Every year you enter Spring Training with questions. You like questions like "Which one of our phenoms will win the 5th starter role?" or "Will we have to successfully platoon our OF again or will someone break out?" Those aren't the questions the Nats have though. The Nats have the questions of a good but not great team and those questions are going to make or break the season.
The first, and most important, set have everything to do with starting pitching
1) Is Strasburg healthy? You remember Strasburg didn't sit out last year, it just felt like it. He pitched, got hurt, went off and had surgery. The official word is for carpal tunnel. He's supposed to be ready for ST. We shall see
2) Which Corbin is the real Corbin? Last "year" Corbin threw to a 4.66 ERA and it was mostly deserved. His history is a guy with as many ace years as middling ones. The Nats signed him for more than one ace year.
3) Does Jon Lester have one more good year in him? Lester is going to eat up innings. We should expect that. But if he does it like 2019/2020 that will be 4th/5th starter material. That's not terrible - you NEED that. But it is not what the Nats were hoping for when they signed him.
Now we get a non SP question
4) What is Carter Kieboom? He's had a decent amount of time in the majors and has shown nothing. He's shown so little he was offered up as trade bait from a team loathe to trade anyone young and good because they don't have many of those. It's not time to give up on him but the clock is ticking.
And back to SP
5) Does Max have a CY year in him? In 2019 Max got a little hurt and threw a ton of innings. Last year he put up a good year. But for Max good is off. It was his worst year since at least 2012. The Nats need an ace. With Stras coming back from injury and Corbin a question, Max is the one they are looking to for it.
And back away
6) Are Schwarber and Bell going to be any good? They both have generally the same profile - potential mashers who are defensive liabilities that have seen better years. If they don't hit, and they haven't in their most recent time playing, things get ugly fast. Presumably their other skill (a little patience) is based off them being able to hit.
7) Can Trea have another year like last? This hasn't been talked about enough but a big reason the Nats weren't complete garbage last year is that Trea put up MVP type numbers. That'd be nice. A season like he normally puts up would be fine but would leave a big hole behind Soto in guys to be afraid of.
8) Can Robles hit? Asking because they need him out there to field (we presume last year's dip was the vagaries of small samples) and he really hasn't for most of his time in the majors
and finally a fun one
9) Can Soto do what he did last year for a full season? Last year Soto, in about 80% of a season that itself was about 40% a real one so... about 30% a real season was AWESOME. Like "mark this year in the annals of the great ones" type of hitting. Bryce in 2015*. If he does that for a full year... you can carry a team a long way like that.
Lesser Questions
Who wins the 5th starter role?
Will Yan Gomes be good or below average?
How will the bullpen shake out in terms of roles?
Castro for the full year? or will Garcia show enough to knock him out?
*Imagine seeing two of the best hitting displays of the past generation and neither leading to a playoff spot.
Pretty depressing list of questions, though totally fair.
ReplyDeleteI'm optimistic about 1 and 9, and pessimistic about 5 and 6. The rest feel like legit coin flips. It definitely does feel like we have to get lucky to beat the Braves and Mets - at-expectations performance across the board won't cut it.
And there's another long term question - how many years until we have even an average farm system? Being shut out on FG"s FV50+ list is brutal.
Depends. Assuming the Nats have a slow breakdown... 3+ years at least. But if they stink, trade for prospects, get high draft picks and be average next year! Not sure that’s what you want though
ReplyDeleteThat's a good point. Sure, we could trade Soto to the Rays or Padres and have an average system tomorrow. And that's... not quite what I had in mind.
ReplyDeleteI guess what I want and think is possible is to begin 90%+ seasons with a 20%+ chance of making the playoffs and 25%+ seasons with a 50% chance of making the playoffs. (And then to actually make the playoffs a good chunk of the time and win in the playoffs occasionally - I don't want to have high hopes and collapse every year, obviously.)
This team feels barely above that 20% bar (and I went and checked fangraph's playoff odds which agrees - 23%).
It feels like that should be sustainable in perpetuity with a payroll around the soft cap, but maybe it isn't. No team never has prospects bust. We had a pretty good run. If all we get out of Robles, Kieboom and Garcia is one 2-3 WAR player, then I don't think I see it, not unless we get serious overperformance from other sources (both Stras and Corbin are great for the next few years, one of the pitching prospects becomes a real ace, etc).
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