Photos by Nathan Hansen/TalkNats
WEST PALM BEACH, FL — A noon start was fortuitous to beat the incoming Saturday afternoon rain. The same type of nuisance that caused lengthy rain delays the previous two games. While the Floridian rain is common, seeing three top prospects start a Spring Training game is uncommon.
Today’s starting lineup featured three of the top Washington Nationals prospects in shortstop Eli Willits who is the team’s №1 prospect, catcher Harry Ford the №3 prospect, and the left-handed pitcher Alex Clemmey is the №11 prospect. The three prospects are aged 18, 23, and 20 respectively. They are a big part of the Nationals future.
The final score would be rendered as inconsequential relative to the importance of how the prospects were going to perform in this game. Sure, Willits and Clemmey will be playing on Thursday in the Spring Breakout game with 25 other top prospects from the Nats system. That’s a showcase game against their peers. Today’s game was notable because it was against Major League competition on a big league field.
How did they do you ask? Clemmey was nearly perfect over his 3.0 innings while allowing no hits and just one walk. Unfortunately, his defense committed three errors leading to two unearned runs.
“[Clemmey] pounded the zone, and did a really good job getting ahead of hitters — obviously didn’t allow a hit. It was awesome.”
— manager Blake Butera said
Clemmey put up a 2.47 ERA in 19 games in High-A during the 2025 season. He earned a promotion to Double-A and finished his season there. His repertoire in today’s game was four-seam fastball, sinker, slider and changeup. He tallied two strikeouts in his three innings of work.
In the game, Clemmey’s catcher was Ford. He is MLB Pipeline’s №71 in the Top-100. He debuted on September 5 with the Mariners, and was traded exactly three months and a day later on December 6 to the Nationals. His MLB experience was all of eight games. That’s eight more than Clemmey. And Ford did well in handling his young pitcher.
Their shortstop, Willits, is MLB Pipeline’s №13 prospect in the Top-100. He showed poise at the plate with a runner at third base and accepted his walk to move the line. That was a veteran move. He wouldn’t chase a pitch. On defense, Willits made all of the plays. Normally you would expect to see CJ Abrams or Nasim Nuñez starting this game alongside Brady House. Nope, Willits got the call.
The Nationals then subbed each of the starters out, and put in more top prospects with Ronny Cruz taking over for Willits, and Luke Dickerson came in to be Cruz’s middle-infield partner. It was Cruz who hit a monster home run last week in his second plate appearance of Spring Training. Cruz 19, and Dickerson 20, are part of the youth movement of top prospects.
In the MLB Pipeline Top-30, Dickerson is ranked №8 and Cruz is №25. Some believe that Cruz is a Top-15 prospect at least. Listen in this Instagram post what team President, Paul Toboni, thinks of Cruz:
“We want guys to come over [from Minor League camp to compete]. The more we can get our eyes on them, the more they get familiar with our staff — [playing] in a stadium like this in a Major League game, I think it’s only good for them. We welcome it.”
— Butera said about inserting top prospects in the game
So far, the Nats have given 65 position players a chance to bat in big league Spring Training games. That’s unheard of. Last year, the Nats had 51 position players who stepped into the batter’s box. In 2024, there were 45 players who got plate appearances. The old regime would have young prospects sit on the bench for their taste. Not Toboni and Butera. They get them into the batter’s box.
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