It's true. But the Nats are in a much better place then we thought they might be to start the year so that's good and it's the focus of this year. Irvin looks set. Garcia has reset. Gore is good. Wood is up. Abrams is having a potential star turn. That's a nice core.
But the past 3 weeks have been rough. For those looking for some surprise success in 2024 the Nats are on a 7-13 slide (4-10 more recently). It's their second extended slide of the year- they went 8-17 over almost a month May into June. The reason they aren't reeling is between these two they had an 8-1 run, their best stretch of baseball this year. They are still technically in the playoff hunt but in a bad spot 5.5 out with one team to beat and 5 others to jump over. The Mets series could really finish that off.
What happened? The batting has crept a little better. It's still not good but it's better. The starting pitching has been constantly decent. The culprit has been a faltering pen. Some ERAS in the last two weeks
Hunter Harvey - 12.46
Robert Garcia - 7.71
Tanner Rainey - 7.20
Dylan Floro - 6.00
Derek Law - 4.76
The reason is likely overuse. Floro is tied for 3rd in appearances, Law t6th, Harvey t19th, Garcia t33*. This doesn't sound that bad but understand if you list the Top 30 relief pitchers in appearances you would basically expect each team to have 1. It'll differ based on SP innings but the Nats starters have been fairly strong and they are Top 10 in innings pitched. Yet the Nats have four arms in the Top ~30. This is managing to "win one everyday" with a team that should be "set up for 2025".
This is rough news for someone looking for trades to happen to boost the Nats quantity in the minors hoping to find another Thomas or Herz in the mess brought back. These guys are bringing back less than they would have 3 weeks ago.
Time to choose for the Nats. Because if you really want to set up 2025 as best as possible with trades, that means resting these guys, taking some Ls, and getting them to look good again before the trade deadline. If you want to set up 2025 best as possible with arms in house, that means resting these guys, taking some Ls and making sure they are healthy at years end. Only if you want to press for 2024 do you keep throwing them out there 2-3-4? times over the next week.
*I used to mention the Nats were also behind in games played but they have caught up and are about average. So these numbers are fair.
16 comments:
It has been worth it up until now. I agree with you that it is time to let go and to think about next year. I believe that some of the DFAs were an indication of the start of that process. Don't hang on, hoping that Nick Senzel or Eddie Rosario would have a hot streak before the end of the month.
Suppose it's March of 2024.
If I told you that Harper would say "They are still technically in the playoff hunt but in a bad spot 5.5 out with one team to beat and 5 others to jump over. " and that you would be spinning it as BAD news, you'd have asked me where I got my pharmaceuticals.
OK, so the Nats aren't good. That's not really a surprise. But by being "meh", they're considerably better than anyone could have expected, especially Harper.
Even Harper, before the "stretch of doom" said "welp that was nice but they're going to get destroyed in the next 3 weeks." Instead they were merely beaten up. They had a losing record, yes, but Harper would have said in 2018 about such a stretch: "just don't get swept - stay around 500 if you can and beat up on the rest of the schedule." They've been exposed as crummy and lacking depth (just like the rest of the NL wildcard field) but they're definitely no longer the dregs of the league like FLA and COL.
A team that was forecast by just about everyone to win about 65 games has won 42 so far, and is on pace to win 74. They've also found one legit rotation member (Parker) from out of nowhere, solidified the status of another (Irvin) from out of nowhere, found a possible 5th starter (Herz) from a low-leverage trade, and managed to turn Williams from a stiff into a pretty reliable starter as well.
Garcia has become a solid major-league second baseman, Wood's finally here, Abrams is a cornerstone of a contender.
If they trade Thomas, Harvey and Finnegan, I sure hope they get good value for them. Those are guys who would help a 2025 contender.
It's certainly true that the bullpen has hit a bit of a rough patch, and overwork seems like a reasonable partial explanation, but I do need to point out that we are talking TINY sample sizes. "Over the past two weeks" means 4.1 IP for Harvey, 4.2 for Garcia, 5.0 for Rainey, 6.0 for Floro, and 5.2 for Law.
I have noticed a certain brand of baseball analytics which is basically finding trend lines in smaller and smaller samples and, even when folks acknowledge the issue, they still draw conclusions from numbers that can't mean much. That's not usually a good way to use statistics.
The bullpen issue feels like more of something to watch, like Wood's defense, than an actual setback. As of yet, my 2025 priors for Harvey and Finnegan haven't much changed, and I'm not even sure I believe the potential trade returns have shifted much. Especially if they have a couple solid weeks coming out of the break.
That said, I 100% agree with your conclusion, Harper. It's time to choose, and the choice is clear - we're better but not better enough to compete this year. Trade for value if you can get it, and focus on helping the young core take the next step forward.
The other question is who are they looking for in return for the players they trade. Do they target more pitching depth that could be converted to bullpen arms? Corner infield is a need, but a utility guy could be good to have. DH next year will probably be a FA slugger (Soto would be ideal, though I doubt it will be him). Prospects even at crowded positions like OF may still be useful, because it's entirely possible the Nats are buyers at this time next year.
Kevin Rusch - true but also if you told me that I'd be like "I can't believe the Nats are close to .500"
Good post. Validates the current situation.
