2023 MLB Season Review: Washington Nationals
Check out my 2023 Season Preview Article for the Nationals here.
2023 Record: 71-91 (.438 win%, 5th in Division)
2023 Payroll: $93,378,663 (25th)
2023 Lineup:
1. SS CJ Abrams, .245 AVG/.300 OBP/.412 SLG, 2.1 fWAR
2. RF Lane Thomas, .268 AVG/.315 OBP/.468 SLG, 2.7 fWAR
3. DH Joey Meneses, .275 AVG/.321 OBP/.401 SLG, -0.2 fWAR
4. 3B Jeimer Candelario, .258 AVG/.342 OBP/.481 SLG, 3.1 fWAR
5. LF Stone Garrett, .269 AVG/.343 OBP/.457 SLG, 1.2 fWAR
6. C Keibert Ruiz, .260 AVG/.308 OBP/.409 SLG, 0.0 fWAR
7. 2B Luis García, .266 AVG/.304 OBP/.385 SLG, 0.1 fWAR
8. 1B Dominic Smith, .254 AVG/.326 OBP/.366 SLG, 0.1 fWAR
9. CF Alex Call, .200 AVG/.307 OBP/.307 SLG, 0.4 fWAR
10. INF Ildemaro Vargas, .252 AVG/.304 OBP/.363 SLG, 0.1 fWAR
2023 Rotation:
1. Patrick Corbin, 180 IP/5.20 ERA/1.48 WHIP, 0.9 fWAR
2. Josiah Gray, 159 IP/3.91 ERA/1.46 WHIP, 1.6 fWAR
3. Trevor Williams, 144.1 IP/5.55ERA/1.60 WHIP, -0.1 fWAR
4. MacKenzie Gore, 136.1 IP/4.42 ERA/1.40 WHIP, 1.3 fWAR
5. Jake Irvin, 121 IP/4.61 ERA/1.42 WHIP, 0.8 fWAR
2023 Top 4 Relievers:
1. Kyle Finnegan, 69.1 IP/3.76 ERA/1.30 WHIP, 0.3 fWAR
2. Hunter Harvey, 60.2 IP/2.82 ERA/0.94 WHIP, 1.3 fWAR
3. Jordan Weems, 54.2 IP/3.62 ERA/1.21 WHIP, 0.0 fWAR
4. Mason Thompson, 54 IP/5.50 ERA/1.56 WHIP, 0.5 fWAR
Regular Season Recap:
When Juan Soto was traded in August of 2022, it left little doubt about the direction the Nationals would be headed in the coming years. This year was the first Nationals season in a decade in which there was not a glimmer of hope to make it to October. To put it bluntly, the Nationals did not make the playoffs, or come close to it in 2023. It was a throwaway year from the get-go. But that does not mean that important things were not going on around the organization which directly impacted the Nationals’ fortunes in the future. You just have to look a little deeper to find them.
When looking at the Nationals’ active roster, it becomes apparent that not many of the players occupying a spot on the team will be around for very long. However, there is still a clear group of players who will likely lead the charge towards the next generation of Nationals contending teams, namely CJ Abrams, MacKenzie Gore, Lane Thomas, Keibert Ruiz, and Josiah Gray. It was the leaps these players made this season that made it all worth watching in the end.
When the season started, the Nationals got off to an expected poor start, going 24-32 through the first two months of the season. Trevor Williams, the Nationals’ biggest free agent acquisition, pitched well as a new member of the starting rotation, in addition to Josiah Gray posting a dominant 2.77 ERA and 0.9 fWAR in 61.2 innings. Young southpaw MacKenzie Gore followed suit, posting a 3.57 ERA and 1.2 fWAR of his own. What dragged the Nationals starting pitching down at the beginning of the season were the performances of Patrick Corbin and Chad Kuhl who both posted ERAs and FIPs north of 4.90.
