I wrote in January that Yohandy Morales needed to do a lot of things right in order to earn a roster spot out of big league camp in spring training. Evidently, that .059/.105/.059 slash line in 19 plate appearances didn't exactly qualify as "enough."
Over three months after writing that, though, Morales has hit another gear. After a 40th-overall selection out of Miami as a 21-year-old in 2023, the now-24 Yoyo Morales is on a tear at Triple-A Rochester through his first 31 games. Morales has been younger than his average colleague in the high minors, but it didn't stop him from crushing Double-A. Three and a half years younger than the average hitter at Triple-A in 2025, he hit a wall for the first time in his pro career last season, posting a .731 OPS (91 wRC+) in over 400 plate appearances.
Morales came back to Rochester with the taste of blood in his mouth. With eight multi-hit games through May 3 (three of which saw him pick up three hits), he's now running a .330/.412/.505 slash with 5 home runs in his first 119 plate appearances. His TJStats page, which visualizes Statcast data publicly available at the level, lets us peek under the hood a bit. Morales's raw power, which is given a 60 grade by FanGraphs prospect writers, is carrying him, with a 93rd percentile hard hit rate and a 108.2 MPH 90th-percentile exit velocity. He's already topped his maximum EV from last year in a third of the games played.
There's some hit tool concerns--Morales ranks in the bottom 10% of all Triple-A hitters in both contact rates on pitches in the zone and in balls pulled in the air. He's also running an average launch angle of just 5 degrees, and his xwOBA places him in closer company with guys like Mets prospect Nick Morabito and Guardians farmhand Kahlil Watson, as opposed to his raw wOBA which would compare him to names like Travis Bazzana. It's worries like that that might hold back Morales from earning a promotion to the major leagues, on top of both Andrés Chaparro and Abimelec Ortiz already both being on the 40-man roster.
Other Nationals hitters, especially in the corner infield where Yoyo plays, have struggled to lift the ball thus far, too, though. Third baseman Brady House, now in his second year in the bigs, has seen improved barrel, hard hit, and walk rates, but his groundball percentage has also jumped 9 percentage points and he's running just a 6.4 Pull-Air percentage, making it difficult for him to harness his true slugging potential.
The Luis Garcia Jr. Problem
There's also Luis García Jr., who's taken over the lion's share of plate appearances at first base, where Morales also plays. García is someone I've been high on for years after a 3 WAR campaign in 2024--powered partially by unstable fielding numbers at second base--where he hit 18 home runs to a 110 wRC+ and stole 22 bases. His output slid in 2025, but his expected numbers didn't, and a 40-point drop in batting average on his balls in play was the explanation I chose to work with.
Things have gotten only worse for García to start 2026, confoundingly so. He's down to a 63 wRC+ through his first 112 plate appearances, and his expected numbers have tumbled similarly despite increased exit velocities and otherwise negligible changes in his whiff and strike rates. Digging into this revealed that García is simply making a lot of outright bad contact.
More grounders and pop-ups have sapped his fly ball rates. After pulling fly balls at a career-best 15.5% clip in 2025, his PullAir rates have slid back to 9%. He's hitting to the opposite field more, but making less solid contact--Statcast says his rate of solid wood on the ball is down to 4.5% from 7.5 last year.
It doesn't help that he's chasing more than he has in his entire career. He's seeing more pitches in the zone than ever, yet swinging at those less than he ever has and instead fishing for pitches outside the strike zone. And through all this, he's one of just six hitters to use an ABS challenge four or more times and not win a single one.
What this says to me is that Lui needs coaching on the strike zone. He needs to be looking in the zone more instead of being caught with his pants down on two strikes whenever he comes up. Sure, he's whiffing less, but it's causing him to pop out or hit a tapper to the infield. He's worth -6 runs on the heart of the plate according to Statcast; if the season ended today, it would be his worst run value in that location despite seeing fewer total pitches than in any other season. Until he can make the mental changes that will allow him to punish pitches over the plate, things aren't going to get better.
And if García continues to flounder, there's a 24-year-old righty from Miami, FL running a wOBA 170 points higher against right-handed pitchers than he is waiting in the wings at Triple-A. Morales coming up would cause one of House, García, or Nasim Nuñez--who's been a mainstay in the lineup thus far at second base but has hit for exactly zero power with an ISO of .010--to cede some playing time. Perhaps that's what needs to happen to get a jolt in the lineup, though.
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