Offseason Position Discussion : 3B

 

Gore still here? Ok we can move forward with this.  

2024 was a mess for the Nats at 3B.  They thought Trey Lipscomb who had an intersting end to 2023 might step in or for some reason known only to them, that never-was and clear never-would-be Nick Senzel might hold it down. These failed leaving Ildermo Vargas and Jose Tena manning the hot corner at the end of that year and leaving 2025 up in the air. 

The Nats responded by signing way too old Paul DeJong and his non-existant bat to pair with probably nothing Jose Tena. DeJong could still field but couldn't hit and being old he got hurt. Tena was nothing and again the Nats were scrambling having Amed Rosario play there until he was traded and former top prospect, now prospect of mild interest, Brady House got his chance. House also didn't hit but fielded ok making a nice failure bookend to the season

Presumed Plan : 

House plays 3B and they sign some trash FA to back him up.  Why assume they'll try something differently

Reasoning behind Presumed Plan : 

Unlike Lipscomb and Tena, House, if not as touted as he once was, is still a real prospect. He really did handle AAA last year in over 60 games and the team wants a good long look at him in the majors. Since he can field this is a pretty easy call as he's not going to be a huge hole like an all-bat 3B might be if he doesn't get it at the plate. 

 

The Nats don't seem to be taking on any major money and hope that House is here the whole year so it makes sense 3B will be whoever they pick up for the 2B/3B or SS back-up roles. 

My Take : 

It's a better position than they've been in since signing actual "might be good" Candelario years back. House can play 3B and maybe he can hit. The fancy stats read as a guy who swings pretty well but hasn't acclimated to major league pitching yet, which is standard fare for call-ups so we really won't know until this year if the issues (not IDing pitches well at all is the big one - too few walks too many Ks, not quite squaring up) will clear up with time and experience. Clearly you let him play and see what happens. 

It'd be nice to have an actual guy who can play everyday back him up but this team isn't going to pay "everyday" money to a guy not playing everyday if they are rebuilding again. So whatever. If anything happens to House (or any of the IF) this path will lead to months of terrible ball with no upside and one can hope they understand that and are looking to put a decent product on the field for the new admin's first year but maybe not. Probably not. 

Argh, I don't want to go through this all again.  

Pining for the F(j)ords

The Nats don't have a lot of good pitchers.  Gore yes. Brad Lord probably and... uhhh Cavalli likely, Beeter looks good... uhhh Henry?   Anyway Ferrer was a young lefty (and MAN they do NOT have a lot of lefties) with good fancy stats that I also liked. But they sent him away to Seattle for a catcher, Harry Ford. 

So first what does this signal? Rebuild... probably 

Ferrer is only 25 with plenty of team control. Given the Nats lack of LH relief he's the type of guy you keep around. Ford is a prospect still and several years younger than Ferrer. He's more the type you are planning on the next 10 years, not the next 5. However I will say Ford is basically major league ready with the bat so it's not like he is going to spend the next couple years in AAA. 

But that also means he's pushing Ruiz and everyone else out (sorry Millas!) which again is very "rebuild" coded. 

 

Second is Harry Ford any good?  As a hitter yeah probably.  As a catcher... 

 As a hitter the guy has got a GREAT eye and the question is how good can the bat be and in what way. It seems like he could hit for power. It seems like he could hit for avearge. He's one of those "fast" catchers who will run well and steal bases early in their career. If it all comes together - unlikely but anything can happen -  super star! If one thing comes together - likely power - a solid player. If nothing does, still probably usable because of that eye. 

But this is all based around being behind the plate and there isn't a strong consensus if that will happen. He excels at parts of the game, fielding in front of the plate, strong arm, but lags behind in, you know, the CATCHER, parts of being a catcher. Still does that first part mean he could possibly move positions? Is this a Biggio situation where we see Ford at like 2B?  Hell the Nats also lack a 1B. 

I think they point is if he can hit - either for power or average or both (though again more likely power) then the Nats have a lot of options to find a place for him. Catcher if he can play it, 1B, DH, 2B if they want to move someone. If he can't hit - well you have to hope he gets better behind the plate because he can still have value as an average fielding catcher with a good eye. 

It's not a bad bet to take for the Nats as his ceiling is higher than Ferrer's but again it suggest the Nats are not going to worry about the next couple years. I think this may be the start of an exodus.  Let's see what the next 1-2 moves are though. 

Offseason Position Discussion : SS

It 2024 CJ Abrams flashed greatness, with a .295 7 homer April and hitting .373 / .464 / .663 in May earning him a trip to the All-Star Game and getting Nats fans excited about his potential. The only problem was... well... he might have been the worst fielding shortstop in baseball in years. 

The plan for 2025 was to start him at SS and hopefully watch him solidify his position as an MLB offensive star while playing some better defense.  This didn't quite happen. His 2025 at the plate mirrored his 2024 but with the highs and lows muted.  This left him above average at the plate but not close to stardom.  His fielding did improve but this just left him the worst fielding shortstop in baseball THIS year. Meanwhile Nasim Nunez flashed his incredible glove while putting up good enough offensive numbers leading Nats fans to wonder if a position shift is in order

Presumed Plan : 

Wide open but I'll say Abrams plays SS while Nunez enters super sub role. 

Reasoning behind Presumed Plan : 

Nunez only played 24 games last year to add to his 23 in 2024. With that little time in the majors and very middling minor league batting stats, it's fair to wonder if he could in fact hit in the majors despite a very short impressive run late last year. 

Since you can't rely on Nunez to not be TERRIBLE at the plate yet you have to hold onto Abrams and let him see if he can improve his fielding with the new regime. Another player with questionable motivation the new organization will likely want a crack at a guy with super star potential to see if they can unlock it. 

 

And like in 2B comments, there are bigger fish to fry than an overall league average position.  

My Take :   

I don't buy Nunez at the plate and won't until I see him for half a season so I'm not very enthused to shift Abrams off SS.  But I do admit the logic in it and Nunez has to get that half a season at the plate somehow? Super sub can do it but a set position would be better.  

Abrams can be special so it seems likely to me that the new organization will want their own long look at him.  To me that means at SS first, but it's quite possible they've seen enough there. He is REALLY bad by all measures. He has no instincts which matters so much at SS. I mean he's so bad that HE'S the one that should be playing first, not Garcia. So if there's a position change that's where I probably lean. 

And a position change could be in order. Or a trade! Abrams is arbitration eligible and a free agent after 2028.  This year could up his value a lot OR it could set it at something lower if he just repeats 2025. That's the gamble. 

The way I see it Abrams' situation will tell us a lot about the Nationals new organization as a whole.  Are they in true evaluation mode trying to get THEIR feel of these guys? (Abrams at SS again)  Are they trying to optimize now (Abrams at 1B or DH even?) while they figure out the next steps?  Or are they ready to tear down what's here and look beyond 2028 (trade of Abrams) 

Me I'd prefer the second "optimize now and figure out if it's worth going for something in the next few years" so I guess I'd want to see Abrams moved off SS for whatever position (1B, DH, 2B?, 3B?) they choose not to deal with in 2026 while looking at other stuff. 

Offseason Position Discussion : 2B

After a rebound in 2024 to good stats at the plate and in the field, the Nats 2nd base situation was well set.  Luis Garcia can play there so Luis Garcia will play there. Ideally he would have stepped up again in 2025 but the opposite happened and a slight regression knocked him back to basically average at the plate and 2024 turned out to be the unsurprisingly fluke with the glove. But at least it was something that passed the season without worry. That's something right? 

Presumed Plan : 

Luis Garcia plays second base. Some FA pick-up and/or Nunez back him up, similar to 2025. 

Reasoning behind Presumed Plan : 

Arguably every IF position but SS including catcher and both starting and relief pitching are bigger issues than what's going on at second base. There is no reason for the Nats to make a change for likely minimal gain.

What's going on at second is you have a guy who can hit sometimes and doesn't field very well and overall seems only mildly motivated to reach his potential. It's a recipe for a below average 2B that will remain below average but one that isn't forcing you to do anything. 

If Garcia was better you might try to deal him, but no one is going to give you much for a below average 2B. If Garcia was more expensive you might try to do something, but he's just hitting arbitration for the first time this year. 

My Take :   

There are some interesting ideas on what to do with Luis with Nunez having his hot finish and Abrams' inability to field SS holding down an otherwise good player. Moving Luis to first and Abrams to second so Nunez (an actual good fielder) might make sense.  A .252 / .289 / .412  16 homer line for a first baseman would probably put him at about the same 20-25 range he sits now.  The big difference is while at 2nd best he's about 3 wins worse than the 3rd or 4th best 2B despite being 15+ ranks below them, at 1B he'd likely be 4-5 wins worse.  Not THAT much worse but you'd probably HAVE to get that offensive improvement you'd hope to see. And we assume shifting two guys to easier positions would hide their glove issues but they are still playing new positions.  It's a gamble.  Might be worth it if the Nats commit to fixing the pitching in the off-season, but if not it's more shifting deck chairs.  

I think the general idea with Luis is you try to get his head focused on hitting and fielding better with the new regime, who he might gel with, and then you evaluate if you want to keep him around.  At only 26 next year there's still a chance he becomes a better player and I'm interested to see what another group can do with him, having seen Robles, a similar question mark, blossom in his limited time away from Rizzo and Davey. Plus a better 2B would likely get you more back than a 1B with the same stats. 

 Let Garcia keep being not a big problem and maybe he surprises.  

Offseason Position Discussion : 1B

A lot of things went wrong in 2025 but none were so clearly made to work NOW and so clearly a failure then the Nats' answer at 1B.  The Nats brought in Nathaniel Lowe with a trade* to man the position in 2025-2026 likely with an eye for having him possibly be there beyond. He had been a sneaky good 1B, one that ranked 5-10 overall with consistent solid hitting since arriving in the majors and glove that he worked into average to good. There was one thing they didn't consider though...

