Nationals Arm Race

This is a running post with all star notes for the team, updated for 2026. It includes a complete history of our All Star selections dating to the franchise’s beginnings in 2005, and may look familiar as I recycle the old content every year.

Nats All Star Game Trivia: updated for 2026.

• All-time leader in Nats all-star appearances: Bryce Harper and Max Scherzer, both with 6 appearances with the Nats.  (these numbers are only appearances with us, not including other franchises)
• All-time leader in All-Star Game starts: Harper, who had 5 starts.
• Total number of Starters in the history of the Franchise: Now is 12; Harper 5 times, Scherzer 3 times, and one each for Soriano, Murphy, Zimmerman and Abrams with his 2026 selection.
• Most all-star players named in a single year: 5 in both 2016 and 2017.
• Least all-star game players named in a single year: 1 in multiple years during the “dark years” of 2006 through 2011, and again in the early 2020s as the team rebuilds.
• Most unlikely All-Star: Probably Dmitri Young or Cristian Guzman, both being the “someone has to make the all star team” nominations in our 100 loss period in the late 2000s.

(* == All-Star game starter)

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2026

• Nationals All-Star Representative: CJ Abrams*, James Wood, Foster Griffin (late addition)
• Snubs: none.
• Narrative: Abrams is named the starter after beating out Mookie Betts in a final fan vote to be the starter. It is the first time we’ve had a starting SS all-star in the history of the franchise, and just the 12th time we’ve had a starter since the franchise moved to DC. Wood was in the running for starting as well but eventually fell behind in the race. There really wasn’t any other obvious snubs: the next best performing player on the roster is the unheralded off-season FA signing from Japan Griffin, who sits in the top 10 of most pitching categories at the halfway point and whose last start prior to the All Star Break got him to 10-2 with a 2.77 ERA. He was deservedly added as an injury replacement in the week leading up to the event. Ironically, all three players have been the subject of heavy trade rumors both leading up to the season and through out the season, as the team stays within shouting distance of the last wild card spot well into July.

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2025

• Nationals All-Star Representative: James Wood, MacKenzie Gore (both 1st timers)
• Snubs: CJ Abrams
• Narrative: No surprises here; both Wood and Gore have been near league-best this season. Is it surprising the team got two ASG representatives as a last-place team? Absolutely. Last year’s AS rep Abrams, if we were a 1st place team instead of last place, likely would have gotten his 2nd AS naming since he enters the AS break with a 144 OPS+ figure but is skipped due to the deep SS field in the National League. Wood also got into the HR derby (which we didn’t separately cover this year) but went one-round and out.

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2024

• Nationals All-Star Representative: CJ Abrams, Kyle Finnegan (both 1st time)
• Snubs: Trevor Williams (on dl)
• Narrative: Abrams was initially our sole representative until Finnegan was added at the last minute as an injury replacement. Williams should have been the named representative, sitting in the top 10 in most pitching categories, but got hurt a few weeks before the ASG and probably won’t return for weeks afterwards. We have a couple other players putting up decent seasons (Winker, Irvin) but none really All Star worthy.

Four Ex-nats appeared in the 2024 ASG, three of them starters (Harper, Turner, Soto). Amazingly Reynaldo Lopez represented Atlanta. Erick Fedde didn’t make the ASG but is considered one of the best trade prospects of the year. Wish we could have gotten these two guys to pitch like this for us.

2023

• Nationals All-Star Representative: Josiah Grey (1st)
• Snubs: None really
• Narrative. The Nats were bad this year, and were one of those teams that had to dig deep to find a sole representative. Grey was our opening day starter and was our best starter for the bulk of the year. We had some other players who ended up having decent seasons (Candelario, Thomas, Harvey) but they would have too much competition in their respective positions to earn a spot.

2022

• Nationals All-Star Representative: Juan Soto (2nd)
• Snubs: Josh Bell
• Narrative. Soto gets his 2nd ASG appearance, probably more on reputation than performance for 2022. He’s only hitting .243 as of the naming, but is getting on base at nearly a .400 clip thanks to his league-leading walk figure. Meanwhile, the best hitter on the team by far is Bell, who is snubbed from making his own 2nd ASG appearance likely a couple of weeks before he’s traded to a contender. Well, when you’re a last place team, you’re only getting one guy on the roster. Soto also gets into the Home Run Derby, which he wins. However, the story of the week was the leaking of contract talks breaking down, with Soto turning down a $440M deal and the team announcing they’re entertaining trade talks. Soto was traded a few weeks after the All-Star game, in a deal so monumental it has its own wikipedia page. We end up getting MacKenzie Gore, Robert Hassell III, C.J. Abrams, James Wood, Jarlin Susana, Luke Voit for Soto and Josh Bell package; Gore, Abrams, and Wood become all-stars within just a couple of years.

2021

• Nationals All-Star representatives: Trea Turner, Juan Soto, Kyle Schwarber, Max Scherzer* (substitute addition)
• Possible Snubs: none
• Narrative: The Nats scuffle into the all-star week on fumes thanks to losing 7 of 9 against NL West teams and suffering perhaps one too many injuries. Scherzer was not initially named, which I immediately listed as a huge snub. But then not only was he added as a replacement player … he was then named the damn starter. How is that possible? Anyway, among our other named players Schwarber’s injury prevents him from playing, but Soto gets into the Home Run derby, where he upsets #1 seed Shohei Ohtani before losing in the next round.

2020

• Nationals All-Star representatives: (No Game)
• Who would have made it: Juan Soto
• Narrative: Covid-19 forced the cancellation of the ASG and the shortening of the season from 162 to 60 games. Nonetheless, the season that Juan Soto put up should have been recognized, even un-officially. He hit .351/.490/.695 in 47 games for an astounding 221 OPS+ figure, the 33rd best ever season posted by this figure. But, since Soto got hit with Covid and had to miss the first two weeks … he did not qualify for batting titles and was left out of the ASG and MVP conversations.

