[SPEAKER_02]: Hey everybody, JJ Cooper, Jeff Ponson, our Baseball America Prospect podcast.

[SPEAKER_02]: And we are recording this 2pm roughly Eastern on Tuesday, which means that less than 12 hours before this, Jeff and I were both still up watching that game.

[SPEAKER_02]: We'll talk about it a little bit at the end of the show.

[SPEAKER_02]: But we've were watching that 18 inning monstrosity of a beautiful,

[SPEAKER_02]: train wreck of exceptional disasters and so many things happening and all that.

[SPEAKER_02]: But so the thing I'll start before we jump in we are doing, we are starting a fix it series on this week's Prospect plastic podcast.

[SPEAKER_02]: Next four weeks, we're gonna look at systems that are far away or have been far away.

[SPEAKER_02]: and kind of what we think they can do.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're gonna start with the nationals.

[SPEAKER_02]: But before we do that, Jeff, I just gotta ask you, how are you holding up?

[SPEAKER_02]: You like me, stay till the end, watch till the end.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I believe you like me also had to get up this morning, which, not really, not really, not really.

[SPEAKER_03]: Not really, I'm very lucky that my wife is up early and did not stay up for the game.

[SPEAKER_03]: In fact, she fell asleep during regulations.

[SPEAKER_03]: During regulation, before exactly, it was probably like 11 o'clock.

[SPEAKER_03]: And so,

[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, she kind of let me sleep until like nine o'clock and took the kids to school and, you know, there you go.

[SPEAKER_03]: My youngest son, uh, did make an appearance in, so like, my office is like in the basement of my house, where we have TV and, like, kind of, so where I'm recording right now.

[SPEAKER_03]: Um, and so, like, it was 115, I thought everybody in the house was asleep at me, and then all of a sudden Nolan comes,

[SPEAKER_03]: Like, Dad, what the heck is going on?

[SPEAKER_03]: Which then woke up my wife, which she then realized about 10 minutes in that it was 115 in the morning and not like a left 30.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then it was like, yes, you need to go to bed.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I think he missed the final four or five innings because it went till three a.m.

[SPEAKER_03]: So he missed the final hour and a half or plus.

[SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, I was up and got a few hours of sleep.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I'm doing okay.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm gonna make sure a couple of coffee this morning.

[SPEAKER_02]: That alarm at 7 a.m. this morning, it rang loud, it rang hard and, you know, at some point I probably will take a nap before the game tonight hopefully, but that's not we're here to talk about we were going to talk about the world series that we're going to talk about really the question we're trying to phrase today is how can the nationals get back to the world series something that they did.

[SPEAKER_02]: Not that long ago.

[SPEAKER_02]: It feels I'm sure like forever ago to the National's fans.

[SPEAKER_02]: But 2019, the nationals are on top of the world.

[SPEAKER_02]: They win the world series.

[SPEAKER_02]: They do what every national's fan had dreamed of.

[SPEAKER_02]: And if you were really along, you know, an old timer in the DC area, maybe even you're dreaming of the senators doing many, many years ago.

[SPEAKER_02]: But since then,

[SPEAKER_02]: The nationals have like the rebuild of the nationals has been long and so far utterly ineffective.

[SPEAKER_02]: They went to the basement the next year in 2020, but that's 2020, 26 and 34 will give them a pass on that one, but ever since then.

[SPEAKER_02]: 65 wins in twenty one fifty five and twenty two seventy one and twenty three seventy one and twenty four sixty six and I think that's the one obviously that is the one that is the That was the last straw because obviously Mike riso and that front office is out And now we have a new front office the hiring of Paul Toboney they have made multiple

[SPEAKER_02]: uh, hires already, and I would say that you could say that you, there is a definite red socks feel, you know, like that there's bringing other red socks officials, other than Paul pneumonia, are coming over, which again, what normally happens in situations like this is when you leave, you're given like a number, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: Like okay, you can take

[SPEAKER_02]: Axe or you can take so-and-so and so-and-so, but you're not allowed, no organization is going to let you just say, okay, they're all coming with me, you know, but obviously they're, they're, they're often as you can bring someone to be a top lieutenant or someone is clearly getting a big promotion to the new, you know, in the new front office, things like that, but that kind of leads us into.

[SPEAKER_02]: So we're going to look at first the national strengths as they stand right now and then we'll get into.

[SPEAKER_02]: the room for improvement and the things we would suggest that they need to improve.

[SPEAKER_02]: But so, Jeff to kind of start that off.

[SPEAKER_02]: I would say that this new front office, the Paul Tavoni front office, is kind of right now, you know, this is to be determined, but I would say that you could anticipate that that has a chance at least to be a strength.

[SPEAKER_02]: This is that a fair way to put it.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think, you look at the group that's coming over, whether it be to Boney, whether it be a Devon Pearson, who was also involved in, you know, was leaving these red socks drafts over the last couple of years where they've been able to build a pretty strong pipeline first-to-position prospects and then seemingly overnight, kind of turned into a pitching heavy system, something that we really had never seen previously.

[SPEAKER_03]: Then you look at Horowitz, Justin Horowitz coming over from the pirates who is there for a couple of years, had previously been in a position in amateur scouting with the Red Sox, I think was maybe like a special assistant to the director or one of those sort of titles.

