A hectic trade deadline for the Washington Nationals saw them trade their longest-tenured player to the New York Yankees in a move that sent Luis García Jr. to the Bronx in exchange for four right-handed pitchers. I reported on that deal when it happened, but we haven't yet looked at the profiles of the guys coming back to the Nats system.
Jack Cebert
Jack Cebert, 24, goes from the 14th-ranked prospect in the Yankees system to the 13th-ranked in Washington's, per MLB Pipeline. A 15th-round pick by New York in the 2025 Draft, the Ocala, FL native pitched for the South Florida Bulls before transferring to Texas Tech his senior year. His strikeout rate ticked up that season out of the bullpen, and he debuted at Advanced-A Hudson Valley with five relief appearances with a 40.0 K-BB%, 2.84 ERA, and 1.25 xFIP.
Cebert's moved back into a starting role this year, routinely passing 80 or 90 pitches per outing. He's had a couple stinkers, but over his last two outings he's throwing 9.2 innings with 16 strikeouts without allowing a run. He's got an excellent 19.7 K-BB% at Double-A this year. MLB Pipeline credits him with four pitches: a 50-grade fastball (on a 20-to-80 scale), a 50-grade curveball, a 55-grade slider, and a 50-grade cutter. That paired with 50-grade control earns him a 45/80 future value; FanGraphs is a little more bearish on him, giving him a 45 on his eventual command an a 40+ FV.
Nationals social media actually uncovered a DM that Cebert sent the team when he was 13, telling the team to trade for... someone. The original post is deleted, so we're not sure who, but clearly Cebert's been--or, at least, at one point was--locked in on the Nats for some time. In fact, his mother Sherrie even quoted the tweet. It's a family affair here in the Nationals organization.
imagine OUR surprise when we open our DMs with jack to see he's been locked in since middle school pic.twitter.com/ybcnctR9ep
— Washington Nationals (@Nationals) August 3, 2026
Cebert should either reach Triple-A this year or, more likely, start the season there next year. He's only been a pro for two years after being drafted as a senior, so the team won't need to add him to their 40-man roster to protect him from the Rule 5 Draft in the offseason. With that being said, it wouldn't be surprising if he made his MLB debut sometime next year... assuming there's MLB action to be had.
Ben Grable
Ben Grable, also 24, was taken in that same 2025 Draft four rounds earlier. Born in Pasadena, CA, Grable had an even-year curse of sorts through his college career. He pitched for Northwestern in 2021 and 2023, missing all of 2022 with injury--not sure exactly what--and then missed all of 2024 recovering from Tommy John surgery after transferring to Indiana. As a fifth-year senior, he split time between the rotation and bullpen and struck out 26.6% of batters faced.
Grable's settled into his role as a reliever in professional baseball. His primary weapon is a 70-grade fastball which, according to his writeup on MLB Pipeline, averages 96 MPH, can touch 99, and features a ludicrous 20-21 inches of induced vertical break, with a deceptive delivery and plus-extension which makes it devastating. He's only got one other main pitch right now, a 55-grade slider, but it's a combination that's allowed him to run an elite 30.7 K-BB% in the middle minors this year. A July report from Greg Johnson of the Trentonian added that Grable occasionally mixes in a splitter as well.
Grable, who uses the Instagram handle "bgnickel," likely in reference to the number 5 he wears on his jersey, was named to the All-Star Futures Game last month, inducing a flyout from MLB's 18th-ranked prospect Luis Peña of the Brewers. He's now 25th-ranked by MLB Pipeline in the Nationals system, and has a clear path to the majors sooner rather than later. It's very possible he could be on the MLB Opening Day roster for Washington in 2027.
Baseball Isn't Boring's Rob Bradford sat down with Grable shortly after he arrived in the organization to talk about his experience being drafted and his upbringing in Pasadena. You can find that here.
Yovanny Cruz
Yovanny Cruz, who will turn 27 this month, has already made his Nationals debut. He slots into 29th on the Nationals top 30, but it's been a tumultuous journey to reach this point. Signing with the Chicago Cubs organization out of the Dominican Republic for $60,000 in 2016, it looked like he'd finally made it out of international rookie ball towards the end of 2019. Then COVID wiped out the entire 2020 minor league season, and Tommy John surgery sidelined him for all of 2021. Several more 7-day IL stints in 2022 meant that by the end of it, he'd pitched just 37.1 professional innings from 2019 to '22. He missed the entire first half of the 2023 season at age 23 as well, ending up with 16 appearances and 21 innings.