2019

• Nationals All-Star representatives: Max Scherzer, Anthony Rendon
• Possible Snubs: Juan Soto, Stephen Strasburg, Howie Kendrick, Trevor Rosenthal (just kidding)
• Narrative: Rendon finally is named to an all-star team, having played in the shadows of other more well-known NL third basemen for  years.  Arbitrary Endpoints: Rendon is 7th in baseball among hitters in total fWAR since 2014.  7th.  In the entire league.  And this is his first ASG.  Meanwhile Scherzer is the obvious pick, though i’m not sure he gets the start this year.  Scherzer leads the NL in bWAR … but Hyun-Jin Ryu is having an amazing season and could get the nod (indeed, he has).  Soto’s numbers are solid, as good as his rookie campaign, but he started slow and the story-line surrounding the Nats this season has overshadowed his production.  Strasburg actually has more bWAR than Rendon … but his numbers are solid, not all-star good.  Kendrick would never have gotten a nod, but he should be a shoe-in for comeback player of the year for the season he’s having.  Others of note: Sean Doolittle was amazing for most of the first half but has tired and his numbers slipped.  Patrick Corbin‘s debut season has been solid, not flashy, and he has the same issues as Strasburg had.

Post publishing update: neither of our two representatives are actually going to Cleveland.  Rendon staying home to rehab a nagging quad injury, and Scherzer is traveling but will not pitch b/c he threw a start just ahead of the game.  Both players were replaced by non-Nats … which was a shame b/c a like-for-like with Strasburg for Scherzer seemed like the right thing to do.

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2018

• Nationals All-Star representatives: Bryce Harper*, Max Scherzer*, Sean Doolittle
• Possible Snubs: Juan Soto, Trea Turner, Anthony Rendon
• Narrative: For the home-town All Star Game, Harper gets the starting nod from the fans despite his abhorrent season at the plate (his slash line on 7/8/18: .219/.371/.475).  However, by making the ASG, Harper now keeps his promise to participate in the Home Run Derby one last time before hitting free agency.   There’s no real “snubs” on this Nationals team; The #2 player on the team in terms of seasonal bWAR is Trea Turner but he’s not exactly having a head-turning season.  He was named to the “last 5 ballot” but was a huge long-shot to make it (update; he didn’t: the very deserving Jesus Aguilar did).  Anthony Rendon is having his typical under-rated season and got no love from the voters over the more famous Nolan Arenado (a common refrain when it comes to Gold Gloves/Silver Sluggers too).  None of our starters besides Scherzer are really deserving; Stephen Strasburg was having a decent but not spectacular season but missed a month and is on the D/L.  Nor is any of the bullpen past Doolittle.  Its an odd-season where a team-wide malaise is contributing to the team hovering at .500 at the All Star Break.  Only Juan Soto really is deserving … but he was never going to make the ASG (not when recent more spectacular rookies failed to make it) and thanks to his missing all of April and most of May he wasn’t on any ballots and may struggle to win the RoY over guys who have played longer this season.  Scherzer is named to the team on 7/8/18 was named the  NL starter for the 2nd year running on 7/16/18.

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2017

• Nationals All-Star representatives: Bryce Harper*, Daniel Murphy*, Ryan Zimmerman*, Max Scherzer*, Stephen Strasburg
• Snubs: Anthony Rendon, Gio Gonzalez
• Narrative: For the second  year in a row, the Nats are well and properly represented in the All Star Game.  We have three starters named in the field, including Zimmerman who beats out a slew of 1B sluggers in the NL to not only make the team but get his first start.  Its also likely i’ll be editing this post and adding in Scherzer as an additional starter; he is the obvious choice to start the game for the NL given his first half production (7/10/17 update: yes indeed we did).  Rendon is having a very quiet solid season and is in the “last 5” popular vote, but he seems unlikely to win given that last year’s MVP Kris Bryant is also in the voting (Update: neither guy got in).  Gonzalez misses out despite having a better first half than Strasburg by nearly any statistic; he’s having a career year but seems unlikely to get rewarded with his 3rd ASG appearance.  There’s no other real snub from our 2017 team; certainly there’s nobody in the bullpen meriting a spot, and Trea Turner‘s torrid 2016 2nd half did not translate into the 2017 season (not to mention, he’s had two separate D/L trips).  Once again i’m slightly perturbed that Harper continues to refuse to participate in the HR derby; why the reticence?  Its a fun event that is quickly becoming better than the actual game itself and practically every other slugger is participating.  Is he afraid to lose?  On a larger scale, i’m really happy to see (finally) that deserving rookies are named: Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger are both named and are both on the inside track for ROY awards; too many times in the past we see deserving rookies unnamed.  On July 10th, the fourth Nat starter was named: Scherzer got the starting pitcher nod, a first for the Nats.  August Update: Rendon’s omission is looking even more ridiculous; he’s top 5 in the league in bWAR.

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2016

• Nationals All-Star representatives: Bryce Harper*, Stephen Strasburg, Daniel Murphy, Wilson Ramos, Max Scherzer (named as replacement for Strasburg on 7/8/16),
• Possible Snubs: Danny Espinosa, Tanner Roark
• Narrative: The four obvious candidates from the Nats this year were all initially correctly selected, though voting shenanigans out of Chicago elected Ben Zobrist over Daniel Murphy by a scant 500 votes.   I thought perhaps Strasburg would have a chance to start the game, given his 12-0 record, but it seems the team pre-empted any such thought when Scherzer’s naming occurred.  For the first time writing this post, I can’t really name any “snubs” and the team has (finally?) earned the proper respect it deserves in terms of naming its players properly.  Espinosa had a week for the ages just prior to the end of voting but really stood little chance of selection in the grand scheme of things.  He’s not really a “snub” but is worthy of mention based on his resurgent year.  At the break, Espinosa ranked 3rd in NL fWAR but 7th or 8th in bWAR thanks to differing defensive value metrics, so maybe/maybe not on him being a “snub.”  As pointed out in the comments, even I missed the sneaky good season Roark is having; he’s 12th in the NL in bWAR at the break and 9th in fWAR but was left off in favor of any number of starters that stand below him in value rankings.  Unfortunately for fans (and for Harper’s “Make Baseball Fun again” campaign, he opted to skip the Home Run Derby again.  I guess its kind of like the NBA superstars skipping the dunk contest; the Union should really do a better job of helping out in this regard.  The new format is fantastic and makes the event watchable again; is it ego keeping him from getting beat by someone like Giancarlo Stanton?

