Thank god, right? A season that saw the Nats verify that their crappy COVID season wasn't a fluke, had a sell-off of fan favorites midway and ended with maybe the second worst record in the 2nd half no matter how you define it (I'm pretty sure the Pirates are the worst) needs to end ASAP. Is there anything to look forward to in this last series other than an embarrassing amount of terrible Red Sox fans in the stands and an embarrassing amount of WaPo Sports Desk rooting interest jokes from me? Sure!
Nats can knock the Red Sox out - this week wasn't kind to my hope for as much chaos as possible. The A's and Phillies choked, sealing up the NL East and knocking Oakland out, respectively. The Giants luck continued keeping them 2 games ahead of the charging Dodgers and making a tie there very unlikely. The Yankees kept separated from the pack by taking 2 of 3 in Toronto (ok I wanted that).
So really what we are looking at is the 2nd AL WC* The Blue Jays get the Orioles at home. They need to, and will be expected to, sweep. The Mariners play the Angles at home, they need to, and will be expected to, win the series. The Red Sox are in DC playing the Nats and need to, and will be expected to, win the series. That would leave the Mariners, Blue Jays, and Red Sox tied at 91 wins a piece.That would be fun. But you know what would also be fun? If the Nats take 2 games at least and leave the Red Sox out of the mix.
Juan Soto MVP? - Soto has a bad series vs Colorado. 2-12 with two walks and 2 singles which dulled the "he's so awesome you HAVE to vote for him talk" but at the same time Bryce was terrible in the Braves series that could have wrapped it up for him and Tatis' Padres team continues an incredible free-fall. There are no good choices and Soto having a big series and helping to change the course of the playoffs by keeping Boston out might just be the final thing needed to get him those votes.
Juan Soto other thing - Soto is within striking distance of Turner for the BA title. He needs 4 walks to pass Joey Votto for most walks in a season since peak roidin' Bonds and before him you get to 1969 and that expansion. Boston probably will be careful with Juan so the batting title will be tough, but the walk thing might be easy.
Last Ride fo Zimm? - Ryan keeps things close to the vest and it's probably completely up to him as you'd imagine the Nats would take him back as he's taking super cheap deals and providing decent production. On one hand, he's put up his worst BA of his career outside the nightmare 2016 season and the team isn't going to be playing for much next year. On the other hand, we all thought he might stop after winning the ring and taking the COVID year off and he didn't. I always say play until THEY say you can't anymore because there is no going back. Svrluga has an appreciation up just in case.
Last Ride for Davey? - Just kidding. He won't get fired. But I will note his career record with the Nats is now 11 games UNDER .500. He's missed the playoffs 3 times in 4 seasons and the owner of the three worst records the team has put up since breaking through in 2012.
Fun fact - some people have suggested using record vs Pythag to judge managers but it hasn't shown much consistency to seem practical. For instance Dusty has 11 seasons over and 12 under by that measure. Luck by itself would probably have you waver + or - 0.020**. Davey has been under all 4 years. Bad luck? He also hasn't been particularly close. 50, 11, 55, and currently 37 points under. But hey. He won a series, right?
Draft order. It's 5 or 6. Nats vs Marlins. If this is your thing.
We'll look at where all the kids ended up Monday and then start the season recap. Enjoy your weekend.
*though the Yanks could easily get swept by Tampa and that opens up the chance the don't make it as the Mariners and Red Sox and Toronto all play sweepable teams
**so if you had a "true .500" team you might win 84 games one year and have a .518 WP% (+0.018 over .500) and 78 wins the next and a .481 WP% (-0.019)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2021/10/01/ryan-zimmerman-washington-nationals-career/
ReplyDeleteI'll be there Sunday (with my wonderful Red Sox loving wife) to see it. The years from 2005 to 2011 were pretty fun. Zimm and the band of strangers. He's a funny guy, and I hope to see him managing in the near future. Why not Player Manager next year?
@Harper -- An interesting wrinkle to your "Soto was 0-11 during that sweep against the Orioles that ended the Nats season" point is that convincing the team to sell then was an incredibly valuable move. Even knowing that this division was going to be a joke and that 86 wins could be enough, we were not going to contend this year.
ReplyDeleteSince the trades, Max has been worth 3 wins. Trea too, if we assume he's replacing Kieboom's or maybe Garcia's time instead of Escobar's. Harrison has had an 79 wRC+ since the trade, so the's not helping. Gomes (80 wRC+) has been worse by a fair amount than Ruiz (102 wRC+) and Adams (146 wRC+) but let's call it a wash. Schwarber has been great (159 wRC+), but we'd have Robles instead of Thomas in center, which basically gives all that back. Hudson has been mediocre (5.50 ERA over 18 IP) and Hand was terrible for the Blue Jays but has been better for the Mets, so combined it's 20IP of 4.95 ERA. Lester has pitched ok for St Louis, 61IP of 4.13 ERA.
All in all, that roster would be less than 10 games better than we actually were. Let's give us the 3 games against the O's too - in this counterfactual, Soto went 8-11 with 3 HRs and we actually swept them! Still, were we going trade for 8 wins even if we bought? I don't think the whole farm system could have gotten us that much return. Much more likely that we would have traded 3-4 FV40 prospects for a couple of bullpen arms and ended up ~6 games behind the Braves.
I doubt many voters will look at it this way, but you could argue that Soto had his worst series of the year at the best possible time. It's like playing a poker tournament; your goal is to make the money, but you'd much rather bust out on the first hand than put in some long stressful hours only to just barely fall short.
Yankees and Sox both winning is the most boring outcome possible.
ReplyDelete