I don’t normally include Nats blogger prospect list analysis since, well, lets be honest we’re bloggers, not nationally-connected scouting specialists who spend months as their full time job calling scouting directors and texting MLB GMs to get their intel. Plus, i’m doing this as a fan and I hate to criticize another fan’s work. But when I saw respected long-time nats blogger Stephen “Ghost” Mears post a top 30 … and knowing how much I like top 30 prospect lists, I couldn’t help myself, and have included his list here along with the big boys.
By including this list, I promise to generate my own list for the system as well. Fair is fair. I’ve got a preliminary top 50 ranking right now for our system, which I’ll continue to tweak now that the BA scouting reports are updated.
Here’s the pre-2024 list of prospect ranks that have been published so far.
- BA’s pre-read top 10, announced 11/6/23 (link now defaults to top 30 released today; no changes from the top 10 in Nov to now, a slight indictment perhaps of the BA process)
- Prospects361 top 10, released 11/24/23
- MLBPipeline top 30, post rule5/pre off-season analysis released 12/7/23. Note, the MLBPipeline link always defaults to the current, but i retain the rankings at the time of the capture into an XLS
- Baseball America 2024 top 30 1/24/24:
Here’s Ghost’s list:
| TalkNats/Ghost Rank | Full Name w/ milb link | last | first | pos |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Crews, Dylan | Crews | Dylan | OF (CF) |
| 2 | Wood, James | Wood | James | OF (Corner) |
| 3 | House, Brady | House | Brady | SS/3B |
| 4 | Cavalli, Cade | Cavalli | Cade | RHP (Starter) |
| 5 | Hassell III, Robert | Hassell III | Robert | OF (CF) |
| 6 | Morales, Yohandy | Morales | Yohandy | 3B |
| 7 | Lile, Daylen | Lile | Daylen | OF (CF) |
| 8 | Vaquero, Cristhian# | Vaquero | Cristian | OF (CF) |
| 9 | Bennett, Jake* | Bennett | Jake | LHP (Starter) |
| 10 | Young, Jacob | Young | Jacob | OF (CF) |
| 11 | Green, Elijah | Green | Elijah | OF (CF) |
| 12 | Sykora, Travis | Sykora | Travis | RHP (Starter) |
| 13 | Susana, Jarlin | Susana | Jarlin | RHP (Starter) |
| 14 | Rutledge, Jackson | Rutledge | Jackson | RHP (Starter) |
| 15 | Lipscomb, Trey | Lipscomb | Trey | 3B |
| 16 | Herz, DJ* | Herz | DJ | LHP (Starter) |
| 17 | Hurtado, Victor | Hurtado | Victor | OF |
| 18 | Millas, Drew# | Millas | Drew | C |
| 19 | White, T.J.# | White | T.J. | OF (Corner) |
| 20 | Pinckney, Andrew | Pinckney | Andrew | OF (Corner) |
| 21 | Quintana, Roismar | Quintana | Roismar | OF (CF) |
| 22 | Feliz, Angel | Feliz | Angel | 3B/SS |
| 23 | De La Rosa, Jeremy* | De La Rosa | Jeremy | OF (Corner) |
| 24 | Nunez, Nasim# | Nunez | Nasim | SS |
| 25 | Lara, Andry | Lara | Andry | RHP (Starter) |
| 26 | Baker, Darren | Baker | Darren | 2B |
| 27 | Parker, Mitchell* | Parker | Mitchell | LHP (Starter) |
| 28 | Cruz, Armando | Cruz | Armando | SS |
| 29 | Brzykcy, Zach | Brzykcy | Zach | RHP (Reliever) |
| 30 | Henry, Cole | Henry | Cole | RHP (Starter) |
And here’s some commentary.
- Same 1-4 as most shops. Most pundits call our system “top heavy” which keeps us from being ranked higher in the overall organization ranks. Fair enough. If Henry had progressed as expected and a couple of these uber expensive IFAs recently were closer to Juan Soto than … well some guy named Juan who isn’t a prospect, we’d be higher ranked. And closer to contention.