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2015

• Nationals All-Star representatives: Bryce Harper*, Max Scherzer
• Possible Snubs: Yunel Escobar, Drew Storen
• Narrative: Harper not only made it in as a starter for the 2nd time, he led the NL in votes, setting a MLB record for total votes received.  This is no surprise; Harper’s easily in the MVP lead for the NL thanks to his amazing first half (his split at the half-way point of the season: .347/.474/.722 with 25 homers and an astounding 225 OPS+).  I guess he won’t be earning the “Most overrated player” award next year.  That Harper is electing to skip the Home run derby in a disappointment; his father is nursing an arm injury can cannot throw to him in the event.  In a weird year for the Nats, the only other regular worth mentioning is newly acquired Escobar, who is hitting above .300 and filling in ably at multiple positions that, prior to this year, he had never played.  Storen is having another excellent regular season … but at a time when mandatory members from each team often leads to other closers being selected (there are 5 NL closers and 7 AL relievers), the odds of him making the All-Star team were always going to be slim.  Scherzer deservedly makes the team and probably would have been the NL starter; he’s got sub 2.00 ERA and FIP and leads all NL pitchers in WAR at the mid-way point of the season.  But his turn came up in the final game of the first half, making him ineligible for the game and forcing his replacement on the roster.

As a side note, the 2015 All-Star game will go down as the “Ballot-Gate” game thanks to MLB’s short-sighted plan to allow 30+ online ballots per email address.  This led to severe “ballot stuffing” by the Kansas City Royals fans, led to MLB  having to eliminate 60 million+ fraudulent ballots, but still led to several Royals being elected starters over more deserving candidates.

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2014

• Nationals All-Star representative: Jordan Zimmermann (Update post-publishing: Zimmermann strained a bicep, and had to withdraw from the ASG.  For a bit it looked like the Nats wouldn’t even have a representative, until Tyler Clippard was named on 7/13/14).
• Possible Snubs: Adam LaRoche, Anthony Rendon, Rafael Soriano, Drew Storen
• Narrative: Zimmermann’s been the best SP on the best pitching staff in the majors this year, and thus earns his spot.  I find it somewhat odd that a first place team (or near to it) gets just one representative on the team (as discussed above).  Rendon tried to make the team via the “last man in” voting, but historically Nationals have not fared well in this competition (especially when better known players from large markets are in the competition, aka Anthony Rizzo from the Chicago Cubs), and indeed Rendon finished 4th in the last-man voting.  LaRoche is having a very good season, almost single handedly carrying the Nats offense while major parts were out injured, but he’s never going to beat out the slew of great NL first basemen (Joey Votto couldn’t even get into this game).  Soriano has quietly put together one of the best seasons of any closer in the game; at the time of this writing he has a 1.03 ERA and a .829 whip; those are Dennis Eckersley numbers.  But, the farce that is the all-star game selection criteria (having to select one player from each team) means that teams need a representative, and deserving guys like Soriano get squeezed.  Then, Soriano indignantly said he wouldn’t even go if named as a replacement … likely leading to Clippard’s replacement selection.  The same goes for non-closer Storen, who sports a sub 2.00 ERA on the year.  Advanced stats columnists (Keith Law) also think that Stephen Strasburg is a snub but I’m not entirely sure: he may lead the NL in K’s right now and have far better advanced numbers than “traditional,” but its hard to make an argument that a guy with a 7-6 record and a 3.50+ ERA is all-star worthy.

2013

• Nationals All-Star representatives: Bryce Harper*, Jordan Zimmermann
• Snubs: Stephen Strasburg, Ian Desmond
• Narrative: Harper comes in 3rd in the NL outfielder voting, ahead of some big-time names, to become only the second Nationals position player elected as an All-Star starter.  He was 4th in the final pre-selection vote, so a big last minute push got him the starter spot.   Harper also becomes the first National to participate in the Home Run Derby.   Zimmermann was 12-3 heading into the game and was on mid-season Cy Young short lists in July in a breakout season.  Strasburg’s advanced stats are all better than Zimmermann’s, but his W/L record (4-6 as the ASG) means he’s not an all-star.  It also probably doesn’t help that he missed a few weeks.  Desmond loses out to Troy Tulowitzki, Everth Cabrera and Jean Segura.  Tulowitzki was having a very solid year and was a deserving elected starter, while Cabrera and Segura are both having breakout seasons.  Desmond was on the “Final vote” roster, but my vote (and most others’ I’m guessing) would be for Yasiel Puig there ([Editor Update: Desmond and Puig lost out to Freddie Freeman: I still wished that Puig finds a way onto the roster but ultimately he did not and I believe the ASG was diminished because of it).   Gio Gonzalez, Ryan Zimmerman, and Rafael Soriano are all having solid but unspectacular years and miss out behind those having great seasons.

2012

• Nationals All-Star representatives: Stephen Strasburg, Gio Gonzalez, Ian Desmond, Bryce Harper
• Possible Snubs: Adam LaRoche, Craig Stammen
• Narrative: The two SPs Strasburg and Gonzalez were the obvious candidates, and my personal prediction was that they’d be the only two candidates selected.  Gonzalez’ first half was a prelude to his 21-win, 3rd place Cy Young season.  The inclusion of Desmond is a surprise, but also a testament to how far he’s come as a player in 2012.  Harper was a last-minute injury replacement, but had earned his spot by virtue of his fast start as one of the youngest players in the league.  Of the “snubs,” LaRoche has had a fantastic come back season in 2012 but fared little shot against better, more well-known NL first basemen.  Stammen was our best bullpen arm, but like LaRoche fared little chance of getting selected during a year when the Nats had two deserving pitchers selected.

2011

• Nationals All-Star representatives: Tyler Clippard
• Possible Snubs: Danny Espinosa, Michael Morse, Drew Storen, Jordan Zimmermann
• Narrative: While Clippard was (arguably) the Nats best and most important reliever, I think Zimmermann was a more rightful choice.  He was 10th in the league in ERA at the time of the selections and has put in a series of dominant performances.  Meanwhile Espinosa was on pace for a 28-homer season and almost a certain Rookie-of-the-Year award (though a precipitous fall-off in the 2nd half cost him any realistic shot at the ROY), and perhaps both players are just too young to be known around the league.  Lastly Morse is certainly known and he merited a spot in the “last man in” vote sponsored by MLB (though he fared little chance against popular players in this last-man-in voting).

