Three young Nationals players have been financially rewarded for their performances this season, qualifying for Major League Baseball’s “pre-arbitration bonus pool” payments.

James Wood, CJ Abrams and Daylen Lile all earned bonus checks, according to the Associated Press, which reported the dollar figures for 101 players who have fewer than three years of MLB service time and are not yet eligible for arbitration.

MLB and the MLB Players Association instituted this program in the collective bargaining agreement that covers the 2022-26 seasons as a path toward paying the sport’s best young players more than the near-league-minimum salaries they generally receive.

A total pool of $50 million, with contributions from all 30 clubs, is divvied up among the qualifying players. The top bonuses go to those who either win or finish runner-up for major awards like MVP, Cy Young and Rookie of the Year. Any money remaining in the pool then goes to the 100 pre-arbitration players who produced the highest combined WAR.

Wood received the largest bonus among the Nationals’ three qualifiers, earning $424,544 on top of his $764,600 salary. The 23-year-old outfielder made his first career All-Star team and participated in the Home Run Derby after a torrid first half to his season. He slumped after the break but still finished with 38 doubles, 31 homers, 94 RBIs, an .825 OPS and a combined 7.0 WAR between Baseball-Reference and Fangraphs’ formulas.

Though they certainly intend to add more players from outside the organization this winter, the Nationals could theoretically field an Opening Day lineup comprised solely of players already on the 40-man roster and compete.

Except for one position.

While there are enough players to fill out the outfield (James Wood, Dylan Crews, Jacob Young) and have a leftover guy to serve as designated hitter (Daylen Lile), as well as three infield spots (Brady House, CJ Abrams, Luis Garcia Jr.) and a catcher (Keibert Ruiz), there really isn’t anybody viable in place to handle first base.

Andres Chaparro is the only true first baseman on the 40-man roster at the moment, and his contributions through the first 67 games of his major league career include a .203 batting average, .358 slugging percentage, five homers, 20 RBIs, a .627 OPS and minus-0.4 bWAR. Not exactly the guy you want to pencil into the heart of your lineup for March 26 at Wrigley Field.

So, while there certainly are other items on Paul Toboni’s wish list this winter, a first baseman would probably need to be high on that list.

The Nationals’ decision to tender contracts to all of their arbitration-eligible players Friday was something of a surprise. Given the new regime now running baseball operations, it stood to reason there would be at least one or two non-tenders, signaling a desire to make at least some changes to the roster this group inherited.

President of baseball operations Paul Toboni went a step further, though, when he also agreed to terms with Riley Adams on a 2026 contract, avoiding arbitration. Adams’ salary isn’t known yet, but that move all but solidified his return next season, which would seem to say a lot about the state of the organization’s catching corps.

Adams, 29, had another difficult season at the plate. While playing a career-high 83 games and taking a career-high 286 plate appearances, he batted only .186 with a career-worst .308 slugging percentage. He did show improvement on the defensive side of things, but his offensive production was down from each of the last two seasons despite far more opportunities for playing time than he had ever received.

Bringing back Adams for something in the range of $1 million-$1.5 million isn’t that noteworthy of a move. What is noteworthy is what this decision suggests about Toboni’s overall view of the catching position.

Adams is a perfectly capable backup, one who typically has caught about 40-45 games per season while Keibert Ruiz started the other 115-120 games. But Ruiz played only 68 games this season, only two after June 23, when he was struck in the head by a foul ball while watching from the dugout at San Diego’s Petco Park.

With more than two decades of their own history to call back upon now, more and more players from Nationals history are beginning to show up on the Hall of Fame ballot.

This year’s ballot, as a matter of fact, includes three ex-Nats players for the first time: Gio Gonzalez, Howie Kendrick and Daniel Murphy.

OK, so none of those three is likely to garner much (if any) support from BBWAA voters. But it’s a distinct honor simply to make the Hall of Fame ballot, and not too many Nationals have over the years.