Nathaniel Lowe is a dog. 

In the only possible explanation, after struggling early Lowe stopped trying on a team heading nowhere showing terribly in the field and the plate. The Nats had no recourse but the jettison him for what ever they could get.  He immediately started trying again for the Red Sox putting up decent numbers and solidifying himself as a jackass. But knowing that doesn't help the Nats much. They are now unexpectedly without a 1B for 2026 with his positional replacement Josh Bell, who was signed for a 1 year stop DH gap, also gone.  

Presumed Plan : 

A FA stop gap with a back-up from within or a stretch trial for someone here with a FA stop gap DH as the quick back-up replacement. 

Reasoning behind Presumed Plan : 

There's nothing in the minors. The Nats tried Andres Chaparro at the position but he didn't look good at the plate and isn't a natural fielder. He might turn the bat around to not be a total embarrassment but you don't want to go into a season relying on that. Yohandy Morales looked like he might be on the fast track for a trial but he struggled in AAA.  Completely reasonable for a 23 year old, but it does mean he doesn't factor into 2026 plans. 

There's nothing obvious here. You could move James Wood here now, but that seems premature given his age and you don't want to rock the boat with your best young player. You could move Daylen Lile here now, but you don't want to rock the boat with a young player just coming into his own. You could move Luis Garcia there now, but you have to imagine it's easier to find a 1B than a 2B. 

 So what's left is a FA. A FA 1B would make the most sense letting the Nats try to find a bat at DH and if the 1B fails maybe that DH takes over, but a free agent DH that could take over 1B is also a possibility.

My Take :  

Two positions in and there is nothing good or easy to speak of. The Nats need to fill this position and can't internally so to the FA pool they go.  They likely aren't serious about winning in 2026 so a Ryan O'Hearn (the best non Alonso option with Naylor off the table) isn't going to be a target. Is there any reason not to just bring back Josh Bell, a guy you like and has shown he'll play here and actually try? Guys like Carlos Santana, Paul Goldschmidt, and Justin Turner, are very slightly better than Bell and offer some veteran presence but could also just crash out. Rhys Hoskins and Luis Arraez make interesting gambles, especially Arraez whose batting approach resembles Lile's an approach that most players can't make work in the long term but he has, but both may be looking for multi-year deals, even if cheap ones, the Nats aren't likely to give. So after that no, there's not really a reason not to just bring back Bell. 

The specific DH field is weak. Schwarber who will get paid, Ozuna who I don't want, then nothing. So I don't like the FA DH route. 

I think looking at this I like Arraez for 2+ years if that what it takes but I'm not going to blame the Nats if they don't go this route. I also kind of think there might be a 2B around late in FA that would be worth grabbing.  We should keep an eye on that. However, I think most likely is they just sit and watch FA and in early March they grab the best hitter they can for a 1 year "prove it" deal and they figure out what that means for 1B.  I don't like it but I also am not going to fool myself to think that there's anything out there the Nats should go for or that they would go for it if they could. 

 

 *for Robert Garcia who immediately showed he was a very good lefty reliever - the type that would have likely brought back more in trade than Lowe.  

Offseason Position Discussion : C

 Huh. That was a longer break than I thought.  Thanks for the kind words in the comments. Yes, I'm not as motivated to post as I have been in the past, but rest assured I won't end the blog with a ghosting. First I'll try a couple new things if I really can't keep up what I've done in the past. Then I'll let you know if that ain't working for me. 

Speaking of what I've done in the past - Off-season position reviews. 

 

The Nats catcher situation was bad. Having your catchers hit .227 / .270 / .323 with at best mediocre defense is pretty terrible.  Hopes that Keibert was a victim of past injuries and his solid start was the "real" Ruiz were dashed on the rocks of the rest of the season. A Ruiz concussion mid-season forced more time for Riley Adams, who actually played more games at the position than anyone, but he lost his pop making him a worse hitter than Ruiz.  After the All-Star break, Drew Millas starting playing about every 3rd game and did pretty well but broke a finger at the end of August and was done for the season 

Presumed Plan : 

I'm not sure it's clear. If I were to guess I would say they are eyeing playing Drew Millas a lot more, even possibly letting him have a limited starting role (think 120 games) and jettisoning of one of Ruiz/Adams, likely Adams. It's possible that the one that stays behind doesn't even start the season in the majors and instead the Nats bring up a seasoned C to back-up/mentor Millas.

Reasoning behind Presumed Plan : 

The plan for catcher that seemed so sure in 2021 has gone off the rails. Ruiz, who was solid all-around around that time, has regressed in all facets of the game. He simply cannot be assumed to have a starting position anymore. Adams, who was seen as a reasonable back-up, adding the punch that Ruiz never had, has lost that punch. While he's held his skills behind the plate, those were never good in the first place. At 30 mid-season next year you can't be thinking there's a renaissance happening. 

So Millas wins the position by default. He did well in a brief audition. He's at a make it or break it age on if he'll ever be worth something to this team.  The Nats have plenty of other issues to deal with that if they have an internal option they are likely to go with it. He's a solid defender with a good eye and looking at baseball in general they could do a lot worse that having a guy like that behind the plate as long as he can hit in the mid .200s.  

As for the back-up idea. I think Ruiz/Adams serving as back-up does nothing for them or the team.  You want Ruiz to figure out his issues, if that's possible, so that means playing time. He should be in the minors.  However, his contract might keep him up with the team.  If not, a guy like Luke Maile - very solid defender for many years, could fit in well giving Millas the best chance to succeed. 

My Take :  

Ruiz looks like toast and the Nats can't spend anymore serious major league time hoping he gets it.  And him as a back-up - bad hitter, bad defender - makes zero sense. So a test of the new regime will be where Ruiz ends up.  If his contract keeps him in DC that's a strike against them. I definitely prefer a veteran here - the type of vet Ruiz didn't really have himself with Adams serving as primary back-up for the past 3 years. 

Adams should be gone. It's that simple. Without the power I'm not sure what he offers other than a warm body.  He had a good long trial here.  It didn't work out. 

While I think Ruiz will have a chance to earn a spot - I also think Millas is simply better and unless he shows he's not recovered from his injury he should have the role. That is unless the team spends money or trades for something here but I doubt that. 

Monday Quickie - (former) Nats in the playoffs

If rooting for (or against) former Nats in the playoffs is fun for you heres the list 

Blue Jays : Max! although they left him off the ALDS roster as he struggled at the end of the year. Jacob Barnes would also get a ring if they are generous (release by Tor in August) 

Yankees : Amed Rosario is it, though they have regular season Nats villain DJ LeMahieu and post-season Nats hero, Trent Grisham. 

Tigers : "Garbage" Kyle Finnegan was acquired by Detroit in a trade. Tanner Rainey pitched two terrible innings for the Tigers, and has not yet been released I don't think - but he's not in the playoffs or anything. 

Mariners : Super fun Davey mortal enemy Victor Robles is the only one here

 

Phillies : You know by now that the Phillies are built on the back of the Nats with Bryce, Trea, Schwarbs all in the starting line-up.  Former Nats prospect Jesus Luzardo starts for them and Joe Ross was also on the team this year.  The Nattiest team in the playoffs!

Brewers : Almost Nats free but ol' friend Erick Fedde threw some decent innings for them before being DFA'd to Nashville right before the end of the season. 

Cubs : Nats free! Yes Mike Soroka is on the Cubs!  Nats are everywhere! 

Dodgers : You know mid-season acquisition Alex Call is playing important innings for LA in the playoffs. Did you know that they gave Eddie Rosario a brief shot at DH this year? Worked out like you think it would. You know Blake Trienen is still blowing games in the pen but did you remember Luis Garcia was a Dodger this year before he was a Nat before he was an Angel? 

Lucky or Unlucky : 2025

I like to do this annually - figuring where the team got lucky and unlucky and seeing how that factored into this season and what might be read into 2026, given return to forms are often seen for people way under or over performing. 

 LUCKY 

Prospects can surprise but Daylen Lile hitting well enough to win player of the month of September and setting himself up for a starting role in 2026 was well above and beyond expectations. 

It was way more likely that Amed Rosario was at the end of his career than he would have the best season of his career at the plate but he did the latter. 

Uh... that's it

UNLUCKY 

Nathaniel Lowe was consistently good for his career. After being traded to Red Sox he was good again. He just was a dog for the going nowhere Nats. Who can know a man's heart? 

Neither Irvin and Parker were over their heads last year and could reasonably be expected to maintain their average performances but instead they were both flat out bad. Roll one snake eyes sure, but two? Unlucky. 

At 25 with a full season behind him, Jacob Young was more likely to get better this year but instead he crashed out of the Nats plans. 

No one expected Trevor Williams to be the pitcher he was for 13 games last year but going straight back to terrible was also a surprise. 

AS EXPECTED

This teams was built to be bad except for a few players. Wood, Abrams, and Gore were talented and they performed. Garcia, Bell, and a few arms in the pen were ok before and ok this year. The rest was a collection of mediocre to terrible players who performed mediocre to terribly and kids who could not and did not break out. 

 

So what does this tell us? The Nats were slightly unlucky this year which explains the slightly low win total in comparison to what we thought it might be. They weren't a good team but if everything with expectations broke even they should have gone over 70 wins. 

What can get better in 2026 just by running the same guys out there?  Well Williams/Irvin/Parker should end up with 2 averageish pitchers I guess. And... 

Well then that's it and really you are just looking at hoping kids like Crews and House and Cavalli do a lot better with a year under their belts.  Simply put there isn't much here to expect anything interesting from the same group run out again. Let's hope they don't do that. 