[SPEAKER_03]: His first draft with the Pirates, of course, they land a number one prospect in the entire game and Connor Griffin, and they didn't land them at like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, they did land them, you know, in the top 10, but at the back end of it, pretty good pick, he's got some track record as well.

[SPEAKER_03]: There are a team that does well a group of evaluators, I'll say, that does pretty well at identifying players in the amateur market that can then make a jump professionally and we'll see how they set things up internationally and how that structure will change.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then I think also there are no organization that understands how, you know, some synergy and complete and clear lines of communication between departments, particularly the acquisition side of things, whether that's scouting, whether that's analytics R&D or combination of all of those with player development is really really important and I think.

[SPEAKER_03]: Particularly in the Red Sox side over the last couple of years, they've seen how that's worked on hitting in on the pitching side and, you know, how just having consistent messaging all throughout the system and spring training and then utilizing technology and information to make more informed decisions and player development, I think could really, you know,

[SPEAKER_03]: uncover a lot of low hanging fruit for the nationals, just because we talked about before the show.

[SPEAKER_03]: Generations wise, it may not even be the upgrades that we've seen recently have success in terms of the red-saut switching development or the blue jays each of, I think I've written about this year.

[SPEAKER_03]: They were probably a little bit further along in terms of when they had to

[SPEAKER_03]: improve than the nationals are at this point.

[SPEAKER_03]: So there's probably a lot of low hanging fruit and things that they can upgrade, process wise, technology wise, coaching wise, etc.

[SPEAKER_02]: Other things I would say that's the other current strength.

[SPEAKER_02]: And we'll see where this goes with this is.

[SPEAKER_02]: Is that a lot of the teams we're going to talk about.

[SPEAKER_02]: These four teams we're going to talk about.

[SPEAKER_02]: There's a number of teams I would say we're going to talk about where you will start with saying

[SPEAKER_02]: Like we're going to talk about the Rockies and the Rockies have very few players on their current big league roster, who you could plosely make the argument are going to be important members of this successful big league Rockies team.

[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think you can say that with the national.

[SPEAKER_02]: You can say with the nationals that.

[SPEAKER_02]: They have a number of relatively young players who have at least shown something.

[SPEAKER_02]: Now, they may not have all synced it up at the same time, but Jacob Young will work away up, not for the stars first.

[SPEAKER_02]: But Jacob Young, as sure he's a very good defensive center fielder.

[SPEAKER_02]: Now, is he good enough to be a regular?

[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe maybe not, but even if not, he's a very good fourth-out filter.

[SPEAKER_02]: I would say that you could say that Luis Garcia

[SPEAKER_02]: been around a while now, but he is someone who has in his best years been a plausible starting second basement.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think that you can say that Brady House

[SPEAKER_02]: With improvement, he's got real power.

[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe he can be a third baseman for you, or a first baseman for you, Dylan Cruz.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's been very disappointing in the big leagues, but this is one of the best college baseball players of the 21st century, Jane, you know, CJ Abrams has been a above average shortstop at his best.

[SPEAKER_02]: and James Wood has been a all-star level player at his best.

[SPEAKER_02]: You have, like, Kiber Ruiz, maybe you can get him back to being a regular, a catcher who's at least adequate.

[SPEAKER_02]: All these things are, these are like, potential block building blocks, or the other way you could go with this is, so new regime.

[SPEAKER_02]: If they want to save this rebuild failed and we're not close,

[SPEAKER_02]: There also then are a number of players here who would still have value to, if you said, hey, we're going to take two steps back to take three steps forward.

[SPEAKER_02]: There are players here that you could get value for and trade if you wanted to.

[SPEAKER_02]: Obviously McKinsey Gore on the pitching staff would be probably the most prominent of those.

[SPEAKER_02]: But so there's ways you could go with this.

[SPEAKER_02]: There are pieces here.

[SPEAKER_02]: there's still a lot of work to do as you would expect for a team that has been basically debasement of, I mean, the marlins are in this division and the nationals have consistently been worse than them in the 2020s.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's, and the marlins, I would say at this point, are significantly probably further along, crazy enough, in their rebuild,

[SPEAKER_02]: than the national.

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[SPEAKER_04]: Get after it, F-T-F-M.

[SPEAKER_02]: That gets into it.

[SPEAKER_03]: I will I will say that I do think that, you know, a lot of the players just named off.

[SPEAKER_03]: They probably have more high end guys than the marlins do at this point.

[SPEAKER_03]: The marlins have gotten a lot more consistency from their players that were maybe a tier below.

[SPEAKER_03]: the nationals have gotten from Gore, from wood, you know, certainly from crews, but Abrams, but like if Abrams, Gore, and Wood, that trio has all shown well above average to plus potential in the major leagues for months to multiple month stretches, but they've also had really low lows in the same season on the back end.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I think that lack of consistency is a problem.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that is the perfect, you've set it on a tee there, Jeff, because the perfect, our number one suggested fix is this team, this is an organization that needs better, major league baseball player development.

[SPEAKER_02]: Not MLB here, we'll get to that, but MLB, because what you just said, this is the Marlins, I would say, our organization, who you can say they had multiple players in 2025, who performed at what you would say is at least their 75th percentile of what they can do

[SPEAKER_02]: they had guys who you're like, I didn't know he could do that in the major leagues or they took players who maybe were at one point, Xavier Edwards, who's like, okay, this is an intriguing prospect but had kind of grown a little stale and then they're like, come on over here, X and when they came over, he's taken a step forward.

