A month from today, Spring Training camp opens. The Washington Nationals haven’t traded MacKenzie Gore yet, and they did add Foster Griffin as a free agent acquisition. While you could say the the starting rotation and the lineup could be slightly better than last year if Gore stays — the bullpen looks even worse on paper. The Nats traded away Jose A. Ferrer, their closer, and can only boast Cole Henry as their leading save guy with just two in his career. This afternoon, the Nats added Paxton Schultz to the bullpen via a waiver claim.
On housekeeping, to make room for Schultz, the Nats gave Sauryn Lao a release to play in Japan. The 40-man roster is full once again at 40 players. But seriously, who is going to be the closer on this team? What is Paul Toboni‘s plan? Will he allow fireballers Luis Perales and Jarlin Susana compete for spots?
For those who don’t know Schultz, he debuted in 2025 for the AL champion Toronto Blue Jays. The right-hander appeared in 13 games with a 4.38 ERA. He actually had a higher K rate in the bigs than in Triple-A. But he also had a much better HR/9 rate in the minors. If you look at Schultz’s record, he was nails when pitching in Toronto with a 2.16 ERA and a 0.960 WHIP. Three bad road starts that included appearances in Fenway and Yankee Stadium are the numbers that skewed and screwed his season. On the great side was Schultz’s 1 1/3 scoreless innings against the Phillies on June 3.
There is no guarantee that Schultz makes the Nats roster, but he is the first add to the MLB bullpen this offseason. Toboni still has work to do even if you just consider his own offseason wish list. Yes, he added catcher Harry Ford at the expense of trading Ferrer. He got one starting pitcher in Griffin, and basically brought in Schultz for Lao. Where is the first baseman and the closer? Maybe we will find out in three weeks when Toboni gives his Hot Stove report to invited guests on Jan 31. Until then, we are left guessing and wondering.
Also while we are guessing and wondering, who is going to be the primary first baseman for this team? The Nats show the depth as Andres Chaparro and Luis Garcia Jr. with Matt Mervis and Yohandy Morales as minor league depth. My spidey senses are focused on the right-handed Rhys Hoskins on a 1-year team-friendly deal to DH/1B. On the TalkNats Podcast, our Kevin Nibley hates the idea of Garcia at first base — even though the Nats penciled him in as their depth on the team’s website.
On FanGraph‘s today, they moved the Nats down to a .460 winning percentage and that equates to 74.5 wins. Again, Toboni has a plan that he isn’t sharing with anyone on the outside. The days are ticking off the calendar — and the only good news is that there are over 50 viable free agents who have not committed to teams at this point. And five of them are ranked in the Top-10, even though nobody expect the Nats will be in the that market. Point is this is a very slow moving free agent market.
