Slugging corner infield prospect Yohandy Morales is on his way to The Show, reported Yordano Carmona of Pelota Cubana USA on Monday afternoon. He'll join the Washington Nationals big league roster and make his major league debut when he first gets into a game.
The Washington Nationals are calling up Yohandy Morales to the Major Leagues, per sources.
— Yordano Carmona (@YordiMLB) August 31, 2026
Viewed as a steal when he fell to the 40th-overall position in the 2023 amateur draft, the 24-year-old taken out of Miami tumbled down the Nationals' prospect rankings in 2025 following a tough debut in Triple-A. After finishing as the Nationals' 5th-ranked prospect in 2024, he was off multiple aggregators' top 30 for the Nats altogether when he completed 2025 with a 94 wRC+ and 30.3 K% in 433 plate appearances.
2026 has been a different story. In roughly the same span of playing time, Yoyo's compiled 25 home runs--good for sixth-most among all Triple-A hitters this year--slashing .286/.363/.519 to a 126 wRC+ to truly get back on track in his minor league career. There's still some cause for concern. Morales is still swinging and missing a lot, even at pitches inside the strike zone. Over the last month his in-zone contact rate is in the 12th percentile, and the 10th percentile for the full season. His strikeout rate has been above average in that sample, which is overall a marked improvement from the way he started the year.
Evidently, the Nationals feel that there's nothing left for Morales to prove at Triple-A, and that if he's going to learn to make adjustments to his swing and approach, those will have to come in the major leagues. There were similar in-zone contact concerns with Yankees prospect Spencer Jones prior to his debut; granted, Jones was a much larger "three true outcomes" type, both walking and striking out more than Morales does. Still, the 25-year-old has found moderate success at the big league level thus far, so there's very recent precedent for someone with in-zone contact issues and lots of raw power to stick on a roster.
Only time will tell how the Nats plan on using Yoyo the rest of the year. Nobody has to depart the roster for him to join it; there was a vacant spot on the 40-man created when Trevor Williams was placed on unconditional release waivers a week ago, and Morales fills one of the two spots opened by the active roster limit expanding from 26 to 28 on the first day of September. Morales joining the 40-man roster protects him from being selected in the Rule 5 Draft this offseason, assuming it takes place.
Still, it creates a bit of a glut on the infield; Andrés Chaparro and Abimelec Ortiz have each been playing mostly daily alternating between DH and first base, as has Brady House at third, with Jorbit Vivas usually taking over at the hot corner when House sits. Those are the locales Morales inhabits, so someone will have to cede some plate appearances for him to get consistent time down the stretch. Time will tell what the plan is.
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