It’s been rumored all off-season, and now a few weeks before Pitchers and Catchers report, our biggest trade asset MacKenzie Gore has been traded. Announced last night, the Nats moved Gore to Texas for a package of 5 prospects.
Here’s a quick look at those 5 prospects, with their new Nats system rank and other pertinent information:
shortstop Gavin Fien; 2025 1st rounder, Age 18. Our new #5 prospect (was Texas’ #2 prospect)
right-hander Alejandro Rosario; 2023 college 5th rounder, Age 24, AA last year, new #11 prospect
infielder Devin Fitz-Gerald: 2025 prep 5th rounder but over-slot bonus, age 20, new #12 prospect
outfielder Yeremy Cabrera: 2022 IFA, just 20, our new #17 prospect
first baseman/outfielder Abimelec Ortiz; 2021 NDFA, Age 3, on 40-man, hit AAA last year, new #24
First glance? I’m sorry, but is this all we could get? One 18yr old 1st rounder, two 20yr olds in low-A, a AA starter who missed all of 2025 AND just had TJ so he’s missing all of 2026 too, and a AAA utility guy? This is a major swing from a risk perspective, and the lack of additional higher-regarded prospects give me pause. The discovery (post publishing) that the 2nd best prospect is out for the entire 2026 season is even more demoralizing here.
I’m really disappointed with this return. We didn’t even get Texas’ best prospect in this deal. Maybe that’s me overvaluing Gore. On the one hand, Gore’s career numbers put him at a 98 ERA+. But at the same time, we’ve seen him be completely dominant for stretches. He’s valuable because he’s being paid a pittance for what he provides as a mid-rotation starter ($2.8M in first year Arb this year, $5.6M this year) and for 2 more years of control. He’s an innings eater who throws mid-90s from the left side; that’s worth a ton of the FA market and should have been worth more in trade.
When he didn’t go in the Winter Meetings, I thought the team should hold on to him until the Trade Deadline, when desperate teams who had lost starters to injury would be overpaying for mid-level starters. I was wrong; the new FO pulled the trigger on a deal they liked. I sense this was an underpay by Texas, but clearly the GM sees these younger guys and liked the deal.
An additional wrinkle: we’ve spoken before about the logjam of young shortstops projected to play in Fredericksburg in 2026 … well we just added two more guys who need playing time. We now add Fien and Fitz-Gerald to Willis, Feliz, Dickerson, and Mota, all of whom are likely projected to Low-A and who predominantly play SS.
What does this mean for the franchise? Insiders and those in the knew already knew this, but the signals have been strong that we’re on our way to bottoming out once again. My “casual Nats fan” pinged me last night with an immediate reaction to this trade, asking why we were getting rid of our best pitcher and I had to break it to him; we’re going to be bad for a while, so buckle up. This latter type of fan is the one who the Nats eventually will need to come back, to buy tickets, to bring the family for weekend games … but I sense a move like this, one which gets rid of one of the few players whose names they even know, is going to turn people off for a while.
I’m always excited to get more prospects into the system, as a prospect-heavy analysis site. Don’t get me wrong; can’t wait to do the spreadsheet work and try to noodle where I think these players will fit in my eventual top-100+ ranking that i’ll publish before the season starts. But I hate trading away assets and not getting enough in return, which I believe happened here.
What do you think? Am I over-valuing Gore? Did we get appropriate return here? Should we have waited til the Trade deadline 2026?
Toboni has a young exec team; will it work? Photo via IG
Hello my fellow Nats fans. Happy New Year from all of us (i.e. “me”) at Nationals Arm Race. I posted this on 1/1/26, then the site immediately took a dump, but seems to be back now, so lets try this again.
Thanks for continuing to read what I have to write, to have awesome conversations in the comments, and to be fans of the sport and the team.
I wondered what would be a useful post for 1/1/26. I think i’ll ask some open ended questions and ask for predictions in the comments.
Topic 1: Will the Nats Executive Youth Movement work?
I have yet to write at all about the youth movement in the Nats front office because, well, It’s certainly worked in the past for other/better franchises than ours (Theo Epstein was 28 when he took over Boston in 2002, Jon Daniels the same age when he took over Texas in 2005, and both had great success), so I don’t really have anything to say there from a criticism or support perspective.
Now, perhaps the combination of all three of these key figures being so young is concerning.
Paul Toboni, 35, as President of Baseball Operations
Anirudh Kilambi, 31, as General Manager
Blake Butera, 33, as Manager (youngest in 50 years)
Toboni came from Boston, Kilambi came from Philly, and Butera came from Tampa. All three of those franchises are in far better places than we are, and each brings much needed experience to this team.
Butera’s role in Tampa? Senior Director of Player Development and head of their Farm system
See a trend here? I do. So the question is this: What do you see this brain trust doing with the team going forward? And, do you think it will move the team in a positive direction?
Here’s my 2 cents: The Rizzo regime blew nearly a decade of drafts and left this team with the gaping hole of player development that it’s just starting to get out of. Unfortunately, he had to trade practically every major star we had in 2021 and 2022 to cover for these player development failures … and now those players are starting to push into Arbitration. Now we have a new approach heavy on data (the Nats were not exactly considered at the forefront of data usage in the league), heavy on development (where we’ve failed badly for a while), and heavy on amateur scouting (which Rizzo, despite his pedigree coming up as a scout in Arizona, grew out of in his later years).
I sense this group is going to start over, probably has pitched the ownership group a 5-year plan starting with this year’s IFA crop to be announced in a couple weeks, and then moving onto the 2026 draft, and in the meantime will trade most anything not nailed down for more prospects to help build from the bottom up. This also signals to me that the MLB product will get worse before it gets better. And it leads to my second topic:
Topic 2: Will Gore and Abrams be on the roster on Opening Day 2026?
Clearly the industry expects Gore to be moved this off-season, with his name atop most trade candidate analysis pieces. But … he didn’t move at the Winter Meetings when the buzz was hottest. The best time to get the most value out of a player is either:
At the Trade Deadline, when contending teams make irrational decisions in pursuit of playoffs
At the Winter Meetings, when everyone’s in the same building and you can play teams off each other.
Since he didn’t move at the Winter Meetings, I’m now thinking Gore sticks with us until next trade deadline and we roll the dice he stays healthy and improves the first half of next season.
