Tuesday Quickie - Awards

Trea Turner did not win ROY.  That is not surprising as Corey Seager was an MVP candidate and also a ROY candidate. It's tough luck for Trea, assuming he loves awards, but far from unfair.  We talked about this near certainty a few weeks ago while the season was in play.  Where do the other votes stand now?

Remember - votes are before the season is over.

NL MOY - I disqualified Roberts because the Dodgers would actually win fewer games this year. Apparently though he is the front runner. Yes, I know they had lots of injuries. But there's something funny to me about the idea of bringing a guy in, having him win fewer games than his predecessor, then proclaiming that he did the best job. Especially when he's competing directly with someone that was brought in and proceeded to win 12 MORE games than his predecessor.

I had Maddon taking it for sure if he got to 104 wins. He didn't. He got to 103.  I then said Dusty had a chance if the Nats were within 5 games of the Cubs. They weren't they were 8 games behind. So I'll say it finishes inexplicably Roberts - Maddon - Dusty.

NL MVP - Bryant or Murphy (as Seager would take the ROY) Final Lines

Bryant :  .292 / .385 / .554 39 HR 102 RBI
Murphy : .347 / .390 / .595 25 HR 104 RBI

It's close but Murphy had the better offensive season. Bryant had more patience and a bit more power (Murphy lead league in doubles and even had a couple more triples than Bryant) but it didn't make up that huge gap in average. Factoring defense and base running is always problematic but the general consensus between stats and scouts is that they go to Bryant. That alone probably puts Bryant over the top. Beyond that the Cubs won 103 games and were the best team in baseball. Everything says Bryant

NL Cy Young - Since we know the Top 3 we know how some things shook out. Bumgarner and Syndergaard both made the playoffs but neither had the lights out finish to the season that would put them over the top (Noah was much closer in that regard but given the love of MadBum I bet Madison beat him in votes... we'll see). This is also true of Jose Fernandez, who wasn't on pace to make the Top 3 prior to his tragic end.

Final lines
Hendricks : 16-8, 2.13 ERA, 170K, 0.979 WHIP
Scherzer : 20-7, 2.96 ERA, 284K, 0.968 WHIP
Lester :  19-5, 2.44 ERA, 197K, 1.016 WHIP

Hendricks has the best ERA and they love ERA... but not as much as wins. Plus Hendricks thing was having the lowest ERA since Gibson and he slowly but surely lost that. I think he finishes third.  Lester had the strongest finish, most wins, best winning percentage and a lower ERA than Scherzer. Scherzer had by far the most strikeouts and a lower WHIP, and is seen as the most dominant non-Kershaw* pitcher out there. I think it'll be close but I think the general feeling favors Max and I think there will be some "Well I didn't vote for a National for the other three awards and I don't have a favorite here so here's your bone" going on.

*Kershaw's final line 12-4, 1.69 ERA, 172K, 0.725 WHIP.  0.725!!!  His outside chance of winning even pitching 70 fewer innings than these guys was ruined by a lack of run support. You heard me. He went 12-4 with a lack in run support. 27 runs scored in his last 11 games by the Dodgers. Overall it just looked bad but the Dodgers scored 29 runs in two games for him. If we take out these (and even take out his two lowest in fairness) he'd drop much closer to the bottom. 

Propsects runway

Chelsea "Don't came me James" Janes says in her latest piece that the Nats have "plenty of upper- and mid-level prospects who continue to garner interest from other teams"

Do they?

I had a feeling that the Nats farm system was ok but top heavy, meaning Turner's graduation and the cooling on Giolito would have significant effects. I went back and looked and saw the Nats system ranked pre-season anywhere from 5th to 17th.  I lean more toward the latter. So let's look at some top and mid-level prospects and see what kind of interest teams might really have.

The Big 4

Giolito - Was basically the most prized pitching prospect going into last year but he didn't live up to that highest of high hype last year. He was in and out of the majors and each time in was a failure. He was hittable and gave up a ton of homers, 7 in 21 innings. There was also questions about a decrease in velocity which is a big deal for someone who already had arm surgery. And his AA numbers arguably took a step back. Still, he will be only an "old" 22* next year and everyone loves his stuff. His AAA numbers last year are exactly what you want to see. He's a 2017 or 18 full time player. The idea of him coming into the majors and immediately being a #1 type may be fading, but the idea of him being a very successful pitcher a few years down the line has not. His stock will drop a bit probably from Top 3ish to Top 10ish, but with very watchful eyes those first couple months.

Turner - off the table

Robles - A name that got a lot of attention as he did really well in A ball as a "young" 19 year old. He didn't do as well in A+ ball but he did better in his second stint after injury. There's a question on whether he gets power but right now the promise of his age wins out. Likely moves from a Top 30ish prospect to a Top 15ish. If he develops power he'd be a Top 10. Optimistically projects for a 2019 full-time role at 21-22.

Lopez - Like Giolito his time in the majors wasn't great, but unlike Lucas there were times you could point to what he was doing and feel good. Sure, about half of them were against the Braves but you gotta start somewhere. There was a lot of talk about him "breaking through" and maybe being better than Giolito as his K's went way up in AA this year. But they went back down in AAA, and dialing things up in MLB to get more meant a big increase in wildness. Like Giolito he's a 2017-18 full time player. Like Giolito I think that ranking is very tentative and could change radically in either direction based on just the first couple months. Unlike Giolito I'd expect his pre-sesaon stock to rise from a back quarter of Top 100 to a Top 50 ish player.

The next tier

Glover - Live arm who showed potential dominating AA with Ks and AAA with control. Trajectory says its hard to see how he doesn't end up set in a major league pen next year, if not to start then sometime. Could be a potential lights out closer - however that's a phrase tossed around for a lot of live minor league arms. Will break Top 100, probably in Top 75.

Cole - I'd love for Cole to get into the Top 100 of someone's list again because I bet he'd be the only guy to ever be ranked in someone's Top 100 in 6 different seasons. 2016 though was the first time he wasn't and nothing about last year changes that. Might develop into a back end starter but at 25 and looking at his 4th year in AAA he's more of a throw-in than a key piece.

Difo - The anti Giolito/Lopez, Difo was not bad in the majors, but in the minors he did nothing to raise his stock. His brief flirtation with pop in 2014 has faded and he's back to being seen as a speedy slap hitter. It's not entirely clear where he fits now. Major league bench? AA? I'd imagine most see him as a AAA which means 2016 is a make or break year for the "young" 25 year old if he's going to be a starter in the majors.

Fedde - He's on the cusp of being a top prospect and should be in the bottom of a few Top 100s. There is simply no doubt he is pitched better in 2016 than 2015. His A+ stats suggest the special pitcher teams thought he could be, but his subsequent finish in AA gives you a bit of pause. Where his ceiling now is a question. Does he keep getting better and become a real rotation prospect? He's roughly on target age (24 in 2017) but that means if the AA year goes poorly he'll start to be on the older side.

Voth - Everyone loves Voth and he'll break into some Top 100s. However the fancy stats don't really like him as he's not particularly good at striking out batters or having super control. I can't look at that and think the Nats didn't move him up to protect him from being exposed by major league hitting. But whatever, you have what you have and what you have is a guy that has shown he is not easy to get hits against in the minors. On the other hand, he did make the AFL and hasn't been all that impressive.

The other AFL hitters

Osvaldo Abreu - did nothing in AFL. did nothing in A+ ball. Not old but kind of stalling out. Difficult to see as a real prospect anymore, but has next year to change that.

Drew Ward - hitting for average in AFL. Nats have been aggressive in their moving of him and he's generally done just enough to justify confidence but last year's AA wall was slammed into.  Not a top prospect but he's only 22 next year so next year won't be make or break.

Andrew Stevenson - hitting for average and power in AFL. Also slammed into a AA wall, though not quite as hard with Drew. Will be a young 23 next year so pretty much same things I said about Ward apply to him. Not a top propsect. Not a fader either.

The rest

Nick Lee, Ryan Brinley, and Jake Johansen all were in the AFL too but I hate to even note what happens with like 10IP unless it's super special or super bad.  It hasn't been. Johansen is an A+ 25yo, a nothing. Lee is unable to throw strikes and almost a nothing. Brinley is the one to keep an eye on but not a top prospect

Max Schrock got some play in a satiric "find the next Donaldson" fangraphs piece, but he actually did hit really well last year. He probably doesn't have the power to break into top prospect lists but he'll probably make a few honorable mentions as people watch if he can keep hitting. Ed note - TRADED for Rep.  I'm an idiot.


Anderson Franco - way young (an old 18 last year), way too early to judge.


I guess they do have a decent mix. It's not a great mix, without Giolito being GIOLITO and with Turner now in the majors, I'd be surprised if the Nats were a unanimous Top 10 but top half again? Sure. It's not that the Nats are particularly deep. They don't have a lot of top guys (especially now) who will be definite contributors, or a bulk of toolsy interesting middle tier prospects that could be. It's more like they have exactly the number and type of guys you'd expect to have when poking around a system. So they do have some flexibility to trade. I will say because they don't have depth that if they do deal that it would probably gut the system, but I trust Rizzo et al enough to fill it back up to average status if not for 2018 than 2019.


*Remember - season ages based on age on July 1st. So way I look at it is guys with bdays April-June are "young" because they'll spend a chunk of season at a younger age than given. Guys with bdays July-Sept are "old" bc the reverse is true. Lucas (July 14th), for example, will spend almost half of next year as a 23 year old.  Other birthdays I don't use an adjective. This is more important the younger you are.

Offseason Position Discussion : Outfield

Last Year's Discussion
At that point Revere hadn't been traded for so the presumed plan was Werth, Bryce, and MAT getting his shot in CF. Why MAT? We thought it was clear the Nats wanted him as the CF of the future and that he did well enough in 2015 to get a chance. Span was dismissed because the QO was too expensive for a guy that couldn't play much in 2015.

