2024 ZiPS Projections: Washington Nationals

For the 20th consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the next team up is the Washington Nationals.

Batters

Let’s get the bad news out of the way first. One isn’t the loneliest number on this depth chart, which features the most ones you’ll see outside of a singles mixer. CJ Abrams is the only player to get a two-win projection, and as for any threes, fours, or even something spicier (read: higher)? Well, they’re not invited to this party. We can also dispense with the other bit of bad news: ZiPS is actually more optimistic about a lot of these players than Steamer is.

I was thinking about just ending this writeup there, but that’s too cruel even for me. The good news is that even though the Nationals are unlikely to be very good in 2024, they’re not really supposed to be, and much of this roster is made up of players either still at the start of their career or who nobody in the organization expects to be playing an important role by the time the team is good again. Lane Thomas was a great story this year, as was Joey Meneses in 2022, but does anyone really expect either to be a big part of Washington’s 2027 World Series championship, should that come to pass? The Nats are using this time wisely, and it’s better to look at interesting minor league veterans than washed-up 35-year-olds for the spots you don’t have better prospects to fill.

Abrams is the most talented player with a starting job at present, and his interesting comps continue as you go down the list (Barry Larkin pops in at fifth, for example). James Wood doesn’t have a great projection yet, but the computer sees him with 40 career WAR remaining — the best on the Nats and enough that he’ll likely be in the top five, or at least close, when I run the ZiPS Top 100 prospects during Prospect Week in February. ZiPS also projects Ruiz’s OPS+ to bounce back to 108, a solid 11-point improvement on 2023; it’s only his defense that’s really holding back his projection. ZiPS still wants to see Jake Alu and Alex Call steal more playing time.

Carter Kieboom is tricky to evaluate given injuries, but it’s been a long time since 2019, and nothing he’s done while briefly healthy really screams “taking control of the third base job,” though it’s still possible. Unfortunately, Robert Hassell III’s outlook has dropped like a rock, and the computer isn’t even sure he’ll be a fringe major leaguer at this point.

Pitchers

ZiPS only sees a single sub-4.00 FIP on the roster, in the form of Hunter Harvey, and that should be concerning. Stephen Strasburg has all but retired, of course, so this projection is only here for the curious, in the way I always project retired players for one more go. Josiah Gray was an All-Star in 2023, but that was with his ERA outracing his peripherals and both sunk in the second half. In some ways, Gray took a step back from his 2022; his home run rate went down considerably, but one would have expected that to happen in any case. The bad part is that he was less effective at punching out batters in two-strike counts, and his low put-away rate suggests he’s still searching for a true out pitch. Failing that, he can still be a innings-eating mid-rotation starter, but the Nats were hoping for more than that when they picked him up from the Dodgers.

The Nats are paying Patrick Corbin $35 million for what I imagine will be his last season with the team, and the likelihood of any kind of comeback is very small by now. I’m more hopeful about MacKenzie Gore — and more than ZiPS is — as he cut his walk rate again, and a lot of the reasons he was so highly sought-after as a prospect are still present.

The bullpen is basically Harvey, Kyle Finnegan, and futilely praying for the game to end. Where most organizations have an interesting and/or unheralded Triple-A arm or two ZiPS becomes fixated on — or a half-dozen, if it’s the Rays or Dodgers — the computer’s just not seeing much here. Víctor Arano, who had a nice 2017 for the Phillies and a FIP below four for the Nats in 2022, is out with shoulder problems and has already elected to become a free agent. Perhaps when Cade Cavalli returns, the Nats will ease him back in with some relief innings and it’ll turn out to be something he excels at.

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 or have retired, players who will miss 2024 due to injury, and players who were released in 2023. So yes, if you see Joe Schmoe, who quit baseball back in August to form a Belgian Death Metal Skiffle Band that only plays songs by Franz Schubert, he’s still listed here intentionally. ZiPS is assuming a league with an ERA of 4.33.

Hitters are ranked by 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.

As always, incorrect projections are either caused by flaws in the physical reality of the universe or by the skillful sabotage of our friend and former editor. You can, however, still get mad at me on Twitter.