We all had the fun exercises over the winter in how would we spend the Washington Nationals’ budget. Juan Soto‘s name was on top of the wish list although that was never a serious consideration. My hope was for a Alex Bregman signing, and a Nathaniel Lowe trade — I got half of my wishes. The budget needed to be spent on two quality bats where defense was also a priority and Lowe filled one of the needs, and the rest of the money would be for a third baseman, a starting pitcher, two setup relievers, and a closer. Total budget: $50 million. Doable. Quality over quantity. No bounceback players. Sure things.
General manager Mike Rizzo didn’t sign any top ranked free agents, even though he had $50 million to spend. It was the same ole same ole of going for quantity and “hoping and praying” that some worked out. The same strategy that has been in effect for far too long in Nats history. Throw it against the wall and see what sticks. Some call it dumpster diving. Sure, you do that at the beginnings of a rebuild and when you have little payroll budget to spend.
When you have $50 million to spend, you should be more selective. Should. As detailed this past week, the only free agent signings of the 10 players acquired with positive WAR that was added for this season are Kyle Finnegan, Trevor Williams and Paul DeJong. Two were re-signings from the 2024 roster, and DeJong was basically a freebie as he signed for little more than the league minimum, and we knew, if nothing else, that he has Gold Glove potential defense — and he does.
But that leaves 70 percent of the other signings who are not producing for the roster, and they cost a combined $27 million. For that type of money, surely you could have signed two more top bullpen arms, right? Maybe Rizzo will be the genius in the end and Michael Soroka, Josh Bell, Lucas Sims, Jorge Lopez, Amed Rosario, Colin Poche, and Shinnosuke Ogasawara will all contribute to winning. Time is going to tell all on this in hindsight. That is how best you judge these moves. Soroka at least last year proved that while he wasn’t a good starting pitcher, he was actually a good bullpen arm. Bell was good for two months of the six month season last year, and that isn’t a good ratio. Not really sure about the others.
When you rebuild, the way you accomplish it can vary. Most teams try to rebuild through the draft approach, and then supplement the rest through trades and free agency. The key is hitting on top draft picks. If you don’t, then you need to spend your way out of it.
The first Nats’ rebuild dubbed, “The Plan” as named by former team president, Stan Kasten, was to be built on the draft. It worked brilliantly, and setup the Nats for nearly 10 years of prosperity near or at the top of the NL East. Some of those key players like Ian Desmond, Ryan Zimmerman, Jordan Zimmermann, and others were actually acquired with Jim Bowden as the general manager. Even the tanking of 2008 that resulted in the No. 1 draft pick to secure Stephen Strasburg was set in place by “The Plan” while Kasten and Bowden were in charge. Of course Bowden resigned in the shadows of the “Smiley Gonzalez” debacle. And after Bowden’s resignation, he read from a statement in what he called “false allegations, insinuations and innuendoes by the press” that led to his departure from the team.
“I’m currently in my village idiot phase in Washington. Until we see the record on the field, it’s easy to be critical, it’s easy to be impatient. I totally understand it.”
— quotes from Kasten in 2009
Kasten said he had been the village idiot before, when he was helping rebuild the Atlanta Braves to their first World Series win. He said he was using “exactly the same blueprint” with the Nationals as he did back then, building the franchise around a young pitching staff.
“I think we’ve followed a course that has us very close, much closer than you would think than just looking at the standings. … Once we get a consistent, stable, mature and ready-to-go rotation of pitching, anything is possible.”
“Another year or two, and I’ll think you’ll stop calling me bad names.”
So the plan is to build the pitching first if you read Kasten’s words. Everything begins with the starting pitching. If you recall, Kasten stayed around long enough to promote Rizzo to the general manager’s job, and his first draft in charge, the Nationals had another easy decision in drafting Bryce Harper. Add Strasburg and Harper to the prospects they had, and the Nats would put together the most formidable core of homegrown talent in baseball. Contrast that to now, and you see that the core is really mostly pieces acquired in the Juan Soto trade. The drafted homegrown talent might include Mitchell Parker and Jake Irvin and stretch that to Jacob Young, but you are also hoping that Dylan Crews can become a drafted star. He was taken No. 2 overall and was the college Golden Spikes winner. Finally he got his season back on track this past weekend.
The distinct differences of how that 2012 team was built versus the 2025 team shows that the draft has not elevated the team into contention and nowhere close. The 2012 team highlighted in gold for drafted players, blue for trades, and green for free agents is how you want to build. Then you supplement with more free agents and keep drafting and developing players.
But let’s take a look at the Nats’ first round draft picks since the 2012 MLB draft until now:
There are no Zimmerman, Zimmermann, or Desmond types of players coming forward from six to eight years ago like that 2012 roster had. Today’s issues are due to bad picks, inexcusable decisions, bad luck, and questionable player development. Prior to 2019, all of those 1st rounders are gone from the Nats system. Jackson Rutledge is now a Nats’ bullpen arm, and Cade Cavalli has pitched 1 career MLB game and is finally on a rehab assignment. Brady House is the top positional prospect and is in Triple-A Rochester. Elijah Green is struggling in High-A Wilmington and batting .125. We covered Dylan Crews who is hopefully turning the corner from a rough first 19 games of his season. Seaver King is struggling in High-A Wilmington and batting .152.
Manager Dave Martinez cannot even write-up a lineup with more than six players batting over the Mendoza line right now. If backup catcher Riley Adams is in there, the lineup might have five Mendozian players like yesterday. On top of that, Luis Garcia Jr. and Paul DeJong are just above that line. The base running is near the bottom in baseball. The Nats offense is shaky, and yet they keep taking themselves off of the bases with mistakes. In the past week, two of the team’s slowest runners, Keibert Ruiz and Josh Bell were both thrown out attempting to steal. The bullpen is the worst in baseball statistically by a wide margin, and for such a young team, where is the collective energy?
The team is being carried by a handful of players right now led by James Wood who has not even completed a full season at the MLB level. The starting pitchers as a group are in the top half of MLB in ERA at 3.87. Also, the defense is stepping up also overall. There are positives. Bullpens can be fixed in-season. But how do you fix the offense? First, start doing what you get paid to do.
“We got to stop chasing. And again, not being on time — late on some [pitches]. We’ve got to get ready to hit the fastball. … We just have to be consistent with it. … We have to keep things simple. We have to accept our walks. There are times we are going out of the zone. We can work better counts and accept our walks.”
— manager Dave Martinez said after the 3-1 loss in Colorado last night
The Nationals hired Darnell Coles as their hitting coach before the 2022 season. That season was marked by Juan Soto‘s worst offensive season in his career. For the Nationals team as a whole, it’s been downhill from there. From 2022, the OPS was a poor .688, it increased to .709 2023, then dropped to .684 last year, and this year is a low OPS of .673 under Coles’ tenure. Some would say you can only do what you can do with the personnel you have. There is some truth to that unless you believe that you have a good roster. Some would say that Coles is the same guy who the Diamondbacks fired early in the 2021 season.
Some would say that these are pro players who should take most of the blame. They need to perform. Yes, obviously the players need to share in a lot of the failures. But coaching has to also. Sometimes you need different voices. We have discussed the analytics in positioning the defensive players as another issue. Who coaches up the base running? Why is Luis Garcia Jr. slumping again as a defender and lowest OAA on the team?
Where is the accountability from top to bottom?
