The offseason for the Washington Nationals has been a bit underwhelming from a fan's perspective in terms of player additions. While the club should definitely be better positioned for the future with new technologies already making an early impact in spring training for their youngsters, any Nationals fans with any hopes in free agency certainly had to be disappointed.
They only signed 2 players to major league contracts, and they both came as low-risk, low-cost signings for their starting rotation. Foster Griffin is working on an MLB comeback and was brought back over to the US from Japan, and Miles Mikolas is serving as some valuable veteran depth in their starting rotation.
One rumored free agent that the Nationals may or may not have been in on was first baseman Rhys Hoskins, who of course spent a long time with the Philadelphia Phillies as an NL East foe before spending this past season with the Milwaukee Brewers. He lingered on the open market for a while before making a decision on where he will be spending the 2026 season, and spoiler alert, it's not the Nationals.
Hoskins ended up inking a minor league deal with the Cleveland Guardians, where he will only make $1.5M if he ends up making their Opening Day roster, which he should have a good chance to do. Seeing a quality first baseman with an established big league track record only sign for this amount is certainly a bit disheartening, but perhaps the interest on Hoskins' side wasn't there.
As always, it takes two to tango, and there is always the high likelihood that Hoskins was not interested in playing for a bottom 5 team from a record standpoint. Of course, the Guardians won the AL Central last year and are consistently near the top of the standings in the American League, while the Nationals haven't sniffed contention for half a decade now.
Perhaps Hoskins doesn't make their Opening Day roster and the Nationals can sign him after roster cutdowns, but him donning the Curly W seems highly unlikely to say the least at this point. The Nationals will head into the 2026 season with some combination of Luis Garcia Jr., Andres Chaparro, or even newcomers like Matt Mervis or Abimelec Ortiz all combining to soak up the playing time.
Do you still want the Nationals to make an addition at first base this offseason? As always, please let me know on X, @DCBerk.