Assembling a roster starts with a reality check and that is called the budget. The Washington Nationals have many needs for the offseason, and they have to maximize their opportunities in Dollar/WAR acquisitions. Obviously, Juan Soto‘s +8.1 WAR would be a big plus if the Nationals acquired him — but as we know, Soto will have his choice of suitors. He would almost transform this Nats’ team from 71-wins to 80-wins by himself. The Nationals purged a lot of “addition by subtraction” off of the roster also. Certainly, -4.0 WAR will not be on next year’s roster, and that alone could take this team from 71-wins to 75-wins before any new acquisitions.
Departing Players
The Nationals will not have much turnover due to free agency. Obviously Patrick Corbin is leaving, but the team might choose to retain Trevor Williams. What the Nationals would need to do is find WAR replacement for Williams’ +2.7. The good news using pitcher’s WAR based on true results on FanGraphs instead of FIP based, it tells you that the Nats actually gain addition by subtraction of exactly -2.8 of pitchers off of the roster so that is a near wash. With three locks for the 2025 starting rotation of MacKenzie Gore, Jake Irvin, DJ Herz, it would be nice to add back two strong pieces or stick with Mitchell Parker and add one more top piece if money is tight.
Player Progress
We expect FanGraphs projections for 2025 to give some of those incumbent players WAR boosts over their 2024 numbers. If we take Gore, Irvin, and Herz and add in the outfielders of Jacob Young, James Wood, and Dylan Crews and take those six players — and they just marginally improved from their current values by an average of +0.5 each, that would be an additional +3.0 WAR and take this team to 78-wins. That seems very conservative on average and would expect FanGraphs to be more bullish.
Realistically, the team needs considerable help from the outside in new acquisitions to get to a winning team.
“We need some offense [in new acquisitions]. We need a couple of bats that can hit in the middle of the lineup and take the onus off some of these good young core players and assist them in the run creation of our offense.”
— General Manager Mike Rizzo said in September to William Ladson
“We have the core players to be middle-of-the-lineup hitters. If we add a bat or two into that group, it takes a little bit of pressure off everybody — and everybody can relax a little bit more and develop into the players we think they’re going to be.”
Acquisitions
At this point, we can look at dozens and dozens of examples that don’t even include trade scenarios. To guess correctly four new acquisitions from the pool of major leaguers that include free agent and trade scenarios is a combination of 320 billion different scenarios.
We take our 78-wins scenario and look to get to 89-wins and a solid chance at a Wild Card. Our goal is to spend to a $140+ million salary budget for 2025. But let us try to guess at three different scenarios.
In Scenario 1, we do not want to change the current outfield where the Nats get top defense and good offense. We have to make sure that Juan Soto can play first base at a level of meeting or exceeding an average defense. That is an unknown as we have only seen him practice at first base and never in a game. Soto, alone, almost uses up 75% of the budget. That means that you have to roll the dice on another starting pitcher and any other sizeable upgrades. But that scenario should get us to 89-wins. This would be the scenario Nats fans would want the most. If Soto rotates in the outfield and DH, the infield defense would be worse than the 2024 season — and that’s an issue. Juan Yepez at 1st base? Jose Tena at 3rd base. CJ Abrams at shortstop?
In Scenario 2, we assume Soto does not come to the Nationals. Alex Bregman was 28th in all of baseball in WAR this year at +4.1 and would slot at 3rd base. He ranked 4th in 3rd base defense, and he replaces Jose Tena who shifts to the primary DH. There is enough money to acquire Christian Walker for 1st base. Walker was 64th in baseball at +3.0 WAR and just below Luis Garcia Jr. in the rankings. Walker ranked 2nd in 1st base defense and should win his third consecutive Gold Glove. But that blows the budget so Rizzo would need to trade Kyle Finnegan and throw the dice on finding a set-up reliever. We shoot high in this scenario for Jack Flaherty as our starting pitcher and his +3.2 WAR — but certainly this is where you could spend less and not go for Flaherty and keep Finnegan and come in under $60 million.
