2024 Atlanta Braves opponents Preview: Washington Nationals
The Washington Nationals won the World Series in 2019, had a disastrous title defense in 2020 and promptly went into rebuilding mode. It's now 2024 and they're still in rebuilding mode for the foreseeable future. While baseball is a weird sport where anything can happen, it's probably not going to be weird enough for this particular Nationals team to make a serious push for the postseason this year, even with the expanded playoffs.
Where were they in 2023?
For the fourth-= straight season, the Nationals finished the year in last place. For the third straight season, they were miles away from the eventual division winner. The good news for Washington is that they won 71 games last year, which was an improvement over their nightmarish 55-107 season in 2022. A lot of that improvement has to do with the likes of Jeimer Candelario, Lane Thomas, and CJ Abrams all having really solid seasons — Candelario was only around for 99 games before being traded and he still ended up leading the team in fWAR at 3.1 for his time in Washington.
Still, Thomas and Abrams did an admirable job of keeping them somewhat respectable and lifting them from the doldrums of a sub-60 win season beforehand. They also got a solid effort from Josiah Gray and MacKenzie Gore, while Hunter Harvey continued to be a very valuable arm coming out of the bullpen.
That’s about it for the bright spots, though. The Nationals pitching staff finished the season with a team ERA- of 114, which was the third-worst mark in all of baseball and the worst mark in the National League. Their collective FIP- ended up being 116, which was second-worst in baseball and once again the worst in the NL. Their team offense may not have been as bad as the pitching was but it was nowhere near good enough to make up for the pitching. They hit for 92 wRC+ as a team last year (bottom five in the NL), their team wOBA of .309 was far from impressive and they just edged out the Brewers for the lowest Isolated Power mark in the NL at .142. The bright spots were there but this was a team that was clearly punting on 2023. Honestly, you could even say their overall record was a bright spot, since they outperformed their run differential by four wins, and BaseRuns by eight wins (second-most in baseball).
What did they do in the off-season?
Washington is still firmly in rebuild mode and they didn’t make any of the splashy moves that would indicate that they believe that their championship window is opening up any time soon. Instead, their offseason signings consisted of Joey Gallo, Nick Senzel, Dylan Floro, Eddie Rosario, and Richard Bleier. Gallo might help improve Washington’s dire power hitting numbers from last season and it’s clear that the Nationals are hoping that one of Senzel, Floro, Rosario, or Bleier can be their version of Jeimer Candelario from last season.
I don’t think that anybody was really expecting Washington to make a ton of moves during this offseason. If anything, it all about giving their two top prospects in James Woods and Dylan Crews a bit more time to cook. It’s likely that both of those guys will see the majors at some point this season and if they’re as good as advertised then they’ll both be huge additions to the Nationals and also give their long-term hopes a big boost as well.
Mike Rizzo also had workers at the Nationals’ spring training complex put up these cute little signs that Andrew Golden of the Washington Post shared with the world via Twitter, so there’s that.
Where are they hoping to go?
If the Nationals avoid losing 100 games, they’ll probably be happy with that result. Even if Wood and Crews come up to the bigs and are productive, it’s probably not going to be enough to lift them out of the NL East cellar. Again, the Nats are firmly in rebuilding mode at the moment and appear to have a plan. The plan may not have propelled their farm system to the very top of MLB.com’s rankings (they’re sandwiched between the two New York teams at No. 12 in baseball) but it’s clear that Washington is placing their faith in their farm system to eventually carry them to the promised land.
But for now, this is very likely going to be another rough season for the Nationals. FanGraphs’ Playoff Odds has only given two teams a 0.0 percent chance of winning their respective division: the Rockies in the NL West and the Nationals in the NL East. They have ever-so-slightly better odds of getting into the Postseason at a whopping 0.2 percent. PECOTA doesn’t have any hope for them, either — in fact, they’re given 0.0 percent chances across the board and are also projected to lose 103 games this season, which is in contrast to FanGraphs at least giving them a “rosier” projection of “just” 97 losses. Either way, you probably shouldn’t be looking forward to postseason baseball at Nationals Park this season. If you’re a Nats fan and reading this, at least 2019 wasn’t too long ago, right?
As for what needs to happen for the Nationals to somehow turn the ship around in 2024? Well, probably way too much. As it is, this roster needs help almost everywhere — or at least it would if winning were the goal this season — Abrams and the bullpen look decent, but essentially nothing anywhere else on the roster looks to be much of an improvement on most teams in the league. Third base could be a particularly big problem, as the Nats appear to be handing the job to Senzel, who has -0.8 career fWAR in over 1,300 PAs.
Braves 2023 head to head
Surprisingly, the Nationals actually didn’t get completely rolled over by the Braves in head-to-head action last season. Atlanta finished 8-5 against the Nats in 2023, which was the same record they posted against the Phillies during the regular season and the joint-lowest winning percentage (.615) they had against any of their divisional opponents. The Nationals may have been bad in the grand scheme of things, but the Braves knew just as well as anybody that they weren't a joke. The Nationals even took a series from the Braves... but it was the last series of the year, with all that that entailed.
This result was a sight for sore eyes for Washington as the Braves had completely and utterly demolished the Nats for 14 wins in 2022. With that being said, I’ll personally remember Atlanta’s season opening series in Washington as my first initial sign that Ronald Acuña Jr. was going to go absolutely nuts on the basepaths with the new rules in place. Acuña was clearly keeping track of Patrick Corbin's disengagements and it was obvious to everybody in the ballpark that he was going to go on the very first chance he got once Corbin had run out of safe chances to pick him off at first base. Acuña did just that and stole his first of 73 stolen bases for the season.
Unlike in 2023, we're going to have to wait a while to see these two teams tango again. The Braves won't be seeing the Nationals for the first time until kicking off a four-game series on Memorial Day at Truist Park. They’ll then head out to Washington for a four-game set in June, host them for a three-game set in late August, and finally, wrap up the season series with two in Washington in mid-September.
