PLAYER REVIEW: LUIS GARCIA JR.

Age on Opening Day 2026: 25

How acquired: Signed as international free agent, July 2016

MLB service time: 4 years, 142 days

2025 salary: $4.5 million

PLAYER REVIEW: JOSH BELL

Age on Opening Day 2026: 33

How acquired: Signed as free agent, January 2025

MLB service time: 9 years, 53 days

2025 salary: $6 million

PLAYER REVIEW: KEIBERT RUIZ

Age on Opening Day 2026: 27

How acquired: Traded with Josiah Gray, Donovan Casey and Gerardo Carrillo from Dodgers for Max Scherzer and Trea Turner, July 2021

MLB service time: 4 years, 64 days

2025 salary: $6 million

PLAYER REVIEW: RILEY ADAMS

Age on Opening Day 2026: 29

How acquired: Acquired from Blue Jays for Brad Hand, July 2021

MLB service time: 3 years, 171 days

2025 salary: $850,000

PLAYER REVIEW: ROBERT HASSELL III

Age on Opening Day 2026: 24

How acquired: Traded with James Wood, CJ Abrams, MacKenzie Gore, Jarlin Susana and Luke from Padres for Juan Soto and Josh Bell, August 2022

MLB service time: 85 days

2025 salary: $760,000

PLAYER REVIEW: JACOB YOUNG

Age on Opening Day 2026: 26

How acquired: Seventh round pick, 2021 Draft

MLB service time: 2 years, 37 days

2025 salary: $768,700

PLAYER REVIEW: DAYLEN LILE

Age on Opening Day 2026: 23

How acquired: Second round pick, 2021 Draft

MLB service time: 119 days

2025 salary: $760,000

PLAYER REVIEW: DYLAN CREWS

Age on Opening Day 2026: 24

How acquired: First round pick, 2023 Draft

MLB service time: 1 year, 35 days

2025 salary: $761,800

PLAYER REVIEW: JAMES WOOD

Age on Opening Day 2026: 23

How acquired: Traded with CJ Abrams, MacKenzie Gore, Robert Hassell III, Jarlin Susana and Luke Voit from Padres for Juan Soto and Josh Bell, August 2022

MLB service time: 1 year, 91 days

2025 salary: $764,600

OK, it’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for. No, not the naming of the Nationals’ new president of baseball operations. Not the hiring of a new manager. And certainly not the signing of any core young player to a long-term extension. It’s the revisiting of our annual Opening Day predictions!

For 16 years now, my colleagues on the Nats beat have been gracious enough to join me in making all sorts of predictions about the upcoming season. And for 16 years now, we’ve all mostly been embarrassed to look back at all the predictions we got wrong, with an occasional celebration over something one of us actually got right.

The 2025 season did not play out how anyone expected, I think that’s safe to say. But within the big picture, we did come close to getting a few smaller items correct. Right or wrong, it’s not only tradition to publish these traditions on Opening Day. It’s also tradition to republish them at the end of the season, which we now present behind covered eyes and ears …

WHICH NATIONALS WILL BE SELECTED FOR THE ALL-STAR GAME?
Bobby Blanco (MASNsports.com) – MacKenzie Gore, James Wood
Jessica Camerato (MLB.com) – Luis García Jr., James Wood
Al Galdi (Nats Chat Podcast) – MacKenzie Gore, James Wood
Andrew Golden (Washington Post) – Michael Soroka, James Wood
Craig Heist (106.7 The Fan) – CJ Abrams, James Wood
Chelsea Janes (Washington Post) – Luis García Jr., MacKenzie Gore
Bill Ladson (MLB.com honorary) – MacKenzie Gore, James Wood
Tim Shovers (Nats Chat Podcast) – MacKenzie Gore
Spencer Nusbaum (Washington Post) – Luis García Jr., James Wood
Mark Zuckerman (MASNsports.com) – CJ Abrams, James Wood

Correct answer: MacKenzie Gore and James Wood each earned the first All-Star selections of their careers thanks to dominant first halves … which they could not sustain over the second half.

Welcome to the offseason, everybody. Though if you were expecting a quiet October, you're probably going to be disappointed. The Nationals should be very active during this opening month, and that began with Wednesday's introductory press conference for new president of baseball operations Paul Toboni.

There's a lot still on Toboni's plate. Will he hire a general manager to work underneath him? Will he retain the Nationals' current front office or bring in new people from outside the organization? What will the managerial search look like, and when will it be resolved? Who will be on the eventual manager's coaching staff? Oh yeah, and then: What about the roster?

We'll be here to chronicle it every step of the way. But before we hit the ground running, let's take this opportunity today to answer your questions about the state of the Nats and what's still to come. As always, enter your submissions in the comments section below, then check back for my responses over the course of the morning ...

Paul Toboni liked his situation in Boston. He was a rising star within the Red Sox organization, a strong candidate to be named general manager and work directly underneath chief baseball officer Craig Breslow for a storied franchise currently in the postseason that already owns four World Series trophies secured over the last two decades.