Now, as for Abrams? He’s one of the worst fielding SS in the league but produces at a solid 106-107 wRC+ level the last two seasons. The SS free agent crop this off-season is pretty weak … but its not like the league can’t look up Fangraphs fielding stats themselves and see what the rest of us see. Nonetheless, His trade value is as a SS, and he needs to stick there until some rival executive swallows his analysis and says to himself, “ok we’ll deal with the defense to get the offense.” I’ve seen other blogs make the argument that Nasim Nunez should start at SS for us in 2026 and we should move Abrams to 2nd … The dumbest thing you could possibly do with a tradeable asset is to make him LESS valuable in trade by moving him to a less desirable position.
So, all that said, I’m guessing Abrams also sticks with us, plays out the first half, and we look to move him to a team that could use him at either SS or 2B and let THEM make the argument to him that its time to move off SS. I mean, if you’re Abrams and you’re looking at a 100-loss team that’s going to be this way for another couple years, and you get an offer to join a contender but you have to move to 2B … you’d have to be a fool not to jump.
Topic #3: Are we going to see more Starter Acquisitions for the 2026 Rotation?
Gore, Grey, Cavalli, a Free Agent, and one from Alvarez/Irvin/Parker/Williams for the 5th.
Since then, we’ve made some moves. We signed a FA (Foster Griffen), we picked a Rule-5 Starter (Griff McGarry), and we’ve acquired a hard-throwing starter in trade with MLB experience (Luis Perales), all three of whom change this equation. I think if you laid out the Nats 40-man starter depth chart right now it’d look something like this:
Gore, Grey, Cavalli
Griffin locked in as the #4
Williams (as much as I hate to admit it) the early favorite for #5, if only to see if he gets some trade value in his walk year.
McGarry as Rule-5 is making the team, but seems likely to be in a SS/LR role. Maybe he beats out Williams for the 5th starter.
Alvarez proved he can pitch in the Majors and as a lefty gives the rotation/bullpen flexibility. Or, maybe he wins the 5th starter role and puts both Williams and McGarry in the pen.
Irvin, Parker, Lord: all seem better suited for the bullpen. All have options but it’d seem foolish to put any of them back in AAA.
Herz to the DL
Perales, Cornelio, Eder as the 1-2-3 in AAA. We just lost Lao to Japan apparently, though I’ve only seen that on social media posts and not officially in the transaction pages.
So, the salient question for the front office is this: Are you happy with this configuration, or are you making more moves? If they move Gore pre-season, that almost guarantees a Rule-5 pick and/or Alvarez is in the rotation to start the year, unless we want to roll the dice with more 5.75 ERA production from one of Irvin/Parker/Lord.
I sense this front office isn’t done making trades or signings yet.
Anyway, Happy New Year and hope to get your thoughts on these three topics to kick off January.
New GM Paul Toboni has some big decisions ahead. Photo via IG
Hello my fellow Nats fans. Happy New Year from all of us (i.e. “me”) at Nationals Arm Race.
Thanks for continuing to read what I have to write, to have awesome conversations in the comments, and to be fans of the sport and the team.
I wondered what would be a useful post for 1/1/26. I think i’ll ask some open ended questions and ask for predictions in the comments.
Topic 1: Will the Nats Executive Youth Movement work?
I have yet to write at all about the youth movement in the Nats front office because, well, It’s certainly worked in the past for other/better franchises than ours (Theo Epstein was 28 when he took over Boston in 2002, Jon Daniels the same age when he took over Texas in 2005, and both had great success), so I don’t really have anything to say there from a criticism or support perspective.
Now, perhaps the combination of all three of these key figures being so young is concerning:
Paul Toboni, 35, as President of Baseball Operations
Anirudh Kilambi, 31, as General Manager
Blake Butera, 33, as Manager (youngest in 50 years)
Toboni came from Boston, Kilambi came from Philly, and Butera came from Tampa. All three of those franchises are in far better places than we are, and each brings much needed experience to this team.
Butera’s role in Tampa? Senior Director of Player Development and head of their Farm system
See a trend here? I do. So the question is this: What do you see this brain trust doing with the team going forward? And, do you think it will move the team in a positive direction?
Here’s my 2 cents: The Rizzo regime blew nearly a decade of drafts and left this team with the gaping hole of player development that it’s just starting to get out of. Unfortunately, he had to trade practically every major star we had in 2021 and 2022 to cover for these player development failures … and now those players are starting to push into Arbitration. Now we have a new approach heavy on data (the Nats were not exactly considered at the forefront of data usage in the league), heavy on development (where we’ve failed badly for a while), and heavy on amateur scouting (which Rizzo, despite his pedigree coming up as a scout in Arizona, grew out of in his later years).
I sense this group is going to start over, probably has pitched the ownership group a 5-year plan starting with this year’s IFA crop to be announced in a couple weeks, and then moving onto the 2026 draft, and in the meantime will trade most anything not nailed down for more prospects to help build from the bottom up. This also signals to me that the MLB product will get worse before it gets better. And it leads to my second topic:
Topic 2: Will Gore and Abrams be on the roster on Opening Day 2026?
Clearly the industry expects Gore to be moved this off-season, with his name atop most trade candidate analysis pieces. But … he didn’t move at the Winter Meetings when the buzz was hottest. The best time to get the most value out of a player is either:
At the Trade Deadline, when contending teams make irrational decisions in pursuit of playoffs
At the Winter Meetings, when everyone’s in the same building and you can play teams off each other.
Now, I’m thinking Gore sticks with us til next trade deadline and we roll the dice he stays healthy and improves the first half of next season.
Now, as for Abrams? He’s one of the worst fielding SS in the league but produces at a solid 106-107 wRC+ level the last two seasons. The SS free agent crop this off-season is pretty weak … but its not like the league can’t look up Fangraphs fielding stats themselves and see what the rest of us see. Nonetheless, His trade value is as a SS, and he needs to stick there until some rival executive swallows his analysis and says to himself, “ok we’ll deal with the defense to get the offense.” I’ve seen other blogs make the argument that Nasim Nunez should start at SS for us in 2026 and we should move Abrams to 2nd … The dumbest thing you could possibly do with a tradeable asset is to make him LESS valuable in trade by moving him to a less desirable position.
