Following the addition of three pitchers in the last week, manager Blake Butera highlights three returning pitchers for the Washington Nationals ahead of spring training
The Washington Nationals are now one day into full team workouts ahead of a pair of games on Saturday to officially open spring training, while the team has made a pair of moves to address the pitching staff after adding a former Orioles and Mets pitcher to the rotation.
Of course, the Nationals also added veteran Miles Mikolas to upgrade the starting rotation in the post-MacKenzie Gore era, but first year manager Blake Butera also pointed to a returning starter now participating in his first healthy spring training in three years as one of several arms standing out through the first week.
"Cade Cavalli, right away, like this first one that jumps off the page to me," Butera said during Monday's media availability. "The velocity is higher than it was last year already. And just the body, you can tell he put a lot of work in this offseason. He's in really good shape. And just his presence on the mound, he's one that stood out, you know, from the jump."
Cavalli enters the offseason as the slight favorite to take over as the team's Opening Day starter in 2026 after a 4.25 ERA in just ten appearances after returning from Tommy John surgery, but he's also among others sticking out to Butera, including Clayton Beeter, a candidate to replace Jose Ferrer as the team's closer in 2026.
"Brad Lord looked really good as well. There's a lot of guys that mentioned right now - Clayton Beeter, he's been outstanding. Like, the stuff's unbelievable. I think just overall, there's a lot of guys that I'd heard good things about," Butera added. "But just watching a handful of guys come in and the stuff's already being a tick ahead of where it was this early in the spring is a good sign."
While the fifth spot in the rotation remains up for grabs, Lord remains an expected piece in the Nationals' 2026 rotation alongside Cavalli, Mikolas and Josiah Gray, who Butera previously noted is "fully healthy and ready to roll."
How the pitching staff is able to turn that into production against other teams in 2025 is the biggest question mark for the Nationals, but they'll get a chance to test exactly that against the Astros and Cardinals in the first pair of games this upcoming weekend. But with a chance to "write their own chapter," as Butera noted, Monday marked the start of a clean slate for a young team looking to outperform middling preseason predictions.
"Whenever you feel like you have a new kind of a new start, it's like, hey, alright, they don't know me yet, right? So I can kind of have a clean, fresh start. And I think it's nice for a lot of guys to kind of write their own chapter, so to speak," Butera said.