As the season progressed into the second half, Gray, Gore, and Williams quickly became exhausted with the larger workloads than they were accustomed to, and their effectiveness quickly plummeted, resulting in every major member of the rotation recording WHIPs greater than 1.40. Luckily for the Nationals, Jake Irvin was called up from AAA following the DFA of Chad Kuhl and emerged as a reliable starter in this span. Throughout 2023, Irvin started 24 games pitching 121 innings to the tune of a 4.61 ERA, 5.23 xERA. He still likely profiles as a reliever long-term, but he has claimed a spot in the starting rotation in the majors until further notice.
On the offensive side, there were a few solid fixtures in the lineup, but the lack of power was very apparent. In 2023 the Nationals ranked 29th in the majors in home runs hit, and they paid for it in the form of only scoring 700 runs, good for 21st in the majors. The contact-heavy approach is an interesting strategy given that the shift has just been banned, but in today’s MLB not hitting for extra-base hits makes it tougher to be productive on offense.
Lane Thomas didn’t appear to get the memo though, as he enjoyed a breakout season highlighted by his 28 homers. He enjoyed career highs across the board including upticks in doubles (36), triples (3), homeruns (28), ISO (.201), wRC+ (109), HH% (40.5), and fWAR (2.7). There may be questions about whether or not he can replicate this performance in the coming years, most notably by his second-half fall-off (.705 OPS, 86 wRC+), but if he can, then he has firmly entrenched himself as the starting right fielder and a fixture towards the top of the lineup through 2025.
Luckily for Lane, he was not the only hitter doing the damage in the Nationals’ lineup, as Jeimer Candelario was able to put up a very productive year in his 4-month-long tenure in D.C. Before being dealt to the Cubs at the deadline, among qualified MLB third basemen Candelario ranked 3rd in fWAR (3.1), 5th in wRC+ (121), 5th in OBP (.342), and 7th in SLG (.481).
If you factor in his serviceable defense at the hot corner, this production easily made Candelario the MVP of this team. He not only provided elite production for the majority of the year for one of the weakest positions for the Nationals in recent years, but he also garnered them a promising left-handed pitching prospect upon his trade to Chicago. Candelario was a dart throw signing for the Nationals this past offseason, and when rebuilding teams can hit on a few players in free agency with a limited budget, it can make a rebuild much easier to stomach.
Other than CJ Abrams, the last significant hitter for the Nationals in 2023 was LF Stone Garrett. Upon the conclusion of the 2022 season, the Diamondbacks opted to Designate Stone Garrett for assignment amidst a major outfield roster crunch. Garrett opted to elect free agency, and the Nationals tendered him a contract soon after. Garrett posted a strong September with the Diamondbacks the previous year, and given he was only due the league minimum salary in 2023, he was a low-risk high-reward option for a Nationals team with no outfield depth at the major league level.
This dart throw paid off big, as Garrett would go on to slug his way to 17 doubles and 9 homers in 89 games before fracturing his left fibula in a freak accident in Yankee Stadium after colliding with the outfield wall. His presence as the biggest power threat in the Nationals’ lineup was missed, as the team collectively produced a 79 wRC+ the rest of the season, good for 28th in baseball.
After the Garrett injury occurred in late August, the wheels suddenly seemed to fall off of a team that had won 13 of their last 20 games. They struggled to keep runners off base and even more so to hit for power, ranking 23rd and 28th in team homers and team WHIP allowed. After everything was said and done, the Nats found themselves in a familiar place as of late, the cellar of the National League East.
M-SABR Predicted Record (64-98) vs. Actual (71-91):
Looking back at my season preview, it’s surprising to see that I undershot what the Nationals’ actual win total ended up being. As many others had it at the time, I thought this team was very likely the strongest contender to finish dead last in both leagues in terms of record, but I gave them the benefit of the doubt given a couple of key acquisitions the Nationals had made over the winter.
The addition of Trevor Williams gave me greater confidence in the starting rotation, even though, funnily enough, he had little effect on how the Nationals were able to outpace their season expectations. The jumps in production from Jeimer Candelario, Lane Thomas, Stone Garrett, and CJ Abrams fueled this “success”, and it will be imperative to the Nationals’ 2024 hopes to see if they can keep up their progress in the current rebuild.
