Here’s the four month check-in with all our top 20 (and some) prospects. This mostly does a July focus on the prospects being mentioned, but sometimes mentions season-long stats, which are as of 8/1/25 as best as possible.
This is our prospects as I ranked them prior to the season: If i was to re-rank prospects today a big chunk of these guys would be graduated or moved. Plus, we picked up at least six guys who will feature in our top 30 at the trade deadline; i’ll put those after the top 20 in a special section to highlight their pre-Nats stats.
#1. Dylan Crews OF (CF): Missed all of May and all of June with oblique issue, but is finally doing a rehab assignment in AAA and should be back soon. Was not hitting well before hand. Temperature: on ice, 2026 possibly a lost season.
#2 Travis Sykora RHP (Starter): What a turnaround; in a month’s time he went from a promotion to AA to needing Tommy John surgery. Temperature: on ice til 2027.
#3 Brady House 3B: Is now firmly entrenched as the 3B starter, improved his slash line in July to .270/.276/.392. Only walked once in the month; that has to improve. Needs more power too but he’s trending well. Temperature: Hot for making majors, warming up in the MLB.
#4 Jarlin Susana RHP (Starter). Seems to have dodged the TJ bullet so far with his UCL Sprain; done a few rehab starts and should be back in full-time action in AA by mid-August. Temperature: hopefully warming up soon.
# 5 Seaver King SS. Another awful month for King: .221/.282/.286. I just can’t help but think that he’s been over promoted. Yeah he was a 10th overall pick, from a big conference. But he’s just not cutting it in AA. It sure looks like we got screwed in this draft: Konnor Griffin (taken just before King) is now the #1 prospect in the entire minors per Baseball America and MLBpipeline. Rainer (taken just after us): #34 by MLBpipeline in Detroit’s system. Montgomery (the guy I really wanted): #26, in AA as well, .800 ops for the season jumping up 3 levels instead of getting over-promoted to AA before he was ready. *sigh*. Temperature: cold.
# 6 Yohandy Morales 1B got hot in a hurry in AAA: .292/.360/.510 slash in July. Nice. If he could present as a legitimate 1B/DH type in the majors, we could stop buying veteran retreads and hope they turn into a trade asset. His picture reminds me of the great Michael Morse, by the way. Temperature: warming up nicely.
#7 Cayden Wallace 2B/3B: improved in July from an awful June but is still bad: .219/.301/.356. MLBPipeline has dropped him 20-some spots in their rankings, and I can’t believe i ranked him #7 in the system this spring. Phew. Temperature: ice cold.
# 8 Cade Cavalli RHP (Starter): 0-5 with a 7.50 ERA, a 1.71 WHIP and a .340 BAA. We’re running out of excuses for Cavalli upon his return from 1.5 years off. Tommy John recovery isn’t 100% guaranteed. Temperature: Not impressing.
#9 Alex Clemmey LHP (Starter): only made 3 starts in July thanks to going to the Futures game. He took a small step back in those three starts but still was solid for the month. I wonder why the team hasn’t promoted him this year; its not like Wilmington is in a playoff race. Temperature: staying hot.
# 10 Robert Hassell III OF (CF): After getting demoted from MLB after his initial call up, Hassell didn’t do what many do (which is struggle, pout, or otherwise underperform): no: he frigging tore up AAA this month: .341/.439/.473. This has earned him a return to the majors and more playing time. Can’t ask for anything more. Temperature: scorching in July, now back in the show.
#11 Caleb Lomavita C: Not a great july: .246/.269/.338. First full pro season as the full time C in Wilmington may be wearing on him. Temperature: cool.
