We talked about a soft sell yesterday which I think will be the most likely scenario for the Nats when we get to late July.. We can argue if it's the right one (I say yes - no reason to deal Max bc you won't get enough back for him. You'd get more value in the next 3 years keeping him maybe even in years 4-7) but we'll do that again later this month I'm sure. In the meantime, we can look at the last soft sell, the 2018 deals in Davey's first lost season, and see what it got (and lost) the Nats.
For Brian Goodwin (blocked from meaningful OF play by MAT and Stevenson, has late blossomed into a decent 4th OF)
Jacob Condra-Bogan - Was doing ok as a control, no-homer reliever in mid-minors then surprisingly retired when he didn't make the majors out of camp (which was not a surprise).
For Brandon Kintzler (talked to press angering Rizzo, has bounced to three different teams in 3 years getting better results than his pitching should have twice. Chickens came home to roost this year and he's dragging the Phillies down)
Jhon Romero - despite real rough outcomes when moved up aggressively, he's developed into a decent reliever though stuff seems a little weak to play in the majors and control/homer numbers are very good but not great, so you want to see more improvement.
For Shawn Kelly (threw his glove on the ground so became part of the bullpen shake up that Rizzo hoped would do... something and did nothing but make things worse, had pitched well for Oakland in 2018 but not good for Texas in 2019 and is out of baseball)
Cash that helped become Kyle Barraclough - big bust for the Nats who hoped he'd return to 2017 form. Instead he kept getting worse. He's in AAA for the Twins now but with no control he's just org depth in 2021.
For Daniel Murphy (end of contract trade dump, did well for Cubs, signed with Colorado but got hurt and couldn't get right and is out of baseball)
Andruw Monasterio - ended up part of the Yan Gomes deal. Not doing much for Cleveland in AA.
For Gio Gonzalez (end of contract dump, was a bit of a star for the Brewers to end 2018 and was an admirable starter in 2019 for them too. That got him a chance with the White Sox but he just didn't pitch well and couldn't stick with anyone this Spring)
KJ Harrison - having an ok year in AA as a guy with some pop. K-rate is crazy though and with that lack of patience I don't think he can handle major league pitching any time soon.
Gilbert Lara - The only one to hit on Nats prospect lists post-trade (in the low 20s), was once a big time international prospect that has gone nowhere. Aggressive move up hasn't helped produced nothing in A+ and AA. Will he even be in the org next year? Don't know.
For Ryan Madson (end of contract dump and bad, he wouldn't do terrible for the Dodgers - blow up a couple times yes, but otherwise ok and ok in the playoffs. At 38 didn't want to sign just to sign in 2019 and never got a deal he liked so hung it up)
Andrew Istler - looked like a late blooming relief steal for the Nats, with tough to hit stuff if a bit wild. I THINK he got hurt? I know he's out of baseball now.
So for trading 5 decent or better major leaguers and a spare part the Nats got back 3 guys who probably had enough talent to make the majors in some way - but likely only 1 who will and he probably won't be good, cash they turned into a decent bet that failed, a prospect they threw in in a deal*, and two failed bats. Is that exciting? No. Is that useful... I guess kind of as opposed to nothing. And that's kind of what the Nats, with not the same level of talent to trade off this year, would hope for. Maybe get an arm to use for a couple seasons a couple years down the road. Maybe get a guy they can flip for something they want more. It's not much but the only way you are rebuilding the minors is a complete gut. Not just dealing Max, but also Gomes and Trea and Ross. Is that what you want to do? Because if so good luck - it doesn't always work and you can find yourself Pirating or Marinering the next decade.
*The trade really was for Daniel Johnson and Jefry Rodriguez. Jefry, a AAAA pitcher at the time, seems to be the same, but has made his way back to DC. Johnson looked great in Columbus in 2019 but in the majors has struggled and this year's minor league numbers are straight bad.
16 comments:
Suggesting that perhaps a "soft sell" doesn't usually net much for either the team selling, nor the team doing the buying?
How about the hard sell? How does that usually end up working for either team? The ones I remember tend to be 50/50 for the team trying to benefit. I just don't know why, or that's the case more, or less, often.
Thanks Harper.
Somebody yesterday made the comment about not becoming the next Phillies and missing a chance to rebuild. Agreed that there are dangers in rebuilding a la the Os, Pirates, and Ms, but can you talk about the relative risk of the opposite? I.e. a Phillies style situation where unlike the Braves, they didn’t hard sell until it was too late and it’s been a decade since they made the playoffs. Just curious as to the relative risk of both hard sell and ‘perpetual hanging around’ as it were
In reviewing what steps the Nats should take at the trade deadline, I think it is important to note that the Mets (and perhaps the Phillies and the Braves) will almost surely take steps to improve themselves. So, it's apples-to-oranges to compare a soft-buy Nats with a no-buy Mets, because the Mets will be buyers. In fact, the Mets might be big buyers because they have the $$ and the talent, and their goal is not just to win the division, but to try to get to the WS. With DeGrom and Walker pitching, and some better hitting, the Mets have a shot. There is just no way the Nats can compete with that.