Monday Quickie - Season Wrap

So if you want to know what we guessed in wins it's here.  I had them at 71.  The group leaned into a bit higher but the winner in the clubhouse would be Matt with "high 60s"  Not quite! We all lose by Price is Right rules. 

We'll spend the week going over the season (promise!) but the general tone of it was one of disappointment and now a bit of concern.  The team is in the midst of a rebuild but also starting over with a new GM and new manager and that could easily kick the can on the rebuild another 5 years down the road. The pieces in place that look good (Wood, Gore, Abrams) are more likely then to be pieces sent away for the next set of magic beans than cornerstones of the next Nationals playoff team.  Let's hope this isn't the case but we must accept it could be. 

 Part of the problem was the lack of stepping up and the stepping down of players from last year's surprisingly watchable squad. The Amazing Fifth Starter Squad showed themselves to be... well 5th starters. The Trevor Williams bubble burst. Cavalli and Herz got hurt. Brady House and Dylan Crews in their first long stretches in the majors were not good. Jacob Young played himself out of a role. Nathaniel Lowe dogged his way out of DC. Ruiz continued to regresss if that was possible. Just a mess of "could be" answering "nope. not me. not this year at least" 

Along with that is the uncertainty of ownership.  The Lerners do not seem committed as a group to the team and they've even put it out there they'll sell for the right price, but can they get it?  

We did see the last of Rizzo and Davey which for most people was a relief. You know how I felt about Davey a manager that managed to undershoot expectations for the vast majority of his tenure with the team ending with the 2nd worst WP of any Nats manager even with the 93 win World Series team under his belt. Good riddance I say.  Rizzo I'm more on the fence about. He certainly showed his knack for trades and at times free agent signings but under a tighter budget where player development mattered more, his weakness was exposed. The man loved an all-in prospect strategy that gambled for the big impact players but left the minors shallow. When it hit it worked but when it didn't... well you see.  Perhaps the last round of these will pan out and give the next GM a solid base.  Willits looks real good and two of their other best prospects are from the last draft. 

 But that's the problem isn't it?  Outside of Susana, who we should see next season, everyone who should be here for THIS rebuild is here. And it's not coming together.  It's early but there's also not like a long window to these things.  They have another year, maybe two and then you gotta decide to move on or not.  Right now the data says move it.  Are you ready for another 4-5 years in the wilderness?  

It could be different. If the next management group believes in these guys and signs some help. That will be their first job and how they react this off-season will tell us what we likely need to know about the next 5 years.  

Last Week what's up

 There will be a rundown of everyone at the end of the year so no particular reason to go over Nunez's power surge or Wood's power drop (before today) right now. Instead let's meet some newer guys since there are a lot of new faces around 

 

Jorge Alfaro - in the "we gotta try something behind the plate" world that the Nats are in - here is Alfaro.  If the name sounds familiar we was a big-time prospect about a decade ago for the Phillies, a key piece to the Rangers trade for Hamels in 205 and the Phillies trade for Realmuto in 2019. He had performed ok for Philadelphia with a powerful bat and one of the best behind the plate at gunning out runners. He looked like a long time catcher for someone given how bad that position can be. 

But post trade Alfaro never really solved his biggest problem - inability to ID strikes - and his walk rate and K-rates were so poor they demanded a high .200s average, A real touch ask for a catcher who isn't going to leg out anything. Meanwhile the other aspects of his defense weren't as stellar as his arm and he has slowly become a back-up. 

 As far as back-ups go a guy that might swing into one and can keep runners honest is two more things than Ruiz is doing right now and one more than Adams. He wouldn't be the worst guy to keep around as a back-up but he can't be the starter for any teams that isn't tanking. 

That's it at the plate 

On the mound

Andrew Alvarez - Nats draftee who spent 4+ seasons proving himself to be a fringe major leaguer.  When he's on he keeps the ball on the ground and the hits weak to counter the fact that he can be a little wild and doesn't miss bats. At 26 he's probably not going to suddenly become good. Instead he's in the Irvin/Parker range of maybe he can give you a decent year or two. 

PJ Poulin - waiver claim several weeks ago. His stuff can be electric but as usual that also means he's wild.  As far as it goes though that wild does not mean "can be prone to a long ball" so you can mostly take it. I'll never complain about a live-arm lefty for nothing. 

Konnor Pilkington - a high draft pick for Chicago in 2018 there isn't much to recommend about him.  His arm is ok but he's wild enough that even getting abnormally great results in 40 innings AAA for the Nats (5H/9  0.4HR/9) this year he still put up a 2.59 ERA. Granted this was in his first real full time commitment to relieving, something that's been toyed with him since 2022. They should keep trying that but it's hard to see it working out for the 27 year old. 

Clayton Beeter -  Dodgers high draft pick and Yankees reliever speaks pretty highly of the guy as the Dodgers draft well and the Yankees develop strong relievers. Maybe elite swing and miss stuff but can be ALL over the place. One of those guys if he ever "gets it" would be a top closer but you just don't know. Like PJ definitely worth throwing out there

Orlando Ribalta - In theory just an organizational arm who in 2024 had a year that made you think "wait do we have something here?" but 2021-2023, and 2025 all say "no not, really" Imagine he sticks around as a AAAA type. 

Sauryn Lao - Waiver claim just after Labor Day. The Mariners were oddly stretching him out from a reliever to a starter before letting him go.  He barely has a full season of stats on him for his entire three year career so I'm not sure what to make of him. But when two other major league teams have said "nah" you probably aren't finding something. 

 

Who is Daylen Lile? What is Daylen Lile? HOW is Daylen Lile?

Daylen Lile is hot right now.  He's been up almost half a year and is closing in on 300 PA.  in that he's hit a solid .282 / .327 / .450 line and it's only been better in the second half .318 / .360 / .523. How excited should you be from a guy that probably entered 2024 the 6th Nationals outfielder to watch on some lists*

He's a legit prospect (2nd round pick) and while is isn't super young he's right in there with Wood and House which is frankly young enough for anyone that isn't a phenom. He seems to ID pitches well and makes great contact hitting a good deal of line drives. He's fast and can get that extra base from the balls he hits. He's good.

He's a mediocre fielder with a weak arm. He doesn't generate a lot of bat speed or barrel up the ball, and doesn't hit a lot of fly balls, so he doesn't generate a lot of "true" power, instead relying on legs for those XB.  Despite IDing pitches well he seems impatient late in counts and is not working his way on base like he should. He's not amazing. 

I'd be pretty excited for Lile in that it's always good to have as many good players as you can and Lile, seems good. The general track - HS star - legit prospect - solid minor league stats - is what you hope to see from your best prospects. He has all the skills, he seems to be using them.  That he isn't a great fielder shouldn't be an issue but with Young not hitting at all and Crews taking a slow path to being a starter, it matters a little. If you ever have to pull Crews from CF you can't just shift him or Wood over. 

It's seemingly clear that the power for 30 homers seasons isn't there.  It's not his major league level nor really how he hits in general. That was always true but you project out some for kids. He just isn't getting to that projection. But 15-20 seems reasonable and if he's hitting .280+ that's almost good enough. 

Really it comes down the the walks.  By all accounts his eye is good and in the minors he did take his share of free bases. I'm not exactly sure why he isn't in the majors right now - could be a bunch of things - but the answer is NOT his eye isn't good with major league stuff. It is. So it's a question of choice it seems and if he chooses to be a little more patient and you have a guy getting on base .350+ well then - that's a player.  

Half a season is half a season but Lile has the skill set available to him to be a solid major leaguer. The contact bat looks to be there now (but we'll have to see over a full year next year), the speed is there, the eye needs to follow because the glove and power likely won't**.  That'll likely be the difference between Lile being a nice 3rd/4th OF type and a solid starter.  Of course maybe he'll just hit .320 instead of .280, or and then we don't care about the eye anymore

 *lists that didn't read my takes on Elijah Green 

 **Yeah the power looks ok but legged out triples are a LOT more like doubles imo. I feel a lot of run production stats over count for triples.

Monday Quickie - What's wrong?

 ok yes everything but nothing has gone right for this squad since early June.  At one point they were 30-33, then went on a 20-53 stretch.  The last 5-1 brings it up to 25-54 which is just over a 50 win pace for a season. Yikes. 

You can't blame the firings - Davey and Rizzo were gone in the middle of this. You can't blame the trade deadline. Yeah it made the team weaker but they aren't losing squeakers because of a weakened pen.  Here are some 2nd half splits 

Brady House .225 / .224 / .292 (1 walk!) 

Jacob Young .223 / .284 / .287

Dylan Crews .206 / .299 / .294

James Wood .207 / .289 / .328 

CJ Abrams .225 / .281 / .376

Jake Irvin 8.86 ERA 1.848 WHIP

Mitchell Parker 7.63 ERA 1.603 WHIP

MacKenzie Gore 7.54 ERA 1.757 WHIP

 

This is your goddamn core and it's a group looking like it would have trouble winning in AAA as opposed to be what you build around.  

You can blame Gore's pitching on injury and Young / Parker / Irvin on never really being good (and thus not being an overly critical part of the future) but the rest is very worrisome.  

James Wood is striking out at an alarming rate up from 28% to 40%.  

Dylan Crews remains unable to lift anything hitting over 50% of his balls into the ground. 

Brady House  is not walking and not making enough contact in general. 

 

I'm not sure what you do here but I think you have to clear out the remaining staff that Davey and Rizzo put here. It's not working. It's actively HURTING. 

Oh about Gore

Yeah I was only doing bats. Gore is the only arm that I think deserves talking about in terms of a long-term signing. I like Lord and Ferrer but relief pitching is notoriously fickle, neither of these guys is lights out (or likely to be that) so they just feel very replaceable and not something you gamble money on keeping past age 30.  As arms go Parker and Irvin are nothing to hold on to. I mean I guess if they want to be REAL reasonable and sign for cheap so they don't have to move... 

