Season Over - A success but with caveats

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?  

Wrapping up the season a little Early

Connelly Early goes tomorrow. The return in the Curtis Mead trade he's been hurt most of the time since then with elbow stuff. It may seem weird to let him start when they just shut down Cavalli to avoid a strange last second injury but Early is still stretching out post injury and was likely to make one more AAA start so why not give him something in the majors?  He's already pitched 90 innings this season so it's not like this matters. 

It's a deal neither team won this year, and the second deal with the Red Sox.  In the first one Boston has the lead as Luis Perales has some crazy stuff but he hasn't harnessed it yet while Jake Bennett is an important piece of the Boston staff.  I really don't like this "Nats helping Boston" thing so please let's win these trades in the end. 

OK last weekend.  Let's play some good ball! 

Or if not let's watch the Astros/Rangers fight for their playoff lives. 

Cavalli sits - anything to worry about?

Cade Cavalli just signed a 4 year "extension".  I used those quotations because it was really a one-year extension, buying out the first year of Cade's potential free agency. With his performance it's hard to think of a situation where they wouldn't keep him on the roster the next three seasons to finish out their control, even through injury.  Assuming he can make it through 2027 without major incident this contract is a bargain for the Nats.  Cade of course takes it because it secures the bag.  Lifetime "never have to think about money for me or my family again".  You'd think oh he made like 10 million that should do it but work it out and that's kind of "ok with smart planning and no stupid spending you should easily be ok the rest of your life" money.  He goes down at age 30 and that's like a 250K salary for the rest of his life.  That's good (well maybe not when he's 60 the way inflation is going) but it's not like "sitting on an island having a butler bring you food from your private chef" good. 40 million though? Hey Jeeves, tell chef I want a hamburger and fries.

Anyway Cavalli earned it by being like one of the top 20 pitchers in the league.  Maybe it doesn't feel like it because you can imagine a scenario with everyone healthy where he's more like Top 50 but that's not really true. Looking at all the pitchers with 100 or more IP, he's 13th in K rate. That's great! He's 35th in HR-rate and 46th in BB-rate. That's good!  One great and two goods is a top of the rotation pitcher if not a dominant one. The fancy stats suggest he might be getting a touch better results than expected (his LOB rate is a touch high, his HR/FB rate a touch low) but also there isn't much history with Cavalli to go on.  He's a GB pitcher and those types tend to have higher LOB and lower HR/FB rates so maybe this is his normal.  He's still a say... 3.50 ERA type at least and if that's not Top 20 it's 20-25ish with the innings he gives. 

Anyway Anyway Cavalli is missing his last start. The Nats say it's because of the innings increase.  He's at 170 now, last year he threw 120 which was about as much as he's ever thrown.  So this is true. It's also true the games are meaningless now outside of draft order and lottery odds. He has a history of injury. He's thrown as many starts as nearly anyone in baseball.  I think this is a gross scaredy cat move.  Scaredy cat because it's a "look we don't want him to get hurt in the last start of a meaningless season so let's pull him" which I get but also if that's your opinion just pull everyone and tank after elimination.  Except you can't and you really shouldn't because as a fan I think that's gross. Fans deserve a full season of play not 145 games then watch some exhibition you rubes 

But a lot of that comes from a lack of trust that they are really building for something. Show me the effort and I'll show you the grace. Do something this off-season. 

Monday Quickie - Better than a lot of previous years!

Over the weekend the Nats secured wins number 72 and 73.  Win 72 ensured their best record since the magic year of 2019.  Win 73 keeps them from losing 90 games, a nice symbolic line to cross.  There's no doubt this Nats team is the best Nats team of the past few seasons, probably the best since 2021. That team ended up with a worse record but was on track for mid 70s in wins before dealing all their good players but Soto at the trade deadline. 

This team isn't quite a "normal bullpen" from being relevant, but that's almost true.  They should be fighting for .500. So the team is close... ish.  

Really it's year dependent.  In some years you can take the last playoff spot with 83 wins* In other years it will be closer to 90. So you really want to aim for the high 80s in wins for the next step which means adding about 8 wins or so. That's a lot! That's like adding the Cy Young winner to your rotation or the MVP candidate to your line-up. 

And we're probably overselling the team a bit here.  It's a team that should be fighting for .500... with 2/3rds of a season of Luis Garcia and Foster Griffin and Curtis Mead. And sure you can say "but we won't have bad player X!" but the truth is you'll always have bad players. It's replacing the good players that matters. So maybe 10+ wins.  It's going to be quite a jump needed. 

And that assumes everything holds. For the Nats that's mostly ok. The bullpen isn't going to get worse. The rotation holding comes down to Cavalli not getting hurt. The line-up though.  They HAVE to keep CJ.  Ruiz can't return to pre-2026 form.  Wood has to stay healthy.  

But at least we're talking about it in a way that doesn't seem crazy. There will be legit discussions on how to make this happen in 2027.  I don't think the team will make it happen (I get the sense this is a 2028 plan that includes the best of the minors having an impact) but it'll make the off-season more interesting at least. 

