NASHVILLE – A decade after managing his final game for the Nationals and nearly four decades after leading the Mets to their most recent World Series title, Davey Johnson once again didn’t get the congratulatory call he has long waited to receive.

Johnson was not elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame tonight for the fifth time in the last 15 years, failing to come close to the necessary 12 votes he needed from the 16-member Contemporary Eras Committee.

That group, comprised of Hall of Famers, longtime baseball executives and veteran media members, instead elected only Jim Leyland off an eight-person ballot that included former managers, umpires and executives up for consideration.

Leyland, who won a World Series title with the Marlins and won multiple division titles with the Pirates and Tigers, was named on 15 of the 16 ballots. Longtime manager Lou Piniella received 11 votes (one shy) and former National League president Bill White received 10 votes. Johnson and the four other candidates (manager Cito Gaston, executive Hank Peters, umpires Ed Montague and Joe West) on the ballot each received fewer than five votes, according to the Hall of Fame.

For the 80-year-old Johnson, this may have been a final opportunity to have his highly successful – but often underappreciated – career recognized with the ultimate honor.

Nashville has been part of the Winter Meetings’ regular rotation for some time now, having hosted the event seven times since 1983, not to mention three times in a nine-year span from 2007-15. So the cavernous Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center will be familiar territory for just about everyone who gathers there later today for the start of this year’s Winter Meetings.

That includes Mike Rizzo, who attends his fourth Nashville Winter Meetings as a member of the Nationals front office, his third as general manager. The situation this time, though, is different from those previous ones.

In December 2012 and 2015, the Nats were full-blown contenders, desperate to find a way to get over their postseason humps. So Rizzo was front-and-center each time, signing Dan Haren in 2012 and a trio of relievers (Shawn Kelley, Oliver Pérez and Yusmeiro Petit) in 2015.

Nationals managers also were the center of attention at each of those meetings, with Davey Johnson in 2012 declaring the goal was “World Series or bust” and recently hired Dusty Baker drawing a huge crowd for his media session in 2015.

What will this week have in store? Well, probably nothing like any of that. Unless Rizzo or Davey Martinez has a surprise up his sleeve.

The Nationals’ traditional end-of-spring exhibition game in D.C. is going to look different in 2024.

Instead of facing another major league club like they typically have over the years, the Nats will face a team of their own prospects, giving those players a chance to take the field at Nationals Park for the first time and fans who can’t make it to West Palm Beach a chance to see them in person for the first time.

Dubbed “On Deck: Nationals Futures Game,” the exhibition is scheduled for 12:05 p.m. on March 26, two days after the team wraps up Grapefruit League play in Florida and two days before it opens the 2024 season on the road in Cincinnati.

“We’re incredibly thankful for the continued support of our fans in D.C., and we can’t wait for them to get a look at some of the players who will make up our next championship-caliber roster,” general manager Mike Rizzo said. “Players like James Wood, Dylan Crews, Brady House and Robert Hassell have certainly received a lot of attention, and I know that once our fans have the chance to see a full lineup of the young guys in our system, there will be even more reason to be optimistic about where we’re headed.”

The team has traditionally scheduled an exhibition game at Nationals Park to bridge the gap between the end of spring training and Opening Day, knowing players need to get some at-bats and throw innings during the three-day break. Those exhibitions have almost always been scheduled against another major league club, usually an American League team that will open the season somewhere in the Northeast, like the Yankees, Red Sox or Tigers.

It's been a rather quiet offseason so far for the Nationals, who have yet to acquire a major league player. They did drop several players from last year's roster to clear up space for some prospects who needed to be protected. And they made some significant changes to both their coaching staff and their front office.

But there's still a lot to be done this winter. Perhaps things are about to pick up with the Winter Meetings beginning Sunday evening in Nashville. (For my sake, I sure hope things pick up there, or else it's going to be an awfully boring week at the Opryland Resort.)

In the meantime, let's discuss what the Nats have done, and what they might do. Submit your questions in the comments section below, then check back for my replies over the course of the morning. ...

