There were no blockbuster moves from the Nationals this past week, but there were a few interesting news items I wanted to discuss. With the holidays, the MLB offseason came to a standstill this week. However, there was still some exercise and fun things to look at.
The most notable Nats news this week was the signing of Matt Mervis to a Minor League deal. Mervis is a lanky first baseman who has shown promise in the minors but has yet to hit the mark in the MLB. He is also from DC and attended high school at Georgetown Prep.
Mervis gets a minor league deal with an invitation to spring training. The Nats also brought in Warming Bernabel, so there could be 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 isn’t great.
In 78 MLB games, Mervis is a .165 career Big league hitter with a .560 OPS, so not pretty. Mervis hit seven 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 by the Marlins. He spent the rest of the year in the D-Backs system.
Even if he doesn’t 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 news concerns the jersey numbers. A few Nats players have changed their numbers this past week. Daylen Lile, Brady House, Brad Lord and Jackson Rutledge will all get new songs 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 fun. All these guys are young players who have finally established themselves as big league players.
On a side note, I’m somewhat interested to see how Jackson Rutledge performs this year. He is someone who could benefit from the new coaching staff. His slider is a very good pitch that achieved very good results last year. I have a feeling he’ll throw it more often 25.8% of the time in 2026.
Finally, the Nationals officially finalized their coaching staff last week. Most of these names aren’t new, but there’s one coach we haven’t talked about yet. It’s also fun to see the staff becoming official.
The new name I was referring to is Shawn O’Malley. He will be one of two assistant hitting coaches, the other being Andrew Aydt. O’Malley is one former playerwho actually spent some time in the MLB. He was the Sailors AAA coach this past year, where he was the organization’s 2025 minor league coach of the year.
His work this past year with new Nationals catcher Harry Ford has impressed me. In 2024, Ford struggled to show much power in AA. However, in 2025, he turned things around at a higher level hit He hit 7 home runs in 430 at-bats in 2024, but exploded in 2025, hitting 16 in 374 at-bats.
The Nats’ coaching staff is now in place and it’s exciting. Certainly, there is a lot of youth and not a lot of experience. However, the Nats desperately needed new ideas and they will get them from this staff.
I’m very curious to see which players show big improvement this coming season. There will be a player who comes out of nowhere to be productive with this new staff, the question is who that will be. It wasn’t the most eventful week in Nats news, but there was still some stuff to talk about and explain.
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