Want to get The Morning Breifing by email? Here’s the sign-up.

Good Morning, Washington Nationals Fans,

Some of the news that we are covering today includes:

• Victor Robles was picked apart at the plate last postseason. He’s countering with a new swing.
• Watch the Nationals read fans’ mean tweets from when they were 19-31 last season
• Focused Rainey won’t assume Nationals bullpen job is his
• How the new 2-way-player rule impacts clubs
• MLB Position Power Rankings: Predicting Top 10 Stars at Each Position for 2020
• MLB Could Build a Consistent Baseball. Here’s Why It Hasn’t.

Here are today’s latest Washington Nationals & MLB Headlines and what else you need to know to start your day.

Washington Nationals Headlines

Washington Nationals: Predicting The 26 Man Roster

Spring Training is in full swing and full of storylines. For the Nationals, position battles for third base, the fifth starter, and bench spots rage on. At the halfway mark of Spring Training, here is our prediction for the Nationals opening day 26 man roster.

Read the full article via District on Deck

Victor Robles Was Picked Apart At The Plate Last Postseason. He’s Countering With A New Swing.

Washington Nationals hitting coach Kevin Long is fine-tuning the swing of Victor Robles. The pair first tinkered early last year, when pitchers were painting the outside corner and forcing Robles to break his compact swing by extending his arms to reach. They countered by pushing Robles closer to the plate, about six inches away, but then he got hit — a lot.

Read the full article via the Washington Post

Juan Soto And The Nationals Third Hole

The defending champion Nationals have started their Spring Training supporting a record below average. In the mix of their record, they have an evident problem. The absence of a three hole hitter, which is coming from the departure of Anthony Rendon. Rendon was an MVP candidate on the world champion Nats roster last season, but has now moved his talents to the Angels. This leaves the problem stated above, however, it can be fixed with yet another leap.

Read the full article via Overtime Heroics

Who's Having Most Impressive Spring For Nats?

The calendar reads March 4, and the Nationals are still World Series champions.

It also means we're near the halfway point of Spring Training, as the club prepares its title defense with Opening Day set for March 26.

Though the Nationals have been easing themselves back into action after an extended 2019, hitters and pitchers alike believe one guy has impressed the most so far this spring: Joe Ross.

Read the full article via MLB

Spring Training Or Spring Break? Under Davey Martinez, Nationals Have No Shortage Of Fun

When the Nationals hired Davey Martinez as manager ahead of the 2018 season, they were bringing in the protégé of Cubs skipper Joe Maddon—a manager beloved by players for cultivating light clubhouse environments and connecting with players from any background.

Martinez didn’t disappoint in following in his former boss’s footsteps. In his first spring training with the Nationals, he brought in camels to walk across the facility as a metaphor for helping his players getting over the “hump” winning a playoff series.

Two years later, the Nationals manager is still up to his usual antics. On Tuesday, he had a dunk tank set up, where a team staffer was spotted being dropped into the large bucket of water.

Read the full article via NBC Sports Washington

2020 NL East Preview: Analyzing The Washington Nationals And New York Mets

Onto the second half of our 2020 National League East preview as we continue to look at how the Washington Nationals are going to stack up to the rest of their division this season.

This week, we have a series of articles to preview each of the other NL East teams and see how the defending champs compare to the main foes. In each piece, we look at the team’s offseason, lineup, rotation, bullpen, and prospects who could make an impact in 2020.

So far, we’ve covered the Miami Marlins and Philadelphia Phillies in this series. Next up for their preview are the New York Mets...

Read the full article via Federal Baseball

Focused Rainey Won’t Assume Nationals Bullpen Job Is His

Every time manager Davey Martinez or general manager Mike Rizzo outline their plans for the Nationals bullpen, they include hard-throwing right-hander Tanner Rainey. And with good reason.

Throw triple-digit fastballs complemented by a wipeout slider and you make people take notice.

But any thoughts that he’s secured a position in the Nationals relief corps is definitely news to Rainey, a 27-year-old who has no intention of assuming anything while he battles to make the 26-man roster.

Read the full article via MASN Sports

Washington Nationals: Can Max Scherzer Overtake Jacob DeGrom As The Best Pitcher In The MLB?

Max Scherzer suffered from injuries in 2019 and struggled once he returned. Can he put that behind him and take back the title of best pitcher in the league?

Read the full article via District on Deck

Sports Bettor Allegedly Made Death Threats Against Washington Nationals And New England Patriots Players

Acclaimed sports bettor Benjamin "Parlay Patz" Patz is accused of sending violent death threats to professional athletes and their family members with anonymous accounts through Instagram direct messages, according to a release on Wednesday from the Department of Justice. United States Attorney Maria Chapa Lopez is officially charging Patz with transmitting threats in interstate or foreign commerce.

