Clearing the decks for the 2026–27 offseason

Every year, teams must make decisions about players on their 40-man roster. The team may decide to non-tender a contract to an arbitration-eligible player, making the player a free agent. Other players may be designated for assignment to free up space on the roster for younger prospects who need to be protected from the Rule 5 draft or for free agents to be signed. It’s a regular part of the roster reconstruction that takes place each offseason.

This season is a bit unusual in that the Nationals ended the season without any free agents coming off their contracts to help free up space on the roster. (Zack Littell, Miles Mikolas, and Trevor Williams were all released in August, and their roster slots were used for other players.) Also, they closed the season with five players on the 60-day injured list. Those players have to go back on the 40-man roster five days after the end of the World Series (that is, between November 1 and 5), meaning that the team will have to cut five players to get the roster back down to 40 players. In addition, players need to be protected for Rule 5 draft by November 17; the deadline for tendering a contract to arbitration-eligible players is November 20; and it is expected that the free agent market will be much more active than usual in November as teams try to beat the expiration of the collective bargaining agreement on December 1. Between making roster space for players returning from the 60-day injured list, protecting prospects from the Rule 5 draft, and providing space for free agents, I expect the Nats will need to non-tender or designate for assignment between 11 to 14 players by the end of November. In this post, I will try to identify which players are most at risk of being cut from the roster in the next seven weeks.

First, let’s mention a couple of major prospects who are expected to arrive during the 2027 season and impact the Nats’ active roster. Infielder Seaver King had a monster season split across Double-A Harrisburg and Triple-A Syracuse, posting a .303/.382/.516 slash line with 21 home runs, 74 RBI, and 15 stolen bases in 112 games while being named the Washington Nationals’ prospect of the year by MLB Pipeline. It’s possible that he starts the season in the Nationals lineup (playing either second base or shortstop, depending on whether the team pushes ahead with transitioning Abrams to second base). If he’s deemed not ready for opening day, he’s still expected to be called up fairly early in the season. They won’t have to add him to their 40-man roster until he’s ready to come up, so I won’t discuss making space for him. The Nats’ other top MLB-ready prospect is pitcher Jarlin Susana, who is still expected to make the majors as a starting pitcher. He lost most of his 2026 minor league season to recovery from surgery to repair a torn lat muscle, recording just 20⅓ innings, but he turned heads during the Triple-A championship game with his 104.0 mph fastball. He is currently pitching in the Arizona Fall League and is expected to be ready for the majors in mid-season 2027. He’s one of several players who need to be added to the 40-man roster next month before the Rule 5 draft.

Roster needs for this off season

Next, let look at the three buckets that will squeeze the 40-man roster and ultimately require the Nationals to cut 11 to 14 players. Five roster spots come from the necessity of moving the men currently on the 60-day injured list—Drew Millas, Mitchell Parker, PJ Poulin, Ken Waldichuck, and Matt Waldron—back onto the 40-man roster by early November. Some of these players could be cut themselves; I’ll discuss them after I’ve identified the likeliest candidates for being cut. I’ll also note that Parker and Waldichuk, if they are retained by the team, will need to start next season on the 60-day injured list as they recover from Tommy John surgeries that took place during this season.

The second bucket is making space for minor league players who need to be protected from the Rule 5 draft. I’d put the Nats’ top minor league projects who will be eligible for the draft this year in two categories:

• Must protect: Jarlin Susana (RHP), Travis Sykora (RHP), and Alejandro Rosario (RHP).
• Should consider protecting: Cayden Wallace (INF), Eriq Swan (RHP), Kendeglys Virguez (P), and Yeremy Cabrera (OF).

Susana and Sykora are Top 100 prospects according to both Baseball America and MLB Pipeline. We’ve already talked about Susana and his high-octane stuff. In August, Sykora had to undergo Tommy John surgery, which set back his expected arrival time to 2028. Rosario, who was one of the returns in the MacKenzie Gore trade, is a bit unusual in that he last pitched two seasons ago in Single-A and High-A before suffering a torn UCL during spring training in 2025. For somewhat obscure reasons he delayed Tommy John surgery until early this year, which means he may need to start the 2027 season on the 60-day injured list. However, I think that actually makes him a more attractive candidate to be selected by a rebuilding team in the Rule 5 draft if left unprotected, as the drafting team could keep him on the injured list for the first half of the season, give him several minor league rehab assignments, and then only need to keep him on the major league roster for 90 days to be able to retain him. His most recent season, 2024, was so good that he was ranked as a Top 50 prospect going into the 2025 season, though the subsequent time off has caused him to slip in the rankings (he’s ranked as the Nats’ #15 prospect by Baseball America and #19 by MLB Pipeline). I would definitely protect Rosario.

