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.  

Monday Quickie - wait I thought the offense was good?

 Sorry it wasn't.  Moose outside shoulda told ya. 

This is what the offense looks like when Wood and Abrams aren't hot.  Pretty terrible, right?  Let's hope neither gets injured. 

The Nats have a record that looks pretty typical of a blah team. They get beat, but now blown away, by good teams and hold their own against everyone else. But it's still early enough I wouldn't read into that. I mean, they play the Cubs now instead of the first three games when things are really anyone's game and you don't expect them to take the series.  We'll see but the back half of May is shaping up to possibly be the important run.  Four more games versus the Mets - who if they are every going to get back in it will have had to go on a little run into those, three against Atlanta, three against a perfectly cromulent Cleveland team, and three against San Diego.  I feel like where they stand at the end of that will be a pretty good indicator of the season as a whole. 

But before that they got the Twins (bad but a little unlucky), Marlins (.500 ish), the Reds (maybe the luckiest team in baseball but the tides been turning recently), and the Orioles (stink!). This is the sort of run you want to end up better than you started if you aren't among the worst teams in the game. 

The Nats grabbed another arm - Zak Kent.  Just sort of a guy who can miss some bats.  

This is a real quickie this time. That's it. 

The James Wood timeline

 James Wood is 23 years old and after a disappointing finish to last season where he hit .223 with 7 homers after the break while striking out 105 times in 269 PAs, he's back to meeting high expectations. The early season is always full of wild variation (Currently a Nats team with Alex Call, Dom Smith, and Ildermo Vargas would be DESTROYING opposing pitching staffs) but Wood is the seventh best hitter in MLB by OPS+ and the 5th youngest in the Top 50*.  He's a guy you build an offense around and the assumption is the Nats will do that. They HAVE to or else what the hell are we doing here? 

If that's the case the Wood will start getting paid in 2028 and will probably need to be wrapped up no later than 2030 though the sooner the better. And if THAT'S the case then the Nats have no more four seasons to figure this out and anyone looking to get paid before the Nats decide to go in is likely going to be paid by someone else. 

I'm going to guess and say that won't be clear by the end of 2027 so anyone who's a FA after this or next year we should consider gone. This includes every FA pitcher (that's fine) and it includes Luis Garcia.  Luis is for the most part a perfectly acceptable part and he's actually still young (turns 26 in a couple weeks) but losing him probably won't be a big deal. 

The FA class of 2029 and 2030 are the issues. 2029 has CJ Abrams who is unarguably the Nats second best hitter and just an overall fun guy to watch. If he wasn't out of position at SS he's be an easy plus player and someone ELSE you build around. Even as is it's hard to see getting rid of him because the current third best hitter on the Nats is either likely flash in the pan Weimer or competent Daylen Lile.  There are other guys who might come up but there's no guarantees and CJ can hit in the majors. There's no doubts about that. The plan going into last year probably did have CJ traded away but it also had Wood getting a sidekick in Dylan Crews. If not him than Brady House or maybe a bounce back from Hassell. But Crews crashed, Hassell proved to be a AAAA type and House's development has been slow, if steady. Abrams be 28 in 2029 so he should have one solid contract in him.  Can the team afford to trade him? Wouldn't that just mean signing someone else anyway?  One good bat is clearly not enough. I think the situation dictates keeping Abrams as well with a long term deal soon. 

2030 is when Cade Cavalli hits FA. Now with a pitcher and this much time you can't really say much but right now he looks major league front of the rotation capable and he's the only non-temporary FA arm you have starting games .  Guys SHOULD develop. It'd almost be impossible for them not to. But who and when and how good? It's all up in the air. Still I'm not sure you sign Cavalli long term.  He's a pitcher. This is further off. And most importantly, the guy will be 31 in 2030.  A long term deal for a pitcher at that age is risky.  Not stupid like signing a guy at 35 for 3+ years but it's a gamble. This is one we're just going to have to watch and see if the situation forces the Nats to keep Cade as the guy bc either he develops into a top of the rotation arm or there just isn't anyone else.

 If you are like "this isn't a lot of building blocks, Harper" you're right. But the alternative to not signing Wood is a third rebuild in a row. The Nats punted on trying with this group as-is when they traded Gore (younger than Cavalli!) who if not better than Cade is easily more reliable.  That was an admission they weren't going to compete through 2027 and didn't want to pay Gore a big paycheck.  Ok but there has to be a timeline and a plan around that timeline.  Wood getting PAID feels like the timeline. You want to be competing when he's getting his money. How do we do that?  I think we start not by trading CJ but by signing him. After that though - it's a lot of prayers.

