Monday Quickie - Still Here

One thing you have to realize about the Nats is they HAVEN'T made a big push to remain in the Wild Card hunt.  6-4 in last 10.  8-7 in last 15.  In mid June they reached 39-35 and they've gone 15-17 since and they've gone from in the WC and up a game to one game out of the Wild Card.  

The middle of the NL is extremely soft. There are no very good teams beyond possibly the Phillies (and I'm not 100% sold on them).  There are six basically equal teams looking to get that last spot.  The Nats are in good shape to be the one. 

But it's not the plan. 

The plan is 2028, with 2027 looking brighter based on this year, but it's never been 2026. 

So they trade a good bat today for a good arm tomorrow.  The process doesn't change. 

But who is going to make that push? The Padres or Diamondbacks seem possible. The Pirates and Marlins seem unlikely.  I don't know where the Cardinals stand. They were kind of supposed to be in year one of a complete tear down to the studs but then Jordan Walker suddenly became the player everyone thought he'd be 2 years ago and the pitching has been surprisingly better than average. I can't see them buying but who knows? If you don't you are wasting build around Jordan Walker which you might have for only a couple more years before you'd want to deal him... but I digress

The Nats should be in the thick of it. Will they be pressing the issue though? The first trade suggests not. That was a good deal but not a good deal for 2026. Early just started mound work.

 

The team is better than you thought they'd be.

The league is worse than you might have thought it would be. 

You hope for things to work out like this. 

Bought and Sold

 Like we said - why not both.  Bats for arms.  Mead for Early

In losing Mead they lose a power bat whose prospect history suggests could keep this up.  The major league results are spottier but he’s young enough you can see a team still buying into scouting

In gaining Early the get a rotation worthy arm who’s probably more a 3/4 but a 3/4 with lots of control left.  A spot that doesn’t have to be filled with cash or FA gambles.  That is if he can stay healthy. He already missed time with an inflamed elbow

Quick take - I like the deal. It turned nothing into a decent chance at 100s of innings  

Buy, Sell? Why not both?

 That's the implication of what we've heard from Toboni recently.  This makes sense.  The organization likely came into the year thinking SELL SELL SELL but given the team has shown themselves to have a playoff caliber offense they would be shooting a gift horse in the mouth to do that.  You want a great offense. You have it.  You want great pitching.  EH.  So the goal should be to get good pitching. Simple? 

Well it would be if you had a ton of money from owners that wanted to spend but no one believes that so instead we are left with trying to do particular sales to fund the pitching without hurting the offense. 

And now we're at the problems. 

You can't really sell good pitching because you need good pitching.  Is Foster Griffin good pitching? 

You should sell your good hitters to be to fund the pitching of now and that does make sense but the organization was planning to keep the those guys.  Can they get over their initial desires? 

Or alternatively, will they decide to gamble on those guys to replace some guys like Garcia they could sell now? 

My guess?  The latter.  Selling good guys now - Garcia, Abrams for real pitching.  

And... I don't love it. Birds in the bush are those for reasons. Every team can name more prospects they were excited about that didn't pan out. But I don't have the information they have.  If the money is not coming any time soon then it will be foolish to go in now on guys that will be gone in a couple years. But I don't think you can say anything like that for sure based on what they do. 

It's also hard. Because guys selling WANT the kids. They aren't looking to get guys for now.  So there has to be some kids thrown in. 

A lot of people are saying this is a fascinating deadline for the Nats and I agree. We could see anything from a complete rebuild to a light push for the playoffs this year and you can justify any of that. 

What do you want out of the second half of the year?

Assuming the planned Nats trajectory is "do nothing, see you in 2027" do you want a mini-run after the break to get your hopes up?

I say sure.  Better baseball is better baseball even in the pursuit of nothing.

Do you have a goal win total for the end of the year

.500 or bust! 

Do you want to see these guys traded or re-signed (let's assume reasonable market contract - which means decently big but not crazy

Miles Mikolas or Zack Littell?

