WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Shalom … er, hello from The Ballpark of the Palm Beaches, where tonight the Nationals take a break from official Grapefruit League play to face Team Israel in a tune-up for the upcoming World Baseball Classic!

It won’t just be the opponent that looks different tonight. The rules will be different as well. As in, the old rules. No pitch clock. Shifting allowed. Smaller bases. And yet, none of the stats actually count for official MLB purposes. Oh, also there may be a Nationals pitcher or two actually pitching for the opponents later in the game because the Israelis are trying to save some arms for the WBC. You’ve been warned.

The Nats will have an intriguing combination of regulars and top-end prospects taking the field tonight. Cade Cavalli makes his first actual start of the spring after two relief appearances. While there’s only so much to glean from how he performs against this particular lineup, it’s still important to see the young right-hander complete three solid innings with no real issues.

Cavalli will have mostly big leaguers behind him in the field, but he’ll also have the organization’s No. 1 prospect: James Wood, who gets his first start in center field (perhaps a ramification of the knee injury Victor Robles sustained yesterday against the Tigers. Stay tuned, as we hope to have an update on him. Other prospects expected to play the second half of this game include Brady House and Elijah Green.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS vs. ISRAEL
Where: The Ballpark of the Palm Beaches
Gametime: 6:05 p.m. EST
TV: None
Radio: None
Weather: Clear, 74 degrees, wind 10 mph in from right field

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – It’s all anyone wants to talk about this spring training, whether you’re in Florida or Arizona: Major League Baseball’s new rules for the upcoming season.

The one rule that has garnered the most attention is the pitch clock, which has affected nearly every part of the game.

The most noticeable effect it has had is on the length of games. Spring training games across the major leagues are averaging just under two hours and 40 minutes. The average length of a spring training game in 2022 was just over three hours.

But the clock doesn’t just affect the pitchers on the mound. It affects the catchers, the defense in the field, the batter in the box, the next batters up, the pitchers in the bullpen and the coaches in the dugout.

It’s been an adjustment period, for sure. In Nationals camp, the starting pitchers have enjoyed getting used to the pitch clock and the faster tempo it brings.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – It was a rare day – and probably the last of this spring – when you saw two Nationals starting pitchers appear in the same game.

Luckily for Nats fans, it was two-thirds of the young Big Three they’re hoping leads this rotation for years to come.

Because of Sunday’s split-squad games and Monday’s off-day, Josiah Gray's and Cade Cavalli’s next scheduled times to pitch a game both landed today, in what would end up as a 9-6 loss to the Cardinals in front of 3,260 fans. They both had the same plan: Complete two innings and throw between 35 and 40 pitches, with Gray starting the game and Cavalli following out of the bullpen.

They both completed their objectives, in similar yet somehow different ways.

Gray started the game with a three-pitch strikeout of Brendan Donovan. He then gave up back-to-back singles before getting a popup and groundout to finish the frame on 12 pitches, nine strikes.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – The Nationals get to play their next two games on their home field, starting with this afternoon’s matchup with the Cardinals.

Josiah Gray and Cade Cavalli are both expected to make their second spring appearances today at The Ballpark of the Palm Beaches. Gray will start the game and Cavalli will follow out of the bullpen, with both expected to go about two innings and throw around 35-40 pitches.

The Nationals lineup includes a lot of regulars, with CJ Abrams, Lane Thomas, Corey Dickerson, Joey Meneses, Dominic Smith, Jeimer Candelario, Keibert Ruiz and Victor Robles starting today. Jake Alu is the only starter who is battling for a spot this spring.

The game can be heard on 106.7 The Fan back in the D.C. area.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS vs. ST. LOUIS CARDINALS
Where: The Ballpark of the Palm Beaches, West Palm Beach
Gametime: 1:05 p.m. EST
TV: None
Radio: 106.7 The Fan
Weather: Partly cloudy, 89 degrees, wind 11 mph out to right-center field

NATIONALS
SS CJ Abrams
RF Lane Thomas
LF Corey Dickerson
DH Joey Meneses
1B Dominic Smith
DH Jeimer Candelario
C Keibert Ruiz
2B Jake Alu
CF Victor Robles

RHP Josiah Gray

CARDINALS
3B Brendon Donovan
LF Jordan Walker
2B Nolan Gorman
C Wilson Contreras
1B Juan Yepez
DH Paul DeJong
RF Moisés Gómez
SS Juniel Querecuto
CF Mike Antico

LHP Connor Thomas

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Not much has been thought of Jake Alu from an outsider’s point of view throughout his baseball career.

