JUST IN__ WASHINGTON NATIONALS REPORTS TODAY: Latest On Club’s Pitchers And Catchers [coach gives details]

This offseason, Davey Martinez sent Luis García home with a plan, and in their farewell interview at the end of the Nationals’ 2023 season, the manager of Washington sent a message.

During the Winter Meetings in early December, Martinez told reporters, “I told him he’s got to get agile.”

“We need to get him more to swing less because he’s another guy.” He has to learn how to hit the ball in the strike zone, but I don’t want to take away his aggression.

García, 23, was coming off a 2023 season in which he was briefly optioned to Triple-A before making his way back to the main leagues. He concluded his fourth major league season with a.266/.304/.385 slash line that included 18 doubles, four triples, and nine home runs. He was in a 0-for-12 stretch over four games and came off of a rough .217/.250/.301 month of July in which he’d hit just two doubles and one home run when he was optioned to the Nats’ top minor league affiliate (with a .259/.293/.362 line on the year in the majors), and he put up a .268/.315/.381 line, eight doubles, and a home run in 25 games and 108 PAs before he was called back up and put up a .304/.360/.507 line, five doubles, and three home runs in 22 games and 75 PAs down the stretch.

His manager told him to put in the work this winter and come to Spring Training ready to earn a spot on the Opening Day roster for 2024.

Martinez said, “Yeah, look, my message to him was/is there are no guarantees in Spring Training.”
“You must come here and compete for a job.” When we sent him down, I believe I conveyed the message to him. I was upset since I adored the child. However, he needs to recover. He has now been with us for five years, and although I am aware of Luis’s potential, we must get the best possible outcome from him. He must maintain consistency.
The manager expressed confidence that his second baseman would arrive at camp prepared.
“Considering what transpired with Luis the previous year, I think he’ll be prepared for Spring Training. However, time will tell. Josiah Gray, 26, lowered his ERA to 3.91 on the season in 2023 with six strong against the Baltimore Orioles in his final outing (down from the 5.02 ERA he posted in 2022), finishing the year with a 4.94 FIP (down from 5.86), 143 strikeouts (8.09 K/9; down from 9.32), 80 walks (4.53 BB/9, up from 4.00), 22 home runs allowed (1.25 HR/9, down from 2.30 – when he allowed a league-leading 38 HRs allowed in 148 ²⁄₃ IP), and a .251/.345/.412 line against in his 30 starts and 159 IP (after he finished the season with a .239/.324/.489 line against in the ‘22 season).

Though he wanted to work on some things — like improving his changeup so he can use it more often in 2023 — Gray said in an MLB Network Radio interview in late January, that he was taking pretty much the same approach to his offseason work this winter as he does every year.

“It’s been about pretty much the same offseason,” the pitcher explained, “… tinkering with the sinker a little bit more to get some more run on it, but everything else has been status quo I guess you could say.

“We’re constantly working to improve every aspect of the mix, including the cutter, four-seam fastball, and breaking ball. We’re also throwing the changeup a little bit more frequently these days to try to get that front-back play. However, there are several things I’ve done in the past to tweak things and attempt to improve a little bit more without making too many significant changes.

The 30-year-old Joey Gallo signed a one-year, $5 million contract in Washington, D.C., this winter. He told reporters on a Zoom call that he wanted to return to hitting the ball to all fields after, in his own words, becoming a little pull-happy in 2023, a season in which he put …

“I believe that during many of my greatest years, I utilized the middle of the pitch more and worked the entire pitch,” Gallo remarked. And it looked like I started that way last year before maybe developing some poor habits or whatever, which led me to start pulling the ball more and becoming pull-happy. Being confined to one side of the pitch is never a good thing. Thus, it’s only a matter of regaining my direction, focusing a little, and hitting the same spots that I might have a few years ago.

During his own Zoom call with media, Nick Senzel stated, “I would say the biggest priority is probably getting better against right-handed pitching,” following his

Senzel, 28, put up a .236/.297/.399 line and career-high 13 home runs in 104 games and 330 plate appearances last year in what ended up a -0.4 fWAR season with Cincinnati’s Reds.

In 126 plate appearances against left-handed pitching last year, he put up a .348/.389/.619 line with nine of his 13 home runs off of lefties, and the right-handed hitter finished up with a .164/.240/.257 line vs right-handed pitchers, leaving him at .287/.334/.460 in 409 career PAs vs lefties, versus a .219/.288/.330 line vs righties (957 PAs), so the focus there makes sense if he’s going to play third every day as he said the Nationals told him he would. So he put in the work this winter.

Senzel said, “I spent about a week hitting with Matt Holliday and his sons in Stillwater, Oklahoma.”

“In January, I plan to return there to complete some work.”

“If I had to choose just one thing, I would say to work on improving my right-handed pitching and swing in general.”

After a disappointing season with the Miami Marlins and Twins, when he had a 4.76 ERA, 2.96 FIP, and a.308/.363/.410 line against in 62 games and 56 23IP, Dylan Floro, 33, inked a one-year/$2.25M contract with the Nationals.

Floro stated that he was hoping to improve with the Nationals and was working to fine-tune a couple of things this winter.

“I think it’s a little bit of everything,” he said of his offseason work. “There’s a little bit of mechanical adjustment I’ve got to do there. Just executing pitches, when it’s time to expand a little bit more expand a little more, instead of giving up that hit in the gap, expand a little bit more, and just kind of trying to figure out what a hitter is thinking and throwing a better pitch in the right situation.”

This winter, how is he approaching?

Floro stated, “I’ve been working on some different things.” Pitching a little bit more effectively when there are two strikes. I can perhaps make some little changes going into next year that will benefit me.

Will the work done in the off-season be worthwhile? Will every player listed above provide the Nats with the successful comeback season they had been hoping for?

Pitchers and catchers report for spring training today, and we should soon begin to receive some of those answers.