So, all that said, I’m guessing Abrams also sticks with us, plays out the first half, and we look to move him to a team that could use him at either SS or 2B and let THEM make the argument to him that its time to move off SS. I mean, if you’re Abrams and you’re looking at a 100-loss team that’s going to be this way for another couple years, and you get an offer to join a contender but you have to move to 2B … you’d have to be a fool not to jump.
Topic #3: Are we going to see more Starter Acquisitions for the 2026 Rotation?
Gore, Grey, Cavalli, a Free Agent, and one from Alvarez/Irvin/Parker for the 5th.
Since then, we’ve made some moves. We signed a FA (Foster Griffen), we picked a Rule-5 Starter (Griff McGarry), and we’ve acquired a hard-throwing starter in trade with MLB experience (Luis Perales), all three of whom change this equation. I think if you laid out the Nats 40-man starter depth chart right now it’d look something like this:
Gore, Grey, Cavalli
Griffin locked in as the #4
Williams (as much as I hate to admit it) the early favorite for #5, if only to see if he gets some trade value in his walk year.
McGarry as Rule-5 is making the team, but seems likely to be in a SS/LR role. Maybe he beats out Williams for the 5th starter.
Alvarez proved he can do the same and as a lefty gives the rotation/bullpen flexibility. Or, maybe he wins the 5th starter role and puts both Williams and McGarry in the pen.
Irvin, Parker, Lord: all seem better suited for the bullpen
Herz to the DL
Perales, Cornelio, Eder as the 1-2-3 in AAA. We just lost Lao to Japan apparently, though I’ve only seen that on social media posts and not officially in the transaction pages.
So, the salient question for the front office is this: Are you happy with this configuration, or are you making more moves? If they move Gore pre-season, that almost guarantees a Rule-5 pick and/or Alvarez is in the rotation to start the year, unless we want to roll the dice with more 5.75 ERA production from one of Irvin/Parker/Lord.
I sense this front office isn’t done making trades or signings yet.
Anyway, Happy New Year and hope to get your thoughts on these three topics to kick off January.
The Nats new GM reached back out to his old team and made a trade you just don’t see that often; prospect for prospect, two minor leaguers (essentially) for each other, both of whom are at the cusp of MLB production.
Jake Bennett heads to Boston straight up for Luis Perales a 22yr old RHP starter who got a cup of coffee with Boston this year.
From a prospect ranking perspective, MLBpipeline had Bennett as our #11 and now has Perales as our new #5, so in theory our farm system improves marginally. In reality, whether it was Bennett or Perales in our AAA rotation to start 2026, both would be expected to matriculate up this year. Perales is only 22 as an international signee, and has more upside/more risk, while Bennett is considered more floor/more consistent.
Keith Law had some interesting analysis in the immediate wake of the trade, noting that Bennett (and the Nats pitching dev staff) had done little to improve upon his offerings in his time here (either in terms of velocity or adding breaking pitches), whereas Boston has had success in helping its arms improve. Something to think about; Boston must have seen something it thinks it can improve upon with Bennett, while Toboni rolls the dice on a higher upside arm that he’s familiar with.
Here’s what our rough SP depth chart looks like right now on the 40-man:
Likely opening day rotation: Gore, Grey, Cavalli, Alvarez/Irvin/Parker competition
Likely starters->bullpen: McGarry, Lord, Williams
To the DL: Herz
To AAA: Perales, Lao, Eder, Cornelio
That’s not a bad AAA rotation to start, adding to it Luckham, Shuman, and Ogasawara as 5th candidates
Anyway, odds are we’re not done seeing trades. Big question is whether he will move Gore now or try to leverage desperate teams at the 2026 trade deadline … and if he can convince other teams that Abrams is really a shortstop.
I’m going to use this opportunity to give some incremental updates and call out some improvements I’ve made to a couple of the main online Nats Data Resources I maintain. Just in case you hadn’t been to these resources in a while.
As always, any suggestions for improvements or errors noticed are always appreciated.
The Big Board shows our entire system, from MLB to DSL, with players generally in their starting spots at any given time, rotations kept in the order they appear, and bullpen arms kept roughly in their roles. The 2025 Rosters are now frozen for the end of the season, and I’ve created the 2026 Roster and 2026 Release page to start keeping track of player transactions (first one for the new tab was Darren Baker’s requested release).
MLB has recalled all 40-man players, and restored all 7 and 15-day DL players to the active roster, so MLB shows at 40/40 right now. The five 60-day DL guys won’t be returned until the World Series is over; that will correspond with the technical separation of these FAs to be: Bell, Law (who himself is on the 60-day), deJong, Alfaro, 25MLFA Pilkington, and 24MLFA Stubbs, so I don’t imagine we’ll have any DFA’s to return the 60-day DL guys at the onset. However, the exact terms of these MLFA deals can vary, so they actually may be multi-year deals. AAA also cleared up all its DL and Restricted list in late September, but the lower leagues have not, so there’s still a slew of DL and Restricted names on those rosters.
There’s a small number at the top of the Big Board, which keeps track of the total number of players under contract in the four domestic minor leagues. It attempts to keep track of this number to see how it compares to the 165 total system limit, which the team flirted with a couple times this season. That’s the main improvement I’ve added to the Big Board lately, in addition to the color coding of Promotions and Demotions throughout the season. Each player is also a link to their milb.com page (for minor leaguers) or their baseball-reference.com page (if they’re primarily MLBers).
I made a relatively large addition to the Draft Tracker this year: I added the “High Level” column to each player. I did this because I have dreams of doing a massive analysis trying to quantify what makes for a “good draft” by looking at the lower rounds to see what expectations are for these players. For example: if you draft a college guy in the 15th, where do you “expect” that player to get to? If they never get out of Low-A, that seems to have “met expectations” for that player, but if they get to AA is that a win?
Anyway, this analysis stalled once I started getting into the 2019 and prior drafts, where we went to 40 rounds instead of the current 20. I’ve been critical of the sport for cutting these 20 rounds (and cutting the entire Short-A level), but must admit it was kind of shocked at how many of our draftees never got out of Short-A. For example; in 2017 we drafted 33 players; here was the high-level breakdown:
A slew of the Low-A top-outs were in Short-A in the draft year of 2017, got assigned to Low-A to start 2018, and were released directly out of that league. So, the question is, is this a typical distribution expectation for a 40-round draft? Was this generally speaking a good or bad draft (hint: this was an awful draft, even with 6 guys getting to the majors, since 3 of them made the majors for other teams and the other three combined gave us a career -1.0 bWAR).