He was not a top prospect coming out of Boston College. He was not a top prospect on the Nationals farm after they selected him in the 24th round of the 2019 draft. And people outside of the organization didn’t take much notice of his steady climb through four levels of the system over the last three minor league seasons.

And quite frankly, that’s just the way he likes it.

“I definitely see myself as a little underdog,” Alu said. “But honestly, I just go out there and I've never stepped on a field and felt, 'Wow, I can't compete here at all.' I've always been there trying to prove myself. When I play with better people, it makes me play better.”

Whether or not you’ve noticed him, the 25-year-old has earned his spot in his first major league spring training.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – On March 18, 2022, the day of the Nationals’ first game of a shortened spring training due to the lockout, Carter Kieboom felt something wrong in his throwing arm during pregame warmups. He was scratched from the starting lineup, had an MRI the following day and was placed on the 60-day injured list two days later with a right forearm flexor mass/ulnar collateral ligament strain. About two months later, he underwent Tommy John surgery, ending his fourth big league season before it even started.

Today, about a year later, Kieboom is back in the Nationals lineup for the first time this spring, batting ninth as the designated hitter in a game against the Marlins at The Ballpark of the Palm Beaches.

Although his return to game action is a significant step in his recovery, the Nationals are still taking a slow and cautious approach with the third baseman.

“We just want to give him some at-bats,” manager Davey Martinez said. “Like I said, we're going to kind of ease into this thing with him, so he gets to DH and get him some at-bats and get him going.”

Kieboom has been fine swinging the bat in camp. It’s throwing that still remains a work in progress. But any sort of game action, even just hitting as the DH, will be helpful.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – If Davey Martinez and Jim Hickey had only one message for pitchers entering spring training, it was as simple a message as they get: Throw strikes.

The Nationals issued 558 walks last season, fifth-most in the majors. They simply can’t afford to keep issuing free passes at that rate.

Three games into Grapefruit League play this spring, the trend has been reversed in dramatic fashion. Yes, it’s only three games, two of them played today alone. But the Nats have walked a total of only five batters in 26 innings, and none of them came during this afternoon’s 3-2 victory over the Astros at The Ballpark of the Palm Beaches.

“These guys are coming in with 9-, 10-, 13-pitch innings,” Martinez said. “We’re pounding the strike zone. That’s something we want to instill in their heads. We told our catchers we’ve got to get strikes. They’ve been good. They’re throwing the ball well.”

Nine different pitchers took the mound here today, and all nine retreated to the dugout having forced Houston’s hitters to earn their way on base. The trendsetter was Trevor Williams, who tossed a scoreless first, escaping a jam thanks to a 6-4-3 double play but allowing just two singles (one of them a little dribbler between the mound and third base).

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – The second day of full-squad workouts saw the arrival of Nationals managing principal owner Mark Lerner, the return of several pitchers for their second round of live batting practice and some moments of levity.

Mark Lerner made his first appearance of the spring at camp, his first public appearance since the death of his father, founding principal owner Ted Lerner, on Feb. 12. Mark Lerner was greeted by nearly everyone in the organization over the course of the morning, accepting condolences and offering thanks to everyone who has shared kind words about his 97-year-old father.

Lerner, who hasn’t spoken publicly about the potential sale of the franchise since early last year, wasn’t subjected to questions from reporters today.

Lerner did make a point to watch several drills up close, including live BP sessions by two of the organization’s top rotation candidates: Josiah Gray and Cade Cavalli. Both faced hitters for the second time in camp.

