Game #112 The Nats have a series to win!

The Washington Nationals got a 5.0 inning gem from DJ Herz, and some power from Luis Garcia Jr. to halt that losing streak in front of over 30,000 fans in attendance yesterday. But maybe the real story is that Garcia was demoted to the minor leagues exactly one year ago. He has come back playing much improved defense, limiting mistakes, and a clutch bat. This morning, he leads all Nats’ position players in FanGraphs WAR. One of the best redemption stories in baseball.

Continue reading
Posted in InGame | Leave a comment

Game #111 The 5-game slide must end

The Washington Nationals are now mired in a 5-game losing streak. Defensive mistakes have been costly, and of course the umpiring was a factor in yesterday’s disappointing loss.

Continue reading
Posted in InGame | Leave a comment

Game #110 Paging the stopper to the red courtesy phone!

The Washington Nationals are back home for a long homestand, and the team has to snap this losing streak. They will call on Jake Irvin to be their stopper. By the way, today is an AppleTV+ game as the only televised option.

What is kind of incredible for the entire month of August is that the Nats charter jet will only be used for the weekend of August 23rd, and the rest of the month, the team has two bus trip series within 140 miles of Nationals Park. The rest of the games are home games. There are 18 home games, and just nine road games, of which the Nats can commute to-and-from for two of those nine games in Baltimore. The split so far has been only 50 home games and 59 road games.

Continue reading
Posted in InGame | Leave a comment

Improving the roster with House, Crews, other prospects, trades, and Free Agents

<a rel=
Photo by Sol Tucker for TalkNats

After the 2023 MLB draft, nearly a year ago, a discussion was started as to the future callups of the top prospects on the Washington Nationals. The team had just drafted Dylan Crews, and the Nats had James Wood and Brady House as the other two prospects in the system. The Wood part of that discussion was solved on July 1 when the Nats called him up for his MLB debut. Crews and House are currently at the Nats’ Triple-A affiliate in Rochester.

The next part of the discussion comes to the timing of callups for House and Crews. There are certainly “team control” ramifications. An MLB player, per the CBA, gets a maximum of 6+ seasons of team control prior to reaching free agency, but it can certainly be less given the new Prospect Promotion Incentive (PPI) rules that immediately impacted the Orioles with the Adley Rutschman callup. If you callup a player 16 days into the season whereby they have 171 days or less in service time you can get to the maximum of team control in the 6+ seasons — but the risk to the team is under the new service time PPI manipulation rules.

Continue reading
Posted in Prospects, Roster | Leave a comment

Deadline Drama: 2024 MLB’s Smartest Trades So Far

You must be a TalkNats Subscriber to access this content. Subscribers have access to exclusive content on the TalkNats website and can engage in discussions with other Nats fans.

Click here to become a subscriber.

First two weeks are free and then you will be billed $3.99/month. Cancel anytime. Secure payments using Stripe.

If you are already a subscriber, simply log in using the form below.

Posted in Analysis | Leave a comment

Game #109 is a salvage game in Arizona

The Washington Nationals got past the trade deadline and went on to get blown-out in Arizona by a final score of 17-0. Yes, that looks like a football score. After the shocking loss in the first game of this series, the Nats will try to win this one to leave Arizona with a salvage win before the team flies back to Washington, D.C. ahead of a day-off on Thursday.

Continue reading
Posted in InGame | Leave a comment

Mike Rizzo speaks about the 2024 Trade Deadline

The trade deadline saw the Washington Nationals trade four players in total, and the team netted seven players back in return. General Manager Mike Rizzo spoke to his strategy of receiving back “market value” for players, and thought they did very well in their trades.

Continue reading
Posted in Prospects, Roster | Leave a comment

Game #108 Floro traded and Finnegan retained

The Washington Nationals lost another 1-run game (10-15 on the season), and this one really stung as Kyle Finnegan had a 4-run lead in the 9th inning and fell apart to give up 5-runs and a walk-off. Well, Finnegan was not traded at the deadline — but Dylan Floro was — and he moved to the other bullpen as it was the Arizona Diamondbacks that traded for him. Corner infielder, Andres Chaparro, was the player the Nats got back in return.

Continue reading
Posted in InGame | Leave a comment

There is no rule that says you MUST trade a player!

Does anyone know if the Washington Nationals were trading Kyle Finnegan? How can you say his trade value was affected by his meltdown on the mound last night? News at 11. Come on. If Finnegan did his job, nobody would be complaining. Stuff happens. Unfortunate timing to take a loss in a game like that — but for Finnegan’s trade value — it probably did not affect the asking price at all.

Continue reading
Posted in Roster | Leave a comment

Game #107 Three game series in Arizona

The Washington Nationals lost another 1-run game (10-14 on the season), and that is how the series ended in St. Louis. For the next 3-days, the Nats are in Arizona to face the reigning NL Champs.

Continue reading
Posted in InGame | Leave a comment