Andrew Pinckney keeps beating the odds. As an outfield prospect with the Nationals, he’ll try to do it again.
March 10, 2025 at 9:00 a.m. EDT
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Andrew Pinckney had always dreamed of playing college baseball at Alabama. The only problem? He couldn’t get an athletic scholarship. So by the time he was a high school senior, he just dreamed of playing college baseball anywhere.
College recruiters would come to Peachtree City, Georgia, and watch him play. Pinckney would perform well but never hear from them. His teammates would, though, so Pinckney emailed video to mid-major schools nearby. He doubted those schools even watched, so he figured he would go to college as a regular student.
In the end, two schools — Alabama and Kennesaw State — offered him an opportunity as a preferred walk-on. He would have a roster spot and a shot at playing time but no athletic scholarship money, at least to begin his college career.
Between those schools, the choice was obvious. From there, he had to stick.
“It’s kind of like you’re down 0-2 off the start,” Pinckney said, referring to his situation in terms of an at-bat. “But at the end of the day, once you get there, it’s about who plays the best.”
At Alabama, Pinckney went from a preferred walk-on to a starter to a second-team all-SEC pick by the time he graduated with a degree in management information systems. The Washington Nationals took him in the fourth round of the 2023 draft. Now, following his first full season of professional baseball, he’s at his first major league training camp.
Barring injuries, he won’t make the Nationals’ roster. He played 23 games last season at Class AAA Rochester, where he struck out nearly 40 percent of his plate appearances. This spring, he’s hitting .241 with a .681 OPS. Oh, and his path to the majors is a crowded one.
James Wood, Jacob Young and Dylan Crews should be the Nationals’ starting outfielders, barring something unforeseen. Alex Call seems to have the inside track for a spot on the bench, should Manager Dave Martinez keep a true fourth outfielder. There’s also Robert Hassell III, who was added to the 40-man roster in the offseason and has been a breakout hitter this spring. Daylen Lile is a promising outfield prospect, too.
None of this is lost on Pinckney, who remembers thinking the Nationals wouldn’t draft him after they selected Crews with the second pick that year. He was wrong.
“Then I look at the prospect list and I see like 30 other outfielders so I’m like, ‘Okay, this is going to be great,’” Pinckney said before laughing. “But at the end of the day, it’s just about playing baseball. If you’re good enough to play in the big leagues, you’ll play in the big leagues for somebody. It’s just about keeping your foot in the door.”
Should Pinckney, 24, have a strong season for Rochester, he could force some difficult decisions. Or the Nationals could use him as a trade chip in the future. The same could be said of Hassell and Lile, but having the odds stacked against him is something Pinckney is used to.
Jason Jackson, now Alabama’s associate head coach, remembers Pinckney having a strong physique when he arrived in Tuscaloosa, but he hadn’t filled out yet. Jackson also knew Pinckney had tools, though they would take some time to show.
Every fall at Alabama, players were given a packet to vote for a series of superlatives, such as team captain, in addition to the batting order and rotation. They also ranked one another. In Pinckney’s first year, Jackson said, he was voted the worst position player on the roster.
Not long into that season, the coronavirus pandemic forced Pinckney back home. He believes that was a blessing in disguise.
That offseason, he trained with two major leaguers — Niko Goodrum and Dwight Smith Jr. — in Georgia. By the time Pinckney returned to Alabama, he had improved dramatically. Over the next two offseasons, he played in collegiate summer leagues — Northwoods and the prestigious Cape Cod. He continued to get better — to the extent that he thought he would be drafted in 2022. When he wasn’t, he went back to Alabama for his redshirt junior year and put it all together, batting .339 with a .648 slugging percentage and 18 home runs.
“There’s just no substitute for game reps,” Jackson said. “He went out there and he made the commitment to stay all summer and log all of those [at-bats]. And just by the process of playing, he got better and better and better.”
By that season, Pinckney had caught the attention of Crews, another SEC outfielder who was making a name for himself at LSU. Crews called him “probably one of the best athletes I’ve seen.” One game stands out to Crews: The rivals faced off in Baton Rouge in 2023, and the Tigers swept the Crimson Tide during their run to the national title. But in the first game of that series, with future No. 1 draft pick Paul Skenes on the mound for LSU, Pinckney went 5 for 5 and blasted a solo home run.
“Pinckney was one of those guys where we just always knew that he would be something someday,” Crews said. “I’m glad he’s on my team now.”
After adjusting to the professional baseball schedule last year, Pinckney feels more comfortable and better acclimated to the season’s grind. If his past is any indication, he likes his odds of taking another step forward.
“I didn’t think that I was ever even going to end up in college,” he said. “… People didn’t even think I was good enough to play college ball, so it’s definitely cool to look back and think things could have been a lot different.”
