The Washington Nationals And Arizona Diamondbacks Have The Same Record

The Washington Nationals and the Arizona Diamondbacks have the same record through 59 games (28-31). Who had that on their bingo card when the season began?

Arizona Diamondbacks

Arizona was expected to make the playoffs and potentially have a deep run in October. Over the off-season, they picked up the team’s option on third baseman Eugenio Suarez for $15 million, and then allowed Christian Walker and Joc Pederson to leave in free agency. They filled their first base hole by trading for the Guardian’s Josh Naylor, coming off a 31 home run/108 RBI season in Cleveland. While Pederson kills righties, the club brought in Randall Grichuk to smack around lefties. After a surprise run to the World Series in 2023, there was hope in the desert that 2025 could result in a return trip to the playoffs.

General manager Mike Hazen then bolstered the pitching staff by adding arguably the best arm on the free agent market, Corbin Burnes, signing him to a six-year, $210 million deal. Burnes slid ahead of Zac Gallen, giving the Snakes a great 1-2 punch at the top of their rotation.

Potentially the biggest “acquisition” may be a hot start from right fielder Corbin Carroll. Over the first half of 2024, in 94 games, Carroll slashed .212/.301/.334, with just five home runs. In the second half, over 64 games, he slashed .258/.351/.568, with 17 dingers. In August alone he hit 11 home runs and had an OPS of 1.042. The team felt confident that if Carroll could get off to a better start, the team could truly compete in the rough National League West. Carroll hasn’t disappointed, playing MVP-caliber baseball, with 16 home runs, an .877 OPS, and 2.1 bWAR through the first third of the season.

Burnes has lived up to the hype. Over his first 10 starts, he averaging just under six innings per appearance, while sporting a 2.72 ERA. Unfortunately, he left Sunday’s game with an apparent elbow injury, so the future is now unknown.

Unlike Burnes, Gallen is currently 3-7, with a 5.54 ERA, 4.58 FIP, and has the worst WHIP of his career, which is due to his league-leading 32 walks.

The low-end of the pre-season predictions had the Diamondbacks winning 86.5 games (FanDuel), with Keith Law of The Athletic taking the other end of the spectrum, guessing 90 wins. Nearly every site had Arizona as a Wild Card team. As of Sunday afternoon, Arizona is in fourth place in the NL West, eight games back of the Dodgers; and maybe more importantly, they are five games back of a Wild Card spot, but would need to leap over three teams just to get there. There is a still a lot of baseball to be played, so the Diamondbacks have plenty of runway to figure this out. But they will need to markedly improve on their .475 winning percentage if they want to play baseball this Fall.

Washington Nationals

No one really gave the Nationals much of a chance this season in the highly competitive National League East. Everyone had their eyes focused on the Phillies, their incredible pitching staff, and roster of steady veterans; the New York Mets and their new three-quarters of a billion-dollar toy, Juan Soto; and the back-from-IL-hell Atlanta Braves, returning former MVP Ronald Acuña Jr. and Cy Young-finalist Spencer Strider to their lineup.

Keith Law predicted the Nationals to win 74 games. FanGraphs had them even worse, with just 69 wins. But this team, rebuilt with the players president of baseball operations Mike Rizzo acquired from the San Diego Padres in return for Soto in 2022, has staked a claim. If not in 2025, well at least a heck of a lot sooner than others thought. And, with ten runs in the first inning against the Diamondbacks on Saturday, they announced their presence with authority.

The core of the players the Nats received from San Diego now represent the core of their roster. C.J. Abrams is slashing .274/.348/.492, and has accrued 1.9 bWAR through the first third of the season. James Wood (who was the Padres’ #3 prospect when they shipped him east) is hitting .288 with 16 home runs, and is redefining power to the opposite field. MacKenzie Gore leads the league in strikeouts, and had a roughly five-to-one strikeout to walk ratio. He struck out 181 batters last season in just 166 innings, but he also led the league with 14 wild pitches. This year he only has three wild pitches, and seems to have mastered both his command and control. He is on pace for a 6.0 bWAR season. Robert Hassell III (who was San Diego’s #1 prospect at the time), is getting his first taste of big league experience this season, getting ten hits in his first nine games played. While FanGraphs doesn’t necessarily have high hopes for Hassell (35+ Future Value score on the 20-80 scale), the Nationals hope he can have a future in their outfield.

Washington also benefited from having the number two pick in the 2023 draft, which they used for Dylan Crews, just weeks after he won the Golden Spikes Award as the best player in college baseball. Crews is off to a slow start in his official rookie season (and is currently on the IL with an oblique strain). In 45 games before his injury, Crews was batting just .196, with a .620 OPS, and seven home runs. But the stats belie what is actually happening with Crews. His BAbip is .233 (league average is .291); his hard hit percentage is 41.7% (league average is 39.6%); his average exit velocity is above average. He is “barreling” balls at twice the league average; his expected batting average per Statcast is .258 (no great shakes, but not under the Mendoza line); and his expected slugging percentage is nearly 100 points higher than his actual number. Suffice to say that the law of large numbers points to Crews being just fine once his side heals.

The Nationals are equaling the Diamondbacks with a pitching staff that is middling at best. Their starting crew has an ERA of 4.44 (25th in baseball); and their relievers are worse, with 6.03, with eight blown saves. But this is not supposed to be Washington’s year. They are making a little bit of hay long before the sun is supposed to shine. Arizona, on the other hand, is supposed to contend. Which makes their identical records confusing, confounding, and exciting (for at least one fan base) as we move into the second third of the season.