[SPEAKER_02]: Jacob Marcy, there's a number of guys that we could point to and say, they've gotten the most out of those guys.

[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know how many nationals you can

[SPEAKER_02]: They've gotten that player to his close to what he can do.

[SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot of players, you could say, if this is close to what Dylan Cruz can do, then that something went horribly wrong.

[SPEAKER_02]: Because Dylan Cruz, and I think we're both now on more a little bit on the skeptical side.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think we both would describe Dylan Cruz more as a very good complimentary player likely than a star.

[SPEAKER_02]: But he's got a lot of work to do to be a good complimentary player right now.

[SPEAKER_02]: James Wood, with better contact, is a star.

[SPEAKER_02]: But 220 strikeouts in a season is going to means that you're having months where you're just not producing at the level you need to, even if you are showing power at times and all that.

[SPEAKER_02]: CJ Abrams, kidding, consistency, like we said, all these players we're talking about.

[SPEAKER_02]: There is a lot of, can we optimize these players more?

[SPEAKER_02]: Can we get more out of them?

[SPEAKER_02]: And it does not mean no organization bats 750 doing that.

[SPEAKER_02]: But I would say that the nationals have batted.

[SPEAKER_02]: They're batting average on getting

[SPEAKER_02]: adequacy to significant production out of their best young players on a consistent basis has been lower than the batting average for most organizations.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's kind of how I see that one.

[SPEAKER_02]: I want to kick the next one to you Jeff because this is one that you're really on to, which is

[SPEAKER_02]: drafting and developing college arms, which is something also that goes back to something as you just mentioned that the red socks have done.

[SPEAKER_02]: Why do you lay out that that's something that they need to do better and need to really work on?

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I think what we're seeing consistently, and I don't even think this is necessarily a new thing, but I do think in some ways it's been kicked into hyperdrive as the miners

[SPEAKER_03]: and the length of a lot of those injuries and the return time has grown.

[SPEAKER_03]: So there's been a greater need for a lot of college arms to move with just greater immediacy.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I think when you look at the nationals, particularly at the top of the draft,

[SPEAKER_03]: If there's no real college pitching they didn't take a college pitcher until round seven and while you can hit in round six through eleven I'll say on some college pictures and.

[SPEAKER_03]: Anything from 12 to 20, I think really if you get any sort of major league value out of a college pitcher at that point, it's great not a lot of like college starters that turn into major league starters are coming out of those rounds, not that it's unheard of, but it's obviously less likely.

[SPEAKER_03]: Round one through five is really where you're finding those guys and it doesn't have to be your first pick as we saw, you know, with the red sucks a couple of years ago landing

[SPEAKER_03]: But over the course of a few years, I think you do need to go after some of those college starters.

[SPEAKER_03]: They're the guys that are getting to the big leagues a lot quicker.

[SPEAKER_03]: And especially the guys that are early in the draft, whether it's Chase Burns, whether it's Trayous Savage.

[SPEAKER_03]: Paul Scheme's obviously is one, but he's certainly an outlier.

[SPEAKER_03]: We talked about Peyton, Toli.

[SPEAKER_03]: Nolan McLean is another one that wasn't a first round right,

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, with somebody that after more or less a year in the minors was really able to make that jump to the big leagues and, you know, honestly, if the Met's wanted to, they probably could have done that even earlier.

[SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, when I look at the national's drafts, I see a lot of hitters in the early rounds.

[SPEAKER_03]: I don't see a lot of college pitchers with upside.

[SPEAKER_03]: And even the ones that they have, like they took Jackson Kent a couple years ago on 2024 and the fourth round, he had a pretty good year for them.

[SPEAKER_03]: He moved pretty fast for them.

[SPEAKER_03]: And obviously he had less expectations than others.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think when you're an organization like this where you do have some hitting talent, you know you can find those guys in comp rounds.

[SPEAKER_03]: You can even take one still early in the first round, but you do need to probably commit at least two to three picks in the first seven rounds on college pitchers.

[SPEAKER_03]: And you know, it will take a few years, but you have the potential to really hit some homers if you do that.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, have some rotation pieces or rotation depth as well as trade assets that you can move to reinforce whatever is needed in your team at a given point time, but

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, they really haven't gone after college pitching over the last five years or so.

[SPEAKER_03]: The last draft where they really did that pretty consistently.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think was the Kavali draft, though I guess they did take Jake Bennett in the second round and in 22 or 23.

[SPEAKER_03]: That was 22.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but they took Jake Ben in the second round, but in a draft where they took Elijah Green in the first.

[SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.

[SPEAKER_02]: Let's go in the third, Brenner Cox in the fourth and Jared McKenzie in the fifth.

[SPEAKER_02]: And Nathaniel Leyva in the sixth.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: So like, yes, they did take a, but they took one picture in the top 200 picks that year also.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, it was the same in 2021 where it was how Slial, right, both here.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was just a sign.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it took us in sign as who was like, you know, under size lefty, who's lifted at 511, but it's probably like 599.

[SPEAKER_03]: Um, so it's just they're not taking sort of these horse guys that maybe have traits and attributes, you're like, all right, this, you know, Pete, toy was a TCU was a two-way guy and you know, we know we can do this and get them on this program and probably add some velocity.

