Last Updated on November 3, 2025 2:20 pm by Paul Williamson | Published: November 3, 2025

With hopes of a playoff push only permeating the minds of the most optimistic Nationals fan, the purpose of the season focused instead on building up the youth movement with the support of high-upside hitters like James Wood and Dylan Crews – the presumptive favorite for NL Rookie of the Year honors entering Spring Training. In the end, the results were decidedly mixed. On one hand, Wood busted out in a major way, proving his ability to be the face of a franchise that has sorely lacked such a leader since the departure of Juan Soto. On the other, Crews struggled mightily in his debut – though we’ll dig into whether the lackluster performance is a concern going forward or if it can simply be brushed off as a classic adjustment period.

On the pitching front, there was very little to hang your hat on when it came to establishing building blocks in the rotation – though the expectations were significantly lower due to the lack of pedigree and upside in options such as Jake Irvin (33 GS), Mitchell Parker (30 GS), Brad Lord (19 GS), and Trevor Williams (17 GS). The only player to break that mold while still cracking the top-5 in games started for Washington was MacKenzie Gore (30 GS) but he followed up a semi-breakout 2024 season with a slight step back of his own.

Overall, there are some small glimpses of hope on the horizon but GM Mike Debartolo still has a fair bit of work ahead of him to bring this team back into the playoff picture.

Catcher

Catcher progression is rarely linear, but for a former top prospect like Keibert Ruiz we’ve now reached the stage in his career where it feels safe to consider him a bust at the major league level. He’s not a particularly adept defensive stalwart behind the plate so it was always going to be his bat that needed to carry him. However, the 27-year-old now carries a career batting line of just .248/.293/.372 to go with a well-below average wRC+ of 83 and little power to make up for the other deficiencies, as he’s cleared the fence only 44 times in six seasons (474 games). If you’re looking for a reason to defend him, you could point to his .749 OPS through the month of April but that represents his best month of the season by a fair margin, as he hit a moribund .211 with a .487 OPS from that point forward. Of course, it’s worth noting that Ruiz missed the entirety of the back half of the season after unfortunately being struck in the head by a foul ball while he was in the dugout during a game in late June. Concussion injuries are particularly worrisome at a position like catcher, so here’s hoping he can return to full health.

With Ruiz recovering, it was Riley Adams that stepped into the starting catcher role. Though he was slightly more sound defensively than Ruiz was, he performed even worse at the plate, hitting .186/.252/.308 with eight home runs in 83 games while striking out at borderline unplayable levels (38.5%). If Ruiz is able to avoid any setbacks and return for the start of the 2026 season, he should comfortably return to the starting role but even if he doesn’t, Adams is far from consideration in fantasy circles.

First Base

Joining the Nationals in his age-29 season, Nathaniel Lowe obviously didn’t line up with the team’s (hopeful) championship timeline but he made sense as veteran gamble, with the hope of flipping him to a contending team for a quality return if he was able to perform to similar levels as years past. But while he maintained his usual high-teens home run totals, hitting 18 long balls and matching the second-highest mark of his career, he saw his strikeout rate jump exactly four percentage points, up to 26.1 percent. That produced his lowest average in any season (min. 25 GP), as well as the first time his wRC+ slipped below 109, coming in nine percent worse than league average (91). In the end, that caused Washington to cut bait with the veteran in mid-August, designating him for assignment. He was quickly snapped up by the Red Sox as they attempted to fill the hole created by Triston Casas’ season-ending injury, where he rebounded significantly, putting forth a .280 average and .790 OPS across 119 plate appearances for Boston. He was able to raise his hard-hit rate by several percent in Beantown but his barrel rate fell even further, so there are some mixed signals on what to expect out of him next season.

With Lowe leaving town, it was Josh Bell who got most of the first base starts after previously manning the DH position the majority of the time. Though he is lacking defensively, even for first base, Bell held his own at the plate – which is all that really matters for fantasy managers in this scenario. A .237 average certainly doesn’t stand out but Bell managed to turn back the clock to the days where his plate discipline was an asset, raising his walk-rate 2.2% from 2024’s mark, while also shaving off 3.4% from his strikeout rate. Combining that with a huge jump in hard-hit rate (39.7% to 47.0% in 2025) led to some impressive expected stats that far outpaced his actual numbers;

His career-highs  (37 HR!) set during the juiced ball 2019 season will undoubtedly remain the high watermarks for him through the remainder of his career, but it wouldn’t be a huge shock to me if Bell is able to find his way into the top-12 first basemen next year.

Second Base

The second base position is always a difficult one to feel comfortable with when filling out your fantasy lineup and it seems to be thinner than ever. Even still, it had been hard for me to buy into Luis Garcia Jr., even though he probably cracks the top-10 – at least in non-OBP leagues. With a reasonable power-speed combo, and still just 25-years-old, you could squint and see some semblance of upside, but even after 2024’s strong showing (.762 OPS / 18 HR / 22 SB) I still wasn’t a believer. By the end of 2025, I felt like I was justified in holding that opinion based on his surface stats all falling back to their previous levels, coming in with a .252 average and .701 OPS, but digging in a little deeper, it seems Garcia Jr. had almost as unlucky a season as Josh Bell did at the plate. Simply focusing on his batted ball metrics, Garcia Jr. has actually shown significant and steady growth over the past several seasons;

I think the 2026 draft season may actually prove to be the perfect time to buy low on him and I may even go one step further and make the bold prediction that Garcia Jr. will perform well enough to find himself ranked among the top-5 second basemen.

Another former top prospect in the Nationals offenses – though much further in the past than the others, Amed Rosario soaked up the backup role at the keystone before being traded to the Yankees at the deadline. Across 63 games for both organizations, he slashed a steady .276/.309/.436 but remains outside fantasy considerations, except in the case of a temporary injury fill in, as he offers little in the way of power or speed statistics.

Third Base

Though much more of a raw work-in-progress than the other high draft picks in the Nationals’ lineup, Brady House‘s 2025 season can’t be classified as anything other than a major disappointment. Billed as a prospect with 65-grade raw power but hampered by a 35-grade hit tool (per FanGraphs), some low-average, high-power streaks were to be expected but he didn’t even manage to fulfill that promise, tallying four long bombs in 73 games played while pairing that figure with a .234 average. Only 22 years old when next season kicks off, there is still hope for House but it’s clear he’s incredibly overmatched at the moment. As he grows further into his body and gets additional experience against major league pitching, it could lead to him reaching 15 home runs next year if all goes well – but I think it’s equally likely that he’s forced to spend a chunk of time back at Triple-A to get his head right if he comes out of the gate equally cold at the plate.

Knowing that House was a difficult player to project entering 2025, Washington tabbed Paul DeJong as his veteran backup. Coming off a 24 home run season where he hit .227, DeJong was expected to perform somewhat similarly to what was hoped of House, but he too fell flat on his face with six home runs and a .228 average. The Nationals could look to bring him back on another one-year contract but would be better off looking elsewhere if you ask me. Same thing goes for fantasy as well. You may be able to ride one of his patented two-week hot streaks if timed correctly – but good luck predicting when that will occur.

Shortstop

Finally, a strong performance to discuss.

Though last season ended infamously for CJ Abrams after he was demoted to Triple-A by the team for being caught at a casino into the early morning of the team’s gameday, he returned in 2025 with the first 3 WAR performance of his career. That performance was backed mostly by an improvement with his defense, though he maintained his strong showing from 2024 at the plate with nearly identical numbers;

Though we may have hoped for an additional level of breakout from the former All-Star shortstop, a 20-30 campaign being your baseline is nothing to sneeze at. 

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Jeff Clowers

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