Mets to the Max? Maximum Mets?

In the past few days the ground shifted in baseball in a way that happens in very few short FA periods.  Seager joined Gray and Semien in Texas. Ray landed in Seattle. Gausman was grabbed by the Blue Jays. The Marlins signed Asavail Garcia. Starling Marte signed with the Mets. Kirby Yates, Daniel Hudson, Hector Neris found new bullpens. Corey Kluber, Michael Wacha, Yimi Garcia, Adam Frazier, Mark Cahna, Eduardo Escobar, and Jacob Stallings all moved teams. And that's not including the half-dozen more were settled before that.

Still for Nats fans nothing was as monumental as Max Scherzer signing with the Mets. 3 years, 130 million. The largest ever annual value for a player. It's hard to top that. 

Fans can certainly be disappointed but we are decades away from the time players developed enough hatred for rivals to regularly avoid signing with them. The Mets offered the most money and maybe the longest contract* and a player took it. There's nothing "mercenary" about that despite what Barry might say, or at least no more mercenary than nearly every other player decision ever.

But that feeling speaks to the feeling Nats fans have for Scherzer. Anecdotally to this soulless automaton on the outside looking in while the rain rusts his joints, it felt to me that Max was the most beloved National. More beloved than flashy Bryce Harper, of course, who never quite gave the fans something to hold onto until that last HR Derby, then went out the door. More beloved than exuberant Juan Soto, who just hasn't been here long enough and now has the question of 'how long' hanging over him. More beloved than enigmatic Stephen Strasburg, who couldn't please most fans for years and is currently hurt. More beloved than milquetoast Ryan Zimmerman, who's always just been but was too far gone to be more than a piece during the window. Max's combination of big emotion and big moments and seemingly love of playing is catnip to fans. Pitching with a black eye? Screaming at the manager to let him keep pitching? Fans eat that up and Max gave them seven full years of servings.

So to see that Max, "our Max", go to a direct rival... that's a bit much. 

But you forget Max was just as much a mercenary coming to the Nats. The Tigers nutured him from a good pitcher into a Cy Young one then offerend him lifetime security with a long wealthy deal.  Max thought he could do better. He refused the deal and he bet on himself. Turned out to be a smart move as the following year he left for a bigger and longer deal, the biggest and longest deal he could get (sound familiar?). It was with the Nats. 

What will Max do for the Mets? Well he's getting older and while Zimm might think he's the "Tom Brady of baseball", Tom Brady can last forever primarily by avoiding hits and baseball and its everyday grind isn't like that.** That's especially true for a pitcher who is attached to a ticking time bomb called a pitching arm. After throwing for over 187+ innings and 32+ starts for 8 consecutive years 2019 and 2021 brought fewer starts and innings. Not a lot fewer but enough that you can see the end from here. We should assume in 2022 something similar, 27-30 starts, an ERA no higher than 3.00. Something to give the Mets the best 1-2 in baseball if deGrom is right. You base 2023 on 2022 and 2024 on 2023. That's what you do at his age.  If you make me guess I'm saying 80 starts in 3 years with an ERA under 3.50 and value for the deal if not exactly living up to it. I don't bet against Max.

The Mets signings as a whole are pretty good in the short term. Which is how they should be thinking because they are trying to get as far as possible while having possibly the best pitcher of our time (yes, deGrom is that good - look at his stupid 2021) and a couple of recent long term deals for guys like Lindor and McCann who should be good now but no guarantee of that down the line. Their time if ever is now. Marte fills the CF hole with someone who can hit AND play the position, and allows Nimmo to play corner OF which he's pretty good at. Eduardo Escobar will cover multiple positions with a pretty good switching hitting bat. Cahna give the Mets the patient bat they sorely lacked.  It'll be interesting to see what they do with the pretty decent parts they may have pushed out.  Dom Smith, 4th OF? Either the off-year McNeil or the cement hands JD Davis have to sit. They still need to deal with the pen but right now you put them as the top team in the East, at the very least until you see what the Braves do. Freeman is still suspiciously unsigned.

Tough day for Nats fans but get used to it. It'll be a tough year. Yesterday was emblematic of the Nats offseason - quiet. And not sneaky quiet. Uninterested. Nothing from the beats, or the usual insiders. If anything what they said made you think THEY think the Nats are doing nothing. They'll wait. Pick up a few 1-2 year contracts on the cheap to roll for prospects at the deadline. What matters in 2022 for the Nats is not wins, but development. Cheer on every K by Cavalli, every homer by House. Because that's what's going to determine if next offseason is filled with talk about signing Soto or trading him.

*which is crazy - I know Max is 37/38 next year but if you want to win NOW he's as good a bet as any pitcher to be good in 2022 so why not give him an extra year, or two, or three even.  I can see not matching the money but the years thing is crazy to me. 

** not saying baseball isn't tougher than football. I am saying if you can somehow mostly avoid hits in football there is little action and only 16 games so you could last a very long time. Of course the point of most of football is taking or giving hits so avoiding hits is pretty much impossible. 

