As the Nationals enter the second full year of their rebuild, it’s time to take a look at the big picture and see where this thing is going. The last two years have been painful. Extremely painful, in fact. We’ve watched the team trade away Max Scherzer, Trea Turner and Juan Soto. That’s one surefire Hall of Famer, another guy who likely ends up in the Hall of Fame and a third guy who is a perennial All-Star. We’re not going to beat a dead horse, though. Whether all of those moves needed to be made or not is irrelevant now. 

Following the 2020 season, it was abundantly clear that the team needed to hit the reset button. Between the aging roster and the dire state of the farm system, it was time to rebuild. Mike Rizzo decided to try and make one last run at it and added Kyle Schwarber and Jon Lester, among others, on 1-year deals so they could be flipped at the deadline if things went south. Well, things went south and the firesale began. By the end of the 2021 season, the idea was to build a younger roster around Juan Soto. With newcomers Josiah Gray and Kiebert Ruiz in the fold, that didn’t sound like all that terrible of an idea. But there was one problem: the farm system was still a bottom 5 farm system in the league, and there was no real help on the way. Most of the team’s talent was in the lower levels of the farm system (a growing theme), so looking at it optimistically, that meant those guys wouldn’t be in the Majors for another 2 years. After making multiple extension offers to Soto, Rizzo decided the best path forward would be to trade Soto and enter into a full rebuild. Soto brought back a prospect package that only 2-3 players are even capable of commanding, which is going to end up being a key piece to this rebuild.

That brings us to where we are today. The Nationals now have a top 15 farm system, which could arguably be a top 10 farm system following this year’s draft. But when most of your top prospects are in the lower levels of the minors, while other key pieces of the rebuild already have their service time clock ticking, that puts the team in a precarious spot. 

See, this isn’t like the previous rebuild the Nationals went through from 2007-2011. That rebuild was centered around Ryan Zimmerman, who was drafted in 2005 and spent minimal time in the minor leagues before making his major league debut. The team extended Zimmerman prior to the 2009 season to ensure he’d be around once the team started to be competitive again. At this point, this rebuild will be centered around…CJ Abrams…I guess? Not that it matters so much who the rebuild is centered around, but there are stark differences between this rebuild and the previous one. 

The team was oddly more inclined to spend last rebuild compared to this rebuild. Obviously the Nats currently have Stephen Strasburg and Patrick Corbin’s bloated contracts on the books, all while the Lerners continue to cry poor and dupe the fanbase into thinking they’re considering selling the team. Nonetheless, in 2009, the Nats signed Adam Dunn to a 2-year deal. Dunn would go on to hit 38 home runs in each of his two years with the Nationals. This upcoming season, there’s a possibility that the Nats don’t have a player hit 20 home runs. The new CBA prevents teams from openly tanking for years on end (more on that later), so the Nationals have very little incentive at this point to sign journeymen over guys who could actually make an impact. To clarify, that doesn’t mean they should’ve gone out and signed Carlos Correa this offseason, but guys like Michael Conforto should’ve been firmly on the team’s radar.

Where the Nationals see themselves in this rebuild seems to be in question though. Josiah Gray, MacKenzie Gore and Cade Cavalli all seem to be a part of next year’s starting rotation. Again, the service time clock is already ticking. For comparison, Jordan Zimmermann and Ross Detwiler didn’t arrive in DC until 2009, which was the team’s last 100-loss season of the rebuild and Stephen Strasburg would come a year later. The Nationals will have Gray, Gore and Cavalli all in the rotation for what will likely be a 100-loss team and who knows if the following year will even be any better. So what are we doing? Mike Rizzo has already shown a serious reluctance to sign any players aside from Zimmerman to a pre-arb contract extension, so it seems like we’re just wasting time away here.

Some might be thinking, well there must be help on the way, right? Au contraire, the team doesn’t have a top 5 prospect above AA right now. Robert Hassell III is the closest impactful prospect that the team has to the Majors right now, and he struggled mightily in AA after coming over from San Diego last year. I would expect him to get back on track this year and I’m personally higher on Hassell than many. His hit tool will continue to carry him through the minors and ultimately to the Majors. But if we’re being optimistic, we might see him in September, and even that seems unlikely at this point. This highlights the glaring gap in talent amongst the different levels in the Nats system. Abrams and Cavalli both spent a good amount of time last year in AAA, but both figure to be in the Majors this year. Aside from Cole Henry, who is very good when healthy, and a couple of bullpen pieces, there just aren’t that many players knocking at the door in AAA. 

On the flip side of all of this, the team does have some very high ceiling talent in the minor leagues. If everything clicks, James Wood and Elijah Green are perennial MVP candidates. Add Brady House to that mix and you’ve got the makings of a lineup that will have some serious power in it. With that excitement though comes some real concern. All three of those players have incredibly high ceilings, but Green and House, in particular, have extremely low floors as well. Both players have immense power, but with that comes a ton of swing and miss. Based on talent alone, Elijah Green was the best player in last year’s draft. But he wasn’t the safest player. In fact, he might have been the riskiest player in last year’s draft, which is why he fell in the Nationals lap at #5. I have no problem with the Nats taking a chance on House and Green. Neither player should have been there when the Nats were making their pick. I do have some concerns that the Nats are going to be able to develop these guys though. The team has been investing a lot of money in analytics and development, so maybe things will change, but for now that’s TBD.

The amount of talent in the lower levels of the minor leagues is why it’s extremely hard to peg where the Nats are in this rebuild. If some of these guys start moving quickly through the system, then they could be 2-3 years away from competing, but if they struggle at certain levels or completely burn out, they could be another 5-6 years away. Some might say 5-6 years is dramatic, but if Green and House trend more towards their floor rather than their ceiling, then you’re not in a great spot. The Nats will pick second overall in this year’s MLB Draft, which will likely net them either Dylan Crews or Chase Dollander. That’s going to be a huge boost. But the Nats are ineligible to pick in the lottery next year, which is another wrinkle in this rebuild. The last rebuild the club went through, they picked 6th in 2007, 9th in 2008, 1st in 2009, 1st in 2010 and 6th in 2011. They very well might lose 100+ games and pick no higher than 8th next year. 

That’s why, for this rebuild to work, the Nats need two of Hassell, Wood, Green and House to turn into All-Star level caliber players. They need Cade Cavalli, MacKenzie Gore and Josiah Gray to be who they think they can be. They need CJ Abrams to be an above-average everyday player. On top of that, it sounds like the Lerners are here to stay and I wouldn’t bet on Mark Lerner spending like Ted Lerner used to spend. Ted wanted to win and was willing to spend to do it. He had a good relationship with Scott Boras. Mark does not have that same relationship with Boras and I’m not sold on his commitment to winning. In short, there’s a lot of things that need to happen for this team to be competitive in 2-3 years. And there’s no Stephen Strasburg or Bryce Harper coming this time.