The Washington Nationals are getting set for what should be an exciting 2025 campaign that will feature some of their young talent.

After winning the World Series in 2019, the Nationals have been stuck in rebuilding mode ever since.

Fortunately, the team has done a good job of drafting and developing players over the past few years and that young talent is hoping to continue to breakout in 2025.

Most of the young core of Washington is in their lineup, with the pitching staff being a bit of an issue.

The franchise hopes that some of their young arms will develop, but they don't appear to have the high-end talent that they do in their lineup as of now.

This winter, the franchise was reluctant to spend long-term in free agency, and with their core still being fairly unproven, that is likely the right decision.

Front-end starting pitching was certainly a need this winter for the team, but after a miss on a long-term deal with a star pitcher, the team might have been hesitant to invest.

Zachary D. Rymer of Bleacher Report (subscription required) recently spoke about the worst contract on the Nationals being the remaining money on Stephen Strasburg's deal.

"After the Nationals won the World Series in 2019, they made the right decision not to re-sign the aforementioned Rendon for seven years and $245 million. Unfortunately, they gave a matching deal to World Series MVP Stephen Strasburg, which essentially turned into a lifetime achievement contract."

Strasburg was without a doubt a star for Washington, but unfortunately his career was cut short because of injury.

The combination of Strasburg and Bryce Harper was supposed to bring a title to the Nationals, but it ended up being Strasburg who helped get it done for Washington.

After winning the World Series, the Nationals at the time wisely signed their star pitcher to a seven-year, $245 million deal at the time.

Considering the talented right-hander had just won 18 games in 2019, the team won a World Series, and he made three All-Star teams, it was a no-brainer to sign him to a new deal.

Unfortunately, after the pen hit the paper, Strasburg made just eight starts between 2020 and 2022, before his career came to an end with nerve damage.

Washington is still on the hook for a couple of more years of the deal and with not a lot of other multi-year deals for the franchise, Strasburg's deal is certainly a bad one.

To no fault of the Nationals, the decision to sign the All-Star didn't work out for the franchise to say the least.

If he was able to remain healthy, the trajectory of the team the past few years might have been very different.

Even though it wasn't a mistake at the time, this has certainly become the worst contract on the team as of now.