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.

Monday Quickie - Where are we with Keibert?

One of the great questions for the Nats going into the season was "what the hell are they going to do at catcher?" Keibert Ruiz had been terrible for several years and the pipeline for catcher was as weak as any position for the Nats, with newly acquired Harry Ford being the next hope that was unlikely to pay off. 

But something funny happened this year. Keibert got good (well at the plate) and the pipeline started filling up. 

On Keibert, arguably this version looks a LOT like what you'd have expected Keibert to be like back after 2021.  A low-power contact hitter who's worth was tied up in his average but who could keep that number up over .280.  While May flirted with something more, that was more likely just all his power concentrated into a single hot month, and this is more who he is. A guy at the mercy of BABIP but when you put that many balls in play, it still works out. 

Of course Ruiz has never been a great reciever and while his framing looks better now (honestly I bet more a function of the auto-strike zone taking some off of this skill for others) he's still at best just hanging on. But if a guy can hit .280 and hang on... well that's ok. 

The organizational depth is more interesting and Ruiz not crashing out this year means the Nats have a little time to check it out. Surprisingly enough (or not really if you know where they really sat as prospects), it's not Harry Ford (rapidly looking like a AAAA player - though still just 23 and a half) or Caleb Lomavita (struggling to hit in AA still under 24 I guess though it's more impressive for a guy getting MLB at bats like Ford) that we are looking at. 

Maxwell Romero Jr was a going nowhere C prospect drafted in the 9th round in 2022.  After getting the "you are too old for here" promotions up, he hit terribly in 2025 and it was probably expected 2026 would be his last year in the organization. But what he could always do was hit for power and this year he got his average up enough (over .240) to get the "ok you are old and we are interested" push to AAA where he's been hammering the ball. Granted it's been just a month of games but it's enough to make you take notice. 

Kevin Bazzell was a third round draft pick back in 2024 and last year wasn't kind to him. But he wasn't completely outmatched and things must move on for older college draftees, so he got the same "move up because" push as Romero. Starting in High A this year Bazzell did ok, which earned him a push to AA where in a few games he's been absolutely on fire. 

Now before you get excited these are very likely to be small sample size situations. Both these guys are older given their level or Lomavita than Ford (Romero over 25 and Bazzell basically Ford's age but just getting to AA).  Neither of these guys are top notch catcher either. In fact the Nats are basically full of guys that aren't really catchers, but are there because they can hack it.  So no there isn't a pipeline of depth here ready to be dealt for help in other positions. 

But given Ruiz is signed reasonably for a few more years, it seems like where we are is he gets to hold down the spot while all this shakes out. Likely shakes out to nothing, true, but the grimness that existed before getting Ford is now replaced with a sense of hope. Something could work out here, there's enough quantity.

Monday Quickie - Dead Cat bounce is done

The Nats are done for the season.  

In reality they were done for the season at the start of the season and the way the ownership approached the building of the team should have made that clear. But as we didn't expect anything from the season we didn't know they were committed to NOT trying until that actually became an issue. 

The Nats right now are were the management expected them to be.  A team stripped of the usable veteran parts they picked up with one "star" bat in the lineup, though if you asked them that star would have been Wood with Abrams traded and not Abrams with Wood injured.  Still I think it's a good sign they didn't trade Abrams and recognized the team, at least offensively, is closer to competitive than not. 

 What's next is 1) taking care of James Wood and 2) doing their best to answer questions about the team for next year. Who's got a slot taken care of and who will be fighting for a role next year.  You can see what they want offensively - Ruiz at C, Abrams at 2B, Nunez at SS, House at 3B,  Wood + 2 of Young, Lile and Crews in the OF, a couple of bats from Chaparro, Ortiz, etc. make themselves favorites for 1B and DH. Pitching is more of a mish-mash : Will anyone joine Cavalli in the rotation next year? How many of these RP look like guys you want to say "ok that spot is covered" for? 

But functionally on the field answering these questions mean more losses than wins and the slow air leak out of the fun balloon we've been playing keepy-uppy with all season. The good times for 2026 are over.