There was some hope coming into this off-season that it would be an off-season like the one before 2011. Committing to a future that looked bright, that off-season the Nats signed Jayson Werth. The Nats had a definite hole to fill - a leader and an outfielder - and they filled it. This season they have a definite hole to fill - starting pitcher - and they didn't fill it.
It's disappointing and it got me thinking it was likely more like the 2010 off-season. But looking back... well let's compare
2011: Werth, Adam Laroche, Rick Ankiel, Matt Stairs, Lance Nix, Tom Gorzelanny
2010 : Pudge Rodriguez, Jason Maquis, Matt Capps, Miguel Batista
2009 : Adam Dunn, Joe Beimel, Josh Willingham, Scott Olsen
Not all of these worked out and there are some other names I could throw in, but there's definitive moves to try to make the team better. I'd say all these years are better than this one. No you have to go back to 2008 when the signings were an aged Paul LoDuca, Aaron Boone, Willie Harris, Odalis Perez, to find an offseason clearly as inconsequential to the on field product for the upcoming year.
Of course we've just had a set of pretty terrible off-seasons as well
2023 : Candelario, Trevor Williams, Dom Smith
2022: Cesar Hernandez, Maikel Franco, Carl Edwards Jr, Nelson Cruz
2021 : Brad Hand, Kyle Shwarber, Josh Bell
I think 2021 is clearly better (not in results but in what it was attempting to do). So one question is whether this is the worst of the last 3 offseasons in terms of talent acquired.
But we also must consider the circumstances. 2022 was a give up season and we knew it at the time. 2020 might have surprised everyone, but 2021 drove home the fact the team needed at least a couple seasons of re-tooling. In 2022 Strasburg officially broke for good and then Soto became expendable because there wasn't a quick way out of this hole without spending a ton. So into 2023 became another expected rebuild. But into 2024, I think we expected a bit more. Or at least I did. The rest of you at least hoped.
So in talent this off-season might be the worst in what was brought in at least since the days where the Nats weren't trying. We can quibble over if say 2005 was better (it was) or 2006 (it was) or 2007 (it was) or 2008 (maybe). In expectations of veteran talent acquired this was definitely the worst. The combination of the two make this the worst off-season the Nats fans have ever had.
And yet...
You can still hold out hope because the Nats have the largest group of close to major league ready talent than they ever have. Yes that speaks to a history of extremely shallow top-heavy minor leagues, but it's true. And if they work out this year and if the Nats commit to spend next year well then that's something.
But if regardless of what happens the Nats don't commit to spend something next year well then into 2024 will have a short reign as worst off-season ever.
13 comments:
I feel like the 2022 offseason was worse, simply because they were expecting at least some level of success. It was like they were trying to try but the moves were absolutely idiotic. This year the moves are idiotic but they aren’t even pretending to try. I don’t know which is worse honestly.
Yeah waking up today I thought that while this actual off-season expectation/talent acquisition might be the worst combination, there were certainly worst FEELING off-seasons. Going into 2008 - terrible off-season, nothing in the pipeline. 2009 was a slightly better off-season, but coming off a garbage season with the only excitement being the June draft. 2022 - as you note, coming off the Max and Trea departures in season to see them trying to patch together a winner and Soto leaving hanging over the team's head. Also going into 2016 maybe - just had the Matt Williams debacle end, Zimm and Desmond walk, the big moves were Daniel Murphy and Ben Revere.
So there's that!
To me, the big issue is that there's just no attempt to even be decent. Now, maybe the farm system has made the structural changes required to be less useless than they have been. But that's definitely not borne fruit yet. And while the September 2024 Nats might be interesting (Cavalli, Herz, Wood, Crews, House), the April 2024 Nats are a 70-win team. As you said, we _know_ they'll need another starter for the next several years at least, and there are guys out there who might be good investments (https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/mahlety01.shtml) while not necessarily being "the big shiny bow on the package" like Scherzer was.
Whatever - we'll just have to see, I guess.
Not signed the starting pitcher we need, you say? Are you forgetting about Zach Davies? “When he’s good, he can be really good” quoth Davey MartÃnez. What more do we need??
I'm not defending the approach this offseason. I ascribe to Harper's position: "it's not my money, there's no salary cap, the billionaires should spend their billions and I am unhappy the billionaires instead chose to have larger smiles when looking at their bank statements."
With that out of the way, I also think it's important to recognize the difference between the 2011 roster holes and the 2024 roster holes. The 2011 Nats needed more help in the lineup than in the rotation. It's the reverse for the 2024 Nats. For me, the case for buying a FA hitter before the team is ready to compete for a playoff spot is MUCH stronger than doing the same for a pitcher. This is mainly because the probability that the hitter will closely resemble his current self two/three/four years down the line is MUCH higher than the probability of same for pitchers. Patrick Corbin is a familiar example of this effect but there are others. For this version of the Nats, Patrick Corbin's one good year would almost certainly be wasted in 2024. You'd much rather shift that good year to 2025. Of course, this reasoning falls apart if there aren't good pitchers to buy in 2025 (which I haven't looked up). But the case for delaying FA pitching expenditures relative to FA hitter expenditures is pretty decent, IMO.
