It's time for my now annual review of where the team got lucky and unlucky in the past season. Understanding this can help figure out where 2027 could go, or where it should go, given return to forms are often seen for people way under or over performing.
LUCKY
Both Curtis Mead and Andres Chaparro well out performed expectations for their half-year of batting. They also got a great bit of hitting from Joey Weimer, even if the Nats were never fooled by it. And Garcia was putting together his best year before being traded
CJ Abrams had the kind of balanced year that you hoped he could have - it's likely not overly lucky but it needs to be mentioned. In here I'd put Cavalli blossoming as well.
In a different way Foster Griffin being that good was a run of luck but that's why you pick up a bunch of guys, to hope something like this happens
PJ Poulin had some solid stats despite the fancy stats saying he's not very good.
Can we say Ruiz is luck? After two horrendous years we certainly can't say we expected it.
UNLUCKY
Wood got hurt, luckily not for long but still at this point unlucky it happened.
Some of the cups of coffee at the end of the year - Ortiz, Ford, - may have had some bad luck hitting it where they ain't
Cole Henry didn't build on last year, and instead was so bad he ended up being released. Gus Varland gave them nothing.
DJ Herz had a slow return from Tommy John and suffered a setback before finally getting some innings in.
AS EXPECTED
Nasim Nunez can't hit. Sorry last year was a weird bit of home run magic unlike his career. This might be low but it's closer to who he is.
Guys like Lile, Young, House, Crews on the prospect side and Vivas and Tena on the vet side produced the "eh" results that would be most expected.
The rest of the pitching, starting and relief, was probably as bad as expected. No money or talent in, no production out.
So what does this tell us? The Nats were a touch lucky this year. They didn't have any major collapses at the plate or unexpected collapses on the mound. I wouldn't say the pitching was lucky, Foster Griffin is basically a quantity win, but the bats were much better than expected overall which jives with the team finding itself with the top offense in baseball for a while.
One thing that's hard to tell, given regime change, is how much of this is luck and how much is process. Did they id better hitters than the last group? Do they develop them better? It's a question that will be answered in 2027 and 2028, not now. Now, assuming all things equal, we should expect a more average offense in the upcoming year. What that means is a bat would be extremely helpful though where to put it is a question. Second would be the obvious choice but there are a couple SS kids you don't want to block the way for. Maybe a 1-2 year vet deal. The Nats might suffer from leaning too much into the House/Young/Lile direction that is probably going to offer nothing great outside of Young's D.
On the mound, it's pretty simple. They need to go out and spend to upgrade the pen and yes, likely add an arm. This doesn't have the caveats that the batting does despite some fans wanting to pencil in a 5-man rotation out of what's here and assume it's playoff worthy. They can use another dependable arm and if the army of choices forces an issue with too many good arms worry about that later. The Nats can't expect to grab 10 mediocre guys and hope it works out. This year shows you - it usually doesn't.
So the takeaway for 2027 is the hitting is likely to drop a bit. You can try to prop it up and hope the pitching surprises, or you can really add to the pitching to cover the expected offensive drop. Given the state of prospects the latter makes a lot more sense to me. Do nothing and you can't expect another surprisingly fun half-season from this squad. It would likely drearily march to 70-75 wins. SO do something. It doesn't have to be a lot but it has to be a 2-3 reliable guys.
7 comments:
Another way to think about unlucky versus lucky for the bats is to compare xwOBA to wOBA. This shows Ruiz and Chapparro as very lucky (actual wOBA for both was .039 higher than xwOBA). Ford was a mild overperformer as well, which suggests we're going to get less offensive production out of the catcher position next year. I think Ruiz's '26 was a big mirage and he will end up somewhere between the unplayable '24/'25 versions this year's version. Ford has more upside at the plate and I expect him to slowly become the everyday catcher next year. Note also that Abrams is a xwOBA overperformer too; I think there's decent reason to think his '26 season is his peak at the plate.
On the other side of the ledger, Crews, House, and Wood were all wOBA underperformers by .023, .02, and .02, respectively. I think we should see (offensive) improvement from all three next year. Wood has the second highest xwOBA in all of MLB (Yordan Alvarez) and the fifth highest wOBA. He's firmly, IMO, one of the five best hitters in baseball and a full, healthy season of Wood could garner a few extra wins next year. OTOH, he's garbage in the OF (worse than Harper or Soto by a large amount) and it's well past time to think there's hope he will improve. He's a DH (or 1B) who can play the OF in a pinch.
I think expected improvement from Crews, House, and Wood is probably enough to overcome expected decline from Ruiz and CJ. Chapparro (or Morales) is fine as the soft half of a 1B or DH platoon.
Finally, the easiest way to see offensive improvement in '27 over '26 is to replace Nunez's 500 plate appearances with a competent MLB hitter...like, perhaps, Seaver King.
I think you can tell yourself a defensible story that the '27 offense will be better even if the club acquires nobody. Even still, I'd want a LH bat to be the strong side of a 1B or DH platoon with Chapparro/Morales. The pitching is a completely different story.
I don't know what the stats say about our DH performance this year.....but it feels like a coherent DH plan is in order. If so, then that helps decide the best position for a new fielder/hitter.
A big question in my mind is how much improvement they think they can squeeze out of House / Crews / Lile. Adding pitching and a veteran bat would probably help the Nats play meaningful games much deeper into the season, and maybe sneak into the post season. But H/C/L aren’t as good as their counterparts on the Brewers or Dodgers. Maybe not better than most of the guys on any of the playoff teams. To be a real contender, our guys need to be better than their guys a lot more than currently stands.
The offense was definitely process. We went from Wagons to Cars in our teaching hitting technology.
House, Lille, and Crews are still years from being 26. 26 is when a players peak usually begins. Until then, they have not reached their potential and you need to be patiemt. Rizzo brought a bunch of players up to soon. They need time and experience. Plus growth is never linear. Some years they wont show much. Although this regime did the same with Kent and brought him up early.
Maybe teaching philosophy had something to do with the improvement of the lineup, but your point about the maturation curve seems more persuasive. I fault the FO for "new guy cleans house" syndrome -- discounting the progress their predecessors. If Toboni had been a believer, the year would have evolved much differently.
Pitching, pitching, pitching. Any forward progress comes here.
Nats need a rotation with strong #1, #2 and #3 starters. Cavalli is the only guy who really fits this description -- everyone else should be considered back of the rotation. Perhaps -- likely? -- one of Gray, Herz, Alvarez, Early or a prospect steps up. A top end starter is needed.
Fixing the bull pen? I don't know where to start.
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