The holidays are over and it's time to get serious.
But what does that mean?
For the Nats we still don't know. After the trade of Jose Ferrer for Harry Ford the Nats made two moves.
1) Traded Jake Bennett for Luis Perales. This was a "good prospect for good prospect" trade where the Red Sox looking for a certain type of pitcher, were willing to give up a good prospect of their own. Perales is arguably "more certain" than Bennett - younger, closer to the majors and both missed 2024 with injuries - but we all know not to take that too seriously for pitching prospects.
This doesn't really tell us anything about the Nats management mindset
2) Signed Foster Griffin. This is a chance on a guy that had a great pedigree a decade ago, but he never really clicked as a starter in the majors. Muddled through a bit of relief for a couple of teams and their AAA affiliates, before heading to Japan to reset himself as a starter. It worked so now he comes back presumably in that role. He doesn't give up homers, but he doesn't fool many people either and his control is here and there. It's not 100% clear that combination can hang in the majors - really depends on how many of those balls in the park are hits. A great defense would help and I'm not sure the Nats have one... but maybe they could with some shifts toward that. Nunez at SS. Not having Wood and Lile both in the OF. But that's not been determined
Again not really telling us anything.
What are we looking for? A trade of a guy that could be / should be part of a winning Nats team in say 2027 - Gore/Abrams. Or a signing of someone that would be the same. Some indication of whether this team is in for trying something the next couple year, or not. Once we see that we can set our expectations, not only for 2026 but 2027 and maybe 2028 as well
6 comments:
I think that the Bennett-Perales trade is telling us something. It is a trade of median for variance. That's what you want to do when you're in rebuilding mode. (But then again, I suppose that we all knew this already.)
What does the Wiemer signing tell us? That another OF is going to be traded? Not much room at the inn for him absent a trade.
Nothing the Nats have done so far indicates that they're going to try to be competitive in 2026. It feels like 2024 looked like the rebuild was starting to work, they went into 2025 thinking they might take the next step, and then guys like Irvin, Parker, Garcia, Young, Crews, Ruiz, and House all backslid hard (as well as Williams and Bell) and ownership decided to blow it all up. Because you can overcome a lack of institutional competence with money (eg. Mets), and you can overcome a lack of money with competence (Rays, Brewers), but if you don't have either the team is going to just suck (White Sox, Rockies). So it looks like the Lerners are trying to clean house on the organizational level, figuring that it's the cheapest possible path to success.
(And, in fairness, I'd rather have the Nats be like the Brewers, who have a sound organizational philosophy and excellence throughout their system, then have them be like the Angels, with an owner who'll open the pocketbook but without any actual idea what they're spending on. Of course, we'd all prefer to have our favorite team be the Dodgers, with infinite money spent with sound judgment, but let's leave the pipe dreams behind us.)
Everything the Nationals have done this offseason suggests that their top priority is rebuilding the organization from the ground up, from scouting to analytics to minor league player development to major league coaching and development. It seems, thus far, like Toboni genuinely doesn't know what the organization has to work with, and wants 2026 to find out. Which, if true, is an absolutely scathing indictment of the previous administration. Are Wood, Crews, Lile, House, Cavalli, Herz, etc. genuine potential franchise cornerstones, solid but unexciting players, or just guys?
The longer this goes on, the more I think it's more likely Gore and possibly Abrams don't get moved until the deadline--simply because Toboni is going to want to know what his goals are in what to trade *for.* Sure, we can fantasize about the A's trading us Leo DeVries for Gore, but that's not going to happen, and absent that, Toboni isn't going to know if he wants to be looking for MLB-ready talent or for prospects a few years out, and likewise if he needs to be looking at positions of need or for BPA, until he knows in his own mind what the Nationals actually have to work with. Likewise Abrams: is he a star in the making, whether at SS or another position, with the right teaching? Or have we seen the best of what he is, an exciting but erratic player who works out to being slightly above average?
Which is a lot of words to say, "I don't think the Nationals will do very much this offseason." I could be wrong; there could be a plan in place, but it feels more like the new administration is going to proceed slowly and assess things as they go. I think this is one reason why they offered arb contracts to everybody: they want to get these players into camp and let their chosen manager and coaches get a look at them before making any kind of final decisions.
Which, again, is an absolutely scathing indictment (accurate or not) of the prior coaching and analytics groups. If I'm right, Toboni is willing to spend $1.5M of the Lerners' money to assess what Riley Adams might be worth because he's looked at the information the prior administration left and he--and his own people--can't tell if Adams is bad because he can't cut it at the MLB level or if he's been done dirty by the coaching staff.
Perhaps I'm wrong, but to me, it really feels like there is no long-term plan for the Nats right now because the front office has no idea where the Nats are starting from and what their goals should even be.
Not to nitpick, since I agree with most of that, but Adams signed before the Ford trade, when Adams was clearly top 3 on the depth chart (and top 2 if Ruiz is still dealing with his concussion issues). You need catching depth and our system didn't have better options than Adams, as bad as he is. And I'm pretty sure his deal wasn't guaranteed, so if Ruiz is healthy for ST and they can cut Adams by March 15th, they get a pretty good discount.
I don't read that as a "find out if we can teach him to not suck" deal. I read that as a cheap insurance policy against even worse outcomes.
But Lile and Wood belonging in the OF or at 1B or Dh - they don't know. Abrams being workable at SS - they don't know. Crews and House figuring it out at the plate - they don't know. Garcia and Young - are they as good as 2024 or as bad as 2025 - they don't know. Etc.
And that all provides the perfect cover for an ownership group who is I'm sure thrilled to have guaranteed less money this offseason than any other team in the league. In fact, the causal arrow could even go in the other direction.
@Dezo. It does look/feel a lot like 2024--with management unsure whether it has stars in the making or not. If you look at who has left the Nats by trade, release, and free agency, and done better on their next team: was it natural talent that everyone was aware of (Harper, Turner) or did coaching at the next team fix the hole in their swing, or their miscues on defense? I'd like to believe that better player development would have made more of our premium draft choices into successful players. If Toboni believes that a lot of our players just need to be coached differently, then holding back now makes sense. .
Agree largely with Dezo. My guess: Toboni & Co will be given the cash they want --- but its all premised on allowing them time to figure out what they have first. Analytics is way past the days of basic Moneyball stats used by a few inner circle organizations. Now its ultra complex with dependencies on cutting edge tech and secret software.
The moves made thus far seem to be about adding depth and options -- not adding cornerstone stars. Not sure any single $100M player would bring us to contention at this point anyway. Rizzo's team left a bare cupboard and a weak development program.
Change is good. Lets see if the new team lives up to their promises.
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