# 12 Luke Dickerson SS: has hit a wall in Low-A: he slashed just .197/.244/.276 for the month. He’s still starting, despite the promotion of rising prospect Angel Feliz. After such a promising start I sure hope he’s not hitting a wall already. Temperature: cold
# 13 Andry Lara RHP (Reliever): has been kept on the 26-man roster as the “Tanner Rainey” of 2025: the 8th guy out of 8 who only goes into the game if the team is winning or losing by more than 6 runs. Lots of “8-GF in an 8-1 loss” type logs. And he’s getting hit. While in AAA in July he wasn’t exactly Sandy Koufax either. Eh: he’s still only 22. Temperature: cold.
#14 Tyler Stuart RHP (Starter): He left his 6/28/25 start without getting out of the first, and it was announced this week he’s undergone Tommy John. Poof: see you in 2027. Temperature: on ice for a while.
#15 Daylen Lile OF (CF): he’s now exhausted rookie status with more than 150 PAs, and he’s holding down a starting job in the Nats outfield. He now has a 97 OPS+ for the season. Can’t argue with that for a 22yr old. Temperature: hot for getting there, warming up a bit.
#16 Kevin Bazzell C: finally found his footing at the plate this month: .288/.383/.327. Where’s the power? Zero homers this season in Low-A as a college Jr draftee from a big school. The team is keeping him as the Catcher nearly full time; just a few DH games so far. Temperature: warming.
#17 Jake Bennett LHP (Starter): They babied the hell out of him in his come back, but he’s now off rehab starts and back in AA where he belongs. First two AA starts? Not good. Shelled. He needs more time.. Temperature: cold for now, hopefully warms up.
#18 Brad Lord RHP (Starter/Reliever): basically the Nats’ 2nd best pitcher this year, and now with Soroka traded and Williams hurt will be in the rotation going forward. 18th rounder; in the rotation. Temperature: Red Hot all around.
#19 Angel Feliz SS: struggled in the last month of the FCL season (.191/.304/.294) but promoted up to Low-A nonetheless. He’ll split time at SS with Dickerson the rest of the way. Temperature: cooled off
#20 Andrew Pinckney OF (CF or corner): had a very solid AAA month: .284/.363/.556. 6 homers in 21 games. He can play any of the three OF positions and has essentially split his time almost equally amongst the three this season for Rochester. Is there something here? Temperature: warming
In honor of the trade deadline. here’s the 10 prospects we’ve acquired with their season stats and levels. They’re listed in rough order of their prospect ranking:
- Linan, Sean Paul: SP: Age 20. 3-3, 2.78 ERA, 1.09 whip as a starter in low- and high-A.
- Franklin, Christian: OF (CF) Age 25, .265/.393/.427 in AAA. 8 HR, 12 SB playing CF fulltime
- Swan, Eriq: SP Age 23 4-3, 4.43 ERA, 1.38 whip as a starter in High-A. 77/46 K/BB in 69ip.
- Cruz, Ronny: SS Age 18. .270/.314/.431 in AZL. 6 triples, 2 homers; lots of gap power.
- Randall, Josh: SP Age 22. 5-5, 3.92 ERA, 1.32 whip in Low-A this season.
- Beeter, Clayton: RP Age 26: 3.10 ERA in AAA as a setup/closer type: 33/16 K/BB in 20 ip.
- Sales, R.J.: SP Age 22: 4-3, 2.71 ERA, 1.12 whip in 16 Low-A starts.
- Eder, Jake RP (lefty): Age 26: 4.91 ERA in 8 MLB appearances this season.
- Martinez, Browm, OF, Age 18, .404/.507/.632 slash line in 18 games this year but on 60-day dl
- Brown, Sam: 1B age 23: .243/.350/.358 as a full-time 1B in AA this year.
The first 6 of these 10 guys are already in our top 30 on both BA and MLBpipeline lists. I like Sales and Martinez for the back-end of that list at some point. Eder might be a 4-A lefty reliever, and Brown might be a throw in. But we got 10 guys into the system in a week, which is great.
Notables #20 and above by the level they mostly played in July 2025
In MLB:
- Six of the Eight relievers we now have in our MLB bullpen were Washington grown: Rutledge, Henry, Ferrer, Brzycky, Ribalta, and Lara. That’s awesome. We complain a lot about not developing players, and yeah its “just the bullpen,” but this is meaningful.
