The Nats have arguably the best farm system they've had in a long while. It is top heavy, almost entirely powered by the recent trade of Soto, but past top Nats systems were even more so. The talent level is deeper (although that means maybe 10 guys you like instead of 6) and that top talent level is a good bet for major league impact. Maybe small impact but teams are built on combinations of talent.
There's a little Twitter argument spurred on by that fact and this article. Some believe the Nats are in good shape. Others do not.
I lie with the latter. I think the Nats offensively have a decent shot of having a contending offense in a few years. They should have major league usable 2B (Garcia), SS (Abrams), C (Ruiz) and probably two OF (Hassell and one of Wood/Green) Maybe someone else (House?) A couple of these will be better than usable, if the Nats are lucky All-Star caliber, but the big thing is that they are here and cheap. If they are merely average you can spend and get an All-Star 1B bat and an All-Star corner OF bat and suddenly that's a major league lineup.
But pitching wise... I don't know where the success is coming. They have Gore and Cavalli and Grey all starting out this year but I don't think any evaluator is high on any of them being a rotation ace. It's likely 1 or 2 stick around in the rotation as 3-4-5s but getting an ace pitcher is expensive and competitive. I don't see where the competitive starting staff is coming from.
So where as the offensive group has a base there that may make rebuilding a line-up easy or may make it hard but will make it possible, that can't be said for the staff. They NEED Gore, Cavalli and Grey, guys I'm not sure I'd say anyone will definitely be above an in and out 5, to give them two guys at least a 3 or better. I don't see how I can say that looking at their talent, what they've done, their injury history and knowing what I know of pitchers.
There is a path to success. It's the offense stays on the expected track and the owners, whoever they may be, spend a TON to get a lot of starting pitching and a couple bats. I guess that's better than where they were, but I'm just guessing. More to the point it's better where they might have been - no Soto and no these guys but that would have been their own fault. Just like it's their own fault they are here.
Anyway what do you think? Do you think there's a real shot of the Nats being more than a .500 maybe get a WC nuisance in say 2025/6 ? Do you think there's a good chance of them being competitive to the point of people saying they could win a series?
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Over the years Rizzo has stressed starting pitching, repeatedly saying that was the team's intentional and necessary strength. I beleive that is the reason they mistakenly signed Strasburg long term. But since then, nothing. When they traded for Gray, I get the sense they picked him because he was "major league ready," and the team did not want to admit a rebuild. But the team would have been way better off with a couple of lower level top prospects. And the team basically ignored starting pitching this year (Trevor Williams is at best a crapshoot starter). I agree prospects for the starting staff do not look good.
hear me out:
2023: Sell the team, clear payroll
2024: #2-3 starter signing (Manaea?)
2025: Juan Soto reunion and Corbin Burnes
I think Rizzo is trying to recreate what worked the last time — suck badly enough to get some top picks and then spend big on pitching. But he struck gold with Strasburg, Harper, Rendon, Soto and Scherzer. It’s hard to see that happening again. I also have less faith in him since he hasn’t struck gold in a while. But it’s still early. In 2025, Corbin will be off the books, there may be a new owner and the MASN debacle may have been solved.
Question for you. Is their outlook for 2025 better than if they had extended Soto on a massive contract?
My feelings sit somewhere in the middle. In Gore, Cavalli, and Gray, I don't really see them as 5's, I see them as 3/4's. You get a #1 or 2 #2's in FA and that's a solid rotation. And with Corbin coming off the books soon, the Nats will soon have some payroll flexibility to pull that off. Then hopefully you land a couple good picks in the next two drafts when you expect to be bottom dwellers.
I don't see them contending for the pennant anytime soon, but I think a decent foundation is getting laid for 2026 and beyond
As others have said, why does it have to be binary? Yes/No, Good/Bad...when as you note the answer is likely "they have a shot, but the jury remains out."
After all, the Nats bought (Max, Fister) and traded for (Gio) good chunks of their previous window's starting pitching. And a #2 pick in the 2023 draft. Between that and their current crop they've got a framework. Add in Corbin off the books in 2025 and they can start using checkbook baseball to flesh out a rotation if needed.
So I think it's reasonable to think the Nats have a FOUNDATION for a possible winning record/WC conversation circa 2025. That's progress.
Arguably, resolving the ownership situation one way or the other will be a significant factor on whether the Nats will be able to add $$$$ to the farm foundation circa 2025.
