For the seventh straight season the Washington Nationals failed to make the playoffs. They did improve their record to 77-85 and the offense as a whole was a nice surprise throughout the season. CJ Abrams took a big step in becoming a franchise type of player, Keibert Ruiz had a career year at the plate, Cade Cavalli transformed into an ace type of pitcher, and Andrew Alvarez was a nice surprise for the rotation in the second half of the season.
Even though there were a lot of positives to build upon from this season there were still two major disappointments that cannot be overlooked.
Dylan Crews
The former number two overall pick in the 2023 draft has disappointed so far at the big-league level. There was hope coming into this season that he would be able to take a step forward after playing just over half the season the year prior. That simply has not happened.
He began the year in Triple-A to work on his swing and give him an “extended spring training”. When he was called up, he would go through stretches where he would look completely lost at the plate. Dylan Crews has all the tools to become a dynamic top of the lineup type of bat and he did set career highs in doubles, home runs, and walks but it still is just not good enough to garner an everyday starting spot in the Nationals outfield going into next season.
Crews does have age on his side as he will be 25 once next season starts but it’s starting to become a now or never type of situation for him in DC.
The Bullpen
Choosing this unit as a whole is cheating in a way, but I'd be remiss not to mention them.
Coming into this season there were not high hopes for the Nationals bullpen and somehow, they found a way to be worse than what everyone thought they would be. The Nats bullpen blew a league record 42 saves and had a bullpen ERA of 5.12 which finished tied for 28th. Take away half of those blown saves and the Nats would have won 98 games, and we would celebrating an NL East division championship at minimum.
From the start of the season the pen could never find any consistency. Injuries early in the season wreaked havoc. They had 21 different pitchers attempt a save this season. Their main closer for most of the season Clayton Beeter ended up being sent down late in the season. Outside of Brad Lord there were just never a consistent set of relievers that Blake Butera could turn to late in games.
At the trade deadline the front office addressed this problem by moving Luis Garcia Jr. and Foster Griffin for a total of eight player with seven of them being pitchers at different levels of the pro baseball ladder. For the Nationals to continue their upward trend next season the bullpen being rebuilt will be the most important part of the offseason.
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