We’ve reached the final week of the year, so it’s time to look back at the Nationals’ most significant stories of 2024. We conclude the series today with the long-awaited arrival of James Wood and Dylan Crews to the big leagues …

For three years, the Nationals’ best pitch to fans and the baseball world in general was to ask for patience. The franchise had torn down its championship roster, and it would take some time for the next generation of potential stars to rise through the ranks and take over in D.C.

It’s not easy to be patient, especially when it pertains to a ballclub that enjoyed eight straight winning seasons (five of those resulting in playoff berths) before falling into five consecutive losing seasons (one of which featured a club-record 107 losses). But the Nats insisted there was a light at the end of the tunnel. And the best evidence of that came this summer with the long-awaited promotions of two of the best prospects in baseball.

When James Wood debuted on July 1 and Dylan Crews followed on Aug. 26, the Nationals entered a new phase of the rebuild. They weren’t a winning team yet, far from it. But the addition of two elite young players to a roster already filled with other potential building blocks felt extra significant. For the first time since the teardown began in July 2021, the field was awash not in veterans set to be flipped at the trade deadline, not in stopgap solutions who had no real future here. No, everyone on the field had a chance to be part of the next winning team in D.C.

“They’re going to grow together,” manager Davey Martinez said at the conclusion of Crews’ first full series. “We’re going to do some really good things, and a lot faster than people think.”

We’ve reached the final week of the year, so it’s time to look back at the Nationals’ most significant stories of 2024. We continue the series today with CJ Abrams’ wild, up-and-down season …

Had you been asked on Opening Day to pick the Nationals player most likely destined for a breakout season, you very well might have said CJ Abrams.

The young shortstop had made some significant strides during the second half of the 2023 season, whether at the plate, on the bases or in the field, and there was real optimism about his chances of putting it all together in 2024.

And for a prolonged stretch, that’s exactly what he did, living up to the lofty expectations and establishing himself as the best player on this up-and-coming team. Until he slumped badly in the second half, then shockingly saw his season end not in Washington but in West Palm Beach following a disciplinary demotion.

Let’s start with the good stuff. Abrams stormed out of the gates with a blistering opening month. At the end of April, he was batting .295 with a .373 on-base percentage, .619 slugging percentage, 16 extra-base hits (seven of them homers) and seven stolen bases. It was a breakthrough in the best possible way.

We’ve reached the final week of the year, so it’s time to look back at the Nationals’ most significant stories of 2024. We continue the series today by looking at the moves the Nats did and did not make at the trade deadline …

For much of a decade, the Nationals used the trade deadline to add to their major league roster in order to compete for a World Series championship. Of course, they reached that goal in 2019. But at the cost of their farm system.

In the years since, general manager Mike Rizzo has used the deadline to rebuild the farm system by trading major league talent for minor league prospects.

It started with Max Scherzer, Trea Turner and a host of others in 2021. Juan Soto and Josh Bell netted a historic return in 2022. And then Jeimer Candelario was used to acquire two more young players, one of whom played a big role in the starting rotation this year, in 2023.

But what about 2024?

We’ve reached the final week of the year, so it’s time to look back at the Nationals’ most significant stories of 2024. We continue the series today with the emergence of the young starters in the rotation …

Under Mike Rizzo, the Nationals have always built their roster around starting pitching.

“You can never have enough starting pitching,” the long-time general manager routinely says when discussing his roster.

Just look at the additions he’s made over the years: Drafting Stephen Strasburg with the No. 1 overall pick in 2009, trading for Gio González, and signing Max Scherzer, Doug Fister, Patrick Corbin and Aníbal Sánchez.

But since starting this rebuild in 2021 by trading Scherzer, the Nats have turned their focus into acquiring and developing young starting pitchers to build a new dominant rotation.

We’ve reached the final week of the year, so it’s time to look back at the Nationals’ most significant stories of 2024. We begin the series today looking back at the departures of the final pieces from the 2019 World Series championship team …

The revolving door had been turning since that glorious night in Houston on Oct. 30, 2019. The roster that helped the Nationals clinch their first World Series championship in franchise history would never be assembled again. But that didn’t mean pieces couldn’t linger.

Players – both of the utmost importance and those who were along for the ride – stayed around in the years since. That was until this year when, finally, the last pieces of that championship squad departed D.C.

The first to leave in 2024 was the World Series MVP, Stephen Strasburg. After a convoluted and confusing path to get there, the 36-year-old officially retired on April 6, months after plans were already in place to announce the end of his career due to complications from thoracic outlet syndrome.