After a disappointing 2025 minor league season, the Nats left Wallace unprotected a year ago, and he slipped off most of the top prospect lists. But this year he had a breakout season in Double-A and Triple-A, combining for a .300/.353/.543 slash line with 29 home runs, 94 RBI, and 20 stolen bases in 132 games. He plays second base, shortstop, and third base, with third base being his most natural position. At age 25, he’s a bit long in the tooth to be ranked as a top prospect, but I still think he could play a useful role on the Nationals’ 40-man roster next season as their infield depth, optioned to Rochester but able to come up and fill in if one of the infielders goes down due to injury. (Nats infielders were remarkably injury free this season.)

The cases for protecting Swan and Virguez seem a bit weaker. Swan came to the Nats from the Dodgers in the Alex Call trade and his elite stuff led to him being ranked as one of the Nats’ better prospects. A 2026 season in which he missed time due to injury and was only able to pitch 29⅓ innings with disappointing results led to him slipping off MLB Pipeline’s list of top 30 Nationals prospects, though he still appears near the bottom of the Baseball America list. Virquez was acquired from Cleveland in the Foster Griffin trade shortly after he had been promoted to Double-A. He’s another high-octane pitcher with poor command. Swan and Virguez are among several Nats pitchers that fit that profile. That type of pitcher can sometimes make a tweak to simplify their delivery and get better command, and when that happens, they can turn into elite pitchers. So, baseball teams will always give them more chances than are given to the guys who don’t have elite velocity. I could see the Nationals protecting one or both of them, though they also could decide not to protect either one.

Cabrera is another player obtained from the Rangers in the MacKenzie Gore deal. While Cabrera is still considered a high-upside prospect, he hasn’t played above the High-A level yet and, indeed, struggled a bit after his promotion to that level, so I think the Nats could safely leave him unprotected. Looking at all the candidates for protection from the Rule 5 draft, I think the Nats will need to clear between three to five spots on the 40-man roster for them.

Finally, our third bucket is for free agents. While Paul Toboni hasn’t publicly said how many free agents he would like to sign this off season, several members of the press have given their opinions. Barry Svrluga of The Athletic wrote, “One starter. Two relievers. No one’s asking you to be the Dodgers or the Mets. Or even the Braves. But you can’t be the Marlins, either. Not anymore.” Mark Zuckerman of Nationals Journal in an end-of-season Q&A wrote, “I have to think they’re going to sign or trade for at least one more starter,” and “As for the bullpen, I wouldn’t say they necessarily go after a true established (aka high-priced) closer, but I think they’ll sign at least one (hopefully two) established late-inning relievers who either have some closing experience or look ready to assume a closer’s role.” And Spencer Nusbaum of The Athletic wrote that the Nationals “could spend $50 million and still have one of the smallest payrolls in MLB. So maybe, then, adding one or two big fish could be worth it.”

I’m going to agree with Svrluga and Zuckerman and assume that the Nats will sign one starting pitcher and two relievers this winter. I plan to do a follow-up post looking at pitchers the Nats might target. On the position player side, the Nats don’t have any glaring needs, though in his late season call-up Abimelec Ortiz didn’t really look ready yet, so the team might consider signing a lefty first baseman/DH to a one-year contract. So, we’re looking at adding three or four free agents. Adding everything up, that means we have 11 to 14 roster spaces that will need to be vacated.

Of course, it’s possible to address roster needs through trades rather than through free agency. My guess is that Toboni will do at least one significant trade this off season, but I’m not going to speculate what it will be or how it will affect the roster. Trades don’t usually help you clear space on your 40-man roster (because the trade usually brings back a player who has to be added to the roster), but they can help you meet your roster needs without signing an additional free agent. Regardless, the Nats will have to clear quite a few spots on their roster, even if the number is not precisely 11 to 14. We’ll now turn to identifying the players who are likely to be dropped from the roster.

