(Wilmington, DE) It was a warm Saturday afternoon in the middle of July, and Chris Hacopian’s childhood home was packed. Friends, family members and coaches gathered together on July 11 to watch coverage of the first day of the 2026 MLB Draft, waiting to learn where the Potomac native would begin his professional career. Outside, humidity and summer heat hung over Montgomery County. Inside, attention was only on each name called.

The draft began at 1 p.m. Eastern time. One selection passed, then another. By the time the first hour concluded, Hacopian needed a moment away from it all. He walked into his bedroom, taking a moment on his bed just to breathe.

Almost immediately, his phone rang.

It was his agent. The Washington Nationals, the team Hacopian had grown up watching less than 20 miles from home, planned to select him with the 11th overall pick. Hacopian jumped from the bed and ran back toward his parents. The calm was over, and the storm had arrived.

“It was chaos for me,” Hacopian said.

Now, just under a month and a half later, Hacopian is preparing for a doubleheader in Wilmington. A town he had never been to before is now his home, at least for now as he works his way up the Nationals’ organizational ladder.

In an exclusive interview with The Nats Report, Hacopian discussed the transition, the local piece of it, and the early lessons that he’s learned as a National.

A Local Hero Comes Home

Long before Hacopian became the Nationals’ first-round pick, the people around Potomac already understood that his ability could carry him beyond Churchill. Former teammate Zane Gross specifically remembers that becoming especially clear to him during a game against Wheaton High School.

“We were down three in the bottom of the seventh with two outs, and he hit a walk-off grand slam home run, I’m pretty sure,” Gross told The Nats Report. “That was crazy. I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ I did not even know what to say after that.”

The home run gave Gross and the rest of Churchill’s team an early glimpse of the player Hacopian could become. What stayed with him just as much, however, was how little those moments appeared to change his teammate.

As Hacopian emerged as one of Maryland’s top high school players, the attention surrounding him grew. Gross said Hacopian never seemed interested in embracing the status that accompanied his success.

“I do not really think he fed into that,” Gross said. “He kind of just stayed within himself. He was always pretty low-key. Not a quiet guy, but he would lead by example.”

Hacopian’s example was built through repetition. When he was not playing at Churchill, he spent much of his time at the Baseball Zone, the facility his father, Derek, opened after five seasons in professional baseball. The building became the center of both Hacopian’s development and his friendships.

“He was in the gym working out every single day, all day,” Gross said. “If he was not in the gym, he was in the cages. I feel like that just comes with his drive. All he loved was baseball, and that is all he did. His life was just baseball, and you knew that with his family as well. But he was also the man off the field.”

“We had a baseball friend group in high school, a baseball friend group. We lived at the Baseball Zone, and that was kind of our social life,” said Gross. We did not really do much besides go to the Baseball Zone, lift and hit until we could not feel our arms anymore, and then we would just sit in the lobby and hang out. Off the field, it was still baseball. But he is also the most down-to-earth kid ever and would do anything for anybody. He has the best of both worlds.”

Chris Hacopian 2B · Wilmington Blue Rocks · #6
NATS’ No. 6 Prospect

12
GP

.263
AVG

.391 OBP

.342
SLG

1
HR

10
H

.733 OPS

Born: 08/30/2004 in Gaithersburg, MD

High School: Winston Churchill, Potomac, MD

No. 11 overall pick in the 2026 MLB Draft

Ranked Nationals’ No. 6 prospect (MLB Pipeline)

Currently playing for the Wilmington Blue Rocks (High-A)

Played for University of Maryland and Texas A&M

Gross saw the Baseball Zone as the place where Hacopian developed the work ethic behind his success. Hacopian remembers those same hours more broadly. Between training with friends and working alongside his brother, the facility helped shape his life away from the field, too.

“That was our after-school destination,” Hacopian said. “And me and my buddies, we would be there pretty much all day. And me and my brother, we would work there a lot. So I think that just helped develop just maybe communication skills and not even baseball stuff, just like life stuff, which was great. But yeah, having the Baseball Zone was a complete blessing, man.”

