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Washington Nationals
2022 Record: 55-107
Last place, NL East
Team ERA: 5.00 (29th)
Team OPS: .688 (22nd)
What Went Right
The Nationals lost more games than any team in the majors (by a five-game margin, actually), so it’s hard to say anything went right, but losing was largely by design this year. You could say that for any team who willingly trades Juan Freakin’ Soto. The success stories were few and far between, but the biggest one was Joey Meneses, who finally got a shot in the majors after toiling in the minor leagues for 10 seasons. He certainly made the most of it, posting a .324/.367/.563 batting line across 56 games. Josh Bell had a monster first half before being shipped to the Padres in the blockbuster Juan Soto trade. While Keibert Ruiz was a disappointment offensively, he showed a good approach at the plate and ranked second among NL catchers in the BIS (Baseball Info Solutions) catcher runs above average metric. The best aspect of the Nationals’ roster this season was actually their bullpen. Hunter Harvey was the big standout, but Kyle Finnegan, Carl Edwards Jr., and Erasmo Ramirez were among the other arms who had nice seasons. The Nationals’ bullpen actually had the third-lowest ERA in the NL during the second half, surrounded by a bunch of teams who made the playoffs.
What Went Wrong
Besides the obvious failure to keep a generational talent in Juan Soto, you mean? Anyway, it would be unfair and depressing to get into literally **everything** that went wrong this year, but we’ll start with the rotation, which finished with a major-league worst 5.97 ERA. It was the worst by a large margin, as the Rockies checked in 29th with a 5.23 ERA. After rehabbing from surgery for thoracic outlet syndrome, Stephen Strasburg made just one start in the majors before missing the rest of the season due to a stress reaction in his ribs. His future is up in the air at this point. Patrick Corbin‘s 6.31 ERA was a full run worse than any pitcher who threw at least 150 innings this year. Finishing with 19 losses, he narrowly avoided becoming the first 20-game loser in MLB since Mike Maroth in 2003. Josiah Gray scuffled during his first full season in the majors, posting a 5.02 ERA in 28 starts while leading the NL with 38 homers and 66 walks allowed. Joe Ross required another Tommy John surgery and prospect Cade Cavalli was rocked in his MLB debut before going down with a shoulder injury. Carter Kieboom underwent Tommy John surgery in May and Victor Robles turned in a career-worst .584 OPS, two big setbacks for players who were once thought to be part of the future for the organization. After surprisingly signing with the Nationals for one year and $15 million, 42-year-old Nelson Cruz slashed just .234 with 10 homers and a .651 OPS over 124 games. Could this be the end of the road for him?
Fantasy Slants
**What the heck, Joey Meneses? Don’t feel bad if you largely missed his initial call-up in early August following the Josh Bell trade. After all, he played 10 seasons in the minors without as much of a sniff of major league time. However, Meneses proved to be a bright spot for the Nationals down the stretch by slashing .324/.367/.563 with 13 homers over 56 games. The thing is, there isn’t a lot to suggest he didn’t earn it, even with a .371 BABIP backing him. Meneses hit the ball hard and he only struck out 21.7 percent of the time. Meneses did post some good power numbers in the minors in recent years, but his fly ball rate checked in at just 29.7 percent during this small sample with the Nationals. Only nine qualified hitters had a lower fly ball rate this season and none of them were exactly power standouts. That doesn’t make this any less of a great story. The number of late-bloomers who have found sustained success in the majors like this is absurdly small, so the odds will be against him going into 2023. But hey, he’s used to that. It probably won’t require more than a late-round pick in mixed leagues to see if he can keep this unexpected success going.
**Can Keibert Ruiz be a top-12 fantasy catcher? That was actually the hope coming into the 2022 season, but it didn’t exactly work out. The 24-year-old swatted just seven homers in 112 games while batting .251 with a .673 OPS. While Ruiz didn’t stand out in terms of making hard contact, he was one of the best contact hitters in the game. Only five hitters (min. 400 PA) struck out less often. His xBA (.277) hints at some more upside in his profile, but he’s going to need to show more power to truly break through at the catcher position in mixed leagues. The good news is that he was on the upswing (4 HR, .774 OPS over his final 31 games) before going down with a groin injury (yes, that’s what we’ll call it) in early September.
**Expectations were high when the Nationals netted Josiah Gray as part of the deal which sent Trea Turner and Max Scherzer to the Dodgers last summer, but so far it’s been a struggle for him in the majors. Through 219 1/3 major league innings (between the Dodgers and Nationals), the 24-year-old holds an ugly 5.17 ERA with 99 walks and an unsightly 57 homers allowed. As mentioned above, Gray led all National League pitchers with 38 homers allowed in 148 2/3 innings this season. He allowed 2.30 HR/9, easily the highest among all pitchers with at least 100 innings pitched. Yusei Kikuchi (2.06 HR/9) was second, followed by teammate Paolo Espino at 1.91 HR/9. Opposing batters hit .304 with a .738 slugging percentage (!) against Gray’s four-seam fastball, which, ouch. Late in the season, Gray ditched the four-seamer at times while leaning into the usage of his slider, curveball, and sinker, so it will be interesting to track his approach in the spring. The Nationals should give him plenty of runway to experiment with his pitch mix, but we’ll need to see some progress before putting him on the mixed league map. With his prospect pedigree and ability to miss bats, there’s still reason for hope here.
**We got to see more of CJ Abrams than any young player who came over from the Padres in the Soto trade, though he didn’t do much for fantasy managers with a .258/.276/.327 batting line across 44 games. He drew just one walk in 163 plate appearances and tallied just five barrels in 238 batted ball events. The good news is that he showed an ability to make contact and his sprint speed registered in the 91st percentile. Abrams should be able to use that speed to his advantage in terms of sniffing out base hits and that aspect of his game should make him in useful in fantasy leagues before long. However, he clearly has some work to do in terms of his approach. The Nationals should give him every opportunity to figure things out at the highest level.
**Long considered one of the top pitching prospects in the sport, MacKenzie Gore entered this season as a bit of a mystery with the Padres, but he proved to be a stud upon his call-up in mid-April, reeling off a 1.50 ERA with a 57/17 K/BB ratio through his first 48 innings. Things went south from there, as he posted a disastrous 11.05 ERA with 20 walks and six homers allowed in his final seven appearances (five starts) before hitting the injured list with left elbow inflammation in late July. The Nationals traded for the young southpaw anyway as part of the Soto deal, but they played it extra safe with him down the stretch. He made some rehab outings, but the club ultimately decided against him pitching in the majors. Gore will go into the offseason with a clean bill of health, but fantasy managers will have to evaluate how he looks in the spring before taking the plunge. The talent is off the charts, though.
**We’ll wrap things up here with Robert Hassell III, another centerpiece of the trade for Soto and Bell. Selected 8th overall by the Padres in 2020, the 21-year-old boasts a .288/.375/.478 batting line through his first 222 professional games. While he mostly struggled after the trade to the Nationals, he finished the season on a high note and is currently playing in the Arizona Fall League (though he recently left a game with a wrist injury). He’s likely ticketed for Double-A to begin 2023 and could potentially make his way to the majors before the end of the year. There’s some question about his Hassell’s power upside, but he employs a strong approach with excellent speed to boot. He’s looking like a solid all-around fantasy contributor for the long-term.
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Key Free Agents: César Hernández, Joe Ross
Team Needs: A couple of innings-eaters for Davey Martinez’s rotation, some progress for their young players/prospects, and some clear direction in terms of an ownership group who can start to get them back on the road to respectability.