A week’s vacation for your trusty beat writer usually guarantees something for the Nationals: News.

Countless times over the years have I gone off the grid only to find out the Nats made some kind of major transaction in my absence. So, count me genuinely shocked when I got back to town after an extended Thanksgiving break with nary a peep coming out of South Capitol Street. Don’t get me wrong, I was glad Bobby Blanco’s holiday weekend wasn’t ruined by breaking news. But I fully expected to come back with reason to share my thoughts on multiple items of interest.

Instead … well, there really isn’t anything new on the Nationals to discuss. The Winter Meetings begin Sunday in Nashville, so there will be actual news soon enough. But not yet.

Perhaps the most interesting development of the last week from the Nats’ perspective was the flurry of moves made by other clubs. Especially when it came to free agent starting pitchers.

There have already been a number of moves in that oh-so-important department, and you better believe the Nationals were paying attention and calculating how it might impact their own pursuit of pitching help this winter.

PROSPECT REVIEW: MATT CRONIN

Age on opening day 2024: 26

How acquired: Drafted in fourth round in 2019 from University of Arkansas

Ranking: NR per MLB Pipeline, No. 29 per Baseball America

MLB ETA: 2023
* Projected by MLB Pipeline

PROSPECT REVIEW: ANDREW ALVAREZ

Age on opening day 2024: 24

How acquired: Drafted in 12th round in 2021 from California Polytechnic State University

Ranking: NR per MLB Pipeline, NR per Baseball America

MLB ETA: TBD
* Projected by MLB Pipeline

PROSPECT REVIEW: ZACH BRZYKCY

Age on opening day 2024: 24

How acquired: Signed as undrafted free agent in 2020 from Virginia Tech

Ranking: No. 28 per MLB Pipeline, No. 22 per Baseball America

MLB ETA: 2024
* Projected by MLB Pipeline

PROSPECT REVIEW: MITCHELL PARKER

Age on opening day 2024: 24

How acquired: Drafted in fifth round in 2020 from San Jacinto College (Houston)

Ranking: No. 25 per MLB Pipeline, No. 30 per Baseball America

MLB ETA: 2024
* Projected by MLB Pipeline

PROSPECT REVIEW: ANDRY LARA

Age on opening day 2024: 21

How acquired: Signed as international free agent, July 2019

Ranking: No. 23 per MLB Pipeline, No. 18 per Baseball America

MLB ETA: 2025
* Projected by MLB Pipeline

The 2023 holiday season officially kicked off yesterday with Thanksgiving, but the Nationals got a head start to the season of giving earlier this week.

This week Washington Nationals Philanthropies hosted Turkeypalooza, its now sixth annual food distribution event across the D.C. area.

“Turkeypalooza is an annual event that Washington Nationals Philanthropies hosts, in partnership with BetMGM now for the second year,” said Tal Alter, CEO of Nationals Philanthropies. “We're going to distribute 900 turkeys over the next few days, which means 3,600 different meal units being presented to members of the community who are unfortunately food insecure. At this time of year, it's just incredibly important for everyone to be able to celebrate the holidays with dignity, and food is the fundamental piece of that.”

The event started on Monday in front of the BetMGM sportsbook outside Nationals Park with volunteers handing out turkeys and bags filled with shelf-stable items and fresh produce. Nats outfielder Stone Garrett was even in attendance to help out with the distribution.

“Our fans support us all season long, so to give back to the community, it means a lot,” Garrett said. “It means a lot, especially during the holiday season.”

Happy Thanksgiving, Nationals fans!

To celebrate the holiday, I’m going to take a break from my usual prospect reviews (there are only seven left!) and look back on the 2023 year for reasons the Nats and you should be thankful.

Is a 71-91 season reason to celebrate? Of course not. But the organization did make some significant strides in this crucial rebuilding year.

Let’s start with that final record. Although still 20 games under .500, it was a 16-game improvement from the dreadful 55-107 record in 2022.