I initially replaced the Rule5 Eligible column with this high level, thinking that Rule5 eligible was a useless field, but then immediately returned it. Thank god for backups.
My big “value add” to the Draft Tracker generally is to have year-specific Draft worksheets where I keep track of the exact Bonus dollars as they’re announced, which gives us some insight into the negotiations for later-signing guys. I also have schools, commits, social media links, NDFAs, etc. I have done this same analysis for “local draft guys” (i.e. DC/MD/VA players) in the past, but kind of have petered out on tracking local players in general over the past few years. Also of note; the player names are links to milb.com pages/baseball-reference.com pages for convenience as with the Big Board.
A couple years ago I had the brilliant notion to create an IFA tracker in the same format as the Draft Tracker, because, well, why not; its an important way we ingest talent and we sign 20+ players a year.
My big value add to the IFA tracker this year was to add in High Level, as I did with the Draft tracker. This analysis led to a pretty obvious observation; a huge majority of these players never get out of the DSL. Like, a massive percentage. Take our 2018 class; we had 38 signees. here’s their highest levels:
DSL: 16
FCL: 13
Low-A: 3
High-A: 4
AA: 2
None higher
Five of these guys are still active, having resigned after their initial 7year stint expired after 2024, but who may be re-hitting MLFA this off-season. One may still pan out; Atencio, who was solid for us as a AA starter in 2025 then missed the entirety of 2025 with injury but who is still just 24. But, will he re-sign? did he already? The Covid year throws all this analysis into doubt.
Nonetheless, this is a lot of players churned through DSL and FCL for very little payoff.
The last time we even got a MLB player out of an IFA draft was in 2019 (Andry Lara), before that 2017 (Ferrer). There were more in 2016 and prior, but I havn’t gone back to do “high level” analysis that far back because it becomes pretty difficult to track down these players at some point: the DSL rosters aren’t nearly as comprehensively kept as the domestic rosters. Also, bonus dollar figures are incredibly tough to come by, even in recent years. For example, I know that our IFA 2025 pool was $6.2M, but I could only account for about $4.9M of bonus dollars being spent. We had 10 signees with no dollar amounts announced; were they all $10k? More? Less? Did we really leave $1.3M of bonus dollars on the table? I certainly hope not.
This is more of a collection of Prospect ranks, but I also publish my own ranks (recently discussed here with my post-season 125 rank). It’s a good place to kind of see the trends of other sites and how they’re ranking our guys. I also do a ton of value add here, putting in starting levels each year, bonus amounts,
There’s now 270 ranks dating back to pre Washington Nationals days. We’ll get a slew of updated ranks over the course of the off-season, with the major pundits mostly publishing in Jan/Feb of next year. I’ll re-do my top 125 at that time, add in the missing 2025 with non-trivial bonus dollars plus the 2026 IFA class, remove MLFAs and other releases we make this coming off-season, and (maybe) will even attempt to do the impossible: rank all 150+ minor leaguers in one spot.
You can see i’ve already highlighted in my recent 125 rank the players who I need to revisit, who might be too high or too low. I’ve also added in placeholders for another 10 players who probably all slot into the 80-90 range (those being the rest of the 2025 class plus some of the higher-bonus dollar 2025 IFAs).
Anyway, happy off-season. Can’t wait to see what the new regime has in mind.
Next big update to these docs will come at the end of the World Series, where all MLB and MLFAs are declared. I’ll try to keep up with the releases and the signings as best that I can, with the caveat that milb.com doesn’t always have the best record keeping.
As far as I can tell, anyone who we drafted in 2019 should become a new 6-year MLFA, and 2018IFAs also should hit MLFA unless they’ve agreed to some extension. We have a slew of 2019 draftees and 2018IFAs on our rosters who probably become new MLFAs on 11/1 or thereabouts.
Alex Call was probably the biggest surprise mover at the deadline. Photo via Federal Baseball.
The 2025 Nats trade deadline has come and gone, and I have to admit, I’m surprised at how “well” the team did in moving its assets. In five separate deals the team moved nearly every one of its expiring contracts or useful-but-spare parts pieces and netted a ton of actual prospect depth along the way.
Earlier this month I previewed what we had to offer teams, and I went over a rather pessimistic take on what I thought we’d get in return for players. As it turned out, of everyone discussed, the only three non-injured guys we didn’t manage to move were Salazar, Bell, and deJong (none really a surprise given their overall performance for the season), and then on top of that we managed to move an outfielder in Alex Call who, while we like him, was certainly spare parts given the massive amount of OF depth we have in the system (in no particular order, Wood, Crews, Young, Lile, Hassell, Pinckney all at AAA or higher).
Lets take a quick run through the moves and talk about the value of the prospects we got back, which now populate a big chunk of our top 30 on the MLBpipeline board. As the day progressed and as of right now, our Big Board is updated with all transactions, with all newly acquired players assigned to their new levels.
Executive Summary: we traded 6 guys off the active roster, got back 10 prospects, 6 of which now sit in our top 30 as per mlbpipeline’s rankings. As I list them below i’ll put their new spot in our top 30.
Trade #1: Amed Rosario traded to NYY for #24 RHP reliever Clayton Beeter, OF Browm Martinez. Beeter is a former 2nd rounder, setup type guy, 40-man roster already, and is in AAA now but may get called up since we suddenly have some bullpen spots open. Big arm, lots of Ks, lots of walks. Martinez is the proverbial lottery ticket, an 18yr old in DSL who we immediately put onto the 60-day DL upon acquisition.
Trade #2: Chafin & Garcia traded to LAA for LHP reliever Jake Eder, 1B Sam Brown. Neither Eder or Brown are top 30 prospects; Brown in AAA with some MLB time this year, while Brown is repeating AA this year. Still, not bad return for two guys we signed off the veteran/MLFA heap in May and July respectively.
Trade #3: Mike Soroka traded to CHC for #11 OF Christian Franklin, #13 SS Ronny Cruz. Franklin heads to AAA, is an undersized corner type (similar to Lile) and adds to our existing OF depth, kind of surprising acquisition given what we already have in that regard. Cruz seems to be the prize, a 3rd round prep kid drafted last year, given decent money and who has solid power grades despite being a SS.