However, given that our starters last longer than average (Harper stated that, no?) and given we have a handful of relievers that are badly over-used, it stands to reason that we also have relievers that are marginally-used. Because they can't be trusted. Rainey, yes. Who else?
Re: Wood’s fielding — Kevin Frandsen said in a recent broadcast that Wood played mostly center and right in the minors and that because the ball hooks and slices differently in left, we should expect some adjustment time. Did anyone see Wood playing in the minors to know if he looked comfortable in center or right? If he did, I wouldn’t worry too much about his fielding. Also, if they end up trading Thomas, would Wood move over to right?
@Donald. With a 21-year old uber athletic player, it seems reasonable to chalk up any short-term problems to adjusting to Left Field. Others who shift around among outfield positions, have presumably played each one enough to adjust without thinking much about it. Wood is 21, so he hasn't.
As to who plays where when it is Crews, Young, and Wood seems like a great problem to have. All three have played Center Field regularly--so all have speed and range. I would think: best arm goes to right field. Best range goes to CF. Whoever is left plays LF and can sub into the other two positions whenever needed.
@ND -
I'm only really seeing Rainey with a particularly low innings count.
I wonder if the issue is that we have so few relievers with options, and the ones we have are guys that the team doesn't want to be without for even a couple of weeks - Finnegan, Harvey and Garcia (the only lefty).
This is actually why I don't want to sign any solid FA relief arms this offseason (unless we trade Finnegan and Harvey). I'd rather be able to stream 5 or 6 relievers through 2 or 3 spots on the 26-man roster and spread more of those low-leverage innings out.
Yeah, I think the issue with the 'pen is mostly just that our lead relievers have mostly been healthy. It's weird, but the Nats haven't been doing the bullpen shuffle all season--pretty much the only thing we did is get rid of Matt Barnes and replace him with Garcia coming back from injury. Otherwise it's been Finnegan, Harvey, Floro, Law, Garcia, J. Barnes, Weems, and Rainey as the eight guys all year long, with Weems and especially Rainey as low-leverage-only guys. The issue is mostly that we have five guys Martinez trusts and three guys he doesn't, and because the offense sucks and the starting pitching is good we end up in a lot of close games where in order to try to win games he leans heavily on the top end of the 'pen. If the pen was either deeper or shallower, overuse wouldn't be a thing. On the other hand, it's also really tempting to try to turn small sample sizes into a trend, so it's also possible it's just a case of a handful of guys slumping at once. (Which doesn't make it gut-wrenching to see Harvey, especially, blow several straight games.)
And, honestly, this has been the Rizzo/Martinez bullpen strategy for about a decade now. Even when the team was in the back half of its "being really good" run, the 'pen was always a serious weakness held together by duct tape and spackle and last-second trades. In 2019, while most teams would pull their starters fast and start running in the 'pen, we were all praying that Max, Stras, and Corbin could go 7 so Doolittle and Hudson could get an inning each. (There was a reason why it was Corbin who was in there pitching three innings of key shutout relief in Game 7, after all.)
It has been really fun, though, to watch the Nats and see "hey, we've got the core of a good young team here again!" Feels a lot like 2011!
https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/gl.fcgi?id=raineta01&t=p&year=2024
I think Rainey might have figured some things out. He had that bad blowup last week, but other than that, he's had pretty clean outings since mid-May. I'm not saying he's the closer, but I think he's earned some middle-weight innings, especially if the team's looking for relief depth.
Also, if Weems and Rainey are as un-trustworthy as Davey seems to believe, then get rid of them. They simply can't afford 2 bullpen slots for guys they won't use. Surely there's a crappy AAA starter out there you can grab and give a 2-3 inning stint to twice a week, right?
He has a reputation as a plus defender but scouts expect that to change as he bulks up. Fairly unique build for an OF (Aaron Judge and Adam Dunn are the comps I always see) so TBD.
The other thing with Wood is that, because of his height, his speed is driven more by stride length than quick feet. So much commentary online about how he is casually jogging down balls and such without taking a look at how he runs when he sprints. Just look at him stealing, his legs don't turnover very fast, he's just a big dude with long legs. So while he looks like he's moving slowly, he's actually covering lots of ground
@CP - I'm with you on his strides distorting the visual and I'm not in any way claiming a lack of effort.
But it's just true that in a very small sample size, he's been basically the worst outfielder in the league. Wood has -3 OAA already. Lane has -8 over 8 times as many chances.
It's most likely just jitters and a lack of experience in LF, but minor league parks are also smaller and the camera work there is awful. It's not impossible that Wood gets terrible jumps and none of us have noticed before now. (Kind of like the reverse of Young's incredible jumps not really being apparent to folks who watched him in the minors.)
Again, it's been a week. None of this is real yet. It's just something to keep an eye on. But I do think it's something to keep an eye on.
@SMS
oh yeah don't disagree, he's had some horrendous jumps, one on Monday I believe where he took two steps in before having to run 8 steps back and be able to catch the ball only because he's a giant
I just wanted to dispel the "lazy" argument because his sprint looks like jog compared to someone like Young
Harper, since I've been one of the commenters voted "most likely to call Harper a downer," I feel like I should also note that I enjoy reading this blog and visit/comment regularly. Yes, you're a downer, but that's fine. You also back up your positions. You back them up while standing firmly on the "glass half empty" side, sure. But you be you.
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