 You can wonder about Cavalli who was supposed to be good and who has looked good since coming back from injury but that last part puts a damper on the whole thing.  He's just back. Now's not the time to double down on the arm. Let's see it last through a whole season first. 

 So Gore, I think you do try to sign him. I think he's a weak #1 but a #1 regardless, even given recent struggles. But he's also on a collision course with getting paid way too much for what he's done. So... I don't know if it gets done. I don't know if a fair offer, or even a moderate overpay gets you Gore. But where do you get pitching then? 

 Susana and Sykora both look fairly strong but you are looking at... 2028 before you are counting on them to be good? And the only thing less reliable that FA pitching are pitching prospects. 

 So much hinges on this and you have to get it right. Trading for Gio, the first Stras extension, the Scherzer FA contract. All hits. The team soars. The signing of Corbin (post-2019), the second Stras contract. Huge misses. The team crashes. 

 Sigh... this one isn't as easy but I still lean toward making a good faith effort to sign him. Not a Wood "pay the man what he wants" but an above market deal now. And if he refuses so be it. Treat him like a key piece but not the only piece. You expect to win with Gore, but not to have Gore carry you. I think that's right. 

Who to sign long-term

You can win in several ways in baseball but the current hotness is to "rebuild" sign a bunch of your young players while they are young so they don't cost as much and hope that if you sign 6 that 2 work out and money wise that still probably saves you enough money to spend on FA. 

Of course because people LOVE to go into the comments to say "It's not up to the Nats..." "Scott Boras won't let them..." I'll note here that what we want to see is a concerted and public effort to make these signings. If the public part bothers the players so be it. The fans need to know the team is trying in good faith.  So shutta ya traps! 

 Let's look at the bats 

James Wood

Pros : He's so young! He's so good!

Cons : He's so expensive (relatively) because he's already good. 

Decision : Sign him dummies. If you aren't trying with guys like Wood then what's the point honestly. Call yourselves the Potomac Pirates, the Rockville Rockies and be done with it. 

CJ Abrams

Pros : He plays the IF, is fun to watch, and is clearly the second best bat on the team right now. Still plenty of time until he hits FA (2029) so you can get value

Cons : From reports attitude can go up and down. Plays SS but pretty poorly. 

Decision : Could go either way. I think you need to get either him or House signed though. 

Dylan Crews 

Pros : Nearly everything about his fancy stats and college performance suggest the guy has star potential. Getting comfortable in the OF where he should be good. Super fast. So seems like there'd be a place for him even without a bat. 

Cons : Always had great fancy stats and lacking actual stats.  

Decision : Wait probably. I think the discrepancy between performance and potential will create too big a gap between what the Nats should offer and what Crews would take. But check-in. 

Brady House 

Pros :  He's already a solid fielder in the IF and there's a lot to like about his swing. Good runner.  

Cons : He's a bit too much of a free swinger and needs to strike out less if he's not going to walk more or else that average/OBP will hang on him

Decision : I'd probably go with him first over Abrams just because an IF that can field that might hit strikes me as slightly better than an IF that can hit that will never field. But I'd like them both to be honest. 

Robert Hassell

Pros : if you look at the fancy stats you could argue he's a better Brady House right now. Good field, slightly better approach and swing, faster. Seemingly finally coming around. 

Cons : The biggest difference between House and Hassell is the 2 year gap. Hassell HAS to come around now or might not ever.  Also a big difference is Hassell plays OF where the Nats have choices and it's easier to stick a FA. House plays IF.  Even if Hassell is coming back one injury derailed him for 2 1/2 years. What happens the next time?

Decision : I've always liked Hassell but I'm a realist here if you can get him for reasonable 4th OF money, sure try it. If he wants more pass bc I worry one more injury makes him a big nothing. 

Daylen Lile 

Pros : Young and holding his own in the majors at the plate for a couple months. If not a OBP machine, at least it patient at the plate. Hits a lot of nice line drives and balls up. 

Cons : Not great in the OF, probably the least "prospecty" of your choices. It's not like the team is lacking in young OF that you gotta nail this one down. 

Decision : Pass.  Prove me wrong Daylen 

Anyone Else? 

Nunez can't hit and isn't that young. Tena can't field and is mediocre at the plate. Lipscomb is overmatched. Young is an excellent fielder but is showing regression at bat and is an non-intuitive baserunner. Garcia is an average hitter and can hold 2B who flashes some good hitting stretches. 

Decision : If you can get Garcia down through age 30 or so, I'd do it. One of the things teams do is find ways to cheaply not have problems and Garica at 2B isn't a problem. I think he probably will be as he ages out though and he doesn't have the bat to be 1B or DH so you don't want him here forever but if you can not think about 2B through 2030, even if it's just as "could be worse" I think that's good.  Young and Tena are worth carrying around but only bc you can do it for the minimums. I wouldn't pay for it past into FA. 

No Mo Lowe

The Nats brought up Dylan Crews today, back from injury and ready to get some more at bats.  To clear a roster spot they didn't cut 32 year old signed for a single year Josh Bell, who is hitting average from the DH spot. They didn't cut 31year old, well he can field if he can literally do NOTHING else, signed for a single year Paul DeJong.  They didn't cut 29 year old, never was catcher Riley Adams who doesn't do anything well.  Instead they cut 29 year old Nathaniel Lowe, who before this year was a solid bat and solid glove and the combination in a weak generation of first basemen, put him as a Top 10 player at that spot. 

Lowe has had a terrible year taking tremendous steps backward in every facet of the game.  Worse he's been worse recently. It's easy to see why the Nats cut him...yet

 At a decent contract for next year and with a long track record of decent play and an age that questions whether this is really a fall from playable to out of the game or just a very bad very long stretch, and we three better choice I'm not sure it was the right move. 

You hear a lot of cheering from Nats fans though, taking this as a bold move showing they aren't going to hold on to bad players but again, Bell is a DH barely hitting average, DeJong should be retired, Adams should be AAA organizational depth. They have other bad players they aren't cutting. This can't be what this is really about. 

It's not about bad players but about space. They need a place to rotate all these young bats and it won't be backing up the infield where DeJong is and it won't be at C where Adams it.  It will be at 1B/DH and if you have to choose between Bell and Lowe... well I can see choosing Bell. He's a well-loved teammate and maybe you bring him back next year to fill a LH bat and well maybe you just like him better.  And you really can't cut Adams with Ruiz hurt...

But it's also about space for next year I guess. Lowe would be at 1B and maybe they are already thinking about where to put everyone, or moving Wood over to DH/1B or something or trying Yohandy out there. So if that's the case, if we see a kid at 1B next year, ok then I get it.  But if it's just Bell shifted over in 2025 or another cast-off then I don't. 

Call Forwarding

 Alex Call was the last domino to fall - over to the Dodgers for a couple arms. As noted before Call was actually turning out to be good but if there was one place the Nats didn't have space for a player like Call it was OF where they want to play Wood and Crews and cycle through whoever else they want to look at.  Keeping a 4th OF is a luxury on a team like that. 

 

Sean Paul Liñan was a solid looking arm for High A that the Dodgers pushed to AAA to see if they had something really special. They didn't - he got hammered. Basically he has one GREAT pitch but everything else is lacking right now.  That's enough to dominate lower level hitters and get punished by better ones. But still a 20 year old with promise and a nice get. 

Eriq Swan is Elijah Green the pitcher.  He seems super athletic and can easily throw the ball up near 100 MPH. Can he control it? Nope. Is his pitch super unhittable for being that fast? Not to the level you'd want to see at his level. You are just kind of hoping things come together. That wouldn't be bad if he were 19 but he'll be 24 as the post-season closes and is not quite getting it done in High A.  Here's to miracles, I guess. 

Pretty good haul for not having anything to give away, and by that I mean you got two guys in Ronny Cruz and Sean Paul Liñan that have an outside chance to turn into good major leaguers and a guy in Christian Franklin with a decent chance to have more than a cup of coffee. Is the likely outcome nothing of import? Of course. But I'll take this. 

More importantly I'll take not trading Gore. Now spend in this off-season  

Trades Trades Trades

 I did go on vacation again, yes.  I also will again the second week in August. 

 The Nats have begun their sell-off and it's mostly gone exactly as you could hope 

 Chafin and Garcia and Soroka out. 

Chafin was found money, a DFA'd player who turned it around for the Nats and ended up part of a deal. Soroka didn't pan out exactly as planned but the fact he was sent out for anything means his signing was a win.  Luis Garcia is at least a decent arm with the potential to have a great couple months, but is 38 and not part of the future. 

This does gut a pitching staff that was put together with string and bubble gum but hey, you apes want to live 2025 forever?  

What's the returns?  From my take on best to worst

Ronny Cruz - the type of lottery ticket you want to get. decently high draft MI pick that's super young and has looked ok so far. Talent heavy but this is for Mike Soroka remember. 

Christian Franklin - reads like the type of player the Nats have avoided. IOW good baseball instincts. He's a smart runner, makes good reads in the outfield, has patience at the plate. If he could just hit a few more flyballs and get that average and power up he'd be a solid player. Alas at 25 that ship has likely sailed. But seems like a good guy to have around 

Jake Eder - a college starter that basically stalled out in AA after injuries that is being looked at now in the majors as a reliever. Not impressive so far but a live arm so whatever. 

Sam Brown - a first baseman/corner OF with no power or patience? organizational depth

 

MORE TRADES

Finnegan GONE! He's ok, but even the Nats knew he couldn't really be counted on. Will be missed in the continuing non-literal decimation* of the pen. Who's coming in in relief? Maybe you!

