There are just 14 games remaining in the Washington Nationals season for 2026. After the trade deadline, new opportunities arose for players, and the roster expansion on Sept. 1 along with the turnover in the bullpen, we have several new Nats’ players to evaluate for the future. The sample sizes will remain small.
If we take a look at FanGraphs WAR, there is clarity at the top of the chart of the players who have contributed positively to the team as their sample sizes are large. The one surprise: Andrew Alvarez. He has quickly climbed to the top of the charts at No. 5 overall with only 95.0 innings of work and a +2.1 WAR.
Coming into the season, there are a lot more surprise contributors at the top of the FanGraphs chart who weren’t expected to be there like Cade Cavalli at No. 2 and Jacob Young at No. 4. Those are both positives. Then you have the surges from both Dylan Crews and Brady House as positive contributors.
The next tier is evaluating what you have in players like Jorbit Vivas, Andres Chaparro, and Yohandy Morales who are all in positive WAR.
Conversely, there are a lot of question marks at the bottom of the chart. Most of them have been fired from their employment from the Washington Nationals. The ones that remain will be part of the debate as to what role they should have in the future like Nasim Nunez, Jose Tena, Yovanny Cruz, Luis Perales, Abimelec Ortiz, and Clayton Beeter.
That is a lot of negative WAR on there. Some of those players have minor league options remaining. Their poor seasons reflect on themselves as players, but maybe Paul Toboni‘s criticism of his system was also a problem as he said, ❝We need to be better in … developing these guys and putting them in better positions to succeed.❞
The takeaway from that quote is Toboni isn’t ready to say they are all bad players, rather he is saying that there were issues in player development and coaching too. Obviously a player like Perales will get more time to develop, and his raw tools are good. He will be one of the most important tests for Toboni’s development system, and also his acquisition system as Perales was acquired in a 1-for-1 trade for Jake Bennett who is a +2.1 WAR pitcher for the Red Sox. Coincidentally, Bennett has an identical WAR to the Nats’ Alvarez.
The tweaks made to Alvarez might be the best example of a Nats’ pitcher in the development and pitching lab experiment. And keep a close eye on starting pitcher Jackson Kent (+0.4 WAR) in his small sample size.
When you look at the current starting pitchers, there are positive signs with Cavalli, Alvarez, and Kent. In the smaller sample sizes, there have been some defensive lapses like a ball not caught in the outfield, and on Kent’s ledger, a check swing that should have been a strike-3 and ended the inning — and did not which led to three runs scoring on Kent.
Smaller sample sizes can screw skew the numbers. Manager Blake Butera got ejected from the game after arguing with the umpire on Kent’s behalf. Even in Jake Irvin‘s last start, there was a ball dropped at the wall and a lackidaisical underhanded toss that led to three runs scoring on Irvin in the game. Was that Irvin’s best start in months?
We have to be evaluating for the 2027 season and beyond. Part of the process will be new acquisitions from outside of the Nationals organization. You can expect Toboni to make free agent acquisitions and trades. While this Nationals team will not have a winning record in this 2026 season, they showed progress over the 2025 season. That is a positive.
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