Surprise of the Season:
Outside of the team’s success in outperforming most analyst’s and fans’ pre-season predictions, one of the more underrated surprises belongs to the backend of the Nationals bullpen. In 2023, Davey Martinez could reliably trust multiple relievers in the late innings of close games for the first time since 2019, and this luxury was imperative to the Nationals earning 70 wins. In one run games, the team went 32-22, powered by a combined FIP and ERA of 3.98 and 3.32 between Hunter Harvey and Kyle Finnegan.
Although team records in close games tend to vary year by year no matter the quality of the team, having a couple flamethrowers towards the backend of your bullpen is imperative in the modern era of MLB, so it is certainly a plus to see that the Nationals have that area decently covered so far in regards to building the next playoff contender.
Now more attention can be given to restocking the middle relief ranks. The return of Tanner Rainey is an already good start in this effort, as he has been out since the end of the 2022 season before returning this past year to make 1 appearance.
Players We Watched:
The biggest surprise of the Nationals’ 2023 season player-performance wise was the CJ Abrams breakout. After a bleak 2022 stint, where Abrams posted a 68 wRC+ and a .603 OPS, the 2023 season represented a clean slate for Abrams, and his first full big league campaign since he was taken fifth overall in the 2019 MLB Draft.
After struggling the first half of the year, the decision was made to bump Abrams up in the lineup, and he quickly turned his season into a productive one, accruing 18 HR, 47 SB (4th in MLB), 9.5 Base Running Runs Above Average (3rd in MLB), and a .712 OPS. For a 23-year-old with just over 100 career minor league games, this is a very encouraging season for Abrams, and more importantly, this unveils what his potential ceiling could be in the coming years.
If all goes right, and CJ starts 150+ games without injury, he has the talent to post 70 SB, 25 HR, 70 RBI, and 115 wRC+.
This is all hypothetical of course, as CJ needs to build on this season to have any chance of coming close to that ceiling in his coming years with the Nationals. If one thing is for certain though, CJ has made himself a player for the franchise to build around.
The second player we watched in 2023 was first baseman Joey Meneses. After tearing up the league in his two months with the big-league club in 2022, I said that he probably wouldn’t pick up where he left off, and unfortunately, that’s what ended up happening. In 2023 Meneses struggled to deviate from the league average on the offensive side of the ball, producing a .722 OPS, 96 wRC+, and a -0.2 fWAR.
Considering he hardly ever left the DH spot in the lineup the whole season, he was a net negative asset as a league-average DH hitter who doesn’t play in the field. Joey’s leash likely is only one year longer, so he needs to get his power back quickly, or he will be replaced as soon as a better option emerges.
Given the rebuilding theme, the last player we opted to watch was AA outfield prospect Robert Hassel III. As one of the players who came over in the Juan Soto trade, Hassell has expectations to make the big league roster eventually and provide an impact. He’s advertised as being an outfielder with a good feel for hitting, and a guy with above-average speed who can play a serviceable CF. The kind of player to hit for a .265 batting average and hit 10 home runs in a given year. If most things go right, the closest comp I can think of for him would be Adam Eaton.
Unfortunately for Hassell though, that reality could be getting out of reach for him after observing his 2023 performance. In 106 games at the AA level in 2023, Hassell struggled, outputting a .640 OPS and an 81 wRC+. The biggest change in his game during this period was most notably his decrease in the amount of balls put in play in the air. During Hassell’s very successful 2022 A+ stint with the Padres, resulting in him climbing into the top 30 among various top MLB prospects lists, Hassell put 31.5% of batted balls in the air, giving him prime opportunities to do damage and produce extra-base hits.
In 2023, at the AA level, Hassell only managed to put 20.8% of batted balls into the air, roughly a 50% decrease. Given that a player of his profile doesn’t necessarily have to sell out for the longball to be productive offensively, he has a margin of error to put more balls on the ground, but unless he can be an elite defender in center field, he needs to possess the ability to hit the ball with some authority to be productive as a major league player.
