Washington

Washington Nationals news & notes: Pitchers and catchers report; offseason work…

Published

10 months ago

February 14, 2024

Washington Nationals news & notes: Pitchers and catchers report; offseason work…

Davey Martinez sent Luis García home with an agenda this offseason, and Washington’s manager delivered a message in their exit interview at the end of the Nationals’ 2023 campaign.

“I told him he’s got to get agile,” Martinez told reporters at the Winter Meetings in early December.

“He’s another guy, we got to get him more to swing less. I don’t want to take his aggressiveness away, but he’s got to learn how to hit the ball in the strike zone.”

García, 23, was coming off a 2023 campaign which saw him optioned to Triple-A at one point before he returned to the big leagues, finishing up his fourth season in the majors with a .266/.304/.385 with 18 doubles, four triples, and nine home runs in 122 games and 482 PAs overall.

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He was in an 0 for 12 stretch over four games, and coming off of a rough .217/.250/.301 month of July in which he’d hit just two doubles and one home run when he was optioned to the Nats’ top minor league affiliate (with a .259/.293/.362 line on the year in the majors), and he put up a .268/.315/.381 line, eight doubles, and a home run in 25 games and 108 PAs before he was called back up and put up a .304/.360/.507 line, five doubles, and three home runs in 22 games and 75 PAs down the stretch.

His manager told him to put in the work this winter and come to Spring Training ready to earn a spot on the Opening Day roster for 2024.

“Yeah, look, my message to him was/is no guarantees in Spring Training,” Martinez said.

“‘You got to come and fight for a job.’ I think I sent the message to him when we sent him down. And it hurt me because I love the kid. But he’s got to get better. He’s going on his [fifth] year now with us, and I know what the upside is with Luis, but we got to get it out of him. He’s got to be consistent.”

The manager said he believed his second baseman would come to camp ready to go.

“I believe after what happened last year with Luis that he’s going to come back in Spring Training ready. But only time will tell.”

MLB: Washington Nationals at Pittsburgh Pirates

Josiah Gray, 26, lowered his ERA to 3.91 on the season in 2023 with six strong against the Baltimore Orioles in his final outing (down from the 5.02 ERA he posted in 2022), finishing the year with a 4.94 FIP (down from 5.86), 143 strikeouts (8.09 K/9; down from 9.32), 80 walks (4.53 BB/9, up from 4.00), 22 home runs allowed (1.25 HR/9, down from 2.30 – when he allowed a league-leading 38 HRs allowed in 148 ²⁄₃ IP), and a .251/.345/.412 line against in his 30 starts and 159 IP (after he finished the season with a .239/.324/.489 line against in the ‘22 season).

Though he wanted to work on some things — like improving his changeup so he can use it more often in 2023 — Gray said in an MLB Network Radio interview in late January, he was taking pretty much the same approach to his offseason work this winter as he does every year.

“It’s been about pretty much the same offseason,” the pitcher explained, “… tinkering with the sinker a little bit more to get some more run on it, but everything else has been status quo I guess you could say.

“Obviously, still trying to refine everything in the mix, whether it’s the breaking ball, it’s the cutter, or the four-seam fastball, throwing the changeup a little bit more now too to see if we can get that front/back play. But yeah, it’s been a lot of things I’ve done in the past while trying to tinker with things and not make too many big adjustments but just trying to refine a little bit more.”

Joey Gallo, 30, signed a 1-year/$5M deal in D.C. this winter, and talked in a Zoom call with reporters about wanting to get back to hitting the ball to all fields after he, by his own admission, got a bit pull-happy in 2023, in a season which saw him put up a .177/.301/.440 line, nine doubles, 21 homers, 48 walks, and 142 Ks in 111 games and a total of 332 PAs, over which he was worth 0.7 fWAR for the Minnesota Twins.

MLB: Washington Nationals at Minnesota Twins

“I think a lot of my best years, I was really working the whole field more and I was using the middle of the field more,” Gallo said. “And it seemed like last year I started off that way, and maybe fell into some bad habits or whatnot and I started to pull the ball a little more and got pull-happy. That’s never a good thing when you’re locked into one side of the field. So it’s about just getting my direction back, narrow up a little bit, kind of hit how I used to maybe a few years ago.”

