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I’ve given the Nationals a lot of leeway this decade because the pandemic stole from them what should have been a profitable season. A defending champion having attendance of 0 the next year is unprecedented. It was a brutal blow both immediately to their coffers and in the long term to developing fan affinity. No team lost more to the pandemic than the Nationals did. It crushed their 2020 and 2021 and, coupled with the disastrous Stephen Strasburg contract, led to a rebuild that may never have happened otherwise.
It’s 2026 now, and that can’t be the excuse any longer. The Nationals, frankly, quit trying to be competitive after that 2021 season. Since then, they signed one free agent, Trevor Williams, to a multi-year contract. They have not made a free-agent commitment of more than $15 million to anyone. They have acquired one player in trade making $10 million (Nathaniel Lowe, $10.3M). Even as their roster came to be filled with the players acquired in trades of Scherzer, Turner, and Juan Soto, acquisitions who generated wins while making no money, the Nationals didn’t take advantage of that to put good players making real salaries around them.
