NATIONALS: Two months in, and there's new hope in D.C.

Every MLB season has its surprises. We have all these assumptions about what teams have to be good, despite all the evidence to the contrary two months into the season. Similarly, we assume that certain teams have no chance to compete because that’s what we were told, even when everything suggests the opposite. 

The Nationals sit in that gray area between, neither surprising nor unsurprising pending further investigation. Still, precedent suggests that they’re probably closer to competing than we think. The Royals are a likely playoff team in 2024. The Orioles were one of the best teams in baseball last season. So were the Diamondbacks. All these teams that were, to some extent, written off as “one year away” found a way to accelerate their rebuild. The Nationals are in the same boat, sitting in third place in the NL East, above the Mets and the Marlins. They’re a few games under .500 and behind a few similar squads in the Wild Card hunt. But the season is long. Teams falter. Schedules shift, and injuries set in. Here’s a scenario where the Nats find their way into the playoffs a season early, based on a few key factors.

Josiah Gray and Cade Cavalli return from injury in solid form.

In a bizarre turn of events, starting pitching has been a huge strength for the Nats so far in 2024. Mitchell Parker, Trevor Williams, MacKenzie Gore, and Jake Irvin have been rock solid; Patrick Corbin, per usual, has been a liability. Gray, the Nationals’ only All-Star in 2023, started 2024 with two rocky starts and was soon sidelined with an injury, suggesting that he was never at 100% or that his mechanics were strained from the outset. His return should be relatively imminent. Similarly, Cavalli, a former first-round draft pick, has had dreadful injury luck and very limited MLB experience, but there’s still plenty of hype surrounding him as he works back from Tommy John surgery. He’s currently on a rehab assignment and should be ready to go by mid-June. 

Strong returns from Gray and Cavalli would give the Nats the flexibility to move Corbin to the bullpen, run a six-man rotation, and/or trade Trevor Williams for a solid haul at the deadline, further accelerating the rebuild. Alternatively, they could run with what they have for the rest of the season and see if Williams maintains his form, considering he pitched pretty horribly in 2023. Either way, every team in the league needs starting pitching, and a surplus is never a negative. Moving a strong arm to a temporary bullpen role would also help shore up a bullpen that has struggled in the middle of games, despite being a net strength towards the last two innings. Plenty of directions to go here, but the takeaway is that the Nats are starting to collect a nice set of arms for the future; not only are they primed for contention in 2025 and beyond, but they’re also putting up great numbers right now. 

Uber-prospects are closer than you think

James Wood is currently sidelined with an injury, but it probably won’t be an issue for very long. Wood has been hitting at an otherworldly pace in Triple-A Rochester for a few months now. There’s no reason why he shouldn’t be on the big-league roster, other than that the Nats are still hoping to get value out of veteran outfielders acquired during the offseason, namely Eddie Rosario and Jesse Winker. Neither of them have been particularly productive, so I’m not sure why the front office seems so intent on leaving Wood in the minors at this point. The end of July sure seems far enough away that giving Wood a chance sooner rather than later could significantly sway the Nats’ chances of competing for a Wild Card spot. 

After a rough April, Dylan Crews seems to have hit his stride. The second overall pick in 2023 needs to work on the high fastball, but his numbers are back where they should be; Crews’ hit tool is highly touted, and we should see it in the majors within a year from now. That gives the Nats time to figure out what they want to do with a surplus of outfield options, considering Jacob Young’s success in center field. Will Young be the fourth outfield, or will they run a platoon? Will Lane Thomas end up being dealt at the trade deadline for a corner infield bat and/or a bullpen piece? A surplus is a good problem to have, one that the Nats have missed in recent years. The fact that not one, but two surpluses (outfield and rotation) appear imminent is a major growth indicator for a rebuilding team. 

