As we near the end of June, the Washington Nationals sit 14 games under .500 with the third-worst record in the NL. They've been publicly criticized by Ken Rosenthal for failing to finish their rebuild after a 2019 World Series, and they recently lost a series to the Colorado Rockies. However, if you sift through all of that noise, you'd find that, in addition to the emergence of James Wood, the Nationals are getting a breakout season from shortstop CJ Abrams and now have two offensive cornerstones who are not yet 25 years old.
Abrams has shown flashes of high-level talent before, but has been unable to keep it up for an entire season. While there's no guarantee he can do it this year either, the 24-year-old is in the midst of the best stretch of baseball in his MLB career. He's slashing .287/.360/.491 with 52 runs scored, 26 RBI, 11 home runs, and 16 steals in 67 games. He has a career-high walk rate, a career-low strikeout rate, a career-low swinging strike rate, a career-high barrel rate, and career-best exit velocities.
Surely some of that has to do with a different approach to his offseason training or preparation, right?
"I got stronger in the off season, for sure," admitted Abrams, but most of his success, in his mind, just comes down to "swinging at better pitches this year." For Abrams, that means "Staying around in the heart [of the zone] and trying to give the good pitches to the pitcher."
When you look at his swing metrics, you can see what he means. Abrams' chase rate (or O-Swing%) is nearly identical to last season, but his zone swing rate is down 6%. That has led to a jump in zone contact rate and contact rate as well. Abrams is taking more called strikes, but he's only doing so on pitches that he can't do damage on. As he says, he's giving those good pitches to the pitcher and then hoping the next pitch is one he can do more with.
If you look at Abrams' Statcast page, you'll see a huge improvement in his swing decisions in the shadow area of the strike zone. The shadow area is the edges of the strike zone, essentially half in the strike zone and half just off the plate. Those are often pitches that a hitter can't do tons of damage on, so it makes sense that Abrams' decision to "give those to the pitcher" is working out for him.
Abrams is swinging at 57% of the pitches in the shadow this season and posting a +10 Run Value after swinging at 60% of them in 2024 and posting a -22 Run Value. That's a change of +24 in Run Value, which is extraordinary, and Abrams' Run Value of +2 in the shadow zone ranks 10th in all of baseball. Since his swing rate in the shadow area is down only 3%, his improvement isn't just because he's taking pitches in that area significantly more, but that he's making much better decisions on both his takes and his swings.
As a result, Abrams is also now seeing more pitches in the heart of the strike zone than last year, likely because he is not swinging as much when the pitch isn't there. So even though his performance in the heart of the zone is worse, his overall performance has been better because of the increased amount of good pitches he's seeing.
The struggles in the heart of the zone may be connected to the fact that he's taking those pitches more often. In 2024, Abrams saw 26% of his pitches in the heart of the zone and took just 25% of them. In 2025, he's seeing pitches in the heart of the plate 28% of the time but taking them 31% of the time. Obviously, the heart of the zone is over the middle of the plate, and hitters can do the most damage there, so the only reason you'd take a pitch there is if you're fooled or it's early in the count and you get a pitch that you're not looking for and choose not to swing at. Abrams had a +13 Run Value when he swung in the heart of the plate last year, but just a +1 Run Value when he swings in the heart this year, so perhaps he needs to recalibrate to be a bit more aggressive when a pitcher makes a mistake.
Another change that Abrams has made this year that has contributed to his offensive growth has been in his stance.
As you can see from the column all the way on the right, Abrams has gone from a stance that was three degrees closed off in 2024 to a stance that is two degrees open in 2025. He has also widened his stance, adding almost 5.5 inches of space between his feet. His depth in the box and distance from the plate are essentially the same, but the wider stance has allowed him to get the ball out front a little bit more, which may have a lot to do with why he's hitting the ball harder this season.
"I didn't really do it on purpose," admitted Abrams. "It kind of just happened with my thought process. I want to stay on that back hip as long as I can, and I guess the wider stance helps with that. I want to be in the best position I can be to hit all pitches, being able to be on the fastball and also stay back on the off-speed. So just being in that back hip kind of helps with all that."
It's a useful insight from the 24-year-old that sometimes a mechanical change doesn't start with the mechanics themselves but with the intention. Abrams wanted to keep his weight back so that he didn't get out in front of breaking balls. That led to a focus on putting weight on his back leg, which led him to naturally shift his stance to something that felt more comfortable and in line with his new intention.