- Seven of the eight relievers in the bullpen were in the minors for this team at some point this year and have been promoted up. That’s also great to see; the farm is working.
- Now, have they been awesome? No, not really.
in AAA:
- He was a MLFA in the off-season, so not entirely a “prospect” but Nick Schnell had himself a month in AAA: .385/.449/.854 (!) for an ops of 1.303. He hit 11 homers in the month. Wow. Where does this guy fit into the OF hierarchy?
- #31 Chapparo hit just .203 for the month but still managed to slug his way to an OPS of .849.
- #32 Baker still hanging around: he hit over .300 for the month again. He’ll get his shot.
- #28 Alvarez: I know he isn’t sexy, but he seems to deserve a shot. Maybe the next time we need a starter we can add him to see what he can do.
In AA:
- #101 Brandon Boissiere certainly is putting a kickstart into his career: .324/.444/.432 for the month in AA after putting up a couple years of mendoza line BAs.
- #25 Made: remember when i was all excited b/c he hit the crap out of the ball one month? July: .156/.239/.297. Ouch.
- I was so down on Riley Cornelio last off-season I didn’t even have him in my top 100. Now? He might be the Nats minor league pitcher of the year. July in AA: 4 starts, 1.66 ERA, 0.88 whip, .147 BAA. He’s a top 25 prospect right now, might get better.
In High-A:
- #39 Sam Peterson got promoted and was basically High-A’s best hitter in June. Then, he was also the best Wilmington hitter in july, going /317/.446/.600 in that hitter’s death park in Delaware.
- SS Courtland Lawson (born in Reston!) had a nice month, slashing .297/.358/.446 … but one has to wonder what the plan is here? He was in AA all last year, barely hit, got demoted to high-A to make way for 1st rounder King, and now he’s 25 and still in A-ball in his 4th pro season.
- #79 Gavin Dugas went just 5-63 for the month (.079 BA) and, well, might be in serious trouble as a 25yr old in A-ball who was a $20k senior sign.
- #42 Cranz has picked up where he left off in Low-A. Maybe we try him as a starter?
In Low-A:
- #87 Jorgelys Mota was hitting .400 for the month and starting to push his way into top 30 area in BA and MLB when he hit the DL this month.
- Holy cow, Vaquero is hitting! .329/.361/.553 with 3 homers and a ton of XBH for the month.
- #67 Yoel Tejeda Jr and Davian Garcia (who I didn’t even rank in my top 100 pre-season) both pitched their way out of Low-A as 2024 draft picks. Garcia has the bigger draft bonus as a 6th rounder but Tejeda has had a great season too. Both now showing up in the 25-30 range of prospect lists and will finish out the year in High-A.
- #23 Elijah Green is back in full-season ball after destroying the FCL. Still only hitting .220 but his Ks are down. Not sure where they can go with this guy.
In FCL:
- The FCL is over; lots of these guys only got 5-6 innings for the month so difficult to pass judgement. Most of the guys moved up at the end of the season were more age based than performance based: the likes of Johnson, Farias, Otanez, Kane, and Montero were all 23 and still in Rookieball, so they had to move up.
- Last month’s darlings Sir Jamison Jones and Dashyll Tejada both struggled to finish out FCL. Wish the season was longer.
In the DSL, we can’t really do monthly splits so here’s a quick look at the six hitters in my top 100 pre-season. Then I’ll add in the guys newly impressing and starting to pop up in top 30 lists.
- #22 Victor Hurtado is still not hitting, slashing just .223/.370/232 for the year.
- #29 Brayan Cortesia is still crushing: .344/.459/.400.
- #37 Daniel Hernandez continues to be highly regarded on major prospect shops but it isn’t showing on the field: ..215/.270/.252.
- #66: Rony Bello has taken a nose dive since a strong start: .224/.333..343.
