Well that didn't go well.
The Braves three game set is the last chance to grab that elusive 70th win and an important symbolic number. It is getting more necessary as people are starting to come back to the realization that this team is not in fact good (sorry Kolko) and they are pretty much bottom of the barrel for September. On August 29th they sat at 62-71. They've gone 7-19 since and while you can't discount the wins that happened, everything else around THIS team says they aren't a 70 win team*. It deserves a hard look in terms of how it was built and what their plans are for 2024. A 70th win though can soften those looks a little.
The other seasons are over and yesterday, in reaction to a team shill "the minors are filled with competitiveness!" column I posted the records of the minor league teams
- AAA : 66-80 3rd worst in IL
- AA : 59-77 tied 2nd worst in EL
- A+ : 55-75 2nd worst in Sally
- A : 65-63!
- FCL : .500!
- DSL: historically bad
The Nats were not good anywhere and bad most places. Now what this means for the MAJOR league team is up for debate. Most of what I found in a cursory examination is that it matters a little bit. Obviously it is better if your minor leagues look really strong. I can tell you as a Durham Bulls goer (Rays AAA affiliate) that they are usually very good and Hey! They major league team is usually very good! But far more important is how your organization is ranked. That's looking at the potential major league talent that exists not the totality of talent. The Nats are ok there. But in terms of having a competitive minor leagues... yeah they don't. They might have a bunch of OFers who compete against each other, but that would be about it.
Seasons almost over and we could talk about anything now, but we'll leave it be. Let's watch Rutledge pitch Monday then we can get to the hard look because I'm not softening anything, 70 wins or not.
*A little clarity - what you are is X. How you do is Y. Y is more important than X because that is what matters in terms of a season. It's the reality. No one is saying "We won 90 but should have won 70, we will skip the playoffs" But looking forward X is more important. You don't have to give wins back. You do have to understand what those wins mean - if they were luck or skill.
11 comments:
I sure hope they win at least 1. Atlanta's clinched home field, there's no reason for them to not rest the regulars. I seriously doubt they'll face Strider tomorrow, and Winans today should be pretty beatable (though Williams is pitching for the Nats so...)
It was unfortunate to watch everything come crashing down to Earth, but that's what happens when you have a team with zero power. The weather starts to cool off just a bit and those balls you hope to be homers end up dying at the track. Nats are only ahead of CLE in HR/game, and have hit less than half the amount ATL has. If the Nats want to compete, they desperately need to sign a power bat and say goodbye to Smith
I don't view this last week as "crashing down to Earth." They ran into the two teams with the best records in MLB, each (a of last week) fighting for postseason positioning.
As for signing a power bat, no thanks. They do need power, but they have several prospects who are viable in-house options (Woods, Crews, Morales) and don't need to sign anyone who's going to block them. What they desperately need is pitching. I think that there's no way they sign Ohtani or Yamamoto because there are teams that can stack money higher than the Nationals who also can offer things (like the immediate chance to compete) that the Nats can't match. That said, I'd like to see them sign one legit second tier guy (Jordan Montgomery/Shota Imanaga) along with one bounceback type (say, Frankie Montas). Move Trevor Williams to the swing starter/long relief role that he's excelled in previously and your rotation is FA, Gore, Gray, Corbin, and the winner of the ST battle between Irvin, Rutledge, Herz, and Ward. If all goes well (spoiler: it never does) then when Cavalli is ready you can look at jettisoning Corbin (thanks for the WS ring, Patrick!).
@cautiously pessimistic
Strider is sitting at 19 wins. He's gonna pitch.
@John C./Cautiously P.
I think they need four pieces. In the lineup, they need one hitter with a mix of pop and contact and one mashing goon in the Dunn/Schwarber mode. For pitching, they need an "ace" that would probably be a 2/3-spot pitcher on a good team, plus another reliably above-replacement guy in case none of the backend guys work out or Corbin becomes 2022 Corbin again. Only one of those, the well rounded batter, should be hard to get. If they are lucky, he's someone they already have. If not, they don't need to get him yet; I doubt they're going anywhere in 2024 anyway.
@ John C
I'm not sure why you think the Nats can't win a bidding war. It's hard to know exactly what the spending limits are for some teams like the Dodgers or the Mets, but no big market team has more room under the cap than we do. I don't think Ohtani is a great fit for us relative to how much he'd help other teams (plus we already have some idea of his non-financial preferences and they don't include the Nats), but I'd put a serious offer in front of Yamamoto and see what he thinks. I expect it'll be an uphill battle against the obvious west coast teams, but DC is a tier 1 world city. We're not Cincinnati. It's not a forgone conclusion that he's uninterested.
70!
The Nats can't win a bidding war because they don't really have an owner. I don't see that the Lerners are going to sign a player for a large, multi-year contract. And even if they were so inclined, it's probably at least one year too soon. Also, if things go incredibly well (unlikely), the Nats may have some trade bait because they have a lot of top-tier outfield prospects but not much else.
@Anon: If the luxury tax threshold were a hard cap, your point about space under the threshold would be on point. But it isn't (which I'm OK with, FWIW). Since it hasn't been much of a disincentive recently for teams to simply continue to stack money for a player that they really want to sign, I stand by my point that the Nats can't assume that they win a bidding war.
