The Washington Nationals continue to win series against teams that were projected to make the postseason like the Dodgers, Orioles, and Diamondbacks. But they two lost series on their last road trip to teams that are not expected to come close to the playoffs like the Pirates and the Marlins. If the Nationals just took care of business in Pittsburgh and Miami — they would have a winning record. Instead, they are at an 11-14 record with slim chances of going at least 5-1 to finish April with a winning record.
With over 15% of the season completed, who are the 2025 Washington Nationals?
We should really try to define this team in the categories of pitching, defense, offense, base running, and the little things. Trying to stick statistics and objective data, this might help to figure out why the team does not have a winning record.
Pitching
On the positive side, the Nats are tied for 7th with the best starting pitchers, ranked by ERA, at 3.53. If you go by FIP-based WAR, your star pitcher is MacKenzie Gore, and if you go by results based WAR, your star pitcher is Mitchell Parker and his 1.39 ERA. Gore’s FIP is 1.96, and you can say he has been BABIP’d, received some unfortunate defense, and disappointing defensive positioning.
Right now, Gore leads MLB with 53 strikeouts. Of his 105 outs recorded, only 52 balls were put in play. He has literally recorded more than half of his outs via the strikeout. With those 53 strikeouts, Gore joins Max Scherzer (2017, 2018, 2019) and Stephen Strasburg (2010, 2014) as the only pitchers in Nationals history (2005-present) to strikeout 50 or more in their first six starts of the season.
On top of this, Jake Irvin and Trevor Williams have been pitching more effectively. And while the Opening Day fifth starter, Michael Soroka, is working his way back from a bicep injury, Brad Lord has been admirably been pitching better than Soroka’s one-game ERA of 7.20.
With mixed results, the bullpen overall is by far the worst in the Majors with a 6.69 ERA. We got an unfortunate foreshadowing of how bad the bullpen was going to be back on Opening Day when Gore’s scoreless gem was wasted and the bullpen blew the lead and gave up 7-runs. On the good side, closer Kyle Finnegan has nine saves to start his season. Two converted starters, Cole Henry and Jackson Rutledge, have been two of the most effective relievers in small sample sizes. Jose A. Ferrer is kind of in the middle of the pack. Some days great, and some days he can’t find the zone, hence his 4.50 ERA and 1.429 WHIP.
If we didn’t mention the other relievers names is because none of them have been good. While we got glimpses of good from Orlando Ribalta and Eduardo Salazar, both have also had implosions. The three external free agent signings of Lucas Sims, Colin Poche and Jorge Lopez, have been so bad that they all have ERAs of at least 9.00. Right now, Lopez has a FIP of 4.92 and the third lowest WHIP in the bullpen at 1.400.
Can pitching coaches Jim Hickey and Sean Doolittle salvage anything from Ribalta, Salazar, Lopez, Poche or Sims? If you ask Gore, these coaches have changed who he is as a pitcher.
“With Doolittle coming in with Hickey who’s been around a long time, we’ve got a great mix of being around, and some forward thinking and the other side of pitching. It’s a great mix, and we’ve needed it. Those two together, that’s why we’ve all continued to improve as a player.”
— Gore in an interview with USA Today
But Doolittle and Hickey aren’t miracle workers. The pitchers also have to rely on the defense to do their jobs. Sometimes you need a runner thrown out at the plate, or a diving stop to keep a ball on the infield. Some of it is just poor positioning. In the offseason, we addressed that this starting rotation should be good in a Moneyball type of way if the team could pitch to their FIP or better. Parker, Henry, and Finnegan have been able to do that. The team ERA is 4.69 and the FIP is 3.94. That isn’t good. The gap was 36 points last year.
Defense
To quote a wise man, defense matters. Pitchers need to pitch to their defense. But you also rely on competent positioning. There has been some degradation of the defense, and while it is better than last year, we have seen second baseman Luis Garcia Jr. delve back into the negative. The same for James Wood, and we are getting what we expected from Amed Rosario. Last year, CJ Abrams was the worst defensive shortstop. He worked extensively on his defense in the offseason, and at times — like last night — made a spectacular play. If you interpolate and extrapolate the OAA numbers for a full-season, some of these -2.0s could be -12.0 to -14.0 if the current trends continue.