In Scenario 3, you get more players and a real emphasis on infield defense. Willy Adames was a +1.0 OAA at shortstop, and the differential from CJ Abrams‘ poor defense would save a net 14 runs for the season. That saves the pitching staff nearly .60 runs per week. That’s significant. So what do you do with Abrams and Garcia in this scenario? One of them would shift to third base or get traded. That adds a lot of moving parts. This scenario also allows Rizzo to add back Jesse Winker at DH, Walker at 1st base, and upgrade with Tanner Scott as the closer and trade Finnegan for a prospect.
But what about a Scenario 4 that takes parts of each and takes away more uncertainty. Go Bregman ($30 million), Walker ($15 million), Scott ($12 million), Williams ($9 million), Winker ($8 million), and trade Finnegan (-$9 million). That would be a net of $65 million, and you blow the budget by $5 million. That gets you over 90-wins on paper. And this is also the scenario where the pitchers look even better with improved team defense.
The most likely is Scenario 5 is none of these because there are 320 billion different scenarios in just acquiring four new players. One thing for sure is that Rizzo must upgrade the defense, and that makes targeting Walker at 1st base a top priority if you don’t believe you have a shot at Soto. Sticking with a left-side of Tena at 3rd base and Abrams at shortstop is taking quite the defensive risk based on 2024 results. But that also doesn’t block Brady House as your top prospect infielder. This gives you time to improve from within. Of course you hope that Tena and Abrams come to camp with improved defense.
The Math
Those $60+ million scenarios for new acquisitions should get the Washington Nationals to an 89-win team and a playoff contender. The math is also fuzzy as we don’t know for sure what the budget will be. We do believe the offseason payroll with the increases for arbitration-eligible players will be just under $85 million, and a savings of $42 million from Opening Day.
In 2024, there was more parity in the NL, and MLB had no teams that won 100-games. This year it would have taken 89-wins to make the NL Wild Card. Most years, 87-wins would be enough to cash a ticket to a Wild Card berth.
The Takeaway
There should be no uncertainty with this offseason’s moves. There is uncertainty on what Rizzo’s offseason budget will be. While you would hope the Nationals can grow their payroll, there is no certainty on what that number will be.
Any new acquisitions should be “sure things” with no reclamation projects. Acquisitions designed to add WAR value while improving the defense to make the current pitching even better. Rizzo talked to this before the 2023 season — but the team declined in defense in 2024.
“We’re going to be a young, energetic group of guys. Defensively we’re going to be better — I promise you which makes our pitching staff better — I promise you. We’re going to be scrappy to try to score enough runs to win games. Our goal is to win. I’m not going to set a win number. … We want to have a swagger about us. … That’s my promise to you guys.”
— Rizzo said this before the 2023 season in a speech to season ticket holders. What happened in 2024?
Rizzo knew the defense was a problem from 2022 into 2023. He added Dominic Smith and Jeimer Candelario at the corners on the infield and fulfilled his promise. The defense improved. But from 2023 to 2024, the defense imploded — and mostly because Abrams got worse at shortstop by a wide margin, and third base and left field were black holes for defense. Even with Young providing the best defense in baseball, the 2024 Nats finished tied for 4th-from-last in team defense, and that is a failure on the team as a whole in the personnel, coaching, and front office. And same for the bottom-6 offense. There should be no excuses in the approach this offseason to focus on adding that key bat or two while improving defense simultaneously.
You could confidently state that the improvement in pitching in 2024, saved the Nats. The addition of Sean Doolittle to the coaching staff looked to be a smart move by Rizzo. But when you compare the ERA to FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching), which measures what a player’s ERA would look like if the pitchers had just league average defense, you could also say that the pitching was short-changed by the poor fielding. The Nats ranked 9th in FIP. Think about that for a moment.
There are no shortcuts to greatness. This team is in desperate need of veteran leadership too. Also know that slow and steady wins the race. Make enough moves this offseason to become a contender, and each year tweak the roster to improve year over year. That should be the goal as this team move from the rebuild to contention.
