The Nationals are doing nothing new or original right now. Look at the Braves, the Astros, the Cubs, and, indeed, the Rizzo-led Nationals prior to 2012 as franchises that have won the World Series through tanking. The team is intentionally bad right now with the intention of stockpiling several years of high draft picks that will hopefully turn into future superstar players. The team is intentionally not signing free agents because doing so would cause the team to be mediocre rather than bad, and baseball rewards bad put punishes mediocre.
Nationals might have a smaller rebuild time than the other teams I cited because they traded away their superstars for guys like Josiah Gray who are closer to the majors than the early rebuild pieces of those franchises. But it's the same general principle. I would have frankly been disappointed with the Nationals for making a big FA signing this offseason.
Problem is lots of other teams have been tanking now or in the past and have not achieved results. Royals. Pirates. Phillies. The top of the MLB draft is a crap shoot. They came up with Strasburg, Harper and Rendon previously. The odds of replicating that are low. Based on where they are they do need to restock the farm system. They should be focused on one year contract guys who can be flipped.