Which players are candidates to be cut?

I’m going to sort the players currently on the 40-man roster into three groups: core contributors who will undoubtedly be kept; promising prospects that the team would not like to lose; and players that the team might non-tender or designate for assignment to meet their other roster needs while keeping within the 40-man limit.

For core contributors, I started with a list of players who were worth at least 0.5 WAR this season. I used the Fangraphs measure of WAR, except that for pitchers I used what Fangraphs calls “50-50 WAR”. (Why I used this measure—The regular Fangraphs measure of WAR for pitchers is based on fielding independent pitching or “FIP”, that is, strikeouts, walks, and home runs allowed. The Baseball Reference measure of WAR for pitchers is based on runs allowed, and Fangraphs has a similar measure based on runs allowed that is called RA9-WAR. The 50-50 WAR simply takes the average of the usual fWAR, based on FIP, and RA9-WAR, based on runs allowed. I like the 50-50 measure because it includes information from both perspectives on how to measure a pitcher’s performance.)

For relief pitchers and the backup catcher, who tend not to accumulate as much WAR, I included players with at least 0.3 WAR (with one exception—even though PJ Poulin‘s 0.4 WAR this season would make him eligible for this list, I thought that his relatively poor strikeout and walk rates might lead the team to consider cutting him). Here is the list of core contributors:

Core contributors (2026 WAR in parentheses)

• Position players: James Wood (4.1), CJ Abrams (3.7), Jacob Young (2.3), Keibert Ruiz (1.9), Daylen Lile (1.5), Andrés Chaparro (1.0), Dylan Crews (0.9), Jorbit Vivas (0.8), Brady House (0.6), Harry Ford (0.4)
• Starting pitchers: Cade Cavalli (4.0), Andrew Alvarez (2.6), Connelly Early (1.7)
• Bullpen: Brad Lord (0.7), Will Dion (0.4), Orlando Ribalta (0.3), Erik Tolman (0.3)

That’s 17 core players who, barring a trade, I expect will be playing for the Nats next season. I’ll also note that there’s a large difference between Fangraphs WAR (shown above) and Baseball-Reference WAR for Abrams, who has 5.1 bWAR versus 3.7 fWAR, with most of the difference coming from how fielding is measured. The other players were pretty similar.

Next, we’ll look at promising prospects that I think the team will want to hang onto. Besides major league performance, a number of other factors can help move a player into this category. For example, these include:

1. Age of the player. For example, Harry Ford (currently age 23) is considered to be a more promising prospect than Drew Millas (age 28) because Ford has two or three more years of growth before he reaches his peak, whereas Millas has already reached the age at which players generally stop improving.
2. Minor league statistics. If a player spent most of the season in the minors and was crushing it there, we shouldn’t throw out that information in favor of using just his statistics from a brief call-up to the majors.
3. Number of options remaining. Being able to option a player to the minors gives the team flexibility, so a player who still has options remaining will be more valuable than a similar player without options.
4. For pitchers, fastball velocity has an important predictive role, independent of the other factors. Young pitchers with great velocity are much more likely to have long careers because they will be allowed time to fix other parts of their delivery without having to be constantly perfect.

In my opinion, the following players currently on the 40-man roster fit into the category of promising prospects:

Promising prospects (Age, # of options, and 2027 WAR in parentheses)

• Position players: Drew Millas (28, 1, –0.2), Yohandy Morales (25, 3, 0.3), Nasim Nuñez (26, 2, –0.2), Abimelec Ortiz (24, 2, –0.7), Andrew Pinckney (25, 3, 0.1)
• Starting pitchers: Jackson Kent (23, 3, 0.2), DJ Herz (25, 2, –0.2), Riley Cornelio (26, 2, 0.1)
• Bullpen: Yovanny Cruz (27, 2, –0.2), Luis Perales (23, 0, –0.5), Jack Sinclair (25, 3, 0.2), Eddy Yean (25, 2, 0.2)