[SPEAKER_03]: They're not doing that sort of thing.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think it's probably pretty easy to say, hey, we have people in place that can identify those guys now.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's just a matter of getting, you know, the right people in the positions in personnel and player development to kind of execute that.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I do think, you know, that's one area where the nationals could put some draft resources toward in the immediate, you know, next year or two

[SPEAKER_02]: So number three is emphasizing developing better context skills for the nation's young hitters.

[SPEAKER_02]: Focus primarily in the minor leagues here, could be said to the big league level too to some extent.

[SPEAKER_02]: But so the thing that is a little bit,

[SPEAKER_02]: worth digging into here.

[SPEAKER_02]: We have it based ball America.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'll put it in the show notes for this the stack cast hitting rankings for all 30 organizations.

[SPEAKER_02]: And one of the things that does stand out for the nationals.

[SPEAKER_02]: And it's not a surprise that the nationals rank best.

[SPEAKER_02]: They're best ranking is they are second of all 30 orgs in 90 percentile exit velocity.

[SPEAKER_02]: The nationals do not have a problem with having players who hit the ball hard.

[SPEAKER_02]: That is what they have selected, that is what they've done, that is what they've developed.

[SPEAKER_02]: What they've had a real problem with is getting those players to hit enough, to make enough contact for that power, to really play and for that power to matter.

[SPEAKER_02]: And the key thing that really does jump out about this, though, is it's not swing decisions.

[SPEAKER_02]: Often you would see with that, it would be like, okay, they're bottom of the barrel in swing decisions.

[SPEAKER_02]: Their chase rates really high.

[SPEAKER_02]: And you would say, okay, so what we're going to have to do is really work on making better swing decisions, you know, understanding pitch recognition, getting better at that.

[SPEAKER_02]: They're 11th in swing decisions.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's, that's fine.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's not a giant flaw.

[SPEAKER_02]: their giant flaws is their dead 30-thin contact percentage and their 29thin zone contact percentage which I do think is actually a more challenging hurdle because you have these players who have real power but and make adequate swing decisions but they can recognize a fastball or a breaking ball in the zone that's where they want it to go, you know, where they want to hit

[SPEAKER_02]: That's where it's like, okay, some of that's going to be some of these players is going to be like, hey, I'm sorry, but we can't fix this, but you're trying to like, okay, you're I would say that you are looking at as you bring in as you try to help your hitting instructors develop these players, you're kind of looking at trying to reduce length and swings trying to clean up things as far as set up like if you have a player's particularly noisy and it's like, hey,

[SPEAKER_02]: This bat waggle means you're late, like looking on timing, things like that.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's where I think that they've really got to make a point of emphasis.

[SPEAKER_02]: And this kind of goes to maybe also they have to steer a little bit towards, hey, we got to bring in some more players with bat to ball skills and then develop their power.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to put them on batsman program.

[SPEAKER_02]: You want to have a little bit of a mix I would say, Jeff, of all this.

[SPEAKER_02]: beatable in the zone.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I would ask you before we move on to the next one, which is a little bit related, how is you think that is to fix?

[SPEAKER_02]: Is that something that you're gonna have to kind of go to your next wave of prospects?

[SPEAKER_02]: Or is that something that you think is fixable?

[SPEAKER_03]: They're gonna be on a case-by-case basis.

[SPEAKER_03]: And once again, I know we've kind of being this drum to death

[SPEAKER_03]: I sort of feel like it's going to come down to player development and who is in place in player development if they have, you know, a history of this stuff, if they've had success, if it's the right message for this group, some of that's probably going to be taking inventory of the type of things that were taught and focused on, because I can't necessarily

[SPEAKER_03]: great success in terms of improving contact and swing decisions.

[SPEAKER_03]: They've tended to draft guys that already had a really good foundation of that and then try to build up that speed is, you know, sort of been what the focus is.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I do think that some of the targeting is probably really going to change going forward.

[SPEAKER_03]: That said,

[SPEAKER_03]: not everybody that's in this organization is probably fully lost and quite often when we see improvements in player development.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think we saw with the cardinals and we saw it with someone like Josh Bias where some processes and folks have changed obviously as Bloom was kind of put in charge of improving processes before, you know, he took the top job there.

[SPEAKER_03]: And you know, you see somebody like Josh Bias make a pretty significant improvement year over year and I'm sure there's guys like that's probably not a silly Elijah green based on how bad that contact is.

[SPEAKER_03]: But if they could get him to a point where he's Spencer Jones, I think people will be pretty excited about that player just because of what his defensive ability is.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I think like the fact that there are EVs there, I think is maybe

[SPEAKER_03]: Hinting at some low-hanging fruit that maybe not all these guys are going to turn to something, but if there's guys with impact that maybe we can improve how they approach their, their at-bats and their plan at the plate and kind of attack swing decisions like that, and hopefully hack contact by improving swing decisions.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, maybe we see better results for these five out of this group of 15 that have these good EVs, but kind of crappy everything else.

[SPEAKER_02]: Number four on this kind of segway is very nice with that, like you said, you mentioned larger green.

[SPEAKER_02]: So larger green is Brady House.