2010

• Nationals All-Star representatives: Matt Capps
• Possible Snubs: Adam Dunn, Josh Willingham, Ryan Zimmerman, Stephen Strasburg
• Narrative: Capps was clearly deserving, having a breakout season as a closer after his off-season non-tender from the Pirates.  The 3-4-5 hitters Zimmerman-Dunn-Willingham all had dominant offensive seasons as the team improved markedly from its 103-loss season.  But perhaps the surprise non-inclusion was Strasburg, who despite only having a few starts as of the all-star break was already the talk of baseball.  I think MLB missed a great PR opportunity to name him to the team to give him the exposure that the rest of the national media expected.  But in the end, Capps was a deserving candidate and I can’t argue that our hitters did anything special enough to merit inclusion.

2009

• Nationals All-Star representatives: Ryan Zimmerman
• Possible Snubs: Adam Dunn
• Narrative: The addition of Dunn and Willingham to the lineup gave Zimmerman the protection he never had, and he produced with his career-best season.  His first and deserved all-star appearance en-route to a 33 homer season.  Dunn continued his monster homer totals with little all-star recognition.

2008

• Nationals All-Star representatives: Cristian Guzman
• Possible Snubs: Jon Rauch
• Narrative: The first of two “hitting rock-bottom” seasons for the team; no one really merited selection.  Zimmerman was coming off of hamate-bone surgery in November 2007 and the team was more or less awful across the board.  Rauch performed ably after Cordero went down with season-ending (and basically career-ending) shoulder surgery.   Guzman’s selection a great example of why one-per-team rules don’t make any sense.  Guzman ended up playing far longer than he deserved in the game itself by virtue of the 15-inning affair.

2007

• Nationals All-Star representatives: Dmitri Young
• Possible Snubs: Ryan Zimmerman, Shawn Hill (though I wouldn’t argue for either)
• Narrative: Young gets a deserved all-star appearance en route to comeback player of the year.  Zimmerman played a full season but didn’t dominate.  Our 2007 staff gave starts to 13 different players, most of whom were out of the league within the next year or two.  Not a good team.

2006

• Nationals All-Star representatives: Alfonso Soriano*
• Possible Snubs: Nick Johnson, Ryan Zimmerman, Chad Cordero
• Narrative: Soriano made the team as an elected starter, the first time the Nats have had such an honor.  Our pitching staff took massive steps backwards and no starter came even close to meriting a spot.  Cordero was good but not lights out as he had been in 2005.  Soriano’s 40-40 season is a poster child for “contract year” production and he has failed to come close to such production since.  The team was poor and getting worse.  Johnson had a career year but got overshadowed by bigger, better first basemen in the league (a recurring theme for our first basemen over the years).

2005

• Nationals All-Star representatives: Livan Hernandez, Chad Cordero
• Possible Snubs: Nick Johnson, John Patterson.
• Narrative: The Nats went into the All Star break surprisingly in first place, having run to a 50-31 record by the halfway point.  Should a first place team have gotten more than just two representatives?  Perhaps.  But the team was filled with non-stars and played far over its head to go 50-31 (as evidenced by the reverse 31-50 record the rest of the way).

It’s always fun when Philadelphia comes into town. Three of their best hitters are former Nats (Turner, Harper, and Schwarber) and a massive number of DC area residents are PA transplants more than willing to scarf up cheap seats, drink beer, and make noise.

This week’s trip though had a somewhat ominous feeling. That’s because this week may finally have been the breaking point for the cobbled together bullpen for this erstwhile wild card contender.

• On Tuesday, the bullpen gave up three in the 8th and eight in the 9th to blow two leads in two innings.
• On Wednesday, they gave up 2 in the 9th to blow another lead.
• On Thursday, they turned a 5-0 lead into a 10-5 loss, this time giving up five in the 9th, including a F-You homer from or former prodigal son Harper.

That’s, not good. Those are debilitating losses for an offense that did its job and demoralizing for starters who put the team in position to win. Nearly every guy in the bullpen over the last three days showed the kind of ineptitude that would lead to demotions or outright releases on a real team.

• Tuesday it was Lovelady for 3, Lord for 6, and Schultz for 2
• Wednesday it was Ribalta and Lovelady for 1 apiece
• Thursday it was Parker for 3, Varland for 5

The only relievers not named for ineptitude this week were Poulin (the opener on Tuesday who also got a hold Wednesday) and our closer Beeter (who blew saves on both Tuesday and Thursday but somehow avoided having any ERs).

Fun fact, and a reason I began writing this post: I read someone on twitter point out that the Nats relievers now have had 48 Save Opportunities this season and have blown HALF of them. Half! Mitchell Parker has as many blown saves by himself as the entire Houston Astros team this season, and our closer Beeter isn’t far behind, having padded his stats this week. Pretty awesome statistic.

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I’ve been kind of beating the drum on this bullpen for a while, having been thrown together primarily with MLFAs, Waiver claims, and low-level trade acquisitions. Somehow the team has remained above .500 for weeks thanks to an amazing offense in spite of the pitching staff deficiencies. But this week, it finally collapsed.

There’s five 40-man relievers in AAA right now, four of them down there because they weren’t even as good as the crew we have in the majors. Henry has a 6.00 ERA in the majors this season, Granillo a 9.64 ERA, Kent a 6+ ERA in limited innings, and Schulz at 5.87. We also have a just-acquired waiver claim in Justin Lawrence, who may be next in line for the firing squad if the team decides to demote one of these guys before the weekend series.

On top of that, the team has spent most of the last 2 months grabbing every MLFA they could find looking for reinforcements. This team now has 35 MLFAs in its system signed this year, all up and down the system, many of them arms. They’ve got 26yr old MLFAs in rookie ball, they’ve got Indy league castoffs up and down the system, they’ve got a 29yr old MLFA from the Mexican leagues in AA. All looking for found gold apparently. Havn’t really found it yet, but we’re running out of time.

Is this week’s results the end of our Wild Card dreams? Well, no, but they’re not looking good. We lost 3 games to a Wild Card competitor and now sit 3 games out of the last wild card spot. We can get healthy fast; our next six games are away to AL East competition that normally would be competitive, but are not this year (Baltimore and Boston). However, these two teams are not easy to beat, especially on the road. Then we host Pittsburgh and Houston, both hovering around .500 like us. Our last series before the ASB is hosting the Yankees, which could be a telling series to take us into the break.

If this team scuffles through its next few series, then gets pulverized by the Yankees, that could be the signal to the front office to Sell, Sell, Sell. We’ll see.

As I write this post on 6/17/26, the Washington Nationals baseball team sits at 39-35. Four games over .500 for the first time since the 2019 season, and if the season ended today they’ve be the last NL Wild Card.

To say that I’m generally shocked the team is in this position is putting things lightly.

