Nationals Arm Race

For most of this century, Regional Sports Networks (or, “RSN” as used throughout) became a massive revenue generator for MLB teams, as they recognized that they could fetch tens of millions of dollars (or more) from their local cable providers to show games in their home market.

However, the last few years have seen a massive acceleration of “cord cutting,” as a new generation of TV consumers has eschewed conventional cable packages in favor of streaming options, thanks to the rise of smart TVs, fast internet, the reliability of tools like Roku, etc. This isn’t a groundbreaking statement (duh Captain Obvious), just putting it there to set the stage for what comes next.

This almost immediately led to some of the weaker RSN markets encountering financial difficulties, which in 2023 started to lead to major changes in the marketplace. And, in the last few weeks, we’ve seen an acceleration of these actions that now have nearly half the league without RSN deals. Here’s some of the salient inflection points over the past 3 years:

• Diamond Sports Group: was the first domino to fall in 2023, declaring Chapter 11 and failing to pay multiple teams its RSN fees, leading them to sever ties and have MLB pick them up. This included San Diego, Arizona at first in 2023, then Colorado, Cleveland, and Minnesota in 2024.
• In Late 2025, Seattle decided to exit the RSN market (they owned their own RSN) and joined up with MLB. That made them the 6th team to join MLB’s umbrella. As we will see, this turned out to be kind of a shocking issue in that Seattle was a 9-figure market AND owned the RSN, but they had what most call a pretty poorly-negotiated contract locally.
• Soon after, in Jan 2026 the MASN-Washington Nationals parting was announced, making the Nats the 7th team in the MLB portfolio.
• Main Street Sports: the Diamond group emerged from bankruptcy in early 2025, rebranded, and tried to continue its operations, then partnered with FanDuel Sports Network. However, in early 2026, they missed payments to a slew of teams, who all bailed and went to MLB. This included: Cincinnati, Kansas City, Miami, Milwaukee, St. Louis, and Tampa. Now this makes for 13 teams in the MLB network.
• FanDuel Sports also had rights to Atlanta, Los Angeles Angels, and Detroit last year; they remain up in the air for 2026 as of this writing and could very well all join MLB as well, making it possibly 16 of the 30 teams for 2026.
• Interestingly, Texas Rangers were also embroiled in the Diamond Sports Group issue, but launched their own RSN in 2025 and are there for the time being.

(A quick Tangent: A side effect of the MASN termination, by the way, is bittersweet: Mark Zuckerman was let go. Here’s his MASN farewell post, This is not the first time he’s had to find new work, having been axed by the Washington Times in 2009 when they ended all their sports operations, then depending on donations and individual contributions to self-finance his 2010 spring training coverage. He initially covered the team at a Blogspot site, then fired up NatsInsider.com for a bit before landing at Comcast Sports Net for a few years, getting axed there and joining MASN for the last decade. He’s covered the Nats since Day 1 and I certainly hope he picks up with a media outlet that continues to allow him to cover the team, whether its MLB.tv, or as MLB’s beat reporter covering the team, or perhaps whatever local cable shop ends up buying the MLB.tv Nats stream (Monument?). Nonetheless, He’s too valuable a resource in the community to have this be it.)

So, now with nearly half the league with MLB, what does the landscape of RSNs look like? I’m going to order the list below roughly by the current or immediate previous RSN revenues to illustrate a specific point, which will become clear soon enough. I’ve also included a very-old 2012 overview of known RSN Deals at the time, some of which are still valid and a much more updated 2024 version at MLBtraderumors.com.

Market DMA Rank	Revenue Rank	Team	RSN	Team Owned?	Est Revenues (2022 latest)
2	1	Los Angeles Dodgers	Spectrum SportsNet LA	Yes	$196M
1	2	New York Yankees	YES Network	Yes	$143M
4	3	Philadelphia	NBC Sports Philadelphia	No	$125M
2	4	Los Angeles Angels	In Flux: was Fan Duel	No	Was $125M
5	5	Texas Rangers	Rangers Sports Network	Yes	was $111M
10	6	Atlanta Braves	In Flux: was Fan Duel	No	$100M
7a	7	Toronto Blue Jays	SportsNet	Yes	Unreported
13	8	Seattle Mariners	MLB.tv	No	was $100M
3	9	Chicago Cubs	Marquee Sports Network	Yes	$99M
9	10	Boston Red Sox	New England Sports Network	Yes	$97M
8	11	San Francisco Giants	NBC Sports Bay Area	Yes	$92M
1	12	New York Mets	SportsNet New York	No?	$88M
7	13	Houston Astros	Space City Home Network	Yes	$73M but now ?
21	14	St. Louis	MLB.tv	No	was $73M
8	15	Nomad Athletics	None?	No	was $70m Believe nothing til move to LV
12	16	Arizona Diamondbacks	MLB.tv	No	was $68M
6	17	Washington Nationals	MLB.tv	No	Was $64M
26	18	Baltimore	MASN	Yes	$64M
3	19	Chicago White Sox	NBC Sports Chicago	No?	$60M
14	20	Detroit	In Flux: was Fan Duel	No	was $60M
24	21	Pittsburgh	SportsNet Pittsburgh	Yes	$55-$60M
35	22	Cincinnati	MLB.tv	No	was $60M
17	23	Denver	MLB.tv	No	was $57M
11	24	Tampa Bay Rays	MLB.tv	No	was $56M
19	25	Cleveland	MLB.tv	No	was $55M
15	26	Minnesota Twins	MLB.tv	No	was $54M
16	27	Miami-Ft. Lauderdale	MLB.tv	No	was $49M
29	28	San Diego	MLB.tv	No	was $47M
32	29	Kansas City	MLB.tv	No	was $45M
36	30	Milwaukee	MLB.tv	No	was $33M

A couple of quick observations from this list:

• I think these links vastly under report the Dodgers’ actual revenues: they’re on an 25 year, $8.35B deal that averages $334M/year. Not sure why its only reported as $196M/year; maybe that’s after the 48% share?
• Same to a certain extent with especially the Yankees and Boston; there’s just no way Boston is “only” pulling $97M from NESN. They own 80% of the network and it had $574M in revenues last year.
• The two points above highlight the utter cynicism of MLB teams, at the same time, crying poor but then refusing to open their books. There’s only one “real” publicly traded team (Atlanta) and their finances are just fine: more than $600M in revenue last year with a payroll of $261M.
• That being said …
• Teams that own their own RSNs by and large are quite healthy, especially the Dodgers. The Dodgers have been taking every dollar of that massive amount of RSN revenue per year and throwing it at payroll, to the point of ridiculousness. Same for the Yankees and Mets famously. I’m not sure I really trust the revenue figures that these self-owned RSNs advertise (especially the $88M that the Mets supposedly get or the amount that the Cubs are pulling).
• I also have no idea how much Toronto gets, but I suspect its a massive figure as the sole Canadian team controlled by the group that has a monopoly of TV in that country.
• These healthy RSN revenue teams of course, also mostly benefit from being in the largest markets. NY, Chicago, LA, Philly. It remains to be seen what happens with Texas (in the 5th largest market) trying to make it a go with its own RSN.

