Year four of the rebuild is complete. The team was flirting with .500 well into June but just couldn’t hold it together once they lost their best starter. From the trade-deadline forward they went 22-30 to end the season at 71-91, a .438 winning percentage.
Here’s a quick summary of where we are in the rebuild:
Year 1: 2021: moved Turner, Scherzer, Schwarber, et al. Finished 65-97. Earned 5th overall pick in 2022 draft (Elijah Green)
Year 2: 2022: moved Soto and Bell, finished 55-107, Earned 2nd overall pick in 2023 draft after losing lottery, got Dylan Crews.
Year 3: 2023: Improved to 71-91, dropped to 10th in 2024 draft thanks to new CBA rules despite winning lottery, got Seaver King
Year 4: 2024: Finished 71-91 again.
Our 71-91 finish, combined with the White Sox getting the same treatment we got last year (i.e., being a big market team that is bad two years in a row getting kicked out of the top 10) and Oakland getting kicked out of the lottery as well (they’re a revenue recipient that’s been in the lottery two years in a row), we stand to benefit by moving up a couple of slots of lottery odds.
Tankathon.com has the current reverse order of draft standings, showing us in 4th place/4th best lottery odds. We can pick no worse than 7th, but can move up to pick #1. (all the draft rules are at the bottom of the tankathon page).
We’re a ways off of from the 2025 draft, but we are starting to see some commonality for the names at the 2025 draft boards. Its looking like a college-heavy first round right now, even though a prep kid could go 1-1 overall. If we’re in the top 7 though, we’re in line to get one of these names right now:
Ethan Holliday, SS, Stillwater (Okla.) HS. Brother of Jackson Holliday, son of Matt Holliday
Caden Bodine, C, Coastal Carolina; .347/.432/.564 first two years at CCU as a plus defensive Catcher.
Jamie Arnold, LHP, Florida State. 1st team AA, Friday starter for FSU. 159 Ks in 102ip in 2024, co-ace for US Collegiate National Team this summer with Bremner.
Cam Cannarella, OF, Clemson Freshman ACC POTY, .363/.440/.560 first two college seasons while playing with injury.
Devin Taylor, OF (CF), Indiana. .357/.449/.660 with 20HRs his sophomore season.
Nolan Schubart, OF Oklahoma State. Ridiculous 1.351 OPS in 2024. Huge slugger potential.
There’s also a couple of other prep kids in the mix for the top 10, but something tells me we’ll be taking a college player this time around and not a project. We don’t “need” Bodine or an outfielder necessarily, would love to get one of these two college arms. The top of the class certainly is looking outfielder heavy right now. I like the connection to Schubart, an Oklahoma kid (we seem to take a lot of players from that region) who could mash his way up, but BA has him slipping into the 20s for the class so he may not really be in the conversation for the top 6-7 of the draft. I like a slugger outfielder who could project as a 1B/LF/DH rotation kind of guy, but it has to be a major slugger.
Anyway, lots to discuss this off-season. I’m not sure how much i’ll “cover” the playoffs this year due to other writing commitments, but we have options, rule5, and other fun stuff to cover coming up.
He’ll be wearing this uniform for good. Photo via Crews’ instagram page.
With a bit of advance fanfare (news leaked on Friday 8/23/24 for his 8/26/24 call-up), the cornerstone of the Nats rebuild Dylan Crews has been called up.
He’ll take his place in an outfield that started the year Winker/Rosario/Thomas and which is set to end it with the all-prospect, all-under 24, all pre-arb set of players Wood/Young/Crews. I didn’t think we’d get to this point until at least May of 2025, and honestly I thought a year ago it’d be Hassell instead of Young, but here we are.
Crews’ AAA line in total (.265/.340/.455) doesn’t really look that dominant, or that worthy of getting called up. Even his improved August numbers (.289/.356/.513) bely a bit of a patience problem (just 5 walks in 18 games). But, consider that Bryce Harper got called up with pretty middling AAA numbers (.243/.325/.365) and went on to win the NL ROY in 2012. Speaking of Rookie of the year, the timing of the call-up should be just enough to preserve Crew’s rookie status (150 PAs) for next year while getting him some big league looks as the team plays out the string.
And why not call him up now? Even if Alex Call hadn’t hurt his foot, it makes zero sense to play anyone else for extended periods of time in the OF at this point. Blankenhorn? We’ve already outrighted him once. Garrett? The fact that he remains on the 40-man but has been passed over multiple times for obvious outfield vacancies should tell us everything we need to know regarding the state of his career after last year’s gruesome leg injury, unfortunately. Meneses? Can he even play the outfield? Gallo? why is he even still on the team at this point? In the final game before his call-up, the Nats rolled Gallo out to start in RF and we got the most Gallo-esque performance possible: 4 PAs, 3 strikeouts, 1 walk, and he now sports a season average of .165.
So, call him up, sell some tickets, let him get licked in meaningless games for a 4th place team playing out the string, and plan on 2025 come out firing with all our young guns in the lineup (Wood, Crews, Abrams, Garcia, Young, etc).
Lots of questions about Abrams this week Photo via dcsportskings.com
I have not done this in a while. I used to do this near weekly post series when former Nats beat writer Bill Ladsen would answer fan questions. Now he’s moved on and we rarely get any of the known beat writers addressing any fan questions … except for long-time beat man Mark Zuckerman. Zuckerman periodically does a q&a session in the form of comments on a post. Fans post questions and Zuckerman answers them.
So for fun I thought i’d try it. Here’s some of the main questions asked and how I’d answer them. I’ll go from the bottom up. I post the “question” (sometimes editing for clarity), put my response, then put Zuckerman’s response summarized.
Q: Who would you expect the Nationals to add to the roster and who would you like to see them add yourself?
A: If they’re just doing existing 40-man players, the two most obvious players to add would probably be a starter (Rutledge) and an outfielder (recall Meneses). The starter would help manage innings limits for the young guys, and the OF can cover for the guys we traded (Winker, Thomas). If they’re going to add new players to the 40-man roster to do roster expansion on 9/1, then the obvious choice is likely to add Crews at that point and maybe reward Lord? Maybe not; still seems too early for Lord. Zuckerman kind of hedged, saying maybe Crews, maybe Tena/Chapparo, maybe Rutledge, maybe Williams/Cavalli coming off the DL.
Q: Wood has more than held his own at the plate but his defense in LF has been suspect so far. How long until he’s moved to his more comfortable spot in RF? I vision him eventually manning 1st base. Sooner, rather than later.
A: Um. LF is far, far easier to play than RF. If he can’t handle LF, he’s going to be a massive liability in RF. Its small sample size, but indeed his defense so far across the board is bad: DRS of -4 (that’s 4 runs cost in 274 innings, which projects to -20 DRS for a full season) and a UZR/150 of -26. Those are both really, really bad. Luckily, he’s 6’10” and would make a perfect 1B. My guess is this: once we have enough top-quality OFs in the majors, Wood makes way. Who will that be? Who knows: we still have a pipeline of OFs in the minors who could force their way into the conversation: Hassell, Lile, Pinckney, and Stone Garrett are all relatively close, while guys like Vaquero, Green, Cox, and 2024 draftees are further away. Zuckerman asked Martinez if Wood would move to RF once Thomas got traded and he said no … intimating that the Nats believe Crews will take RF upon promotion and the OF will be Woods-Young-Crews for the forsee-able future.
Q: Should they just DFA Corbin at this point? He seems to be getting worse as the year goes on. Trevor Williams could hold that spot for the remainder of the season
A: Nope. As discussed in the July rotation review post, thanks to the injury issues our three possible replacements face (Grey, Cavalli, Williams), the high likelihood is that Corbin stays through the end of the season. Now we’re close enough to 9/30 that our young pitchers like Parker and Herz (and even Gore to some respect) will need to skip starts to keep IP low. Even if Cavalli or Williams magically re-appeared, you’d still keep Corbin in the pen to provide this service until his $35M salary is exhausted. Zuckerman basically agrees, noting that neither Williams or Cavalli are both just basically playing catch right now, let alone building up strength, let alone doing rehab starts.
