The 2025 picture
The Nats sit at 14-18 today 7 games out of first place in the East and 3.5 out of the final WC spot. Of course numbers like this are silly early (everyone but the Rockies are "in it"). Really it's more looking at rank and the teams around the Nats.
In the NL East the Nats have successfully passed the Marlins, but the Braves have successfully passed the Marlins and the Nats after a slow start. Everything is now pretty much where we expected with two of the Mets/Phillies/Braves fighting for the lead with the third disappointing in some way and the Nats over the Marlins at the back end. No surprises.
In the WC, you have the Padres and Diamondbacks and the 2nd place Mets/Phillies team and then a few surprises. The Giants have made a nice jump into one of the better starts, the Reds might be better than we think. And the Cubs and Brewers have flip-flopped with the Cubs securely in first and the Brewers in the WC mess. The Nats are a step behind these types in with the "non-competitors" but looking better than the dregs
IOW - for a team that did little to improve in the off-season, unsurprisingly they are playing out to be a lot like last year in terms of competitiveness - meaning not very.
Individually
A month isn't enough to get a good feel of players seasons but it is enough time for extreme outliers to be looked at to wonder if we hadn't gotten anything wrong in the evaluation of them. IOW - while they should feel some reversion, they may be a step or two better/worse than we thought they were and those bounces won't be as large.
While several young players are scuffling, Josh Bell's start is probably the most worrisome as he was set to be the DH for the season. He's simply not hitting the ball hard at all. He has no speed so if he can't hit for power he's a bad singles hitter. He's making up for it a tiny bit by walking more but that can't nearly compensate. He could be done, not that crazy for DH type closing in on 33, who peaked at merely good and declined last year as well.
A player more likely to be done though is Paul DeJong. While his glove work remains very good he has not been a good hitter in years, and has been actively bad recently. While Bell might not be right in some way, DeJong still sees the ball well enough to make the correct bat/ball contact, but he can't generate enough bat speed to make that matter.
We should also keep an eye on Nasim Nunez, whose time in the majors has been limited but also has not hit in AAA this year. Given that he's never been a hitter and he's approaching an age where you'd expect a hitter to really shine he may never have the bat to matter in the majors. A mild waste of effort for the team.
On the positive side Wood's 2025 has begun with a bang. Lots of them. He is not your traditional great hitter, hitting everything well. Rather he swings hard and gets it right enough to have an extremely positive presence at the plate. As he came up the ranks everyone thought he would be good. It's leaning more toward "superstar" after April.
For our eye-on player Alex Call, while not quite having a full month, is doing very well. A player that has had these stretches in the past and is 30 (31 in September) tends to be less likely to be a break out surprise but we're taking what we can get.
Ruiz and Abrams (limited time) look good. Crews, Young, Tena (limited time) do not. But these are "come back at the end of May" results, not extreme
Pitchers have larger gaps between what has happened (ERA) and what they've done (fancy stats) and less fit in this mold for review, but we'll give it a go. By results Mitchell Parker qualifies as someone who might really be better than expectations. We talked about before why that was unlikely though and his last game basically went as poorly as a Mitchell Parker game can go. Finnegan is good but also is driven by giving up zero home runs without pumping his GB rate or anything.
Instead of these two, I'd lean into Jackson Rutledge, who may or may not be a good reliever but in limited time has shown some flashes and Gore who pitches like an ace enough that you kind of have to believe it can happen.
On the down side is basically "the pen" with Poche, Sims, Ribalta and Salazar having just terrible results. Poche is gone now and Sims should follow soon. The other guys though could revert to being just "last guy in pen" bad.
Trevor Williams, Ferrer, Lopez, Henry all have started slow but again pitching needs even more time to right itself so just stick a pin in these results.
