Washington Nationals' Young Core Now Selling Point in Free Agency
It has been a fairly quiet offseason so far for the Washington Nationals, but they finally might be starting to get involved in free agency as the holidays approach.
Coming into the offseason, the Nationals appeared like they would be a team to watch. Even though they won just 71 games last season, there are a lot of reasons to be optimistic about the future in Washington.
The rebuild has taken some time, but the new young core of the Nationals is starting to come up to the majors and make an impact. While there is still a lot of work to do this offseason to improve the team and fill out remaining needs, the Nationals have started to get involved in free agency with the signing of starting pitcher Michael Soroka.
Washington signed the right-hander to a one-year, $9 million deal, as he and the Nationals both hope he can find his form from 2019, when he was an All-Star with the Atlanta Braves.
Recently, Soroka spoke about what was appealing about joining Washington, and he highlighted the young core of talent.
“We all saw what the Nats did last year around the league,” he said to Mark Zuckerman of MASN Sports. "A lot of youth. A lot of young guys coming up looking to prove themselves. And that’s an exciting place to be. This is an organization that’s always wanted to win. And in a difficult division, that makes it that much more important to have that good culture. The way they expressed that was important to me.”
While the right-hander is happy to be getting a chance to be a starter once again with the Nationals, he will be joining an exciting core of talent. In the infield, he will have the talented duo of CJ Abrams and Luis Garcia Jr. up the middle.
In the outfield, there is a lot of young talent, led by James Wood and Dylan Crews in the corner outfield spots.
It has not been an easy couple of years since Soroka missed two full seasons with an Achilles injury, as this could be one of his final chances to prove himself in the league as a full-time starter. While there is a lot of young talent in the lineup, the starting rotation has plenty of question marks, as if the right-hander performs well, he should have no problem holding on to a spot.
While the addition of Soroka likely won’t move the needle too much, his comments about the young core being an appealing one to join should create a lot of optimism for the franchise. Having a strong selling point like that for free agents in the future will certainly come in handy when they are ready to make a big splash.
