Washington Nationals Roster Building for the Future, Part 1

Editors Note: This is part of a three-part series. Read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

Now that the dust has settled on the 2024 trade deadline, it is time to look forward to seeing what the Nationals can and possibly should do to open a new competitive window beginning with the 2025 season after five years of wandering in the wilderness.

While I still think that it was silly of Mike Rizzo to call this rebuild a "retool" when it truly began in earnest three years ago (given the state of both the major league roster and the minor league farm system at the time), I do think that he and his team have managed the roster turnaround fairly well overall. They have worked around two of the biggest albatross contracts in sports, missing out entirely on the post-World Series bump in attendance/interest/goodwill that every other winning team has had, the death of the ownership family's patriarch, two years of indecisiveness regarding a potential sale of the franchise by that patriarch's children and their spouses, serious budget constraints (in no small part thanks to intransigence from the former owners of their television overlords just up I-95), and a changing of the guard in ownership among all five of their closest competitors (the four other NL East teams and the Baltimore Orioles). It has been, shall we say, a bumpy road.

In July 2021, the Nationals had only two or three players in the entire organization who - because of how the pandemic eliminated not just an entire season of minor league baseball but the short-season leagues that are often vital for the development of high school draftees and international signings - could a) conceivably be viewed as long-term assets and b) had any serious professional track record to draw upon: Victor Robles, Luis García Jr., and Juan Soto. End of list.* Robles depreciated quickly and left the organization earlier this summer via DFA, although a change of scenery seems to have helped him immensely thus far. García Jr. teetered on the precipice of the same path as Robles, but finally, this year, in what is his fifth (!!!) major league season or partial season, appears to have at last settled in as a roughly league-average regular. As a fan, the decision to trade the generational talent Soto still stings hard (he remains my favorite National); as an analyst, doing so was the right move.

*In July 2021, the following players were in the organization. Still, they had little or no track record because of the lost 2020 season: Jake Irvin, Mitchell Parker, Brady House, Andry Lara, Jackson Rutledge, Daylen Lile, Jacob Young, Andrew Alvarez, and T.J. White. That is still not a long list, considering that over half of it - House, Lile, Young, Alvarez, and White - had just been drafted a month prior.

Fast forward three years, and that list of three has ballooned tenfold. The Washington Nationals were - outside of Soto (both on and off the field) - quite possibly the most boring team in the majors from August 2021 until after the All-Star break last year, when they went on a 25-15 stretch to get themselves to 61-69, led chiefly by the suddenly dynamic CJ Abrams, the first piece of the Soto trade return to make an impact at the major league level. Since then, although the Nationals have not been good (the play has frequently been sloppy, they hit for almost no power, and despite the rising youth movement, there are still a fair number of retreads and journeymen around), they have been interesting.

How do the Nationals go from merely interesting to actually good? You can see some pieces falling into place now (even if they need more consistency or growth in a particular skill).

For the first time since the franchise moved to Washington, there is real, serious depth on the farm, where you can find possible, even probable, future MLB contributors outside of the organizational top thirty. If ownership puts its money where its mouth is and is willing to write some bigger checks this winter, the Nats could be, at worst, wild-card contenders next season. So why don't we game that out? We will build an "optimum" 40-man roster, knowing what the Nats have in-house now and what they still need, utilizing further trades, free agency, and anything else at our disposal. Let's have some fun.

Current 40-Man Roster

There are currently 41 players on the 40-man roster because during the season, players on the 60-day injured list do not count against the total, and the Nats have three of those (Josiah Gray, Mason Thompson, and Cade Cavalli).

SP (10): Patrick Corbin, Trevor Williams, Jake Irvin, MacKenzie Gore, Mitchell Parker, DJ Herz, Jackson Rutledge, Josiah Gray, Cade Cavalli, Thaddeus Ward
RP (13): Kyle Finnegan, Derek Law, Tanner Rainey, Robert Garcia, José A. Ferrer, Jordan Weems, Jacob Barnes, Eduardo Salazar, Joan Adon, Mason Thompson, Amos Willingham, Zach Brzykcy, Cole Henry
C (3): Keibert Ruiz, Riley Adams, Drew Millas
IF (9): Juan Yepez, Luis García Jr., CJ Abrams, Trey Lipscomb, Ildemaro Vargas, Nasim Nuñez, Joey Meneses, José Tena, Joey Gallo
OF/DH (6): James Wood, Jacob Young, Alex Call, Travis Blankenhorn, Harold Ramírez, Stone Garrett

Meanwhile, the Nats have a rather large crop of minor league players who are a) eligible to get picked in the Rule 5 draft this winter and b) at the AA or AAA level, where the prospect of being selected in the Rule 5 draft (as Ward and Nuñez were each of the last two winters) gets much higher. Those players are:

