It’s February…
I’ve been waitng for something more substantial than the Nats moving up one spot (from #15 to #14) in Baseball America’s latest organizational rankings for the first post of the month but I may just have to put this short post in to let the search engines people know the site hasn’t gone dark.
As tempted as I may be to comment on how much closer we are to Entschuldigen Sie, aber Ihre Papiere bitte, I figure you’re getting enough of that elsewhere.
For better or worse, it appears that the Nats are done dealing and signing, even if the house organ says otherwise.
Spring Training begins next week… allegedly. Dylan Crews will make the Opening Day roster, so the only real drama is where he’ll play in the outfield. Perhaps one of “our guys” will make the bullpen, but more likely is that whoever gets bumped will then bump someone else to Rochester.
I now return you to your Watangi Day festivities.
Remember the signs in the Bargain Basement? “Some products may have defects. No returns. All sales are final.” Guys like Josh Bell are coming off terrible years, but who knows, he can return to the younger Josh of a couple years ago when he was with the Nats. Trevor Williams could be the guy we saw in 2023 or is he the guy we saw briefly in 2024? Some of the sore arms could revive their health. It’s all possible. The Nats have done some cost-effective signings, no doubt. But so far, the shopping has not been effective. 3B alone makes the Nats hard to watch.
A follow up question: The Nats are reportedly in the bottom four of MLB payrolls in terms of active players (not counting Stras)? At this stage of the rebuilding process, how important is it to have this level of frugality?
I saw someone else point out that we should expect a flurry of further movement once Spring Training begins in a couple weeks, because that’s the point at which players on the 60 day IL can be transferred back and not count as a 40 man roster spot.
According to my count, the Nats have several guys who might be sent immediately to the 60 day IL: Gray and Thompson definitely, and maybe Cavalli and Henry, thus freeing up 4 roster spots for our comically thin bullpen.
Last season, we brought in Law and the Barnes not-Brothers after this point. I expect we’ll see a few more moves like this, and potentially the Barnes not-Brothers themselves, as the RP market is pretty thin at this point (though Kenley Jansen and David Robertson have both notably still not signed), and both Matt and Jacob are still free agents, as well as Floro, Finnegan, Gott, and Voth!
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the Nats had a couple of handshake deals with relievers that will be announced after 2/12 when they can clear roster space.