Can the Washington Nationals Win the World Series?

I moved to Washington D.C area in December, 2023. This means I must now be loyal to a new sports team. The Commanders and Wizards sound terrible. One is a misogynistic racist, and the other a loser. Good thing with at least the Commanders is that as I came, Dan Snyder left, but that is another story. The focus for now is – can the Nationals win the World Series?

Let us start with the history. The only time the Nationals won the World Series was in 2019, against the Astros. This was the year when Astros were caught stealing signs. Before that, they made it to playoffs in 2017 only to lose to the Cubs, unfortunately. Good thing is that they did win the World Series recently. And they made it to playoffs multiple times in the past decade. Something is going right and the hopes of them winning the World Series exists.

What do we expect this year? Could the Nationals make it at least to playoffs, if not win the World Series? Each season, the Nats have 162 games. As of today, 125 games have been played and we have a 56-69 record. To make it to playoffs, we must either be a divisional champion, or a wildcard team. To be the National League East Divisional Champion, we must take on the Philies who have a 73-51 record, going on a 58.9% win as compared to 44.8% of the Nats. It is reasonable to assume that we must bring our win percent to at least 59% to have a chance to win the division. This means at the end of this season, we must win at least 96 games, or 40 out of the 37 games left. This is not happening.

As of now, the worst team qualified to make it as a Wild Card in National League are the St. Louis Cardinals. They have a 61-63 record making the win percent about 49.2%. Therefore, we can argue that we need a 51% winning record to possibly make it as a wild card team, which means at the end of the season, we need 83 wins. That is 27 more wins out of the 37 games left. This could happen, but we have the Pirates, Reds, and Cubs above us who are also contending for Wild Card.

I do not think we could make it to playoffs this year. The numbers are not adding up. I didn’t dive into our roster yet, but looking at the numbers, we need a miracle. Good thing is the Orioles and Phillies are just an hour away, so we will have someone close to us making it to the playoffs and keeping the excitement high!