I won’t go over the details because other people will do it more thoroughly. The way I read it the main takeaway is the players got a foot in for pre-arb money while the owners got spending levels below inflation/revenue putting more money in their pockets. Also the players got a change to the worst of the option abusers while the owners got protection from one year crazy spenders.
The macro view I'll take away is that the players rolled over to a point in the past few negotiations and had to reset themselves in this one. They did that. Who won or lost? It's all a moving target based on where they are, where they could be, and a bunch of things we won't know that'll play out between now and the end of the deal. In the moment, seems reasonable and that's all we can ask for.
OK so where are we baseball wise? The Nats depth chart stands like this (with my comments):
C : Keibert Ruiz (most interesting guy next year - FANTASTIC contact hitter. Should anchor position for years)
1B : Josh Bell (best case - hidden near All-Star. worst case - very average bat at a premium position. worth a shot)
2B : Cesar Hernandez (maybe Nats luck into an average season but probably not)
SS : Luis Garcia (the best ready prospect - I consider Ruiz a starter - needs his ABs.)
3B : Alcides Escobar (if he's not garbage I'll eat an... eskimo bar? Wait do we say Eskimo anymore? It's like Indian right where it's not a slur but there are better terms to use? This is getting off track. Anyway this is real bad. A worst in baseball year if he plays everyday is not impossible)
UTIL : Carter Kieboom (looks terrible, but you decided to ride with him so play him some more and pray)
LF : Yadi Hernandez (really? Yadi? Questionable in the field, maybe average at the plate. Another teams AAAA call-up)
CF : Lane Thomas (Is he what the Nats saw in 45 games last year? Probably not. But just "probably not" not "no" and last year he was very good so there's at least something to be interested in other than Ruiz)
RF : Soto (what is there to say other than maybe the best hitter in baseball this generation. Going to get SOOOOO many walks)
4TH : Robles (probably last chance to get head on straight before being jettisoned, should be good enough to start)
SP : Strasburg? (Simple fact : If he's not healthy, this season starts out nowhere)
Corbin (Bar has been reset to a low level - just give the Nats 180IP of 4.20 ERA ball. I think he can do it)
Gray (A half-step better than Ross/Fedde which means he should be in the rotation. But is he good or not? Can he stop giving up a million homers. Third most interesting thing for the team, imo and MOST important)
Ross? (Good when right, rarely right.)
Fedde? (Good occasionally, a better team's long relief)
Rogers (lucky bastard, but sometimes 5th starters are like that and you ride that hot streak)
Closer : Kyle Finnegan? Tanner Rainey? Mason Thompson? (Might be the worst bullpen this team has put together to start a year and that's saying something. The Nats NEVER care about their bullpen to start a year)
This is a team that was bad last year and has only gotten worse. The focus is not on 2022 it's on 2024 and keeping Soto for 2025 and beyond. To that end you'd like to see a big long term signing (Correa) but you won't. Failing that you'd like to see all the Nats young players get good. You probably will see a couple do that, but not enough. Failing THAT, you'd like to see all the Nats top prospects continue to develop. Who knows?
Assuming no big roster changes - if things start with Strasburg out things could get very bleak very quickly and the worst case scenario is nothing but Soto trade talk that the team at least entertains (probably wouldn't do it this year) for a squad who might be the worst in baseball. Best case - with Strasburg starting and healthy - hard to see playoffs but maybe Corbin is good and Ross is healthy enough and the team stays over .500 for a while giving fans an unexpectedly decent season through Labor Day?
Baseball is back. Good baseball back in DC though... that's probably too far to say.
7 comments:
I am sure you are right the way they stand right now. However, I hope they sign some players that will either have a Schwarber comeback or at least are good enough to trade at the deadline. I am so happy to have baseball back that I can stomach a whole lot of rebuilding this year. Of course, a huge Soto signing would make everything all right regardless.
I desperately hope that they take steps to improve the team both for this year and beyond, but...they did jack/squat going into the lockout, so I have no hope that they'll bother.
I think that's what bugs me the most about the Hernandez signing. 2B is, thus far, Luis Garcia's best position. Hernandez is a "good enough to start" veteran who can be reasonably expected to put up around 2 WAR over the course of a full season. He's not a guy you get to play the same position as one of the prospects that you have some hope might turn into an actual player.
Like Harper, I would love to see a Correa signing. That puts two superstars in the lineup for the next three years and is a legitimate "we are doing this" signing to help convince Boras/Soto that the Nats are continuing to try. Similarly with the universal DH a Schwarber reunion would be nice, and all of a sudden the lineup is looking somewhere between "adequate" and "possibly even plus." Let's not forget that even though it was buoyed by unexpected (Thomas) and unsustainable (Escobar) performance, the offense was not why the Nats were losing post-deadline games.
After all, spring training is the time when we can hope for things like "Lane Thomas genuinely is a 120 wRC+ hitter, and Victor Robles turns back into the guy from 2019, so Thomas can move to LF and the defense gets better in two spots." Hell, even the rotation was merely poor rather than nightmarish. And there's even the hope that Strasburg's coin flip lands showing the "the surgery worked and he's good again!" side instead of the "Matt Harvey" side.
But that bullpen...Rizzo has got to do SOMETHING about it. Last year was one of those "throw everything at the wall and see what works" except that literally nothing worked (even the better players like Finnegan were at best meh). It reminded me of...2017, was it?...when Rizzo had to trade for Kintzler, Madson, and Doolittle because Matt Albers was the single relief pitcher who wasn't melting down every time he went out there. Only we didn't even have a guy playing the Albers part.
Still, baseball is back! And you can't get better players while locking them out, so at least there's the possibility of hope. And my second favorite team is actually good, so I can at least pull for the Blue Jays while hoping that guys like Ruiz, Adams, Gray, Garcia, Thomas, and farther-away prospects can work out. BASEBALL!
This feels a lot like 2011
Ramos=Ruiz
Nix/Ankiel/Werth/Bernadina = Thomas/Hernandez/Soto/Robles
Zimm=Bell
Espinosa=Hernandez
ZNN=Stras
Lannan=Corbin
The brightside of this is that adjusting a few pieces from 2011->2012 turned the team into a winner. But the major difference is that 2011 team had a lot of young talent coming in with Harper, Stras coming back from TJ, and Rendon having just been drafted.
I think the Nats are going to have to spend significantly to win before Soto hits FA, or get very very lucky. Don't love the hole they've dug themselves...
I just rode on Alaska Airlines earlier this month and had the same thought regarding their logo....
Interesting that the expected avalanche of free agent deals didn't happen on Friday after the agreement. Shows how strong the MLBPA is. With Max Scherzer prominently in the negotiations, agents like Boras didn't even think about reaching out quietly for their clients over the lockdown period.
What about our new DH slot?
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