The Washington Nationals are one of the franchises that are going to look to spend this offseason. If they had it their way, their big splash would be a reunion with superstar outfielder Juan Soto.

The four-time All-Star began his career in the nation’s capital, playing there for the first four and a half seasons as a pro. He was an integral part to their 2019 World Series Championship team but was traded during the 2022 season.

The Nationals had done everything in their power to lock Soto in on a long-term deal. He turned down their extension offers, which resulted in the team trading him to the San Diego Padres, along with Josh Bell, for a haul of prospects.

That haul now makes up the foundation of their roster.

Left fielder James Wood, All-Star shortstop CJ Abrams and ace MacKenzie Gore were all part of that package. Outfielder Robert Hassell III, who was the highest-rated prospect included, is looking to get his career back on track after a dominant Arizona Fall League stint.

Bringing Soto back into the fold with that emerging young core would have be a much-needed jolt for the franchise and fan base. There isn’t a single player remaining from that championship team on the roster, with starting pitcher Patrick Corbin hitting free agency.

Having the superstar right fielder fill that void is something the franchise was open to, as they would have loved a reunion. Alas, it doesn’t sound like it will be in the cards.

Despite Washington being named as a fit for Soto, they don’t seem to be in the running. One of the teams who are, the New York Mets, is where Andy McCullough of The Athletic, is predicting he will land.

“Scott Boras referred to Soto as “the Mona Lisa of the museum.” Steve Cohen is baseball’s most prolific art collector. We looked like knuckleheads last year when our galaxy-brained take on Shohei Ohtani led us to forecasting him joining the Texas Rangers. No need to complicate things. Cohen has the deepest pockets. He will dip into them to sign Soto to the richest (present-day value, for sure) contract in baseball history.”

Out of all of the teams Soto has been linked to, which includes the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, Toronto Blue Jays and Los Angeles Dodgers, landing in Queens with the Mets is likely the worst.

That would certainly be a bit of a tough blow for the Nationals. Having to play against him in the National League East for likely the next 10-plus years is not how ownership and the front office envisioned things when they traded him out west just over two years ago.

It is a saga that everyone in the baseball world is keeping a close eye on, as Soto’s decision will have a ripple effect on the league. His decision is expected to come by the middle of next week, which is when the Winter Meetings are set to begin.

While this was originally intended to be an article covering the four worst contracts the Washington Nationals will have on their payroll for 2025 to coincide with Tuesday’s about their four best, the club does not have any contracts for active players in 2025 that can be considered bad, as the majority are on league minimum deals.

Instead, we will take a look at the four worst contracts in the history of the franchise, only covering their time as the Nationals, not while they were the Montreal Expos.

It is a very pitching-heavy list, but at one time or another, each of these players was fan favorites, so get your torches and pitchforks ready.

Washington signed Gio Gonzalez to a five-year, $42 million deal ahead of the 2012 campaign after the lefty spent the first four years of his career with the Oakland Athletics.

With the Nationals, Gonzalez pitched to a 3.62 ERA across 1,253 1/3 innings in 213 starts with 1,215 strikeouts and a 112 ERA+.

While those numbers are certainly serviceable, they are boosted by spectacular bookending full seasons to his tenure.

In the time between his first and last full campaigns with the team, Gonzalez pitched to a 3.82 ERA across 707 1/3 innings in 122 starts with 694 strikeouts and a 103 ERA+.

If there is any good to come from Gonzalez’s tenure in Washington, he posted every fifth day, making 31 or more starts in five of his six full seasons with the club.

Gonzalez was traded to the Milwaukee Brewers in 2018 as part of a waiver trade after posting a 4.57 ERA across 145 2/3 innings in 27 starts with the Nationals with 126 strikeouts and a 93 ERA+.

The lefty would spend two more years in the Majors, 2019 with the Brewers, and 2020 with the Chicago White Sox, before retiring in 2021.

Five-Years, $42 Million

Ryan Zimmerman was a member of the 2005 Nationals team, the first year of the franchise’s history, and would spend the entirety of his 17 years in Major League Baseball with the club.

Zimmerman would quickly become a fan favorite, batting .286/.352/.477 with 179 home runs, 672 RBI, and a 120 OPS+ from 2005 through 2013, but that’s where the trouble begins.

Washington signed Zimmerman to a six-year, $100 million extension ahead of the 2014 campaign with an $18 million option for 2020.

This extension covered his age-29 through age-35 seasons (including the option), which is generally when baseball players begin to decline.

Decline he did, as over the life of the contract, the veteran batted only .263/.323/.470 with 91 home runs, 343 RBI, and a 106 OPS+ across 2,186 plate appearances in 552 games.

Injuries kept Zimmerman off the field for the majority of the contract, playing in 100 or more games only twice in that span, and missing a total of 420 games, nearly as many as he played.

It was a sad stretch in the twilight of the career of a franchise legend, though he would be a part of the 2019 team that won the World Series over the dynastic Houston Astros.

The club would decline the option for 2020 and sign the veteran to a $2 million deal, but Zimmerman opted out of playing in the COVID-shortened season and finished his career in 2021 on a $1 million deal with the Nationals.

Six-Years, $100 Million

With the picture for the article being Patrick Corbin, he was originally slated to be the final contract talked about, but he at least took the field every fifth day, no matter how bad he was when doing so.

Washington signed Corbin to a six-year, $140 million deal in the 2018-2019 offseason after the lefty spent the first seven years of his career with the Arizona Diamondbacks.

With the Diamondbacks, Corbin would pitch to a 3.91 ERA across 945 2/3 innings in 172 games (154 starts), with 897 strikeouts and a 109 ERA+.

