Who from the broad pool of interested parties will land the third base job in the long term?

If you were asked to predict the Nationals’ Opening Day lineup at this point, you could probably name six names without being too afraid of being wrong. James Wood, Jacob Young and Dylan Crews are expected to return as starters. CJ Abrams and Luis Garcia Jr. will likely return as the starting center. It’s all but certain that Keibert Ruiz will start behind the plate.

We know that first base is the organization’s top priority this winter, with several prominent free agents available if the Nats are willing to spend big again. And the DH spot could be filled through an outside acquisition, by someone already in the organization, or a combination of both.

But what about third base? That’s where things get even more complicated.

The hot corner has really been a revolving door here over the last five seasons. From 2014 to 2019, Anthony Rendon played 736 games there. The only other player to appear in more than 34 games there was Yunel Escobar, who took over the position in 2015 when Rendon had more time at second base due to injury.

But since Rendon left for Anaheim after the World Series, the Nationals have been looking for a permanent replacement at third base, but haven’t been able to find one. A total of 19 players have appeared in at least one game there since 2020, only two of them have appeared in more than 100 games: Ildemaro Vargas (126) and Carter Kieboom (114).

This season, four different players filled the position with roughly equal chances. Nick Senzel was expected to be the Opening Day starter, but injured his thumb and played only 46 games before being released. Trey Lipscomb took over but was never able to hit consistently enough to keep the job for long stretches, finishing with 55 games at the position. Vargas was the ever-available utility man, deployed 41 times at third base when the team needed him. And Jose Tena ended the year as a regular player, having played 34 games in a position he was still learning spontaneously.

What is the situation now? It’s still very much up in the air, but there are a number of interesting options that weren’t ready to join this season.

It’s long felt like the Nats are just waiting for Brady House to make his major league debut, and then the 2021 first-round pick will finally prove to be the long-term solution everyone has been longing for. In the best case scenario for the club, this will succeed. But House, still only 21, still has a lot to prove.

House’s minor league numbers this year were good, but hardly spectacular. In 75 games with Double-A Harrisburg, he slashed .234/.311/.423 with 13 home runs and 34 RBIs. He was promoted to Triple-A Rochester in July and finished the season hitting .250/.280/.375 with six home runs and 32 RBIs in 54 games. Most evaluators still expect him to hit the ground running and play solid defense, but the Nationals won’t hand him the job until he proves he’s ready. And there is no guarantee when that will happen.

If House doesn’t win the job in spring training, the Nats could stick with Tena, at least as a short-term option who could play his way into a long-term job if he can make a permanent contact like he did after his trade deadline passed the Guardians and whether he can show any real improvement in this area. But here too there are no guarantees.

There was a point earlier this year where some club officials seemed to believe Lipscomb was the long-term answer at third base. Defensively, he can undoubtedly be successful in this position. But he needs to make some big strides and improve his .500 OPS by at least 200 points to have a real chance in the long run.

Fortunately, there are three other prospects in the minors who could come into play at some point, perhaps as early as 2025.

Yoyo Morales, the top second-round pick in the 2023 draft, posted a .785 OPS in 75 games this season, the vast majority of them in Double-A. However, he is a well-known power hitter at the University of Miami but has not yet discovered his power stroke as a pro, with just seven home runs in 496 plate appearances. (He has a whopping 29 doubles, five triples and 73 RBIs.) A natural third baseman, Morales spent a lot of time at first base in Harrisburg as House’s teammate.

The Nationals acquired another third baseman in July, grabbing Cayden Wallace from the Royals for Hunter Harvey. Wallace was considered Kansas City’s second-best prospect at the time of signing and was on the injured list for most of the season with an oblique strain and later a broken rib. The 23-year-old has yet to master the Double-A level, but when healthy, he has shown he can hit in the minors.

And then there’s the least experienced member of the group, but perhaps one of the most fascinating: Seaver King. The 10th overall pick in this summer’s draft, he is a natural shortstop who has proven he can play all over the field at Wake Forest (including 36 games at third base). King only played 20 games as a professional, all at low Single-A Fredericksburg. But he’s considered incredibly educated for his age, someone who could quickly advance to majors given his pedigree, which comes from a top college program. Would the Nats move him all the way to DC before the end of the season? It sounds a bit far-fetched, but they’ve done it before, most recently with Crews.

So where does that leave the Nationals when it comes to the third base position? It’s still very open. And it’s quite possible that the person at the hot corner on Opening Day isn’t the person who’s there on July 4th, nor the person who’s there for Game 162.

But after five years of shuffling players around that weren’t long-term solutions, it appears the organization has a number of viable options to consider. And if just one of them steps forward from the pack and takes the job, the Nats could finally have the answer to a question that’s been bothering them since one of their World Series heroes headed to the West Coast.