I thought playing Werth was reasonable given his late season performance and the reality of the Nats situation. If you play Werth than a strong fielder in CF is the better play and that was Taylor not Span. I did however, say they should try to get Span on a team friendly deal as giving MAT another year of seasoning wouldn't be a bad idea. Failing that, I advocated for a strong OF bench to compensate for Taylor.

How did it play out? Well first off the Nats traded disgruntled closer Drew Storen for Ben Revere, which essentially re-demoted MAT for two seasons unless he busted out. It seemed like a smart move at the time but Revere would get injured early and would never hit like himself putting up a .217 batting average when he averaged ~.300 over previous 4 seasons. MAT failed to capitalize and hit exactly as he hit in a cup of coffee in 2014 and 130 games in 2015. Very low average (.231), some pop (7 homers in 76 games) too many strikeouts (32.5% rate - would have been 2nd worst if he had enough at bats). It was so bad that SS of the future, Trea Turner was moved to play CF and he was so good! .342 with 14 doubles, 8 triples and 13 homers and 33 stolen bases. In just 73 games he was ROY good in any year that didn't happen to have a rookie that was also a legit MVP candidate.

Surprisingly Bryce was an issue. A dip was to be expected but Bryce didn't just dip he dropped below what you probably would have had as his floor. A mediocre .243 batting average and only 24 homers.  Injuries and mind games (PETE MACKINNON STARTED mind games) caused a stumble early in the year and what HAS to be a lingering shoulder-area issue hampered his second half.

On the plus side Werth bounced back with an acceptable year at the plate. It was a lot of bouncing around with punctuated moments of hot play but that was enough for an old player coming back from an injury that lost him a productive 2015. Still a stiff in the field.

All in all it didn't work but the CF and Bryce issues were fairly surprising so it's hard to fault the Nats.

Presumed Plan 
Werth in LF. Bryce in RF.  Something new in CF.

Reasoning on Presumed Plan 
Werth hit well enough to take his last year in the field. Circumstances with Zimm mean that can't be at first so LF is where it's going to be. Generally you might see Rizzo move this type of player for something that could help the Nats in the future, but the contract makes Werth untradeable. You could argue a fading 38 year old starter should be replaced anyway but on the surprisingly long list of the Nats fixable issues, this doesn't even register.

Bryce starts because even crashing through the floor of his projections he was a useful bat and a solid, if unspectacular, corner OF. Given he's still under team control he's a bargain. You just have to hope he's healthy and you see a big increase in performance next year.

On CF we just don't know yet. We know they'd prefer if Turner played SS. They've now floated out there that Danny's available in trade. It would be very hard to go into next year with either Revere or Taylor or some sort of platoon as Plan A given how badly that failed last year. That leaves them to do something different. A trade is most likely given what the Nats are selling as their payroll limitations, but don't rule out a FA signing if they can get that money deferred. Unlike catcher I don't see the options being that limited and thus really can't put a finger on exactly what they will do.

Problems with Presumed Plan  
Bryce could be hurt again and if so he won't put up the numbers you hope. That'll hurt planning as the Nats are probably looking at Bryce to be a star at the plate again. You just have to roll with this possibility. The guy put up literally "best ever" numbers the year before and just turned 24.

I did just say you might want to replace a fading 38 year old, didn't I? Werth shouldn't be better than last year in 2017. That's nothing against him, that's just the reality of aging. If he's just a little worse so be it. If the crash comes you now have an OF who can't hit or field in your line-up. As concerned as you may be with Espy at SS or Zimm at first, neither is likely to be the complete zero that Werth would be in this scenario. You also have to accept he could get injured again. The grind (NOW IN PAPERBACK!) wears even young men down.

We can't really judge the solution to CF until we see it but we can say that solving CF will cost you, either money or prospects, potentially both. If it does include money then the Nats have less to spend on other issues a lot of us see as more pressing - C, 1B, closer. If it does include prospects, the Nats minor league system isn't particularly deep. Any scraping off the top would have a serious effect.

My Take 
You have to start Bryce. That's not even a discussion. But please just stop with the "he's healthy" shenanigans. You are not fooling anyone.

Moving to Werth, the Nats aren't inclined to replace something that's working passably just to do it and his bat is still passable as of the end of last year. You could move him to first and get a new corner OF as part of a play to sit Zimm, but it doesn't appear that the Nats are at that point yet. So the Nats will have to just accept his OF play and pray his body holds up and his bat doesn't drop any further. The bright side is Werth has proved very resilient and the Nats are only asking for one more year. It's not a good gamble, but there are certainly worse ones to take.

On CF? I would love to trade for McCutchen. Gambling on an MVP type coming off a bad year at 30 years old is a good gamble. Certainly a better gamble than Victor Robles becomes anything like McCutchen in the majors. I mention Robles because that is apparently what the Pirates want for McCutchen. That is a lot yes. He'll probably be the top prospect in the Nats system. But if you were trading for McC after a year like 2015 Robles wouldn't be enough. If you like McC, and I do, then Robles for him is a deal you make. His contract is not onerous. He still has power and some speed. While he's probably a below average CF at this point, his defensive failings were likely exaggerated in the stats.

Failing that the Nats need to go after a strong defensive CF. Leonys Martin would make an interesting target and is the kind of under control payer Rizzo likes. However his hitting is likely to be barely better than Revere/MAT. Dexter Fowler has developed into a strong bat, but even positioned correctly is probably just an average CF. Kevin Keirmaier is probably the ideal target but I have to believe the Rays know what they have there and it'll cost Nats more than they want to give. What does that possibly leave? Lorenzo Cain. FA after next season. Unlikely Royals keep him. Not a terrible contract (11 mill). You are just paying him to hit / field like you wanted Revere to, but at least he did it last year and you don't have to pay Revere. You can cut him.

Out of the Box Idea
I've got a wickedly terrible idea today.  The Nats pursued this guy and last year and came up short but he's available this year.  I assume. That last note should tell you I'm not talking about Yoenis Cespedes* but Jayson Heyward. This year and that contract should make him easily obtainable from a team that doesn't really need him. Are you making an insane gamble? Yes, yes you are. But with that D and his age he's not going to be worthless for a few years. He could be the very good CF this year and shift to be a great corner OF for a few more. Assuming his struggles at plate continue, that's the worst case. The best case is that his problems this year were a combination of fluke and fixable and you can get him back to a more normal bat. If the Nats, and a lot of teams, liked him before last year there must be something there. It's just a question of if the bat can be brought back to life. 

*What do I think of Yoenis? Not a good CF, would make the team better, very doubtful he signs here unless deferred money thing doesn't exist anymore.

Various news dumps

We had an election and if you wanted to dump some stuff out on the public, the last few days was the time to do it. So a short recap of the Nats news stories over the past few days.


Nats don't give Ramos QO

Some people debated it but that's only if you believe the injury risk Ramos is going to be worth playing at least half the year next year. Otherwise it's hard to see how he affects the season enough or gets ready fast enough to matter for a possible post-season. Nats obviously are thinking that's optimistic so take pragmatic route.  It is still possible he re-signs here. Don't rule that out.

Nats would trade Espinosa

This only makes sense to me if they feel he is going to be a liability on the bench. I'd rather have him that Stephen Drew and they are basically the same player. The trade market for Danny would be there, but would probably be slim. He's only an impactful upgrade if you are terrible at short and not a lot of contenders are. A Gott like return would be best Nats could hope for. And they might go for that. Rizzo likes his arms.

Nats aren't going to be big spenders

Doesn't mean they will not make a big deal but it would have to be a deferred one or something else that doesn't raise next year's payroll that much. Nats payroll is basically what it was last year. Granted there are not a lot of promising FAs out there. This is more about trades. We didn't notice much because of the winning and the lack of obvious need, but the payroll add in-season was again non-existant. So stop expecting the Nats to trade for anyone that will cost any money.

Bryce won't play in WBC. Max might. 

Someday someone will get injured during this and there will be an outcry. It's unlikely for any single player though. Let's hope it's not a Nat. 

Offseason Position Discussion Third Base

I elect... to talk about Anthony Rendon! HAHAHAHHSHAHSHAHS

I'm terrible.

Last Year's Discussion

We had Rendon starting because it seemed to be the direction the Nats were heading. Remember in 2015 Rendon played 2B because Yuney was at 3B to start the year and didn't want to change.  Man the 2015 Nats were stupid about things.  We worried a little bit about Rendon's extensive injury history but realized that without a doubt he should be in the lineup somewhere. 2B gave them more options in theory but 3B was fine and probably where he belonged in a perfect world.

A lot of the problems with Rendon at third weren't about him, but about Yuney who was still on the roster at the time and needed a place to play. You put Rendon at 3B and Yuney probably moves to SS? That isn't good. But neither was 2B or anything really.  But hey! It didn't end up being an issue. Yuney was dealt.

Rendon started very slowly. Thirty games in you had reason to begin to worry. He was down to .218 / .289 / .297 in Early May.  But after that point Rendon hit like he did in 2014, putting up a  .287 / .364 / .494 line. Unfortunately things ended poorly - he hit only .150 in the playoffs. Still you look at that 130 game run that was like his fringy MVP year in 2014 and his continued plus fielding and you have to feel good about the future.

My OOB plan was trading Giolito (as usual) for Arenando. That would have worked out fine but any out of the box plan for the infield means not signing Murphy and Murphy was the best so basically the Nats plan was the best.

Presumed Plan  
Rendon starts at 3B.  Espinosa is the bench replacement for this and all IF positions.

Reasoning on Presumed Plan  
We talked about how Espy ended up on the bench with the SS discussion. There's been some talk about how he's not a great bench guy but you can't let a guys feelings effect whether he starts or not. If he can't handle being on the bench you trade him then.

As for why Rendon plays 3B, well I think we just covered it. He's most comfortable at third base. The stats and scouts agree, he fields the position really well. He can hit really well when healthy.  At this point he hasn't turned the corner from his .285 20 HR very good bat to something more special, but he's hitting his prime (27 in June) and if he can stay healthy this will be his first back to back healthy major league seasons so there's hope for that too.

