative.

      Anyway, I certainly agree he’s much more interesting than the typical MiFA, and I do believe he believe he belongs on prospect lists, but I have him way way lower than you do. I don’t even think he’s going to crack my top 10.

      1. Same here. I guess that would explain his plunge in ISO. His walks were way up, and the .180 AVG has to have some bad luck in it.

        He’s worth a shot — if he has a good eye and good contact skills, he’s still young enough to develop. I don’t blame Toronto for giving up on him, but I don’t blame Toboni for taking a look.

      2. I don’t disagree with your overall assessment. I don’t think Martinez is some super prospect, but after Willits (and in my opinion, Petry), we don’t have any high quality hitting prospects. They’re all highly flawed in different ways, and there’s definitely a lot of subjectivity in my 3-18 rankings. But Martinez did put up a 124 wRC+ at age 22 in AAA (and 108 the year before). At one year older, Yohandy Morales posted a 94 wRC+ in AAA. Morales, and I’m one of his biggest fans, is actually a month older than Martinez, similarly without plus defense. So I think they’re actually a pretty fair comparison. I’m not sure how you can compare the two and come away thinking one is obviously superior to the other. Yes, the PED suspension is a big red flag, but again if guys like Morales, King or Dickerson didn’t also have pretty big concerns, then it might weigh more heavily.

        Either way, I’m excited to see if it pans out! It’s the kind of risk we need to take 100 times out of 100.

  2. The mystery man Martinez .
    Do we have a guy who could contribute then get flipped for cookies for Luke’s Cookie Monster ??

  3. I think you meant to say six return from last year’s list, but in my recent memory I can’t recall where we graduated four, albeit with Crews being a given.

  4. 1. Willits
    2. Morales
    3. A. Feliz
    4. Petry
    5. James
    6. Glasser
    7. King
    8. Franklin
    9. Dickerson
    10. Petersen
    Numbers 2-20 would be pretty much interchangeable but I won’t bother listing HMs. Lomavita’s defense is so bad I just couldn’t bring myself to rank him, as far as catchers go I would probably put the younger Sir Jamison James above him but he still didn’t quite make the top ten.

  5. 1. Willits
    2. Morales
    3. Dickerson
    4. Petry
    5. James
    6. Lomavita
    7. Franklin
    8. King
    9. Angel Feliz
    10. Vaquero

    For me, the top 3 spots pretty clear, and then 4th through 9th run very close in value. I have Vaquero as the best of the rest, but there are a lot of names that are plausible there.

    A couple notes. One, I have Dickerson ranked that high based on some superlative non-public EV data got talked about last summer. If I hear that data trended down in the second half with his surface stats, I’ll drop him down to the back of that next pack.

    Two, King’s AFL wasn’t enough for me to meaningfully shift my projection on him, but it does make me far more likely to buy-in on a hot month or two to start the year. He’s got a good chance to climb up this list to 3rd or even 2nd by June 1st.

  6. 1. Willits
    2. King
    3. German
    4. Dickerson
    5. Feliz
    6. Pinckney
    7. James
    8. Petry
    9. Morales
    10. Sir Jamison Jones

  7. not in my ranked top ten but listed in degree of interest this year:

    1. Rafael Ramirez – please stay healthy
    2. Luke Dickerson – I can’t decide where I’d like to see them play him, maybe CF
    3. Ethan Petry – I probably should have found a spot for him. can he show some power in the Sally
    4. Browm Martinez – pretty good numbers in Yankees system before getting hurt

    1. and to expand with a contrasting point, two guys in my top ten getting very little love here: German and Cortesia

  8. 1. King
    2. Morales
    3. Willits
    4. Franklin
    5. Petry
    6. Dickerson
    7. Lomavita
    8. Glasser
    9. Pinckney
    10. Petersen

    HM: A. Feliz, Vaquero, C. James, J. Jones, B. Martinez

Comments are closed.