See…You…Later! The Nats’ collective tip of the cap tribute to retiring MASN play-by-play man Bob Carpenter before first pitch was a classy touch, and then old fan favorite Michael A. Taylor, now 34 years old but still looking mostly like a teenager, also got a big ovation in the bottom of the ninth when he was replaced with an out to go.

Michael A. Tater is retiring as a player, having eclipsed the ten years of service time during the 2025 season that guarantees him a full pension from the MLBPA. He finished his career with a .232/.287/.379 slash line, 109 home runs, 128 stolen bases, a Gold Glove (2021 with the Royals), and of course a World Series ring in 2019 with the Nationals. His catch of the final out in that year’s NLDS against the Dodgers is one of the enduring images from the Nats’ magical playoff run, and he hit two big home runs that October, including in his only World Series at-bat.

He would like to stick around baseball in some capacity, so there’s a chance that we might see him come the spring.

What a fitting way for the Nationals to end perhaps their most disappointing season in DC, with only Brady House’s sixth-inning single marring an otherwise perfect game from the White Sox pitching staff - the same White Sox who finished 60-102, one of only two teams with a worse record than the Nationals. It was such a lifeless performance (featuring 13 strikeouts by the home team) that not even Daylen Lile could manage to get anything going offensively. And now the long winter begins, with four months before pitchers and catchers report* to West Palm Beach for Spring Training 2026 - and who knows how many of the current roster, coaching staff, and front office will survive until then?

*If you like a good cocktail, here’s one that will get you through those winter evenings before baseball comes back that I actually called “Pitchers and Catchers Report”: 2 oz dark rum (I usually use Barbancourt 8 year), 0.5 oz Licor 43 (a Puerto Rican vanilla liqueur), 0.5 oz Pierre Ferrand Dry Curaçao, 0.5 oz simple syrup, 2 dashes orange bitters, 1 dash orange blossom water. Stir and serve over one large ice cube like an Old Fashioned. It tastes like if an Old Fashioned and an orange cream soda had a baby. Thank me later.

I have not yet weighed in on the topic, but allow me to say that I am absolutely thrilled at the hiring of Paul Toboni, late of the Red Sox organization where he was in charge of drafting and player development, as the new president of baseball operations here in DC. The 35-year-old Toboni, who played college baseball at Cal with a few major leaguers, has both a scouting and a quantitative background, and you would seemingly be hard-pressed to find anyone in Boston who doesn’t rave about his work for the Red Sox. Assuming that the Lerners give him a budget befitting both their wealth and that of the local market, Toboni could hardly have been a more perfect hire.

He will have a LOT of housecleaning to do. Reports have surfaced that the previous administration had too many chefs and not enough line cooks, with a bunch of senior advisors and special assistant GMs and not nearly enough scouts or development staff (to say nothing of technology). The major league coaching staff will presumably get a total overhaul, with only Sean Doolittle and Gerardo Parra possibly having a chance at holding onto their positions there. The minor league coaching staff also could see a lot of new faces after years and years of poor development results - albeit with a few islands of bright spots. Toboni’s first big hire will be a new manager for the big club, and I am very curious to see what direction he goes with that post.

And then there is the roster. There are only three free agents - Josh Bell, Paul DeJong, and the injured Derek Law - and just two players with guaranteed contracts for 2026; Trevor Williams, who will miss at least half the season after undergoing an internal bracing procedure on his right elbow this summer…and Keibert Ruiz, whose multiple concussions (and incredibly poor handling thereof by the team’s medical staff) have thrown not just his future with the Nationals - under contract through 2030 - but his entire career into doubt. Everyone else on the roster is either arbitration-eligible (Gore, Abrams, García Jr., Gray, Adams, Thompson) or will still be making roughly the minimum in 2026. Regardless, there are several non-tender or DFA candidates if Toboni and whatever people he wants to bring in decide to shake up what has become a losing franchise over the past six seasons. Here are the priorities for Toboni and the front office as I see them:

1) Clean house - The old way of doing things had stopped working at all, in particular on the drafting and development side, and a new approach throughout the front office is sorely needed. Get some forward-thinking people in the organization at all levels, and stop running the franchise on nostalgia vibes.

2) No sacred cows - I think we have seen enough over the past few seasons to know that CJ Abrams is not a good enough shortstop, Luis García Jr. is not a good enough second baseman, Jake Irvin and Mitchell Parker should not be written in pen into the 2026 rotation, Keibert Ruiz (even if healthy) should not be automatically handed the starting catching job, and Jacob Young is not a good enough hitter to warrant an everyday role despite his elite defense.

3) Invest in player development - No more stories or leaked reports about the Nats being five or ten years behind in terms of technology, innovation, and development. If the Lerners are going to operate a big-market franchise with the financial commitment of a small-market team, then they have to get better at producing quality major leaguers from within. Brad Lord and Daylen Lile were massive bright spots this season, and Jose A. Ferrer was mostly excellent after becoming the closer post-deadline, but the hits have been few and the misses (Elijah Green, anyone?) have been epic.

4) Change the culture - In recent years we have watched promising young players such as Victor Robles, Luis García Jr., and CJ Abrams fritter away half or even entire seasons and not be held accountable for their professionalism until things have gotten out of hand. There has been a dearth of real veteran leadership since Ryan Zimmerman, Max Scherzer, and Trea Turner all departed during/after the 2021 season, and both losing and losing habits have become acceptable on South Capitol Street. Nathaniel Lowe loafed through four months with a spare tire and sat out literally zero days. Stars such as Juan Soto and James Wood have stopped running full 90s when they are struggling/don’t feel like it and are never taken to task by coaches or the rent-a-vets sitting around waiting to be traded in July or DFA’d in August/September. Mental mistakes permeate the entire organization in the field and on the bases as the manager shrugs and says “What can you do? We’re playing hard and will get ‘em tomorrow.” If the Nats aren’t going to shell out any coin for actual power, they have to commit to a style of play that entails airtight defense (😂), aggressive but smart base running (😂😂), and pitchers who can throw strikes when needed and not melt down at the first pasta-diving [fill in your infielder here] of any given game. Find some leadership, both internally (Crews? Lord? Bueller?) and externally (Schwarber? Bregman?) and DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY.

5) Add middle-of-the-order power - Here’s where the Nats have ranked in team home runs over the last five seasons: 22nd, 28th, 29th, 29th, 24th. That simply isn’t good enough in today’s game. Some of that could come from internal improvements: Wood could easily hit 40 if he doesn’t go through another two-month tailspin, Dylan Crews and Daylen Lile should reach 20-25 in a full season, and Brady House has spectacular raw power that thus far in his pro career has shown up in games after he repeats a level, but some of it will have to come from outside the organization, which means spending money.

6) Stabilize the rotation - Add more depth, and quit pretending that a #4/#5 guy like Jake Irvin can be a #2 when three years’ worth of evidence says that he cannot. The organization’s most promising young pitchers (Travis Sykora, Jarlin Susana, and DJ Herz) all have major injury questions, and some of the second tier of guys (Josiah Gray, Jake Bennett, Cade Cavalli) still have to complete their answers to those same questions. Making the jump from a bad team to a competitive team will, again, require not just internal improvements but also on spending money on pitchers - and more money than cheap fliers on the likes of Trevor Williams and Michael Soroka.

📌 Astros eliminated from playoff chase, ending 8-year postseason streak (MLB)

📌 MLB playoff bracket: 2025 postseason set for march to World Series (USA Today)

📌 Need another reminder of baseball’s payroll divide? Just look at the playoff teams (The Athletic)