There are kids, well not even kids, who have never known THIS type of Nats team. If you were say 5-6-7 when the Nats run started to take shape you can't really remember the before times. The years before 2011 when the Nats were a perfectly good team that people in baseball were eyeing as an up-and-comer, or even before 2010 when a watchable Nats team were looking toward at least an interesting future with rookie Stephen Strasburg and the pick of Bryce Harper coming. These young adults anywhere from 16-19 have no idea what they are in for. Let me explain.
From 2006-2009/10 the Lerners were known primarily for one thing - being cheap. Or as we liked to say at the time CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP. There was talk behind the scenes about how Lerner would make sure outgoing mail was scrutinized to see if it HAD to go out Fed Ex. It was well known the minors were kept together as cheaply as possible, and the payrolls were grim. 20th in 2006, 28th in 2007, 26th in 2008, 27th in 2009.
The team was looking for every way to save a buck and that meant things like inviting 36 pitchers to Spring Training in 2007 looking for the needle in the haystack rather than signing a couple decent arms. If you want to be technical it did work. It made the teams starting pitching merely very bad instead of the horrible it was in 2006 and 2008. But that hardly mattered to fans who stayed away in droves, even when the new park opened.
Of course things eventually changed. Supplementing the lone bright spot, Ryan Zimmerman, the Nats drafted Strasburg and Bryce and then signed Werth. They had some Bowden guys develop to be surprisingly good or at least ok in Espinosa, Desmond, and Zimmerman. Rizzo fleeced the Twins in one deal for Ramos and made a savvy shift of a bunch of decent talent to the A's for Gio in another. It all came together at once and when it was apparent something was happening the money commitment came. But not before two generational talents landed and you could fairly piece out the Nationals C, 2B, SS, 3B, RF, 2SP and closer for the next 5 years or so. Sure something or two here wouldn't work at all but chances are you find something usuably average to take their place. You were building around All-Star Zimm and projected All-Stars Strasburg and Bryce.
Now where are the Nats? They don't have their All-Star Soto signed long-term because they didn't have their All-Star Stras and Bryce to make keeping him worthwhile in their mind. Instead they have... I don't know. If the Nats are lucky Garcia (or I guess Abrams) becomes Zimm. Hassell or Wood becomes Bryce. Gore or Cavalli become Strasburg. Then maybe you can look around and see if those other pieces are there. If Ruiz and Gray can really be relied on for a few years. If you have a couple more bats and a reliever you like. But Zimm, Stras and Bryce after 2010 - each one was a very good bet to keep doing something good years out. As good as you maybe could do as long as you felt TJ for Stras would go well. The names I listed now... they aren't as good bets. They aren't bad ones as far as baseball goes but they aren't the "surprise if they aren't good" bets that the Nats three was in 2010.
So the question is what do the Lerners do here? And what do the Lerners do here if they are still trying to sell. Their inclination in bad years is to do as little as possible. If you are going to go that route and you are trying to sell... well you are going to go all the way. No money spent. Bad team after bad team.
This is a bad time for Nats fans and right now the only way it gets brighter is amazing luck. Either nearly every young prospect pans out to a major league player with some stars and suddenly the Nats find themselves in 2010 redux where going after a Werth makes sense OR you get a new owner soon and they are fine throwing money around. Any other outcome and this dark age could be darker and longer than the 2006-2009 run. This is what history tells us. Sorry kids.
7 comments:
"New owner fine throwing around money." not just any old $100 million either. It's going to take like a $500 million in new commitments to accelerate the rebuild. Adding $100 million isn't going to cut it in the NL East for the next ~4 years.
As a season ticket sharer from 2005, I have some very fond memories of the "before times." Some of those horrible teams were at least interesting to watch (e.g., Nick Johnson's pure hitting stroke, The Chief, Patterson looking like he might be something, and of course Zimm). I can live with the Nats being bad for a few years -- but they gotta have a 50% shot of winning a home game and some young guys you can dream on being pieces to make worth going to the park. I can't take any more years where not a single player has a chance to be part of the next good Nats team.
The key problem right now is drafting and development. It's not failure to re-sign players.
Seriously: Barry Svrluga's WaPo piece decrying the Nats for failing to re-sign folks noted but blew right by a pretty staggering stat: if the Nats matched the contracts other teams gave Tony, Trea, Max and Bryce they'd be committing an aggregate of $1.005 billion (B) over 34 seasons. Add in $500M or so for Soto and $245M for Stras (oh yeah, we did keep a guy) and you get ~$1.75 BILLION...for six players.
Using the AAV of all those players the Nationals "let" go would be ~$158M next season (Bryce, Trea, Max, Tony, Juan). Another $58M for Stras/Corbin and the Nats are right on the CBT line...for 7 players.
This is a problem for ALL MLB teams. The DODGERS couldn't extend Seager or Trea. Cohen just saw DeGrom leave. Arguably, the Nats have average success at extending star players (Zimmerman, Strasburg). It's just not true the Nats "always let" star players go. No more so than any team outside Atlanta (and even they lost FFF and possibly Swanson).
The real trick is drafting and development. That's how the Dodgers/Astros have been able to lose a steady stream of stars leaving for big bucks while still having a top-rank team. If you want to beat up on the Nats for THAT, have at it. I'll join you. They've made some moves that show at least awareness of the drafting/development problem, but if those moves don't pan out heads should roll.
So please stop going after the Nats for not extending players.
