Can Wood and Abrams fight for an MVP?

 Yesterday I said the team was doing as well as it was because they had two MVP candidates in the lineup and everything else followed. Let's see where they stand today 

Wood : .276 / .413 / .551  14 2B, 15 homers, 9 SB (1CS), 46 BBs, 77Ks 

Abrams :  .289 / .381 / .542, 11 2B, 2 3B, 12 HR, 7 SB (4CS), 25BBs, 47Ks

Let's start with Wood because he's pretty easy.  

In 2024 when Wood broke onto the scene with an impressive half season debut, he was close to perfect at the plate. It's clear he identifies strikes well and, when he can make contact, crushes the ball.  2025 felt like a step back but only because there were two Woods. First half Wood was an MVP candidate as well hitting .278 / .381 / .534 with 24 homers. But he began to peter out with a slump early in June and a more extended one from late June into the ASB. He struck out a bunch more and didn't get the lift on balls that he did in the first half cutting his power. The slump continued right after the break and he didn't get back into form until the last week of the season. Without going into the pitching faced a combination of opponent approach and general tiredness playing his first true full season probably explains some of it.  

This season not much is different than last other than everything he was "one of the best" at he's now "Maybe number one" at. The only thing he continues to have issues with is making contact but this is often the trade-off for power hitters and one you take. 

I don't see any approach reason why Wood can't continue to do what he's doing for longer. You can't change your pitching approach too much because he doesn't chase. If we look at 2025 there was a subtle shift further down and away, which seems counter-intuitive to a guy with his reach who hits the ball away regularly but maybe it worked and we'll probably see something like that again. Still I think the real question is stamina and conditioning. Wood is a big guy and in the traditional tall lanky guy aging into a bigger body. It's a conditioning issue he'll have his whole life. What we want to see is how he, and the new org, try to work through it.  At 23 I think seeing if it's just a young player getting into major league workload is the right move. Normal sized guys have the same issues. But the second half of this season could be telling on this front.  If it is something his body needs to work past it could mean a workload that sits at 140 games a year. But a maybe problem for 2027. For now the question is can he keep doing this and the answer for me is "yes, until proven otherwise" 

 

Abrams is a bit more of a unknown.  While he improved from 2022-2024 becoming a decent major league hitter, last year was a lateral move. He didn't improve and settled in as a guy hitting .260 with little patience and moderate power. Not bad, but certainly nowhere near MVP.  What changed? A lot more walks and better contact.  

The walks appear to be a bit of an him approach change - a bit more grip and rip like Wood - but mostly one from the other teams.  He's facing few pitches in the zone, likely in his settled clean-up role with a kid behind him, pitchers are choosing to face the next guy and Abrams is letting them. When he is getting his pitch he hitting it much better but he's not hitting it harder.  Instead he's hitting them... well right.  Hard and at the right angles for the best hits. But again he's not hitting everything harder.  He hasn't improved his angles all that much in general. This is what you'd expect in a sense. X % harder, X% better means something like X%*X% harder and better. But instead he's just having more of these particular good events. 

That leaves this more of a question and it doesn't help that he has a history of absolutely torrid stretches followed by long stretches of stinking. Hitting this well isn't new for him. Hell he's hit better, though for not as long. Hitting well for multiple months isn't new either - he started last year well.  It's sustaining through a full season that would be new and with no real evidence anything has changed if you gave me a dollar I'd bet on some decent regression here. Guys who hit this well in terms of power usually hit the ball a little harder. The saving grace for Abrams is well he's 25 and at this age you get better sometimes. 

 

If Abrams can't maintain MVP status that doesn't mean he's no good, but it does mean to maintain "maybe best offense in baseball" pace that covers for pretty questionable pitching, the other guys will have to pick things up.  Can they? 

Tuesday Quickie : Ok we're here

It's Memorial Day weekend and we're going to be looking at guys with the idea that what we're seeing could be real. Which means, by proxy, we're going to be looking at the Nats with the idea what we're seeing could be real and that means .500 could be real. 

To be fair this all basically hinges on two players. CJ Abrams and James Wood have been two of the Top 10 offensive players in baseball this year.  If the Nats have two MVP candidates in their lineup then .500 is possible because the rest of the lineup isn't great - but it's good enough. And the pitching isn't good - but it's not bad enough to make a team with a two-MVP offense a loser. And more importantly the pitching has been healthy.  That may not seem like much but when the pitching is not good, the pitching behind it is usually pretty bad. The Nats starters have all made 11 starts this year. The carefully controlled Nats relief core has five guys with 15 or more appearances. The dam is leaky and worrisome but has not broken. 