Take the bag of balls.  

Foster Griffin? 

I guess trade - nice find but let me put pitching $ toward something other than a mid-rotation 30yo with half a good season in the bank

Luis Garcia

Hmmm. I've always liked him but I feel like replacing a 1B should be the easiest thing (should - the Nats have shown it's not) and you are trading high. Still he's 26. I guess I say Keep because I like my continuity but I understand.  

CJ Abrams? 

SIGN

Who do you want to win the East and make the playoffs in general and no stupid "the meteor" answers. Gotta pick. 

Phillies for the East.  Been ok with them since the Schmidt days. 

Brewers and well I don't want the Dodgers but let's be honest with ourselves. 

WC, if not the Nats - Pirates, Padres, D-backs 

In the AL. Yankees obv, Indians, oh jeez I don't like any of my choices. Texas is the worst. Seattle is a bunch of cry babies - Boston west, Houston has gotta purge all the cheaters... I guess Seattle wins out, yuk. 

Being honest again, Rays are at least in as a WC, so them and Twins and Blue Jays. I don't love the Jays but let Toronto be rewarded for trying again.  

ASB P2 - Again we argue the future

What almost every ownership group wants is obvious. They want to be the Tampa Bay Rays or possibly the Cleveland Indians.  They want to be a team that wins constantly with a low payroll. That's the goal. What's more important out of the two? Sadly the low payroll, so if they don't win that's not the worst thing that can happen.

This differs from what the fans want which is simply to win.  They want to see playoffs and championships. If the team doesn't win that IS the worst thing in the world. And that's where the conflict happens, or at least where it should happen. Now spending money is FAR from a guarantee of success, but the numbers are pretty clear that spending money is better than not spending money in regards to making that happen.

An ownership group has three options then (1) ignore the fans as they aren't the most crucial money driver unless you create a big fandom, (2) give in to the fans and spend some more money, or (3) convince the fans they are wrong and spending money is actually bad.  Despite the multiple Dodgers titles and the Yankees and Phillies always in the playoffs, they've done a very good with (3). "We can put that money back into player development!" "Sure we could have an ok team now, but don't you want a GREAT team later?"   

That's where the Nats are now... well sort of. What we know is the Nats have a do fun team now that could still make the playoffs and could have had a better shot if the Nats FO did something earlier. It wouldn't have been likely to really contend but with nothing certain for the future is it better to lean in when opportunities are presented to you?  That's the philosophy question I suppose. What is increased chances at a long set of playoff runs and real title contention worth to you? 

In theory that could be worth a lot, but I think fans tend to skew those chances, (and they aren't helped because that's what the owners are always selling you).  In their minds it's like "sure we could go to a 66% chance of a WC spot for the next couple of years, but we can have like a 90% chance of a long playoff run starting in three years if we don't!" But the reality is more like "sure we could go to a 66% chance of a WC spot for the next couple of years, but the Nats have a 20% to have another long run starting in the next couple of years, we can up it to maybe 35%!" That's what you are throwing away pushes right in front of you for.  

This is an all-time argument in baseball though and not one easily answered, because those long run results ARE so good and these short unexpected runs usually are just a couple of meaningless fun series. But it IS risk / reward.  The payoff is high, sure you could be the Rays or Indians but the risk is real, you could also be the Athletics or Pirates or Rockies or Royals...  

My question though is - do fans really want to be the Rays? The key to the Rays is the constant churn.  Have a guy, he gets good, send him off for some young guys to replace him, rinse, repeat. There is no core set of players you are rooting for, only truly a set of laundry that guys fill aged 20-27 before heading off elsewhere. If you do it right occasionally that group comes together to matter, but when they don't you have a team that is bad that also engenders no loyalty. The Rays are consistently one of the lowest teams in attendance good or bad. These things are connected. 

