Paul Toboni and the Nationals front office finally completed their team building exercises, grew comfortable in their roles, and made a move before the offseason ran out, trading MacKenzie Gore to the Texas Rangers. The return was more than Fien, but I’m not here to talk about that today (Andrew Flax has you covered there). What I’m more interested in is the clarity trading Gore gave us on what the Nationals’ plan will be moving forward.
Like many a homeowner who bit off more than they can chew on a DIY project, what started as a simple reno has become a disaster. Just think about this, with an almost guaranteed losing season this year the Nats will have the most consecutive losing seasons in team history (since 2005) and will tie for the third most consecutive losing seasons in DC baseball history behind only 1961-68 and 1901-1911. It’s definitely tempting to want to nip that in the bud as soon as possible and put a winning season on the board just to let everyone relax, but I think they need to steer into the skid to regain control.
This may come as a shock to you as a mere six months ago I wrote a post titled “Do Not Trade MacKenzie Gore” but that is the nature of time. A lot has changed for the Nationals since then, not just in the front office, but on the field. When I wrote that, Gore was looking like an ace, with 2.8 wins above replacement a 3.52 ERA and 144 strikeouts in 117.2 innings. Since the deadline he stayed static in WAR finishing the year at 2.9, while his ERA ballooned to 4.17 with only 41 more strikeouts in 42 more innings. He still has the nice StuffPro numbers to suggest he can be a great pitcher, but at 27 this is the profile of a fine No. 2 or 3 starter, not an ace you can build a team around.
The other thrust of the argument then was that the Nationals were building a strong offensive core that needed pitchers to complement it. Even if Gore isn’t an ace, surely you want to keep him and build for a team led by superstars James Wood (3.3 fWAR at the time) and CJ Abrams (2.9). Well like their pitching counterpart, Wood and Abrams also did a disappearing act and at the end of the year stood on 3.3 and 3.1 wins above replacement respectively with a lot of problems at the plate that might not be easily fixed by Blake Butera’s Break Out Boys.
Around them Dylan Crews returned from injury and continued to show not much of anything to the point he got left off Baseball Prospectus’ list of the top 10 Nats under 25 entirely, Brady House looked completely overmatched (more on him soon), and Luis García Jr. failed to bounce back toward his competent 2024. Daylen Lile was the only bright spot on the team since the trade deadline and that was despite being one of the worst defenders of all time. In short, there is no core here to build around unless you can engineer some massive turnarounds. It’s not surprising that Toboni saw that and decided teaching 18-20 year olds how to play was a lot easier than trying to re-teach a group of 24-27 year olds.
Earlier in the winter when we were waiting for the Nats to show their hand I wondered whether the Lerners really wanted to stomach another rebuild or were hoping the new guy could magically make a playoff team appear. Obviously, it’s a nice consolation prize to them that continuing the rebuild means extremely low financial commitments, however I still think they want to have a good team. You can say I’m being naïve, but I’m sticking to my assessment from last March that they thought last year’s team was their new ideal, a fringe playoff contender that leans heavily on developed players to reduce costs.
If the Lerners only cared about pocketing as much dough as possible they don’t fire Mike Rizzo and Davey Martinez or make outside hires to replace them that come with a new philosophy that requires investments in equipment, software, and staffing. In this light, letting Toboni make such a drastic move is a sign of trust and patience instead of malice and greed. Unfortunately, that does not make this anymore fun as a fan who just wants to watch some good baseball again.
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