Washington Nationals Struggle to Impress with Offseason Decisions This Year
With spring training right around the corner, the Washington Nationals will be looking forward to getting their young core of talent back on the field.
Coming into the offseason, the Nationals certainly felt like a team to keep an eye on. Even though the team lost a lot of games in 2024, their young core of talent was up in the majors and starting to produce.
Even though they weren’t able to see a win increase in 2024, the future is looking bright in Washington.
However, after a lot of losses since 2019, the team is certainly hoping to get closer to the .500 mark in 2025. With that being said, the hope was that potentially this was going to be the offseason that the team elected to make a splash and try to jumpstart this rebuild.
Unfortunately with the offseason winding down, that hasn’t happened yet for the Nationals. Furthermore, based on the contracts that they gave out to free agents, it seems like Washington will be kicking potential spending on free agents to next winter once again.
Zachary D. Rymer of Bleacher Report recently graded the offseason for the Nationals. He gave them a ‘C’ for their efforts so far, and highlighted the lack of a big splash this winter.
“Still, this probably isn't what Nationals fans had in mind. As last year saw the team quickly assemble an exciting young core, the time seemed right for a much bigger splash in the spirit of the Jayson Werth signing from 2010," he said.
The argument could be made from both sides whether Washington should have made a splash or not, but the organization has decided against it as of now. While that certainly warrants the mediocre grade, they did make a couple of nice moves.
Acquiring first baseman Nathaniel Lowe was arguably the biggest splash that they made this winter. Lowe is a really solid player at the position and a massive upgrade from what they have had their the last couple of years.
However, while the veteran is a good addition, he likely won’t produce the type of power that they could use at first base.
While the lineup is looking strong top to bottom led by the addition of Lowe, the bullpen and the starting rotation have a lot of question marks. If the Nationals were going to spend this winter, getting a front-end starter likely would have been the top priority. However, they will be hoping that one of the young arms is able to develop into that type of pitcher.
For the bullpen, some work still will likely be done in that area before Spring Training begins.
Overall, the grade of a ‘C’ is fair. The Nationals could have certainly done more this offseason, but it also wasn’t a complete failure based on their timeline as a franchise.
