The Washington Nationals had an absolutely miserable 2025 season. In many ways, while celebrating the 20th season of the franchise since moving back to the Nation's Capital from Montreal, this season almost felt like some sort of messed up tribute to the early days of the Nationals, where the product was awful and the future outlook seemed even worse.
Of course, a big part of why both former manager Dave Martinez and former GM Mike Rizzo were both fired is because of the lack of long-term vision either one seemed to have as it pertained to the team, and ownership felt as if the best way out of the hole they dug was to move on from both. In fact, one of the reasons Martinez was criticized before losing his job was the fact that he wasn't giving many youngters everyday opportunities in the lineup.
Sure, you can make a case for someone like Luis Garcia Jr., who has struggled against lefties in his career, but why were multiple rookies not getting consistent at-bats as the season began to slip away? What I am referencing was the fact that there were far too many days spent by both Daylen Lile, the topic of this piece, and Robert Hassell III, where they were on the bench to start the game due to simple matchup decisions based on MiLB data.
When you think back to how the regular season finished for the Nationals, it's almost weird that rookie outfielder Daylen Lile was not an instant success, and even needed a demotion back to AAA to work on some things and master his swing. The demotion seemed to do wonders, as Lile had been at least partially in contention to bring home the National League Rookie of the Year award, although we have now learned that Lile ended coming up just a bit short of that goal.
Instead, the award was one by Atlanta Braves backstop Drake Baldwin, who, despite playing for a poor club, was fantastic on both sides of the ball and should be a huge building block for our NL East rival for years to come...yay us! Nick Kurtz from the Athletics won in the AL side, which came as absolutely zero surprise to anyone who paid attention.
Lile ended up with a 5th place finish, which is pretty admirable given that he only played 91 games in the big leagues this season. That just goes to show you how much respect he already has gained around baseball, and how much talent he truly possesses. The 2026 season will be a big one for Lile to see if he can show the writers who vote on the awards that they made the wrong choice or not for the voting. He also became the first National since Victor Robles in 2019 to receive any sort of vote for the award as well.