Five Thoughts as Nationals Wrap Up Sixth Straight Losing Season

If there was a definitive story to this Nationals season, it was their big prospects over the last handful of seasons taking over, particularly in the lineup. Although Luis Garcia Jr. and CJ Abrams are considered veterans compared to the rest of the team, they're still only 25 and 24, respectively.

James Wood played the first full season of his career and he was the Nationals' best hitter. He led the team in home runs (31), RBIs (94) and bWAR (3.7). He competed in the Home Run Derby and really cemented himself as one of the most exciting young stars in the league.

Daylen Lile was the biggest surprise of the season. The 22-year-old came up and was an instant spark and put himself in the NL Rookie of the Year race. He hit a whopping 11 triples along with 15 doubles, nine hom runs and a 137 OPS+, which led the team with a minimum of 350 plate appearances.

Former first rounders Brady House and Dylan Crews each played a little over half of the season. Neither performed up to their prospect hype, but they're still young and aren't yet fully adjusted to the league.

Catcher Is a Problem

The most glaring hole on this roster is arguably the most important, and that's catcher. The Nationals had by far the worst catching in all of baseball at the plate. Catchers had a .592 OPS, 65 wRC+ and -1.4 fWAR, all of which were the worst in baseball.

Keibert Ruiz was acquired in 2021 to be the catcher of the future in Washington, but that hasn't panned out. In his fourth full year with the team, he had his worst season yet. Although he dealt with injuries which forced him to only play 68 games, he had a career low .595 OPS as well as only two homers and a .247 average.

The other leading catcher was Riley Adams, who was arguably worse. In 83 games he hit eight home runs, but slashed .186/.252/.308 with a .560 OPS. He alarmingly struck out 110 times in 263 at-bats.

Both were also fairly below average defensively, too.

Washington also used Drew Millas and Jorge Alfaro, but neither are long term answers. They simply cannot go into next season with that kind of production out of the catchers, but there's no answers on the current roster. They'll need to go find one soon.

Are Strikeouts a Real Problem for James Wood?

Although Wood has his welcoming part this season, leading the team in all offensive categories, one of those is nothing to write home about. Wood led all of baseball with 221 strikeouts this season, which was just two shy of the all-time record of 223 set in 2009.

For Wood, the strikeout is something that has always been a part of his game. In his first real season of minor league baseball, he had a 21.6 strikeout percentage. Since the, it's only gone up. It was 31.5 percent in 2023 and when he debuted last year, it was at 28.9 percent.

The average Major League strikeout rate is about 20 percent. It's been pretty clear that Wood's was going to be consistently league average, and a team can live with the 28 percent from last year. But with Wood's near-record breaking amount of strikeouts, he had a 32.1 percent rate.

That's not sustainbable, especially considering his 32.9 percent swing-and-miss rate, according to Baseball Savant. It wasn't this season, but a strikeout rate this high can become detrimental to a player's approach. It's something that he needs to focus on this offseason because with his extremely good batted ball stats, he could get even better.

There’s a Lack of Strong Pitching Depth

MacKenzie Gore is the obvious ace of this team as it's currently constructed. They have star prospects like Travis Sykora and Jarlin Susana, but they both had surgery this season. At the Major League level, there just isn't much behind Gore.

Jake Irvin and Mitchell Parker led the team in innings, with 180 and 164.2, respectively. Both pitchers had an ERA over 5.60 and they had an identical 72 ERA+. Parker was even moved the bullpen toward the end of the season. The Nationals were relying on them after a couple of nice years last season, but they're not front of the line starters.

Andrew Alvarez was impressive in his small sample, posting a 2.31 ERA in 23.1 innings. He struck out 20 and walked 10. Alvarez wasn't a highly touted prospect, but he came up as a 26-year-old and produced outs. Don't be surprised to see him as a rotation option come spring.

Cade Cavalli, a former first round pick, found a bit of a groove in his return to the Majors, posting a 4.25 ERA in 10 starts. He will get a shot at a rotation job to start next season. The team also seemed to like Brad Lord who they moved to the rotation at the end of the season.

Although there are certain things to like with each pitcher, they are by no means sure things. If they want to make progress next season, the Nationals need to bolster the rotation. Even with Josiah Gray back next year, they don't have any arms to rely on after Gore. They will have to try to fix that through free agency.

A Busy Offseason Is on Its Way

With Martinez gone, it will be new president of baseball operations Paul Toboni's first priority to find a manager for next season. There hasn't been much reported around whether or not Miguel Cairo would have the interim tag taken away, but one would assume that Toboni will want to hire his own guy. Cairo went 29-43 after he replaced Martinez.

There are plenty of names on the market, with the big ones being Skip Schumaker, Craig Albernaz and George Lombard.

Toboni will most likely clean house in the front office, including hiring his own scouting staff. As a former VP of amateur scouting himself, bringing in his own scouts seems like a given.

Then it will be time for Toboni to go through free agency and start building the team in his vision. A lot of changes are coming for the Nationals this season and it could be a much differently run organization that we've been used to for the past 15 years.