Maybe “promising prospect” isn’t the best word to describe Millas, but someone needs to hold down the role of third catcher, optioned to Rochester and available if one of the other catchers is injured. Millas should be able to hold that role in 2027, with Caleb Lomavita hopefully on track to move into that role the following season. Morales will be competing with Chaparro for playing time at first base, so maybe one of them will be traded. Nuñez, like Abrams, shows up as much better using bWAR than the fWAR numbers shown here (+1.2 bWAR versus –0.2 fWAR), with the difference mostly reflecting how fielding is measured in the two systems. Nuñez’s long-term role on the Nats seems up in the air. If Seaver King is promoted, will Nuñez move into the role of defensive and base running specialist? Will he be optioned back to the minors to work on his batting? Or will he be traded? Whatever happens, I’m confident that he won’t be designated for assignment, which is why I’m leaving him in this group. Ortiz hit very well in Rochester, so I’m confident that we’ll see him playing for the Nats again, though he does need to make some adjustments to better hit big league pitching. I expect Pinckney to play the role of reserve outfielder, spending most of next season optioned to Rochester but available to come up if any of the four main outfielders are injured.

Jackson Kent, Herz, and Cornelio will probably compete for the role of fifth starting pitcher (along with Jake Irvin and/or Josiah Gray if the team holds onto them). All three of them have options, so if they aren’t selected as the fifth starter, they could be moved to the bullpen or optioned to Rochester as reserve starters. With Cruz’s fastball velocity clocked at 99.8 mph and Perales at 99.1, they will each get a chance to try to improve their command and reach their potential as pitchers. Perales is out of options, though, so he’ll need to be kept on the active all season. Sinclair and Yean each have good fastball velocity (96.9 and 96.8 mph) and had good strikeout rates in Triple-A (28.0% and 24.5%), so I think the team holds onto them.

That makes 29 players I see the Nats wanting to hold onto and leaves 16 players as candidates for being non-tendered or designated for assignment.

Only one is a position player—José Tena (25, 0 options, –0.3 WAR). Last spring, I was surprised that the Nats held onto Tena and Vivas—both left handers, both playing second and third base, and both out of options. With better on-base skills and defense, Vivas won that competition, and with the Nationals infield starting to get crowded, it’s probably time for Tena to move on. He’s young enough that hopefully someone might trade for him, but if not he may need to be DFA’d.

Here’s the list of starting pitchers who might be non-tendered or designated for assignment. In parentheses I will include their (age, number of options, WAR for 2026, left-handed or right-handed, fastball velocity, SIERA, innings pitched, and whether the player is eligible for arbitration), with the last two statistics (SIERA and innings pitched) covering the last two seasons of 2025 and 2026. I wanted a predictive statistic, and SIERA is a statistic similar to ERA or FIP which has been shown to be better than ERA, FIP, or xFIP at predicting future ERA. SIERA is similar to FIP and xFIP in that it’s largely based on strikeouts and walks, but it also includes other ball-in-play data that make it more predictive. It needs about 35 to 40 innings to be a reliable predictor, which is why I used combined data for 2025 and ’26. If the innings pitched is less than 20, I won’t report the SIERA due to unreliability. If a player is eligible for arbitration, the team has to decide whether to tender them a contract; if the team chooses not to tender a contract, the player becomes a free agent.

• Jake Irvin (29, 2, 0.1, RHP, 93.2 mph, 4.67, 286.2 IP, Arb eligible)
• Josiah Gray (28, n/a, 0.2, RHP, 92.3, —, 4 IP, Arb eligible)
• Matt Waldron (30, 0, –0.3, RHP, 92.0, 4.57, 47.1, No)
• Carson Palmquist (26, 1, –0.1, LHP, 91.2, 5.58, 50.2, No)
• Jared Simpson (26, 3, –0.2, LHP, 94.6, —, 4.1, No)

Irvin didn’t pitch well in either 2025 or 2026; his last good season was 2024. If he goes to arbitration, MLB Trade Rumors expects his salary to be $3.4 million. If the Nats decide not to pursue a free agent starter, I think the Nats will tender Irvin a contract. If they do pursue a free agent, they may still decide to keep him as the fifth starter, or they may choose to non-tender him. If I ran the team, I’d probably ask Brad Lord to move back into the rotation and be the fifth starter, but I haven’t seen anyone else talking about that possibility.