Trade #4: Kyle Finnegan traded to Det for #23 RHP starter Josh Randall and RHP starter RJ Sales. Randall is the prize; a 3rd rounder starter who heads to High-A sinker/slider guy with a 4.18 ERA this year in Low-A and who had just been moved up to High-A (he was assigned to Wilmington for us). Sales was a 10th rounder last year who doesn’t have he same upside, though he has far better numbers in Low-A this year than Randall and reports to our Low-A directly.
Trade #5: Alex Call traded to LAD for RHP starter #10 Sean Paul Linan and RHP starter #12 Eriq Swan. Linan seems to be the prize here, a 20-yr old IFA with really good K numbers in High-A this year to go along with a 2.65ERA. They even called him up for 2 spot starts in AAA (he got shelled). But don’t sleep on former 4th rounder Swan, a strong arm type who’s relatively new to pitching but has effortless upper 90s velocity.
So, to summarize, here’s where these 10 guys are reporting:
AAA: OF Franklin, RHP reliever Beeter, LHP reliever Eder
AA: 1B Brown
High-A: three new SPs Randall, Swan, Linan
Low-A: new SP Sales
FCL: SS Cruz
DSL: OF Brown
Possible Minor League impacts:
AAA: Beeter and Eder are both 40-man guys and we’re suddenly down a bunch of players at the MLB level so they may get callups soon. With Call’s trade, Hassell likely gets called up so Franklin can go right into starting lineup in Rochester.
AA: Brown joins a team that just promoted 1B only Boissiere and who has 1B-only Naranjo on the roster as well; not too much playing time to split when you have three primary 1Bs. Naranjo may be odd-man out, either going back to High-A or getting released since he’s a MLFA with little investment.
High-A: Three new SPs, all of whom are decent prospects, will stress that rotation as it is made up right now, especially since the team just promoted both Tejada and Garcia. There’s just not enough innings to go around in Wilmington right now and something will have to give. Kent isn’t going anywhere, though he’s showing signs of fatigue. Tolman is kind of a swingman type but has great numbers. Sthele is a fan favorite but may be topped out and could move to the pen. They’ve already moved out Arias and Caceres. Should be interesting to see how this rotation shakes out.
Low-A: Also just added three new arms via promotion in Sullivan, Farias, and Feliz and now they have 8 starters for 5 spots. There’s not an obvious existing candidate to dump out of the rotation to make way necessarily.
FCL: well, we just assigned our $8.2M SS Willits to FCL; Cruz isn’t playing above him. We also have $2.5M SS Coy Jones there. Maybe Cruz and Jones become 2B and 3B and get SS time here and there.
DSL: Brown immediately to 60-day DL, a curious acquisition to get someone who’s hurt upon arrival.
Judgement: love the pouring in of arms. Six arms, some of whom immediately help in the bullpen, others who might stick as starters or who add to the roster of possible relievers. Why has our bullpen been so bad lately? Because we have not had the pipeline of starters-turned-relievers that we need from the last few drafts. Now we have a bunch more candidates for that.
WASHINGTON, DC – JULY 21: Amed Rosario #13 of the Washington Nationals runs to first base against the Cincinnati Reds at Nationals Park on July 21, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by G Fiume/Getty Images)
Note: I wrote this mostly on July 9th, during a flurry of writing about the ASG, Home run derby, draft content, new prospect lists, etc. Yesterday, thanks to my forgetting to publish it, we already made a trade, so i’ve gotta get this going.
Thanks to an awful month of June, as the team barrels towards the end of July’s trade deadline, we sit with an 42-62 record, good for the 2nd worst in the National League (behind only the record breaking Colorado Rockies) and 3rd-worst in all of baseball (which won’t matter for the 2026 draft, since we’ll be kicked out of the top 10 regardless thanks to our being a “big market” team … you know, big market team that has no TV deal and spends like its based in Toledo despite being owned by a family with an estimated net worth of $6.4Billion … but i’m digressing). Our penny-pinching owner has whacked his long-time GM, who has proven quite adept at trades, and now we enter the 2025 trade bonanza with few assets other teams are targeting.
That rosy analysis notwithstanding, here’s what our trade deadline could look like.
Legit Trade Assets: Kyle Finnegan
When looking at MLB-wide trade candidate lists, the sole player we have who routinely appears on these lists is our closer, Finnegan. He’s on a one-year deal, he’s pitched very well (167 ERA+), and he’s just the kind of guy who can net a decent prospect for a playoff-chasing team looking for more bullpen help (which, lets be honest, is all of them).
Exceeeeeept…. just like last year, Finnegan has managed to engineer the destruction of his trade value right as teams started to look at him. He Blew up in successive appearances on 7/12 and again 7/18, which together raised his season ERA from 2.36 to 4.37. Awesome. he’s gone from maybe fetching a top-15 prospect to maybe fetching a couple of rookie league lottery tickets.
Likely return: couple of low-end lottery ticket prospects.
FA-to-be Starters: Mike Soroka
Soroka’s injury and underperformance makes it very unlikely he gets moved. He’s been hurt, and hasn’t pitched great even if his FIP flatters his ERA. But, if they can move him and pay the rest of his salary, maybe we can get a low-ranked/high-risk prospect, like an arm on someone’s Low-A team who’s injured. Soroka in theory can start or pitch in relief, but one of his most likely suitors (his old team Atlanta) is also out of the playoff race and are sellers.
Likely return here: nothing
FA-to-be Relievers: Law, Salazar, Chafin, Luis Garcia.
We’ve already released multiple one-year FA relievers for underperformance (Lopez, Sims, Poche), an indictment of now-departed Rizzo’s latest attempt to build a bullpen via retread FAs. Among those left, Law is done for the season with injury, Salazar has sucked, Chafin has been decent, and Garcia just got signed. I can’t see getting anything for anyone of these guys, maybe Chafin if someone wants a veteran lefty.
Likely return here: nothing
FA-to-be Position players: Bell, Rosario, DeJong
Bell and DeJong have been major disappointments from a “give a veteran a pillow contract and hope they perform enough to give us something tangible at the trade deadline” perspective. Rosario has been solid at the plate and can play basically anywhere on the field, but frankly the market for utility guy in a league where every team has 3-4 such guys stashed in AAA seems weak.