All quiet's on the Nats front

 Beacuse of the impending "lockout"* free agency is in a weird spot.  There were some early signings to get ahead of what most assume will be a delay into a new CBA with little practical impact, but others are waiting just in case there's something in the new CBA that might change their approach.  With the lock out date (December 2nd) coming close the question is whether we see a bunch of signings or a stall

 But one thing won't change - the basic disinterest it seems the Nats have in any moves.  Again if you are looking at the chicken bones you threw on the ground (pick those up! Dogs can choke on those!) it seems the Nats are more "can we be good in 2023?" than "we are going to try to be good in 2023" mode

 In other news - some Nats were in the AFL. While you shouldn't pay attention to AFL stats other than if you have a strong feeling going in and want to see some confirmation here's a quick rundown. 

Cole Henry struck a bunch of guys out but is wild. Todd Peterson you never heard of, he was ok. Jackson Rutledge looked bad. Not Brady House Jackson Cluff walked a bunch and got a bunch of singles. C Drew Millas they got in trade was bad. Israel Pineda was a no patience no power DH in limited ABs. Donovan Casey hit for some pop in limited ABs. 

Rule 5 guys were announced and no big surprises. Out of the guys they list that are internal prospects that might get taken it's hard to see Cate, a starter who was bad last year with no eye popping skill, or Pineda a catcher who was bad last year with no eye popping skill, being selecting.  Richard Guasch, a reliever, might draw some interest because he's got a live arm and sometimes these guys just "get it" and you can hide him as the last man in the pen. Jordy Barley also might get selected but that's a long play as he's almost certainly not ready for the majors and won't be anytime soon. You'd grab him, stash him, and then have him in your minors at 22 in 2023.  If you like him it's not a bad play... if you are going nowhere. But there are other guys available from other teams who fit both these profiles so we'll see. 

 

*technically true but who cares about a lockout or strike when no one is actually supposed to be doing anything? 

For the optimists out there

 I painted a pretty bleak picture Monday and nothing has changed but, BUT I'm hear to tell you if I'm wrong why things could be better just next year. 

First off is the obvious - if the Nats choose rebuilding for 2023 rather than figuring out if they will rebuild for 2023 then they'll be better. Maybe not playoff better but probably around .500 and the idea would be they'd be looking to be playoff ready in 2023. A SS and a few RP? Maybe Robbie Ray instead? Or a low-end SP and a solid OF? The Nats payroll would be around $140 million in my scenario, with around $155 million toward the cap of around $210. There is money available for them to do this. 

Second is - there is so much money available that they can probably spend their way to success without going over the luxury tax... if Strasburg is healthy and good.  If that's the case a big time SP, a decent rotation filler, a big time SS, and a decent OF gets you right around the luxury tax area and also around 90 wins. Is that enough? The Braves were legit good and will get back Acuna, but aren't going to keep everyone that was big toward their late season and playoff runs and will spend most of their money presumably on just keeping Freddie and seeing what happens. The Phillies remain a bat and an arm away.  They seemed primed to bring in a bat at SS but Phillies being Phillies I imagine they let the arm slide and continue to be not good enough.  Who knows with the Mets and the Marlins could be players but probably not next year - I haven't heard any rumblings (I also think they might be eyeing Trea next year). So yeah - it's likely enough or very close. 

Third - if Strasburg isn't healthy and good (honestly the most likely scenario) they could just go over the cap. They won't but they could. That's the beauty of baseball - if you want to win games and you aren't currently terrible, you can spend the money and make it happen.  You can't guarantee a title but you can pretty much guarantee a playoff spot if you are willing to go all in. 

As long as the off-season isn't over (and it's barely begun) there's still hope for those looking for more. And hell... 

Fourth... well I suppose they could not try and get incredibly lucky. Soto has a SOTO year and Bell hits like he has. Ruiz is a ROY winner type season, while Garcia looks like a good bat and Kieboom finally blossoms, at least to average.  Thomas is a steal and Robles finds his way back to average too.  Escobar will likely still be a hole but with a solid OF pick-up you have a 7 deep line-up.  Strasburg is an ace again. Corbin is average for him which is good enough. Gray shows as a real 3/4. Ross is a real 3/4 and finally stays healthy.  Rogers, Fedde, et al bounce around for a little bit until Cavalli burns up AAA and comes up and is good. The bullpen FA signings work out and they get those random good years that other teams pens seem to have. You get all that - that's a playoff team too. 

So like any good fan you can probably live out some fantasy of competitiveness even if your team shouldn't be good through Memorial Day.  That's the beauty of fandom in a sport where the best team wins 60% of their games and the worst team wins 40%.  Seasons are rarely over that quickly and you can enjoy a couple months every year. 

Oh I'll add if you want to play around with a potential Nats roster, James O'Hara set out his at this point annual web page to do that over here : https://jamesohara08.github.io/NatsGMProject/

Obviously imperfect and guessing at some costs but gives you a general idea of the flexibility the Nats have (more than you might think) and the talent available (pretty sparse beyond those SSs) 

Monday Quickie - Bringing it all together

 If you take all my position posts together you get a team that looks like this 

• 1B - Bell
• 2B - Garcia
• SS - Escobar
• 3B - Kieboom
• RF  - Soto 
• CF - Thomas 
• LF - FA
• C - Ruiz
• SP - Corbin
• SP - FA
• SP - Gray 
• SP - Fedde/Ross/Rogers/Adon
• SP - Strasburg/FA
• Closer - FA
• Set-up - FA

The rest of the roster includes Yadi Hernandez, Andrew Stevenson/Victor Robles as 4th and 5th OFs, a veteran to back-up/spot start 2B/3B, Riley Adams/FA as back-up C and 1B. Espino and Finnegan fit into relief spots with probably one or two more arms currently here and a third FA. 

