“A switch-hitter with plus contact skills from the left side, growing power, and improving defense behind the plate,” Baseball America’s scouts wrote in ranking Nationals’ catcher Keibert Ruiz the No. 11 overall prospect on their Top 100 for 2022, the backstop, “… has the potential to be a foundational player in Washington’s rebuild.”
Nationals’ GM Mike Rizzo, who acquired Ruiz from the Los Angeles Dodgers as one of the four players received in return for Max Scherzer and Trea Turner, said at the end of the 2021 campaign that the 23-year-old was, “... working on blocking balls better, and always working on his rapport with his pitchers,” and the timing of the club’s return to contention would rely, at least in part, on just how, “.