After throwing just 47 innings stateside his entire professional career, and not having pitched above Advanced-A eight years after being signed, Cruz's clock ran out and he elected minor league free agency. He caught on with the Padres in 2024, spending the entire year at Double-A San Antonio. His strikeout rate held firm, but walk issues persisted, and he once again elected minor league free agency that November. He would take another pass at Double-A, this time in the Red Sox organization, where he was extended a non-roster invite to Spring Training. He increased his strikeout rate, but the walk rate ticked up as well, and it was back to the free agent pool in November for the third straight year.
The Yankees took a flier on the 26-year-old, and he made four appearances for them in Spring Training with a 31.3 K-BB%. That earned him an assignment to Triple-A where, for the first time in his career, he dominated consistently. Sitting 99 on his fastball, he throws an absolutely devastating slider just as often that's generated an eye-popping 121 Stuff+ grade. His splitter, which, granted, has been a small sample, is returning an outrageous 157 per the Stuff+ model. Cruz slashed his walk rate in half at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, earning him a mid-May major league debut. He went up and down a few times before being included in this package.
The pitch ability is clearly there for Yovanny, though there might be some growing pains. Cruz, though he'll be 27 in a few weeks, has not had nearly as much seasoning as others his age might. He struggled in his Nationals debut, facing four Phillies hitters. He walked Alec Bohm, struck out J.T. Realmuto, and gave up singles to Brandon Marsh and Bryson Stott. Still, this is someone that was in the Red Sox organization while Nats baseball ops president Paul Toboni was overseeing in Boston. There's something he likes in Cruz, evidently, and while the initial results might underwhelm, there's lots of upside to be had.
Jake Bird
Jake Bird, 30, is perhaps the least exciting aspect of this return, but the Nationals hope that there is still a serviceable relief arm to be had in him. Bird was selected in the 5th round of the 2018 Draft by the Colorado Rockies, and pitched in that system through 2025. An excellent start to his 2022 season at Triple-A Albuquerque with a 23.6 K-BB% and 2.77 ERA earned him a call-up to the Rockies' major league roster. He struggled to find that same success in the bigs, but rebounded the following year in his age-27 season.
That rebound, where he posted a serviceable 4.33 ERA at a reliever at Coors Field (good for an 87 ERA-) in 70 games, was largely powered by favorable variance on fly balls. While he lowered his walk rate by four percentage points, it was an 8.3% home run to fly ball ratio that drove his 3.55 FIP forward--his xFIP, which normalizes home run rate on fly balls to league-average as it's a metric that pitchers have very little control over, was nearly half a run higher.
A miserable 2024 season, where he was optioned four times and spent two separate stints on the 15-day injured list, was followed up by the best strikeout rate of his career in 2025. Running a 26.3 K% and 3.54 xFIP at the deadline, the Yankees traded for him on July 31, only to option him just five days later after he allowed multiple runs in two of his first three appearances, being assessed win probability meltdowns in both outings. He didn't resurface again the rest of the year.
It's been another underwhelming season for Bird in his age-30 campaign. He's been optioned three more times in his final option year, and was already in Triple-A when the Nationals traded for him; they have since assigned him to Triple-A Rochester themselves. When he has been in the majors this year, the veteran righty has made 36 appearances, throwing 30.1 innings to a miserable 5.93 ERA. He throws a sweeper and curve plus features three fastballs, so his arsenal is deep, and all three fastballs average around 94-95 MPH. His breaking pitches are favored by Stuff+, and in eight Triple-A outings, his sweeper, sinker, and curve have all generated excellent results--his minor league Statcast page shows a lot of red.
When in the majors, Bird's downfall this year has evidently been that he's in the zone too much. Both his breaking pitches end up in the zone at a considerably higher rate than average, and for the curve especially it's resulted in low chase and whiff rates and a .565 expected wOBA on contact. If he's able to keep the breaking stuff off the plate and get hitters to chase it, there's potential for effectiveness.
He's certainly not the only guy to throw all the fastballs, either--Foolish Bailey actually made a video about the rise of guys who throw three different fastballs recently. The ingredients for sustained success are present in Jake Bird's arsenal, and now the Nationals organization will get to work trying to put them together
The Nationals almost exclusively targeted pitching at this deadline, and it's not exactly a secret why; they've scored the most runs in the major leagues, but have allowed the third-most. They're also running a bottom-five K-BB% and xFIP. All this is to say that they need help, specifically help that will sustain them over the coming years. Losing the players they did is frustrating because it's been met with the Nats losing 8 of their last 9, but these are the moves that need to be made for the team to even hope to contend going forward.
On his new team, Lui's already made a splash with a huge home run to lift the Yankees over the Cardinals in his first game with the Yankees. You can read about that here. In the coming days, I'll also have a piece looking back on García's time with the Nationals. Stay tuned for that!
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