 Coming in is Josh Randall and RJ (not Randall Josh) Sales  

Josh Randall - live arm you take a gamble on. Just move to A+ and had a great start but while he strikes out a lot he's not unhittable. Arm seems dependable and strong. Kind of guy in a year you'll see if he can be a reliever. The better lottery ticket here. 

RJ Sales - competent college pitcher at 18. Hard to get a good read on as a hitter which really limits his hits and homers but doesn't miss enough bats and walks way too many. In A ball now at 22, looked better on the wildness overall but was slipping recently.  

 

What's next? 

 I wouldn't trade Gore. Not unless you want to set the timeline on (maybe) being good again at 2028.  The Nats can be good (wild card level) next year. They have an ace. They have a stud bat. They have a good 2nd bat. Pieces are there. What they need is investment, not starting over.  

 

*It's literally worse! 

What's coming

 The Nats season is over in the "compete for anything worthwhile" but it's far from over in the "kids development sense" we know about the kids that are here and doing well. What's coming down the pike? 

 

More time for kids here 

 

Brady House - looks like a talented kid up for the first time.  Strong swing, solid form but he's getting fooled a lot. Works out to about an average bat in his limited time. A little iffy in the field so far. If he can just slightly improve across the board that's a win because he's right now he's probably a just good enough player (think Luis Garcia) and you gotta figure they'll be a chance for a real step up in 2026. 

Dylan Crews - is still out though before the ASB, and after he had worked himself back to "when is he going to be playing games" figure sometime in the next week. That could be today, maybe this weekend. No rush. Fairly similar to House but his form at the plate isn't good which negates a lot of the strength in it. Chases a bit less though and is starting to warm up in the field.  The goal for the next couple months? Get the ball into the air more. 

Daylen Lile - can really ID and square up on pitches but slow bat speed and that has been the death of Ruiz.  Now Lile isn't Ruiz because he is fast.  There's a chance he could be Steven Kwan. There's a better chance he could be one of the dozens of guys who don't last though. Kwan is a unicorn. 

Andry Lara - The Nats pitching staff has a lot of "kids" A lot of guys like Cole Henry (26 on the ASG), Jose Ferrer (25), and Mitchell Parker (26 in September) who should be rounding into final form now (see : Gore, Mackenzie 26). Unfortunately for these guys and Lord (25), Rutledge (26), Brzykcy (25) instead they are still getting used to the majors and likely I'd say 5 out of 6 won't be any good. OK that was depressing but you know who IS a kid? Andry Lara. And he's looked good as a reliever in VERY VERY limited play. He gets hit but he induces grounders. Over time as a starter that's been iffy, you lose control you leave balls up... but for an inning as a reliever? So far, so good

 

Kids coming / coming back - 

Cade Cavalli - Has he looked good in AAA in 2025? Uh.... no. He's wild and not missing bats and well that's not a good combo. But he's going to get into the majors because at 27 in about a month it's time for him to produce or get out of the way. The Nats liked him before so they'll throw him into the fire. 

Robert Hassell - Does he seem like a AAA player? Yeah. But squint and you see a guy who struggles at a level, then gets better. He was pretty awful in the majors with nothing to excite you but his other skills are good so if he can be ok maybe there's a 4th or 5th OF here? His only issue is the OF is crowded. Harder to get a chance when Wood is needing reps to keep improving his D, and Crews needs to get back into it. (which is kind of why they gotta let Call go) 

 Marquis Grissom Jr.  - an intriguing relief arm that shouldn't be great (he doesn't blow anyone out at all) but is hard for batters to get a read on so they don't usually hit him very hard. Unfortunately Marquis doesn't have a great read on himself. When he controls his wildness has enough to hold down a major league role. We'll probably get a chance to see if he can do that in the fall

Yohandy Morales?  - Probably not as a DH/1B he's sort of squeezed currently in the majors, esp with all the OF needing to have a look. But he's in AAA and was beginning to heat up. If Bell goes then there's a spot open and he'll have his first swings in the majors. 

 

Various other not kids who might get cycled in based on timing. For starters - Seth Shuman, Chase Solesky, and Andrew Alvarez stink but are there in AAA. They probably get passed by Kyle Luckham though if he doesn't stink. Holden Powell is the closest to a kid in the pen. Konnor Pilkington is an interesting older lefty. Seems like a dozen could be late 20s guys. Batting there's a lot of chaff. Jackson Cluff maybe? Get the 28yo a couple major league at bats before sending him on his way?

What's gone wrong

Everything? 

Ha ha. No! Didn't you read the last post? There are some good and in the comments I mention the sort of neither good or bad (Garcia, Irvin, Parker, all the kids just getting their feet wet) 

But there are some bad things. You can't be 20 games under at the All-Star break on luck alone.  

 

Plan Ruiners

Keibert Ruiz had a hot start making optimistic Nats fans say "forget about the last few years! Maybe he was hurt!" Nope. He stinks! Always bad behind the plate, he hasn't gained power as he got older and he hasn't learned any patience. He's a slow slap hitter and has the stats to prove it. The Nats gambled on Ruiz after a decent couple of first seasons. They lost. And somehow back-up Riley Adams is worse as at least Ruiz's contact skills are something. Riley is just hoping to run into one and doesn't.

 Trevor Williams looked real good when healthy in 2024. I mean he was good! So the Nats signed him to a 2 year deal with the general thinking if he could be 80% of that by July they could flip him into something interesting. But 2024 looked like a fluke and 2025 proved it was. He's unmovable and signed for next year. The only bright side is there is a fair amount of luck here so him coming back next year to eat innings and pitch at the back of the rotation wouldn't be the worst. That's good! 

Reaching deeper into the FA garbage pile for Paul DeJong, Colin Poche, and Lucas Sims, Rizzo hoped to go beyond getting a deal into getting something for nothing. He got nothing for nothing as Poche and Sims were so bad they are already gone (and should have been earlier) and DeJong was only saved from the same fate by injury. No help for team or trades. 

Shinnosuke Ogasawara was supposed to be cheap rotation depth.  He hasn't shown an ability to hang in AAA let along the majors. At least if you burned the money you'd get some heat from it.  

 

Not what they hoped for  

Nathaniel Lowe was a cheap but sneaky good 1B who played good defense and hit well and the combo made him sort of a Top 10 1B (yeah 1B is historically weak - you still gotta play guys there!). But for the Nats in 2025 he's doing neither well and is basically the 1B this team should have. The good news is like Williams he'll be back and unlike with Williams, this year seems to be his fluke. So maybe next year. 

Jacob Young is an exciting and fast young fielder who had some exciting stretches at the plate last year. But in 2025 everything has gone wrong. He's hitting worse. He fielding worse. Hell, he's been caught stealing 9 times in 19 attempts. From possible starter to back to the minors.

Nasim Nunez was stashed on the major league roster all 2024 because you can do that if you are a bad team. All glove and no bat the hope was he could work his way to average at the plate and last year seemed to suggest that was possible. This year though he's hitting his way out of AAA.  

Jackson Rutledge, Zach Brzycky were two young names they were hoping to show something in the pen. Both have been bad. Edward Salazar, Ryan Loutos, and Jorge Lopez were all arms picked up with the hope something would click. It did not. 

 

In the macro 

While Parker and Irvin alone are basically hitting low expectations, together with Herz it was hoped one might continue to pitch like a middle of rotation guy. Nope. These two regressed and Herz got hurt.  

 

The short of this is the FA signings were pretty remarkably terrible this year. Not just missing but missing so bad with guys they were not getting out of AAA or being released before Memorial Day. This meant the team had no depth anywhere with the lineup, rotation, and pen all only 1-2-3 players deep. The Ruiz development is also really disappointing bc it's hard to find a good catcher, they actually committed to someone and it's just become a mess. At least the kids that didn't come through, weren't the kids you really care about. Some of the A-Team came through, the others are just getting their chances, the B-Team's failures are disappointing but they aren't long term issues, just issues for 2025 when you are mixing and matching what you have. 

 

What's gone right

With the team reeling there isn't much to say here but we generally start out with right so...   

Unqualified Successes

James Wood is a bonafide star. All-Star. HR Derby participant.  On pace for 40 homers, 100 RBIs, and 100 walks.  He strikes out a bit much and never developed the skills in the field you'd hope but at 22 he's one of the best bats in the game and likely to get even better. He's a build around player. 

MacKenzie Gore is an ace.  Maybe not a Skenes level but he'd be #1 on a number of teams.  He has matured and has figured out how to maintain a level of control that makes him that much better. A stud that you can build a rotation behind

Brad Lord made his way to the majors are looks to be a solid addition to the bullpen while Jose Ferrer has gotten over some early season bumps to also settle into a nice spot. Both at 25 and under control for years you can imagine them as pieces of a solid pen once the Nats commit to or find the couple shut down arms they need. 

Qualified Successes 

Kyle Finnegan has settled into that "he's the closer" role where he's not any better really than your other good relief arms but he has the job and does it well enough not to lose it. In the old days you could flip that for something but teams are smarter now. In the new days these guys are valuable because they let you use your truly good arms when you really need them. The Nats don't have truly good arms. So Kyle is really just another decent pen arm, which is fine, but circumstances mean it's not a big win. 

CJ Abrams' talent is getting more consistent.  Say what you will about his attitude (up and down apparently) and ability to play SS (only down) but he's a high energy electric player with 20+ HR power and the speed to steal 50+ bases if the Nats were so inclined. Also he's 24.  He's got a skill set you need to figure out how to control or flip for an arm.  

