Drivers start your engines

Answer from yesterday's Morning Briefing Trivia. In case you missed our Nationals Trivia question from yesterday's morning briefing, here is it again: Who was the last Washington Nationals player to win ROY, and what year was it?

The Answer: Bryce Harper back in 2012. Hit us up if you guessed correctly.

Good Morning, Happy Thursday. Here are your Morning headlines, analysis, and more for December 5, 2024.  Have you taken our annual survey to help shape the future of the Nats Report? We hope that you did! If not, please take our survey today; your feedback is important to us.

You can as always, send us feedback at themorning@thenatsreport.com.

📌 ICYMI: Not sure if you caught RHP Josiah Gray on MLB network yesterday talking about the Nats Youth Academy and all the philanthropic work he and his Nationals teammates do throughout the year. [See the video below]

📌 Drivers start your engines! Starting today, you can purchase General public tickets for the MLB Speedway Classic presented by BuildSubmarines.com right here. A maximum of eight (8) tickets are allowed per order, and all ticket sales will be conducted online. All tickets will be delivered digitally and available on mobile devices through the MLB Ballpark and Ticketmaster apps.

The regular season game between the Atlanta Braves and Cincinnati Reds will be played at the iconic Bristol Motor Speedway on Saturday, August 2, 2025, at 7:00 p.m. (ET) on FOX. The MLB Speedway Classic will mark the first American or National League game ever played in Tennessee, becoming the fifth different state nationwide since 2016 to host an MLB game that will be a first-time AL or NL contest. A baseball diamond ready for a Major League game will be built inside the famed Bristol Motor Speedway, one of the nation's largest standalone sporting venues.

📌 Well, there has been A LOT of buzz about this new proposed Golden At-Bat idea suggested by MLB commissioner Rob Manfred, and it looks like MLB players and managers both agree that it's a bad idea. CNN has the story. "'Our game is not built that way,' said Joe Maddon – former manager of the Tampa Bay Rays, Chicago Cubs and Los Angeles Angels – in an interview with The Athletic. 'Why do we want to bastardize our game and make it like everybody else?'" We agree! Do you? We would like to hear your thoughts.

📌 The Athletic has an idea on how the New York Yankees can save on salary if they re-sign Juan Soto. "Though the Yankees want Soto, owner Hal Steinbrenner has spoken about his desire to exercise some payroll restraint many times throughout the years. Last season, the Yankees’ competitive balance tax payroll was at $312.9 million, according to Spotrac, the third highest in the majors, behind the New York Mets ($348.6 million) and Dodgers ($339.5 million). Year after year after year after year, payroll is similar to this year and the luxury taxes, like others, are not sustainable and not feasible,” Steinbrenner said at the owners’ meetings in November. 'That’s the case for the vast majority of owners and maybe all the owners year after year after year.'"