“I would say the biggest priority is probably getting better against right-handed pitching,” Nick Senzel said in his own Zoom call with reporters after he signed a 1-year/$2M deal with the Nats.

Senzel, 28, put up a .236/.297/.399 line and career-high 13 home runs in 104 games and 330 plate appearances last year in what ended up a -0.4 fWAR season with Cincinnati’s Reds.

In 126 plate appearances against left-handed pitching last year, he put up a .348/.389/.619 line with nine of his 13 home runs off of lefties, and the right-handed hitter finished up with a .164/.240/.257 line vs right-handed pitchers, leaving him at .287/.334/.460 in 409 career PAs vs lefties, versus a .219/.288/.330 line vs righties (957 PAs), so the focus there makes sense if he’s going to play third every day as he said the Nationals told him he would. So he put in the work this winter.

MLB: Washington Nationals at Cincinnati Reds

“I went over to Stillwater, Oklahoma to hit with Matt Holliday and his sons for about a week,” Senzel shared.

“I’m going to head back there in January just to get some work in there.

“If you were picking one specific thing I would say just working on kind of right-handed pitching and the swing in general.”

Dylan Floro, 33, signed a 1 year/$2.25M deal with the Nationals coming off a down year with the Miami Marlins and Twins which saw him post a 4.76 ERA, a 2.96 FIP, and .308/.363/.410 line against in 62 games and 56 2⁄3IP.

Floro said he was trying to fine tune a few things this winter, and looking to bounce back with the Nationals.

MLB: Washington Nationals at Miami Marlins

“I think it’s a little bit of everything,” he said of his offseason work. “There’s a little bit of mechanical adjustment I’ve got to do there. Just executing pitches, when it’s time to expand a little bit more expand a little more, instead of giving up that hit in the gap, expand a little bit more, and just kind of trying to figure out what a hitter is thinking and throwing a better pitch in the right situation.”

His approach this winter?

“I’ve been working on some different things,” Floro said. “Executing pitches a little bit better with two strikes. There’s little things that I can change to hopefully go into next year and it’ll help me out.”

Will the offseason work pay off? Will the Nats get the bounce-back season they hope for from all of the players mentioned above?

Spring Training starts today with pitchers and catchers reporting, and we’ll start to get some of those answers soon…

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Washington Nationals Free Agent Infield Target Has ‘Bust’ Potential

Published

8 hours ago

November 25, 2024

Press Room

Washington Nationals Free Agent Infield Target Has ‘Bust’ Potential

The Washington Nationals are heading into the winter with the potential to make some big splashes to improve their team.

It was another tough season for the Nationals in 2024 with just 71 wins. However, the team featured a lot of talented young players and the lengthy rebuild could come to an end soon.

Due to Washington having a big difference between their payroll now and their payroll last season, the team could be spending a lot of money on free agents this winter. In fact, one estimate noted the Nationals could field a team with a payroll of $35 million if they made no offseason acquisitions.

It’s just one reason why many experts are bullish on the Nats adding some veterans around the young core, which makes a lot of sense to help improve the roster. The Nationals have a few positions where adding those players makes a lot of sense.

One of the positions that is arguably the biggest need is at first base. There are a lot of potential players to pursue in free agency that could make sense. One player who could be the top option is Pete Alonso.

The slugging first baseman is arguably the best player at the position, and should have plenty of suitors. However, Alonso is not a perfect player and Zachary D. Rymer of Bleacher Report highlighted why he could have bust potential.

“How big of a deal is it that Alonso is coming off his worst season?,” he wrote. “It was his worst according to his .788 OPS, anyway, and there are real issues underneath that number. A career-high rate of ground balls is one. He also didn’t pull as many fly balls as he usually does. More generally, the aging curve for right-handed-hitting, right-handed-throwing first basemen is rough. Even Albert Pujols didn’t last long as a star after turning 30, and Alonso will arrive at that point on December 7.”

Since coming up to the Majors, the 29-year-old has been one of the best power hitters in baseball, with only Aaron Judge having more home runs during that span.

Even though he has been an excellent power hitter, 2024 was a down season for a player going into a contract year, at least by his standards. Alonso saw a drop in home runs and OPS in 2024, which could be concerning for a player about to turn 30.

