Top Pitching Prospect Continues to Impress Washington Nationals in His First Season
The Washington Nationals did a great job of accumulating assets when they started undergoing their rebuilding process coming out of the years following their World Series title in 2019.
Unable to repeat as champions, the organization decided it was best to trade away many of their best players to start getting high-level prospects in return so they could start preparing for the future.
Right now, the years ahead look bright.
C.J. Abrams, Luis Garcia Jr., Mackenzie Gore, and others have already been able to showcase a little bit of what they can do in the Majors, but when James Wood was promoted and immediately started producing, the excitement has really started to take off.
That will only build when their current top prospect Dylan Crews makes his Major League debut on Monday against the New York Yankees, giving Nationals fans an idea of what their outfield might look like for seasons to come.
Outside of Brady House, Washington's No. 2 overall prospect, the rest of their top 10 minor leaguers are all playing at the High Single-A affiliate or lower, signaling that even more talent could be coming to their roster in the near future.
Perhaps there is nobody the Nationals are more excited about than their top pitching prospect Travis Sykora.
Selected in the third round of last year's MLB draft out of high school, the 6-foot-6 right-hander has impressed during his first season of professional baseball.
In 17 starts, Sykora has posted a 2.47 ERA across 73 innings pitched, striking out a blistering 111 batters while only issuing 22 walks. He's holding opposing hitters to only a .157 batting average while still developing his pitch arsenal.
"For him to continue his rise up, it's something fun to watch. He uses his fastball. He's 95-97 (mph). But also has a really good splitter, a really good out pitch. Great draft pick for us last year to get a young right-handed pitcher like that with his size and ability. The sky's the limit," his Single-A manager Jake Lowery told Bobby Blanco of MASN.
That's certainly high praise, but it seems like it's warrented.
Coming into the draft, Sykora might have been a bit under-the-radar despite being the best prep pitcher in the state of Texas. That was evident by his fall to the third round, where Washington was more than happy to scoop him up.
But now that he's arrived, he'll look to climb up the Nationals' pipeline quickly, working on staying healthy unlike other pitchers in recent years who miss time with arm injuries.
"There are a lot of things in my routine to stay healthy. That'll be the first one. And I think, it sounds cliché, but just developing and turning into a better pitcher. Truly just learning when to throw the right pitch at the right time. And like I said, just stay consistent. So just kinda polishing myself up the rest of the season would be a good goal," he said to Blanco.
It's not expected that Sykora will get promoted to a higher affiliate this year since there's only a few weeks left in the season, but he's certainly done all he could to impress the organization, so if he is able to stay healthy during his time in the minors, he could be the next prospect with a rapid trajectory.
BRAD WAKAI