Of Patrick Corbin! Hey yo!
No not really. Was sick before that. But after vacation so I'll take it. Let's go over the deadline deals!
Hunter Harvey for Cayden Wallace (and a competitive balance pick) :
You guys all know I'm in the tank for Harvey. Swing and miss stuff, doesn't give up homers, that's already a pretty good relief arm and previous years suggest control is possible which would make him great. But the Nats leaned hard on that arm and with a year of control he was a prime target for other teams. And as noted earlier the Nats actually have some relief arms in the minors worth trying out. So he's gone.
Cayden Wallace is decent return for Harvey. FWIW the Royals farm was noted as "notably thin on top-tier talent" He's not likely to be a star. But he's 22/23 (August 7th) and handling AA fairly well. His defense is well thought of. He could be a decent doubles power ok average type player but more likely he's a bench guy. That's also what you'd probably expect from a competitive balance pick. The more of these you get the better. A several year decent bench guy for Harvey would be a reasonable return and maybe you get lucky.
Jesse Winker for Tyler Stuart :
Winker proved he was good when healthy and was healthy with the Nats. He might head into FA healthy and that would (1) be very good for him, and (2) make it really unlikely for him to return to the Nats. He's a win now bat. If you sign him it's with the hope he stays healthy in 2025 first and foremost. The Nats are a win later team, even if later is just 2026.
Tyler Stuart isn't that much of a prospect. He slots in where Jake Bennett, Jackson Rutledge, etc. fall. The good news is that what he does well (no walks, no homers) is what the Nats like. The bad news is he's pretty hittable guy at AA and he's going to turn 25 right after the season. There's also a question of arm durability as he was a reliever in college. It's more org depth than the lottery ticket you hope for.
Lane Thomas for Alex Clemmey, Rafeal Ramirez Jr and Jose Tena :
The Nats grabbed Lane for Jon Lester in what turned out to be a steal. In retrospect, it's clear that the Cardinals, who had a bulk of AAAA type OFs, really didn't know how to evaluate them and in the last couple of years have dealt away several who did fine and kept others that did not. Lane did fine! The first couple months and 2022 were fun because it was a surprise that he was ok as a full-time player. But that also hid the fact he was a bad fielder. He's not the worst option for a 3rd OF for a decent team right now but age curves suggest he soon will be a better 4th OF and its hard to see him as part of the Nats future a few years down the road. Made real sense to deal him.
Jose Tena is an interesting player but probably not good. Swings hard. When he doesn't miss the ball he hits it hard, but mostly at the ground. So there are two things to fix here. At his age maybe you can but it just feels real likely he's going to keep striking out like 40% of the time and that untenable. But as a third throw in, sure!
Rafeal Ramirez Jr is the bad lottery ticket. Super young. Intriguing power. Pretty good eye. Also sort of slow already? That's not a good sign. Misses a ton of pitches in A ball. A total project. Not really the lottery ticket you want. But as a second throw in, sure!
Alex Clemmey though is the interesting piece. Big swing and miss stuff. Hard to hit. Wild. Just turned 19. This is the lottery ticket you want. He's a "#1 #2 starter" scratch off. Sure you probably lose but in these types of trades this is what you want to get back.
Dylan Floro for Andres Chaparo :
Dylan Floro did well for the Nats and is exactly the type of pick-up and trade guy you want to get. Shame they didn't make him a closer to inflate that value a bit. With no bad peripherals since 2017, he's the type of guy the Nats will need next year but as an upcoming FA if the Nats want him they can try to sign him.
Andres Chaparo is just a guy. He's hitting pretty well in the hit heavy PCL so should get a shot at some point but is a crappy fielder so he'd have to do more than just hit ok in the majors. Org depth mostly.
I'd say not a bad haul for what they dealt. Yes the chance of a star really only falls on Alex Clemmey, but that chance plus likely a decent bench player is probably fair for a what was going out. The Nats weren't going to get a sure fire major leaguer out of it.
21 comments:
I really wish Rizzo had traded Finnegan too, don't really think he's part of the future plans and would've likely gotten an even better return than Harvey given the crazy valuation of all the RPs that were traded over the last few days. But oh well
Hope you're feeling better Harper!!
Maybe these were the right moves to maximize 2025 - 2028 "value" (lets use WAR as the measuring stick because it most readily available and is consistent year to year), but I think at some point across MLB non-contending teams need to make contending teams actually pay up for these midseason trades. Giving up two top 50 potential relievers (Harvey and Floro) and a Starting corner outfielder/ potential future DH (Thomas) for many lottery picks does not usually maximize future value and really does not seem like a fair trade. Maybe the nats wouldn't have re-signed sign Floro next year, but Harvey and Thomas combined have a high probability of delivering between 2.0 to 4.5 WAR combined (0.5 to 1.5 War for Harvey and 1.5 to 3.5 for Thomas given past performance) in 2025. Do we think that there is any chance that we get more than 2.0 WAR out of all of the players we got in return for these trades over the years 2025-2028? I think we are more likely to get 0 to negative WAR that anything. Teams only do this because the trade market is soft due to the hording of prospects by just about every team.
