Winter Meetings shopping list for the Washington Nationals

The Winter Meetings open on Sunday night. Washington Nationals GM Mike Rizzo has a shopping list. He has publicly stated that he is actively looking to acquire not just one, but two middle-of-the-order bats to bolster the team’s lineup for the upcoming season as well as pitching.

Putting a strong focus on adding run-creators and consistency to the heart of the batting order should be a priority. While Rizzo did not specifically mention the full profile of the hitters he would like to acquire, let’s hope they can also play defense — and that would be advisable given that you need those two-way players when your team was near the bottom in both power and defense in the 2024 season.

Some would say that the home run totals for the Nats are somewhat misleading because runs scored (ranked 25th) is all that matters, but it all matters and being 25th is nothing to brag about. The Nats used team speed that ranked the team at first in baseball as a positive — but come on, that only moved the Nats three spots above their second worst numbers in MLB on home runs. This all goes back to team balance. For OBP, the Nats were 17th in baseball at .309 and that was a direct result of being 25th in walks in 2024 and bolstered by being 10th in hit-by-pitches (HBP).

For all of that negative news on the offense, or lack thereof, the Nats extended their hitting coach, Darnell Coles, in August with a quarter of the season still to play. He wasn’t even responsible for the team speed, and the high HBP count isn’t anything to brag about. But was Coles to blame for the poor roster? No, but his job was to improve the players he had. Maybe the one positive was that the Nats were 13th in baseball in RISP batting average. You would have to dig for any positives that could be attributable to the hitting coach — so that’s all we have.

Key words by Rizzo was “run creation.” Analytics will tell you that run creation and run prevention are the true keys to winning. Do well at both — and you will have a very good team.

The Nats promoted their two top prospects during the 2024 campaign with James Wood up at the midway point in the season, and Dylan Crews up in late August. The team purged most of their neg-WAR players off of the roster, and by adding two key bats to the middle-of-the-order could transform this team with CJ Abrams and Luis Garcia Jr. returning for the middle infield, and the speedster, Jacob Young, in center field.

Key points about Rizzo’s statement:

  • Priority on middle-order power: This is a clear signal that Rizzo believes adding impactful hitters to the middle of the lineup is a critical need for the Nationals to improve their offensive production.
  • Potential for multiple acquisitions: By mentioning “two middle-of-the-order bats,” Rizzo suggests he is open to making multiple moves to address this need, potentially through free agency or a trade.
  • Impact on the team dynamic: Adding strong hitters to the middle of the lineup could alleviate pressure on other players and allow for more balanced offensive contributions.

If Rizzo did nothing, his current offensive lineup would be better than what he had to start the 2024 season, but let’s hope that is not the case that Rizzo does not add at least one key bat in a new acquisition — and preferably the two that he wants.

The team may or may not have long-term answers in their minor league system with Brady House at third base, and Yohandy Morales at first base which is why the team has been linked to Gold Glove third baseman Alex Bregman and mentioned with several first baseman with Gold Glover, Christian Walker, at the top of the wish list.

Add to the shopping list a closer, after Rizzo non-tendered Kyle Finnegan last month. The total shopping list seems to begin with the two middle of the order bats, a veteran starting pitcher, and a closer. That is a lot of shopping compared to prior years.

There are six arb-eligible players since Abrams did not make the Super-Two cutoff. The current active payroll that includes estimates with the team’s arb-eligible players is at $36.8 million and CBT payroll is $71.8 million with Stephen Strasburg. The full CBT payroll with all of the add-ons is at $92.7 million. Last season’s $137.3 million in payroll on Opening Day per ESPN was 21st in baseball because of that $35 million to Strasburg. The Nats are currently at $44.6 million below that number. That is potentially great news, and by the way, two years from today, Strasburg will be off of the CBT payroll.

If Rizzo is just shopping with $44.6 million, he could get any player but Juan Soto. Hopefully Rizzo has more than $45 million to shop with because of all of the needs. Great middle-of-the-order bats start with annual price tags of at least $20 million. A good closer will be at $10 million or more, and a good starter at about $15 million. The math is quite simple: 2 x $20M + $10M + $15M = $65 million. And that is at least $65 million. That would take the Nats to $158 million.

WAR per $ chart

You could come up with thousands of iterations of acquisitions to spend the Nats’ money. There are many ways to look at the equation, and we used FanGraphs WAR with MLB Trade Rumors projected dollars to come up with an impact chart. The winning combination was spending $1 million for approximately .135 of WAR. Yes, WAR is expensive in free agency. That would mean that spending $20 million would get you about 2.7 WAR or about the equivalent of what Young produced last year at 2.6. For the $65 million scenario, you would get Carlos Santana, the reigning Gold Glove in the AL for first base, Bregman who is the reigning Gold Glove in the AL for third base, Nathan Eovaldi as your veteran pitcher, and Blake Treinen as your closer plus an unnamed reliever for $1 million.

Now per our model, five new acquisitions would replace five unnamed placeholders at the league minimum of $760,000 each so that $65 million is a net cost to payroll of $3.8 million. Five players at $65 million AAV would add a net of $61.2 million to that $92.7 to make it $154 million.

Give Rizzo that bankroll and let him cook shop!

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