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.
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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.”
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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).
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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.
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Sadly, we lost a great one when Jack Tavenner passed away recently at the age of 77. Known to his baseball friends as NatsJack, he was a Washington Senators’ fan from the time he grew up in Northern Virginia. He played baseball through high school at Falls Church as a catcher at the same time as the Senators relocated to Texas. Like many of us, he had no D.C. baseball until the Expos relocated to Washington in 2005. At that time, NatsJack was living and working in Orlando, Florida — but he was instantly a Nats fan … again. Strategically, his home was less than a 45-minute drive to the team’s first Spring Training home in Viera.
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Most people forget that six years ago, there were renderings done for the remainder of the buildout of Nationals Park that was never completed for the additional 35,000 square feet of retail, services, entertainment or arts uses on the stadium premises. The concepts would have completed the original 46,000 square feet of space in the original contract. Now, the D.C. Government would like the Nationals to sign a lease extension. An architectural firm has prepared new concept renderings that go far beyond that 35,000 square feet. A complete facelift on the outer perimeter of Nationals Park.
Modern baseball stadiums are far different from the original concepts. The crack of the bat against the ball—it’s one of the most exhilarating sounds in sports. But what about the experience of attending a Major League Baseball game? A century ago, a trip to the ballpark was a vastly different affair than it is today.
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Was it all about the money — or was it about how the money was spent? Another local writer questioned why the Washington Nationals did not sign a big free agent. We will discuss this in detail.
So why didn’t the Nats sign a top free agent? If you believe general manager Mike Rizzo, he decided not to sign players with QOs attached to them as well as he made the point that they did not block any prospects. He knew what his budget was in early December. We don’t know that exact number — but suffice it to say that it was at least $40 million because that is what has been spent, so far, on new additions to the roster.
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On August 6 of last season, Luis Garcia Jr. captured the lead in WAR (Wins Above Replacement) for position players on the Washington Nationals roster. That was a positive impact from Garcia who was demoted a year before in that same week when he was sent to Triple-A Rochester — and was not a lock to make the Nats’ Opening Day roster in 2024. Not only did Garcia come into training camp in great shape, his defense was markedly improved and rated third best on the team.
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Times flies when you’re having fun. Are you? Fans of the Washington Nationals are still probably a little unsettled at this point in the offseason. Building a roster is tedious work for a team trying to transition out of a rebuild. There still seems to be unfilled needs on the roster. Two weeks from today, the offseason officially ends as the team opens up their 2025 Spring Training camp at the Cacti Park of the Palm Beaches .
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The Nats have at least seven starting pitcher candidates to be on the Opening Day roster. Three righties and four lefties: Michael Soroka (R), Trevor Williams (R), Jake Irvin (R), MacKenzie Gore (L), DJ Herz (L), Mitchell Parker (L), and Shinnosuke Ogasawara (L). And three more possible candidates we expect to pitch later in the year: Cade Cavalli (R) who is returning from his UCL rehab; Jackson Rutledge if he is not converted to the BP, and Josiah Gray could return at the end of the 2025 season from his UCL rehab. There are others too like Brad Lord and Joan Adon who are additional depth.
The obvious options are five starting pitchers on the 26-man and two to Triple-A Rochester; or one/two could be part of a trade; or one/two to the bullpen.
Maybe it is time to think outside the box. MLB has a history of changing and redefining roles. The first closer was Bruce Sutter in 1979 and in 1988, Tony La Russa started using Dennis Eckersley in the ninth inning when the Athletics were in the lead. It was the same time period when the use of relief pitchers became more prominent. However, relief pitchers were used well before that. It was around 1904 when New York Giants manager John McGraw essentially invented relief pitching.
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