However, the salient observation from above is easy to see: the smallest 10 teams in terms of historical RSN revenue have ALL seen their deals collapse in the last two years. They’re all now MLB.tv owned, joined by a smattering of slightly larger market teams. The only top-half market size team now in the MLB mix is Seattle, who interestingly decided to give up their own RSN because of some restrictive contracts with the local cable provider w/r/t local streaming options.

Tangent: DC is the 6th biggest DMA market, but was paid at the 17th highest rated team. I mean, I get it, these other markets have had decades to establish a fan and TV base for their teams … but this is one more illustration of how much the MASN deal screwed this franchise for decades.

So, what’s next? Well, first, we need to see what all these MLB.tv deals are going to pay. Something tells me that all these teams are going to take a massive haircut on the per-year revenue figures they were getting, even from failing RSNs. Do we really think the Nationals are gonna get $65M in shared fees and drip-drip streaming packages? Does anyone believe Seattle’s getting 9 figures? I don’t.

Next, we have the commissioner throwing a pretty major shot across the bow of the owners he supposedly represents by being on record saying he wants the broadcast rights for all 30 teams by 2028. But, what’s the incentive for these big market teams to do this? LA is in a deal that gives them an increasingly large amount of money until 2038. The Yankees are committed to their deal well into the 2030s. Toronto’s RSN has a monopoly in a country of 40M people; that’s twice the size of the NYC MSA. These wealthy teams aren’t just going to give up hundreds of millions of dollars so that Kansas City and Milwaukee can get more money. Oh, not for nothing, the 28th ranked media market out of the 30 teams? Frigging San Diego, who’s been running $200M payrolls for years … so something doesn’t add up when you have Miami and Minnesota and Cleveland crying poor.

Don’t get me wrong; I think in an ideal world where MLB could ‘start over” they’d nationalize TV deals, just as NFL/NBA/NHL have done. In a heartbeat. If MLB had what the NFL has, there’s be such a different competitive landscape. You can plunk a team in Green Bay or Podunk, Iowa and with a level playing field of TV revenue everyone can be competitive. But, I also recognize the current state of NY/LA/Chi markets and can’t quite come to terms with taking hundreds of millions of dollars out of the pockets of some teams so as to hand it to the (multi-millionaire) owners of smaller market teams, many of whom literally havn’t “tried” to win in years.

The last time we had a really significant work stoppage was in 1994, and a major reason behind that strike was internal battles between big and small market owners related to TV revenue sharing. They eventually agreed to partial revenue sharing, which still exists today (each team puts 48% of its RSN money into a big pot and re-distributes it equally), which but there’s been significant grumbling when the $110M or so of shared revenue gets handed to teams like Miami ($72M payroll in 2025) or Cleveland ($76M payroll) or even to Washington ($91M payroll last year) and they don’t even spend it all.

Now, in 2026 with LA making a mockery of the luxury tax cap with a projected $403M 40-man 2026 salary, fully $159M over the tax threshold and a slew of small-market owners losing their minds … something tells me we’re to going to see a massive issue this coming off-season. You have the commissioner running around telling players they “need” a salary cap (and guys like Bryce Harper telling him to get the f*ck out of their clubhouse), so the MLBPA is already girded for a massive salary cap fight … but Manfred also has to get his owners in alignment to be able to negotiate a common stance.

It’s “collective bargaining,” not “collective demanding,” and if the Owners want a hard cap, they’re going to have to “give up” something the players want in return … the question is, are they willing to give up enough to satisfy the players union? And, what could that possibly be? We alluded to it in the last column with the Skubal arbitration issue: would owners give up arbitration altogether, or let players go after 4 years to free agency, in return for a salary cap? Maybe. Would they agree to a salary floor to go along with the cap? That kind of has to be in there else we’re right in the same boat we are now.

And, all of this happening the year when half the teams in the league potentially face a franchise-altering loss of RSN money?

Not good.

You can make a pretty simple argument that, in the collective, MLB players in the sport are underpaid every year by hundreds of millions of dollars. The three other major sports in the USA all have union-league agreements that generally split revenues between the players and owners 50/50 or close to it. In fy2024, here’s what MLB’s macro financial situation looked like:

• MLB 2025 revenues: Not reported yet, but estimating a 9% increase over 2024’s $12.1B (call it $13.2)
• MLB 2025 opening day payroll: $4.9B
• MLB 2025 full Luxury Tax Payroll (incl all 40-man players and benefits): $6B

Assuming 2025’s revenues come in at the $13.2B level, players are getting just 45% of revenues, which is somewhere in the range of a $660M payroll gap to the 50% line. And this $500-$600M delta has been the case for years, for more than a decade frankly.

Why does MLB have such a massive payroll discrepancy? Well, a lot of it is due to the arbitration system. Teams have undergone the gradual replacement of near-replacement level mid-30s free agents with near-replacement level pre-arb players for years, for obvious reasons, while benefitting from (sometimes drastically) underpaid pre-arb and arbitration-age players. We have had some pretty famous examples in the past:

Mike Trout’s first three full-seasons in 2012-14 produced a Rookie of the Year, an MVP, two MVP runner-ups that probably would have all been actual 1st place votes if his team was competitive, three All Star appearances, 3 Silver sluggers … and total bWAR of 27.1. Total pay for those three years? A shade under $2M. Total. After a 10-win rookie season, the Angels increased his pay by the grand total of $27,500. For that $2M in payroll, Trout provided something in the range of $200-$240M in WAR value (at $8-$9M/war estimate frequently used).

Yet, now that Trout has signed a massive extension and has struggled with injuries, many call it an albatross of a contract and one the Angels never should have signed. They got allll that value for nearly nothing a decade ago, and now are on the hook for hundreds of millions as he plays out the string.

The message is pretty clear: the sport drastically underpays its younger stars, and then teams continue to fight to underpay them, and only the lucky ones can get a long-term deal deep into their 30s to “make up” for all that time being underpaid.