When the team cut bait on its pre-FA stars in July 2021 (Schwarber, Turner, Scherzer) and then again in Aug 2022 (Soto), I figured we were on another 5 year rebuilding path, not unlike the one we endured as fans starting in 2008. That rebuild plan ran into a bit of a snag though, as ownership turned over and the new group refused to spend money to augment the roster when injuries took out key planned contributors. A real gap in player development thanks to basically 5 straight blown drafts from 2016-2020 doomed the team from really having any chance to compete without those FAs, and we drifted for years.

The new regime, marked by its openness to analytics and its youth, seemed like it was preparing the 2026 season to be a 60-win team, trading away its best arm for prospects, grabbing a half a dozen waiver claims throughout the beginning of the year, and starting the 2026 season with fully 1/4 of its opening day roster being comprised of Rule5, Waiver claims, or MLFAs while sending down a slew of guys who ended the 2025 season on the MLB roster.

I was convinced this was a “bottoming out” technique, just grabbing spare parts off the waiver wire to see who stuck at the expense of guys like Crews, or Hassell, or Parker.

Well, damned if it doesn’t look like its working. We’re nearly to the halfway point of the season and the team is at 39-35. How? Well, somehow this team leads the league in Runs scored, and they sit 3rd (behind only the LAD and NYY) in terms of total team wRC+. That’s patently amazing. Wood and Abrams of course, but Ruiz is crushing the ball all of a sudden, Garcia is holding his own, Lile continues to be productive, found-gold Mead is hitting for a ton of power, and even most of the fringe infielders are holding their own.

The starters collectively aren’t great for the season… but after weathering the April storm, the starters have gone from dead last in multiple metrics to middle-of the road. The Relievers are still awful, but just less awful as the manager has used openers freely (a first for the organization), has not been afraid to call up guys to give innings, and we have a few guys who we can now count on when the chips are down. The team continues almost weekly to sign additional veteran MLFAs, who are waiting in the wings like army reinforcements, ready to come up and help out and see who can stick.

It’s amazing really. They’ve won 10 of their last 11 series! How is that possible?

Now for the big question; you can’t possibly sell at the trade deadline if you’re in playoff contention, can you?? The entire off-season was talking about flipping Gore and Abrams … you can’t possibly break this team up now, can you? Now, if they go on a swoon and go on a 10-20 stretch … sure. That’s probably be too big of a gap to overcome. but, again, they’ve won 10 of their last 11 series; they’re more likely to go 20-10 than 10-20 right now.

Anyway. It seems like I rarely write about the big league team since .. well, tracking prospects and dreaming on guys in Low-A is more fun than hyper analyzing a second division team, which they’ve been basically from the moment they won the 2019 World Series. But fair is fair; this rag tag team seems like it could absolutely be in the playoffs in October. Amazing.

We finally get the last major pundit chiming in on the state of our system’s prospects, on this 24th day of April 2026. Eric Longenhagen and his Fangraphs crew have published their top 41 for the system. They are the last of the major pundits I track (Baseball America, MLBpipeline, Keith Law, Kiley McDaniel) plus more fringe prospect shops (Prospects1500, Prospects361, ProspectsLive, and BaseballProspectus, which hides everything behind a paywall i’m not willing to buy).

With this data, we have a complete set of “pre-2026 season” rankings for the system, and I will now work on my own such ranking. I published a top 125 at the end of last season, which had a few players ranked wildly out of place in retrospect, plus we’ve added at least 14 prospects who will feature in the top 50 or so and have released/traded at least 8-10 others who I ranked at the time, so I’ll work on a re-rank and see where things land. Ranking 125 guys out of a system that has 165 players domestically and another 30-40 in the DSL, 95% of whom won’t ever even get to Florida, may seem like a fools errand, but hey, this is what we do 🙂

Here’s the Fangraphs top 41 for our system, which seems like an odd number but is driven by the total number of our prospects who Longenhagen determines to have a Future Value (FV) of 35+ or more (FV runs on the typical scouting 20-80 scale, and anyone 50 or above is projected to be at least an “Average Everyday Player.” We’re projected to have just five of these players out of this top 41, which may temper your opinion of the system).

Fangraphs	First Name	Last Name	Position
1	Eli	Willits	SS
2	Jarlin	Susana	RHP (Starter)
3	Harry	Ford	C
4	Ronny	Cruz	SS
5	Travis	Sykora	RHP (Starter)
6	Alejandro	Rosario	RHP
7	Landon	Harmon	RHP (Starter)
8	Miguel	Sime Jr.	RHP (Starter)
9	Jackson	Kent	LHP (Starter)
10	Devin	Fitz-Gerald	SS
11	Davian	Garcia	RHP (Starter)
12	Luis	Perales	RHP (Starter)
13	Luke	Dickerson	SS/CF
14	Gavin	Fein	SS
15	Yoel	Tejeda Jr.	RHP (Starter)
16	Nauris	De La Cruz	OF (Corner)
17	Isalas	Suarez	OF (CF)
18	Samil	Serrano	OF (Corner)
19	Alex	Clemmey	LHP (Starter)
20	Abimelec	Ortiz	1B/OF (Corner)
21	Ethan	Petry	1B/OF (Corner)
22	Riley	Cornelio	RHP (Starter)
23	Sir Jamison	Jones	C
24	Caleb	Lomavita	C
25	Seaver	King	SS
26	Coy	James	SS
27	Marconi	German	SS
28	Eriq	Swan	RHP (Starter)
29	Christian	Franklin	OF (CF)
30	Yeremy	Cabrera	OF (corner)
31	R.J.	Sales	RHP (Starter)
32	Josh	Randall	RHP (Starter)
33	Andry	Lara	RHP (Starter)
34	Jorgelys	Mota	SS
35	Angel	Ramirez	OF (Corner)
36	Kevin	Bazzell	C
37	Angel	Feliz	SS/3B
38	Brayan	Cortesia	SS
39	Daniel	Hernandez	C
40	Jose	Feliz	RHP (Starter)
41	Sam	Brown	OF (Corner)

Phew. There’s a lot to talk about here. I’d say at least a third of these players are ranked completely at odds with the entire rest of the industry. So, how did we get here, and what does it mean? Well, Longenhagen’s FV driven rankings is almost entirely about Ceiling, so you’re going to see teenagers who are performing ranked well higher in his methodology than you might see elsewhere, where pundits take a more balanced floor/ceiling/age approach. I’ll call out the outliers as we go.

