In August of 2023, the Washington Nationals promoted that year’s №2 overall draft pick Dylan Crews to Double-A Harrisburg after just 62 at-bats in Single-A Fredericksburg. That promotion set into motion a Harrisburg outfield of Crews, Robert Hassell III and James Wood. At that point in time, Jacob Young was a week away from making his MLB debut, and it looked like Wood, Crews, and Hassell were the future of the Nats’ starting outfield.
Few people would have foreseen Young taking advantage of his opportunity and his carpe diem. He didn’t have the top prospect pedigree and wasn’t a high draft pick. Young does not possess the power tool and his hit tool is developing. But his defense and speed are 80-tools, and that moved Young to solidify his claim on the center field spot. He was the team’s second most valuable player for the 2024 season per Baseball Reference’s rankings.
On August 26, 2024, the Nats’ outfield was set with Wood, Crews, and Young as the starters for the foreseeable future, and since then, Manager Dave Martinez and general manager Mike Rizzo confirmed that several times. Fourth outfielder Alex Call showed that he was a capable fill-in, and that foursome came into Spring Training with their jobs basically set in stone. Rizzo had this to say:
“I think that we’ve improved our club, and at the same time, we haven’t blocked any prospects.”
— Rizzo said in January
But did Hassell get unintentionally blocked? It could look that way now. Hassell dropped off of the Top-100 prospects rankings after he struggled through some of his 2024 season and only batted .125 with a .345 in 17-games in Triple-A. That is a small sample size. For the third year in a row, Hassell was sent to the Arizona Fall League after the minor league season. He had a nice stint there with an .877 OPS that included eight walks, 13 singles, seven doubles, one triple, four home runs, 19 RBIs, five stolen bases and an Arizona Fall League championship. That opened some eyes. As expected in November, Hassell was protected from Rule-5 and placed on the 40-man roster. But weeks later, the Nats signed Josh Bell as the team’s primary DH since Nathaniel Lowe was acquired to play first base. You might ask, what does either of those moves have to do with Hassell?
With the DH, most teams use that position as a rotating spot to either platoon versus the opposing pitcher or to take a top hitter out of the field like the Orioles did with Adley Rutschman from his catcher’s spot. But some teams also rotated an outfielder into the DH position like Aaron Judge who got 41 games, basically a quarter of the season, at DH in 2024. In fact, last year there were only 10 DHs with at least 400 plate appearances.
Sort of, kind of, Bell might have blocked Hassell from a clear shot to the Opening Day roster. With Wood nursing his quadricep tendonitis injury, he would have been the perfect candidate to take the lion’s share of the DH reps. Hassell could have taken left field and split time with Wood and Call out there.
But here’s the thing, we all know how many times Spring Training stats have been fool’s gold — but not always. Wood put up monster numbers in Grapefruit League play last year — and so did Trey Lipscomb. And Wood showed he belongs, and Lipscomb was sent back to the minors. Is Hassell the real deal? Remember, there was a time that Hassell was the best prospect in the Padres’ system ahead of MacKenzie Gore, CJ Abrams, Wood, and Jackson Merrill. Consecutive wrist injuries set Hassell’s trajectory back to the point that evaluators just downgraded him as a top prospect.
Now, Hassell is turning heads again with a strong Spring Training. In the past week, he singled and worked a walk off of Sandy Alcantara after facing him twice in two games. This goes a long way towards believing that Hassell could be back. He has posted a .400 batting average and 1.047 OPS so far in the team’s first 17 games.
Born in Franklin, Tennessee in 2001, he played in the 2013 and 2014 Little League World Series for the Nashville, Tennessee team. Hassell was in the baseball spotlight early, and that continued as the top high school draft prospect leading into 2020. The Padres snagged him at 8th overall in the first round of the 2020 draft. Hassell dominated in the Padres’ minor league system. After the Juan Soto trade that brought Hassell, Gore, Abrams, Wood and Jarlin Susana to the Nats, Rizzo held a press conference.
“… Hassell is — again a five-tool talent that we believe stays in center field, and a guy that can hit, hit with power, play defense, throw, run, and steal bases. And his ceiling is high.”
— Rizzo said after the trade in 2022
The hamate and wrist injuries set Hassell back almost immediately after he was acquired by the Nationals. His original prospect rankings and pedigree tell you he has star potential and that is what Rizzo is looking for when he says our “[prospect] stars must become [MLB] stars.” But when will Hassell get his fair shot? That could come at any time. He is getting plenty of looks in this Spring Training and making the most of it.
On the current rankings, Hassell dropped to 12th on MLB Pipeline in the Nationals’ system. If you multiply 12 by 30 teams, that might tell you that Hassell could rank 330-360 of all prospects. But as Young proved, rankings don’t matter much — MLB success is all that matters. Here is what MLB Pipeline wrote about Hassell:
“His left-handed swing is classically beautiful, and a toe tap allows him to stay back on balls, leading to solid contact rates. But his power remains up for debate. He hit the ball on the ground too much again in 2024 while working around the hand issues but had more thunder in the Fall League, topping out with a 109.2 mph exit velocity.”
“If Hassell could even get to 15-homer pop, he’d be a starter in the Majors because of the other skills. He’s a plus runner capable of bursting down the line, and that speed gives him plenty of cover in the outfield. Throw in an above-average arm, and he could play any of the three spots without issue and be comfortably plus in the corners. Without much sustained impact, however, he continues to trend toward being more a fourth outfielder given Washington’s other options.”
A “classically beautiful swing” … that results in hitting the “ball on the ground too much.” That could probably be said about Crews and Wood too often also. They go on to say that Hassell is trending towards being “a fourth outfielder given Washington’s other options.” There you go. And right now he is probably the fifth outfielder on the depth chart behind Call.
“The development of the [Nationals] corner outfielders: Dylan Crews, who is expected to play right, and James Wood, who will play left. Both have the potential to develop into star-caliber players, and for the Nationals to be in a better position next offseason to spend money, they need both to make an impact this year.”
— said Jim Bowden of The Athletic (subscription required)
With Hassell’s health back, he said that he has been taking care of his body as a priority. He has an understanding that injury-prevention is a key, and that when he is healthy he is confident in his abilities to be the player that you saw in the 2024 Arizona Fall League.
If you read FanGraphs, which you should, Hassell worked “with Nic Wilson, his hitting coach with the Salt River Rafters, Hassell began focusing on staying more on his backside and letting the ball come to him.” Did that mechanical tweak click Hassell into place, and what we are seeing is real? Obviously we don’t expect Hassell to hit .400 in the regular season. But if he can replicate what he did in the AFL last year, that will get him a starting job on the Nationals.
On goals, Hassell is clear that he wants to make it to the big leagues and help the team win. Rizzo is looking for stars. And stars lead teams to the postseason, and Hassell said he will play wherever the team puts him.
“Eager to get to the big leagues. … Win a championship. I’m here to win.”
— Hassell said
Since Bell is on a one-year deal, maybe this solves the issue for next season if Bobby Barrels can put up elite numbers in 2025. As they say, if you can hit they will find a spot for you.