Patz caught the eye of the gambling world in November after making over $600,000 on two bets: an $1,800, 15-leg parlay, and a $7,000 13-leg parlay. So it comes as no surprise that these messages, most of which focused on beheading the players or their family members, seemed to happen as a result of lost wagers. For example, on June 29, Patz placed a five-way parlay that included a Germany win over Sweden in the Women's World Cup. Sweden would go on to beat Germany, which prompted one of Patz's suspected burner accounts to message Swedish goalkeeper Hedvig Lindahl "I will sever your aorta while you sleep."

Read the full article via CBS Sports

Adam Eaton Thinks Nationals Could Have League’s Best Defensive Outfield

This is pinpoint accurate from Davey Martinez.

“Adam Eaton says a lot of things,” Martinez said.

Martinez had just been informed of Eatons’ personal defensive assessment from last season -- “I stunk” -- and gave a partial headshake and quip in response. He went on to say Eaton’s defense was solid. It wasn’t. Eaton is right. By most measures, he stunk.

Read the full article via NBC Sports Washington

Watch The Nationals Read Fans’ Mean Tweets From When They Were 19-31 Last Season

As he watched the Nationals dig an early hole against the lowly Miami Marlins at Nationals Park last May, Nathan Britton tweeted about the scene.

“The boo birds are out here at #Nats park and it appears the team has mentally been defeated,” the 25-year-old half-season plan holder wrote after Washington fell behind by three in the second inning.

Read the full article via The Washington Post

Around The Horn: News From Around The League

Report: Chris Sale Avoids Tommy John Surgery, For Now, After Getting Third Opinion On Elbow

After getting a reported third opinion from a doctor on his elbow, Boston Red Sox ace Chris Sale is not currently expected to undergo Tommy John surgery on his elbow, according to The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal.

Read the full article via Yahoo Sports

How The New 2-Way-Player Rule Impacts Clubs

It was a Tuesday morning near the start of spring, and Jared Walsh had his first baseman’s glove in the gear bag he carried with him to the Angels’ practice fields.

On this day, Walsh was a position player fielding ground balls. The next, however, he was expecting to throw a bullpen session, building up his left arm for whatever pitching assignments might await him in 2020.

“I’m a first baseman one day and I’m a pitcher the next,” he said. “They’re pretty good about communicating with me on what to expect.”

Though he has nowhere near the fame or projected impact of two-way teammate Shohei Ohtani, Walsh’s rare skillset does carry value in an evolved environment in which teams chase outs and runs in unorthodox ways. But here in 2020, new roster rules will restrict the impact players who are primarily position players -- players like Walsh -- can make on the mound.

Read the full article via MLB

MLB Position Power Rankings: Predicting Top 10 Stars At Each Position For 2020

Welcome to March, wherein Major League Baseball will finally get around to Opening Day on the 26th.

That makes now a good time for a fresh list of must-watch stars, so we put one together by predicting the top 10 players at each position for the 2020 season.

There's naturally plenty of crossover between this list and our top 50 players at the start of spring training, for which we considered players' track records, upside and downside and health. This time around, though, we allowed ourselves to include prospects and other players who are on the verge of becoming stars.

We'll begin with the top 10 catchers and end with the top 10 relief pitchers.

Read the full article via The Bleacher Report

MLB Could Build A Consistent Baseball. Here’s Why It Hasn’t.

The man who perhaps knows more about the properties and the anatomy of a baseball than anybody in the world won’t say if he grew up loving the game.

“I’ve been advised not to say no,” Lloyd Smith, the director of the Sports Science Laboratory at Washington State University, said with a smile. “I’ll put it this way: My passion is in the experiment. That for me is the reward.”

Major League Baseball wants Smith, a professor in the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering at WSU, to have that exact empirical and dispassionate outlook. He’s one of the scientists MLB retained almost three years ago to help the sport understand one of its most hotly debated topics: increased home run rates.

But even Smith recognizes that when it comes to improving something as emotion-driven as America’s pastime, the simplest scientific solution might not be the best one.

Read the full article via Wall Street Journal

Building A ‘Backyard Baseball’ Roster For 2020

Twenty years ago this spring, the best baseball video game ever made reached shelves. Some baseball gamers might remember MVP Baseball 2005 fondly, or RBI Baseball from further back; others might be convinced that modernity and sophistication make MLB The Show the latest and greatest option. But for a certain generation of fan, no other game can match the Backyard Baseball franchise for sheer entertainment value.

Read the full article via The Ringer

MLB Wants To Ban In-Game Video, Union Would Allow

Major League Baseball has proposed banning player access to video during games, according to New York Yankees pitcher Zack Britton, but the union wants to allow it with protections that would prevent catchers' signs from being visible.

Players' association head Tony Clark met with the Yankees for three hours Wednesday and discussed negotiations for new video rules in the wake of the Houston Astros' sign-stealing scandal.

Read the full article via USA Today

Baseball Mourns Death Of Yankees Scout Kelly Rodman, 1 Of 3 Female Scouts In MLB

The New York Yankees announced on Wednesday that scout Kelly Rodman died.

The team did not note here age, but she was born in 1975. Subsequent reports noted that she died of cancer.

Read the full article via Yahoo Sports