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Enter 2-time defending Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal, who couldn’t come to an agreement on 2026 salary in his last arb year prior to the deadline, and now has filed along with the team. He’s entering his last arbitration year coming off of his second straight dominant season, and has filed for $32M in salary. Meanwhile, Detroit has filed at $19M, a laughably low figure for the player based on his accomplishments in the last two years and what he’d command on the open market, but what they filed nonetheless. In case you weren’t sure just how sh*tty teams behave in this process, Detroit actually offered Skubal $19.8M as a salary figure… then took it back and filed at a figure $800k lower.

The two sides are set to argue this week in front of a 3-person panel.

Skubal’s salary in arbitration has gone from pre-arb figures to $2.65M in 2024, to $10.15M last year. Both of those figures were pre-hearing figures, settled upon by the teams. Skubal has filed a figure that would make him the highest ever pay determined by this system. but one that seems supported based on the current market conditions.

In theory, players should be getting roughly 40%, 60%, and 80% of their fair market value in their three arb years; one has to think Skubal would get a contract with a starting AAV much better than the Cole/Snell/deGrom range (all $36-$37M/year), and perhaps closer to the Scherzer/Verlander AAV range (both got $43M in their 2022-24 range contracts). 80% of $40M is exactly $32M, or exactly what Skubal filed for. I’m not entirely sure what Detroit’s arb team would argue for, if this went to a hearing … what possible criticism could you offer a two-time defending Cy Young champ? Odds are the two sides end up meeting in the middle somewhere, unless Skubal decides he wants to set a new precedent.

Here’s the larger issue that this case illustrates pretty clearly. Baseball has a major problem with paying for player value at the time that value is delivered. Skubal should be the highest paid pitcher in the league, right now, no argument. There’s no two ways about it. Trout should have been getting immediately paid at the top of the sport’s pay cycle after his first three seasons, and he shouldn’t be getting $35M/year in his decline years. But, because Trout was screwed for so long … the fact that he’s finally getting paid seems completely fair. This is a problem across the sport, where players are paid at pre-arb salaries for 3 years that are literally “assigned” by the teams, then kept artificially low for years more. Most players are between 29-31 before they finally hit the FA market … and now on the downside of their careers.

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How do you fix this? I’m not entirely sure. You need a system that gets players appropriate pay earlier in their careers, but doesn’t penalize them heavily if they get hurt. You want to give some security to players, but also to the teams. So, you’d have to be able to support all these questions:

• If you win the MVP as a rookie, do you jump from $750k/year to $40M/year? No, of course not.
• If you are earning $20M this year and tear your ACL on opening day, do you earn the MLB minimum the next year since you provided no value? No, that’s not feasible either.
• Should you be forced into three years of team-assigned payroll, this following sometimes 4-5 years of even lower team assigned payroll while in the minors? No, I think that’s clearly too long.
• Is the arb system too long? Do you eliminate it and make everyone a FA after 3 years? Well, no that’s probably too short for to be fair to teams.
• How about a restricted FA system like the NBA uses, where there’s a period where you can find other deals and your existing team can match them?

I dunno. I’m not sure what solution is on an individual player basis.

As for Skubal, something tells me they’ll settle pre-deadline, something in the $28M/year range. There’s no way Detroit wants to go to a hearing and criticize their best player to try to argue for a blatantly under-market deal. But, you never know. Teams have done weirder things in the past, especially when it comes to Boras-represented clients.

It was just a couple weeks ago (January 9th to be exact) when Baseball America released its top 30 list for the Nats system. I reviewed it then in depth, as the first major pundit to release a top 30 rankings for our system.

So much has happened since that they had to update it.

Between the IFA signing period (where we spread around our $6M plus bonus pool on several highly-regarded prospects) and the Mackenzie Gore trade (which netted us five guys, four of which are now in our top 30), our top 30 now looks a bit different. Here’s where our new acquisitions slot into BA’s list, and who they pushed out at the bottom:

• New #5: Fien, Gavin, the star of the Gore trade. The $4.8M first round SS from last year will compete with our own $8.2M first round SS Willits for playing time in Fredericksburg this year. Though his size likely puts him immediately at 3B.
• New #9: Fitz-Gerald, Devin, the $900k 2024 SS will … also compete for playing time in Low-A this year.
• New #16: Rosario, Alejandro, the RHP pitcher who just had TJ and won’t pitch until spring 2027 at best.
• New #22: Cabrera, Yeremy*, the speedy 20-yr old CF with 43 steals last season.
• New #23: Serrano, Samil*, the headliner of our 2026 IFA class.

These 5 guys pushed down the formerly 26-30th ranked players:

• New #31: Alvarez, Andrew*, the under the radar lefty control arm who pitched really well in SSS last year in the majors.
• New #32: Glasser, Phillip*, our ML hitter of the year who got a NRI this season but who faces an uphill challenge for playing time.
• New #33: De La Cruz, Nauris, who signed for a pittance in the 2025 IFA class but who bashed the DSL last year.
• New #34: Cortesia, Brayan, who signed for a massive amount in the 2025 IFA class and who is higher on a lot of lists right now.
• New #35: McGarry, Griff, our Rule-5 pick whose pathway to being in the rotation just eased with the Gore trade.

Also newly acquired this month and presumably in the mix in this 30-40 range right now: our three other 7-figure signings from the 2026 IFA class (Suarez, Isalas, Ramirez, Angel#, and Duran, Juan) and the 5th prospect in the Gore trade Ortiz, Abimelec*, who sits 24th on MLBPipeline’s rankings right now and who might have an inside track to the starting 1B job in 2026.

I may have been critical of the Gore trade initially, but there’s a reason pundits mostly across the board liked it. These pundits may be overlooking the risk of the former Texas prospects, but the moves certainly strengthen the overall farm.

Now that we’re at the end of January, we should get ready for a ton of prospect content to come out soon. The next month should give us Keith Law, MLBPipeline, and Kiley McDaniel’s rankings. The last major pundit out there (Fangraphs/Longenhagen) has been pushing his ranks into the summer lately.

It’s been rumored all off-season, and now a few weeks before Pitchers and Catchers report, our biggest trade asset MacKenzie Gore has been traded. Announced last night, the Nats moved Gore to Texas for a package of 5 prospects.

Here’s a quick look at those 5 prospects, with their new Nats system rank and other pertinent information:

• shortstop Gavin Fien; 2025 1st rounder, Age 18. Our new #5 prospect (was Texas’ #2 prospect)
• right-hander Alejandro Rosario; 2023 college 5th rounder, Age 24, AA last year, new #11 prospect
• infielder Devin Fitz-Gerald: 2025 prep 5th rounder but over-slot bonus, age 20, new #12 prospect
• outfielder Yeremy Cabrera: 2022 IFA, just 20, our new #17 prospect
• first baseman/outfielder Abimelec Ortiz; 2021 NDFA, Age 3, on 40-man, hit AAA last year, new #24

First glance? I’m sorry, but is this all we could get? One 18yr old 1st rounder, two 20yr olds in low-A, a AA starter who missed all of 2025 AND just had TJ so he’s missing all of 2026 too, and a AAA utility guy? This is a major swing from a risk perspective, and the lack of additional higher-regarded prospects give me pause. The discovery (post publishing) that the 2nd best prospect is out for the entire 2026 season is even more demoralizing here.