While still a last-place finish, their fourth in a row since winning the 2019 World Series, many outlets had the Nats barely winning 60 games at the beginning of the season. Eclipsing 70 wins was a major step forward for the major league club, setting up higher expectations for 2024.

PROSPECT REVIEW: DJ HERZ

Age on opening day 2024: 23

How acquired: Traded with Kevin Made from Cubs for Jeimer Candelario and cash in July 2023; originally drafted in eighth round by Cubs in 2019 from Terry Sanford High School in Fayetteville, N.C.

Ranking: No. 16 per MLB Pipeline, No. 25 per Baseball America

MLB ETA: 2024
* Projected by MLB Pipeline

The Hall of Fame’s 2024 ballot was revealed Monday, with 12 new candidates joining 14 returning candidates up for this year’s election by members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.

The list includes several first-timers with compelling cases: Adrián Beltré, Chase Utley, Joe Mauer. Headlining the group of returning candidates are Todd Helton, Billy Wagner and Andruw Jones, plus some all-time greats whose chances have been marred by connections to performance enhancing drugs (Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, Gary Sheffield) or other off-the-field controversies (Carlos Beltrán, Omar Vizquel).

Here’s what the list does not include, though: Anybody with any Nationals connection.

Not that the Nats typically are well-represented in these matters. Only one person who played for them since 2005 has been elected to the Hall: Iván Rodríguez. Only a few others who made any kind of real impression in D.C. (Adam Dunn, Liván Hernández, Jayson Werth, Jonathan Papelbon, Alfonso Soriano) have appeared on a ballot, and none of those came anywhere close to getting elected.

But it’s kind of unfortunate to look at a Hall of Fame ballot some 19 years after the Nationals debuted and see nobody who wore a curly W cap included.

When gauging where the Nationals stand in their rebuilding efforts, the simplest answer is to look at their won-loss record since the process began. They went 65-97 in 2021 while starting to tear down the roster. They bottomed out at 55-107 in 2022 after trading Juan Soto. Then they started the climb back up toward contention with a 71-91 record this season, positioning themselves to take another key step forward that could have them on the fringes of contention in 2024.

And there’s nothing wrong with that approach. Sometimes, it’s important to judge a team against itself, not anybody else.

But we do have to acknowledge an important caveat here: The Nats do not exist in a vacuum. They’re one of five teams in the National League East division, one of 15 teams in the NL. Their success ultimately is dependent in many ways on how those other teams do, whether they’re trying to win the division or finish with one of the three best records in the NL among non-division winners to secure a wild card berth.

The Nationals could be better next season, a lot better, and it may not matter if enough other teams in the NL remain ahead of them in the standings.

Which makes their geographic location a bit of a hindrance to the whole rebuild process. As a member of the NL East, the Nats face some additional challenges they wouldn’t face in another division.

PROSPECT REVIEW: TRAVIS SYKORA

Age on opening day 2024: 19

How acquired: Drafted in third round in 2023 from Round Rock High School in Round Rock, Texas

Ranking: No. 11 per MLB Pipeline, No. 11 per Baseball America

MLB ETA: 2027
* Projected by MLB Pipeline

Major League Baseball, for all its warts, can stake claim to something no other major North American professional sports league can claim: Very few franchise relocations in recent times.

For five decades, in fact, there was only one MLB relocation: the Expos’ move to Washington prior to the 2005 season to become the Nationals. In spite of all of the sport’s other issues, this was a particular point of pride for baseball when comparing itself to the NFL, NBA and NHL.

And then came this week’s news of MLB owners unanimously approving the Athletics’ plan to relocate from Oakland to Las Vegas, and all of a sudden an issue that has barely been on baseball’s mind for a half-century is now the predominant story in the sport.

Baseball, of course, experienced plenty of franchise relocations prior to this long run of stability. The 1950s saw the Dodgers and Giants head west, the Braves move from Boston to Milwaukee, the St. Louis Browns become the Baltimore Orioles and the A’s transfer from Philadelphia to Kansas City. The 1960s then saw the original Senators become the Minnesota Twins, while the Braves (Milwaukee to Atlanta) and A’s (Kansas City to Oakland) relocated again. And the early 1970s saw the Seattle Pilots become the Milwaukee Brewers after only one season and the expansion Senators bolt for Texas to be rebranded as the Rangers.

