NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. -- It's early. Like holding-winter-meetings-in-the-fall kind of early. But as it stands right now, after the first full day of MLB's annual elbow-rub-athon, the Washington Nationals are poised to become the 2017 version of the 2016 Chicago Cubs.

You remember the Cubs, right? Won a bunch of games in 2015 but got bounced from the playoffs. Made a big splash at the winter meetings in Nashville by signing highly coveted free agent Ben Zobrist. Spent the remainder of the offseason gobbling up big-name FAs like Pac-Man gobbles up ghosts after eating one of those big dots. Then promptly went on to win their first World Series in forever.

I'm not saying that Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo is going to corner this winter's free-agent market like Theo Epstein did a year ago. I'm not saying that the Nats are going to win their first ring in franchise history. What I am saying is that the similarities between the two clubs are a little freaky. Check it out:

1. The rookie who would be a star. Kris Bryant was a first-round draft pick in 2013. Two years later, he took the league by storm and won the 2015 Rookie of the Year award, then followed that up by winning the MVP and leading the Cubs to glory. Trea Turner is the Nats' version of Kris Bryant. A first-round pick in 2014, Turner took the league by storm two years later and would've won the ROY award had it not been for Kyle Seager's snot-nosed little brother. Like Bryant, Turner is a former college star. Like Bryant, Turner is a Swiss army knife who plays multiple infield positions as well as the outfield. It remains to be seen whether Turner will factor in to the 2017 MVP picture, but if he picks up where he left off in 2016, he'll certainly merit consideration.

A Swiss army knife who plays multiple infield positions as well as the outfield, Trea Turner took the league by storm as a rookie. Patrick Smith/Getty Images

2. The beloved manager in his second year. In his first year with Chicago in 2015, well-liked skipper Joe Maddon led the Cubs to a 24-win improvement. The following year, he led them to the Promised Land. In his first year with Washington in 2016, Dusty Baker -- who, like Maddon, is a player's manager known for his people skills -- guided the Nats to a 12-win bump. It wasn't quite the turnaround that Maddon engineered, but clearly Baker has his club headed in the right direction. If Washington continues along that path, both Baker and the Nats could win their first World Series.

3. The hurler with the hardware. Jake Arrieta was dominant in 2015, when he was the National League's only 20-game winner and took home the Cy Young. In 2016, even though he wasn't quite the same guy, he was still pretty darned good and had a whole lot to do with the Cubs going the distance. Max Scherzer was the 2016 version of Arrieta. OK, so maybe he wasn't as dominant as Jake the Snake (few ever have been), but he was the only 20-game winner on the Senior Circuit and did nab his second Cy Young. A repeat performance from Mad Max in '17 would go a long way toward getting the Nats to the Fall Classic.

4. Raiders of the free-agent ark. More than anything, it's the Nationals' current position as prime offseason predator that's a potential indicator of their next-level status. Last winter, Epstein took a good Cubs team and made it great by reeling in seemingly every high-profile free agent out there. Zobrist. John Lackey. Jason Heyward. Dexter Fowler. Curt Flood. LeBron James. OK, so I made up those last two. But you get the point: Even though Chicago was already a playoff team in 2015, it was Epstein's epic offseason that catapulted the Cubs to greatness the following year.

This time around, instead of the Cubs, it's the Nationals that seem to be at the center of every single rumor involving a superstar. Aroldis Chapman. Andrew McCutchen. Chris Sale. Washington is in play for all of them. In fact, the Nats are more than just in play. They're legit contenders for each. Granted, some of those whispers are swirling around trade targets as opposed to free agents exclusively, but still, the intent is clear.

Bottom line is, a month into the offseason, Rizzo and the Nats have the look, sound and feel of a franchise that's in it to win it. Just like the Cubs did last year. Who knows? Maybe they end up whiffing on Chapman. Or McCutchen. Or Sale. Maybe they whiff on all three. Then again, maybe they don't. If that's the case, then this time next year we might be trying to figure out which team is the 2018 version of the 2017 Nationals.