2025

THE LEAD: Red Hot Rochester, Harrisburg, Wilmington Win this Week, Fred-Nats Flounder

It’s finally June and we have finally hit warm weather up and down the East Coast, meaning better baseball weather, but besides that good news, we had another exciting week down on the farm. Rochester swept the Columbus Clippers, extending their seven-game win streak dating back to the last game of the series in Syracuse two weeks ago. Also, this week, we saw series wins for Harrisburg and Wilmington, with Harrisburg doing it with the bat and Wilmington getting it done with their three-headed monster of a rotation. Unfortunately for Fredericksburg, they had a rough week, dropping five games to an in-state rival. It wouldn’t be an as exciting week down on the Washington Nationals farm if we didn’t have more top 30 prospect promotions, but lucky for us writers and fans, we had some. We’ll cover everything on this edition of theFUTURE.

 Prospect Profile

Prospect Journey: Nick Schnell/Phillip Glasser

Rochester Red Wings outfielder Nick Schnell has been getting the attention of fans and people throughout the organization over the last week or so for his play and clutch ability. In the last week, he has had two walk-off hits for Triple-A Rochester. In this edition of theFUTURE we will be running down his career to this point.

Nick Schnell was drafted in competitive balance round C (32nd overall) by the Tampa Bay Rays in the 2018 Major League Baseball First Year Player Draft out of Roncalli High School in Indianapolis, Indiana. Schnell helped lead Roncalli to an Indiana 4-A state championship in 2016 and took home the state's Gatorade Player of the Year award as a senior in 2018 after hitting .535 with 15 home runs. He became the first player in program history to be chosen in the Draft when the Rays took him with the No. 32 overall pick, and he signed for slightly above slot at $2.3 million to scare away his Louisville commitment. Assigned to the then Gulf Coast League (Rookie Ball) for his pro debut, Schnell homered in his first-ever plate appearance but produced an underwhelming slash line of .239/.378/.373 over 19 games. Schnell was known as a hitter with mostly gap power, who could hit it to all fields.

To start the 2019 season, MLB Pipeline ranked Schnell 16th in the Tampa Bay Rays system in their annual prospect ranking. Scouts viewed his speed and defense as plus aspects of his game, hoping that his gap-to-gap power would turn into light tower power as his career played out. Unfortunately, Schnell missed some time in 2019 due to a knee injury that fortunately wasn’t as serious as people first thought. Schnell jumped three levels that season, moving from Short Season Single-A to High-A. Yes, back in the day, we used to have not one, not two, but three Single-A levels until 2020, when MLB put an end to the short-season teams, but anyways, back to Schnell… He had another decent year in a short sample size of 55 games, slashing .265/.325/.448.

Fast forward to 2021, after the pandemic season, Schnell struggled like many players who had to be developed at camps instead of competing against other players from opposing teams; he hit .174 in 52 games. To start 2022, Schnell was two years out from the COVID season, but the injury bug came back to get him and left him with another even shorter 38-game season.

The 2023 season was a last chance to show the Rays that he could stay healthy, and for the most part, he did. At High-A, he played in 103 games, hitting .227 with 18 doubles, three triples, and 16 home runs. The Average wasn’t there, but the light tower power was, and the Rays’ front office was excited for the future, but that wouldn’t last long, as after a decent 2024 campaign, the Rays weren’t pleased with the production at Triple-A, even though in the same season in Double-A, Schnell had 29 extra-base hits in 81 games. During this past off-season, he elected for free agency and was signed by the Washington Nationals on a minor league contract that no one really even noticed. But since the Nats gave the once-promising prospect a chance, he has come through for them, hopefully giving Schnell a future in the big leagues and on the Nationals depth chart. This year, so far, between Double-A Harrisburg and Triple-A Rochester, Schnell has a .287 average and a career-high slugging percentage of .472. He also kept up his extra-base hit trend that has followed him throughout his career; he has 18 in 45 games this year. Schnell’s career resurrection this year should be one of the top storylines of the Nationals Minor League System this year.

This week we have two ‘Player Journeys’ due to not having one in last week’s edition of theFUTURE, In our second story, we will highlight the hit machine who has come on the scene in the last month at Double-A Harrisburg and that is none other than infielder Phillip Glasser.

Glasser was taken in the 10th round (285th overall) of the 2023 Major League Baseball First Year Player Draft by the Washington Nationals out of the University of Indiana, not necessarily known as a college baseball powerhouse. While in college for his senior year, he hit .356 while being mostly a designated hitter and shortstop.

When starting his first pro season in 2023 with the Florida Complex League Nationals (Rookie Ball) the Nationals didn’t know what they had and at first, he didn’t overly impress, taking a step back from his college numbers. In 13 games he hit .256 but showed extreme discpline walking nine times and having an on-base percentage of .400, those would be the only 13 games he’d play there before he finished out the last five games of the 2023 campaign with Low-A Fredericksburg which in a small sample size he showed that slap hitter ability hitting .421 with two doubles. To start the 2024 season, Glasser was again with Fredericksburg until he got the call-up to High-A Wilmington. While at Fredericksburg, Glasser had a slash line of .381/.444/.587 while still having that gap power, Glasser wasn’t much of a home run threat until he got to Wilmington, when he had a power surge and he had six in 75 games compared to the 2 he had in Fredericksburg in a combined 20 games. Up next for Glasser would be Harrisburg, where he would hit a wall and struggle to finish out the 2024 minor league season. But the Nationals saw his success and wanted to see more progression, so they sent him to the Arizona Fall League, where he again played well. Now present day, Glasser was platooning to start the season, but as it went on and he kept hitting singles and doubles to all fields, he won a starting spot and has been an “analytical nerd’s” best friend with an astronomical .377 on-base percentage. Contrary to what journalist Ken Rosenthal released in "The Athletic” about a week ago, maybe Mike Rizzo and Co. are drafting well, and quite possibly Phillip Glasser is a late-round flourishing depth piece one day… only time will tell.

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