I'd also be interested in extending Abrams and moving him to 2B if a deal can be reached. He's a good player and we should try to keep those when we have a chance.

That is going to be an interesting situation if Abrams is still playing at a high level like this in July. You could get a haul. And the system is particularly strong in MIF: Willits/King (can play SS, 2B or CF)/ Fitz-Gerald, Cruz, etc.

While individual games don't matter in the minors, the top organizations tend to win a ton in the minors. The Dodgers/Rays/Brewers/etc. win a ton of MiLB titles. The Nats have one in the past decade and always have among the worst combined records in the minors. It does matter.

Another note on the drastic improvement in the Nats' farm system. It's not just the individual performances. Their teams are actually winning quite often. The four full-season affiliates are a combined 40-25. So basically their affiliates average out to a 100-win team so far.

Nationals Top Prospects The Official Site of Major League Baseball

The Nationals have promoted infield prospect Ronny Cruz to High-A Wilmington.

Acquired from the Cubs last year for Michael Soroka, the 19-year-old hit .333/.460/.627 with three homers and 15 steals in 14 games at Single-A. He was the talk of Spring Training across the org.

What a WEEK for Nationals prospects.

Washington has five of the 20 hottest prospects in baseball:

⚾️ Yeremy Cabrera
⚾️ Eli Willits
⚾️ Miguel Sime Jr.
⚾️ Ronny Cruz
⚾️ Seaver King

buff.ly/doNm2Cc

The Nationals have five of the 20 prospects listed here. Things have been very encouraging in the minors this year. IN a way I've never seen it here. And all their affiliates are winning games, also very new.

The Nats have one home run from someone besides Wood or Abrams in the last 10 games. The offense won’t continue this pace but the pitching is probably this bad. The baserunning is somehow worse than it was before. Bad team. Will flirt with 100 losses despite a respectable offense.

The Nats have had a lead of 3+ runs in six different games already this season. They have coughed it up all six times. Every pitcher who returned from last year has gotten worse than they were under the previous staff. Most significantly so. That’s very damning.

The outs on the bases are gonna send me into a murderous rage. That should have been a 5-, 6-run inning and maybe knocking Keller out in the first inning to just the 3. Maddening.

Unacceptable from Cavalli lately. He should be on a short leash. His walk rate isn’t tenable and now he’s putting 20 outs on a decimated bullpen already. Cannot happen. If he’s not going to throw strikes, he should be in AAA.

Man, if they just invested like $15 million in a couple veteran relievers, this could be a really fun season. Maybe once contenders have to DFA some guys they don't want to, we can benefit. I believe the offense is mostly real. There are a lot of pedigreed talents who got no coaching previously.

That should be the last we see Cole Henry for a long time. What a disaster this group is. They have blown I think five three-plus run leads in the 7th or later already this season.

Never thought I would see a worse bullpen than last season. So frustrating because everything else has been promising. Unacceptable. Three straight blown leads of 3+ runs in 7th inning or later. Impossible. Doesn’t happen.

It’s wild how good they have been offensively. And the young core pieces especially. This could actually be a fun team to watch if they can somehow piece together a merely bad bullpen instead of a wretched one. The offensive approach is so drastically improved.

Beyond exhausted by the impossibly bad bullpens year after year. The team is going to quit before the end of April seeing all these good offensive performances get wiped out. Such a losing culture with this franchise. It’s impossible to enjoy baseball when you can never enjoy a lead.

It's perfect that Miles Mikolas signed for a hair over $2 mil.

This MAGA clown is an automatic loss every time out. Really hope they don't stick with this too long like the previous regime would have. He's making 2 mil. He's expendable.

Yeah, I'm good on Miles Mikolas.

Baseball is so weird. Haven't we won the series against the Dodgers in L.A. like three years in a row somehow?

God I love this. This is an obvious matchup-based lineup with your best hitter overall leading off despite the L-L matchup. I mean, the players mostly aren't very good executing it, but this is how you do it. Garcia will come off the bench as soon as Boyd is out.

As for the final record, I'll say 71 wins. I think the modern management of the pitching staff will make a difference and I don't think the NL East is nearly as good as people think. They'll be bad, but much better on the margins, which will steal some wins.

Breakout prospects

Pitchers: Landon Harmon, Jackson Kent, Riley Cornelio, Davian Garcia, Jose Feliz

Hitters: Eli Willits, Gavin Fien, Seaver King, Ronny Cruz, Marconi German

Part 2

- Henry becomes elite reliever but gets injured again
- Griffin proves to be huge find, but Nats don't trade him
- Cavalli becomes Nats' best SP since Scherzer left
- Seaver King gets to AAA by May and explodes
- Mikolas is released before ASB
- Traded in July: Crews, Littell, C. Perez

Here are some off-the-cuff predictions from me:

- Keibert benefits from regime, Ford's path gets murkier
- Modern strategy will lead to most effective bullpen since '14
- Yohandy Morales starts 30+ games at 1B
- Franklin & Pinckney outpace Crews in AAA
- Crews gets traded
- Lile proves not a fluke

Good stuff.

This would be an improvement over home games because the MAGA lunatic behind HP isn't there.

OK, I'm ready for a new season. It's kind of relaxing to have no expectations but also a lot of curiosity to see how this experiment unfolds. Everything is so different and that is welcome. Usually Year 2 is when you see tangible results from a massive mindset overhaul such as this.

This was an easy decision. Help him out.