{"id":582140,"date":"2026-02-20T02:40:37","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T02:40:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/582140\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T02:40:37","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T02:40:37","slug":"new-fangraphs-prospect-list-has-8-washington-nationals-in-the-top-100-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/582140\/","title":{"rendered":"New Fangraphs Prospect List Has 8 Washington Nationals In The Top 100"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fangraphs recently released its top 100 prospects list for the 2026 season, with 3 Nationals appearing on the list, Eli Willits at 15, Jarlin Susana at 29, and Harry Ford at 74, with Travis Sykora just missing the list and being in their next 10 off at 109. Yesterday, they released another prospect ranking<\/a>, this one via their projection system OOPSY, which relies heavily on a prospect\u2019s peak performance in the minor leagues rather than their most recent performance, and it had a lot of love to show towards the prospects in the Nationals farm system, with a stunning 8 Nats making the top 100.<\/p>\n

The first shocker on the list is Travis Sykora at 8, making him their third-highest-ranked pitching prospect, right behind Trey Yesavage and Jonah Tong and ahead of highly acclaimed pitchers such as Bubba Chandler and Nolan McLean.<\/p>\n

Players are ranked by their projected peak season fWAR, and OOPSY projects that number to be 4.0 for Sykora at his peak, which would have made him a borderline top 10 pitcher in MLB in 2025. While I expect the ranking is only accounting for Sykora\u2019s performance and doesn\u2019t factor in his current injury, it\u2019s still exciting to see a projection system be so high on the Nats top pitching prospect.<\/p>\n

Another shocker on the list is Alejandro Rosario coming in at 24, making him their 7th-highest-rated pitching prospect with a peak fWAR projection of 3.5, which would put him in top-20 starting pitcher territory in 2025. It\u2019s unsurprising that a list that values a player\u2019s performance so heavily would rank Rosario highly, as his 2024 minor league season was one of the best by a prospect in recent memory. Like Sykora, I expect this ranking isn\u2019t accounting for Rosario\u2019s current injury, but it\u2019s exciting nonetheless to see him so high on a prospect list.<\/p>\n

Not far behind Rosario is Jarlin Susana, coming in as the 8th highest rated pitching prospect and 34th overall, with a peak fWAR of 3.3. While it\u2019s a high rating for the big righty, it\u2019s actually lower than his 29th overall ranking on Fangraphs main top 100 list, as the site has always been higher than most others on him.<\/p>\n

Harry Ford checks in on the list at 45, a strong ranking for the Nats\u2019 newly acquired backstop. OOPSY projects the bat to be above average, but also is a believer that he can be a positive defender behind the dish in the bigs, a sentiment not all rankings share.<\/p>\n

The wildest ranking on this list, which I missed the first time I looked because I didn\u2019t even think to look for him (and he was still labeled as a Ranger), has to be Yeremy Cabrera at 53rd overall, with a peak fWAR projection of 2.9, which would make him a top 10 centerfielder in baseball in 2025. While the projection sees the bat just slightly above average, it believes his speed and defense will be both well above average and make him an impactful everyday player.<\/p>\n

Willits appears on the list at 59, much lower than his 15th overall ranking on the main Fangraphs list, but still the highest of all 2025 MLB draft prospects. To be expected, a list that values minor league performance will be lower than usual on prospects who haven\u2019t debuted professionally or have very little time there, and it\u2019s a testament to Willits performance in his short time in Low A in 2025 that he\u2019s even this high on the rankings.<\/p>\n

Luis Perales makes the list at 73rd overall, giving the Nationals 4 of the top 16 pitching prospects in the sport, according to OOPSY. It\u2019s clear that whatever numbers and formulas are used to create OOPSY\u2019s rankings, Paul Toboni has a very similar model he uses to make his moves.<\/p>\n

Rounding out the list for the Nats is Devin Fitz-Gerald at 96, his first appearance on any top 100 list to my knowledge. He is listed as a third baseman, interestingly enough, and OOPSY projects him to be an above average defender there with a slightly above average bat.<\/p>\n

Overall, while this list shouldn\u2019t be treated as gospel, it\u2019s exciting to see so many Nationals make an appearance, as lists like this in the past have been scarce when it came to Nats prospects.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fangraphs recently released its top 100 prospects list for the 2026 season, with 3 Nationals appearing on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":504120,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2398],"tags":[5,4,415,414,71,73108,4222],"class_list":{"0":"post-582140","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-washington-nationals","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-nationals","11":"tag-washington","12":"tag-washington-nationals","13":"tag-washington-nationals-prospects","14":"tag-washingtonnationals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116100649837900495","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=582140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}