I’m really disappointed with this return. We didn’t even get Texas’ best prospect in this deal. Maybe that’s me overvaluing Gore. On the one hand, Gore’s career numbers put him at a 98 ERA+. But at the same time, we’ve seen him be completely dominant for stretches. He’s valuable because he’s being paid a pittance for what he provides as a mid-rotation starter ($2.8M in first year Arb this year, $5.6M this year) and for 2 more years of control. He’s an innings eater who throws mid-90s from the left side; that’s worth a ton of the FA market and should have been worth more in trade.

When he didn’t go in the Winter Meetings, I thought the team should hold on to him until the Trade Deadline, when desperate teams who had lost starters to injury would be overpaying for mid-level starters. I was wrong; the new FO pulled the trigger on a deal they liked. I sense this was an underpay by Texas, but clearly the GM sees these younger guys and liked the deal.

An additional wrinkle: we’ve spoken before about the logjam of young shortstops projected to play in Fredericksburg in 2026 … well we just added two more guys who need playing time. We now add Fien and Fitz-Gerald to Willis, Feliz, Dickerson, and Mota, all of whom are likely projected to Low-A and who predominantly play SS.

What does this mean for the franchise? Insiders and those in the knew already knew this, but the signals have been strong that we’re on our way to bottoming out once again. My “casual Nats fan” pinged me last night with an immediate reaction to this trade, asking why we were getting rid of our best pitcher and I had to break it to him; we’re going to be bad for a while, so buckle up. This latter type of fan is the one who the Nats eventually will need to come back, to buy tickets, to bring the family for weekend games … but I sense a move like this, one which gets rid of one of the few players whose names they even know, is going to turn people off for a while.

I’m always excited to get more prospects into the system, as a prospect-heavy analysis site. Don’t get me wrong; can’t wait to do the spreadsheet work and try to noodle where I think these players will fit in my eventual top-100+ ranking that i’ll publish before the season starts. But I hate trading away assets and not getting enough in return, which I believe happened here.

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What do you think? Am I over-valuing Gore? Did we get appropriate return here? Should we have waited til the Trade deadline 2026?

So, this image floated across my Facebook feed randomly the other day, and I was struck by it. I’ve seen these done elsewhere, but never for Baseball rotations. So, i’m in.

Build your rotation. $15 max spend. Here’s my “rules” for the competition:

• You have to pick 5 guys: you can’t pick three from the $5 line and say, “the rest are AAA starters”
• Consider each pitcher by their peak, not by their entire career. I say this because a few of these guys tailed off badly, or are more known for their longevity.
• Ignore the fact that some (one?) of these guys has PED associations. I guess that’s just a concern for Clemens. I didn’t end up picking him anyway.

OK here’s my team:

• $5 Sandy Koufax: no better stretch of dominance at the end of his career.
• $5 Pedro Martinez: he put up a 291 ERA+ season in the height of the PED era.
• $2 Bob Feller: that’s some serious value for $2
• $2 Curt Schilling. Twitter comments aside, he was a very good starter. Never won a Cy Young, losing out multiple times to his own teammates, else he’d be a no-brainer Hall of Famer.
• $1 Orel Hershiser. Best in the sport for a short amount of time, short enough to cost him the Hall. I’ll take that as my 5th starter.

Who you got?

We’ve been discussing our International Free Agency (IFA) class futility a bit in the comments, and today 1/15/26 is the day we announce our newest crop of international signees, so lets take a quick peek at how things have gone and who we have coming into the system today.

We’ll be using my IFA Signing Tracker to drive this conversation. I’ve built this back to the 2016 class with a slew of information per player, including links to their milb.com page, bonuses, positions, and (most importantly); their “high level” achieved. As discussed in the comments, we’ve seen very, very little production for the past decade of drafts: Working backwards, here’s an idea:

• 2025: $6.2M bonus pool, two $1M plus players plus a bunch of mid 6-figure guys. Four guys getting prospect love (the two big $ guys Cortesia and Hernandez, plus German and $10k signing De La cruz)
• 2024: $5.9M pool, about half went to two guys in Hurtado and Feliz. Feliz now on precipice of the top 10, Hurtado scuffling around after two straight weak DSL seasons. Nobody else of note from class.
• 2023: $5.2M pool, two $1M plus players in Acevedo and Solano. Solano already released, only a couple other very weak prospects showing out right now in Tejeda and Jose Feliz.
• 2022: $5.1M pool, $4.9M of which went to Vaquero. Also spent $250k on Mota. Vaquero just repeated low-A for the third year, while Mota is starting to creep up the ranks and is ahead of Vaquero on most lists right now.
• 2021: $5.3M pool, $3.9M of which went to Armando Cruz in another “put all our eggs in one basket” class. We don’t have a single player from this class ranked on any prospect list at present.
• 2020: no class – Covid: we ended up signing a couple of guys later in 2020 for that “class” but they’ve all since been released.
• 2019: $4.3M pool, we gave $1M plus to two guys (Lara, Aldonis). Also $800k to Quintana (released) and Dawry Martinez (released). Lara made the MLB but is now considered a weak prospect and likely is a AAA-ceiling guy. Aldonis is still in High-A.

2018 and 2017 fell into the “IFA signing bonus penalty phase” based on our team’s actions in the 2016 draft, where we purposely blew past the bonus pool to knowingly accept penalties in the next two years.

• 2018: $4.9M pool but with a $300k/per player signing cap; we signed a few $300k players but the best anyone did was Jose Atencio making AA before hitting MLFA. One player remains in the system at this point (Otanez).
• 2017: $4.75M pool, but we came nowhere close to it. Recently traded reliever Ferrer was the sole player to make the majors, and one other remains active (backup middle infielder Pena).
• 2016: We had a $2.3M pool and paid out at least $6.5M of bonuses that I can find, playing the IFA bonus gambit at the time. This class produced at least four MLB ers in Garcia, Pineda, Adon, and Yadiel Hernandez, but remains infamous in Nats circles for the $3.9M given to Yasel Antuna.

So, that’s the sordid decade-long history of our bonus spending.

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We have a new management team in town, so we should see a new direction and strategy in Latin America … eventually. Unfortunately, the deals announced today have been in place for months, and have been under negotiation for years, so the impact of the new group won’t fully be seen until at least next January. But, that being said, lets take a look at what we know about the 2026 class.