Beyond that, even if they did decide to simply stack money to a point where the Mets, Dodgers, Yankees, Angels, Padres, Rangers (etc.) all dropped out, what next? Having pushed that amount of money into one player, you're hoping that the Nats make a "one star and scrubs" roster work. That's a hard way to build a team.
But all of that was just as true when we did win the bidding wars for Max and Corbin and Worth and Stras. And while it isn't a hard cap, the competitive penalties have kept even the richest teams from simply ignoring it. (Except maybe Cohen, but let's see if he keeps it up after this year's results.)
All teams, including the Nats, have a somewhat arbitrary limit on how much they'll pay for a given player. The Padres have already said they are going to cut payroll, so they're probably out. The Angels have a terrible 5 year outlook in terms of expected competitiveness -- way worse than the Nats. The Mets just had the priciest dumpster fire in american sports history. The Yankees and the Dodgers have their own self imposed directives to make sure to only sign "good" deals.
Look, I'm not saying we're the favorites to sign him or anything, I'm just saying I don't see why it's a nonstarter. A few teams are more resourced than us, but most aren't. If we think the guy is the best fit and make him a priority, we have a decent chance to get it done.
(That said, all this becomes moot if he wants to be on the west coast for a shorter flight home or something. I just don't really love any of the other available SPs at their expected prices. I'd rather pay a premium for the upside and youth of Yamamoto.)
I also don't understand the hit on the Lerners. Selling or not, they offered $400m to Soto last year. The assumption for now needs to be that they can and will spend up to about the cap to compete. If we get through the 2024/25 offseason without a 9 figure free agent, I'll get my pitchfork and join you.
71. Nice way to end the season, given the circumstances
All right, so, 71 wins--a 16-win improvement! The Nats went from "rebuilding tank" to "resembles a major league baseball team, if a poor one." Also, our best players are still under contract/availability for several more years. I don't see the 2024 Nats as a contender or anything--way too much depends on the progress of more of our high-end prospects. So here's some way-too-early thoughts about 2024:
Lineup: Garrett and Thomas look like guys who belong on a roster and will start in LF and RF. Young will hold down CF, with Call as OF4. That will last until any of Wood, Crews, or Hassell make it to the bigs, in which case Garrett will go to DH and/or Young to OF4 with Call in the minors (or vice versa if Young flops and Call doesn't). Ruiz, Adams, and Milias take care of C; if Adams can play 1B he might get a shot there with Milias as backup C (as the much better defender). Abrams has SS locked down. Menesnes will probably occupy DH until/unless OF callups move Garrett there. 2B/3B are a continuing mess, with the hope being that House will step up and claim one of the spots. Vargas has already been re-signed to be the utility infielder, a job he's perfectly suited for. I assume that Garcia and Kieboom start at those spots unless unseated by a Candelario-type signing.
Rotation: Gray and Gore take two spots. Corbin gets the #5, at which he'll probably be fine. One of the Irvin/Rutledge/Adon group (probably Irvin) gets a shot at proving adequate enough and is basically holding the seat warm for Cavalli. With any kind of luck, ownership is willing to sign someone like Montgomery or Yamamoto or the like to hold down a slot for the foreseeable future.
Bullpen: Finnegan, Harvey, Weems, Rainey, Garcia, and whatever collection of flotsam and jetsam is hanging around. We've never seen Rizzo try to build a bullpen in the offseason when the team was actually good and there's no reason to assume he'll do so now when the team is not.
As I see it, the overall purpose of 2024 is to determine if the high-end prospects obtained in the trade and the draft can actually contribute on the major league level, therefore identifying which parts of the team need to be shored up in free agency and/or the trade market (and *if* competing in 2025 is a reasonable expectation). Accordingly, I don't expect a lot of Hot Stove activity out of the Nats this offseason, though I do hope for a serious pitcher signing. If enough of the Wood/Crews/House/Hassell/Cavalli/Lipscomb/Green/etc. folks work out and Ruiz/Abrams/Gray/Gore continue to progress, I can see the team continuing to improve towards 80-ish wins; if not, then there'll be plenty of sad trombone noises in DC.
Coming all the way back up from the smoking crater that was 2022 takes a while. As Harper and others have noted, for the Nats to be a playoff team next year (86-90 wins?) a *LOT* of things would have to go right.
But that doesn't mean we can't see a more positive future. The Nats have "been here before" with fairly decent analogies visible within most of our fan memory.
2009 (59-103) 2022 (55-107)
2010 (69-93) 2023 (71-91)
2011 (80-81) 2024 (.500 team?)
2012 (98-64) 2025 (90+ win playoff team?)
Sure, the last rebuild "had some things handed to them" (I assume Harper means the two #1 picks that became Stras and Bryce as well as the #6 pick that became Rendon). But this Nats team is looking to the guys picked up for Max/Trea/Juan to be part of the "things handed to them" this time around. That and Crews (though so far Green is a cautionary tale) who was "handed to them" by virtue of the draft lottery.
Many questions abound with pitching the most likely to need high end free agent signings. Fair enough. Future team power will likely rely on a combination of high-medium power bats like Wood, House, Crews, Morales and maybe Pinckney/RH3/Green (latter a longshot--when he hits the ball it STAYS hit, but that K rate sez he needs to figure out how to hit it more).
In any case it doesn't take massive tankards of Nats Kool-Aid to see at least a decent shot at having high-level Nationals baseball back ~2025. Is the job done yet? OF COURSE NOT. Just noting that there are signs of talent the Nats can build a future winner on.
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