Q: Which of the minor leaguers we received at the trade deadline are likely to be called up for a cup of coffee? At least 2 (Tena and Chaparro) appear to be MLB ready.
A: The easy answer is Tena, who’s on the 40-man. The moment we have an infield injury he’s on the bus to DC. Fun fact: we’re in mid-August and Nunez has 15 total at-bats! Wow. Chapparo seems like a 2025 NRI to compete for the Meneses job: 1B/DH mostly. He projects to be a stumpy slugger with little defensive value, not exactly something the team values, and I can’t see him getting added to the 40-man to get called up over Meneses and Garrett. Zuckerman says Tena, and maybe sooner than later since Lipscomb continues to struggle playing every day.
Q: (Paraphrased) Kiebert Ruiz had a few decent moments but generally is struggling and batting cleanup, and is signed long term. How do you see this playing out?
A: I’m going to chalk it up to just a bad season. His career MLB numbers prior to this were just fine and justified the long term contrac.t The OP asks about why he’s batting cleanup … turns out his splits at cleanup are a lot better than at 6-hole where he batted most of the year. His OPS of .710 batting clean-up would give him an OPS+ figure above 100. I’m not worried about Ruiz. Zuckerman is more harsh, calling Ruiz the biggest disappointment of the season, plus he was critical of Ruiz’ defense. Hmm.
Q: Did Matt Cronin do something to get deep in the dog house?
A: Note: Cronin was finally promoted to AA after sitting in High-A for probably two months too long. I questioned the same in my last two monthly check-ins, and have no answer other than to guess that, as a guy who passed through waivers/DFA to get outrighted, the team doesn’t consider him a prospect anymore and he’s now in “org arm” territory, which means he gets moved around the system as needed to eat up reliever innings until that point where he hits 6year MLFA or gets cut. Zuckerman noted he did have back surgery last year and perhaps the team wanted to ease him back, but otherwise has no idea why he’s been stuck in A ball for so long.
Q: Why is it taking so long to get Williams back on the mound in games?
A: Because he had a serious injury. A Flexor issue is a 2-3 month injury at best case, and worst case leads to TJ surgery. He went on the DL June 4th. We’re now August 7th, so that’s 2 months and he’s reportedly not yet doing mound work. Per the injury update, the team is hoping to have him “throw a few innings” in September. Zuckerman says the same.
Q: What is wrong with CJ’s batting? He seems to be swinging at bad pitches.
A: Everything in Abram’s aggregate stats in 2024 is an improvement over last year. Line Drive % up, hard contact % up, Ground ball and weaker contact down. He is in the 10th percentile of all MLB hitters in Chase rate … but his swing/take numbers are drastically improved over the past two years. I’ll take a couple of chase pitches for a guy who has really improved on balls over the plate. Zuckerman notes he’s in a slump right now and this is what he does when he slumps.
Q: Your early thoughts who Rizzo may target FAs in the off-season (or make any surprising trades like Gonzalez or Eaton) for DH/1B/SP/backup C for 2025? Who would YOU like to see as a veteran (ala Werth) signing to lead the young players?
A: I’m beginning to think that Rizzo may give it another year to allow the younger players to matriculate up before making a massive deal. I don’t think this is a 2011 heading into 2012 deal, where he thinks a major signing will be the catalyst to go to a 90-win team. I also think the team is pretty well set at a lot of the positions.
OF is set with Wood-Young-Crews once Crews shows up
3B/SS/2B will be set with top prospects House-Abrams-Garcia.
C is set with long-term signee Ruiz. Why bother signing a backup veteran C if you have healthy Adams and Millas?
So the only thing i could see on the FA market would be yet another 1B/DH veteran type like Gallo to try to catch lightning in a bottle.
Starters: Gore, Parker, Herz, Irvin all young and healthy right now. You expect Cavalli back for 2025. Williams is a FA and might take a deal to return. We don’t have a ton of depth past that, so maybe another FA starter … but who does that starter replace? Herz? You’re not getting a starter to replace Gore or Cavalli, and Parker/Irvin have earned their spots. So, there doesn’t seem to be a huge need for a starter.
Relievers; definitely need some FA help. As of this writing, I’d dump half my relievers. So, look for a ton of 1yr and MLFA deals in the off-season.
Zuckerman says, power hitting 1B, maybe a SP, and relievers.
Q: The “500 Clubs” questions. 1) Do you think the next 500 foot home run will be by one of the famous sluggers or someone people don’t expect to hit one that long?; 2) Which players have the best chance of reaching 500 career home runs based on current totals, age, injury history and other reasons?
A: The next 500-foot homer will be from one of the known sluggers (Ohtani, Stanton, Judge), because they’re the ones who are playing regularly and getting frequent looks. The longest so far this year is 480 from someone unexpected, but last year 493 from Ohtani and the last 500 footer was in 2022 in (surprise) Colorado from CJ Cron.
Best chances to get to 500 homers? Taking a quick peek at active HR leaders …
I think Stanton can get another 80 despite injury issues
Trout should be a shoe-in sitting at 378 with probably another 7-8 seasons to go.
Harper and Machado are both 31 and sitting at 330; both are signed long term for the same team and should be able to average 20 a year for 8 years to get there.
Judge sitting at 298 at age 32 is an interesting question mark: he’s so prolific but so injury prone.
Alonso and Ohtani are both 29 and sitting in the 205-215 range; that’s a ways to go but doable.
Soto is only 25 and already has 188. He could hit 200 before the end of the season. The better question for Soto might be can he hit 600, or 650.
Zuckerman wasn’t aware of stat cast tracking, but listed the same guys I did.
Q: Do you have any insight or theories as to why the return for Flora was so light (a minor league free agent) relative to other mid reliever trades?
A: Probably reputation, role, and contract status. Honestly, in hindsight the return for Hunter was amazing. What a fleece job (Cayden Wallace and a supp-1st draft pick). Zuckerman says it’s because Floro was a 2month rental and a FA at the end of 2024, so there was limits as to what you’d get.
Q: Why has the radio feed been eliminated in the concourse?
A: No idea. There’s no good reason to turn that off. Zuckerman has no idea either
Q: Who’s next to be brought up, Millas, Ribalta etc.? Got a guesstimate?
A: I’m sure we’ll see random call-ups for double headers and other minor injuries between now and 9/1. Willingham and Millas seem to be the two most likely. Zuckerman says he hopes its Crews.
(From here down Zuckerman called it a day, so no alternate answers)
Q: Do you think Joey Gallo will return to nats line up after he gets off IR?
A: Yes I do think he’ll return and will be given a chance to showcase himself for the off-season. Seems like veteran privilege. I don’t think he’ll hit though and may get DFA’d so the team can continue to start prospects to audition for 2025.
Q: What is Jake Noll up to these days?
Hit MLFA in November 2023 and never signed another affiliated deal. He wasn’t in winterball and he’s not with any indy or foreign league in 2024. I can’t find any hint as to what he’s done since: nothing on his twitter or wikipedia page. So, who knows?
Q: Who is one player you wish that has gotten more opportunity with Nats but it was not meant to be?
A: I wonder why we couldn’t get the performance out of Fedde that he found in Korea.
Q: Outfield of the future for Nats? Young needs to hit for more power to be part of it or? Do you still be believe in Hassel?
A: I believe its Wood-Young-Crews for the time being until Hassell or Lile makes a case. But, neither are really making that case right now.
Q: Do you think Abrams is good enough as SS or better as 2B?
A: Defensively? He’s not half bad: for 2024 he’s at 1.1 UZR/150 and a 4 DRS for the season. I’ll take that for a SS generating his offense, as would nearly every other team in the league. There’s no reason to move him to 2B unless we found a SS who was just significantly better and provided passable offense. our SS depth right now doesn’t really show that coming: Tena/Cluff in AAA, Made in AA, Pena in High-A (who will lose that job as soon as King is ready to go), Cruz in low-A? Maybe Dickerson next spring in FCL? Nobody is close.