SP (4): Andry Lara, Andrew Alvarez, Rodney Theophile, Dustin Saenz
RP (4): Orlando Ribalta, Carlos Romero, Jack Sinclair, Tyler Schoff
IF (4): Andrés Chaparro, Kevin Made, Darren Baker, Jackson Cluff
OF/DH (1): Robert Hassell III

Of the thirteen potential 40-man adds, I am very confident that Ribalta and possibly Chaparro and Alvarez will debut in the majors before the end of this season and that Lara, Hassell, Romero, and Saenz will be added before the Rule 5 draft. Cluff will turn 28 in December and is an org filler who will be left unprotected. The only reason Baker has even a chance of protection is his last name; he's 2B-only and is at least two years older than all of the possible second basemen already on the roster (García Jr., Tena, Lipscomb, and Nuñez). Schoff spent six weeks on the injured list this summer, and although he has been good when healthy, it has been in a very pitcher-friendly environment, and he will probably be left unprotected. I will guess that the same (minus the injury) applies to Sinclair.

That leaves Theophile and Made. Organizational history (hello, Jeremy de la Rosa and Yasel Antuna!) suggests that both will be protected, especially Made. Both JDLR and Antuna, however, were added to the 40-man when the system was much weaker and when there was almost nobody of interest at the higher levels. It says here that Theophile gets added and Made does not, especially because Made's rough early introduction to AA (.140/.206/.211 in his first 16 games) makes it improbable that another team would roster him for an entire year (for comparison, Nuñez played all of last year in AA and tied for the league lead in walks). So, we are adding eight players to the roster.

People coming on means that others have to come off. Corbin, Williams, Barnes, and Gallo will all be free agents (Gallo has a mutual option that the Nats will certainly decline). Willingham has been mediocre at AAA and extremely homer-prone whenever he has pitched in the majors - he is likely the first cut. Weems is out of minor-league options and has pitched all year; he should be next. Stephen Strasburg Rizzo has been fiercely loyal to Rainey (due for free agency next winter) even though he has been all but unusable this year except in blowouts - it should finally be time to remove from the roster the final player remaining from the 2019 champs (after Corbin departs in free agency). Finally, Blankenhorn is a AAAA player who doesn't fill a pressing need and should.

Those changes (9 players out, 8 in, and three back from the 60-day IL) return the roster to 40, but there are two additional problems. One, both Dylan Crews and Brady House are strong candidates to crack the majors before the end of this season in advance of their Rule 5 protection date (House's is December '25, Crews' December '26); I feel very strongly that at least one if not both will be Nationals before October. And two, there has to be room for signing any free agents, and if the Nats are truly serious about competing in 2025, they need to, outside of internal promotions, probably add a minimum of three players: a top-of-the-rotation or at minimum solid number two starting pitcher; a bullpen arm that can pitch high-leverage innings at least until the team figures out whether or not the likes of Brzykcy and Ribalta can do so at the major league level as well as they have in the minors; and an impact bat somewhere in the lineup, either as the first baseman, designated hitter or possibly in an outfield corner (if the Nats want to either turn Young into a fourth outfielder or do something wild like move Wood to first base). An additional starting pitcher and bullpen arm are possible adds but not vital ones, and a short-term veteran catcher who can more equitably split the workload and cushion the Nats from another disastrous season from Ruiz would be nice but might be more of a luxury purchase at this particular point in time.

For this exercise, we will add both Crews and House to the 2024 Nats and put them on the roster- why not get wild when we're already 1700 words deep? Sure, that would put the Nats' three most important prospects on course to reach arbitration and free agency on the same timetable (after 2027 and 2030, respectively). Still, if they grow into the players they're capable of, that's a good problem to have.* And because of the positions Wood and Crews play, the most likely candidates for a DFA to open up spots for them are probably Call (for Crews) and Meneses (for House). Call is a grinder who always works hard but doesn't have the same level of talent as the guy coming up from the minors; Meneses will always have that Linsanity run from late 2022, but he's a 32-year-old DH who doesn't hit for nearly enough power.

*Any number of things could happen before 2030: one or more of those players could sign an extension; the MASN mess could finally get fully resolved, giving the Nats the opportunity to make their own money from television rights instead of having it withheld by the Orioles, altering the budget significantly; the CBA could entirely change; or the world might end—who knows?

