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Armando Cruz at the John Carmona training facility

Obviously it is too soon for Baseball America to include this year’s signings from international free agency in their rankings, but we have been saving the № 10 spot in our Washington Nationals overall prospect rankings for Armando Cruz. His friends call him El Mago (the magician) for his defensive wizardry. We had the chance to talk to this young man today for his first ever interview in the U.S.

With a birthday a few weeks ago, Cruz just turned 17 and is hard at work to keep improving. Cruz ranked № 2 in the projected amount paid ($3.9 million) in a signing bonus among all of the international free agents according to Baseball America. On MLB Pipeline’s list, Cruz ranks 4th overall among all of the prospects in this international signings class.  Continue reading →

Photo from Jackson Cluff‘s Instagram

The 2019 draft class for the Washington Nationals produced shortstop Jackson Cluff in the 6th round out of Brigham Young University. Cluff hopes to join BYU alums like Dale Murphy and Wally Joyner who both starred in the league. In  Baseball America’s  newest rankings, Cluff came in at № 11 overall prospect in the Washington Nationals system.

“It is always cool to see your hard work pay off and get some recognition for the progress you’re making,” Cluff told us. “The Nats have a lot of great players in the system so it’s humbling to be recognized up there with some of the best.”

Because Cluff signed quickly with the Nats, the left-handed batting shortstop was able to get into 62 games in the 2019 minor league season with the Single-A Hagerstown Suns. There was certainly an acclimation period to pro ball as Cluff’s K rate was high and will be something he will have to work on to get the strikeouts down and make more contact. Right now it is not an issue, but Cluff is very old for being an A-ball player at 24 and needs to start moving up levels in the minors. Continue reading →

The Washington Nationals had a chance to get one of the top closers in the 2019 MLB Draft. The team selected left-handed reliever Matt Cronin with the 123rd overall pick in the 4th round. At the time, Cronin was a 21-year-old junior for the University of Arkansas Razorbacks. His stats included a K/BB rate of 2.87 and a .163 BAA to go with a 2.00 ERA. He made it to Single-A for the Nats in 2019, and then to 60-man player pool and assigned to the Alternate Training Site last year.

Last week,  Baseball America moved Cronin up to the № 9 overall prospect in the Washington Nationals system.

Continue reading →

Nats graphic

When the Washington Nationals drafted Mason Denaburg in the first round of 2018, they knew what they had at the time. Yes, ‘time’ is the key word. He is 21 years old now and would be the age of a typical college draftee now. But Denaburg has lost time — valuable time due to injuries that has changed his trajectory and the timing. The Nats had been down this path once before with Matt Purke who timed out. The team control has an expiration date with it — even with minor league prospects. After the 2019 season, Denaburg had shoulder pain and required what was described as a shoulder “cleanup” that was done arthroscopically which allowed a quicker recovery time. He is healthy now, and ready to prove he was worthy of his first round pick.  Baseball America ranks him № 8 overall of all of the Nationals’ prospects. Continue reading →

Photo provided by Andry Lara from Fall instructs

The Washington Nationals prospect list was just updated this week by Baseball America. Today we bring you the 18 year old, Andry Lara, and tomorrow we will publish Mason Denaburg‘s interview. That will complete the Top-8 prospects of the Nats. Getting to speak with Lara was a key as he is the top international pitcher in the Nats system. Similar to the Nats top-2 pitching prospects, Cade Cavalli and Jackson Rutledge, Lara has a four-pitch repertoire which is impressive. Even Baseball America did not know Lara was throwing a curveball now! Continue reading →

Asst. GM of Player Development, Mark Scialabba looks on; Photo by Andrew Lang for TalkNats

We connected with TalkNats.com last month, and we thought it might be fun to give the readers here a little more in-depth look at some of the players we like both in their system and those that recently signed with the organization. So, for the next 3 weeks, we’re going to be writing guest posts about players in the Washington Nationals system that you might already be familiar with, and one player that just signed that you’re apt to know much less about. We hope to provide you with a more robust look at each of the players than you’d find elsewhere.

We’re looking forward to this series and our interactions with the passionate Nationals fanbase! Obviously Steve Mears just wrote a piece on Jeremy De La Rosa on Tuesday, and we wanted to expand our thoughts in our analysis because De La Rosa is the top outfield prospect in the Nats system. Continue reading →