Over the weekend the Nats signed Paul DeJong. DeJong (pronounced de-young to rob everyone of fun El Kabong references) started his career in 2017 as a promising young IF hitting with power and average and fielding SS very well, but his inability to ID the strike zone killed the average and he became a "pop only" guy. But still if you can field and hit homers that's a nice combination. That lasted for a few years but in 2020 he got COVID, in 2021 he broke a rib, and since then he's battled back pain. The combination stomped on the corpse of what was his average and he was a liability at the plate for several seasons. He managed to get his power back for the first time since 2019 last year, but he also had his first poor season in the field even though he was playing only 3B. Did the Nats need another DH?
Actually that might be interesting in a weird way. Josh Bell, DH apparent, is a switch hitter but unlike a lot of switch hitters he is better from the right side of the plate hitting lefties. DeJong is a RHB but hits right handed pitching better than LHP. So platoon? OK sure, but neither are 'mashers'. Its a platoon to get half a WAR better, not any real advantage
So he might hit but he also might be a DH and he turns 32 mid year. What's the point?
I don't know. The age and recent past don't suggest a good trade candidate. Presumably the Nats signed Amed Rosario for some reason.
All I can think of is trade. If you were going to try to move Brady House or CJ Abrams or Luis Garcia for something well then a bunch of 2B/3B/SS fill-ins would be necessary but this would be PRE-SEASON. There isn't need for fill-ins come September.
When a signing like this happens it matters where it fits in the process. This isn't a final piece, complementing several bigger moves. This is one move of many trying to find something that works. That's worrying. That feels like a white flag going up for 2025.
18 comments:
Last night's MLBTR's chat:
Mike RIZZ-O
10:11 You think I played it too safe this off season? Plenty of smart moves, but should I have swung for the fences to get Bregman or Alonso?
Mark P
10:13 This exact Nationals roster with Alonso in place of Lowe, or with Bregman instead of DeJong and the 3B crew....do you think that team makes the playoffs? Or, even finishes better than fourth in the NL East?
I understand the argument for why the Nats could've or should've make a "Jayson Werth" signing, but nothing is stopping them from making such a statement next winter when they're more sure that their core is ready to take the leap
I don't share your pessimism about his defense.
Last year DeJong played 330 innings at 3B. On a rate basis and with a minimum of 300 innings, OAA has him him the best 3B in the league (+15 OAA per 1000 innings) and UZR/150 has him 2nd at +11.
I get worrying that it was a bit of a fluke - and his SS defense over 700 innings was just league average last year - but any reasonable projection has him as a huge improvement over our existing 3B options, at least defensively.
Last year, Lipscomb had 458 innings with an OAA/1000 of -2 and a UZR/150 of +1. Tena had 299 innings of -17 and -14, respectively. And Rosario had 100 3B innings with a -20 OAA/1000 and a -8 UZR/150. (Though he was better at SS last year with OAA pegging him just at below average and UZR/150 loving him, and with a sample that small I'd expect the 3B struggles to likely be noise.)
But even given that, I agree with your main point - this offseason has not been a serious attempt at becoming competitive. The team has gotten better, but the priority seems to have been maximizing efficiency instead of maximizing the chances of success.
It's like their goal is to be the cheapest 80 win team in baseball. Ugh.
This year, we're going to have a lot of fun watching the kids develop. Okay, they'll only win 77 or thereabouts. But if Rizzo had engineered an (expensive!) 84-win team, we'd still finish fourth in the NL East and have no more fun as fans. I'm willing to wait for 2026. If our kids develop as we hope and Lerner is willing to spend the money, we should be competitive soon enough.
Is playoffs the only goal? If so then shut the damn team down if they aren't going to make it. This team with Alonso and Bregman is better. Wins more. More fun.
Huh. I was probably fooled by the combo of injury, 3B overall influence, and the fact a lot of 3B stinks. Ok reads a little better now but still not great
The kid point is what I said 1-2 posts ago, looking for a silver lining. But 7 more wins sounds like more fun to me.
The DeJong signing is an odd one because it is both a sign of a lack of ambition and a substantial improvement over what the Nats already had in place for 3B. Part of that is a reflection of how far they had to go at that particular position obviously. It doesn’t change the stakes for season at all, or the disappointment at the offseason, but it should be at least more tolerable than anything they put out there last year at 3B. I’m just glad now we don’t have to suffer through attempts to gaslight fans into thinking Tena is a future all-star at 3B.
I just thought that was a perspective worth sharing---MLBTR is looking at all teams and their positioning, now and the future. Doesn't make them right, but they bring a lot of knowledge and insight to the discussion.
To your "is play-offs the only goal?" I might add "are wins the only goal? YMMV, but it could be more fun with 77 wins and a bunch of kids working toward stardom, then an 84-win team saddled with expensive veterans who are on the decline and kids sitting on the bench or down in AAA. Maybe its not an either/or, but fun doesn't only come from wins. Progress matters, building a winner for the next year matters, watching players grow matters.
It may not only be about payroll. After 2019, the Nats farm was hopelessly bereft of talent. Not much of what we did have on the farm panned out -- and it took a lot of time and strategic trades to get it in order. Even now, the farm system is top half but not top five. Rizzo is still hoarding players -- a Bregman deal would have lost a key draft pick. de Jong is another potential Candelerio to turn into another Herz.