[SPEAKER_02]: Even on the college side, it's guys like Tray Lipscomers, like there's real power here, but there's link to the swing, there's questions about contactability.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think that where the nationals are right now, you do have to ask the question if you're coming in as the new regime and say, hey, do we need to kind of course correct here a little bit?

[SPEAKER_02]: approach this a little differently because this is an organization that is I would say overweighted towards big power, big swings, swings of this.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I am not telling you right now that if a larger green had been drafted by another organization none of these problems would have arose.

[SPEAKER_02]: But I will say

[SPEAKER_02]: That was probably the worst combination I can think of of player and organization because the nationals have not shown that improving contactability has been a strength that they're.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's been kind of a consistent issue for them kind of year after year after year and Elijah Green, who to this day, when you talk to evaluators, you talk to scouts who scouting Elijah Green, they will tell you really good

[SPEAKER_02]: ten-hit tool.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like it's the combo where it's like none of this can play unless you can get to a baseline of contact and Elijah Greens baseline of contact has been 42 to 44% of the time he will step to the plate and he will walk back to the dugout on a strikeout and no player you cannot

[SPEAKER_02]: You just can't be a successful player, if you say, I have to do all my damage in 55 to 60% of my plate appearances, because the other ones I'm striking out.

[SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't work for anyone, but it's not, again, it's not just Elijah Green, Brady House fits into this in some ways.

[SPEAKER_02]: There's a number of players where they've kind of emphasized that approach.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that they would need to at this point.

[SPEAKER_02]: I would say it's fair for the new front office to come in and say, is that an approach we want to continue right now or to kind of go to your college pitching side?

[SPEAKER_02]: Is it a little bit of a time to kind of emphasize more contact and athleticism and defensive skills to kind of level out some of this?

[SPEAKER_02]: But that leads into our last point.

[SPEAKER_02]: And this one is the one I think that is the most obvious.

[SPEAKER_02]: But it's also the one that has been the biggest one of the biggest problems for them in the 2020s, which is when we say, okay, so the nationals, the nationals were up, you know, we're a great team in the play 20, 20 teams.

[SPEAKER_02]: They won the World Series and you say, okay, and part of that is, hey, if you draft Bryce Harper and Steve is Frostburg, one one overall.

[SPEAKER_02]: You won the lottery twice and I don't mean because you pick them.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean because they happen to have the number one picks in years where Bryce Harper and Steven Straussburg were available.

[SPEAKER_02]: And it let's be honest, the Bryce Harper year, like if they had gotten it quote wrong, it still was like, okay, do you want Manning Machado?

[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, that's fine.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, so they did that.

[SPEAKER_02]: They traded for Tray Turner, great move.

[SPEAKER_02]: But on top of that,

[SPEAKER_02]: They then also they traded for Adam Eaton was a useful ready to play for them.

[SPEAKER_02]: But I would say that like on top of that, this is an organization that did spend money at that time.

[SPEAKER_02]: This is an organization, Patrick Corbin, that money didn't always work out well, but they spent big money for Patrick Corbin.

[SPEAKER_02]: They had Max Scherser, they resigned and extended Steven Straussburg.

[SPEAKER_02]: This was an organization that was spending big money at that point on Bryce Harper, but even before he left him free agency.

[SPEAKER_02]: They had all, you know, free agents like that they brought in as an additional like a, you know, again, not Kurt Suzuki was a ton of money, but Kurt Suzuki veterans like how he can drink.

[SPEAKER_02]: They, they spent money.

[SPEAKER_02]: And here we are in the 2020s, if you said, what is the biggest, most significant free agent signing that the nationals have made?

[SPEAKER_02]: Let's just say, since they traded one soda, you really wouldn't have a whole

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm getting, yes, they have, I'm not saying that they haven't signed any free agents.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, they did bring in the fanial out.

[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, they've, you know, they've had guys like that.

[SPEAKER_02]: There, you know, briefly, in some cases, but that was not a major signing.

[SPEAKER_02]: If you were going to, like, okay, so let me ask you this way, Jeff, would you spend the money right now?

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, okay, they also signed Josh Bellash, you had a good, you know, it was fine for them.

[SPEAKER_02]: But would you spend the money now or is this

[SPEAKER_02]: Is the time to spend the money to bring in some guys to kind of go around this young or now or is it better off to say we're not that close.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to spend money, but we first got to rebuild this a little bit to even know where to spend the money first.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I mean, I think it's a good question.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I do think that it depends on you know what they decide to do at the majorly global.

[SPEAKER_03]: Um, because we did talk about there are some pieces here, um, you know, whether it's, you know, the combination of wood, crews, Abrams, Garcia, I think Dale and Lyle proved to be, at least, a good platoon player, you know, at worst.

[SPEAKER_03]: Um, if not something maybe a little bit better, you still have McKenzie Gore.

[SPEAKER_03]: You do have to just say a gray who's had moments in the big leagues coming back.

[SPEAKER_03]: Mitchell Parker who not great once again, but probably find as part of your rotation depth.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, if you wanted to go out into the marketplace and, you know, shop for another outfielder on a reasonable deal, I think, especially with the current.

[SPEAKER_03]: market that we've had over the last couple of years.

[SPEAKER_03]: We're outside of the top tier free agents.

[SPEAKER_03]: A lot of guys are sitting in the market a little bit longer.