We had talked before about moving Rendon to 2B because he can play there and it frees up 3B, an easier position to fill. Now though Daniel Murphy is at 2B so this isn't an issue. This is an obvious move.

Problems with Presumed Plan  
The biggest issue with Rendon is the obvious one. He gets hurt. A lot. He basically hasn't had back to back healthy years since starting college? High school? So expecting him to be healthy for all of 2017 is more than just your normal gamble.

As much as we can focus on the 130 games where he hit like he did in his best year, we can't deny those first 30 games happened.  If you want to be real pessimistic you can look at the last 2 seasons and see a guy that might be an average hitter, not an above average one.

It is arguable that it still makes sense to play Rendon at 2B, even with Murphy.  Murphy would then move to 1B, Zimm would sit and your offense and defense would be better.

My Take 
Yes, Rendon gets hurt a lot. What, are you not going to play him? He's young enough you can still hope that he puts that behind him - at least for the next couple of years.  He's good enough that you can't give up on him

Yes, you can spin it so he doesn't look like a very good hitter. But (1) even as just an average hitter his plus fielding makes him a startable third baseman and (2) it's a lot easier to spin it to make him look like a very good hitter. He got injured - hit worse - got healthy - hit better. That makes sense right?

As for playing him at 2B and Murphy at 1B - ok that can be argued as a 3B is easier to find than a 2B. But you know what's easier to find than a 3B? A 1B - so just replace Zimm and let your plus fielding 3B stay at 3B.

Out of the Box Idea
Trade Rendon.  If Rendon has another injured year his value will take another hit and worse you have to start thinking about how he can't be part of the future. 2017 will be partially lost as will 2018 in a way as he recovers. If you do feel like you have to move on with him then you can deal him but you'd be dealing him off of injury. Even with controllable cheap years on hand the return won't be great.  

But now he's coming off a healthy year. He has a lot of value. So maybe go for a flip. Of course trading Rendon means you are causing a problem so you definitively have to solve one in the trade. What about Rendon (plus?) for Jackie Bradley Jr? Benintendi can play CF. Devers, a question at time at 3B, could move to 1B or into the OF.  I hate making the Red Sox better but doesn't Rendon kind of feel like a Red Sox player? Plus I think we'd all be happy to solve CF for the next 5 years and JBJ would likely do that. Age wise it's a near match. Contract wise the Nats get an extra year - hence the plus question. Again OOB means unlikely to happen for various reasons (like Red Sox might be better served keeping OF as is and hoping Devers fits in at 3B) but it's an idea.

Monday Quickie - Bryce was he hurt? Or was he hurt? Or, possibly, was he hurt?

So this bit of info came up during the "Year in Statcast" show last night.

Short of it is - at the end of the season Bryce's arm died and as a result he started shifting in defensively. We all saw it, the shifting at least, but here is the arm strength evidence that backs that up. Will the team finally admit it now?

If a pitcher suddenly lost 4 MPH on his fastball you wouldn't just shrug your shoulders and move on. You can't just say "maybe it's a slump throwing the ball" as the Nats tried to do explaining away Bryce's drop in performance at the plate. Clearly he had a physical ailment that was negatively effecting his play. 

Now of course that doesn't mean the Nats were lying about the shoulder. But they were almost certainly lying about him being healthy and being purposely misleading about the shoulder. Outside the actual shoulder joint you can get away with saying it's a neck issue, an upper back issue, an upper arm issue, or a chest issue. It's all connected.

What does this silly subterfuge affect in the grand scheme of things?. Not the play on the field. No team looked at Bryce and thought "Well he looks hurt and can't throw and can't get his arm up to hit but if the team says he's healthy we won't try to attack that". Not the support of the fanbase in a meaningful way. No fan looks up today and thinks "Oh, they lied to us about Bryce's health! I'm done with the Nationals!" Where it matters is probably in the relationship between the reporters and the team. They were fed a bill of goods and reported those back to us. The team made them look foolish. So further reports will probably be taken with far more skepticism and if the reporters are any good, will be followed with as much digging for corroboration as possible. All for what?  I don't know.

Anyway tomorrow I'll tell you Anthony Rendon should start at third. Prepare your spit takes.

Offseason Position Discussion : Shortstop

Last Year's Discussion

What? No link? Well, I didn't do one! Went 2nd to 3rd to OF. Huh.

From reading 2B and 3B the idea was Yunel Escobar would play SS because it got Rendon back where he should be and it would be easier to transition Turner to SS that way. Also with Danny at 2nd and Rendon at 3rd, Yuney's defensive issues would be hidden. It wasn't a good plan and I'd rather they sign Zobrist (Espy to SS) or trade for Frazier (Rendon to 2B, Espy to SS) and sell high on Yuney.

As we talked about the did sell Yuney, whether it was high or not is a question (Hey. It's Trover Gitts!) and ended up signing Murphy which worked out pretty well in my opinion. Going out on a limb there.

What happened with SS? It fell to Danny with Trea Turner set up to come in if needed later in the year. Danny was terrible to start ( a .199 / .300 / .281 line after May 25th) which prompted the fans to begin to push for Trea Turner early. But the Nats stuck to their guns and Danny would be literally one of the best hitters in baseball in June and would go .303 / .394 / .713 over like 6 weeks.  That's like an MVP performance. By then CF had emerged as a gaping hole and so Turner was brought up to fix that, not SS. While performing great there, Espy crashed back down to Earth going .169 / .266 / .270 over the remaining 74 games, but there was little the Nats could do at that point.

Presumed Plan 
Trea Turner is your starting SS. Danny Espinosa is back-up for 2B-SS-3B on the bench.

Reasoning on Presumed Plan 
Rizzo doesn't like to be put into situations where he is forced to do something. That's exactly where he will be after this year if the Nats don't make a change. Danny goes to FA. Either Trea shifts to SS, to which Rizzo has to get a CF, or Trea stays in CF, so Rizzo has to get a SS.  Unless you love Difo or MAT these are facts. To be pro-active you look at getting someone now, and CF/OF makes more sense. It's generally an easier position to fill and it gets Turner back in the infield where most think he belongs. Turner at SS is the future for the Nats and there isn't a good reason not to start that future now if you can.

As for Turner at SS itself, Turner did everything you wanted him to last year. He crushed it at the plate over almost half a season (.342 / .370 / .567) and in his fleeting moments in the infield looked perfectly acceptable. If he can play SS, and it's generally thought he can, then you play him there. This is the same reasoning as with Murphy. A SS that hits like Turner can be a big advantage.

Sitting Espinosa is not going to hurt the offense. He can hit at times, but he's a boom and bust type, with more bust than boom. His pop might be missed a little but his inability to make contact won't be.

Problems with Presumed Plan 
Turner's fielding prowess at SS is a great unknown. Like I said the general thought was that he can do it just fine, but talk of moving him to 2B isn't too far in the past. We know Espinosa is a plus fielder so that does matter. It especially is important given that Murphy is a minus fielder at 2B.  Not a big one, but still a minus. Danny helps cover for that. If Trea is merely ok, or even good, that still means more hits up the middle. And that's not going into the internal knowledge Danny might have manning the IF for this team for 4+ years. How do you work with Rendon, throw to Zimm, set up for various pitchers. The little things add-up.

Add to that while Turner did hit in his almost half a season, that's still only almost half a season. He likely won't match those numbers next year. The smaller the offensive gap is between Espinosa and Turner, the more the defensive one might tip the scales.

Getting someone this year just shifts that issue from next season to this season. You still have to do it.

My Take
I do think there will be a defensive gap. I think Danny's D is often underrated and overlooked by fans. But still Danny is Danny. He's going to hit like he did last year. Maybe a smidge better, like a .225 average instead of .209, but his K's are going to keep him from ever really breaking through to that over .250 area where everything else he does (meh patience, decent speed, fair bunter, good pop) can make him into an overall offensive plus.

Meanwhile I think Trea Turner will suffer a bit of a sophomore slump. You generally don't move into the majors and immediately hit for higher average and more power than you ever did it the minors. I'd guess that the pitchers figure him out somewhat and the average and pop both take noticeable hits. But still look at that line up there. .300 with say 15 homers and 35 2B/3B would be noticeable hits. Sure, he didn't hit 2016 MLB well in the minors, but he hit in the minors. There's no fluke in the fact he can hit in the majors. It's just a matter of if he will be good, very good or All-Star level. As for his defense, I don't know. I have to go with what the team thinks and if they think he's fine, I assume he's fine. And if he's fine it's a drop.

Overall though that difference - between say .300 / .335 / .480 and .225 / .310 / .400 that's too much to overcome with some nice glove work. Trea's a better choice to start at SS at a baseline and because of his potential could be an much much better choice to start. The only argument is if you think he's better off in CF next year but I don't see that unless you want him in CF going forward not SS. Given the general mild question of his SS fielding I want Trea either learning the position at the major league level, or proving he can't, now.

The thing about shifting the "have to" makes sense, but the key is Rizzo doesn't "have to" this year. Turner in CF and Danny at SS worked to get this team to 95 wins and that's with Turner playing 70+ games. This gives Rizzo flexibility he doesn't have next year in dealing with FAs and trade partners. He can walk away from deals. Next year it'll be a lot harder because a plan that worked wont' be there and an internal plan that might work is unlikely to show up.

I like Danny. I think he can start for some teams as SS can be a hard position to fill. I like his bat as the worst one in the line-up. He has a lot of plusses to go along with those big minuses. (and I think he can walk more if asked to - it's not the Nats way though) I think in part fans are hard on him because of his position. A SS traditionally should be a slap hitting contact guy. Danny isn't. If Danny was a slick fielding RF, I think there'd be more forgiveness for his all or nothing approach. And SS if far more important to have a good fielder at! But the Nats have better options and other issues that may end up being holes that make starting Danny at SS a fallback plan, not something to start out with.

Out of the Box Idea
Stick with your slick fielding SS with pop.

