Monday Quickie - Miles to go before we sleep

 Last week the Nats signed Miles Mikolas as their first "FA to sign to trade later" of the off-season and honestly I like the deal. 

 For those that don't remember Miles as one of the quality St Louis starters undone by the Nats staff obliterating his offense in the 2019 NLCS, a little background. He was initially a failed starter for the Padres that went over to Japan and had some success.  The Cardinals brought him back to the states in 2018 and he performed great, then ok in 2019, then got hurt in 2020, injuring his flexor tendon.  He'd get back to full-time work in 2022 and was solid but hasn't been able to replicate that since, likely in large part because at that time he was already 33 years old.  The last 3 years he has simply been an innings eater, reliably going out every 5th day to give you 5-6 innings. 

 He isn't that good anymore but the Nats don't need good. 70 pitchers threw 150 innings last year. The Nats had the two with the worst ERAs with Jake Irvin (5.70) and Mitchell Parker (5.68) and they were that bad. Miles was 11th worst but with a slightly lucky 4.84 ERA, unless age gets his this year, he'll likely put up the same amount of innings as these two with a half-run better ERA.  Still bad, but acceptably so, not "we have to find a fading starter at the end of his career to replace this" bad like Irvin and Parker. 

 Since 2023 Miles has gotten by with impeccable control. If you want to worry that did slip last year to his second worst total since 2018.  But at 2.1 BB/9 it's still very good.  The problem is it has to be because both his ability to keep the ball in the park and his already weak K rate are slipping too. This is age catching up with him and at some point his ability to not give guys free passes won't be able to overcome the fact guys will get hits then take him deep.  Let's hope it's not in 2026. 

I do wonder why it's a 1-yr deal as usually a cheap-o two year deal is the way to go with guys you expect to trade simply because if they are doing well enough that someone else wants them, that cheap 2nd year is the real enticement. But who knows the vagaries of the current market. The Nats needed an innings eater and I mentioned Miles as a possible pick-up (Chris Paddack the other choice went back to Miami) so I guess I'm fine with this. It was needed. There's nothing stupid about it. Maybe he has a few months of good pitching and gets the Nats a worthwhile lottery ticket. 

Monday Quickie - "Pitchers" and "Catchers" report

Baseball will start this week but will it? The Nats are a team in limbo in every way. They have no home station. They have no home coverage. Under new leadership they have no direction (yet).  They have an ownership as stable as the next rumor that they are trying to sell. They are a baseball team this year because they were a baseball team last year and baseball teams just don't go away. 

This Spring will be an exercise in finding the bright spots.  In again looking for what might be part of the next great Nats team and evaluating them.  In again scouring the minors for any unexpected bright spot that can make you think tomorrow will be better than today because today should be very bad. In again trying to figure what the Nats can get for their tradeable assets. 

It'll be about staying out of the league cellar, the division cellar, and maybe sneaking into 4th.  It'll be about being a feeder team in August and playing spoiler in September. It'll be about the baseball happening around the Nationals more than the baseball happening within. 

It'll be about Cade Cavalli and James Wood and Dylan Crews and Brad Lord and Daylen Lile and Brady House and a lot of other names of kids in their early to mid 20s and a lot of prayers that things go right. 

It'll be about dives in the hole and long throws and ninth inning comebacks and moonshot homers. It'll be about getting too excited about a 4 game winning streak. It'll be about reading too much into stats on April 24th even though every year we tell ourselves not to do that. It will likely be bad and inconsequential most of the time but it will be baseball.  Baseball will start this week. Even for the Nats. 

Who watches the Nats-men?

The Washington Post sports department is no more. That really sucks for Nats fans and leaves the Nats coverage in limbo, especially after MASNs dissolution earlier in the year. This begs the question - who is covering the Nationals? I mean REALLY covering them, not covering them like me, giving out free content that's worth the price of admission.

I don't know about local TV stations which will presumably continue their usual light coverages of the team and local sports talk which will continue to talk and interview guys to fill time in the long summer. The Washington Times is unlikely to move from their position of AP aggregator with the occasional Nats column. Jessica Camerato is mlb.com's Nationals reporter and should be fine for game updates but any digging into the team comes with the news from Pravda caveat. The Athletic, one giant grift to earn its founders money while killing off local sports sections, never fulfilled it's "cover every team" promise and seems unlikely to do so.  Perhaps though there will be a "DC" reporter - covering all the remaining teams until football season starts. I'm sure Dan Steinberg, former long-time Postie now in a management role over there, is at least considering it. 

 The best bet though probably is Mark Zuckerman taking things back to his beginnings. He's in a slightly different place now and probably has grander designs given the crash of the Post, but some sort of DC specific site with a dedicated Nats guy feels likely to me, if they can get it off the ground. 

Such is the state of Nats coverage. And coverage is important. With no one holding their feet to the fire, with no one holding them at least sometimes publicly accountable, the management of the team can feel a bit freer to do whatever they want, and if whatever they want to do is make this team the Pirates then that's what they'll be. 