- Despite Hassell’s 2023 struggles, Ghost has him at #5. Lets hope he rebounds in 2024. Remember, he was our clear #2 prospect in most major publications last spring.
- He remains a little high on Bennett at #9 despite no 2024. The only thing i’m worried about with Bennett (well, besides the fact that he had his arm cut wide open in August or whenever) is that he really didn’t do well in high-A once he got there. A 2nd round major conference draftee should have STARTED in High-A last year. Instead he toyed with kids in Low-A for nearly two months before going to Wilmington and, well frankly, getting hit. 6 starts, 5.57 ERA, 1.62 whip before he blew the UCL. How many of those starts were with a strained UCL? Who knows. He’ll turn 24 before he throws another pitch, will be back in Wilmington, and will be behind schedule. Is that a top 10 prospect? Not for me. Too much risk.
- Jacob Young #10. Ok. so, prospect lists are a combination of floor and ceiling. What is Young’s floor? Well, before 2023 he had no real floor. So now we know, he’s a gritty Lenny Dykstra undersized CF spark plug who can make sh*t happen. But what’s his ceiling? He got 4 whole games in AAA before getting called up to cover for a thin OF at the MLB level and he didn’t do half bad. Better numbers than Alex frigging Call, that’s for sure. Young had 13 SBs in 33 games; that’s Vinny Coleman SB rates. But the MLB OF has too many guys right now; Robles kind of has to play CF for the arb salary he’s getting, Garrett earned the corner OF spot, and of course so did Thomas. You don’t want Young riding the pine in the majors, so he’ll be in AAA again to start 2024. What’s his ceiling? Can he hit .290 with mid .350 OBP and 50 SBs in the majors? If that’s the case, then heck yeah he’s #10 prospect, maybe higher.
- Green down to #11. That’s too low for a guy with three tools in the 60s and a team admitting they’re futzing with his swing. Talking about Ceiling; he has as much ceiling as Crews and Wood by BA scouting reports, and he has a power/speed combo that’s Ronald Acuna-esque. But his hit tool grade right now is like that of a high schooler.
- Ghost has our new IFAs at #17 and #22. Fair enough. He has our new Rule5 guy at #24, right inline with BA. Fine by me; i’m almost to the point of ignoring prospects until they get to the domestic leagues. Quick; can anyone tell me the names of our two 7-figure IFA signings last January? Or how they performed last summer in the DSL? Yeah, I didn’t think so (by the way, its Andy Acevedo and Edwin Solano, both signed for $1.3M. DSL 2023 lines respectively: .170/.299/.248 and .117/.224/.133. that’s right: Solano hit .117; 15 for 128 with exactly two extra base hits all season. That was money well spent.
- Drew Millas at #18 but Pineda out of the top 30. Here’s a quick comparison of our two other 40-man catchers right now. Millas 26, switch hitter, spent around 2/3rds of last year in AAA, solid offensive numbers, good speed, average defender, 28% CS rate. Pineda is 23, was in AAA at the end of 2022 but was sent back to high-A in 2023 and struggled at the plate. Based on pure stats, Millas is better. But he’s also got 3 years on Pineda and that really discounts Pineda’s 2022, which is mostly why BA has Pineda higher than Millas right now. Right before publishing, Pineda got DFA’d off the 40-man and i’ll bet someone picks him up, so it may not matter, but its certainly a weird choice to cut to make room for Joey Gallo when they have waiver wire RHP relievers who had ERAs in the 5s and 6s last year who they could have cut instead.
- TJ White at #19. Why?? .170/.277/.279 in 2023 with no position and missed half the year. That’s not a recipe for success.
- Andry Lara at #25, after BA didn’t rank him at all. Ok, so on the bright side his whip went down in High A, and he’s still only 21, and we know he finished strong in 2023. His aggregate numbers for his career still suck.
- Cole Henry at #30. This is a ranking that says, “well, I don’t think he’s ever going to be healthy again, but on the off-chance he is, he’s still ranked.”
Unmentioned in the top 30: Acevedo, Made, and Pineda as mentioned. Nothing egregious.
All in all, not a bad list. I agree with big chunks of the rankings of players hoenstly.