Welcome to Snyder’s Soapbox! Here, I pontificate about matters related to Major League Baseball on a weekly basis. Some of the topics will be pressing matters, some might seem insignificant in the grand scheme of things, and most will be somewhere in between. The good thing about this website is that it’s free, and you are allowed to click away. If you stay, you’ll get smarter, though. That’s a money-back guarantee. Let’s get to it.
Last month, Nationals star James Wood hit a home run off the Padres and the Nationals’ social media person posted it with “FLEECE EM.”
For anyone confused, “fleece” is generally used in sports terms when a team greatly wins a trade against another. Wood was drafted by the Padres, originally, and came over to the Nationals in the first Juan Soto trade.
That trade in full is most certainly a fleecing right now, given that the Padres traded Soto about a year and a half later and didn’t reach the World Series with him.
As a reminder:
Padres got: Soto, Josh Bell
Nationals got: Wood, MacKenzie Gore, CJ Abrams, Robert Hassell III and Luke Voit.
Wood looks like a superstar who the Nats will surely (hopefully?) try to lock up long term at some point. Abrams is an All-Star. Gore will likely be an All-Star this season.
It’s the type of package a team can build around and that’s what brings me to the point of today’s Soapbox.
How much longer is this rebuild gonna take?
If you’re gonna puff out your virtual chest and peacock around about winning a trade, shouldn’t the rebuild be about done by now? To be clear, I’m not necessarily saying the social media person did something wrong. Mike Rizzo didn’t send that tweet. They are just doing their job in service of the fan base. I just don’t feel like if I were a fan I’d be in a place, in 2025, where I’m going nuts about winning a trade from three years ago.
The Nationals won the World Series in 2019. They weren’t good in 2020. They traded Trea Turner and Max Scherzer in 2021, followed by Juan Soto in 2022. They weren’t good in 2023. Or 2024. They aren’t now.
Look at the lack of progress here.
2021: 65-97
2022: 55-107
2023: 71-91
2024: 71-91
2025: On pace to go 68-94
And thank goodness the Nats fleeced the Padres on that Soto trade, because other than Wood, Abrams and Gore, who else is a sure-fire, long-term piece here?
- Catcher Keibert Ruiz is now in his fourth year with the Nats. He’s hitting .247/.278/.320 (71 OPS+) with 0.1 WAR in 66 games. He had a 74 OPS+ and 0.6 WAR in 127 games last year. He’s cheaply under team control through 2032.
- Second baseman Luis García Jr. slashed .282/.318/.444 (115 OPS+) with 18 homers, 22 steals and 2.2 WAR last season. He’s 25 now and isn’t having as good a season as he did in 2024. He’ll hit arbitration this coming winter.
- Outfielder Dylan Crews was the second overall pick in the 2023 draft. Through 76 MLB games in his young career, he’s hit .206/.275/.354 with 74 strikeouts in 277 at-bats. Some of the skills have been flashed and it’s far too early to give up on him. He could well still become a star. But is he a sure thing?
- Starter Josiah Gray is rehabbing from Tommy John surgery. He’s 27 and team controlled only through 2027. In 2023, he had a 3.91 ERA, 1.46 WHIP and 143 strikeouts in 159 innings, good for 3.1 WAR.
All four could be key contributors to future Nationals success, but it’s possible to argue that fewer than four here will be part of the next Nationals contender. Who else could be? Mitchell Parker and Jacob Young? Maybe. Nathaniel Lowe? Eh. Jake Irvin? Alex Call? José Tena? I don’t know, man. You can’t really count on prospects or relievers, meaning it’s slim pickings past the Soto trade return.
Further, did you know Gore is only two arbitration years away from free agency (same as García and Gray)? Abrams is three away. When you win a deal this convincingly, it sure seems like the turnaround season should be … now. Right? To already be faced with the concern of locking up Gore and/or Abrams long term, think about trading them or face losing them to free agency within the next few years when the team isn’t even competitive yet is not how a rebuild is supposed to go.
So, sure, strut around bragging about how your team fleeced the Padres while trading Juan Freaking Soto, but, I ask again, how much longer is this Nationals rebuild supposed to take?