The same people Hacopian trained and socialized with at the Baseball Zone also shared his connection to the Nationals. They attended games together, watched Washington win the 2019 World Series and imagined careers in the sport without knowing that one of their own would eventually join the organization.

That transformed Hacopian’s selection into more than an individual accomplishment. For his former teammates, it gave the Churchill and Maryland baseball communities a personal connection to the team they had followed together.

“Everyone knows the Hacopian family, not just in the Churchill community, but in the Maryland baseball community,” Gross said. “I think everybody knew who he was. Everyone always knew he was the best. For him to get drafted in the first round by the freaking Nationals is just the most insane thing ever because we all grew up going to Nats games, and we watched the World Series together.“

Hacopian’s professional career has now taken him away from the fields and training cages where it began, but not far from the people who filled them. When he spoke with The Nats Report in Wilmington, his former head coach from Churchill was on his way to attend that day’s Blue Rocks game.

“Going to a school like Churchill and just growing up with a lot of other people that loved baseball, our team that we had there at the time was a really talented group,” Hacopian said. “And we just would kind of sharpen each other. So [coach being here] shows you just how close that family was. It 100% made me a better person and better player.”

Hacopian would have been grateful to hear his name called by any organization. Being selected by Washington, however, meant the community that helped him reach professional baseball could continue experiencing the journey alongside him.

“Honestly, the week leading up, I realized I had a really good meeting with the Nationals,” Hacopian said. “And my family, we were talking that how cool would it be to be a hometown kid and get drafted by a team that I grew up loving. But honestly, I just wanted to play Major League Baseball. I wanted to play professional baseball. So whoever called my name, I would’ve been extremely grateful. But the fact that it was the Nationals is like a cherry on top, man.”

Finishing Strong

Two months ago, Chris Hacopian was finishing his junior season at Texas A&M after coming off a loss in the College Station Regional.Now, Hacopian is living out his dream of playing baseball professionally.

The transition from college baseball to playing in the minor leagues is a process that usually takes months, sometimes years.But for the Maryland native, the transition happened so quickly there’s been barely any time to process it.

On May 30, Hacopian helped the Aggies defeat in-state rival Texas State, collecting three hits, two doubles and four RBIs. On Aug. 8, the 21-year-old stepped into the batter’s box and made his professional debut with the Wilmington Blue Rocks, where he recorded his first professional hit.

On Aug. 25, Hacopian reached another milestone, hitting his first professional home run against the Jersey Shore BlueClaws.

In between Hacopian’s final college game and his professional debut came the slowest summer he’s had since graduating high school. Normally, June and July would be filled with camps, summer baseball and preparation for the next season.

This summer was different. There was very little baseball.“It was actually the calmest month or two that I’ve had in a long time,” Hacopian said.

From June on, there was no summer league, no camps and no preparation for another college season. Just training and plenty of free time. “I had a month of doing literally nothing,” Hacopian said. “I was just training, and you can only train so long in a day.”

So Hacopian found other ways to fill his time: sitting by the pool, fishing, watching television and spending time with his family. After spending years with baseball dictating his schedule, the month was an unusual pause, especially with one of the most important days of Hacopian’s life coming up.

Draft day.

The Next chapter

But as July 11 got closer, things began to pick up. Hacopian had met with teams in the fall, but his final meeting with the Washington Nationals came about a week before the draft. Hacopian said the meeting went well, but even after it, he still had no idea where he would end up.

Then draft day arrived. Pick after pick came off the board while Hacopian sat at home surrounded by his closest family and friends.

The Hacopian family hosted a draft party at their home in Potomac, Maryland. After the first few picks came off the board, Hacopian wanted to get away from the noise. He went into his room and took a moment to breathe.

Then his phone rang. It was his agent. He told Hacopian the Nationals were taking him with the 11th overall pick. Hacopian immediately ran back outside to tell his parents. “It was chaos for me,” he said.When his name was officially announced, the emotion hit.