*Weird division winner situations excluded. 

Answers and Questions

We're getting to the end of the season.  What has been answered (I think). 

Catcher - After a mid-season Keibert Ruiz slump Ruiz has hit again and no one has pressed him at all. So he'll be the starter next year while they cycle through some of the same guys and some new ones as a back-up/future catchers. 

RF - James Wood - duh

??? - Daylen Lile and Andres Chaparro.  They've hit and they're cheap.  I imagine at least one if not both will be starting next year but with DH open we can't say for sure where. 

SP 1 or 2 - Cade Cavalli - It's been way undersold how consistently good Cavalli has been this year.  He's a top 20 pitcher for a te

SP 3-5 - Andrew Alvarez - he's been stretched out a bit at the end of the year and he's looked good.  I'm not saying that will hold in 2027 but it warrants a trial. 

RP - ? - well look there are a handful of decent arms and some of them will be back. But there are no numbers that are wowing you and no super young kids so who? Not sure. I'd bet on Lord, Dion.  etc. 

What remains questions... well everything else. 

I know Abrams is good enough to be starting next year but I can't be sure he won't be traded. 

Now this IS better than last year, where it was basically Wood and Abrams and ???. Maybe you were a little more excited about Lile and had a little more hope in the relief arms but catcher was a mess, Cavalli wasn't set and let's face it - relief is just a guess and you can never really know with question marks. 

More importantly the minors look a better as well with Willits and King taking the place of Crews and a bit more depth.  If and it's a big if, IF Susana and or Sykora come back from injury and look good in 2027, well you'd have to say the Nats will be a step ahead of 2026.  75 wins? There's work that can be done getting from that to the playoffs. 

But that's assuming no Abrams trade and that the work will actually be done.  

RECORD SETTERS LAST PLACE

What a goddman joke end of the season. 

Shut up and enjoy your rebuild fans! Buy your season tickets for next year because we swear we will try then!  

How low can they go?

When the Nats traded a handful of good players* it was thought that it would hurt but the Nats weren't going for anything anyway.  Get some more ABs and IP for some kids and get ready for 2027.  But the Nats just haven't been bad, they've been one of the worst teams in baseball - and for a while now thanks to the loss of James Wood to injury. An 8-20  worst since July 28th.  A 24-38 third-worst since June 16th. 

Are you not entertained? No you are not.  

What about the kids?  Well unless you love Andrew Pinckney and near 26 year olds having a good 20 PAs there aren't any kids at the plate doing well. The Nasim Nunez can't hit issues are not that bad because the Nats have a handful of MI at the top of their minor league prospect lists. Dylan Crews though. There's been a fun little thing on social media since Wyatt Langford came up first that the Nats made a mistake** and there's been a vocal Dylan Crews army defending him. That group has gotten a lot quieter over these past few months. 

I think I mentioned a few months ago how absolutely STACKED that draft ended up being in retrospect and it's quite possible Crews ends up being like 12th or 13th best out of the Top 16 players drafted that year.  Currently he sits at 8th.  Skenes and Langford, then Nolan Shanuel, Matt Shaw, Jacob Wilson, Rhett Lowder and Kyle Teel 7th with 2.0 bWAR.  Crews is at 1.1 in about double the playing time. So I'm not enthused he's catching up soon. 

Behind Crews is Bryce Eldridge who should pass him be the end of the year, Max Clark who came up in the past couple of months and is htting better than Crews at a much younger age. There's also Walker Jenkins who is one of the top prospects in the game and is tearing up AAA, who'd I bet on. And if you twist my arm I'm also taking Chase Dollander to have a better career who was looking like a top-mid starter but went down to TJ surgery. 

That would leave him at 12th.  Tommy Troy is a question mark - I don't love him but he does play SS so he'll get chances. This is about the same with Jacob Gonzalez. So split the difference and Crews is 13th best. One of these two is behind him along with Blake Mitchell a KC draftee C that is young (just turned 22 but is striking out SO MUCH in high A right now. It's not Elijah Green numbers but if you are pushing 35% in A+ that's scary for AA, let alone the majors. And Noble Meyer, one of those great arms that can't get under control and is also injured now so yeah don't like those chances.  But he'll get the reliever trial in a year or so so who knows. 

Anyway I got off track. Crews stinks. I get why they picked him but pee-yew. Sometimes the peach is just rotten on the inside. 

Pitching wise - it's hard. You know a lot of very small samples. For the ones that weren't Dion looked good up until last games implosion. We'll see what the next one brings. The one kid getting starts*** Jackson Kent has been bad. We'll have to look back later but nothing to get excited about.

So no winning, no good kids. A depressing slog toward 2027 where maybe the depth of the organization comes through and with Wood back... or maybe they trade CJ over the winter because there isn't anything saying next year could be a break out. Sigh.   

  

*Mead - broke wrist, might be back late September. Griffin - being Griffin. Garcia - being Garcia 

 **yes, an understandable one, imo, but still one. 

 ***Cavalli looks good but he was already here. Alvarez has been fine but he's 27/28 next year. Not a kid.