Opening Day - Predictions and what not

I probably say this every March but March is my busiest month of the year for various work and personal reasons.  All I ever want to do is drive down the Florida and spend a couple lazy days watching some bad Spring baseball and guys I've never heard of and I've gotten to do that one time in like 25 years. So it goes. 

A lot happened in Nats world in the past week or so 

Josiah Gray got hurt again - a flexor strain that will cause him to miss at least the first couple months. He hadn't pitched for a while but you never know what's exactly suspicious in Spring, unless it's not seeing Ryan Zimmerman then having a reporter yell at you on social media that the team said he was on the back fields playing, which of course was nonsense.  Memories. Gray is under team control through the end of next year and his injury issues and relatively crappy pitching has kept his salary down, so I'm not writing off seeing him pitch again for the Nats, but I'm done thinking he could be any part of the future. 

We've gone over the Max/Trea trade a number of times but the zero they would end up with from that (Ruiz just packed it in after signing his contract. Gerardo Carillo and Donovan Casey never weres) might be the biggest single reason the Nats are where they are right now - rebuilding after a rebuild. 

 

Dylan Crews got sent down to AAA.  He admittedly looked awful in Spring (3-29, 11 Ks in 34 PAs) but it's also Spring and we've learned that doesn't really matter. What does matter though is the mediocre improvement he made over the course of last year with his last best month being a .225/.279/.375 line. As 2025 went on the "the fancy stats say he's good" narrative sort of went away as those drifted down to match his production. Something here is not right and his college numbers were too good for this to be his ceiling. Hopefully the new org can fix it. 

 

These two moves meant the Opening Day Roster was a bit of a mess.  Gray's injury opened the door for Andre Granillo a mostly middling AAAA reliever that has shown a couple flashes in the past two years, while Crews in AAA means Joey Weimer a 27 yo vagabond (the Nats are his 5th franchise) former mild prospect, starts in the majors. Both of these guys are Rochester but this team isn't deep. 

Nothing happened good with the catchers so we start with Ruiz and Millas. I hope Millas is the 1 but I'd expect a time share unless someone busts out.  

The Nats traded for Jorbit Vivas and he fills the last spot in the IF (with Garcia, House, Abrams, Nunez, Tena and Andres Chaparro). Jorbit is mostly just a guy, but has some minor league moments of interest and is still young.  Expect House and Abrams and Garcia to play everyday. Garica might shift around 1B/DH/2B but those hoping to see Abrams off SS should be disappointed. I'm not sure he played anything but that in Spring. 

This leaves the OF to Lile, Wood and Young. This is putting a lot on Young's shoulders defensively but Wood is your star and Lile forced his way into every day play last year. I thought they might try to DH one of those two but committing Crews to AAA ends that idea for now. 

The staff is Cavalli, Mikolas, Irvin, then you have to think Foster Griffin and Zack Littell leaving Brad Lord on the outside looking in. It's a weird thing to take a surprise gift starting pitching surprise and toss it back in the pen for guys like Griffin and Littell. But in general people were always pretty cautious on the idea of Lord the starter. If he can replicate his success in the pen then the back end of Beeter, Henry, and him has a chance to be pretty solid. The rest PJ Poulin, Gus Varland, Ken Waldichuk are guys who are also in the pen right now and likely mean the front end of the pen won't have much of a chance. Better hope that rotation is better than it seems and gives a lot of 5+ inning games. 

 

The Nats were trash last year and could be worse but likely won't be just because it would be tough to.  The hitting is more likely to be as bad, but leaving it in the hands of a bunch of kids means you can't definitively say that. Is Lile real? Can House click? Will Wood take a step to superstar? All things that can happen that would make the offense a bit better. Still bad but middling not offensive. And the dream of every team every year - maybe it all clicks? There's a decent ceiling here.  

The pitching doesn't have the ceiling of the batting but also was remade to fix the floor. Mikolas and Littell provide more security for usable innings above what they got from their starters last year. If Cavalli is ok then the pitching should be better even if Irvin is just a 5th starter innings eater and Griffin flops in his return. And as I said above, Lord, Beeter, and Henry should all be solid meaning at least part of the pen performs. Still it is a should. 