• Baseball America Scouting reports on Nats 2026 IFA class
• Fangraphs “The Board” top 100 2026 IFA signings with links to scouting reports
• Official Nats announcement of the 2026 class
• MLBpipeline IFA 2026 class ranks

We’ve signed 15 players today. Like several classes on this list, our 2026 class can be categorized as a “Stars and Scrubs” class, albeit with our $6.6M pool being spread out to four $1m+ players instead of putting it all on one guy as we did in the Cruz/Vaquero classes. So, we’re going to spend around $6M of that $6.6M on the top four guys. Right now, BA and Fangraphs slightly differ in the $$ figures, but I’ll use the BA numbers for this post. Also below: overall class ranks below (fangraphs first, then BA, then MLBpipeline)

• #12/#18/#40: Suarez, Isalas, a true CF from the DR with a $1.9M bonus
• #13/#16/#26 Serrano, Samil*, corner OF from the DR with a $1.97M bonus.
• #45/#52/#50+: Ramirez, Angel#, corner OF from the DR $1M bonus.
• #52/#53/#50+: Duran, Juan, corner OF from the DR, $1M bonus.

So, these four guys are basically going to be the class. The BA site lists a 5th player of note, yet another outfielder named Jawel Garcia who will probably get a few hundred thousand of the remaining amount.

I’ll just point out the obvious. Our 5 best IFAs this year … are all Outfielders?? Uh, only three can play a day guys. The BA link says Ramirez was a short stop until very recently, so maybe they return him to the dirt, and a couple of these guys are a bit taller so maybe you stash them at 1B so everyone can play .. but this seems kind of short-sighted to spent all this money and purposely put the DSL manager in the position of juggling the lineup from day one to play everyone.

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post publish updates: added MLBpipeline class ranks, added links for Nats class from Nationals.com

Hot on the heels of the Baseball America top 30 list, we get the fantasy-first Prospects1500 site’s list for the system. They’re the only shop that earnestly ranks to #50, and we often get a decent look into the down-stream prospects in our system in the eyes of an independent evaluator.

Prospects1500 is unabashedly a Fantasy site; they say it right in the subheading: “Your comprehensive dynasty League resource.” It caters to hard-core Fantasy baseball leagues who do dynasty drafting, meaning you draft prospects and keep them on your roster like a “real” team. I’ve run out of people even willing to do basic Fantasy Baseball, let alone the diehards who would do a keeper league with 18yr olds who may not show up for 7 years. That being said, it colors their rankings a bit. You’re going to see ceiling valued more than floor, you’re going to see positions of scarcity (i.e. Catchers) pushed up a bit as compared to things like corner OFs, and you’re going to see future save projections come into play with high-leverage relievers. We’ll cover them a bit below.

Here’s the top 50, along with their ranking for the same players last year at this time.

Current Rank	Jan 2025 Rank	First Name	Last Name	Position
1	3	Travis	Sykora	RHP (Starter)
2	Not yet Drafted	Eli	Willits	SS
3	5	Jarlin	Susana	RHP (Starter)
4	Not yet Traded for	Harry	Ford	C
5	Not yet Traded for	Luis	Perales	RHP (Starter)
6	17	Luke	Dickerson	SS/CF
7	4	Seaver	King	SS
8	7	Alex	Clemmey	LHP (Starter)
9	Not yet Drafted	Coy	James	SS
10	Not yet Drafted	Landon	Harmon	RHP (Starter)
11	Not yet Drafted	Ethan	Petry	1B/OF (Corner)
12	6	Yohandy	Morales	3B
13	Not yet Traded for	Sean Paul	Linan	RHP (Starter)
14	21	Angel	Feliz	SS/3B
15	37	Jackson	Kent	LHP (Starter)
16	Not yet Traded for	Christian	Franklin	OF (CF)
17	12	Caleb	Lomavita	C
18	Not yet IFA signed	German	Marconi	SS
19	Not yet Traded for	Eriq	Swan	RHP (Starter)
20	Not yet IFA signed	Brayan	Cortesia	SS
21	Not yet Drafted	Miguel	Sime Jr.	RHP (Starter)
22	Not yet Drafted	Sam	Peterson	OF (CF)
23	13	Victor	Hurtado	OF (Corner)
24	20	Andrew	Pinckney	OF (Corner)
25	18	Cristian	Vaquero	OF (CF)
26	Not yet Traded for	Ronny	Cruz	SS
27	Not yet Drafted	Yoel	Tejeda Jr.	RHP (Starter)
28	Not Yet rule-5 Drafted	Griff	McGarry	RHP (Starter)
29	11	Cayden	Wallace	2B/3B
30	Not yet Traded for	Josh	Randall	RHP (Starter)
31	Not yet IFA signed	Nauris	De La Cruz	OF (Corner)
32	45	Jorgelys	Mota	SS
33	44	Phillips	Glasser	SS
34	Not yet IFA signed	Daniel	Hernandez	C
35	outside top 50	Riley	Cornelio	RHP (Starter)
36	Not yet Traded for	Browm	Martinez	OF (CF)
37	26	Kevin	Bazzell	C
38	Not Yet MLFA signed	Orelvis	Martinez	2B
39	Not yet Traded for	Jake	Eder	LHP (Starter)
40	Not yet Traded for	R.J.	Sales	RHP (Starter)
41	16	Andry	Lara	RHP (Starter)
42	15	Elijah	Green	OF (CF)
43	outside top 50	Dashyll	Tejeda	OF (CF)
44	42	Sir Jamison	Jones	C
45	39	Andrew	Alvarez	LHP (Starter)
46	22	Kevin	Made	SS
47	28	Jose	Feliz	RHP (Starter)
48	33	Marquis	Grissom	RHP (Reliever)
49	Not Yet Drafted	Boston	Smith	C/OF
50	36	T.J.	White	OF (Corner)

Like with the BA list, lots of churn here:

• Only 22 of this top 50 were even ranked last year.
• Of those 28 new guys:
  • 8 are new draftees
  • 4 are Jan 2025 IFA signings
  • 10 are Trade Acquisitions
  • 1 is an off-season MLFA signing (Orelvis Martinez)
  • 1 is our Rule-5 acquisition in December (McGarry)
  • 2 were in our system last year just outside their top 50
• Of their top 50 last year? 18 of the 50 are no longer eligible:
  • 9 graduated/exhausted rookie eligibility
  • 4 hit MLFA status (De La Rosa, Acosta, Choi, Naranjo)
  • 2 were released (Baker, Quintana)
  • 1 was traded (Bennett)
  • 1 was a Rule5 pick we returned (Reifert … remember him?)
  • 1 was DFA’d and claimed (Brzycky)
• Furthermore, there were 8 guys ranked in last year’s top 50 who didn’t make it this time:
  • Tyler Stuart, #14 last year and unranked this year (probably the biggest “Whaaa?” in this ranking)
  • Rafael Ramirez Jr.
  • Orlando Ribalta
  • Armando Cruz
  • Seth Shuman
  • Brennar Cox
  • Andres Chapparo
  • Brandon Pimental

