The Nationals 2026 season is over and finishing at 77-85 with their best record since 2019 is a pretty obvious sign that this was a successful season. More than that, spending a good chunk of the season flirting with relevance and watching the new regime shore up the minors without doing much tearing down of the majors helps give the fanbase some hope that good times are coming sooner rather than later. As we look back in retrospect, the season leaves us with good vibes, though ones slightly diminished by the late game and late season performances.
The former was a failure of the organization to set up a good bullpen. It wasn't supposed to be THIS bad, setting a record for most blown saves, but it was going to have no depth in the majors and no strong back-up from the minors. It absolutely hinged on Henry, Beeter and Lord being very good and they weren't. Lord was maybe a half-step worse than last year. Beeter flashed some talent but never turned the corner to put it together and Henry was hurt and bad and if you didn't catch it was released a week ago. Without those guys being lights out the Nats were left with prayers until the front office did some fixing. But they never did, opting to save cash and weak assets rather than shore up the pen to keep the season interesting. We can argue if that was the best idea or not, but what is inarguable is that we should have similar expectations for next year IF the organization is again seeing the season as building toward something rather than being something.
The latter was for the most part the dealing away of some decent players and dealing with James Wood's injury. The lineup, once carrying the team to .500, was left to be CJ and the other guys. A couple guys stepped up. Chaparro seems to demand a place and Young is perennially showing he's not that bad at the plate. But for the most part they didn't and while the pitching improved a step in the second half it still wasn't good. The Nats skidded to a 22-32 record after about the trade deadline, and that's with a 10-4 finish that was almost all meaningless games against other non-contenders. It was a disappointing finish that didn't represent the season, but the worry is it may represent next.
And that's what the caveats are. This season was a step in the right direction. There were important developments like Ruiz getting his head back on straight and Cavalli becoming a dependable top of the rotation arm. The losses to trade were slim with really only Luis Garcia a guy that you could see on the team long term. The minors are filled with interesting bats and arms that should be showing up in the majors in the next couple of years. Everything is primed for an attempt at a run. All we need to see now is the effort. Do they fix the pen? Do they get another GOOD starting pitcher? I can see them doing nothing for the line-up. Will they need to find places for Seaver King and Eli Willits and maybe a lower prospect like Cayden Wallace or a surprise guy? Probably not ALL of them, but there isn't much space for anything right now outside of a great OF to push the "Well Liles ok, and Young can field but can he reliably hit and do we still want to try Crews?" mediocrity to be a single "ok we'll pick one and run with it" But pitching? They NEED pitching.
Commit to next season with some needed pitching that we can count on, be it FA grabs, savvy trades, or signings we can say "ok that's decent" and this season feels better as the necessary reset / first step in the right direction. Don't commit and come back with another season of "grab some guys, hope something works out" and then this season feels like a taunt. A chance for a moment of brightness with some flashes in the pan like Curtis Mead sacrificed to the altar of the ever rebuild.
The fans are ready and willing to give this organization their full support. Is the organization read to give that same full support to the team?
1. Looking at run differential and BaseRuns, the only plausible conclusion is that this was a massive step forward from '25 to '26. 2025: -212 run differential, -197 BaseRuns, an expected record of 60-102 or 61-101 depending. 2026: -5 run differential, -13 BaseRuns, an expected record 82-80 or 80-82 depending. Note that by both actual performance and BaseRuns, the pitching staff (and not just the lineup!) improved year-over-year from '25 to '26. Note also that 2026 BaseRuns has the Nats, Phillies, and Mets all of similar quality (and the Marlins better than the Braves!). I think this means 2026 will be the last gasp for this aging Phillies roster.
ReplyDelete2. The '26 Nats were not far away from being a playoff team. There's a case to be made that retaining MacKenzie Gore and spending ~$20M on a bullpen would have been enough to get the club into the playoffs this year. Doing both of those things and not trading Jake Bennett probably has the Nats firmly in a Wild Card spot. I would have thought that was crazy at the beginning of '26--we had a three-good-pitcher-deep rotation in-house before signing Griffin. I can't fault the club for the decision to trade Gore given where we expected the '26 team to be and his remaining years of club control (though I think it's fair--albeit premature--to question the return). The decision to trade Bennett is far less defensible, though at the time I thought trading for upside made strategic sense. The decision not to spend a dime on the bullpen is indefensible; it was a bad series of decisions when made and looks terrible in retrospect. The nice part of the '26 season is is the improvement; the not-so-nice part is that this really, honestly could have been a legit playoff team (and not just a team that needed lucky bounces to get in).
3. Putting aside collective bargaining disputes, the FO should be thinking that the '27 playoffs are a real possibility. I am confident they won't repeat the same bullpen mistakes; even a small amount of money will make the bullpen better. There's a surplus of MLB-caliber and MLB-ready infielders in the org. The club ought to trade from this surplus (Chapparro and Morales are duplicative; do we need all three of King, Abrams, and House?), which could return some useful pieces. We need to sign a starting pitcher. Ted Lerner would have the club involved in the Skubal sweepstakes; I doubt Mark Lerner will. I think we need roughly $50M additional '27 starting pitcher salary to be reasonably confident about the playoffs--I don't think we can count on what's in the org to give us playoff-caliber SP innings in '27 beyond Cavalli, Early, and Alvarez (who we should think of as a good 5th starter). I'd love for Herz to prove me wrong but we shouldn't count on it.