When the Nationals came calling, Toboni was intrigued enough to take the interview. But he was still unsure if he wanted to uproot his young family and take over a Washington franchise that just completed its sixth straight losing season since winning its one and only World Series title.

It was during his repeated conversations with members of the Lerner family that Toboni made up his mind. He knew plenty about the Nationals. He knew very little about their owners. Once he did, the 35-year-old executive came away firmly believing they were ready to commit to his vision, which convinced him he was ready to commit to theirs.

“We were going to hold a pretty high bar if we were going to leave the Boston Red Sox organization,” he said. “And this cleared it because of that: Ownership’s love of baseball, and how competitive they are. And really, how great of people they are. That’s what I really bought into, which made my wife and I think this was the jump we were going to make.”

Thus did Toboni find himself sitting at a dais in the Nationals Park press conference room this morning, surrounded by three of the club’s principal owners (Mark Lerner, Edward Cohen and Robert Tanenbaum), his wife Danielle and their four very young boys (ages 1-6) seated in the front row watching the Nats’ new president of baseball operations introduce himself to the world.

News broke exactly one week ago that the Nationals had selected Paul Toboni as their new president of baseball operations, the 35-year-old assistant general manager of the Red Sox beating out a fairly deep field of candidates to replace Mike Rizzo on a permanent basis.

This morning, we’ll finally get the official announcement from the team about the hiring, and we’ll finally hear from Toboni (and, presumably, Nats ownership) about this incredibly important change for an organization that had (for better or worse) become a model of stability over time.

The team has scheduled a 9 a.m. press conference at Nationals Park to introduce Toboni. You can watch it live on MASN and right here on this website (with proper TV provider authentication).

We know a little bit about Toboni. He played baseball at Cal-Berkeley and got an MBA from Notre Dame. He began working for the Red Sox as an intern in 2015 and spent the last decade climbing up the organizational ladder through their scouting department before becoming an assistant GM two years ago. He is well-regarded around baseball, has a background in both scouting and analytics and has a reputation as an excellent communicator.

But we have no idea yet what Toboni thinks about the Nationals, what sold him on this job and what his plans are now that he’s officially taking the reins.

Daylen Lile’s red-hot finish to the season earned him a pair of impressive honors: National League Player of the Month and NL Rookie of the Month.

Those joint awards were announced this morning by Major League Baseball, which handed out all of the sport’s monthly honors for September and declared a double-winner for the Nationals.

Lile closed out his rookie season on an absolute tear, batting .391 with three doubles, seven triples, six homers, 19 RBIs and a 1.212 OPS. The 22-year-old outfielder led the majors in slugging percentage (.772), hits (36), triples (seven) and total bases (71). His seven triples were the most in a single month in franchise history, and he was the first major leaguer with at least seven triples and six homers in a calendar month since Willie Mays in 1957.

Lile is the first Nationals player to win NL Player of the Month honors since Kyle Schwarber in June 2021. Prior to Schwarber, the last National to win the honor was Ryan Zimmerman in April 2017.

Because he won Player of the Month, Lile was a shoo-in for Rookie of the Month as well. The question now is how he’ll finish in voting for NL Rookie of the Year.

The Nationals entered 2025 with visions of winning for the first time in six years. Or, at minimum, showing significant improvement in their won-loss record and coming as close to actually winning as they had since hoisting the World Series trophy in October 2019.

That, of course, never came to be. Not even close. The 2025 Nats regressed, finishing 66-96, five games worse than each of the previous two seasons. And their fate was sealed during an abysmal stretch from early-June through mid-July when they went 8-26, lost 11 in a row at one point and ultimately fired both general manager Mike Rizzo and Davey Martinez.

Now, with that ultra-disappointing season behind them, with a new president of baseball operations set to be introduced Wednesday morning and a new manager likely to be named in the coming weeks, it’s natural to start wondering about the answer to an age-old question: Will this team be ready to win at last in 2026?

Within the clubhouse over the weekend, the answer was resoundingly in the affirmative.

“Yeah, no doubt,” outfielder Dylan Crews said. “Every single guy here has tools and has desire to win and to go out there and produce and just have that winning mentality. Obviously, we’re young. … We’ve got some things we need to work on. But I definitely look at these guys and think that we’re a winning-caliber team.”

Was 2025 the most disappointing season in Nationals history? There’s a compelling argument it was.

Though four previous versions of this club (2008, 2009, 2021, 2022) produced worse records, this current group’s final mark of 66-96 might have been tougher to accept because there was genuine optimism entering this season, both from inside and outside the organization.

To see it all come crashing down in such spectacular fashion, with the final three months serving as a prolonged lame duck stretch after the July 6 firings of longtime general manager Mike Rizzo and manager Davey Martinez, was a bitter pill to swallow.

“It’s always tough when you go through a lot of adversity. There was a lot this year,” said Miguel Cairo, who began the year as bench coach and ended it as interim manager. “But they fought through it, they played hard and they’re fighting to the end.”

