“Elijah Green Has A Chance To Be A Five-Tool Package At The Major League Level” | Washington Nationals Enamored With Skillset And Upside Of Top Pick

“Elijah Green Has A Chance To Be A Five-Tool Package At The Major League Level” | Washington Nationals Enamored With Skillset And Upside Of Top Pick

by | Aug 2, 2022 | THE THREE SPOT

The Washington Nationals are just three seasons removed from winning a World Series. That championship team started the season 19-31, and many believed they were surely headed for a fire sale.

But GM Mike Rizzo convinced team ownership to let the season play out, and the team got hot and took it all the way to an improbable Fall Classic win.

But since that fateful October night in Houston, there hasn’t been much to cheer about on the diamond in the nation’s capital.

The team let mainstay Anthony Rendon leave via free agency. They also traded stalwart pitcher Max Scherzer and stud shortstop Trea Turner to the rival Dodgers. The team’s brass decided on a rebuild, centered around star outfielder Juan Soto. After turning down a $450M offer from the Nats, Soto’s future in D.C. is very much up in the air.


Finding gems through the farm system has been something that Washington is pretty good at. The franchise may have drafted another cornerstone player in Elijah Green who will take over as face of the franchise when Soto is eventually traded.

The talented IMG Academy star was taken with the fifth overall pick in this year’s draft, and at 18 he’s already got a major league build at 6-foot-3 and 215 pounds. 

 

Green Has Five-Tools:  Speed, Throwing, Fielding, Hitting For Average And Hitting For Power

While at IMG, Green raised eyebrows with his rare skill set; one that allows him to look like a slugger one moment, a talented lead-off hitter the next and then a gold glove defender. The Nats saw potential greatness in the two-sport phenom, whose dad Eric, was a two-time Pro Bowler in the NFL. 

Assistant GM and VP of Scouting Operations, Kris Kline talked about the newest member of the Washington Nats family during a recent zoom interview.

 

“You’re talking about a skill set that is potentially gonna hit in the middle of the order and be impactful.”

Kline continued to heap praise on the player he said has the highest ceiling of anyone in the draft.

“There are very special players in this draft, but their skill sets aren’t the same. You had some really good-looking hitters but maybe they had some deficiencies in other aspects of their game. But Elijah has a chance to be a five -tool package at the major league level. Five tools, and when I say five-tools, I mean five above-average tools at the big league level.”

“He has a chance to be a middle-of-the-order bat, a run producer and a guy with the character and ability that got build your team around. He would be one of those type players.”

 

Green May Be The Face Of The Future If Team Can’t Keep Soto

With superstar slugger Juan Soto declining a 15-year, $440 million extension about 10 days ago, rumors are he’ll be dealt for an enormous haul of prospects and picks. The team mentioned they’d make one more offer to Soto, and then move from there. They’d love nothing more than to keep Soto around and team him with Green in the future, but if the Nationals don’t make an offer conducive to what Soto’s agent Scott Boras deems fair and acceptable, that idea becomes far-fetched.

 

 

Either way, the Nationals have drafted a piece of their future in Green, and something tells me it won’t take him long to make his arrival in the majors.