• 1-2-3 Willits-Susana-Ford is mostly unassailable. You can quibble about not having Sykora higher, but basically every other shop has the exact same top 5 right now (these 3 plus Sykora and Fein).
• Ronny Cruz at #4. that’s crazy high; most others have him in the mid 20s if at all. Prophetic? he’s already been promoted to High-A at age 19 and showed up there and hit 2 more homers in his first three games, likely pushing Angel Feliz off Short for now.
• Rosario at #6 is also well above where anyone else has him, and I really don’t get this ranking. He didn’t pitch in 2023 after getting drafted. Sure, he looked awesome in his 2024 pro debut as he should have; he was a 3-year starter in Miami’s rotation pitching in A-ball. The problem is this: he missed all of 2025 with injury, gets traded, and THEN gets Tommy John. So he’ll miss all of 2026 and may not be ready for 2027. How is that possibly the 6th best prospect in our system? He’s going to be Rule-5 eligible this coming December with a grand total of 88 pro innings!
• He’s got Sime way higher than others, but from what we’ve seen so far in Fredericksburg this may be warranted (23 Ks in 11 innings). Sime sits right behind Harmon, who has also come out of the gate shining for F-burg.
• Jackson Kent at #9. Ok, so I like Kent, and I think his numbers aren’t flattering his capabilities so far, but top 10 in the system? For a command and control lefty? Seems high.
• He’s clearly high man on Davian Garcia at #11, who surprisingly made the AA rotation to start 2026 after barely pitching in Wilmington. Maybe there’s something to Longenhagen’s madness.
• He loves Sir Jamison Jones … who has been kind of forgotten with the Willits draft, all the other HS guys pouring in, and all the trade acquisitions. But he’s holding down the fort as starting Catcher in Low-A with all these other teenagers, which must make for a fun time on the bus rides.
• He’s got two 2026 IFA signings in his top 20 (Suarez and Serrano). Hard to pass judgement here, other than to say that Longenhagen is probably the most plugged-in guy to the DR scene.

We’ve talked about nothing but elevated prospects so far. Well, for all the guys above who are super high, there had to be guys who got knocked down.

• Gavin Fein; Top 5 on every other board and as high as #2 on Keith Law’s board … is #14 here. Interesting. He struggled in his pro debut last year, got traded, then immediately got hurt for us, with little idea of how bad it is. We know he had off-season surgery on a bone spur, which can explain his pro debut crummy numbers; is this a follow-on injury? Nobody knows.
• Alex Clemmey: What the heck is he doing at #18? Ok, so no he can’t find the plate right now, but he’s a 20yr old in AA for the second year in a row. If he was in High-A right now with a 2.47 ERA like he had last year, he’d likely be top 5. You can’t punish a guy for punching way above his weight class and not putting up sub 2.00 numbers.
• He’s a bit low on Ethan Petry, likely thinking he’s a 1B-limited bat. Fair enough. He’ll hit until he doesn’t. There’s nobody blocking his path in AA in the “1B-corner OF” realm from a top-end prospect perspective with a MLFA, a Rule-5 draftee, and a minor trade acquisition starting at 1B, LF, and DH respectively.
• Here’s where things get weird: Seaver King is at #25. Ok, that just seems ridiculous. Even if you thought he was over rated via his 2025 season … we’re still talking about a 1st round pick who is a starting SS in AA with solid numbers.
• Angel Feliz is way down at #37, nearly out of his rankings, despite mostly being an upper teen in other places. I wonder what Eric sees here.

Ranking to 41 should capture every name one could think of … but there’s some curious omissions here:

• Yohandy Morales: totally missing. Which we’re starting to see more and more of, as some believe he may be in the Andrew Pinckney camp of stalled AAA players who couldn’t even turn themselves into 4-A taxi squad guys.
• Sam Peterson; completely missing as well, and a bit more shocking. This is a guy who was top 10 in other lists, a true CF with power and speed. Not sure what we’re missing here.
• No love for our POTY Glasser, but no surprise either.
• Previous Bonus babies like Hurtado and Vaquero have dropped out.
• Shockingly, no Elijah Green. (kidding).

Conclusion: Interesting list here. It made me question some of the spots i’ve got players ranked at in my current top 100 and something draft rankings spreadsheet. I may have to go back to the drawing board.

One of these random files I have maintained since 2005 is a history of our Opening days. Now that we’ve had both our opening day on the road and our 2026 home Opener, here’s that data updated for 2026.

Home Opener Attendance and Weather through the years

The weather for 2026’s home opener was solid: 62 and partly cloudy is a heck of a lot better t han it has been in the past. 2011? 41, overcast, windy. 2022 a 4+ hour delay, 52 and rainy.

I think the best weather we ever had for a home opener may have been the infamous Philly invasion: 1pm 80-degree and sunny day. Too bad it was ruined by so many South Jersey bros who had been drinking for 3 hours by the time they got to the stadium.

• 2026: 41,161 (2:45 fri game, 62, partly cloudy)
• 2025: 41,231 (4:05 thurs game, 57, sunny, slight wind)
• 2024: 40,405 (4:05 tues game, 53, cloudy, slight wind)
• 2023: 35,756 (105 thurs game, 45 degrees and sunny)
• 2022: 35,052 (7:05 thurs game (pushed back from 4:05, then delayed to 8:21 weather. 52 degrees, cloudy, rainy)
• 2021: 4,801 (4:05 tuesday game, 74 degrees, partly cloudy, 5mph wind)
• 2020: 0 (7:09 thurs game, 90, partly cloudy, 7mph wind)
• 2019: 42,263 (1:07 thurs game, 56, partly cloudy, no wind)
• 2018: 42,477 (1:08 thurs game, 42, partly cloudy, slight wind)
• 2017: 42,744 (1:05 monday game, 66 and cloudy, slight wind)
• 2016: 41,650 (4:05 thursday game, 60 and 1.5hr rain delay)
• 2015: 42,295 (4:05 monday game, 75 and gorgeous)
• 2014: 42,834 (1:05 friday game, 50s and overcast)
• 2013: 45,274 (1:05 monday game, 60 and beautiful)
• 2012: 40,907 (1:05 thursday game 56, partly cloudy)
• 2011: 39,055 (1:05 thursday game, 41 degrees and overcast)
• 2010: 41,290 (1pm game monday, beautiful weather 80s and sunny): This was Phillies Invasaion
• 2009: 40,386 (3pm game on a monday, chilly 53degr and overcast).
• 2008: 39,389 (season and stadium opener), 8pm sunday night, Braves, nat’l tv clear but cold.
• 2007: 40,389 (in rfk, 1pm game vs Florida, 72 degrees
• 2006: 40,516 (in rfk, tuesday day game vs Mets, 72 degr and sunny)
• 2005: 45,596 (in rfk, debut of entire franchise, 62 degr and clear, evening game).

