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.