Filling in spots lets say Corey Dickerson in the OF, DeSclafani as the SP1, Jordan Lyles as the SP2, Donovan Solano as the 2B, 3B guy and Ryan Tepara and Hector Neris and I don't know Corey Oswalt as the Closer, Set-Up, and other arm respectively. Suero and Thompson fill out the pen. 

That's clearly not a winning team  

The other day I said 2022 is a rebuilding year but it can go one of two ways

(1) It's a set-up year to possibly compete in 2023. The Nats buy in to a SS and a few SP/RP that will be her for the next 2-3-4 years while letting guys like Ruiz, Gray, Garcia, Thomas, and yes Kieboom have their 2 month, half-year, full-year goes at it. Based on how they do, you trade or sign the one or two guys necessary next off-season to compete, or 

(2) It's a complete organizational review year. You get a few guys because you aren't deep enough to just play young guys and not be embarrassing (see the end of last year) but they are grabbed with the thought of trading them if they are any good for more young players. You are here to evaluate anyone you can. Along with the guys noted above you want time for more questionable guys like Adams, Casey, Thompson, Adon, Rogers, McGowin, Klobosits, Clay, and guys past them.  Based on how everyone does you decide if you can compete in 2023 and beyond and respond accordingly in the next off-season. 

It wasn't supposed to be a choice here. It was always supposed to be (1). They'd reload with Strasburg, Corbin, Soto, Turner*, and Robles holding down the fort. Probably a usable Kieboom a decent 5th in Ross or Fedde and a couple relief arms like Harris and Rainey, set. But out of all that they only have Soto left that you can feel confidence in.  They managed to pull in a decent C prospect and some other things of interest but the truth is they have too many holes now. And a lot of how they move forward depends on how strongly they believe that what they have on hand will work out.  (1) can still work, if you think Strasburg will be ok by 2023, if you think Corbin is usable, if an OF and Garcia look decent. But if you aren't sure about that it's hard to move forward with (1).  You are very likely to build a team good enough to miss the playoffs by a few games. 

But as Nats fans (2) is scary because if you come away with the idea that you don't have enough on hand, then it becomes difficult to keep Soto around. You can't be sure that you will have enough in 2 years to convince him to stay and every year that passes the haul you can get for him drops. There probably isn't a haul worth dealing him anytime in 2022 but if you don't look competitive in 2023 there will be teams coming at the Nats with multiple Top 100 guys and how do the Nats resist? 

I'll be watching the signings and rumors. The Nats should be in the OF and SP talk - there isn't a lot there. They should be in the relief talk - that's the guys you bring in to deal later. But if the Nats are also seriously into the SS market that bodes well. If not, I get worried, unless all the deal the Nats do make look to go into that 3rd year or beyond. 

 

*In this scenario they still might have dealt Turner but only to grab a SS this offseason. Turning a potential issue (Turner's upcoming FA) into getting some talent while not having a hole.

Off-Season Position Discussion : Relief Pitching

Like most years, coming into 2021 you could find a way to see the Nats pen as a positive. The Nats spent some money and signed one of the better FA RP out there in Brad Hand to close and had Will Harris (solid in 2020) and Daniel Hudson (2019 hero, bad in 2020 but who cares about that half season, unless swe're talking about Will Harris). They had reason to be a little positive about Tanner Rainey. Kyle Finnegan and Wander Suero seemed capable.  That's a pretty deep pen!

And it started out pretty well. Yes, Will Harris got hurt and barely made it onto the mound and Rainey was bad but Hand, Hudson, Suero all had fast starts and Finnegan, along with Sam Clay and converted starter Voth looked ok.  But the pen was asked to take on more and more innings as the starting pitching failed and that took a toll. Suero would wear out. Every time someone looked decent, Davey would lean on them until they weren't decent anymore. Hand, who had been close to All-Star level for the first half after a minor blip in May, broke down at the worst time, driving the nails into the coffin of the Nats 2021 chances with a series of terrible outings. 

The Nats were able to offload Hand and trade Hudson, but with Harris out and Rainey terrible they were down their projected top 4 relievers to enter the season for the remainder of the year. The pen, which was actually pretty decent through the 4th, spent the remainder of the year cemented as one of the worst pens in the game.

Presumed Plan :  The Nats throw money at a lot (3-4-5?) of cheap short contracts hoping to grab guys who have good first halves of 2022 so they can flip them for organizational depth and lottery tickets.  Finnegan and Espino fill out two more spots and then whoever they seem to like in Spring Training. Mason Thompson if he looks decent. Ryne Harper maybe.

Reasons for the presumed plan : The FA market is lousy with relievers that weren't lousy. A guy like Adam Ottovino, for example, a usable arm but nothing more now, is like the 20th best arm available. The Nats can check out the market and grab 3 arms for like 15 million easy and come out with a pretty decent set. Maybe 4 because in all honesty the Nats pen is empty. 

Kyle Finnegan stays as the best of what was left at the end. Low bar, true, but the pen can't be 8 free agents. Paolo Espino who did an admirable job as a spot starter until he was worn down, has a decent chance of sticking around in a long man role or attempting to convert to a more traditional reliever.  If they do scrimp out on SPs but he doesn't make the rotation you could also see Josh Rogers who looked ok as a starter at the end of the year.  I'd bet on one of those two at least. 