How it went wrong

Teams rebuild all the time. If you aren't blessed with an owner willing to spend your team cycles through times when they spend more and times when they spend less based on the talent they have. What you don't do is rebuild from a rebuild. This is what the Nats are doing and it means one simple thing : 

The Nats screwed up. 

So the question is where and when and like many things that are wrong it's not just one moment, but a series of bad decisions and bad luck that lead them to this point. 

1) The Nats had a stretch of very bad drafts. 

 The Nats were never really known as a strong development team and their drafts were first pumped by the can't misses of Strasburg and Bryce, then by Rizzo's "all or nothing" strategy paying off with guys like Rendon and Giolito. But the strategy of all or nothing in a place like the draft usually gives you nothing and the Nats had very thin drafts and in the quest for a title that thin layer of talent from 2013-2016, Nick Pivetta, Dane Dunning, Jesus Luzardo, was the needed trade fodder. 

Still one decent player a year can hold a org up. But the 2015, 2017, 2018 and 2019 drafts were all terrible ones for the Nats. The 2018 one especially stands out with their first 3 picks and 6 of their first 7 never reaching the majors.  Leaving the Nats with the emptiest of coffers when time came to rebuild

2)  The Nats bet on the wrong horses / don't develop well.

You don't trade ALL your best talent and the Nats did keep guys around they liked. They ended up holding on to Austin Voth, Erick Fedde, Carter Kieboom, Seth Romero - guys that amounted to very little -while dealing guys that did something. How much of that is talent and how much development?  Who was asked for and who did the Nats say were off-limits?  We'll never know but they basically rolled snake eyes on the high draft picks kept around.

3)  The Nats got "unlucky" with the Strasburg signing

 In hindsight the way to go was to let both the oft-injured Strasburg and Rendon go and bet on keeping Trea and Max. That's hindsight.  In the moment the Nats felt (and the fans wanted) them to keep one or both of these champions. The Nats bet on Strasburg and lost. Of course if they bet on Rendon they would have likely lost too. Not much they could have done here but once you sign him he's one of your tent poles for the next half-decade. 

4) The Nats misread the COVID season.

A team not committed to just spending should always be prepared to rebuild as sports are fickle beasts and guys that hit .300 today might hit 250 tomorrow. The Nats though got caught flat-footed. Post Championship the Nats were looking to compete still. They had just signed Corbin and backed it up with a signing of Strasburg long term. You could see the wheels turning on how the next team would shape up.  Would it involve Max and Trea? Soto? Where would guys like Kieboom, Robles, Voth, and Luis Garcia fit in? 

Then 2020 happened and Stras barely pitched and Corbin was bad and Fedde wasn't progressing and Voth seemed outmatched and Robles regressed and Kieboom looked like he was dropped on a baseball field from an alien planet. Without Rendon the line-up wasn't good enough to carry the team. Surely this was just the weirdness of the COVID season. So the Nats didn't see a pitching staff that simply didn't exist anymore and didn't rebuild right then and there. Instead waiting a year and seeing what 2021 would bring

5) The Nats blew the Max/Trea trade along with several others in 2021 

Halfway through 2021 and obviously not a real contender anymore because the staff was basically just Max, the Nats decide to pull the trigger on the Max/Trea trade.  They sent them off to the Dodgers to get the core of the next great Nats team, potentially built around Juan Soto (but likely not).  In came a ton of minor leaguers headlined by two of the Dodgers top prospects in Keibert Ruiz and Josiah Gray. 

They were legit prospects but two mid Top 100, older for prospects, guys who were more likely to be contributors than stars. Still we don't know what the Nats were offered and you take the best you can. Perhaps this was it. But the best thing they got overall was Lane Thomas* and that's not the rebuilding core you expect to have after trading away what might be two HoFers (one in his prime with time left on the contract) and a bunch of useful pieces. Just whiff after whiff here

At this point, even though they would objectively nail the Soto trade, the Nats were done. That trade became all the Nats had to rebuild with. The 2020 draft and beyond weren't barren but they didn't produce the immediate talent you'd hope for heading into what they knew at the time would potentially be a rebuild.  Even the incredibly deep 2023 draft had the Nats with the #2 pick grabbing Crews who has developed perfectly well but also has not been impactful as six of the 12 players drafted immediately after him**. 

There was not a bunch of guys creating stars and filling in gaps. There was one - Brad Lord.  Maybe 2 if you count "defensive OF" which Jacob Young was. There maybe more coming but the timing for the rebuild when you give up in 2022 is to see a path forward in 2025, which they did. And see it start to come together in 2026, which it did not.

 

The Nats didn't see the issues of 2020 were real and long lasting and waited a half-season too long to begin the rebuild. Thanks to a traditionally weak drafting ability they didn't have the organizational depth to support the rebuild, creating very little talent while keeping the wrong guys. When tasked to begin the rebuild whiffed on a number of trades giving the Nats half the base they might expect and they couldn't find immediate impact guys in the draft or through international signings. 