This year’s trio brings the grand total of Nats players to appear on the ballot to 19. Only one has earned election to Cooperstown: Ivan Rodriguez who made it in 2017 on his first attempt, receiving 76 percent support. But only four others have ever even received any votes, and none came anywhere close to induction.

Alfonso Soriano got six votes in 2020. Jonathan Papelbon got five votes in 2022. And Liván Hernández (2018) and Adam Dunn (2020) each received one vote. (No, none of those came from yours truly. I have stricter standards than that.)

The first major decision made by Paul Toboni and his new Nationals front office: To retain all of the players currently under club control for now.

The Nats tendered contracts to all of their unsigned 40-man roster players before this evening’s deadline, opting to keep all seven of their arbitration-eligible players. Infielders Luis García Jr. and CJ Abrams, left-hander MacKenzie Gore and right-handers Jake Irvin, Josiah Gray and Cade Cavalli all were tendered, with their salaries to be determined at a later date (either by agreeing to terms with the club or filing for arbitration).

Catcher Riley Adams, meanwhile, not only was tendered a contract but already agreed to terms on his 2026 salary, avoiding arbitration, the team announced. Figures were not revealed, but Adams made $850,000 this season and was projected to receive a raise up to about $1.5 million via arbitration.

Though these moves don’t necessarily guarantee all of the above players will be part of the 2026 roster, they do suggest Toboni and his newly assembled team at least are willing to pay all of them what they could command in arbitration, barring any trades this winter.

That’s particularly notable for García, Irvin and Adams, who appeared to be the most likely of the group who could’ve been non-tendered, essentially getting released and becoming free agents.

We’ve reached a potentially important day in the still-nascent stages of the Paul Toboni era of Nationals baseball. It’s non-tender day across the major leagues, which means the new president of baseball operations has some significant decisions to make, probably his most significant roster decisions since taking the job about two months ago.

By this evening, all MLB clubs must tender 2026 contract offers to all arbitration-eligible players. What does that mean? In a nutshell, teams must officially inform all players with at least three but fewer than six years of big league service time whether they are being retained for next season. Their specific salaries will be determined at a later date, with the two sides either agreeing to a figure on their own or filing for arbitration.

Any players who aren’t offered contracts today are “non-tendered,” which serves the same purpose as getting released. They immediately become free agents, allowed to sign with any club.

Toboni’s predecessor, Mike Rizzo, made plenty of news on this day in seasons past. Just one year ago, he surprised most by non-tendering Kyle Finnegan before eventually re-signing the All-Star closer during spring training for a lower salary number than he would have received via arbitration. (Tanner Rainey also was non-tendered last year, a less surprising move.)

The Nationals have seven current players who are arbitration-eligible, including several big names: CJ Abrams, Luis Garcia Jr., MacKenzie Gore, Jake Irvin, Josiah Gray, Cade Cavalli and Riley Adams. And while the decision to tender contracts to some of these players is obvious, it’s not such an easy call on several others.

Simon Mathews’ pitching career ended right as the entire world was shutting down in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The then-24-year-old right-hander with an 89-mph fastball had maxed out his abilities as an undrafted free agent with the Angels, reaching Triple-A but released by that organization shortly after spring training was halted by Major League Baseball.

Still needing money to pay the rent, Mathews used some personal connections to take a job in business development that he despised but allowed him to then pursue the coaching career that now appealed to him. He spent the free time he had in 2020 doing work for a pair of noted pitching labs (Push Performance in Arizona, Driveline Baseball in Seattle) and met Sean Doolittle, who was working to keep his MLB career going.

The next thing he knew, Mathews was hired by the Reds to run the pitching program at their Dominican Academy, then climbed the organizational ladder to work as a roving pitching instructor and ultimately as Cincinnati’s assistant pitching coach this year.

And then last week this previously unknown 30-year-old was named the Nationals’ new pitching coach, a member of Blake Butera’s still-under-construction staff who is even younger than the majors’ youngest manager since 1972.

From washed-out minor leaguer to big league pitching coach in five years? Was this somehow Mathews’ grand plan all along?