The hold-up? The money still owed Strasburg, who only pitched 31 ⅓ innings in three years after the World Series, from the seven-year, $245 million extension he signed in December 2019. He was still owed $100 million over the next three years.

We’ve reached the final week of the year, so it’s time to look back at the Nationals’ most significant stories of 2023. We conclude the series today with the development of several key young players at both the major- and minor-league levels …

The Nationals won 71 games this year, and they happily accepted the praise that came with the 16-game improvement that represented from the previous year. But at no point during the season did anyone in a position of power within the organization believe the team’s final record would be the best indicator of their success or failure. The best indicator: How many of their young cornerstone players took a step forward and further established themselves as part of the long-term plan.

In that regard, the most important development of 2023 wasn’t the 71-91 record. It was the development of CJ Abrams into a dynamic leadoff man and capable shortstop. It was the development of Keibert Ruiz into a more selective – and often clutch – hitter. It was the development of Josiah Gray into an All-Star. It was the development of MacKenzie Gore into a potential future ace. And it was the development of several top prospects in the minors who are now poised to make their major-league debuts sometime in 2024: Dylan Crews, James Wood, Brady House and more.

“I think we’re in a good place,” general manager Mike Rizzo said at season’s end. “I like where our young core major leaguers are, and I like the developmental year that the minor leagues had. I think that we’re on track to turn this thing around in the near future.”

None of these players, to be sure, has reached his full potential yet. Each of them still has something significant to improve upon before he truly can be deemed part of the plan. But it’s hard to dispute that each of them did take a step forward in 2023, and that’s why the Nationals are encouraged.

We’ve reached the final week of the year, so it’s time to look back at the Nationals’ most significant stories of 2023. We continue the series today with the organization’s decision to re-sign Mike Rizzo and Davey Martinez but make changes to each man’s staff …

The question loomed over both Mike Rizzo and Davey Martinez’s heads all season. Such is life in the final year of a contract. And such has been the norm for both the Nationals general manager and manager since arriving in town.

“It’s not the first time, won’t be the last time, I’m on a lame-duck contract,” Rizzo said in February.

No, Rizzo and Martinez had been in this several times before, and each time emerged with a new deal. Though not without first having to sweat it out until it became a more-pressing matter for Nats ownership.

In this instance, though, the resolution came earlier than expected. Martinez signed his new two-year extension (plus a third-year club option) on Aug. 21, six weeks before season’s end. Rizzo’s took a bit longer to finalize but still got done Sept. 13, with time to spare.

We’ve reached the final week of the year, so it’s time to look back at the Nationals’ most significant stories of 2023. We continue the series today with sad news that came just before the start of spring training: Ted Lerner’s death …

Ted Lerner was born Oct. 15, 1925, the same day the Washington Senators lost Game 7 of the World Series to the Pittsburgh Pirates. He would spend the next 94 years waiting to see a major-league ballclub from D.C. win the ultimate game.

Lerner was a smart and successful businessman, to be sure. He founded Lerner Enterprises in 1952 off a $250 loan from his wife, Annette, and built it into the largest private real estate company in the region. But his passion was baseball, and when the opportunity finally came for him to purchase the Nationals at 80, he didn’t hesitate to write the check for $450 million to Major League Baseball.

Lerner spent the next 13 years trying to build a championship franchise. It wasn’t always smooth, and mistakes were made along the way. But on Oct. 30, 2019, he stood on a makeshift stage near second base at Minute Maid Park in Houston and accepted the Commissioner’s Trophy from Rob Manfred, his lifelong dream realized at last.

“They say good things come to those who wait,” he said at the Nats’ victory parade that weekend. “Ninety-five years is a pretty long wait. But I’ll tell you, this is worth the wait.”

We’ve reached the final week of the year, so it’s time to look back at the Nationals’ most significant stories of 2023. We continue the series today with perhaps the most significant player acquisition of 2023: Dylan Crews …

Five times in club history, the Nationals have owned one of the top five picks in the MLB Draft. The first three times they held such a pick, they emerged with some of the most important players in D.C. baseball history: Ryan Zimmerman, Stephen Strasburg, Bryce Harper. The fourth time, they took a shot at a raw-but-gifted athlete whose ultimate fate won’t be known for years: Elijah Green.

And the fifth time? Well, it’ll also be a while until we know the true answer. But based on the early returns, it’s hard not to get immensely excited about Dylan Crews.