When Nusbaum posted the list of Nats arbitration-eligible players on X, most the replies said that they hoped the Nats would tender a contract to Gray, who clearly has become a fan favorite. However, I think a lot of factors argue against him being brought back. With five years of service, if he’s brought back, he’s essentially on a one-year contract before he becomes a free agent, so he should be compared to other potential one-year free agents. He doesn’t have options, so if he loses the competition to become the fifth starter, the Nats wouldn’t be able to move him to Rochester as a reserve starter. Maybe he could be moved to the bullpen, but his 92.3 mph fastball velocity places him at the very bottom of what is considered adequate velocity for a right-handed relief pitcher. And if the team does have to release him before the season is done, the team would be responsible for his full season salary. I think there are enough negatives here that the Nats are unlikely to tender him a contract.

Waldron’s knuckleball intrigues me, so I’d personally find it entertaining to see him pitch some more. I’m not sure that justifies bringing him back, though. Palmquist is one of a number of seemingly interchangeable lefty pitchers on the roster. I don’t see anything special that would merit keeping him. Simpson seems like a more interesting case, and I think the Nats might try to hold onto him.

Here’s the relief pitchers. Again, in parentheses are (age, options, 2026 WAR, L/R, velocity, SIERA (for 2025 & ’26), IP (for 2025 & ’26), and arbitration eligibility).

• Jake Bird (30, 0, –0.1, RHP, 94.6, 3.49, 94, Arb eligible)
• Paxton Schultz (28, 1, –0.3, RHP, 93.6, 3.76, 57, No)
• Gus Varland (29, 0, –0.7, RHP, 95.1, 4.37, 33, No)
• Clayton Beeter (28, 1, –0.3, RHP, 95.7, 4.42, 73.1, No)
• Zak Kent (28, 0, –0.2, RHP, 92.8, 4.63, 34, No)
• PJ Poulin (30, 3, 0.4, LHP, 90.1, 4.78, 61.1, No)
• Richard Lovelady (31, 0, –0.3, LHP, 91.3, 4.81, 46.2, Arb eligible)
• Mitchell Parker (27, 3, –0.8, LHP, 93.6, 4.98, 204.1, Arb eligible)
• Kyle Nicolas (27, 0, –0.2, RHP, 96.8, 5.07, 45.1, No)
• Ken Waldichuk (28, 2, –0.3, LHP, 93.2, —, 9.1, Arb eligible)

The low SIERA numbers for Bird and Schultz are indicative of good strikeout and walk rates (25.5% and 9.0% for Bird in 2025–2026, 22.8% and 7.6% for Schultz). Neither had a good ERA in 2026, but I’d bet on them putting up better numbers in 2027 and would like to see the Nats hold onto them, even though Bird is out of options. Varland, Zak Kent, Lovelady, and Nicolas are all out of options, and none seem to be the kind of pitchers you’d want to commit to keeping on the active roster for a full season. Beeter seems to me to be kind of borderline—one of the better pitchers in this group, even if things didn’t work out that well for him this season. Maybe they’ll keep him or maybe they won’t. Poulin did have a good season, but his strikeout and walk rates weren’t especially good (19.8% and 12.9%), so I think there’s a chance he gets cut. Although Nats fans are mostly sick of Parker, I actually think there’s a chance the team tenders him a contract. An argument could be made that his disappointing 2025 season was partly bad luck and that his terrible performance in May and June of this year may have been a sign that his elbow was already damaged before he went on the injured list. There was a lot to like about Parker in 2024, and I could see the team maybe giving him another chance, though he’s also definitely at risk of being cut. I expect Waldichuk to be non-tendered.

On my list of 16 players who could potentially be cut, seven were acquired via trade or purchase (Tena, Gray, Palmquist, Bird, Nicolas, Beeter, and Lovelady), three were drafted by the Nationals (Irvin, Simpson, and Parker), and the other six were claimed off waivers (Waldron, Poulin, Zak Kent, Waldichuk, Schultz, and Varland).

Now, obviously the Nationals have access to a lot more data and expertise than I have, so I won’t be surprised if some of their decisions turn out to be different from what I’ve discussed. But I think my simple math does suggest that many or most of the 16 players on my list of players at risk of being non-tendered or designated for assignment will, in fact, be cut from the 40-man roster by the end of November. Most of the players who would be designated for assignment would be eligible to elect free agency, though a few players with little service time could be outrighted to Rochester.