With Connelly Early dealing with forearm discomfort, the idea of penciling him into the 2027 starting rotation suddenly feels a little too tidy. Still, there’s enough young talent here to sketch out a real foundation, starting with James Wood and CJ Abrams.
One of the bigger twists in this lineup picture is moving Wood off the grass and into the infield, then sliding Abrams to the outfield. That would open the door for Nasim Nunez at shortstop and give the Nationals a better chance to evaluate Seaver King, and maybe Chris Hacopian, at second base. It’s not a conventional setup, but it creates more room to sort out the roster.
The bigger issue is offense balance. This group still has too many bats that need specific matchups, and that’s a tough way to live over a full season with 13 position players.
Dylan Crews has trouble against most right-handed pitching. Brady House has the same issue.
Daylen Lile struggles against left-handed pitching. A team can only juggle so many platoons before the whole thing starts to wobble.
A possible everyday alignment could look like this: Keibert Ruiz at catcher, James Wood at first base, Seaver King at second, Brady House at third, Nasim Nunez at shortstop, Daylen Lile in left, Jacob Young in center and CJ Abrams in right.
If ownership has money to spend, Luis Arraez changes the picture immediately and pushes Seaver King to the bench. That still leaves the question of whether Wood can handle first base and whether Abrams can make the switch to the outfield.
Then there’s the rotation, where Connelly Early’s status only sharpens the need. If he can’t pitch next year, this team still needs a true No. 1 starter, and that’s where the biggest chunk of payroll should go.
That kind of move doesn’t scream playoff team, but the Nationals have done big pitching before. They once got Max Scherzer.
So why not Tarik Skubal? It sounds ambitious, but with the payroll this low, maybe this is the moment to dream big.
In Other News...
Nationals Suddenly Have Two Pitching Names Fans Need To Watch
The Nationals pitching picture has created a little more room for intrigue in Triple-A, where Luis Perales and Jackson Kent have both started to look like names worth tracking. Perales has shown better strikeout results while sharpening his arsenal, and Kent has drawn notice for the way his stuff and approach resemble what teams usually expect from a big league starter.
Neither pitcher is being treated as an immediate fix, but the timing matters with Washington searching for answers on the mound. Perales and Kent now sit in that useful middle ground of prospect status: close enough to matter, not so close that the club has to force the issue. If the major league staff keeps running into trouble, both could move from background names to active possibilities sooner rather than later. [Read more 🡒]
Nationals Return Home With Pressure Rising Against A Dangerous Reds Team
The Nationals headed out of Philadelphia still trying to steady a season that has slipped further off course, closing a series loss to the Phillies with a 7-3 defeat and dropping eight of their last nine overall. Even in a rough stretch, there was a bright spot in Andrew Pinckney, who made his first career start and went deep for his first major-league home run, a small but notable moment for a club searching for anything to build on.
Now Washington comes home to face a Reds team that can punish mistakes and will give the Nats another immediate test of how quickly they can reset. The pitching matchups are set for the first two games of the three-game series, but the final game is still a question mark, adding another layer of uncertainty to a weekend the Nationals probably could use to make feel ordinary again. [Read more 🡒]