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Home opener Results and Box Scores

The Nats are just 6-16 all time through 2026 in their home openers, a pretty interesting stat given that for most of the 2010s they were one of the best teams in the sport.

• 2026: L Dodgers d Nats 13-6
• 2025: L Phillies d Nats 7-3
• 2024: L Pirates d Nats 8-4
• 2023: L Braves d Nats 7-2
• 2022: L Mets d Nats 5-1
• 2021: W Nats d Braves 6-5
• 2020: L Yankees d Nats 4-1
• 2019: L Mets d Nats 2-0
• 2018: L Mets d Nats 8-2
• 2017: W Nats d Marlins 4-2
• 2016: L Marlins d Nats 6-4
• 2015: L Mets d Nats 3-1
• 2014: L Braves d Nats 2-1
• 2013: W Nats d Marlins 2-0
• 2012: W Nats d Reds 2-0
• 2011: L Braves d Nats 2-0
• 2010: L Phillies d Nats 11-1
• 2009: L Phillies d Nats 9-8
• 2008: W Nats d Braves 3-2
• 2007: L Marlins d Nats 9-2
• 2006: L Mets d Nats 7-1
• 2005: W Nats d Diamondbacks 5-3

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Nats Season Openers.
We are slightly better in Season openers: Record: 9-13. We’ve been home 13 times, away 9 times.

• 2026: Away: Nats d Cubs 10-4. WP Lord, LP Boyd (Starters Cavalli, Boyd).
• 2025: Home: Phillies d Nats 7-3, WP Alvarado, LP Poche (Starters: MaKenzie, Wheeler)
• 2024: Away: Reds d Nats 8-2. WP: Montas. LP Grey (Starters: Grey, Montes).
• 2023: Home: Braves d Nationals 7-2. WP: Luetge, LP Corbin (starters: Fried, Corbin):
• 2022: Home: Mets d Nationals 5-1. WP: Megill, LP Corbin (starters same):
• 2021: Home: Nationals d Braves 6-5. WP: Hudson, LP Smith (starters Scherzer v Smyly):
• 2020: Home: Yankees d Nationals 4-1. WP: Cole, LP Scherzer (starters same):
• 2019: Home: Mets d Nationals 2-0. WP: deGrom, LP Scherzer (starters same):
• 2018: Away: Nats d Reds 2-0. WP Scherzer, LP Bailey (starters same):
• 2017: home: Nats d Marlins 4-2. WP Strasburg, LP Phelps (Starters Strasburg, Volquez):
• 2016: away: Nats d Braves 4-3. WP Treinen, LP O’Flarity (starters Scherzer, Teheran):
• 2015: home: Mets d Nats 3-1. WP: Bartolo Colon. LP: Max Scherzer
• 2014: away: Nats d Mets 9-7. WP Aaron Barrett, LP Familia (starters Strasburg, dillon Gee):
• 2013: home: Nats d Marlins 2-0. WP: Stephen Strasburg. LP: Ricky Nolasco.
• 2012: away: Nats d Cubs 2-1. WP Clippard, LP Marmol (starters: Strasburg and Ryan Dempster):
• 2011: home: Braves d Nats 2-0. WP: Derek Lowe. LP: Livan Hernandez.
• 2010: home: Phillies d Nats 11-1. WP: Roy Halladay. LP: John Lannan
• 2009: away: Marlins d Nats 12-6. WP: Nolasco, LP; Lannan
• 2008: home: Nats d Braves 3-2. WP: Rauch. LP: Moylan (Starters: Tim Hudson and Odalis Perez)
• 2007: home: Marlins d Nats 9-2. WP: Dontrelle Willis. LP: John Patterson
• 2006: away: Mets d Nats 3-2. WP: Glavine, LP: Hernandez.
• 2005: away: Phillies d Nats 8-4. WP: Lieber, LP: Hernandez.

Now that the 2026 Opening Day is past us, and I’ve updated my internal spreadsheet that tracks Opening Day starters over the years, which lets me bring you the following useless Trivia realted to Opening Day starters.

Here’s a link to my Opening day starter xls, which is also updated along the right hand side in the Links section. It is also worth noting that Baseball Reference of course maintains similar information. Here for example is the canonical opening day list of lineups (pitchers and players) for the Washington Nationals franchise. And here’s the list of all 30 teams’ opening day lineups for the 2025 season, with similar data for all past seasons). I can’t quite find a similar resource to just the starters across all 30 teams, but I’m sure it’s there somewhere, so I continue to maintain this XLS and the streak/trivia information.

Ok, that being said, here’s some useless trivia related to Opening Day Starters:

• First time Opening Day Starters for 20262: 13 of the 30 teams used first-time starters this year. That’s in line with the past few years (12 in 2025, 14 in 2024) and continues the trend of overall churn in starting pitching in the sport.
• Current Active Leader of Opening Day Starts: this remains the ageless Richmond-native Justin Verlander, with 12. He did 9 in Detroit, then another 3 in Houston. Clayton Kershaw was #2 but has now retired. Tied for 2nd now is Chris Sale (who extended his streak this year with Atlanta) and our former Ace Max Scherzer (who will slot into the back-end of Toronto’s rotation as he chases one more ring).
• Current Active Consecutive streak: Logan Webb, who made his 5th straight for San Francisco and was quickly bombed by the powerful Yankees lineup on the Netflix day before the real opening day nonsense that broke a ton of traditions.
• Current Leader of Consecutive Opening Day Starts: Verlander made 7 straight with Detroit; Webb is creeping up on him, and we have a slew of guys who just made their 3rd or 4th straight opening day starts … including Detroit’s Tarik Skubal, who seems like a great candidate to push for this record if/when he joins a new team.