I think Finnegan would have been hard to trade for good value. On the one hand, he has closer experience and been mostly reliable for several years. On the other hand, he has negative fWAR, and projects to regress from his current ERA. Teams likely didn’t want to pay a lot for Finnegan, and the Nats don’t have a clear successor to Finnegan, so Rizzo decided to keep him.
Ehhh I don’t necessarily agree. Sure there will be flops, but Clemmey alone is easily capable of developing to providing more than 2 WAR in a single season. It really takes one not even average season to meet the threshold by any of the guys you mentioned.
Don’t you think dodgers would put him in at closer? Phillips lost the job and nobody seems to really be taking rein of it there
Have to wonder whether Finnegan's blown save on Monday night contributed to no deal? In retrospect it was really dumb to send him out there in the 9th with a four run lead. Easy to see now, but I do understand it might not have seemed a risk on Monday night when it occurred.
I do think teams were willing to trade for Finnegan. The problem is that they likely didn’t want to pay a lot for him, given the concerning underlying metrics. Whereas the Nats don’t have a clear successor and must have wanted to get back for him more than teams were willing to offer. I think teams couldn’t agree on his trade value
Yes, I think the Finnegan non-trade speaks of relative value. Much how Lane Thomas was worth more to the Nats as a regular OF than he'd be as a platoon option for, say, the Mariners (and thus Rizzo only traded him to a team that was intending to play him as a regular and pay starter prices), Finnegan's value in the Nats bullpen, especially given that the Nats seem to intend to be fringe contenders in 2025, is likely more than any other team was willing to offer.
I'm glad, I think, that the proposed Floro-for-Carlson trade fell through, though. Carlson has been hurt and/or bad for three years straight, now, not even up-and-down the way Thomas (or Yepez) was, and OF is already the Nats' strongest potential position with Wood/Young/Crews outside of the potential of a free agent signing in the offseason to push Young to OF4 or if Crews isn't ready.
3B is still a big question mark, but at least we now have two more, "well, maybe this prospect will work out" shots if House doesn't come through than we did going into July, which isn't bad.
Wondering whether Finnegan wanted to stay with the Nats so he threw out a stinker in his last appearance to undermine his trade value. I don't actually believe this, but it's a slow summer day, and the trades made by the Nationals aren't very exciting.
I reiterate my concern about Gore. He's not striking anyone out. This has been going on for a month. Fatigue? Messed up mechanics? (The two are often related.) At this point, Irvin looks like the #1 SP -- and that's not a good thing.
Yes, I’m with you on Gore but will go further and say that I’m not impressed at all. Everyone seems so enamored with him, which is why I look at his 4.5 ERA, the low innings, and all the walks for what it is: a #4 starter a good team. A team we hope to be again someday. Therefore I see Irvin as a #3 with a ceiling of #2 if he had another put away pitch. So any of Herz, Parker, Gray, Cavalli, and Rutledge could be a #5. Aside from Gray, all those guys haven’t pitched enough so I can’t definitely say they are better or worse than Gore.
But Gore is not that great. I’m over the hype and he’s been trending downward for a long time. At least Irvin was great early on, stumbled before the break, then got back on course.
At least we don’t lie about how much Corbin sucks. Can we please started being honest about Gore, too?
Okay, Corbin sucks. I'd like to see him get his 100th win. I'd like to see him play well enough to earn it.
Regarding Gore, age 25, it's instructive to note that Scherzer didn't become SCHERZER until age 27.
The farm system looks strong -- #5 in the current Fangraphs ranking. Time to bring up Crews.
@PBN. Slow down a bit. I think you’re massively overreacting to a bad 2 months. Let’s see how he closes out the season but his FIP indicates a much better pitcher than his conventional stats suggest. And this year, he has improved over previous seasons. So give him the rest of the year and see where he stands at the end of the season. From the eyeball test I see a really good pitcher. Far far better than #4.
Respectfully, I disagree. It’s likely a symptom of being accustomed to losing but if Gore is a really good pitcher and far better than a #4, then how quickly we forget blasting Gio Gonzalez for his inconsistency, particularly in the playoffs. Well I’d swap Gio for Gore in a heartbeat and that’s not a compliment to Gio, who was a #2 or #3 on a good team.
Let me be clear: Gore does not suck. He’s a decent pitcher who has shown flashes of pretty good, albeit sporadically and infrequently. On this bad team (a team that will finish sub .500 mind you), he deserves a spot in the rotation. But I’ll need to see much more from him if he’s going to continue to be so highly regarded once this team becomes competitive. So on this team, he might look like a really good pitcher but that just can’t be our accepted level of expectation if we want to get back to playing meaningful games in October.
Reality is that Gore may be a really good pitcher who is pitching badly with bad results and can’t seem to figure out how to improve. If he’s really good, then he hasn’t done it yet. But I hope he does.
