Eli Willits, the first overall pick in last year’s MLB draft, hopes his competitive drive will get him fast-tracked to Washington.
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Devin Pearson, the Washington Nationals’ assistant general manager, looked on with awe. As the team’s Class High-A affiliate, the Wilmington Blue Rocks, waited out a recent rain delay in Jersey City, Eli Willits was playing golf in the visiting clubhouse.
The Nationals’ No. 1 prospect has always been as serious as they come. But this, Pearson pointed out, was a positive sign that he’s starting to ease up — if just a tad.
Don’t get Pearson wrong — the Nationals love Willits’s competitiveness. It’s what first attracted the former front office to him last season, when they selected him first overall. And it’s what still makes them believe he’s their shortstop of the future.
But this moment, too, felt significant.
“If you asked me at the beginning of the year if Eli was going to be relaxed pregame,” Pearson said, “I’d probably say ‘no shot.’”
It’s not an accomplishment that can be measured analytically, like most of his others. He was the third-youngest player to be selected first in the MLB draft. An 18-year-old in his first professional season, Willits has an .807 on-base plus slugging percentage with 30 stolen bases in 62 Class High-A games.
“I feel like the organization’s done a great job with me, taking that next step in my career,” he said Monday. “I feel like I just have to keep going and keep grinding this offseason, and hopefully make another leap.”
Willits wants to make his major league debut before his 20th birthday — a goal set when he was a sophomore in high school, after he decided to reclassify and enter the draft a year early. But he promptly suffered through injury troubles and thought, for a moment, that it was impossible.
“That was a down moment in my career,” he said. “I felt like it was just hard to do that. And then I came out and I came to the draft and I was the No. 1 pick, and it kind of just lit a fire in me.”
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Now, he’s back on track. But it still won’t be easy. The Nationals have tried to throw different training styles at him to help him progress, including overloading (using a heavier bat) and underloading (using a lighter bat) to help him build strength and increase bat speed.
“We’ve thrown challenges at him this year, and he’s taken everything in stride,” Pearson said. “And he’s had an awesome year.”
The biggest lesson, Willits said, has been in preparing himself to play every day. He grew up in clubhouses, following around his father, Reggie, who played six seasons for the Los Angeles Angels. But this was something he said he needed to figure out for himself.
“I feel like as a baseball player that’s the hardest thing to do,” Willits said. “We strive to play 162 plus postseason every year, so just making sure my body is ready to go out there and perform each night.”
Willits should be able to chart his own path to the majors, despite a crowded middle infield group. The Nationals have already started converting CJ Abrams to a second baseman — though they have backtracked this slightly, given Abrams’s improved defense over the last month, Manager Blake Butera said. Abrams will split his time between the two positions, and the Nationals aren’t ruling out the possibility that he could win back the full-time shortstop role next season.
Seaver King, the Nationals’ No. 4 prospect, is also a shortstop and could be ready to debut at the end of this season or early next. His likeliest home in the majors, however, will be at second base. Nasim Nuñez, José Tena and Jorbit Vivas are all on the major league roster, with Tena and Vivas out of contract options. But King and Willits should take priority over that trio.
The roster construction is a future concern. For now, Willits is going to keep his competitive fire alive and keep working toward his lofty goals.
“I want to be the best possible player I can be,” Willits said. “Just maximize my abilities, make an impact that’s bigger than the game of baseball, and hopefully one day we’re sitting up here answering questions after we just won the World Series.”
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