Sure got quiet out there

 We got a column a week ago from Barry that was basically "Is this it?" 

It's getting late as pitchers and catchers will start to trickle in next week and the Nats still seem like a team whose off-season is only 75% done and that's factoring in the lowered expectations. 

The Nats solved the 1B issue in their typical "savvy but let's not go crazy" way and stuffed the rotation with... well stuff... in the hopes that a strong rotation emerges from the intriguing if not inspiring raw materials.

But the bullpen seems 2-3 arms short, 3B is to be manned by hopes and dreams and the DH question was answered with a shrug. 

 The answers being so limited and the questions still remaining all point to the same thing. The Nats aren't trying to compete this year.  

That's disappointing for a team now 6 years removed from their last winning season. A lost season (say under 75 wins) this year is completely possible and it would give DC the longest stretch it has seen without hitting 80 wins. 

 Fans got their championship and it's lucky that they did bc I think they'd be turning on the management otherwise. 

But this is the lot we've been given this year. Wait and see... again. Evaluate... again. Look to next offseason... again. The first time, after 2023, was understandable. That would have been aggressive. This time, when the window should be opening with some young talent on hand, feels overly cautious if one wants to be generous. Next time will be unforgivable if it happens. 

But there's still time to try something and we don't evaluate until things are over. And it's not bleak. It just remains cloudy and dull when if could have been sunny and exciting.

Monday Quickie - Flaherty off the board

It was seeming more and more a pipe dream with the depth of non top-line starters the Nats have brought in but in case you were hoping for that one guy that might head the rotation, well... stop hoping. Jack Flaherty signs with the Tigers. There are guys still out there (Kyle Gibson, Nick Pivetta) but none that you can convince yourself could lead a rotation. Now he's probably NOT a rotation leader, so it's not like they lost out on the next Scherzer, but the combination of skill, age, and last year performance suggested it wouldn't be a total surprise if he pitched like a 1/2 in 2025 and a few years more. 

The Nats appear done in FA to some degree though we still hope we'll see some more RP moves. 

Could something happen in trade? It hasn't been rumored but guys, until we hit the end of February let's assume it's all still a work in progress,

Relivers left

The Nats need another relief arm (or two) and for a team that hasn't spent a lot of money it seems like an easy place to put some of that and make an impact. The Nats don't have a deep pen. They don't have a bunch of AA and AAA relief arms dying to get up. 

The major league signings recently have been relief focused so it's worth a perusal to see who's left.

VERY GOOD LAST YEAR

We're left with the old. David Robertson (40) and Kenley Jansen (37). Both these guys have been nothing short of great if you look at their careers, however lacking the save chances leaves Robertson as an afterthought to most fans compared to Jansen. But it also leaves him more affordable. At 40 he won't get more than a 1yr deal with an option. Current talk revolves around the Cubs. Jansen on the other hand will look for either real big money or a final secure contract and he's looking for a contender. So while the Nats have been floated out there he many not be as interested in coming here for a team that is still at least one year away. 

GOOD LAST YEAR

Danny Coulombe was right across the way in Baltimore finally putting it together and having that complete year his stats suggested was possible. Although it was really a complete HALF year due to injury. If you think he's healthy and able to repeat last year he could be a steal. The Yankees look close to picking him up.

Hey Dylan Floro! A consistent keep the ball in the park pitcher is not flashy but is definitely solid and proved it again in DC after an off 2023. There isn't a lot of talk so here's where I think the Nats could jump in. Excited yet?

Jakob Junis is a failed starter who moved into long relief for good in 2023. 2024 was better with him showing incredible control which helped keep his hits down. Doesn't K guys and gives up the occasional homer but if he's hitting his spots like 2024 he'd be a better Floro.

CLASSIC NATS TARGETS

Alas, the Nats in their "win later, maybe" mode are probably looking for guys like they brought in last year. Not old guys who weren't great in 2024 but that is probably a little fluke and they should pitch fine in 2025 and maybe they can flip them or keep them depending. Not STUFF guys either, more control and homer depressers. To that end :

Trevor Gott sits on the fringes of being a good reliever with the ability to keep homers and walks down... sometimes. He missed 2024 with injury so probably there on a minor league deal. 