While we dive deeper into all of this that's the basic truth.  The Nats, who as a random chance thing should be lucky to have one, have two of the best players at the plate this season. The rest of the squad just has to be average ish and that's pretty much what they are (except for Nunez) for that offense to sing. The pitching just has to be not as bad as the offense is good to get to .500. That's the balance they are maintaining right now.

Crews up House down and other things

While the Nats have been pretty relatively successful this season so far at the plate , they are not sitting on their laurels. Yesterday they officially sent Brady House down and optioned Joey Weimer to make room for Dylan Crews and Andres Chaparro to come up.  Why?  Well sort of because Jacob Young got hit by a pitch. 

On Monday Jacob Young took a pitch to the ribs. It was apparently pretty bad and he's nursing some bruised ribs. Jacob defensively is the glue that holds the OF together. Lile, although showing a little better this year, is not seen as a great defender. Wood, despite that speed shown off by his inside the park HR, is just bad. Young is one of the better CF in the game and can help compensate for these issues a bit, important for a team already struggling with defense. The Nats 4th OF had been Joey Weimer but he's no CF so the Nats had to dig into the minors. 

Crews is the guy they WANT to be here as a star and he is generally seen as a gifted fielder. After a slow start in the minors, he was hitting much better over the past few weeks - something close to .300 / .370 / .525.  The warning signs of a ton of Ks and limited BBs are still there but he'd only have to keep this up for a week or two more for you to really start thinking about giving him another shot.  Fate made that shot now. Joey Weimer had gone the other way hitting .160 in limited at bats with no homer since April 22nd.  He was always a long shot to be good so this was an easy call. 

But what about House and Chaparro?  That's a little harder to figure. House had not turned the corner this season so far, but he had been better especially in the power department. But he still wasn't swinging well, relying on just swinging hard and the occasional right guess to keep production up.  To make matters worse he was a big negative in the field, a surprise after last years modest performance. So you could see the reasoning behind sending him down.  Let the new org AAA guys get a better look at him and see if they can get him swinging better and his mind back on his glove. The problem is there really isn't a great replacement.  Chaparro was doing modestly well in AAA and is historically just passable at fielding. The must have really wanted House down to send him down because Chappy up is just a roster move. 

 There is of course the specter of roster time manipulation here. If you ARE going to have guys down, teams try to do it in a way that earns them an extra year of cheap service.  If you look at it broadly it rarely matters - they are manipulating guys that usually don't end up stars so any money saved is minimal - but all it really needs is to matter one time. Again - not my money, and they can afford to spend whatever given appreciation of sales prices, so don't do this - but I'm trying to hold back the tide here. And more importantly we don't know if this is how it's going to end up. 

 

In general though I like the moves in a "we're not just running on auto-pilot, let's see what we can do" type of thinking. It's a shame that didn't extend to off-season pitching acquisitions. 

 

 

Friday Quickie : Before you get ahead of yourself

The Nats have been mediocre or worse since COVID (unrelated... OR IS IT) and this year feels different. The young bats are improving to the point you think the line-up can keep the Nats competitive for the season and with some pitching luck... Look we're not talking playoffs here but .500? Or at least best record since 2019? 

But before you take a close to .500 record as a sign of things being different let's remember

2025 :  June 6th the Nats were 30-33.

2024 : June 23rd the Nats were 38-39 

2021 : June 30th the Nats were 40-38 

Starting decently does not guarantee anything other than this team isn't going to be an under 60 win historic loser like the 2022 squad. 

We're edging closer and closer to real evaluation time in terms of stats, but as these season records show us things can go any which way for entire teams let alone players. Hell the very first Nats season - where they surprisingly had a huge NL East lead around July 4th only to finish .500 - should have told you that. Then again I guess you'd have to be at least in your late 20s to have learned that lesson.  

Even if the Nats are closing in on the All-Star Break around .500 there are no promises for a team that doesn't have a history of winning, that's dependent on kids with only a couple seasons of 150+ game rigors under their belt, and an organization with little depth to deal with injuries and a likelihood to want to make some late season trades with an eye to the future. 

Enjoy the .500 but don't expect the .500.  

Is the Nats lineup good?

The Nats have scored 5.4 runs per game in the first quarter of the season.  That just isn't good - it's second best in baseball good. But to Nats fans this feels very weird. Sure they could be better than average if the pieces came through but second best in baseball? If you told me that last year I would have had at least some Dylan Crews fighting for ROY expectations. 

What do the stats say?  

BASE

Average - .244  t10th

OBP - .325 t9th  

SLG -  .411 t6th

HR - 50 t9th

SB -  42 4th

BB - 155 14th  

OPS+ 111 - t5th

These all say the Nats are a little bit overperforming but nothing crazy because they don't really have any holes in their offensive game. Like maybe they shouldn't be 2nd best but Top 5 is reasonable.  

