Good Morning, Washington Nationals Fans,

Here are the latest headlines and analyses around the Washington Nationals and Major League Baseball for today, February 23, 2024.

Welcome to the Morning Briefing! Haden here, as usual, let’s talk some baseball.

Leading this Morning’s Briefing: Will Bellinger, Chapman, Snell, or Montgomery ever get signed?

Over the past few days, we have seen Amed Rosario, Tim Anderson, Gio Urshela, Brandon Woodruff, Austin Nola, and Liam Hendriks all get MLB deals. So what is the hesitancy for signing one of the marquee free agents? While you can argue that some of these players are awkward fits for most teams or collusion, it honestly all comes down to money.

Right now, we only have eight teams with a projected luxury tax payroll above $200M, according to RosterResource. Just last year, you had ten teams above that, with the Giants and Red Sox at $196M and $199M, respectively. You even had the Cubs at $190M. This season, the Cubs are the only team that stayed close to that mark, with the Giants cutting payroll down to $164M and the Red Sox down to $178M.

Executives around the sport have said that they are done spending and there has been finger-pointing toward the collapse of RSNs, especially with Diamond Sports Group’s bankruptcy and the shifting of RSN channels to more expensive TV packages. In a sport where a vast chunk of their revenue comes from these TV deals, owners are concerned that it won’t be as profitable to run these giant payrolls.

And that in turn hurts the sport. It’s not a great look when the reigning Cy Young winner cannot get a contract before the start of Spring Training while teams around the league could use his services. The Giants desperately need an arm that can eat innings and an extra bat in their infield. The Cubs could use either of the big bats to deepen their lineup in a quietly competitive NL Central. The Orioles would be one of the best teams in baseball with an extra starter, especially with Kyle Bradish and John Means sidelined to start the season. The Mariners could use a steady presence at third base and adding Chapman would push them over the line as the best team in the AL West. If the Angels really are still trying to compete despite losing Shohei Ohtani, why not get Bellinger?

As a league, MLB has dropped the ball this offseason from the crying poor to these uniforms, so please go generate some excitement for the fans.

Spring Training pitching matchups

Andrew Golden of the Washington Post dropped the pitchers for tomorrow and Sunday’s spring training games. On Saturday, Patrick Corbin, Jackson Rutledge, Joan Adon, DJ Herz, Jordan Weems, Richard Bleier, and Robert Gsellman are all throwing, with Corbin, Rutledge, and Adon each throwing around 35 pitches.  On Sunday, MacKenzie Gore, Jake Irvin, Kyle Finnegan, Hunter Harvey, Amos Willingham, Joe La Sorsa, and Angel Perdomo are throwing, with Gore and Irvin throwing around 35 pitches.

Saturday’s game begins at 6:05 pm and you can listen to it on nats.com.

Sunday’s game begins at 1:10 pm and you can listen to it on 106.7 FM The Fan.

40 in 40 begins

Our 40 in 40 season has begun! We’ll be breaking down every player on the 40-man roster until Opening Day. You can read the previous editions by clicking the button below.

Catch up on Spring Training News

There is a constant flow of news coming out of Spring Training and Richard has you covered with his Reporter’s Notebook series, where he breaks down each day’s news during Spring Training (and the week’s biggest headlines during the season).

Click here for the latest off-season headlines, rumors, trades, and more.

ICYMI: Latest articles on the Nats Report

Even though it is the offseason, we have been extremely busy producing great content on the Nats Report. Here are just a couple of the articles that we have published recently that you might have missed:

• Podcast: In the Clubhouse (Gallo and Top 30 Discussion)
• Spring Training Storylines to Watch
• Washington Nationals tease new uniform for 2024
• Perspective: When is Enough Enough?
• Sleepers! Get Your Sleeper Prospects Here!

We are working on a lot of great Nationals-themed content all off-season so make sure that you are following us on all the major social media channels for the latest.

Featured Story of the Day

MLB players add see-through pants to concerns with new uniforms via ESPN

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