Everything?
Ha ha. No! Didn't you read the last post? There are some good and in the comments I mention the sort of neither good or bad (Garcia, Irvin, Parker, all the kids just getting their feet wet)
But there are some bad things. You can't be 20 games under at the All-Star break on luck alone.
Plan Ruiners
Keibert Ruiz had a hot start making optimistic Nats fans say "forget about the last few years! Maybe he was hurt!" Nope. He stinks! Always bad behind the plate, he hasn't gained power as he got older and he hasn't learned any patience. He's a slow slap hitter and has the stats to prove it. The Nats gambled on Ruiz after a decent couple of first seasons. They lost. And somehow back-up Riley Adams is worse as at least Ruiz's contact skills are something. Riley is just hoping to run into one and doesn't.
Trevor Williams looked real good when healthy in 2024. I mean he was good! So the Nats signed him to a 2 year deal with the general thinking if he could be 80% of that by July they could flip him into something interesting. But 2024 looked like a fluke and 2025 proved it was. He's unmovable and signed for next year. The only bright side is there is a fair amount of luck here so him coming back next year to eat innings and pitch at the back of the rotation wouldn't be the worst. That's good!
Reaching deeper into the FA garbage pile for Paul DeJong, Colin Poche, and Lucas Sims, Rizzo hoped to go beyond getting a deal into getting something for nothing. He got nothing for nothing as Poche and Sims were so bad they are already gone (and should have been earlier) and DeJong was only saved from the same fate by injury. No help for team or trades.
Shinnosuke Ogasawara was supposed to be cheap rotation depth. He hasn't shown an ability to hang in AAA let along the majors. At least if you burned the money you'd get some heat from it.
Not what they hoped for
Nathaniel Lowe was a cheap but sneaky good 1B who played good defense and hit well and the combo made him sort of a Top 10 1B (yeah 1B is historically weak - you still gotta play guys there!). But for the Nats in 2025 he's doing neither well and is basically the 1B this team should have. The good news is like Williams he'll be back and unlike with Williams, this year seems to be his fluke. So maybe next year.
Jacob Young is an exciting and fast young fielder who had some exciting stretches at the plate last year. But in 2025 everything has gone wrong. He's hitting worse. He fielding worse. Hell, he's been caught stealing 9 times in 19 attempts. From possible starter to back to the minors.
Nasim Nunez was stashed on the major league roster all 2024 because you can do that if you are a bad team. All glove and no bat the hope was he could work his way to average at the plate and last year seemed to suggest that was possible. This year though he's hitting his way out of AAA.
Jackson Rutledge, Zach Brzycky were two young names they were hoping to show something in the pen. Both have been bad. Edward Salazar, Ryan Loutos, and Jorge Lopez were all arms picked up with the hope something would click. It did not.
In the macro
While Parker and Irvin alone are basically hitting low expectations, together with Herz it was hoped one might continue to pitch like a middle of rotation guy. Nope. These two regressed and Herz got hurt.
The short of this is the FA signings were pretty remarkably terrible this year. Not just missing but missing so bad with guys they were not getting out of AAA or being released before Memorial Day. This meant the team had no depth anywhere with the lineup, rotation, and pen all only 1-2-3 players deep. The Ruiz development is also really disappointing bc it's hard to find a good catcher, they actually committed to someone and it's just become a mess. At least the kids that didn't come through, weren't the kids you really care about. Some of the A-Team came through, the others are just getting their chances, the B-Team's failures are disappointing but they aren't long term issues, just issues for 2025 when you are mixing and matching what you have.
Williams tore his UCL. Doubt he's back for much of next year.
ReplyDeleteYes, while he'll cost the team money (always bad when there's a strong suspicion ownership is being way too cash-conscious) at least he won't present a "we're paying him, so we have to play him" sunk cost fallacy dilemma.
Deletebest case has him back in the early part of the season and he'll be wanting to come back to earn his next contract so I'll bet on 15+ starts right now
DeleteI'm sorry, I hope it's 0 starts. That guy is DONE as a starter
DeleteI don't really disagree that the names listed as disappointments have underperformed but, for most of them, I have a hard time assigning any real strategic loss to that underperformance. De Jong, Oga, Sims and Poche - yeah, those were bad dumpster dives moves but they were basically for no money and aren't in the way of any moves to get better from here. Even Williams getting $7M next year only matters if the budget doesn't grow - and in that case we'd be in trouble there even if TW was healthy and good and we were able to trade him for 2 FV45s or whatever, as planned/hoped.
