2025 Spring Training Thoughts
Well, it’s here. Pitchers and catchers report today to West Palm Beach. Yay.
Like Stevie Wonder in that famous SNL ad, MASN is on the ball for its 2025 Spring Training schedule. But otherwise, Mark Zuckerman has you covered on the 29 pitchers and 28 position players trying to make the club.
For us, however, there are just a few questions…
WILL DYLAN CREWS MAKE THE OPENING DAY ROSTER?
Yes.
WILL CADE CAVALLI EMERGE FROM WITNESS PROTECTION?
The silence is deafening. The company line is that Cavalli was ready to pitch in late September but there was nowhere for him to go. Well, except the Arizona Fall League. Occam’s Razor suggests this is bullshit and that he’s more hurt than they’re letting on. Hanlon’s Razor suggests this is the par for the course.
WILL EITHER BRADY HOUSE OR CAYDEN WALLACE TAKE THE 3B JOB AWAY FROM A VETERAN?
Probably not, but even if they were to do it, the bar they’d be clearing would only be GM Mike Rizzo’s stubborn refusal to play prospects over veterans, even when those veterans can’t hit water after falling off a pier.
WILL THE REAL ROBERT HASSELL PLEASE STAND UP?
It’s been discussed in the comments and in various prospect forums, but the cold, hard truth is that we have a miniscule sample size of a few at-bats in the fall against less-than-stellar pitchers.
COULD ONE OF “OUR GUYS” MAKE THE BULLPEN?
A lot of that depends on how you define that. Someone born in this century (2001-) is very doubtful, but Zach Brzykcy, Tyler Stuart, or Brad Lord could. It’s worth pointing out that Evan Reifert has an inside track as a Rule 5 pick.
Otherwise, the goal for spring training here is the same as it ever was: Get back into the groove of writing every day until becomes obvious that my covering the big club is facetious. And of course, as time allows. While I only have to go into D.C. once a week (and so far, don’t need to carry antyhing other than a driver’s license) this is when things really pick up at my work, never mind the fourth reich stuff going on blocks away from my job.
Speaking of relievers, as expected, there was a flurry of transactions yesterday among relief pitchers: https://www.mlb.com/transactions/2025/02/11
The Nats haven’t signed anyone new yet, but they need to. If only to just be able to field a regular 8 man bullpen, but also to acquire some trade deadline chips, as the rebuild drags into its 6th season.
They signed Colin Poche quietly a couple days ago to a NRI, but made space for him by releasing the Rays’ previous lefty relief cast off, Joe La Sorsa, and previously we made room for the signing of Ogasarawa by releasing Willingham, and before that swapping Joan Adon for Jorge Lopez. The front office seems aware we need more depth in the bullpen, but they keep addressing the reliever depth issue by swapping out one RP for a different fungible RP and not actually building any depth.
Gray and Thompson should get added to the 60 man imminently, so that’ll free two spaces on the 40 man, so Darren Baker can breathe a sigh of relief. For now.
Colin Poche may surprise, if he is healthy!
I think you’re off by one with the reliever dfa’s. Poche was a minor league deal so there isn’t s corresponding move yet. LaSorsa was released for Ogasawara. Not sure about the others. Adon stayed with the organization and is a spring training invite who seems destined for Rochester as a desperation depth option. I don’t think we’re losing much in Willingham or LaSorsa and the depth is necessary as either bullpen long relief or Rochester options.
Keith Law said in his organizational list that Cavalli contracted COVID during his rehab assignment, which I don’t remember hearing. All we heard was a “dead arm.” We’ll see.
I’ve been saying all winter that the Nats had the chance to improve themselves by four or five wins by investing a modest amount on the bullpen. They haven’t done so. They may well be hoping that guys like Cavalli and Rutledge can work out of the ‘pen.
Soroka was promised an opportunity to start, so presumably he, Trevor Williams, and Gore will be three of the five for the rotation. Many seem to think that Irvin is locked in for a rotation slot as well, although his numbers weren’t that great. So presumably there’s only one spot left from among Herz, Parker, Cavalli, and whoever else. Hard to know if the “losers” will be shipped to Rochester to stay stretched out, or moved to the ‘pen.
Among the position players, I’m curious to see if Crews gets a lot of spring reps in CF, or if they’re good with Young in that position for now.