Alex Call continues to be a nice surprise. He's generally been a solid to good defender but the bat was a question.  While it's nothing to get excited about from a 30 year old who's not going to get better it's undeniably been good. He's a solid player you got for nothing and that's always a plus 

 Amed Rosario didn't suck, he was ok. He's sort of the bench guy good teams have, able to play a lot of positions (though not well) and hit fine. A good sub to have when a guy goes out for a couple weeks. Unfortunately that's not the team the Nats are but that's not Rosario's fault. 

Squint and you can see success

Mike Soroka was a gamble. When healthy he's perfectly decent holding down a back of the rotation spot.  It's a low bar but it's probably the first one you set out for this signing. 

 

Without an injury the Nats can walk out of 2026 with a build around bat an ace-level pitcher. Every team would want that. They've managed to check off some of the top 2 boxes in the checklist. The problem is the next 10 or so. 

Monday Quickie : ASG break

The Nats did not get better after the firings. The 1-5 run isn't anything off than expected, facing two good teams away from home 2-4 is the baseline with 1-5 and 3-3 happening almost as easy. This is not a good team, and it's still being run by Davey's guys so don't expect any miracles. 

The big thing that happened was the draft. I don't usually care much about the draft, but in the past the Nats having the #1 pick with generational talents has made me take a closer look at it. That was a long time ago. The Nats had the #1 pick again this year but with no clear Strasburg or Harper it was a big question mark on who to take.  Guys ranked by one group as #1 might be #7 elsewhere. 

The Nats went with Eli Willitis, son of a former major leaguer. He's a guy with no holes in his make-up and seems destined to make the majors, with the general thinking is a good bet to be a very solid top of the line-up type player. If things don't pan out then he might be a super-sub type, where as if he surprises he could be a star.  It's a "safe"* pick in a draft like this that featured no wow player. With the Nats eschewing from pitching it seemed like the other choice could have been Ethan Holliday (another major league scion) who had more top-end potential but also potential holes like a lack of projectible defensive skills and a tendency to swing and miss. 

Holliday seems like a Rizzo pick to me. Rizzo liked to take big swings in the draft, be it with raw talent (Brady House, Elijah Green), or injury concerns (Rendon, Giolito, Fedde)  or what have you. I never felt like this was a terrible idea. You only need to hit once every 5+ years to really impact your team. But it did leave the minors usually barren of the type of decent players that making more standard picks run into. And when he didn't hit that post-Rendon guy the Nats ended up with a organization with limited depth. That they went with Willitis feels like a change even if it was Rizzo's guy originally.  We will likely never know. 

This team needs this break to reset completely and figure out who they are. They should spend the next few weeks dumping guys with no future here (Finnegan, Bell, Williams, Call - won't get more than you can now, Rosario - ditto), either through lottery ticket trades or DFAs. Then just let the kids play. Then attack FA and the trade market in the off-season. 2025 has long been over. A competitive 2026 is the goal now. 

 

 

*as safe as any draft pick can be, mind you.  

Monday Not-Quickie : Firing on all cylinders

What's next? 

1) New guys take over... for now. 

Mike DeBartolo is the new GM.  He's young, with a business bent. He's been with the Nats a long time with a role in a lot of different aspects and he's familiar with analytics. Still I imagine with no baseball leadership experience and his history being the second guy on a team who just fired it's GM I assume he's a placeholder. 

Miguel Cairo, bench coach, is the likely choice for interim manager. 

What is on DeBartolo's plate is the draft. He's likely to have been involved and with the first pick the Nats have a pretty decent sense of the 1-3 guys they are looking at. The later rounds have never been good to Rizzo so DeBartolo can't do worse. 

Miguel's got to rally the team but after Davey's "don't blame the coaches" rant that may be easier done. Also compared to the effort they've put out so far even winning 3 out of every 7 would be an improvement. 

Don't expect a new coach in before the end of the year. There isn't really a point. But I'd like to see a new GM in as soon as possible. The draft might be a pass for them. The big focus is on early rounds and your position in the draft and your minor league system means a lot when you make those picks. Any other guy is looking at a different set of players than Rizzo would have been. But I do want the next GM to be here for the trade deadline to begin making the team his.  

Who would I like to take over? Assuming this team is going to be run cheap - you want someone from an org that understands how to win with limitations, Tampa, Cleveland, Milwaukee...

For manager?  If we're going with my heart, let Matty LeCroy take it.  I love that guy.   Also a heart choice but with more thought into it, Rick Sweet is a LONG time minor league manager with seemingly decent skills at mentoring young players.  Let him have his one shot at the majors with a bunch of kids that can make some noise. 

Hey if my "get Rick Short" out of the minors push worked 20 years ago, maybe it can work for all "Rick" five-letter last names that start with S and end with t? 

2)  Fallout.  

Rizzo hinted at some bad blood, probably wants one more shot, and we all think the ownership isn't... at it's best. What sort of hit jobs do we see on the Lerners, or on Rizzo the untouchable king, or on Davey no longer in a position of power? 

Also why now? Why both? What was the process? That usually does come out one way or another.  If you like drama we might see some

3) Does anything else change? 

Ownership could also be ready for a change. With Rizzo and Davey out that's a clean slate for a buyer and we know the Lerners broached selling the team earlier. Could they be up for doing it again? We generally think Mark wants to stay, the siblings and their hubbies want to sell, and no strong decisions can be made unless everyone agrees. If this is all true that's no way to run a franchise, one hamstrung sibling trying to hobble along. You can feel sorry for Mark in this situation a little bit, but by holding on to the team he's making things worse for it.  If you can't put money into it NOW you got to sell 

EMERGENCY FIRING POST 2

You all know how I feel.  Davey deserved to get fired as much as any manager who won a WS has, at least on performance.  His teams regularly underperformed expectations, including this year, and they regularly failed at the fundamentals, or at least it felt like it.  I won't rehash it anymore. You can go back and read what I said a few posts ago.  I think it's best for the Nats he's gone. 

Rizzo is more complicated.  As others have pointed out, Rizzo has a skill set; a steady hand, decent media presence (mainly because it's limited), a good read of other teams young talent, a savvy trader.  He also has some flaws; poor draft record, questionable FA eye on the fringes, a bit "my way or the highway" attitude with little sense of taking blame for team failures. It's a mixed bag, but one that lead to a 7-10 season run of relevance and a season in 2025 where three of the hottest young players all reside on his team. You can not like him, you can say his skill set doesn't quite work for the way this team might be run going forward, but you can't say he's bad.  

But even his quote suggests - "Hey not my fault" which it certainly partly is.  We mentioned the swings and misses in the drafts, allowing Davey and his calvacade of subpar coaches to stay here as long as they did, this year's decision to get a full house of other people's trash and missing on them so very badly that three relievers were gone before Memorial Day. If he really can't see that - he has to go. 

Usually ownership groups give GMs the chance to move on from managers before forcing them out. That Rizzo was gone too is interesting.  Did Rizzo ride or die with Davey?  He seemed to really like him and work well with him. 

What happens next will be everything because this is a team with some great young pieces that needs to spend in the off-season. If they do the person making those decisions will be of paramount importance and the person leading the team will matter too.  

EMERGENCY FIRING POST

DAVEY OUT! 

RIZZO OUT!

The Post if you have it

What was the final straw? You'd have to assume the lifeless play in the past month+  9-23 since the end of May.  The team looks bad. The feeling around the team is bad. 

More tomorrow later tonight.  Too much to wait until tomorrow but you know I got kids stuff to do right now

Ed Note- internet down and my cell reception at my house is spotty so nothing more tonight  

Ed Note 2 - It's back! 

went on vacation

Like the Nats in general  

 They are now nearly what I feared they'd be last post.  Worst of the rest. Only the Athletics are standing in their way.  They are clearly behind the Marlins now. Hell so are the Braves. 

Things have gotten so bad the team is trying to get you excited for the idea of Paul DeJong coming back and DHing even though he can't hit. 

What the hell are we doing here people? 

 

Kick anyone over 27 to the curb.  Just play kids.  See where you end up. Spend a bunch of money in the off-season. That's where we are.  

 

 

Monday Quickie - closing in

 on the worst "trying" team in baseball

The Rockies, despite sweeping the Nats, are historically bad.  They are on pace for 37 wins.  There literally should be calls from the game to replace the owner because things are so non-competitive in Denver. 

The White Sox are in a similar spot, Reinsdorf aging into a worse version of himself as owner often do stuck with a "back in my day we didn't pay players so much" mentality, trying to squeeze every last dollar from the team for years leading to another terrible team in 2025. This is a cycle and this year the WHite Sox are the one at the nadir, on the path for the low 50s in wins. However, they are finally in the process of being sold

The other teams down here are of a similar bent. The Pirates, Athletics, and Marlins are all infamous for not really trying. Instead trying to be "Tampa Bay Lite" investing in the minors enough to hope to cobble together a decent 1-2 year squad that pushes .500 and a Wild Card a couple times a decade.  Maybe every couple decades have things line up right for a brief window of actual contention.  The Orioles, recently sold, look to be adding their name to this list, squandering a decent base of youth. And the Royals probably belong in this group, but are having that cobbled together squad couple years that we just talked about.  (I do think they push a bit more than the others when things line up) 

So it's down here, with the likes of these teams that the Nats sit. And its not because of a run of terrible luck (Hey Braves!) or a that this is the low point in a rebuilding process, that was a couple years ago. No it's earned and deserved. The Nats are a team with all the hallmarks of not trying. It is what we noted going into this year. This was the year to start trying. They did not. That's a warning sign. 

Luckily for the Nats fans they don't have a history of doing this. So maybe it's not actually happening. Maybe the Nats aren't becoming a team like those noted above.  Maybe it's just a one year blip, trying to get timing right. Maybe. 

