By all accounts, 2025 was a pretty bad year for the Washington Nationals. Expectations weren’t particularly high, with most fans expecting a win in the 70s and a few holding out hoping for the playoffs, but the team failed to even achieve that. They finished 66-96, which resulted in the dismissal of Manager Davey Martinez, with the baseball club since 2018, and General Manager Mike Rizzo, with the club since 2006. In 2025, Juan Soto, one of the icons of the Nationals franchise, debuted as a New York Met, marking the first of 15 years as the Nats’ division rival.
While the results of the 2025 Nationals season weren’t pretty, the events that transpired during the season arguably made it one of the most important seasons in franchise history. In the same way we look at 2005, 2012 and 2019 as pivotal moments in Nats history, we may one day speak of 2025 in the same way. Let’s take a look at all the major events that happened this year for the Nats, and where 2025 ranks as one of the years in Nationals history in terms of importance.
July 6: Manager Davey Martinez and GM Mike Rizzo are fired
The first and perhaps most important event to occur in what seemed like a forgettable 2025 Nationals season was the firing of Mike Rizzo and Davey Martinez on July 6 after a 4-6 loss to the Boston Red Sox, dropping the Nats to 37-53 on the year. Fans were aware that Rizzo and Martinez’s contract options would be picked up that month, but with the deadline for picking up the option being unknown and the Lerners family’s general unwillingness to do anything to the team on the baseball side, many fans, including myself, were caught off guard by the decision.
While the decision was long expected and necessary to bring the Nationals back to the rest of the league in terms of analytical thinking, the timing came as a shock to many as the Nationals were a week away from making the first overall pick in the 2025 MLB Draft. With Rizzo, who was rumored to be all aboard the Kade Anderson train and not going to let that deter him, out of the picture, new interim Mike Debartolo and the remaining front office had the freedom to make the choice they wanted.
July 13: Eli Willits is selected with the first overall pick
There was a lot of speculation about whether Mike Rizzo’s firing would change the Nationals’ plans with the first overall pick, or if the plan was set in stone long before his removal. Leading up to the draft, Ethan Holliday, a shortstop from Stillwater, Oklahoma, and Kade Anderson, a left-handed pitcher from LSU, dominated the conversation about the Nationals’ selection, but outside options such as Eli Willits, Liam Doyle and Jamie Arnold also fueled speculation following Rizzo’s firing.
Ultimately, the talent, tools and athleticism of Eli Willits won over the Nationals’ battle room, who later said Willits was always the plan for them at 1.1. Debartolo and his staff’s choice to select a young, tool-laden middle infielder like Willits over the big and famous playing prospects like Holliday and Anderson was an equally strong indication of the new chapter the Nationals were beginning to write in their history. With the savings from selecting Willits first overall, the Nats also had one of their deepest draft picks, taking multiple prospects with the potential to become building blocks of the franchise in years to come.
2nd half 2025: The outbreak of Daylen Lile
July was an exciting time for the Nationals, with the firing of their longtime manager and GM, who had the first overall pick in the draft, and a hectic trade deadline that sent six Nationals to new homes. August and September were rather unremarkable, however, as the team was well on its way to its sixth consecutive season under .500. One storyline that kept fans hooked, however, was the emergence of outfielder Daylen Lile upon his return to the major leagues.
Lile made his big league debut in May, but was sent back to Rochester in early June. He returned to the major leagues in mid-June, during the infamous 11-game losing streak, and from there proved why he would play a huge role in the Nationals’ future. In the second half of 2025, Lile posted a 162 wRC+, 8th best among all hitters in baseball. In September, he posted a ridiculous 230 wRC+, second best in baseball behind only AL MVP Aaron Judge. Lile finished the 2025 campaign with a 132 wRC+ and 1.4 fWAR over 91 games, good for a 5th-place finish in the NL Rookie of the Year voting. Not much went right for the Nationals in 2025, but Daylen Lile’s breakout is one that went very well for them.
September 24: Paul Toboni is hired as the new President of Baseball Operations
Ownership knew they couldn’t wait too long when it came to deciding who would take the reins on the baseball side of the organization, and before the 2025 regular season even ended, they went out and got a new president of baseball operations in Paul Toboni. The 35-year-old Toboni was an assistant GM for the Red Sox for many years and was one of the most respected young minds in the game of baseball. Toboni also had a rigorous analytical background, which marked a sharp change in philosophy from the old-fashioned organization that Mike Rizzo led.
It will be years before we know the true impact Toboni will have on this organization, but based on everything he has done so far, from filling out his front office and coaching staff with other young, brilliant baseball minds to smart offseason signings like Harry Ford and Luis Perales, I expect we will look with great joy at the decision in 2025 to let him lead this club.
Where does it rank in terms of the biggest years in Nationals history?
When we one day sit back and discuss the most important years in Nationals history, I expect 2025 will be one of those years we talk about at the top of the list. 2019 will always be the benchmark, a benchmark that virtually no non-championship Nats team can ever match, and 2012 was pivotal in changing the culture and perspective around the ball club, but outside of those two, there may not be a more impactful year in the ball club’s history than 2025.
Others had their moments, like 2005, baseball’s return to DC, the opening of Nationals Park in 2008, the arrival of Max Scherzer and Bryce Harper’s MVP in 2015, and the Juan Soto trade in 2022, but in terms of years with moments that will forever shape this franchise, 2025 might just beat them all.
We are just 2 days away from the start of 2026, and thus the start of a new year in Nationals history. Although the expectation on the field is another mediocre season, with the young players getting their big league reps and the coaching staff going through growing pains, that does not mean how the year will go, as we learned from the baseball club of 2025. Likewise, the 2025 season was not what we expected, sometimes in a bad way, I hope for the same in 2026, but maybe with a few more surprises on the good side.
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