Nationals Prospect Reports / Minor League Rankings: 2025

[imref]

MLB Pipeline Nats' Top 30: https://www.mlb.com/prospects/nationals (updated several times a year).

[IanRubbish]

Look out for Jake Bennett, in spite of being ranked 18th.  Rizzo's got a serious man crush on him.  Like most Rizzo man crushes he'll likely do very little while late rounders with control make the MLB rotation, but he's going to get a chance either way.

Also, Brad Lord is next up for a rotation spot, and he's 30th?  Meanwhile, Sykora, who shows promise, but has never pitched above Low A is 2nd.  These rankings don't have a history of correlating to MLB success and I don't think this list will.

[imref]

BBA top-10 for 2025:( last year’s ranking in parentheses)

Dylan Crews, OF (1)
Travis Sykora, RHP (14)
Jarlin Susana, RHP (10)
Brady House, 3B (3)
Seaver King, SS (’24 Draft Pick)
Alex Clemmey, LHP (’24 Trade)
Cade Cavalli, RHP (4)
Caleb Lomavita, C (’24 Draft pick)
Cayden Wallace, 3B (’24 Trade)
Daylen Lile, OF (11)

Analysis: https://nationalsprospects.com/2024/11/baseball-america-ranks-the-top-10-nats-prospects-12/

[JCA-CrystalCity]

Lile ahead of Dickerson, Morales, and Hassell. I'm a bit down on his power when looking ahead.

[imref]

https://www.baseballprospectus.com/prospects/article/95926/2025-prospects-the-top-101-sliced-and-diced/

- Dylan Crews, No. 2
- Jarlin Susana, No. 47
- Travis Sykora, No. 59

[JCA-CrystalCity]

Todd Boss reports on Prospects 1500 rankings of the Nats top 50, with his own thoughts on the rankings:
https://www.nationalsarmrace.com/?p=18767

Crews
house
Sykora
King
Susana
Morales
Clemmey
Hassell
Cavalli
Lile

Says the top 5 are more or less the prospect tracker consensus. Morales he views as being a leap of faith based on his end of 2024, while Lile is a stretch. Questions leaving Lara outside the top 10 (he's #16). He has a lot more detail on the whole list. Also a great discussion in the comments.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

http://natsbaseball.blogspot.com/2025/01/3-nats-in-top-101-prospects.html

I like Harper's perspective on the meaning of prospect rankings. In his comment on BP's top 101 list, he observes the rankings are often based on a couple things. First, there are the guys who earn the spot through performance and talent evaluation. Then there's the guys that no one wants to be embarrassed about for missing if they do click. Raw talent gets slightly over-rated relative to unexpected performance. As he sees it, House dropping off the top 101 is an indication that BP wouldn't be embarrassed if he clicks big time. He's exhausted the charm of being a high draft choice after 2024. That doesn't mean he will not make the majors - that's still possible - but the rankers don't see him as becoming a stud absent some big flaws (big K rate, microscopic BB rate) being remedied.

That said, Harper is high on Crews at #2, Susana at #47, and Sykora at #59.

Crews at #2 is great to hear. It means the belief he won't bust out is as high as can be.  That is FAR from a given. Any look at previous lists will tell you that. But still teams need players who can contribute and Crews projects to be one.There shouldn't be a real hole in his game. The question is where the bat falls. That he's that high suggests they like the possibility of him of hitting above average and that would make him an overall great player with his defense and speed projections.

As for Susana / Sykora, their rankings show a lot of fear they may hit it big time even if they only dominated low A (and, in Susana's case, got exposure to high A). Lot's of ways neither hits the majors, but in his view, the odds of that happening is not much better than the odds of at least one being very good.

Nice comments in the article / worth a read.

[imref]

MLB Pipeline top 100 is out:

https://www.mlb.com/milb/prospects/top100/

4-Crews
70-Sykora
79-Susana

[nobleisthyname]

Keith Law has the Nats as having the 17th best farm system:

The Nats’ talent is on the upswing, but they promote guys so quickly that they may end up in the playoffs before they have a top-10 system. Sixty percent of the Juan Soto trade is in the majors now, and 20 percent of it might not turn into anything (the other player they received was Luke Voit, who played in the Mexican League last year). They had a great draft last year to inject a lot of highly polished college players into the system, backed up with some upside plays. Their international pipeline has dried up recently post-Soto, though; they’ve spent big on some top IFAs, but none have panned out since he did.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6094581/2025/01/30/mlb-farm-system-rankings-2025/

Not ideal since this ranking still includes Crews.

[imref]

Law’s top-20:

Dylan Crews, OF
Seaver King, SS
Travis Sykora, RHP
Brady House, 3B
Jarlin Susana, RHP
Kevin Bazell, C
Alex Clemmey, LHP
Cade Cavalli, RHP
Luke Dickerson, SS
Tyler Stuart, RHP
Caleb Lomavita, C
Yohandy Morales, 1B/3B
Cayden Wallace, 3B
Daylen Lile, OF
Andry Lara, RHP
Robert Hassell, OF
Kevin Made, SS
Jake Bennett, LHP
Randal Diaz, SS
Robert Cranz, RHP

[nobleisthyname]

Law’s top-20:

Dylan Crews, OF
Seaver King, SS
Travis Sykora, RHP
Brady House, 3B
Jarlin Susana, RHP
Kevin Bazell, C
Alex Clemmey, LHP
Cade Cavalli, RHP
Luke Dickerson, SS
Tyler Stuart, RHP
Caleb Lomavita, C
Yohandy Morales, 1B/3B
Cayden Wallace, 3B
Daylen Lile, OF
Andry Lara, RHP
Robert Hassell, OF
Kevin Made, SS
Jake Bennett, LHP
Randal Diaz, SS
Robert Cranz, RHP

Don't know these two.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

Diaz was a 5th round pick last year. College age. Looks to go to A this year.
https://www.wnff.net/index.php?topic=40844.msg2328096#msg2328096

[imref]

Diaz was a 5th round pick last year. College age. Looks to go to A this year.
https://www.wnff.net/index.php?topic=40844.msg2328096#msg2328096

The writeup on NationalsProspects.com notes that Cruz is a rotation possibility for this year.  He also points out that Susana and Lara's struggles against LHB are likely leading them to the bullpen.

https://nationalsprospects.com/2025/02/keith-law-ranks-nats-top-20-prospects/

King as #2 is a surprise.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

The writeup on NationalsProspects.com notes that Cruz is a rotation possibility for this year.  He also points out that Susana and Lara's struggles against LHB are likely leading them to the bullpen.

https://nationalsprospects.com/2025/02/keith-law-ranks-nats-top-20-prospects/

King as #2 is a surprise.

cranz not cruz?

[imref]

cranz not cruz?

cranz. Darn auto correct.

[welch]

Keith Law had an interesting summary of Nats top 20. He thinks Hassell is not even a 4th or 5th OF. Sever King is number 2, a surprise to me. And includes some surprising guys.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

Keith Law had an interesting summary of Nats top 20. He thinks Hassell is not even a 4th or 5th OF. Sever King is number 2, a surprise to me. And includes some surprising guys.

basically, he says Hassell has shown nothing as a hitter since the Nats acquired him. Hard to argue with that, at least until last fall's  AFL season.

Hassell is in a put up or shut up point in his career. if his problem really was his wrist, it's better now, and the AFL foreshadowed this rather than was an outlier, then he moves way up in the pecking order. Of course, if the problem with the pig wasn't just it's weight, and it's wings now are healthy, and the wingspan is adequate, then I suspect we'll see a flying pig soon.