We've mentioned players who were added or subtracted from the Nationals' 40-man roster on several occasions so far this offseason, but it's probably worth mentioning everyone who currently resides on that roster, because some names tend to slip through the cracks and don't garner much attention.
The 40-man roster, for those who don't know, serves multiple purposes.
First and foremost, it represents the pool of players a club can call up to the major leagues at any point in time. In order...
It's Black Friday, and that can only mean one thing: It's time to start crossing items off your holiday shopping list.
Far be it from us to try to tell you what you should be buying your significant other, your child or your other loved ones this year. But around here, we do like to put together wish lists for roster needs.
So let's think about what's on the Nationals' wish list this year. It's not the same kind of list they've put together in recent years. They don't have one or two...
Are we really going to try to find something to be thankful about the 2021 Nationals? Yes, yes we are. That's what this day is all about.
It may seem like a daunting task, looking for silver linings in a 97-loss season that included injuries, agonizing losses and emotional departures of some beloved players. But if you dig a little deeper, think a little more critically, you can indeed find reasons to be thankful.
For starters, we all got to attend baseball games in person again this year. We...
It's been a quiet start to the offseason, not only for the Nationals but for the entire sport, which unfortunately appears to be reluctant to sign too many free agents before the collective bargaining agreement expires one week from today, at which point the league may lock out the players.
There have been a handful of intriguing signings, though, and there certainly was one Tuesday, when the Rays agreed to a reported 11-year extension with phenom shortstop Wander Franco worth a guaranteed...
If you glanced at the 2022 Hall of Fame ballot that was released Monday hoping to find some prominent Nationals representation, you were sorely disappointed. Sure, Jonathan Papelbon made the list, but you probably aren't going to find too many Nats fans excited to relive those regrettable 12 months in club history.
You'll just have to wait another year, because among the players eligible to make the 2023 ballot is none other than Jayson Werth. We'll have some fun with that one when the time...
If you took a stroll around town on Nov. 3, 2019, and asked a random sampling of 100 people on the streets who the most popular professional team in D.C. was at that moment, there's a good chance more people would've said the Nationals than anyone else.
The fact they had just held a parade for the World Series champs 24 hours earlier probably would've played a role in that, but that championship really was the culmination of something that had been building for some time. After two decades...
The Arizona Fall League came to a close Saturday night, with several Nationals prospects in the spotlight for the developmental league's championship game.
The Surprise Saguaros, who had eight Nats on a roster managed by Single-A Fredericksburg's Mario Lisson, lost the championship to the Mesa Solar Sox, who pitched a combined one-hitter during a 6-0 victory in Scottsdale.
Final game results aside, the last month proved valuable for many of the young players the Nationals sent to Arizona,...
This week of announcements of the Baseball Writers' Association of America annual awards was a disappointing one for the Nationals and their fans. They saw Juan Soto finish runner-up to Bryce Harper for the National League MVP Award, and they saw Max Scherzer finished third behind Corbin Burnes and Zack Wheeler for the NL Cy Young Award.
It would've been nice had either Soto or Scherzer won, even nicer if both won. It would've helped make this otherwise miserable season for the Nats feel a...
The Nationals chose to protect two prospects from being selected in next month's scheduled Rule 5 draft, adding both outfielder Donovan Casey and left-hander Evan Lee to their 40-man roster in advance of today's league-wide deadline.
Casey and Lee were among the likeliest of the more than three dozen minor leaguers eligible for this year's Rule 5 draft to be protected by the Nationals, who did have room to add one more player to their 40-man roster but opted to leave that spot open for...
One of baseball's key offseason deadlines arrives later today when all clubs must add eligible players to their 40-man rosters or leave them unprotected in next month's Rule 5 draft.
It's not a day that garners a ton of headlines, but it's an important day nonetheless because it offers some clues about an organization's feelings about some of its prospects, which ones it believes have a future and which ones less so.
