The Nationals are making ‘Triple-A as close to big leagues as possible.’ It’s paying off.

Excitement quickly turned into anxiety for Andrew Pinckney.

On Aug. 4, the Nationals had just placed All-Star James Wood on the 10-day injured list and needed a replacement, necessitating Pinckney’s call-up to the majors.

That day, Pinckney was in Scranton, Pennsylvania, at around 2:30 p.m. for a Triple-A Rochester Red Wings game. As Pinckney entered the hitters’ meeting, manager Matthew LeCroy informed him of his major league call-up. After telling his loved ones, Pinckney sprinted to his hotel, gathered his belongings and got into the car the team arranged to take him to Philadelphia.

Traffic delayed his arrival, but once he reached Citizens Bank Park and took swings in the batting cages, he relaxed a bit. When he joined the dugout in the third inning, one glance at the team’s scouting report put him at ease because it was like the ones he had already seen in Triple-A.

“The scouting reports were all the same, and the iPad videos were all the same,” Pinckney said. “So I kind of knew my way around in that sense, even if I don’t know my way around Philadelphia or D.C. quite yet.”

That comfort is one of the goals that president of baseball operations Paul Toboni and assistant general manager of player development Devin Pearson had when they took over after the 2025 season. Building synergy between Triple-A and the majors was important as they sought to overhaul the Nationals’ player development system, which had stagnated over the past decade because of a lack of specialized game plans and insufficient staffing in the minors.

“We want Triple-A to be as close to [the] big leagues as possible,” Pearson said. “Like their day-to-day schedule, the way they communicate, what the training looks like, so that, when they come up [to the majors], they’re ready to rock. Even down to the Dominican Summer League, we want each level to have some similarities. It’s impossible to make them completely the same, but definitely intentional.”

That’s helped the team’s high-powered lineup cover for the losses of linchpins Curtis Mead and Luis García Jr., who were dealt way ahead of the trade deadline for pitching, and Wood, who injured his oblique. The Nationals have called up several hitters from Triple-A who have found early success making the transition to the majors.

In 10 games, Pinckney has an .879 on-base-plus-slugging percentage.

Rookie first baseman Abimelec Ortiz — five homers in 20 MLB games — hasn’t seemed overwhelmed since being recalled Aug. 3.

“Everything’s familiar,” Pinckney said. “I’m not reading a different language here. It’s all the same stuff.”

Even the player’s schedule is consistent between the highest level of the minors and the majors — from the time he gets to the ballpark and his early-work routine to the verbiage coaches use and their goals for the lineup. Maintaining that consistency was an emphasis for Toboni and Pearson as they transitioned to D.C. from Boston.

“We were really intentional with our hiring of having the big league staff and the minor league staff be in agreement on building those things out so that they both felt like they owned it, rather than telling one side what we’re doing,” Pearson said.​

Under Toboni, the Nationals have also emphasized certain traits they like to see in hitters — smart swing decisions, good bat-to-ball skills and pulling the ball in the air — and have developed individualized plans for players to achieve them.

The alignment between coaching staffs has also helped players who struggled in the majors when they were demoted to Triple-A. When third baseman Brady House was sent down in May, the Triple-A coaching staff — LeCroy and hitting coach Brian Daubach — were given the information about what House needed to work on to improve against right-handed pitchers.

When Dylan Crews was sent down during spring training, there was a plan to adjust his lower-body mechanics to hit the ball in the air.

Some of the Nationals’ coaches, such as hitting coach Matt Borgschulte, are in regular communication with the Triple-A staff. Those dialogues ensure that when a player is recalled to the majors, the major league staff members are familiar with how a player has implemented changes to enhance their game.

Crews said the fact that Triple-A hitters have matriculated to the majors and played significant roles is a testament to the Nationals investments in the minor league system.

“The Nationals are staying on top of it, not taking away what’s best for the player and really just homing in on his strengths and polishing them as much as you can,” Crews said. “Then, when their name’s called to come up here, you just do the same thing that you’ve always been doing.”

Since being recalled May 18, Crews hasn’t had the consistent success or explosive offensive numbers befitting a No. 2 overall pick — and the rates at which he is chasing pitches outside the zone and swinging and missing are concerning. But the underlying numbers show he is making more consistent hard contact.

Manager Blake Butera’s background is in player development with the Tampa Bay Rays, so he has an affinity for prospects. He knows the farm system is the lifeblood of the organization. When Butera was asked how much he pays attention to the minors, he said it’s “ingrained in me.” That level of attention is important to the process.

“I think our Triple-A staff, led by Matt LeCroy, have done an outstanding job of communicating with our coaching staff up here to know what they need to be able to do to have success,” Butera said. “Then nothing’s a surprise to [the players] when they get up here, and just marrying those two [levels] together has been awesome.”

Tinkering with and fine-tuning the strategy will be important as more players — such as Eli Willits, the team’s No. 1 prospect, according to MLB Pipeline, as well as Devin Fitz-Gerald (No. 5) and Chris Hacopian (No. 6) — advance through the system and debut in the majors. If they struggle and need to be sent back down, the organization wants to ensure that the players have full trust in their development plans at Triple-A.

“We feel like we can send guys down there and they get better. Then they come back up and they’ve been better,” Pearson said. “I think that’s easier said than done. We’ve seen it happen with a few examples.”