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Ok lets do some quick analysis of the list. Obviously I’m not going to talk about all 50, so i’ll scan down the list and hit some highlights

• Sykrora at #1. We just had a list that dropped him to #5, but these guys keep him at 1-1. It’s obviously a projection of him returning 100% to form and getting to the majors in 2027.
• The rest of the top5 as expected.
• Dickerson way too high at #6, based on his pro debut.
• I’d have put Clemmey above King and Dickerson based on what he accomplished at his age.
• Our three big prep bonus babies come in at #9, #10, and #21. BA had them #9, #11, and #19 so similar thinking.
• The first big surprise was having Linan all the way up at #13. I like Linan that high (I had him #11 on my post-2025 season list), but BA had him all the way down at #23. Big arm, young guy, but 3 DL trips in 2025 give some pause.
• Angel Feliz a bit lower than I’d like to see him at #14; I think he’s edge of the top 10.
• Jackson Kent, who got some criticism in the last post … is also #15 on this list, same ranking as BA.
• Another big surprise: Eriq Swan at #19. BA didn’t even have him in their top 30. I had him too high in my post-season first cut, and early 20s seems right.
• Sam Peterson, the darling of the BA list, down at #22. I think he should at least be in the mid teens.
• Hurtado at #23 when BA didn’t have him at all. Seems like a bonus amount ranking still. Same with Vaquero at #25.
• Wallace and Randall keep their spots in the top 30 here by the skin of their teeth. I think this is about right for both.
• They’ve got Mota too low: #32 when BA has him at #20.
• Glasser comes in at #33, likely depressed b/c he’s not projecting to be a huge fantasy star.
• Cornelio is probably too low at #35; the guy’s on the 40-man roster, which mean’s he’s almost guaranteed to produce in the majors in 2026.
• First mention of under-the-radar trade acquisition Browm Martinez (that name is going to drive me crazy). He’s at #36.
• MLFA signing Orelvis Martinez at #38: i’m not surprised we don’t see more MLFA edge prospects showing up. He turned 24 just after the season ended, having exhausted his 7 years of service in his prior club. He’s now completely in FA years ahead of where a college draftee would be thanks to the early signing of the IFA market.
• Andry Lara at #40. I mean, really? Is he a prospect at all anymore?
• Green stays on the list like fellow big $$ signees Vaquery and Hurtado.
• Andrew Alvarez way too low at #45 … he should be 20 spots higher.
• 2025 Draftee Boston Smith debuts on any prospect chart at #49 … thanks to his Catcher eligiblity.
• TJ White rounds up the list at #50 … for some reason. He hit .231 repeating High-A for the third year as a corner outfielder … I guess its b/c he’s still just 22.

Best players missing:

• Tyler Stuart, as discussed above
• Davian Garcia: solved low-A in his first pro season and held his own in high-A rotation for a few turns. I’ll take that over a reliever who got shelled in AAA. He’s 2 years younger than Swan and had better numbers than him .. but Swan is #19 and Garcia is in the 50s?
• Armando Cruz: I mean, if we’re ranking Hurtado, Vaquero and Green, might as well throw this guy in there as well.

The first big scouting shop just released their top 30 prospects for 2026, and it’s a doozy. There’s big deltas between theirs and what we know of so far from other shops, lots of recognition of players who had break-out seasons in 2025, and lots of new names from this time last year. Let’s take a look.

I’m going to add in their ranking from 2025 as part of the below table and part of the discussion.

Current Rank	Jan 2025 Rank	First Name	Last Name	Position
1	Not yet drafted	Eli	Willits	SS
2	3	Jarlin	Susana	RHP (Starter)
3	Not Yet Acquired	Harry	Ford	C
4	Not Yet Acquired	Luis	Perales	RHP (Starter)
5	2	Travis	Sykora	RHP (Starter)
6	6	Alex	Clemmey	LHP (Starter)
7	5	Seaver	King	SS
8	11	Luke	Dickerson	SS/CF
9	Not yet drafted	Coy	James	SS
10	15	Angel	Feliz	SS/3B
11	Not yet drafted	Landon	Harmon	RHP (Starter)
12	40	Sam	Peterson	OF (CF)
13	Not yet drafted	Ethan	Petry	1B/OF (Corner)
14	16	Andrew	Pinckney	OF (Corner)
15	36	Jackson	Kent	LHP (Starter)
16	22	Yohandy	Morales	3B
17	Not Yet IFA signed	German	Marconi	SS
18	8	Caleb	Lomavita	C
19	Not yet drafted	Miguel	Sime Jr.	RHP (Starter)
20	Outside top 40	Jorgelys	Mota	SS
21	Not yet drafted	Ronny	Cruz	SS
22	Not yet Acquired	Christian	Franklin	OF (CF)
23	Not yet Acquired	Sean Paul	Linan	RHP (Starter)
24	35	Yoel	Tejeda Jr.	RHP (Starter)
25	Outside top 40	Riley	Cornelio	RHP (Starter)
26	Outside top 40	Andrew	Alvarez	LHP (Starter)
27	Outside top 40	Phillips	Glasser	SS
28	Outside top 40	Nauris	De La Cruz	OF (Corner)
29	17	Brayan	Cortesia	SS
30	Not yet R5 drafted	Griff	McGarry	RHP (Starter)

So, Here’s some macro facts from just BA’s top 30 today versus one year ago:

• 12 of the 30 are new to the Organization since Jan 2025
  • 5 from the 2025 Draft (Willits, James, Harmon, Petry, Sime)
  • 5 from Trades (Ford, Perales, Franklin, Linan, Cruz
  • 1 from the 2025 IFA class (Marconi)
  • 1 from Rule-5 in December (McGarry)
• 2 of the top 30 were outside of the top 30 last year but in the “honorable mention” 30-40 range (Tejeda, Peterson)
• 5 of the top 30 were not listed in BA’s top 30 (or even their extended top 40) last year (Mota, Cornelio, Alvaraz, Glasser, and De La Cruz)
• 11 of LAST year’s top 30 are no longer eligible:
  • 9 Graduated with enough MLB time: Crews, House, Cavalli, Lile, Hassell, Millas, Rutledge, Nunez, Lord)
  • 1 have been traded (Bennett)
  • 1 were DFA’d and are gone (Brzycky)

So, for as much as I’ve criticized the player development of the Rizzo regime … that’s an awful lot of guys matriculating to the majors and being productive parts of the MLB team. Perhaps you can quibble about how much they’re “contributing,” but when you push 9 prospects to the MLB roster in one year … that’s a win. Of course, many of these guys are the ones who are supposed to be contributing: of these 11 graduates, six were 1st rounders and another three were 2nd rounders. I have harped ad naseum about the Rizzo regime “blowing” basically every 2nd round pick (and a bunch of 1st rounders) for a decade straight … but now some of them are actually making it.

