I went a little overboard replying to this post in the Nationals subreddit from a person who has decided to become a Nats fans because of their tie to Oklahoma native Eli Willits. So I decided that since I put this much effort into it, I might as well copy my response here.
Nats won the World Series in 2019 with a veteran heavy squad that pulled out of a deep 19-31 hole. Then through some bad injury luck, some massive player development misses, and an incompetent manager (Davey Martinez) found themselves selling off everyone good in 2021 and 2022.
One of those trades, for Juan Soto, brought back the core of today's team in P MacKenzie Gore, OF James Wood, and SS CJ Abrams. They are the only good players on the team right now. More recently 2021 first round pick 3B Brady House and 2023 first round pick OF Dylan Crews have been up, and while they have not been major successes, they have not completely faceplanted either. This is the core of the team going forward, maybe including 2B Luis Garcia Jr, maybe not because Abrams cannot play SS and should probably switch positions.
Of the Sooners you mentioned, Irvin has followed up a fine year last year with a terrible season this year, but probably will stick around because this team has exactly one good pitcher. Cavalli was a top prospect but has gotten injured way too many times and probably missed too much development time because of that. Bennett missed all of last year with Tommy John surgery and has been meh so far this year. At this point I would not rely on any of them being around for a long time.
Overall the Nats' big problem is the organizational ennui that set in after the patriarch of the ownership group, Ted Lerner, died in 2023. The Nats ownership group were already a bit weird about how they spent money, from 2015-2019 they routinely ran payrolls near the luxury tax line but then had the smallest front office/player development staffs and would cheap out on things like charter flights for the players' families to playoff games. Despite hitting the massive low point in 2022 of needing to trade a future Hall of Famer absolutely nobody was fired and in fact, the incompetent manager was allowed to fire all of the coaches and replace them with his friends. The Lerners seemed entirely content to just let whatever happen on the field consequence free and the organization became stagnant.
Surprisingly, this did not lead to success on the field. And finally, this June, after the Nats went on the second longest losing streak in team history and Martinez said you can never blame the coaches and anything that goes wrong is because of the players, Martinez and President of Baseball Ops Mike Rizzo were fired. The interim manager and coaches (save maybe former closer, current pitching advisor Sean Doolittle) are all guaranteed to be gone by the end of the year. The interim GM could stick around, but there's a decent chance they bring in someone new to be the President of Baseball Ops. Whoever they hire will have a massive challenge on their hands trying to play catch up as the Nats have one of the most backwards, old school front offices in baseball.
At the very least the cupboard won't be entirely bare prospect wise. Eli Willits is very good although far away from the Majors barring a meteoric rise. Closer to the majors are top pitching prospects Travis Sykora and Jarlin Susana, with Sykora closer as he's a more complete prospect. Susana is essentially Nuke LaLoosh in both velocity and command.
After that top 3 the depth falls off but there are some players with interesting skills closer to the majors like 2024 first round pick Seaver King (good contact in college, has been awful this year), supplementary pick C Caleb Lomavita, and P Alex Clemmey who they got in a trade from the Guardians last deadline. As well as some high ceiling, well away from making the majors high schoolers they signed away from college late in the 2024/25 drafts like SS Luke Dickerson, P Landon Harmon, P Miguel Sime Jr. and SS Coy James.
In terms of the deadline this year there will be some rumors they trade Gore but I would not put much stock in that. People like to compare it to the Soto situation but that misses a lot of context. The only reason Gore will come up in rumors is because the Nats really do not have anyone else who would be interesting on the trade front. The guys with good overall numbers have bad peripheral numbers (Alex Call, Amed Rosario) and the guys with good peripheral numbers have bad overall numbers (Josh Bell, Mike Soroka). They're likely to trade somebody but it's doubtful they get anyone who will make a real impact in the future back.
At this point we are mostly running out the clock into the offseason to answer a lot of big questions about the new GM/President, the new manager, if the player development investment improves, and if they actually sign some free agents this year. In the meantime, since they are way out of the playoff race, you can bounce in and out as your schedule deems fit to get a better idea of the guys who will be around next year and the overall vibe.
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