№1 prospect Eli Willits; Clint Often/Nats.Talk
Moments after the Single-A Fredericksburg Nationals won their game, and clinched the Carolina League North first-half championship via today’s 8-6 win over the Hill City Howlers, both Eli Willits and Jack Moroknek were called into manager Chris O’Neill’s office with news of promotions — and 160 miles north, the High-A Wilmington Blue Rocks manager, Ted Tom, was having promotion conversations with Devin Fitz-Gerald, Ethan Petry, and T.J. White. All of these reports were exclusively broken by us this afternoon.
When Willits is activated on Tuesday, he will be the first 18-year-old debuting at the High-A level in 2026. Willits is 1-of-only-10 prospects who as 18-year-olds at the Single-A level since 2006 recorded a minimum 150 wRC+ (min. 230 PAs). The others are Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, Giancarlo Stanton, Freddie Freeman, Jon Singleton, Fernando Tatis Jr., Wander Franco, Jackson Chourio, and Samuel Basallo.
And Willits is in a club of three with Trout and Harper as the only 18-year-olds in A-ball since 2006 to post a .300 AVG, .500+ SLG, 10%+ BB rate, 5+ HR, and 15+ SB.
▫️ Willits: .300 AVG, 6 HR, 29 SB, .500 SLG
▫️ Trout: .362 AVG, 6 HR, 45 SB, .526 SLG
▫️ Harper: .318 AVG, 14 HR, 19 SB, .554 SLG
Both Willits and Fitz-Gerald are consensus Top-100 prospects on both Baseball America and MLB Pipeline’s rankings with Petry just outside of that Top-100. Their overall MLB Pipeline prospect rankings are: Willits is WSH №1/MLB №4, Fitz-Gerald is WSH №5/MLB №97, and Petry is WSH №13.
Ronny Cruz, another Top-100 top prospect, had already been promoted over a month earlier from Fredericksburg to Wilmington. Now Willits and Moroknek will join Cruz there along with Yeremy Cabrera who was also promoted last month.
More moves will be happening like the release of Jack Rogers from Double-A Harrisburg, and High-A infielder Gavin Dugas, college teammate at LSU with Dylan Crews, as roster openings are a part of the process as players move up.
While Fitz-Gerald was on fire as a prospect most of the season at Wilmington, he fell into a slump about six games ago and was in a 0-22 hole until he singled to tie Wilmington in the bottom of the 9th inning. A nice ending for Fitz-Gerald’s tenure at Wilmington and finishes with a very strong .903 OPS.
For Petry, he dealt with the tough conditions for right-handed batters in Wilmington but still hit .297/.392/.521 with a strong .913 OPS. The former MVP of the Cape Cod League, the Nats drafted him in the second round last year with Willits going 1-of-1 in that same draft class.
Fitz-Gerald was a 5th round pick by Texas in 2024 and was part of the blockbuster MacKenzie Gore trade that brought Fitz-Gerald with another 2025 first round pick, Gavin Fien, along with Cabrera, Alejandro Rosario, and DH/1B/OF Abimelec Ortiz. You can read more about Fitz-Gerald in this feature article that Ryan MacReynolds wrote two weeks ago.
(L-R) Willits, Fien, Fitz-Gerald; Jake Stephens/Nats.Talk
The reason Fien wasn’t promoted was because he was out for a month with a hand/wrist injury, and with Willits hitting in front of him at Fredericksburg, Fien turned into an RBI machine with 24 in just 22 games — and that wasn’t even 22 full games. Just between yesterday and today, Fien knocked in eight runs.
By making these moves prior to the MLB draft, the Nats system will have room to aggressively promote any advanced draft picks to Single-A Fredericksburg who they believe are worthy.
The move to promote Fitz-Gerald was anticipated since another Top-100 prospect, middle infielder Seaver King, was promoted two weeks ago from Double-A Harrisburg to Triple-A Rochester.
The Washington Nationals farm system was ranked before the season in the mid-teens by almost all of the ranking analysts. Now this farm system is in the Top-10, unofficially at this point. MLB Pipeline this week named six Nats’ prospects to their Top-100. There are only two teams with more prospects in the Top-100.
With the farm system showing so many positive signs, it’s a tribute to President of Baseball Operations, Paul Toboni, as well as VP of Player Development, Devin Pearson, and their staff. This organization has never seen positive movement like this before.
(L-R) Pearson and Toboni; Andrew Lang/Nats.Talk
For White, he bided his time at Wilmington for the fourth consecutive year and with an .852 OPS, he finally got his promotion to Double-A. Moroknek was an 11th round draft pick last year by the Nats out of Butler University, and he turns 23 at the end of the month. Moroknek also showed that he can pitch as he earned a clutch save with bases loaded in Delmarva just last week. But he’s really an outfielder and finished with a .309 batting average and a .965 OPS. Both of them are nearly five years older than Willits. And age does matter for most of these players in trying to make sense of it all.
We do expect some more moves and will update when any other moves are announced.
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