It was seeming more and more a pipe dream with the depth of non top-line starters the Nats have brought in but in case you were hoping for that one guy that might head the rotation, well... stop hoping. Jack Flaherty signs with the Tigers. There are guys still out there (Kyle Gibson, Nick Pivetta) but none that you can convince yourself could lead a rotation. Now he's probably NOT a rotation leader, so it's not like they lost out on the next Scherzer, but the combination of skill, age, and last year performance suggested it wouldn't be a total surprise if he pitched like a 1/2 in 2025 and a few years more.
The Nats appear done in FA to some degree though we still hope we'll see some more RP moves.
Could something happen in trade? It hasn't been rumored but guys, until we hit the end of February let's assume it's all still a work in progress,
Flaherty signed for a reasonable amount by today's standards. Even the Nats could afford him. He would've stabilized the entire rotation.
ReplyDeleteHe would have stabilized the rotation ... until he broke. The reason that Flaherty signed for a "reasonable amount" is that until today every team that had a look at his medicals had said "no, thanks." If the Nats had signed him and he went out with injury we would savage them for buying damaged goods.
ReplyDeleteStabilizing the Nats rotation assumes a lot about Flaherty's likely performance in 2025. MLBTR goes into some of the reasons he has lingered on the market--lots of uncertainties, plus he really wanted to be in Detroit.
ReplyDeleteSigning him would have delayed our seeing if one or two of our 8 potential (and under team control) starters can deliver front-of-the-rotation stuff. If we can get the offense going (Wood, Crew, etc), I think we will all be pleased with the results from the pitching staff now on the roster.
Not disappointed they didn't sign Flaherty, at least not to the Detroit deal. He has a history of pitching well, but also has a history of being hurt and bad. (Actually, he reminds me of Corbin when we signed him in 2019, a pitcher who was very good early, then hurt and bad, then had a solid bounce-back.) Adding a guy like that as a complimentary piece to flesh out an already-good rotation on a contending team is a great move (think Edwin Jackson for the 2012 Nats or Anibal Sanchez for 2019). But even if Flaherty pitches well, adding a #2 starter to the Nats for one year is not going to get them into the playoffs unless a LOT of other things go very right. If the Nats were going to go big in FA, they needed to go big on a FA who would actually be around for the team they are building to create (hence why everybody brings up the Werth deal). Getting a guy at the high end of the scale on a 1-year deal doesn't help except as a potential mid-season rental trade.
ReplyDeleteAgreed - the 1+1 structure is a really bad fit for this team right now. I'm not sure I'd have even matched Bieber's deal, and I'm way higher on him delivering TOR results than Flaherty.
DeleteBut I think the folks who wanted us to sign Flaherty (and I'm not one of them) were thinking he would have agreed to 80/4 or something, instead of betting himself like this.