I'm not sure what else is there to say. This is the team they built on purpose. They punted on this year - reasonable with uncertainty about Strasburg's recovery (they lied to you about that), and with a bunch of younger players to evaluate. They aren't sure they will even compete NEXT year which is why they didn't bother grabbing a much needed SP or one of the FA SSs that would fit perfectly into this teams plans going forward*
They signed a bunch of veterans to one year deals to see if they could flip them. The problem is they went REALLY cheap and so far they haven't come through.
- Nelson Cruz $12M .194 / .279 / .298
- Cesar Hernandez $4M .268 /.321 / .314
- Steve Cishek $1.75M 5.54 ERA, 1.692 WHIP
- Sean Doolittle $1.5M 0.00 ERA, 0.188 WHIP but hurt
- Alcides Escobar $1M .213 / .271 .258
- Maikel Franco $700K .257 / .284 / .393 (almost ok!)
Clippard/Sanchez/other Sanchez/DSG - minor league deals minors, 7.94 ERA, hurt, .167 / .167 / .167 respectively
They basically had $20M to spend on FA, put $12M into the Nelson Cruz basket and are watching that money burn. The remaining $8M they just tossed into a garbage can fire to start.
Bad plan going bad. It's so bad that they are literally keeping a player (Luis Garcia) in the minors to "work on his defense" even though he hasn't made an error since April 9th and he's hitting .354 / .411 / .639. It's indefensible and if I were Garcia I'd be like "screw this team" and be looking for the exit as soon as I could get there (which admittedly so far away things could easily change)
I wish I could say all this above is normal rebuilding stuff. You know, keep guys down, let's see how the kids do, convert some starters, maybe hold onto a Bell or maybe not. But there's a sword of Damocles hanging over everything. The Nats have a homegrowm HoF player (ANOTHER!) who they need to either sign or trade. That's what this season is all about.
If Gray and Ruiz and Garcia when he's burned enough service time and Rainey and House and de la Rosa and Cavalli and Henry and Rutledge and whoever else don't develop enough Soto will be gone. That, hanging over everything, turns a typical long but "that's baseball" season into something far less enjoyable.
Could I be wrong? Sure. But if you are going to deal Soto this offseason will fetch you way more than next one. Given the pending sale as well there are only two ways this can go in my head. Team on obvious upswing, Soto resigned, selling a playoff caliber team or Team going nowhere, Soto traded, selling a team with very little on the books. So start rooting for those kids. Hard.
*Garcia isn't a SS. House probably isn't a SS. At least not optimally.
Cruz in the last week has 33 PAs of .345/.424/.586! If that's not a couple of decent prospects in the making, I don't know what is.
ReplyDeleteBut, yeah. It's bad and it's not getting better for a while. All we can hope for is the parlay of "ownership offering Soto 450M+" and "it getting better enough in 1-2 years that Soto can see progress". Ugh.
from the 10th to the 14th he hit .400! Give me your best pitcher!
ReplyDelete1. Of course the team lied. To one degree or another, the Nats have always lied. My sense is they believe telling the truth only gives their opponents some kind of competitive advantage. Either way, they lie constantly.
ReplyDelete2. Strasburg and Ross notwithstanding, did anyone really expect anything substantially different from what we're witnessing? These glass-half-full-half-empty metaphors that crop up here occasionally were already obsolete at the start of last season. Assuming there's any water ieft in the glass at all, someone slipped a hallucinogen in it.
@SM, my only reason for optimism was around Rizzo generally being pretty good at identifying vets that could bounce back and generate good trade value. I didn't expect the Nats to win a lot of games, but I also didn't expect that basically every single FA outside of Franco and to an extent Hernandez would stink.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I also believed that Cruz wouldn't fall off a cliff and that he was the true FA signing that could return something. Now it looks like Yadiel and Bell are the only likely trade candidates to get something in return, and they weren't even FA signings.
I also thought the young guys (mainly Garcia) would be getting reps...so the fact that very few of the potential future teammates of a re-signed Soto are even in the majors has made this season feel like it's gone downhill more than it really has
Cruz was actually given a $15M contract. There's a $3M buyout next season. If they don't buy Cruz out, they pay him $16M. They will not do that, as Cruz will be 42 and 43 in July. So it is 15M. That's the largest contract in Cruz's entire career.
ReplyDelete@Cautiously Pessimistic: How many vets that bounce back and generate good trade value has Rizzo actually signed? And when traded, what did those vets bring back?
ReplyDeleteYou have some names?
@Anonymous: I'm not sure that's a fair question. Rizzo had a playoff contending team for most of the past decade, so he wasn't obtaining veterans to trade at the deadline. Instead, Rizzo was trading Nats' picks to get veterans from other teams. That helped to win a World Series. But it depleted the farm system.
ReplyDeleteMy point exactly, @PotomacFan.