[SPEAKER_03]: A lot of guys are signing bridge deals for a year at a high number, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: To then kind of rebuild value, get back into the marketplace.

[SPEAKER_03]: I don't think that they're in such a bad position if that's the direction that they want to go.

[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so you talked about maybe a veteran outfit or I do think that there's going to be available outfielders at a reasonable price.

[SPEAKER_02]: But so here's the kind of the core question to wrap this up with, Gore, Gray, Luis Garcia.

[SPEAKER_02]: You've got two more years right now before they're free agents, right?

[SPEAKER_02]: You've got the 26 season, you've got 27.

[SPEAKER_02]: Then CJ Abrams, you've got he's a free agent in 28.

[SPEAKER_02]: You can obviously see try to extend some of these guys.

[SPEAKER_02]: Do you think that this team, I would say it's a big leap to say that they couldn't go from sub 70 wins in 25, having not won 75 games any any time this decade to going to a playoff contender in 26, but is it realistic to say that they should be spending to try to make this team a contender before those guys

[SPEAKER_02]: Is it more realistic to say your goal is 27 and 28 and maybe some of those guys have to move to try to build towards that 27 28 window?

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I mean, I think it makes more sense to probably sell some of those guys.

[SPEAKER_03]: I do think that selling wood in particular would be

[SPEAKER_03]: like a terrible idea and I'm going to have some stars yeah and I think you probably, you know, you would stick with crews and see where that goes over the next couple of years.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I wouldn't be necessarily against potentially trying to hammer out an extension, you know, with McKenzie Gore.

[SPEAKER_03]: He's going to be 27 years old entering next year kind of going into prime years if you feel as if you know there was some issues with Player development the major league level he's potentially a guy that that you know you could see On the upswing on the other side he's never thrown 170 innings

[SPEAKER_03]: over four years in the big leagues and obviously has had some some some health concerns, you know, leading up to that point as as a minor league player.

[SPEAKER_03]: So, you know, there's there's probably some question as to whether it's even a sound investment because you're signing him, you know, probably for, you know, as age 30, 29 to, you know, 33, 34 sort of years.

[SPEAKER_03]: You have to make

[SPEAKER_03]: That is when starters seem to kind of hit their peak.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's not necessarily at 25 or 26 or 27, like you kind of see with hitters.

[SPEAKER_03]: They kind of go into that window in the late 20s, and then I think those years and the early 30s, if they're good starters, typically are prime years as well.

[SPEAKER_03]: So, age wise, it's not necessarily an unsound investment, but I think you can look at some of the history of the player and say,

[SPEAKER_03]: Is this ever going to be a guy that's going to give us 180 to 200 things a year and be, you know, an ace for us, which is probably how I would assume he's going to want to get paid.

[SPEAKER_02]: So that's our look, that is our prescription for how to try to fix the nationals.

[SPEAKER_02]: I would say to wrap this up on the nationals that it is a project, but at the same time, we will definitely talk about organizations that have further together.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like there are pieces there.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like I would say that probably you just hit on it.

[SPEAKER_02]: The big thing is, if you can get James Wood,

[SPEAKER_02]: The starting point of any team being having a great team is to have a star and honest to goodness five plus war every year star and James Wood has a chance to be that.

[SPEAKER_02]: If you could say that James Wood can be a five war player and between CJ Abrams and Dylan Cruz and Brady House, wait, we didn't talk even about, but the other strength of this is there's some injuries to it.

[SPEAKER_02]: But between Harlan Susanna and Travis Cora is obviously injured and Alex Clemney and bringing back Cade Cavali who came back last year, there are some pieces here on the arm side too that could contribute, could be a part of the next good national team.

[SPEAKER_02]: There are pieces here, but there's also a lot of work to do.

[SPEAKER_02]: So that's kind of wrapping up our fixed segment of today.

[SPEAKER_02]: But before we go,

[SPEAKER_02]: We are, I mean, again, we are baseball fans, where yes, this is the prospect podcast, but Jeff, the world series so far, it just, the playoffs so far have been wonderful, but the world series so far, like, I felt like a,

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, again, this is going to sound weird, but like we love prospects seeing agardo and ricas come into that game last night and they're like this is we are now in the point where the Dodgers are in the dregs of their pen and then seeing him go out and just shove with 102 was very fun to watch you know to see kind of.

[SPEAKER_02]: These players kind of, you know, that we've kind of been following over the years, obviously.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then there's like showy Otani, we should just base nine times and all, but what has stood out so far as we record this before game four, which we'll, you'll be here in this after game four, but we're recording it before game four.

[SPEAKER_02]: Sorry, we're not staying up to four in the morning to to update this because we did that last night, but what is stood out in the world series to you so far?

[SPEAKER_03]: yeah i mean just been really competitive games um you know i guess game one wasn't necessarily so competitive but it wasn't till it wasn't i mean it was like back and forth and then like whoa what what happened here and it's an explosion of offense um

[SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, I think the last two games have been close fought contest where it seems like for three or four andings are kind of on the edge of your seat waiting for like, there are a couple of guys get on.

[SPEAKER_03]: All right, is this the swing that's going to change everything?

[SPEAKER_03]: We sat for 10 innings last night, pretty much from the seventh inning on until the 18th waiting for that swing to happen.

[SPEAKER_03]: And it seemed like Freddie Freeman had a few of them.