The decision of soft versus hard sell (assuming you're selling at all) isn't about return, but rather about what you think of the team as a whole. If you think the core of your team is fundamentally sound but you happened to have run into some bad luck or missed on a few fringe moves (Strasburg getting hurt, Castro underperforming what they expected from him, that kind of thing), then you do a soft sell, not because you expect to get rich doing it but to basically get some value for something that's otherwise getting you no value (like...Harrison might give you 1 WAR between the deadline and the end of the year, but what's the difference between 77 and 78 wins to the team?). The NPV of production in a lost year is $0, while even a small benefit in the future is at least worth something.
A hard sell is something you do if you think you've got nothing. Stras will never be healthy again, Corbin sucks now, Trea's gone in two years, the farm is bare and it doesn't matter what you do because unless you run a $300M payroll for free agents you'll never be able to put enough MLB talent on the field to compete.
The problem is, either kind of sale requires the same two things to work: good luck and skill with player selection/development. A hard sell is fine (to a certain measure of fine; as a fan I'd stop giving a damn about baseball for a while) if you're Houston and you follow three years of epic suckage with steady improvement and finally excellence (though one also wonders if one has to be excellent at trash-can banging to pull it off). But if you have poor drafting and lousy player development you're the Orioles instead, and the region already has one Orioles franchise.
Conversely, if you do have good player development skills throughout the organization, then you can be the As or Rays, just with a budget.
That's what I think people miss about the success of Houston's tank job sometimes: they didn't just tear down the roster; they tore down the entire organization. If you think you have the organization to succeed, you don't need a hard sell. And if you aren't willing to rebuild the organization, then a hard sell won't get you anything but more short-term losses.
Potomac - That does have to be considered but I don't think you can assume, only react. Until the Mets do something you have to treat them as the opponent they are at the time not the opponent they could be
GCX / W Patterson - I don't know off the top of my head what true hard sells do (and what not doing it do either). True hard sells - taking a talented team with a year left and selling it pretty much completely off - are rare. The most famous of the past 25 years is the Marlins in 1997/98 after winning the WS. An overachieving team with a true dominant division leader is probably not the best comparison but we do what we can.
So there was a 1997 burst and a 1998 burst. The 1997 burst was very limited in how it ended up helping despite the ton of talent given up. They got back 18 players and only 2 would be good (Derrek Lee and AJ Burnett) and only 1 would help that 2003 team (tbf - Burnett could have but was injured) The 1998 trade off was far more successful. I think though looking at this the key isn't so much the pieces you get back but the pieces you get back (1) boosting the farm system as whole and (2) becoming TERRIBLE by trading everyone good so you can draft some good players. Like they drafted Beckett, and Adrian Gonzalez that they turned into Urbina. Other guys turned into Mark Redman.
Probably their most successful deal was trading 4 good players for 2 better ones (Piazza and Zeile) and then flipping those guys for young talent.
But we're talking about a FULL teardown. That means everything but Soto. Not just digging deep and trading Hand, Hudson, and Max. Trea gone. Robles gone. Fedde/Ross gone. Possibly a guy like Garcia - still some prospect cache but has played in the majors gone. And here's your problem. You need Strasburg gone - but he's hurt. You need Corbin gone - but Corbin's bad. And still the turn around there was 6 seasons. If it's that long you have to think - to really do a Marlins - to really get enough back to use in trades later? You'd might have to give up Soto.
Thanks for the quality responses, Potomac and Harper.
Looks to be a wait-and-see and don't get too emotionally involved with any of the players. Rizzo might have to burn down the barn to get back the nails.
@PotomacFan - my #1 hope is they compete. Even if we drop a few behind the Mets and never quite make it, life is short and having a team that's relevant is fun.
I brought up yesterday a hard sale option of selling Max if we're truly out of it, which I think had some strong reactions against. Generally speaking I get the reactions, so I want to lay out a few points and get people's reads.
1) Our farm system / cash allocation is so bad right now, anything in the top 200 would be an improvement. Even though we're under the luxury tax, our QO pick isn't great either
2) I'd be game to move someone like House in tandem with any of these guys and make it an actual haul. not sure what the history of moving high schoolers is like, but I wonder if we could entice a Tampa / SF / San Diego to get them over the hump this year and be good to Max honestly in letting him play for a competitor as he winds down his career.
3) of course, I 100% want to resign Max after the season no matter what. The point of moving someone like House is that I assume he's 4-5 years out for someone who could help when the core today (Stras, Trea, Juan, maybe resigned Max).
musings, but I think we've had a good MiLB system for so long that people are sleeping on how hard it is to compete like that unless you're the 1990s Yankees.
@Harper: In response to my comment that the Mets will surely upgrade at the deadline, you noted "That does have to be considered but I don't think you can assume, only react. Until the Mets do something you have to treat them as the opponent they are at the time not the opponent they could be." I wish this were the case, but most of these deals get started before the deadline but don't get done until the deadline -- giving the Nats (or any other team) little if any time to react. The Nats have to anticipate what the Mets will do and act accordingly.