Except for SB this is a huge change from last season.  What happened?  Well - Luis Garcia is still Luis Garcia but he's putting up better numbers at 1B than baseball's least favorite canine Nathaniel Lowe. Brady House is rounding into at least an average bat after struggling mightily last year. Lyle is better than Dylan Crews. Jose Tena et all are at least matching Josh Bell. But mainly Wood and Abrams are hitting like MVP candidates when last year they were solid and above average respectively.  Outside of Nunez replacing Garcia at 2B everything is better. 

FANCY

 Their launch angle as a team is improved (it could hardly be worse) but other than that there isn't much outside of some minor improvements that would suggest getting to average.  

 Some of this is likely the Nats just getting better because they have young players and that's what young players do.  Hit it a little harder, a little better, swing at fewer bad pitchers. 

RELATIVENESS

But here's probably the kicker.  The usual way a baseball season works is April is the worst month for hitting then teams heat up until the end of the season when a combination of not trying, resting for playoffs, and kids brought up bring down the stats again. There are vagaries that can affect this but this is the general way of a season. 

In May 2026 the Nats have been hot in the first third of the season jumping up from .718 to .799 in OPS.  The league as a whole?  Down from .715 to .688. I can't say this is unprecedented but we haven't seen it in recent years. So while the Nats have gone on a hot streak baseball itself has gone dead cold and a team that was about average in April now finds itself in front with a good chunk of the reason being other teams flubbing their expectations. 

WHAT DOES THIS ALL MEAN

For the Nats and their offense - it's still early (remember our Memorial Day pledge for when stats count) but it looks like they are better and the terrible offense of 2025 is at least average thanks to some bounce backs and growth. Expect them to land where you'd expect an average offense to be over the past few seasons. 

For MLB I don't know. Like I said - we haven't seen this.  In April the average OPS was .715.  In May that would rank 9th.  That itself undersells what's going on as the gap between 9th and 10th is over 20 pts.  That's big. Teams are just not hitting.  If that's a real thing and there's a new normal, well then the Nats would seemingly benefit from just getting a better from awful.  It's not about being some universal best, it's all about relative best. 

My guess is though the season will find the Nats drifting down to around the 10th+ range, both as Abrams and Wood settle, as their runs scored match their stats, and as other teams shake off this weird early funk. But still Top 10 ish is better than expected and lends some hope to what 60 days ago looked pretty hopeless.  

 

How real are the starters?

The Nats have had a mixed bag from their starters in 2026 which honestly is a good thing considering "big bag of just crap" was a reasonably good expectation. Foster Griffin is pitching to much better results than anyone could have hoped for. Irvin and Cavalli are hitting about where you think they would. Mikolas and Littell are struggling even with PJ Poulin doing some "Relief starting" in their place. But it;s still early and a game or two in one direction or the other can really effect how things look for these guys.  Which of these results is "most real" and which ones are likely "fake"?

 

REAL 

Jake Irvin - mediocre back of the rotation innings eater. 

Last year Irvin struggled mightily but all his stats are back to 2024 levels. Which is to say not as bad as it looks but also not inspiring. His fancy stats do suggest something better than his ERA but I wouldn't try to read too much improvement into that. His xFIP is middle of the pack but his xERA being down a bit further. xFIP is "in a vacuum"  xERA is in part "with the team you got". He's good enough to put in a rotation but if you are hoping he'll be a Top 3 guy that's a stretch. The question set by the last two seasons - is he more a solid #4 or a hanging on #5? - seems to have the answer of "solid 5". His Ks and homers are probably going to get a little worse but some more outs with guys on base will offset some of that. 

Zack Litell - bound for somewhere other than the majors

Zack is a guy whose stuff has left him and has survived on guile and pinpoint accuracy over the past couple years. That accuracy is gone and the results of that is what you see.  A guy getting pounded. He's got one pitch working and it's a split finger so players can just sit on balls down and hope either the pitch or his wildness takes it out of the zone.  If you want to look on the bright side his last outing was by far his best but guys still hit him hard and got balls up in the air and he didn't throw strikes. 

 

NOT QUITE SURE 

Miles Mikolas - also out of baseball

Much like Zack Miles has been relying on a lack of walks to get him past his declining stuff. Unlike Zack, Miles is a wily multi-year veteran and has adjusted to his lack of accuracy by pitching down more and really upping his GB rate. That's generally good. The problem is when he misses he's getting creamed. If that doesn't stop neither does the trajectory out of baseball sooner than he probably wants. But if it does, if he can keep getting the GBs and cut the homers, well he should be perfectly serviceable. His ERA is already inflated by some crazy bad LOB% luck and should come down anyway.  But down to like 6 or like 4.5? That's what the homers will decide

 

FAKE

Foster Griffin - anywhere near ace

Since he's been overseas Griffin doesn't have a good expectation on normal so we're more reliant on fancy stats. His BABIP is too low to sustain and his LOB% is pretty high. This would be fine if he got a lot of soft contact but he doesn't.  He's hit pretty hard. He's going to give up more hits and give up more runs. The good news is that he should maintain his HR rate which is fairly decent.  He looks more like Irvin maybe slightly better. That's still a fine pick-up. 1 out of 3 ain't bad? 

