The top four Washington Nationals teams are all from the post-2012 era and earn the top four seeds in the Ultimate Nationals Simulation.
In our next Ultimate Nationals Simulation article, we will look back upon the “best” of the later years of the Washington Nationals and unveil the top four seeds in this tournament.
If you missed Monday’s introduction to the simulation, you can check it out below.
After 2011, the Nationals blossomed into a baseball powerhouse. It all started in 2012 when the Nats won 98 games and would’ve had home-field advantage throughout the MLB playoffs.
That team had it all. Well, except for a playoff series victory. Despite Jayson Werth‘s heroics in Game 4 of the NLDS, the Nats fell to the St. Louis Cardinals in one of the most infamous moments in D.C. sports history.
The team regrouped in 2014 and, despite clinching home field yet again, were dispatched by the future World Series champion San Francisco Giants in four games. Then under new manager Dusty Baker, the Nats got back to the playoffs in 2016 with arguably their most talented roster yet.
After Wilson Ramos tore his ACL in September, hope began to falter. The Los Angeles Dodgers, or Clayton Kershaw if we’re honest, broke and shattered it in the NLDS, winning games four and five. Once again, the Nats got back to the postseason in 2017. But we don’t need to go through this ordeal again.
Despite the postseason letdowns, these four teams provided some of the best single-season performances in Nationals history. The rosters are littered with Cy Young contenders, All-Stars, and perhaps some future Hall-of-Famers.
Is one of them good enough to be ordained the best Nationals team of all-time?