WEST PALM BEACH, FL - For most Major League Baseball teams, mid-March debates over the identity of the fifth starter in the rotation are little more than spring training parlor games. After all, with the grueling 162-game schedule, the average club cycles through ten to fifteen different pitchers to take the mound on Opening Day—or at least sometime thereafter. Back-end rotation arms, those oft-maligned “fifth starter” types, might only log half a season’s worth of starts before injuries, ineffectiveness, or strategic roster churn sends them packing to the bullpen, Triple-A, or beyond. For many organizations, the fifth starter spot is less a crown jewel and more a revolving door. But the Washington Nationals? They’re built differently.

Over the past two seasons, the Nats have defied the MLB norm by deploying the fewest starting pitchers league-wide—a mere ten different arms—despite losing a key hurler to Tommy John surgery early in each campaign. In 2023, promising prospect Cade Cavalli went down at the tail end of spring training, his elbow sidelined before he could throw a regular-season pitch. In 2024, Josiah Gray, a linchpin of the rotation, managed just two April starts before succumbing to the surgeon’s knife. Yet across those two years, a lean core of seven pitchers—Patrick Corbin, Jake Irvin, Trevor Williams, MacKenzie Gore, Mitchell Parker, and DJ Herz—shouldered an astonishing 303 of the Nats’ 324 possible starts. The remaining 21? A trio of fill-ins—Joan Adon, Jackson Rutledge, and Chad Kuhl—patched the gaps. In an era where pitching depth is stretched thin across the sport, Washington’s rotation has been a model of stability, a testament to resilience and organizational philosophy.

So, it's no trivial matter when the Nationals square off in spring training to settle the fifth starter question. Unlike years past, when the competition might have pitted grizzled veterans scavenged from the free-agent scrap heap against one another, this March’s battle features two homegrown talents: Mitchell Parker and DJ Herz. The stakes feel higher because history suggests that whoever claims the job out of camp is likely to hold it for much of the season—a rare prize in a league where rotation spots often feel as fleeting as cherry blossoms in bloom along the Tidal Basin. As of March 14, 2025, with the current spring training narrative unfolding, the edge appears to belong to Parker—but it’s far from a done deal.

The Contenders: Parker vs. Herz

Mitchell Parker, at 25, seems poised to seize the role, especially given DJ Herz’s struggles this spring. Herz, 24, has flashed electric stuff in the past, but his velocity has dipped, and his command has wavered in recent outings, leaving onlookers questioning whether he can harness his raw potential in time. Still, Herz shrugged off the slow start in a candid chat with reporters yesterday, noting that spring stumbles are par for his course. “I’ve always been a guy who takes a little longer to find my groove in March,” he said. “If you judge me by the games that count, I think I’ve shown what I can do.” He’s not wrong—rewind to the second half of last season, post-All-Star break, and Herz was arguably the Nationals’ most effective starter, a dynamo who seemed to gain steam as the summer wore on. Parker, meanwhile, faded down the stretch despite a workhorse-like 29 starts, his late-season struggles casting a shadow over an otherwise solid rookie campaign.

That both pitchers are even in this position is a quiet victory for the Nationals’ front office and player development apparatus. Parker, a 2020 fifth-round draft pick out of San Jacinto Junior College, and Herz, acquired via trade from the Cubs in the Jeimer Candelario deal in 2023, represent the fruits of a system finally bearing homegrown talent.

The Nationals’ Secret Sauce: Stability Through Development

Washington’s ability to maintain rotation stability over the past two seasons—outpacing every other MLB team in this regard—owes less to dumb luck or even Patrick Corbin’s ironman streak (he hasn’t missed a start due to injury in his six years with the club) and more to a deliberate developmental ethos. Across baseball, the prevailing trend has been to coddle young pitchers, turning them into “five-and-dive” specialists who rarely see the sixth inning in the minors. The logic? Preserve their arms, “save bullets,” and keep them fresh for the long haul. Yet arm injuries—Tommy John surgeries chief among them—continue to rise, calling that approach into question.

The Nationals, by contrast, have charted a different course. Their minor-league starters aren’t babied; they’re pushed to pitch deeper into games, provided they maintain efficiency. The results speak for themselves. Take a look at the 2024 minor-league stat lines: Brad Lord reached the sixth inning or beyond in 13 of his 25 starts; Andrew Alvarez did so in 12 of 26; Andry Lara in 13 of 25; Kyle Luckham in 16 of 27; and Tyler Stuart, a midseason trade acquisition, in 3 of 8 after joining the org. Even down in Low-A, where the Nats’ brightest young arms reside, 20-year-olds Jarlin Susana and Travis Sykora were stretched out like seasoned pros—Susana completed the fifth inning in 14 of his final 16 starts, Sykora in 12 of his last 15. This isn’t about reckless overuse; it’s about conditioning pitchers to handle a starter’s workload, building resilience rather than bubble-wrapping arms.

The payoff? A big-league rotation that doesn’t collapse under the weight of a six-month season. While other teams scramble to patchwork their staffs with call-ups and waiver claims, the Nats have leaned on a tight-knit group, trusting their process to churn out pitchers who can grind. It’s possible—perhaps counterintuitively—that by asking their arms to do more in the minors, the Nationals are keeping them healthier when it matters most. The data backs this up: despite the early losses of Cavalli and Gray, Washington’s rotation has avoided the injury-plagued chaos that’s derailed other clubs.

What’s Next?

As spring training rolls on, all eyes remain on Parker and Herz. If Parker locks down the fifth starter gig, it’ll be a nod to his consistency and readiness—a reward for a pitcher who’s logged innings and kept the Nats competitive. If Herz turns it around, it’ll affirm his second-half surge wasn’t a fluke, cementing him as a cornerstone for years. Either way, the Nationals win. They’ve engineered a scenario where two of their own—a draft pick and a trade acquisition—are battling it out, a far cry from the stopgap solutions of yesteryear. For a franchise still clawing its way back to relevance after the post-2019 title hangover, that’s a story worth rooting for—one pitch at a time.