Well, the Nats have locked up Ruiz for the next eight years (plus two option years), so if he remains healthy we can check catcher off the wish list for a while. If who he is in 2022 is who he is going forward, we have league average catching at respectable cost certainty; if he improves the team has a bargain. Given the importance of developing pitching (highlighted by Harper), the part of his game I most hope he can develop is his defensive end, especially things like game-calling that aren't readily measured in WAR.
I'm not sure that I'm as pessimistic about the young pitching as Harper is (I mean, Gray was projected to have a #2-ish ceiling, though obviously the guy he is right now is definitely more of a #5, and I don't know why we'd writing off Gore and Cavalli before they've even had a chance to pitch a full season). Even so, I do think we need at least one of the three to end up better than "meh"; they don't need to be an ace, but a decent #2-3. I can see the Nats buying an ace in FA, but not going full Mets and snapping up an entire pitching staff, and I can't see them buying that ace to anchor the rotation without something to tie that anchor to.
As mentioned elsewhere, the Nats rise mixed some good trades and some extraordinary luck. As much as Rizzo talked about starting pitching, there was relatively little internal development of that resource. They wisely let Zimmerman go and Strasburg was a no-brainer. Except for SS, the World Series starting rotation was free agent.
The teams current position core is solid, as Harper says, but not yet stand out. Starting pitching? Not a bad core of youngsters. Right, none are likely to be #1 or #2s. But you have to like the current group if they wind up being 3, 4 and 5.
There may be one or two positional All Stars a few years away in the minors.
When new ownership comes in, they will want to make a splash. Two front line free agent starters, a mashing first baseman and a strong hitting corner outfielder could make a playoff team.
A player like Soto might bite when new ownership decides to make a splash. He will appreciate that Rizzo put him onto a playoff team rather than keeping him as a BB machine on a DC lost cause. He may like the idea of a return to DC.
Gotta be optimistic.
Past MO has seemed like drafting with an eye to trading. To be ready for '25, of course a few things have to fall right 1) current players stay course to being avg. ) the 3 current pitchers can be starters. 3) they draft tradable players - not draft from need. 4) new ownership spends in the $200m range for at least the first three years. With that,sure 25/26 could be a fringe WC. Also, what other teams are tearing down then? Phillies? Marlins?
Is there any hope that the presumably high draft pick coming after this season will be a valuable contributor by 2026?
Nats didn't "buy" Fister, they acquired him in a trade. At the time Fister was referred to as a steal, but the centerpeice was Robbie Ray. Not sure it was a steal for the Naats.
I am shocked - SHOCKED I tell you - that Harper's take on the Nats is the pessimistic/glass half empty take.
If the Nats' pitching prospects develop into solid #2-#4 starters and the team goes out and buys an ace as they did in 2015 the rotation could be just fine, thanks. We shall see.
As for giving up Robbie Ray in the Fister trade, I will note that Ray was terrible for Detroit, and after being traded to Arizona was bad for two more seasons before having his breakout season in 2017. After that he was (charitably) mediocre until his 2021 CYA season in Toronto. So in hindsight it wasn't a steal, but it certainly wasn't lopsided against the Nats. Fister was great for the Nats in 2014, including getting their only playoff win that season (outdueling MadBum, the only hiccup in MadBum's amazing postseason run that year).
Both Ray and Giolito turned into good (sometimes great) MLB pitchers after being traded by the Nats. The Nats therefore gave up good value in both trades, and reasonable minds can disagree whether those trades were worth it, in retrospect.
However, any counterfactual analysis (i.e., what if the Nats kept both of them) must be constrained by the real world as it actually existed at the time. Both guys (a) took some time to develop, and (b) required that development time to occur at the MLB level. My conjecture is that said development could not possibly have happened on the Washington Nationals from 2014-2020. The Nats were competing for division titles throughout that entire stretch, and there's just no scenario where they would have run a 6.00 ERA Giolio out there every fifth day.
So, for me, ANY counterfactual analysis of Ray and Giolito on the Nats includes them being traded rather than sucking at the MLB level for a team competing for a playoff spot. The important Q is whether the Nats got enough value in return for the trades they did make compared to the trades they would have had to make later. My sense is that they did about as well as they could for Ray, but probably could have gotten more for Giolito+ than Eaton. But Eaton was on the team that won the WS, so who cares?
Harper. How about a rundown of present and ex-Nat performances in the World Baseball Classic. Joey Meneses was a major factor in Mexico's take down of the US (with Schwarber and Turner). Roger Bernadina made his presence felt on the Netherlands team which was narrowly edged out (5-way tie decided by run differentials). Soto and Candelerio on the DR team. Just a few that I've noticed --- must be a few more...
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