Q: How much of the offensive struggles can and should be placed on the hitting coach and manager?
A: Some, I suppose? But if a hitter just isn’t talented, what can a hitting coach do? You can only get results up to a point. We’ve seen our pitchers drastically improve and are attributing it to Sean Doolittle, perhaps we should expect more from our hitting coach.
Q: If the Nats win the draft lottery in 2023, do they draft Paul Skenes instead of Dylan Crews, and would Lane Thomas still be a Nat?
A: 100% we would have picked Skenes. Thomas still would have been traded b/c he fetched value and we still have other OFs in the system.
Phew. that was fun. Disagree with my or Zuckerman’s answers?
CJ Abrams is a first time all star in 2024, hopefully the first of many. Photo via dcsportskings.com
This is a running post with all star notes for the team, updated for 2024.
Nats All Star Game Trivia:
All-time leader in Nats all-star appearances: Bryce Harper and Max Scherzer, both with 6 appearances with the Nats. (these numbers are only appearances with us, not including other franchises)
All-time leader in All-Star Game starts: Harper, who had 5 starts.
Total number of Starters in the history of the Franchise: Now is 11; Harper 5 times, Scherzer 3 times, and one each for Soriano, Murphy, Zimmerman.
Most all-star players named in a single year: 5 in both 2016 and 2017.
Least all-star game players named in a single year: 1 in multiple years during the “dark years” of 2006 through 2011, and now in 2022 and again in 2023 as we rebuild.
Most unlikely All-Star: Probably Dmitri Young or Cristian Guzman, both being the “someone has to make the all star team” nominations in our 100 loss period in the late 2000s.
Nationals All-Star Representative: CJ Abrams, Kyle Finnegan (both 1st time)
Snubs: Trevor Williams (on dl)
Narrative: Abrams was initially our sole representative until Finnegan was added at the last minute as an injury replacement. Williams should have been the named representative, sitting in the top 10 in most pitching categories, but got hurt a few weeks before the ASG and probably won’t return for weeks afterwards. We have a couple other players putting up decent seasons (Winker, Irvin) but none really All Star worthy.
Four Ex-nats appeared in the 2024 ASG, three of them starters (Harper, Turner, Soto). Amazingly Reynaldo Lopez represented Atlanta. Erick Fedde didn’t make the ASG but is considered one of the best trade prospects of the year. Wish we could have gotten these two guys to pitch like this for us.
Narrative. The Nats were bad this year, and were one of those teams that had to dig deep to find a sole representative. Grey was our opening day starter and was our best starter for the bulk of the year. We had some other players who ended up having decent seasons (Candelario, Thomas, Harvey) but they would have too much competition in their respective positions to earn a spot.
Nationals All-Star Representative: Juan Soto (2nd)
Snubs: Josh Bell
Narrative. Soto gets his 2nd ASG appearance, probably more on reputation than performance for 2022. He’s only hitting .243 as of the naming, but is getting on base at nearly a .400 clip thanks to his league-leading walk figure. Meanwhile, the best hitter on the team by far is Bell, who is snubbed from making his own 2nd ASG appearance likely a couple of weeks before he’s traded to a contender. Well, when you’re a last place team, you’re only getting one guy on the roster. Soto also gets into the Home Run Derby, which he wins. However, the story of the week was the leaking of contract talks breaking down, with Soto turning down a $440M deal and the team announcing they’re entertaining trade talks.
Nationals All-Star representatives: Trea Turner, Juan Soto, Kyle Schwarber, Max Scherzer* (substitute addition)
Possible Snubs: none
Narrative: The Nats scuffle into the all-star week on fumes thanks to losing 7 of 9 against NL West teams and suffering perhaps one too many injuries. Scherzer was not initially named, which I immediately listed as a huge snub. But then not only was he added as a replacement player … he was then named the damn starter. How is that possible? Anyway, among our other named players Schwarber’s injury prevents him from playing, but Soto gets into the Home Run derby, where he upsets #1 seed Shohei Ohtani before losing in the next round.
2020
Nationals All-Star representatives: (No Game)
Who would have made it: Juan Soto
Narrative: Covid-19 forced the cancellation of the ASG and the shortening of the season from 162 to 60 games. Nonetheless, the season that Juan Soto put up should have been recognized, even un-officially. He hit .351/.490/.695 in 47 games for an astounding 221 OPS+ figure, the 33rd best ever season posted by this figure. But, since Soto got hit with Covid and had to miss the first two weeks … he did not qualify for batting titles and was left out of the ASG and MVP conversations.
Nationals All-Star representatives: Max Scherzer, Anthony Rendon
Possible Snubs: Juan Soto, Stephen Strasburg, Howie Kendrick, Trevor Rosenthal (just kidding)
Narrative: Rendon finally is named to an all-star team, having played in the shadows of other more well-known NL third basemen for years. Arbitrary Endpoints: Rendon is 7th in baseball among hitters in total fWAR since 2014. 7th. In the entire league. And this is his first ASG. Meanwhile Scherzer is the obvious pick, though i’m not sure he gets the start this year. Scherzer leads the NL in bWAR … but Hyun-Jin Ryu is having an amazing season and could get the nod (indeed, he has). Soto’s numbers are solid, as good as his rookie campaign, but he started slow and the story-line surrounding the Nats this season has overshadowed his production. Strasburg actually has more bWAR than Rendon … but his numbers are solid, not all-star good. Kendrick would never have gotten a nod, but he should be a shoe-in for comeback player of the year for the season he’s having. Others of note: Sean Doolittle was amazing for most of the first half but has tired and his numbers slipped. Patrick Corbin‘s debut season has been solid, not flashy, and he has the same issues as Strasburg had.
Post publishing update: neither of our two representatives are actually going to Cleveland. Rendon staying home to rehab a nagging quad injury, and Scherzer is traveling but will not pitch b/c he threw a start just ahead of the game. Both players were replaced by non-Nats … which was a shame b/c a like-for-like with Strasburg for Scherzer seemed like the right thing to do.
Nationals All-Star representatives: Bryce Harper*, Max Scherzer*, Sean Doolittle
Possible Snubs: Juan Soto, Trea Turner, Anthony Rendon
Narrative: For the home-town All Star Game, Harper gets the starting nod from the fans despite his abhorrent season at the plate (his slash line on 7/8/18: .219/.371/.475). However, by making the ASG, Harper now keeps his promise to participate in the Home Run Derby one last time before hitting free agency. There’s no real “snubs” on this Nationals team; The #2 player on the team in terms of seasonal bWAR is Trea Turner but he’s not exactly having a head-turning season. He was named to the “last 5 ballot” but was a huge long-shot to make it (update; he didn’t: the very deserving Jesus Aguilar did). Anthony Rendon is having his typical under-rated season and got no love from the voters over the more famous Nolan Arenado (a common refrain when it comes to Gold Gloves/Silver Sluggers too). None of our starters besides Scherzer are really deserving; Stephen Strasburg was having a decent but not spectacular season but missed a month and is on the D/L. Nor is any of the bullpen past Doolittle. Its an odd-season where a team-wide malaise is contributing to the team hovering at .500 at the All Star Break. Only Juan Soto really is deserving … but he was never going to make the ASG (not when recent more spectacular rookies failed to make it) and thanks to his missing all of April and most of May he wasn’t on any ballots and may struggle to win the RoY over guys who have played longer this season. Scherzer is named to the team on 7/8/18 was named the NL starter for the 2nd year running on 7/16/18.
