The Nats are going into this season and it's going to be a planned dull one repeating 2023's "wait until next year" with a worse starting cast but likely a more interesting final one. The only hope for something interesting right now is some sort of young player acting like he'll force his way in (he won't but it would be a story) or some surprise roster move.
We started the Spring with James Wood looking like he might provide us with that story. He came out of February hitting .500 with only 2Ks compared to 3 homers in his first 6 games. Since then? In 10 games he's hitting .182 with 8Ks and 0 homers in 28 PAs. Honestly that's not a bad K-ratio for him to have in the majors, but savior coming in May is no longer the storyline here.*
Hassell was hitting pretty well... but got hurt again. Trey Lipscomb has come on. Sorry not story. In other news Call was hitting becoming the poster child for "Spring Training stats are meaningless" Luckily so because Gallo is 3-20 with 12 Ks and most importantly no homers. Ignore it!
Jake Irvin has looked very good after a terrible start. Gray and Henry terrible. Ignore it! Well not every part of it. Irvin was the favorite to hold down the 5th spot and it looks like this will keep him there which means really no drama up until now. There's always the potential Robles (doing ok) or Garcia (doing meh) replacings. But right now this is just a boring ship blazing a boring trail straight to a forgettable 4 months.
*Meanwhile everyone's favorite prospect except for a couple holdouts on here Wyatt Langford has passed Wood in all stats in the Spring making him one of the hottest hitters. Yes, Spring means nothing but for Crews #1 fans who are looking for something, anything to hang their hat on... looks like you are going to have to drop that sucker on the floor for now.
8 comments:
Standard disclaimer that ST stats are only relevant to the extent that they reinforce our previously existing narratives (see, e.g., Crews/Lankford).
I guess Harper is of the "Baseball is dull unless you're winning" school of thought. Fair enough--it's not like he's the only one in that camp.
Short version: to me the "old and bad" Nats of 2021-2022 WERE dull (the 2022 team did not noticeably worse record wise after trading off Soto/Bell etc). Not only bad but (other than the 1/3-year-wonder that was 2022 Meneses) not terribly fun to watch either.
But as has been commented before, the "old and bad" 2022 Nats became in my eyes the "young and scrappy" Nats of 2023. Sure, they were "lucky" from a Pythagorean perspective. But despite having little power and pretty bad pitching they rose +16 games above that smoking crater of 2022.
I have no illusions they will be busting down the door to the playoffs in 2024 but even an "it's dull unless you're winning" person like Harper grudgingly acknowledges the last part of 2024 could be intriguing for Nats fans. In the interim I plan on enjoying watching how the
first wave of NextGen Nats (in no particular order Abrams, Ruiz, Gore, Gray, Irwin and maybe Young with Robles and Garcia Jr on "have we made it clear your job is on the line?" probation) progress alongside
Team Placeholder (Corbin, Williams, Gallo, Rosario, Senzel, Thomas, Menesses, maybe Adams and Millas). Adama and Millas may progress to NextGen Nats status; the rest are playing for their trade value. All the while fan tracking the
second (Crews, Wood, House, Cavalli, Rutledge, maybe Young, maybe Lipscomb),
and third (RH3, Morales, and a whole lotta maybes like Nunez, Herz, Ward, Lile, Vaquero, Sykora and Susana) waves of NextGen Nats as their stories unfold.
Even the longshots like Green (*sigh*) and the rest of the farm provide baseball to keep track of.
Which is kind of the point of the "National Pastime", isn't it? To provide entertainment and conversational fodder with an eternal edge of optimism for the future? Or is it now dull unless/until one is in this year's playoff hunt?
After a decade of competency, it's been disheartening to see the Lerners really flounder in their management of the club the last couple seasons. At least they kept Rizzo and (this might be less popular here) Martinez. They could've used a couple of real free agent pickups this offseason--not anyone on the A list but a reliable 3-4-type SP and a decent veteran infielder. Now basically no one will watch the games on TV either, which is a huge self-own if you're trying to keep kids interested in a sport whose fanbase is ever-increasingly aging.
Woods could be a beast and ZiPs has Abrams top comp as Jimmy Rollins, so that helps offset the Gore ups and downs and Hassell (who seemed like maybe the safest prospect of them all?) falling off a cliff. Rizzo hitting on so many of these midseason trades for prospects in the past really spoiled us (although looks like at least two of these guys could become All-Stars, Gore's useful even if he doesn't turn out to be the ACE hoped for, and Hassell still has a bunch of time to turn things around).
What a likely shit sandwich of a season, at least until we see some call-ups, though.
@mike C - well stated.
Im in your camp and had fun cheering scrappy nats last year. And so glad you also have Ward in the group of guys headlined by everyone’s favorite Herz.