And in the Nationals' case, there are several decisions to make before...
Bryce Harper won the second National League Most Valuable Player award of his career tonight, beating out Juan Soto for the honor in a battle of former Nationals teammates turned division rivals.
Harper received 17 first-place votes and 348 total points in balloting conducted before the start of the postseason by 30 members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America (two from each NL city). Soto received six first-place votes and 274 total points to finish second.
Padres shortstop...
Wednesday night, we saw a former Nationals star come up short in a bid to win another major end-of-season award. Tonight, we could see either a different former Nationals star or a current one win the biggest award of all.
The National League MVP will be announced around 6:25 p.m., and the names of the two frontrunners are as familiar as they get around here: Bryce Harper and Juan Soto. (Fernando Tatis Jr. also was named a finalist, but the Padres shortstop is widely expected to finish third...
Max Scherzer came up short in his quest to win the fourth Cy Young Award of his career, finishing third in a close three-way race for the 2021 National League honor, which went to the Brewers' Corbin Burnes.
Burnes, with 12 first-place votes and 151 total points, narrowly beat out the Phillies' Zack Wheeler (12 first-place votes, 141 total points) and Scherzer (six first-place votes, 113 total points) in a down-to-the-wire race between three NL right-handers who each had compelling cases to...
We're used to paying attention to Cy Young Award announcements around here, because the Nationals have seemed to always have at least one serious contender for the honor each year, most notably the man who won it twice while pitching for Washington.
Tonight, Max Scherzer will find himself in a familiar position, watching along with the rest of us as the 2021 National League Cy Young Award winner is named around 6:45 p.m. He's seeking to become only the fifth pitcher in history to win the...
The Nationals officially named De Jon Watson as their new director of player development this afternoon, promoting one of general manager Mike Rizzo's many lieutenants to the position that oversees the organization's minor league system.
A veteran of 37 years in professional baseball, Watson had been a special assistant to the GM the last five seasons, during which time he was one of Rizzo's top scouts and talent evaluators. Watson now returns to a role he previously held elsewhere: He led...
It's been a relatively slow start to the offseason for the Nationals, but that wasn't unexpected. Aside from a few changes to the coaching staff and player development department, we weren't really anticipating a lot of action in October and November.
But the offseason is starting to progress, and of course there's the specter of the Dec. 1 expiration of the collective bargaining agreement looming in the not-too-distant future. Everyone in the sport is keenly aware of what may or may not...
The last time the Nationals found themselves in this position - 95-plus losses, a franchise rebuild - Mike Rizzo had just completed his first season as a major league general manager. His 2009 club was a mess, a 103-loss train wreck made up of parts left over from Jim Bowden's tumultuous tenure, with an in-season managerial change (Manny Acta to Jim Riggleman) but a No. 1 overall pick ready to be spent on a once-in-a-generation right-hander from San Diego.
In discussing his decision to embark...
The eight players the Nationals traded away during the final days of July all had value to their acquiring clubs, each of them believing those players would help lift them into the postseason and in some cases deep into October.
The Nats didn't just deal away anybody. They purposely traded veterans in the final year of their contracts (aside from one notable example who had two years to go until free agency) who would be appealing to contenders and could potentially make a real difference over...
Before they can start figuring out who to pursue in an attempt to improve their roster for next season, the Nationals must first take stock of their roster as currently constructed and figure out what they already have in place.
That roster went through a whole lot of change this year; only 22 players who were on the 40-man roster at the end of spring training are still on it today. Some were traded, some became free agents, some were released along the way. In their place is a much younger...
At the end of a week that included the latest over-the-top session between agent Scott Boras and reporters at the general managers' meetings in California, a response from Nationals GM Mike Rizzo, another Silver Slugger Award, the prospect of an MVP award coming in a few more days and previously unfathomable dollar figures being thrown out there to suggest what a Juan Soto contract extension might look like, you can't help but be left with one prevailing thought.
Ugh, are we really about to...