[SPEAKER_03]: If I'm being frank, they don't Dalton Bar Show was very busy in center field because of Freddie.

[SPEAKER_03]: And he had a couple of nice barrels that, you know, just didn't fall.

[SPEAKER_03]: Finally, the last one of the 18th inning gets over the wall and center field, and we're here now.

[SPEAKER_03]: But I think that the pitching for the most part, outside of that game one, in terms of the Dodgers full pen and kind of that last inning with snow, has been really good, great execution.

[SPEAKER_03]: You get a all-time pitching performance out of Yamamoto that offsets a great pitching performance from Gaussman

[SPEAKER_03]: I feel like that's happened to him a few times this playoffs.

[SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, and then you go in tonight and we're going to get to see the full show.

[SPEAKER_03]: Hey, Otani show after one of the most brilliant world series performances of all time.

[SPEAKER_03]: And you know, there's an entire podcast we could do just on Otani's performances within the last week.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think that's maybe the most remarkable part of this.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I think it was something that was in my head.

[SPEAKER_03]: Last night, as it was watching 18, any game for the second time in the last seven years or whatever, because I did stay up for the last one was Red Sox, Dodgers in 2018.

[SPEAKER_02]: Nate, you have all these time to shine.

[SPEAKER_03]: I didn't feel like I was watching though like the same type of game I was watching last night, a sense that there were

[SPEAKER_03]: Hall of Famers in both lineups.

[SPEAKER_03]: There were Hall of Fame pictures.

[SPEAKER_03]: We saw a got to throw for both teams, kind of at the end of their career in different roles.

[SPEAKER_03]: We saw in all-time, great player, having in all-time, great performance.

[SPEAKER_03]: And maybe a turning point in this series where we're not gonna see many of bats for Shiohei Otani going forward.

[SPEAKER_03]: Um, but overall, it just, you know, the moments have been great, um, especially as you get from the sixth inning on, it's really felt like there's been, um, you know, uh, I'm looking for the right word here.

[SPEAKER_03]: Um, but, uh, yeah, totally totally drawn a blank.

[SPEAKER_01]: Um, we're both exhausted.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's just be clear.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, exactly.

[SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, the drama, you know, I think, and that intrigue, like, you know, your,

[SPEAKER_03]: such an intensity from the sixth inning audit and all these games and we've even seen good bullpen performances from, I mean, I certainly didn't expect, but nine shut out innings from the Dodgers and blue blue jays, bullpen's combined, but that's another thing that we got last night.

[SPEAKER_03]: So, pretty more remarkable, you know, game overall and

[SPEAKER_03]: Tonight's game I'm sure will be good, but probably not like that.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think that's I am hoping for nine innings tonight I will say I What if you guys I Did not stay up for the 18 inning But socks Dodgers game and so and I've had regrets like I can't remember what I like I remember like in the 11th inning of that game me like I'm exhausted I have to go to bed and that was one thing I'll save the other thing I'll say about one of my loves about pitch clock

[SPEAKER_02]: because the games don't take as long.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_02]: I am sitting here at the very end of October, and I'm not in the sleep deficit that the postseason used to put me in.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like,

[SPEAKER_02]: Having one game go till three in the morning, 253, I think is when I set on slack, good night, everybody.

[SPEAKER_02]: So like for a game to go that, but the other games be ones where I'm in bed before midnight, and in some cases like 1130, it's not the same thing as if you're pushing it till 1230, night after night after night, all through October, and then you get to hear and you're like,

[SPEAKER_02]: So I was thrilled and relieved.

[SPEAKER_02]: I would have it if the sun came up in on the east coast and that game was still playing.

[SPEAKER_02]: I was going to be watching it.

[SPEAKER_02]: There was like, nope, you are not going to, I am not going to miss a second chance at kind of the crazy game that you never get to see in the World Series.

[SPEAKER_02]: But the other thing that does stand out, there's a couple pieces that baseballamerican.com that I will recommend.

[SPEAKER_02]: Obviously, like I said, we're recording this before

[SPEAKER_02]: Otani already just obviously set the record for most times reaching base in a game period.

[SPEAKER_02]: Not world series record, not playoff record, just record, which is amazing.

[SPEAKER_02]: But I think it's also remarkable that as we sit here right now after three games, he was sitting at a one-four, one-seven-sluggy percentage.

[SPEAKER_02]: That is if he keeps that up, that would be the second best.

[SPEAKER_02]: of any player in a world series, you know, 15 or more played appearances, most bases and I say bases, that's total bases plus walks plus hit by pitch.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's already, he's got 23 after three games.

[SPEAKER_02]: Again, you'll know a little bit more, but I'm assuming I can't imagine there won't be at least be a couple of walks in tonight's game for Otani.

[SPEAKER_02]: Only two players have ever had more than 30

[SPEAKER_02]: He's on Gate 3 games, like it seems very likely, he gets one more Homer and gets some walks.

[SPEAKER_02]: He could get there.

[SPEAKER_02]: That would be, you know, one Homer and three walks and he's at 30.

[SPEAKER_02]: That would put him in the top three all time, Barry Bond's 35 and 2002 whole lot of I think it was six or seven intentional walks in that year is the record for that.

[SPEAKER_02]: Most homeruns in a row of series, he's at three, three by itself is like, okay, that's nice.

