Shadow Cabinet

 

The biggest takeaway from the Nationals' 2023 season is that there is now a solid foundation of reliable young players that they can build the next stage of their team around. All of Lane Thomas, Keibert Ruiz, C.J. Abrams, Josiah Gray and MacKenzie Gore showed signs that their prior success was not a fluke, could be built on and around, and that they can carry the team. Which is something that was likely but not certain last year. 

The main issue is that these are not homegrown guys for the Nats, and while that's not a huge problem in this stage, it could be tricky to bring up substantial rookies from their own system if said system is inundated with other products. I think about how some of the biggest organizational future pieces the Nationals have are still people like James Wood and Robert Hassell, both of whom came from the Padres. Meanwhile, some of the guys the Nats can credit themselves to aren't exactly carrying the team. Joan Adon isn't losing as many games as he did last year, but he's still got a 5.90 ERA in 7 games. Jacob Young made waves by appearing in 4 different classes of MLB play in 2023, going from Single-A to the majors by August, but so far the majors seem to be causing Young the most trouble, as he's only hitting .231 so far with more emphasis on defense. Even Carter Kieboom, once the prize of the Nats' minor league system, is hitting .237 upon his umpteenth truncated year since coming up in 2019. 

So the Nationals do have people coming up; it's just that the really good ones probably won't be MLB-ready for another few years. Which means they need to hold onto as much of this core as possible. Needless to say, this will be tricky.

Keibert Ruiz is not a league-caliber backstop, but he's still an insanely useful player. This year he's hit 55 RBIs and 16 home runs, and is the more impressive run-producer, even while Riley Adams is more of a contact guy. Ruiz was commonly referred to as the biggest piece of the Scherzer/Turner deal that the Dodgers didn't gain any long-term assets from, and Ruiz has given the Nats one thing the Dodgers didn't need during his time there: security behind the plate. It's very funny that the Nationals' catching battery consists of two people from teams with wide lines of catching succession that couldn't promise them much permanent playing time there. Joke's on them; now the Dodgers, Blue Jays and Nats all have extremely strong catching batteries. 

I cannot tell if the building this team is doing will amount to anything immediate in 2024. I imagine the Nats will be better, but it implies that one of the teams above them will have to be worse than them, and does that mean the Mets? It's still a tough division, and the Nats aren't at the point where they can really rival the hierarchy of it, though you can begin to see sparks of what could happen, and I'm hoping they amplify going forward.

Coming Tomorrow- A guy I was convinced would finish in the top 3 of Cy Young voting this year.