Update: I was completely wrong about Rosario’s value, and we ended up flipping him for the Yankees’ 20th ranked prospect Beeker and a solid-hitting DSL outfielder named Martinez. That’s more than I could have hoped for.
likely return here: whatever we can get.
FAs after 2026: Lowe, Williams
Williams hurt, again, and besides that has sucked and is now on the 60-day likely done for the season. Lowe is hovering around 100 OPS+ with some power but probably isn’t really raising anyone’s eyebrows for a 1B/DH replacement. He has one more Arb year next winter, is already at $10M and frankly could be a non-tender candidate if he sticks around. Could he get moved? Maybe, if we send the cash, but it’s worth remembering he was traded for a middle reliever last off-season, so the odds of getting much for him seems low.
Likely return here: nothing.
The Destroy the Fanbase confidence option: MacKenzie Gore
He’s at just $2.8M this year and has two more arb years. He will be a long shot to even get to $10M next off-season even if he finishes high in Cy Young voting, and as a pre-arb healthy Ace-level starter he would net a pretty penny. But … as we’ve discussed, rebuilding teams don’t frigging trade the cornerstone pieces of the damn rebuild. Gore is the kind of player you use to get back into respectability, not trade for assets that won’t come due for another 4 years.
I wrote all of that on July 9th before this team fired its GM and drafted four HS draftees who basically won’t appear before 2030, and I now openly question where we are as a franchise. Ownership isn’t spending money, and we’re drafting 17yr olds. I now wonder if the entire management structure is of the belief that this “rebuild” is now a failure and if we’re not preparing for a massive sell-off of our current assets who will be FAs before we can compete again. Gore is 1-A on this list, a Boras client (meaning he won’t sign an extension) who is a FA in two years. He’s healthy now, he’s in demand now, and while I don’t think he’s netting a Soto-esque package if someone offered us three legit prospects for him right now, does this team say no?
All our pre-Arb players: the rest of the team fits in here.
I see no reason to trade someone like Henry, or Wood, or Abrams, or Young, or anyone of this ilk. We want to leverage these guys while they’re still cheap and see if they turn into all stars.
Prediction? We get what we got for Rosario, a lottery ticket for Finnegan, and maybe move one other guy for a nothing-burger prospect. It’s just where we are; nothing left to cash in, and our off-season FAs have really disappointed.
Rizzo out after more than 16 years on the job. Photo via MLB
I just happened to have the MLB network on yesterday when shocking news broke: the Nats have fired both Manager Davey Martinez and long-time General Manager Mike Rizzo by way of a typical say-nothing milquetoast “ownership announcement” from the Lerner family citing the “need for a fresh approach.”
This is the same non-speak you hear when someone who’s been fired from their job says they “need to spend more time with their family.”
The main reason the timing was their contract options; both had 2026 options due this month. If the team wanted to go in a different direction, they had to be picked up by month’s end. Perhaps the simplest answer is this: Lerner’s already knew they wanted to go in a different direction this coming off-season and decided to cut bait now instead of on July 31st and have themselves two lame duck executives for the rest of the season. However, there’s a lot more to it, at least for Rizzo’s firing.
The timing of canning Rizzo is somewhat ridiculous. The team is in the middle of draft prep, a draft where they hold the #1 overall pick and have $16.5M to dole out. Not only that, but right after the draft, its trade season, where the GM has to wheel and deal to find the best moves for a failing team. Firing Rizzo this week is a complete indictment of the ownership group’s decision making, who, if they really truly believe Mike Rizzo is the reason this team is in last place and not themselves for holding back payroll, then they’re even more delusional than we thought. I can only think there’s more to this story w/r/t canning Rizzo today. GMs generally have a massive say in the top 2-3 picks of each draft, since they’re the most money and the highest-leverage negotiations, but then the Scouting Director mostly dictates the rest of the picks. So, whacking the GM now is still “bad,” but not quite as bad for the rest of the draft.
The larger issue considering Rizzo’s tenure here is a lot more understandable. We’ve discussed the relative failure of the Rizzo regime w/r/t both player development and drafting more and more lately. Rizzo has pretty much failed at picking an impact player in the 1st or 2nd round for a decade straight at this point, and the system’s overall failure to develop impact players has extended that entire time. The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal crushed Rizzo and the team in late May for this same point: quoting that article, “… since 2013, the Nationals have drafted and developed only three players with career bWARs above 5.0. Those three — Nick Pivetta, Erick Fedde, Jesús Luzardo — made their marks with other teams.” That’s so bad as to be laughable. We’ve lived through years of failed 1st rounders and an even worse track record on 2nd rounders. Seth Romero may have been the nadir of Rizzo’s draft strategy, picking a known headcase AND paying him an above slot bonus was a move that the entire baseball industry predicted ahead of time how it would work out, correctly.
It’s fair to criticize Rizzo and his staff for this. But that’s not the entire reason the team is in last place, again. They’re spending a fraction of what it takes to compete in the NL east in 2025. If the Lerner’s actually, truly believe a $113M payroll should be in playoff contention this year, then they’re even more delusional than we thought.
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For Martinez, the writing may have been on the wall for a few weeks now after his ill-thought press conference throwing his players under the bus for performance. MLB Managers don’t have long careers anymore primarily for one reason: MLB players who earn multiple times the salary of the manager can only take so much “leadership” before they tune him out. Martinez is known as a “player’s manager,” meaning he takes a softer approach, an approach where he relies on his prior on-field experiences to say to players, “dude I used to play too, listen to my advice.” Player managers are the best … until they’re not. Then suddenly a losing team takes advantage, doesn’t heed advice, and suddenly you need to swing the pendulum far to the other side of Manager types and get yourself a “Task master.” If you look back at the recent history of our managers you can kind of see this swinging back and forth:
Martinez: Player manager
preceded by Dusty Baker, also a player manager but an old school cross over one
preceded by Matt Williams, a task master
preceded by Davey Johnson, definitely a player’s manager
preceded by Jim Riggleman, a task master
preceded by Manny Acta, a player’s manager
preceded by Frank Robinson, absolutely an old school task master
preceded by Felipe Alou, absolutely a player’s manager.
Anyway, you get the point. Prepare for this team to install some old-school A-hole who whips the team into shape.
Unfortunately, the Nats made the wrong kind of news over the weekend, looking again like the inept, bumbling organization they have been long-considered in baseball circles. Let’s hope it doesn’t result in some ridiculous decision making at the 2025 draft.
