Dear Paul Toboni: I’ve watched these Nationals. Here’s what you’re in for.
The new president of Washington’s baseball operations has rough road ahead. Here’s a map toward higher ground.Boz's piece.
He presents a few factoids / stats about just how bad the 2025s were. 2d worst run differential by a lot. 5.35 ERA ("dreadful"). No Nats who pitched at least 25 innings had an ERA at or below MLB average of 4.15. Notes that 2 of the 3 top pitchers in the minors needed surgery this year, and the 3rd, Clemmey, is only 20 and needs development.
But for realists, including me, the message of Irvin, Parker, Sykora and Susana — all of it put together and looked at candidly — is that it’s time for ownership to step up after underfunding every level of the organization since their World Series win in 2019 and the death of patriarch Ted Lerner before the 2023 season.
The Lerners, too often dysfunctional on big decisions, need to tell Toboni to spend what it takes to sign two free agent starting pitchers — not stars, but professionals — so that the 2026 Nats can start to build a competitive culture, not reinforce a laughingstock identity. You don’t hire a new leader for your team and then give him a hand that can’t be played. If you’re going to rebuild your rebuild, you better not do it with Tinkertoys.
Says hitting is not as big of a task, but the one message that needs to be pounded home is "stop hitting ground balls." Emphasizes how, other than Lile and Abrams, none of the players hit enough balls in the "ideal" 20 percent launch angle range.
Every Yankee who hit at least 200 balls into play — a dozen of them — had a launch angle of at least 12.4 degrees.
Of the 12 Nats with 200 such “batted ball events,” just three had a launch angle of at least 12.4 degrees, with Jacob Young (3.
, Nasim Nuñez (5.0), Brady House (5., James Wood (6.3), Dylan Crews (8.5) and Luis García (9.2) notably bad.
Who does it right? Lile’s launch angle was at 15 degrees, the same as Shohei Ohtani. Aaron Judge, in his career, is 15.8.
Getting an optimal launch angle isn’t just for power hitters. It helps anyone. But the ’25 Nats had nine players who hit groundballs on 46 to 56.7 percent of their balls in play.
Just to finish the thought, no Dodgers or Yankees, and only one BoSox, hit 46% groundballs.
HE then turns to the defense, noting that the Nats only had 4 above average fielders: Young in CF, Crews in RF, House at 3rd, and Nunez at SS. Supports starting Nunez at SS and moving CJ to 2nd. He says make Garcia a platoon utility guy. For the money, to me that's questionable.
