Nationals prospect Susana wins AFL Pitcher of the Year

After throwing a total of just 76 2/3 innings over the past two years combined, missing time in 2025 with a UCL sprain and then season-ending lat surgery that kept him out until August of this year, Nationals right-hander Jarlin Susana's main objective in coming to the Arizona Fall League was to get some much-needed competitive mound time.

He's leaving the desert with that along with some hardware as the 2026 AFL Pitcher of the Year. And he did so by sticking with his original recipe, which was his plan at the start of the fall.

"They told me to stay the same," Susana said during AFL media day before opening day. "I was good before. I'm still good now. Just making sure I do minor adjustments with how I position my arm, but otherwise, stay the same. I'm still the same me."

The same Susana meant bringing the heat, and lots of it. The 6-foot-6 flamethrower, currently No. 66 on MLB Pipeline's Top 100, had thrown a fastball 104 mph in the Triple-A Championship Game shortly before heading to the AFL, and he showed that was no fluke, topping out at 103.8 mph in his first Fall League start. The combination of his two fastballs -- he throws both his riding four-seamer and sinking two-seamer for triple digits regularly -- and his high-spin slider led to him leading the AFL with 26 strikeouts in 18 2/3 regular season innings. He added five more K's in 2 2/3 IP in Salt River's playoff quarterfinal on Friday.

This wasn't a matter of the 22-year-old Susana occasionally reaching back for extra velocity now and then. According to Synergy, he averaged 100.7 mph with his fastballs over his six starts, plus his Fall Stars Game outing. He registered the top 77 hardest-thrown fastballs in the AFL, all harder than 101 mph. There were a total of 188 pitches thrown 100.0 mph or harder in the Fall League, per Statcast. Susana threw 165 of them, or 87.8 percent.

"When you're not losing velo and changing shapes, it helps," said Salt River pitching coach Jerry Sullivan, who works in the Rockies system, earlier this fall. "He goes to a four-seamer, and some of them have 15 [inches] of ride, and then he drops to 2-and-18 [of vertical and horizontal movement] on a sinker, and it's running at you. But you're committed as if it's a four-seamer. And it's 102. I mean, good luck."​

The Nationals' Nationals' No. 4 prospect wasn't a one-trick pony; his hard breaking stuff was downright nasty all fall. Sometimes tagged as a slider, sometimes as a curve -- he also was trying out more of a sweeper at times -- he registered nine of the 68 recorded pitches with a spin rate of 3,000 rpm or higher -- all of which resulted in a 76 percent miss rate.

"His kind of plays like a larger death ball," Sullivan said. "That's why you're getting the early swings on it because it's in zone longer. The velocity is extremely high on it, sometimes around 87 or 88 mph. You have to pull the trigger quick."

Susana's dominance overall -- he finished third in the Fall League with his .162 batting average against and fifth with his 12.54 K/9 rate -- partially masked the one thing he still needs to work on: his command. He's never been an extreme strike-thrower, with a 4.8 BB/9 rate in his Minor League career, and he walked 13 in his 18 2/3 IP this fall. Some of that is understandable given how much time he missed, and the Nats are thrilled with how he looked.

"Overall, we are very pleased with how Jarlin threw in the AFL," Nationals assistant general manager Devin Pearson said. "The goal in sending him out there was to continue to build up his workload and refine his shapes and locations. There aren't many people in the world who can do what he can in terms of velocity and spin, so it was really about getting more reps and finding consistency since he had a condensed season. I know he had a blast out there."

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The hope is that Susana can use this experience as a springboard to a more consistent, and healthy, 2027 season. The ingredients are all there, and the Nats know it's special, but that he needs to find the zone more and be more efficient overall to reach his ceiling as a frontline starter.

"Turning to 2027, the hope is to just continue to build off of what he was able to do this year," Pearson said. "Can we get even more consistent with strike throwing? Can we make his super powers even better by finding more consistent fastball and secondary shapes, can we dominate 0-0 counts to be in advantage counts more often? Our expectations are that he comes into camp ready to compete and take someone's spot.

"When that actually happens will be determined by a lot of factors, but he is a massive piece of what we are trying to build here and if you watch him pitch once it's pretty darn clear to see why. He's one of the most talented pitchers I have ever seen."