Ok, so that being said, lets run through some comments/observations on this list.

• #1 Willits has either been #1 or #2 on every ranking since his arrival. No surprise he’s top here. BA has him arriving 2028 at age 20, which is CJ Abrams’ last year before FA. Something tells me we’re not going to get to that point with CJ on this team, which means we’ll be putting a stop-gap at SS (Nunez?) or maybe Willits blasts through the minors Bryce Harper style and is starting at age 19.
• BA keeps Susana just above new high-profile acquisitions Ford and Perales despite his injuries last year. Other shops have him perhaps in-between the two.
• Sykora slots in at #5, just below the two guys we’ve just acquired. That implies he was #3 before we got these two guys in trade. I took some grief for dropping Sykora to 5th on my own list at the end of 2025’s season … when I republish that ranking in April I probably will adjust it slightly.
• There’s probably an implicit “gap” between our current top 5 and even to #6, Clemmey. The next 5 ranked guys are all relatively young as compared to the AA and AAA heavy top 5.
• King comes in at #7 … probably on the back of a few hot weeks in the AFL. That seems to be consistent where other shops have him ranked right now. I was very down on King in September, and now have rebounded, perhaps drinking the AFL kool-aid. I mean, we want the guy to succeed right?
• Dickerson somehow retains his top 10 ranking despite an awful season at the plate in 2025 and faces a positional conundrum shortly: who plays SS for Low-A next season? Luke may be finding another position. Luckily we already knew he was like a SS/CF coming out of HS.
• Our big money RHP 2025 prep kids (James, Harmon, Sime) come in ranked #9, #11, and #19 respectively. James (the 5th rounder) is highest here, over 3rd rounder Harmon (both got the same $$ figure). I know some pundits struggle to rank these kinds of guys: prep RHP are the riskiest of risky in the sport.
• The first big out of nowhere name: Sam Peterson at #12, one slot ahead of Petry. This guy blew up in 2025, nearly posting a 3/4/5 slash line in High-A as an 8th round pick the year before. That’d be some found gold right there if he continues to contribute. Also: 18/0 SB/CS in High-A and he plays a true CF. Sounds like a Jacob Young-type (an unheralded 7th round defense-first college bat).
• Pinckney at #14 just seems high. I just don’t see where he goes with this organization. He’s, what, 8th on the OF depth chart? (Wood, Hassell, Crews, Young, Wiemer, Lile, Franklin ahead of him): only 3 of them can play at a time. Seems like we should move him.
• Lomavita at #18 seems a bit low, and the acquisition of Ford really changes the trajectory of the entirely of our Catcher depth chart right now. I don’t think Ford is on the MLB team to open the season with just a few MLB ABs, but he’ll be starting in AAA. Which means Millas is either on the MLB bench or on the AAA bench. I’m not sure where Adams fits in; he signed a split contract (meaning he has negotiated his minor league salary), meaning they’re anticipating going to the minors … but he has no options left, which means he’ll have to pass through waivers to get off the 40-man. Should be interesting to see how this shakes out. My initial guess? Ruiz/Millas in MLB, Ford/Adams in AAA, Lomavita/Romero back in AA, Bazzell/Rombach in High-A, with all the starters just waiting to see if Ruiz can keep his starting job.
• Next up on the surprise inclusion list: Jorgelys Mota, 3B in Low-A. He’s starting to get noticed. He’s also part of a major log-jam in Low-A: the following guys are all solid prospects in the 18-20 year old range who play on the right side of the infield: Willits, Dickerson, Feliz and Mota. That’s 4 guys for 2 spots in Low-A where they all belong. Maybe one of them is pushed up to High-A, or maybe they all juggle ABs and IPs in Fredericksburg, maybe Dickerson goes to CF.
• Cornelio’s great 2025 finally gets him onto the BA list at #25. He was the Nats Minor League Pitcher of the Year and deservedly gets included in the BA top 30.
• Alvarez, who has almost never been considered a prospect, comes in at #26. I’m super curious to see how Alvarez’ 2026 shakes out. Is he really in the mix for a MLB rotation spot? I mean, Small Sample Size of course but in 5 late season starts he had a 2.31 ERA that was decently supported by his FIP (3.39). Do you stick him in the bullpen? Does he have the right kind of stuff to be in a MLB pen? Or, do you put him in AAA again to keep him stretched out? I dunno. Good problem to have I suppose.
• Phillip Glasser gets ranked by a major shop for the first time ever, after his Nats Minor League Hitter of the year season in 2025. He’ll be a starting corner OF in AAA in 2026, but he’s got the same problem Pinckney does: positional congestion. Of course, Lile looked completely blocked at the beginning of 2025 as well, then hit so well you kind of have to find a spot for him in the lineup. So, things can change.
• Nauris De La Cruz gets the #29 spot after mostly solving DSL pitching this year; final slash line .294/.448/.450. He’ll be state-side in the FCL to start 2026. Hopefully Florida food will help him fill out (6’0″ and 160?!).
• Our new rule-5 pick Griff McGarry comes in at #30; he should make the MLB bullpen and graduate pretty quickly.

Notable Players left off the BA top 30:

• Eriq Swan: I may have the trade-acquisition over-rated on my list.
• Orelvis Martinez, AAA MLFA signing who MLBpipeline has at like #20 right now
• Andry Lara: I’ve been down on him for a while but many still hold out hope.
• Daniel Hernandez: an interesting omission given that he’s as high as #13 elsewhere and was a big-money IFA signing, but he struggled in his first DSL Season (don’t worry, he was super young upon signing)
• Cristhian Vaquero: I’m guessing he’s still hanging around in the 30-40 range on BA’s list, like he does on others.
• Josh Randall: Edge of the top 30 type on many lists.
• Tyler Stuart: TJ knocks him off for a bit; hopefully can get back.
• Cayden Wallace: hard to believe how far he’s fallen. Maybe he can put together a solid season and regain some prospect status. Would love to see him hit to his capabilities and fill the 2B slot in the bigs so we can move some guys around.
• Victor Hurtado: that $2.8M in 2024 IFA bonus not looking good
• Elijah Green; phew he’s getting up there as our biggest 1st round bust ever, if not already there.

