A Walk in the Park: Eli Willits Steals 62 Bases at 18 as the Nationals' Baserunner of the Year
By Jess Henderson ·
Eli Willits played his last game of the season, his third at Double-A, on Sept. 12 at Delta Dental Stadium in Manchester, N.H. He had four hits in six at-bats for the Harrisburg Senators, including his first Double-A home run, and stole two bases in a 9-3 win over New Hampshire. He was 18, and the Nationals had sent him to Harrisburg four days earlier, after the High-A season in Wilmington ended.
Those two steals were his 61st and 62nd of the year. The Nationals had already named him their Minor League Baserunner of the Year, and he is my Nationals pick for the hitter half of our Pitcher and Hitter of the Year series, with a case that starts on the bases. The club gave its own Hitter of the Year award to Seaver King, 23, who led the system with a .316 average and a .942 OPS through Aug. 30, and that was a fair choice. Willits did his work almost five years younger and mostly two levels lower.
Eli Willits, Shortstop: 62 Steals at 18
Washington took Willits first overall in 2025 out of Fort Cobb-Broxton High School in Oklahoma, when he was 17. He is a switch-hitting shortstop, and 80Grade ranks him No. 9 overall and No. 1 in the Nationals system, with a 60 speed grade in his 80Grade report. His father, Reggie Willits, played six seasons in the Angels' outfield, then spent 2015 through 2017 as the Yankees' minor league outfield and baserunning coordinator and four more years as their first-base coach, per MLB.com.
He opened 2026 at Single-A Fredericksburg and hit .300/.418/.500 with 29 steals in 47 games. The Nationals moved him to High-A Wilmington on June 9, and he hit .230/.392/.420 there with 31 steals in 64 games before the three games at Harrisburg. Across all three levels he hit .265/.406/.463 in 114 games, with 27 doubles, eight triples, 14 home runs, 75 RBI, 102 runs, 95 walks and 113 strikeouts. He stole 62 bases and was caught 15 times, which works out to about 80 percent.
I check elevation gain before mileage, because a 3.5-mile trail in the Cascades can be an easy walk to a lake or a long climb to a ridge, and the mileage alone makes them look the same. Willits's two main stops need a second number too. The promotion to Wilmington took 70 points off his batting average and only 26 off his on-base percentage, since he walked 54 times in 289 plate appearances there and was hit by seven pitches, compared with 38 walks in 232 plate appearances at Fredericksburg. The steals held as well, at about 80 percent success at both levels: 29 of 36 at Fredericksburg and 31 of 39 at Wilmington.
The running started with those walks. Willits reached base 218 times this season, on 114 hits, 95 walks and nine hit-by-pitches, and Federal Baseball put his walk rate at 17.7 percent. When the Nationals announced the awards, his .407 on-base percentage was the best in their system, according to the club's release, and his 23 doubles at that point ranked sixth.
The awards were handed out at a pregame ceremony at Nationals Park on Aug. 31. At that point Willits had 57 steals and 96 runs, both organization highs, and MLB.com reported that his steals ranked eighth in the minors and that he was one of four minor leaguers with at least 50 steals and 90 runs. He added five more steals and six more runs in his last eight games. "The goal is to be in the big leagues by the time I'm 20," he said at the ceremony, per MLB.com. He turns 19 on Dec. 9.
Andrew Pinckney, Outfield: No Errors in Left or Right
The Nationals named Andrew Pinckney their Defensive Player of the Year at the same ceremony. Pinckney is 25 and was born in Tuscaloosa, Ala. Washington took him in the fourth round of the 2023 draft out of Alabama, and he won the club's Nationals Way Award in 2025. According to the Rochester Red Wings' release on MiLB.com, he played all three outfield spots at Triple-A and had a .991 fielding percentage, with 211 putouts, four assists and two errors in 217 chances, and he did not make an error in left or right field.
Those numbers cover his 94 games at Rochester before Washington selected his contract on Aug. 4. The club's release adds that 52 of those games came in the corners, all without an error, which puts both errors in center field. His 211 putouts led all Nationals minor league outfielders, and the .991 ranked second among the system's qualifiers.
He made his major league debut on Aug. 5, and his first hit, the next day against the Phillies, was a 402-foot home run. He went 7-for-25 for Washington, which sent him back to Rochester twice in September, and he played center field there. He made two more errors in the first of those stints, both against Syracuse, so his full Triple-A season ended with four errors, all in center. On Sept. 7 at Rochester he also took a home run away from Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, per an MLB.com highlight. He hit .270/.347/.437 at Rochester with 16 home runs and 20 steals.
80Grade ranks Pinckney No. 25 in the Nationals system and No. 384 overall. His 80Grade report, written in July, grades his fielding a 50 and his arm a 55, and it credits him with reliable hands and generally sound routes while projecting him as an average defender in right field.
He finished his Triple-A season in the playoffs. In Game 1 of the International League finals at Memphis on Sept. 22 he made a diving catch, per MLB.com, and in Game 3 two nights later his eighth-inning RBI double tied the game before he scored the go-ahead run in a 3-2 win that gave Rochester its first International League title since 1997, per MiLB.com. The Red Wings lost the Triple-A National Championship Game to Oklahoma City 5-3 in 10 innings two days later.
Both awards were announced on Aug. 31, and both players kept playing after that. Willits added five steals, six runs and a four-hit night at Double-A, and he finished at 18 with 62 steals, 102 runs and 218 times on base. Pinckney's error total went from two to four in September, all four in center field, and he went the whole season without an error in left or right.