Will Harris be healthy?

The Nats have put together a pretty impressive pen, or at least on paper. Sean Doolittle has been a very good pitcher out of the pen for years. Same with Will Harris. Sitting in the 7th inning spot Daniel Hudson was a key pitcher for the Nats last year and may have found himself. Roenis Elias seemed to have made the transition to reliever just fine (though with an odd split) and should be a decent middle inning pitcher if healthy. Tanner Rainey showed promise in flashes last year. Wander Suero is a decent innings filler in the last man in the pen role. To me that fills 6 of your 7 bullpen roles just fine. Yeah, ideally you'd like someone more lights out in 8/9 but those aren't easy to come by.

Compare to last year - Doolittle was in the same position, but Rosenthal was an huge question mark at 8th, Miller/Barraclough ok 7th/middle inning impt out guys you'd think. Sipp a pretty solid lefty. Grace and Suero both innings eaters which means one would be asked to do to much. That's not a bad pen on theory but by putting the question mark all the way up at set-up and not having an plus pitcher for the role anywhere else you put all the pressure on Rosenthal. He fails and the system breaks down. He failed. Also there wasn't a young arm with promise here to pin some hopes on. Bullpens have variability (see Barraclough also failing). Which is why you want to lock down as many places as possible and ideally have a bunch of 7th/impt out guys to try out to see if someone ascends or can at least fill a great role if the closer or set-up guy go down.  Someone WILL get hurt. Praying it's not at Top 3/4 bullpen guy isn't a plan.

I'd say the current pen missing that one piece inbetween Hudson and Elias*. Strickland is nominally it but stinks. Ryne Harper could be it, but then again could not be. Finnegan? Someone else? A lefty specialist would be nice but the rules make the usefulness of such a player unclear going forward. It's a hole but a hole that shouldn't be a big deal if everyone is healthy.

Everyone is not healthy. Will Harris is hurt! And if he's out and everything shifts then well... Hudson, even though he managed it last year, is an iffy set-up. Elias/Rainey iffy that both can fit the 7th inning / main middle innings firefighter guys. Suero iffy that he can have a bigger role than innings eater. And then TWO holes at the back end that is much harder to work around than last year. It's a lot like how the Nats pen ended up last year after Rosenthal failed.

Now in theory I like this years pen better. Sure it's missing a 7th/impt out guy in that bunch but Hudson is a pretty solid choice to lead that group. Rainey is probably the best young arm the Nats have had in a pen since Glover and Treinen were there in 2017.** There's more cushion here I think for things to not collapse. But there's also that caveat... if there's another Barraclough type unexpected failure you have chaos. Harris goes out and Hudson underperforms and there's big trouble. Of course saying if your 2nd and 3rd most important relievers go out it's bad isn't news but some teams can handle that better than other. Their pen is deep in solid arms. Their organization has some interesting AAA guys to try out. The Nats aren't that team. They need Harris back. If he doesn't come back then they NEED everything else to work out in the late innings of the pen.





*If I were building a pen I think the reasonable ideal would be - lights out closer, good set-up, 3 other good pitchers to fill 7th/impt out roles, one young arm with promise, one decent long relief arm 

**best doesn't mean it will work out.