- One, it's NOT THE NATS DECISION. It's called "free agency" for a REASON. The Nats have no power, tool or gun to hold to player's heads to stop them from going to free agency.
- Two, it's financially impossible even if the team goes full Steve Cohen to extend the kind of players the Nats had seen 2012-2019. Do the math. It doesn't add up. That's a problem for MLB in my opinion, but that's a separate conversation.
- Three, even going full Steve Cohen doesn't work alone. See the Mets for example. Look at the Angels, man--Ohtani, Trout and Tony Two-Bags and they can't sniff the playoffs.
- Four, the "Lerners are CH34P!" thing is old and tired. For literally years, with a team that has mid-market attendence and an absolute anchor of the MASN deal, the team was in the top 10/5/2 in MLB payroll. The 2023 team still (due to the Stras/Corbin contracts) will be at least in the middle of the pack payroll wise. Not wise spending, sure, but not afraid to spend. And *STILL* we keep hearing "Lerners are CH34P!"
And right now it makes sense NOT to spend on splashy free agents. I'd rather see the team save it's financial firepower for 2024/25. By that time we should see how well the NextGen Nats are (or are not) doing (and if not, that's when Rizzo and Co need to be fired).
Having financial resources uncommitted would allow the Nats to try converting promising pre-arb players into $8-10M/year extended players by offering EARLY. That's a gamble, yes, but it's how the Braves got rolling on their (relatively) low-cost extensions for Acuna and Albies. If you wait until a good/great player is making $3-6-10M/year as an arb player their incentives are to go to free agency--and almost all do.
Having uncommitted money also can help make 1-2 splashy free agent signings a la Max (and Corbin, whose awful contract at least gave us three absolutely critical WS G7 innings) circa 2025 when the team is (hopefully) on the way up.
Short version: not spending heavily in 2022/23 on players can easily be seen as a rational "getting ready for the next window" move rather than simply "L3RN3Rs R CH34P!"
Thank you@Mike. You are saying what I was thinking....that Harper had gone all-Barry Srvluga on us. Most fans think their owners are cheap, their GM's ought to be fired, and grumble at everything that they think is less than perfect. It's not the least bit rational, so I hope it at least makes them feel better.
In June going into July 2021, we are a different team if Stras and Schwarber don't get hurt and Corbin proved he can re-do 2019. It didn't work that way and the reboot became necessary. Why is this so hard to understand?
I got in a comment fight with a guy who thought that Soto becoming a life-long Nat was no different than Mickey Mantle being a lifetime Yankee. Yet you and I know that free agency makes all "now and then" comparisons moot.
The Nats planned to have both Strasburg and Rendon signed in 2020 playing on $175-200 million contracts. Then Stras is a WS MVP and cost more...and Arenado signs a contract that elevates the market for star 3rd basemen into the mid-200's. Two players at $175 million was possible, but not two at $245 million.
The Lerner/Rizzo record has successes and failures, but it appears to me they planned as well as they could, especially given MASN contract (compare to Dodger and Yankees TV contracts).
Last two guys commenting sound like A Boy and His Dad. Worst people to sit near at a ballgame.
I fully agree with @Mike, and thank you for your excellent analysis. It would have been impossible for any team to keep all of the Nationals top players. But if Strasburg had been healthy, and Corbin had performed, the Nats might well have kept Turner and Scherzer (for the remainder of their contract terms), and signed Soto. Only one point of disagreement: signing huge long-term contracts are not quite as burdensome as they might seem on the day they are signed. At age 27, Bryce got 13 years for $330 million, an average annual value of $25.4 million. Trea Turner, who will turn 30 years old in June, got 11 years for $300 million, an AAV of $27.3 million. Bryce Harper will be a DH when his contract ends. Trea Turner will probably be retired when his contract ends. My point: the size of contracts goes up, a lot, each year. Bryce will be a bargain in a few years, when position players start getting $35 - $40 million AAV.
PotomacFan: thanks! Bryce's contract does look better now, but remember Bryce's estimate of his own market value was >$400M (remember his "Don't sell me short"?). As Ian Desmond (and last year Michael Conforto) have shown, it's not just *owners* who make errors in calculating actual market value of players. Bryce didn't sign until well into Spring Training--it took that long without a $400M offer to convince him that no, *NOBODY* was going to offer him $400M.
I think if Stras had been healthy and the Corbin kept up his 2018-2019 performance the Nats would still not have signed Soto to an extension. But they absolutely would have kept him through 2024 just as they did for Rendon (2019) and Harper (2018)--when you're trying to win a title you don't trade your stars in walk years, you keep them for the title run.
But if one takes Soto at his agent's word, he wasn't/isn't going to sign an extension unless it exceeds $600M/$43M AAV. As insane as that sounds, those numbers are the specific "comps" Boras offered publicly ("an A-Rod style contract" means 140% of the previous record contract; Max's $43.333M AAV as the other comp). If that's what Soto thinks his full market value is (and to be fair, by 2025 it just might be) then he wasn't going to sign an extension for less than that. His right, no problem, and nothing the Nats can do to force him otherwise (hence the term "free agent").
The Boras comps and the lack of any counter-offer at all in the process were a bright shining signal that Soto was/is going to exercise his hard-won right to test what his market will bear in 2025. He may well get his >$600M if contracts keep accelerating--or he may find out (like Harper) that his own estimate of his market value is off by $60-$100M. Only way he can find out is to go free agency, which he almost certainly will do.
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