Rizzo blew it. As a bad drafter who relied on big bets paying off but a decent trader, he needed to nail all the trades to set this up or get lucky again in the draft.  He didn't get lucky and he got the trades wrong at the worst time.  

 

 *Drew Millas was part of this group so I guess we can say the jury is still out. I guess.  

**and four of those were HS guys  

Monday Quickie - Abrams

I do have more to come but you know - snow storm .

So for today - what do you expect back for CJ Abrams. They don't HAVE to trade CJ but it seems EXTREMELY unlikely that they will be competitive in the time before he becomes a FA.  Are they going to be good enough to convince him to stay?  Do you take that chance instead of selling him on a decently high note with a couple years of control left?  The way I read the Nats management the answer is no. 

So what do you want back for him? What do you expect back for him?  

 If it's like Gore would you be happy with 2-3 prospects that are near the top of a middling minor league organization?  The quantity over quality approach?  Or are you wanting a more solid prospect.  A Top 100 type that you can at least point to as likely to be a major leaguer of some level than the lottery ticket approach.  Is there anyone else you are looking to sell? Luis Garcia seems like he could go.  Jacob Young? He doesn't quite have a place here if you love Daylen Lile.   

GOING... GOING... GORE!

To the Rangers for 5 prospects. 

 I'll delve into it more when we have the names but the Rangers system is weaker but in part due to injury and bad 2025s - which yes, I know but these guys can turn around pretty quickly.  

The name that is in there Gavin Fien, a guy that's arguably Top 2-4 in the Rangers system but also arguably outside the Top 100 overall. He is supposed to hit well and profiles to be a decent fielding 3B or a 1B/RF type (good enough glove to play SS in HS, not slow but probably not quick enough to be a major league SS).  But he's 18 and with 10 A-ball games under his belt a long way off. 

 Prepare to stink!  

https://www.mlb.com/news/mackenzie-gore-trade-to-rangers-from-nationals

 

 

UPDATE : 

Names already in.  We were never going to see Sebastian Walcott (their best prospect and a legit top one in baseball) but I was hoping to see some of the arms that looked good but had off years for reasons.  

Alejandro Rosario was one of them.  A real good arm but out until 2027.  Which is worse when he already missed all of 2025.  (He tried to wait out needed TJ surgery but it didn't work and he got it recently) That means he'll be throwing again after a full two years off and at age 25 not throwing in AA yet. But still one of the names I hoped to see. 

Devin Fitz-Gerald is a nothing IF. A kid but one that projects to have no pop and no one is raving about any of his other skills.  Will have to surprise.  

Yeremy Cabrera is another kid (under 20 last year) this one being all skills and hoping to see it translate into... something. The speed does work on the basepaths and he has a good eye but that's about it right now. That's not nothing but those are your complimentary skills. 

Abimelec Ortiz is a non-athletic (for baseball players - more athletic than us probably) 24 yo with pop but swings and misses a bit much and gets eaten alive by lefties. Maybe there's a platoon bat here, but probably not.

Offseason Position Discussion : RP

First I'd like to thank the Nats for doing next to nothing this off-season so we can get through all this without being interrupted.  Much appreciated

The Nats 2024 was a stop gap year in relief where they brought in some older guys they never meant to keep and traded out some assets at the end of the year. Outside of Kyle Finnegan and Jose Ferrer there wasn't much of a plan.  They signed a weaker set of guys in 2025 and hoped for the best.  It didn't happen. The Nats had arguably the worst relief pitching in basebal in 2025. 

Presumed Plan : 

Clayton Beeter and pray for rain?  If there's a place where "plan" is going to far, it's the bullpen where the Nats are going with a bunch of untested arms because why sign anyone? It doesn't matter! <insane laughter as fans go mad> 

Reasoning behind Presumed Plan : 

It's basically a given that the place you try to save money is in the pen.  You don't know how much you will use them. Guys can have weirdly good performances out of nowhere.  It makes sense if you feel the need to cheap out somewhere to do it there. The Nats have historically felt that way since riding out actual good pens very early in the "Strasburg Window".  

 

Of course that was Rizzo and it's possible the new management feels differently. So we don't know. But it does seem clear that money isn't going to be spent so why assume it would be spent here?  

My Take : 

Jesus Christ this could be bad.  They were the worst last year and right now they are putting no effort into making it better. 

From the comments some of you seemed resigned to a terrible team to the point where you are like "signing anyone would actually be a mistake!"  Stop that. That's owner talk.  They have money. They can make the team good here and there (another bat, another arm, a few more bullpen arms) and not block anyone. Playing bad kids isn't helping anyone. Playing a ton of cheap talent to "see what you have" is not to find something good but to pay people nothing for a year without getting yelled at. Yell.  

 If the Nats aren't going to try to be playoff worthy that's a decision I'll accept in the "that's what teams do" way.  But if they aren't going to try to be major league worthy - nah.  I'm not down for that. 

 Anyway sign a couple of real arms for the pen!  They need them!  Desperately!