After Call and Meneses, I would rank the players with the highest DFA odds as follows: 1) Thompson - a ground ball-heavy reliever with spotty command who doesn't miss bats (7.14 K/9 career) and is likely to have worse command coming off of TJ is not an especially valuable piece; 2) Ramírez - he doesn't really have a position (though he can hit)* and stands to make $4-$5 million in arbitration this winter entering his age-30 season; 3) Ward - he occasionally has good starts and his pitches move like Wiffleballs, but he has been thoroughly mediocre at AAA this season (although a hefty amount of that can be blamed on the now-discarded ABS system for calling balls and strikes) and all of a sudden the pitching pipeline is deep; 4) Adon - he will be out of options this winter and essentially has the rest of this season to prove that he can be an effective major league reliever; and 5) Adams - this would only be if the Nats signed or traded for another catcher in the event that they don't think either option of pairing two bat-forward catchers (Ruiz and Adams, neither of whom has had a strong 2024 with the lumber) or of having Millas be the primary backup is a good strategy.

*If the Nats do not elect to add Chaparro to the 40-man roster, I would think that they will keep Ramírez. They're very similar player types, but Chaparro is five years younger and will be much less expensive. He just hasn't proven himself at the major league level the way that Ramírez has.

After all of those changes, let's look at the 40-man roster again:

SP (11): Irvin, Gore, Gray, Parker, Cavalli, Herz, Alvarez, Lara, Saenz, Theophile, Ward
RP (11): Finnegan, Law, Garcia, Ferrer, Salazar, Adon, Thompson, Rutledge, Brzykcy, Ribalta, Romero
C (3): Ruiz, Adams, Millas
IF (8): Yepez, García Jr., Abrams, Lipscomb, Vargas, House, Nuñez, Tena
OF/DH (6): Wood, Young, Crews, Chaparro, Hassell, Garrett

Payroll

Where does this leave the payroll? Even factoring that Strasburg and his $35 million still count towards the payroll for Competitive Balance Tax (CBT) purposes for the next two seasons, it's pretty low. Twenty-eight of the thirty-nine players listed above will still be on the pre-arb salary scale for 2025 (which, for purposes of making the math easy, I have rounded up to $800K for everyone), all except the following: Gore, Gray, Finnegan, Law, Thompson, Ruiz, Adams, García Jr., Abrams, and Vargas. We can quickly dispense with Ruiz, the only active player with a guaranteed contract for 2025; he will be making $5.375M, but, for CBT purposes, counts $6.5M against the 2025 payroll ($50M divided by 8 years). What are the arb-eligible players likely to make next season?

Finnegan, Law, and Vargas will enter their final year of team control off 2024 salaries worth $5.1M, $1.5M, and $1.1M, respectively. After being named to the All-Star team and probably ending up within the neighborhood of 40 saves (both of which pay well in arbitration), expect Finnegan to land at $9M or thereabouts. Law is a durable middle relief workhorse who currently leads the majors in games pitched - we will bump him up to $2.5M. Finally, Vargas is a utility guy but valued both inside and outside the clubhouse (he was recently named the team's Heart & Hustle Award winner) - he will probably get a smaller bump to $1.75M.

García Jr. is a "Super Two" player who made $1.95M in his first year of arbitration. He is showing marked improvement in all facets of his game and is probably in line to more than double his salary, perhaps to something in the $4.5M range. Of note, after briefly changing agents last year, García Jr. is back with Scott Boras, so any thoughts of pursuing an extension with him should be taken with a few grains of salt.

The other five players will all be entering their first year of arbitration (Abrams might not even get there, as his service time at the end of the season will land very close to the Super Two deadline - but for our purposes, let's plan on him achieving Super Two status) and are all making somewhere between $750K and $800K this year. Abrams will easily be the most expensive - he's an everyday shortstop who made his first All-Star team and is probably the most recognizable face among current Nats; let's say he gets $6M. Gore is tough; he started the season strong but had a second consecutive July swoon and has some clear issues to fix. At the end of the day, a fairly durable southpaw starting pitcher like him should get to $2.5M. Gray has last year's All-Star nod in his favor, even though he will probably not pitch in 2025, so we will add him at $2.1M. As a clear backup catcher, Adams cannot expect a big bump - he gets a round of $1M. Finally, Thompson might not be safe as he comes off of Tommy John surgery, but we will keep him for $1.1M for now.

Where does all of that leave the total CBT payroll? $41.5M for the two fully guaranteed contracts, $30.45M for the nine arbitration candidates, and $22.4M for the pre-arb player pool adds up to $94.35M, which would currently rank 27th in the sport (ahead of only the Rays, Pirates, and A's) and is also close to $150M under the CBT limit. And that's with over a third of that being a sunk cost (Strasburg). Translation - there is a LOT of payroll flexibility going forward, enough that the Nationals can take any direction they want to this winter.

Coming tomorrow: our first foray into free agency and an examination of the Nats' prospect depth for purposes of a potential trade.