“He’s won every award that you can possibly win,” general manager Mike Rizzo said on draft night in July. “He’s been the best player on the best team in the country. And I think when you talk to him and watch him, this is only the beginning.”

The Nationals certainly are banking on that. Crews arrived with as impressive a resume as there was coming out of college: the Golden Spikes Award winner, a national championship at LSU and a jaw-dropping stat line in 71 amateur games this season (.426 batting average, 18 homers, 70 RBIs, .567 on-base percentage, 1.280 OPS).

We’ve reached the final week of the year, so it’s time to look back at the Nationals’ most significant stories of 2023. We continue the series today with the inevitable (though still not official) end of Stephen Strasburg’s career …

As a new crop of Nationals players embarked on a new year in West Palm Beach some 10 months ago, it was impossible to ignore the elephant in the room. More specifically, the prominently located locker that still bore the same nameplate, number and uniform it did when the franchise first opened the facility in 2017.

The only thing missing: The player who has always used that locker.

Stephen Strasburg never reported for spring training. He never reported to the clubhouse at Nationals Park, either, at least not during the times when the entire team (and media members) were there. He was – and still is – technically a part of the team. But he has zero tangible presence anymore after an agonizing year that confirmed what everyone hoped wouldn’t be true: His pitching career is over.

Strasburg made one final attempt to build his body and his arm up for the rigors of major-league pitching last winter. But once he attempted to pitch off a bullpen mound, the nerve pain in his shoulder and arm returned, and that was the sign he and the Nats regrettably knew meant the end of a storied-yet-unsatisfying career.

We’ve reached the final week of the year, so it’s time to look back at the Nationals’ most significant stories of 2023. We continue the series today with the on-field highlight of the season: the team’s extended run of success in July and August …

For 3 1/2 seasons, the Nationals hadn’t enjoyed any kind of sustained run like this.

Yes, there were a couple of fun weeks in June 2021, when Kyle Schwarber seemed to launch a leadoff homer every night and a still-star-laden roster tried to get itself back into the NL East race. But that was fleeting, done in by a spate of injuries (including Schwarber’s torn hamstring) and every other manner of disaster that could befall one team at once.

No, what happened to the Nats late this summer was in many ways more enjoyable, certainly more encouraging because of what it suggested this franchise might be getting close to doing again on a regular basis.

When they took the field July 21 to face the Giants in the opener of a weekend series, the Nationals were 20 games under .500, an afterthought around a sport that had little reason to think about them in quite some time. When they wrapped up a dramatic victory Aug. 26 at Yankee Stadium, they were only eight games under .500, now gained attention throughout the baseball world for their surprise resurgence.

We’ve reached the final week of the year, so it’s time to look back at the Nationals’ most significant stories of 2023. We begin the series today with the team’s approach to this season’s trade deadline …

Some of the most significant days of the 2021 and 2022 calendar years for the Nationals came at the trade deadline, when Mike Rizzo made franchise-altering decisions by dealing away stars Max Scherzer, Trea Turner and Juan Soto (plus a bunch of other veterans) and kick-started a roster overhaul with the acquisition of a host of prospects.

When it came time for the 2023 trade deadline, the Nats knew things would be different. The question was how different.

There was no superstar to be dealt this time. There was one obvious veteran on an expiring contract who had value to contending clubs: Jeimer Candelario. They hoped there would be others in the form of Corey Dickerson, Dominic Smith and Carl Edwards Jr., but the first two were ineffective and the latter was injured.

So the real dilemma at this deadline involved players who weren’t veterans and weren’t on expiring contracts but might still be coveted by contenders. The two names who stood out in that regard: Lane Thomas and Kyle Finnegan.

We’ve reached the final week of the year, so it’s time to look back at the Nationals’ most significant stories of 2022. We conclude the series today with the story that has hovered over the franchise since April: The Lerner family’s interest in selling the club …

Upon announcing the long-awaited sale of the league-owned Nationals in May 2006, then-commissioner Bud Selig made it clear why the Lerner family was so appealing to him.

“The family model meant a lot to me,” Selig said way back then. “I’ve seen the family model work, and it works well. There’s continuity. There’s stability. If you look back in our history, the family model works well.”

For 16 years, there was every reason to believe Selig was right about that. Ted Lerner, who was 80 at the time of the purchase, was the Nationals’ managing principal owner until 2018, when his son Mark took over. Together, they celebrated Washington’s first World Series title in 95 years the following October.