The Nationals did play better in September than they did in any of the previous three months, going 13-13 down the stretch and playing a major role in keeping the star-studded Mets from reaching October. But their brand of baseball remained unappealing throughout the majority of the 162-game marathon.

Few individual baseball games carry the kind of emotions that come with Game 162. For those involving teams still fighting for the chance to play in October, it’s the ultimate blood-pressure test. For everyone else, it’s the ultimate feel-good day, a chance to chase some personal milestones and say goodbye to those who aren’t returning the following spring.

For the Nationals, Game 162 this afternoon fell squarely in the latter category. They had nothing to play for. Neither did the White Sox.

That didn’t mean there wasn’t still plenty of emotion inside Nationals Park, where a crowd of 22,473 honored the retiring Bob Carpenter and Michael A. Taylor while interim manager Miguel Cairo and his coaching staff worked through what was likely their final game in their current positions.

Throw in the brief scare of a perfect game being thrown by Chicago starter Shane Smith, and there was plenty to care about in an otherwise insignificant game.

The Nationals avoided that ignominy, but barely did so. They managed one baserunner in nine innings during an 8-0 shutout loss to wrap up a 66-96 season that represented a five-game drop-off from back-to-back 71-win seasons in 2023 and 2024.

Miguel Cairo said he has not yet been told anything about his future with the Nationals, leaving the interim manager to guide his team through one more game this afternoon and then wait to learn his fate from a new front office that is about to take over.

“Today, I’ve got a game to manage, and I’m going to do my best to get a W. And tomorrow, we don’t know,” he said in advance of the season finale against the White Sox. “Whatever is coming next, we’re not in control. There’s only one in control, and that’s the man upstairs.”

Cairo took over for good friend Davey Martinez when the latter was fired July 6, reluctant to accept the job until Martinez gave him his blessing. He enters today’s finale with a 29-42 record after Martinez went 37-53, with a chance to secure a winning September if the Nats are victorious today.

The 51-year-old slowly began managing in his own style over the season’s final three months, making lineup and bullpen decisions that likely differed from what Martinez would have done. He also made sure his position players took full infield and outfield defense prior to batting practice every day, though the Nationals continued to rank among the majors’ worst defensive units regardless of the amount of work they put in.

With Paul Toboni set to be officially announced as the organization’s new president of baseball operations this week, Cairo and his entire coaching staff should learn their fates relatively soon. The expectation is that Toboni will hire a new manager, who in turn will hire a new coaching staff. But until told otherwise, Cairo remains a candidate.

For the last time in 2025, hello from Nationals Park. It hasn’t been a season to remember for the home team, which enters this finale with a 66-95 record (third-worst in the majors). But we know major change is on the way, and hopefully better days to come in 2026.

What’s at stake in Game 162? Nothing, really, from a team standpoint. On an individual level, James Wood looks to continue his great final week (while also hoping to avoid five strikeouts to tie Mark Reynolds’ major league record of 223). Daylen Lile looks for one more triple to break Denard Span’s single-season club record of 11, and to bolster his Rookie of the Year case. CJ Abrams seeks his 20th homer to go with 31 stolen bases.

On the mound, Brad Lord looks to cap a really impressive rookie season in style. The right-hander enters with a 4.12 ERA and has an outside shot at getting that number under 4.00 if he tosses five or more innings of scoreless ball. Jose A. Ferrer won’t be pitching today after appearing each of the last two nights. So if there’s one final save opportunity this season, someone out of the ordinary is going to get the opportunity to convert it.

And, of course, this is Bob Carpenter’s final game behind the mic. No matter the score, the ninth inning will be must-watch TV on MASN2.

CHICAGO WHITE SOX at WASHINGTON NATIONALS
Where: Nationals Park
Gametime: 3:05 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN2, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, 87.7 FM (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Partly cloudy, 81 degrees, wind 5 mph in from left field

The Nationals knew they needed to hit for considerably more power in 2025 to enjoy better results than they experienced in 2024. And they did manage to do it. It just took longer than expected. And still wasn’t enough in the end to produce a better won-loss record.

This final week of a difficult season, though, has shown what a difference legitimate power up and down a lineup can make. With three more blasts today during a 6-5 victory over the White Sox, the Nats have now launched 12 home runs over their last three games, bringing their season total up to 161, a 26-homer increase from a year ago.

They still rank in the bottom third of the majors, and there’s plenty of room for continued improvement in 2026. But as they look ahead, this unquestionably is a lineup capable of hitting for power with far more regularity than several previous versions were.

"Heck, yeah," said interim manager Miguel Cairo, who is still waiting to learn his fate. "It's nice to see these guys, the work they've put in every single day, and still doing it at the end of the season. It tells you what they are, and what they're going to be about. It's going to be nice to see them next year, because it's going to be a force."

Today’s blasts included yet another big hit by rookie Daylen Lile, the hottest hitter on the team and one of the hottest hitters in the sport right now. And then it included back-to-back blasts by one guy not known for power (Jacob Young) and one guy very much known for power (James Wood), flipping the game for the home team in the bottom of the seventh.