As significant as Blake Butera’s hiring was – and, let’s be clear, it’s incredibly significant – there has been just as much interest in learning who will fill out the new Nationals manager’s coaching staff.

Given Butera’s almost unprecedented youth (at 33, he’s the youngest major league manager since 1972) and lack of experience (he never played, coached nor managed above Single-A), conventional wisdom said he would look to surround himself with older, more experienced coaches.

That’s partially the case so far, but not entirely the case.

The Nats are still in the process of hiring several more staff members, so we don’t know what the full makeup will look like yet. But while Butera has hired a more experienced bench coach in 50-year-old Michael Johns, his pitching coach (Simon Mathews) is actually only 30. And while the other three known members of the staff (Bobby Wilson, Sean Doolittle, Tyler Smarslok) all have some big league coaching experience, their ages range between 33 and 42.

“I don’t think we really set out to either hire for or not for experience,” Butera said. “I think what was first and foremost was that we wanted to bring in people who align with our values. We wanted people that would help hold each other accountable, come in with a tremendous amount of work ethic and make sure they were in this thing for the right reasons.”

The Nationals added left-hander Jake Bennett, outfielder Christian Franklin and right-hander Riley Cornelio to their 40-man roster this afternoon, protecting all three prospects from being lost in next month’s Rule 5 Draft and signaling the new front office’s interest in them as potential parts of the club’s long-term plans.

Faced with a 6 p.m. EST deadline to purchase the contracts of any minor leaguers who are Rule 5-eligible this winter, new president of baseball operations Paul Toboni and his assistants chose to add Bennett, Franklin and Cornelio. None is likely to make the Nats’ Opening Day roster, but all three could find their way to the majors sometime during the 2026 season.

Bennett is the organization’s sixth-best prospect, according to Baseball America. The 24-year-old lefty, a second-round pick in the 2022 draft out of Oklahoma, made 18 starts (plus one relief appearance) for three minor league affiliates this season, finishing with a 2.27 ERA and 1.075 WHIP for Double-A Harrisburg, High-A Wilmington and Single-A Fredericksburg. He went on to pitch in the Arizona Fall League, posting a 4.50 ERA, with a league-high 25 strikeouts and only five walks in 20 innings.

This was Bennett’s first season back from Tommy John surgery, and he was limited to a total of 95 1/3 innings across all of his stops. It remains to be seen if he’ll open 2026 back at Harrisburg or at Triple-A Rochester, but as a new member of the 40-man roster, he’ll be in big league camp next spring regardless.

Franklin, 25, was one of two prospects the Nationals acquired from the Cubs at the trade deadline for right-hander Michael Soroka and quickly made a name for himself with a strong 31-game stint at Rochester to close out the season. Combined with the 86 games he played for Chicago’s Triple-A affiliate in Iowa, he finished the year with a .272/.390/.427 slash line, 23 doubles, five triples, 12 homers, 64 RBIs and 19 stolen bases.

Well before he even knew he would be a candidate for the Nationals’ managerial job, let alone get the job, Blake Butera tuned into Paul Toboni’s introductory press conference and found himself captivated by the franchise’s new president of baseball operations.

The 33-year-old with zero major league experience came to an immediate conclusion: “I can work alongside that guy.”

Turns out Toboni also had Butera in his sights, one of several names on a long list of managerial candidates he circled as ones to remember. And that feeling was only bolstered when he got a call out of the blue from Hall of Famer Mike Piazza, who employed Butera on his Team Italy coaching staff at the 2023 World Baseball Classic.

“I have no idea what you’re doing with your search,” Piazza told Toboni, “but there’s this guy that you’ve got to interview.”

Six weeks later, these two previously unknown 30-somethings with an affinity for each other from afar, now sat behind the same dais at Nationals Park, a room packed with reporters, cameras, team executives and family members all watching as they officially began working together as the two people now in charge of this baseball club.

It's been 18 days since news first broke the Nationals were hiring Blake Butera as manager. And at long last, today we will finally get to hear from him about his vision for the job and the path that brought him here.

