2022 ZiPS Projections: Washington Nationals

After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for a decade. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Washington Nationals.

Batters

You can divide Washington’s offense into two distinct parts. The first part is Juan Soto, who got Ted Williams as his top offensive comp. That’s the straight-up, pure, 100% unadulterated Ted Williams comp, too. There’s no trick here; I’m not going to say, “Ha ha! ZiPS was talking about 1980s minor league outfielder Ted Williams.” Soto’s plate discipline is other-worldly. In his best season, Joey Votto was still nearly a quarter more likely to swing at an out-of-the-zone pitch than Soto was as a 22-year-old in 2021.

Soto isn’t going to be the kind of all-around talent that Fernando Tatis Jr. and Ronald Acuña Jr. are, but he’s the best pure hitting talent we’ve had since prime Barry Bonds or Albert Pujols. And unlike a lot of very disciplined hitters, he’s not passive at all against a crushable pitch. Indeed, crushing those pitches is what he does: his bat generates so many barrels that he should start his own bourbon distillery. If Soto actually has an improvement left in him, teams should start approaching him like turn-of-the-century Bonds.

[A typo has been fixed. To the best of my knowledge, neither Tatis nor Acuña have engaged in cannabilism. -DS]

The other part of the offense comprises the players who aren’t Juan Soto; this portion is far less exciting. ZiPS is far more excited about Josh Bell than it was a year ago, and his defense at first has improved considerably. But he’s not a star and will likely be in another uniform by the time Washington is a good team again (he’s a free agent after 2022). ZiPS remains optimistic about Keibert Ruiz, one of the players acquired in the Trea Turner/Max Scherzer blockbuster last summer. The computer isn’t giving up on Carter Kieboom, either, but even if we agree ZiPS for the sake of argument, the Nats haven’t handled Kieboom all that impressively and the fact is that he didn’t hit major or minor league pitching very well last year.

There’s no immediate help on the horizon here outside of Ruiz. Among the hitters, ZiPS only projects Soto, Ruiz, and Victor Robles to have at least 10 WAR remaining in their professional careers. While they have enough bodies on hand to cobble together league-average — or at least league-average adjacent — performances at most positions, without luck and incredible health, this is a bottom-tier offense that also happens to have Juan Soto available.

Pitchers

The news is slightly more optimistic here. ZiPS is aware that Strasburg is out with thoracic outlet surgery, which is a bigger hit to his outlook than if he had had Tommy John surgery, but his projection is still solid enough to be patient if he isn’t 100% immediately upon his return. And given the shallowness of their roster and a contract that goes through the end of the 2026 season, it’s not as if the Nats have another option waiting in the wings.

One pitcher — and arguably just one — gets a genuinely bullish projection: Patrick Corbin. ZiPS was down on Corbin last season, and he was legitimately lousy throughout 2021, but his velocity also ticked back up to normal and with slight improvements in his contact and swinging-strike rate, ZiPS thought he should have had a mild rebound in his strikeout rate last year rather than a continued decline.

Few of the other starting pitchers project well, and of the remaining lumpenpitchetariat, only Josiah Gray projects as having very much upside at all.

The bullpen forecast is especially bleak. If ZiPS is to believed, this is a bottom-five relief corp, thoroughly below average once you get past Kyle Finnegan and Will Harris; I’d actually rather have the 2022 Durham Bulls bullpen. But if you’re looking for a silver lining, ZiPS and Steamer part ways a bit here, with Steamer seeing Tanner Rainey and Patrick Murphy as more enticing options.

I think this is the last place team in the 2022 NL East. I’m not sanguine on the Marlins scoring any runs, but their rotation is so interesting that the upside dwarfs anything the Nats have outside of Soto.

Ballpark graphic courtesy Eephus League. Depth charts constructed by way of those listed here.

Players are listed with their most recent teams wherever possible. This includes players who are unsigned, players who will miss 2022 due to injury, and players who were released in 2021. So yes, if you see Joe Schmoe, who quit baseball back in August to form a big band orchestra that only plays nu-metal versions of baroque cantatas, he’s still listed here intentionally. ZiPS is assuming a league with an ERA of 4.36, similar to the post-June substance-enforcement environment.

Both hitters and pitchers are ranked by projected zWAR, which is to say, WAR values as calculated by me, Dan Szymborski, whose surname is spelled with a z. WAR values might differ slightly from those that appear in the full release of ZiPS. Finally, I will advise anyone against — and might karate chop anyone guilty of — merely adding up WAR totals on a depth chart to produce projected team WAR. ZiPS is assuming that the designated hitter will continue in force in 2022.

ZiPS is agnostic about future playing time by design. For more information about ZiPS, please refer to this article, or get angry at Dan on Twitter.