Colin Poche is an unexciting Rays castoff who would be only 31 this year and in 2023 really held down homers. He walks a bit too much but his minor league numbers suggest the homer suppression can be kept up. 

Ryan Yarborough was a guy who lived off the fact he didn't walk many people so the hits and homers he gave up were less impactful. Last year was his first full time short reliever season and showed some promise.

Brent Honeywell Jr. can't strike out anyone but doesn't want to. His numbers last year and in the minors make you think he can keep the walks down and if he can then he would be actually good. Plus he is a record holder (most pitches in one World Series inning - 50) 

Pencil me in for Floro and Yarborough and Rizzo calling it a day.

Monday Quickie - quick divisional review

Sadly in baseball division mean less and less as they work to more "equal" schedules which are worse for players (travel), worse for the quality of baseball in general (travel and maybe a bit of juice lost), mostly neutral for home team fans (again juice lost - losing a bunch of games versus rivals to get a few games versus a team that might draw), but appease owners who want to make it as easy as possible to make the playoffs and don't like it when they are stuck in a tough division. 

Still you do play more games against your division so the quality of those teams do matter. That's been tough for the Nats as the Phillies, Braves and Mets have all been good recently and seem committed to winning right now. Has the off-season changed anything?

 Phillies

The Phillies most noticeably lost bullpen arms. Jeff Hoffman who developed into quite a good end of game arm the couple years they had him and Spencer Turnball who has been a good long reliver.  But they basically swapped the Blue Jays Jordan Romano for Hoffman. If Romero is healthy (he is coming back from surgery but looks good so far) it's close to a push as Romano is also very good.  And for Turnball they brought in old Nats favorite Joe Ross. Overall a slight downgrade on these but just slight. And the pen may be even less important for them in 2025 as they traded for Jesus Luzardo to fill out the rotation which should be an improvement over what they were running in the 5th spot last year, while waiting for top prospect Andrew Painter. 

Offensively they brought in Max Kepler to be one guy in the line-up who doesn't strike out like crazy. The offense was good though, didn't lose anything so unless age gets them (unlikely but possible) they should be good here again. 

Braves 

The Braves lost quite a few pieces. Jorge Soler, who they traded for, and did well for them. Dependable Travis d'Arnuad, disappointing Gio Urshela, and good reliever AJ Minter.  More importantly they let two arms go in Charlie Morton and Max Fried. They remain at least one arm short which is worrisome for a team that has seen their young arms continually get injured. 

The offense is more secure with Jurickson Profar replacing the fading Adam Duvall as good depth. It's a younger offense that didn't perform up to expectations last year, but still managed to be average. 

Mets

Cohen's Boys have been extremely active.,  They haven't technically lost much yet - just Luis Severino but only because so much of their 2025 roster remains unsigned starting with Pete Alonso. They seem to be letting go of good depth Harrison Bader, surprise hitter Jose Iglesias. Solid if old JD Martinez, rotation arm Jose Quintana, and relievers of various goodness Phil Maton, Drew Smith and Adam Ottavino. Whew

But they added JUAN SOTO and Clay Holmes to start maybe and AJ Minter and Frankie Montas and Jesse Winker and Jose Siri to replace Bader's late game D and some other depth pieces.  Whew again. 

For all that they still have rotation depth and relief questions. 

The Phillies should be about the same. Great starting pitching, great offense, and a bullpen that should be good enough to let them run at a mid 90s win total. 

The Braves are seemingly letting it ride with the younger bats turning it back on and carrying the team again. Acuna, Harris, Albies and Olson could (should?) all do a bit better and if they all do the offense takes a big turn positive, enough to probably cover the mishmash of hopes and dreams in the rotation behind Sale. There's real big variance here. 

The Mets should offensively smash teams, and they have enough pitching to hold ground on the mound though depth could bite them right now. It would be wise of them to complete the team with a SP and RP but with already tons of money in the team and possibly throwing money at Pete Alonso that could be it. It's a playoff team but some smart final moves could make it a WS favorite. 

 

Tough road for the Nats but there is an opening IF things falter for the Braves. If they don't the Nats will have a hard time getting within 10 games of any of these. There's always the Marlins! 

Nats sign a Starting Pitcher! (It's not who you think!)