 But it's hard to get hopes up when you know at least part of the ownership group wants out. And it's hard to get hopes up when having the 3rd lowest winning percentage of all active managers while constantly throwing your team under the bus, can't get a manager fired. And it's hard when you have a guy turning into an ace and a budding superstar on your team and you don't hear a peep about long-term signings. 

 I still say it's a low-mid 70s win team, I still say they catch a run. I still say hold out hope for this off-season.  What can I say, I'm an eternal optimist. But I don't blame you if you don't. 

Update : Fire Davey Quicker

And Fire Rizzo. 

And Sell the Team  

 

Look I've been an advocate for Rizzo, who can deal with the best of them, and is perfectly acceptable at IDing long range contract targets (some bomb, some work out - that's just how it goes). But sticking by Davey here isn't about results or Davey's proven track record with kids (which doesn't exist), it's about keeping a guy who doesn't complain about the roster at all and works quietly with whatever he's given.  Rizzo bombed in his FA acquisitions this off-season but Davey won't complain. Nor will he eat the blame. That's the trade off. 

As for the Lerners. I think Ted wanted to win, and fought through his more.. penurious tendencies (remember the "wait you want to Fed Ex this stuff?") to pay for an expensive team.  I think Mark wants to win but Mark isn't solo in charge. It's Mark and siblings who are more inclined to sell than win. Without the backing of an owner who will spend you are completely at the whim of timing on getting a window open for a brief period of time (see Pirates, Pittsburgh).  That's no way for a team to be run, hitting 3 year windows every generation. 

 

This offseason will either cement these feelings or prove them wrong, but they aren't things I've said before and I don't mean them lightly. Fix what's broken or stop being in charge.  

Monday Quickie - Fire Davey

Fire Davey.  

The man can't help but blame the players and I don't want that type of guy leading this team.  Maybe a veteran team can ignore him or maybe he wouldn't dare anger those guys, but this isn't a veteran team. It's a team of kids and they need someone to support and shield them.  

There are numerous reasons to fire the guy. His behavior this weekend pushes that all aside to get to number 1. Even if you landed on "well he won the series and changing the manager doesn't really matter" I don't see how you can still want to keep the guy. 

Slow fade

 Are we talking about this blog or the Nats? Hey yo! 

After the nice run that ended with a sweep of Arizona the Nats have played, as we've gone over before, like you'd expect a 75 win team to play.  Competitive enough that you would be surprised at them being swept in two straight series. Not good enough that you'd really expect them to win two straight series against better teams. 

And there are a fair number of better teams.  The dregs of the NL remain the dregs, the Rockies, Marlins, and Pirates playing their own game on how to not even try. The Nats are clearly better than that but only Atlanta stands below them and that's because the Braves are on one of the craziest runs of bad luck you'll ever see*. The Nats are not bad, but they are at least a half-step behind 3/4 of the rest of the National League, honestly a half-step behind 75% of baseball after you throw the not trying White Sox, Athletics, and new to the group Orioles, in there. 

Outside of Alex Call no one is hot right now and when Wood is putting up a .095 / .174 / .095 line in the past couple weeks you know the offense is grinding to a halt.  

I'll say I see 3 interesting things going on though

1) Gore is solidifying into that ace. We've brought it up occasionally but watching him last night the guy is in a zone and when he's there he's unhittable and that my friend, is an ace.  For Nats fans that means a real fun 6 innings of baseball watching every 5 games. It also means OH MY GOD THEY NEED TO SIGN HIM LONG TERM.  These type of guys don't come around often. You need these types. You can replace a bat somewhat but an arm? You have to gamble on them when you have the opportunity. I don't see a winning Nats team in 3 years without this guy

 2) The bullpen, free of the terrible signings and decisions to open the year, is getting better. Yes, that's funny to after another bullpen loss but Ferrer gave up hits to Soto and Alonso - two of the better hitters in the game. It happens. Henry got beat in extras but the game is designed now for a run to score. In the past two weeks these guys have pitched much better and actually haven't been the main reason the Nats have lost anymore

 3) Soroka threw a really good game. 7 Ks, 2 hits, no homers.  The guy is here to be traded. If he can come around SP is such in need he will fetch something mildly interesting. 

Sadly with the recent slide we're back to making our own stories from the team.  There is one last chance for that to change though. 7 games against MIA and COL at home coming up.  Say split the next two vs the Mets and go 6-1 in those 7 and end up 36-38 into the West Coast swing?  One last run at trying to be interesting? Do you have it in you boys? 

 

*they recently lost 5 1-run games in a row and have lost their last 12 1 or 2 run games.  

These kids aren't alright

This doesn't have anything to do with the Cubs series. 1 of 3 from the Cubs is what should be expected and seeing Gore look like an ace again is great. However, we are in the "stats are real now" part of the season and last time we looked at the kids whose stats said real good things about them. CJ Abrams continues to be cool but I noted his propensity for extended cold streaks was keeping him from being special. That's not the point, he's still overall good. The only one with a real issue out of that group was Jackson Rutledge. I mentioned he could fall back and he really has. Still he's not young but he IS new to relief pitching.  He's still learning. We'll see. 

So while there are kids who look good this year there are others who do not. 

 

Keibert Ruiz has been in free fall since a hot start. While there was hope from some on here than his general lack of hitting was due to previous injury and now that he's healthy he would go back to being decent that hasn't been the case.  He remains extremely good at squaring up and meeting pitches. This lets him maintain one of the lowest strikeout rates in the game.  Unfortunately he's bad at picking which pitches to try to hit (Chase rate is high), he's bad at generating any sort of power (exit velocity, etc. is very low), he doesn't get the ball up enough (launch angle too low), and he's super slow so he's not going to leg anything out. He also doesn't identify pitches well (as noted by that chase rate) so his walk rate is very low.  You can sort of take a bad hitting catcher if they can field but Ruiz is generally considered a poor defensive catcher (though one with an ok arm).  We're getting very close to having to accept that despite the contract Ruiz is neither the catcher of the future or the catcher of now. 

 

Fleet of foot Jacob Young make Keibert look like James Wood when it comes to power. One of the weakest bats in baseball who gets nothing up in the air, I'm sure this combination worked for him all through his career so far. He could leg out enough hits and play stellar defense. But the margins on that working get slimmer and slimmer and the body gets slower and slower and Jacob is rapidly approaching a point where he has to do something better to stick around.  It could be that he walks a bit better. Never really his strong suit but he is a little better this year and he doesn't chase. Maybe if he does that he can set himself up as a 5th OF. That would be a disappointment given the Nats hopes when he rose up the minors at a decent clip but honestly it would be a win given his draft position. He was never a prospect. 

 

Speaking of OFs despite the assurances of the rabble in the comments (rabble I said!) Dylan Crews's too early actual stats meant more than his too early fancy stats, and he's seen his performance level out while his fancy stats drop to meet what he is doing. He strikes out too much and doesn't walk enough in general and his fielding, which was supposed to be stellar, has simply been adequate so far. I don't come here to bury Crewsar though. He immediately improved his walk rate after a dreadful start and before his injury was beginning to generate more power. The fancy stats, now like all stats more real with a third of a season down, suggest unlike Ruiz and Young, the guy can swing a bat. He doesn't chase and he can really nail it when he gets it right. He just doesn't do it often enough yet. It does seem like it's a matter of time before he's a productive major leaguer. From there we can discuss what that means, but we gotta get there first and to do that he's gotta get back from injury. Why is he in the "aren't alright" section? He's alright to me! Well because this isn't what anyone was hoping for the guy when drafted. You wanted an impact star ASAP and he's simply not that. Reset expectations from 10 to 8 and see where he goes and we'll all be fine* 

 

This isn't bad for a split of what kids are working and what aren't, especially when you consider only Ruiz is really crashing out. Young is merely not overperforming like hoped, and Crews is just not an immediate ROY candidate. Both of these guys can still be valuable, even very valuable in Crews' case, hitting below the high targets that had been set. 

There is a base, we all can see it. It could be an actual foundation with guys like Garcia and Ferrer being ok and more kids on the way. But what the FAs are doing is killing the team and they are going to need some good FA signings to put this team over the top.  

*You're going to yell at me again, aren't you?  

 

Monday Quickie : Hey hey!

 I'm thankful for a lot but I'm very thankful today that the Nats team is winning in strong fashion and not sneaking out close wins because if there's one thing that I hate (and as you can probably tell there are many) it's the trite re-use of the "Cardiac" nickname for any team of young players (Cardiac Kids!) or whose name slightly allows it because of a similar sound (CardiAc NAts!). That isn't happening here. I can breathe. 

 I'm also thankful for a great weekend of Nats baseball to liven up the season that had a chance to go very moribund. It actually pushed them to a nice little 10-3 run and relevance? Not quite. But another one of those from relevance! 

The recent push has been helped along not by James Wood being a stud (look the guy is a star at the plate and it's time we just start talking like he is as opposed to some young player than might be something). Josh Bell and Luis Garcia starting to hit again... and enough timely hitting to score the runs needed to back up the pitching. 

Gore had a couple of ace like performances and the pen 2.0. Brad Lord, Cole Henry, Jose Ferrer until his arm breaks are doing very well.  

When can you get "excited"? Let's set our sights on June 13th.  The Nats will be past the tough stretch and looking at 7 games against the Marlins and Rockies. I know the Nats have been kind of up against the good, down against the bad, but the Rockies are so bad that supercedes that. Just look at the last 3 game set. The Nats were the closest the Rockies came to winning a series, winning one and losing two 1-run games but they still didn't do it.

We talked about not getting too low before, nor should you get too high.  I still think this is a 75 win team. But seasons where you can pretend it's more, where you flirt with being meaningful before a late fall, are more fun that seasons when you can't. Nats are almost there. It's almost fun, you know in a "not the usual fun of just watching baseball fun" A couple more good weeks would do it. 

