This 2025 Washington Nationals season was supposed to be a successful transition from the top prospects turning into bona fide MLB stars. With James Wood and Mitchell Parker, we might be seeing that. But Dylan Crews is struggling, to be honest, and he was supposed to be a key to taking the Nats out of the rebuild. Additionally, all 10 of the offseason free agent signings except for Kyle Finnegan are struggling.
In fact, after Shinnosuke Ogasawara was optioned to Triple-A, seven of the remaining nine free agent signings made by general manager Mike Rizzo are sitting in negative WAR per FanGraphs. Yes, the season is only a little over 10 percent complete, but this sure feels like a repeat of last year and the year before — and the year before that, where the free agent failures far exceed the free agent successes. Andrew Ross termed it well as “subtraction by addition.” That is exactly what it is. Then you head into the offseason and remove those players to achieve addition by subtraction. It shouldn’t work that way. Especially when the budget was large enough at $50 million to sign quality over quantity. This is about consistently making good choices.
Sure, you can blame ownership if you want. Maybe they needed to insist on finding their Jayson Werth already. But they run a business, and Forbes and other financial sites have shown that the team isn’t making money, and have spent to an operating breakeven. This isn’t making an excuse for ownership — just a reality of what is there. This is a small market revenue team operating in a big town where their TV revenue is near the bottom of MLB and the same with attendance. It becomes destructive to a rebuild when fans do not show up because right now, attendance is what the team needs to pay the bills. There is no financial osmosis to cure the chasm on the revenue divide unless there is a revenue turnaround. So yes, ownership might have to build it and hope they come.
An issue here is, when will Rizzo change his overall strategy? From the draft to player development, this team is surviving on making trades. Quality brings quality. Signing free agent bounceback players is counting on a whole lot of hope and luck to achieve positive results. It worked with Jon Lester, Jeimer Candelario and Jesse Winker, and might have worked with Kyle Schwarber if he wasn’t injured. The strategy failed miserably with Trevor Rosenthal, Nelson Cruz, Joey Gallo and over a dozen others. Trying to resurrect Michael Soroka as a starter and spending nearly 20 percent of your budget on him was risky. Likewise with Josh Bell as your DH with 12 percent of your budget. Even Finnegan was risky, and at least, so far so good with him. Maybe in the end Rizzo will be the genius.
At what point do you do an autopsy on yourself? Unless you are handed a giant payroll with your owner gifting you Max Scherzer, can you do it with the way you are trying to do it? From one of the worst farm systems and years of failed drafts, the player development system is not churning enough stars. There has to be a realization that the only way out of it is that ownership will have to bail you out with huge spending, or else this rebuild might move backwards and heads will roll. This is at a teetering point. Winning under 71-games would be a terrible turn for the worse, and the Nats are not eligible to draft higher than 10th next year in the first round per the CBA rules.
There aren’t many ways to put a positive spin on what we have seen so far from this team. Besides Wood, Parker, CJ Abrams, MacKenzie Gore, Nathaniel Lowe, Keibert Ruiz, Finnegan, and Alex Call, there aren’t enough players stepping up. The team just went a combined 2-5 against the Marlins and Pirates. The lack of energy was alarming. And now the fans are turning on the team. Is it reactionary? Yes. Is it justified? Probably not in all aspects. It’s too early. But we are getting close to that 19-31 doom and gloom again.
Yes, it is too early to make any futuristic decisions on Crews who was the No. 1 prospect in all of baseball in the offseason on Baseball America’s rankings. Now he has exceeded his prospect status and is officially a rookie. At a -0.6 WAR and batting just .140 with no extra base hits, he needs to lock-in, and quickly, as he is currently a black hole in this lineup. He has a grand total of zero RBIs.
On top of Crews struggles, the Nats curent top position prospect, Brady House, is just not putting up the numbers to force himself onto the roster, and that leaves a gaping hole for the team at third base for the future. When third baseman Paul DeJong was struck in the face by a fastball this week, the team did not call-up House to replace him.
“You have to do what you have to do to sustain greatness. … by having a core group of guys who will be with you through those years. … When your [prospect] stars become [MLB] stars — that’s when you take off …”
— General Manager Mike Rizzo said to invited season ticket holders in January
When you read Rizzo’s words, you have to be concerned. The only help that might be coming internally is from the pitching prospects and none of them are ready. The positional prospects are struggling in the Nationals system. MLB Pipeline’s newest list paints a dire picture that if House doesn’t step-up, there is no infield help close to helping this team any time soon. The Nats drafted Seaver King at No. 10 overall last year, and he is batting under .130 as of this morning. Could this be another draft bust for this team?
In this past offseason, Rizzo said that he wasn’t signing QO’d players based on weighing the forfeiture of their second round draft pick this year plus losing $500,000 from their international free agency bonus pool. But next year, there will be some top free agents without the QO tags.
“When Mike calls me in and says, ‘We really need to think about it,’ for next winter, we’ll talk about it. Right now, he doesn’t think — and I agree with him: There’s no point in getting a superstar and paying him hundreds of millions of dollars to win two or three more games. You’ve got to wait until — like [acquiring] Jayson Werth, [when the team] was right on the cusp of being really good, and it took us to the next level. That’s the ideal situation. It’s always on our mind.”