Oh you think I mean Danny? No, I mean Stephen Drew. He's a gamble but unlike Danny he's a gamble that pays off at the plate sometimes. Meanwhile trade Danny for whatever you can get. The key here is there is not going to be a higher market for Danny than now. That doesn't mean it's a good market, but it does mean you are maximizing what you get back, which is something, rather than watch him walk away for nothing. So trade him now. That would normally mean then moving Trea to SS, but you don't have a player that played decent CF last year after him. You do have a player that played decent SS though. He'll have to be re-signed but you could probably get a nice bargain on a two year deal and if things go awry, he proved this year he's a fine bench player. You can always trade for a OF later in the year and shift things around. Trading for a SS is harder.


*What about C? Yeah well C is the hardest position to get ahead of. What about Werth in the OF? Hoping Robles suprises or something comes up. What about rotation post Gio? Lots of ptoential 5th starters there

Game 7 - Watch it!

We can talk Nats tomorrow.

Also Maddon was not wrong in the Chapman usage. This is really driving me crazy but the idea that somehow pitching a relief pitcher in two straight games is setting him up to fail, or the fact a day off isn't enough to recover from a particularly long relief session is wrong. At least I think so, well actually I know so for the former, and I think so for the latter.

So bringing him out in the 7th when an errant pitch could have brought the Indians within two and the heart of their line-up coming? Makes sense. Pitching him in the 8th because you already got him up and it's still the heart? Makes sense. Pitching him in the 9th because you didn't have someone ready because you were still going to pitch him in the 9th if it was a 5 run game and the HR came late?

OK that was pretty dumb, but it was only a few pitches!

Anyway - go great game!

Offseason Position review so far : C, 1B, 2B

Pulling stuff from the comments

Catcher 

Is resigning Ramos possible?   I suppose. In theory he could be ready in mid-April (6 month recovery) but from all I've read that seems quick and even June (8 month) would probably pushing it for a return as a full-time catcher. Early talk had the recovery taking as long as a year and Wilson is not the healthiest of specimens. It's just hard to see him impacting next season.

And there's a question if Ramos would even take the Nats bid. Apparently he wants a 4-5 year deal. Money hasn't been talked about so perhaps what he is seeking is security. Either way the Nats only wanted him for 3 years before the injury.  I don't see how they sign him for even longer than that.  There's also the money question - as was pointed out in the comments - spending 17 million on a catcher that doesn't play is going to eat up the bulk of what we expect the Nats have freed up. It was tough enough to work when you were paying less annually to a healthy Ramos. Now? Forget it.

Basically I think it's a bad idea for the Nats to put out the QO because it's quite likely they'll only get two months or less of play. It's a bad idea for the Nats to offer a long-term deal because Wilson is very likely going to have to move from catcher sooner rather than later. It's a bad idea for Ramos to take a short term deal (2 years) from the Nats because it probably leaves a money or years on the table he could get in FA. I don't see it.

A lot of people are fine with Severino because they assume Danny will be replaced by Trea and someone good will play in CF. That's an ok plan. One hole is workable. However in an NL line-up one-hole is only an injury/crash/Zimm away from creating an easy 7-8-9 situation, so set that up on purpose at your own risk. Personally too, I like Danny more than Severino as that 8th. However, I do understand that finding an ok CF/OF is probably easier than finding a catcher. As for other targets - buying low on Norris would be an interesting gutsy call, but a gamble. Drew Butera never hit before last year. I mean like never, not in minors either. No. I don't like signing Weiters. At this point you have to say he is who he is, right? And that isn't that good.

First Base

Zimm isn't going anywhere. I thought I made that clear. I don't think he can be traded. So don't go down that path. What they can do, and what some of you said, is that they can make a deal later in 2017 for a 1B or OF if Zimm keeps not hitting. I'm pretty much on board with that, or at least I'm accepting that that is probably the best likely option to happen. I do have Zimm starting at first.

Some people suggest Difo here, to take over for a shifting Murphy. I don't know. He's 25 to start next year and hasn't seem to solve AA pitching yet. I think he'll get eaten alive in the majors.  And the Descalso idea? He wasn't bad last year but that's in Colorado. Maybe if he were a couple years younger but not at 30. I'd buy him as a bench player though, why not?

Encarnacion is a fun thought. He's 34 next year and probably looking for that same 4-5 year deal, meaning he's likely a buy for a win-now team who will suck up the 37/38 years at the end where he might be useless. The Nats, by all rights, are a win-now team. However this isn't the type of move they make. Werth was an all-around great player and younger. Scherzer was a star. Edwin is a great masher but that's it.

Other names - Kendrys Morales - if you got him cheap maybe. Way up and down over past few seasons. You don't replace with a question mark unless it's a cheap one. Carlos Beltran - I'd love it for a year only. But given he's never played first I'm guessing that's not going to happen. He's worth more as a DH and can probably finagle a 2 year deal elsewhere. Justin Turner - I mean I guess? He's really come around at third so it would be kind of a waste to play him at first. I'd suspect because he is coming around at third he'll get more than the Nats would be willing to pay him to play first. Steve Pearce - can't stay healthy. If you are replacing Zimm health may actually matter more than production. Basically this goes for all FA 1B/OF/C etc. Look to see if someone is falling into Nats lap like Desmond last year did to the Rangers. Otherwise they are likely to get more money somewhere else. There isn't that guy that the Nats will go all-in for this FA season so I'd be shocked if they offered a ton to someone. It's not their way to overpay for second-tier stars. 

Yes technically SS is probably better labelled as "also third problem" behind 1B and C because when you "solve" the CF issue, which I said was the third, you also fix the SS issue. But since it's technically possible to solve CF without fixing SS, anyone up for a Trea Turner and Giolito trade for Mike Trout?, then I'll stick to my guns. CF 3rd, SS 4th.

Second Base

Murphy was a Plan C. Someone asked what other Rizzo plans failed but ended up working out for the Nats? Well last season they pursued Heyward and he went elsewhere - that looks like a lucky break. Further back he didn't want LaRoche. He seemingly wanted Derek Lee or Carlos Pena more. Dusty Baker wasn't the first choice and who besides me doesn't love Dusty*? That's about all I can think of. There are a couple internal offers declined that worked out better for the Nats but I can't really say they were Plan As when Plan A is "Hope they don't want more money that they can probably get elsewhere"

*I like Dusty. I don't love Dusty.

Offseason Position Discussion : Second Base

I sometimes forget that not all of you have been reading my every word for a decade so a quick refresher on these posts.

Presumed Plan : What I think the Nats are going to do
Reasoning for Presumed Plan : Why I think they Nats are going to do it. Basically why it makes sense for them. A lot of it is "Why it could go right" but not all. Sometimes your hand is forced.
Problems with the Presumed Plan : Why it could go wrong.
My take : Basically more talk with an eye on if I think the Nats are making a mistake, with a little "if I were GM" thrown in.
Outside the Box Suggestion : Something just reasonable enough to suggest that almost assuredly won't happen. Not the best plan, maybe not even a good one. Just coming up with something different.

Ok moving on

Last Year's Discussion

So at the time last year it didn't look like the Nats were going to do anything. They had Yunel Escobar, who hit above expectations; Danny Espinosa, who hit perfectly acceptably for a defense first guy; and Anthony Rendon, who we all assumed would start hitting when healthy. They didn't need to make a move. They just needed to figure out where to put people. Personally I was advocating selling high on Yuney and starting Trea (also noting that I expected Stephen Drew to be a bench player), while hoping the Nats would sign Zobrist. However I expected to see Rendon at 3B, Yuney at SS, and Danny at 2B. It was on hand and it would work just fine.

Lo and behold the Nats DID sell high on Yuney. They shipped him off to literally Anaheim, figuratively LA, for Trevor Gott. That left the Nats with a hole that they did try to fill with Zobrist, who chose timely payment for services rendered and signed with Cubs, and then Brandon Phillips, who only wanted to move if he got more money in the deal*. So the Nats went with Plan C signing the underrated competence of Daniel Murphy to play second.

BOOM

Daniel Murphy, who flipped a switch in the 2015 playoffs, ended up making that a life change. He put up MVP type numbers for the Nats last year hitting .347 / .390 / .595 for the year and carrying the Nats to first place. I always liked Daniel Murphy...no really! Keep reading, you'll see where I'm going. I always liked Murphy. I had him in fantasy for years. I had pretty good knowledge of Met players from the combination of Nats games, WFAN, and general baseball following. I knew he would hit decently and I felt his defense and baserunning issues were slightly overrated and WAY overrated, respectively. Sorry Gary Cohen. But even then I didn't see this coming. I had him giving value to the Nats for the contract, but nothing more. Certainly nothing like last year.  I'm not sure anyone saw it coming. Murphy surely didn't or he wouldn't have signed that deal. The Nats surely didn't or else they wouldn't have bothered going after Zobrist and Phillips. Nope last year was a complete and utter surprise** in the best way and the Nats are reaping the benefits

My OOB plan - Trade for Longoria, move Rendon to 2B - would have worked too. But pretty much because the Mets couldn't stay healthy and mount a good challenge. Obviously in hindsight the Murphy signing was the best possible decision

Presumed Plan

Murphy starts at 2nd

Reasoning for Presumed Plan

See 2016

...ok that's a bit reductive, but only a bit. Murphy can make the routine plays at 2nd. If someone can do that and hit like Murphy does, that's a big plus. 2nd basemen don't hit like that. So you keep him at 2nd.

Problems with Presumed Plan

Murphy cannot play 2nd well. You can argue that. You are wrong. His career defensive stats agree with the scouting reports which agree with pretty much everyone's eyes. At best he's below average. So you're losing something by putting him at 2nd instead of hiding him in LF or 1B of something. Do you think an Espinosa would have been this far from a normal-hit GB? Or watch Toles' single in the 5th of Game 5. It didn't amount to anything - Max would K Ethier - but at first Murphy moved laterally instead of laterally & back and then got caught somewhat flat footed on his jump. It's not that a normal 2nd baseman would make these plays, but a normal 2nd baseman would have a shot at them. Murphy does not.