- #70 Hector Liriano: hitting .185 as a 1B? that’s not going to cut it.
- #103 Juan Obispo has maintained his solid line all season: .317/.388/.450.
Meanwhile, Marconi German, a 2025IFa, has exploded onto the scene: .282/.485/.538 so far this year in DSL with 7 homers as the starting SS for the team. He might be the find of the season.
On the pitching side, our DSL’s rotation ace Juan Reyes continues to lead the staff in whip despite being a starter: 9starts he’s got a 2.51 ERA and a shutout this season.
That’s July.
this is depressing. I sure hope the new leadership overhauls the drafting staff.
Kevin R
5 Aug 25 at 10:48 am
I continue to maintain that 2025 has not been a “lost year” for Crews. While his batting line overall isn’t good, his batted ball metrics are solid, especially for a guy who hasn’t even played half a season in The Show. He was showing signs of progress when he got hurt, posting a .259/.364/.571 with 3 HRs, a 24.2 K% and a 12.1 BB% in his last nine games.
SSS? Sure. But combined with his batted ball metrics, there’s signs of a good player emerging there. Certainly with his baserunning and defense he’s already arguably a solid MLB player (particularly if he can play CF); he’s totaled 0.5 bWAR in 45 games this season.
In contrast, CJ Abrams’s first 180 games amassed a total of 0.1 bWAR. Has anyone noticed that since reaching the Nats Abrams has steadily improved?
John C.
5 Aug 25 at 1:23 pm
I also remain cautiously bullish on Crews. Before injury he hit the ball hard (41% hard-hit rate) and had truly atrocious BABIP “luck” at .233.
I was digging around in his stats to see if anything popped out. What I’ve found are things that are more curious than indicative, but interesting nevertheless. And as John noted, these are still SSS. (All are 2025 numbers.)
In Nat wins (22 gms): .293/.369/.587/.956 (wow)
In Nat losses (23): .108/.169/.145/.313
(9 of his 10 XBH were in Nat wins)
As CF (15 gms): .238/.304/.452/.757
As RF (32 gms): .181/.252/.319/.571
vRHP: .205/.285/.410/.695
vLHP: .171/.209/.195/.404
So . . . he should play CF against RHP in games in which the Nats have a good chance of winning!
Seriously though, I still think Crews and House can be stars, or above-average regulars at the least. House only turned 22 in June, and Crews is 23.
KW
5 Aug 25 at 3:09 pm
So now it’s four games for a total of 54 runs, now getting clocked by bad teams as well, even during a Gore start. Gore has now surrendered 23 runs in his last four starts.
Sigh.
KW
5 Aug 25 at 9:35 pm
My characterization of Crews’ “lost year” is really more macro: its now August, he’s still not playing, and the team is 20 games under .500. So, if you think he’s a transitional star … we’ve just wasted one of his 6 seasons here.
Todd Boss
5 Aug 25 at 10:25 pm
Oh, it’s certainly a “lost year” in terms of service time and development. But even a 5 WAR season from Crews wouldn’t have stemmed the team’s spiral that much. They’d “only” be 19 games under .500 instead of 24.
I don’t think anyone has any idea if he’s a “transitional star.” I was a bit skeptical of that expectation even when they drafted him. Even if Crews achieves optimum peak, he’s still more Rendon than Harper. But peak Rendon was still good enough to drive a championship bus.
Those days now seem so far in memory . . .
KW
6 Aug 25 at 7:57 am
prospect #8 takes the mound tonight while #13 head back to the minors.
I hope Cavalli can control his emotions and that the experience for Lara gives him something positive to build on. yes he got hit, but the fact that they let him hang for a while can be a plus.
FredMD
6 Aug 25 at 8:09 am
Well, Cavalli’s capitulation in AAA has “saved” a service year… he’s well past the cutoff to reach another year with the rest of 2025, even if he manages to stay up.