 Cade Cavalli - middling middle 

Despite being 27 Cavalli's injuries means his experience is light, especially in the majors. His off speed stuff is near elite the problem has been the set up with a fastball and sinker that both have done nothing. That isn't new for the sinker but the fastball being off is what's causing the issue.  Maybe he's being too cautious with it? His HR rate has dropped like a rock despite in general getting hit comparable to last year. Given his experience and prospect status, I'll lean toward general improvement from what's been a fine but uninspiring early season and something more like 2 or happy to be your 3 type stats by year's end. 

 

Honestly - what to do about catcher?

 The Nats at catcher are currently the worst in baseball. In the previous two seasons they were 24th and 24th in wins above position, which tracks with what we all know. They are bad.  They haven't been the worst, thanks mainly to catcher being such a hard position that other teams were complete failures, but now they are the complete failure. Their issues at catcher might be the worst at any position in baseball*

Their main catcher Keibert Ruiz is hitting .182 / .203 / .303. Traditionally a minus behind the plate with the glove, he's managed to be actually decent this year but it's very iffy looking at defensive stats at such a small time frame. Still he'd have to have been turned into a defensive wizard to make up for his bat. Offensively Ruiz has never had power or patience and relied on putting the balls in play and getting hits to create value.  In the past few years though he can't get the ball up any more and he's lost his bats speed meaning he's become a very slow runner who hits weak ground balls.  That's a recipe for... well what you see in that batting line. 

Drew Millas is on the other hand a solid defender, or at least always has been, meaning there's a little less pressure put on his bat to perform.  Unfortunately he hasn't been able to get over even a lowered bar.  He's hitting .148 / .220 / .185.  Similar to Ruiz there's no power in the bat and this isn't something that will come around. He's 28 (over half a year OLDER than Ruiz) and he's historically never hit for power. There seemed to be some hope in 2023 & 2024 that he was a late bloomer and he'd be able to have some weak MLB power but those now appear to be flukes. He might do slightly better than this at the plate but he's also getting around an age you expect some drop off. 

 But the Nats brass anticipated such a problem and made a trade in the off-season for a "ready about now" catcher. Harry Ford has been a solid prospect in recent years and was blocked by the Cal Raleigh so was there for the taking and the Nats got him. The problem is currently he's putting up Ruiz/Millas numbers but in AAA .174 / .287 / .209.  It's the worst he's done in an extended time at the plate in his career and a far cry from his .283 / .408 / .460 in AAA last season. PCL or not that's a big drop. Worrisome his walk rate and k-rate both are going in the wrong direction.  He's not seen as good enough a defensive catcher to stick there for a career (there had been talk of trying him in the OF in Seattle) so there's no point in bringing him up with the hopes the bat catches up.  The good news is the guy just turned 23 at the start of the season so early season blip is completely likely. But that's only good news for the long run not for right now. 

At this point you look for anything and might that be Riley Adams?  Another questionable glove behind the plate his numbers at AAA are not inspiring, but at .216 / 326 / .378 they at least aren't incredibly depressing. He's has shown time and again he's not a major league hitter but at this point "decidedly below average at the plate" would be an improvement. AA offers a couple of interesting choices. Caleb Lomavita is one of those raw talents that you like but needs polishing in all phases of the game. He's not pushing anything in AA so a call-up would almost certainly be a negative. So we're left with Max Romero a 2022 draft pick of the Nats who has legit power, and a tendency to swing a miss way too much with no patience. Currently he's managing a touch more patience and a decent line in AA but history would expect him to get eaten alive in the majors with that whiff profile. 

That's the long of it. The short of it is they got nothing and honestly I got nothing. 

 Usually for a team in this position, you let this play out. But when you are absolutely the worst and you aren't trying to move forward with a true prospect then you gotta do something. You can't just be "we have no plan here other than to suck real bad". It's a terrible look that says not "we're making sacrifices for the future" but "we absolutely don't care".  The fans deserve at least a bit of effort from the front office here. Even if it's just a minor league contract stab at an old name or a trade for someone else's AAA no-name. Give us something that shows you know this is unacceptable. 

*Colorado's SS and the Angels' LF rank as the other possibilities.