The other "problem" is that Murphy may not hit like this again. It was a surprise. So if you play him all year at 2B, he has a particuarly bad year in the field, and hits more like he did before 2016, your value from Murphy is severely diminished.

My take

Well even in that worst case you are probably getting close to what you paid for, so I'm not too worried about it. At least in terms of what to do at second. To me it's pretty simple, while Murphy ideally should be playing somewhere else, he has sure hands and is acceptable enough at 2B that you can stick him there. And sticking him there gives the Nats an advantage other teams don't have.

If you can stomach sitting Zimm though, I'd kick the tires on any above average 2B (or CF! or 1B!) that may be available. That would either give you the most value (shifting Murphy) or take best advantage of a great hitting second baseman (if you sign a 1B that can hit).

Out of the Box Suggestion

This isn't a 2B idea. At least not a 2017 2B idea. Extend Murphy. Yes the Nats have a great deal on hand - why ruin it? Well here's my thinking. Even if last year is a fluke, Murphy has always hit. I mean seriously look at his career stats. I'd be willing to bet he's got at least 4 more years of above average hitting left. So I find it doubtful that even if you are giving him say... 2 more years at 18 per, that you'd end up with no value from it, especially if he shifts position. The Nats don't have a 1B in the minors they love. Their first baseman right now can't hit. So it's likely they'll need one. At the same time, like we said, Murphy shouldn't be playing 2nd. It's a pretty good fit. And if last year wasn't a fluke then you can probably grab a couple more years at what ends up being a bargain price. If we play out the second scenario and Murphy comes up with another MVP type year in 2017 you aren't going to be able to just tack on 2-3 more years and under 20 per. He'll have a 4+ year 80+ million contract waiting for him if 2018 is anything close to 2016/17. So go for it. The relationship is on a high right now You might be able right now to grab those extra years.


*He left money on the table to re-sign with Cincinnati. He felt if he were to be traded, that he needed to recoup that money since he was no longer getting the "stay at home" benefits. Of course no team with interest in him wanted to pay that money. He wasn't worth it anymore. And the Reds weren't going to do it either, they're cheap.

**While no one expected this pretty much everyone in the comments was fine with the deal, too. Hooray! We're not dumb!

Offseason Position Discussion : First Base

Last year's discussion 

A lot of last year's discussions were obvious. The Nats were pretty much set all over the place. For first base, my take was no different than pretty much everyone else's. The Nats were stuck starting Zimm because even though he was rarely healthy (156 games played in 2014 and 2015) they had him on a big contract deal and when he did play - he hit, so there wasn't an obvious upgrade without spending a lot of money.  I noted it was a bad position for the Nats as they pretty much had to do this and it was almost sure not to work. So good for me on nailing that because it didn't work at all.

Zimm still got injured (missed 40+ games) and now lost his ability to hit, putting up a .218 / .272 / .370 line that was a Ryan Howard away from creating the worst first-base situation in baseball. The assumption that Robinson would help mitigate the problem didn't work out either as Zimm was healthy enough to play a bulk of the games and Clint only put up a .235 / .305 / .332 line when he did get to hit. First base was a disaster and in my mind is the Nats biggest problem going into 2017*

My out of the box plan would have been fine but not earth-shaking, at least not for 2016. Trading Zimm and starting Robinson would have probably produced better results. How much better? Probably just a little but every bit counts I guess. More realistically it would free up the Nats to make moves now based on the idea that first base needed an external solution. As for who the Nats got back I basically said trade him to the Mariners for any of their failing OF prospects (re: Not Alan Jackson). Would any of them had worked out? Austin Wilson - no. Gabby Guerrero - no. Patrick Kivlehan - no. Jabari Henry - no. Brayan Hernandez - eh.  Tyler O'Neill - yes! Ok let's say the Nats got O'Neill then! ... ok the trade would have been a nothing but the contract (or at least some of the guaranteed money) would now be freed up - so overall win.

Presumed Plan

The Nats start Ryan Zimmerman with Clint Robinson as his back-up.

Reasoning for presumed plan

If Ryan Zimmerman was almost untradable last year - to the point I had the Nats eating money and taking back a mediocre prospect from a thin system - then he's literally radioactive this year. Coming off his third straight partial year, having his worst offensive performance ever and still owed at least 48 million over the next 3 years (that inclues 2 million buyout at end) no one is touching Zimm, not unless the Nats eat 90% of this deal. Zimm's on the team then.

Ok well if he's on the team he likely gets at least one more crack at playing first full-time. Last year was a disaster, yes, but you can look to a few things to give you hope heading into 2017. First, last year was the only year he hasn't hit. Even when spending half the year on the DL, he was an above average bat when playing. He had an OPS of .858 in May before facing injuries the rest of the year. The fancy stats don't suggest he's hitting the ball too softly which is usually a huge warning sign of being done. He spent a lot of the year hitting the ball as hard as anyone.  His post-season performance (6-17 with 2 doubles and 3 walks) was promising.

If Zimm gets another crack at first, it only makes sense to give Robinson, a good hitter in 2015 who is cheap and compliments Zimm's RHB, another crack as his back-up.

Problems with the presumed plan

It's pretty obvious, isn't it? Zimm's always had an issue staying on the field.  Last year he wasn't just a bad hitter, he was terrible. It might have been a slight aberration but you have to think the most likely scenario for 2017 would have him playing say... 100 games and hitting like .230 with unimpressive patience and power. That'll put him, and the Nats, near the bottom of the first base rankings again.

All the reasons for hope can be dismissed. Yes, last year was his first bad year at the plate. But he's been trending down since 2013 so a 69 OPS+ might be a surprise but a below average number would not have been. His OPS in May was very good, but he wasn't hurt in April or most of June and his OPSs there (.603 and .573) were not good. He did hit the ball hard but that was more concentrated in the beginning of the year and as we've discussed before, while he could hit it hard, he had issues hitting it hard and not directly into the ground. His post season performance is of course dealing with small sample size and it came after extra rest that he wouldn't get during the regular season.

There are also more worrying fancy stats, like a big drop in contact in the zone coupled with an increase in swings overall. The second year in a row where Zimm can't produce results against fastballs.

Meanwhile, Clint Robinson has had so few major league plate appearances (590) that you can't really pin down which Robinson is the "real" one, 2015 or 2016. He could easily be as bad as last year again. Given he'll be 32 in February the smarter money is probably on more 2016 than 2015 in Clint's future.

We don't usually talk about these things because they don't usually apply to first baseman but it's important to note neither of these guys are wizards in the field and are slow around the bases, so if they don't hit they don't offer much.

My take 

The Nats got lucky last year. Basically the right side of the infield did what it was supposed to but in reverse and cranked up... to the extreme! Murphy put up an unexpected MVP type season while Zimm cratered. Along with that, the other line-up issues (Espy, CF) and his strong May keeping his stats ok, allowed Zimm to sort of fly under the radar during the year. There is no denying though, he was terrible and the Nats can't count on another lucky season

It's time to try something new. I'm not sure what (we'll get to one idea) but the Nats usually move on a season sooner rather than a season later. You could argue last year was a season too late, but this year definitely is. The Nats need to find a new answer at first base. There are multiple possibilities. You can always sign a FA or trade for someone, but the fact that it's first base opens things up. The Nats can sign/trade for a 2B and shift Murphy to 1st. The Nats can sign/trade for a LF and shift Werth to 1st. The possiblities are limitless**

It will be a tough move but it has to be done. You can't stick with Zimm. If he were relatively healthy and just had an off-year, ok stick with him. If he was still hitting ok, just not able to get on the field, ok stick with him. But he's doing neither. A move has to be made.

Out of the box idea. 

How about LaRoche?

Ok seriously there are literally so many options that are reasonable, if you accept Zimm doesn't have to start, that it's hard to come up with something out of the box. From offering the Twins a Giolito/Robles/plus package for Dozier and shifting Murphy, to offering the Diamondbacks an EVERYONE package for Goldschmidt  to signing Steve Pearce to a reasonable 2 year deal to take your pick.  So how about this:

Trade to the White Sox for Adam Eaton and shift BRYCE to first. I've talked in the past about possibly shifting Rendon to first to help keep him healthy. The problem with that is Rendon is an excellent third baseman. You'd be wasting that. Bryce is not an excellent OFer. I like Bryce but his athletic ability has never translated to anything more than "eh" in the OF with a strong arm. He may not like as it will hurt his potential FA market, but if the Nats aren't going to re-sign him what do they care? Bryce at first keeps him healthy as possible (remember we all think his struggles this year are at least partly injury related) and Eaton is a good defender in RF (he'd aged out of CF) and a good bat. Imagine a Werth type trading a little power for defense and speed. Plus he's cheap through 2021. 2021! With team options the last two years!

Seriously any team with a strong farm system not looking to throw it at the White Sox for Eaton + Sale or Eaton + Quintana is a foolish team.***

*A lot of talk is centered around the idea the Nats have to move Turner to SS to get Danny out of there. That's a plan. However in my mind Danny is 4th in line for "things the Nats must solve" behind First, Catcher, and Center Field. Maybe even behind closer though I don't think that's a talent issue like these other ones. That's more a question of choice.

**Not true. I literally listed them. There is a limit 

***Why aren't the White Sox better than with all this realitvely cheap tradeable talent? (There's also Todd Frazier! and Jose Abreu!) They played in the toughest division in baseball last year. They lack that one definite All-Star type bat (though Frazier or Abreu are capable of having that type of year), while having two gaping holes in the lineup. Sale/Quintana aren't the lights out #1/#2 you think they are, but merely above average starters, while #3/#4 were holding on and the #5 spot might have been worst in the majors. It's an interesting team, who's ages and contracts suggest "Strike Now" so the moves last off-season made sense but they needed to go further. Thing is - only Frazier is a FA after next year so there is still time to try in 2017, so an offer will have to be good.

World Series!

Watch it.

Well if you want to, but I'll remind you that this will be the last real baseball for 5 months.