Expectations low.
Can they be the BEST last place team? Seems like something to aim for.
We've been analyzing an unchanging corpse for the entire off-season. All the pundits and model-runners paint a dark picture. Hard to argue.
Thing is, you can't easily model such early stage players because their trend lines don't exist. You CAN look at the overall body and predict a shitshow --- everyone's doing that. Still, a couple break-outs and an unexpected success change everything.
Its the beginning. Allow us hope.
Major league sports is paid entertainment. If the team sucks, fans won't want to pay to watch the team. If management says "the team will suck whatever we do, so wait and come watch next year ot the year after," it will only encourage fans to stay away, at least in the short term. If management wanted fans in the seats this year, they would do something to improve in the short term, which could involve short term contracts that don't jeopordize the rebuild. They don't need to sign Snell, but someone or two like Wacha would have been nice, or a real third baseman. Or perhaps they have done the calculus: "we could spend another 35mm on player salaries, but that wouldn't generate 35mm+ in incremental ticket sales, so we'll pass."
@Mainelaker
"we could spend another 35mm on player salaries, but that wouldn't generate 35mm+ in incremental ticket sales, so we'll pass."
The annoying thing is that's not how team ownership is profitable. It's profitable upon sale. Lerners paid $450M, team is now worth $2B. Annual operating income is only about $45M. So yeah, you don't make a ton of money as a team owner year over year. The real money is in the sale. Hell, Cohen's operating income is -$145M and 1/3 of the league is in the red. The only owners who look at year over year income as something that needs to be net positive should be bottom feeders like Fisher
I'm not an owner apologist, but if they spend nothing (like they did before) and then spend a lot (like they did before) it will probably be a more fun team than spreading it out. Then I look at the Rockies and somehow think they are entertaining despite being terrible and wish for that instead of the 2024 we'll be getting. 70 wins is out of reach.
Usually they’re profitable during ownership too, you need to show revenue growth to justify the increased valuation. It’s usually not hard though because of how ingrained sports are in our culture and the fact that live TV rights are by far the most valuable broadcast asset these days.
Cautiously:
I would think a long-term cost-benefit analysis might show that $35M in salaries this year (and in 2022 and 2024) would actually increase revenue by > $35M.
The overall attendance last year was 1.8M. Let's assume for the sake of discussion that the team's record has no impact on TV/radio revenue. (I'm sure it does, but Angelos.)
If they'd spent $35M more in 2022 and 2023 on guys with 1-year deals, the team would have been at least somewhat more competitive, probably keeping maybe 1000 season ticket plans from dropping off, and probably adding another average of 5k walkup, so 6000 * ~35/person/game.
Plus, what if instead of 1 Candelario/Schwarber type to flip every year, they had 4? That's 4 more might-be-a-big-leaguer lottery tickets in the farm system, which has a lot of benefits in the long run. First off, that's a few more "might be a star" guys, it's also a few more spot fill-in guys that a good team will need. (Imagine the 2018 nats and Zimm rolls his ankle and misses 3 weeks. Having a Joey Meneses (or 2) available at league minimum is useful, and keeping those kinds of guys in the pipeline is $5M/yr you won't need during the expensive years when your bunch of draft picks are at peak arb pricing and/or leaving.
I totally understand the "mid-tier trap" that exists for the Reds, Brewers, etc. (The Rockies are so stupid that they really deserve their own category, spending huge on superstars, trading them for nothing, then spending huge on good-not-great guys, and still winning 70 games. They're the anti-Tampa.)
You'll still need to tank at least once to get the top pick, but then you can use cash to buy prospects (sign plug-in players like corner OFs or setup guys to one-year deals, then trade them and eat the rest of contract, so the other team pays the minimum and gives up a decent prospect.)
I would hope that the Lerners realize that revenue is more than a one-year-at-a-time proposition, and if you disgust a fan who'd bought tickets for years, they're not going to come back for years either. (That XFL team is a lot more fun for the money)
Agree with a lot of this, although the only way outcome on the field could affect TV/radio revenue is if MASN ad money passes through directly to the Nats (which might be since I think they own 33%?). Normal broadcast contracts are set for several years so yeah, if your brand is boring, bad baseball that could hurt you when you’re up for renewal but you can probably afford a couple down years.
From a fan perspective this felt like a good offseason to sign one or two solid FAs to fill some holes and position for a playoff run season after this one, and it’s disappointing to see ownership set the team up to (probably) tread water (or fall behind) instead.
For what it's worth, the latest agreement between the Nats and O's re: MASN money aren't anywhere near as bad as we thought.
Each team gets about $61M/yr in TV revenue paid by MASN. Those payments happen *before* MASN's owners get any profit, which pretty much doesn't exist.
The Forbes article about the sale of the O's says that the business valuation of the MASN element of the O's is effectively zero, because MASN is barely solvent once its payouts to the Nats and Os are complete. So while it's an insult that the O's own 2/3 of the company, it does *not* mean that the O's get 2/3 of MASN's rights payouts.
They each get about $61M from MASN per year, for the last 10 years and probably close to that going forward.
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