@Patterson: I'm with you. The Nats should give it a shot, stay competitive and keep the season interesting. To me, that means not selling, and not buying. Just hoping that Strasburg and Schwarber come back soon, and play well. And that Corbin gets better, and Soto becomes Soto again. At least some of those are possible. And, as some have noted, if DeGrom gets hurt, all bets on the Mets are off.
Dezo makes a key point that makes me hesitate to do any sort of sale: you need good player development. Now I'm sure some of this is observer bias, but dear god does it feel like the Nats can't develop anything. All of the players that came out of their system and succeeded were basically no-brainers besides Soto (Harper, Stras, Turner, Rendon, etc). But then look at the list of players they failed to develop that were pretty highly touted (Robles, Kieboom, Giolito, Cole, etc). Those 4 off the top of my head were all considered top 10 prospects in all of MLB at one point.
Until the Nats figure out how to develop the talent they do have, I don't think it's worth trying to build up the farm. Instead, work on trades to improve the MLB roster by leveraging cash and trading some big assets if necessary (Turner arguably being the top of that list)
Are Rizzo, the minors staff and trainers all good enough to rebuild the minors while keeping an interesting team in the majors? My guess is "No", but give me an argument for how the Nats minors staff has developed the talent they have more effectively than the average team has.
I wouldn't throw Rizzo under the bus on talent development. Most stars are no brainers. Not really fair to fault them for not getting it wrong.
They've done a hell of a job at building a competitive team for a decade, and Rizzo has made great moves (Ramos, Trea, Ross, Roark), though that's cherry picking. I hope we compete and this is moot.
I haven't given up on Rizzo. His history is full of trades and signings that were great. Trea Turner/Joe Ross from SD and Juan Soto signing in DR are recent examples.
In fact, from Harper's piece, its easy to see how much more important a set of smart trades or signings is over marginal "soft sells". Its not time to tear things apart.
Drafting Robles and Kieboom didn't turn out. It happens. Its surprising that the Nats sit at the bottom in minor league depth. But given these two busts, and the fact that Rizzo squeezed everything to keep the window open as long as he did --- and won a WS, you gotta have faith in the office team.
Signing Rendon after a college injury was a gamble that could easily have been a bust --- it paid off.
Fact of the matter is that its extremely hard to maintain a playoff team year in year out. Rizzo is up there with Billy Beane respect-wise and I doubt he's thrown in the towel on 2021 or 2022. Nobody was talking about Juan Soto before he arrived on the scene --- and I'll take him over the Bryce Harper circus any day.
If the Mets have a 70% chance of winning the division, then the Nats have at least a 5 to 10% chance. I take that bet any time over a sell-off because once you're into the playoffs anything can happen.
in a soft sell, wouldn't hand, schwarber (if healthy) and bell all go? surely the
nats could get a decent return for those three without dealing turner and soto.
CP - Giolito yes. Robles yes. Kieboom just outside. AJ Cole - hahahhaha no. Got up maybe to 50 in one ranking one year. Mostly down near 100.
I think Rizzo (really the organization development team) might be worse than normal at development but I think he's a good trader and the squad has a good eye for int'l talent. In part his issue is he bets big - goes after the best talent regardless of issue or injury because the payoff is so high. Worked with Rendon, took too long with Giolito, didn't work with a Romero. Still - I'm not sure you're getting a better org if Rizzo goes.
Mooselookmeguntic (I looked that up)... you'd be surprised what you'd get back. Let's say Bell and Schwarber (if injury status ill-defined) are Joc Petersons types. Well Bryce Ball was traded for him and he currently falls in the 20-30 prospect range... in the Cubs own system - which isn't that good. He's struck out 60 times in 170 ABs in High-A and is 23. It's only his 2nd year in the minors so you don't write him off but that's not great. Figure for the Nats something maybe slightly better for Bell/Schwarber? Something that ends up 10-15 within the Nats own very weak system. Here's one ranking - these are mostly names you haven't heard of that will end up doing nothing. https://www.mlb.com/prospects/nationals/ Go back to like 2018 - after the gutting that helped win 2019 to get an idea of what 10-15 in the org is now. It's... rough. Guys who will never make it plus a couple of guys who will probably be 2-3 year last man on the 40 types. So that's what you kind of expect back.
Haven’t paid much attention to who else might need a bat, but what about Kieboom plus maybe a couple prospects outside the Nats’ top five for Kris Bryant? Rare rental who could become part of the team’s core. Castro moves to super-utility player (like ASSCab a couple seasons ago) and Nats get first crack at signing a player they were already eyeing this offseason. Cubs get to bet the Nats’ development of Kieboom was flawed (pretty decent bet, esp. Giolito, IMO). If the Lerners are willing to spend (huge IF!) extending Bryant, Turner, and Max (at a slightly lower AAV rate for let’s say 3-4 more years) gives this team a solid core from which to retool and compete for the next three years or so.
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