The wide-open positional starting spot is at 3B. The general consensus is that House isn’t ready. Tena likely will get a strong opportunity. Rosario played a little 3B last season, but that isn’t his strength. Chaparro came up as a 3B but seems to be a defensive liability there. Lipscomb was primarily a 3B in college but just didn’t hit in his big-league opportunity last year. The Nats will also be getting their first look at a (hopefully) healthy Cayden Wallace. With so many cooks already in this kitchen, Morales presumably will mostly be at 1B.
I have no idea who’ll they’ll carry as a reserve SS. Hard to see Nunez making the squad with limited bat and no positional flexibility. He really needs to play every day at AAA. Rosario has a little SS experience, as does Lipscomb.
If Crews plays in CF, who would you play in RF? Young is only useful if you play him in CF and benefit from his defense. Call? Garrett? It seems like it would just create another problem, when we’ve got plenty of other roster problems to deal with.
At 3B, it looks like Tena’s job to lose. I just hope his defense improves significantly on last year’s poor display. If not, Rosario seems like our super utility player, replacing Vargas. Though Rosario only played at 3B for the first time in his MLB career last season. So 3B is going to be yet another black hole, unless Tena surprises us all.
Rosario should also be first in line at SS. He’s played about 90% of his career at SS, but has recently played considerably less there because he’s dreadful there. He’s one of a few SS to give Abrams a run for his money as worst defensive SS.
On the bright side, Rosario has really good lefty splits, which will be a big boost, as Abrams and Garcia are both really poor vs lefties, meaning we can platoon Rosario semi-regularly between the two middle infield spots.
But all it’ll take is an injury or two before we see Lipscomb getting semi-regular playing time again. The upper minors infield depth is truly abysmal at the moment. Here’s to hoping King, Diaz and Dickerson can rocket up the affiliate ladder, and maybe we’ll get another boost around August with our 1-1 pick too.
Tena was awful against lefties as well and may be the platoon partner for Rosario given his lower prospect pedigree than Abrams. He hit .208/.208/.250 against lefties in 48 plate appearances. Would you like to see them take a flier on Paul DeJong as a potential flippable asset or just run Tena out there? For me, it depends on whether Tena has shown defensive progress in the early spring training games. I think our pitching staff needs better than two butchers on the left side of the infield in Abrams’and Tena’s 2024 performance.
and Rizzo evidently agreed with you.
Reports coming in that Sykora will be out until May with a hip injury…. *sigh*
It’s now been confirmed Henry has finally been moved to the bullpen: https://bsky.app/profile/andrewgolden.bsky.social/post/3liaclhpick2q
Not surprising with Henry’s injury history, and the rather lackadaisical approach to the major league bullpen to date. It looks like the plan this year will be much more predicated on the prospects than major league cast offs than in past years.
It’s sort of sad to say, but I actually keep forgetting that Henry is still with the organization. At one time I thought he had a higher potential ceiling than Cavalli. (Of course with their “competing” arm issues, that may still be the case.) Certainly would be a great story if he can salvage a career. In retrospect, they probably should have shut Henry down for an entire year or more to see if he could get completely healthy.
Following up on your point above, I’m not necessarily saying that they should move Young off of CF so Crews can play there. My thinking is more that Crews has long been proclaimed the “CF of the future,” so when do they plan to claim the future? Or do they not worry about it until they have another OF prospect demonstrate that he’s demonstrably better than Young?
FanGraphs’ top 100 is up: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2025-top-100-prospects/
No surprise to see Crews at #3.
But it is a shocker to see Susana at 19! Just a few days ago, Keith Law was arguing strongly that Susana is nothing more than a reliever.
Sykora comes in at #84.
It is perhaps slightly surprising House didn’t feature at all. He was pegged at #60 in the mid season top 100 last year, which IIRC was right around the time of his ill fated promotion to AAA. Still, and I’m a broken record here, it feels silly to dock a player so significantly due to one or two bad months. These aren’t wRC+ leaderboards, but rankings of future potential. If House was a deemed to have elite potential in July, then I don’t see why 2 bad months (where he was 5.5 years below league average, by the way) would alter that potential much. But, similarly, that should also limit Susana’s upside potential as well.