Good Morning, Washington Nationals Fans,

Here are the latest headlines and analyses around the Washington Nationals and Major League Baseball for today, February 26, 2024.

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Welcome to the Morning Briefing! Haden here, as usual, let’s talk about the Nationals getting flak for comments yet again and some early Spring Training notes.

Leading this Morning’s Briefing: Nationals continue to get dunked on

So something a member of the Nationals organization said made the rounds on social media again. No, it wasn’t about how Rizzo should care about how hard ball four is thrown, or how in the eyes of many baseball writers the rebuild is not going well. Instead, it was manager Dave Martinez saying CJ Abrams got too pull-happy last year when speaking to Jessica Camerato of MLB.com. Seems pretty fair to me, but let’s dive into the numbers.

First off, CJ Abrams’s pull rate last year of 37.5 percent ranked 97th among 133 batters who qualified for the batting title. Now that doesn’t necessarily mean much. Players on either extreme can have success. Isaac Parades is the poster boy for pulling the ball, with a Pull% over 54 percent and a .840 OPS. On the other end of the spectrum, the NL MVP third-place finisher Freddie Freeman had a lower Pull% than Abrams. You just have to tailor the approach to the hitter and see what works for them. So what worked for CJ?

Let’s start by looking at Abrams’ OPS by month along with his pull rate.

So here, we can see that CJ’s OPS in the months that he pulled the ball more was higher than when he didn’t, but maybe that can be some small sample size luck, so let’s look at his OPS by batted ball direction instead.

Huh. Who would have thought? The mountains of research that suggest that pulling the ball is worth it, even during the height of the shift, was right! But hey, maybe Martinez misspoke, and thankfully Andrew Golden of the Washington Post followed up with him. When speaking to Golden, Martinez said, “You get the ball middle in, make sure it’s not in in, but if it’s a strike in, go ahead and pull the trigger. He did really well with that. And then there were times when they started pitching him away and throwing him offspeed stuff. The offspeed stuff is really what we got him to not chase…When you see breaking balls, make sure you get them up in the zone.”

So basically, Martinez does not want CJ to chase as much but when he does, to make sure it is not pulled groundballs. Got it, so let’s look at what he did with offspeed and breaking balls that he put in play.

Well, that is a little less interesting. Now this is a tiny sample size, but fending off breaking and offspeed pitches the other way worked for CJ. Is this something that deserves all the attention it’s been getting? Probably not. But the organization is under a microscope, and little blips like these are going to get more heat than if someone in the Reds or Mets staff said this. The haters are out there, and 2024 is crucial for every facet of the organization to prove them wrong.

Early Spring Training Notes

Now I will try my hardest not to overreact to anything that happens in Spring Training, but oh boy has James Wood made that difficult. Wood hit a home run in each of the first two games, and both were absolutely crushed. He is quickly becoming a fan favorite to make the team out of camp, although he was not expected to compete for a job at camp. Enjoy his left-on-left home run from yesterday’s game.

Robert Hassell III has started hot, going 3-5 with a triple and a stolen base. Nasim Nuñez looks excellent defensively so far, which matches the scouting report. A key thing to watch as camp goes on is who makes that bench.

MacKenzie Gore looked excellent in his first outing of the Spring, striking out four in his two innings of work. He got five whiffs on his four-seam, including one against Luis Arraez.

Our 40-man Roster Breakdown Continues

We will 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

Cody Bellinger returns to the Cubs via FanGraphs

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