by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears
by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears
by SaoMagnifico
The Washington Nationals are returning their middle infield of shortstop CJ Abrams and second baseman Luis García Jr., and have replaced their corner infielders. Per manager Dave Martinez‘s request at the Winter Meetings, he was hoping that general manager Mike Rizzo would get him a new corner infield. In December, Rizzo traded to acquire first baseman Nathaniel Lowe, and patience paid off as Rizzo signed free agent third baseman Paul DeJong in February.
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Did you expect to see Shinnosuke Ogasawara pitching on the second game of Spring Training with basically the Opening Day lineup behind him? With the exception of James Wood nursing the mild tendonitis in his quadricep, every other part of this could be what would we see on Sunday, March 30 at Nationals Park. Here we are at the CACTI Park of the Palm Beaches complex.
This will be a 1:05 pm start and the game will be available on TV via MASN as well as you can get the Nats Radio feed via The Team 980 AM.
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Year 20 for Washington Nationals baseball. We have semi-real baseball today as it is Opening Day for these Nationals in their first Spring Training game today of the 2025 season. The team opens up their Grapefruit League schedule against the Houston Astros and that is the team the Nationals share the CACTI Park of the Palm Beaches complex.
This will be a 1:05 pm start and the game will be available on TV via the Houston feed, and on Nats Radio via The Team 980 AM.
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On January 10, 2023, we broke the news to the baseball world that the Washington Nationals had moved to a No Sale mode, and the only reason the team technically remained for sale for a few months longer was because the team was under contract with the investment banking firm of Allen & Co. That source who gave us that scoop, messaged us yesterday to give us the real scoop behind the scenes on some scathing reports of the owner-GM situation that was in the news from a local media person. We felt like we received a good grasp of the facts vs. the fiction from our source.
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Remember the great summer of 2017 when The Rockettes were dancing behind Dusty Baker‘s first place Washington Nationals on top of their dugout on July 4th? The Nats beat the Mets the night before on a walk-off winner to take an 8.0 game lead in the NL East. Those were the days when you only needed a few offseason tweaks to win another NL East pennant.
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Remember when Washington Nationals’ principal owner Mark Lerner was photographed with his former-World Series outfielder, Juan Soto, before Dylan Crews‘ MLB debut game? Many thought that was a good sign that the Nationals had a shot to sign Soto. That shot was served in a highball glass with a jolt of reality and a bitter lemon.
Maybe the the consolation prize on Soto was not falling in the trap of the Yankees, thinking they could retain him for the rest of his career. They failed to extend his contract and then couldn’t sign him as a free agent. All the Yankees got for their going-away present was a compensatory draft pick after the third round. But the Bronx Bombers also had to endure the embarrassment of seeing Soto go across the borough to Queens. At least the Nats got an absolute queen’s haul of MacKenzie Gore, CJ Abrams, James Wood who combined for +6.3 WAR last year — and Wood only played half the season! Add to the haul the two other players the Nats received in the trade with Top-100 prospect Jarlin Susana and former Top-100 prospect Robert Hassell III.
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You will never lose a game in any sport if the other team does not score, right? In baseball, that is known as a shutout. Usually those come in the form of team shutouts as complete-game shutouts are rare in today’s game of baseball. Pitchers are part of the defense. “Good pitching will beat good hitting any time, and vice versa.” – Bob Veale
The Kansas City Royals are a small market team that cannot afford a $200 million payroll. They won a World Series in 2015 based on a formula of building a good lineup with a great bullpen and a decent starting rotation. The following year they collapsed and only won 81-games. By 2018, they were back to losing 100+ games and collecting top draft picks. The following year they picked second in the draft and got their franchise player in Bobby Witt Jr. They devised a plan to build with middle tier starting pitchers buoyed by great defense and Witt as their star hitter.
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Since 2019, the Washington Nationals have been devoid of a full year from a competent third baseman, since Anthony Rendon departed for free agency. No team has been worse than the Nationals at third base during that span, per statistics, and we will explain that below.
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Four months after that photo was taken, the outfield crew looks much different even though it is the same foursome. James Wood cut off his dreadlocks, Dylan Crews cut his hair, Jacob Young added more muscle, and Alex Call rehabbed his plantar fasciitis. We are just 40-days from Opening Day, and the outfielders are in camp early. They didn’t have to arrive until next week. For months, general manager Mike Rizzo and manager Dave Martinez made it clear that Wood, Young and Crews would man their starting outfield. That didn’t stop a beat writer from asking the question on the first day of camp. Oh, there were certainly other questions that needed to be asked — and follow-up questions that begged to be asked.
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Greatness is a process. CJ Abrams is embracing that on-and-off the field. Wakeup calls resonate in many different forms. Abrams answered the call. A source told us that Abrams did not go close to a casino during the offseason. His family took a more active role, and he spent most of his offseason in Georgia before heading to Spring Training early. He had a long conversation in December with manager Dave Martinez that cleared the air and set expectations. But our source told us that Abrams had already gone well beyond Martinez’s expectations with his own list. A family friend messaged us during the offseason, “He’s doing great! Ready for the season!”
As we know, Abrams stopped posting publicly on social media. His agency posted on his account on October 7, and that was the last image on Abrams’ accounts. There was work to do personally and professionally. Social media posting wasn’t going to make anything better, but it could have sent the wrong message at the time. There was also a misconception from a Winter Meetings’ quote from Martinez that some construed that Abrams might have been dodging calls from his boss. That was not the case our source assured us. Martinez had a chance to clarify that they talked after the Winter Meetings, and he had sent hitting coach Darnell Coles to Georgia to work with Abrams.
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"Opening Day should be a National holiday"