 

*Wood will be 24 on Sept 17th.  DET's McGonigle (13th) is 21 until August 18th, CIN's Stewart (16th) is 22 all season, KC's Jensen (37th) is 22 until July 3rd, OAK's Kurtz (49th) just turned 23 before the season started.  Wood beats out Cardinal rookie Wetherholt (41st) by a week. 

Monday Quickie - Foster-ing ideas of greatness

The Nats keep chugging along four steps forward, five steps back, and last game Foster Griffin shut down the White Sox. Ignore the White Sox for a moment, any chance the fancy stats say something is real here? 

No.

Griffin has pitched a lot like Jake Irvin but his BABIP sits at .233 (abnormally low) and his LOB% at 90.3% (abnormally high) and so they aren't scoring the runs off his that they "should". He's not getting a crazy amount of GBs (could be better) or avoiding hard contact (no one really hits him softly).  Poking around here and there I see barely anything. What I can say is his off-speed stuff is good, but his fastball is crap.  He's a junkballer. The ERA is an illusion and he's just fine.  But hey!  Just fine is... well fine!  

Two things to wonder about this week

Nasim Nunez is showing you why he was available in the Rule V draft and also why the Nats picked him up and kept him.  His defense is outstanding and I wouldn't be surprised if playing the whole season at 2B he ends up the 2nd best at the position (Nico Hoerner is truly something) but the guy can't hit. He is among the weakest swingers in the game and he also has an issue making good contact. This would be a bit more palatable at SS where his D would help more and CJ Abrams is a bad fielder. It makes too much sense. Why don't we move these guys around please? 

I don't know what is to be done about the catcher position.  Ruiz is still terrible. Millas hasn't done anything with his chances. Riley Adams, who they are only keeping around as org depth is doing nothing in AAA.  Harry Ford, who they hoped would hot start himself into a solution, is doing less.  Caleb Lomavita... well he's hanging in AA but he's clearly not ready for the majors.  Kevin Bazzell, the "hmmm maybe this is a savvy draft pick" from a couple years back is looking like a 2028 Car Dealer of the Year. As Olivia Rodrigo (new album drops in June) would sing - it's brutal out there.

 Oh since I'm in the minors anything of big interest early? 

• Gavin Fein - the "this is the good guy they got from Texas" hurt his wrist and hasn't played in almost three weeks. 
• Seaver King looks good early in AA - not shocking but exactly the improvement across the board you'd hope for after last years middling half-season. Similar take from the couple years younger Luke Dickerson a couple levels down. 
• Landon Harmon has started hot. Might need a bit more stretching out but seems too good for the Fred Nats already. 
• And what of Dylan Crews?  Still lost. In real danger of being a can't miss that missed.  

James Wood - Star, Superstar, or HOFer?

James Wood has 9 homers in his last 18 games. I don't do math real well* but I think that works out to 81 homers for a season. He's also walked 19 times which would be 171 walks for a season which would be fourth all time. Yes it would come with.... carry the two... 207 strikeouts (t16th all time) but if you are doing the first and the second, the third doesn't matters as much. 

Now James does seem to be an early season guy.  Could be the effort of running around for 150+ games in that huge body wears you down. In 2025 he was great in April, AWESOME in May, and great in June before having a very average back half of the year. I wouldn't be surprised if we see something like that again, but let's not make it a definite trait just yet.

James seems to be settling though into a "better Adam Dunn" path.  Before you poo-poo that understand that Adam Dunn was a two-time All-Star, three time MVP vote winner, who hit 462 homers and is Top 50 all-time in walks. (and left on his own terms when he possibly could have squeaked out a couple more years)  "Better Adam Dunn" is then a guy, if he can stay healthy, who's going to make several All-Star teams, be perennially in the MVP discussion (would probably be so already on a better team), easily clear 500 homers and be in the Top 200 offensive players of all-time. Do you take that or are you really going to angrily demand Top 100 offensive player / HoF potential, or bust? 

I'm not say he couldn't be that but then I think we've got to see something improve here. Either defense (a young Reggie Jackson, a fine HoF comp for Wood, was a decent defender up to coming to New York - so basically half his career) or average (though it may not look it because the late 60s early 70s were bad for hitting, Reggie was usually Top 25 in average until the last third of his career. For a more contemporary comparison, Bryce Harper's** low end overlaps James' high end). Which seems more likely? 

I don't know.  It's not that he can't play better defense. He's clearly athletic, hasn't looked bad at times, and the numbers for this year (which are admittedly practically meaningless when you best evalutate D over multiple years) look ok. He's got a good arm which fits better in RF. But he seems to lack the instincts for the game his speed not showing up in below average range. Defense usually doesn't age well and that's before you consider the body type of James Wood, more standard gangly tall guy then weird "15% scaled up big human" Aaron Judge. 

