The Nats are done for the season.
In reality they were done for the season at the start of the season and the way the ownership approached the building of the team should have made that clear. But as we didn't expect anything from the season we didn't know they were committed to NOT trying until that actually became an issue.
The Nats right now are were the management expected them to be. A team stripped of the usable veteran parts they picked up with one "star" bat in the lineup, though if you asked them that star would have been Wood with Abrams traded and not Abrams with Wood injured. Still I think it's a good sign they didn't trade Abrams and recognized the team, at least offensively, is closer to competitive than not.
What's next is 1) taking care of James Wood and 2) doing their best to answer questions about the team for next year. Who's got a slot taken care of and who will be fighting for a role next year. You can see what they want offensively - Ruiz at C, Abrams at 2B, Nunez at SS, House at 3B, Wood + 2 of Young, Lile and Crews in the OF, a couple of bats from Chaparro, Ortiz, etc. make themselves favorites for 1B and DH. Pitching is more of a mish-mash : Will anyone joine Cavalli in the rotation next year? How many of these RP look like guys you want to say "ok that spot is covered" for?
But functionally on the field answering these questions mean more losses than wins and the slow air leak out of the fun balloon we've been playing keepy-uppy with all season. The good times for 2026 are over.
9 comments:
Why Nunez at SS next year and not Seaver King?
So let's look at the candidates to be in the 2027 rotation. If there even is a 2027.
- Cavalli
- Alvarez
- Kent
- Herz (will he be healthy?)
- Gray (same)
now here's the problem with the Lerners. "That's 5 starters right there, didn't you say you only needed 5? Why should we even think of paying all that crazy baseball-player money for anyone else when we already have 5 pitchers? Plus you got Sykora and Susana and all those guys we traded for. What am I even paying you for? You spreadsheet twerps are a dime a dozen."
Given that the team is fairly close to being competitive (unlike at the beginning of the year, when the general was that this team was closer to the worst in the league), I predict that the Nats will spend more in free agency. Not a ton more, mind more, but I think it will be north of 2026 FA spending.
It’s not like they’ve never spent in the past. There seems to be a belief that the Lerners will never spend any FA money ever again. But history tells us otherwise
“General belief” that is
“Mind you”. Wow, should have proof read my original comment!
Nats farm system now ranked 6th, per MLB (best ranking in about a decade):
https://www.mlb.com/news/in-season-farm-system-rankings-2026
Harper, you are exactly right. This last sweep by the Mets is the final evidence that 2026 is a testing ground for the future and not a winning season. CJ to second, unlocks Seaver arriving. Who else are our candidates for addressing the placeholder 3: Vivas, Tena, and Nunez? Why stretch out Lord instead of giving Will Dion the chance, or, even better, let's also bring up Luis Perales. The slots are there if they are willing to put Irving on ice for a few weeks==, giving us Cavalli, Alvarez, Kent, Perales, and a bullpen game led by Dion.....until Early or DJ Herz arrives and we get to re-sort the order again based on performance. If, as we hope is the case, we finally have the frame of a good team, let's be aggressive in giving MLB time to those who are most advanced.
Welcome back, Harper!
What's your take on Abrams to 2B?
On one hand, it is undeniably true that, for any game with both Abrams and Nuñez in the lineup, the team has a better chance to win with Nuñez at SS. But that was true and obvious months ago when the team should have been including current wins among its priorities. That motivation has to be pretty much zeroed out at this point. So why move Abrams now?
My optimistic guess is that they no longer are trying to trade CJ and therefore it's in their interest to figure out where he best fits. It's not at SS, maybe it's at 2B. Nothing more strategic that trying to put together a better team.
And my pessimistic guess is that the final deadline offers were so poor that they convinced Toboni that the risk/reward of showcasing Abrams at 2B works out in the team's favor. That is, he's given up on convincing teams Abrams can adequately cover short, and is now focused on showing that he can handle second.
I'll take the under.
The 2026 Nats spent $53M on FAs (Stras, TW, Littel, Mikolas, and Oga) out of a total salary of $96M.
Do you think we'll see more than $53M AAV in new commitments or more than $96M in total payroll? I do not.
Post a Comment