Playoff baseball is not the only show in town now for Nationals fans. The Arizona Fall League starts today and a number of Nationals prospects will be participating. Five of the Nationals top 30 prospects will be down
in Arizona looking to finish their seasons strong. There are a few names I am very excited to monitor.
The most interesting name to me is probably Seaver King. It was a pretty brutal year for the former top 10 pick in his first full season. Between High-A and Double-A, King hit just .244 with a .631 OPS. That is just not good enough for a top 10 pick.
The pressure is on King because the Nationals passed on a lot of high end talent to select him. We saw Trey Yesavage carve up the Yankees in a playoff game last night. He was a guy the Nats passed on to select King. There are plenty of others that litter top 100 lists.
It will be interesting to see what the new player development team will do with King. He is a tremendous athlete who will show glimpses of really good things. The former Wake Forest man is fast, has a solid glove, can show good exit velocities and makes a decent amount of contact. However, his approach is pretty brutal and he hits the ball on the ground too much. These have both been limiting factors for him.
Hopefully the AFL can be a chance for King to get some momentum entering next season. Given his offensive deficiencies, I have a hard time believing he will be able to live up to his draft slot, but there is more in the tank for King. With his athleticism and defense, there is still a path to a solid big leaguer here. Hopefully he can show that in the AFL.
The next prospect I want to talk about is a guy from the 2025 draft. You don’t see many guys from the draft appear in the AFL that fall. However, when you do it is usually a good sign. It shows that the team believes that player is prepared to see more advanced pitching.
That is exactly what the Nationals are doing with their second round pick Ethan Petry. Like all of the Nats prospects, he will be playing for the Scottsdale Scorpions. The big slugger performed well in his first taste of pro ball, posting an .800 OPS. He showed flashes of his big power as well as a strong approach.
Right now Petry plays in the outfield, but long term most scouts see him as a first baseman. He has the power upside to play there too. Petry dominated the SEC for three years and had a knack for homering off of premium pitching. He went yard against Paul Skenes, Chase Burns and Liam Doyle in his illustrious career at South Carolina.
Like a lot of big sluggers, he can be prone to the strikeout, but he has the raw power to survive with big strikeout numbers. Petry is your prototypical slugger who has the chance to be a Pete Alonso type if everything goes right. However, the margin for error is small with first base types. If you don’t hit, you are not going to make it.
I am excited to see how Petry does. This will be a good test for him. If he does well, it will be a very good sign for him moving forward. He could rise through the system quickly if he has a big year in 2026.
The other prospect I am excited to see is a guy the Nats got in a trade. That would be pitcher Sean Paul Linan. The Nats got Linan as part of the package that sent Alex Call to LA. I was very excited about Linan because of his elite changeup. His changeup is one of the best pitches in the minor leagues. It draws comparisons to Devin Williams’ changeup because of its unusual high spin.
However, Linan only pitched in one game for the Nats organization before going down with an injury. That is why the Nats sent Linan to the AFL. They wanted him to log more innings heading into 2026. At just 20 years old, Linan is a very exciting young pitching prospect with an elite pitch. He needs to find something other than the changeup, but he has plenty of time.
Those are the guys I wanted to highlight today, but they are not the only Nats standout prospects in the AFL. We wrote about Sam Petersen and Jake Bennett the other day, and both will be down in Arizona.
Petersen had a couple injuries this season, so the Nats wanted him to get more reps in the AFL. Bennett really had his innings managed in his first season back from Tommy John. For the first couple months, Bennett only pitched in 3 or 4 inning spurts. That meant he only threw 75.1 innings this season.
He is going to Arizona to get more innings under his belt. Bennett will likely make starts for the big league club next year. With that in mind, the Nationals don’t want him going from 75 innings to about 140-150 frames. Getting him closer to 100 innings for the season will make him more prepared for what is to come.
Overall, the AFL is a very fun event. As well as Nats prospects, a lot of the top minor leaguers in the game are down in Arizona. The Nats prospects will actually be playing on a team with Kevin McGonigle, who is the number 2 prospect in all of baseball.
It may be the offseason, but there is always baseball going on somewhere. However, you just have to look harder to find it. I know that I will be following the AFL and I think you guys should too.