And at some point in the future, Mark Lerner figured to hand the reins of the franchise to his sons, Jonathan and Jacob, continuing the family legacy for another generation.

We’ve reached the final week of the year, so it’s time to look back at the Nationals’ most significant stories of 2022. We continue the series today with the franchise-altering trade of Juan Soto to the Padres …

The notion of dealing Juan Soto at the Aug. 2 trade deadline, while occasionally raised by outside forces looking to stir things up, was never taken seriously by anyone who closely followed the Nationals as late in the process as July 15.

Then came the morning of July 16, and with it a bombshell report from The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal. The headline said it all: “Juan Soto rejects $440 million offer; Nationals will entertain trade proposals.”

Thus was Soto’s world turned upside down for the next 17 days. The star slugger couldn’t go anywhere without being inundated with questions about his future. Did he really turn down that much money? How much would the Nats have to offer to get him to stay? Did he want to be traded? If so, where did he want to play? And if he was traded, would he then sign an extension with that club?

It made for an interminable 2 1/2 weeks, with the All-Star break smack in the thick of it all. And by the time the Aug. 2 trade deadline arrived, all Soto or anyone else really wanted was some resolution to the matter, whatever the outcome.

We’ve reached the final week of the year, so it’s time to look back at the Nationals’ most significant stories of 2022. We continue the series today with the continued health struggles of Stephen Strasburg …

Stephen Strasburg and the Nationals were legitimately encouraged. No, the results weren’t what either was hoping for. But on an early-June evening in Miami, the results from Strasburg’s first major league start since the previous summer’s thoracic outlet surgery felt less important than the state of the right-hander’s arm.

And the right-hander honestly was satisfied in that regard.

“It felt good,” Strasburg said after giving up seven runs in 4 2/3 innings to the Marlins on June 9. “I’m excited to learn from it and get back out there for my next one. All in all, it’s a place to start and try to build off it.”

Little did Strasburg, the Nationals or anyone else realize that would be his one and only start of the season. Or that there would now be fear that was the final start of his roller-coaster career.

We’ve reached the final week of the year, so it’s time to look back at the Nationals’ most significant stories of 2022. We continue the series today with the most unexpected development of the season: Joey Meneses …

The saddest day of the 2022 season in Washington happened to be the happiest day of Joey Meneses’ professional life. As Nationals fans lamented the trade of Juan Soto to San Diego, Meneses donned a big league uniform for the first time in a wandering career that most everyone in the sport had glossed over.

A 30-year-old rookie, Meneses had spent seven seasons in the Braves farm system, then one playing for the Phillies’ Triple-A affiliate, then part of one playing in Japan, then 1 1/2 seasons playing back home in Mexico, then one season playing for the Red Sox’s Triple-A club. The Nats signed him to a minor league deal last winter and gave him a chance to play every day at Triple-A Rochester, where he figured to spend the entire year.

But on that fateful day in August when Soto and Josh Bell were shipped off to San Diego for a host of prospects and the Nationals found themselves desperate to field a lineup for that night’s game against the Mets, it was Meneses who got the call. There he was, batting sixth and starting at first base, in a major league game at last.

“First of all, this is a dream come true,” Meneses said to a throng of reporters that left him looking like a deer caught in headlights. “It’s something that I dreamed about, obviously, growing up as a little kid. I’ve never gotten the opportunity, basically, and I want to thank the organization and everyone involved that gave me the opportunity to be up here. I’m very grateful.”

We’ve reached the final week of the year, so it’s time to look back at the Nationals’ most significant stories of 2022. We begin the series today with something taking place away from D.C.: The rebuilding of the organization’s farm system …

The Nationals knew a successful 2022 season was going to be less about what happened in the major leagues and more about what happened in the minor leagues. In the first full year of an organization-wide rebuild, progress was more likely to be found in places like Fredericksburg, Wilmington and West Palm Beach than in Washington.

And in some regards, that’s exactly what happened. While the big league club slogged its way through a 107-loss campaign, two of the franchise’s lower-level affiliates finished atop their respective divisions: Single-A Fredericksburg went 75-55 to win the Carolina League’s North division before falling in the playoffs, while the Rookie-level Florida Complex League Nats tied with the Mets atop the East division with a 33-22 record.

For years, general manager Mike Rizzo and his lieutenants downplayed the significance of won-loss records in the minors. This year, they were more apt to mention it, insisting team success on the farm does carry some weight.

“I think it’s important,” director of player development De Jon Watson said last month. “Because we’re trying to teach kids to play the game the right way, and teach them how to win.”