We’re less than a month away from the start of spring training and there are still plenty of questions swirling around the baseball offseason.

As it pertains to the Nationals, we know you still have a lot of questions before the team reports to West Palm Beach next month. Mark Zuckerman’s weekly Q&A sessions with readers have been filled with your inquiries on the club’s roster, farm system and projections for the 2025 season.

But this morning, I had the thought to turn the tables on you, the readers.

Here are some Nats-related questions for you to ponder and answer in the comments section below:

Which offseason addition (so far) will have the biggest impact this season?

It’s officially 2025 now, and that means a fresh start and raised expectations for a Nationals club that made strides in 2024 but still hasn’t climbed all the way out of the franchise rebuild they first embarked on in July 2021.

This is the year, everyone hopes, when the Nats end their streak of five consecutive losing seasons. This is the year, everyone hopes, when they return to contention for the first time since 2019. This is the year, everyone hopes, when their new core of young players realizes its full potential and leads the club to heights not experienced since the last star-studded core did it over an eight-season run of success.

And this is the year, everyone hopes, when the Nationals start adding established big leaguers via free agency and/or trade to bolster that promising young core.

Alas, that didn’t happen during the final two months of 2024. The Nats made very little news through all of November and the majority of December, but the final two weeks finally saw a flurry of activity with the acquisitions of four major league players.

It began with the signing of Michael Soroka to a one-year, $9 million contract, giving the pitching staff a former All-Star and Rookie of the Year runner-up whose career in Atlanta was sidetracked by freak injuries but may have been rejuvenated late last season in the White Sox bullpen.

As he explored his options this winter, Michael Soroka was struck by the Nationals’ interest in him. Interest that stemmed not as much from what he had done in the past, but from what they feel he’s still capable of doing in the future.

“It seemed like the best place to move forward with, for myself and for the organization,” the right-hander said Friday in an introductory Zoom call with D.C. reporters. “I’m excited to be a part of that. It’s an organization that’s going in the right direction.”

The Nats on Thursday made Soroka their first major league acquisition of the offseason, giving him a one-year, $9 million contract to join their 2025 rotation. It’s a gamble in some ways, because he hasn’t been a full-time, big-league starter since 2019 with the Braves (when he finished runner-up for Rookie of the Year and sixth for the Cy Young Award).

Soroka’s career has been on a winding path since, with two full seasons lost to a freak Achilles’ tendon tear (and re-tear), then a slow and at times ineffective return to the mound that culminated this season with an 0-10 record, 4.74 ERA and demotion from the rotation to the bullpen for an historically awful White Sox team.

The Nationals, though, saw what Soroka himself felt during the latter stages of a tough season in Chicago. Upon moving to a long-relief role, he enjoyed newfound success with some changes both to his mechanics and his pitch usage. In 16 relief appearances totaling 36 innings, he produced a 2.75 ERA, 1.222 WHIP and a whopping 60 strikeouts.

The Nationals’ long-awaited first free agent signing of the offseason didn’t qualify as a big splash. Michael Soroka isn’t the big slugger they need for the middle of their lineup. He’s not the closer they lack since non-tendering Kyle Finnegan. And he’s probably not the ace of the staff, even if he did pitch like one as a rookie for the Braves way back in 2019.

Soroka’s deal – one year, $9 million – is modest by 2025 standards. If anything, it might even be a bit of a stretch considering his lack of success and lack of good health, the last five seasons.

But that’s the price of doing business in the free agent pitching market. Nobody with any kind of track record comes cheap, and the best of the best are paid exorbitant amounts of dollars over a number of years that leaves general managers around the league shivering.

The Nats didn’t sign Soroka to lead their rotation. They signed him in the hopes he can rekindle some of his past success and health and perform at a level that makes his $9 million salary look like a bargain.

In short, they signed him hoping he can do in 2025 what Trevor Williams did in 2024.

The Nationals have made their long-awaited first major league acquisition of the winter, signing right-hander Michael Soroka to a one-year, $9 million deal.

The signing, formally announced by the team this afternoon, is their first of an unusually quiet offseason to date but perhaps signals the start of a more active period before the holidays. The financial terms, confirmed by a club source, make the 27-year-old the highest paid player on the team for now.

Soroka burst onto the scene with the Braves in 2019, going 13-4 with a 2.68 ERA and 1.111 WHIP to earn an All-Star selection, plus votes for the Cy Young and Rookie of the Year awards. His career has been ravaged by injuries since, beginning with a freak Achilles tendon tear that essentially kept him out of the big leagues for more than two full seasons.

The Braves traded Soroka to the White Sox last winter, and he attempted to revive his career in Chicago. It didn’t go well at first; he went 0-5 with a 6.39 ERA in nine early season starts for a team that would eventually set the major league record with 121 losses. But he was much more effective pitching out of the bullpen the remainder of the season, posting a 2.75 ERA in 16 appearances, most of them lasting multiple innings.

The Nationals intend to give Soroka a chance to start, according to a club source, which aligns with the money they guaranteed him. As was the case with Trevor Williams in recent seasons, though, the team could shift him to the bullpen at some point if he struggles in the rotation or if another starter emerges.