In the first year of his deal with the Nationals, 2019, the lefty would play a pivotal role in the team making it to, and winning the World Series, pitching to a 3.25 ERA across 202 innings in 33 starts with 238 strikeouts and a 138 ERA+.

It would be all downhill from there.

In the last five years of his contract, Corbin pitched to a 5.62 ERA across 744 2/3 innings in 137 starts with 594 strikeouts and a 73 ERA+.

He was widely regarded across the League as the worst pitcher in the sport, but the team kept running him out there every fifth day, and he kept being able to be run out there.

While it was not good production, Corbin was able to eat 150 or more innings every year as the team grinded through their rebuild, and now that they are seemingly on the upswing, he is no longer on the payroll.

Six-Years, $140 Million

Stephen Strasburg’s contract ahead of the 2020 season is a cautionary tale of recency bias if there ever was one.

Washington drafted Strasburg with the number one overall pick of the 2009 MLB draft, and the highly-touted prospect made his Major League debut on June 8, 2010.

Strasburg would have a strong run through 2010, making 12 starts and pitching to a 2.91 ERA, before his season would come to an end early and the star would need Tommy John surgery.

The young flame thrower returned in September of 2011, making five starts and pitching to a 1.50 ERA in the process, and the future would return to looking bright.

From 2012 through 2019, Strasburg would have an above-average career, pitching to a 3.21 ERA in that time across 222 starts with a 128 ERA+, and while nagging injuries would keep him out of games quite frequently, he did make 30 or more starts in three seasons over that stretch, and never less than 22.

Strasburg would reach new heights in 2019, pitching to a 3.32 ERA across 209 innings in 33 starts with 251 strikeouts and a 135 ERA+ while playing a pivotal role in the Nationals’ World Series run, including being named World Series MVP.

Washington would reward the superstar with a seven-year, $245 million contract, but the following season, the bottom would fall out.

The plethora of serious injuries began, holding Strasburg to only eight starts across 2020 through 2022, with the last Major League start of his career coming on June 9, 2022.

How can you not be romantic about baseball?

The superstar would try and return in 2023, but could not, and officially retired on April 6, 2024.

While Strasburg will, and should, be remembered for helping lead this franchise to their first-ever World Series title, there is no denying the fact that the contract they gave him as a reward is the worst in franchise history.

Seven-Years, $245 Million

The Washington Nationals showed the world in 2024 that their rebuild this time may not be as lengthy as their previous rebuilds.

While they do still have a long way to go to be competitive in the toughest division in baseball, the National League East, their young core has started to make their Major League debuts and prove that the hype surrounding them was justified.

It is only a matter of time before the Nationals are back on the island of relevancy, and these four contracts on their 2025 payroll are massive boons to their success.

All figures accurate as of December 2

Dylan Crews was the No. 2 overall pick of the 2023 MLB draft and quickly rose through the minor leagues before making his Major League debut on Aug. 26.

While his Major League numbers may not look that promising on the surface, it was a small sample size, and when you dive deeper, things begin to look much better.

First, Crews batted .219/.288/.353 with three home runs, eight RBI, 12 stolen bases, and an 82 OPS+ across 132 plate appearances in 31 games.

However, over the last week of the season, Crews batted a much better .286/.400/.429 with no home runs or RBI, three stolen bases, and a 144 OPS+.

The rookie had an xBA of .253 for his time in the Majors and an xSLG of .418, so there was a good bit of bad luck playing into his results.

Crews is under team control for at least five more years, and after seemingly finding his footing at the Major League level to end 2024, it could be off to the races in 2025.

Pre-Arb, League Minimum

Derek Law is a journeyman relief pitcher, who has been much too good throughout his career to not have a forever home with a contending team.

That was no different in 2024, as the reliever was a free agent until Washington signed him to a one-year, $1.5 million deal on February 21.

Law would go on to pitch to a 2.60 ERA across 90 innings in 75 games with 76 strikeouts and a 155 ERA+.

The 34-year-old is arbitration eligible for one more year and will spend more than one season with a team for only the third time since his Major League debut in 2016.

Arbitration Projection of $3 million

MacKenzie Gore is an interesting piece in the middle of the Nationals rotation.

He joined the club as part of the trade that sent Juan Soto to the San Diego Padres in 2022 and made his team debut in 2023.

He has improved his production and his innings count in each of his three seasons in the Majors, with an 84 ERA+ across 70 innings in 2022, a 96 ERA+ across 136 1/3 innings in 2023, and a 103 ERA+ across 166 1/3 innings in 2024.

His success this year came from an extra mile-per-hour added onto his fastball, seemingly from using it less throughout the campaign.

In 2022 and 2023, Gore used his fastball 61 percent and 59 percent respectively, but dropped down to 55 percent in 2024, mixing his pitches more, and throwing that pitch harder, leading to more whiffs.

If Gore can continue his string of yearly improvements, perhaps even dropping the fastball usage to 50 percent, he will be an even bigger piece of the team’s rotation.

Arbitration Projection of $3.1 Million

Left fielder James Wood was another part of the Soto trade in 2022, but he did not make his Major League debut until this year.

Patience proved to be a virtue, however, as the young star produced a promising 122 OPS+ across 336 plate appearances in 79 games.

When Wood connects with the ball, he does not miss, carrying an elite exit velocity (92.8 MPH) and hard-hit rate (52 percent) while pairing those skills with an elite chase rate (21 percent) and walk rate (11.6 percent).

Wood needs to get under the ball more and try and drive it into the gap if he wants to take that next step forward in his game, as he carried a 2.4 launch angle, showing that he got on top of the ball and drove it into the ground more often than not.

With how hard he can hit baseballs if he can improve that launch angle, he will quickly become one of the preeminent power threats in the game today, all at the low low price of league minimum.

Pre-Arb, League Minimum