Gray went up against a group of hitters that included Victor Robles and Matt Adams. The young right-hander continued to emphasize a straighter stride toward the plate upon delivery, his biggest point of emphasis over the winter. He also showed again what has made him most successful since arriving in the big leagues: his breaking ball, which he got Robles to whiff at during the session.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – While Wednesday’s news about Stephen Strasburg – he’s been shut down again after experiencing another setback in his latest attempt to return from thoracic outlet surgery – proved to be the biggest headline on Day 1 of Nationals spring training, truthfully, the bigger story was the presence of three other pitchers stationed along one wall of the home clubhouse.

Much as they hope Strasburg can still have a positive impact for this club, the Nats already have transitioned to building the next generation of their rotation on the broad shoulders of three young starters: MacKenzie Gore, Cade Cavalli and Josiah Gray.

Strasburg may not be healthy at the moment, but those other three guys are. And that probably has more significance to the franchise’s long-term well-being than anything.

“Starting pitching is very important if you want to compete in the big leagues and have a good team,” Gore said. “The starters need to … good teams have good starting pitching. There’s a responsibility that we have a job to do. I think that’s probably the best way to put it.”

There’s a responsibility, and there’s also a certain amount of pressure on Gore, Cavalli and Gray to live up to their billing. The Nationals’ chances of kicking their rebuild into serious gear rest in large part on the development of those three into frontline, big-league starters.

We’ve reached the final countdown to spring training, so we’re counting down the biggest storylines facing the Nationals this spring in West Palm Beach. We continue today with a look at a rotation that is counting on the healthy return of multiple starters …

If the Nationals are going to show significant improvement in 2023, if this franchise is going to take a big step forward in its rebuilding process this year, it is almost certainly going to coincide with a major turnaround from what was the majors’ worst rotation in 2022.

What used to be the organization’s unquestioned strength was its unquestioned No. 1 weakness last season. The rotation finished with an abysmal 5.97 ERA, an abysmal 30-86 record and a 1.563 WHIP that was the worst mark by any major league rotation since the 2012 Rockies.

How could the situation improve this season? The best hope comes in the form of two young potential building blocks with all the ability in the world but little track record, at least while wearing a Nationals uniform.

Cade Cavalli made one start for the Nats last year. MacKenzie Gore made none. That won’t be the case this year. If it is, the franchise is in serious trouble.

Pitchers and catchers don’t have to officially report to the Nationals’ facility in West Palm Beach until Tuesday. But it’s not uncommon to see guys start arriving a week or so early.

Josiah Gray is among those already down there getting ready for the start of camp. He joined “The Hot Stove Show” last week over Zoom from his back patio under cover from the sun after getting Florida license plates for his car.

Even professional athletes can’t avoid the pain of a trip to the DMV. A necessary evil to save the hassle for future spring trainings.

This will be Gray’s second spring training in West Palm Beach after coming over to the Nats in the blockbuster trade with the Dodgers in July 2021. And this time he’ll be looking to become one of the top pitchers in the starting rotation.

While a lot of focus will be on the Nats’ top prospects entering the second full season of this rebuild, attention will still be paid to the young players at the major league level to see how their development progresses, Gray included.

As the start of spring training gets closer and closer – pitchers and catchers report to West Palm Beach in a mere nine days! – we’re looking at how unpredictable the upcoming season could be for each member of the Nationals’ potential roster on an individual basis.

With few established players that look like sure things entering the year, there’s a wide variance of possibilities in each case. We looked at the nine likely members of the lineup Friday. Today, we look at the pitchers most likely to be in the mix for spots on the Opening Day roster.

Here’s the best-case and worst-case scenario for the 2023 season for each of them …

MACKENZIE GORE
Best case: His elbow back to full health, the lefty picks up where he left off during the first half of last season in San Diego. Over 30 starts, he maintains an ERA around 3.00, striking out more than one batter per inning and establishing himself as the young leader of this rotation moving forward.
Worst case: A return of elbow discomfort would really be worst-case, but even if his arm feels fine there’s still a fear of diminished velocity and stamina. A fastball in the low 90s, combined with less-than-ideal command, could leave the Nationals questioning if he really will live up to his billing long-term.

