New year brings new expectations for Nats

New year brings new expectations for Nats
Yesterday, Mark Zuckerman rang in the new year with hopes for the Nationals in 2022. Things the team would like to see come to fruition this season. Best-case scenarios for the players, coaches and front office staff. The fact of the matter is 2022 is going to be a year unlike we've seen on South Capitol Street in over a decade. Exactly 10 years ago, expectations were sky high for the Nationals. They ended the 2012 season with the club's first National League East division title, starting...

What the Nationals are hoping for in 2022

What the Nationals are hoping for in 2022
A year that saw so many negative developments has now ended, and not a moment too soon for anyone around here. When we look back on 2021 in the annals of Nationals history, there's not going to be much we want to remember, aside perhaps from the recognition that it served as the first step in the rebuilding of a former championship organization back into a regular postseason contender again. Now as 2022 arrives, we wait anxiously to see what the Nats will look like once pitchers and catchers...

Most significant stories of 2021: Soto's historic second half

Most significant stories of 2021: Soto's historic second half
As we reach the final week of the year, we're taking a look back at the Nationals' most significant stories of 2021. Some of them are uplifting. Some of them are depressing. All of them were significant in telling the story of the 2021 season. We continue today with one of the best developments of the year: Juan Soto's historic second half and MVP candidacy. ... It wasn't all bad for the Nationals this year. Sure, the team lost 97 games, traded away some of its biggest-name veterans and...

Who might join Soto in Nats outfield in 2022 and beyond?

Who might join Soto in Nats outfield in 2022 and beyond?
If you had to pick one position group on the Nationals roster you feel best about in both the short- and long-term, would you pick the outfield? There's a good case to be made it's the most reasonable answer. Not because the Nats outfield is loaded, or even guaranteed to be successful. There's still plenty of uncertainty at two of the three positions. But you can't find anything to complain about at the third position. And there is some ample reason to be optimistic about the future at the...

Nationals face tender decisions with nine players today

Nationals face tender decisions with nine players today
After a frantic Monday that saw a handful of clubs handing out hundreds of millions of dollars to free agents like candy, every major league club now faces a busy Tuesday deciding whether or not to retain a bunch of its own players. By 8 p.m. today, teams must tender contracts to all arbitration-eligible players. Those who don't receive offers are non-tendered and immediately become free agents. So while the Nationals have been awfully quiet on the transaction front so far this winter, they...

Finding reasons to be thankful in spite of a difficult season

Finding reasons to be thankful in spite of a difficult season
Are we really going to try to find something to be thankful about the 2021 Nationals? Yes, yes we are. That's what this day is all about. It may seem like a daunting task, looking for silver linings in a 97-loss season that included injuries, agonizing losses and emotional departures of some beloved players. But if you dig a little deeper, think a little more critically, you can indeed find reasons to be thankful. For starters, we all got to attend baseball games in person again this year. We...

What Franco's deal with Rays says about Soto and Nats

What Franco's deal with Rays says about Soto and Nats
It's been a quiet start to the offseason, not only for the Nationals but for the entire sport, which unfortunately appears to be reluctant to sign too many free agents before the collective bargaining agreement expires one week from today, at which point the league may lock out the players. There have been a handful of intriguing signings, though, and there certainly was one Tuesday, when the Rays agreed to a reported 11-year extension with phenom shortstop Wander Franco worth a guaranteed...

Nats' long run of MVP contenders is nothing to scoff at

Nats' long run of MVP contenders is nothing to scoff at
This week of announcements of the Baseball Writers' Association of America annual awards was a disappointing one for the Nationals and their fans. They saw Juan Soto finish runner-up to Bryce Harper for the National League MVP Award, and they saw Max Scherzer finished third behind Corbin Burnes and Zack Wheeler for the NL Cy Young Award. It would've been nice had either Soto or Scherzer won, even nicer if both won. It would've helped make this otherwise miserable season for the Nats feel a...

Harper tops Soto for second career MVP award

Harper tops Soto for second career MVP award
Bryce Harper won the second National League Most Valuable Player award of his career tonight, beating out Juan Soto for the honor in a battle of former Nationals teammates turned division rivals. Harper received 17 first-place votes and 348 total points in balloting conducted before the start of the postseason by 30 members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America (two from each NL city). Soto received six first-place votes and 274 total points to finish second. Padres shortstop...

Can Soto topple Harper for NL MVP honors tonight?

Can Soto topple Harper for NL MVP honors tonight?
Wednesday night, we saw a former Nationals star come up short in a bid to win another major end-of-season award. Tonight, we could see either a different former Nationals star or a current one win the biggest award of all. The National League MVP will be announced around 6:25 p.m., and the names of the two frontrunners are as familiar as they get around here: Bryce Harper and Juan Soto. (Fernando Tatis Jr. also was named a finalist, but the Padres shortstop is widely expected to finish third...