Historical records:

• Most Opening Day Starts in History: Tom Seaver (16).  Tied for 2nd place with 14 is Jack Morris, Randy Johnson, Steve Carlton, Walter Johnson
• Most Consecutive Opening Day Starts in History: Jack Morris; all 14 of his starts were in a row, Mr. Durability, and Mr. Hall of Famer thanks to the Veteran’s committee.

Nats Records:

• Max Scherzer is the Nats franchise leader in Opening day starts with 6. Do you think he’ll go into the Hall of Fame wearing a Nats hat? I tend to think so; he elevated himself to HoFame levels during his time in Washington.
• Strasburg is 2nd with four: he took the ball opening day in the 3 seasons before the Scherzer acquisition, then got it in 2017 mid Scherzer contract. Reminder: $35M of the Nats $92M opening payroll is going to Strasburg, who will get another $35M next year too in what may be the worst free agency contract ever handed out.
• Cade Cavalli becomes the 10th player in the Nats 22 year history to take the ball on opening day.
• Odalis Perez remains the most unlikely Opening Day starter, getting the ball in our bottoming-out year of 2008.

Lastly, here’s some interesting team observations for 2025’s Opening day Starters

• Cavalli is the 4th straight different Opening day starter we’ve had, not really a surprise to Nats fans who are watching the second straight reboot of the franchise. Cavalli seems likely to lead the line again though, since his competitors have either been traded (Gore) or are injured again (Grey) and our top starter prospects remain lower in the minors or hurt.
• Some teams have consistency, others are just all over the road. Cincinnati threw Virginia-born Andrew Abbot; he’s their 11th different opening day starter in 12 years.
• Other teams who can’t find a consistent ace: Tampa Bay (8 different guys in last 9 years),
• Texas had a crazy run where they used 15 different starters in the 16 years running from 2009 to 2024, but have now thrown Eovaldi 3 years’ running.

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Today 3/25/26, the Washington Nationals, a franchise in Major League Baseball purportedly worth more than $2 Billion dollars, rolled out the following opening day 26 man lineup.

• SP: Cavalli, Griffin, Mikolas, Littell, Irvin
• RP: Henry, Beeter, Poulin, Varland, Granillo, Waldichuk, CPerez, Lord,
• C: Ruiz, Millas
• INF: LGarcia, Abrams, House, Vivas, Nunez, Tena, Chapparo
• OF: Wood, Young, Lile, Weimer

By way of comparison, here’s 2025’s opening day 25-man roster.

• SP: Gore, Williams, Irvin, Soroka, Parker
• RP: Finnegan, Lopez, Sims, Ferrer, Poche, Salazar, Ribalta, Lord
• C: Ruiz, Adams,
• INF: Lowe, LGarcia, Abrams, DeJong, Tena, Rosario
• OF: Young, Wood, Crews, Call
• DH: Bell

So that’s 1 returning Starting Pitcher, 1 returning Reliever, 1 returning catcher, 3 returning infielders (against all odds since Tena should have been DFA’d the moment we acquired Vivas), and 2 returning outfielders. That’s just 8 of the 26 men who made it a year on the roster from this time last year, and probably half the roster that even the most experienced fan couldn’t pick out of a lineup.

Perhaps another way to look at it: acquisition method of this 26-man roster. Here’s a breakdown:

• Home grown players: 8: Garcia, House, Young, Lile, Henry, Cavalli, Irvin, Lord.
• Trade acquisitions: 9: Ruiz, Chapparo, Abrams, Wood, Beeter, Granillo, Millas, Tena, Vivas
• MLB FAs: 3: Griffin, Mikolas, Littell
• MLFAs: 1: Perez
• Waiver claims: 4: Weimer, Poulin, Varland, Waldichuk
• Rule5: 1 Nunez

On the one hand, yes it’s great that 17 of the 26 are either home grown or trade acquisitions, since for the most part these trade acquisitions were prospects when we got them. But 6 MLFA/Waiver/Rule5 guys is embarrassing. That’s 6 guys who weren’t worthy of being on some other team’s entire 40-man roster but who are now on our MLB active lineup..

Somehow, this roster is costing the team $92M in 26-man payroll … until you realize that figure includes Strasburg’s $35M annual salary still on the books (as well as Adam’s split contract $500k figure and Ogasawara’s $2M/year figure still owed despite his outright). So it’s actually closer to $58M to field this team … or about $25 less than what the official 30th ranked team (Miami) is spending. Wow.

So, hey Season Ticket Fans, welcome to 2026! Thanks for your checks last fall securing your seats; hope you enjoy the season.

So, we knew going in that 2026 was going to be another lost season. We could tell from the HS-heavy focus on players they drafted in June 2025, from the lack of any spending this off-season, and now by the increasingly curious moves they’re making in spring training.

And, honestly, I don’t entirely get what the team is doing.

The strategy should be simple: if you have no aims to compete, play the kids.

Instead, the team has endeavored to fill the MLB roster with veteran retreads. Instead of seeing if our younger arms like Parker, Lord, or Alvarez can prove out, or to let Josiah Grey get back to being his opening day starter self, we’re going to give starts to innings eaters like Mikolas, Griffen, and Littell.

Instead of having top-prospects like Crews and Hassell getting MLB at-bats, we’re going to apparently give the likes of Christian Franklin and waiver-claim Joey Wiemer those opportunities. We’re still claiming random middle infielders off other team’s waiver wires, and are quickly putting together a roster of randoms instead of a roster of home-growns. They did five waiver claims in a week and a half, then turned around and DFA’d most of them for other moves, making us (i’m sure) super popular reputation-wise in the player base.

What is this front office doing??

Are they planning on letting all these 30-something 1yr FAs showcase as trade bait in a few months? Is that what all of this is?

Because, I’ll tell you, the team this front office is putting on the field at the expense of home grown talent that the fan base actually knows, after years of trading away all their stars, is going to literally repel the casual fan. Who is going to look at the probable pitchers and say to themselves, “Oh man, we gotta go see 37yr old Miles Mikolas pitch today!”

What exactly does Crews or Hassell have left to prove in AAA? Or Alvarez, or Grey, or Parker? Eder is now 27; he NEEDS to be in the majors. They just optioned Fernandez: he’s 30. If he can’t cut it at this point, then just release him.

I dunno. This entire spring has been one small hint after another that this was the trend, but Crews’ demotion sealed it. There’s very little exciting to this MLB team this year, except maybe to see if Cavalli’s spring dominance can continue, or to see if House can turn the corner. Otherwise … it’s seemingly going to be a long year.

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?

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.