ReplyDelete@Anon, the Nats haven't exactly been in "sell" mode at the deadline much before last year, so I'll ignore the "when traded" part of your question, but lots of examples come to mind: Harrison, Kendrick (though he was technically traded for pennies before re-signing), Adams, Ankiel, Lind. All players that were pretty mediocre and older, signed with the Nats, and had a bounceback year. Rizzo's generally been pretty good at spotting players like that. This year, not so much.
ReplyDeleteGarcia went 0-for-3 and made an error last night and Cavalli got shelled. DOOOOOOOOOOOM
ReplyDeleteSM - That'd be true in some cases but why lie about Stras' return timeline? He's not pitching that's not going to matter. You aren't going after another pitcher or re-signing anyone here. That's not going to matter. It's lying for lyings sake.
ReplyDeleteDepends what you mean by "substantially" I expected a team that might win mid 60s in games (w/o Stras) This is more like mid 50s. That's a big gap. Kind of what CP said - you expected better from Cruz (bad ID by Rizzo) and you expect THE BEST PLAYERS YOU HAVE TO PLAY.
edDC - ok this it true. Though I expect they thought they'd pay him LESS than 12 million even - traded at the deadline and all.
ANon/PF/CP -
Yeah the "trade" part is the toughest because they didn't do much of that. But plenty of decent vets with good seasons signed. Along with those bats I'll add Schwarber, Cabrera, Dozier, Drew. No one is going to get them all but he seemed to have a higher hit rate than most... of course this is for bats. He's been pretty bad at doing the same for the pen.
Thank you for the reply, Harper.
ReplyDelete1. You're right, they're liars.
2. I thought the Nats were an upper 60s win team WITH Stras pitching. Firstly, because the Nats have always lied about his health. And secondly, I don't believe he makes more than--if even--18 to 20 starts. And with this offence, how many wins is Good Stras worth?
Finally, yes, you expect your best players to play. But when you see the lineup--let alone roster construction--they throw out there every game, the Nats' definition of "best" eludes me.
2. Good Stras vs whoever is the worst pitcher in the rotation is worth about 5-6 wins a year. Prorated to a Memorial Day start that'd be 3-4 wins. I'd lean toward the bigger numbers because it's not just the singular production when it comes to a starting pitcher. There's a lot of dominoes that fall if they do poorly. If he's out all year that's a 69ish team becoming a 65ish team.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your blog post. Thanks. I don't think soto hitting second is working out, and there hasn't been much movement in the batting order. With garcia in the lineup, what would your batting order be? We need Juan to be happy!
ReplyDeleteLuis Garcia showed at major league level that he is not a polished defender at ANY position. He has a quick bat, but not much else at this point. If he had been brought up in 2022, the team would have EVEN MORE mental mistakes than it has with the current crew, which is awful enough.
ReplyDeleteSoto has to be traded for a big league SS AND a center fielder. The club badly needs both positions filled with players who are young vets, and Soto should bring that haul with a prospect or two.
Ruiz is clearly a keeper; Josh Bell should be traded because he is a lousy glove, and he hits into too many DPs and he is turning into Victor Robles on the bases, getting thrown out more at second, third and home than at first.
It's hard to evaluate the starting pitchers, because the defense has been so dreadful ALL SEASON LONG. When a pitcher is reluctant to pitch to contact, additional problems result.
Gray is also a keeper, so the Dodger deal is looking better every day. Lane Thomas has ability, and should be no worse than a solid fourth outfielder and his price tag was Jon Lester's last two months in MLB.
Everyone knows the club has a massive liability in the deferred money that is owed on the many Boras contracts, and some say it is at $500M, but the MASN $$$ will eat one third of that deficit when Peter Angelos finally dies.
The one ownership move that crippled the club was Mark Lerner's foolish decision not to trade Bryce Harper to Houston in July 2018 for FIVE Astros prospects, because Boras got him on the phone and convinced him Bryce would work out a deal. Mark got suckered by Jim Bowden in a similar way, and would not fire him until the D.R. bonus skimming.
So, the club has assets of Ruiz, Gray, Strasburg (?), Ross (?), C. Hernandez (solid but hasn't played his best ball yet), Thomas, Cavalli, Garcia (but at what position?), DH Y. Hernandez and Adams (can back up Ruiz and swing the bat a bit) and trade bait of Bell, Cruz and ultimate trade bait Soto. Fedde is on probation along with Rainey (not a closer; too shaky with command), and Adon and Sanchez are still unknown commodities.
The club has four DHs who just can't play their positions, and none of them run bases well: Cruz, Franco, Bell and Y. Hernandez. If Cruz is traded, Yadiel can take his spot for now. Best thing to do with Garcia late in season is let hims spell Yadiel at DH, as Luis is no glove man yet and may never be.
Martinez is not going to be rehired by new ownership (not with all the mental mistakes during his managerial tenure) and his bringing in the Cub retreads is a problem.
They are stuck with Corbin for almost three full seasons, but he has shown recently that if the defense improves, he could still help the club again. The defense has hurt him badly in starts against PIT, HOU, MIA and CO. Many of his earned runs could have been avoided on failure to turn DPs, and botching of routine plays by the infielders.