Making the Futures Game is “great first step” in Miguel Sime Jr.’s development

Nationals pitching prospect Miguel Sime Jr. is ambitious and competitive: qualities that every major league pitcher must possess when facing the most feared hitters on the planet.

That competitiveness, that insatiable desire to optimize his talent, stems from throwing long toss with his dad. Miguel Sime Sr. would taunt his son: “I’m gonna beat you.” Even during batting practice, Sime Jr. would have benchmarks laid out by his dad, little goals to achieve.​

“He always made it a game for me, always made it fun, and that’s where my competitiveness comes from,” Sime told The Banner.

Even as a child — when he had little chance of besting his dad in long toss because of his underdeveloped arm — he rose to the challenge. He didn’t wilt.

Sime has lofty aspirations — he said he wants to be a Hall of Famer — and is determined to get there. But the majors are far away for Sime, the Nationals’ No. 17-ranked prospect, according to MLB Pipeline, who at 19 is in the midst of his first professional season. He has a 3.94 ERA over 16 starts across two minor league levels.

It’s the incremental steps that will shape Sime’s journey. He’s crossed one milestone off after being named to the Futures Game on Sunday. Eli Willits, the No. 1 overall pick in 2025, will join him at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia.

Willits and Sime were informed together in front of their High-A Wilmington teammates that the two were making the All-Star Game for minor leaguers. Assistant general manager and farm director Devin Pearson came to watch one of their games toward the end of the first half and sat the team down in the locker room afterward. He called Willits and Sime to the front and said, “What are you guys doing July 12?”

Sime started ruminating. He didn’t think much of Pearson’s seemingly blanket statement, and before Sime could put the pieces together, Pearson told him, “You’re pitching in the Futures Game.”

“I think this is a great first step for me,” Sime said. “I always work towards being the best, so being able to pitch against the best is going to be super fun. I’m still super pumped.”

Sime, the Nationals’ fourth-round pick in 2025, leads the minors in strikeouts per nine innings (16.6). Coming into professional baseball, he was lauded for his overwhelming fastball that regularly touches triple digits. He has premium stuff, the velocity that makes talent evaluators salivate.

He’s harnessed that velocity against minor league hitters, leading Washington’s farm system in strikeouts (84) over 45 2/3 innings. The keys have always been how well he can locate his fastball and the development of his off-speed pitches, which began in the offseason. Developing a complete repertoire would go a long way if he hopes to stick as a starter.

Once the regime was hired under president of baseball operations Paul Toboni, Sime was eager to begin mapping out his offseason plan for spring training in West Palm Beach, Florida.

“When we first called him, he’s like, ‘How quickly can I get to West Palm?’” Pearson said. “He’s just mature beyond his age in terms of what it takes to build a really good routine, and he’s genuinely interested in being great. That makes it a lot easier for him to just find ways to continue to get better.”

Sime said he’s worked with director of pitching Grayson Crawford and coordinators of pitching Sean McGrath and Will Hawks to sharpen his off-speed pitches. Sime began tinkering with the slider, improving his command of the pitch so he could throw it in all counts. During bullpen sessions, the coaches would say, “We need this [pitch] in the zone, 3-0 count, 3-1 count.”

Like most high school pitchers, Sime had to find the best secondary shape for him and repeat it consistently.

“The first thing is, you can’t expect to see the correct movement, the correct control, if you’re not going out in game intent,” Sime said. “So we would have some bullpens that are game intensity for training, and to mimic that, and we’ll put some dummy hitters in there.

“Putting myself in situations that I had to force myself to be in the zone with that new pitch and expediting that comfortability with that pitch. They did a great job putting me into hard situations. I think I even ended up having to use that pitch 3-0, 3-1 in the [spring training] breakout game as well.”

In one of Sime’s early spring training bullpen sessions, he said, Crawford suggested a different grip on his slider. Sime said he used to grip it more on the side of the ball, so he would have a wobbly shape on the seam rotation. Crawford had him adjust his grip to be more in the middle of the ball and more up the laces.

At first, Sime struggled controlling the slider with the new grip. But he stuck with it, kept throwing it in that first bullpen session and played catch with the pitch in the following days. Around two bullpen sessions later, he had it “down pat.”

“That’s the slider that we’ve been looking for,” Sime recalled saying. “That’s the perfect slider we want, and that’s the one I use to this day. That was pretty cool how he saw that just from watching my bullpen. It really just speaks volumes that I’m able to throw something other than my fastball when I’m behind in counts. It keeps hitters off balance even more.”​

The adjustment made Sime’s slider a firmer pitch with more clean spin, so it is harder for hitters to pick up. He had to learn to re-create the movement consistently; now it’s about landing it with more regularity

“Grayson’s a rock star,” Pearson said. “I think just his knowledge of how to execute a really good pitching system and have processes in place to identify problems, solve those problems, have feedback loops, all the things you hear Paul and I talk about. He’s totally aligned there and really good at.

“His ability to make pitch design changes with our guys to get them to better shapes as quickly as like one bullpen session is really impressive. I can’t speak more highly of Grayson and what he’s been able to do, and also just the time he spends educating his staff. There’s consistent alignment at all levels across how we attack pitching development, and that’s easier said than done.”

The rest of this season will be about Sime continuing those strides with the slider in game settings and in targeted bullpen sessions. It’s the swing skill for Sime if he wants to remain a starting pitcher. But sharpening the slider while fine-tuning his splitter and curveball would make a future in the rotation seem more plausible.

The organization challenged Sime when it promoted him from Low-A Fredericksburg to High-A Wilmington. At Low-A, he could get away with just having good stuff.

Sime’s raw talent is such that, if he misses a pitch out of the zone, it could still elicit a swing from the hitter. The result is what Sime and the organization want, but the process would hinder his development.

Getting promoted to High-A has tested Sime’s ability to get ahead in counts and finish off hitters, which portends success at the major league level and is an organizational focus. While also playing up a level, Sime would have to continue changing his routine, his activation and recovery to ensure he can maintain his velocity in a way that wasn’t damaging to his arm.

The organization has also worked with Sime on building strength and improving his core stability — meaning how well he can hold his positions on the mound. It’s paramount that his core and lower body are strong to support his arm moving that fast.

Sime came into the season with a singular goal for his first professional season: Be healthy. He’s already thrown more innings than he ever had before.

“All the resources that we have, whether it’s cupping, needling, hot and cold tubs, there’s a bunch of stuff that you can do here,” Sime said. “I appreciate having that stuff here. It’s definitely new to me, having all these resources with me, especially on the road, you still have it.”​

Sime’s voraciousness for information fuels him. He loves knowing that he doesn’t have the answers; that just means there’s more work to be done. He understands he’s been blessed with tremendous physical gifts that most pitchers would dream of possessing.

But being a hard thrower isn’t enough for him. He’s constantly working on pitch shapes, sequencing and command to improve at the craft of pitching — he’ll undoubtedly need to improve upon his 8.87 walks per nine innings.

So, even as he basks in the achievement of playing in the Futures Game, that feeling will be fleeting. There’s a second half to be played, a championship to capture for Wilmington and more ways to harness that tantalizing talent in his right arm.

Around this time last year, Sime was preparing for the draft. A year later, he’ll be competing among the best the minors have to offer.

“Looking back at it, it has been pretty quick,” he said. “I haven’t really realized how fast time is passing, and it’s pretty real. It’s really cool to see how everything has flipped and how everything’s working out for me. There’s always more to come, and there’s always more work to be put in.”