Nationals All-Star representatives: Bryce Harper*, Daniel Murphy*, Ryan Zimmerman*, Max Scherzer*, Stephen Strasburg
Snubs: Anthony Rendon, Gio Gonzalez
Narrative: For the second year in a row, the Nats are well and properly represented in the All Star Game. We have three starters named in the field, including Zimmerman who beats out a slew of 1B sluggers in the NL to not only make the team but get his first start. Its also likely i’ll be editing this post and adding in Scherzer as an additional starter; he is the obvious choice to start the game for the NL given his first half production (7/10/17 update: yes indeed we did). Rendon is having a very quiet solid season and is in the “last 5” popular vote, but he seems unlikely to win given that last year’s MVP Kris Bryant is also in the voting (Update: neither guy got in). Gonzalez misses out despite having a better first half than Strasburg by nearly any statistic; he’s having a career year but seems unlikely to get rewarded with his 3rd ASG appearance. There’s no other real snub from our 2017 team; certainly there’s nobody in the bullpen meriting a spot, and Trea Turner‘s torrid 2016 2nd half did not translate into the 2017 season (not to mention, he’s had two separate D/L trips). Once again i’m slightly perturbed that Harper continues to refuse to participate in the HR derby; why the reticence? Its a fun event that is quickly becoming better than the actual game itself and practically every other slugger is participating. Is he afraid to lose? On a larger scale, i’m really happy to see (finally) that deserving rookies are named: Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger are both named and are both on the inside track for ROY awards; too many times in the past we see deserving rookies unnamed. On July 10th, the fourth Nat starter was named: Scherzer got the starting pitcher nod, a first for the Nats. August Update: Rendon’s omission is looking even more ridiculous; he’s top 5 in the league in bWAR.
Nationals All-Star representatives: Bryce Harper*, Stephen Strasburg, Daniel Murphy, Wilson Ramos, Max Scherzer (named as replacement for Strasburg on 7/8/16),
Possible Snubs: Danny Espinosa, Tanner Roark
Narrative: The four obvious candidates from the Nats this year were all initially correctly selected, though voting shenanigans out of Chicago elected Ben Zobrist over Daniel Murphy by a scant 500 votes. I thought perhaps Strasburg would have a chance to start the game, given his 12-0 record, but it seems the team pre-empted any such thought when Scherzer’s naming occurred. For the first time writing this post, I can’t really name any “snubs” and the team has (finally?) earned the proper respect it deserves in terms of naming its players properly. Espinosa had a week for the ages just prior to the end of voting but really stood little chance of selection in the grand scheme of things. He’s not really a “snub” but is worthy of mention based on his resurgent year. At the break, Espinosa ranked 3rd in NL fWAR but 7th or 8th in bWAR thanks to differing defensive value metrics, so maybe/maybe not on him being a “snub.” As pointed out in the comments, even I missed the sneaky good season Roark is having; he’s 12th in the NL in bWAR at the break and 9th in fWAR but was left off in favor of any number of starters that stand below him in value rankings. Unfortunately for fans (and for Harper’s “Make Baseball Fun again” campaign, he opted to skip the Home Run Derby again. I guess its kind of like the NBA superstars skipping the dunk contest; the Union should really do a better job of helping out in this regard. The new format is fantastic and makes the event watchable again; is it ego keeping him from getting beat by someone like Giancarlo Stanton?
Nationals All-Star representatives: Bryce Harper*, Max Scherzer
Possible Snubs: Yunel Escobar, Drew Storen
Narrative: Harper not only made it in as a starter for the 2nd time, he led the NL in votes, setting a MLB record for total votes received. This is no surprise; Harper’s easily in the MVP lead for the NL thanks to his amazing first half (his split at the half-way point of the season: .347/.474/.722 with 25 homers and an astounding 225 OPS+). I guess he won’t be earning the “Most overrated player” award next year. That Harper is electing to skip the Home run derby in a disappointment; his father is nursing an arm injury can cannot throw to him in the event. In a weird year for the Nats, the only other regular worth mentioning is newly acquired Escobar, who is hitting above .300 and filling in ably at multiple positions that, prior to this year, he had never played. Storen is having another excellent regular season … but at a time when mandatory members from each team often leads to other closers being selected (there are 5 NL closers and 7 AL relievers), the odds of him making the All-Star team were always going to be slim. Scherzer deservedly makes the team and probably would have been the NL starter; he’s got sub 2.00 ERA and FIP and leads all NL pitchers in WAR at the mid-way point of the season. But his turn came up in the final game of the first half, making him ineligible for the game and forcing his replacement on the roster.
As a side note, the 2015 All-Star game will go down as the “Ballot-Gate” game thanks to MLB’s short-sighted plan to allow 30+ online ballots per email address. This led to severe “ballot stuffing” by the Kansas City Royals fans, led to MLB having to eliminate 60 million+ fraudulent ballots, but still led to several Royals being elected starters over more deserving candidates.
Nationals All-Star representative: Jordan Zimmermann (Update post-publishing: Zimmermann strained a bicep, and had to withdraw from the ASG. For a bit it looked like the Nats wouldn’t even have a representative, until Tyler Clippardwas named on 7/13/14).
Possible Snubs: Adam LaRoche, Anthony Rendon, Rafael Soriano, Drew Storen
Narrative: Zimmermann’s been the best SP on the best pitching staff in the majors this year, and thus earns his spot. I find it somewhat odd that a first place team (or near to it) gets just one representative on the team (as discussed above). Rendon tried to make the team via the “last man in” voting, but historically Nationals have not fared well in this competition (especially when better known players from large markets are in the competition, aka Anthony Rizzo from the Chicago Cubs), and indeed Rendon finished 4th in the last-man voting. LaRoche is having a very good season, almost single handedly carrying the Nats offense while major parts were out injured, but he’s never going to beat out the slew of great NL first basemen (Joey Votto couldn’t even get into this game). Soriano has quietly put together one of the best seasons of any closer in the game; at the time of this writing he has a 1.03 ERA and a .829 whip; those are Dennis Eckersley numbers. But, the farce that is the all-star game selection criteria (having to select one player from each team) means that teams need a representative, and deserving guys like Soriano get squeezed. Then, Soriano indignantly said he wouldn’t even go if named as a replacement … likely leading to Clippard’s replacement selection. The same goes for non-closer Storen, who sports a sub 2.00 ERA on the year. Advanced stats columnists (Keith Law) also think that Stephen Strasburg is a snub but I’m not entirely sure: he may lead the NL in K’s right now and have far better advanced numbers than “traditional,” but its hard to make an argument that a guy with a 7-6 record and a 3.50+ ERA is all-star worthy.
Nationals All-Star representatives: Bryce Harper*, Jordan Zimmermann
Snubs: Stephen Strasburg, Ian Desmond
Narrative: Harper comes in 3rd in the NL outfielder voting, ahead of some big-time names, to become only the second Nationals position player elected as an All-Star starter. He was 4th in the final pre-selection vote, so a big last minute push got him the starter spot. Harper also becomes the first National to participate in the Home Run Derby. Zimmermann was 12-3 heading into the game and was on mid-season Cy Young short lists in July in a breakout season. Strasburg’s advanced stats are all better than Zimmermann’s, but his W/L record (4-6 as the ASG) means he’s not an all-star. It also probably doesn’t help that he missed a few weeks. Desmond loses out to Troy Tulowitzki, Everth Cabrera and Jean Segura. Tulowitzki was having a very solid year and was a deserving elected starter, while Cabrera and Segura are both having breakout seasons. Desmond was on the “Final vote” roster, but my vote (and most others’ I’m guessing) would be for Yasiel Puig there ([Editor Update: Desmond and Puig lost out to Freddie Freeman: I still wished that Puig finds a way onto the roster but ultimately he did not and I believe the ASG was diminished because of it). Gio Gonzalez, Ryan Zimmerman, and Rafael Soriano are all having solid but unspectacular years and miss out behind those having great seasons.
Nationals All-Star representatives: Stephen Strasburg, Gio Gonzalez, Ian Desmond, BryceHarper
Possible Snubs: Adam LaRoche, Craig Stammen
Narrative: The two SPs Strasburg and Gonzalez were the obvious candidates, and my personal prediction was that they’d be the only two candidates selected. Gonzalez’ first half was a prelude to his 21-win, 3rd place Cy Young season. The inclusion of Desmond is a surprise, but also a testament to how far he’s come as a player in 2012. Harper was a last-minute injury replacement, but had earned his spot by virtue of his fast start as one of the youngest players in the league. Of the “snubs,” LaRoche has had a fantastic come back season in 2012 but fared little shot against better, more well-known NL first basemen. Stammen was our best bullpen arm, but like LaRoche fared little chance of getting selected during a year when the Nats had two deserving pitchers selected.
