It's that time of the year where we Nationals fans predict what our team will look like in the years to come. The Nationals have fallen out of the playoff race once again this season, so we all look for the positive takeaways and daydream about a theoretical great team in the years ahead. This is an ongoing process throughout a typical rebuild, and the picture of a competitive team is starting to become clear after several years of tanking.
We now know that several players are locked into their positions as the team opens a competitive window, or at least tries to. CJ Abrams and Luis Garcia have been partnered up the middle for two-plus seasons now, and are both coming into their own this year. They will stay put, along with newcomer James Wood, for years to come. Top prospects Dylan Crews and Brady House will certainly join those players to form a formidable young core, along with a growing list of solid controllable pitchers.
We could have predicted a lot of this years ago, when the team was tearing down and trading our former stars. In fact, I attempted to predict the 2025 team over a year ago, and I named Abrams, Garcia, Wood, Crews, House, and a few pipe dream free agents (like Juan Soto). That theoretical core has come along pretty well a year later, but there's one name I, and pretty much everybody else, never even considered in July of last year: Jacob Young.
Jacob Young has been a revelation this season in center field. It's absolutely incredible that he is one of the Nationals best players and one of the best rookie position players in baseball this year per Fangraphs WAR. Young came out of nowhere, at least when it comes to public prospect evaluators. He was never a Nationals top 30 prospect per MLB Pipeline, and he never made the team lists at Fangraphs. A former 7th-round pick, Young had about as little prospect pedigree as one could have, and this year he's made a name for himself at the big league level.
You have likely heard about Young's excellent center field defense, the carrying tool of his profile, as it seems the Nationals broadcasters have pointed out his defensive metrics in every game recently. Indeed, he is #1 among all players in OAA, Outs Above Average, and is in the top 10 in pretty much every fielding metric you can find on Fangraphs. Defensive metrics are not perfectly precise, but when they all think a player is amazing, they are probably right.
To add to incredible defense, Young has swiped 41 bags in 145 career games played, adding game-changing speed to the Nats speedy lineup all season long. His bat is rather light, and the tradeoff for his excellent defense and speed is a total void of power hitting; his .327 slugging percentage is 2nd-worst among all qualified hitters this season. This is the kind of player we often see in center field, great speed and defense but not so great at the plate, and even among that archetype Young has an extreme lack of power.
Looking at Jacob Young's Baseball Savant page, I'm reminded of the player he took the center field role from, Victor Robles. Robles went several seasons with ocean-blue bubbles on his Savant page, meaning he ranked near the bottom of the league in important offensive statistics like Barrel% and xSLG. Robles' calling card was his defense, just like Young, and his lack of pop ran him out of DC before he hit free agency. It's a scary comparison for Young right now, because after Robles' similarly excellent breakout year in 2019, with sterling defensive metrics and 3.7 WAR, his offense cratered and he never recaptured that spark.
I'm not sure that Robles is the perfect comparison, though. While their breakouts looked similar, Robles struggled with mental errors, various nagging injuries, and looked like a physically different player after the pandemic. Plus, Jacob Young is a far better baserunner. To me, Young resembles Billy Hamilton, another center fielder who had a breakout rookie season due to defense and baserunning.
Hamilton had a career .239/,292/.325 line, and has played almost 1000 career games despite that horrid offensive performance. Right now Jacob Young is managing a slightly better .253/.316/.326, but doesn't quite have otherworldly foot speed that Hamilton used to swipe 50+ bases in four straight seasons. Young is pretty close, though, and for players this fast, even just a little bit extra on-base percentage goes a long, long way. Billy Hamilton put up 11.2 WAR in his five-year run as the Reds center fielder from 2014-2018, and averaging more than 2 WAR per season is great for a young, controllable role player. That's about what Jacob Young's trajectory looks like right now.
So, will Jacob Young be locked into center field for the next four, five years? I'm not sure. I've been surprised that he has been able to keep his head above water at the plate, and his .314 on-base percentage is only just high enough. He's walking a tightrope with such little pop and less than stellar plate discipline - if his on-base skills go the way of Billy Hamilton, it will be tough to stay productive. There's a real possibility his bat takes a step back at some point and he is a better fit on the bench as a defensive specialist and pinch-runner. Still, that's not bad for a 7th-round pick!
What really complicates matters is the presence of Dylan Crews. Having seen some of Crews' games at AAA, I think he can be a strong fit at center field, and his bat will almost definitely surpass Young's. With James Wood locked into a corner for now, the team can easily go with Crews in right field and stick with Young in center, but there is an opportunity cost associated with sliding Crews over. If Crews would be a plus center fielder, the team could instead go acquire a power-hitting corner outfielder to play alongside Crews and Wood, which has the potential to make the outfield even stronger.
In an ideal world, the aforementioned power-hitting outfielder would be Juan Soto, but I seriously doubt the Lerners would cough up $500+ million for that. Even without Soto, there is perhaps more potential for future Nationals teams if Dylan Crews is the future center fielder, as good as Jacob Young has been this season. There isn't much room for Young's bat to improve considering his skill set, but benching him would be a difficult decision to make. It's more likely that the team will spend their efforts acquiring players in other areas, pitchers and corner infielders, and leave Young's spot safe for 2025, but all options are on the table when the team starts competing for the playoffs.
I'm not sure how Mike Rizzo and Davey Martinez are planning on solving this dilemma, but it's a good one to have. Dylan Crews is getting hot at AAA right now, and he will absolutely be competing for a starting job in spring training next year. James Wood is immovable and a potential star, and Jacob Young plays the role of the scrappy underdog who just might be the center fielder on the next great Nationals team. Who saw that coming?