The Nats signed... let me get this right Shinnosuke Ogasawara... for a two year deal. 

It's big old question mark move so I don't expect the money to be big. 

He doesn't strike out guys - which is a concern, but he doesn't walk guys either.  This seems like the type the Nats would like BUT the HR-rate concerns me.  While it seems low it's actually higher than average for Japan and has been his whole career. He did legitimately pitch great 2 years ago but he seems to be regressing out of that.

My immediate thinking is he won't really make an impact, but maybe if he can serve the Corbin "eat them innings" role for a rotation full of kids and injury risks. Maybe it's worth it. Of course the japan league has as shorter season than the majors so he hasn't come close to 200 innings or even 180. 

It's a signing in line with the "get a bunch of stuff that sort of looks interesting and maybe something works out" that feels like they are doing in this punt the season away 2025. At least they are consistent.

Been a while

The team gets the coverage they deserve.

NRI's out today 

Generally only RP kids will make the OD roster if the pieces fall into place (injuries, awesome spring, spots open) so maybe a Marquis Grissom Jr? 

The rest of the NRIs that are kids are for them getting a taste of major league talent and the guys upstairs to get a sense of how these guys fare against said talent before sending them back down. 

The NRIs that aren't kids have a chance to make it as last man in the bench types or just regular relief arms bc those are always in demand.  

This won't be the final list and there could (should) be some signings in Feb that have a much better chance of making the team a la Jesse Winker last year.

 

3 Nats in Top 101 prospects

BP put out it's list of the Top 100 + 1 prospects and three Nats made the list. 

Dylan Crews at #2

Jarlin Susana at #47

Travis Sykora at #59

 I feel like we went over it when Elijah Green was stuck at the bottom of some of the Top 100s but these type of lists are some measure of talent evaluation and some measure of "if we miss out on someone breaking out and someone else has them on their list we're going to look bad". So the trend to evaluate raw talent high over decent production is there. It's not overwhleming but expect that slightly bigger bets to be bumped up a bit while lower bets are downgraded. 

That's one way to not feel bad about who is NOT on the list. Brady House was kicked to the curb.  Does this mean he's no good anymore? No. It's sort of a bet that he's not going to bust out. That ship is sailing away.  I wouldn't say it's gone. He won't be 22 until mid next season. But the guys who know want to see something more. This is definitely not what a team punting 3B wants to see.

Crews at #2 is great to hear. It means the belief he won't bust out is as high as can be.  That is FAR from a given. Any look at previous lists will tell you that. But still teams need players who can contribute and Crews projects to be one.There shouldn't be a real hole in his game. The question is where the bat falls. That he's that high suggests they like the possibility of him of hitting above average and that would make him an overall great player with his defense and speed projections. 

Susana and Sykora are similar type of evaluations. They are young guys with killer stuff that have dominated low minor hitters. You want to put these guys on the list because if they make it to AA next year and dominate then they jump way up. So this is exactly where you want to see your young SP arms. It's still more likely both miss, but it's not that much more likely than one hitting and one hitting, if they can stay healthy, is huge. 

Three prospects on the list would be about in line with expectations. But I think this is a little better than just expected given Wood, another Top 10 guy, graduated to the majors and where these guys lie.  I like players in the top of the Top 10.  I like very young pitchers in that 50 range. This is much better than your top guy being a hitter around 10-15, then having a young toolsy OF around 60 and a older SP arm at 97.  It's a good set-up... for a team in 2026/2027/2028.    

 

Monday Quickie - Jorge Lopez and a general growing sense of discontent

 The Nats signed Jorge Lopez over the weekend to a 3 million dollar deal. It's fine. Simillar to deals in the past for the likes of Dylan Floro the Nats are picking up someone in his early 30s who had some success in the past hoping that they can recapture that. 

The gamble on Lopez is a little bit different than on Floro. Floro had an off year before signing with the Nats but had been good pretty much every year before that, and had good fancy stats in 2023.  You were making the solid bet that the fancy stats and history were right not the one year aberration in ERA.  Lopez, pitched pretty good last year, but has a limited history as a reliever that is a bit spotty with some bad fancy stats at times. You are making the slightly less solid bet that 2023 was the aberration and 2022 and 2024 were real. As I say - still solid as Lopez is a couple years younger and just had a pretty good year. 