It's hard to consider the 2026 season to be anything but an impressive success. They went from a run differential of -212 to +6,* improved 11 games in the standings, went from #20 in runs scored to #3, went from #29 in defensive efficiency (only kept from being DFL by the fact that the Rockies play in Coors Field) to #19, all with the youngest team in MLB. They were youngest by a LOT in position players - not one AB all season by a player 30+ - and even with the now moved elder statesmen in the rotation (Littell; MIkolas; Griffin) had the 8th youngest pitching staff. All of the minor league teams above rookie ball were at (AA) or above (A; A+; AAA) .500 and with actual prospects in the mix. Enough to have the team rated regularly in the top ten, often in the top five across MLB.
ReplyDeleteI'm not inclined to be salty about the supposed "missed opportunity" this season because it's only obvious in hindsight. By the time that 2026 started to look promising it's not at all clear that there were upgrades readily available that would not have cost the team a premium in prospects. Just imagine if they had made a splash in free agency for a couple of starters and a couple more relievers and still missed the playoffs. If they sign a starter, are they able to pick up Griffin? There are several bullpen guys who signed free agent deals and underperformed. Etc. If they sign a "big bat," do they sign Curtis Mead? If those moves had flopped there would be an avalanche of "WHAT THE HELL WERE THEY THINKING?!?" comments on the InterNats.
All that said, this is the hard part. Transitioning from plucky/promising to an actual contender. I held out on renewing my 20 game ticket plan, sending a message to my ticket rep that I needed to see something to indicate that ownership was willing to buy in before I was willing to do so. I did renew after they extended Cavalli, because that's just the sort of thing that we've been calling for. But that's only a first step.
*I'm more skeptical of run differential as a metric than I used to be, because I have to wonder if the increasing use of position players as pitchers has muddied whatever usefulness was in the stat.
Deleteno, don't be muddled. Every team had a position player pitch this Season. So its mostly a wash. Plus the extra of some teams is still a tiny percentage of their innings.
DeleteI do not come and read this site enough. You guys are more pessimistic than you should be. I absolutely believe we will be a playoff contender next year. Mostly because of our starting pitching happening in 2027. Cavalli was statistically an ace for the last 3 months of the season. Alvarez had an era in the twos since August 1 until his last start. But I think the league started figuring him out, so he needs to adjust to continue next year at a high pace. Early has ace stuff and should pitch at that level if he is truly healed. I am skeptical. he may have arm surgery in his near future, but if he doesn't then he will be a young ace. I am sure you all have no problems with these 3 being good to great.
ReplyDeleteOther Starting pitchers: I asked Dan Szymborski over at Fangraphs right before the trade deadline to run his Zips system on our minor league starters and guys recovering from Arm surgery. It said we have over a 90% chance that one of those guys becomes a guy with an ERA in the mid threes or better in 2027. The median was 1.4 guys would become that good. The most likely to be the guy was Herz. His biggest barrier was being truly healthy. Well several months later, he looks healthy to me. He just needs time to get his stuff and command back. I'm betting on him. But, If he does not make it we still Have Gray, Susana. Rosario, Sykora, Cebert, Lara, Kent, Cornelio, Perales, 4 guys at AA, and others I missed that are going to get a chance to be that 4th guy. Our sink runs over with very talented, now healthy starting pitchers, it's a near certainty that one or two will rise early in the season. The rest provide a ton of quality depth.
I have read about everything Taboni has said this year. It became clear to me, our ownership group has someone influential in it that thinks bullpen money is wasted money. So we could get a modestly priced closer or just as likely nobody to help there (Iknow, I know). But he has been very clear that getting ownership to pay for other positions is much easier. So I figure we will get a free agent starting pitcher this off season of medium value as our biggest acquisition. I hope we get bullpen help, but I won't be shocked if we don't. We should get a starter based on my reading of the tea leaves.
So our Starting Pitching corps has a ton of finally healthy and ready for the majors arms. I am confident Butera and company can maximize them. Add in Cavalli, Early, and Alvarez and I see us with a top 10 maybe even a top 5 rotation. That should fill every Nat fan with glee.
Note our starting rotations 3.91 ERA is 10th in baseball since August 1, 2026. That counts openers.
Irvin was not mentioned above, but he should be. He has two choices spend the offseason getting much better, or two becoming a reliever next year.
Deleteif he gets better then our starting pitching is even stronger with all that depth. More likely he becomes a reliever. His curveball is elite. The rest needs to be used or thrown better.
If your counting on your fingers, I have us at least 6 starting pitchers deep without Irvin or Kent. Could be more. That counts a medium free agent (Foster Griffin?). Susana going to the AFL might get us another potential Ace. That was not part of the original zips. So zips maybe pessimistic now.
DeleteI don't think the Nats can do nothing and be a playoff contender in 2027 without lucking into 2-3 developing aces. That includes Alvarez who looked good this year but give me 20 starts and teams time to adapt to him before I buy into him. Maybe they do this but there's more likely to be growing pains. Then there's the loss of Garcia which did have an impact at the plate. It's still a team that's 10 games out of the playoffs.
DeleteI think 2027 could go well, they could get nice development and win 84 games and have fans excited for 2028 but playoffs in 2027 I will stand by it being about fixing the pen with some reliably good arms and getting a starter.
I said we would sign a starter. But we are deep even if we don't. Tons of returning from injury guys that are extremely good pitchers. Watch Susana in the AFL. With more control he could be the Miz good! Our bats will be the issue next year.
ReplyDelete