The Nationals have had some bad misses recently on big contracts with Patrick Corbin and Stephen Strasburg. Washington hasn’t made any big moves recently, as they have been waiting for their young core to develop, along with the costs of those contracts to come off the books.

With a lot of young, talented players, the time to strike in free agency and make a splash seems like it should be now for the Nationals. However, if they target Alonso, they have to be mindful that he could be a bust with a drop in power numbers.

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Commanders’ Terry McLaurin Focused on Cowboys Lesson Not Titans Redemption

Published

16 hours ago

November 25, 2024

Press Room

Commanders’ Terry McLaurin Focused on Cowboys Lesson Not Titans Redemption

As soon as the game ended in the Washington Commanders’ Week 11 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles conversations started shifting toward the long break and how much time the team had before it could get rid of that bad feeling against the Dallas Cowboys.

Now, following another Commanders loss – to the hands of those Cowboys – and even more bad feelings stemming from it, while some are talking about if this team can get right against the Tennessee Titans it’s going to be critical they take their time to fully digest their third-straight loss first.

Washington receiver Terry McLaurin made a point of emphasizing this fact in his postgame conversation with local media following the Week 12 loss.

Washington Commanders receiver Terry McLaurin.

Nov 10, 2024; Landover, Maryland, USA; Washington Commanders wide receiver Terry McLaurin (17) looks on from the field during final minute of the game against the Pittsburgh Steelers at Northwest Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Amber Searls-Imagn Images / Amber Searls-Imagn Images

“I don’t want to look too far to Sunday because Sunday’s going to take care of itself next week,” McLaurin said. “We got to get some things fixed in the film room, so we’re already looking forward to looking at the film and just having ‘Tell the Truth Monday’ like (head coach Dan Quinn) says. I mean we all got to look at ourselves in the mirror and figure out what we can do better.”

To McLaurin’s point, as a team the Commanders have to get better, especially on offense where the unit failed to score on two possessions starting in the Dallas end of the field after defensive and special teams plays set the group up for early success.

Across the organization Sunday night the message of everyone coming together to fix the issues was common. From coaches to players the unit is focused on fixing the unit, but it is going to take some hard-focused individual advancement to do that as well.

“I just want to continue to try to control what I can and keep making sure that we have the right attitude and approach as we come into practice and the games,” McLaurin said. “Trying to make a play when the ball comes to me and just controlling that aspect of my job, and I try to provide a spark when I can. …As an offense, we have to find a better job of staying on the field. I think that was a strength of ours in the first half of the season and it’s not right now. So we got to figure out how to get that back to being a strength of our offense because when we’re tempo, when we’re staying on the field, it allows us to keep the playbook open and continue to put pressure on the defense.”

McLaurin also said nobody is hanging their heads on this team right now. That they still have confidence in what they can do individually and as a team.

While that wasn’t physically true on Sunday after the game – there were plenty of heads hanging in the home locker room after the loss – it is true from a mentality standpoint. Even the multiple guys who put the loss fully on their own shoulders, kicker Austin Seibert and safety Jeremy Reaves just to name a couple, echoed the sentiment that they are and can be better.

So don’t expect this Washington squad to give up on itself even as some start to move it out of the competitive conversations it was in just weeks ago. And if every Commanders player on the roster and coach on the staff takes the same approach McLaurin is conveying here, then there’s another chance to see the old production come back in Week 13 – when the time comes.

Stick with CommanderGameday and the Locked On Commanders podcast for more FREE coverage of the Washington Commanders throughout the 2024 season.

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• Terry McLaurin’s 86-Yard Touchdown Stuns, But Commanders Miss Extra Point

• Commanders Rival Cowboys’ Micah Parsons Channeling Fighter’s Mentality

• Commanders Lean on Leadership to Regain Momentum Before Cowboys Matchup

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Israel-Hezbollah Close to Ceasefire Deal, Says Israel’s Envoy to Washington

Published

24 hours ago

November 25, 2024

Press Room

Israel-Hezbollah Close to Ceasefire Deal, Says Israel’s Envoy to Washington

Israel is potentially days away from a cease-fire deal with Lebanon’s Hezbollah, the Israeli ambassador to the United States said, following a new round of shuttle diplomacy by a senior envoy for the outgoing Biden administration.

“We are close to a deal,” Michael Herzog told Israel’s Army Radio on Monday. “It could happen within days.”

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