Basically Jorge Lopez was Kyle Finnegan last year so this represents a lateral move there with significant cost savings. Good for Rizzo. 

But of course we've said Kyle Finnegan isn't really all that good.  Very consistently better than average but that's about it. So replacing him with him isn't making the pen that much better, it's just inching it back to where it was last year which was meh. 

It's a good move. It makes the Nats better than they were the day before. However unlike a move like Lowe, it's not making the Nats better than they were in October. We've said they are probably down to RP moves. They should be making the pen significantly better than last year. Something that can be done fairly cheaply with a bunch of pretty good but not great arms taking up every spot. If everything else is over in FA, let's do that at least.

A-mid Rosario.

Nats are signing Amed Rosario.  He has two uses. It's definitely NOT hitting. He can make contact but it's very weak and his ISO SLG always very low.

The first one is iffy.  He can play SS, 2B and presumably 3B.  But he has no instinct for fielding and tries to get by with his natural talent. A solid arm helps but at the IF positions a lack of instinct is hard to overcome. This is why he's seen more time in the OF as his career has gone on. Still very spotty though. 

What skill does he have then? The guy is very fast. He can run the bases and would be an excellent pinch runner. His speed helps turn a weak GB hitter like him into a .280 hitter. Well .280 is a stretch - that IF hit % that got him there last year seems like a fluke - but .265+ even nearing 30 and probably slowing a bit. He's an excellent pinch runner. 

Do the Nats need a pinch runner? Probably not or at least not more than a guy that can hit. Wood, Crews, Young, Abrams are all fast. Call, Nunez, and Tena all on the possible bench, are all fast. Seems like having a fast guy available shouldn't be a problem. 

I guess they do need a Vargas replacement. I guess Rosario basically that but replacing decent fielding with lightning fast speed. That doesn't seem like the replacement I would make but also how much will Rosario play? Probably not too much. And if you aren't playing then being a good hitter or a good runner is better than an ok fielder. I guess.

Monday Quickie - Have Nats fans been snowed?

Are you happy?

That's the question for Nats fans as they look at an off-season that right now stands as this : 

• Signed the rehabilitating Mike Soroka and the potential fluke Trevor Williams to shore up the rotation. 
• Traded for the perfectly good Nathaniel Lowe to play 1B
• Signed Josh Bell to DH. 

If I were to give an off-season evaluation RIGHT NOW (which matters only slightly more than an evaluation on November 1st) I'd say they tried to solve the first base issue, punted on the DH issue, and it looks like they've decided to run another year of kids in the rotation trying to evaluate what exactly they have. 

It's the off-season for a team on the path to contention (you don't trade for Lowe otherwise) but not looking to contend in 2025.  If it happens they'll take it, but this looks like a team aiming to break .500 not close in on 90 wins. This isn't just me but the general consensus out there.

Is that the right move? You know I don't think so. At some point you have to commit to a run and I think now is the time. I think the Nats are running a year behind where they should be. There will likely always be questions. We thought this year might clear up what guys like Gore and Abrams are. It didn't or at least not enough to plan on. While Garcia became less of a question, Ruiz and Gray became greater ones. That's the way seasons go. Waiting for absolute clarity on what must be done might mean waiting forever.

There are four big FAs left (Alonso, Bregman, Santander, and Flaherty) and any one of them fits into the Nats well. However, the signing of Bell likely rules out Alonso or Santander. Signing just one of Bregman or Flaherty likely isn't enough to make them a contender. So sign both? Or sign neither and hope next year the pieces you need will be there AND you can get them?

I'll admit that's not an easy call outside of "not my money - sign everyone" thinking. Which of course is my thinking. So sign both. 

But in reality they are probably done with SP signings and their potential to land Bregman lies with Boras using the Nats as a 1yr stopping point if the contract he wants isn't out there. Our best bet for financially based improvement lies in the bullpen where solid quality arms still are out there. That's my expectations. A couple of solid FA RP signings then head to camp with an eye on getting over .500 and maybe getting to 3rd place, catching whichever Mets/Braves/Phillies team stumbles. 

If that's 2025... well sure hope those kids like Wood and Crews are exciting bc it's not a season that interests me much. Wait 'til next year is not what you want to hear in March.