Butera will be formally introduced during a 1:30 p.m. press conference at Nationals Park – you can watch it live on MASN – with president of baseball operations Paul Toboni also scheduled to speak about the first major decision of his tenure here.

Why did it take 2 1/2 weeks from hiring to press conference? Because Oct. 30 was a big day in the Butera household for reasons that had nothing to do with baseball. On the same day he signed his contract with the Nats, Butera’s wife, Caroline Margolis, gave birth to the couple’s first child: Blair Margaux Butera.

With Butera’s immediate priorities focused on family in Raleigh, N.C., the Nationals decided to wait to hold the press conference until this week. Not that he hasn’t already been busy working out of the home office. Butera has hired three members of his coaching staff so far: bench coach Michael Johns, pitching coach Simon Mathews and catching coordinator Bobby Wilson (whose addition has not officially been announced yet but has been reported).

There should be plenty of opportunities for reporters to ask Butera (and Toboni) questions today. Here are some of the most interesting ones …

While the 2025 season ended long ago for most members of the Nationals organization, eight prospects did continue to take the field throughout October and into the first two weeks of November, participating in the Arizona Fall League.

The AFL is held annually, with prospects from all 30 clubs coming together to face each other over a six-week season and see how everyone performs against their counterparts. It’s often a stepping stone for players on the cusp of the majors, though you’ll also find a number of prospects who are still a few years away.

This fall’s crop of Nats prospects included a recent first-round pick in Seaver King, an even more recent second-round pick in Ethan Petry and an organizational top-10 prospect in Jake Bennett. They were joined on the Scottsdale Scorpions by outfielder Sam Peterson, right-handers Austin Amaral and Sean Paul Linan, plus lefties Pablo Aldonis and Jared Simpson.

King was the most notable and most successful of the group. The 2024 first-round pick from Wake Forest was a force at the plate, batting .359 with a .468 on-base percentage, .563 slugging percentage, eight extra-base hits, 24 RBIs, six stolen bases and a solid 11-to-15 walk-to-strikeout ratio in 18 games played. The versatile defender played exclusively at shortstop and committed only one error while totaling 101 innings in the field.

Petry was the only 2025 draftee to play in the AFL, the second-rounder from South Carolina showing off a good eye (13 walks in 75 plate appearances) but not showing off his noted power swing (one double, one homer). Playing primarily right field, he finished with a .228/.400/.298 slash line, holding his own considering he had only 24 games of professional experience at low Single-A Fredericksburg prior to this.

In an offseason loaded with major questions, the Nationals have already answered two of the biggest ones: Who will lead baseball operations, and who will manage the big league club?

Among the high-ranking questions still to be answered: How much money will they spend compared to previous years?

That’s the kind of question that comes up every year, and it’s never really answered publicly in words by anyone. The answer only comes through actions, once you see what the team’s payroll is come Opening Day and once you learn what kinds of other investments have been made to strengthen the organization.

But it’s especially notable this winter because it’s widely believed Paul Toboni would not have taken the job as the team’s new president of baseball operations without some kind of understanding from ownership how much he would be allowed to spend.

Here’s what managing principal owner Mark Lerner said when asked that question Oct. 1 during Toboni’s introductory press conference:

Baseball’s annual GM Meetings wrap up this morning in Las Vegas, and as is always the case, there hasn’t been a whole lot of hard news coming out of the event. This isn’t the Winter Meetings (which are coming up Dec. 7-10 in Orlando), where the rumors fly fast and furious and we often get major news breaking at all hours of the day and night.

The process, though, begins at the GM Meetings, with executives starting to get a sense of what other teams are looking to do, who they might want to sign and who they might be willing to trade. And surely Paul Toboni has spent the last three days talking to as many people as possible as he prepares to embark on his first Hot Stove League as a major league president of baseball operations.

Toboni’s primary focus since taking the job in late-September has been overhauling the Nationals’ front office, then hiring a manager (Blake Butera, whose introductory press conference is now set for 1:30 p.m. Monday, by the way) and filling out his coaching staff. But the attention will shift to improving the roster soon enough, and there is no shortage of work that needs to be done in that regard.

