#washington-nationals

#washington-nationals

Last year, the right-handed reliever was in AAA with the Royals, where he posted a 4.87 ERA in 57 and a third innings pitched. These are not numbers that most fans would get excited about. However, Nogosek has untapped potential. He has a fastball that is about league average velocity, and his primary offspeed offering is a sweeper with almost 20 inches of horizontal break.

Infielder Orelvis Martinez will attend spring training as a non-roster invitee with the Washington Nationals in 2026, per the club's announcement on Friday. The former Toronto Blue Jays top prospect, who agreed to a minor-league deal for '26 with the Nats back in September, was one of three non-roster players - ones who aren't already on the 40-man roster - to receive an invitation to major-league camp for next spring.

Despite being a near-unwatchable product on the field in recent years, the Washington Nationals have had pretty fantastic luck when it comes to having the odds bounce in their favor. Specifically, the ping pong balls for the MLB Draft Lottery have resulted in their favor more often than not, but the team has been unable to take full advantage. Them not being able to take advantage is actually no fault of their own but is in fact due to an outright stupid rule change that Major League Baseball implemented a few years ago.

Simply put, the Nationals have not been good enough behind the plate for years now. Keibert Ruiz has been brutal both offensively and defensively since inking his long-term extension, and this trade now has his future with the club in serious doubt. While giving up Ferrer, thought to be the long-term closer of the future for the Nationals, is a steep loss, the upside presented by the return is definitely worth it, in my opinion.

Aside front ace southpaw MacKenzie Gore, Washington's pitching staff struggled mightily in 2025. Young starters Jake Irvin and Mitchell Parker took major steps back after solid showings in 2024. Trevor Williams pitched more like his 2023 self than 2024. Kyle Finnegan was inconsistent and wound up getting traded, and no young relievers (perhaps with the exception of Brad Lord) stepped up in a meaningful way.

As we as a site have pointed out at length, specifically back at the trade deadline, the case for trading Gore is a very simple one to comprehend. He is a Scott Boras client, who is notorious for not having his players sign extensions before going to free agency, and the Nationals don't seem close to competing with him before he hits free agency after the 2027 season.

As part of their efforts to provide their upper levels of the minor leagues with more depth, the team has brought in righty Tyler Baum, a former touted arm in the Athletics' organization. As for some background on Baum, he was a 2nd-round pick by the then Oakland A's back in 2019 with the 66th pick out of the University of North Carolina.

If you remember back about a year ago at this time, things looked pretty wild for the Washington Nationals and former closer Kyle Finnegan. The righty was coming off an All-Star 2024 campaign, but his underlying metrics told more of the full story. Finnegan had been a beneficiary of some good luck, and his lack of swing-and-miss stuff was keeping him from unlocking his true potential as a late inning option for the Nationals.

While variations of these jerseys were worn in the past, before 2011, the main change made to them was on the jersey sleeve, where the interlocking DC logo was replaced with a Nationals emblem in a circle featuring the team's signature "curly w". The Nationals wore these uniforms during the years when they had their core players, including 2018, when the team featured many superstars such as Bryce Harper, Juan Soto, Stephen Strasburg, Max Scherzer, and Anthony Rendon.

The Nationals' front office continues with aggressive coaching hires, and they made another bold move on Friday by bringing in Andrew Aydt as their new assistant hitting coach. Aydt becomes the second addition to the staff from Driveline Baseball this offseason and carries on a clear trend under president of baseball operations Paul Toboni and manager Blake Butera: youth, analytics and innovation.

Toboni and Butera have been hard at work assembling a young and forward-thinking coaching staff since the hiring of Butera was initially announced a few weeks ago, and earlier this week, the Nationals poached yet another rising name on the coaching side. Perhaps what makes it even sweeter is the fact that this time it came from a National League East rival.

The primary reason the Nationals should look to sign Rojas is his premium defense. For almost his entire career, Rojas has been a premium defender at shortstop and second base. This past season, Rojas' outs above average ranked in the 91st percentile of all qualified players. While defensive statistics like outs above average can fluctuate from season to season for many players, Rojas has consistently been an elite performer in this metric. He has ranked around the 90th percentile since 2021.

The Nats learned that their internal philosophies must change. Ownership recognized this and fired both Mike Rizzo and Davey Martinez in July of 2025. The timing of the firings was unexpected. Most Nats fans expected Darnell Coles and Jim Hickey to be let go before Davey. Almost all fans could've agreed that none of the firings would be in-season. It showed an urgency from ownership that change needed to happen, and fast.

The Nationals have interviewed Red Sox's Double-A manager Chad Epperson as part of their managerial search, reports Spencer Nusbaum of the Washington Post. He joins Brandon Hyde as the only known interviewees. The Post's Andrew Golden wrote this afternoon that the Nats have informed interim manager Miguel Cairo that he is no longer in the running. Golden reported that the Nationals were interested in speaking with former Twins skipper Rocco Baldelli and Dodgers bench coach Danny Lehmann, but it's not known if either of them have formally interviewed.

After a 3.5 WAR season with 18 home runs in 114 games, Bregman indeed chose to opt out, placing himself back in the free agent market entering his age 32 season. In spite of his relatively advanced age, he will be one of the better hitters available for the rest of the league to acquire this offseason, particularly due to his high-leverage and leadership experience.

The Nationals are set to hire Justin Horowitz as an assistant general manager, as first reported by Joe Doyle of Over-Slot Baseball. Previously the Pirates' director of amateur scouting, Horowitz will now work under Washington's new president of baseball operations, Paul Toboni. Toboni, like Horowitz, has a background in amateur scouting. In fact, Horowitz worked under Toboni in the Red Sox's amateur scouting department for several years. That's surely no coincidence.

Arguably the biggest obstacle the new front office will need to tackle and address moving forward is player development, which was called out as being subpar by ace lefty MacKenzie Gore before the end of the season. Anyone who watched or paid attention to the Nationals this past season at any level could tell that the team had talent, but lacked proper infrastructure to be able to adequately support high-end development.