From L-to-R Sam Petersen, Seaver King, Ethan Petry, Jared Simpson, and Jake Bennett
The Arizona Fall League (AFL) went through an early schedule of postponements as monsoon storms brought golf-ball-sized hail and heavy rain through the desert. The official Phoenix rain gauge at Sky Harbor Airport recorded 1.64″ of rain that disrupted the first week of AFL baseball. That was the most rain in a single day in Phoenix since 2018.
After the league rescheduled some doubleheaders, the weather has mostly cooperated, and the players got into the rhythm of the schedule. All 30 MLB participate in the AFL and combine into six teams with very Arizona sounding names. The Washington Nationals 8-player roster meshed in with the Tigers, Astros, Mets, and Giants to become the Scottsdale Scorpions. Because that roster features the №2 prospect in baseball, Kevin McGonigle, from the Tigers farm system, they get some of the bigger crowds that sometimes reach 400 people!
The players that represent the Nats in the AFL are Pablo Aldonis LHP, Austin Amaral RHP, Jake Bennett LHP, Sean Paul Liñan RHP, Jared Simpson LHP, Seaver King INF, Sam Petersen OF, and Ethan Petry OF/1B. And unfortunately Liñan sustained an injury. It’s one reason there are 40 players on each roster.
In fact, starting pitchers who don’t need to be at the stadium get the option to take extra leisure time. Most play golf in their spare time since there are some great courses there. The league also tries to schedule Mondays as a set day-off. Some players have visited Driveline’s facility out in Scottsdale because they have a Trajekt Arc machine there that can be used by the paying public.
One thing for sure, this McGonigle kid is the real deal. He’s a small kid. Sure, they list him at 5’10” and it doesn’t matter. He is a true talent. And he was drafted 37th in the 2023 MLB draft out of Drexel, Pennsylvania. The Tigers already got Max Clark at the top of that draft. They went after two prep teenagers to start their draft, and they look to have some real star power in their farm system when you add in Bryce Rainer, Josue Briceño
And as you know, many of the players gel quickly and form bonds. McGonigle and King have bonded for sure. That led to this:
“I was trying to figure out the swing and everything else,” King said of his time with Wilmington High-A and Harrisburg Double-A in the Nats’ minor league system, “but at the end of the day, like Kevin McGonigle told me: ‘It’s never the swing. It’s always pitches and timing and all those things.’ So he kind of simplified it for me today — and you know, it worked.”
That shows McGonigle’s leadership to do that for a kid who was drafted high up, at №10 in the first round in 2024. In fact, King made $2.3 million more in a signing bonus than McGonigle. I’m old enough to remember back to when a source told us that Nats’ incumbent shortstop in 2016, Danny Espinosa, wouldn’t help rookie teammate Trea Turner. So here King, from another team as well as 1¼ years older and wealthier, and still, McGonigle was there with sage advice for his autumn teammate.
We all know that King struggled in his 2025 minor league season, and whether the help he got from McGonigle was a mental jolt or something physically he could adjust to — it worked. He got hot in Scottsdale and has put together a nice AFL season so far, batting .357 with a 1.028 OPS. If King can turn that into a great 2026 campaign, he might be the kid that earns that top of the prospect rankings that he once had in 2024.
The other player with high expectations on him is LHP Jake Bennett. He returned from Tommy John surgery last year and had a lot to prove in 2025. He leads the AFL in strikeouts. Bennett had one bad outing, which as we know in small sample sizes will skew the numbers. He currently has a 4.50 ERA, yet he seems to be throwing 1-run games most of the time. He just had another of those on Saturday. Bennett finished his season at Double-A Harrisburg with a 2.56 ERA after a spectacular 1.90 at High-A Wilmington. Because he started his season late into the 2025 season, he only got 75⅓ innings in the minors. Getting the extra reps in the AFL could really help him towards making his MLB debut in 2026.
One name who probably was not on your radar is LHP reliever Jared Simpson. The 6’4″ Iowa product came into Arizona with a killer splitter, 4-seam fastball, cutter, and slider that has the batters off-balance. He can give you an inning or two out of the ‘pen which is a real asset. He leads the entire AFL with a 0.00 ERA. What did Simpson change to get better hitters out? This is a kid who looked lost at times in High-A this year at 25 years old. His 6.23 ERA for Wilmington had some wondering why he got an AFL invite. This was the kid who had a 6.96 ERA in his final year for the University of Iowa — but he went to the Prospect League for the summer and shined two years in a row — and the Nats drafted him as a reliever in the 8th round of 2023 and paid him $20,000 to sign which is essentially enough to buy a well-used Toyota Corolla after you pay the taxes on that signing bonus. So the question is, why does Simpson shine in showcase leagues? Can he translate this success to Double-A in 2026 and to an MLB career?
Speaking of Iowa kids, there’s Sam Petersen, a former University of Iowa teammate with Simpson. And Petersen was a younger draftee who also went in the 8th round — but in 2024. He got a big signing bonus of $230,900 for a kid who was comped to Jacob Young. A college infielder converted to an outfielder just like Young. Speed and a gap-powered bat with defense. The bat was better than I expected when I saw him play in the AFL. But then again, the reigning AFL Player of the Week is batting .333 with a 1.043 OPS. Here’s the thing about Petersen, he is the rare right-handed hitter who has done well in Wilmington. He batted .297 with an .887 OPS in High-A this year. For some reason, they didn’t promote him to Double-A in 2025. Here’s some key stats, Petersen has 28 stolen bases in his minor league career with only one caught stealing, and he takes his walks. For those who know me, this is the havoc wreaker that I circle on my prospect watchlist. Just give me a few more bunt hits.
The other standout is big Ethan Petry. Put some facial hair on this young 6’4″ hulk of a man, and he would look like Travis Kelce. A quick aside, did you see “Big City” Matt Adams went out for Halloween as Kelce? Too good. Back to Petry, he was just named to the AFL HR Derby. All I have to say is Petry is a real athlete. He showed that he has speed for a big man, and they have been playing him mostly at right field. Petry turned in a Web Gem in one of the games that I attended. A sweet diving catch coming way in on a ball. He takes his walks and HBP bruises. He just has to make more consistent contact — and get some launch angle to complement his ‘plus’ bat speed to get those hard ground balls into the air and over the outfield fences. It will probably come. Petry hit his first home run last week in the AFL. Currently, he is batting .235 with a .732 OPS. He was the MVP of the Cape Cod League two years ago with eye-opening power to go with the power we saw in college at South Carolina. The second round pick of the Nats has shown he can play the corner outfield as well as first base. They kept Petry in A-Ball after the draft, and we will see where the Nats’ front office starts him in 2026. Petry is the only 2025 draftee in the AFL this year.
Here are the Nats’ player rankings per MLB Pipeline within the Top-30 prospects:
№7 Seaver King
№8 Ethan Petry
№11 Jake Bennett
№15 Sean Paul Liñan
№25 Sam Petersen
As you might recall, Liñan was one of the Nats trade acquisitions at the July 31 deadline. The Nats acquired him in the Alex Call trade along with Eriq Swan coming from the Dodgers. Liñan just finished his season at High-A Wilmington. Unfortunately as aforementioned, he is currently out with an undisclosed injury.
The AFL season began on Oct. 6 and ends in under two weeks on Nov. 15. So we have about 10 more games to add to this with the hopes that other Nats emerge, and the current Nats we highlighted — keep doing great.
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