Washington Nationals Projected To Finish Bottom-10 Across All Position Units

James Wood was picked to finish with the most fWAR at 3.1. That would be a nice bump from his 1.2 fWAR accumulated during his 79-game debut. It would match the team lead that Luis Garcia Jr. had last year.

Next up for the Nationals is the infield plus catcher group, picked to finish No. 26 in MLB with 11.3.

Fellow franchise cornerstone CJ Abrams is the man projected to lead this group with 2.9 fWAR. While his bat has been solid to start his career, showing some growth with his glove would go a long ways to building up his value in the middle infield.

Garcia, whose defense helps his FanGraphs numbers out a bit, is still projected to take a step back with just 2.5 fWAR this time around.

Moving over to the pitching side of things in Washington, both groups are in the bottom-five.

The starters are a little bit higher at No. 26 with 9.1 fWAR. Staff ace MacKenzie Gore is sensibly the favorite to lead this unit again with a slightly lower 2.6 figure. He finished with 3.2 last season. Gore has consistently improved over the first couple of years of his career, so don't be surprised if he makes another positive jump this time around.

Lastly, the reworked bullpen is projected to finish No. 28 with 0.5 WAR.

It is a group of players that is hard to gauge, though.

Jorge Lopez is coming off of a weird year that saw him both have a meltdown with New York Mets and put together an All-Star worthy performance with the Chicago Cubs. Shinnosuke Ogasawara was a fun signing from Japan, but he might not be used out of the bullpen. Evan Reifert is an exciting Rule 5 draft pick that just needs to show some potential to keep his spot on the Nationals roster.

Still, this unit is full of unknowns.

Washington might have an exciting future, but this projection based on fWAR suggests it's going to be a tough season in the nation's capital again.

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