Possible Snubs: Danny Espinosa, Michael Morse, Drew Storen, Jordan Zimmermann
Narrative: While Clippard was (arguably) the Nats best and most important reliever, I think Zimmermann was a more rightful choice. He was 10th in the league in ERA at the time of the selections and has put in a series of dominant performances. Meanwhile Espinosa was on pace for a 28-homer season and almost a certain Rookie-of-the-Year award (though a precipitous fall-off in the 2nd half cost him any realistic shot at the ROY), and perhaps both players are just too young to be known around the league. Lastly Morse is certainly known and he merited a spot in the “last man in” vote sponsored by MLB (though he fared little chance against popular players in this last-man-in voting).
Possible Snubs: Adam Dunn, Josh Willingham, Ryan Zimmerman, Stephen Strasburg
Narrative: Capps was clearly deserving, having a breakout season as a closer after his off-season non-tender from the Pirates. The 3-4-5 hitters Zimmerman-Dunn-Willingham all had dominant offensive seasons as the team improved markedly from its 103-loss season. But perhaps the surprise non-inclusion was Strasburg, who despite only having a few starts as of the all-star break was already the talk of baseball. I think MLB missed a great PR opportunity to name him to the team to give him the exposure that the rest of the national media expected. But in the end, Capps was a deserving candidate and I can’t argue that our hitters did anything special enough to merit inclusion.
Nationals All-Star representatives: Ryan Zimmerman
Possible Snubs: Adam Dunn
Narrative: The addition of Dunn and Willingham to the lineup gave Zimmerman the protection he never had, and he produced with his career-best season. His first and deserved all-star appearance en-route to a 33 homer season. Dunn continued his monster homer totals with little all-star recognition.
Narrative: The first of two “hitting rock-bottom” seasons for the team; no one really merited selection. Zimmerman was coming off of hamate-bone surgery in November 2007 and the team was more or less awful across the board. Rauch performed ably after Cordero went down with season-ending (and basically career-ending) shoulder surgery. Guzman’s selection a great example of why one-per-team rules don’t make any sense. Guzman ended up playing far longer than he deserved in the game itself by virtue of the 15-inning affair.
Possible Snubs: Ryan Zimmerman, Shawn Hill (though I wouldn’t argue for either)
Narrative: Young gets a deserved all-star appearance en route to comeback player of the year. Zimmerman played a full season but didn’t dominate. Our 2007 staff gave starts to 13 different players, most of whom were out of the league within the next year or two. Not a good team.
Nationals All-Star representatives: Alfonso Soriano*
Possible Snubs: Nick Johnson, Ryan Zimmerman, Chad Cordero
Narrative: Soriano made the team as an elected starter, the first time the Nats have had such an honor. Our pitching staff took massive steps backwards and no starter came even close to meriting a spot. Cordero was good but not lights out as he had been in 2005. Soriano’s 40-40 season is a poster child for “contract year” production and he has failed to come close to such production since. The team was poor and getting worse. Johnson had a career year but got overshadowed by bigger, better first basemen in the league (a recurring theme for our first basemen over the years).
Nationals All-Star representatives: Livan Hernandez, Chad Cordero
Possible Snubs: Nick Johnson, John Patterson.
Narrative: The Nats went into the All Star break surprisingly in first place, having run to a 50-31 record by the halfway point. Should a first place team have gotten more than just two representatives? Perhaps. But the team was filled with non-stars and played far over its head to go 50-31 (as evidenced by the reverse 31-50 record the rest of the way).
James Wood continues a big youth push in 2024. Photo Nationals ST 2024
I’m not the first one to notice this, but the Nats management has basically gotten fed up with the lack of productivity of its veterans and 1yr/FA/trade bait players, and has made a slew of moves that have turned this team into what has to be the youngest in the majors right now. Gone/demoted are Robles, Senzel, Rosario, and Meneses. In are Yepez, Lipscomb, Young, and Wood, and they seem like they’re here to stay. Next up is probably Gallo and his .174 BA and probably Corbin once we get a healthy guy off the DL, and god knows why Nunez is still here (he’s got ONE HIT all year). Winker and Thomas produce, but they’re more valuable for who they can bring back in trade versus what they give a sub .500 team in 2024. but i digress.
Here’s our current optimal lineup, with age as of this writing and salary (thanks to the Big Board and Cots for the figures). I’m assuming that a lot of these guys are at the MLB minimum, which is $740k for this year
C: Ruiz, 25, $6.3M
1B: Yepez, 26, $740k
2B: Garcia, 24, 1.9M
SS: Abrams, 23, 752k
3B: Lipscomb, 24, 740k
LF: Wood, 21, 740k
CF: Young, 24, 740k
RF: Thomas, 28, $5.4M
DH: Winker, 30, $2M
That’s an average of exactly 25yrs for the lineup. Four guys at or near the league minimum, total payroll for these nine is just $19.3M, or an average of $2.1 each. Thomas’ salary will eventually be replaced by Crews’ MLB min salary, and maybe an eventual addition of House makes it lower too.
How about the rotation? Here’s our current rotation
Corbin, 34, $35M
Gore, 25, $749k
Parker, 24, $740k
Irvin, 27, $745k
Herz, 23, $740k
From an optimal 2024 stand point, we’re replacing Corbin and Herz with:
Williams, 32, $7M
Gray, 26, $757k
At least until Williams is traded, by which point cross fingers you replace his $7M with:
Cavalli, 25, $740k.
Imagine having your entire rotation be at MLB minimum and an average age of 24. That’d be amazing.
What’s really amazing about it is the financial flexibility it gives the team to buy talent at positions where it makes the most sense, when they need it. Do we think Yepez is the long term solution at 1B? Probably not, not when you can get a big bopper on the FA market for $10M. What if Grey or Cavalli doesn’t come back? We’ll need a starter but can afford to get one. Or, you wait for the likes of Morales (1B) and maybe someone like Pinckney (corner of/DH) to come up and home-grow those guys too.
This team is getting to be fun to watch again. Its “our guys” up there now. A slew of these players were drafted and developed by us (Garcia, Lipscomb, Young, Parker, Irvin, Cavalli). A slew more were prospects we specifically added in trade, setting ourselves up for this exact moment (Ruiz, Abrams, Wood, Gore, and Grey). that’s what the last few years have been about, and more is on the way (Crews, Hassell, Lile maybe, Morales, etc. Susana just got promoted, Sykora looks great so far).
It’s beginning to look good for this team and its future for sure.
Trevor Williams has been found gold in 2024. Photo via Federal Baseball via USA Today
With a win against arch-rival and 1st place Baltimore on 5/7/24, the Nats have moved above .500 for the first time since 2021. The winning pitcher, fittingly, was Trevor Williams, who has gone from a 5th starter competition in spring training with the typical cattle call of veteran 1yr MLFAs to now sitting in the top 10 of all of baseball for pitchers in various categories (wins, W/L pct, pitcher WAR, ERA, FIP, and ERA+). Yes its SSS for Williams… but he looks great for now.
The team is playing .500 ball so far in 2024 without contributions from the following leading players the team depended on in 2023: Lane Thomas (hurt and ineffective), Josiah Grey (hurt, and ineffective), Jeimer Candelario (traded), and Stone Garrett (60-day DL). That’s 4 of the top 6 WAR producers from the 2023 season.
Instead, they’re getting the found gold of Williams, CJ Abrams stepping up in a massive way (that even MLB-general observers are noticing), Jesse Winker going from MLFA to top performer, Jacob Young shockingly hitting .300 in the majors a year after basically not even being a prospect, and Mitchell Parker more or less dominating in his first few MLB starts. It’s crazy, really. All of these guys could be first month mirages, or they could stick. And we’re now at .500 without Cavalli or any of our 1st round draft picks for the last 5-6 years, without our cache of top prospects, and by limping by on trade acquisitions and FAs.
