The final day of the season arrives with a message posted for the people who kept showing up through the weather and the losses: “THANK YOU FANS.”
That’s the backdrop as the Nationals finish Game No. 162 against the Mets, with a nor’easter pushing the schedule forward after MLB moved the start time up from the originally planned 3:05 p.m. The change followed the same approach from yesterday, when weather also forced an adjustment.
The game itself comes with the kind of organizational reset Washington has been building toward. Ownership created two new positions and filled them by hiring Paul Toboni and Jason Sinnarajah as division presidents, one on the baseball operations side and one on the business side. Those moves, along with the team’s focus on infrastructure, innovation, technology, and expanded staffing, are part of the new direction.
That work has already shown up in the system. Two of the club’s minor league teams reached the postseason this year in Single-A and Triple-A, and Rochester was six outs away from a Triple-A title last night.
The standings also tell their own story. The Braves finished first in the NL East, followed by the Phillies, Marlins, Nationals, and Mets. New York entered the year with playoff hopes and ended up clinching last place in the division on Friday, when Washington beat them.
The payroll gap between the two clubs is obvious, but the season has also underlined that spending alone doesn’t buy October. The Mets carry the second-largest payroll in baseball and spent nearly three times as much as the Nationals. Washington, meanwhile, invested in Toboni and Sinnarajah and in the layers around the roster.
That baseball side has taken shape quickly. Toboni, in a little under a year, has put together what the source described as a near-miraculous turnaround. He also acknowledged Wednesday that if the bullpen had cut its blown saves in half - there were 43 of them, leading to 24 losses - the Nationals could have been a playoff team.
Sinnarajah’s impact is less visible on a scoreboard, but the emphasis is clear: fan experience, long-term improvement, and the behind-the-scenes work that doesn’t show up immediately. The point, as the reporting notes, is that the baseball side influences the business side more than the other way around, and both take time.
Winning still drives everything. Bigger crowds, more energy, and the kind of electricity that comes with a hot team are part of the package.
The article points to the Phillies as an example, noting Jimmy Rollins once called his own fans front-runners and that Philadelphia was 24th in attendance in 2017 when the team wasn’t winning as much. The idea, though, is that the pendulum swings.
Washington’s crowd has stayed with the team through the lean years, even if the ballpark isn’t packed the way it was in 2013. The Nationals are averaging a little over 22,500 per game, which the piece notes is still more than the Capitals or Wizards draw, despite those teams having a larger regional base and less geographic competition. The loyalty has been there.
There’s also a look at what the roster has become. Yesterday, Connelly Early opened and worked 3.0 nearly perfect innings, with only one single breaking up the line. Today, DJ Herz is set to start the season finale.
The developmental progress is visible in the rotation and throughout the lineup. The article points to Cade Cavalli at a 3.02 ERA, Connelly Early at 3.33, Andrew Alvarez at 3.43, and Herz as examples of the starting pitching picture.
On offense, the seven full-year position players from 2025 have all improved in OPS this season: Dylan Crews by 4.9%, James Wood by 8.5%, CJ Abrams by 11.4%, Jacob Young by 21.6%, Brady House by 23.3%, Luis Garcia Jr. by 24.5%, and Keibert Ruiz by 27.6%. That works out to a 17.5 percent increase in an unweighted average.
Those numbers matter, but the article also notes they’ll be recalculated after the game along with other accomplishments. The larger point is that the team has outperformed expectations in wins, helped by those players as well as Daylen Lile and by Garcia, Foster Griffin, and Curtis Mead, who were all traded.
The bullpen remains the sore spot. If Washington had more depth at the back of the rotation and a league-average or better relief corps, the season would look very different. That’s the familiar “coulda, shoulda, woulda” hanging over the year.
Still, the numbers on the scoreboard say progress. The Nationals enter the finale with 76 wins, which is a 15.2 percent jump over the 66 wins from the 2025 season. A win today would add another step forward.
The offense has done its part. Washington ranks third in MLB with 815 runs scored, averaging 5.05 per game.
The pitching staff has allowed 4.67 earned runs per game, and the article points out that the difference comes down to unearned runs from errors. The club sits at a plus-4 run differential.
Manager Blake Butera’s bullpen chart is laid out for the day, and the team’s underlying numbers are now large enough to evaluate across the full season. FanGraphs WAR and OAA are giving a clearer picture of what the Nationals have and what they still don’t.
In Other News...
Nationals Just Raised The Stakes On A Massive Offseason
A strong finish to 2026 did not erase how uneven the Washington Nationals season felt for long stretches, but it did give the front office something to build on as the calendar turns. After a difficult run, the club closed by taking a series from the New York Mets, a reminder that the roster can still flash upside when things click. Now the focus shifts to the offseason, where president of baseball operations Paul Toboni and manager Blake Butera are set to sort through the pieces and decide what the next version of this team should look like.
What makes this winter so important is that the Nationals are not just looking for a quick patch, they are weighing roster construction, long-term fit and how much ownership is willing to spend to reshape the group. The bullpen remains a major area to watch, and several young players will also have their roles examined as the organization tries to line up the present with the future. For a team trying to move from encouraging to established, the decisions made over the next few months could say a lot about how aggressive Washington intends to be. [Read more 🡒]
Nationals Are Sending A Clear Message With These Farm System Changes
The Nationals are making another round of quiet but meaningful changes in the organizations developmental pipeline, informing several minor league coaches that their contracts will not be renewed for 2027. The moves reach across multiple levels of the system and include some of the most visible voices working with young pitchers and everyday players, a sign that Washington is still reshaping the infrastructure behind its rebuild.
Among the departures are Triple-A pitching coach Fernando Nieve, Double-A manager Delino DeShields and Double-A pitching coach Rigo Beltran, with additional staff turnover also touching senior advisor Dave Jauss, outfield and baserunning coordinator Chris Prieto, infield coordinator Jason Wood and Single-A strength and conditioning coach Jordan Chen. For a club trying to turn prospect depth into big-league help, these kinds of staffing decisions matter as much as any roster move, because they can hint at where the front office thinks the system needs a new voice, a new approach, or both. [Read more 🡒]
James Wood Has Become A Real Nationals Concern Late In Seasons
James Wood has quickly become one of the Nationals most important bats, the kind of middle-of-the-order presence who can shape the tone of an offense for months at a time. He finished among the clubs top three in major offensive categories and picked up his second All-Star selection, a strong sign that his overall rise is real and not just a hot stretch.
Still, there is a late-season pattern here that Washington has reason to keep watching. Wood has now shown a notable drop-off in the second half in consecutive seasons, with the power disappearing and the slugging taking a hit, and this years slide was complicated by a left oblique strain that limited his availability for about a month. For a team trying to build around young core pieces, the question is no longer whether Wood can do damage, but whether he can carry that impact through the stretch run. [Read more 🡒]