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Writer’s note: corrected Ronny Cruz’ acquisition method in the top section; he was acquired in the Soroka trade, not via the draft. Thanks to @Will in the comments for the correction.

Hello my fellow Nats fans. Happy New Year from all of us (i.e. “me”) at Nationals Arm Race. I posted this on 1/1/26, then the site immediately took a dump, but seems to be back now, so lets try this again.

Thanks for continuing to read what I have to write, to have awesome conversations in the comments, and to be fans of the sport and the team.

I wondered what would be a useful post for 1/1/26. I think i’ll ask some open ended questions and ask for predictions in the comments.

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Topic 1: Will the Nats Executive Youth Movement work?

I have yet to write at all about the youth movement in the Nats front office because, well, It’s certainly worked in the past for other/better franchises than ours (Theo Epstein was 28 when he took over Boston in 2002, Jon Daniels the same age when he took over Texas in 2005, and both had great success), so I don’t really have anything to say there from a criticism or support perspective.

Now, perhaps the combination of all three of these key figures being so young is concerning.

• Paul Toboni, 35, as President of Baseball Operations
• Anirudh Kilambi, 31, as General Manager
• Blake Butera, 33, as Manager (youngest in 50 years)

Toboni came from Boston, Kilambi came from Philly, and Butera came from Tampa. All three of those franchises are in far better places than we are, and each brings much needed experience to this team.

• Toboni’s role in Boston? Amateur Scouting and Player Development
• Kilambi’s role in Philadelphia? R&D, Data, Analytics, and Player analysis
• Butera’s role in Tampa? Senior Director of Player Development and head of their Farm system

See a trend here? I do. So the question is this: What do you see this brain trust doing with the team going forward? And, do you think it will move the team in a positive direction?

Here’s my 2 cents: The Rizzo regime blew nearly a decade of drafts and left this team with the gaping hole of player development that it’s just starting to get out of. Unfortunately, he had to trade practically every major star we had in 2021 and 2022 to cover for these player development failures … and now those players are starting to push into Arbitration. Now we have a new approach heavy on data (the Nats were not exactly considered at the forefront of data usage in the league), heavy on development (where we’ve failed badly for a while), and heavy on amateur scouting (which Rizzo, despite his pedigree coming up as a scout in Arizona, grew out of in his later years).

I sense this group is going to start over, probably has pitched the ownership group a 5-year plan starting with this year’s IFA crop to be announced in a couple weeks, and then moving onto the 2026 draft, and in the meantime will trade most anything not nailed down for more prospects to help build from the bottom up. This also signals to me that the MLB product will get worse before it gets better. And it leads to my second topic:

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Topic 2: Will Gore and Abrams be on the roster on Opening Day 2026?

Clearly the industry expects Gore to be moved this off-season, with his name atop most trade candidate analysis pieces. But … he didn’t move at the Winter Meetings when the buzz was hottest. The best time to get the most value out of a player is either:

• At the Trade Deadline, when contending teams make irrational decisions in pursuit of playoffs
• At the Winter Meetings, when everyone’s in the same building and you can play teams off each other.

Since he didn’t move at the Winter Meetings, I’m now thinking Gore sticks with us until next trade deadline and we roll the dice he stays healthy and improves the first half of next season.

Now, as for Abrams? He’s one of the worst fielding SS in the league but produces at a solid 106-107 wRC+ level the last two seasons. The SS free agent crop this off-season is pretty weak … but its not like the league can’t look up Fangraphs fielding stats themselves and see what the rest of us see. Nonetheless, His trade value is as a SS, and he needs to stick there until some rival executive swallows his analysis and says to himself, “ok we’ll deal with the defense to get the offense.” I’ve seen other blogs make the argument that Nasim Nunez should start at SS for us in 2026 and we should move Abrams to 2nd … The dumbest thing you could possibly do with a tradeable asset is to make him LESS valuable in trade by moving him to a less desirable position.

So, all that said, I’m guessing Abrams also sticks with us, plays out the first half, and we look to move him to a team that could use him at either SS or 2B and let THEM make the argument to him that its time to move off SS. I mean, if you’re Abrams and you’re looking at a 100-loss team that’s going to be this way for another couple years, and you get an offer to join a contender but you have to move to 2B … you’d have to be a fool not to jump.

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Topic #3: Are we going to see more Starter Acquisitions for the 2026 Rotation?

At the end of the 2025 season in my 2026 rotation wrap-up/prediction post, I thought the 2026 rotation would look like this:

• Gore, Grey, Cavalli, a Free Agent, and one from Alvarez/Irvin/Parker/Williams for the 5th.

Since then, we’ve made some moves. We signed a FA (Foster Griffen), we picked a Rule-5 Starter (Griff McGarry), and we’ve acquired a hard-throwing starter in trade with MLB experience (Luis Perales), all three of whom change this equation. I think if you laid out the Nats 40-man starter depth chart right now it’d look something like this:

• Gore, Grey, Cavalli
• Griffin locked in as the #4
• Williams (as much as I hate to admit it) the early favorite for #5, if only to see if he gets some trade value in his walk year.
• McGarry as Rule-5 is making the team, but seems likely to be in a SS/LR role. Maybe he beats out Williams for the 5th starter.
• Alvarez proved he can pitch in the Majors and as a lefty gives the rotation/bullpen flexibility. Or, maybe he wins the 5th starter role and puts both Williams and McGarry in the pen.
• Irvin, Parker, Lord: all seem better suited for the bullpen. All have options but it’d seem foolish to put any of them back in AAA.
• Herz to the DL
• Perales, Cornelio, Eder as the 1-2-3 in AAA. We just lost Lao to Japan apparently, though I’ve only seen that on social media posts and not officially in the transaction pages.

So, the salient question for the front office is this: Are you happy with this configuration, or are you making more moves? If they move Gore pre-season, that almost guarantees a Rule-5 pick and/or Alvarez is in the rotation to start the year, unless we want to roll the dice with more 5.75 ERA production from one of Irvin/Parker/Lord.

I sense this front office isn’t done making trades or signings yet.

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Anyway, Happy New Year and hope to get your thoughts on these three topics to kick off January.

Hey team … Luke Erickson let me know the comments aren’t working. My apologies.

The whole blog was down last week, but came up after updating the version. Now everything is updated, and the comments don’t work. I’ve got my hosting provider looking at it now.

Apologies; look forward to chatting with everyone ASAP. I’ll re-post my last one once we’re through this and can engage again.