ReplyDeleteAnd if Rut and Brzykcy are bad but Lord and Henry are good, that's just a normal and welcome tradeoff. We were never going to bat 1000 on all of those potential bullpen arms.
Of the names you mention, it's Lowe, Young and Ruiz that are the actual issue. With Lowe and Young I think you can still reasonably hope they're just having a bad half year and that they'll improve to be 2 WAR/600 players next year. But Ruiz being this bad is a serious setback. We just needed him to be mediocre but the dust is pretty much settled, and he is way way worse than that. And I'm not seeing an easy solution.
The fundamental problem is, as I see it: the Nats need to stop dumpster diving entirely. Whomever our GM is for next year, I want to see them build the 2026 roster with a firm commitment that everybody on it is either: (a) an actual good player that we already had (whether it's a Wood or an Irvin), (b) a new multi-year signing or trade that we'd actually be happy to see play for us for those years (whether it's something big like getting Schwarber as DH or something small like signing Kiner-Falefa to be our primary utility (not starting--unless it's to move Abrams to 2B while waiting to see if any of the kids gets ready over the next few years) infielder), or (c) commit to playing prospects to see if they pan out. What I do *not* want to see, at all, is any more one-year fill-up-the-roster deals to back-end veterans where the upside is "maybe we swap them at the deadline for a prospect who might be the 5th guy in the 'pen some day."
DeleteI think the solution is dumping Ruiz and praying Caleb Lomvita who is not a natural catcher can keep progressing enough to be just not terrible in the majors.
Delete@Harper - that's a decent idea, and probably the best bet, but that's a scary plan A. I really hate actually counting on prospects before they at least produce in the upper minors.
Delete@Dezo - I certainly understand and share your emotions around that. It's so much more enjoyable to root for players who are part of our long term plans. But I think every team has those short term, low-dollar signings. You just don't call it dumpster diving when it's signing Kendrick and Parra to be role players on an actually good team.
If Nats sign 3 players who fit in your category B, I'm fine with them also grabbing a couple marginal pieces through FA too. You can always make room for a prospect who is forcing the issue.
Riley Adams is the Henry Rodriguez of this Nats generation. The team fell in love his his velocity (bat speed, in this case) and gave him way too many opportunities when the writing has been on the wall the whole time. Just play Drew Millas, even if he is just a try-hard who isn't actually better defensively. He at least gives you speed and something different out there. What's the worst that could happen, he hits .150 with an occasional HR?
ReplyDeleteRuiz's failure is so fascinating. He has one of the slowest bat speeds in MLB but the slow bat leaderboard is full of great hitters (Arraez, Kwan, Jacob Wilson are 1-2-3, there are also terrible hitters like Nick Allen and Kyle Farmer: https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/bat-tracking?sortColumn=avg_sweetspot_speed_mph_qualified&sortDirection=asc). The main difference from his solid-hitting 2023 is GB% way up, so he's rolling over soft grounders more often than he's lazily lofting 250ft fly balls on what would have been ball four. It's all so very peculiar. On the bright side, his contract is not terrible, it only maxes out around $9M/year in 2029 and by then we'll all be using memecoins.
I don't have the numbers but I'd bet at least 4 of Jacob Young's 9 CS are from over-sliding the bag. Pretty fluky and not like he's lost a step. His defensive metrics are still very good if not GG-caliber like last year. He's a perfectly cromulent 4th OF.
I'm sorry I said trade Abrams and bring up Nuñez. I did not look at his AAA stats before saying that, and I deeply regret the error.
They had such a lack of power that they had to keep Adams around but I don't think that's the case anymore. Wood is here. Lowe, for all his faults, should go over 20. Even if Crews doesn't become what the Nats though he could he would probably also go well over 20 in an everyday role.
DeleteArraez and Wilson have incredibly short swings that compensate for the bat speed. Kwan is an super interesting bat. The guy just seems to make perfect contact and be able to place the ball exactly where he wants. Ruiz is none of these and also one of the slowest runners in the game.
Nunez would be a nice SS/9th hitter in an infield otherwise filled with All-Stars. Maybe there's a team that needs a d repleacement SS for the playoffs?
Funny that this thread doesn't mention Josh Bell. Until June, he was the Great Satan of signing errors. I guess he's moved up to mild disappointment status, leavened by his personal likeability.
ReplyDelete