Offseason Position Discussion : 2/3rds of the OF

The Nats have two of the most highly touted OF prospects in their system. 

James Wood, received in the Soto trade, blossomed through the minors nearly exactly as one would hope culminating in a .353 / .463 / .595 line over 52 games in AAA last year.  He deservedly got the call up earlier in 2024 and while he wasn't an immediate phenom he acquitted himself very nicely finishing the year with a .264 / .354 / .427 line. On a per game basis he was the 2nd best bat for the Nationals*. We must note he did have issues in the field, but not to the levels the Nats are already looking to move him. 

Dylan Crews, drafted #2 overall in 2023, didn't impress like Wood.  He rocked single A for a couple weeks, but initially struggled in AA, improved enough to get a call up to AAA then hit decently there. He got the usual rookie September call-up and looked like a rookie, but at least to start 2025 he should be playing in the OF. His defense looked good, if not the amazing defense promised, and he ran well as a bonus.

Presumed Plan : 

Wood will start in left field.  Crews will start in CF or RF depending.

Reasoning behind Presumed Plan : 

Wood looked like a major league hitter already. He makes a lot of good hard contact. He runs well as seen on the basepaths so the assumption is he can learn to play a better LF where his instincts looked off. Certainly at 22 you don't want to already resign yourselves to playing him at 1B/DH 

Crews looked like a major league fielder and baserunner, but of course a lot of guys do.  His hitting was a little disappointing, as it has been in the minors, but he'll only be 23 next year and he's just a couple years out of college. It would be nice to give him a little more time in the minors but the Nats really want to see what they can do sooner rather than later, so they aren't waiting on the perfect moment. Crews CAN go now, so he's taking his shot in 2025. 

My Take :  

Wood has basically already proven himself. The question is not really if he will hit in the majors but how well will he hit and at what position will he do it from.  The Nats would rather he play the OF than try to learn 1B or be forced to stick him at DH so he'll get his chances there probably for several years. His skill set suggests he should be good, but I'll remind everyone that said something similar about Juan Soto (though he's not nearly as athletic) that Soto didn't improve much. Chances of Wood being a good fielder are getting slim. The good news is that he doesn't have to be. If he can be average his youth will let him hold down the position for a long while AND the Nats have some very good fielding OFs. If they go something like Young / Crews in the other positions, Wood will be asked to do less. 

As far as the bat goes - he has the power. He just has to get under the ball more. He hit 55% GBs last year which is fine if you are a slap hitter. Wood's legs and just how hard he hits the balls means a lot of hits from those but everyone is hoping he turns more of those singles into doubles and doubles into homers. He does strike out a lot but that's modern baseball. That's something to keep an eye on this year. If teams can exploit that, but it's something to note, not worry about. 

Crews is a bit more of a question. The guy can play CF and can run and so he's got inherent value beyond the plate. That was good in 2024 because he didn't hit very well. Given his brief minor league history you have to wonder if he is going to be special or not. It should be fine if he isn't, but the Nats (and fans) were clearly hoping for special. Of course there is still time for that and some of his peripherals suggest the great hitter is in there.  His contact and eye are both good and he also could hit a lot fewer GBs (56%) which would translate into more power... probably. Crews didn't barrel the ball as you'd like and we're going on a year and a half of "where's the pop" 

It sounds like I'm down but I'm not. Crews is a highly touted prospect developing on a normal pace. He might be great still. He might also still miss, though not in a "terrible never make the majors" sort of way. That the Nats are looking at him in 2025 and it's only a little bit of a stretch is good. He only looks bad in comparison with guys like Wood and Langford, who make it look easy. Compared to most other drafted hitters he's well ahead. That's why he's a highly touted prospect.

I'm not exactly sure why he had to come up when he did. But if their plan is to get a full picture of the state of the team by the end of 2025, I can see it. You'd want Crews to play a bulk of 2025 in the majors. Might as well let him get his feet wet first. And what's the alternative? Another 1 year FA to try to flip?  Garrett and Young and see what happens? Eh.  I can't really complain here.

 Tomorrow starts today. The Nats future is now.

 

*Behind Jesse Winker

Offseason Position Discussion : Third Base

If you are inclined to be angry at the Nats for bad decisions, third base in 2024 provoked you to a near fury.  The Nats went into the season with a two prong strategy (note that this is the perfect number of prongs to stick in a socket and electrocute yourself), third base would be split between "never prospect" Trey Lipscomb based off a minor amount of competence shown in AA with just a bit of surprising pop, and "crashed and burned" former 2nd pick in the draft Nick Senzel who had been given a solid chance by the Reds and hadn't progressed past "bad".

Guess what? This didn't work. In August and September Jose Tena took the position and hit pretty well.  He fielded like crap but based on all reports on him that was an anomaly.  It ended up a real black hole for the Nats after just last year being a pleasant surprise with Jeimer Candelario.

The idea though is that this was a bridge year to the Brady House plan that takes place at some point in 2025. At the end of July that looked like Opening Day but Brady House hit .228 / .261 / .339 the rest of the way making that look unlikely.

Are you ready for another season of the Nats punting?

