The Washington Nationals knew they were getting some much-needed payroll relief with Patrick Corbin‘s contract coming off of the books as of this offseason. The team has $70 million remaining on Stephen Strasburg‘s retirement deal that is a hit of $35 million per year for the next two years. And Strasburg is the only 8-digit obligation the team has on the books. Get beyond those two years remaining on Strasburg — and the coast is clear.
The highest projected active contract going into the offseason is the arbitration number of approximately $8.6 million for Kyle Finnegan‘s final contractual year. The only long-term contract is with Keibert Ruiz at $6.25 million a year through 2030.
MLB Trade Rumors published their offseason arbitration projections for players with at least 3.0 years of service time. They did not include potential Super-Two players like CJ Abrams. If we include Abrams in the numbers at a $3.3 million projected salary, the Nationals would have an AAV (average annual value) for the CBT (Competitive Balance Tax) payroll at approximately $85 (including Strasburg) for just team-controlled salary players. That is exactly $50 million for active players.
According to the USA Today, the Washington Nationals had the 19th highest payroll going into Opening Day last year at $127 million. The hope is that the team can spend well beyond that number this year. The average team payroll in MLB on Opening Day 2024 was $163 million. The Nats are projected to be $78 million under the average entering this offseason. No, don’t expect the Nats to get to the average in 2025. We hope they spend to get the big bat and sign some players to deals longer than 1-year.
Remember, the Nats grew payroll year over year from 2010 to 2015 when they busted their own budget and went over the CBT threshold and paid the tax penalty for the first time. From 2013 to 2021, the Nats payroll ranked in the Top-10 of all spenders with several years in the Top-3. During a rebuild, you expect salary spending to fall. The Nats had been carrying Corbin and Strasburg combined for nearly $60 million which kept them in the Top-20 of payroll spending. With Corbin coming off the books and Strasburg retired, the hope is that the Nationals will climb back to the Top-15.
Most likely Nats’ ownership wants to add payroll to not exceed their revenues and avoid placing themselves in a loss. TalkNats has written about this issue several times. The team MUST take advantage of the large revenue opportunities available to give them the coveted revenue to allow them to spend more. Principal owner Mark Lerner has not talked to the media in months. But when Lerner spoke publicly about a year ago in a year-end address at the end of the 2023 season, he seemed open to doing what Mike Rizzo, the General Manager & President of Baseball Operations, wanted to do.
“My guess is [Rizzo] will say: ‘No, give it another year. Let’s get some of these young guys here and being productive, then you take the leap.’ Whatever he desires, he knows he has the resources, and he’s always had the resources since the day we took over this team, to build a winner. I can’t recall in all these years, on one hand, that he’s been turned down for something.”
— Lerner said at the end of the 2023 season to Dan Kolko in an exclusive interview
We are now a year removed from that statement, and privately Lerner is saying the same part about giving Rizzo the financial resources he needs to build a winner. So what if Rizzo did want to spend $575 million on Juan Soto and another $120 million on Jack Flaherty? That’s the 100-million-dollar question. Where is the team headed? Could they follow the lead of the Commanders to go from losing to winning with one key acquisition? Look at these NFL Playoff odds. No way anyone expected this a year ago.
Two years ago, MLB made the lucrative jersey patch sponsorships available to all of their teams. As of this writing, the Nats have not taken advantage of it. That is like grabbing free money for giving up to 16 square inches of real estate on the jersey sleeve . Sources had told us that the team is “diligently” working on it. If it is anything like their stadium naming rights efforts — that jersey patch sponsorship might never get done.
Keep in mind that the team went public in 2016 with their intention to sell the stadium naming rights. The stadium is still called Nationals Park with the team getting ready to celebrate their 20th year in existence and 17th year in Nationals Park. The Nationals are the only team in baseball without either a jersey patch sponsorship or a stadium naming rights deal. In fact, every other NL East team has both sponsorships. As of this writing 23-of-the-other-29 teams in MLB have jersey patch sponsorships.
While Rizzo is working on his offseason acquisition wish-list, the revenue side of the team needs to work harder on significantly raising revenues to give Rizzo a larger buffer to spend. On the marketing side, they have to sell more tickets and the circular equation tells you that it is much easier to sell tickets when you sign some big name players to show your commitment to winning.
“I think it’s time to spend at a point. We’re going to see who’s available, and what fits we have out there. But I think that it’s time for us to add to the roster, because we’ve got a good young core group of guys, and some veteran leadership, I think, is warranted.”
— Rizzo said last week
Winning and money seem to go hand-in-hand. We want to see every effort made for the team to be able spend to get this team back to being an annual winning team.