Dreading three more years of Soto speculation

Dreading three more years of Soto speculation
At the end of a week that included the latest over-the-top session between agent Scott Boras and reporters at the general managers' meetings in California, a response from Nationals GM Mike Rizzo, another Silver Slugger Award, the prospect of an MVP award coming in a few more days and previously unfathomable dollar figures being thrown out there to suggest what a Juan Soto contract extension might look like, you can't help but be left with one prevailing thought. Ugh, are we really about to...

Soto wins second straight Silver Slugger Award

Soto wins second straight Silver Slugger Award
Juan Soto's monster second half was enough to earn the young Nationals star his second straight Silver Slugger Award. We'll find out in one week if it was enough to earn him his first MVP award. Soto was honored tonight as one of the recipients of the 2021 Silver Slugger Award, handed out annually to the best offensive player at each position in his league, as voted on by managers and coaches late in the regular season. He joined former teammate and fellow MVP candidate Bryce Harper along...

What kind of payroll is reasonable to expect from Nats next year?

What kind of payroll is reasonable to expect from Nats next year?
The Nationals' lengthy run as one of baseball's most consistently successful franchises coincided with ownership's willingness to spend like one of the sport's richest franchises. In each of the last nine seasons, dating back to 2013, the Nats had one of the majors' 10 highest payrolls. They peaked, appropriately, in 2019, spending more than $205 million on players' salaries en route to their first World Series championship. And while the final tally has fluctuated a bit year to year, it...

Soto named a finalist for NL MVP

Soto named a finalist for NL MVP
Nationals outfielder Juan Soto is one of three finalists for the National League Most Valuable Player, his status announced this evening during an MLB Network broadcast devoted to unveiling finalists for awards voted on by the Baseball Writers' Association of America. Soto is joined by two other noted sluggers, the Phillies' Bryce Harper and the Padres' Fernando Tatis Jr. The winner will be announced live on MLB Network on Thursday, Nov. 18. This is the second time Soto has been announced as...

Coles brings track record of success to Nationals

Coles brings track record of success to Nationals
When word got out that Kevin Long would be leaving D.C. to take the hitting coach job in Philadelphia, Darnell Coles must have had a keen eye on the opening with the Nationals. Not only for the opportunity to rejoin the organization with which he started his coaching career and to be alongside longtime friend Davey Martinez in the dugout, but also for the chance to work with one of baseball's best hitters in Juan Soto. (Not to mention a power switch-hitter in Josh Bell and a core of young...

After MVP-caliber season, Soto now faces contract question

After MVP-caliber season, Soto now faces contract question
PLAYER REVIEW: JUAN SOTO Age on opening day 2022: 23 How acquired: Signed as international free agent, July 2015 MLB service time: 3 years, 134 days 2021 salary: $8.5 million Contract status: Arbitration-eligible, free agent in 2025 2021 stats: 151 G, 654 PA, 502 AB, 111 R, 157 H, 20 2B, 2 3B, 29 HR, 95 RBI, 9 SB, 7 CS, 145 BB, 93 SO, .313 AVG, .465 OBP, .534 SLG, .999 OPS, 175 OPS+, 3 DRS, 6.6 fWAR, 7.0 bWAR Quotable: "I said this maybe a couple years ago: I played with a guy that was pretty...

Revisiting our 2021 season predictions

Revisiting our 2021 season predictions
Predicting how a baseball season is going to play out is no easy task. We've been trying to do it around here for years, and though we sometimes get a few things right, we're usually wrong with much more frequency. And never have we been more wrong than we were this season. Not that my colleagues on the Nationals beat were alone in that regard. Seriously, how many of you out there predicted they'd lose 97 games? (If you just raised your hand, you're lying.) Nobody expected the kind of...

Even after sell-off, Nats lineup remained productive

Even after sell-off, Nats lineup remained productive
A lot of things with the Nationals went wrong this season, horribly wrong. But not everything. And one thing that did work out in the end, surprisingly enough, was a lineup that was productive both prior to and after the massive trade-deadline sell-off. The Nats ended the season with the highest team batting average (.258) and on-base percentage (.337) in the National League. Their .754 OPS was fourth-highest in the NL, tied with the NL East champion Braves and only five points lower than the...

Game 162 lineups: Nats vs. Red Sox

Game 162 lineups: Nats vs. Red Sox
Well, here we are. It's Game 162, the end of a long and winding and eventful but ultimately disappointing baseball season in the nation's capital. If someone told you on opening day everything that would transpire over the ensuing six months, would you have believed it? Probably not. There is, however, meaningful baseball to be played today on South Capitol Street. Perhaps not so meaningful for the Nationals, but critical to the Red Sox, who enter the day tied with the Yankees atop the...

Nats drop wild game, Red Sox move closer to wild card (updated)

Nats drop wild game, Red Sox move closer to wild card (updated)
The closest the Nationals are going to get to meaningful October baseball occurred around 7 p.m. tonight on South Capitol Street, as the sun set behind the first base stands, the temperature inched down toward the 60s, and a sellout crowd of 41,465 watched in nervous anticipation as the most feared hitter in the sport stepped to the plate with the bases loaded in the bottom of the eighth and the home team trailing by a run. "I love that feeling," Juan Soto said in his Zoom session with...