Going Deep with The Nats

It’s time Nats fans. Opening Day is right around the corner. What should we expect from our Nats, or better who should we expect? The Nationals opening day roster is nothing but up in the air. It is going to come down to spring training to determine who is healthy, who will perform, and who will outperform. There could be a few position battles this spring. Some players like Keibert Ruiz, CJ Abrams and Lane Thomas are automatic to be in the lineup — but who will fill those other spots, and how will they perform?

We are just 50-days from Opening Day for the Washington Nationals, and the latest rounds of Win/Loss projections had a new entry from PECOTA that has the Nats finishing with a 58-104 record. Vegas has improved the Nats to 66.5 wins for their Over/Under betting lines, and FanGraphs has the Nats at a .405 winning percentage which translates to 66 wins. Remember, last year the Nats blew past every W/L projection and finished with 71 wins. Their pythagorean W/L for 2023 at the end of the season was 67-95. Pythagorean tries to neutralize the luck factor based on just runs scored versus runs given up.

When MLB implemented larger bases and put restrictions on pickoff plays that began with the 2023 season, the stolen base attempts increased by 40.7 percent. The success rate of stolen bases also increased by 8.7 percent. General manager Mike Rizzo and manager Dave Martinez were clear at the Hot Stove event last month that the Washington Nationals were going to be taking advantage more of the speed game, and we saw it in the Rule-5 draft taking speedster Nasim Nunez as well as with the promotion at the end of August with Jacob Young.

The Washington Nationals had their annual “Hot Stove” event on Saturday for top season ticket planholders. With general manager Mike Rizzo and his field manager Dave Martinez giving their state of the union addresses, the takeaways gave a few clues as to the near-term future. They both see this 2024 season as a transitional year to improve over the 2023 season that had the Nats at 71-wins and that was a 16-win improvement over the prior season. Great. “What have you done for me lately” is the common fan retort.