Toboni inherits a roster that won only 66 games but lost only three veterans to free agency in Josh Bell, Paul DeJong and Derek Law (who was hurt the entire season). Pretty much all of the regulars return, but that doesn’t mean the 2026 Opening Day roster is anywhere close to set. The Nats are going to want to improve at a number of positions, and that can’t come solely from within the organization.

Though he hasn’t publicly stated his wish list yet, Toboni should be looking at three positions in particular that need upgrading no matter what: First base, starting pitching, relief pitching.

The youngest major league manager in five decades is going to have a pitching coach even younger than him. One with a significant D.C. connection and a pedigree in modern baseball philosophy.

The Nationals have hired 30-year-old Simon Mathews as their new pitching coach, luring the up-and-comer from the Reds to work for 33-year-old manager Blake Butera.

Mathews, who first made a name for himself as one of the best pitchers in Georgetown history, spent this past season as Cincinnati’s assistant pitching coach, working underneath the highly regarded Derek Johnson. That’s his lone season on a major league staff, but that actually makes him more experienced than Butera, who has never played, coached nor managed above Single-A.

Mathews worked in the Reds organization for five seasons, the first four in the minors. He began in 2021 by implementing the club’s pitching program at its Dominican academy, then was rehab pitching coordinator in 2022. He served as assistant coordinator of rehabilitation and pitching initiatives from 2023-24, then earned his first promotion to the big leagues in 2025 as assistant pitching coach.

Cincinnati’s pitching staff has lowered its ERA and WHIP each of the last four seasons, from a 4.86 ERA that ranked 28th in the majors in 2022 to a 3.86 ERA that ranked 12th this year, and from a 1.389 WHIP that ranked 26th in 2022 to a 1.222 WHIP that ranked seventh this year. The Reds earned a wild card berth this season behind a pitching staff anchored by three homegrown starters in their 20s (Hunter Greene, Andrew Abbott, Nick Lodolo) who each finished with an ERA under 3.35 and a WHIP under 1.150.

Blake Butera’s right-hand man in the dugout will be a familiar face to the Nationals’ new manager, not to mention one with more experience at the sport’s higher levels.

Butera has selected Michael Johns as his bench coach, the club officially announced Monday evening, tabbing his longtime Rays colleague to work alongside him in D.C.

Johns, 50, has worked in various capacities for the Rays since 2008, including nine seasons as a minor league manager, culminating with an 88-62 record and league finals appearance with Triple-A Durham in 2023. He spent the last two seasons as Tampa Bay’s first base coach, his lone experience in the major leagues.

A former infielder in the Rockies’ farm system in the late ’90s, Johns has since made a name for himself as an instructor for a franchise known for having one of the sport’s best player development pipelines. He served five seasons (2018-22) as Tampa Bay’s minor league field coordinator, tasked with establishing a consistent program for all the organization’s affiliates.

Johns and Butera overlapped nine seasons with the Rays, forming a connection that led to their current reunion with the Nationals. Butera, 33, is 17 years younger than his new bench coach and figures to lean heavily on Johns’ expertise both in establishing pregame routines and in-game decision-making.

Just to be clear from the outset: Daylen Lile will not be named National League Rookie of the Year tonight. We already know the 22-year-old outfielder didn’t finish among the top three vote getters. Either Braves catcher Drake Baldwin, Cubs right-hander Cade Horton or Brewers third baseman Caleb Durbin will receive the award when the results are announced this evening.

But Lile’s name will show up somewhere on the ballot below those three. He actually far outperformed both Baldwin and Durbin in batting average (.299), slugging percentage (.845) and triples (11).

The two reasons Lile didn’t at least finish in the top three: 1) He wasn’t in the majors as long as those other guys, with 95 fewer plate appearances than Baldwin and 155 fewer than Durbin, and 2) His poor defensive play left him trailing everyone else in WAR by a healthy margin.