But that’s ancient history at this point. Modern baseball has been defined by the stability of its franchises, and the addition of expansion teams to grow the league to an even 30 organizations. So the Oakland-to-Vegas announcement feels like a really big deal because in this sport it is a really big deal.

Baseball’s second significant roster deadline of the week comes this evening, when teams are required to tender contracts to all players on the 40-man roster who aren’t already signed for the upcoming season.

Tendering a contract doesn’t mean actually agreeing to a 2024 salary. That process can still take place over the next two months, with any cases that aren’t settled ultimately heading to arbitration. This first step merely involves a team indicating its intention to sign a player for another season.

And the vast majority of these cases are cut-and-dried. Almost everyone involved in this process will have his contract tendered by the end of the day. Anyone who doesn’t get tendered … well, that’s the real newsworthy event.

Dozens of players across the sport get “non-tendered” every year on this date. Most are arbitration-eligible and due to earn more money via standard raises than the club is willing to pay after disappointing performances, making them free agents who can then sign anywhere they like.

The Nationals used this to their advantage last winter. They not only non-tendered Luke Voit, Erick Fedde and Tommy Romero, they wound up signing two players who were non-tendered by other clubs: Jemier Candelario and Dominic Smith.

At this point 12 months ago, the Nationals had three holes to fill in their 2023 starting lineup. They needed a left fielder. They needed a third baseman. And, after choosing not to tender a contract to Luke Voit, they needed a first baseman (or designated hitter).

Mike Rizzo promptly filled all three of those holes in the form of Corey Dickerson, Jeimer Candelario and Dominic Smith, who combined made less than $10 million. One of them worked out wonderfully and was flipped at the trade deadline for a pitching prospect who could make his major league debut next season. The other two didn’t work out at all, with Dickerson injured and unproductive and out of a job by early August, and Smith offering smooth defensive work but not nearly enough offense at a traditionally offense-first position.

So as they progress into the heart of this offseason, the Nationals find themselves yet again with three lineup holes to fill. They need a left fielder. They need a third baseman. And, after choosing to designate Smith for assignment this week, they need a first baseman (or DH).

There are, to be fair, some potential in-house options at each position. Stone Garrett could be the starting left fielder, but how confident is the team in his ability to be 100 percent recovered from a gruesome broken leg by Opening Day? Carter Kieboom or Ildemaro Vargas or Jake Alu could be the third baseman, but none provides the kind of assured offense you’d think the Nats prefer at that position. And they could make Joey Meneses their regular first baseman and hope his defense is good enough, but even then, would still need to find another DH.

So, it feels like Rizzo is probably going to be looking once again to fill all three of those holes from outside the organization.

We knew there would be news Tuesday, what with the Nationals facing a late-afternoon deadline to add players to the 40-man roster and protect them from being lost in the Rule 5 draft. We didn’t know there would be quite this much news, though.

While the promotions of pitchers DJ Herz, Mitchell Parker, Cole Henry and Zach Brzykcy to the 40-man roster were newsworthy, the bigger story wound up being one of the corresponding moves made to clear spots for those prospects: Dominic Smith was designated for assignment.

This isn’t to suggest Smith was always a lock to return in 2024 after a very disappointing 2023 at the plate. But here’s what Mike Rizzo had to say when asked during the season’s final week about the roles both Smith and Jeimer Candelario played after they were signed the previous winter:

“Dom’s shown that his leadership in the infield, I think he’s made our young infielders much, much better and much more confident defensively,” Rizzo said. “And he’s starting to show some power late in the season. Those are always the type of people that you want to acquire, and guys that when you’re at this point in the rebuild, I thought was important for us to acquire.”

Smith was never supposed to be part of the long-term plan around here. But with no obvious replacement at first base waiting in the wings and based on the way both Rizzo and manager Davey Martinez talked about him at season’s end, it felt like he would be back for another year.