Will Washington Nationals Reallocate Assets to Younger Starting Pitching?
The Washington Nationals are heading into the offseason with the opportunity to help take this team to the next level, as their young core continues to develop.
Even though the Nationals likely didn’t have as many wins as the franchise was hoping for coming into the year, they saw a lot of improvements from their young players, and also saw a few more get called up.
With the development of some young hitters like CJ Abrams and Luis Garcia Jr., to go along with bright young prospects in James Wood and Dylan Crews, the lineup looks pretty strong moving forward.
Where the Nationals will likely focus a lot of their attention on in the coming years is in the starting rotation. While they have a lot of young arms in the rotation, they have yet to have anyone really show that they could be an ace.
This offseason, they will be having the large contract of Patrick Corbin coming off the books, as that will free up a lot of money for the organization. Recently, Mark Zuckerman of MASN Sports spoke about the team allocating some of that money to a younger starter, with it appearing like Corbin and the Nationals will be parting ways.
“The question now is where Corbin and the Nats go from here. There was no indication from either side at season’s end that a return to D.C. was expected. The Nationals figure to take the money they were paying the lefty and try to use it on a younger free agent starter closer to his prime.”
Corbin was a big reason why the Nationals were able to win the World Series in 2019, as he helped put the pitching staff on his back. However, it has been a tough stretch since then. Even though he has always been an inning's eater, his production levels were just nowhere near what he was being paid.
With a split likely, Washington will have the opportunity to reallocate some of the funds into a pitcher who might be able to help contribute more than what they have been receiving from the southpaw in recent years.
There will be a handful of talented free agents that the Nationals can pursue in free agency to upgrade the starting rotation, or they could potentially look to make a trade for a front-end starter as well.
It was certainly a mixed run with Washington for Corbin, as the World Series win was a massive bright spot. However, his contract and lack of performance certainly overshadowed that for the last number of years.
