Every year, teams have non-roster invites to Spring Training. They are a mixture of prospects who are not on the 40-man roster and veterans trying to fight their way on to the roster. The Nats have found some gems among their pool of NRI’s the past couple years. In 2024, Jesse Winker was a non-roster invite and last year Brad Lord made the team out of camp as an NRI.
This year the Nats have 62 total players at camp, which is on the bigger side. The NRI’s range from prospects, to journeymen, to familiar
faces who have been DFA’d lately. While most of these guys will not make the roster and head to the Minor Leagues, one or two of these players are likely to stick.
I wanted to go over a few of the players who have the best chance of making the team. The battle for the first base position will be one of the biggest stories this spring. There will be a few NRI’s who are battling for that first base position. Warming Bernabel, Matt Mervis and Yohandy Morales all have a chance to win at least a share of the first base job with a strong spring.
The first player I want to discuss is Morales. He was the Nats second round pick in 2023, and is a fairly well regarded prospect. However, his stock has been slowly dipping the past couple of years due to some red flags in his profile. In college, he played third base, but has made the move to first now. Naturally, sliding down the defensive spectrum hurts.
However, the biggest concerns stem from his bat. Morales has huge raw power, but his batted ball profile and his whiff issues are concerning. Last year, he hit the ball on the ground over 50% of the time and struck out over 30% of the time in AAA. Morales had a good start to the year in AA, but the move up to Triple-A saw mixed results.
He still has a chance to make the team with a big spring though. I am very interested to see if he is helped by the new hitting coaches. Scouts have been worried about Morales’ swing mechanics and hopefully the new staff can clean them up. He was highly productive in the Puerto Rican Winter League and in the Caribbean Series, but the level of competition there is not the highest. Still, we got a glimpse of his raw power.
Morales is a player I will be watching closely. There are a few players who are ahead of him in the race for first base at the moment. However, Morales may have more upside than anyone. It is far from a given, but he is a breakout candidate.
Matt Mervis and Warming Bernabel are two minor league free agents the Nats signed this offseason. Both will have a chance to win the 1B job this spring. There is a chance Bernabel and Mervis could be platoon partners if both impress this spring.
Bernabel became a bit of a cult hero for a horrid Rockies team after a hot start to his MLB career in late July. The 23 year old was hitting .500 with 3 homers in his first week as a big leaguer. However, he came crashing down to earth. Bernabel ended the season with a .252 average and .698 OPS.
He still has some interesting traits though. Bernabel makes a lot of contact and hits the ball in the air a lot. He only struck out 17.1% of the time and pulled the ball in the air over 20% of the time. Both of those numbers are above average. This gives him a path to some offensive production.
However, Bernabel does not hit the ball very hard and chases a lot. That is not a great combination, especially for a first baseman. Maybe Bernabel can be a platoon bat at first base, but his upside is not very high. However, he is still very young and provides quality depth.
Matt Mervis is a very different profile from Bernabel. He is your stereotypical left handed slugger at the first base position. Mervis has big time power and has shown it throughout his minor league career, with over 100 MILB homers. However, his hitting in the minors has not translated to MLB production.
Mervis, who is from Washington, DC, grew up a Nats fan. It would be a cool story if he could play for his hometown team. He said he grew up idolizing Ryan Zimmerman. Mervis looked like he was finally breaking through with the Marlins last April. He hit 7 homers in April and posted an .848 OPS.
After a disastrous May, he lost his job and was eventually DFA’d. He will look to make it back to the big leagues this year. Mervis has big power, but he also has big swing and miss issues. He struck out 37.3% of the time last year. While it would be a cool story, Mervis seems like your standard Quad-A slugger.
There is one non-first baseman I want to take a look at and that is Orelvis Martinez. He is a true wild card, with a ton of upside but a low floor. A few years ago, the 24 year old Martinez was a top 100 prospect for the Blue Jays. His massive power and ability to stick on the infield made him highly touted.
He hit at least 28 homers in the minors every year from 2021 to 2023, where he steadily climbed the ranks. Some of those homers were truly majestic shots. Martinez has plus, maybe even plus-plus raw power and it shows up in games.
After hitting 17 homers in 74 AAA games in 2024, and making his MLB debut, disaster struck. Martinez was popped for steroid use, and suspended 80 games. He was a shell of himself when he came back in 2025, hitting just .176 with 13 homers in 99 AAA games. Was he a product of steroids, or was it just a down year?
The Nats seem interested to find out, as they gave him a minor league deal with a spring training invite. Martinez can play second or third base at an adequate level. He has also been good against left handed pitching in his career. If Martinez has a good spring, he has a small chance of winning a platoon role. A pairing of Garcia and Martinez at second base could be interesting.
It is likely that he starts the season in AAA and looks to rebuild his stock. I would not be surprised at all if we saw Martinez in the MLB at some point this year. If last year was truly just a blip on the radar, the Nats could be getting a steal.
Those guys are the ones most likely to make the team, but there are a few other notable NRI’s to shout out. Andry Lara, Shinnosuke Ogasawara, Riley Adams and Trey Lipscomb were all DFA’d this offseason, but managed to clear waivers unclaimed. They were all invited to camp. A few of these guys have a chance to play a role at some point this year, but are unlikely to break camp.
Jarlin Susana and Travis Sykora are the Nats two best pitching prospects, and both got invited to camp. However, neither will pitch because they are injured. Sykora had Tommy John Surgery and Susana had Lat Surgery. Other notable prospects at camp include Seaver King, Andrew Pinckney and Caleb Lomavita.
There are also a few grizzled vets in the mix. Tres Barrera and Trevor Gott were Nats at one point. Now, they are looking for one last shot and are at big league camp. Sergio Alcantara is another veteran looking to catch on.
The position player side is more interesting this year, but guys like Zach Penrod and Bryce Montes De Oca are intriguing. Overall, this is a fun group and there are plenty of guys we will see on the roster at some point this season.
