Sauced Gardner

It’ll be interesting to see how their respective careers play out after this trade. Sort of a Ford vs. Ferreri situation, if you will.

Co-sign!

Butera is even younger than I realized.

The HBP call actually hurt the Mariners because it set up the double play. If they get the call right, maybe Robles comes back and lays the bunt down! Really makes you think.

It’s all setting up nicely for a Robles walk off.

I know the Os are saying all the right things about Adley Rutschman, but I’m at least picking up the phone and giving them a call. We’ve got like 19 talented, controllable outfielders we can ship up 495.

Stone Garrett has announced he’s retiring from baseball. Easily the most jacked player in Nats history and no one can ever take that away from him.

Weiriddell Yankovic

Crews in center, Lile and Wood in the corners should be the everyday OF next season. Good with either Hassell or JY as the bench OFer.

James Wood has a legitimate chance to break the single-season strikeout record. Sitting at 198 with 17 games to play. The record is 223. Gonna be tight!

Gore goes to the IL and Susana leaves his start with what appears to be a serious injury. There’s almost never a good day when you root for this team.

Nats are widely expected to trade one of their young outfielders this season. But all three starting OF in Rochester are hitting well and with power (51 combined HR). I think a strong case could be made to trade 2 or even 3. I’d be fine moving Hassell and Young if you can get decent value.

Fangraphs has Drew Millas tied for 5th in WAR among Nats position players. He has played in 17 games. His WRC+ of 130 is the highest on the team. Riley Adams has been good lately, but Millas deserves more of a look than he’s getting.

I absolutely love Roth and his writing, but the number of Mets fans complaining about a guy who is going to put up a 5 WAR season in a “down” year is staggering. We’re having to dream on the upside of Brad Lord over here.

We don’t talk enough about how hard Riley Adams swings. He swings really effin hard!

And in his first professional game at age 17 he goes 3-4 with a walk.

Since being traded to Detroit, Kyle Finnegan has pitched 8.2 innings over 8 appearances. In those 8 games he’s given up just 2 hits, 0 runs, walked 1, and struck out 11.

OH HELL YEAH

Say what you will about Joey Meneses, he didn’t cost us Robert Garcia and ten million dollars.

Well that settles it, Cade Cavalli is the best pitcher in baseball.

The primary reason I wanted Josh Bell traded is to see Nick Schnell get some run at DH down the stretch. The man is slugging .636 over his first 50 games in AAA.

A quick Alex Call story — one more for the road — after the Nationals traded him to the Dodgers earlier: In 2023, in my final months on the beat, I wanted to write about how Call kept ripping sharp grounders straight at third base coach Gary DiSarcina.

Two top 20 prospects from Dodgers system for a former waiver claim.

Randall was a 3rd round pick in ‘24 who has pitched as both a starter and reliever. Results so far in A ball have been so-so but seems to have 2 quality pitches in his sinking fastball and slider. Sales was a late draft pick without much pedigree out of UNCW, but has been effective in low A so far.

Young lottery ticket with upside and a guy who has hit fairly well in AAA this year. Not bad for a half season of Soroka.

This is extremely good, and would be worth the (free) price of admission just to relive the Nyjer Morgan glove spike. Highly recommend this newsletter to all four of my followers.

Mike Rizzo’s greatest strength was making trades. If DeBartolo can have similar success wheeling and dealing while modernizing the team’s approach to drafting and development, well that would be neat. Getting two guys with some upside for Amed Rosario is a good start.

The K rate is still sky high but the power is real. He’s only played a handful of games at first base in the minors but wouldn’t mind him getting a look there at some point.

Galaxy brained idea: trade Tyreek Hill for Terry McLaurin and give him the big extension the Commanders won’t. They pair an elite WR with Jayden Daniels for a Super Bowl chase, we replace a bad culture guy with a fantastic one. As he ages out of his prime, TM can serve as Robin to Waddle’s Batman.

Boz not messing around “The Lerner family either should run the Washington Nationals properly or sell the team.” www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2025/...

Should it become an era, this is a good start to the Mike DeBartolo era IMO. Potentially all around stud, potential big time power bat, potential front line starter.

YES YES YES YES YES

Willits hive rise up

In addition to all the other witnesses, the man’s own son confirmed that his father molested him. This is a WILD hill to die on.

My preference for tonight (not what I think the Nats will do) is: 1: Willits 2: Holliday 3: Anderson Won’t be mad about any pick, and hopefully the industry consensus is wrong about Anderson’s ceiling since that seems to be where they are leaning.

Yoyo Morales has 4 home runs in his last 10 games and an OPS of .997 in July. Would love for them to give him a look at 1B in the majors if they move Lowe at the deadline.

Crews was heating up before he got hurt. His second half may be a major determinant of how the new front office moves forward with this team. If he looks like a serious foundational piece, the rebuild could be salvageable. If not… maybe they blow it up and start over, starting with a trade of Gore.

I am a Daylen Lile believer. He makes hard contact consistently and hits the ball in the air to the pull side. I think he’s the long-term answer in right and we should move some of our outfield excess if we can find value.

Good stuff here from @christhompson.bsky.social

Great reporting here. If you need one chart to explain why Rizzo was let go, it’s this one. And while part of the story is that they haven’t drafted many bats early… why aren’t you drafting more bats early?

Huge day for the large community of AARP-employee-Nationals-fans here on Bluesky!

In the week since I posted this, Lowe has hit a double and four home runs in 24 ABs.

Riley Adams swings harder than almost any player in baseball, and whiffs more than almost any player in baseball. It’s easier said than done of course but would be well worth it for him to sacrifice a little swing speed for a little more contact.

It’s gotten kind of lost because of the more glaring struggles of Bell and Ruiz, but the Nats one big offseason acquisition was Nathanial Lowe, and other than some timely RBIs, he has been dogshit.

Another completely dominating performance for Travis Sykora in A+ ball. It’s time to get him to Harrisburg and see how close he really is to being big league ready.

This is the best piece that will ever be written about our show! Thanks @dianamoskovitz.bsky.social! defector.com/there-will-n...

Bobby Barrels is all of us watching a James Wood home run.