The Washington Nationals have had a pretty difficult year on the farm overall, as they have gotten a lot of mixed results from a lot of their top prospects. While some players like Jarlin Susana, Alex Clemmey, and Eli Willits have shown a lot of promise throughout the season, others like Seaver King and Luke Dickerson have struggled a fair amount.
However, with the regular season nearing a close for the organization across most of their levels, the club announced their participants for offseason baseball. The Arizona Fall League is an offseason developmental league in which teams across the league select some of their prospects to participate in to get more playing time against top prospects around baseball.
In the past, the Nationals have sent guys like Stephen Strasburg and even Robert Hassell III last season, and have mostly seen positive results. Often, the AFL can be used as an opportunity for prospects to establish some positive momentum heading into spring training, and there are a few prospects the Nationals are sending in 2025 that can hopefully begin to change the narrative surrounding their game.
On the pitching side, the Nationals will be sending 3 lefties, Pablo Aldonis, Jared Simpson, and Jake Bennett out west, and all 3 of them have a different background. While Bennett is ranked as the #11 prospect in the organization, both Aldonis and Simpson are unranked, but have some legitimate upside.
Aldonis, just 23-years-old, is a reliever who has posted impressive numbers across 3 levels in 2025, and will be looking to prove that he is deserving of being bumped up a level to begin 2026. Simpson, a 2023 8th-rounder, has struggled for High-A Wilmington in 2025, but can use the AFL as a launchpad to rebuild some stock. Bennett will be looking to build on his solid 2025 season, his first since returning from injury after being drafted in the 2nd round in 2022.
The team will also be sending 3 interesting hitters, who all have a chance to prove some different things in the AFL. 2024 1st-rounder Seaver King (WSH #7), who has largely struggled in 2025 since being moved up to AA Harrisburg, will have a chance to rebuild his stock in a big way similar to Hassell III last year, especially given the performances of the college players that were drafted around him in the 2024 draft.
2025 2nd-rounder Ethan Petry (WSH #8) will be attending as well, and he has gotten off to a solid start in his big league career playing for Low-A Fredericksburg. He has a very legitimate chance to be the answer at first base long-term for the organization, and his power will be fun to watch against fellow top prospects that he might be seeing for the first time.
Finally, outfielder and 2024 8th-rounder Sam Peterson will be getting an extended opportunity to prove that his 2025 season is a legitimate sign of what's to come, as he has been one of the best players in the organization from a numbers standpoint. After being a guy who didn't have many high expectations, he has put up numbers in the notoriously pitcher-friendly park of High-A Wilmington that few Nationals prospects have before. It will be huge for him to perform well against top arms from other organizations to see how deserving he is of a promotion to AA to start the 2026 season.
The AFL will kick off on October 6th, and will go until November 12th. Each team will play 30 games in that span and the top 6 teams will have a chance to compete in a short postseason that comes to an end on November 15th.
What do you think of the Nationals' choices to participate in the Arizona Fall League? As always, please let me know on X, @DCBerk.