In the end, it’s a shame Lile didn’t spend more time with the Nationals than he did, because who knows how much more he could’ve produced at the plate with, say, 451 big league plate appearances than 351. We do know nobody in the league was better down the stretch, because Lile won not only NL Rookie of the Month for September but NL Player of the Month as well.

The fact Lile will even appear on the ballot tonight is noteworthy on its own. Because it’s been a while since anybody in a Nationals uniform accomplished that.

We noted earlier this week how the Nationals have cleared a bunch of spots on their 40-man roster, losing several players to other clubs via waiver claims while outrighting several more to Triple-A Rochester, some of those players electing to become free agents in the process.

All of those moves leave the team with only 34 current players on the 40-man roster heading into the offseason, which means new president of baseball operations Paul Toboni has a lot of work to do to assemble his 2026 major league roster.

Toboni and his staff also have a lot of work to do to assemble their minor league rosters, which have already seen a host of slots open up following the recent departures of players.

A whopping 32 minor leaguers officially became free agents Friday, the date when all minor league players with enough professional service time have the right to leave their organizations. The Nationals aren’t the only club to experience a significant exodus, but that number is pretty staggering nonetheless.

Most of the names aren’t recognizable to anyone but the most hardcore of prospect hounds, but there are several notable ones sprinkled in there who played this season at Triple-A: Joan Adon, Juan Yepez, Nick Schnell, Jackson Cluff, C.J. Stubbs and Chase Solesky.

Good morning to everyone out there in NatsTown. Hope you aren't suffering too much from baseball withdrawal after one of the best postseasons, start to finish, in recent years and an absolutely fantastic World Series we'll be talking about forever.

It's time for the offseason now, and boy is there a lot for the Nationals to do. They've already made two of the most important hirings in club history: Paul Toboni as president of baseball operations and Blake Butera as manager. There's no way of knowing yet how either man is going to do in the short or long term, but it's safe to say the organization is entering a completely new era.

Let's take some time this morning to address what has already happened and what may still happen before pitchers and catchers report to West Palm Beach. As always, please submit your questions in the comments section below, then I'll do my best to answer as many of them as possible over the course of the morning. (Fair warning: There are probably going to be some questions I honestly don't have answers for at this point, but I'll try my best.) ...

The Nationals continued to remake their 40-man roster this afternoon with a series of transactions that included the departures of pitchers Zach Brzykcy and Ryan Loutos, the demotion of infielder Trey Lipscomb and the official activation of Josiah Gray, DJ Herz, Drew Millas and Trevor Williams off the injured list.

Both Brzykcy and Loutos were claimed off outright waivers, Brzykcy by the Marlins and Loutos by the Mariners. Lipscomb, meanwhile, cleared waivers and was outrighted to Triple-A Rochester, coming off the 40-man roster in the process.

The transactions were the latest in a string of moves by new president of baseball operations Paul Toboni and his front office to reset the Nats’ 40-man roster heading into the offseason. They’ve managed to clear a good amount of space for future additions, with six openings now available for their use, and the potential for even more in the coming weeks.

Brzykcy briefly looked like an organizational success story, an undrafted reliever out of Virginia Tech who had the potential to become a high-leverage arm in the big leagues. But the 26-year-old was beset by injuries, and once healthy couldn’t sustain any success in the majors. In 32 games over the last two seasons, he went 0-1 with a 10.05 ERA and 1.814 WHIP, striking out an impressive 9.4 batters per nine innings but doomed by a high walk rate (4.7 per nine innings) and home run rate (2.3 per nine innings). He'll now get a shot to realize his potential in Miami.

Loutos, 26, was a midseason acquisition by former general manager Mike Rizzo, claimed off waivers from the Dodgers. The right-hander struggled in 10 appearances, going 1-0 with a 12.00 ERA and 2.444 WHIP, with the same number of walks as strikeouts (six) and three homers surrendered in only nine innings. Originally with the Cardinals, he’ll try to resurrect his career in Seattle.