Going Deep with The Nats

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.

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.

Unless you missed the memo, Spring Training camp opens tomorrow for the Washington Nationals. That officially ends the offseason which finished with massive turnover from the 2024 roster of players. If we look at players who provided no positive WAR on the FanGraphs RA/9 modeling, there were a total of 24-players throughout last season who fit that criteria, and 18 of those players are gone from the 40-man roster, with only a high likelihood that Keibert Ruiz and Riley Adams will make the 2025 Opening Day roster from that list of 24-players. Gone from the 2024 roster is a cumulative total of -5.6 of negative WAR using addition by subtraction based on that roster purge.

If you used last year’s pythagorean of 70-wins, the team was lucky by one win. FanGraphs is projecting four players at -0.1 WAR (-0.4 cumulative) for the 2025 roster, and they are all in the bullpen. Add back that -5.6 addition by subtraction, and the team should win 75-games this year using that logic. That does not include the WAR of any of the new acquisitions (+4.6) or the departure of the four departing players with positive WAR (+4.0 WAR), nor full seasons from James Wood and Dylan Crews. That is addition by addition. But it is not that simple, as strength of schedule has to be factored into the W/L calculation. Baseball Prospectus, in their PECOTA projections, have the Nats at 74 wins, and FanGraphs has the Nationals at 73-wins. The differences are due to how they graded the Nats against their schedule, and specifically runs scored and runs allowed. On PECOTA, they have a -65 run differential, and on FanGraphs, their differential is at -73.

While it is definitely still winter in Washington, D.C., the air feels like spring time in West Palm Beach, Florida. When Super Bowl LIX ends, the baseball season unofficially begins.

This is the final weekend before the Washington Nationals open up their Spring Training camp on Wednesday. Manager Dave Martinez said two weeks ago that he had over a dozen players already in camp.

Up until September 21 of 2024, CJ Abrams was active daily on posting stories on his Instagram account. Since then, nada. His agent put up a collaboration post on Abrams’ page on October 7, and then the well went dry on Abrams’ social media. He has not been posting (on his social media), and not heard from — not even a call with his manager, Dave Martinez, who said in December, “He’s hard to get a hold of.”

The Washington Nationals pitching staff went through a lot of changes when long-time pitchers like Patrick Corbin and Kyle Finnegan headed to free agency. While the starting rotation had a vacant spot with Trevor Williams departure as a free agent, general manager Mike Rizzo brought Williams back on a new 2-year deal. And Rizzo also signed two more free agent starters, a free agent reliever, and a Rule-5 reliever when he inked  RHP Michael Soroka ($9MM), LHP Shinnosuke Ogasawara ($2.1MM with posting fee), Rule-5 reliever Evan Reifert ($860K with the Rule-5 fee), and reliever Jorge Lopez ($3.0MM).

Let’s assume for a few hours that general manager Mike Rizzo is finished adding starting position players to his Washington Nationals roster. That would give us an opportunity to project a lineup.