The rest of the pen is filled by whoever they like the best now and in Spring because there aren't guys they really like and there are positions that have to be filled. This is the best way to do it I guess. 

My take : It'll be rough. How rough might depend on the starting pitching, even with 3 FA relievers. The Nats aren't going to grab something like 3 of the best 5 available. Given that they are likely to grab a guy who does good, a guy who is ok, and a guy so bad he barely pitches. So go relievers. Based on what we've seen in 2020 and 2021 a couple Nats guys will be usable, others will look good for short periods and terrible for others. It's a standard pen which means not all that good but could typically end up anywhere from 8th to 22nd best depending on how it breaks. Probably closer to the lower end there.

But I said "typically" because once you start heaping innings on these guys they can break and you are forced to use the guys you didn't like in the first place. The Nats don't have depth. There isn't a reason to try out a bunch of arms if you know you don't like them. In those instances you might throw 7-8 guys at a wall and find one you think you like and one you can use for a year. If you can figure that out from random short stints of pitching and not instead get confused by a good run by a bad arm that you knew was a bad arm. 

If the starting pitching holds I suspect this pen will be like many other Nats pens put together by Rizzo. Eighty percent complete, likely to be middling, with the possibility of being good or bad depending on luck. It's a pen to hold the fort until the trade deadline where you either add an arm or two you'll ride with your best ones down the stretch or you trade away your good arms and suck up the losses. Guess which one I think is more likely in 2021.

Off-Season Position Discussion : Starting Pitching

The Nats have been a team led by their starting pitching for years. From Strasburg-ZNN-Gio to Max-Stras-Corbin the key to their most successful years has been dominant starting pitching. And so that was the plan for 2021. Max would continue his dominance, Corbin would bounce back from a disappointing 2020 showing, and Strasburg would be ready to go after a full season of rest.  Anchor that with whoever of Ross/Fedde shows better and finish up with a dependable 160 innings of 4.50 ERA from Jon Lester and you have yourself another playoff rotation.  The best laid plans...

Lester would start off the season hurt letting Fedde and Ross fight things out from the start.  Neither looked worthwhile. Meanwhile Strasburg pitched poorly and would only start twice before trying to rest his arm, and Corbin didn't get hurt but pitched like he did. A complete implosion from the start wouldn't be an overstatement. Things got slightly better here and there; Stras came back and pitched well, Corbin improved, Ross was excellent for a month, Fedde ok here and there. However it didn't last. Stras only pitched 3 more times before going down permanently. Corbin would regress back to terrible. Ross would get injured. Fedde wasn't usually here or there. Add in a failure of Lester to pitch well and you have 4 problem spots in your rotation. That's almost everyone! Max pitched well but all this terrible pitching meant the team sold him off and ended the season with a mish-mash of starters. 

In the end we did see some starters who might be important for the future. Josiah Gray gave up a lot of homers.  Ummm... among the other starters were Paolo Espino (19!), Josh Rogers (6), Sean Nolin (5), Austin Voth, Jefry Rodriguez, and Joan Adon (1 apiece) 

Presumed Plan : Strasburg back healthy (at some point), Corbin rebounds, FA signing eat innings, Gray, Fedde/Ross/Rogers/Etc taking up the rest hoping someone comes out looking good. And if that someone is Ross, trading him. Possibly another FA that can eat innings, you know, just in case something in this glorious plan doesn't work out. 

Reasons for Presumed Plan : Stras and Corbin are signed forever. They have to be in the plan because even if you wanted to get rid of them you aren't getting value right now. Strasburg may not be healthy but as of early November 2020 your plan is he'll be fine and start most of next season. 

Gray you traded for to be part of your next playoff rotation and he's ready to pitch in the majors full-time so you let him. 

Given everything that you saw this year though you can't expect all three of these things to turn out in your favor. Given that, you need an arm you can rely on to give you 180 IP so the bullpen isn't destroyed. That's where the FA comes in. The Nats may even go two deep here. They definitely could use another one. Both Stras and Gray will probably be limited in innings somehow and if anything else goes wrong you'd need another reliable arm anyway.

The plan with Stras leaves only one spot and you have a mess of arms you want to run through because that's what the season is about. Fedde, Rogers, Adon - maybe one clicks and you have a starter for a few years. If not they are place holding for Cavalli who should reach the majors later in 2022. 

My Take : This is a recipe for disaster. We'll take it from the top. Strasburg's injury type does not lend itself to quick or complete returns to previous form. Ideally you'd might move on but Strasburg is too important and too contractually tied for the Nats to do that. Given that he has four more seasons here, the team's plan for him should be "we are going to be as cautious as necessary in his return to the mound and if that means he doesn't pitch in 2022 - that's ok" not "Hmmm maybe he'll be back for spring!" Regardless I think the recovery will take more time than that and he won't be back for Opening Day and he won't be good when he's back.

Corbin could easily be better and all the Nats really need is 200 IP of 4.00 ERA ball.  Just eat up innings without blowing games. I think Corbin can do that. But he IS getting worse - these are deserved ERAs so I'm not sure you can bet on it.  

Gray - ok Gray makes sense. But he also may not be good. He should ease into a back of the rotation role but he's far from a guarantee. The number of homers he allowed this year was crazy. Lyles from the Rangers led the majors with 38 allowed. Gray throwing 180 innings would have given up 49. Ideally he'd be the last guy in with some opportunity to go down to AAA for fine tuning if necessary, but he's the Nats 4th and such is going to be relied on to at least hang in the majors. He may not.