Rutledge may be pressed back into the starting role. 2023 photo via 3rdmanin.com
We’re two weeks into the season … and the Nats are already running out of pitching.
With the latest moves, here’s the status of our 40-man SPs:
MLB Rotation: Gore, Williams, Irvin, Parker*, Lord
SPs on DL: Grey, Herz, Cavalli, Soroka
40-man SPs in minors: Ogasawara, Lara,
At the end of last year, we were in a similar situation to some extent … except that we were still calling Rutledge, Adon, and Henry “starters.” Now, we’re not calling any of those guys starters anymore, and we’re now one injury away from a disaster occurring. Two of the four guys on the DL are down for months in various stages of TJ surgery (Grey, Herz), a third is just only now starting throwing some innings and seems weeks away (Cavalli) and a fourth has a biceps issue and isn’t expected back until “May” (Soroka). “May” could mean 5/1 or 5/31.
Neither Ogasawara or Lara is MLB ready: Ogasawara got shelled in spring training and has a 4.80 ERA in 3 starts in AAA. Lara has a 9.26 ERA and is getting rocked right now in AAA and may need more AA time. Neither looks like an option if we have another starter go down, and we probably call up Alvarez as option A before looking at returning Rutledge to the rotation as optionB. Maybe you look at someone like Plinkington (long-time ML starter) or Adon (even if we know how that goes) .. but neither are on 40-man at present.
At least we have some starting pitching options here … the bullpen is in dire straits.
Its April 15th and we’re basically out of relievers.
MLB bullpen: Finnegan, Lopez, Sims, Ferrer, Poche, Salazar, Rutledge, Henry
RPs on DL: Law, Brzycky, Ribalta, Thompson
40-RPs in minors; None (!)
That’s right; we don’t have a single 40-man reliever in the minors right now. Thanks to early April injuries to Law and Ribalta, the team has already called up its minor league reliever depth in Rutledge and Henry. Next guy who goes down? We’re adding someone to the 40-man and rolling the dice. Nobody in AAA has more than 3-4 innings, so attempting to guess who would make sense to callup is folly, but the two names that might make the most sense initially are Carlos Romero and Jack Sinclair, both setup/closer types that have shown success in either AA or AAA. There’s also three 2025 MLFAs in AAA in Plinkington, Weidel, and Helvey, two of which who have MLB time, so those two make sense to callup as well (they probably also have opt-outs built in).
I can’t remember a season where this many arms hit the DL so soon. I can remember Aprils with bullpens so bad that Rizzo cleaned house, but nothing like this. Should be interesting to see what happens next. With a full 40-man roster, every move has to have a corresponding move … and its not like we have a ton of deadweight on the 40-man right now. With seven guys on the 10/15 day DL, that’s just seven remaining 40-man players:
SPs: Ogasawara, Lara,
C: Millas
INFs: Baker, Lipscomb
OFs: Yepez, Hassell
There’s not a name on that remaining list that is an obvious DFA. There’s not really an obvious name on the DL right now to whack either. So that means a pretty deep cut DFA or a 60-day stash for every move.
Tough to focus on winning ball games when you don’t know who’s pitching the 7th.
Andry Lara in AAA now, a long ways from whatever this field was. Photo via mlb.com
Now that we’re a full turn through the rotations of all the full season squads, I thought i’d kick off the monthly series of rotation reviews with an “Opening day” rotation review, comparing it to how we ended last year and talking about who’s where, who’s surprisingly up or down where i thought they would be, etc.
End of 2024 Season: Gore, Irvin, Williams, Herz, Parker, Corbin
Prediction for 2025: Gore, Irvin, Parker, Herz, Veteran FA signing with Grey on DL, Cavalli in AAA)
Opening Day 2025: Gore, Irvin, Parker, Soroka, TWilliams
Rotation Prediction and 2025 Observations: Well, we were pretty close on the predictions, getting four of the five right (Gore, Irvin, Parker, and Veteran VA signing in TWilliams). We missed on the Nats signing several more arms to have open competition for the 5th slot between Soroka, Ogasawara, and Herz. In the end, Ogasawara didn’t quite look ready for prime time (more on that in AAA section), and Herz looks like he’s heading to TJ. Grey on the DL as expected; Cavalli also on the MLB DL instead of in AAA because, well, apparently it now takes like 5 years to recover from TJ surgery in the Nats organization.
Shortest Leash to start the season: I’d say Parker is on the shortest leash, in that he was clearly the 5th starter to earn a spot. However, Soroka is already down win an injury and interestingly the team seems to have chosen not to backfill him immediately with a AAA starter. That’s partly due to early season off-day schedule, and partly due to the fact that they have a starter-turned-bullpen guy in Brad Lord in the bullpen (update: Lord made last night’s start and went three, so I’m penciling him in as 5th starter for now).
Bullpen comments: As is typical for Mike Rizzo constructed teams, the bullpen is a hodge podge of random Nats developed arms (Ferrer, Ribalta, Lord), Scrap-heap signings (Salazar, Poche, Law), and veteran one year FA types (Finnegan, Lopez, Sims). They’ve been less than impressive to open the 2025 season, not helped one bit by their 2024 stalwart Law immediately hitting the DL. I’m sure we’ll see the DCA-ROC regional shuttle get good use this year.
AAA:
End of 2024 Season: Alvarez, Lord, Ward, Rutledge, Watkins (Stuart hit DL last week of season)
Prediction for 2025: Rutledge, Lord, Alvarez, Stuart, Cavalli/MLFA signing
Opening Day 2025: Alvarez, Lara, Ogasawara, Choi, Solesky
Rotation Prediction and 2025 Observations: Watkins and Ward departed the season (by MLFA and Waivers respectively). My Nov predictions for 2025’s rotation were scuttled by a couple of surprising, and welcome moves. Rutledge has been moved to relief (which I never thought the team would do), and Lord (a personal favorite) made the MLB team. Stuart remains on the DL, otherwise likely would be in the rotation at the expense of (probably) Choi. I thought Cavalli would be ready to go and would be in the rotation; no dice. So instead we get a AA-level Rule5 guy in Choi to start along with two guys who moved up from AA last year in Lara and Solesky. Is 22-yr old Lara ready for AAA? I don’t think so, but he’s there. You could argue he had little to prove with 19 2024 AA starts; fair enough. Solesky needed the promotion; he’s 27 and its either up or out, even if I predicted he’d be back in AA last fall.
