Offseason Position Discussion : 1B

2026 was the year of "Let's Try with Nasim Nunez and Brady House". Why does that matter?  Well with CJ Abrams set at SS that meant House was at 3B and Nunez needed to be at 2B. And THAT meant Luis Garcia needed to be at 1B.  Potentially the freedom to not worry about the defense of 2B let Garcia think about hitting more and he had his best year at the plate, blasting past his career high in homers even before he was traded. 

But yes he was traded leaving a hole at first filled with whoever was around and that was mainly Andres Chaparro, though youngsters Yohandy Morales and Abimelec Ortiz both got time at first as well. Ortiz, a fast riser, struggled.  Morales, a long time "hmm this guy looks better than we thought" prospect, looked good. Chaparro leading the way looked honestly great.  

Presumed Plan : 

Andres Chaparro starts at first. If he struggles Morales picks up the spot.  Ortiz back to AAA to maybe earn a spot depending on who falters at 1B and DH. 

Reasoning behind Presumed Plan : 

Chaparro is on the clock and if the Nats don't see him in their future then they probably see him as potential trade bait and that needs to be showcased if it's going to get the best return. Anyway you look at that you see a guy playing.  That doesn't mean he has to play 1st but 3B will likely be House again, who put up slightly above average numbers after a dismal start, and you tend to cycle at DH more than first.   

My Take :  

It's tempting to hand the spot to Yohandy who has proven himself at every minor league level and is younger, thus more likely to be the future, but denying the half-season Chaparro when he has also consistently been better than AAA would be a mistake.  One mistake teams make is thinking "we have too much good" when usually that is only true for half-seasons where the right number of people are healthy and a couple guys are having good runs.  So focus on the proven good here. 

Also, probably more importantly, Chappy's good was over 228 PA compared to 47 for Morales.  Morales also was putting up HR/FB rate where every third fly ball was a homer.  If he keeps that up he's the greatest home run hitter in history, so I'm going to say chances are he won't. 

As for Ortiz - prove it. 

Offseason Position Discussion : C

The Nats ended last season with a choice.  Ruiz looked cooked. Millas looked maybe passable. Was it time to cut bait on Ruiz and let Millas have a go at it, maybe with a cheap veteran back-up?  The powers that be thought not, likely citing the fact the Nats still owed Ruiz a decent chunk of money (for them), and decided to go with a platoon for 2026. 

That platoon looked like dead men walking in April but in May Ruiz got hot and late in the month took over as the starter. He'd follow with a good June as well and despite a tepid July came back with a good finish to hold the job for the whole season and set up 2027.  Meanwhile Millas never got going and was replaced by trade return Harry Ford who also proceeded to stink.   

Presumed Plan : 

I'd bet in how the season ended.  Ruiz starter, Ford back-up. 

Reasoning behind Presumed Plan : 

As we said in years before last with Ruiz, if you have a usable catcher you use him.  Catcher is a hard position to fill.  After last year there is no reason not to have Ruiz start again. Unless for some reason you get rid of him he's the starter

The back-up is a little more muddled as Millas blew his chance and Ford did not make his own claim.  There are two interesting players in the minors, the out of nowhere Max Romero and the drafted hoping he would hit and he did last year Kevin Bazzell who could see time at the position next year. There's also Caleb Lomavita who if you asked 6 months ago who was the future of catching for the Nationals would have gotten the nod.  He's a ways off though.  

The team has shown itself to be more slow and steady so I think they'd like to see if Ford really isn't ready for primetime and how "real" Romero is with more time in AAA. Romero full time in AAA though blocks Bazzell into regular AA duty to give him ABs keeping him further off.  The line is forming.  

My Take :  

Yeah sure.  I think the Ruiz start is an easy call. You have a catcher. That catcher can play.  Let's not get cute here.  

I don't see any reason to continue with Millas who at 28 last year was "starter or bust" and busted. 

I would like Romero over Ford. Ford's claim to the back-up spot is mostly inertia. He was highly thought of as a prospect and drafted in the first round then proceeded to shine in rookie ball. After that he handled every promotion but never wowed. You could say he needs time to adjust and that might be true. You could also say we're not quite sure what his level is and that is also likely true. An honest evaluation of 2026 though says Romero deserves the time in the majors. This might be different if Romero was a well thought of prospect who's been groomed for years to take over the starting role. The type of guy you want to enter the majors with everything working for him. He's not. He's a flash in the pan you want to see if he'll catch into a fire. You don't need to protect guys like this. Test him out. See what happens. Maybe you get lucky. If Ford is going to be good he'll do well in AAA and you can worry about the "too many good player" problem* later. 

*which is often hypothesized and used to explain moves fans are hesitant for the team to make but never seems to actually materialize  

Who ya got?

 OK I've been away for too long. I'll pick it back up. 

Nothing jumps out at me about these rosters that say Nats. Although a lot of current Nats were former Rays as former Postie current Sun..nie? Jesse Dougherty notes today 

Personally I'm in for the Brew Crew. You? 

Lucky or Unlucky : 2027

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.

Nats in the playoffs! Well former Nats at least...

Potential Nats related rooting interests in the opening round...

 

Philadelphia vs Atlanta

Ok so not a real "Nats friendly" series here to start with given it's two NL East rivals. 

The Phillies have Bryce who did nothing wrong but fans still dislike for being a bit weird and going to a rival.  They also have Kyle Schwarber and Trea Turner and former Nats prospect Jesus Luzardo AND Derek Hill who played 13 games for the Nats in 2023. It's Nats-tastic!  

The Braves have Dom Smith and Lane Thomas who is currently hurt.  Also Sandy Leon and Reynaldo Lopez both played for them this year if you want to see those guys get rings. 

Seems like if this matters to you the Phillies are the choice.  

 

White Sox vs Astros 

White Sox have old friend Erick Fedde while Lucas Sims, surely you remember ol Lucas it was just last year, and Derek Hill(? yep traded to PHI) played for them this year. 

Astros are Nats-free.  

BOOO! Just another reason to pull for the Sox. The GOOD Sox. The REAL Sox

 

Boston vs New York 

Traded Curtis Mead is still out for the Red Sox and Joe La Sorsa and I guess we gotta throw in Connolly Early played on the team this year. Weak sauce

Just a solid player Luis Garcia is the obvious one, traded to them this year. Useful Amed Rosario is also there. In the same Early sense both Yovanny Cruz and Jake Bird pitched for the Yankees in 2026. And don't forget they have Nats hero Trent Grisham. 

In honor of John Sterling... theeeeee Yankees WIN!

 

Cubs vs Padres

Cubs only had "Hurtin'" Hunter Harvey pitch for them this year. 

Padres only had "Hurtin'" Lucas Giolito pitch for them this year (nickname doesn't sound as good) but do have both Robbie Ray and Nick Pivetta on the team 

Looks like you should go with the Pads.  

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.