CADE CAVALLI
Best case: Fresh off a restful winter, with his major league debut already behind him, Cavalli proves he’s ready to stick in the big league for the long haul. The Nats are still careful with his workload, limiting him to 26 starts or 140 innings, but he makes the most of those outings with a sub-3.50 ERA and more than 150 strikeouts.
Worst case: Even with a mid-to-upper 90s fastball, if he doesn’t maintain precise command, big league hitters will have success off that pitch. His secondary stuff helps bail him out sometimes, but a high WHIP leaves him looking like something less than a frontline starter.

Baseball America unveiled its Top 100 Prospects list for the start of the 2023 season Wednesday, and there’s good news: The Nationals not only had four players make the list, they had four players make the top 61.

Outfielder James Wood leads the way at No. 11. Robert Hassell III (57), Elijah Green (58) and Cade Cavalli (61) are all bunched together farther down the list.

That’s a nice development for the Nats, and evidence of the influx of talent they’ve had in what used to be one of baseball’s worst farm systems. Three of those four players, of course, weren’t even in the organization one year ago at this time. Wood and Hassell came from the Padres in the Juan Soto-Josh Bell blockbuster trade. Green was the No. 5 overall pick in last summer’s draft.

And when you add two young players who were highly rated entering the 2022 season but now are full-time major leaguers (CJ Abrams, No. 9; Keibert Ruiz, No. 11), it further underscores just how far the Nationals have come in the last 18 months.

Which isn’t to say they’re anywhere close to achieving what they ultimately need to achieve.

The Nationals were bad last year, but you already know that. They want to be better this year, and you probably do, too.

But will they be better? That’s what we’re attempting to predict the last two days.

Though there’s still a month to go until spring training, and more additions or subtractions are possible, the Nats have already assembled what looks like it could be their Opening Day roster. So it’s not too early for this exercise.

We looked at position players yesterday, running through each of the positions (included designated hitter). Today, we look at the pitching staff, running through each slot in the rotation, plus multiple bullpen roles. Will the 2023 Nationals be better, worse or the same as the 2022 Nationals? Here we go …

NO. 1 STARTER: Slightly better, you have to hope
Who was the Nationals’ No. 1 starter last year? Patrick Corbin started Opening Day and threw the most innings. Josiah Gray led the staff in wins and strikeouts. Aníbal Sánchez (?!) led the starters in WAR. Point is, they don’t have a No. 1 guy, not yet. So for these purposes, we’ll go with Corbin and just look at how he may fare in 2023 vs. 2022. Enough has been said and written about the left-hander, who has steadily devolved over the last three seasons into the worst starter in baseball. He’s not going anywhere, not with two years still left on his contract. So, can he be better than 6-19 with a 6.31 ERA and 1.697 WHIP? You sure hope so, don’t you? Nobody’s going to suggest he can return to his elite 2019 form anymore. But it is fair to think he could become somewhat more respectable, and the main reason for that would be better defense behind him. His 4.83 FIP last season suggests he wasn’t solely to blame for his wretched numbers. Let’s see if an entire year of CJ Abrams at shortstop might actually bring Corbin’s ERA down under 5.00, which would have to be considered a major win.

From the moment the Nationals declared his season over due to lingering soreness in his shoulder, Cade Cavalli has been itching to get back on a mound and start pitching again.

He hasn’t quite reached that point yet in his offseason throwing program, but that’s not for lack of desire on his part.

“Cade said he’s ready to fire the ball, and I told him: ‘Well, don’t do that yet,’ ” manager Davey Martinez said last week at the Winter Meetings in San Diego. “We’ve got plenty of time. But he’s fired up.”

Cavalli knows no other way. The energetic 24-year-old is eternally optimistic, which is why he has never viewed his September shoulder issues as anything but an important lesson in understanding when not to try to pitch through something that doesn’t feel 100 percent right.

Cavalli didn’t feel 100 percent right during his Aug. 26 major league debut. On a hot, muggy summer night at Nationals Park, he had all kinds of trouble gripping the ball and wound up allowing seven runs in 4 1/3 innings to a less-than-imposing Reds lineup, walking two batters while hitting three more.

Though there’s been a bit of movement on the free agent market elsewhere, we’re still in the preliminary stages of the offseason around here. The Nationals have yet to add anybody to the fold, focusing instead on which players to add to their 40-man roster and which players to remove from the equation.

