Just One Nationals Youngster Made MLB Pipeline's 'Prospect Team of the Year'
There were plenty of reasons to be excited about what transpired on the field for the Washington Nationals this season despite missing out on the playoffs for the fifth straight year and finishing with the same record they had in 2023.
Much of that has to do with who was on the roster.
Throughout the season, the Nationals started to inch towards a youth movement, and when they sold off some of their veteran pieces at the trade deadline, the organization decided to start calling up some more of their top prospects.
Because of that, the foundation looks very promising with their outfield consisting of two of their former and current No. 1 guys in the pipeline, alongside a Gold Glove-caliber rookie. Their infield up the middle has cornerstones in CJ Abrams at shortstop and Luis Garcia Jr. at second base.
Washington could opt to immediately upgrade this group going into 2025 by targeting some of the top free agents at the corner infield positions, or they could still be patient and let some of their other youngsters develop.
Brady House would be the logical solution for them at third base since he's ranked as their third-best prospect and played 54 games at the Triple-A level last season, but the Nationals might not feel like he's ready for full-time duty in Major League Baseball just yet considering he's just 21 years old.
That could have something to do with him not necessarily standing out this minor league season compared to others across the sport.
In fact, only one player in Washington's farm system made MLB Pipeline's "Prospect Team of the Year."
Travis Sykora has immediately impressed people inside and outside the organization since he was taken in the third round of the 2023 draft, standing out during his first season in professional baseball that has earned him some high praise from evaluators.
"His 39.2 percent strikeout rate was tops among the 545 Minor Leaguers with at least 80 innings pitched, while his 1.87 FIP placed second. No other pitcher aged 20 or younger in that group struck out more than 36 percent of their batters faced. The 6-foot-6 right-hander has carved out a big piece in Washington's rebuild and could be a future face of the farm system," wrote the MLB Pipeline team.
There's no doubt he's been impressive, and it's hard to make the first or second team when factoring in performances from every player across the minors, but it still shows that the Nationals might not have a ready-made prospect in their pipeline at either of their corner infield positions like they had up the middle or in the outfield.