But, my more salient point of this post is as follows. Here’s the W/L records of the Nats during a period of time more than a decade ago:
2009: 59-103
2010: 69-93
2011: 80-81
2012: 98-64
It doesn’t take that long to go from zero to hero. The team bottoms out in 2008/2009 which gives them top picks to get Stephen Strasburg and Bryce Harper in 2009/2010. They maintain a top10 pick after 2010 which gets them Anthony Rendon in 2011. All of these guys subsequently contribute to the run of success the team had throughout the entire 2010s, culminating with a WS title in 2019. And once the team looked competent enough to compete after 2011, Rizzo felt good enough to start cashing in lesser prospects to get the pieces we needed (think Gio Gonzalez, Adam Eaton, Doug Fister, plus the Trea turner/Joe Ross fleecing) and to start signing FAs to augment as needed (Werth, LaRoche, Haren … and eventually Scherzer).
So, the question is … are we now seeing the same pattern in 2024 that we saw in 2011?
Here’s our last few seasons….
2022: 55-107
2023: 71-91
2024: we’re sitting at 18-17 … can we finish close to .500?
Here we go again. 2020’s poor finish netted us Brady House (oh, and Jacob Young). 2021’s poor finish netted us Elijah Green in the 1st (and Trey Lipscomb later on). 2022’s bottoming out gave us Dylan Crews. And the general post-2019 malaise allowed us to flip expiring contracts for a slew of players who are contributing now (Ruiz, Grey, Gore, Abrams) and a one particular player who will be contributing soon (Wood).
Imagine if this team does the right thing and cashes in on the players it should (i’m talking about every 1yr FA or expiring deal; that means Winker, Williams, Rosario, Robles, and Gallo). I’d move Corbin if we could get anything for him. Don’t make the same mistake they made last year in NOT trading Thomas and Finnegan and Garrett; get prospects now. By this time next year we’ll have an OF consisting of Young, Wood, and Crews, costing like a grand total of $2.6M (which is about how much we paid Corbin for his first three 2024 starts) and we can back them up with Call in the short term. Imagine if we could get a decent SP prospect or a new closer or a AA-level slugger for one of these 2024-one-year-wonders, someone who could contribute soon.
Can 2025 be our return to glory?
i’m just saying …. history repeats itself, and I see some very distinct patterns right now.
One random little artifact I maintain for some reason is a collection of our Opening Day and Home Opener data. Now that we’re past both, here’s that information for review.
2017: 42,744 (1:05 monday game, 66 and cloudy, slight wind)
2016: 41,650 (4:05 thursday game, 60 and 1.5hr rain delay)
2015: 42,295 (4:05 monday game, 75 and gorgeous)
2014: 42,834 (1:05 friday game, 50s and overcast)
2013: 45,274 (1:05 monday game, 60 and beautiful)
2012: 40,907 (1:05 thursday game 56, partly cloudy)
2011: 39,055 (1:05 thursday game, 41 degrees and overcast)
2010: 41,290 (1pm game monday, beautiful weather 80s and sunny): This was Phillies Invasaion
2009: 40,386 (3pm game on a monday, chilly 53degr and overcast).
2008: 39,389 (season and stadium opener), 8pm sunday night, Braves, nat’l tv clear but cold.
2007: 40,389 (in rfk, 1pm game vs Florida, 72degrees
2006: 40,516 (in rfk, tuesday day game vs Mets, 72degr and sunny)
2005: 45,596 (in rfk, debut of entire franchise, 62degr and clear, evening game).
2024 was decent weather, compared to a few of these years. It’s amazing how we’ve had opening day be 41, and one year it was 90. That’s a 50-degree swing. DC Weather. It was good to see a bump up in attendance this year after the last couple of years, but it’s also a bummer to see how little the team has capitalized on its 2019 championship. Look, for example, what happened on Opening Day 2013 the year after the team won 98 games: it was damn near a record for the stadium (which, as far as I can tell, still remains 2012 NLDS Game 5, or the “Storen” game, of 45,966).
Home opener Results and Box Scores
The Nats are just 6-14 all time through 2024 in their home openers.
2024: L 8-4, 40,405. attendance. https://www.mlb.com/gameday/pirates-vs-nationals/2024/04/01/744875/final/box
2023: L 7-2. 35,756 attendance. https://www.mlb.com/gameday/braves-vs-nationals/2023/03/30/718780
2022: L 5-1, 35,052 attendance: https://www.mlb.com/gameday/mets-vs-nationals/2022/04/07/662571/final/box
2021: W 6-5: 4,801 attendance: https://www.mlb.com/gameday/braves-vs-nationals/2021/04/06/634624#game_state=final,lock_state=final,game_tab=box,game=634624
2020: L 4-1: 0 attendance: https://www.mlb.com/gameday/yankees-vs-nationals/2020/07/23/630851#game_state=final,game_tab=,game=630851
2019: L 2-0: 42,263: https://www.mlb.com/gameday/mets-vs-nationals/2019/03/28/565895#game_state=final,lock_state=final,game_tab=wrap,game=565895
2018: L 8-2 42,477 https://www.mlb.com/gameday/mets-vs-nationals/2018/04/05/529504#game_state=final,lock_state=final,game_tab=wrap,game=529504
2021: Home: Nationals d Braves 6-5. WP: Hudson, LP Smith (starters Scherzer v Smyly): https://www.mlb.com/gameday/braves-vs-nationals/2021/04/06/634624#game_state=final,lock_state=final,game_tab=box,game=634624
2008: home: Nats d Braves 3-2. WP: Jon Rauch. LP: Peter Moylan (Starters: Tim Hudson and Odalis Perez) http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/WAS/WAS200803300.shtml
2007: home: Marlins d Nats 9-2. WP: Dontrelle Willis. LP: John Patterson http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/WAS/WAS200704020.shtml
Derek Law was with us so briefly i couldn’t find a picture of him in a nats uniform. Photo via mlbtraderumors.com
In an annual tradition that, unfortunately for the likely record of the team, seems to be pretty popular with the current incarnation of the Nationals, as we approach the end of spring training its time to start naming Non Roster Invitees (NRIs) to the 40-man/26-man active roster because they’ve made the team. This post continues the tradition of looking at the NRIs the team had this year and talking about how they fared.
So, who were the NRIs this year? We actually didn’t have that many, initially announcing on 2/15/24 a list of just 11 players (as compared to the cattle calls of 30+ NRIs of years’ past). Now, eventually we added a few others of note, as we always do throughout the spring, and apologies if i missed some (I’m not counting the slew of minor leaguers that were temporarily ‘assigned to Washington’ as NRIs), but here was the list of NRIs all told.
When the Nats announced the 26-man opening day roster, we had a slew of NRIs who made the team.. Here’s the 2024 Opening day NRIs to make roster and the circumstances behind each:
Matt Barnes: Signed on 2/17/24, just after the initial Nats announcement, and who outpitched some other Nats relievers during spring and made the team. He was Boston’s closer in 2021, but now will slot in as a 6th/7th inning guy. Not a bad pedigree to have, and could be useful if he can keep his ERA down as a trade piece mid-season.
Eddie Rosario earned a spot on the team ahead of Call and Young, somewhat surprisingly, and gets a chance to rebound a little bit. He was basically a starter for Atlanta last year and wasn’t bad; 100 ops figure and 20 homers for a playoff team. How was he a MLFA? crazy. Anyway, he’ll slot in as starting LF, while Young returns to AAA despite his performance last year. Call rockets to the top of my “next guy to get cut” list, now that he’s seemingly 7th out of 7 outfielders on the 40-man with a slew of OF prospects rising fast.
Jesse Winker was an all star two years ago when he put up a scathing 143 OPS season, can play a little RF, and probably mixes in with Meneses into the DH. He’s all lefty. I wonder who actually starts between him and Rosario; Winker has better up-side and is younger, but Rosario was better in 2023.
Derek Law won the last bullpen spot, beating out a couple of other of NRIs and some of our bullpen holdovers from 2023.