Down on crews? Don’t be. Crews spent most of his time in the minors as one of the top 5 prospects in the entire game. There’s just not a big track record of prospects that highly touted suddenly not performing for reasons not related to injury. As others have pointed out, his peripherals at the plate point to SSS-driven bad luck so far: nobody maintains a .233 BABIP and a 40.9% hard hit ratio and continues to hit below .200. how good is a 40.9% hard hit ratio? If he had enough ABs to qualify, he’d rank 11th in the majors. To me, Crews spent 2025 hitting the ball hard, right at people, and over the course of an entire season those balls turn into hits and gappers as we expect from his scouting report.
Todd Boss
6 Aug 25 at 8:31 am
I came here to post some defenses of Crews’s performance but I see most of what I would have said has been said. IIRC, he was tops among rookies in HRs and 2nd to Simpson in SBs when he went down on 5/21. You tack on the .070 spread between his average and his OBP to his xBA of .258, his OBP “should” be around .328; with an xSLG of .469, that’s pretty close to an OPS around .800. Not sure if that’s entirely proper, but the tone of a lot of the critics has been just excessive. Todd’s comment replies I think are nicely balanced.
That said, this guy is certainly a regular going forward, which begs the next question: how do you split the playing time among the outfielders? I’d add Franklin into the mix, too. He seems like at least a high OBP short side of a platoon 4th OF candidate. Could maybe add Pinckney. Who is a major leaguer who needs to change position? Who stays in Rochester? Do you displace a guy who fields but can’t hit in CF? Do you find a place for a guy (Lile) who I think hits but can’t field? Do you open up 1B to Wood, and if you do, what do you do with Morales?
JCA
6 Aug 25 at 12:08 pm
To state the obvious, the Nats have a lot of holes.
One of the biggest is quality right-handed bats. With Rosario gone, the Nats lineup against LHP is comical as CJ, Wood, Lowe, Garcia, Lile, Hassell all hit left handed. Also, Josh Bell is essentially unplayable as a right handed switch hitter against lefties (Bell against LHP: .130/.250/.217/.467: not a misprint).
With CJ, Wood, Garcia (maybe), Lile and Hassell all part of the Nats’ future, the Nats definitely need Crews and Hassell to rake agains left-handed pitching.
Pilchard
6 Aug 25 at 1:28 pm
Re our outfield depth, I think a lot of people are looking at it from the perspective of trying to guess which will be the best player, but I think that’s kind of the wrong way around.
Take JY – my question is “are there any teams who value him as if he can regain his 85 wRC+ batting line and be a 2.5 WAR/yr player?” If so, I trade him. With Hassell, in 155 PAs since his demotion to AAA, he ran a 157 wRC+. And, while it’s only been 10 PAs, he’s kept it up since he got recalled to the majors. Are any teams ready to buy in on those improvements and value him like plus bat that plays a pls RF? If so, I trade him. Who has the high evaluations on Lile and Franklin and Pinckney? If I can get fair value for any of them (which for Pinckney wouldn’t have to be much), I trade them.
I’d rather trade all of them and have to sign a FA to complete the outfield than risk so much value dying on the vine.
SMS
6 Aug 25 at 1:28 pm
SMS, I fully agree that we need to use our OF depth to plug some of the many holes elsewhere in the org. But the problem with just signing a FA OF is that ownership is completely unwilling to spend via free agency. Say we trade away most of our OF depth, we’d be faced with signing someone like Corey Dickerson, Eddie Rosario, or if we’re extremely luck, Jesse Winker, which even despite Young, Hassell and Lile’s flaws, they would be FAR favorable to this profile of FA.
Without increasing spending, the only way I can see the Nats getting out of this perpetual rebuild is by hiring the best talent evaluators/developers in the game, and we imitate the Rays and Guardians model. The risk, though, is that that’s exceptionally hard to achieve, and more likely, because Mark Lerner has shown himself incapable of hiring good people, we will become an imitation of the Pirates, Rockies or Marlins.