Presumed Plan : 

Tena holding the position until House is ready.

Reasoning behind Presumed Plan : 

With Vargas now gone, Tena should be the super-sub but he's the only one on the team who played 3B last year. That makes him the leader in the clubhouse. As DH/1B are noted issues without an hopeful solution in the minors coming up soon, they deserve more of the FA look.  Tena wasn't bad at the plate and should field so you play him and hope either he comes through or Brady House starts like a House on fire, or both and things just work out. 

They will need to find a back up though. Do they carry Trey Lipscomb for that? Just stick with Andres Chaparro who is a subpar defender? I'm not sure they know and they might be looking for FA to find the answer for them.

My Take : 

This could be trouble.  They really didn't want to be in punt mode again in 2025 but Brady House didn't push through enough to make you want to bring him up and neither of their low-rent fixes surprised. They are now stuck with a minor mid-season trade surprise to try to keep up what he did in 2024 while getting back on track with the glove. This has all the makings of another year of this position being one of the worst in the majors. 

But I don't know what you do since all expectations are that House will be given the chance to take over the position at some point. You either go all in on a solution or you hope like a Jose Iglesias or Donovan Solano falls into your lap for a couple million. Sure those guys might fail to hit againbut it's worth a few million to see. 

There IS an all in solution in Alex Bregman who will demand and get a big long salary as the best option at the position by a good margin. The Nats could do that then let 1B/DH figure itself out and worry about where House goes later - or maybe even trade him off. I don't think that's where I want the Nats to land even if he is the #2 position player available. He's just not the gamechanger the Nats need, imo. This offense doesn't need solid - which is what he is now

Offseason Position Discussion : Shortstop

Shortstop was a wild ride for the Nats in 2024. CJ Abrams started hot, cooled down, then got even hotter.  Halfway through the season he was hitting .286 with 13 homers and 5 triples and he was named an All-Star.  But he cooled down a lot heading into the game and stayed ice cold through August. He was picking things back up in September when he was seen at a casino very late at night and put up a bad game the following day. 

*WARNING I AM GOING TO ASSUME SOME THINGS ABOUT WHAT THE TEAM WAS THINKING HERE*

Rizzo, seeing this as an embarrassment to the team, used it as another teaching lesson and sent Abrams down the rest of the year. 

Overall the position was neutral for the Nats. Abrams did end up hitting well for the season as a whole, his wild positive swings outweighing his wild negative ones. However he still isn't a great shortstop in the field and that truth, at a position where that might matter most, holds his value down. Still "neutral" might have been the best position all season for the Nats, such is where their offense stood in 2024. 

Presumed Plan : 

CJ Abrams with someone backing him up.  Nunez? Tena?

Reasoning behind Presumed Plan : 

The good outweighed the bad. 

The position isn't a problem.

To do something with Abrams now that isn't just "let him play and try to figure it out" seems like unnecessarily causing yourself an problem that doesn't currently exist. 

The Nats have other options. Jose Tena was surprisingly good at the plate in a short audition with the team. Nunez looks like he could be a Gold Glover at the position. Brady House looks ready to move to the majors. But at 24, a former top prospect and an All-Star just last year, I can't think of a good reason to abandon the plan that had Abrams as a long term answer somewhere in the Nats infield. 

As for who backs him up... depends on what the Nats value I guess. It seems they didn't want to go with "steady D, poor bat, good veteran presence" which is what Vargas supplied. So it'll be a choice likely between Tena, Nunez, and House, likely in that order as House is more likely up to play 3B full-time, and Nunez is likely in AAA to work on hitting.

My Take :  

Yes, when Abrams is bad he's real bad. In 77 games in May, July and August he hit something like .190 / .255 / .300 with 7 homers.  With subpar defense you are looking at one of the worst players in baseball.

But the possibilities of Abrams are intoxicating. A guy that can hold down SS hitting .300 with power and speed? There's a reason he was a top prospect and over 48 games in April and June he hit something like .330 / .420 / .640 with 11 home runs. 

At 24 it's reasonable to think he can improve a bit, and even if he just settles the high and lows into a 110-120 OPS+ guy that can field SS and provide some excitement on the basepaths and little pop? That's a solid player that solves a tricky position through 2028. 

I do worry that Abrams got on the team's bad side and will go through a Robles like trial of having to prove himself above and beyond what other players have to do. Or worse, they are ready to deal him out for SP help hoping that the mix of other guys internally available will fill the gap. But we don't know that yet and we can't worry about something that might happen. 

Abrams is the SS. He has potential to be great. He should be good overall. Let's just let it play its course in 2025.

Monday Quickie - Walker talk

MLB trade rumors and Mark Zuckerman both have the Nats in the Christian Walker sweepstakes or at least have the idea that the Nats should be in the Walker sweepstakes. You know I agree. Rizzo has already said basically "don't expect anything before the Winter Meetings are done" but things are fluid.  Such is FA baseball time. 

The other "Nats should do this" floated out there was picking up Anthony Santander. Mainly because he has power and the Nats lack power. 

There seems to be some sense that the SP market will be tough this year so that'll be interesting for the Nats, who really should grab someone. 

