Live from West Palm Beach ... it's reporting day!

Nationals pitchers and catchers officially report for spring training today. Here's what's on tap, plus a shoutout to some other local sportswriters on Substack.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Well, that’s a sight for sore eyes, isn’t it?

Good morning from CACTI Park of the Palm Beaches, where Nationals pitchers and catchers officially report for spring training today. And I’m grateful to be here to chronicle it all.

I can’t begin to thank everyone out there who made day one of this new venture a rousing success. The official tally (as of 11 p.m. Monday): more than 2,500 total subscribers, that number spread out among the four subscription levels (free, monthly, annual, Founding Member). I am overwhelmed by your support and all the kind words many of you sent my way over the course of the day.

And now, it’s time to get to work.

Reporting day is always a bit of a misnomer. A lot of players have already been here for a while, including position players. It’s just the day pitchers and catchers are required to arrive in town, and most of them will be taking their physicals as well. There’s no official workout on the schedule, though most will probably make their way out to the back fields for some informal work at some point.

The most notable thing happening today: Both Paul Toboni and Blake Butera will be holding their first media sessions of the spring. There’s plenty to ask both the new president of baseball operations and the new manager, and hopefully both will have plenty of forthcoming answers to the questions we pose to them. Be sure to check back here this afternoon for the full report. Or check your inbox, because all subscribers will receive an emailed version of every article I publish (with the paywalled articles only going to paying subscribers, of course).

In meantime, if you haven’t checked out the other articles that went up on the site Monday morning, I took a look at the top five storylines the Nationals are facing entering spring training and I also offered up a detailed fan’s guide to spring training here in West Palm Beach (both at and away from the complex). If you’re heading down this way, it’s a must-read. And of course if you’ve been here before, please share your own recommendations in the comments section!

If you haven’t noticed it, there are also a few important links that remain on the homepage all the time, right underneath the Nats Journal masthead. One is a link to the Nats Chat podcast home page, and there’s a new (abbreviated) episode up right now discussing my new work endeavor. We’ll be taping a full episode with observations from the first few days of spring training later this week, so please make sure to watch out for that. And hopefully soon enough, I’ll have figured out how to post direct links to the latest episodes right here on Nats Journal. (Bear with me and podcast producer extraordinaire Tim Shovers; we’re still learning a lot about web publishing!)

Also holding down a permanent spot under the masthead: a link to the Nationals’ current roster, which I’ll be updating whenever they make transactions. There are officially 62 players in big-league camp to begin the spring, 22 of those non-roster invitees who will try to earn their way onto the Opening Day roster.

One final thing to share before we get underway: I wanted to mention a few fellow D.C./Baltimore sportswriters who were already on Substack before I launched Nats Journal and are worth checking out yourself. Ben Standig launched Last Man Standig last summer after getting laid off by The Athletic, and he continues to cover the Commanders in a multi-medium manner no one else can match. Steve Melewski, my former colleague at MASN, continues to cover the Orioles (at both the major- and minor-league levels) with the kind of authority that only comes from decades of experience following that organization. And Jesse Dougherty, who brilliantly covered the Nationals for the Washington Post from 2019-23 before shifting to the business of college sports beat, has been offering all kinds of insight into that fast-changing world on his own Substack.

I’m proud to call all three of them my friends, and I’m grateful for the advice and support they’ve given me in recent weeks. Please check them all out, and if you can, please support their projects as well.

Thanks again for reading and supporting Nats Journal. And with that … spring training is underway!