The only two previous times the held the No. 1 pick in the MLB Draft, the Nationals knew well in advance who they would be selecting. Shoot, the whole baseball world knew they’d take Stephen Strasburg in 2009 and Bryce Harper in 2010, two of the most-hyped prospects in draft history who would go to enjoy stellar careers in their own separate ways.
This time around, nobody seems to really know who the Nats are going to pick. In a year with no clear-cut consensus No. 1 guy, the player’s identity very well may remain a mystery right down to the wire at 6 p.m. Sunday when the 2025 Draft begins in Atlanta.
The pool of potential candidates has been deep since the moment the Nationals surprisingly won the Draft Lottery in December, despite owning the fourth-best odds of any team in the mix at a mere 10.2 percent. The club’s amateur scouting department has spent the last seven months scouring the country, getting dozens of firsthand looks at perhaps a half-dozen or more players under consideration.
The group finally gathered in the war room at Nationals Park last week to begin deliberations, only to be impacted by a stunning grenade drop Sunday evening when the club’s owners fired longtime general manager Mike Rizzo and manager Davey Martinez.
The timing of Rizzo’s firing shocked many, because it came one week before a draft he was supposed to be intimately involved in. Does his dismissal change the way the team will approach this all-important pick? Not necessarily.
“The amateur scouting leadership has been working for a year to prepare for this,” interim GM Mike DeBartolo said. “And I’ve been in the loop and following as well, and have my own opinions and work collaboratively with them. They’re very well prepared. They’ve been working hard for this moment, almost even before the last draft ended. And so I’ll bring my own voice to that process, and I’ll work collaboratively with them and take what they have to say and ultimately be responsible for making the picks.”
Look for DeBartolo to give plenty of deference to vice president of amateur scouting Danny Haas, senior director of amateur scouting Brad Ciolek and assistant scouting director/national crosschecker Reed Dunn, who are in their second year leading the Nationals’ draft room but all have extensive experience with this process. Haas, who previously worked for the Red Sox, Orioles and Diamondbacks, has never held the No. 1 pick before, but Ciolek worked in Baltimore when the team drafted Jackson Holliday in 2022 and Dunn was in his first stint with the Nats when they drafted both Strasburg and Harper.
DeBartolo’s biggest influence Sunday night may have less to do with player evaluation and more to do with draft pool allocation. The Nationals are allowed to spend a grand total of $16,597,800 on all of their draft picks this year. DeBartolo’s task: Make the most out of that pool, which sometimes means spending less on a first round pick so you can spend more on a later round pick who has first round talent.
“We have to decide how to strategize with our bonus pool money, and what the bonus pool demands are, and run through all those scenarios over the coming days,” DeBartolo said. “There’s a lot of talent there, and it’s an exciting day for the organization to be able to bring in someone from that group. And we’ll see if we can use dollars strategically to bring in as many top prospects as we can. I think it’s going to benefit the long term of the organization.”
So, who’s the pick going to be? The Nationals obviously aren’t saying, but the consensus opinion around the baseball world has narrowed the pool down to two top candidates: Ethan Holliday and Kade Anderson. That’s not to say they’re guaranteed to pick one of the two, but that the odds appear to be much higher for them than any of the other young players in the mix.
Holliday’s name has been front and center since Draft Lottery night, really since his older brother was drafted No. 1 by the Orioles three years ago. The two aren’t the same kind of player, though. Ethan Holliday is more of a slugger in the mold of his father, seven-time All-Star and MVP runner-up Matt Holliday.
The 18-year-old Oklahoma high school infielder is already 6-foot-4, 210 pounds, so he may grow out of the shortstop position by the time he reaches the big leagues. But scouts seem more than comfortable with the idea of the left-handed power hitter playing third base, or maybe even a corner outfield position. Wherever he ends up in the field, his bat is going to be his most coveted tool.
The dilemma: Is a Nationals organization that desperately wants to complete a rebuild now in its fourth season ready to use this coveted draft pick on a high school player who even in a best-case scenario won’t be playing in D.C. until late-2027 or 2028?
Anderson wasn’t on anyone’s radar for the No. 1 pick last winter, but the 21-year-old left-hander put himself on the map with an outstanding sophomore season at LSU that included a dominant performance in the College World Series.
In some ways, it was awfully reminiscent of the meteoric climb another LSU ace experienced two years ago. Anderson doesn’t have Paul Skenes’ once-in-a-generation stuff, but he does have an incredibly polished repertoire of pitches for someone of his age and experience level, making him a prime candidate to be fast-tracked to the big leagues.
The knock on Anderson, if there is on, is his ultimate ceiling. Though he might be good enough to start in the majors within a year or two tops, he’s not necessarily viewed as a true ace in the majors. That could change with time, of course, but would the Nationals be hesitant to use the No. 1 pick in the draft on a pitcher who might not even be a No. 1 starter? (Anderson also, for better or worse, underwent Tommy John surgery in 2022 while in high school.)
If the Nats aren’t 100 percent sold on Holliday or Anderson, there are other worthy candidates.
Seth Hernandez probably has the best pure stuff of any pitcher in this year’s draft class, but are they willing to go against all conventional norms and become the first team in history to use the No. 1 pick on a high-school right-hander, understanding all the potential road blocks that could stand in his way?
Tennessee left-hander Liam Doyle took something of a back seat to Anderson this season, but he actually won SEC Pitcher of the Year honors and led the nation with a ridiculous 15.4 strikeouts per nine innings rate.
Florida State lefty Jamie Arnold also was a hot commodity early this season, drawing Rizzo to watch him in person in Miami during spring training. His strikeout-to-walk ratio this year: 159 to 26.
Eli Willits, like Holliday, is a prep shortstop from Oklahoma with good bloodlines: His father, Reggie, played in the majors and served on the Yankees coaching staff.
And Oregon State’s Aiva Arquette is a physical specimen, a 6-foot-5, 220-pound shortstop who does it all and could be big-league-ready sooner than anybody else in this year’s class.