But maybe the Nats are already one of these teams? Bryce Harper, Anthony Rendon, Juan Soto, Trea Turner.  All stars. All gone. What made the Nationals different was never a commitment to young players to age with the team but the willingness to go out and grab 1-2 big time FAs to be the final pieces. If the Nats don't keep CJ Abrams, that's nothing new, but simply the Nats being the Nats. Where things would be different is if after that happens they don't spend any money. There is no follow-up Scherzer or Corbin. 

Really the most important thing here is we don't know what this Nats organization is going to be like. This isn't the Pirates or Rockies with decades of proof they don't know what they are doing and don't care. This Nats org could trade Abrams and use that saving to then bring in Skubal. So all these arguments about should the Nats have done more this year are sort of made in this great vacuum of knowledge.  If the Nats are a team committed to winning that just want to set-up the best team possible when spending money then no they shouldn't do anything now (or really it was ok they didn't do anything earlier - it's a bit too late now). If the Nats are a team just hoping to "out-organization" to be the next cheap-o Rays or Pirates whatever the results may be then they should have gone for it. But we don't know.  

As far as getting that knowledge the trade deadline will tell us something. The off-season will tell us more.  

ASB P1 - Are the Nationals for real and can they make a run for the playoffs?

We have rounded the crest of the season are are heading into the dog days where seasons for all but the worst teams are won or lost. The Nationals have shown themselves clearly not to be one of the worst teams so what does the next month have in store for them? Well it boils down to the two answers above. 

Are the Nationals for real?   Yes.  They have finally been caught for the most R/G in baseball (by the Pirates!  Someone go back so I can make that bet) but they have a very healthy lead on most of the other teams in baseball.  Sixth is the Twins nearly a half-run back. The questions from earlier in the season remain, Can Wood keep this up for an entire season? Does CJ have an extended slump in him? Is Ruiz really this good? But 95 games in it looks like the answers are Yes, No, and good enough.  Add to that Luis Garcia developing a power swing and Curtis Mead being a perfectly decent Joey Meneses, Mike Morse "found this guy who can only hit for 1-3 years of help" and you have a Top 5 in the Nats lineup that can literally hang with any teams.  The bottom four isn't as fun but Lile and Vivas are livable and Nunez and Young have made themselves not terrible in exchange for their plus defense. Is the bench pretty much a horror show? Yeah, but that's the understandable cost of not actually building the team for this year. Your main set-up can be solid but there's nothing behind it. 

When you have the best offense in baseball you can challenge for .500 even if you have the worst pitching and that's a good thing because the Nats might have the worst pitching. While they are only 3rd they are behind two bad teams playing in weird situations (Rockies and Athletics) that effect their results. The Nats "weird situation" is that they don't want to put anything toward getting better. On the mound the Nats are hanging on by their fingernails. Cavalli looks fine, not an ace, but likely able to be relied on in a #2/#3 role. Foster Griffin's great results are living on borrowed time but he should also be rotation worthy.  The rest of the pack is a group of "let's see what we get from this guy tonight" guys. You can't rely on these guys but the alternatives are worse.  Almost every team throws one of these guys out there, most two. Three is a little much but this rotation is still enough to get into the playoffs with that offense. We all know the starting pitching isn't the issue. 

The Nats relief pitching is among the worst in baseball and the ERA has been pushing 6.00 for the past couple months. You don't necessarily need a deep pen with this offense, just a reliable 3 man set that can hold leads late. The Nats don't have even that.  Andrew Alvarez is possibly the best arm, but he's been forced into game start duties leaving his innings high and making him unavailable for late relief. That literally left Orlando Ribalta and Brad Lord as your go to guys, two arms best suited to be the 3rd man in that reliable 3rd man set. Poulin might be decent enough against lefties and right now that's it. Your "three man set" is two guys who might occasionally be able to do it and a guy you can sort of trust against lefties.  And if these guys are tired or hurt (Lord is currently out) or otherwise unavailable? You have absolute trash. Like the Nats offensive bench this is the cost of not trying for the year but why the initial pen was so bad? That was a choice. 

