Let’s mine the news for some Nationals content from this past week
There were no blockbuster moves made by the Nationals this past week, but there were a couple interesting news items I wanted to discuss. With the holiday season, the MLB offseason has slowed to a crawl this week. However, there was still some movement and fun things to take a look at.
The most noteworthy piece of Nats news this week was the signing of Matt Mervis to a Minor League deal. Mervis is a slugging first baseman who has shown promise in the minors but has not put it together in the MLB yet. He is also a DC native who went to high school at Georgetown Prep.
Mervis is getting a minor league deal with a spring training invite. The Nats have also brought in Warming Bernabel, so there could be a bit of a camp battle at the first base position. Hopefully the Nats also bring in a veteran like Rhys Hoskins because a Matt Mervis/Warming Bernabel first base platoon is not great.
In 78 MLB games, Mervis is a .165 career big league hitter with a .560 OPS, so not pretty. Mervis hit 7 home runs last April and posted an .848 OPS for the month, so maybe he can recapture that form. However, he went 5/45 in May and was DFA’d by the Marlins. He spent the rest of the year in the D-Backs system.
Even if he does not make the team, the 27 year old Mervis is a solid depth piece. He has 101 career minor league homers and a career .872 OPS. The Nats need more organizational depth and Mervis provides that. If he performs well in AAA, he should get a shot at some point this season.
The next piece of news is related to jersey numbers. A few Nats players changed their numbers this past week. Daylen Lile, Brady House, Brad Lord and Jackson Rutledge will all have new numbers in 2026.
The most interesting one for me is Lile, who went from 51 to 4. Notably, Davey Martinez wore number 4 during his time as manager. Brady House going to 12 is also a fun one. All of these guys are young players who have finally established themselves as big leaguers.
On a side note, I am somewhat interested to see how Jackson Rutledge performs this year. He is someone who might benefit from the new coaching staff. His slider is a really good pitch that got very good results last year. I have a feeling he will be throwing it more than 25.8% of the time in 2026.
Lastly, the Nationals officially finalized their coaching staff last week. Most of these names are not new, but there is one coach we have not talked about yet. It is also fun to see the staff become official.
The new name I hinted at is Shawn O’Malley. He will be one of two assistant hitting coaches, with the other being Andrew Aydt. O’Malley is a former player, who actually spent some time in the MLB. He was the Mariners AAA hitting coach this past year, where he was the 2025 minor league coach of the year for the organization.
His work this past year with new Nationals catcher Harry Ford impresses me. In 2024, Ford struggled to show much power in AA. However, he turned things around at a higher level in 2025. He hit 7 homers in 430 at bats in 2024 but exploded in 2025, hitting 16 in 374 at bats.
The Nats coaching staff is now set and it is an exciting one. Sure, there is a lot of youth and not a ton of experience. However, the Nats desperately needed new ideas and they will get them from this staff.
I am very excited to see which players show major improvement this upcoming season. There is going to be a player who comes out of nowhere to become productive with this new staff, the question is who will it be. It was not the most eventful week in Nats news, but there was still some stuff to talk about and break down.
Category: General Sports
