Offseason goals are often very lofty by baseball fans, very realistic by the general manager, and kind of in-between for the field manager. Meeting expectations is very subjective as beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. This is why GMs often sound like politicians when giving their offseason goals.
Dreaming of the Washington Nationals signing Juan Soto was unrealistic, but there was hope that the Nationals could find their 2011 equivalent to Jayson Werth. His $123 million deal for 7-years was massive at the time 14-years ago, and considered a sizeable overpay as well, for a 32-year-old.
The hope in this offseason was to sign another star player to a long-term deal that would have been a true sign of an investment that would have hit the gas. So far, general manager Mike Rizzo has not signed or committed to a player for more than 2-years. This has been a trend in baseball that short-term deals are the norm for any player not meeting that superstar potential.
“We need some offense. 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.”
— Rizzo said this to Bill Ladson of MLB.com in mid-September
“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 are going to be.”
For Rizzo, he was fairly clear without naming names of his offseason goals for acquiring players, and that he was looking for two middle-of-the-order bats and pitching. He met his goals already with the additions of Nathaniel Lowe and Josh Bell as well as adding pitchers with Michael Soroka and Trevor Williams. Subsequently, Rizzo non-tendered Kyle Finnegan making a closer or setup reliever a must to pair with Jose A. Ferrer.
The issue is that it seems that the fans are not happy with the Nats “going light” on those signings, and a perception that Rizzo has not hit the gas.
Sure, we all wanted more, and maybe more is coming. All said, the Lowe signing should prove to have been a good pickup by Rizzo when he acquired Lowe in a a trade with the Texas Rangers. Many analysts thought the Nationals did well there.
Manager Dave Martinez laid out his goals at the Winter Meetings that sort of sounded like Rizzo’s goals except Martinez clearly said he wanted corner infielders, meaning a first baseman and a third baseman. You cannot blame Martinez for wanting a third baseman. Removing the four months the team had Jeimer Candelario in 2023, the team has been a cumulative -0.9 WAR at third base since 2020. Candelario put up a +3.0 WAR and the Nats cumulatively were a +2.1 with all third baseman the past five years which is horrific production. In fact, that is the worst in all of baseball in that time span. Yes, the Nationals have to solve third base, and Martinez might not want to gamble on top prospect Brady House in this 2025 season.
“I believe in chemistry and culture. We want to bring the right guys in. We’ve got a lot of young guys. We want a guy that’s going to help our young guys.”
— Martinez said at the Winter Meetings in early December
“We’re definitely looking for corner [infield] guys, we really are. We need to fill that first base void. … Like I said, we’ve got our feelers out. We’re talking to a lot of different guys. We’ll see what transpires.”
“We’re definitely looking for some
power bats at both corner spots, maybe a DH spot. We’ll see what transpires.”
While Lowe fills that void at the first base position and Bell for the DH, as of this writing, the Nats have not acquired a third baseman. If the Nationals wanted to make this a great offseason, signing All-Star and reigning Gold Glove winner, Alex Bregman, would make this an A+ offseason for the Nats. The chances do not look great for that to happen. Instead, TalkNats sources have told us that the team had reached out to the agent for Paul DeJong who has played a lot of third base in his career, and he put up good power numbers in 2024 with some impressive third base defense in his final two months with the Kansas City Royals. The hesitation is that while the 31-year-old had a .703 OPS, his OBP was only .276 with a 32.4 percent K rate.
Realistically, the hope is to improve third base and the bullpen. If the Nats do all of that, they should exceed their total payroll from last year. But given all of that addition by subtraction that were detailed in the New Year’s Eve article, the Nationals are going to be a better team on paper than last year’s team after they spent over $30 million on diminishing returns from Patrick Corbin, Joey Gallo, and Eddie Rosario.
Rizzo has spent much more than that $30 million on the acquisitions of Lowe, Soroka, Williams and Bell. If you look at the 2023 Baltimore Orioles, their entire payroll at Opening Day of that year was $60.7 million, and they won 101-games. They were projected to win only 73-80 games by PECOTA and FanGraphs. That’s why we play the games. Maybe they were a little lucky in 2023, and unlucky in 2024 when they dropped to 91-wins even with Corbin Burnes as their one-year ace. It just shows you that baseball projections rarely meet the actual numbers because of all of the variables.
Spending huge money usually translates to wins as the Dodgers and Yankees showed in 2024, but remind us again what the 2023 NY Mets did in the standings? Exactly. Barry Svrluga wrote about all of this in an article in 2023 for the Washington Post. Two months after that article, the Texas Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks went to the World Series. You could say that the biggest spending teams had a good rebound in 2024, and yes, the Mets were back in the playoffs in 2024. What would Svrluga say today, after writing in the title of his article, “After big-money teams sputter, Nats’ payroll plan looks better and better.” The issue that we have pointed out in the past is that the $/WAR ratio favors a team like the Orioles to make the postseason — but it is a tougher climb to advance against the deeper high payroll teams in the playoffs.
The only formula to winning is scoring more runs than your opponent. That is how you win actual games, and how you get there can happen in a variety of ways. The Nationals were second-to-last in 2024 in home runs. The team has added some power to the lineup. They have improved the defense. The pitching is deeper.
“We’ve talked to a lot of people about a lot of good players. We need more talent, and some veteran presence for not only the clubhouse, but to hit in the middle and lengthen our lineup.”
— Rizzo wanted to “hit the gas” as he said at the Winter Meetings
“We need more power, and need to put some crooked numbers up a little easier, and marry that with the aggressiveness on the bases. We led baseball in steals — but were bottom of the barrel in slug. And, you can never have enough good arms.”
“We feel good where we’re at, and have a fertile [farm] system with guys who will help us in 2025 and beyond, but we have to keep moving forward and hit the gas, and supplement the young core of guys we have.”
If you say “hit the gas”, you should do it. That wording made it sound like you were going to push hard. Again, Rizzo might still be on the road driving, but if this is it, be ready for some road rage!
A team must have a good plan in roster building and continual improvement to get to the postseason. A good plan would be to upgrade third base and the bullpen, and if the Nats are in playoff contention at the end of July, then you look to make some deadline trades.
Judging the youngest team in baseball by its payroll is not a good indicator for assessing the team because top-performing pre-arb players are worth much more than their salaries. Judging the team by their projections, and how they actually perform, is how you do it.
If you are one that judges a team on dollars spent, the Nats have spent the 15th most in just free agent dollars per MLB Trade Rumors with the signings of RHP Soroka, RHP Williams, and DH Bell. But when you factor in all of the new money, the Nats will have commited well over $54 million when you add the two years for Lowe. And by the way, Lowe was traded for Robert Garcia, who was making the league minimum money of $760,000 this year. Factor in that Lowe money, and the Nats total committed would be 11th most in baseball. But again, that should not matter, it is all about winning on the field and moving from a rebuild to contending.
If you don’t want to hear my words on the Nats, listen to MLB Network when they talk about the offseason. Or how’s about this from Mark Polishuk of MLB Trade Rumors:
“With Bell and Lowe in the fold, and expected improvement from CJ Abrams and Luis Garcia Jr., and a full season from top prospects James Wood and Dylan Crews, there is plenty of reason to think the Nats can be a much more productive lineup.”
— Polishuk wrote in MLB Trade Rumors
“If everything clicks and the team’s young pitching also takes a step forward, the Nationals might well get back to winning baseball in 2025, and then perhaps start spending on bigger-name talent next offseason.”
Again, the offseason is not over. We hope that Rizzo acquires a player who we can say he really did “hit the gas.” The glaring needs are for positive production at the third base position and the bullpen. Get it done Nats!
