Throughout the vast majority of Mike Rizzo's tenure as General Manager of the Washington Nationals, he was notorious for drafting college players - particularly pitchers - early and often.
Mike DeBartolo shifted aggressively in the other direction in his debut as interim GM. Four of DeBartolo's first five picks were spent on high school players, including shortstop Eli Willits at No. 1 overall.
Perhaps this is evidence that the new regime felt that the most talented players, or prospects with the most upside, were mostly high schoolers this year. More likely, however, they took a look in the mirror and acknowledged the reality that most fans see: the Nationals aren't particularly close to becoming sustainable playoff contenders.
For most of Rizzo's tenure as GM, he had a pretty clear type. As far as the top picks go, I'm inclined to disregard his first three drafts. Stephen Strasburg and Bryce Harper were no-doubt answers at No. 2 overall, and Anthony Rendon only slid to No. 6 in 2011 because of moderate injury concerns.
We all remember how many times Rizzo stated great teams typically had elite starting pitching. His drafts reflected that belief. Following the aforementioned Rendon selection, Rizzo used his top selection on a pitcher seven times in nine years from 2012 through 2020. All but one of them were right-handed, and five of the seven were college arms.
Rizzo broke that trend rather noticeably towards the end of his time in Washington, but much of his core philosophy remained the same. He opened his drafts in 2021 and 2022 with high school hitters (Brady House and Elijah Green), but then shifted back to the college ranks with Dylan Crews and Seaver King in 2023 and 2024, respectively.
Even when Rizzo pivoting away from heavily drafting pitchers at the top of the draft, one thing remained true: he was extremely reluctant to draft high schoolers. The two aforementioned classes were clear outliers. Three of Rizzo's first six selections in 2022 were from the high school ranks, and so were his top two picks (and three of the first five) in 2023. You won't find many other high school players selected early (or at all) by Rizzo, though.
Definitely not off base here. It’s a big shift.
— Stephen Newman (@stephen_newman1) July 14, 2025
The Nats only drafted 4 total high schoolers in 2023 and 2024. Travis Sykora and Luke Dickerson were the only ones taken before the 15th round. https://t.co/XaIXUvCc69
In addition to having a disinclination from drafting high schoolers, the ones he did take were often in later rounds - which is inherently flawed, because it typically results in them rejecting the offer and going to college in order to boost their draft stock. This particularly shows up in his earlier classes, when the draft still lasted 40 rounds, as opposed to 20 rounds now (and only five rounds in 2020 due to Covid).
That's all part of what makes this year's class under DeBartolo so fascinating. Just one week after the firing of Rizzo, we see a Nationals draft class that is the polar opposite of what history suggests Rizzo would've collected. As previously mentioned, this year's group is comprised of four high schoolers among the top five players, followed by almost exclusively collegiates.
The logic is somewhat similar to what was used in 2023, except with perhaps a better payoff with the later selections. They took the obvious choice at around "slot value" with their top pick (Crews), went "over-slot" with their next two selections (Yohandy Morales and Travis Sykora), around slot value in the fourth round (Andrew Pinckney), and then spent virtually nothing on everyone in the fifth round or later.
To explain the Nats draft in the simplest way I can:
— Spencer Nusbaum (@spencernusbaum_) July 14, 2025
1. They're allotted ~16.5 million across rounds 1-10
2. Eli Willits will likely sign under slot value
3. That allows Nats to reallocate funds, pick highly-ranked players in 3rd, 4th and 5th
4. Willits was still their top guy
If you're unfamiliar with terms like slot value, over-slot and under-slot, it's in reference to a pool of money teams are allowed to spend on the totality of their draft class. Each pick has a projected slot value, which essentially reflects the expected or recommended dollar amount that a team should spend on the selection. Teams are allowed to allocate their draft pool however they wish in order to try to ensure players they picked later than expected decide to sign their contracts, as long as they don't exceed the total pool value. With that in mind, saying a team went "over-slot" on a player simply means that they spent more than the projected value, and it implies that they will have to go "under-slot" elsewhere in the draft.
This 2025 class is similar to 2023 in that regard, but the biggest difference is that DeBartolo opted for younger players with upside, as opposed to college players that theoretically have higher floors. However, I don't believe that's the main takeaway.
Perhaps I'm making something out of nothing, but I interpret this approach to be a shift in overall view of the team's timeline. I also suspect that this means one of two things in relation to DeBartolo: either people other than him were running the draft, since he's only an interim GM, or he has received assurance that he will become the full-time GM after the season.
Regardless of how you feel about this draft class or what you think it means about DeBartolo, it's hard to imagine Rizzo drafting a group like this. Now that we've seen how the draft played out, there seems to be some validity to the theory that Rizzo was fired in part to get him out of the way of the draft process
What do you think about this draft class? Have we learned anything of note about Rizzo, DeBartolo, and the state of the Nationals? Let me know your thoughts @stephen_newman1 on X.