Photo via nbcsports
The second to last of the major pundits dropped their Nats top 30 today on 3/4/25; here’s a review of the list as I’ve been doing with other major pundits.
The final one outstanding is Fangraphs/Eric Longenhagen, who didn’t release until May last year and is only about a third of the way done with the teams as we speak. I’m not going to wait for his ranking to release my rankings, which are going 90+ deep right now for our system.
For now, here’s the MLBPipeline list. I think its safe to say this is the sanest list I’ve seen yet, with very little wildcards or shock names. It very much aligns with my personal list, as we’ll discuss.
Here’s the top 30 in table format:
| Rank | Last Name | First Name | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Crews | Dylan | OF (CF) |
| 2 | Sykora | Travis | RHP (Starter) |
| 3 | Susana | Jarlin | RHP (Starter) |
| 4 | House | Brady | SS/3B |
| 5 | King | Seaver | SS |
| 6 | Clemmey | Alex | LHP (Starter) |
| 7 | Dickerson | Luke | SS/CF |
| 8 | Cavalli | Cade | RHP (Starter) |
| 9 | Lomavita | Caleb | C |
| 10 | Lile | Daylen | OF (CF) |
| 11 | Wallace | Cayden | 3B |
| 12 | Hassell III | Robert | OF (CF) |
| 13 | Morales | Yohandy | 3B |
| 14 | Bazzell | Kevin | C/3B |
| 15 | Stuart | Tyler | RHP (Starter) |
| 16 | Feliz | Angel | 3B/SS |
| 17 | Lara | Andry | RHP (Starter) |
| 18 | Bennett | Jake | LHP (Starter) |
| 19 | Hurtado | Victor | OF |
| 20 | Cortesia | Brayan | SS |
| 21 | Kent | Jackson | LHP (Starter) |
| 22 | Brzykcy | Zach | RHP (Reliever) |
| 23 | Lord | Brad | RHP (Starter) |
| 24 | Grissom | Marquis | RHP (Reliever) |
| 25 | Green | Elijah | OF (CF) |
| 26 | Pinckney | Andrew | OF (Corner) |
| 27 | Vaquero | Cristian | OF (CF) |
| 28 | Reifert | Evan | RHP (Reliever) |
| 29 | Made | Kevin | SS |
| 30 | Peterson | Sammy | OF (CF) |
Here’s some thoughts.
- Same top 4 as everyone else.
- Really, the same top 5 as everyone else.
- House down below the two arms; no surprise.
- Clemmey at #6, like a lot of the shops. I like him a little lower b/c he’s so young, but he’s a high ceiling guy for sure.
- They’re by far the highest on Dickerson, and have not wavered on him being this high since their December update. I’ve got him at #12, have seen him as low as #17. I’m hesitant to have a guy top 10 who hasn’t faced a pro pitch yet, but they arent.
- They’ve got Lile at #10, which is in line with most other shops. I’ve beaten the Lile horse to death at this point.
- Morales: dumped down to #13. They had him at #9 in December, and he was at #5 a year ago. Ok I get that Morales clearly was layered by breakout performances (Sykora and Susana) and 2024 draft picks (King, Dickerson, Lomavita) but he should have kept pace. We’ve had this conversation at length, no need to rehash it.
- I think they’re a little low on Lara at #17, but not egregiously so.
- Cortesia at #20: that’s aspriational for a 16yr old DSL kid, but he did get 1st round money ($1.9M) so we’ll see how his 2025 goes.
- They’re by far the high man on Jackson Kent at #21.
- They really, really like Grissom Jr and have him 20 spots higher than I do. Nobody else has him in their top 30; he’s at #24 here. This is probably the biggest issue I have with their top 30.
- They’re also high-man on Sam Peterson, having him at #30 despite him not getting assigned out of XST last summer.
Who they’re missing:
- Chaparro apparently doesn’t rate anybody’s prospect lists. Why? He’s still a rookie, he destroyed AAA pitching last year (albeit lots in the PCL), and made the majors at age 25. Come on; you’re ranking middle RHP relievers in AA but not a guy who got 30 games in the majors last year? What are we doing?
- The same story to a lesser extent for Baker: not ranked.
- No love for Cruz and his $3.9M bonus
- No Rutledge (who BA has at #20), finally acknowledging that he may be out of chances to contribute.
All in all, a solid list, very much in line with my rankings as they’ve now settled, and hard to criticize a ton.