I had the Cubs at the beginning so I'll stick with them. Seems like the smart way to go. If you want a length... I'll go with another 5 gamer.  The pressure was about getting to the World Series.  I had a pretty good playoff prediction set there. So far only miss was Indians over the Blue Jays.


Some various playoff factoids you might have missed

After the Cubs and Indians all the championship droughts are for expansion teams. Senators/Rangers, Astros, Brewers, Padres, Expos/Nats, Mariners.

It's pretty amazing though that if we don't count the Expos/Nats as one thing, the longest WS appearance drought is "only" 40 seasons (Mariners). Every avid baseball fan 45 and older has seen every team that has made a World Series in a World Series. In the past 10 seasons, 13 different teams have made the World Series.  In the past 19 seasons, 20 teams have. So basically every adult has seen 2/3rds of the teams in baseball reach the World Series.

The Dodgers have now lost 4 consecutive NLCSs, accounting for 4 of the last 9.  They were also the last team to lose back to back CSs (2008-09 to the Phillies) before Toronto took that crown from them this year.

Since it started 5 years ago the AL wild Card has featured 9 different teams, the Orioles this year were the first repeat team.

AL WC teams are 1-4 in the DS, the only exception being the World Series reaching Royals in 2014.  NL WC teams are 3-2 in the DS.

The ALCS hasn't gone 7 games since 2008.
The last 4 World Series have gone 5 games (Road win in finale), 7 games (Road), 6 games (Home), and 4 games (Road). The last 5 before that went 7 (Home), 5 (Road), 6 (Home), 5 (Home), 4 (Road). That's a pretty good run of different types of series. We need a 4 game-sweep winning at home or a 6 game series, winning away to help complete the set.

If you're curious - last 6 game winner to do it away is the Marlins in 2003. Last 4 game sweep to end at home was the Yankees in 1999.

Offseason Position Discussion : Catcher

I'm going to mix it up again tacking on the last-year revisit before looking at this year.

Last year discussion revisited

My take ended up being just roll with Ramos and Lobaton as planned and hope for the best. It was a pretty easy take. Catcher can often be a barren position and if you didn't want to sign Weiters (and I didn't) then you really didn't have a better choice than sticking with Wilson and his improved defense. Maybe he would hit?

Well of course he did hit, better than ever, presumably thanks to LASIK. For a long stretch, basically all of June and July with a bit of carryover into the adjacent months, he was one of the best hitters in baseball. He hit .350 / .403 / .596  from May 29th through August 7th. It got overshadowed a bit on the Nats because Murphy was doing even better but that's team carrying offense right there. Plus his defense remained sharp. Even though he sputtered toward the end of the season (he hit .232 / .272 / .352 starting with the Cleveland series in early August) and got injured at the very end, he was an extremely big reason the Nats were as successful as they were in 2016. Ramos' rise was doubly important because Lobaton showed only a mild turn around slapping his way to a .232 / .319 / .374 line. On one hand, that's not all that good. On the other hand, for a back-up catcher you probably aren't going to find much better, especially if you focus on his split vs RHP (.262 / .344 / .393)

My outside the box move - trading for Derek Norris - would have been a disaster. I wanted Lucroy but I always want Lucroy so I went for something different. Norris crashed and burned after three years of being a good to very good hitter. My deal actually shipped out Yuney (fine), Storen (great!), and Ramos (ugh) for Norris and Melvin Upton. Before you wonder - no he wouldn't have been any better in CF than Revere/MAT.  Ok maybe a little but that's not saying much.

OK onto this year

Presumed Plan : Rizzo will trade for Stephen Vogt or Wellington Castillo.

Reasoning on Presumed Plan : OK the Nats can go four ways. First they can do nothing and go with Lobaton and Severino.  This, in my mind, is a non-starter.  Lobaton had an acceptable year in 2016 but it was after a couple of really rough ones. Last year was probably the best you can get out of him and trying to match that means playing him as a pure back-up (39 games played) against RHP only. That means it's not really a gamble on Lobaton and Severino, but a gamble on just Severino. Oh sure, Pedro hit .321 with a handful of XBH but it was in an extremely limited 34 ABs. You are betting not on that Severino as much as the Severino that hit .271 with no power in 80+ AAA games, and the guy that hit .250 zero power in 90+ AA games the year before. Severino has never hit for an extended period of time and expecting him to do it in the majors at 23 is a fool's gambit.

The second way they Nats can go is try to sign their catcher of the future. Unfortunately there isn't one out there. Matt Wieters was supposed to be the prize but he couldn't come up with a decent 2016, hitting for low average with little patience. After him though it's dire with probably the oft-injured Alex Avila being your best bet for a 3-4 year catcher. I'm serious. There isn't a catcher of the future here that I see. Free agency is not the long-term answer. Moving on...

The third way is finding a stop gap. Who is that stop gap? I'm not sure but Kurt Suzuki is a decent choice for his durability, ability to hit lefties and familiarity with the team. If not him ... well I'm kind of at a loss. Everyone else is pretty much worse (Iannetta, Salty, Pierzynski) or too injury prone (Soto, Avila, Chooch). I think Suzuki will get a decent 2 or 3 year deal which the Nats won't match so that leaves...

That leaves us with the fourth way to try and trade for a catcher. There aren't any great ones that have a one-year deal on them outside of Lucroy who I assume is going nowhere. My guess is that the best trade targets will be Stephen Vogt (decent hitter up until last year - cheap for a few years) and Wellington Castillo (perfectly acceptable catcher with a non-prohibitive salary for a season). Neither of those are particularly exciting but are acceptable and cheap-ish. If you go with Vogt then you likely trade Lobaton, who has some back-up catcher value, and let Severino back up. If you go with Castillo you keep Lobaton and see if Severino can hit in AAA. Are these great catchers? No. But they are likely the best available, plus the Nats don't have a lot of depth to trade from. If you are going to throw out a package of Treinen and Difo, or Voth and Shrock, well this is what you are going to come back with.

Problems with Presumed Plan : No matter which direction the Nationals go, they won't be able to replace Wilson's production at the plate with a catcher. It just isn't possible as the other decent hitting catchers are all on playoff contenders (Posey, Lucroy, Contreras, Grandal, Leon?) or on a division rival (Realmuto). So right off the bat free agency isn't going to make the team better than last year or even as good as last year. It'll be worse. Even focusing on defense won't help that much as Ramos was a solid defender. You probably aren't getting improvement there unless you really give up on the hitting. I suppose you can improve pitch framing, Ramos never showed well there. But you see what I'm getting at. The presumed plan isn't fixing a problem, it's minimizing the damage.

The other issue is that with Vogt or Castillo (and even more so with anyone they get if they go the free agent route), there's a decent chance they won't be any good at all. There isn't a solid bet here outside of Wieters, whose combination of offense and defense and age should keep him a top half catcher, and someone is likely going to pay him more than the Nats would (or should). So the Nats are forced into a gamble situation at the catcher spot no matter what they do. Vogt isn't too far off though so expect him to cost more than Castillo. In other words - expect Castillo.

My take : It's kind of a no-win situation. There is no way to replace Ramos and there is a good chance that whatever you do will end up making the Nats much much worse as catchers have a tendency to be the little girl with the curl, when they are bad, they're awful. Just look at Norris' nose dive or hell, any recent Ramos year before 2016.

Trading is Rizzo's preferred move. I'm trying to think of a time where he signed someone bad just to have someone at the position and I can't. Not as a starter at least. When he needed a CF he traded for Span. When he needed it again he traded for Revere. When he needed a 3B he traded for Escobar. When he needed a starter he traded for Fister. I don't think he's against a signing but there really isn't anyone out there worth signing. Plus I think there's just enough junk in the minors to get it done. However the targets are limited. So I can easily see a fall back to Plan B which would be Suzuki or someone like him if the targets are acquired by others or are just not on the table. I suppose if not Suzuki I might roll with Jason Castro - a good pitch framer, young, and a good hitter at one point. Hell, if you are hoping for a miracle he's a decent place to look.

What does it mean for 2017? It means you better hope for a lucky Ramos type season from whoever they pick up and Severino to show you something for more than two weeks worth of PAs.

Out of the box suggestion : Trade for Mesoraco. If you are trying to go for an all or nothing gambit he's your man. Three seasons ago he matured into an All-Star power hitting catcher. Then he got hurt and couldn't play. Hey sounds like Ramos! He's not cheap anymore so the Reds would likely deal him for a reasonable price and reasonable price is what the Nats are likely to give up. It's a gamble sure but if you are looking for a way to get a Ramos type season next year from a catcher this might be your best bet. Of course that also means playing 30 games and hitting like crap but them's the breaks when you are hunting for Buffalo

(Look I can only say Giolito for Lucroy so many times) 

Assumptions

I guess we'll start with the offseason reviews next week. Makes more sense to start it clean on a Monday, no?

Anyway this offseason is the most interesting for a Nats team in a long while. Or at least it has the potential to be interesting. You can honestly say that you can't be 100% sure you know who's going to be playing where on Opening Day next year. Sure you keep Murphy, Rendon, Bryce, and Trea, but are they going to be where you think they are going to be? Move Trea to SS then Bryce could play CF. Somehow get rid of Zimm and Murphy shifts over to first leaving a spot for possibly Rendon to go back to 2B. Werth's in his last year and amazingly you could get something for him. Do you trade him? Are the Nats done with Espinosa? 

The rotation is more set - but only in the fact that you can put Scherzer #1 in pen.  Who's #2? Strasburg? That's assuming he can pitch Opening Day. Roark? If you don't trade a guy who's arguably never going to be worth more. Gio? A far more likely trading chip than Roark given his reasonable salary and the fact you aren't giving up multiple cheap years when you deal him. Ok, Ross will be in there somewhere. That's the other given. The pen is going to be dependent on what they do with closer.  Do they try to shift Kelley or Treinen? Does the other one stay in the 8th role? Where do all these other arms fit in?