The 5th spot is right now a mess. Ross has got the talent but can't stay healthy. Fedde arguably doesn't have it. Rogers looked good but his history says he's bad. Adon is not a prospect. Espino did ok but there's no sense the Nats see him long term as a starter so he'll most likely relieve and spot start. It's a place holder for Cavalli who might be up at the end of the year. He looked good in A+ and AA but rocky in AAA. There's no rush to get him up so it's on his time table. The talent is there though. In the end it's 4 months of dumpster diving your own organization.

So to sum up : Your #5 is a hodgepodge of has beens, never wases, and broken arms. Your #4 is the early odds on favorite to lead the league in homers allowed. Your #2 could be so bad in 2022 that he often won't get past the 5th inning. Your #1 may not give you any starts.  Did I about cover it? 

That makes your number 3 very important. God I hope they nail this FA signing and by that I mean just bring in a guy who you feel REALLY REALLY good about hitting a lot of innings.  I've heard DeSclafani.  That's probably ok. But they can't scrimp out here or reach. There's too many innings on the relief staff from everyone else. Someone has to soak those up. 

As you can see - I really think the Nats situation is so obviously precarious that a second FA signing, even for just a year, is needed. Rich Hill? Jose Quintana if his shoulder looks ok? Tyler Anderson? You aren't looking for good here, you are looking for acceptable. But I'm not sure the Nats do it.  I think they wait out the FA period waiting on Strasburg and then only at the end grab some one off the garbage pile when it's clear Stras is out for a while.  Let's hope I'm wrong on many accounts here. 

Various junk

 Barry says Juan Soto is worth half a billion? Is he right? Probably so! 

We first floated the "half-billion" number out there for Bryce after his 22 year old season (which by the way was clearly better than any full season Soto has had)  But Bryce proved to be an uneven player who could be derailed for times by injury. By the time he was up for FA it was clear 500 million was an overpay. Soto on the other hand is a very steady hand, who yes can be affected by injury, but in a far less dramatic way.  At this point I don't think anyone believes he isn't a better hitter than Bryce in general and possibly the best hitter in generations. 

But Soto is limited in other ways. While athletic, he's is not a good fielder (I don't know how many times I have to say this) even when stuck in RF at 22 and is a middling base runner. His projection going forward is as a hitter pure and simple. This is in sharp contract to the player of his generation Trout who ways Mays/Mantle like in his all around ability, and doesn't even compare well with Bryce, who's natural aggressiveness on the base paths is more plus than minus and who's athleticism had the Nats wondering for a hot second if he could play CF (he really couldn't).  I'd rate the two fairly even off the plate and Bryce is a good 6 years older. 

That's not to say Soto isn't worth 500 million.  I did say probably so. He's that good a hitter and more importantly he's worth something to the franchise off the field.  But understand his future is just as a hitter. Potentially a first ballot HoF type hitter but a hitter. 

Awards "finalists" are out

Juan Soto is in the MVP list. He probably won't get it - it'll probably be Bryce. But each of the three would make fine winners stripping away team results.

Scherzer is in the Cy Young list.  He's probably third though. Wheeler was the third best pitcher, but still very good and is way ahead on innings.  Burnes probably slightly eeks out better pitcher from Max. 

Dusty is on the MOY list and should get it considering the job he did to deflect all the Astros stuff away, but they love to give it to surprise good teams and MOY is littered with mediocre guys having one-offs so Scott Servais riding a monster amount of luck will probably take it home. 

Nats bring in Francisco Perez off waivers, demote Kyle McGowan

The Indians need to protect a fair amount of prospects enough that some will have to go on the  40 man.  That means someone on the 40 man has to be unprotected and a slightly older question mark young reliever was tops on the list. The Nats snatched up the converted started who has looked pretty good but doesn't have a ton of relief inning behind him. That could mean the 24/25 yo has room to improve or that what he's done so far is an illusion.  Lets split that and say he keeps pitching as he has. That still makes him a useable man in the pen, albeit one of the last arms.  Given the Nats situation there though - grabbing even that to have cheaply for a few years is a good play.  

The question is though - they let Wade Miley pass.  He's a starter who yes pitched over his head but can give you close to 200 IP and alleviate what may be SEVERE innings issues if Strasburg isn't healthy and Corbin isn't right. And for $10 million, you probably aren't getting something this good and reliable.  You'll have to choose one or the other and hope. In the end though the Nats aren't thinking about 2022, they are thinking beyond and the question is whether or not Miley could get them something better than Perez when he's inevitably traded  I think he could have, but it's not a guarantee. A middling to bad season by Miley - which is probably an even bet - would get you something similar. The Nats though made their choice.  Hopefully it means there is someone in FA they are eyeing that they like beyond 2022. 

Off-Season Position Discussion : Outfield

 The Nats OF plan was actually fairly well-laid out coming into the season. Soto anchors RF, Robles shakes off 2020s weirdly bad season and mans CF, newly acquired Schwarber plays left. Disappointing Andrew Stevenson holds down the 4th position for pinch-running and late-inning defensive replacements.  This should be more than fine... as long as someone doesn't get hurt. 