 With the floor of the pitching raised a bit, it's unlikely they hit 60/61 wins which is what their advanced standings (trying to pull as much luck out of the win totals as possible) had them at last year. I can see them at an earned win total in the high 60s. But that just puts them around where they were last year.

Unless the Nats get lucky in development or the performance of their kids this will be a dull long slog toward irrelevancy, with the goal of the season being the new organization identifying and shedding dead weight. See you in 2027? 

Prediction : 67-95 

Monday Quickie - Halfway through spring and what do we know?

 Mitchell Parker and Andrew Alvarez (unsurprisingly) was sent down to the minors adding clarity to the rotation.  It's funny but we'll talk about "we're not sure what's going on with the rotation" but 9 times out of 10 what everyone thinks will happen, happens.  It's just Spring talk.  The Nats brought in Littell and Mikolas and Griffin to start. Cavalli will start. The 5th slot is likely Irvin's until someone, like Herz or Gray or Susana or Williams, shows themselves to be good and ready, or until he busts and Lord takes over.

On that end Gray has looked good in a couple short outings this spring and is on the quickest time frame, likely starting in AAA just to stretch out. Herz just had his first pen session so is a while off, Williams and Susana still not throwing off the mound. Lord seems fine.  Irvin though has pitched ok too so it doesn't seem like he'll bomb out and lose his spot which can happen to fringy guys in Spring because vibes are as good as evaluation when dealing with mediocre players. 

 If we're talking about Spring in a "we don't know what to do, we'll let Spring decide" way, (which is sort of how Cavalli got the Opening Day start) Clayton Beeter looks like he's setting himself up for a closer role (better yet a shut down 7th/8th guy but you know how these things go).  But  Henry has looked good to. A lot of guys are hitting poorly - sorry no catcher is doing well and we haven't had a decision make itself on DH/1B. Seaver King is having a nice Spring but I can't imagine they'd push his clock up based on a few Spring ABs with a team going nowhere soon.

I guess the question is whether Jacob Young looks ready for his role as likely 3rd but possibly 4th OF after bruising his wrist but he's already taking swing so one would assume he'll be a go for Opening Day. 

The big question remains Catcher. Let's see what happens there the next two weeks.  

 

 

Monday Quickie - Spring has sprung

It feels weird having a Spring without the Post or MASN telling us what's up. Having to go by Zuckerman's updates or official MLB news. 

Anyway Zack Littell signs with the Nats which is good for the Nats but a bit weird. Well maybe.  Littell was a reliever that got coverted to a starter in 2023. He was pretty solid in his half season there and in 2024 and put up a good ERA in 2025.  That masked a pretty mediocre pitching effort though. If you were to describe his pitching it would be "I'm going to put a lot of balls in the strike zone. I'm not going to walk anyone and when I do want you to chase you'll do it but I actually don't make you miss on those chases and what you do hit you hit hard"  It's a weird combination that relies on the fact most balls put into play are outs and is one of those things when guys can hit him hard enough the whole thing will come apart fast.  Like "my last season in the majors I started 7 games and had an ERA of 8.50" fast. But at only 30 you wouldn't think now is when it happens. So why wouldn't a team take a chance on this guy for their rotation. Likely to throw 180 fair innings - that has major league value.  I'm a bit confused. Like you'd want to give a promising rookie a shot over this pile of mediocrity but you also just need arms. You always do! 

Anyway the contract includes a mutual option which is good because it may make him tradeable if he surprises to start as opposed to Mikolas that's just an old pitcher trying to pitch well enough to get another deal in 2027. It's a good move for this team so I can't complain but it does leave the question of "aren't there too many starters now?"  That's fine to me.  That's a good question to have, even if it's just "aren't there too many mediocre starters" Like I just said - you always need arms. The rotation will be interesting in how it sets up. 

Really I'm kind of worried they let Lord, who surprised last year on a team that should now be looking hard at every stroke of good luck, fall back to the pen or into AAA for seasoning or whatever.