Offseason Outlook:
Given that they are still at least a year out from being able to realistically contend for a playoff spot and that this free-agent class is a lot weaker than usual, I expect this winter to be a quiet one for the Nationals. That doesn’t mean the Nats can’t improve their roster though.
The biggest free agent the Nationals have a realistic chance at signing is former divisional rival Rhys Hoskins. Hoskins previously missed the entire 2023 season after an ACL tear in spring training, and it looks like he’s on his way out with the Phillies announcing that Bryce Harper will be assuming 1B duties next season. Given the Nationals have less room to spend and a hole at first base, Hoskins is exactly the kind of moderate to low-risk, high-reward player that the team can make a run at.
By my estimations, he should only demand 1-2 years, and $10M to $15M per season, with a third year possible if a team is desperate enough to add him to their club. He is nearly 2 years removed from his 30-homer, 122 wRC+ 2022 season, but he will almost certainly have the extra motivation to play himself into a better longer-term contract if he proves he can still be a top 10 first baseman in baseball.
Should this headliner not happen, you can look to see which of the veteran first basemen available the Nationals will sign such as Joey Gallo, Carlos Santana, C.J. Cron, or another smaller name. These players have a much lower ceiling than Hoskins, but they could also find themselves productive enough on a 1-year deal to be heavy hitters in the lineup for the majority of the season.
The other obvious hole in the Nationals, similar to last winter, would be their starting rotation. While the Nats likely can’t get any of the big fish such as Aaron Nola, Blake Snell, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, or Jordan Montgomery, there are still undervalued starters to be found, most notably James Paxton, Lance Lynn, and Frankie Montas.
The collection of these players have been struggling as of late due to injuries, age, or both, but they all still have the opportunity to be a fixture in a rebuilding team rotation, and should only command $10M a year for a likely one year deal, or two depending on how many other clubs are in on them.
What to Pay Attention to in the Future:
The biggest plus working in the favor of the Nationals long-term is their gaudy outfield depth in their minor league system. After landing Dylan Crews at the 2nd overall pick, who I wrote about before the MLB draft (found here), the Nationals now have two widely regarded top-five prospects in baseball in outfielders James Wood and Dylan Crews. Both finished the year at AA Harrisburg and will be knocking on the door come midsummer assuming they are both productive.
Of the pair, 21-year-old James Wood likely has the higher ceiling, which can likely be credited to his massive power potential. Wood stands at 6’6”, weighing 240 pounds, while somehow still appearing to have some of his frame to fill out. He possesses levers as long as any other prospect in baseball, while still having a good feel to hit.
Given that some of the power has already shown up, as he slugged 26 homers and 28 doubles with a wRC+ north of 130, he could possess Adam Dunn power at the Major League level once he’s matured and filled out more while being an average corner outfielder once he has slowed down.
On the flip side, Dylan Crews has a slightly different skill set. Don’t get me wrong, he can put balls out of the ballpark in any given plate appearance, but his major calling card is his well-roundedness in the field, on the base paths, and at the plate.
In 2022, Crews got on base at a .567 clip, slugged .713, and hit .426 in 71 games. He accumulated 16 doubles, 18 homers, 70 RBIs, and 6 SBs along the way. In addition to being an extremely tough out, he played a respectable CF en route to a Golden Spikes award, an honor given to the best college baseball player of that year.
He was the biggest contributor to the National Champion LSU Tigers, and I believe the Nationals got a steal at the 2nd overall pick. His ability to stay patient and put the ball in play frequently with good contact quality gives him as high of a floor as I can give, without even mentioning his potential ability to man CF at a respectable level until further notice. Crews is a player to build your franchise around, and one that can hopefully lead, with James Wood’s help, a Nationals team to their first playoff appearance since 2019 in the coming years.
Categories: 2023 Season Review, Articles, Season Analysis
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