— principal owner Mark Lerner said before the season
The MLB Draft will give Rizzo the №1 pick in the draft in July. The team chose Crews №2 overall in 2023 and has not held a №1 picl since they took Bryce Harper in 2010. Rizzo usually drafts the best player available (BPA). Maybe he adds the top pitcher in lefty Jamie Arnold. One other player to keep an eye on as a top infielder in the draft is Aiva Arquette. There are of course other draft-eligible players who might not be as quick to the Majors and could still factor in at the No. 1 pick like the high schooler Ethan Holliday. These ranked names will change as we get closer to the draft which is less than 3-months away.
For this coming offseason going into 2026, figure that eight current Nats’ players are scheduled for free agency and $32 million comes off of the payroll with $18 million going back on the payroll with arbitration-eligible raises. Net-net the offseason payroll, if there are no non-tenders, would open at $120 million. What we don’t know is how much Rizzo will get to spend for next year. Again, the only fix might be to buy your way into contention.
The starting rotation of MacKenzie Gore, Jake Irvin, Mitchell Parker, and Trevor Williams are four names if Williams remains in the rotation. Figure that Michael Soroka departs for free agency. If you signed Arnold, there is your potential №1 starter for the future. If you don’t draft Arnold or another pitcher, you have starters like Brad Lord, Shinnosuke Ogasawara, Cade Cavalli in that mix and Josiah Gray will be back from his injury making it 5-to-8 deep with DJ Herz returning from his TJ surgery after the 2026 All-Star break. Then you have top pitching prospects Jarlin Susana and Travis Sykora who are inching closer, and both have top of the rotation stuff. There is also Jake Bennett who will be back to pitch next month from his recovery from his TJ surgery. It is crowded, and as Rizzo says, “That’s a good problem to have.” What you hope is a №1 and a №2 in true aces emerge from inside the organization.
If the Nationals can stick internally with their own starting pitchers, then they can spend their money on position players and the bullpen. That could be a key to how this could turn the priorities for the upcoming offseason if ownership shows the willingness to spend.
Given all of that information on House and King, the Nationals might be forced to spend their 2025-2026 offseason wad on a third baseman in free agency. Here is a brand new list compiled this week of the upcoming free agents.
This could work even with the current RSN issues with the Nats breaking away from MASN and finding a new RSN home for the 2026 season and beyond. Per Forbes, the Nationals dropped to $325 million for their revenue, and an operating profit of under $1 million. Essentially they have the Nats hovering at a breakeven before interest and depreciation. But here is the good news: The Nats are finally closing in on selling stadium naming rights and a jersey patch sponsorship. That is potential cash that could be added right back to player payroll.
Let’s say the Nationals can make $25 million combined for those two sponsorships, and can raise attendance by 140,000 (1,700 per game) over the 2024 season numbers, that would add $5 million more to revenues. That alone would pay for Alex Bregman on a free agent deal. There’s $14 million coming off the books in payroll leading into the offseason which should get a top closer. The Nats needs beyond that would be for a DH and another setup bullpen arm. Spending on quality, that might cost another $26 million unless you want to look at other options. All totalled that would be an offseason spend of $70 million, and that is $20 million over the $50 million budget spent this year.
What do you think of this lineup for 2026:
- CJ Abrams SS LH
- Alex Bregman 3B RH (Free Agent)
- James Wood LF/DH LH
- Pete Alonso DH RH (Free Agent)
- Nathaniel Lowe 1B LH
- Keibert Ruiz C SH
- Dylan Crews RF RH
- Luis Garcia Jr. 2B LH
- Jacob Young CF RH
The bullpen free agents next year are a younger class of names, and a bunch of All-Stars. This could be the time to stock up on a great bullpen to be set for years to come. Derek Law is a pending free agent after this season, and Jorge Lopez, Lucas Sims, and Colin Poche are all on one-year deals, and likely gone. Kyle Finnegan is also on a one-year deal. With Jose A. Ferrer Orlando Ribalta, Eduardo Salazar, Cole Henry, and Jackson Rutledge, that is only five spots with four to fill. Could Zach Brzykcy get another chance? Will there be any other names internally who can step up and make an impact this year and for the future plus new names like Marquis Grissom Jr. and Jack Sinclair.
Based on this year’s signings of top relievers, expect to spend $10 million to $15 million for a top bullpen arm for next offseason. Budget that for 2026, because this could be an opportunity to build a great bullpen for the future, to close-out games for the Nats’ young core of starters.
Here’s the thing, unless players step up this season, you can go through the same process and say your “[prospect] stars become [MLB] stars — that’s when you take off” and stay in the rebuild for another year or change course and admit the positional prospect build just didn’t work out as well as you had hoped — and just spend your way out, because short of a miraculous turn, it doesn’t look like there is a Bryce Harper, Anthony Rendon, and Trea Turner matriculating through this system on the positional side. But the good news is that the starting pitching is there, and if you draft Jamie Arnold, you have arms for the future with the pitchers you do have in the farm system — and that’s the current strength of the system.
Unless this team steps up and turns things around, there might be a massive housecleaning coming up because at some point you have to put up or shut up.
