Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Washington Nationals. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. This is the sixth year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but we use that as a rule of thumb.
A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.
All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here.
Other Prospects of Note
Grouped by type and listed in order of preference within each category.
Fringe Upper-Level Hitters
Phillip Glasser, 2B
Andrew Pinckney, OF
Yohandy Morales, 1B
Sam Petersen, CF
Cayden Wallace, 3B
Glasser, 26, is a pesky, pitch-spoiling grinder who makes a ton of slappy opposite-field contact. He isn’t an especially good or versatile defender, and it’s tough to call him an everyday keystone fit since he doesn’t hit for any power, but his at-bat quality is sensational. Pinckney and Morales are two big-framed hitters at Rochester whose lever length makes them incredibly vulnerable to fastballs, which they’ve both posted a sub-70% contact rate against since the start of 2025. Petersen is a speedy center fielder who swings hard for a smaller guy, but the former Iowa Hawkeye has a mere 70% contact rate against fastballs since the start of 2025. Wallace, 24, was once a Royals second-rounder who was later traded as part of a package for Hunter Harvey. After a few vanilla seasons, he is off to a raucous start in Harrisburg, where he first saw meaningful playing time in 2023. Out of this group, he might be the most likely to wear a big league uniform because he can play a mix of second and third base.
Depth Arms
Tyler Stuart, RHP
Eddy Yean, RHP
Seth Shuman, RHP
Marquis Grissom Jr., RHP
Julian Tonghini, RHP
Stuart, 26, is a 6-foot-9 righty who looked like a backend starter in 2023 and 2024. Unfortunately, his stuff and control backed up last year and he had TJ at the end of the summer, which will keep him out until 2027. Yean throws hard (95-99 in the early going of 2026), but his fastball plays down due to its shape and his command. His slider and changeup are both good enough that he shouldn’t have to rely so much on his fastball, but he will need to command those better to root into a big league role. Shuman, a 2019 sixth-rounder out of Georgia Southern, is a strike-throwing Triple-A righty without a plus pitch. Grissom has a plus changeup that he has to rely on to get by because the rest of his pitches and his control are below average. He’s currently at Double-A Harrisburg. Tonghini was a senior sign reliever out of Arizona last year. He has a vertical attack combo platter, with a 94-mph fastball and a mid-80s curveball.
(Mostly) Big-Framed Outfielders
Leandro Pineda, OF
Cristhian Vaquero, OF
Victor Hurtado, OF
Juan Duran, OF
Elijah Green, OF
Aside from Duran, this group is composed of physical outfield prospects who have one damning offensive flaw. Pineda is a projectable 6-foot-3 23-year-old with average lefty power. Depending on how his body develops into his mid-to-late 20s, it’s possible he could wield plus power at peak and have a window of big league relevance. Vaquero and Hurtado are former big bonus prospects from the international market who have struggled so far in pro ball. Both have classically projectable baseball bodies and are good athletes, but Vaquero strikes out a ton, while Hurtado’s bat speed is way below what was advertised when he signed. Duran signed for $1 million in January. He’s a stocky outfield prospect with good present power for his age, but very little projection remaining. Green is a former fifth overall pick who has K’d too much to be a serious prospect. His continued inclusion on this list serves as a chance to wonder with excitement whether the 22-year-old, whose father was a two-time Pro Bowl tight end, might someday elect to play football, a sport I also care about and would love to see Green to succeed in.
I Like the Cut of Your Jib
Jose Sanchez, RHP
Pablo Aldonis, LHP
Luke Young, RHP
Jared Beck, LHP
These are pitching prospects with good deliveries and frames. Sanchez, 20, had a 7.64 ERA in the DSL last year, but his ideal, 6-foot-3 build and mechanical looseness are both exciting. The way he drives down the mound creates seven feet of extension and uphill fastball angle that could make that an impact pitch if he starts throwing harder. Aldonis is a 24-year-old lefty with a lovely delivery and a sneaky low-90s fastball. His slider quality is a good bit beneath what is typical for a lefty bullpen specialist, but if that pitch improves, he’ll be in the 40-man mix. Young doesn’t have sexy stuff and he’s only K’d 18% of opponents in the mid-minors as a reliever, but he has a prototypical pitcher’s build at a limber 6-foot-3, he can spin the baseball, and his delivery is fairly athletic. He’s the sort of pitcher who I’d classify as a high-priority minor league free agent because of these characteristics, just to see if a change of scenery unlocks another gear of stuff. Beck is a seven-foot lefty out of Division-II Saint Leo University in Florida who was originally an Oriole and signed a minor league deal with Washington during the offseason. He has good stuff, including a plus breaking ball, but he has walked a batter per inning for basically his entire career. It stands to reason it would take a guy this big longer to dial in his feel for release.
System Overview
The outgoing regime left Paul Toboni and Co. a relatively full cupboard, as this system has above-average impact (both in terms of 50-grade players and 40+ or better guys) and overall depth. It is, however, a very volatile system. Even when we include young big leaguers and guys like Dylan Crews (who I’m still on) and Brady House who have graduated but have yet to establish themselves, there are lots of players with risky profiles occupying those tops spots. Harry Ford might struggle to hit the same way Crews and House have. Travis Sykora, Jarlin Susana and Alejandro Rosario are hurt. Ronny Cruz and Gavin Fien have sketchy slider recognition. Landon Harmon and Miguel Sime Jr. are teenage pitchers… You get the idea.
So while this system is exciting, there is probably going to be attrition in these ranks, and the demos these players come from suggest the hit rate on this group may be lower than the baseline for a typical system with this kind of depth. That said, the impact of the players who do hit from this group will be meaningful. If things click for Harmon, he’s going to be awesome, not just some backend starter. I think that boom or bust dynamic applies to a lot of these guys. This pattern was a hallmark of the Mike Rizzo era.
The Nationals’ baby-faced brain trust brought together people from many different recently successful orgs. Toboni, 36, was hired as POBO after ascending from area scout to assistant GM across seven years in Boston spanning the Dombrowski, Bloom, and Breslow eras. Toboni comes from scouting, with some later-tenure player development responsibilities that coincided with Breslow’s arrival. Though significant changes were made to the org’s scouting and development staff, Toboni retained interim GM Mike DeBartolo (who people seemed to like working with while he ran things post-Rizzo) and brought in a host of young folks from all over the map to build out the guts of an org that was generally seen as less innovative and tech/data-savvy than most other ballclubs. New general manager Anirudh Kilambi came through the Rays R&D department and then was hired by Philadelphia the year after Dombrowski arrived. Assistant GM Justin Horowitz comes from Pittsburgh’s amateur scouting department, while amateur scouting director Desmond McGowan did data science for the Mets (and before that Yankees) with a focus on the draft.
The new regime has already brought long overdue infrastructure and technology investment and a greater emphasis on the use of data to the org, but it will be a while before we really understand this group’s scouting and developmental tendencies. That said, there are some early indicators, with an increased number of hitting and pitching coaches throughout the system, including two Driveline alums, hitting competitions to engage the crowded Fredericksburg infield, and the invocation of Boston’s player development system as “table stakes.” We’ll likely get a better sense of Toboni and Co. as they navigate the margins of their roster early this year, while the draft and trade deadline will help illuminate their scouting approach.