The only way is up. The Washington Nationals pitching staff was so statistically bad at a 5.35 ERA that they set a mark for the worst in team history and second worst in MLB in 2025. If there is any good news is the fact that the FIP was 4.72 telling us that the defense in both their actual performance and positioning played a factor in the demise of the pitching staff.

With addition by subtraction, many of the poor pitchers from the 2025 team are now gone. Three of the four relievers signed in the offseason were gone by the end of May, and there were a few weeks from August into September that the bullpen looked competent. Jose A. Ferrer emerged as the closer, and others stepped into new roles and were excellent at times like Brad Lord who saw time in both the bullpen and starters roles. But the starting rotation that began the year with promise, had finished with too many question marks.

In total, 28 pitchers logged at least 5.0 innings for the Nationals in 2025. Your FIP leader at 2.72 was Clayton Beeter who was acquired from the Yankees in a trade for Amed Rosario. Two of the Nats’ best performers, Luis Garcia (the reliever) and Andrew Chafin were mid-season pickups who were traded. The bullpen will be the easier fix if the team builds around Ferrer, Beeter, and PJ Poulin.

A bigger challenge will be a starting rotation rebuild. Does new PoBO, Paul Toboni, trade LHP MacKenzie Gore in the offseason? If he doesn’t, do you start with Gore, Cade Cavalli, Andrew Alvarez, Brad Lord and add a T.o.R. pitcher from the outside? Gore has two years of team control remaining. What does the team do with arb-eligible players Jake Irvin and Josiah Gray? Mitchell Parker was moved to the bullpen in September, and actually showed some promise with a 1.42 ERA and a 2.98 FIP. That might be the spot for him in 2026.

Obviously the best laid plans in the offseason went awry on both the pitching and the defense. How and why is the reason that sports are so unpredictable. And some credit to former PoBO Mike Rizzo on his attempts to improve the defense, but much of the fault of the early struggles on the team were due to his poor construction of the bullpen. The starting rotation demise had to do with several factors.

The Defensive Demise

Again, Rizzo brought in an excellent hot corner defender in Paul DeJong for third base, and former Gold Glover Nathaniel Lowe for first base. Luis Garcia Jr. had a good season in 2024 at second base and he reverted back to what he was in 2023. The defensive problems with CJ Abrams at shortstop were addressed over the winter when he hired a personal defensive coach, and while Abrams improved by 63 percent, he was still a poor defender and finished at a -11.0 OAA. There was promise until Garcia and Lowe regressed and that was seen early in the season. DeJong had a serious facial injury and missed most of the season, Dylan Crews had a bad oblique injury, and their replacements were terrible on defense. Add to that, the worst catching defense in baseball, and James Wood had an inconsistent season with the glove. The only constant was the amazing season by Jacob Young in center field — but he was relegated to more of a half a week role in playing time.

In the end, the Nats defense ranked last in the middle infield, last in catcher defense, and third to last in left field defense. Overall, the team was second to last in team defense. At some point, and as we have written about for over a month, do you give up some middle infield offense to put Nasim Nunez at shortstop and move Abrams to second base? At that point you could either trade Garcia or move him to first base where he played two games and looked good in September.

What Happened to the Starting Pitchers

When Rizzo added Michael Soroka on a $9 million free agent deal as a starting pitcher, it felt like he was forcing a square peg in a round hole. My analysis showed that Soroka was more of a long reliever who would be great for 3.0 innings of work. That proved to be true, and he was traded at the deadline in July. With both Trevor Williams and Soroka struggling with stamina and effectiveness coupled with a poor bullpen, ex-manager Dave Martinez shoved hard on Irvin and Parker who both entered the end of April with great numbers of a 3.19 and 1.39 ERAs respectively through their first five starts.

This is where things got wonky. Irvin and Parker were both pushed into the 8th inning of games that didn’t seem necessary. Both have shown that they are more effective in their first 6.0 innings. Both unraveled after those starts. Was it a coincidence, inevitable, or systematic under Martinez that he lacked the biometric feel for handling pitchers? If you go back to July 4 in the 2024 season, Irvin was put in a similar situation. He was excellent with a 2.80 ERA through 18 starts until he was shoved into the 8th inning in that game.

Some would call it insanity what Martinez did. You know, doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. It seemed not to affect Martinez who claimed that Irvin was lawyering to pitch a complete game but Martinez was the smart one and overruled him as the judge. Yes, brilliant. The same manager who justified pushing players for more and gave his reasoning that the player was “adamant.” Who is the adult and boss out there? The use and usage didn’t improve with interim-manager Miguel Castro after Martinez was fired. It led to the nickname of “Davey Castro” and that wasn’t a compliment.

Poor Bullpen Construction

Even in the offseason, the bullpen looked DOA from the start. Adding Lucas Sims to a troubled bullpen looked like a mistake, and the rest of the moves didn’t move the needle. The team re-signed Kyle Finnegan as a free agent, and later traded him to Detroit. For a while there, the Nats had a bullpen ERA nearing 7.00 and they finished just under 6.00 which was worst in the big leagues.

The overall effect of the poor bullpen construction was the lack of a true fireman to come into the middle of the game when a starter was pushed too hard and was abruptly pulled with runners on-base. That is where too many games became blowouts. In fact, the Nats finished with a record of 16-45 in blowouts which is defined as a final score where the margin is more than 5-runs. If you want to point to the team failure as to why they won just 66 wins overall, start there.

Pitching and Defense Wins Games

The quote “pitching and defense wins games” is a variation of the famous saying, with the baseball version often attributed to Earl Weaver, who said, “The secret of success is good pitching and good defense. If you have that, it doesn’t matter what the other team scores.” That’s why Weaver finished as one of the best managers in baseball history. He valued up-the-middle defense and it worked as he had strong bats with solid defense at the corners in the infield and outfield.

The debate will rage on as to what really happened with the 2025 Washington Nationals. So much is subjective. My belief is the poor offseason construction of the bullpen was the root cause of the decay. Add to that other poor decisions by the front office and managerial decisions along with not coaching up players. But to me, the bad bullpen affected everything, and the bad defense was clearly and statistically a contributing factor.