As you go far into the future, hindsight is a convenient luxury in sports and life. Goes right back to coulda, shoulda, woulda. The Washington Nationals used foresight to go beyond the 2029 window, and today the Nats extended their Gold Glove candidate Jacob Young with a contract guarantee of at least the 2030 season with a team option for the 2031 season as we broke the news through a source. Essentially, all core players are now team-controlled through the 2030 season except for CJ Abrams.

The window has been extended on this Washington Nationals team with new contracts in the past two months for Young as well as Cade Cavalli. To extend both players with team control through at least 2030 gets the Nats to a point where every core player is controlled except for Abrams who can become a free agent after the 2028 season. Abrams, a Roc Nation client, is the next one the Nats need to get done. That thing about hindsight versus foresight, we suggested an Abrams extension on his birthday in 2022.

Besides Abrams, the only other 40-man players who are not team-controlled through the 2030 season are Jake Irvin and Josiah Gray. That is it. Next order of business should be to get Abrams extended. As we reported this week, Abrams and President of Baseball Operations, Paul Toboni, had dinner Tuesday night in Washington, D.C. If you look beyond the 2030 season, every other player is team controlled but Wood. If the Nats really wanted to extend their window, isn’t it obvious that Abrams and Wood need to be extended through at least 2031?

Per Jim Bowden in The Athletic, he claims the Nationals are trying to extend both James Wood and Abrams. “They’ll also attempt to extend their young stars such as James Wood and Abrams, but at the same time will listen to trade inquiries on all their players as they continue to build for the long term,” Bowden wrote for The Athletic (subscription required).

Maybe Young’s agent read that blurb about “listen(ing) to trades” because Young got a $2 million incentive if the team trades him. Also, per Andrew Lang of The District Standard, he reports the Nats hold a fifth year “team” option for Young at $8 million. First to write the exact terms of $23 million guaranteed for Young was Robert Murray of Fansided, and Lang reported first that the deal was four years guaranteed with a fifth year option north of $20 million.

What does all of this do to the Nats payroll? Per MLBTR, Young was projected to make $2.3 million this year as a first year arbitration-eligible player. That number now goes to $5.75 million and raises the Nats to about $87 million on team payroll based on a $1 million league minimum salary. Of course the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) will solidify those numbers.

Shortly after the Young news was announced, the Nats pulled off a trade per the team’s transaction log. The Nationals and Giants got together for another deal. This time sending minor league reliever Robert Cranz to San Francisco for lefty reliever Reiver Sanmartin. The issue is Sanmartin is out of minor league options and that means he either makes the Nationals’ opening day roster or has to be released or traded. After adding Sanmartin to the 40-man roster, the Nats DFA’d reliever Kyle Nicolas who never made it out of Triple-A after he was acquired in a deal for shortstop Randal Diaz in a first-ever trade with the Baltimore Orioles back on July 1.

A busy day for the Nats front office.

Photo by Steve Mears for Talk DC Sports