Thus far, none of the youngsters has actually demonstrated Zimmerman, Harper or Strasberg talent levels. Wood and Crews are yet to blossom. Will Ruiz, Abrams or Garcia -- cornerstones --- be as good as Zimmerman? Don't know.
Am guessing Rizzo has budgetary constraints but agree that another year of farm-building won't hurt. That enables trades, which are a proven path to success for Rizzo.
From an interesting moneyball piece on NatsTalk.com: "The signing of DeJong might be a further testament that Rizzo saw that his 2024 pitching staff put up the 9th best FIP in baseball at 3.94, while the actual results was the 8th worst ERA at 4.30. Imagine if the Nats could achieve that FIP number as their ERA in the 2025 season. Defense matters analytically for that reason. Great defense will save you in the pitch counts and on the scoreboard."
It’s also been noticed that the pitchers on the Nats with the biggest disparities between their ERA and FIP are the lefties (Corbin, Gore, Herz, Parker). Who are going to face more batters whose pull side is to the left side of the defense. Which was turrible. Last year.
You just prompted me to take a look and I think it's even more pronounced that you have it.
Last year 12 pitchers had over 50 innings for the Nats. The LHPs: Garcia, Corbin, Herz, Parker and Gore all underperformed their FIPs by at least 36 points (Gore). No RHP underperformed theirs. Irvin and J Barnes were pretty much in line with expected results, and Floro, Finnegan, Rainey, Law and Williams all suppressed ERs at least a half run per 9 better than their FIPs would imply.
3B should be much improved, but the SS, C and LF defense all have crazy high error bars. I'm very curious to see how it plays out.
7 more wins in October? Yeah that is.
7 more wins April-September? Marginal at best.
I don't hate the signing. Yes it's another "holding pattern" type signing, but I'm pretty confident DeJong will be an upgrade over anyone else on the roster for 3B, and he's not blocking House (if we think House will even breakthrough, I'm not optimistic there).
But as I've said all off-season, this FA class just wasn't great and I'm not all that surprised the Nats didn't go hard after anyone. The only person I saw worthwhile backing up the dump truck for was Soto, personally. The problem, though, is that next year doesn't look all that much better, so Rizzo needs to work his trade magic to get this window opened for this team
Backed up by Mark Lerner himself, as well.
The thing is, the Nats have young players in the majors now at LF, RF, CF, 2B, SS, and C. They also have meaningful depth at SP (Gore, Herz, Irvin, Parker all at least showed that they belong in a MLB rotation in some capacity). In order to make the team better over the long term, they would need to sign a FA who would be around for a while (1-2 year deals are just edge improvements) who is worth spending that money on. That basically meant Soto (you always have room in your lineup for Juan Soto), Burnes, Snell, maybe Fried (basically TOR SP), Walker, or Bregman. In trading for Lowe, Rizzo basically got us a younger Walker for a cheaper price, though only for two years. Snell went to the Dodgers and Burnes actively approached the Diamondbacks for non-money-truck reasons. Soto went to the Mets for more money than even I predicted (and I was expecting 15/$750).
(Note: I didn't want Alonso. He's a weak defender whose only real skill is the ability to hit large numbers of home runs, and his bat has declined so that over the past two seasons he's more Kyle Schwarber than Juan Soto--still a useful player, but I'd rather have Lowe as my team's 1B, and I wouldn't want Rizzo have paid the money or years Alonso was wanting to be the DH.)
That leaves Bregman. Entirely apart from how adding a prime member of the Houston Canbangers would make me feel weird as a fan, he's young enough and consistent enough that I'd assume the Nats would get a 4-ish win player for the length of a 5-year deal. What I'm not sure of is, what kind of money would it have taken to have him sign with the Nats on such a deal? But he and Soto are the only players where I look at the Nats offseason and think, "Rizzo, you maybe should have pushed harder to sign this guy." And from Lerner's comments, it seems likely that Rizzo wasn't allowed to even try.
I don't understand when Lerner says no expensive free agents cause it's only 2/3 more wins. We pay big money to watch the team, and even 2/3 more wins makes the team more fun to watch, especially if the wins are attributable say to a couple bull pen arms that prevent coughing up games late. As Harper says, if playoffs are all that matters, suspend play, and my season tickets, until the team is ready to compete for playoffs.
@Mainelaker
In a playoff push, 2-3 more wins is exciting. Going from 73 wins to 75 -76 doesn't mean a whole lot more to me. When I think about buying a ticket, would it make that much difference that they're expected to win it 46% of the time instead of 45%?
Post facto, maybe you're right. I too don't care all that much about the exact record, and if, for example, you knew the the difference was certain to happen the last week of the year when we're long out of contention, I admit going 5-2 or 2-5 doesn't really matter.
But while the season is actually happening, everything is probabilistic. It's not about what the final record will be, but what final record is plausible to dream on and how long that dream remains plausible. Remember last year when we were kind of pretending to be in the wild card mix in may and even into june? Like there was a possibility that we wouldn't sell at the deadline? That was fun!
And if the team is 3 wins better in true talent, it basically adds like a 1.5 expected months of that fun. It reduces the threshold for upside surprises to matter and it raises the floor when regression comes back to bite us in the ass. Being better is more enjoyable than being worse, and that's true everywhere along the win curve.
(And that's even just limiting the consideration to wins, losses and playoff hopes. There's also an aesthetic joy to watching better baseball instead of worse baseball, but I assume most folks who argue for playoff-or-bust utility functions are completely blind to that.)
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