And worse for Nats fans, it's a choice that we haven't heard word one of changing from the men in charge. The Nats aren't really trying and they aren't going to start. The powerful offense is a great thing to see making this season interesting but it's only applicable in respects of the decisions made for upcoming years or this year's trade deadline. 

To answer the questions from the title - Yes the Nationals are for real but no they can't make a run for the playoffs. And the reason for the no is because the front office doesn't have interest in doing that this year. 

What does that mean for next year? It depends on the decisions they make particularly with Abrams and Garcia. Abrams is likely to be kind of this good going forward (and also a continued liability at SS). Garcia is still young enough that this power burst could be for real, but it also just might be a career year for a guy that's more an average bat.  Still they are two bats you'd want for a team looking at 2027. At the same time the Nats have a solid top of bats in the minors.  Willits, King, Fitz-Gerald, Cruz are all solid prospects with Willits being one of the top ones in baseball. The quantity is there to potentially trade Abrams and/or Garcia away to bolster the Nats future pitching depth which currently relies on Jarlin Susana and the TJ recovery of Travis Sykora. But if they do deal these guys away what it means for next year is that there isn't a next year, or at least there won't be a real challenge for the playoffs then either. 2027 will be moving guys up and seeing what they got and figuring out how to put that playoff team together for 2028. 

Monday Quickie - back from vacation

 The Nats are where they have been now for a while which is fun and good because where they are is "about .500 and in the playoff discussion".  

About a month ago we talked about the playoffs and while we'll go over that deeper in a week during the ASB I want to look at my assumptions about the other teams to see how they held up. If so, it's likely worth checking them out again the same way at that time. 

 

Gap would grow between the Nats and Braves/Dodgers/Brewers

Was 11.5 behind ATL, 8.5 behind MIL, 8.5 behind LAD 

Now 7.5 behind ATL, 10.5 behind MIL,  13 behind LAD

Well the one that matters I was wrong. Basically the rest of June was a horror show for the Braves going 4-13 to end the month. They've picked it back up recently and I still think I'm basically right in my call here that these are just better teams. 

Cardinals and Phillies are likely no worse than Nats, catchable but likely to hold lead

Was 3 behind STL, 2.5 behind PHI

Now 3 behind STL, 4.5 behind PHI

PHI has shown that the horrible start was just that and they are a perfectly decent team. That plus the general advantages should keep them ahead of the Nats depending on trade deadline machinations, injuries, and general luck 

Arizona and San Diego are worse than Nats and definitely catchable 

Was 1 game behind ARI, 1 game behind SDP

Now  1 game ahead of ARI, 1 game ahead of SDP

Yep, these guys aren't as good. 

Cubs and the Pirates are better than the Nats and might widen tiny gap 

Was 0.5 games behind PIT, 0.5 games behind CHC

Now tied with PIT, 4.5 games behind CHC. 

One team proved me right with the Cubs big push in June ending the month 14-4.  The Pirates seemed more on par with the Nats when they faced. 

Cincy is a mirage, but maybe the Marlins are real? 

Was 2 games ahead of CIN, 2.5 games ahead of the Marlins

Now  4 games ahead of CIN, 3 games BEHIND the Marlins

Well look at that. Marlins are on a 23-8 run currently while whatever luck Cincy had has petered out. 

 

The short of it - yeah those assumptions mostly held up. Really only one team surprised from what I was thinking and that was the Braves. Most did exactly what the numbers said they would and the others didn't stray that far. So yeah worth while to look again, see what has changed and where the Nats fit. But that's for a couple weeks. 

The Nats have a good run into and out of the ASB. Into it's the middling Astros, the Yankees who can't hit without Judge and he isn't expected back before the ASG, and the bad A's. Out of it it's the bad Rockies and the middling Dbacks and Blue Jays. If they really are contenders for a playoff spot they'll take these 18 games and go like 11-7, 12-6. Tread water and trades of good players and a crash out to end 2026 seems more likely