The Rule 5 Draft has come and gone, but it was a busy afternoon in Orlando for the Washington Nationals.
The club, spearheaded by new president of baseball operations Paul Toboni, made seven total selections across the Major and Minor League phases of the Rule 5 Draft, wherein teams are allowed to add players from other organizations onto their club provided those players meet certain criteria. The highlight of those seven was his only selection in the Major League phase: right-handed pitcher Griff McGarry from the Phillies.
It's been a tumultuous Minor League ride for McGarry, the 26-year-old from San Francisco taken by the Phillies in the 5th round of the 2021 Draft out of Virginia. MLB Pipeline ranked him 3rd among Phillies prospects in 2023, assessing a 70-grade fastball among his skillsets. Baseball America that same year named him their 51st-ranked overall prospect. It was a tough season for McGarry in 2023, though, making 17 starts across three levels (most of them in Double-A) and throwing 60 innings to a 6.00 ERA. Granted, that's skewed quite a lot by his three starts in Triple-A Lehigh Valley, where he recorded just 13 total outs and walked 40% of the 35 batters he faced, allowing 20 runs and posting an ERA over 41. In the second of those three starts against Jacksonville, he faced seven batters, walking six of them and hitting the seventh. All seven scored, and he did not record an out before being relieved.
The Phillies tried Griff out as a reliever in 2024 at Triple-A, but he still walked a quarter of the batters he faced which limited his potential. His age-26 season saw him return to the Double-A rotation, where his walk rate fell to a more respectable 14.8%, and he recorded a 3.25 ERA in 72 innings across 17 starts, earning the Phillies organization's Paul Owens Award for Minor League pitcher of the year.
So what's the impetus for selecting McGarry to the Nationals' Major League roster if his command is this poor? The answer is pretty simple: potential. The Rule 5 Draft is the biggest source of low-risk, high-reward player additions in baseball, and for Griff, who now slots in as the Nationals' 30th-ranked prospect per MLB Pipeline, the upside is clear. In even his shortest stints at any level of the minor leagues, McGarry has never struck out less than ten batters per nine innings. His 11.4 BB/9 in 48 Triple-A innings across parts of four seasons (mostly 2024) will give fans pause, but this is the time of year to start developing projects, and a guy who's got over 400 strikeouts in under 300 innings in his Minor League career is about as good a project as any.
He's already taken a big step forward in his command, and walking 5.6 per 9 is a little more manageable when you strike out guys nearly two and a half times more often than that. Still, McGarry is going to require work, and the new coaching staff, one would imagine, is ready to help him become a Major League starter in his age-27 season. McGarry is in position to realistically get every chance to earn a rotation spot this spring, with a MacKenzie Gore trade being almost inevitable and options like Jake Irvin and Mitchell Parker not really moving the needle after being two of the worst starters in baseball in 2025.
One thing the Nationals can't do is send McGarry to the Minors if they need to make adjustments. The rules for the Major League portion of the Rule 5 Draft require that a player be on the Major League roster the entire season (and at least 90 days total on the active roster across multiple seasons, if he spends a large portion of it on the MLB injured list) for a team to gain the right to option him to the Minor Leagues. In order to take him off the active roster during the season, the team would need to place McGarry on the injured list, trade him, or pass him through outright waivers, at which point the Phillies would most likely regain control of his player rights.
That's not a super big point of concern for the Nationals, who don't figure to contend for a playoff berth in 2026 and roster predominantly young players who can come and go as needed for flexibility's sake, so they're more likely to find a way to keep him with the big league club.
The team took six other players in the minor league phase of the draft, who will be covered in a later piece. McGarry is the only one of the seven who figures to immediately factor into the team's 2026 plans. As ever, let us know your thoughts about McGarry's selection on Twitter @DistrictOnDeck and @TheOttSpot.