I’ve buried the lede for this analysis in the title, but there’s no other way to say it. Kiley McDaniel has always been more focused on ceiling than floor in his prospect ranks, and that comes out pretty true in his list of 20-some odd Nats prospects for 2024.
We’re still waiting for two other major pundits to drop (MLBPipeline and Fangraphs) and a couple of lesser known ones (Bleacher Report if they do it, Prospects Live, and Prospect Digest) before I reveal my top 50. Also, BA added another 10 to their top 40 list, and they had some real interesting names get tacked on that i’ll mention in my eventual top 50.
Lets get right into it:
| McDaniel Rank | Last Name | First Name | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Crews | Dylan | OF (CF) |
| 2 | Wood | James | OF (Corner) |
| 3 | House | Brady | SS/3B |
| 4 | Green | Elijah | OF (CF) |
| 5 | Susana | Jarlin | RHP (Starter) |
| 6 | Lile | Daylen | OF (CF) |
| 7 | Morales | Yohandy | 3B |
| 8 | Hassell III | Robert | OF (CF) |
| 9 | Hurtado | Victor | OF |
| 10 | Henry | Cole | RHP (Starter) |
| 11 | Bennett | Jake | LHP (Starter) |
| 12 | Vaquero | Cristian | OF (CF) |
| 13 | De La Rosa | Jeremy | OF (Corner) |
| 14 | Made | Kevin | SS |
| 15 | Nunez | Nasim | SS |
| 16 | Sykora | Travis | RHP (Starter) |
| 17 | Millas | Drew | C |
| 18 | Rutledge | Jackson | RHP (Starter) |
| 19 | Young | Jacob | OF (CF) |
| 20 | Lipscomb | Trey | 3B |
| 21 | Pinckney | Andrew | OF (Corner) |
| 22 | Herz | DJ | LHP (Starter) |
And some thoughts.
- Ok, Crews-Wood-House at the top. Like everyone else.
- Uh, where the hell is Cade Cavalli? McDaniel lists him as a 2023 prominent graduate … um, Kiley, the dude didn’t pitch in 2023. At all. And 60-day DL doesn’t count towards rookie eligibility. This is not a slight omission; it’s also drastically impacted where he ranked the entire Nats system (probably costing them 4-5 spots based on the loss of Cavalli’s future surplus value in his ranking system). It seems odd to make such a major mistake on a prospect who was clearly a top 100 guy a year ago before TJ.
- Green at #4: told you he’s focused on Ceiling and not actuals. There’s some legitimate concern out there about Green and I’m not sure i’d have him at #4 overtop of the next set of names, but that’s the methodology of McDaniel. By way of comparison, he has Green HIGHER this year than he did last year despite the ridiculous K/9 rates he put up in Low-A. Wow.
- Susana at #5. I mean, the only way i’d rank Susana #5 is if someone told me he was going to rise two levels this year and keep his ERA under 3.00. What evidence is there based on his performance so far that he’s projecting to be anything but a fire-balling 2-pitch reliever?
- Lile at #6: I’m on record saying he’s overrated in some rankings already; how can you possibly put Lile above Hassell??
- New signing Victor Hurtado at #9. Phew. That’s pretty bullish on a 16yr old who has yet to play an inning. I mean, that’s higher th an $4.9M signing Vaquero, who at least has made it to the states and got double the bonus money.
- Cole Henry at #10. I like Henry, and I want him to be the #2 starter ceiling that he was looking like when he raced up the system. But he’s an orchid. TOS is hard to come back from. I know we just saw reports he was healthy and throwing … i’ll believe it when i see it.
- De La Rosa at #13. Ridiculous. .240/.324/.361 with 129 Ks in 93 games in High-A, which he was repeating from the previous year as a 22yr old. He’s at least 10 spots too high here. Who would you rather have, right now? 22yr old DLR or 23yr old Pinckney?
- Kevin Made at #14, also too high. He better be the 2nd coming of Ozzie Smith to rate this high based on how weak his bat is.
- Rutledge all the way down at #18. That’s below Sykora (who’s yet to throw a pitch) and below Henry (who might be finished as a player). I mean, yeah i get it, he projects as a 5th starter right now and didn’t exactly light things up when he arrived, but he’s also a 1st rounder who rose 3 levels in 2023. Did they forget what made him a 1st rounder?
- The back end of his list all seems to be pushed down like 6-8 spots lower than I’d have them, but nothing egregious.
Who’s missing?
- No Angel Feliz, 2024 IFA $1.7M signing. Surprising given how much he likes ceiling.
- No Armando Cruz, $3.9M signing in 2021. The shine is off of Cruz.
- No love for Mitchell Parker, who just continues to get results year after year. Maybe one day we’ll be watching Parker sling up lefty pitches like Tom Glavine and we’ll be like, “oh well he doesn’t throw 95 so he’s still not a prospect.”
- Interestingly, left out Andry Lara. Lara is all about the Ceiling. McDaniel had him ranked #9 last year!
- TJ White: nowhere to be found after nearly being a top 10 guy last year. Why ding White for his 2023 performance but not Green?
- Alex Call and Brenner Cox were in the mid teens last year. Not really advocating that they should have been included (Call exhausted his rookie eligibility), just noting that this is the folly of depending entirely on ceiling/future value.