Right/Wrong in the first half

The Nats didn't expect to challenge for a playoff spot this year.  That's good because they are not! But that doesn't mean they didn't have goals and the best way to judge the season so far is how they met those goals. Seasons can be successes for various reasons. Has the Nats season been a success for any? 

The main goal was the improved performance of the young players at the major league level. Garcia, Gray, and Ruiz, hell I'll throw in Mason Thompson had shown themselves to be passable major leaguers last year but the hope was they would become solid ones in 2023. Same for Abrams and Gore who had a little less experience but were about on the same track. This hasn't turned out well. Ruiz might be worse suffering a decline in defense. Abrams has worked hard to maybe get to passable. Garcia and Thompson are about the same. Gore might qualify here - it looked like he would but June was tough and he had his worst start of the year in July. We'll have to see his second half.  Only Gray is a no doubt improvement up to this point improving across the board as we've talked about recently. 

I would say this has not been a success although I would say if you are going to fail, having no real crashes (even Ruiz's season is influenced by some bad luck at the plate) and having the SP being the best looking is probably the best "failure" you can have here. They haven't made the next step but they haven't backtracked. 

Another idea of success is how the pipeline is doing. It's been a mixed bag. I noted earlier in the year the measures of success for the Top 100 guys. Based on these Wood is pretty much meeting expectations though beginning to struggle in AA. Hassell is failing albeit for understood reasons. Green is failing. Cavalli is a straight up injury failure. This isn't a good outcome. 

However it hasn't been all bad. Brady House, who had slipped a bit after a bad 2022 is back on the radar as a Top 100 type guy. Jarlin Susana has recovered from some injury concerns late last season to get back on track as an intriguing young pitcher. Unlike Green, talented young Cristhian Vaquero shows promise, if lacking power. Jake Bennett has outperformed expectations putting him on the radar. And of course the recent draft bringing in a #1 type bat in Dylan Crews. 

The Nats are building depth but are not quite finding success creating major leaguers. The latter is how the Nats had the success they had previously. They usually had more shallow systems than other good teams, but a system that would put out a constant trickle of very high quality major leaguers. That sustained the team through their long window because it gave the Nats cheap tentpoles to build around. Now quantity helps find quality, but in the end "creating major leaguers" is of most import. This isn't a failure but not a success...yet.

Another area that could be a success is turning FA and picked up players into solid chips for trades.  This has been decently successful considering the hit rate is going to be not great. Lane Thomas, picked up for a dead Jon Lester, is an interesting sell-high candidate.  Jeimer Candelario had his bounce back year and will be a nice short pick-up for a team. Hunter Harvey and Kyle Finnegan are solid pen arms for any squad.  Even Corbin has flashed some decent outings (though the Nats would likely have to eat a ton of money to get him out) There are misses - Dom Smith, various OFs, Meneses losing value, Williams not proving himself reliable enough - but there are going to be. These guys aren't available because they are sure things. 

This up to this point has been a success - not a rousing one but a decent one. If you doubt this look at last year and Hernandez, Franco, Cruz, Strange-Gordon, Aaron Sanchez. The Nats basically came up zero-for in guys they brought in that year. Now this is only a partial success and the second part, turning this into SOMETHING is the harder and more important part. But at least this year there is an opportunity to finish this off. 

Overall this season has not been a success so far. The young players in the majors have failed to develop as they would have liked. In a sense the team is on a holding pattern for another year while the minor leagues churn and separate out actual prospects. But the depth has increased and there's a chance to supplement that through late season trade.  Things look grimmer for a quick return to relevance but there remains hope beyond that. 

The problem now becomes one of timing. You need star production to be a contender. The Nats have a handful of young major league players. They do not seem like stars. They could have a handful coming in say 2025. If the ones coming in turn out to be stars great! If they turn out to be something else, even a bunch of decent players, that might not be enough. Stars are going to have to come from somewhere and it's looking more and more likely FA will be a necessary path to use in a greater way than before.