The 2026 Picture
Given this is what they are playing for we should take a look at it and it's not so bad. Wood is rounding into a superstar and no young bat you are counting on is super worrisome at the moment. This could change if Crews has a May like April but let's see that happen. Ruiz is hitting which is good given their commitment to him and lack of another option. In the minors House looks good meaning the Nats could probably have a decent line-up in 2026 bc they'd only have to aim for a DH/1B and an OF (or 2 OF if Wood moves to DH). I wouldn't say things look super bright but you can look at the kids here and see a playoff offense next year with some moves
Pitching is murkier. You do like what you see of Gore and there's no reason to think Irvin/Parker/Lord/etc. couldn't hold down the 3/4/5. But the Nats kind of need an ace or at least a 2nd top pitcher and at least at this very early moment, that hasn't found its way to happening. Even worse Cade Cavalli, who has being counted on as a potential answer, could be hurt again. You can look to arms like Sykora and Susana to fill roles in the future but not really for 2026.
Still "one big bat and one ace" would be expensive but should be workable. Doing that an managing to "fix the entire pen" is a lot harder and right now that seems to be where the Nats organization lies. There is no standout here, no help in the minors, and a bunch of arms you are hoping to find usefulness from before looking for quality. Hopefully May is kinder to Rutledge and Henry and we can reset this
Overall
Honestly I'd say the Nats are where they should be for a team that didn't try very hard in the off-season and had a questionable, mostly "graduating" bat heavy upper minor leagues. They are going to be about the same this year. They are not going to get organizational pitching help. Whether they get much better relies mostly on kids bats doing a lot more than expected and right now that hasn't happened.
As for 2026 you want the younger bats doing well and there's enough of that to feel ok. But you also were hoping for some younger surprises early preferably on the mound, and there hasn't been any of that. So the future doesn't seem any brighter, no dimmer either. It's still at the "could compete, will need significant management buy-in in the form of trades/FAs"
So... on target I guess. Just wish that was this year because it's the same general place they are right now.
8 comments:
The return in the Juan Soto trade looks good. I predict the players we got will end up with more WAR than the 2.5 seasons of Soto that he played on his pre-feee agent contract. And, looks like we got a star in return - James Wood.
I mostly agree with these takes, Harper, but I think looking at aggregate stats tends to be a little bit too harsh on the pen, especially so early in the season. Henry has been great in 5 out of 6 appearances, and very bad once. That's a pretty good track record. No one will be surprised if he breaks, or even if he has already broken, but "starting slow" isn't fair to him. Same goes, to a lesser extent, for Rutledge.
Herz's injury really changes our SP picture, and if you read Cavalli's abridged start pessimistically, there's no internal help coming until Susana and Herz in the back half of next year and really more like 2027. Which means a big dollar FA, and I don't believe the team is willing to sign one.
I actually think the issue is that Crews has had like 8 games (mostly against the Phillies) where he's just looked terrible. He gets a bad call against him early, and then expands the zone 2 feet in that direction the rest of game. Multiple strikeouts on 3 pitches. Just abysmal by the eye test.
To be clear, I do think there's a bias in Harper's pessimism here and I'd estimate Crews's true talent to be around a 110 wRC+ right now, but I think the bias just comes from a visceral impression that he looks completely lost at times.
By FG, Soto's produced 15.3 WAR post-trade. Through today, Gore, Abrams and Wood have combined to give the Nats 12.7 WAR and are likely to outstrip Soto's mark by the the all star break.
But it's even better than that, because you should also account for the fact that Soto made $60M in arbitration after the trade, whereas Gore is the only piece that's even reached arb1 so far.
Zero out Hassell, and remove the Bell for Susana portion of the trade, and Soto delivered $63M of surplus value post trade. Going into this season, Wood, Gore and Abrams already combined to over $70M. And in just 5 weeks of play this year, those three players have generated 3 WAR for under $5M, generating a surplus value of almost $20M. I think those three will likely combine to double Soto's number by the end of their rookie deals.
Indeed, I'm high on Crews. I'd love to see a few more walks and, as SMS said, some better discipline instead of pressing for contact, but overall once he got the jitters out he seems to be doing really well
In other words, he’s a rookie!
I think your review is about right, Harper. I suspect early SSS is Crews' issue as he demonstrates good athleticism. Maybe not a superstar but his floor is probably solid MLB level player. Totally agree with your conclusions- they need a frontline ace, big bat, and fix the pen.
Hey we just won a series this demands a blog post
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