OPINION:
Eli Willits, the Washington Nationals’ top draft choice from a year ago — the No. 1 selection in baseball — will represent the Nationals in Sunday’s All-Star Future Game in Philadelphia.
MLB Pipeline has named him the No. 3 prospect in baseball.
The 18-year-old shortstop has been impressive, recording 77 hits, 12 home runs, 52 RBIs, 70 runs scored and 38 stolen bases in 69 games at two minor league levels in Single-A Fredericksburg and High-A Wilmington.
Here’s what Willits hasn’t done — he hasn’t posted an 8-1 record, a 1.36 ERA, with just 11 hits in 72.2 innings pitched, 108 strikeouts, 10 walks and a 0.688 WHIP.
That’s what 22-year-old Kade Anderson is doing at Double-A Arkansas — a historic minor league performance to date.
That is more valuable than whatever Willits is doing on the Nationals’ farm. An ace starter is more valuable than a future star shortstop.
Anderson won’t be a minor leaguer much longer. The former LSU pitching star, picked No. 3 in last year’s draft, will likely wind up with the major league club that selected him, the Seattle Mariners — leading the American League West — to help in the race to the playoffs.
Stunningly, the Nationals find themselves at the All-Star break very much in the wild card race. If they are still there when the Aug. 3 trading deadline comes around, the team will be expected to seek some pitching help.
Had they taken Anderson in last year’s draft instead of Willits, all that would require is a phone call to their minor league clubs in Double-A Harrisburg or Triple-A Rochester, where Anderson would be turning in his historic performance.
That would be far more palatable for Paul Toboni, Washington’s president of baseball operations, than having to surrender prospects from the Nationals’ minor league system to get this pitching help.
It wasn’t Toboni’s mistake to pick Willits instead of Anderson, a prospect I urged Washington to select before the 2025 draft. At that time, Toboni was an assistant general manager with the Boston Red Sox.
The Willits selection was made by interim general manager Mike DeBartolo, who was promoted just a few days before the draft to replace fired GM Mike Rizzo.
It may seem foolish to call drafting Willits a mistake. Most teams would love to have that kind of mistake in the minor league system. He was their No. 1 player on their board, according to DeBartolo, and was at or near the top of every prospect ranking before the draft. There is no reason to believe he won’t wind up being an All-Star major leaguer.
But pitchers — pitchers like Anderson — are far more coveted.
Toboni gets his swing at the plate for Washington on Saturday, when the Nationals have the 14th pick in the first round of the draft. The unexpected Nationals’ success on the field this season — a 48-46 record and the highest scoring offense in baseball — is primarily the result of Rizzo’s players, seemingly energized by Toboni’s coaching and player development additions.
We got a glimpse up close of his ability to pick talent when Washington traded pitcher MacKenzie Gore to the Texas Rangers for five prospects — former No. 1 choice infielder Gavin Fien; another infielder, Devin Fitz-Gerald; pitcher Alejandro Rosario (recovering from Tommy John surgery); first baseman/outfielder Abimelec Ortiz and outfielder Yeremy Cabrera. Of that group, only Fitz-Gerald has had noteworthy production to date — 13 home runs, 43 RBIs and 13 stolen bases for Single-A Wilmington and Single-A Harrisburg.
On the other side of the ledger, Gore has struggled with the Rangers — a 5-8 record with a 4.72 ERA in 19 starts.
Toboni also made a high-profile deal this winter when he traded left-handed reliever Jose Ferrer to the Seattle Mariners for catching prospect Harry Ford. Ferrer has been outstanding for Seattle — a 1-1 record with a 2.37 ERA in 42 appearances. Ford has labored with Triple-A Rochester — three home runs, 19 RBIs and a .212 average in 54 games.
As enjoyable and exciting as the Nationals’ season and their minor league renewal have been, this is really where it begins for Toboni.
The cheerleaders tell me he has assembled one of the best player development and scouting teams anyone has ever seen for this draft. We’ve never seen anything like this group of Washington talent evaluators. So big. So beautiful.
• You can hear Thom Loverro on “The Kevin Sheehan Show” podcast.
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