These kids are allright

It's Review the Team Memorial Day Week (tm)(r) (c) and after 53 games (1 game under 1/3 of the season) there are bright spots in the Nats "Still rebuilding?" season. 

James Wood has got to be first and foremost.  We won't reiterate every point we've made so far this year about the budding superstar but he's gotten a tiny bit less selective in order to smash the ball more and that has worked out well. Not that he was ever too selective. He grips and rips. But he also has a good sense of the strike zone so he grips and rips at pitches he can usually hit. If pitchers beat him, good for them, but they are going to have to do just that. 

He still could get better. I don't think it has to do with plate approach. This is working for him. However if he could hit a few fewer ground balls (52.8%) we're talking more screeching line drives and balls over the fence.  The BA might drop a little, or honestly it might not, but if it does the trade off in extra XBHs would likely be worth it. 

He still needs to field better or the Nats need to look at him as a DH. Let's not make the Soto mistake again trying to convince ourselves someone bad is ok out there because they are young. Yes, Wood is more athletic, truly fast, but he's not a good fielder. Being strong doesn't make you a good hitter. Its skills and he doesn't have it at this level. I mean keep him out there if he wants to be. The hits matter more. But if he's agreeable to it, it's probably the right idea. 

We recently talked about CJ Abrams but he's improved every year he's been in the majors across two teams and he's hitting his stride now with a stretch to start the year as good as any that he has put up. He has cooled down in the past week so he didn't get to "best stretch ever" but if this isn't the introduction to a cold stretch he's going to end up with his best season ever. Like Wood he's swinging harder and it's paying off, though unlike Wood he's not every selective and that probably will keep him a step behind Wood as maybe a star but not a superstar. I suppose he could learn that once he sustains strong hitting without going into long droughts. 

Fielding wise Abrams is like Wood in that he stinks and probably shouldn't be playing his position. Unlike Wood though DH doesn't feel right for him. His arm is fine for 3B but his reaction time is slow.  If it wasn't his speed would be making him have elite range instead of terrible range. This has been very consistent over his career. You have to keep his bat and legs in the line-up so... second base in his future?  

 

It's early in both the transition and season to judge a relief pitcher but Cole Henry seems to have taken to the role like a fish to water. If not for one horrendous outing against the Mets he'd be sporting a 0.00 ERA. He's not the traditional reliever though blowing guys away or getting them to jam the ball into the ground. No, he's a flyball guy but guys at the plate don't read his stuff well and can't hit him hard. It's not necessarily the standard recipe for success so the fancy stats don't love him but until he stops inducing that type of contact you kind of gotta assume he can keep it up. Given he's not stressing his arm trying to throw 100MPH screwballs if he simply keeps up what he's doing it seems like he could have a long successful career in the pen. 

In a similar but lesser vein Jackson Rutledge has done well converting to the pen as well. He's more in line with the throwing smoke get grounders reliever types though not quite fast enough while still being prone to fits of wildness. There's room for improvement but he's under 20 games into his relief career on any level. Chances are he can improve a bit and he's already sitting at a level that would be a good pen piece. The fancy stats don't love him and given his limited time here he's probably more likely for a fallback but why not be optimistic? Like I said he can get better.

 

Mackenzie Gore should be great. He really should be. He's leading the league in K/9 right now, and has perfectly reasonable number for hits, homers, and walks. Everything is showing a marked improvement from last year.  And yes he is better but he should still be even better than what he's showing and should be showing even more improvement.  What's up? It seems like batters don't usually hit Gore but when they do they REALLY do. Mostly they can't hit his pitches but when they can they can easily squared up. That seems to suggest his mistakes are big ones. The bad curves don't miss they hang. The bad fastballs aren't off the plate they are meatballs. If he can fix that and he's an ace. But all this complaining is about a guy who's a 1/2 right now and that's good! 

Jake Irvin is fine.  I know we want more and the ERA sort of suggests more but he's a 4.25-4.50 ERA pitcher and you know what? That's ok.  He has good control of the strike zone, and controls the running game so the hits and homers he will give up, and he will, aren't game losing. Sit at the back of the rotation for the next 2-3 years and let the Nats not worry about one spot. Who can complain about that? 

Mitchell Parker is basically Jake Irvin, with a couple big exceptions.  First he seems to have a skill in keeping the ball in the park. I can hazard to guess it's mostly because he's left-handed. All the things that make Irvin ok - a couple pitches that look the same and a great extension giving the batter a few micro-seconds fewer to react - Parker has something similar but you see a lot fewer LHP. Given that, the batters have a slightly more difficult time reading Parker, swing at more pitches out of the zone and hit more balls to the opposite field. This doesn't really limit hits but homers are about hitting the right pitch perfectly and it just seems harder to do that against Mitchell.  The other thing would be he's 2 1/2 years younger and while Jake is Jake, Mitchell could get better. I'm not sold that he will but he could. If he doesn't, he should join Jake in the back of the rotation for several years and maybe you don't need two of those types in theory but in practice the more rotation worthy pitchers you have the better. 

Monday Quickie

 After a sweep (two games but still counts!) of Atlanta the Nats hosted SF and lost 2 of 3 with a fairly anemic offensive output. Now they face a fairly daunting stretch, traveling cross-country to take on AL West leading Seattle and the NL Wild Card hopeful Arizona Diamondbacks, then back home for a series against the Cubs.  It's Memorial Day week so things are now "real" and getting 4 wins here would be great for a team hoping to scrape .500. A 1-2 win blow-out would basically make it a claw-back summer.  (so as usual expect the 3 wins) 

Tomorrow we'll start going over the 1/3 of the season situation now that guys like Mitchell Parker have returned to Earth and James Wood has not

In the meantime Read Rosenthal's fairly scathing take on the Nats. "Good teams both spend and develop. The Nationals do neither" Ouch!

Rosenthal: Nationals remain among MLB’s bottom feeders despite lengthy rebuild - The Athletic

Darkest before the dawn

 But it's also really dark pretty much an hour after sunset so who really knows.

 The point is : Winning Streak!  

The Nats crushed the Orioles, coming back late on Friday and winning back to back games that were almost over before the 3rd inning began. Last night they continued the hot starts, scoring 4 runs before getting out of the second. This little run has taken them from the "oh uh are they among the worst non Colorado teams in baseball?" back to "this is who we thought they'd be" and a 72 win pace. As we are nearing Memorial Day weekend and the usual "OK NOW let's seriously look at these guys" I think this should be the general consensus on how to look at the season. Ups and downs will happen. It's a 70-75 win team. I'll be genuinely surprised at anything else through the trade deadline (after that rosters and targets can change) 

If you are a Nats fan - basically the last 7 days were what you wanted to see. Abrams and Wood leading the team with great lines across 6 games. Crews knocking a couple out of the park while not striking out at all the last two games. Jacob Young going 3 for 8 in limited time.  Luis Garcia doing ok.  It was a good week for the young core.  Let's hope Crews MRI isn't serious but the kid is young without much injury history so I'm cautiously optimistic there.

We mentioned CJ Abrams a couple posts ago and it's worth going back to him because this guy was meant to be a star, a Top 10 prospect in all of baseball two years in a row. These things are not guaranteed, but when you've managed to corral three of them onto your team at the same time chances of you going 0-3 has gotta be very slim. It could be that Abrams is just having an extended hot streak but it's just as hot as anything he had going last year.  He had a 36 game run of .309 / .401 / .561 centered around June, he's at .313 / .371 / .569.  Another week like this and he'll put that 2024 streak behind him. Abrams did start his career in a worse spot than people thought but every year Abrams has improved. This could be the "put it together" year.  

The Soto trade will work out for the Nats in numbers but then it was always going to do that. Nearly every trade of a vet for kids gives you generally more value.  The pure numbers guys love to talk about that even though really would you want 5 kids giving you 13 WAR over 5 seasons or one guy giving you 10 over 2+?  I hope you understand the latter is more conducive to, you know, winning stuff. 

BUT the Soto trade may actually just work out period. Wood looks to be a star. Right there it's almost a push. Abrams being a star too? Hard to not say it's a win, even if it took a couple years. Gore flirting with being an ace? Ok now it's a clear win. Jarlin Susana given he's just 21, remains a Nats top pitching prospect. He's hanging in in AA which is a perfectly fine place for him to be. And that brings us to the last piece*, Robert Hassell.

With Crews going down the Nats are bringing up Hassell from AAA. Hassell's journey has been kind of a long one.  He was seen as a very strong prospect, dominating A-ball at age 19, but hurt his hand in 2022 and has been trying to play through his return to the game.  2023 was dismal but 2024 showed signs of life and with the space available in AAA Hassell has gotten his chance there.  The results are... mixed. Overall he's hitting ok, but not walking enough and his power is pretty moderate.  His May overall has been very good but that was more a scorching opening week than a sustained performance. It's likely he won't perform in the majors but he's not here to do that. He's here to get a taste. 

The overall point though with these kids coming into form is the Nats have to do something to support this round.  It isn't as strong as the 2011ish time frame where generational picks, kids, and slow starters all lined up perfectly. This is just kids and mostly just bats. Where's their Gio? Where's their Werth? The Nats did set up some pieces for success. This past off-season was the time to strike. This next off-season will be late but better late than never. 

*well technically Luke Voit was that 

Weekend Goals

 Clearly the run to near .500 didn't work out. Instead they went 1-5 vs Cleveland and St. Louis and followed that up with a 1-3 set versus Atlanta. Now they are facing Baltimore - the last bad team they'll play until the middle of June.  

For all the small victories the Nats can have I do think a series win against Baltimore ranks up there.  "We might be bad, but we're not YOU guys" The good news is even a 1-2 series loss puts the teams at even for the season.  So just don't get swept. That isn't too much to ask.