John C - I tried to make it clear the stats weren't confirming anything, they just weren't giving Crews fans even an very suspect out that they might have used if Crews was raking and Langford was not.
MC - I'd say it's dull because it's repeating last year with a bunch of uninteresting veteran players and prospects currently in the majors that have underwhelmed. Sure 2023 was more interesting than 2022 but the lack of any breakout or even GOOD young players really did a number on my interest level. I think the ORGANIZATIONAL season is interesting - because the set of players in the minors has more upside / star potential and they are desperately needed to pop. But the major league season is snoresville, at least until these guys start getting their cups of coffee. But it's baseball which in itself is fun. So I guess on that level sure. WOOOO!
Ollie - huh I guess I didn't see it that way - that they could be so BAD it would be interesting. MC will you accept that?
Anon @ 5:18 - Here's the thing about being a soulless automaton. You see the Nats go 27-15 and it's fun and exciting and you get behind them. I see it and I scratch the surface of the stats and find out they went 19-4 in games decided by 3 runs or less and think "Jesus it's like the said Hit Me on 20 3 times and pulled an ace each one". I mean a run of luck is fun but less so for someone trying to dig into the team when it might be clouding proper viewing of the team while also not getting them to anything special like a surprise playoff run or division title. But the point is to enjoy so I guess your take is more right. What I'm doing is the outlier.
Nah, you are a fan of baseball. The soulless automaton knows there's more to a major league team--for me the fun part of the early Nats was driving up to Hagerstown to see the guys play--Taylor learning to play center, watch the coaches (3) keep Bryce out of a benches clearing brawl, see Strasmas when he came back. A couple years later, you see the same guys but you also see the ones who made it up against the odds. That guy with no stuff but a weird windup that makes it impossible to pick up the ball, whatever. Very few teams get to field a straight to the majors team of home grown prospects. It takes time, and in between you just enjoy the game. Love the process.
Me, it looks like most of the OF may still be in AA come early May so they'll be up against the Fisher Cats and we'll go watch the kids grow up!
While I'm more in the Mike C. camp - I find enjoyment in baseball even while rooting fervently for wins. But there's no one way to be a fan or to follow the sport. I've run into fans whose greatest joy seems to be ripping at the team/organization they root for. And being testy when they're wrong even when from the outside something good is happening (I think that there were fans who never forgave Zim for his renaissance year in 2017). Hey, it's not for me, but if it helps you get through the day knock yourselves out.
"Ollie - huh I guess I didn't see it that way - that they could be so BAD it would be interesting. MC will you accept that?"
I'm not QUITE old enough to be a Senators fan, but I've seen commentary about the upsides of rooting for consistently awful teams ("An occasional win is a delightful surprise..."). Or as the classic Cubs fan lament put it "Any team can have a bad century." I respect that. :)
But my position is not "yes, I accept that" but rather "it depends". The 2022 "old and bad" Nats were painfully bad because they were not just bad but little to no room for growth. Watching a 30-year old rookie flash is fun but nobody thought of Meneses as a piece of the next good Nats squad). CJ was just getting started and Ruiz flashed but got hurt. Similarly Gray was up and down while Gore never threw a pitch for the 2022 Nats because of his injuries. A team that somehow not only didn't hit much but led MLB in GiDPs two years in a row. Bad AND not many signs for future.
I found the 2023 "young and bad" Nats a different kind of team to watch. More of the kids were up. Fewer Nelson Cruz types. Scruffy pitching, no power and hated walking (unsporting, I guess) but had a high enough team batting average to scratch out some close wins. So while they were bad there were (and are) green shoots of a possible good future club to watch.
For example, I rooted for John Lannan back in the pre-2012 days. He was a serviceable MLB starter (which made him a two-time Opening Day starter because...bad team). But by 2011 he was deeper down the Nats rotation and in 2012 he found himself in AAA. Not because he got worse (solid in 2011 and 4-1 down the stretch with the Nats after the Stras Shutdown). But because the rest of the team around him got better.
That's how I am watching Lane Thomas now. He's a serviceable MLB outfielder--not eyewatering, but a respectable starter. He should be that way for 2024 as well. But by 2025 Thomas may be an OF version of Lannan as Crews, Wood, RH3 and Young (maybe Garrett, but he's a long shot) push him to the sidelines. Not because Lane gets worse but because the rest of the team gets better.
THAT'S what I look for in 2024's bad team. Can you see that future good team stepping forward? Not guaranteed, but enough to have legitimate hope for the NextGen Nats? I didn't have that feeling in 2021-22, got a bit of it in 2023 and am looking forward to 2024 with that in mind. YMMV
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