Photo from Washington Nationals X.com

Why not dream big? From those days when a young Montgomery County, Maryland kid was eating Ledo Pizza and moving up from the Olney Buccaneers to the Olney Pirates in travel ball, he had visions of grandeur. Most kids dream big. And some of those dreams come true. Last year, James Wood starred in pizza commercials. But maybe in the future he will be doing commercials for waffles and grand slams. Who knows, the sky’s the limit.

You have to think that Wood and CJ Abrams have many more All-Star games in their future. But who thought that Foster Griffin would be on this MLB All-Star stage four years ago when his career might have ended after his DFA by the Toronto Blue Jays and his move to Japan? Well, he was an All-Star in Japan last year. His road back is finally on track to where he thought he would be back in 2014 when he was a 1st round draft pick by the Royals.

These three All-Stars plus the resurgence of Luis Garcia Jr. and Keibert Ruiz are the reason the Washington Nationals are hovering near Wild Card contention.

While Abrams and Wood have already had All-Star on their resumés, Griffin just got added to the All-Star roster a few days ago. Kind of like his baseball career, nothing should be assumed. He should have been on the All-Star roster a week earlier — but beind-the-scenes there was the usual incompetence. The All-Star roster is still fueled as a popularity contest. Name recognition helps. Wood should have been an All-Star starter, but couldn’t get enough of the fan votes, so he got in as a reserve.

With 65 games remaining in the regular season, Wood is on pace to break some records. Did you know that Cliff Floyd just did a segment on MLB Network saying that Wood is a future Hall-of-Famer?

And Floyd isn’t crazy. Wood has emerged as a bonafide superstar at the age of 23. He has a legit shot to be a 30/30 player if he can steal 15 more bags. He is on pace to be a 100/100 player in runs scored and RBIs. If not for Shohei Ohtani, Wood could be an MVP. Instead he might have to settle for a Top-3 finish.

The Nats could have two 30-30 club players if Abrams can steal 15 more bases and hit 10 more homers. Has any team team ever had two 30/30 players on the same roster in the same season? Yes, but it’s only happened three times in MLB history.

And Griffin has a chance to be a 20-game winner with a strong finish. As the pitcher of record, he’s 10-2. More importantly, the Nats are 15-4 when Griffin starts a game. In Max Scherzer‘s Cy Young season of 2016 for the Washington Nationals, the team was just 11-8 in his first 19 starts, and his actual record was 10-6. That’s how special Griffin’s 2026 season is exactly a decade after Scherzer’s greatness. Scherzer’s ERA at that All-Star break was 3.03. Griffin’s is 2.77.

Former Nats pitching coach, Steve McCatty, would have loved Griffin on his staff. McCatty wanted efficient innings and efficient outs. Strikeouts had their place with McCatty — but not at the sake of raising pitch counts and short outings. He coached Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg, Gio Gonzalez, Jordan Zimmermann, and others when he was with the Nationals. While modern pitching loves blazing fastballs, McCatty actually built his most successful years on a vastly different philosophy: pacing to pitch deep into games by inducing weak contact and groundballs — and strikeouts when runners were in scoring position.

The future isn’t clear. The trade deadline isn’t the same as it was 20 years ago when Alfonso Soriano was in a similar spot at the All-Star break as Griffin in a 1-season team control deal. Soriano was on-pace for an historic 40/40 season, but the CBA allowed for excellent draft compensation if Soriano left for free agency so not trading him proved to be a great move. The Nats got a compensatory draft pick that netted the team Zimmermann in the 2007 draft, and Soriano indeed became the 4th member of the prestigious 40/40 Club, and the first in the PED-testing era.

Unless the Nats go on a long winning streak after the All-Star break, Paul Toboni might feel compelled to trade Griffin because the CBA draft compensation pick isn’t much if the Nats retain Griffin, and he still leaves for free agency. The other choice is a contract extension in the next few weeks. Today, that might cost the Nats in the neighborhood of $50 million for 3 years.

Winning is the key here because if the Nats are deemed sellers, get ready for the barrage of trade rumors for just about any player on the roster whether it’s true or not. The clickbait actually started early with an inaccurate report on Wood as some social media baseball fan accounts spread fake news this week. That might be the tip of the iceberg.

Dream big. Win and force Toboni to be a buyer at the trade deadline. That is what most Nats fans really want.