Washington Nationals news & notes: Cade Cavalli in 2025

Notes and quotes on the Nationals’ 2020 1st Round pick, who is once again rehabbing going into the offseason…

Cade Cavalli missed time with the flu and also went through a “dead arm” period as he tried to rehab from last March’s Tommy John surgery, but in the end, the setbacks kept the righty from returning to the majors this season as the Nationals and the 2020 1st Round pick felt it was too late by the time he’d built back up.

“We just ran out of time this season,” Cavalli told reporters late in September, as quoted by MASN’s Mark Zuckerman.

“I hate it, because I want to be out there more than anything. I miss competing like crazy.

“We just ran out of time. I’m very excited. There’s a lot of fuel for the fire for 2025.”

Washington’s skipper, Davey Martinez, bristled when the 2023 campaign was described as a “lost season” for the now-26-year-old pitcher.

Photo by John McDonnell/The Washington Post via Getty Images

“It’s really not [a lost season],” Martinez explained. “He had Tommy John surgery. We’ve got to look at it, and a lot of things are different for some guys. Especially a guy like him that’s — he’s already touched 98 at one point. He just wants to make sure that this doesn’t happen to him again, which we all should understand. So we’re going to be very careful. He comes to Spring Training 100%, ready to go, we’ll be in great shape.”

Cavalli was in great shape coming into Spring Training 2024, and seemed well on his way to a mid-to-late season return to the big league rotation. It didn’t happen in the end, which did not reflect on the work everyone put in along the way, according to Martinez.

“He ramped up really, really well,” the skipper said. “Obviously everybody sees what kind of shape this guy is in. I think he thought that because he kept himself in such great shape and everything that — but it’s a lot.

“You’re talking about reconstruction of an elbow, basically, a ligament. So it takes some time, especially when he wants to come back and do the things he wants to do, and it’s different for everybody.”

Photo by Rich Storry/Getty Images

Martinez pointed to an example of another pitcher on the big league roster who didn’t quite bounce back as expected right away, though this reliever looked a lot more like his pre-TJS self as the season went on.

“Tanner Rainey pitched, but even when he was pitching he said it’s a lot different,” Martinez said. “He had to a lot of different things in order for him to feel the way he feels now, which is a lot better than he was even coming out of Spring Training and the beginning of the year, and he took a little more time than we thought he needed, but rightfully so. [Cavalli] is going to be a starter, so we got to make sure that he’s okay, and that he understands that he’s okay, and that he feels good about going out there and competing.”

Once they officially announced Cavalli would not pitch in competitive action again this year, as he worked to build back up again, Martinez talked about the plan for this offseason and it is clear, he said, the righty would get after it again as he did last winter.

“Knowing him he’s going to get after it. He always does,” Martinez said. “He’s going to come to Spring Training the best shape he possibly could be in. Best pitching shape he could possibly be in, and be ready to go out there and compete. With his injury going down we saw some other guys step up and [they] have done really well.

“So to add him in the mix with the guys we have now, that’s pretty awesome. It’s going to be a good problem to have to have all these guys ready to go in Spring Training.”

“He’s got a bright future,” GM and President of Baseball Ops Mike Rizzo told 106.7 the FAN in D.C.’s Sports Junkies in a mid-September interview.

“He was one of the best pitching prospects in baseball until he had Tommy John surgery.

“He’s rehabbing now. His rehab is going longer than we had planned on it, he had a couple setbacks, but he’s going to be fine coming into Spring Training, and we expect him to be a big part of the rotation going forward.”

“We’re going to have to see how everything goes throughout the winter,” Martinez said in the last week of the season when asked if he thought about Cavalli as part of the starting mix in the majors in 2025.

“We hope that he comes to Spring Training ready to go, but it’s about the innings next year as well. We’ve got to be really careful of how far we push him. I want him to come to Spring Training understanding that yeah, he does have an opportunity to make the team, and we’ll go from there.”