As he will be during the first game of every Nationals series this season, Nationals beat writer Spencer Nusbaum will watch the game alongside fans starting around first pitch at 6:40 p.m. ET Monday.
On the very best days, there is a hum in the room.
CJ Abrams ruffles through his reports until he finds his favorite set of pie charts. Brady House and Jacob Young chat about a pitcher they’ve faced before. Daylen Lile reminds himself to avoid a trap he fell into this spring — when he convinced himself “I could hit everything” — before turning his attention to that day’s pitcher and deciding which pitch types he’ll lay off.
It’s here, in the alcoves beneath MLB stadiums, where the Washington Nationals converge for a revised version of hitters’ meetings that players say have powered one of baseball’s top offenses. It’s here that they stare up at a screen with more metrics and a clearer message than they ever had before. And it’s here that the position players gather around three new hitting coaches, pull out their homework and wonder why they hadn’t prepared this way until now.
“In years’ past … it felt like we were going through the motions a little bit in terms of the meetings,” said catcher Drew Millas. “There wasn’t really a ton of intent behind them. Sometimes there was. Sometimes they were great, obviously. But I think this year, they understand all we need is a simplified idea of what the coaching staff expects from us against this pitcher that day.”
The Nationals’ offense ranked 20th in runs last year. It ranked 29th during the spring. The Nats do not have a hitter over 28 years old, and the club did not add a single big-league free agent.
It is now the second-best offense in MLB on a per-game basis, trailing only the Los Angeles Dodgers. This offense is the first team in Nats history to score this many runs (89) over its first 15 games. After a 8-6 win in the series finale, they are the first Nats team to sweep the Brewers in Milwaukee since 2006.
A 15-game sample is too small for definitive conclusions about the future of this offense. But there has been a definitive change in the process; in how much information the front office provides the coaches, and by proxy, the coaches provide the players — then how the staff distills it for the position players.
Some stopped short of calling it an overhaul.
“But these meetings are definitely a little bit more detailed,” Luis García Jr. said through a team interpreter. “There’s more clarity on the vision as to how we’re going to approach the game.”
Through 14 games, Jacob Young has a .789 OPS, with four doubles. (John Fisher / Getty Images)
Yes, these are MLB players speaking glowingly about a PowerPoint. One player affectionately referred to it as the “big old slideshow.”
In the past, the bad meetings felt repetitive, as though the talking points were simply rehashed versions of the previous day’s lessons for the sake of simplifying. Simplifying in this new context means having hitters who arrive at the meeting with a plan and see how that approach lines up with the pitchers’ tendency.
“The main thing that we really want to get the guys to do is locking in on their plan and their approach — owning that, and having a say in what they’re going to do at the plate,” first-year hitting coach Matt Borgschulte said.
If autonomy is at the heart of the engine, accountability makes it purr. When players go home, they review film and statistics on the team database. As soon as they get to the park, they fill out a homework assignment left at their lockers.
The homework idea came from assistant hitting coach Shawn O’Malley, who wanted players to select which parts of the strike zone they plan to swing at that day — and explain why they will swing there. Every day, they’re expected to have that sheet in hand.
This, in essence, is why the new offensive approach can not be boiled down to one detail; the whole point is constant revision. There are some adjustments that stand out — the Nationals are crushing fastballs and swinging less with two strikes — but overall, this is an offense of oscillation.
If the pitcher attacks the zone, they are aggressive. If he does not, they are patient.
“We do all the research, go through all the different things we can find on a computer,” Borgschulte said, noting the support from advanced scouting manager Dan Kaplan. “But we’re using that information to funnel into something that is simple and they can execute.”
At its core, bringing together individual tendencies with team goals is no different from any meeting in MLB, nor is it too dissimilar from their meetings last season. But this year, they’ve certainly been more effective.
“The way they break it down to us makes it a lot easier for us to know and just recognize,” Lile said.
He said the meetings are “a lot more analytical, with a lot more numbers.” House said the coaching staff is doing “a lot more in-depth stuff.” Both also believed the team approach is more streamlined and simplified. They’re able to go up to the plate with a clear mind and a confident plan.
“I try to not go up to bat thinking about too much,” House said. “More of the analytical stuff is kind of in the back of my mind.”
“When I’m at the plate, I don’t remember anything,” García said. “That’s a nice thing about this sport. It’s kind of just like muscle memory.”
Players and coaches alike were hesitant to offer any concrete examples of plans that had worked, as they will face the Cubs, Phillies, Dodgers, Cardinals and Brewers again this season and could very well read this story.
The Nationals could speak generally, though.
They’ve looked at slides that cover a minor rule that burned the team the night before. They’ve broken down the tendencies on the upcoming starter. They will talk about the metrics on a pitch they expect to see that day, and how its vertical and horizontal break compared to one that they would typically see around the league.
They have even made time for the “baseball-y” plays, as Young called them, such as the video shown after Opening Day of James Wood hustling from home to first in 4.1 seconds on a soft groundout.
“They highlighted that in the meeting,” Millas said. “Like, ‘This is the standard, and this is the expectation.’ I think that that goes a long way.”
What often dictates success for the day, though — more than any video, metric or moment — is just how much chatter the coaches hear between players. This staff has told players to take the lead, from the dugout to the clubhouse to these very meetings.
So Borgschulte knows he’s done his job when he doesn’t have to open his mouth.
“Hearing what someone else has seen is better sometimes than just whatever the data says,” Young said. “A report can say one thing, and the guy can say, ‘Honestly, I saw this, this and this.’ And you’re going to trust that guy just because he’s seen it before.”
“That’s part of the learning process and growing as a young hitter, is feeling comfortable sharing,” Borgschulte said. “And if you’re wrong, you’re wrong. You’re going to go up to the plate and fail a bunch anyways.”