Josiah Gray was the Nationals’ Opening Day starter this season, and on the heels of an All-Star selection the previous year, the right-hander looked like a critical part of the club’s pitching plan in both the short and long term.
Cade Cavalli was the Nationals’ top pitching prospect since the day they used their 2020 first round pick on the right-hander, and though his career hit a roadblock following Tommy John surgery in March 2023, everyone expected him to return to the big leagues sometime this summer and re-establish himself as a key part of the team’s rotation.
Neither Gray nor Cavalli, of course, was part of the Nats’ active pitching staff at season’s end. They combined to make all of two major league starts this year, both by Gray before he suffered an elbow injury in early April.
Which begs the question: Do either of these guys still fit into the team’s plans, either in the short or long term?
The easy answer is yes. The Nationals absolutely believe both will be significant contributors for them, with Cavalli ideally pitching a lot for them in 2025 and Gray ideally returning from his Tommy John surgery and internal brace procedure in time to make a handful of September starts.
The more complicated answer: Nobody truly knows at this point if either righty can be counted on to pitch as originally planned for the Nats, with each ultimately looking at nearly two lost seasons due to elbow injuries.
Hopes were high for Gray this spring, and Davey Martinez’s decision to name him the Opening Day starter signaled the organization’s commitment to young pitching after sticking with Patrick Corbin as the No. 1 guy for three years simply because of his veteran status. But this turned out to be a nightmare of a season for the 26-year-old.
Gray wasn’t good in either of his two starts, getting rocked for 13 runs and 15 hits in only 8 1/3 innings. Then he reported a sore elbow and went on the 15-day injured list with what was diagnosed as a flexor strain. He seemed to be recovering well from that, made five rehab starts in June and seemed to be on the verge of his return when his elbow really began barking and it was learned he had torn his ulnar collateral ligament.
Now Gray isn’t likely to return until late in the 2025 season at best.
“This is going to be a short blip in what is the hopes of a long career,” he said in August. “You have to be optimistic. You have to understand there will be good days, there will be bad days. But as long as you understand this is a year, maybe 14 months, of time you’re going to have to develop, to work on yourself. And those 14 months can turn into a long career.”
Cavalli had already endured through his 14 months of Tommy John rehab and was making rehab starts in May and June before he was surprisingly shut down. Why? First, he had to recover from a bad bout with the flu. Then he dealt with “dead arm,” unable to recover quickly after pitching.
The Nats opted not to take any chances and slow-played Cavalli’s subsequent rehab program. And though he was healthy and throwing all of his pitches off a bullpen mound by September, it was too late to get him into a game.
“I just feel like I’ve got to keep a positive outlook on it, because that’s who I am,” he said before season’s end. “I’ve got to stay true to myself and understand that this is just part of the process. Not everybody has come back in 12 or 15 months. Sometimes it takes 18. I’m feeling really good in month 18. That’s what it took, but we just kind of ran out of time on the season. I understand that was out of my control. I don’t think there’s anything to dwell on that we can’t control.”
Are the Nationals still looking at Cavalli as part of the plan in 2025? Publicly, they say yes. But they also know they’ve got four returning young, healthy starters in MacKenzie Gore, Jake Irvin, Mitchell Parker and DJ Herz. General manager Mike Rizzo is almost certainly going to pursue at least one veteran starter this winter to replace the departed Corbin. And there’s a new crop of prospects waiting in the wings to debut, including Brad Lord, Andrew Alvarez and Tyler Stuart at Triple-A Rochester and eventually younger flamethrowers Jarlin Susana and Travis Sykora.
Maybe Cavalli looks great in spring training and is ready to go out of the chute. Maybe he’s sent to Rochester to open the year and get him competing again before he’s called up at some point. Maybe he gets bypassed altogether.
And who knows what the state of the rotation will be by the time Gray is ready to return from his surgery. Unlike Cavalli, he still has a bit of a proven track record in the big leagues. But it will have been some time since he last pitched, and his status within the rotation hierarchy may not be what it once was.
One of the Nationals’ most pleasant developments of this season was the emergence of their young starters, allowing them to overcome the injuries to Gray and Cavalli. But that also could ultimately hurt those two right-handers’ chances of stepping back into the big league rotation whenever they’re finally healthy again.