Shortstop was a wild ride for the Nats in 2024. CJ Abrams started hot, cooled down, then got even hotter. Halfway through the season he was hitting .286 with 13 homers and 5 triples and he was named an All-Star. But he cooled down a lot heading into the game and stayed ice cold through August. He was picking things back up in September when he was seen at a casino very late at night and put up a bad game the following day.
*WARNING I AM GOING TO ASSUME SOME THINGS ABOUT WHAT THE TEAM WAS THINKING HERE*
Rizzo, seeing this as an embarrassment to the team, used it as another teaching lesson and sent Abrams down the rest of the year.
Overall the position was neutral for the Nats. Abrams did end up hitting well for the season as a whole, his wild positive swings outweighing his wild negative ones. However he still isn't a great shortstop in the field and that truth, at a position where that might matter most, holds his value down. Still "neutral" might have been the best position all season for the Nats, such is where their offense stood in 2024.
Presumed Plan :
CJ Abrams with someone backing him up. Nunez? Tena?
Reasoning behind Presumed Plan :
The good outweighed the bad.
The position isn't a problem.
To do something with Abrams now that isn't just "let him play and try to figure it out" seems like unnecessarily causing yourself an problem that doesn't currently exist.
The Nats have other options. Jose Tena was surprisingly good at the plate in a short audition with the team. Nunez looks like he could be a Gold Glover at the position. Brady House looks ready to move to the majors. But at 24, a former top prospect and an All-Star just last year, I can't think of a good reason to abandon the plan that had Abrams as a long term answer somewhere in the Nats infield.
As for who backs him up... depends on what the Nats value I guess. It seems they didn't want to go with "steady D, poor bat, good veteran presence" which is what Vargas supplied. So it'll be a choice likely between Tena, Nunez, and House, likely in that order as House is more likely up to play 3B full-time, and Nunez is likely in AAA to work on hitting.
My Take :
Yes, when Abrams is bad he's real bad. In 77 games in May, July
and August he hit something like .190 / .255 / .300 with 7 homers. With
subpar defense you are looking at one of the worst players in baseball.
But the possibilities of Abrams are intoxicating. A guy that can hold down SS hitting .300 with power and speed? There's a reason he was a top prospect and over 48 games in April and June he hit something like .330 / .420 / .640 with 11 home runs.
At 24 it's reasonable to think he can improve a bit, and even if he just settles the high and lows into a 110-120 OPS+ guy that can field SS and provide some excitement on the basepaths and little pop? That's a solid player that solves a tricky position through 2028.
I do worry that Abrams got on the team's bad side and will go through a Robles like trial of having to prove himself above and beyond what other players have to do. Or worse, they are ready to deal him out for SP help hoping that the mix of other guys internally available will fill the gap. But we don't know that yet and we can't worry about something that might happen.
Abrams is the SS. He has potential to be great. He should be good overall. Let's just let it play its course in 2025.
I agree that in my opinion the best course for the Nats is to play CJ at SS to see if he can get his head on straight to tap into his talent. I push back on the thinly (if at all) veiled “Nats may screw up CJ like they screwed up Robles” narrative.
ReplyDeleteFor starters, there is a far more recent example skipped over here—Luis Garcia. LG was a promising but frustratingly gaffe prone player who earned himself a demotion in 2023. LG seems to have taken the message to heart (including specifically crediting Davey Martinez for challenging him). LG’s 2024 was a major improvement and he more or less has the starting 2B job for 2025.
All players are different, sure. But if we’re going to speculate about what Nats management is thinking, I submit it’s far more likely they are hoping for CJ to react similarly to LG rather than putting CJ on some permanent “bad” list and forcing a “misbehaving” player to go far beyond reasonable expectations/holding them to higher standards than others.
As for Robles getting himself in a doghouse/Nats not giving VR enough chances—that’s, um, a take. The Nats gave Robles plenty of chances to build on his 2019 promise through a baffling and frustrating series of gaffes, TOOTBLANS and on field brain cramps. Through 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 this went on and on. The broadest fan take by 2022-23 is the Nats weren’t being tough ENOUGH on VR—failing to hold him accountable rather than somehow mistreating him. Didn’t finally cut bait with VR until May 2024.
Good for VR that getting DFA’d seems to have motivated him. I will always remember watching him catch the last out of the 2019 NLCS. But players have agency, and for whatever reason(s) Robles’ lack of focus on the field were a very frustrating thing to watch over several years of repeated dumb baseball. That’s mainly on him, not something inflicted on him by getting shoved into some sort of Nats doghouse.
If Rizzo just thinks Abrams was being young and irresponsible and that one symptom of that problem was him gambling all night that one time, then Rizzo might take a harsh line like he has for other character issues.
ReplyDeleteBut if Rizzo thinks Abrams is struggling with an addiction, I just can't see him cutting bait -- especially if Abrams acknowledges that he has a problem and is trying (even imperfectly) to work on it.
And I don't think scenarios where he's traded are plausible. Other teams have to respect the information asymmetry. If Rizzo is willing to trade him for X, then he can't be worth X. If you're the acquiring GM, even if Abrams is telling you what you want to hear, you just have to reckon with Rizzo knowing Abrams better than you do and wanting him gone. This isn't like the situation where some GMs don't care about domestic violence, and Rizzo is prioritizing other long term values over immediate on-field concerns.
So Abrams plays SS next year, and we'll see what happens. Maybe Nunez improves his hitting and puts some pressure on him. Maybe King has a monster year and forces his way into the conversation by September. But even if those scenarios go as well as can be hoped, Abrams gets his chance to settle this issue and reestablish himself. I wish him luck.
This is a good write up Harper. Thanks for the work. My one quibble is an extremely minor one. "Brady House looks ready to move to the majors" is, to me, an incredibly optimistic take for a player who kind of bounced off of AAA this season. In 54 games House posted a wRC+ of 66 and his BB% plummeted to 3.0% and an anemic ISO of 125. He's still just 21 (doesn't turn 22 until June) and I'm by no means giving up on him as a prospect - his "age to level" in AAA was -5.3. But I've seen a lot of chatter on the InterNats leaning into him as being on the doorstep and a possible 2025 solution at 3b.
ReplyDeleteTo me, his best case scenario is to return to AAA in 2025 and absolutely rake, working his way to a late season call up. But to plan around a best case scenario seems to me to be a bad way to run an organization.
I guess we've ditched the Outside The Box takes this year, but one scenario might be outbidding the Dodgers for Willy Adames and then trading CJ and another prospect to the Rays for Yandy Diaz
ReplyDeleteNah. Diaz had a great 2023 and a good 2022 but poor 2024 and no other good years in his career and is turns 34 next season. If anything they would give us Diaz and the prospect and even that is risky unless it’s a very high end prospect
DeleteThat's fair, I mostly meant trade CJ to a poverty franchise if you sign Adames, and (separately) I like the idea of trading for Yandy Diaz, but you're correct about the valuation
DeleteThanks bro
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