2020 record - 26-34, 4th place in NL East
Key Addition - Brad Hand
This was a difficult decision for us to make between Brad Hand, Jon Lester & Josh Bell.
Lester is a veteran workhorse who can be just about guaranteed to start 30+ games and pitch 180+ innings, although both his ERA and home run percentage have been steadily rising in the last couple of years. Lester is going into the 2021 season at 37 years of age and although we think he'll be an excellent innings eater for the Nationals, we are also concerned that his downward trend continues. He'll still be an interesting Hall of Fame candidate once he hangs up his cleats though, thanks to his 2008 no-hitter and his postseason performances for the Cubs and Red Sox . That he achieved all of this after beating cancer is nothing short of inspirational. We hope he has an excellent season in Washington and that he makes his Hall of Fame case even stronger.
Josh Bell came across in a December trade which saw Wil Crowe and Eddy Yean go to Pittsburgh. Bell will go right into the Washington line-up as their starting first baseman and will look to provide more offensive production than Eric Thames was able to give them in 2020.
Thames hit just over .200 with only 8 extra base hits in 41 games last year and Bell should be an improvement for them at first base. Bell is a career .261 hitter and he hit a very impressive 37 home runs for the Pirates in 2019. Bell's numbers did take a bit of a dip last season, but we're happy to chalk that up to the small sample size of the shortened season.
We predict a .260 batting average and close to 30 home runs for Bell in 2021.
But it is Brad Hand who will likely be the addition who makes the biggest difference maker for the Nationals in 2021. Cleveland, perhaps surprisingly, let Hand leave as a free agent after they declined to pick up his $10m option. Hand is coming off a season with the most saves in the Major Leagues, a 2.05 ERA and a career high 7.25 K/BB.
Their 2020 closer, Sean Doolittle, struggled with injury and as a result he saw a decrease in his velocity and his effectiveness suffered. Daniel Hudson, who pitched brilliantly for Washington in their 2019 Championship season, also struggled in 2020. Hudson saved 10 games but despite having a career high 12.2 K/9, he also had career highs in BB/9 and HR/9.
With Doolittle now in Cincinnati, Washington had a clear need to acquire a strong relief pitcher in their push to return to the postseason. We think that Hand continues to be one of the best closers in the game and that he finishes 2021 with an ERA around 3.50 and close to 30 saves.
But there's one notable offseason addition for Washington that we haven't mentioned yet. The signing of Gerado Parra is one of the feel good stories of the winter. Parra was a key piece of the 2019 World Series winning team and he signed for the Nationals on a minor league deal after spending last year with the Yomiuri Giants in Japan.
Parra used the Baby Shark song for his walk-up music and it quickly caught on with fans at Nationals Park. The images of fans of all ages singing and dancing to this song will be long associated with their postseason successes of 2019. So, seeing the fan-favourite Parra return to Washington - possibly as their 4th outfielder - is another chapter in this excellent story.
Key Departure - Adam Eaton
Eaton returned to the South Side of Chicago after spending the last 4 years with the Nationals. In Washington, he hit .279, 97 extra base hits and stole 30 bases. He struggled with injuries in 2017 and 2018, but was a key part in helping them win the World Series in 2019 - particularly his 2 home runs against the Astros.
Eaton's departure will likely mean that superstar Juan Soto moves across to rightfield and new signing Kyle Schwarber fits into left.
Schwarber typically hits the ball hard when he makes contact, but he strikes out a ton too. Which is totally different to what Nationals fans saw with Eaton who is much more of a contact hitter.
It'll be interesting to see if Schwarber can bounce back from a 2020 season where he hit just .188, albeit with 11 homers.
We think that the change of scenery does him good and that he hits around .240 with 30 home runs for Washington.
Notable rookie cards - Luis Garcia
Luis Garcia is the only rookie representative for the Nationals in the 2021 Topps Series 1 set.
Garcia made his debut last year and did well in the 40 games he appeared in, hitting .276. After the Opening Day starting 2nd baseman - Starling Castro - broke a bone in his wrist in August, the Nationals didn't hesitate to call up Garcia as his replacement.
Garcia was only 20 years old when he made his Major League debut and he got off to a hot start. He went 6 for 17 in his first 4 games but also had a slump in September and sometimes struggled defensively.
