Throughout the season, the offense was a major story for this Nationals team. It was the unit that carried this team and made them so exciting to watch. I wanted to break down what made this offense so special and dive into some of the numbers.
Part of what made this offense so special was how surprising it was. Last season, the Nats ranked
24th in OPS, 20th in runs and 24th in home runs. Simply put, this was not a very good offense in 2025. However, this team made it very clear that 2026 would be different.
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The offense was slugging early and often this season. They got off to a hot start and never looked back. This offense scored 10 runs on Opening Day, which was a sign of things to come. For the season, the Nats finished 3rd in OPS, 6th in homers and 3rd in runs scored. That is truly an elite offense.
Seeing those kinds of strides in one season is very rare. It is not like the Nats added a ton of outside help either. This was all existing players making strides forward. A lot of that credit has to go to the coaching staff and front office.
In the offseason, the new regime made it clear that they wanted to modernize on the offensive side of the ball. They brought in new technology like the Trajekt Arc machine and hired coaches with analytical backgrounds. New hitting coach Matt Borgschulte was known as a bright, young mind in the industry. Meanwhile, assistant hitting coach Andrew Aydt came from Driveline and is on the cutting edge of modern hitting.
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Between swing changes, approach tweaks and bat speed increases, Nats hitters had way more success in 2026. That was easy to see right away as well. Through one month, things can be shrugged off as a fluke, but when the Nats were leading baseball in runs by Memorial Day, this was hard to ignore.
So many individual players improved. One of the most drastic overhauls came with Jacob Young
. In 2025, Young had no power and was hitting the ball on the ground over 55% of the time. This offseason, he worked with Driveline to fix his swing. With that outside help and the work of Nats hitting coaches, Young hit 10 home runs, despite only having 5 in his career before this season.
A big reason for that is his ground ball rate went down to 39.4%. Instead of trying to hit balls through the infield, Young was up there to do damage. That strategy worked and made him a very respectable hitter. In 2026, Young hit .252 with a .708 OPS. Those numbers are not mindblowing, but when you combine that with his great defense, Young posted
2.3 fWAR.
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Another insane turnaround came from Keibert Ruiz
. At this time last season, Ruiz's career looked to be in jeopardy due to concussion issues and poor play. This season, he had a career year, hitting
.280 with a .759 OPS. He accomplished this by pulling the ball in the air a ton. His 33.9% pull air rate was second in all of baseball behind Pete Crow-Armstrong
. This allowed him to make the most of his middling exit velocities and become a productive hitter.
Andres Chaparro is another hitter who broke out due to pulling the ball in the air. Despite Chaparro struggling in the first half in limited playing time, the organization stuck with him and that paid off in a big way. In the second half, Chappy hit 12 homers and posted an OPS of .998.
Seeing one of these guys have this type of breakout would be one thing, but there are so many players improving. It is absolutely not a fluke. These are just three of many examples. Paul Toboni decided to cash in on the breakouts of Curtis Mead
and Luis Garcia Jr. at the deadline to get much needed pitching help.
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Despite this great season, this offense cannot rest on their laurels and neither can the front office. Paul Toboni talked about how he can't necessarily rely on the offense repeating this and that he still needs to act in order to improve the team. I think that is a very good point.
This offense should continue to be good, but it is worth pointing out that this was probably one of the higher end outcomes. There is no guarantee that they will be this good next year. Even with James Wood
missing time, this offense was fairly healthy and a lot of players had breakout years.
Even so, I do not think this offense was a fluke or anything. One of my favorite stats is xwOBA because of how it takes quality of contact into account. The Nats actually finished third in that stat, meaning that they were not getting insane batted ball luck.
They might not be top 3 in runs next year, but the foundation is there to be a good offensive team for years to come. More pieces would obviously be helpful, but between the stars at the top of the lineup and all the depth, the offense is in a good place.
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One of those stars is James Wood, who had a good season. He played at an MVP level in the first half before falling off down the stretch. Wood will need to find a way to finish seasons strong, but the talent is so obvious with him. The ball just comes off his bat differently, and the exit velocity data shows that.
Wood and CJ Abrams
are a formidable big 2 at the top of the lineup. This coaching staff and front office has shown they can find bats to be productive around them. With a lot of young offensive talent in the system, this offense should be the core of the next iteration of Nats baseball. The offense gets an A+ for this season. Now it is time to find the right guys on the mound to surround them.
