Scouting Mackenzie Gore, James Wood and others in the Nationals’ Futures Game

The Nationals held their first Futures Game at Nats Park on Tuesday, pitting a roster of all of the top prospects in the system against something very much like their Opening Day lineup. The game itself was a blowout, ending in a 13-1 score for the major-leaguers, but there was plenty of talent on display on the prospect side as well.

Mackenzie Gore started the game for the big-league side and was, as you might expect, pretty dominant. He was 95-98 mph with five distinct pitches, including a changeup that was easily plus when he finished it — with two sailing to the backstop — as well as a tight curveball, power slider up to 92, and a “sweeper” or whatever you want to call it at 84-86 that had a sharper, more vertical break than the slider did. The four-seamer was the worst pitch he threw, even though he did blow it by some guys; in the middle of the zone, even some of the kids could square it up. He looked like a guy in his last or second-to-last spring training start, just getting tuned up for the regular season.

Gore only threw 65 pitches in four innings, getting 18 swings and misses in that span, which would be a lot of swings and misses for a big-league starter in a regular-season game where he threw 100 pitches. Everyone is so eager to say that this guy in Double A or that guy in Triple A is ready to hit in the majors, but it turns out that hitting major-league pitching is really hard, even for some of the best prospects in baseball. Gore faced all of the starters for the prospect side, including three first-round picks, one sandwich-round pick, and one second-rounder, and he carved them up like they were just some Easter ham. So for everyone arguing the very talented James Wood should have made the Nats’ Opening Day roster after a great spring, well, it’s not as easy as it looks.

About those prospects, here are some notes on their performances:

• Wood did have one of the only hits off Gore, getting a slider up that caught too much of the zone and staying with it to line it to the left field corner for a double, a great result for Wood given that he’s also a left-handed hitter. His second at-bat was a strikeout on that sweeper where he tried to check his swing but didn’t pick up the pitch in time. He still runs extremely well and while he started in right field, I have no reservations about his defense in center. It’s all going to come down to whether he can make consistent contact at the plate.

• Dylan Crews was the starter in center, and he was fine out there, if unchallenged. He looks bigger and stronger than when I saw him last year, either in April at LSU or in September for Harrisburg, particularly in his lower half. He punched out on one of those plus changeups from Gore the first time up, then lined a curveball to right for a single the next time against the southpaw, followed by a hard grounder (106 mph off the bat) for a fielder’s choice off a slider from right-hander Trevor Williams. Wood is starting in Triple A, and Crews in Double A, but given my history with both guys and their pitch data from last year, I think Crews is closer to being ready to hit big-league pitching right now. Both should spend at least half of 2024 in the majors, though.

Dylan Crews. 1st hit at Nats Park.

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• Trey Lipscomb was the talk of Nats camp and will start the year in Triple A after being one of the last cuts in camp, but I am out. Gore dismissed him like he was a suitor without means, blowing 97 right by him up and away, then getting him to swing and miss on a changeup down the next time up before popping him up on a changeup in the zone. Lipscomb had a .310 OBP between High A and Double A last year, and he’s already 24. I don’t see anything here to tell me he’s a different player now than he was then. He did play shortstop, though, and didn’t look terribly out of place there, so he at least can try to get to the majors as the last infielder on a roster.

• Robert Hassell III led off, and the outfielder struck out on three straight fastballs from Gore the first time up — whiffing on two without getting close to them — then fell behind 0-2 before Gore gave him a gift, a fastball right down the middle that Hassell lined the other way at 97 mph for a single. Hassell struggled in left, with a well below-average arm and a misplay on a hard ground ball that led to extra bases on what should have been a single.

GO DEEPER

Nationals 2024 top 20 prospects: Dylan Crews, James Wood lead the way

• The one run the prospects team scored came from T.J. White, who homered off a 91 mph fastball way out to left-center, making up for two dismal at-bats before where he whiffed on a fastball right down the middle and then hit a ball at about 0.01 mph back to the pitcher.

• Brady House also had two at-bats, striking out on a fastball up and away that he could do no more than wave at (perhaps he was just saying hello), but he did work a walk the next time up, the only walk Gore allowed in his outing.

• Right-hander Jackson Rutledge started for the prospects team and struggled with command and consistency, as usual. He was 93-96 with a hard slider at 86-90 and a straight changeup at 88-90, the last one probably just a grade 45 pitch. He’s 6-foot-8 but has a very short arm action with really late acceleration and what looks like a lot of stress on the shoulder. He was charged with 12 of the 13 runs the major-league team scored, but it’s a little misleading as he left the bases loaded for a reliever in the fourth inning, with all three guys scoring, then returned to the mound to start the fifth and allowed three more runs. OK, I guess it’s not that misleading.

• Infielder Luis García, Jr. is entering what I assume is a make-or-break year for him, and he had the weirdest day of everyone, with three weak hits in four trips to the plate — a grounder that bounced off the rubber so no one could field it, a broken bat bloop single to left, and a line-drive single to left that was his best bolt of the day at 98.6 mph. He has no power and he’s maybe a 40 runner. I’ve never been on this one, so take this with a grain of salt, but he looks like the same guy he’s always been.

• C.J. Abrams was one of my breakout picks for this year, and I’m looking for some better swing decisions along with a little more contact quality. I don’t think he’s any stronger — he seems like someone who may always struggle to build much muscle mass — but he did drop the bat head to drive a slider off the right field wall for a single (where he was blocked by the runner ahead of him), and earlier lined a double over the second baseman at 104 mph for his hardest-hit ball in the game. He also grounded a double to right past a falling diving Yohandy Morales, and lined out to left. I would say I don’t feel any worse or better about the breakout pick than I did before the game.

• Infielder Kevin Made, acquired last July from the Chicago Cubs for Jeimer Candelario, looked way thicker than I remembered him, and he’s maybe a 40 runner now. He showed good bat speed but just grounded out to second in his one at-bat.

• Lefty D.J. Herz came over in the same deal with the Cubs and was his usual self, 92-93 with deception and a strong changeup but a fringy slider and cutter. The fastball’s pretty true, with just one swing and miss on it — to Rule 5 pick Nasim Nuñez — out of 20 he threw, and he just has no feel to spin the ball at all.

• Elijah Green had just one at-bat before I had to leave the game (more on that in a second) and punched out looking on 91 from a right-hander. To be entirely fair to him, though, he was one of the youngest players in the game — I think only Cristhian Vaquero and Armando Cruz were younger.

• Right-hander Orlando Ribalta threw one inning of relief, working 95-97 with two fringy secondaries in a changeup and sweeper. He’s 26 now, a 2019 12th-round pick, but I imagine he’ll spend the year in the Triple-A bullpen and maybe get a callup if he shows he can miss more bats than he has in the past.

• I did have to head home before the game ended to catch my daughter’s first tennis match of the year, so I missed Jarlin Susana’s one inning of work. More importantly, my daughter won her match.