Gore is sporting a .363 BABIP in 2024. Starting pitchers with a K% as high as Gore's (career 25%, 24.9% this year) simply do not give up hits at a rate like that. This is unambiguous evidence that his current results (e.g., ERA) are lagging behind the quality of his pitching.
Gore has taken a step forward this season--he has reduced his walks and homers while maintaining his K-rate. That was extremely clear prior to the last month, which has admittedly been a rough stretch no matter what stats you look at.
Whether one might classify Gore as a #2, #3, or whatever is (a) arbitrary; and (b) a silly thing to discuss. He has shown enough talent to be considered someone you'd want to start a playoff game.
He needs to turn the corner on this bad stretch, and continue to throw more innings. I'm far more worried about whether Gore is injured than about whether he can get MLB hitters out consistently as a starter (he showed that he can do that already).
@PBN
That’s like…your opinion man
@Anon. Idk, he just hasn’t impressed me as much as everyone seems to have an excuse for why he isn’t pitching as good as advertised. If it isn’t clear enough already, I’ll say it again. He’s not bad. He’s absolutely part of this rotation now and going forward. But I don’t believe he’s as good as everyone says he is. Right now, he’s not the best pitcher on this team. And if the argument is that he’s pitching really well just getting bad results, then I’m confused… do results not matter? Can two things be true at once? That he can be performing poorly but still be a valued member of the team? What has he shown you that he could be the ace we can lean on to go deep in the postseason?
I’m sorry, but I’m just not seeing it. If you have to look that hard to find something that confirms your beliefs then I’m not sure what to say :/
@OPBN -- "And if the argument is that he’s pitching really well just getting bad results, then I’m confused… do results not matter?"
I think this comment really nails a key dualism that runs throughout sports. Post-facto, only the results matter. No such thing as moral victories. Flags fly forever. The team / person who won "stepped up" and "wanted it more" and "rose to the occasion".
But anyone who watches or plays any significant quantity of sport must be aware of how deeply pure random chance is embedded in it. A scorched line drive up the middle that goes right into the pitcher's glove doesn't signify any less excellence on the part of the hitter than the RBI single that flies 6 inches farther left.
For athletes, I'm sure straddling that both-and is quite exhausting and they need to be all-in on both extremes: focussing on process for the long term and results in the short term.
But fans have a lot more flexibility to decide how to engage with sport, and that decision will color our experience watching the same events. You are not wrong that Gore's results this year haven't been great. His bWAR, which is based on RA/9, is barely above replacement and his record is 6-9. The team's record in his games is 10-12 despite getting 5.2 runs per game of support. His IP/GS is barely over 5. You see that statline, wonder what's the big deal, and aren't exactly wrong.
Other fans, like me and many here, see it differently. This season, per 9 innings, he's striking out almost 10 and only allowing .73 HRs. He's walking a bit more than you'd like (3.57 per 9), but he's shown improvement on that every year he's been in the majors. FG's FIP based WAR has him at 2.4 through two thirds of a season, which is a very solid SP2 or SP3 on a playoff team.
Those stats are results too, even if not as important to the bottom line as runs and wins. And over a moderately short sample like a single season, FIP has been shown to be a far better predictor of future ERA than ERA itself. So you may not be wrong to read Gore's current results as worthy of a backend starter, in another just as real way his results are already a solid 2/3.
And then, at least for me, it's just the raw stuff. When you watch his pitches, you can easily understand how they - or a very slightly improved version of them - could support ace level performance. And the models back the eye test there: Pitchbot ranks both his fastball and his curve the second best of each pitch in the majors among qualified starters.
I feel like his biggest problem this year has been getting pulled into long at bats with tons of foul balls, and then tiring. You can easily imagine small tweaks in sequencing or whatever to solve that enough to allow longer outings.
So you see an SPS4 and will believe better if and when the results improve and I see an SP2 on whom it is easy to dream for more. Neither one of us is wrong, but I think I'm having more fun.
TLDR^^ on the sports philosophy there. And appreciate you acknowledging his current bottom line results for being what they are. With his pitches being so filthy then the small adjustment is gonna have to happen so he can miss more bats and not be pulled into long ABs. You come from a place of potential down the road—which I’m absolutely here for. What kind of fan would I be if I wasn’t down to dream of a better version of MG1? When he shows it on a more consistent basis (like a #2 should), I’ll be clapping with ya, Pal. But right now, I see 5 quality starts out of the 22 games he’s pitched this year (that’s 98th in the league). 8 of 27 last year (ranked 82nd). I mean… damn.
So yes, we disagree and that is okay. When he improves (as I’m confident he will, and hope he exceeds expectations), then I can say I’ll be having as much fun as you ;)
Harper—your critique feels about right. Given what went out, we did okay with what came in. How would you evaluate the odds of upside surprise? For example, Stuart had a good first outing. We have both trade and draft examples with the Nats—Thomas and Irvin obviously but also good things now expected for Parker, Herz and others.
Hey Harper - I hope that you're feeling better.
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