Next guy to get promoted: Both Lara and Ogasawara are on the 40-man, but neither seems ready to move up if needed. I think Alvarez would be the guy who makes the most sense unless Cavalli came off the DL if they need a starter. Solesky is 27 and is the elder statesman of the bunch, but his AAA time came in 2023 and he got shelled, so he needs to prove himself a bit more before getting a shot.
Shortest Leash to start the season: Choi seems like he should be in AA as a minor league Rule5 guy and would be the first guy I would think gets demoted if the results aren’t there/they need a spot. Lara had 19 starts in AA last year and apparently that’s going to be enough.
Bullpen comments: Rutledge started the year as the closer, but got pushed up quickly with Soroka’s injury. This led to the cascading promotion domino effect of Henry getting pushed up to now be AAA’s closer, following in the Starter -> Reliever conversion trend. There’s a couple of home grown, intriguing arms here (Sinclair, Romero), and the rest are what you’d expect of a AAA bullpen: MLFAs, Rule5 picks, and waiver claims.
AA:
End of 2024 Season: Lara, Shuman, Solesky, Luckham, Saenz (Theophile)
Prediction for 2025: Lara, Shuman, Sokesky, Luckham, Cuevas with Henry (i), Knowles (i) on DL.
Opening Day 2025: Shuman, Luckham, Saenz, Susana, Atencio
Rotation Prediction and 2025 Observations: The first day of 2025 looks an awful lot like the last day of 2024 for this rotation: Luckham, Saenz, and Shuman leading the line. They’re joined by the newly promoted Susana, aggresively moved up from his half season in High-A last year. I predicted Lara would be the 5th here in the typical Nats “half season promotion plan” but instead he’s in AAA. Henry to the pen as discussed, and Knowles still hurt, which leaves us with Atencio, who earns the promotion as well. Cuevas was in and out of the rotation all last year and is still in AA, likely filling in as LR/SS. Last year’s rotation stalwart Theophile hit 6-year MLFA and is out of the system.
Next guy to get promoted: If Shuman stays healthy, he’s already 27 and should be on the way up. Luckham was up briefly to AAA but got shelled; he might be 2nd in line to move up. The rest, especially Susana and Atencio, are likely here for at least half a season.
Next guy to get cut/demoted: Saenz is probably on the shortest leash here: he had an 8+ ERA in AA last year. Luckily for him there’s not huge pressure on him just yet in the form of injured starters coming out of XST to the AA level.
Bullpen comments: One of our more important reliever prospects is here in Grissom, along with some solid performers in the system like Peterson and Powell. We also stuck three MLFA signings from the off-season here; they could move up quickly. I’m sure a MLFA signing with AAA time is not happy to be in AA.
High-A:
End of 2024 Season: Susana, Cornelio, Tepper, Caceres, Atencio
Prediction for 2025: Susana, Sykora, Atencio, Bennett, Clemmey (with Young, Caceres, Cornelio, Tepper, or Davis getting moved to the bullpen)
Opening Day 2025: Clemmey, Cornelio, Kent, Sthele, Tepper
Rotation Prediction and 2025 Observations: My prediction for High-A got shellacked with the aggresive promotion of Susana & Atencio and the lingering DL stays for Sykora & Bennett. That means I got just one name right; Opening day starter Clemmey. He’s joined by two guys who i’m kind of shocked are still high-A starters (Cornelio, Tepper), a surprise promotion (Sthele, who had a 4.81 ERA in 23 G/21 Starts last year in Low-A), and a surprise High-A pro debut for 2024 4th rounder Jackson Kent (who I thought would be in Low-A). I was correct in that Young and Davis moved to the bullpen, and Caceres was just put on the 7-day DL.
Next guy to get promoted: I have no idea. You have to think Clemmey and Kent, the two most important prospects, are here for at least two months no matter what. Cornelio and Tepper are hold-overs but have never really shown they should still be starters, let alone get promoted. Sthele just moved up and isn’t going to be ready for AA anytime soon. Hence my above comment about there being almost no pressure on the AA rotation right now unless someone like Bennett shows back up and dominates in A-ball like one would think he should/would.
Next guy to get cut/demoted: Cornelio & Tepper seem likely to make way when Bennett is ready to pitch.
Bullpen comments: NDFAs, senior draftees, and MLFAs. A hodge podge of arms here. I am kind of surprised Davis is in the bullpen; he had really good numbers last year. Maybe he’ll pitch tandem.
Low-A:
End of 2024 Season: Sykora, Romero, Clemmey, Sthele, Polanco
Prediction for 2025: Tolman, Aldonis, Kent, Colon, Portorreal, with Sthele, Polanco, Romero as LR/SS options. (dl: Sullivan, Agostini)
Opening Day 2025: Polanco, Meckley, Tejeda, Roman, DGarcia
Rotation Prediction and 2025 Observations: My predictions last November were way off. Tolman is now a reliever, Aldonis is still hurt, Kent & Sthele made the High-A team, and Colon & Portorreal are still in XST. Brayan Romero is on the DL, along with Sullivan & Agostini, both of whom went straight to 60-day to start the season.
That left three slots for 2024 draftees, which is a great thing for the development honestly. So we get Meckley (12th rounder), Tejeda (14th rounder) and Garcia (6th rounder) in the opening day rotation. They’re joined by IFA signings Polanco and Roman. We do not get Cranz in the rotation as some scouting pundits predicted.
Next guy to get promoted: I’d guess Polanco, who was in the Low-A rotation for most of 2024. Garcia is the highest profile 2024 draftee and may push his way up quickly.
Next guy to get cut/demoted: I’d guess Meckley or Tejeda has the least amount of capital investment and have the shortest leashes. Roman was a sub $10k IFA signing and is found money; I hope he succeeds.
Bullpen comments: converted position player Mejia is here, age 30 pitching in Low-A. There’s 5 guys with names that start with “B” in this bullpen. Not much else noteworthy.
Who’s left in XST/FCL? Colon and Portorreal, who I thought maybe would make the low-A team. Another couple of newly graduated DSL guys like Farias and Moreno. However, when the FCL season starts i’m guessing its 5-6 starters all coming straight from the DSL roster.
