Good Morning, Washington Nationals Fans,

Here are the latest headlines and analyses around the Washington Nationals and Major League Baseball for today, March 13.

Welcome to the Morning Briefing! Haden here. Let’s talk about these comments made in the past few days.

Leading this Morning’s Briefing: What are we doing Nats front office?

Where do we even begin? You may recall a few weeks ago I wrote about comments made by manager Davey Martinez about CJ Abrams pulling the ball. While there have been minor things that in retrospect probably warranted being talked about here since then, I did not because I do not want the Morning Briefing to the Morning “What Dumb Thing Did a Member of the Nationals Organization Say Now?” It just does not roll off the tongue quite as well. But here we are again, and today I want to talk about Luis García Jr. and Eddie Rosario.

So far in his career, García has not lived up to expectations. The former top-100 prospect made his major league debut in 2020 during his age-20 season and has been regarded as a below-replacement-level player by FanGraphs calculation. BaseballReference’s bWAR is a bit kinder, but accumulating just 1.0 bWAR in over 1200 plate appearances is not good.

Last season, García bought into the plan laid out for him. He improved his swing decisions immensely, chasing far less and swinging more in the zone. He swung on the first pitch less, leading to longer plate appearances. And he bought into the Nationals’ contact-based game plan. He had by far the lowest whiff rate of his career, leading to a 12.4 percent strikeout rate, which was the ninth lowest among players with at least 450 plate appearances according to FanGraphs.

To me, that shows a willingness to buy into the coaching staff’s plan. It’s a plan that I disagree with, but there’s a reason I am here and they are there. A García with those swing decisions who is swinging for the fences sounds like a dangerous player.

Defensively last year, outside of his eight errors, he made all the plays a player would be expected to make but didn’t do much else. But he is also a 23-year-old with less than a major league season’s worth of innings at the position scattered across three seasons. I think it is fair to expect some improvement.

But something the stats cannot quantify is effort. Last season García was optioned to Triple-A to work on his preparation. So far in Spring Training, Martinez has not been shy about calling out García’s mistakes on the field. When speaking with Mark Zuckerman of MASN, Martinez said, “We got to be beyond that now with him. I mean, like I said, he's not a rookie. He's been in this league now for a while. Those things cannot happen. If we're gonna compete and do the things we want to do, he's got to play good defense…”

Martinez goes on to list more things that García has to do well, but you get the message. Maybe Martinez simply expects more from García, considering his age, talent, and prospect pedigree, but why not hold everyone accountable? Maybe I missed the quotes, but I heard nothing from him on Joey Meneses and Lane Thomas making base running errors in yesterday’s game. I do not see much criticism hurled Trevor Williams's way, who made opposing hitters look like Matt Olson last season.

Nationals improve to 9-8 with a win over the New York Mets.

Richard • Mar 13, 2024

West Palm Beach, FL - The Nationals continued their winning this week by beating the New York Mets 4-1. The Nationals are now 9-8 in spring training action. In his latest outing tonight, LHP Mackenzie Gore was pretty impressive. Gore pitched 5.2 innings facing 20 batters and only giving up two hits and one run, striking out two lowering his ERA to an i…

Read full story →

Are we really contemplating handing everyday at-bats to a player who has not put up an OPS above .700 in over 700 plate appearances at Double-A? Or do you want to hand them to Trey Lipscomb, who walked less and struck out more than García while playing in Double-A? I think Nasim Nuñez and Lipscomb are excellent players with lots of potential, but neither is ready to be everyday major leaguers.

But hey, the fun does not stop there, as Martinez said yesterday he wanted to try Eddie Rosario in center field. Rosario has played center field in the majors before, but most of that was back in 2016, and the last time he did it was in a single game in 2019. I hate to be the bearer of bad news here, but maybe there is a reason that Rosario is not a center fielder? Since that last appearance in 2019, Rosario has been a below-average runner in the outfield, covering less ground than your average major leaguer. And over the past four seasons, his arm has gradually gotten weaker out there, as he has gone from averaging 91.6 mph on his throws to 85.1 mph.

I am starting to get to the point where I am confused about what is happening. The Nationals are making the strangest defensive alignment you could come up with. Statcast’s Outs Above Average, which is, in my opinion, one of the best ways we can quantify defense at this point agrees.

The Nationals already moved their second-best defensive outfielder to first base and then signed more corner outfielders in hopes that they can recapture some form (which is now blocking prospects, at least in the short term). For a manager so insistent on not making defensive mistakes, why put your players in positions where they are less likely to succeed?

Why not shift Winker or Rosario to first base in favor of Gallo roaming the grass? Or let Meneses handle first base duties while one of the two serves as the DH. Maybe you can make more sense of it than I can, feel free to let me know in the comments.

Get Your Starting Lineup Here

The Nationals take on the Marlins at 1:05 p.m. Thankfully, it is a Statcast game so we can take a look at the fun numbers that pop out in Friday’s Briefing. You can listen on The Team 980 AM, and I think the Marlins usually do a webcast, so check in on our Twitter/X account to stay updated.

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