[SPEAKER_02]: There have not been many players but if he is one more, he is going to tie for fourth most in the world series.

[SPEAKER_02]: George Springer, Chase Sutley, Reggie Jackson, the only players to hit five homeruns in the world series.

[SPEAKER_02]: And if he gets to actually hit, if they don't just keep walking him, five doesn't seem outlandish at all for show you a ton to get there.

[SPEAKER_02]: And the other one that we just mentioned, Barry Bonds had seven intentional walks in that 2002 season or world series.

[SPEAKER_02]: Otani's already sitting at four.

[SPEAKER_02]: He could easily potentially get to there.

[SPEAKER_02]: And he has a 667 on base percentage.

[SPEAKER_02]: That puts him in the top 10 all time on base.

[SPEAKER_02]: Although Billy Hatcher had an 800 OBP.

[SPEAKER_02]: in 1990.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's hard to be.

[SPEAKER_02]: And he's got a 500 batting average, which puts him in top 25.

[SPEAKER_02]: Best batting average is in a world series.

[SPEAKER_02]: All of these things could change if he has a bad night.

[SPEAKER_02]: But it's worth noting, one other step I wanted to share if you go to a baseball america.com.

[SPEAKER_02]: I just love this one.

[SPEAKER_02]: I know I talk about it a lot, but

[SPEAKER_02]: If you're watching this posties, like I talked about it a little bit.

[SPEAKER_02]: We talked about that at Artot and Rieke's, you know, in Rieke's and we'll climb come into that game for the Dodgers.

[SPEAKER_02]: And neither of them had pitched, climb hadn't pitched since the regular season and Rieke has had made one of the periods in the wildcard round.

[SPEAKER_02]: Neither of these guys are like, oh, these are guys that the Dodgers trust.

[SPEAKER_02]: These were great glass and caseload emergency guys.

[SPEAKER_02]: They came in immediately throwing harder than 99.99% of all pictures who've ever thrown in the big leagues.

[SPEAKER_02]: Climb was touching 99 and Rika was touching 102.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that's the perfect summation of baseball in 2025 and why it's so hard to hit.

[SPEAKER_02]: Is that the pictures who they're like, nope, we're not going to use them unless we have to, guys, our guys who throw 99 or harder,

[SPEAKER_02]: The stat with that, there's another piece over up at baseball america.com.

[SPEAKER_02]: This postseason still could, you know, as we record this, there are at least two, and there could be as many as four games to go.

[SPEAKER_02]: Already has had more pitches thrown 95 miles an hour than any postseason in the pitch tracking era.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I could say with that, I'm sorry, anyone who believes that actually velocities were just

[SPEAKER_02]: had just, they've increased since 2008, but before that, they're actually way higher than they are now, no.

[SPEAKER_02]: I can feel comfortable saying, most ever in a postseason.

[SPEAKER_02]: we've seen it at 95 miles an hour, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, not 102.

[SPEAKER_02]: Our oldest chap in 2016 by himself means that there's more 102 miles an hour pitches in 2016, but 103 and 104.

[SPEAKER_02]: We have seen more pitches at, I would say, what we would describe as premium velocity, like the 98 plus and all that,

[SPEAKER_02]: Then we saw in the 2008, 2009, 10, 11, 12 post-seasoned all combined.

[SPEAKER_02]: 100 miles an hour, 98 miles an hour.

[SPEAKER_02]: There's more pitches at those v-loves.

[SPEAKER_02]: And by the way, the other thing with that that I find fascinating is we have seen now where you're in the era of the 93 plus mile an hour breaking balls, the sliders, the Jacob, hisorowski's and others who are throwing stuff like that.

[SPEAKER_02]: That didn't exist.

[SPEAKER_02]: You know, that did not exist just like a couple of years ago.

[SPEAKER_02]: The pitching the VLO the stuff in this postseason has been remarkable.

[SPEAKER_02]: It kind of helps explain a little bit why we have 18 out, 18 in the games, although I think you can also explain a little bit by that you got to the postseason.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, got to the extra innings and the blue jays were down to basically of their best hitters, Vlad Jr., and everyone else seemingly was out of the game, because there was no Kirk, there was a springer, there was no barger,

[SPEAKER_02]: not ideal from that standpoint.

[SPEAKER_02]: But just so much to kind of chew on digest and it's fascinating about this.

[SPEAKER_02]: We will be back next week.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think next week right now the plan is is that our fix it series will turn

[SPEAKER_02]: To the biggest project we're going to look at the Colorado Rockies.

[SPEAKER_02]: We did the national first.

[SPEAKER_02]: We know what the nationals for an office looking like maybe by the time we record this next week.

[SPEAKER_02]: We will know what the Rockies for an office going to look like, but we will have some Some fixing suggestions and kind of using that as a way to kind of point out kind of the strengths and weaknesses of the organization.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think that's the one we're going to do next.

[SPEAKER_02]: The other ones we have on the docket to do we're going to look at the pirates and we're going to look at the angels as well.

[SPEAKER_02]: So we hope you're enjoying this.

[SPEAKER_02]: If you do have thoughts or if you want to suggest another team for the fixed series, you can leave a comment or you can send us an email at podcast at Baseball America.

[SPEAKER_02]: For Jeff, I'm JJ, so long everybody.