Will
7 Aug 25 at 6:05 am
Cavalli’s outing could not have gone any better. consider me pleasantly surprised.
FredMD
7 Aug 25 at 8:00 am
Will, your second paragraph say it all. But even if they are trying to emulate the Rays/Guardian model they have to increase spending. More scouts, more analytical equipment and more coaches. Tom Boswell’s recent article implied that so far that has not happened and, if that’s correct it is disgraceful.
FredMD
7 Aug 25 at 8:46 am
Unfortunately, drafting like the Guardians and Rays also doesn’t work because those teams get extra draft capital each year. The Nats don’t get that. It looks like the median first round comp pick is slotted around 2.5m. The median in the second round is 1.2m. Cleveland can trade Clemmey and just replace him in the system in that year’s draft (Braylon Doughty). Over the now 6 years* of the nats being bad, 3 comp fists and 3 comp seconds is worth about 11m. That’s the first pick in the draft. Or if you think of it in terms of mistakes, it would nearly offset the bonuses given to Green and King. We might not be so concerned with Rizzo’s drafting if the Nats ALSO had 6 more Clemmeys, or Paul Skenes, or hadn’t whiffed on King and Green.
The rarely named other villains of the Nats rebuild are the last two commissioners#. It’s almost impossible for the Nats to draft well enough to be “a player away,” as they claimed they were in signing Werth. If they don’t spend money (and with no salary floor they don’t have to), ownership may permanently claim the results don’t justify investing in the roster.
Incidentally, this is why I supported trading Gore. Getting 90 cents on the dollar for him with 2.5 years of control is still a better return than moving him for his full value in the offseason. Nats need to supplement the farm enough so that they may at least have occasional spurts of contention, and I don’t see that coming in the next 2 years.
*6 bad years including this one, where the draft obviously hasn’t happened.
#and I can say that without even needing to mention MASN!
Bland Moniker
7 Aug 25 at 9:46 am
Premature on the “King is a whiff” conclusion.
He’s 22 and has played a total of 114 professional games. Not claiming that King has been good, but his K rate has declined during the season; this is not a Elijah Green situation where the prospect just can’t make contact.
King’s BABIP is low which shows that he hasn’t had the best luck. He’s a plus baserunner and his defense is solid. Let Seaver accumulate his ABs, before coming to conclusions.
Pilchard
7 Aug 25 at 9:58 am
“Whiff” might be harsh, at least for now. I hope he winds up a good player. But I dont see anything in his college or pro stats, or promotuon progress that suggests hes better than (inexplicably) prospect industry doormat Yoyo Morales.
Regardless, I think that at least for now, most of us would feel better about Rizzo’s drafts if he’d gone with near-consensus in the industry and taken someone like Braden Montgomery.
If King DOES work out, it all the more shows how difficult it is to have a good roster or highly regarded system even if the Nats do things right. The Dodgers somehow find a way, but as the rest if this discussion implies, if the Nats find someone who consistently drafts well, that person is likely going to leave to join the Dodgers.
Bland Moniker
7 Aug 25 at 10:28 am
@Will – I agree 100% with your macro argument that none of this matters unless the team is willing to spend. So maybe at some point when I can no longer delude myself, I’ll stop reading and commenting on blogs like this, and maybe only watch a game a week, or whatever. Honestly, I don’t think I’d find being a fan of the Rays or the Guardians very much fun, and that’s the impossibly optimistic case for a drastically underfunded team.
But I will just say that, as a practical matter, there is so much friction in the trade market that I don’t think it’s likely they’d move more than 2-3 of these guys even if they were trying to move them all. My recommendation really just boils down to letting the trade market dictate which of these guys get the ML playing time in 2026.
SMS
7 Aug 25 at 11:15 am
Just because I was looking at this a couple days ago: King’s BABIP is perfectly normal. It’s .297 on the season. There’s no bad luck at play there.
