Washington Nationals Must Take Things to Next Level This Coming Season
The Washington Nationals are certainly looking forward to the start of next season with their young core starting to perform in the big leagues.
It has been a somewhat lengthy rebuild for the Nationals over the last few years.
After winning the World Series in 2019, Washington has been in the cellar of the National League East standings pretty much ever since.
However, while the win total wasn’t great in 2024, the franchise did see some positive things that have created optimism for the future.
This offseason, the Nationals have yet to pull the trigger on making a high-profile move, despite acquiring Nathaniel Lowe in a trade, but that is likely the right decision to allow the young core to continue to develop.
General manager Mike Rizzo has been very patient in rebuilding this team, and so far the results are paying off, but the time to improve is now.
Zachary D. Rymer of Bleacher Report recently spoke about a New Year’s Resolution for each team in the Majors, and for the Nationals, he spoke about them getting over the 71-win mark, which is where the team has finished the last two seasons.
“Time to take things to the next level, guys. Wherever that is, it's somewhere above 71 wins. Provided players like James Wood and Dylan Crews take the next step in their respective progressions, the Nats can get there in 2025.”
After winning the same number of games for two years in a row, Washington is certainly going to want to see some improvement in that area.
When looking at the lineup for the Nationals, the additions of Lowe and Josh Bell will provide a bit more pop to a unit that has been lacking in that area.
The really exciting part, though, is the development of some of their young players.
Batters like CJ Abrams, Luis Garcia Jr, James Wood, and Dylan Crews could all be better in 2025, resulting in a talented lineupm but while the lineup is going to be exciting to see on a nightly basis, the starting rotation has a lot of question marks.
This winter, Washington signed veterans Trevor Williams and Michael Soroka to help add some depth to their young rotation. How good this team could be in 2025 will likely depend on what the starting rotation performs.
There are certainly some young talented players in there, but it’s very much unproven as of now.
The bullpen will need to see a couple of backend arms added after they decided to non-tender the contract of Kyle Finnegan this offseason.
Overall, the potential is there to see a nice improvement in the win total, however, this likely won’t be a team that will be competing for a playoff spot just yet.
