Tomorrow is a very important day in the MLB offseason. By tomorrow night, teams have to decide if they want to tender their arbitration eligible players a contract. If they tender a player, the arbitration process
starts, if not, the player becomes a free agent. Paul Toboni has a couple of interesting decisions on his hands in the next 24 to 36 hours.
MLB Trade Rumors does a great job following the arbitration process. Their arbitration pay estimates are usually spot on and provide a great resource for fans. They also come up with a list of players who could possibly be non-tendered. Three Nationals were on their list of non-tender candidates. Those were Riley Adams, Jake Irvin and Luis Garcia Jr.
Of the three, Adams is the most likely to be non-tendered. His projected salary is only $1.5 million, but Adams has not proven himself to even be a capable backup catcher. Despite his big raw power, Adams has struggled massively on the offensive side in the last two years. He is also a bad defensive catcher due to his lack of blocking and framing skills. Adams has elite bat speed, but he has not been able to translate that into production.
Overall, the Nationals have 7 arbitration eligible players. MacKenzie Gore, CJ Abrams, Cade Cavalli and Josiah Gray are locks to be tendered a contract. Gore and Abrams require no explanation. However, Gray and Cavalli are locks due to their low salary projections and upside. For me, Jake Irvin and Luis Garcia Jr. are the real interesting decisions here.
Let’s start with Irvin because this one snuck up on me. Before the arbitration projection numbers came out, I had not considered the idea of non-tendering Irvin. However, his projected $3.3 million salary complicates things. Based on last season, Irvin would not be worth that number. He posted a 5.70 ERA, which was the worst among qualified starters.
Irvin looked really bad for most of the season. His velocity was down, which made the big right hander extremely hittable. The 38 home runs he allowed were the most in baseball. However, he did complete 180 innings for the second straight season. That durability has some inherent value, especially if he can get his ERA back to the low to mid 4’s.
If Paul Toboni and his staff believe they can get Irvin’s velocity back and make a few tweaks, they will likely tender him a contract. Irvin showed flashes mid-rotation upside in 2024 and if he can get back to that, the $3.3 million will be a steal. However, if the new front office thinks 2025 showed the real Jake Irvin, non-tendering him would be the move. You can find someone to eat innings and pitch badly for the league minimum.
This leads us to the most fascinating discussion in Luis Garcia Jr. He is projected to make $7 million, which is a fairly hefty price. Like Irvin, Garcia’s 2025 production does not justify that salary. He only posted 0.7 fWAR in 139 games and was below average on both sides of the ball. However, the 25 year old was excellent in 2024, posting a 3 WAR season.
If he can get back to that level, his salary would be a bargain. The problem is that Garcia has not been very good outside of that 2024 season. I am actually more confident in his bat than his glove. Last season, Garcia was extremely unlucky.
In 2025, Garcia posted a .337 xwOBA compared to a .300 wOBA. Garcia’s xwOBA, average exit velocity, barrel rate, hard hit rate and expected batting average were all better in 2025 than his breakout 2024 season. This gives me confidence that Garcia can get back to being an above average hitter because he was one when you look at the under the hood numbers.
I am less optimistic about his defense though. While Garcia was an above average defender at second base in 2024, that looks like an outlier. He looked less athletic in 2025, which was supported by the numbers. Garcia’s sprint speed went from the 45th percentile to the 25th percentile. His range suffered due to his diminished athleticism. We even saw him play some first base at the end of the season.
Garcia is also a platoon bat, granted the fact he is a left handed hitter means he is on the strong side of a platoon. He only hit .179 against left handed pitching last season and has historically struggled against southpaws. If he cannot play second base anymore, justifying a $7 million price tag for a platoon first baseman with holes in his offensive game is tough to justify.
However, Garcia is still so young at 25 and has shown the ability to be a good starting second baseman in the past. This is a really tricky call for Paul Toboni and I could see this one going either way. If Garcia is let go, I could see it biting the Nats in the future. However, he has only been worth $7 million one time in his career.
These decisions will tell us a lot about Toboni’s thought process and what he thinks about these players. It will also be interesting to follow what other teams do. The non-tender deadline will create a deeper free agent pool. There are a few non-tender candidates the Nats could look to sign, including Jonah Heim, Ryan Mountcastle and Jonathan India. Tomorrow is a big day for Paul Toboni and it will be the first time he really has to make tough roster decisions.
