I sound like a broken record but I do not care: growing up as a kid in the Northern Virginia area, there was nothing better than 2012-2019 Nationals baseball.
I can remember countless days of coming home after a baseball or a basketball game, having a nice home cooked dinner, and turning on the television and watching one of the best teams in baseball, announced by the best in the business Bob Carpenter.
Aside from the past few seasons and an offseason upon us where expectations are sadly low, there are many reasons to be thankful to be a Nationals fan.
Here are a few of the reasons I am most thankful:
Nationals Park
Since it was completed in 2008, Nationals Park stands as one of the prettiest parks in baseball. I will always remember being gifted a baseball with stadium renderings on the inside, sparking the imagination of a young kid with my hometown team getting a permanent home. I attend every single Opening Day, with vibes being high, family surrounding me, and Shake Shack in hand. Nothing beats that.
Juan Soto
Look. Juan Soto will go down as one of the best hitters in the history of baseball, and as a 20-year-old, was one of the main reasons we became World Series champions in 2019. It breaks my heart to see Soto on his third team, and maybe even heading to a division rival, but it is unbelievable what his legacy will leave in DC. An All-Star, batting title champion, silver slugger, World Series Champion, and being a part of maybe the biggest trade in MLB history, netting us James Wood, CJ Abrams, MacKenzie Gore, Jarlin Susana, and Robert Hassell III. I am thankful for Soto, and the haul we will be able to watch for years to come.
Ryan Zimmerman
Not many franchises can say they had a better player, and person than Ryan Zimmerman during his tenure in Washington. Zimmerman was an All-Star, Silver slugger, Gold Glove award winner, and World Series Champion in DC, collecting 40.1 bWAR over his career, with 384 home runs and 1,846 hits with a 116 career OPS+. Not only could he flat-out rake, Zimmerman was a pillar for the community, and has stayed involved with the organization enough to help us steer back into relevancy.
The Three-Headed Monster
How much fun was 2019? To state the obvious, watching a ballclub that was the best team in baseball after their horrendous 19-31 start was enough to entertain me, but seemingly all at their peaks, the starting rotation brought me the most joy. Stephen Strasburg, Max Scherzer, and Patrick Corbin had a 5.6, 5.2, and 5.0 bWAR seasons, respectively. They combined for 732 strikeouts, with Corbin being the lowest total, at 238. Anibal Sanchez was no slouch either, with a 3.1 bWAR, 3.85 ERA in 166 innings season. The rotation was lights out, with three true aces, guiding a horrible bullpen and an inferior lineup compared to the Astros, a World Series title. You knew you had a chance to win any game with those four guys on the bump.
Top Prospects
How lucky are we to have been blessed with some of the top prospects in baseball year after year? Washington has had Stephen Strasburg, Bryce Harper, James Wood, and Dylan Crews, peek at the top prospects lists in baseball, setting us up to make a huge impact on winning squads for years to come. Wood and Crews debuted last season and both have six more additional years of service time, with Harper and Strasburg both cementing themselves as Nationals legends. Hopefully Wood and Crews can make the same level of impact.
With so many reasons to be thankful, the ones listed above are just the top few to be grateful for. Let us hope for many more reasons to be thankful to be a Nationals fan the future will bring us.