Now for some discussion on a few of the players who did NOT make the team as NRIs ( by category)
Starters: Davies: was given full opportunity to go head to head with Trevor Williams for the 5th starter spot and did not earn it. Released on 3/22/24 with a few days to go in Spring when it became clear.
Righty Relievers: some of the veteran FA MLFAs/NRIs like Perdomo, Bleier, Gsellman, and Jacob Barnes competed and lost out to others. Perdomo was released on 3/24/24, probably because he was going to refuse the AAA assignment. The others remain to be seen whether or not they take the assignment to AAA. Jacob Barnes in particular pitched really well, but seems to have lost out in a h2h competition with Matt Barnes (no relation).
Lefty Relievers: La Sorsa was probably never really in the mix to beat out Robert Garcia, but when Ferrer hurt his back the chance was there. We picked him up on Waivers last year and he’s likely to be a solid option in 2024.
Catchers: neither LIndsley or Pineda were really in the mix to make the team, especially Pineda, who we just snuck through waivers and now can keep off the 40-man but in the system. You always need extra catchers in spring training.
Infielders: House the obvious top-end prospect, but the Nats MO isn’t to give opening day spots to these guys when you can bury them for a little while to get a year. Repeat this for Wood and Hassell later on. Baker and Lipscomb are lesser heralded prospects, but both seem like they’ve got a future with this team. Lipscomb was the last guy cut, really pushing for a spot at the expense of Rule5 guy Nunez, or maybe even the lackadasical Luis Garcia. So you can put Lipscomb on the short list of guys who are probably coming up soon. Yepez and Diaz were in the category of “big bats off the bench” competition and seem to have lost out to the likes of Rosario and Winker here.
Prospects Wood and Hassell probably up to get reps with their very-soon-to-be future teammates. Blankenhorn and Rutherford both hit well last year and re-signed; they’re good corner 1B/LF/DH type reserves to have in AAA.
Which of the rest of the NRIs might we see this year? We probably will see some of the RH relievers who stick around, its likely we get MLB debuts in 2024 from Crews, Wood, Lipscomb, maybe Baker.
Kieboom faces a critical spring.
Photo via Federal Baseball
Honestly, this option status was more apropos when we talked about non-tenders last fall, or perhaps before thinking about what the team was going to do this off-season w/r/t free agency.
But, here we are. We’re at the beginning of spring training, the team has brought in a slew of players on one year or MLFA/NRI deals (including at least 10 MLFA veteran relievers) and for those on the 40-man right now, options flexibility will be a big factor in what happens this spring.
So, lets do some options analysis to try to couch possible roster decisions that will have to be made by the end of March.
I’m using Roster Resource (now at Fangraphs) to drive this analysis. I used to keep track of options in a private XLS, but it was just way too tedious as compared to the pros at these sites. If they have it wrong, then I’ve got it wrong here. Also, here’s the Big Board which shows all the NRIs who might be pushing these guys for a job.
Current 40-man roster Players with Zero Options remaining
These non-5year veteran players either have to sick on the active roster going forward, or will face the dreaded DFA/outright if they need to be demoted off the active roster. I’ll list them in order of most likely to get DFA’d this spring to least likely:
Carter Kieboom. Kieboom’s time with the team seems like it has come to an end. For the second straight off-season, instead of holding 3B empty for their former top prospect to own, the team has bought a one year veteran Free Agent to man the position. Candelario last year and Nick Senzel this year. If you’re an infielder and you’re not starting at the MLB level, then you need to be able to do one of a couple of things: 1) play middle infield (which Kieboom cannot), 2) be good defensively or be a fast runner (which Kieboom isn’t), 3) play outfield as well (which he never has), or hit well enough to man either 1B or DH (which he never has either). The team also bought itself a starting 1B in Joey Gallo and has an established DH in Joey Meneses. On top of THAT, the team has more than a couple big bopper NRI MLFAs who specialize in playing 1B/DH (Yepes, Diaz, Blankenhorn, Winker, Rutherford). None of this leaves Kieboom a ton of roster flexibility. I suppose he could try to play a corner outfield, but we’re set there too, with more OF options than we have positions honestly PLUS a slew of OF prospects coming up. I hate to say it, But Kieboom is in trouble. Save for an injury to Senzel or Gallo, or Kieboom hitting .450 this spring, I think he’s staring at a big career crossroads at the end of March.
Joan Adon, thanks to being added to the 40-man In November of 2020 despite only having gotten to Low-A by that point, now faces a pretty predictable situation. He’s 25, clearly needs more time in the minors, but is out of options and faces a pretty obvious roster crunch coming out of spring training. I mean, he was awful in the majors in 2022 and again in 2023. He wasn’t really that great in AAA either. He’s probably 7th on the starter depth chart (if that), and the team would have to dump a reliever they’d rather keep in order to protect him from being exposed to waivers. If there’s an injury to the projected starting 5 (Corbin, Grey, Gore, Williams, Irvin) he’ll be gifted the spot to save him, but it seems like an inevitability he gets DFA’d.
Jordan Weems shows what happens when you look slightly deeper into pitching stats. In 2023, his ERA went down to 3.62 but his FIP went way up to 4.90. His Hits/9 went down but his BB/9 went way up. His 2023 was probably smoke and mirrors, and it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if he blew up in April after making the team and got DFA’d.
Luis Garcia, who is out of options because he was put on the 40-man way, way too soon and still doesn’t seem like the team is completely convinced he’s their long-term solution at 2B. But, they also seem set to go with him as the starter. But, they sent him down last year for a month for some reason (he was hitting .268 at the time even though he hit mostly .220 the first half of the season). So who knows. They didn’t guy a veteran 2B FA so his spot seems safe.
Tanner Rainey, who missed all of 2023 but was our highly effective closer in 2022, seems pretty unlikely to lose his spot if he’s healthy. The thing is, if he struggles in spring, they’ll just DL him and say, “post-TJ surgery recovery” or some nonsense, so he could go to AAA and work things out.
Ildemaro Vargas is the kind of utility player every manager wants: can play 6 positions, hits decently enough. His bat fell off a bit in 2023, and the team got itself a middle infielder in Rule5 in Nunez who now occupies one of the sports Vargas would be competing for. MLB benches these days basically are: a Backup C, two middle infielders, one spare outfielder, and one big bat who can rotate into 1B and DH (preferably lefty as well). So Is Vargas set for one of the two middle infield positions right now? Probably. The only other middle infielder NRI is Darren Baker, and i don’t think he’s ready for prime time. Also, not for nothing, the Nats extended Vargas in the middle of September, so clearly they’re not thinking of axing him.
Kiebert Ruiz: they gave him 8yrs/$50M and he’s the starting catcher; he’s not in any jeopardy of getting DFA’d irrespective of option status. So he’s least likely of the “zero options” guys.
Current 40-man roster players whose option status may/will impact their making the team.
Jake Alu: If Vargas and Nunez are your two middle infielder bench options, that likely shuts the door on Jake Alu being a regular on the active roster for a bit. He’s unable to play SS; he can play 2B, 3B and LF. He also got a long look last year and didn’t really hit (.226/.282/.289). I think he’s the dreaded 4-A guy, who will shuttle back and forth between AAA and MLB to cover in case of an injury to the 2B/3B starters. Maybe Nunez flops as a rule5 pick and gets returned and Alu sticks; we’ll see. That’s what spring training is for.
Jake Irvin: i’ll just put this here; if the team convinces themselves they need to keep Adon, Irvin has two options and could get sacrificed. I would be kind of shocked if this happens, since Irvin seems more likely to become a regular 4th/5th starter going forward than Adon, but the team has done something like this before with John Lannan making millions to pitch in Syracuse in 2012.
Jackson Rutledge seems like he’s 6th on the pecking order and should be a safe bet for AAA save injury. But, like with Irvin … if the team decides it wants to keep Adon, Rutledge will head north.
Cade Cavalli probably starts the year on the 60-day DL and may slot right into the MLB rotation when he’s ready irrespective of option status. But he’s got plenty of options if his rehab goes more slowly than expected and could hang in AAA for a while.