The Nationals expect to have a healthy Starlin Castro to start this season, which leaves them with a difficult decision about where Garcia begins the year. We think that he starts the season with AAA Rochester so that he can continue to get regular at-bats rather than be a bench bat in Washington. This would means that he can continue to work on his defence and be a more complete player once he gets called up again. We think that will be around the All-Star game.
Predicted 2021 Team MVP - Juan Soto
We were very close to picking the future Hall of Famer Max Scherzer here, but we just couldn't overlook Soto.
Juan Soto has had a meteoric rise to baseball superstardom since making his debut in 2018. In 3 seasons, Soto has hit 69 home runs and been in the top 10 in MVP voting in each of the last two seasons. He led the National League in batting average and led all of the Majors in OBP in 2020.
It's easy to forget that Soto will be just 22 on Opening Day and he already has a career WAR close to 10. That would be hugely impressive at the best of times, let alone when if includes the shortened 2020 season where he played just 47 games.
What impressed us the most though, was how Soto was able to improve just about every aspect of his game last year. His home run and walk percentages were both notably up and his strike out percentage was significantly down. All of these improvements led to Soto having the best year of his career in 2020 and we think he does even better in 2021.
We predict that Soto hits comfortably over .300 with 40 home runs which will put him very much in the conversation for NL MVP.
Just missed out - Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg, Trea Turner
Player to watch for the future - Cade Cavalli
Cavalli is the top Nationals prospect and 99th overall according to MLB Pipeline. He was Washington's first round pick in the 2020 draft and despite having never pitched a professional inning before, there was talk of him joining the Nationals bullpen in 2020 had they been in the playoff race.
Cavalli played as a two-way player in his first couple of years at the University of Oklahoma in the NCAA before focusing on becoming solely a pitcher in 2019. In his final year at Oklahoma, he pitched with an astonishing 14.1 K/9 and 1.9 BB/9 through 4 starts before the NCAA season was halted.
He has 4 above average pitches including a fastball in the high 90s and a really nice curveball. Cavalli is very young and has still to pitch professionally so it might be a few years before he makes it up to the Major League level, but he has a ton of potential and we think he projects to be an excellent #2 starter in the Majors.
We think that Cavalli starts the year in the rotation at High-A Wilmington and has a shot at making his debut in 2023.
Just missed out - Jackson Rutledge
Storyline to keep an eye on - Can the veterans guide the Nationals back to the postseason in 2021?
Washington have a mix of exciting youngsters and seasoned veterans on their roster. They look likely to have 3 players under 24 years old and 3 players over 35 years old on their Opening Day roster.
Let's look first at the youngsters. We've already talked about how good we think Juan Soto will be but there's also the speedy centerfielder Victor Robles and shortstop Carter Kieboom who made some good improvements in 2020.
But for us, it's the older players who will be key if the Nationals are to return to the playoffs in 2021.
Max Scherzer is without question a future Hall of Famer but he started to show some signs of mortality last year. We appreciate that the small sample size of 2020 can be misleading, but in 12 starts and 67.1 innings he saw significant increases in hits/9, HR/9 and BB/9 which gives us some concern. Scherzer allowed a home run in 3.4% of the time in 2021, which was the 2nd highest in his career.
We mentioned Jon Lester's declining numbers above too.
We think that the Nationals will need both of these pitchers to halt the trends in 2020 if they are to have a shot at challenging in the NL East. We hope that they have excellent seasons but we're not sure that they will.
Prediction for 2021 - 4th in the NL East
The Nationals find themselves in an unfortunate situation in the massively competitive NL East. We think that they would arguably be favourites if they were in a different division.
But in 2021 against the Braves, Mets and Phillies, we think that everything has to go right for the Nationals in order for them to return to the postseason.
Scherzer needs to return to Cy Young form, Stephen Strasburg has to be healthy, Schwarber & Bell need to up their offensive numbers.
Ultimately, we think that there are just a few too many things that need to go their way over a full 162 game season.
We predict that Washington will finish comfortably above .500 and challenges New York and Philadelphia all the way, but that they finish just marginally behind them in the standings.
Do you agree with our predictions? Or have we got them horribly wrong?
Let us know in the comments or on twitter.
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