He cried. So did his parents. For Hacopian, it wasn’t simply the realization that he had been selected in the first round. It was the culmination of years of hard work.“From pretty much 10 years old, I put in a number of hours every day, and that was my goal,” Hacopian said. “For it to come to fruition that day, July 11th, it was unbelievable.”

Hacopian wasted little time putting pen to paper on his contract. A week later, he was off to rookie camp at the Nationals’ facility in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Just like that, the next chapter of Hacopian’s baseball journey began. For three weeks, Hacopian worked with new coaches, development staff and players while adjusting to professional baseball. He also had to build relationships from scratch.

Among his new teammates was a familiar face: former Oklahoma State Cowboy Avery Ortiz. Ortiz, an 18th-round pick, was Hacopian’s teammate when the two played in the Cape Cod League. Now, they were teammates in the Nationals organization.

“That was so cool,” Hacopian said. “We were playing college summer league together, and now we just got drafted by the same organization.”

Growing Into the Moment

The professional environment was new, but Hacopian had plenty of experience with change. He had transferred schools, played for a new summer league team every year and repeatedly walked into new locker rooms, learning new names and faces.

So when Hacopian was told he’d be reassigned to High-A Wilmington, he wasn’t overwhelmed.“I had no idea,” Hacopian said of Wilmington.

“I didn’t know anything. I don’t know anything about this area. I didn’t know what the park looked like. I didn’t know anyone on the team. I didn’t know the staff.”

Even with so many unknowns, Hacopian was excited to get to work.There was one connection to the area: a cousin who lives about 10 minutes away. Otherwise, Wilmington was another unfamiliar stop in a career that had already taken him through Maryland, Texas A&M and West Palm Beach.Hacopian made his Blue Rocks debut on Aug. 8.

For someone who had gone from college baseball to the first round of the MLB Draft and then into professional baseball in the span of 70 days, the moment could have felt overwhelming. Instead, Hacopian viewed it simply. “It’s the same game that I’ve been playing for 18 years of my life,” he said. There were new milestones, though.His first professional game. His first professional hit. His first professional home run.

Those moments mattered.

But Hacopian wasn’t interested in treating Wilmington as the destination. He sees it as another stop.“I have far bigger goals than just playing here in Wilmington,” he said. That mindset has carried him through a summer that has moved at an unusual speed.

The College Station Regional was supposed to be the end of his college career. Instead, it became the beginning of a two-month sprint into professional baseball. Now, with the Blue Rocks season nearing its end, Hacopian has only a handful of games remaining to get a feel for what professional baseball demands. He isn’t putting pressure on himself to make sweeping conclusions from a small sample.

Fifteen games, he said, amounts to roughly 60 to 70 at-bats. For now, that’s enough.His goal is to get acclimated, play hard, play fast and enjoy the game.

The evaluation can come later, during the offseason, when he can look back at those first professional at-bats and determine where he needs to improve. “Right now I just want to give myself an opportunity to get acclimated to professional baseball and, one, have fun and play the game hard, play the game fast,” Hacopian said.It has been a whirlwind.

From the College Station Regional to sitting by a pool in Maryland. From a phone call in his bedroom to signing with Washington. From three weeks in West Palm Beach to a professional debut in Wilmington.

Two months. One major transition.

And Hacopian is already looking ahead to what comes next. “This lifestyle is what I freaking love, man,” he said. “I get to go travel on a bus and stop at a bunch of different destinations, play baseball, and, I mean, it’s the life that I’ve dreamed of and exactly what I want to be doing.”

Ryan Shenker serves as managing editor of The Nats Report, covering the Washington Nationals Organization.

Leo West covers the Wilmington Blue Rocks for The Nats Report

Stats are as of August 27, 2026 at 5:45 p.m. EDT

Follow the latest Nationals news, prospect updates, and analysis at thenatsreport.com.

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