Philly Front Office

Don’t be fooled, the Nationals are not the Marlins. The Marlins are a cheap faux-farm team who barely deserve your attention. There are plenty of reasons to hate the Washington Nationals.

Strange as it is to say, it isn’t a bad time to be a Nationals fan. They are on that post-Process-like upswing without any expectations. Fans can just watch baseball stress free, choosing to focus on only the positives and ignore the negatives. Makes me SICK! Where is the gut-wrenching daily anxiety??? The Eagles just won the Super Bowl, but did we enjoy any of it until the games were in hand each week? Absolutely not. Has anyone had any fun watching the Phillies the last…ever? No way. Because they have no chance of winning and a ton of youth, the Nationals are in a good spot. I hate it.

Reason to Hate the Nationals No. 1: First pick in the draft

Baseball is the only sport that determines its draft order before the collegiate season starts. This means Washington fans can lean into the college baseball scene and Jace Laviolette over the next few months when the team inevitably starts slow. There’s also another Holiday brother (Ethan) ready to break through but following high school baseball is a little weird. Anyway, a new top prospect is guaranteed to join the ranks come June. They get a free top prospect while we have to pray our guys work out every year.

Reason to Hate the Nationals No. 2: Young Position Talent

I just said new top prospect because the previous top prospect, Dylan Crews, should be on the big league roster to stay this season. It was a mixed bag last year, but this guy at LSU was basically the heir apparent to Bryce Harper in the competitiveness department. He is going to annoy the hell out of us for the next 6 years.

He isn’t the only one though. James Wood made his debut last year. Wood is a 22-year-old leftfielder who held his own as a rookie and is expected to bring some power. As long as he doesn’t crater, anything he does will be added to the wall of building blocks for the future. Remember how inexplicably Josh Bell would hit homers against us but pretty much no one else? Well Wood is the number one candidate to take up that mantel, but probably do it to everyone else too.

Reason to Hate the Nationals No. 3: Young Pitching

Mackenzie Gore hasn’t put it all together, but he is still one of the hardest throwing lefties in the league. He threw 166 innings of solid ball last year and is a good break out candidate going into this season. Just what we needed, a lefty flame thrower. I’m sure Brandon Marsh, Bryson Stott, and Max Kepler are going to love facing him.

Two other starters, Mitchell Parker and Jake Irvin, aren’t exactly young, but they are innings eaters. At 24 and 27 last year, both gobbled up 150+ innings and are expected to do so again. That is not nothing in this age. Solid seasons from both and their many years of control could be used as some nice trade bait at the deadline. It would be nice if they just stopped adding young talent. These guys are going to help them do the opposite.

Reason to Hate the Nationals No. 4: The Pipeline

Cade Cavalli already made his debut but was taken down by Tommy John Surgery. That was two years ago. He is fully recovered and expected to re-debut later in the season. They are banking on him to be one of their premier talents of the next competitive team. At least he is a righty.

Add Brady House to that mix too. House has been around prospect circles for years but finally broke out two years ago. The Nats are hoping he makes the team out of Spring Training this year as a 3rd baseman. Both of these guys are controllable and will be under almost no stress to simply acclimate and learn this year.

Reason to Hate the Nationals No. 5: The Possible Star

CJ Abrams came over from San Diego in the Juan Soto Trade. To say Abrams had a weird season last year is an understatement. He started off like an MVP, fell off a cliff, was even better than he started, fell off a bigger cliff, then right when he seemed to level out he was demoted to the minors for the rest of the season for staying all night at a casino leaving only hours before game time. Well then! If you are a Nationals fan, you are looking for him to grow up. You need him to. He has been worth 3.4 WAR each of the last two years, but has Top 10 MVP upside if he can put it all together. He also might just fall off another cliff. Let’s throw casino chips at him!

Reason to Hate the Nationals No. 6: Clean Balance Sheet

Now this is the stuff I’m really worried about. The Nationals have $14m in active payroll next year and nothing after that. They still owe Stephen Strasburg around $24m, but the rest of the payroll is all arb and pre-arb guys with no one set to break the bank. If they overachieve this year, they could be set to be major players in future free agency.

Ownership has been rightfully chastised for their refusal to spend since the World Series team a few years ago and for letting franchise stars Bryce Harper, Trea Turner, Anthony Rendon, and Juan Soto leave. There could be a change coming though. For years, team patriarch Ted Lerner was trying to sell the team. This went on for years. However, about two years ago, he decided to retire and transfer the team to his son Mark Lerner instead of selling.

This presents two possible paths. The younger Lerner could decide that he wants to sell the team or at least have it as a cash cow like so many other sons of rich men. Nepo-owners are one of the scourges of Amercian professional sports. They are notoriously tight fisted with their father’s money and act like they had something to do with the fortune. However, Mark Lerner is worth around $6b of his father’s money. That’s not nothing. For the team’s sake, he could decide to run a payroll competitive with the Phillies, Braves, and Mets while still not running his finances into the ground. Mark, you better not spend anything, that’s your not hard-earned money and you can’t be too careful.

If they do decide to spend, they would be able to compete with the Mets in a bidding war for Kyle Tucker and Vlad Guerrero next year. As much as I don’t want another competitor in the division, it would be good for baseball in general. After all, they were running out Top-Tenish payrolls from 2013 to 2021. I don’t like this one bit.

Prediction:

This team is going to be annoying. Dylan Crews is the type of player who will single handedly win some games by just being higher effort than anyone on the Phillies. I already see him entering my all-time enemy list along with Cody Ross and Brandon Nimmo.

For anyone thinking they are going to be doormats, I have bad news for you. This is a team that could be sneaky competitive right when you don’t want them to be. If you look past them, their youth will out hustle you. They have 80 win upside but will probably settle in with a record around 76-86 to 74-88.