The Nationals farm system hasn’t gotten much love as industry farm rankings have started to roll in over the last week or so.
Much of that is due to a series of once-heralded names that have seen their prospect stocks plummet since joining the Washington system. The Nationals have arguably the weirdest system in baseball: just three consensus Top 100 prospects, but also as many as 10 others that were either once considered in that echelon or could stand to join it for the first time with continued success in 2024.
No name stands out more in the “fallen off” tier than Elijah Green. And getting him back on track is one of the most important tasks for the Nationals player development staff in 2024.
The IMG Academy product is a former Top 5 pick that will be just 20 years old for the 2024 season. Things didn’t go Green’s way in his first full professional season, as he finished the year with an underwhelming .663 OPS and unsightly 49% K rate (171 strikeouts in 346 at bats) across two levels.
This both validated the concerns analysts had in the pre-draft process for Green and also caused an understandable plummet in his prospect star power. Green did not appear on the release of MLB Pipeline’s 2024 Top 100 on Friday night, and fell off their list mid-summer in 2023 after starting the year ranked #86.
All of this is more than reasonable cause for concern. If Green can’t get his strikeout numbers down, the odds he even makes the big leagues, let alone lives up to his lofty draft status, will continue to dwindle. But there’s still plenty of reason to be hopeful he can turn things around.
For all of the challenges the 2023 season brought, Green also showed flashes of the potential that made him a top selection in the 2022 draft. Despite only connecting for seven homers in 95 games, he managed to draw 58 walks and also stole 31 bases. Low-minors pitchers have famously terrible control, so the walks aren’t necessarily a perfect indicator of where Green’s eye stands, but other players with similar profiles to Green have often struggled to achieve even 30 walks in similar playing time, so there’s at least something to build on there.
Green also managed to post a .318 batting average and 1.074 OPS in an eight-game stint at rookie ball, which carried over the similar success he had in 12 games in 2022.
The question is: What would be considered a successful 2024 for Green? Of course, going on a tear that brings him back into the conversation of being a Top 30 prospect would be just dandy. But in a more realistic world, what would be a sign the former first-rounder is back on track?
For starters, getting his strikeout rate K rate into the mid 30s or better is absolutely critical. Green’s frame lends itself to natural power, so even if he has another underwhelming power season like in 2023, it almost doesn’t matter. If he can get his bat to the ball with any sort of consistency, he’ll have a foundation to build on where he can start thinking about power again.
That might mean a stat line that looks like a .235 average, somewhere in the 13-15 home run range, and an OPS in the .700s with a K rate at around 34%. While that stat line can’t become the norm, it would be a monumental step forward for a player currently striking out half the time in the lowest levels of the minors.
The realistic goal with Green for 2024 cannot be to magically become a top-flight prospect again overnight. This will be a multiyear process. The role of the 2024 season in that process is to have some sort of platform to build on in 2025 and avoid still being in this same position.
The tools are clearly there. The question is now if Green can become the next (and the greatest) success story for a Nationals player development department that took perhaps its largest year-over-year improvements in franchise history 2023. If he can show some strides towards getting his strikeouts even somewhat under control, Green could ultimately start to shoot back up prospect boards and give the Nationals another bonafide prospect.