Good Morning, Washington Nationals Fans,

Here are the latest headlines and analyses around the Washington Nationals and Major League Baseball for today, March 1.

Welcome to the Morning Briefing! Haden here, as usual, let’s talk about the new pitches in Nats camp and some more early Spring Training notes.

Leading this Morning’s Briefing: New Pitch Watch

NEW PITCH WATCH. That’s right, pitchers are throwing pitches. And sometimes, they have not thrown them in prior seasons, which brings us to New Pitch Watch. So who’s throwing new pitches?

Jackson Rutledge broke out a new cutter in camp. Now I’ll dive into his arsenal at a deeper level in the next few weeks, but Rutledge was going to have issues with lefties in 2024 if he did not make any changes to his arsenal. He struggled to throw strikes against them, in part because he did not have a fastball he could rely on against them. If the cutter plays well against lefties, he can use that and his nasty changeup (at least from a shape perspective) to roll through opposing left-handed hitters.

Kyle Finnegan is using a new slider. Last season, his slider was more of a cutter and it did not work well for Finnegan as opposing hitters had a .833 SLG against the pitch. Now he is throwing a “sweeper” sitting at 83.9 mph. While he had the intention of using a sweeper, the pitch did not look right in early bullpens, and it is now a bit more slider-esque, with a decent amount of horizontal break, but dropping significantly more than a traditional sweeper. The pitch gives Finnegan an option to mix up speeds against opposing hitters with his 97 mph fastball and almost 90 mph splitter.

Patrick Corbin brought the cutter back. In 2021, before the Nationals began this rebuild, Corbin tried his cutter in Spring Training and some of the season. And while BaseballSavant may have tried to wipe all memory (seriously it’s not there) of the pitch, I never forget. Stuff+, a model developed by Eno Sarris, breaks down how good the pitch is based on velocity, shape, and release point, and that model graded the cutter as his best pitch in 2021. Corbin’s stuff has only gotten worse compared to the rest of the league since then, but adding a decent cutter may help the Nationals flip him for a prospect this July. This is not something that is totally out of the blue either. The pitch is something he desperately needed, and I wrote about it last May.

Jose A. Ferrer does not have a new pitch but he brought some new heat. In his spring debut yesterday he averaged 98 mph on his fastball, a 2.5 mph jump from last season.

Early Spring Training Notes

Spring Training is in full swing and shoutout to Rich for breaking down the last two games. You can read about Wednesday’s game here and yesterday’s game here. The Nats take on the Astros today at 1:05 pm.

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 Stories of the Day

Paul Skenes faced off against Jackson Holliday via ESPN

Prospect Debate: James Wood vs Dylan Crews via Down on the Farm

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