All good news this week coming our way in the form of Washington Nationals news. From the Arizona Fall League, to Jacksonville, Florida, and to 1500 South Capitol St. SE, we have news on Seaver King, Jake Bennett, Jacob Young, and Devin Pearson.
Arizona Fall League — King and Jake
On Tuesday, LHP Jake Bennett had a tandem start in the game, and actually went further than the starting pitcher. Bennett went 4.0 strong with only two hits, one run, no walks, and an impressive 7Ks on the way to recording 12 outs.
Last night, Seaver King turned in a monster game at the plate going 4-for-6 with three doubles, three RBIs, and two runs scored. His single was an infield hit where he showed off his ‘plus’ speed. Now we all know that the Nats’ first pick in the 2024 MLB Draft at No. 10 was not the pick around here that most wanted. King struggled most of the season at Double-A this year. Then he said he had a revelation of sorts when his AFL teammate and the No. 1 prospect in baseball, Kevin McGonigle, gave him a tip on hitting.
“I was trying to figure out the swing and everything else,” King said of his time with Wilmington High-A and Harrisburg Double-A in the Nats’ minor league system, “but at the end of the day, like Kevin McGonigle told me: ‘It’s never the swing. It’s always pitches and timing and all those things.’ So he kind of simplified it for me today — and you know, it worked.”
After McGonigle’s advice, King finished a triple-shy of a cycle that night in the going 3-for-5 with a walk. He hit a 3-run homer, five RBIs, and he played shortstop. After that, King went 3-for-13 until he went off last night. These are still small sample sizes, but enjoy this, King is batting .417 with a 1.212 OPS so far in the first two weeks of AFL play and just six games.
To contrast how tough the competition is, Nats second rounder this year, Ethan Petry, is batting .143 with a .476 OPS. Maybe McGonigle can give Petry some hitting advice.
It was King’s big game last week that made the Nationals No. 7 prospect, one of the Arizona Fall League Week 1 Top Performers, by MLB Pipeline.
JY is a Gold Glove finalist … again
During the month of September, Jacob Young was a human highlight reel on ESPN Web Gems as well as their Top Plays of the Day segment with two circus catches and some home run robbery. Yesterday, Rawlings announced the news that Young was a Gold Glove finalist along with Pete Crow-Armstrong and Victor Scott II for center fielders in the National League.
This is Young’s second consecutive nomination for the Gold Glove. What might have been most impressive about Young’s season was that he had zero errors and cleaned up his fielding on groundballs that were his nemesis a few times in the 2024 season.
Scroll through this Instagram for some of those defensive highlights from Young’s season.
Here’s the problem with the OAA stats, there’s a flaw in that OAA doesn’t adjust for balls robbed above the wall. The stat measures distance and time the ball is in the air to the catch probability. There needs to be a human element in adjusting for balls caught above walls or jumps in front of walls and even in foul territory. Mike Petriello of Statcast admitted that this is an issue with the stat. There were at least four wall catches that Young made that he wasn’t given OAA points for. Denzel Clarke of the Athletics in the American League was a victim of that same flaw in OAA. Again, this needs to change by the human element to get this right since Statcast uses objective measurements to award OAA points.
Also consider that OAA is a cumulative stat, and JY was a part-time player during the 2025 season — but he still put up monster numbers on defense and finished with a Top-5 WAR for Nats’ position players.
Nats hire their first AGM
After last week’s housecleaning of front office and minor league player development employees that Britt Ghiroli of The Athletic numbered at over 50, PoBO Paul Toboni just made his first hire that leaked to the media when Alex Speier from The Boston Globe broke the news that Devin Pearson will be an Assistant GM for the Nats. He was poached from the Red Sox where Toboni came from. Pearson was the the Director of Scouting for Boston.
Curiously enough, Pearson was a high school recruit by Cal Berkeley when Toboni was a player there. While they technically didn’t play in games together, their shared college experience turned into a great relationship in Boston’s front office. Before his time with Boston, Pearson actually went on to have a nice college career and was actually drafted by the Blue Jays in the 30th round from high school but chose to play in college.
The accolades poured in about Pearson from former colleagues with Boston who we messaged, and an agent said this about Pearson: ❝Nationals just [got] even better — he is one of my favorite humans.❞ That comment we were given permission to publish, and came to us as a comment to an Instagram story we posted about Pearson. Another agent who we actually asked for a comment wrote, “Devin is the best!” In addition, we’ve heard from people who worked with Devin before, and got nice comments — but won’t post as we didn’t get permission.
We also know through multiple sources that Toboni has talked with several other top front office people with other teams including a top target with the Tampa Bay Rays. While we have names to put with some top targets, we were asked not to publish any names until they are hired, as to not jeopardize relationships. In some cases, there are employees who are under contract with teams that won’t grant interviews.
With all of the vacant positions that includes the manager of the Nationals, Toboni is juggling several balls in the air simultaneously and has said that hiring a manager is at the top of his priorities.
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