Drew Millas has plenty of options, but is 3rd out of 3 on the Catcher pecking order right now, and will be either the MLB backup or the AAA starter.
Thad Ward: last year’s rule5 roster gambit, can now safely be sent down since he’s officially “ours.” And he’s got plenty of options. My guess is that he goes to AAA and gets converted back to starting. Which is what the team should do with him, since our starting pitching prospect pipeline is so thin.
Alex Call and/or Jacob Young: so, assuming that Stone Garrett and Victor Robles are healthy and able from the get go (which may be a bad assumption given what we’re hearing about Garrett’s recovery from a broken leg last summer) one of these two gets dumped to AAA. Honestly, if they need someone to ride the pine in the majors i’d rather it be Call so that Young can play full time in AAA, but it may be the reverse. Both have options. If Garrett can’t go, look for Young to start in left and Call to be the MLB backup. Yes Davey Martinez said Young was “competing” with Robles for the starting CF job; i don’t believe that. I think the team wants Robles to earn the spot, hit .330 for 3 months, and get flipped to a contender in his walk year.
Relievers with options who sucked last year: Jose Ferrer (5.03 ERA), Mason Thompson (5.50 ERA), and Amos Willingham (6.66). They’ll all start in AAA unless someone gets hurt, and given the plethora of MLFA veteran arms the team has signed, these three guys are also at the top of my “next guy off the 40-man to get whacked” list just after the obvious DFA candidates discussed above. Thompson’s situation may work itself out; it seems like he may have a UCL injury that will send him to TJ and the 60-day DL.
The four arms just added: Herz, Parker, Henry, Brzycky: no real chance any of these four make the 25-man opening day roster. The AAA staff looks like it’ll be amazing this year.
Predictions:
No injuries to projected rotation in spring.
Adon waived.
Kieboom waived
Thompson TJ/60-day dl to open a roster spot
Weems makes opening day roster but is on short leash
Young makes opening day roster, Call to AAA.
At least one NRI bat and maybe two NRI arms make the team.
I’m a big Keith Law fan, always have been. But sometimes he zigs when others zag, and I feel like this year’s Nats list is in that category. HIs methodology is not quite as big a focus on the “ceiling” of a prospect, but it creeps in. He really discounts DSL Guys until they show up domestically, and if someone’s ceiling is middle infielder/4th outfielder/middle reliever … they’re not a prospect in his eyes.
Law is the 2nd to last “major pundit” to drop his list. Once the MLBpipeline guys (Callis & Mayo et al) drop their updated ranks, I’ll post my list and declare victory for the season.
Without further ado, here’s Law’s top 20 list, behind a paywall at the Athletic but I subscribe and I find it to be the best value for the money on the internet.
Law Rank
Last Name
First Name
Position
1
Crews
Dylan
OF (CF)
2
Wood
James
OF (Corner)
3
House
Brady
SS/3B
4
Cavalli
Cade
RHP (Starter)
5
Lile
Daylen
OF (CF)
6
Morales
Yohandy
3B
7
Vaquero
Cristian
OF (CF)
8
Hassell III
Robert
OF (CF)
9
Made
Kevin
SS
10
Sykora
Travis
RHP (Starter)
11
Susana
Jarlin
RHP (Starter)
12
Green
Elijah
OF (CF)
13
Bennett
Jake
LHP (Starter)
15
Henry
Cole
RHP (Starter)
15
Rutledge
Jackson
RHP (Starter)
16
Herz
DJ
LHP (Starter)
17
Young
Jacob
OF (CF)
18
Pinckney
Andrew
OF (Corner)
19
Quintana
Roismar
OF (CF)
20
Saenz
Dustin
LHP (Starter)
HM
Young
Luke
RHP (Starter)
HM
Lara
Andry
RHP (Starter)
HM
Infante
Samuel
SS
HM
Brown
Marcus
SS/2B
Ok, lets go through it.
Same top 4 as practically everyone else. Note: we’ve been discussing in the comments what really makes a rookie and have gone through some interesting scenarios. For me. service time manipulation or roster moves that burn their clock but don’t give ABs or IPs don’t count. So i’ll be including specifically Cade Cavalli and Israel Pineda in my list, and even though a commenter pointed out there’s now others technically eligible i’m not sure who else is worth mentioning.
Lile at #5. As in, the next big guy in our entire system after the top 4 guys who all seem to be near-guarantees. McDaniel, Law, and the 1500 guys all have Lile in the 5-6 range. After much discussion and further analysis, i’m coming around to the opinion that LIle and Hassell are basically the same. I now have them side-by-side in my rankings, having elevated LIle a number of spots from where I started. Do I think Lile is the 5th best prospect in the system? Well, no but he’s close, and having him #5 and Morales #6 versus the other way around is splitting hairs.
Law is absolute high-man on Kevin Made, having him all the way at #9. By way of comparison, BA had him at #24, in the range of guys who are “lucky if they get to AA.” In his writeup, Law thinks Made is a 12-15 homer guy in the majors who could stick at short and be a regular. Wow. Yeah that is a top 10 guy. I guess we’re all forgetting just how young he has been (20 in highA).
Sykora to #10, very high on both him and Susana at #11. All Ceiling. It’s easy to dream on 18yr old live arms. After all our (lack of) success with these guys, its tough to get excited. I guess I have to remind myself that Sykora got a 1st round bonus, and If we had draftee him in the 1st round like we did Giolito … we’d be much higher on him.
He has Green all the way down to #12. Law’s take on this ranking was interesting: he says Green is perhaps the best example in all of the minors of a player who is too good for complex ball, but not yet ready for LowA, and is being developmentally crushed by the loss of Short-A. I agree. It really amazes me that the sport in general fails to see the value of Short-A ball, or even another 10 rounds of a draft to fill that team. Just look at the ridiculous number of arms that poured into our Low-A team last year; I have 12 guys listed as “Starters” and another 9 listed as “Long Relievers.” 12 starters! There’s no where near enough innings to go around to try to develop 12 guys at starters. Gee, wouldn’t it be great if there was another low-A level league where you could send the lesser 6 of those starters so they could pitch every five days? So dumb.
Cole Henry at #15. What piqued my interest in Law’s write up was this simple line: “his stuff was all the way back” after TOS surgery. But he also said that a guy like Henry is too brittle to start, but could be an awesome reliever (97-100 with two 55 pitches). That’s a drop-dead game ender, and hey, if the guy can’t stay healthy then at least we can use him.
Quintana at #19: one of the few who rates this guy. BA and McDaniel didn’t even rank him. What do we have with him at this point? He’s only 21 and seems set to go to HighA, but he’s a corner OF limited guy who has to hit for power to earn a promotion … and that’s gonna be hard in Wilmington.
Saenz at #20. Yes! Finally someone ranks this guy. He has been completely absent from every prospect ranking this entire spring, even the Prospect 1500 guys who go 50 deep. Why? He’s a 4th round pick, was 24 in AA last year posting a 3.43 era/1.18 whip in 25 games/23 starts. Uh, yeah, sign me up. Those were significantly better numbers than Parker (who is also a lefty), who got a 40-man roster spot out of his performance. Saenz should be going to AAA, doesn’t turn 25 until June … why is he not a prospect? Maybe its smoke and mirrors, with lesser stuff, but he’s solved every level he’s been presented with so far.
Law then mentions four guys as noteworthy, but there’s no way they’re ranked 21-24. Young, Lara, Infante, and Brown. I think it was more notes out of his many visits to see the Nats play in Wilmington, which is right around the corner from where he lives in Delaware.
So, who’d he miss?
No mention of our two 2024 IFAs Hurtado or Felix. Not surprising.
No Love for Lipscomb, but that’s really splitting hairs if he’s not in the top 20 but is in his top 25.
Nothing on Nasim Nunez. Law’s methodology definitely under-rates role players like backup infielders, 4th outfielders, middle relievers, etc.
Nothing for De La Rosa, who is as high as #13 on other lists.