But the average doesn't hold much more promise. It is only going to get better if he cuts down on his Ks and frankly that's not his game and you shouldn't be sure if you want that to change. If gripping and ripping with a elite level of location identification is what gets him 40, 50 homers a year why would I try to mess with that? If that's even possible. 

Could he maybe be better at SB? He IS fast and still young enough to take advantage of it. While his instincts aren't great looking at his major league SB/CS numbers, I'd like to see him get some real schooling on this. He's on base so much it could be a real advantage. 

James doesn't quite line-up exactly with the HoF comparisons (which is why we started with Dunn). He likely has a patience advantage over Reggie, who didn't walk as much as you'd think.  He likely has a power advantage over Bryce who never became the league leader homer hitter type he projected as. Perhaps Best Adam Dunn IS a HoFer. 

Anyway, this is all a rumination on a guy who is again someone we are talking about as "He'll be great!" and trying to figure out how great that means. As the season racks up more losses than wins and more "prospects" than not flame out, enjoy this guy.  He's real. 

 

*Not true. I do math real well.  

**Yes, Bryce is a HoFer. Like not TODAY if he spends the next 3 years hitting .200 with no homers, but assuming a healthy season he'll go over 400 homers and Top 100 offensive players sometime next year at age 34. That's real close to a lock with whatever else he can do over the back end of his career after that.  

Tuesday Quickie - NL East works for the Nats

The Nats are fun team this year. 

 Well sort of. 

 If you like high-scoring baseball you are in luck because the Nats are scoring the 3rd most runs in the game, almost a run more than average. Also the Nats are allowing the MOST runs in the game, over 1 and a half runs more than average. That's a losing combination but it's an entertaining losing combination. 

 What adds to the fun is pound for pound the NL East is starting the season as the weakest division in baseball. Meaning the Nats issues aren't putting them in last place staring up as they would be in the NL Central, or in the middle but a good distance from third as they would be in the NL West. They are bad but other teams are worse and other teams that expected to be good are worse leaving the Nats relatively feeling pretty good about themselves. 

The Braves are running away with the division right now and the stats have a team that is the 2nd best hitting team in baseball with the best staff.  That'll do it. The Braves staff is getting real lucky. Their rotation is pitching to a 4.00 ERA but seeing a 2.50.  Their relief corps has four guys with ERAs under 1. But the key is more staying healthy than doing silly things as injuries derailed last year.  Offensively Dom Smith (yes Nats legend Dom Smith!) can't be this good nor Mauricio Dubon but they haven't gotten what than can from Acuna. C Drake Baldwin being a star makes a huge difference from a position you are usually hoping for mere non-embarrassment (Ruiz... failing at that)

The Marlins are an average squad in their results.  They've put together a nice reliable starting staff, but with the same soft underbelly issue in the pen as the Nats. The offense is literally full of guys you never heard of having wildly different years from Otto Lopez looking like an MVP at SS to Heriberto Hernandez and Graham Pauley doing whatever that is called with the bat. It's seemingly more smoke and mirrors than the Nats so maybe the Nats can be 2nd place for a while. 

The Phillies are struggling everywhere. Bryce and Schwarber are still stars but their homegrown "talent" continues to disappoint. Alec Bohm and Bryson Stott in particular. When the lineup is four batters deep pitchers can work around that. The starting pitching really isn't this bad though. Basically bad luck right when it can't be washed out in the full season sample.  They should be better but unless the offense clicks I'm not sure they will be playoff good. 

The Mets, in the midst of a 1000 game losing streak  are pitching perfectly well.  There are some ups and downs with the vagaries of the early season but it's a perfectly reasonable playoff staff that is middle of the pack now and should be better. The offense is a mess though. Lindor is in one of those extended slumps he can go through and Bichette looks lost.  Brett Baty and Mark Vientos, guys they were counting on to be average are just bad. This puts a lot on Soto's shoulders... and he's out with no good replacement. It shouldn't be this bad and it won't be, but I'm not sure it will be good. 

The Nats are in a nice spot then I guess. The Marlins have a slightly better record but should come down, possibly a lot.  The Phillies and Mets are worse and should come up, but maybe not as much as they need. It's a bunch of games against opponents that shouldn't knock the Nats around.  FWIW the Nats are probably not this good relying a lot on Abrams and Wood and luck to score runs to cover for a bad staff. But the record is fair. this is a team that if lucky gets to 70 wins. And maybe this year in the NL East that keeps them in spitting distance of 2nd place.