BABIP is also, of course, heavily influenced by the types of balls you hit into play. If you’re generating tons of infield fly balls, a .100 BABIP would be perfectly fair. King has been making relatively poor contact (not historically bad, but poor nonetheless). He has only 20.8 LD% (the best kind of contact, especially for a player with a profile like King’s) across both levels (and down to 15.8% in AA). Most worryingly is that he has a 20% IFFB% and 52.8 GB%. That’ll lead to a “fair” BABIP well below the .300 AVG.
Bland Moniker, good point about the draft pick comp picks. It’s all the more reason why teams from large markets can’t claim poverty! You can’t in good faith operate in a market as large and wealthy as DC and maintain a shoestring budget. And yet, Mark and siblings are giving it their best shot!
Will
7 Aug 25 at 11:15 am
I thought Cavalli looked good last night. I saw a good (expected) breaking ball and a really good (less expected) changeup. His command of the breaking ball wasn’t so great, but he was able to generate swings and misses with it out of the strike zone. The changeup was really good–he was able to get a few called strikes on it in the zone and it generated many swings and misses from LH batters. I saw him throw it twice to a righty batter–at least once for a swing and a miss.
His fastball, by contrast, seems to play down compared to its velocity. This is both consistent with scouting reports and with the notion he gives up a lot of hits. Like all pitchers, fastball command will have a lot to do with how successful he ends up being. At the same time, the hits he did give up were not well-struck, and he did locate his fastball pretty well over the course of his outing. It does seem like his effort to develop multiple fastballs–four seamer, sinker, cutter–reflects its hitability.
From a “competing” standpoint, both deJong and Abrams made (weak) throwing errors to put people on base and extend innings, and Cavalli dug in. Cavalli is also an athletic dude–I have no idea whether he’ll be a good fielding pitcher, but his movement to cover 1B was fluid.
All in all, I’m really impressed by the offspeed stuff. Even if his fastball ends up sucking, he could probably survive as someone who pitches “backwards” a la Lance McCullers. We’ll have to wait and see about fastball command (though minor league BB numbers suggest “good” rather than “great” is his ceiling; I think how close he gets to “good” probably determines whether he can stick as a starter, and how good he will end up being as a starter).
Derek
7 Aug 25 at 11:31 am
The Lerners, as per Thom Loverro’s brutal takedown yesterday in the WashTimes, aired some laundry that I hadn’t necessarily heard before. He claims the Lerner’s demanded that Rizzo fire Martinez, and when he refused they fired them both. They continue to claim they’re losing money operating the team, which seems like a completely fantastical claim given that most sources put their revenues in the $325-$350M range while their primary cost (mlb labor) was $140M. If you can’t make money when you’re clearing $200M on top of your labor costs then that’s just amazing. I mean, if its such a burden losing money on a multi-billion dollar asset then frigging sell.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2025/aug/7/loverro-washington-nationals-flail-lerners-fail/
Todd Boss
8 Aug 25 at 9:34 am
Thanks Todd for the link. that was my take on firings.
I’m with you on the claims of losses. of course there are all kinds of accounting ways to offset revenue and avoid paying taxes.
FredMD
8 Aug 25 at 9:58 am
The Lerners’ business empire in commercial real estate was created and led by Ted. Now that the brains behind the operation is gone, and bottom has fallen out of the commercial real estate market, I think the Lerners problem isn’t that they’re losing money, it’s that the Nats aren’t MAKING them enough money. They’re stripping costs down to shovel those profits back to themselves.
The Twins’ owners, the Pohlads, are in the exact same situation. While less wealthy than the Lerner family, they made their money in commercial real estate, and when their money generating business fell apart during COVID and afterward, they started using the Twins as a vehicle to make money. That led to racking up over $400m in debt, and now it looks like the other owners have instructed Manfred to step in and force a sale.
It won’t surprise me if in a few years, we become privy to the same story about Mark, Debra, Marla & co.