Another major issue we have pointed to is the positioning of first baseman Nathaniel Lowe. Per Statcast, he is put in a position to only be successful 56 percent of the time while an average first baseman should be in the right spot 73 percent of the time. That 17 percent differential says that Lowe isn’t in position to field 1-of-6 balls put in play at first base. The only team worse than the Nationals at first base positioning is the Marlins. At second base, the Nationals positioning is five percent below the average.
In an oddity, while Abrams was on the 10-day IL, there were large disparities in positioning Nasim Nunez versus Abrams. The team had Abrams positioned to be successful at percentages above league average, and Nunez in less advantageous positioning. Possibly this is due to smaller sample sizes, or the difference could be part of the BABIP luck/unlucky factor. Nunez has fared well with a +4.0 OAA so far, and that is very encouraging.
As advertised, Paul DeJong is an excellent defender at third base. He was playing the best defense in all of baseball at +4.0 until his injury to his face. Jacob Young is a positive defender but below his pace of last year. Dylan Crews is at a league average, and by moving him around between right field and center field, it seems to be hurting him defensively. It also begs the question, does the more rigorous work in center field affect Crews on offense?
Offense
Overall the offense has been offensive. Ranked in the bottom half in baseball in almost every category except home run power (ranked 15th), you have to wonder: Is it the players or the coaching or a combination of both? We have certainly heard manager Dave Martinez give props to his hitting coaches when the team has a good day. But the good days have been very few.
In the most important category, runs scored, the Nationals are 16th in baseball and tied with the New York Mets. But the Nats already had the good fortune of playing in Colorado and racking up 12-runs there in one of the games. The Nats are 21st in OPS, the second most important category — and that is disappointing. The offensive stars have been James Wood, Nathaniel Lowe, Keibert Ruiz, and CJ Abrams as the starters who are getting it done.
On the flip side, the Nats have three starters below a .599 OPS with Josh Bell, Luis Garcia Jr. and Dylan Crews. Each have been trending up in the past week — but so much of the damage has been done as baseball is about consistency. Waiting for a player to get hot and carry the team might be too little to late. What’s interesting is tracking players where you go to advanced analytics with xBA and similar with what their expected numbers should be. Obviously Dylan Crews has been unlucky. Check out this xwOBA for a different way to look at this Nats’ offense.
The debate of the quality of a hitting coach like Darnell Coles has been debated ad nauseum. He is in his fourth year with this team, and each year you have to wonder if a different voice would bring better results? There is no certain answer to that. As mentioned, his boss has tried to give him positive press in interviews in unsolicited compliments. They say as the weather warms up — so does the offense. We will see. Again, a mixed bag of results, and we wait to see if the Nationals can get into the top-half in offense.
Base Running
You already know that base running is a major problem on this team. Last night, you saw Alex Call get picked-off where he just seemed to lose focus. That was the fourth time Call has removed himself from the bases. He is ranked as the worst base runner on the team, and that is saying something when you watched both Keibert Ruiz and Josh Bell thrown out trying to steal this past week. What is going on here? There is a difference between being aggressive and playing bad baseball — and the Nats are the latter. There seems to be no accountability.
As difficult as it is to get on-base, Call has taken himself off of the bases four times in his 24 times on-base. That is a terrible percentage at 17 percent . The team has taken themselves off of the bases by pickoffs, caught stealing or being thrown out trying to take an extra base a total of 19 times so far this season. That is happening at a pace of 76 percent of the games. In a 3-game series, the Nationals are averaging two base runners lost on the bases. The team’s base stealing record is also below the league average of 80 percent as the team has only been successful 76 percent of the time. A lot of blame has gone on third base coach Ricky Gutierrez in the early part of the season for some questionable sends. But much of this is bad technique and baseball IQ.
The Little Things
With just over 15 percent of the season completed, we are still dealing with small sample sizes. In a little over two weeks, the season will be at the 25 percent completion mark for a better assessment of where the team is and any trends. Again, unless the team can go 5-1 or 6-0 to finish the month of April, manager Dave Martinez will still be without a winning record on April 30th for his entire 8-year tenure with the team. Slow starts seem to be his norm. How can you say it any other way when it has been true 100 percent of the time. Then you look at the little things like positioning, base running, and in-game coaching moves, and you wonder, could another manager do it better?
General Manager Mike Rizzo had talked in Spring Training about transitioning this team from a rebuild to a team of contention. He was confident that he built a good roster. Time will tell if this is a good team. Some days they look good, and others they look like they are not ready to contend. So again, who are the 2025 Washington Nationals?