But Schwarber missed a week early and a little more than a week after that, Soto went down for a couple of weeks. Stevenson gave way to Yadiel Hernandez who went from red hot to ice cold in the time it took Soto to get back. A couple weeks after that Robles went down and by June 1st, 50 games into the season Kyle, Victor, and Juan started together just 16 times. To add figurative insult to literal injury all three players started slow.

In June Soto would hit again and Schwarber became SCHWARBER with 16 homers in about as many games to end the month.  Robles didn't improve but you took that in stride, until Schwarber went down with an injury.  With the wheels coming off of the pitching there wasn't any room for a slow down in the offense and the Nats collapsed. That meant the still injured Schwarber would have to go and off he went for a lottery ticket minor league pitcher*. From there Soto and Robles went separate ways. Soto became SOTO again and nearly got himself an MVP** Robles hit even worse and got sent down to AAA so guys they wanted to evaluate like like Lane Thomas and Hernandez could play more. 

Lane Thomas, coming in from the Cardinals, who were stacked in the OF, hit like an All-Star before petering out a little to end the year.  Hernandez, playing full time basically the last two months, hit for decent average and power but showed no patience.

That was basically the OF. Only Stevenson would have more than 16 starts, while Harrison, Parra, Bell and Hernan Perez spent some time out there. 

Presumed Plan - Soto in RF. Thomas in CF/LF to start the year. A FA in the other position. Robles in AAA.

Reasons for Presumed Plan -

Soto in RF. That's given.

Thomas in CF/LF - Thomas isn't a natural CF but can man the position if needed. The problem is if you don't think Soto is great than your CF really can't be just passable or else you leave the OF as having the potential for huge defensive problems. Thomas would fit better defensively if moved over to LF but it becomes a question if can he hit enough. Remember you can chance onto a Schwarber and stick him in left.  

Really it depends on what the Nats pick up in FA.  A CF with good defense and Thomas shifts to left. An offensive LF and Thomas plays CF. There's also a chance they let it ride with Yadiel but an outfield of Yadiel, Lane and Juan Soto is a real risk to be very bad defensively and possibly quite bad offensively in two positions, with our limited knowledge of the non-Sotos. I just can't see the Nats doing that. I imagine we'll see a one-off like Schwarber, someone to play here for a year (with maybe a 2nd year option) with the idea they can be flipped if necessary. Seeing who shakes out and grabbing them for something reasonable and putting Thomas in as then needed. 

Why is Robles in AAA?  Along with bad hitting, Robles had some attitude and focus issues it appears. I think they want to see improvement in a lot of different things before they bring him back.

Why Lane and not Yadi? You go with the guy who's 26/27 next year, not the guy who's 34. Yadi is not part of the next great Nats team.

My Take - 

I still think Soto's not good in the field , and is destined for 1B or DH and will die on that hill but he's good enough right now (and probably for a few more years) and he hits like Ted Williams so you let it be until you are forced to make a move. You aren't forced right now. And it's not like he doesn't try. He'll give it his best shot. Any way this is too much talking about Soto in regards to "where he fits into your plans" He fits anywhere you can fit him.

Thomas over Yadi is a simple age play.  You have to go with Thomas because he could be a guy on the 2025 Nats. Yadi will be 37 in 2025. Yadi also plays bad LF. He's a 1B DH.  Honestly he's a guy that should be on an AL team and the Nats should trade him. I don't think they will.  He's got enough potential at the plate to make the Nats want to at least hold onto him until he breaks out so they can get better value. They are going to run the risk of no one wanting him though. I think they can get org filler for him now. That may not be the case after 2022. 

Thomas... I think we've seen the best of Thomas, but I also think he's likely to be a very solid 4th OF type who can fill in. His patience is impressive so if he can hit like .250 he can hang and I think he can do that. He could also hit like .275 and a little more power and you have a LF for the next 4 seasons. If he does that though - I really hope its not in CF. And while he probably doesn't become something better than a 3rd OF if there's a chance of lucking into something a player from the deep OF system of the Cardinals is the place it could happen

The FA market is ok. There isn't an ideal fit of a multi-year solution that can carry a team like there is at SS. (which is why we haven't talked about it) Marte is the best FA but at 33 you don't want him for a very long time and someone is giving him more than the Nats would or should. Tommy Pham?  Mark Cahna? Corey Dickerson might be ideal. He's a good LF which maybe gives you a little help and has potential for a surprisingly good season. Maybe take on JBJ from the Brewers - a plus CF type who was just awful last year but could just as easily be above average in 2022.  The Brewers don't need him and probably wouldn't mind freeing up cash and it might get you a lottery pick of a minor leaguer to boot.

As for Robles. I do think they want him back. Robles is still only 25 next year and easily has the potential to be a plus CF hitting averagely for the next 3-5 years. That's a big help to any team. (see what MAT is getting at a plus plus CF hitting below average). I think eventually he'll get a chance to work it out in the majors next year one way or the other, but I think he starts in the minors because it gives the Nats time to see what they have in Thomas and the FA and sends a little message to Robles.  

*How'd Aldo Ramirez do? Pretty terrible! But it was only like 7 innings so whatever

**Sorry. Don't get any feeling he'll get it

Off-Season Position Discussion : Third Base

 A foul cursed position! A pox on thee! Out! Out! 