Will
8 Aug 25 at 10:59 am
If that’s where the Lerners are, then not trading Gore will prove to be a big mistake. I just don’t see how there’s enough talent graduating from the minors for the team to be good while Gore is under team control if the Lerners won’t/can’t spend money. Ugh.
Matt
8 Aug 25 at 11:50 am
The Loverro column is interesting. It includes a potshot at deBartalo, calling him a “pencil pusher.” That makes you wonder who Loverro is talking to. Rizzo is an obvious guess, criticizing deBartalo doesn’t seem like Rizzo’s style (though use of “pencil pusher” as an insult certainly does).
Agree 100% that if the Lerners aren’t going to spend, then they should have traded Gore. I think the delta between the prospect haul for Gore at the trade deadline vs during the offseason is rather minor IF Gore is able to put recent struggles behind him and pitch like he did earlier in the season (perhaps a big IF).
Derek
8 Aug 25 at 12:18 pm
I won’t read the article because (1) I’ve never liked Loverro, and (2) I’m not going to give that scummy rag any clicks.
That said, there was a lot of speculation that the firings went down like that (Lerners direct Rizzo to fire DM, Rizzo says “over my dead body” and the Lerners say “OK”). There has been some reporting on TalkNats that the team is losing money, but there have also been discussions that the family is in limbo until they can get Patriarch Ted’s will through probate. It’s hard to tell from the outside.
John C.
8 Aug 25 at 3:19 pm
The losing money thing is ridiculous. You can massage the numbers to make whatever argument that you want. If the Lerners truly believe that the team is “losing money”…. SELL THE TEAM.
There are several reports that the Lerners received bids of $2.2 billion+ when the team was put up for bid more than a year ago. While that may be less than they want for the team (and they can probably get more now as the rich have just gotten richer), they extended Lerner family can receive at least four times what Ted paid for the team in 2005, and the Lerners got Ted and the City the WS in 2019 an enternal legacy for the Lerner family.
Even if their once lucrative business has cratered, they all have stupid money and will have more after the sale.
To just continue to hold the team, perpetually under-fund operations is assinine. Of course, revenues will be down, and as owners of MLB franchise, they have a duty to the City and to the fanbase to try to win games. If they don’t want to invest to do that, that’s OK… just sell.
Pilchard
8 Aug 25 at 4:24 pm
It also begs the question … if you’re losing money, then f*cking sell the naming rights to the stadium. Or uniforms. That’s tens of millions of dollars of free money they’ve left on the table.
Todd Boss
8 Aug 25 at 9:00 pm
They do now have a jersey patch deal, with AARP. I’ve seen reports of a pending stadium naming deal. Perhaps a sign that they are leaning into keeping the team?
John C.
9 Aug 25 at 11:25 am
I’ve been saying that about the stadium naming rights for more than a decade, any time someone has cried MASN poverty. Yes, the MASN situation has been a travesty from day one, but the Lerners still had plenty of money to run an MLB franchise at a highly funded level, as they proved throughout the 2010s, even while leaving tens of millions of naming rights money on the table. They made a profit doing it that way, and made the fan base very happy, so it’s inexplicable why they’ve turned the Nats into thrift shop of a franchise now. Ted would not have wanted it this way. Now no players want to come here, and no executives or coaches want to work here.
It’s a really deep hole, and it will be a difficult climb out. That said, the sale of the worst-run franchise in the NFL and its quick turnaround by competent ownership does offer some hope.
To be clear, I don’t mean to compare the Lerners to Dastardly Dan. They ran a franchise for many years at a level that made it a great credit to the community. But they’re not doing it that way now, and everyone knows it, both inside and outside baseball. People knew that well before Rizzo’s parting shots.
KW
10 Aug 25 at 8:28 am
Daniel Snyder should be a case study in graduate sports economic texts on how to run a franchise into the ground through greed, petulance, and sexism.
However, the Lerners may do the same through pure ineptitude and stupidity.
Todd Boss
11 Aug 25 at 8:19 am