Remember those days when Washington Nationals fans were spoiled in 2015 with a rotation of Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg, Jordan Zimmermann, and Gio Gonzalez? That was the ❝Where’s my ring?!?❞ team. The 2015 rotation was so good that Tanner Roark got moved to the bullpen for Doug Fister who was named the 5ᵗʰ starter on that team. Even that 2019 World Series team had an incredible starting rotation. We yearn for those days.
The Nats used to be built on great starting rotations until the 2021 trade deadline. With the recent surge from Cade Cavalli as the team’s ace, the Nats could be headed back to the good times of great starting pitchers. Do you think Andrew Alvarez is now looking like a Gio? He just pushed his ERA down to 3.47. By the way, Sandy Alcantara‘s ERA is 3.46.
What if Jake Bennett Luis Perales makes it or DJ Herz or Connelly Early for next season? Travis Sykora looks like the next ace in the system, and who knows if Jarlin Susana is a starter in the long-term or the Nats answer to Aroldis Chapman. There are some big names in the system even beyond them with the newly acquired Jack Cebert and Josh Hartle from those trade deadline deals. There are others in High-A and Single-A also.
Top Starter Needed and A Closer too
Still, it sure would be nice for the Lerner ownership group to sign a long-term veteran arm and increase payroll significantly. Sign the team’s №1 through free agency and allow Cavalli to be the 1A kind of like the days of Scherzer and Strasburg. Maybe you bring back Foster Griffin. While they are at it, sign a top closer also. This team needs that as perhaps the top priority.
Graphic from ESPN Insights
The real problem that we keep seeing is the current starting rotation has its share of issues, and the bullpen mirrors the same problems for the past dozen years or so. Blowing saves is now so commonplace that people are waiting for that shoe to fall. That has to be fixed going forward and you would expect that it will be.
❝… My job is to do the best job I possibly can with the team we have — and the bullpen we currently have. … We can’t keep giving up these leads.❞
— Blake Butera after the 35ᵗʰ blown save of the season
Manager Blake Butera can only play the pitchers he has on the roster, and it is doubtful that any other manager could do much better with what he has had to deal with.
Pitching Labs and Hitting Labs
In the offseason, with the hiring of Paul Toboni as the team’s President of Baseball Ops, he wanted to build an R&D department that could give real-time data to players, and outside of the games create an environment like the pitching labs and hitting labs that Driveline, Cressey, Maven, and others have.
The hitting lab success has been incredible and that vaulted the Nationals from the 20ᵗʰ scoring offense in 2025 to the top scoring offense in baseball. Led by hitting coach Matt Borgschulte and his staff, they have done a really good job. If the team was better in RISP hitting, they would be unstoppable.
But on the other side of the aisle, we were critical of the pitching lab results in an article from over two weeks ago. Maybe they read the article and took it to heart. Because the change in that timeframe in what we have seen in Cade Cavalli, Andrew Alvarez, and now Jackson Kent has been transformative. Each have turned in their best appearances of their careers in the month of August. In fairness, none of them have had long MLB careers.
What a difference in over two weeks when we wrote: “Seriously, who could you say the pitching coaches have improved? Maybe Cavalli and Alvarez. Who knows. It’s a subjective call if they improved due to coaching. The team has already used 35 pitchers. Think about that number for a few minutes, and expect that number to increase by the end of the season. Last year, the Nats used 30 pitchers in total.”
We detailed in an article over the weekend the changes in Kent has made in his past two starts. He has added a 2-seam sinker as his primary fastball (a new pitch) and cleaned up his release point significantly.
Finally finally finally after more than three-quarters of the season elapsed, they are doing what you would do in a pitching lab. Better late than never.
The Roster Churn
By the way, the number is now up to 38 pitchers used this season. The turnover has been dramatic. The Opening Day bullpen consisted of RHP Clayton Beeter, RHP Andre Granillo, RHP Cole Henry, RHP Brad Lord, LHP Cionel Pérez, LHP PJ Poulin, RHP Gus Varland, and LHP Ken Waldichuk. The only pitchers still in the bullpen today are Beeter and Lord. There’s only two starting pitchers left from Opening Day in Cavalli and Jake Irvin.
A little over three weeks ago, we got to witness the most hyped reliever from the trade deadline acquisitions in Yovanny Cruz. Everyone was talking about how this guy throws 102 mph with a filthy slider and a split-finger that drops off of the table.
In his first appearance with the Washington Nationals on August 5ᵗʰ, Cruz had a blown save. Velo, by itself, is not enough if you can’t throw it for quality strikes. His S&M rate on the pitch was only 5 percent with zero strikeouts on the pitch. The fastball is the most basic pitch for any pitcher to matriculate to the highest levels of baseball. If you can’t throw it for strikes, you better learn how to be a knuckleballer.
What Cruz brought out in me was this feeling of flashbacks to Henry Rodriguez and how the former general manager stuck with him more than the six appearances that Cruz lasted on Toboni’s roster. In fact, HenRod pitched over three seasons and 111 games for the Washington Nationals. The love of velo, and the agony of defeat. In 2011, he led MLB in wild pitches but only pitched in 65 2/3 innings.
What that lesson teaches is that sometimes it’s the student. The Yankees got way more out of Cruz. He was actually good for them in a very small sample size. So what happened? That will be for the Nats coaches in Triple-A to figure out.
Bad bullpening has been an issue in Washington for years. Until the 2024 White Sox set the modern record of 37 blown saves, the 2021 Nats held the record at 36. People certainly have short memories because the 2019 bullpen finished with a 5.68 ERA. The 2026 bullpen has an ERA of 4.94. So yes, blown saves have been a real issue — but not the way social media has portrayed it. Yesterday’s blown save was a loss, but Saturday’s blown save kept the game tied and the Nats turned that into a walk-off win. Not all blown saves are losses.
❝At the end of the day, the 9ᵗʰ inning is different in the big leagues. It’s hard to get saves. But we’ve got to find somebody.❞
— Butera said after yesterday’s game
We will ask the question, where is the improvement from the relievers? Is most of the problem the quality of the player? Is there an issue with not being able to handle the situation?
Again, it would be fair to say that the quality of the pitchers has not good enough, and coaching can’t fix severely flawed players. Yes, that is probably true. The Nats hired almost all new coaches and analytics staff as well as new technology. Really, the only common denominator from last year to this year was the return of Sean Doolittle as the assistant pitching coach. It feels very 2025 with the pitchers, and that is not a compliment.
The Nats front office has to get this figured out, and would anyone be surprised if there are coaching changes on the pitching and player development side after the season?
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