OK position stuff continues tomorrow

 

No Vargas?

Vargas (and Joey Meneses) hit the FA market.  I am surprised for all the reasons I noted below. 

It's seems pretty good they are moving on.  Likely this means they see Jose Tena as the future utility man as he is a lot younger and has the potential to hit a bit better.  His defense is right now probably comparable to Vargas which actually shows well for Vargas who is 8-9 years older.  I'd expect that he would be worse in his late 20s but that's half a decade away. In the meantime there's really no downside unless you think Vargas' clubhouse presence will be missed a lot.  Joey was also kind of liked from what I could tell so we'll see. Winning makes guys feel a lot better about the clubhouse without clubhouse guys needed. 

Monday Quickie - FA season has begun

Lot's of opt-outs, options declined, etc. Let's go!

For the Nats the main thing that happened was they declined their Joey Gallo option. That was the only option on the table for 2025 and his performances was bad in the off-year Gallo way, which is to say OMG TERRIBLE HIDE YOUR EYES so this is no surprise.  We wish Joey well on whatever team picks him up for peanuts and hops that they can squeeze one last good year out of him

The Nats really don't have to do any funny business now. They have enough 40 man spots open to eat up the IL players that need to be back on. They of course, won't all be on the 40 man at the start of the season but for now they go back on and they'll drip back to the minors as the off-season progresses. Mason Thompson, Cade Cavalli, and Nasim Nunez are easy return to the minors choices as you have to think they start the season there.

It's all looking forward, except for maybe Rule V.  They have to protect Hassell this year which you would expect them to do.

In general the Nats have not been early movers and things don't get going until after the Winter Meetings (Dallas Dec 8-11) so as interested as we are it'll likely be a waiting game until then.   But if you are interested some of the bigger pre-Winter Meetings moves the Nats have made in the Rizzo time frame

• pre-2013 : Traded Alex Meyer for Denard Span. 
• pre-2019 : Ill-fated Trevor Rosenthal signing, not ill-fated Kurt Suzuki signing, Trading for Yan Gomes, Signing Patrick Corbin
• pre-2023 : picked up Jeimer Candelario

 

Funny that their WS year was the only year filled with early moves. 

In other news, Jacob Young did NOT win the Gold Glove he probably deserved (but the winner wasn't a chump) 

Offseason Position Discussion : Second Base

Garcia opened 2024 in a precarious position. After taking a mild step forward in 2022, he did not have a good 2023 at the plate. Toward the end of that year the Nats, as they are wont to do, singled Garcia out as a player to make an example of and unexpectedly dropped him to the minors. If you are thinking I'm misjudging the situation and he deserved it as part of a larger issue with concentration - the idea of him being "sloppy" or "making too many mistakes" just isn't backed up by the data. Don't feel bad, even I bought into some of the spin they were putting out. Turns out though he made real improvements from 2022 to 2023 both on defense and on the basepaths. No, this was a guy simply not hitting who the Nats wanted to hold up as a warning sign to young players. This is what they do.

He did not hit in AAA or at first when brought back up but perhaps the Nats ploy did work in the end because Garcia hit great in the last two weeks of 2023 and better than he ever has in 2024. This includes a scorching July and August where he hit .like .340 with 8 homers. I think most importantly though the Nats didn't try to make him more selective and let him hit. Walk-rate down, K-rate up but a LOT better hitter. His defense continued to improve and he had another solid year baserunning. In no aspects was he great but he was good all around from the start of the season and secured the position for himself for 2025.

Presumed Plan : 

Luis Garcia Jr will man 2B with Vargas backing him up.

Reasoning behind Presumed Plan : 

After C, 1B, and DH you might think the Nats are in big trouble, but really that's was just a bad starting point for the team. They have several things set pretty well for 2025 and second base is one of them. Garcia Jr isn't one of the best second baseman in the game but he might squeak into the Top 10 and he's most certainly not a problem. We talked about it a little in the start of the off-season. He hit the ball a lot better. At 24 he can still improve so this is a no-brainer. 

The Vargas back-up call is about flexibility. Vargas not only played 2B and 3B but SS and OF when needed. That kind of positional flexibility is very nice to have.

My Take : 

Not much here. Garcia has solidified himself at 2B. It's possible he has an off-year again and the Nats sour on him. They do seem to focus on players in this way. But Garcia has generally looked ok enough that you shouldn't consider him a problem. Last year there was a question if someone would push him from the minors, either Lipscomb/Kieboom straight up or a shifted House. The first two didn't push and House didn't shift. With no one pushing him from the minors he's set. I don't think there will be any disagreement from the rabble.

Vargas is a nice defender.  Best at third but being able to fill in late on D at even SS is a boon for a team who have a bunch of guys that look like they should be good on D but aren't. Plus by all accounts he's a great clubhouse guy. Shame he can't hit at all, but at least he does make contact. Weak, weak contact, but contact.  In terms of issues, "utility infielder could hit better" might rank last on things to fix so while it could become a drag if the Nats suffer any long term injury problems, for right now Vargas makes sense. Worry about fixing this if you are making a title push and want no holes.