June 19, 2023 Victor Robles positioned himself near the warning track. The next day would be his final game of the season (Photo by Andrew Lang for TalkNats)
There has been a strange dynamic between manager Dave Martinez and center fielder Victor Robles for a couple of seasons. The Nats’ manager had no issue with publicly criticizing Robles — and honestly, the criticism had been warranted….but don’t you do that in private? Robles pulled a stunt where he missed a catch at the wall and was not playing as deep as he was instructed. The following inning he moved to within 15 feet of the warning track to stick it to his manager. The next day would be his last of the season on June 20. Things got so contentious in his final days that pitcher, MacKenzie Gore, yelled at Robles for missing a routine flyball.
This afternoon, Rawlings Sporting Goods announced Lane Thomas as one of the three finalists for the Gold Glove Award for right fielders in the National League. The Washington Nationals right fielder is going up against Mookie Betts and Fernando Tatis, Jr. for the award. While it will be a long-shot to win the award over, Betts who is the reigning Gold Glove winner, some might not like the fact that Betts only started 77-games in right field. While Betts spent than half the season starting in right field, he played the rest of the games in the middle infield in his 151 games this season.
Since the Washington Nationals have not officially said a word about their coaching changes and front office hires, we have to rely on sourced reports for now. Last week, news broke that bench coach Tim Bogar, third base coach/infield coach Gary DiSarcina, first base coach/baserunning coach Eric Young Jr., and assistant hitting coach Pat Roessler were all out.
Fans were prepared for changes, after manager Dave Martinez was asked about the future of his coaching staff at the end of the season, and he responded that he will discuss that with general manager Mike Rizzo. That led many to believe that pitching coach Jim Hickey and hitting coach Darnell Coles were goners — yet, they appear to have survived the round of cuts. The news on front office departures were known back in September, and in October, Rizzo and his new scouting director, Danny Haas, have been busy building out a staff built on “quality” over “quantity” as it was described to us.
The Washington Nationals finished the season with a much-improved 71-91 record. That also means that collectively the pitching staff finished 20-games under .500. Wins and losses for pitchers often are a factor of when runs are scored. The starters finished 25-games under .500 and the relievers at 5-games over .500. Seven walk-off wins and 6-2 in extra inning games will help those reliever W/L stats. The fact is that both the starting pitching staff and bullpen as a whole were not good. There were individuals that were good. But there was plenty of good, bad, and ugly rolled into the Nats’ season.
In Part I we covered the position players and piggybacked on the great piece that Sao Magnifico wrote. We do the same here for the pitchers. The starting pitchers finished at a poor 5.02 ERA which actually was a sizeable improvement over the 5.97 ERA of 2022. Much of that was better defense helping the pitching and individually Josiah Gray led the staff with a 3.91 and a huge improvement over his 5.02 last year. Gray started strong and finished strong but the middle got ugly for the team’s lone All-Star. Even Patrick Corbin improved, but in his case, it appears that you could chalk up most or all of it to the improvement in team defense.
Remember, general manager Mike Rizzo made an impassioned pledge to season ticket holders that an emphasis before the 2023 season would be to improve the defense, and overall he did.
The Nats starters and relievers finished with identical 5.02 ERAs as combined groups. Overall, the Nats had the fourth worst bullpen. The starters were the sixth worst in the MLB, but at the halfway point of the season, the Nats were actually the 15th best. The second half slide was felt in the team going 8-18 in September.
Thaddeus Ward lasted the full season on the roster as a Rule 5 draft pick, but how did he perform? (Photo by Sol Tucker for TalkNats.com)
The season is over, and the report card is due for the players who appeared in 2023 for the Washington Nationals.
Grades here are presented relative to what I’ll call “reasonable expectations”. For instance, no one expected Amos Willingham to become the Nats’ ninth-inning guy when he was called up; but did he do reasonably well for himself, relative to what the Nats brought him up to do? What about Robert Garcia, who was claimed off waivers? Jackson Rutledge, who was called up to plug a rotation hole late in the season?
While these grades are conducted on a curve, all assume the baseline expectation for a player was that they succeed in the role to which they were assigned — whether that of an ace, a back-end starter, a long man, a late-inning reliever, or anything in between. A passing grade (C range or higher) means someone at least did enough to justify keeping him around, although a C might not augur well for a player in 2024 or beyond. Grades in the A range are assigned sparingly, showing where a player exceeded reasonable expectations and contributed in a strongly positive way. B’s, as you would thus expect, fall somewhere in the middle. And failing grades (D’s and F’s) pretty well speak for themselves.
The Washington Nationals certainly surprised many when they finished the 2023 season with a 71-91 record. If you read this without context, you would not know if that is a good or bad surprise. When you go from 55 wins to 71, that is a good surprise. But there was plenty of good, bad, and ugly rolled into the Nats’ season.
Right fielder Lane Thomas was one of the Nationals’ top performers of 2023. (Photo by Sol Tucker for TalkNats.com)
The Washington Nationals finished 71-91 in the 2023 season. That’s still a fifth-place finish in the National League East, but it’s a big improvement from 2022.
Who to credit for the improvement? Many observers thought the Nats would fall well short of 70 wins this year, a mark they ultimately surpassed.
The purpose of this report card is to take a look at each position player on the roster and grade how they performed relative to reasonable expectations. Players like CJ Abrams and Keibert Ruiz are considered franchise cornerstones; did they live up to the hype? Players like Jacob Young and Blake Rutherford knocked down the door after strong minor league seasons; how did they acquit themselves in their major league debuts?
The standing assumption here is that if a player was called up to the major leagues, he was called up because the Nats believed he had a chance to succeed in his assigned role. Put another way: Anyone on this list could have earned any grade. A player with a limited ceiling isn’t limited to a low grade because he’s never going to be a Bryce Harper or a Juan Soto. Failing grades are reserved for players who got a chance and did not thrive.
The Washington Nationals were at a point of questionable return that sports’ teams never go to when they put a player’s health above winning based on circumstantial evidence. That was what the Nats did back in 2012. They won 98 games in the regular season and 100 games in all. They probably could have won more. They did something no team has done before when they put a person and his health ahead of wins — and shutdown Stephen Strasburg instead of shoving the pedal to the metal. It could have cost them wins and maybe a deep run in the playoffs. That decision also made them a target from players, fans, and the national media for criticism. Strasburg’s health was more important than winning per owner Ted Lerner.
(L-to-R) Robert Hassell III, Dylan Crews, James Wood (Photo by Sol Tucker for TalkNats)
Outfielders – Down on the Farm
Welcome to the last installment of this series, and potentially the most interesting, as we look at the deepest pool of minor league outfield talent that the organization has had since they became the Nationals. An optimist could see eight future MLB contributors in this group, although some of them have a long way to go before that’s anywhere near reality. Still, the growth and development of this group will probably go the furthest toward determining when the Nationals are truly competitive again.
While the Washington Nationals re-upped, with shiny new contracts, for manager Dave Martinez at the end of August and his boss, Mike Rizzo, in mid-September, most of Martinez’s coaches did not have their contracts extended per Britt Ghiroli of The Athletic.
While that is not much of a surprise to read the headline, the two coaches thought to be on the hot seats, pitching coach Jim Hickey and hitting coach Darnell Coles, appear to have survived the upheaval. Per Ghiroli, it is bench coach Tim Bogar, third base coach/infield coach Gary DiSarcina, first base coach/baserunning coach Eric Young Jr., and assistant hitting coach Pat Roessler who are all out.