The Nats third base was manned to start mostly by Starlin Castro.  As a player it was odd to watch the fans react to him.  Over two abbreviated seasons he basically did exactly what you'd expect him to do, fill in the roll and fill it averagely, but Nats fans acted like he was the worst player on the field. I think this might have to do with the Nats usual luck bringing in FAs only to watch them have better than expected years. An on-target year? Get out of here.  Castro the person was garbage though and got thrown out of the league basically when it was found he was hitting or otherwise being violent toward his partner. So no tears shed for him. 

When he got kicked out it was the perfect opportunity to see Carter Kieboom get an extended bit of playing time. A nearly untouchable prospect after 2019 primed to replace Rendon crashed and burned over the next season and a half.  He spent 2020's minor league less season up with the Nats and didn't do anything, hitting well below average and impressing no one in the field. 2021 was somehow worse as he struggled back in AAA and continued to look lost in the majors. Not only at the plate but in the field and maybe on the basepaths too? The Nats didn't need Kieboom to break out but it did need to feel like he could handle the position going forward and they didn't get that. It remains a question mark.

For completeness sake - Harrison played here and there as well.

Presumed Plan : Kieboom and doom. Kieboom starts the season at third and they get a pretty solid back-up jack of all trades that will cover for him and likely Garcia and maybe elsewhere.

Reasons for Presumed Plan : The Nats made their Kieboom bed a few years ago and now they have to lie in it. His trade value has plummeted because he's looked so bad so there's no sense in dealing him. There's no one in the minors nipping at his heels so there's no thoughts of internally replacing him. He's too young (24 for 5/6 of next season) to throw in the towel on him. There doesn't seem to be much point in dropping him back down to AAA given the poor results last time. So you try again. Stick him at third. Give him until Memorial Day. See what happens. 

Because he very well might play very poorly, it's important the Nats get a decent back-up and the league is going to be lousy with them. Leury Garcia, Donovan Solano, Josh Harrison redux, Eduardo Escobar, Wilmer Flores maybe, Jonathan Villar, to name a few.  There will also be a spate of guys you can get for nothing who'd probably be ok enough if you get shut out. There's really no excuse not to end up with someone decent at the plate, in the field, or both. Given Kieboom and Garcia both could be limited to 120-130 games if you want, you can probably fit this guy into 100 games no sweat. Especially if you stick him at first or OF or DH. It's worth getting a decent bat even if everything comes up Nats. 

There are name FAs out there - Kyle Seager and Kris Bryant specifically at third. Semien or another SS type if you want to get cute and shift them. Bryant as a commenter noted is of particular interest because he has played a lot of positions and can fit in to a lot of Nats position holes. But I think that makes him of particular interest to a couple better teams, probably closer to his home which puts the Nats in a tough position to get him. Seager is probably available and at this point in his career the D and homers guy is probably ripe for a short term deal for a team he could both help now and could flip him later. KC might be ideal here.

My Take : Yikes.

If you want to brightside this Carter has gotten better at the plate every season from "Is this guy an actual baseball player?" to "well at least he's working the plate" to "bad last man on the bench".  I guess another season could get him to "below average". That's not so say 2021 was entirely awful.  He had a couple of good weeks - one soon after he came up and one in mid-August not long after. That left him at a respectable .259 / .356 / .424 line about 30 games into his season. But he made terrible contact after that - he's a soft hitter and not fast enough to take advantage of that - and hit terrible the rest of the way. 

The BABIP and hit stats suggest some sort of bad luck was involved. Maybe that resolves and he's simply below average next year. That's not that bad and shows a progression at the plate. But given his defensive and baserunning issues it'd still be a guy you wouldn't want to play.  And given his age and experience you couldn't keep assuming more improvement is coming. These issues also showed up in 2020 so the question is not only can this kid hit enough but can he get his head on straight.  It's two full years since we have seen anything but awful play from him. 

The Nats don't have to play him. They can commit to a FA here. But given their need for pitching help (that was the real issue last year), likely huge hole at SS with lots of solutions, and possible upcoming issue in CF this drops in priority because playing Kieboom is an answer. Not one likely to succeed but one you can reason yourself into.  

The Nats play him. If he succeeds, great. If he fails this poorly again in 2022, then you can let him go. If he hits a little better improves a little better in general then... well then they have a problem. Because you'd have to figure out if that was close to his ceiling, make a guess, and move on that. If you are wrong you might lose a cheap position player through the key "convince Soto" years you don't have to think about. If you are wrong the other way you hitch your wagon to someone who hurts your team. Let's hope he succeeds and if not he fails miserably. 

The short here is there is an answer here, the Nats have other problems, and it would probably serve them well to make 100% sure that Kieboom is not the guy. Kieboom starts and probably flops as a guy not quite good at anything except maybe taking a walk.

Off-Season Position Discussion : Shortstop

Luckily we ease into this with the season recap which is fairly simple.  Trea Turner was the Nats shortstop and as one of the better shortstops in baseball put up a very good, nearing great, season at the plate and his usual acceptable fielding season. He also stole another 32 bases which lead the NL. Unfortunately for the Nats fans, this made Trea a hot commodity on the trade market and with the Nats in rebuild mode and unsure if they could re-sign Trea after 2022 it made too much sense not to deal him. Out went Trea, in came Keibert Ruiz*

At SS FA pick-up Alcides Escobar** took over and he actually did quite well. No one expected him to replace Trea and he didn't, but he fields well and hit above average and if the Nats were making any sort of push would have been that "OMG why is this guy doing this good?" player every run has.  (see : Cabrera, Asdrubal 2019).  They did try Garcia out there a few times but that was just kicking tires. No one thinks he's a potential full time SS. 

