Since taking care of the Marlins and looking like shoo-ins for a lot of their seasons goals (ok MY season goals) the Nats have collapsed, losing 6 of 7. This all fits in with their general season feeling - good enough that they are not bad, bad enough they are not good. . The Nats cruise with a 32-22 record against teams under .500. This is a record you'd expect from teams around .500. They stall out with a 37-65 record against teams over .500. This is a record you'd expect from the worst teams in baseball.
What explains the discrepency? Is their talent level walking that much of a tightrope? Or is it random luck? Eiether way with KC and PHI to finish the season that doesn't bode well for passing 2023.
But of course the losses weren't the story of the weekend, it was CJ Abrams' demotion. He had been struggling but no one is under any misconceptions that that might be the cause. The team didn't even try to suggest it. No, while it wasn't explicitly stated Abrams was punished for being out too late (8AM?) the night before a day game.
If you are a vet you are given leeway because the idea is you understand what you need and don't need to perform. If you are performing you are given leeway because who really cares what you do if you produce on the field. But Abrams wasn't producing and isn't a vet. He gets the hammer.
The Nats would have had a hard time suspending Abrams, especially if they didn't have any explicit rules set up which appears to be the case. But demotion seems like a bit much. Sit the guy for a series.
They are probably thinking "oh it worked for Luis Garcia" and maybe it did but then again maybe Luis was having an off-start to his 2023? And they sent Luis down to play, to work on things. Even if it didn't seem like it in the stats, he might have actually done that. Abrams is just getting his nose rubbed in it. More importantly, as any parent or coach can tell you, what works in one case, at one age, in one situation, may not work in another. You have to be careful how you go about things each time and this was not the Nats being careful.
The Nats play a weird "we're the boss" game at times. That doesn't work for everyone. Victor Robles may be blossoming outside the Nats. Whether it works for Abrams we're just going to have to see, but directly going to "send him back to AAA" isn't where I'd have gone. That's something to build to and there isn't any indication that that is what happened here. Weaker still was Rizzo making this decision and not offering himself up for questions. Rizzo loves to be the man making the calls, he's lukewarm on being the one to take the heat for them.
If the Nats can win a few here there will be something else to talk about but otherwise this may be the going away impression of the season. That would be a shame both because the season was good, and a because it sets up a potential problem for next year for a team that wants to be all sunshine and lollipops going into 2025.
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Honestly if I were a GM I'd want my players out of casinos and away from gamblers in all circumstances, regardless of the time or when the next game is. And yikes, out at a casino until 8 am as a professional athlete is playing with fire. Bad impulse control + booze + tired is a combo I could see leading to career ending decisions.
There's a lot more to this story than we as fans get. We didn't sit in on the call between Rizzo and Martinez, we weren't in the room with DM and Abrams. We weren't direct witnesses to Abrams road behavior -- though folks who travel with them on the road probably have a better picture. Like Harper says, if Abrams had flawless fielding stats and a .950 OPS, management might have let it pass. Life's tough for a 20 something soon-to-be-millionaire loose in America. But for this situation, DM is the right coach handling.
As always we can only react to what we know. Sure there could be, and probably is, more than we don't know. However leaning into that means basically always giving management the benefit of the doubt because "we don't know the full story". I don't think that's any better or has proven over time and sports to be an accurate take on how these decisions are made.
So... I don't know. I just know I don't like this
The short of it is that CJ needs to grow up. Staying out all night before a day game is an idiot move for anyone, veteran/superstar or not. This is a job, and he is expected to do what he can to perform his duties.
It does seem like an extreme punishment...but at the same time like @nattydread said, we don't know the full story or the character of CJ. What we do know is that Davey seems to be a pretty darn good people manager, and I would assume he'd be involved in this decision, so I'd lean towards agreeing with the punishment. Though this very well could be a world where Rizzo made a unilateral decision a la Shawn Kelley or Brandon Kintzler
The decision to drop the hammer was Rizzo's. As far as I can tell, Martinez did the dropping. This is where a goodvibes manager like Martinez should pay off--hopefully Abrams got the right emotional message from this. (btw, with modern analytics, goodvibes is likely more significant than button-pushing during the game.)
I am having trouble understanding why this is an overreaction or comparable to the Garcia situation. As a well-paid (bonus plus league minimum is a lot of money) professional baseball player on a potential career fast track: 1/you don't hang with gamblers or in gambling environments, 2/ staying out all night is not an acceptable response to "we trust you, so no curfew for our players" 3/ arriving late and not sufficiently rested to play is an enormous trust violation.
I suspect the situation is worse than what we know....but you really don't need more information to decide the demotion was within a range of appropriate reactions. If you are 23 (or most any age): if you show up unprepared to work, the consequences are: you get sent home, docked pay, receive a reprimand....and need to consider yourself lucky not to have been fired.
I don't think we know enough or will ever know enough to evaluate the way the Nationals are handling it. It's bad news, but that's because of the first order implications (ie Abrams possibly having focus / character / make-up issues) not because of what it implies about Davey's and Rizzo's leadership.
And just speaking for myself, I don't care at all that he's gambling and even being out all night before a game feels like a venal sin as long as it was a one time thing.
But I think the most likely scenario is that there's been a pattern of distraction and partying (and possibly more destructive behavior than that) and that this is not the first disciplinary step the team has taken. I guess if you're really trying to be optimistic, maybe those issues have been causing his 2nd half performance and now he'll be prompted to make better choices that will put him in a better position to succeed. But that frame also means that the slump hasn't been random, which introduces the possibility that he can't fix it. And that version of Abrams would have a much much lower floor than we thought.
One more thing to worry about and keep an eye on next season, I guess.
Maybe I forgot something, but wasn't Garcia sent down to work out stuff in his play rather than anything behavioral? I thought the punishment mostly fit the crime (at least sort of docking him financially plus sitting him for the short remainder of the season) but you bring up some good points here. I'm guessing there's a component of putting him in a more controlled environment too though, because (grains of salt here, I realize) a bunch of people started sharing stories online about seeing him at MGM across the river from D.C. in the early hours of the morning too.
Even if it were a one-time incident that would be bad, but there may be a pattern of behavior here where a young, potential star, is putting his whole career at risk (in addition to generally being unprofessional).
Aside from anything else, does anyone else find the fact that players are surrounded by gambling these days (online, in ballparks, pretty much everywhere) more than a little concerning? It’s not like there’s ever been a problem with gambling influences around baseball, after all…..
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