by Andrew Lang
by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears
by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears
Remember the great summer of 2017 when The Rockettes were dancing behind Dusty Baker‘s first place Washington Nationals on top of their dugout on July 4th? The Nats beat the Mets the night before on a walk-off winner to take an 8.0 game lead in the NL East. Those were the days when you only needed a few offseason tweaks to win another NL East pennant.
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Remember when Washington Nationals’ principal owner Mark Lerner was photographed with his former-World Series outfielder, Juan Soto, before Dylan Crews‘ MLB debut game? Many thought that was a good sign that the Nationals had a shot to sign Soto. That shot was served in a highball glass with a jolt of reality and a bitter lemon.
Maybe the the consolation prize on Soto was not falling in the trap of the Yankees, thinking they could retain him for the rest of his career. They failed to extend his contract and then couldn’t sign him as a free agent. All the Yankees got for their going-away present was a compensatory draft pick after the third round. But the Bronx Bombers also had to endure the embarrassment of seeing Soto go across the borough to Queens. At least the Nats got an absolute queen’s haul of MacKenzie Gore, CJ Abrams, James Wood who combined for +6.3 WAR last year — and Wood only played half the season! Add to the haul the two other players the Nats received in the trade with Top-100 prospect Jarlin Susana and former Top-100 prospect Robert Hassell III.
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You will never lose a game in any sport if the other team does not score, right? In baseball, that is known as a shutout. Usually those come in the form of team shutouts as complete-game shutouts are rare in today’s game of baseball. Pitchers are part of the defense. “Good pitching will beat good hitting any time, and vice versa.” – Bob Veale
The Kansas City Royals are a small market team that cannot afford a $200 million payroll. They won a World Series in 2015 based on a formula of building a good lineup with a great bullpen and a decent starting rotation. The following year they collapsed and only won 81-games. By 2018, they were back to losing 100+ games and collecting top draft picks. The following year they picked second in the draft and got their franchise player in Bobby Witt Jr. They devised a plan to build with middle tier starting pitchers buoyed by great defense and Witt as their star hitter.
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Since 2019, the Washington Nationals have been devoid of a full year from a competent third baseman, since Anthony Rendon departed for free agency. No team has been worse than the Nationals at third base during that span, per statistics, and we will explain that below.
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Four months after that photo was taken, the outfield crew looks much different even though it is the same foursome. James Wood cut off his dreadlocks, Dylan Crews cut his hair, Jacob Young added more muscle, and Alex Call rehabbed his plantar fasciitis. We are just 40-days from Opening Day, and the outfielders are in camp early. They didn’t have to arrive until next week. For months, general manager Mike Rizzo and manager Dave Martinez made it clear that Wood, Young and Crews would man their starting outfield. That didn’t stop a beat writer from asking the question on the first day of camp. Oh, there were certainly other questions that needed to be asked — and follow-up questions that begged to be asked.
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Greatness is a process. CJ Abrams is embracing that on-and-off the field. Wakeup calls resonate in many different forms. Abrams answered the call. A source told us that Abrams did not go close to a casino during the offseason. His family took a more active role, and he spent most of his offseason in Georgia before heading to Spring Training early. He had a long conversation in December with manager Dave Martinez that cleared the air and set expectations. But our source told us that Abrams had already gone well beyond Martinez’s expectations with his own list. A family friend messaged us during the offseason, “He’s doing great! Ready for the season!”
As we know, Abrams stopped posting publicly on social media. His agency posted on his account on October 7, and that was the last image on Abrams’ accounts. There was work to do personally and professionally. Social media posting wasn’t going to make anything better, but it could have sent the wrong message at the time. There was also a misconception from a Winter Meetings’ quote from Martinez that some construed that Abrams might have been dodging calls from his boss. That was not the case our source assured us. Martinez had a chance to clarify that they talked after the Winter Meetings, and he had sent hitting coach Darnell Coles to Georgia to work with Abrams.
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It is official. The CACTI Park of The Palm Beaches is open for pitchers/catchers to report. While today will be about checking in and getting physicals, pitchers will start in their rotating bullpen sessions across the mounds that had those signs last year: “I Don’t Care How Fast You Throw Ball Four.” Those signs are gone — will there be new signs in camp for 2025?
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Unless you missed the memo, Spring Training camp opens tomorrow for the Washington Nationals. That officially ends the offseason which finished with massive turnover from the 2024 roster of players. If we look at players who provided no positive WAR on the FanGraphs RA/9 modeling, there were a total of 24-players throughout last season who fit that criteria, and 18 of those players are gone from the 40-man roster, with only a high likelihood that Keibert Ruiz and Riley Adams will make the 2025 Opening Day roster from that list of 24-players. Gone from the 2024 roster is a cumulative total of -5.6 of negative WAR using addition by subtraction based on that roster purge.
If you used last year’s pythagorean of 70-wins, the team was lucky by one win. FanGraphs is projecting four players at -0.1 WAR (-0.4 cumulative) for the 2025 roster, and they are all in the bullpen. Add back that -5.6 addition by subtraction, and the team should win 75-games this year using that logic. That does not include the WAR of any of the new acquisitions (+4.6) or the departure of the four departing players with positive WAR (+4.0 WAR), nor full seasons from James Wood and Dylan Crews. That is addition by addition. But it is not that simple, as strength of schedule has to be factored into the W/L calculation. Baseball Prospectus, in their PECOTA projections, have the Nats at 74 wins, and FanGraphs has the Nationals at 73-wins. The differences are due to how they graded the Nats against their schedule, and specifically runs scored and runs allowed. On PECOTA, they have a -65 run differential, and on FanGraphs, their differential is at -73.
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While it is definitely still winter in Washington, D.C., the air feels like spring time in West Palm Beach, Florida. When Super Bowl LIX ends, the baseball season unofficially begins.
This is the final weekend before the Washington Nationals open up their Spring Training camp on Wednesday. Manager Dave Martinez said two weeks ago that he had over a dozen players already in camp.
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Up until September 21 of 2024, CJ Abrams was active daily on posting stories on his Instagram account. Since then, nada. His agent put up a collaboration post on Abrams’ page on October 7, and then the well went dry on Abrams’ social media. He has not been posting (on his social media), and not heard from — not even a call with his manager, Dave Martinez, who said in December, “He’s hard to get a hold of.”
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"Opening Day should be a National holiday"
