Nationals Should Call Up Intriguing Starting Pitching Option This Year
The Washington Nationals have had a huge group of high-quality prospects come through the farm system in recent years, and these young talents have become the core of the Major League team as they continue to be promoted.
With players like Dylan Crews, James Wood, CJ Abrams, Luis García Jr., Mitchell Parker and MacKenzie Gore all being young pieces, they have built a talented group for the future.
This goes beyond just the MLB, too, with players like Travis Sykora, Jarlin Susana and Brady House climbing the pipeline, as well.
One of the prospects who has begun to show some promise is starting pitcher Andrew Alvarez, who is only one step away from the MLB.
As a 2021 12th-round draft selection, he started off as a 22-year old in the Florida Complex League, needing to work his way up through every level of the system like many rookies do.
In 2024, he finally made it to Triple-A, proving his value and showing that he could compete at each level along the way. In Rochester he showed some signs of struggle, however, posting a 4.58 ERA with a 1.449 WHIP, 61 strikeouts to 33 walks and nine home runs allowed in 78.2 innings pitched.
This was a far cry from his Double-A statistics to start off 2024, where he had a 2.89 ERA, 1.151 WHIP, 53 strikeouts to 20 walks and four home runs allowed in 53.0 innings pitched.
But, in 2025, he showed flashes of prominence in his first outing.
Across 5.0 innings pitched, he gave up a run but it was not earned, allowed two hits and had six strikeouts to only two walks. He was replaced after the fifth inning, but things rapidly fell apart from there when Konnor Pilkington only got one out while giving up four earned runs on two hits to only one strikeout.
Despite not being ranked in the top 30 prospects for the Nationals this year via MLB.com, Alvarez has proven to be a solid starting option in his time across the feeder teams and has continued to improve each year he has played.
He is not actively on the 40-man roster, so a corresponding move would need to be made to make room if he were called up, so this is more likely to occur in the latter part of the year as roster shuffles occur.
Regardless, Alvarez has shown a bit of promise so far, and after a good first start of his season, he could be someone to watch for down the stretch as pitching wears thin.