But now that they’ve completed those tasks, it’s fair to wonder when they’ll start moving onto free agency and addressing a handful of significant needs. (It’s also fair to wonder if they’ll be able to address any of those needs while the club is still for sale, but we’ve already raised that question and there’s not much more to say about that for now.)

So let’s proceed as if Mark Lerner has given Mike Rizzo the green light to spend some money this winter. Not gobs of money, but enough money to fill roster holes with actual free agents, not just bargain-basement pickups.

The Nationals have multiple needs. We’ll focus today on a particularly important one: starting pitching.

The 2022 rotation ranked dead-last in the majors in ERA (5.97) by a longshot, last in WHIP (1.563), last in walks per nine innings (3.76), last in strikeouts per walk (1.97), last in homers allowed (161). It’s hard to believe they finished with the majors’ worst record as well, isn’t it?

As we wait for the Nationals to put their offseason plan – whatever that plan ends up being – into action, it’s probably instructive to take stock of what they already have in place.

The organizational depth chart looks a whole lot different today than it did one year ago, and it basically bears zero resemblance to the one that existed two years ago. Consider this: Only 22 players who were on the 40-man roster on Opening Day are still on the 40-man roster. And out of that group, only 10 were on the 40-man roster on Opening Day 2021.

That’s a lot of change.

So, what’s left? A roster that has more young talent than it did a year ago, though most of it has yet to reach the big leagues. And plenty of holes that still need to be filled.

As you can see when you break the depth chart down position by position, the Nationals still have some work to do, both when it comes to short-term and long-term roster construction. (Note: Players not currently on the 40-man roster have an asterisk after their names.) …

PLAYER REVIEW: CADE CAVALLI

Age on opening day 2023: 24

How acquired: First-round pick, 2020 draft

MLB service time: 41 days

2022 salary: $700,000

NEW YORK – There is no way to sugarcoat a 55-107 season, no silver lining to setting a club record for losses, no justifying the worst record in baseball.

This was, undoubtedly, the worst of the Nationals’ 18 seasons since they arrived in the District in 2005. They lost more games than the awful 2008-09 teams. The rotation’s 5.97 ERA was far worse than the dreadful 2006 (5.37) or 2020 (5.38) starters’ numbers. Their 17-59 record and .224 winning percentage against the National League East was not only the worst in club history, it was the worst in major league history since divisional play began in 1969.

Oh, and they also traded away a 22-year-old generational star, not because they didn’t want him, but because they believed it was the only way they could restock a farm system that was barren because of their own inability to draft and develop future big leaguers over much of the last decade.

How could the Nationals try to claim the 2022 season was successful? They can’t.

What they can do, and what they are trying to do, is believe this rock-bottom season was a necessary step toward something better in the future. That by losing to this extent now and refocusing efforts on rebuilding that barren farm system, they will be in a better position to win again sooner than they would be if they didn’t take this drastic step backward.

The Nationals have decided not to give MacKenzie Gore a start before season’s end, not wanting to push the left-hander to come off the injured list given the shaky weekend forecast and his stamina issues during a lengthy minor league rehab stint.

Gore, who was acquired from the Padres while on the 15-day IL with left elbow inflammation, had been building himself back up with the intention of making one or two big league starts before the season ends. And after throwing 72 pitches over 3 2/3 innings Monday in his fourth rehab outing for Triple-A Rochester, he expressed optimism he’d make a start against the Phillies this weekend, even if he was limited to three or four innings.

But after conversations with manager Davey Martinez and general manager Mike Rizzo, Gore was told his season would end now, with an offseason plan implemented to help him build up more strength and stamina heading into spring training.

“For me, that’s good enough,” Martinez said. “When we started this and started your rehab stuff, that’s the point we wanted to get to. For me, if it was something different – if we didn’t have enough pitchers, or whatever, which we do – it would be a different conversation. But I don’t want to push it. I think we’re in a good spot right now.”

Gore had totaled 70 big league innings for the Padres before going on the IL in late July, going 4-4 with a 4.50 ERA, 1.472 WHIP and 72 strikeouts, those numbers turning worse as he was beginning to deal with his elbow issue. He was highly motivated to come back and pitch for the Nationals, but the organization doesn’t feel like he needs to prove anything to them.