How the Nationals – and CJ Abrams – are enjoying a dramatic improvement (Yes, we had a little something to do with it)

There is still low-hanging fruit to be reaped even at the highest level of professional baseball. Think of the Washington Nationals.

It wasn’t that long ago under former general manager Mike Rizzo — in the spring of 2024 — that the Nationals put up signs at their Florida complex and spring training bullpen that read “I don’t care how many four balls you throw.”

The real message was that the Nats were struggling with the fact that speed is king with pitching. Unless you’re a commando like Greg Maddux, you’re going to need stuff.

But times are changing in Washington.

This past winter under the new regime, the Nationals overhauled their calling system. They hired Simon Mathews as a 30-year-old big league coach – he worked at Driveline and Push Performance before becoming an assistant coach for the Cincinnati Reds. Washington added another Driveline alum Luke Dziados as an assistant pitching coach.

Dziados has contributed in many ways to Driveline including research on topics such as the limitations of motion capture in understanding arm pain.

Although pitching is still not the team’s strength, the Nationals have improved their ERA from a 5.35 mark last year, worse than only the Rockies, to a 4.69 ERA this year – among the top five improvements in the sport.

But in this piece, I want to focus on their batting progress this season. The progress is even more noticeable, and it has more influence of the Driveline.

More than a third of the way through the season, the Nationals led the way in scoring.

Yes, the Nationals.

The Nationals ranked 20th last year in runs scored (687 runs, 4.24 runs per game). This season they have scored more runs than the Dodgers since June 5 (331 runs to 330) and are averaging 5.32 runs per game – an improvement of 1.08 runs per game that ranks second in baseball to only the Pirates.

The Pirates’ development has been heavily linked to outfielders like Brandon Lowe, Ryan O’Hearn and uber prospect Konnor Griffin.

But much of what the Nationals have done has to do with internal improvements, which shows that the game is far from being developed in other corners of the top level of play.

More than 80% of the plate appearances came from returning starters – players like James Wood, Jacob Young – who now has a career-best eight home runs – and CJ Abrams.

Abrams, an amazing athlete, is using his incredible strength this season, enjoying career bests throughout.

I spoke with Abrams recently to understand how he’s benefited from new coaching styles, approaches, and working with Driveline alumni Andrew Aydt, who was hired as the league’s assistant hitting coach this past season. Travis Fitta, a Triple-A hitting coach — often associated with the big league team — has been Tampa’s hitting coach at Driveline.

Abrams is the ninth most improved player in the majors in terms of wRC+ – +42 – and two of his teammates, Wood and Young, also rank in the top 30.

What has changed?

Abrams was introduced to the bat-speed system with overload this off-season, which is available from the company’s product that benefits from the powerful influence of Driveline.

Abrams’ bat speed (72.7 mph), fast-swing percentage and slugging percentage all improved.

“Being able to swing the bat that fast is always good,” quipped Abrams.

We agree, CJ

But we don’t just train for bat speed at Driveline.

Yes, improving bat speed is a big deal. But we also focus on swing methods – Abrams enjoys a 61% attack angle – and swing decisions. They are all fundamental principles of what we train, leading to performance gains. His teammate, Young, is a great example of improved bat technique.

Young is also a Driveline client – adding the Driveline flavor to the Nationals.