Individually none of this stuff is really all that likely. Strasburg appears to have no issues that'll keep him from pitching in April. He almost pitched in October. Rendon is playing third. They aren't trading Werth or Roark. They can't deal Zim. But as a whole all these possibilities combine to create a lot of uncertainty with the 2017 Nats. If any one domino falls, everything else can change and most likely a domino will fall.

This makes the "assumed plan" part of the offseason in reviews a little tough. So what am I going to assume? I'm going to assume the 2017 Nationals look a lot like the 2016 Nationals at the end of the year. Zimm, Murphy, Danny, Rendon around the horn. Bryce, Trea, and Werth in the OF. Scherzer, Strasburg, Gio, Roark, Ross as the rotation. Pen roles stay as is. Why? It's the path of least resistance. The Nats can recreate a 2016 team that won the East and nearly won their DS by doing nothing. Seems certainly plausible that they do just that and fritter around the edges filling in bench guys and bullpen arms that leave for greener (re: $$$) pastures.

That leaves the only true questions as C and closer.  I'll have to think more on what I'll assume the Nats plan is there. We're just guessing here so there are no wrong answers but I don't want to be unfair here. What do you guys think for these two? Do you think they are going out to get something or just shifting in house? I've got my leanings but I'm willing to be convinced that the assumed plan should be something else.

Monday Quickie - Rizzo goes nowhere

Mike Rizzo won't be the GM of Arizona. At least not anytime soon. They hired Mike Hazen. On one hand, everyone seems to like him and he has a work pedigree that includes some of the more successful current franchises (CLE, BOS). On the other hand, Arizona just did something similar to this a few years ago and it didn't work out. Also if you are looking for a strategic edge, hiring a GM that's young, ivy-league educated, and into the business/analytic side of the game is not exactly going to give you that. Plus it's Arizona, I'm sure Hazen is terrible then. His 1 year track record (under Dombrowski's heavy hand I'm sure) is less than impressive. Kimbrel move didn't work. Carson Smith was damaged good. Aaron Hill did nothing. Ziegler was a nice pick up I guess.

Anyway enough about the Diamondbacks. Rizzo is what we're talking about here. He won't go there which is one of three places I'd assume he'd want to go (the other two being the Chicago teams and those both look unlikely - Theo in entrenched in Wrigley with all the wins and Kenny Williams runs the White Sox with all the being friends with Reinsdorf) Good. You can complain about Rizzo here and there but the macro-level view has been very positive, especially if you make the seemingly fair assumption that he's very limited in mid-season transactions.

Is there something about the way he's built this team that it fails to get over the top? Maybe, but I have a hard time seeing it. It's talented. It's pitching based with a couple of aces. It had a strong back end of the bullpen. It can manufacture runs, but also hit a HR. It's got veteran leadership. All the general "this is what you need in the playoffs" boxes are checked off by this point. It seems far more likely that the 2016 Nationals were a victim of sports playoffs being what they are meant to be. Good teams playing a short series / one-game that often comes down to who plays slightly better.

Could someone do better here? Perhaps, but again I get the sense that working with the Lerners can be frustrating at time. A bit tight with money in odd places (I like to say "pound wise, penny foolish"). Sometimes prone to go over his head, especially with Boras clients. You need a guy with just enough lack of ego to take those in stride and keep getting his job done as best he can under the circumstances. Seems like Rizzo does that, I'm not sure all guys could.

Like I said I can find some faults with Rizzo. His gambles in drafts on injury prone talent create a fairly top-heavy farm system where depth can be an issue. He doesn't seem to get along well with managers (which will be interesting because Dusty has never left a situation well). He can be overly reticent to deal young talent mid-season that could afford the team a stronger return under the assumed financial constraints he's under. But I consider these minimal, I mean look at the wins. What's the alternative? That there's dynasty here being held back by Rizzo?

We'll get into specifics more this week - positional overview and all that, but the off-season is already off to a good start. Rizzo isn't going to Arizona.

Post Mortem

I've said before but for me a game is far more often lost than won. That winning is less about making great plays and more about avoiding mistakes. It's not always the case but that's how I look at sports (kind of life too if I'll be honest) and that's going to be a lot of how I look at this game right now. This doesn't mean I don't think it was a pretty well played game and series. I think both those things. It's just how I see things play out in terms of deciding who win and who loses.

Anyway let's take a look at the key moments from yesterday and see how we ended up here today.

Pre game
Dodgers start Rich Hill. There are arguments that can be made for starting a pitcher on short rest. They are difficult arguments to win and none apply to Rich Hill. You saw Urias. He was pretty good, wasn't he? He should have started and Roberts was lucky he didn't get burned worse by this decision.

Bottom 2
Lobaton can't get the ball in play to possibly score another run. Espinosa had just come up with a big hit and the Nats had 1st and 3rd with one out. If you're Lobaton, you have to hit it hard and hope for the best. Yes, a double play is certainly possible, but so are sacrifice flies and fielder choices. You can score a run on an out here fairly easily. With the pitcher spot looming behind you it's even more imperative to get that ball in play as he is unlikely to drive the run in. But Lobaton fouls off two pitches and then strikes out. Scherzer would follow with a K of his own and the Nats would only score once.

Top 3
Dodgers let Max off the hook. Max pitched well last night, but it was obvious early on he didn't have his usual control. If the Dodgers could take a smart approach to facing him they could have him out early, maybe even sometime in the 5th if they were really lucky. Maybe that's without scoring but still the advantage the Nats had going into last night was Max. Get him out and it's a brand new game.  He sat at 35 pitches with no outs in the 3rd inning and had just thrown 5 straight balls. But then the Dodgers' brains locked up. Toles swung at a strike at the bottom of the zone and grounded into a double play. Rich Hill swung at a first pitch ball and grounded out himself. Now not only was Max not on the ropes, but he was set up for a long outing. A simply terrible approach that for a long portion of the game sat with me as the key moment.

Bottom 3
Werth can't get the ball in play to possibly score another run. Hey if I'm going to get on Lobaton I have to get on Werth here too. Turner had singled, stole second and advanced to third on Bryce's deep fly ball to center. With his speed almost any GB out, or halfway deep FB scores Trea. But Werth strikes out on five pitches. There is a slight difference as at this point it didn't feel as precarious for Hill as it did earlier.

Anthony Rendon's liner goes right to the CFer. Rendon had a bad series, but he really squared up on this one. There's no fault here - it's just a shame as it would have scored two.

Top 5
With the bases loaded, Max strikes out Ethier and gets Utley to ground out. After being no-hit for 4 innings the Dodgers finally got to Max with three singles. I'll note here that the last one, by Toles, might have been caught by a better 2B as Murphy was caught flat-footed then couldn't reach it with his jump. It would have been a very good play but I think it was possible. Anyway with both singles going to Bryce and that last one having a chance to be caught, the Dodgers hadn't managed to plate a run. The Dodgers brought in Ethier to get a big hit but Max struck him out on some nice pitching. Then keeping the ball down he got Utley to hit a ground ball that didn't go through.

Bottom 5
Dusty lets Max hit for himself. Look, it ended up pretty much working out as Max would get through the heart of the Dodgers line-up the next inning, but it was still the wrong decision. Results don't always match up as they should. Why was it wrong? Max's mistakes can be HR mistakes and he had missed up a couple times in the 5th inning, including on Reddick's base hit. At around 86 pitches and getting ready to face the Dodgers line-up a third time it was time to give him a big hug, thank him for keeping it scoreless and move on to the pen. With the top of the line-up following Scherzer, a guy getting on would have a good chance of scoring. But instead he sticks with Max, Max K's and the Nats don't score that inning.

Bryce gets picked off. With two outs, not terribly impactful but don't get picked off, even on a questionable move.

Bottom 6
Henley sends Werth, Werth is out at home. Now we finally take the most important moment away from the Dodgers dumb swings in the third. The Nats had been testing the Dodgers all night and the Dodgers had been coming up empty. They weren't making mistakes per se, but when the situation called for just solid baseball plays - throws on target with decent speed - the Dodgers couldn't do it. So being aggressive is arguably the right call. But this wasn't aggressive it was stupid.

Here's the play (apologies for the needless "statcasting") If you pause it at 29 seconds (during the close up on Werth running) you can see in the distance Toles clearly having thrown that ball before Werth is reaching third. Werth has already taken his eye off the ball, rightly expecting his 3rd base coach to give him the correct call. Henley though inexplicably sends Werth. Pause it again at 1:01 right when the angle changes. In the corner you see Toles in his throwing motion. In the foreground Henley waving Werth around not facing the throw. Perhaps he think Toles mishandled it. But then he looks up and HAS TO see the ball is in the air. Yet he keeps sending.

You could argue he was in the wrong position too. He should be between 3rd and home to give himself maximum time to make the decision but you can see that he had to first think about seeing into that corner so maybe drifting toward home was superceded by that. Of course that doesn't explain both how he didn't see what was obviously in front of him, and why he kept moving UP the line away from home rather than down toward home after deciding he would send him. If he simply bounces the other way there might be a chance for a last second "WOAH I SCREWED UP" and hoping Werth can scramble back but going in the other direction he takes that away as a possibility.

Anyway Toles throw was quickly made but completely average. The same could be said of Seager's throw. Werth was still out by 30 ft. If say it had been Puig and an Espy type throw by Seager it honestly could have ended up with Werth scrambling back to third.

Top 7
Max stays in and Pederson homers. I had been saying after the 6th that I could see going with Max on a batter by batter situation. I hate taking out effective pitchers "just because". A lot of why a pitcher is working well in a given night is particular to that night. How he's feeling, how those batters are seeing him. To have an advantage and throw it away seems foolish. But I didn't think it through. Max wasn't exactly dominating, though the 6th was pretty good the whole story of the game said something else. Max has a tendency to make "home run" mistakes. Joc Pederson is useless against LHP. All that taken together should have meant Max should take a seat. It was all true going into the 6th, nothing changed for the 7th other than Max was 11 more pitches in. Now Max didn't make a mistake. He made a good pitch and Pederson made a great swing. But now, if not earlier, was the time for match-ups to take over and that meant Max should have come out. However, I'm not going to kill Dusty for this one. If you want to live and die with your ace currently throwing a shutout, not gassed, and with no opportunity to lose the game only the lead, that's fine by me.