Corbin’s contract becomes a distant memory

The beleaguered starter eats up the most payroll on the team, and it’s not close. A whopping $35.4 million goes into that 5.85 ERA, which is about $30 million than the next closest player. Good teams improve in the free agent market and become great teams; the Nats are almost a good team, so the sooner they get the payroll flexibility to make big moves in the market, the better. Good news: Corbin’s contract ends after this season, and if he is resigned (for some bizarre reason), it will be at a major discount. With the rotation relatively established without Corbin, that money will be better spent improving the middle of the order by acquiring a first/third baseman for the future, and adding some reliable bullpen arms. The resources are all there, seemingly out of nowhere, once Corbin’s overwhelming presence is no longer felt on the payroll. 

What does that have to do with current success? When Gray and Cavalli return, there will be too many arms for Corbin to hold down a spot in the rotation. As aforementioned, moving Corbin to the bullpen should be the most likely outcome, regardless of his importance to the club and past success. I’m certainly looking forward to having his contract off the books, but in the meantime, Corbin could find just a fraction of the success he’s found sporadically in 2024 and apply it across the rest of the season. On a less frequent basis, out of the bullpen, Corbin could become a lefty asset rather than a liability; the Nats are notably devoid of lefty assets in the bullpen. There’s a wild scenario, therefore, where Corbin becomes a critical piece for the 2024 playoff push, however unlikely it seems. 

One more note about Corbin: his success usually comes in the early innings. He gets in trouble on his second or third time through the order and runs into a big inning. A bullpen role could suit him perfectly by limiting the lineup’s exposure to his stuff and getting him in and out of games before they inevitably figure him out. 

Struggling bullpen pieces get back on track

Dylan Floro, Jacob Barnes, and Derek Law come to mind. Bullpen meltdowns are the hallmark of most Nationals teams, but that wasn’t the case earlier this year. All three of those relievers sported solid, even excellent ERAs that have suffered slightly in recent weeks. All three appear to have settled back in, though, so maybe the bullpen will rediscover the success of April and early May to finish out the season. If the Nats don’t ship off Finnegan, Harvey, Floro, Barnes, or Law, that’s a really strong core group to work through the middle and late innings for the rest of the season.

Offense, offense, offense

Of course, there’s the biggest issue with this team: offensive production, or a lack thereof. CJ Abrams, who appeared to be headed to superstardom in April, has fallen off dramatically in May, perhaps a product of overconfidence. His numbers should normalize soon. Other than CJ, offense has been hard to find. Similarly to CJ, Luis Garcia Jr. started off hot and has since declined somewhat, but he remains above-average in this lineup and by league standards. And besides a consistently solid season for Ildemaro Vargas and mediocre stats for Jesse Winker, there’s no offense here. Zilch. Meneses, Senzel, Gallo, Young, and Thomas have all been mediocre, injured, or both. Keibert Ruiz has been profoundly disappointing following the extension he signed over the offseason. There’s just no real spark right now, especially with Abrams regressing.

The key here is that the Nationals are still playing middling baseball, even with basically no offense from the regular suspects. Abrams and Thomas should both find their stride soon enough, especially Thomas, who just returned from injury and has already contributed in ways quantifiable and otherwise. And, as aforementioned, help is on the way in the form of James Wood. There’s hope for this offense even if the Nats don’t improve in the free agent market, but a move to grab an impact corner bat would elevate the lineup significantly, and I wouldn’t put it past Rizzo if he sees competing for a Wild Card spot as a legitimate possibility come July. 

The Wild Card race thins out

The only aspect of this, and perhaps the most important, is completely out of the Nationals’ control. There’s an entire lineup of NL teams that are toeing the .500 line. The Nats need to emerge just above these squads, which, admittedly, looks pretty unlikely. Then again, most of these teams have bad odds. Three Wild Card spots in a weak league is a recipe for chaos, and the Nats just need to hope that things get chaotic enough for them to take advantage.

This is all to say that the Nationals are close. That hasn’t manifested in consistently winning baseball, but this is a streaky team that has won some series they shouldn’t have won and lost some series they shouldn’t have lost. If Washington’s play normalizes, I wouldn’t be surprised to see this team play winning baseball for the first time since 2019. In the era of the expanded playoff, .500 baseball might be enough to earn the Nats a playoff spot.