How quickly things change in sports and life. Just two years ago to now — how things have changed. Baseball rosters change often. You never etch anything in stone as Yankees fans just learned. In Washington D.C., we are just debating players as acquisition targets.
We take a look back in time to two years ago. Let’s start with the prospect rankings at Baseball America and MLB Pipeline (graphic below). This was before Dylan Crews, Yohandy Morales, and Travis Sykora were drafted in July 2023, and before Jeimer Candelario was traded for DJ Herz and Kevin Made in July 2023. This was before Seaver King, Caleb Lomavita, and Luke Dickerson were drafted in July 2024. This was before international free agent signings that got the Nats prospects like Victor Hurtado and Angel Feliz in January 2024. This was before trading for Alex Clemmey, Cayden Wallace and Tyler Stuart in July 2024. This is your current rankings on this link, and below you can see what the rankings looked like just two years ago beyond that Top-11 and certainly at №3.
Obviously players like James Wood have graduated to sophomore status, and other players are no longer considered prospects like Jackson Rutledge, Mitchell Parker, Jake Irvin, Drew Millas and Trey Lipscomb. Gone from the Nats’ organization are Thaddeus Ward, Matt Cronin, Gerardo Carrillo, Tim Cate, and Aldo Ramirez. The changes are dramatic from just two years ago.
Also note that Baseball America ranked the Nats’ Top-2 international free agents signed in the January 2023 class into their Top-30 with Andy Acevedo and Edwin Solano. Both are already out of the Nats’ MLB Pipeline Top-30. Hanging on in the Nats system are Armando Cruz and Cristhian Vaquero who were two very expensive international signings. As of today, Vaquero is ranked №23 and Cruz is out of the Top-30 rankings. At their signings, Vaquero was inked to a team-record $4.925 million signing bonus, and that deal came one year after Cruz collected $3.9 million which was tied at the time for the Nationals’ highest international signing bonus until Vaquero’s signing. When Vaquero was signed as a 17 year old of Cuban descent, he had the nickname, “The Phenomenon.” He was touted as the next 5-tool star just three years ago. Now, he is a struggling prospect.
Since that point, there have been many personnel changes in the Nats’ international scouting group with VP Johnny DiPuglia gone a year ago and more changes since then. Of course DiPuglia scored big on Juan Soto, but the days of paying most of the bonus pool to one player has not worked. The Nationals have gone back to spreading their bonus pool over more players. The Nats 2025 international class has two players who rank in the Top-25 by Baseball America. These signings will be official on January 15, 2025. Nats will be signing Brayan Cortesia, SS, from Venezuela and ranked №16 in this class, and Daniel Hernandez, C, from Venezuela is ranked №21 in this class.
On FanGraphs, the Nats farm system is currently ranked at №14 overall and might even be on some Top-10 lists when final rankings are done after the offseason. For Nats’ general manager Mike Rizzo, he had this to say as a VIP event a few years ago:
“…Our objective we have is to win championships — not to be №1 in Baseball America.”
— Rizzo said to applause and laughs by the fans gathered at the Ballpark Bash event.
Maybe Rizzo should order his rankings from the ala carte menu and take the best from each. These ranking are very subjective. Some of these evaluators don’t even get out from behind their desks to see these players in-person.
Look how fast the rankings have changed in just two years. For now, Crews still has retained his prospect ranking. That will bolster the farm rankings for a while. But when Crews reaches rookie status, the Nats’ farm rankings will plummet until the July draft when the Nats choose 1-of-1.
“I’m optimistic. I’m excited about this time in our developmental curve with the organization. When your guys do get out there on the [Minor League side of camp], those prospects — it’s an exciting time. It’s the best group of upside players we’ve ever had here. I’ve been here since ‘day one’, and I’ve never seen it like this before.”
— Rizzo said this two years ago. Would he say the same today?
“You filter in — there’s 22, 23 and 24 year-olds [on the MLB roster], I think you see what we’re trying to accomplish here. That’s the first rung on the ladder to get back to a championship.”
Then Rizzo used the word ‘lush’ at his Hot Stove event in January 2023 to describe his farm system, and said it was the best prospect group the team has ‘ever’ had.
“This is the most lush and successful prospect list that we’ve ever had. It’s the most talented players we’ve ever had in the farm system at one time.”
Here is a look at where MLB Pipeline saw the Nats starting position players two years ago (in the graphic below). This is now. They got four names correct of the nine, and extra credit for foreseeing that first base would require a free agent so we will say five were right. They could not have known at that time about Dylan Crews. Maybe Brady House makes it during 2025. Maybe Robert Hassell III shows up in 2025 because he is on the 40-man roster. But Joey Meneses is gone, and a huge swing & miss on Elijah Green. This shows you how difficult it is to project just two years ahead, and over the weekend we were looking three years ahead.
Here is where Baseball America saw the Nats position players in 2026 when they posted this two years ago:
Reading the Nationals’ Top 10 Prospects for the NOV issue of @BaseballAmerica—preorder your copy today!—I see Washington has a nice position core forming
C Keibert Ruiz
1B T.J. White
2B Luis Garcia
3B Brady House
SS CJ Abrams
LF Robert Hassell III
CF Elijah Green
RF James Wood— Matt Eddy (@MattEddyBA) October 26, 2022
At Baseball America, they also projected a starting rotation and closer for 2026 with their ages in parentheses in 2026:
No. 1 Starter: Cade Cavalli (27)
No. 2 Starter: MacKenzie Gore (27)
No. 3 Starter: Josiah Gray (28)
No. 4 Starter: Jarlin Susana (22)
No. 5 Starter: Jackson Rutledge (27)
Closer: Jose Ferrer (26)
To say the future is bright depends on your standpoint on optimism. Certainly the evaluators thought at the time that the Nats were set up well especially when you consider that the Nationals still have no long-term contract commitments beyond the 2024 season except for Keibert Ruiz and Stephen Strasburg who will have just two seasons remaining on his contract going forward for AAV calculation purposes. So far this offseason, the Nats have not signed any long-term players. As former Nats’ GM Jim Bowden saw it two years ago, the Nats are following the playbook that they did in their first rebuild from 2007-2011, and he thinks this one could go better! Of course he thought that Hassell III was supposed to be Christian Yelich and Green was supposed to be Marcell Ozuna. Yes, Wood looks like he could be a superstar. We will see on Hassell who had a good Arizona Fall League in his third time to the AFL. On Green, his future has many question marks. We will see.
The future changes quickly. The offseason has 56-days remaining. We will see if the Nationals make any trades or free agent acquisitions. As mentioned, we are less than a month away from the international free agent signing period. And the Nats had a Rule-5 signing of Evan Reifert, and he is ranked at №26 on MLB Pipeline. Yes, changes happen often, so stay tuned for more changes.
