PROSPECT REVIEW: JARLIN SUSANA

Age on opening day 2024: 20

How acquired: Traded with MacKenzie Gore, CJ Abrams, James Wood, Robert Hassell III and Luke Voit from Padres for Juan Soto and Josh Bell in August 2022; originally signed as international free agent by Padres from Dominican Republic, January 2022

Ranking: No. 12 per MLB Pipeline, No. 10 per Baseball America

MLB ETA: 2025
* Projected by MLB Pipeline

As the major league regular season enters its last week, the lower level of the minor leagues have already wrapped up their 2022 campaigns.

In the Nationals system, only Triple-A Rochester is still playing games with their season finale coming tomorrow afternoon. Double-A Harrisburg, High-A Wilmington, Single-A Fredericksburg and the Rookie-level Florida Complex League are done playing games and now see some of their top players come together for the instructional league camp at the Nationals’ facility in West Palm Beach, Fla.

Robert Hassell III, Elijah Green, James Wood, Jarlin Susana and Jackson Rutledge are among some of the top prospects taking part in instructs. A lot of the future faces of this franchise are all together for their first camp since many of them came to the franchise via this summer’s draft and trade deadline moves.

Just an hour away in West Palm, the group of players made a trip down to visit the Nationals over the weekend in Miami. General manager Mike Rizzo, director of player development De Jon Watson and manager Davey Martinez were among some of the heads in the organization to address the young players.

“Yeah, I spoke to them all and I talked to them for a little while,” Martinez said. “It was good to actually get in front of them and see some of those guys. Some of the guys I've seen before but congratulate them for being there. I mean, when you get to instructional league, it's kind of like the guys are handpicked to be there and get some more instruction. And I told them to keep working hard and kind of be the cream of the crop, really. And keep working. I mean, the door's wide open right now for you guys and we're looking at players and keep pushing. Be the best and keep putting up the numbers and have fun.”

After the Nationals lost their seventh of their last eight games yesterday, it would seem now is a good time to look at some recent prospect rankings.

We’ll be doing this a lot over the coming months and even seasons, so be sure to stay tuned.

The Nationals revamped their farm system and entered a full rebuild after trading their best players at back-to-back trade deadlines and signed 19 of their 20 picks in last month’s MLB Draft.

And national publications are taking notice of the new prospects in the Nats’ minor league system.

Baseball America released their updated prospect rankings earlier this week, the top 30 for each major league club and the top 100 overall.

Try not to get too excited, but it's hard not to take notice of some impressive debuts for a couple of the newest Nationals prospects.

Elijah Green homered in his professional debut and Jarlin Susana struck out four in his Nats farm debut at the Rookie-level Florida Complex League this afternoon.

Green, the No. 5 overall pick in last month’s MLB Draft, sent the second pitch of his second at-bat over the left-field wall of one of the back fields at The Ballpark of the Palm Beaches in West Palm Beach, Fla.

The right-handed hitter with a 6-foot-3, 225-pound frame at the age of 18 was scouted as a five-tool player with tremendous upside heading into the draft. On the 20-80 grading scale, he already is rated with 60 power and 70 speed.

Green played center field and hit third for the FCL Nationals. He struck out looking on three pitches in his first at-bat (at least according to the MiLB.com box score) and finished 1-for-4 with the home run and three strikeouts in his first professional game.

PHILADELPHIA – It’s a demanding job being a major league manager. All the pressure in the world lies on your shoulders. You don’t get enough credit when you win and you get all of the blame when you lose.

For eight to nine months of the year, Davey Martinez has to worry about the 26 players he has on the Nationals’ active roster. He often even has to worry about the guys that make up the 40-man roster and some of the players in the upper levels of the minor league system.

Needless to say, this is a busy time of year for Martinez. He has his plate totally full.

But even he can’t help himself in checking out the new young prospects the Nationals received in the Juan Soto-Josh Bell trade with the Padres on Tuesday. Three of the five prospects – outfielder James Wood at low Single-A Fredericksburg, outfielder Robert Hassell III at high Single-A Wilmington and shortstop C.J. Abrams at Triple-A Rochester – made their organizational debuts over the last couple of days. And Martinez was impressed with what he saw.

“Yeah, as I said before, I got 26 guys here that I worry about,” Martinez said before Saturday’s game against the Phillies. “But it's good to see that these young guys are doing well. We got some guys, I check up on all our guys. We got some guys down there that are having really good years, and that's really, really good to see.”