Rep walks Grandal Grandal was the Dodgers Rendon. A good hitter that was having a terrible series. Yet Rep walks him on four pitches, none particularly close. Inexcusable.

Culberson fails to get his bunt down. This is kind of like the Bryce getting picked off situation. Not all that impactful in the course of the game, but get your bunts down

Dusty lets Solis face Ruiz, Rendon fails to come up with Ruiz's grounder.  You understand the first one somewhat. Dusty doesn't want to burn one of his lefty arms without throwing a pitch. But it's endgame and you have to worry about what's in front of you not what might be in front of you later. Ruiz hits lefties much better than righties. At this point Gio has to be considered a usable arm so you still have two lefties if need be - plus your closer and set-up guy. That's gotta be enough to get 8 outs. But Dusty sticks with Solis, Solis gives up a shot. Reminiscent of Game 5 when Desmond couldn't come up with a hard shot that was playable, Rendon lets this one get by him and the Dodgers take the lead. Hard play? Sure. Impossible? No, not even close.

Dusty brings in Shawn Kelley to face Turner despite Turner's splits, Turner delivers. This to me is the defining moment of the game. Turner has reverse splits meaning he hits righties better than lefties. It's not even close really. Here's his numbers for 2016

vs RHP : .305 / .356 / .563
vs LHP : .209 / .303 / .337

Sometimes this can happen as a fluke but that isn't the case for Turner. He's hit righties better than lefties every year since 2011 (he only had a handful of ABs in 2009&2010) except 2014 and that's not because he didn't hit righties that year. He did. He just had a fluke year where he hit lefties too. So his career splits are .832 OPS vs RHP, .695 vs LHP. Everything said you use a lefty, not a righty, to face Turner.

But Dusty went with the typical move - bringing in a righty to face Turner. I suppose you could argue that he just wanted a better pitcher in, Kelly being better than Solis, but I don't believe that. I suppose you could argue "Kelley gets out righties better than Solis does!" but that's all based on the basic truism that lefties hit righties better and vice versa. Unless you have a freaky motion or some sort of particular trait that would seemingly affect a batters ability to hit you there's no reason to believe a pitcher's split is particular to the pitcher, but rather an accumulation of splits particular to batters. In other words a lefty pitcher doesn't get lefty batters out well because he is particularly good at pitching to lefty batters, but because lefty batters are particularly bad at hitting lefty pitchers.

Anyway he should have kept Solis in - which not only would have likely been more effective against Turner than throwing Kelley out there but if he was successful would have allowed him to pitch to Gonzalez as well and save Perez.  But he didn't. And Turner would triple off of Kelley giving the Dodgers a big lead that they wouldn't fully relinquish.

Bottom 7
Heisey homers.  Heisey does not have any strong splits so keeping Dayton in to face him is not a mistake. The pitch Dayton threw though, that was one. He had made the same error Rep did - he walked the first man he saw on 4 pitches - and he also paid for it as Danny came in on Heisey's HR. Now it's back to a 1-run game, albeit reversed, with 9 outs for the Nats to score one run (and keep holding the Dodgers)

Werth strikes out swinging, Bryce takes second.  This is questionable. Did it really take the bat out of Murphy's hands? Sure with first base open it was an easy call. You aren't moving the winning run into scoring position with the walk. However, I'd still have walked Murphy. There's no reason to take a chance on him RHP vs LHB when struggling Rendon is coming up next.

Rendon strikes out. Overmatched.

Bottom 8
Espy fails to get the bunt down.  I had actually just said before this that I wondered if Jansen was particularly hard to bunt on. He doesn't appear to have great movement watching him, but guys just miss his pitches in a way that suggests that he does. I've found that usually means a "rising" action that gets guys at the plate and that means, yes, a particularly hard pitcher to get a ball down on. But still get the bunt down.

I also kind of have issues with the decision to bunt. Your next two batters are Pedro Severino and Michael Taylor. Danny isn't great, but he's better than them and had, for whatever reason, looked a lot better at the plate last night (no Ks!). If I'm going to try to get Drew home, I think your best chance is with Danny rather than Severino or MAT facing Kenley Jansen in their first AB of the night.

Bottom 9
Murphy pops up. No blame but we're talking key moments and this was definitely one. You're hoping at worst to move the runners over where a passed ball or wild pitch or error could score them, at best for a hit. A pop-up doesn't even allow for an error thanks to the infield fly rule.

Difo K's. Again no blame. Yeah he shouldn't have swung at the last pitch but Kershaw threw some nasty stuff early in the at bat to get to that point setting Difo up for being too protective of the plate. It would have been a miracle talked about for decades if Difo got a hit here.


So there you go. For the first 6+ innings it looked like the biggest play of the game would be some silly swings in the 3rd that allowed Scherzer to go as long as he did. But then Henley made a terrible call to run the Nats out of a potential run-scoring situation, and Dusty ignored the splits to put the Nats in a disadvantageous situation and those plays decided the game.

That's it. I'm beat. We'll be back next week for some full season post-Mortem

What is there to say?

Not as gutting as 2012.


Not as infuriating as 2014.


But in the end, same result.


Should have won this game. Scherzer wasn't on the top of his game but he had enough big pitches and got enough breaks to get the Nats to one out in the 7th with their opponent scoring only one run. The Nats should have been winning by more at that point. They were not. After that the Max vs whoever advantage was lost and it came down to the pens and the Dodgers arms and moves were better than the Nats.


Sigh. Well do what you need to. Vent. Swear. Get it out. I'll be back tomorrow as usual.

G5 Evening Post

For those that would like to comment during the game on here... I guess I should look into a chat client or something. I don't know. That seems like work.

G5 Morning Post

Here we are. Staring at the most important game in Nationals history.

It's true that it's not the most important game in the history of DC baseball. The Senators won World Series! But the last time they were in it was 1933 and they barely were in the playoff picture after that. Twist my arm and I'd say you could make an argument for the double header the end of the season in 1945 season being as important as this game because if they won both they could have set themselves up to go to the World Series but the Tigers played three games after than and controlled their destiny*. So it's not quite the same. Senators/Rangers didn't come close to playoffs. So we're arguing at best there was a bigger game played in DC baseball history 83 years ago, at worst 71?

It's true that it's not the most important game in franchise history. That was G5 of the 1981 NLCS but there isn't anybody in DC who cares about the strict interpretation of the franchise and I'm not going to argue that they should.

It definitely eclipses the games in 2014, and surpasses the previous "most important game in Nationals history" G5 of the 2012 NLDS because that game was not as team defining. The feeling after that game, other than devastation about how it went down, was that the Nats were a young team that just got their playoff experience and that they'd be back. It was a tough loss but no one was ready to give the Nats a label just yet.

So again here we are.

A win changes everything surrounding the team in terms of its impression of itself. A win makes Dusty a DC legend of sorts.

A loss cements the Nats and Dusty as chokers in the national consciousness, until they are not.

Fair or unfair as it is (pretty unfair in my opinion), this is where things stand.

The Nats should win tonight. It should be fairly easy. The Nats bats should continue to do better than the Dodgers bats. Max shouldn't give up more than a couple runs. Rich Hill should not pitch much better than last time, given he's on short rest. The Nats bullpen should be a little more rested than the Dodgers. The Nats shouldn't end up getting 2 DPs that completely erase the trouble Hill got into.

But should is should. Max should give up a couple runs instead of none, given his pitching lately and the match-up. Lobaton should do something other than hit a 3-run homerun. The Nats should still strike out a bunch, as Hill has been doing exactly that since coming back.

Not all "should"s end up being "did"s and if the wrong ones go against you that's all that matters.

Ok here we go. See you at game time!

*As you can guess the Tigers did what they needed to and went on to the Series. They needed to win the last game to avoid a 1-game playoff with Washington. They were down 3-2 heading into the top of the 9th and Hank Greenberg hit a grand slam. That's big time baseball right there.

Max-imum Pressure Part 2 - this time it makes more sense

Max Scherzer called this the most important game of his life. It's true! At least playoff wise. Max has never started a "Win and your in, Lose and go home" playoff game. However he has started several "Lose and go home" games or "Win and move on" games

"Lose and Go Home"
2011 ALCS - Detroit down 3 games to 1.  A wild Scherzer gets bombed by Texas, not making it out of the third. Final line :  2.1 IP, 5 hits, 4 walks, 6 ER. The punishment doesn't stop. Detroit loses 15-5. 

2012 WS - Detroit down 3 to 0.  Scherzer puts up a pretty standard effort against Giants. 6 and a third, 7 hits, 1 walk, 8K, 3 runs. Tigers though can't score more than 3 themselves and Coke loses it in 10th. Tigers downed 4-3.

2013 ALCS - Detroit down 3 games to 2. Scherzer is wild but battles. 6.1 IP, 5BB, 4 hits.but only 3 runs. Tiger though can't manage any significant offense and Red Sox and lose 5-2.

Overall Record : 0-3
Overall Performance : Eh. First time out was rough but gave a winnable performance the other two outgins.

"Win and move on"
2012 ALDS - Detoit up 2 to 1. Scherzer goes 5.1 IP, holding Oakland to 1 unearned run on 3 hits and 8K. Pulled a little quick maybe but Dotel in relief did his job. Valverde though blows it in the 9th. 4-3 A's. 

2012 ALCS - Detroit up 3 to 0. With zero pressure Scherzer pitches a gem. 5.2IP, 2H, 10K. Pulled at 98 pitches mainly because they could with a 6 to 1 lead. Tigers win eliminating the Yankees 8-1. 

Overall Record : 1-1
Overall Performance : Pretty good. He seems to be a bit wild, as he tended to be back in the day, but also hard to score on. Perhaps the pressure on the other team worked in his favor which would bode well for tomorrow.