So far, that change has worked. Abrams is pulling the ball less this season and also hitting it in the air less often, but he's making the most of his contact with a career-best HR/FB ratio and career-best .204 ISO. Some of that could also come down to him flattening his attack angle a bit, but that would be another change that's simply a side effect of a process change for Abrams.
"I think it's all just [swinging at] better pitches," he said. "You want to hit balls hard. You don't want to hit them too high or too low, so just kind of hard line drives is the thought, and I try to execute that."
These are important lessons learned by a player who seems young at 24 years old but has been doing this for a while now.
Abrams was the 6th overall pick in the 2019 MLB Draft and was the 8th-ranked prospect in all of baseball in 2021 before he made his MLB debut with the Padres in 2022. He hit just .232/.285/.320 in 46 games with the Padres as a 21-year-old with a 27/4 K/BB ratio. He was then shipped off the Washington as part of the Juan Soto trade that also included teammates MacKenzie Gore and James Wood.
He put together a decent season in his first full MLB year with the Nationals in 2023, hitting .245/.300/.412 with 18 home runs and 47 steals. While the steals carried his value from a fantasy perspective, Abrams had an aggressive approach that produced just a 5% walk rate with a 53% swing rate overall. He took a step forward in the first half of the 2024 season but seemed to fade in the second half, slashing .203/.260/.326 with a nearly 24% strikeout rate.
While that may have set off some alarm bells in regards to Abrams' true ceiling, the truth is that the saying "Prospect growth is not linear" is one of the more accurate idioms out there. It takes young players, especially young hitters, time to adjust to the gap in talent between Triple-A and the majors. We saw that this year, with Kristian Campbell starting the year with a strong April and then being demoted back to Triple-A by the middle of June, and Jac Caglianone tearing up the minors before coming up and struggling in his early MLB plate appearances.
For Abrams, the key to navigating that gap in talent was unlocking a level of discipline that he didn't need to have when he was coming up as a prospect.
"Pitchers are better in the majors," he said matter-of-factly. "They execute better. They hit their spots and all that, so being able to be disciplined at the plate is probably the biggest thing that I learned. You know, you can't swing at everything. Those hits you get in the minors are probably not hits here, so being able to drive the ball in the heart of the zone is the biggest adjustment. Laying off those good pitches and trying to get the ones that you can get in the heart of the zone, and just take your walks."
That growth as a hitter is a clear sign of Abrams' maturation as a player and a testament to the lessons you can learn when you've had four seasons against MLB pitching. However, despite his years of experience and the relative youth of his teammates, Abrams, who turns 25 in October, doesn't see himself as any kind of veteran leader.
"I still see myself as one of the young guys," he smiled. You know, I came up with them, kind of, over there in San Diego." Gore, who came with Abrams from the Padres, is 26 years old, which makes him something of a veteran statesman on this team; however, Wood is just 22 years old, and Robert Hassell III, who also came over in the Juan Soto trade, is just 23 years old. Dylan Crews, who began the year as the team's starting centerfielder before getting hurt, is 23 years old. Brady House, the team's starting third baseman, is 22 years old, and Daylen Lile, the starting right fielder, is also 22 years old.
Still, despite being older than those starters and having years more experience against MLB pitching, Abrams is more focused on "just seeing them being able to be in the bigs and start their learning experience. We're all still getting better, for sure."
It seems the Nationals' growth as a team will come from learning together. "We have to come together as a group, like we have been," said Abrams. Perhaps his teammates will see the adjustments Abrams is making at the plate or talk with him about it in the dugout, but the newfound patience the shortstop has found has unlocked a level of potential that always seemed to be lurking under the surface.
On the season, Abrams is the 34th-ranked player in fantasy baseball, according to FanGraph's Player Rater, and is the 6th-most valuable shortstop, behind Elly De La Cruz, Jeremy Pena, Trea Turner, Francisco Lindor, Bobby Witt Jr., and Jacob Wilson. Of that group, De La Cruz, Wilson, and Abrams are the only ones 24 years old or younger. Abrams and De La Cruz are also the only two of that group with 15 or more steals and double-digit home runs, putting them in a grouping by themselves at the position.
"I think there's a bright future for sure."
Perhaps for both Abrams and his young Nationals teammates.
Eric Samulski