After the season they resigned Escobar but no one really knows what that means.

Presumed Plan : Huh. Hmmm. Uhhhh. 

The Nats have two wildly divergent possible plans so choosing one is hard. But the point is to make a guess here so I'll do that. I have to presume something.

I think the Nats will go into the season starting Alcides Escobar at shortstop.

Reasons for Presumed Plan :  The Nats don't have a starting SS in the system that's close to the majors. There was mild hope that Carter Kieboom or Luis Garcia might be that guy but fielding wise they are both better at other positions and the Nats basically need a full infield. Yasel Antuna then fit into the long term plan but he had a mixed bag season at High A. He probably still goes up to AA next year but in part to make space for the next guy up. All eyes are now on Brady House, the 2021 1st round draft pick who will move into A ball next year and is the Nats best offensive prospect (I'm not counting Ruiz here who I assume will be in the majors). Rizzo has never been shy about moving guys up quickly so he could move fast but he is still in the low minors. Neither of these guys are in the planning for 2022 and probably not full-season 2023, either. 

That leaves a hole and Alcides Escobar fits it. He still fields well, which can help Garcia and Kieboom and as long as he isn't a terrible hitter the Nats can stick him in and worry about watching kids. 

There are long term options available this year in FA but the Nats are in rebuild mode, have little history of big FA hitter signings, have a mediocre minor league system, and will be a hard sell right now to a player looking for a place to land for the 2nd half of his career.

My take :  First Escboar will be terrible at the plate. He has been pretty much his whole career and 2021's half season was definitely an aberration. Now, there wasn't a huge BABIP swing (it was high but not crazy unsustainable) but here are his last 4 OPS+ values from ages 28-31 for 140g+ each year: 67, 72, 66, 63.  Terrible, Less Terrible, Terrible, More Terrible. He did hit a little better in AAA in 2019 and 2021 but not good enough to translate into above average in the majors for a full year at 35. If the Nats get an 85+ OPS plus (think Jordy Mercer this year) they should be happy. 

OK so why don't they go out and sign someone better?  There are 5 top flight SSs (Correa, Seager, Story, Semien, Baez - ranked in my order.) available this winter. Surely one will be a bargain relatively speaking. Yes there are a lot of guys but a bunch of teams in contention needs SSs.  The Phillies, Astros, Athletics, Reds, Yankees (who have already said they are going to get a SS), and Twins are all going to need one. They all won't sign one (the Athletics are cheap, the Twins need pitching desperately) but 2-3 will. Then there are teams that hope to be competitive if not next year soon after; the Angels, the Tigers, the Marlins. My guess is 4 of 5 guys get mostly what they want from one of these teams. One guy slips and signs a short term deal hoping to get the big deal next time out. 

The short term guy wouldn't make sense for the Nats - even at a relative deal. They aren't looking to have an important FA position to re-sign after 2023. But could they be one of the four?  Perhaps.  I think they should be. But I think Correa and Seager get their big time market-setting deals. We all know the Nats aren't market-setters. And I think two of the other two will get market rate deals, the Nats might pay that - it's cheaper than it has been in the past - but I also think they aren't in that mindset. They've always been a sign pitching long-term type of team and it worked for them until Corbin. Also the Nats not getting the surer things and having to take a chance on good but not perfect Story (Coors), Baez (Ks), or Semien (old) gives me pause I'm sure the Nats have too. From the player's perspective the best chance is probably Baez, as Story and Semien are probably both looking for contenders. Baez, who won a series with the Cubs in 2016 might be more amenable to waiting.

To pull that altogether: I think the Nats need to sign a long-term SS. If they want to be good before Soto's FA comes back, they have to be because House is not likely to get up and make an impact in time. But I think they aren't looking to bust the bank this off-season because they don't know how all this is going to come together. If the pitching doesn't get right and enough young guys don't take a step forward you have to pull back on plans. That's kind of what happened this year. The pitching fell apart, the last chances for Ross and Fedde came up empty, Garcia and Kieboom did not break out or even look ok, Robles REgressed, no other young pitcher close to the majors surprised. It was a complete failure and the Nats responded as they had to - giving up on this season and the next. A repeat complete failure will make them do something similar. But they have to see and that means they have to wait. Waiting isn't necessarily bad. Trea could be back on the market after next season, same with Bogaerts, but it still means this market has to come to them, they aren't coming to the market. 

So IF things work out - if two guys are left in the cold late in FA, or if it's Baez that finds himself on the outs, we could see the Nats sweep in and get someone. But I'm not going to pin my hopes on things working out with what other teams do in FA.  They'll all see the same things the Nats will and if the Nats are looking to get a deal on Baez or whoever other teams will see the same and a SS can be a 2B or 3B pretty easily. The Giants could use a 2B as could the White Sox and the Blue Jays (who traded for Semien and stuck him there). The Brewers could use someone at 3rd. In the end I think other teams will either be more enticing or will provide better deals than the less than all-in Nats. And that means the Nats are waiting out another year, hoping that House had a great minor league season and if not that another 3 top-notch SSs are available again after 2022.

*That's pretty much how you can think of the deal. A year-plus of Turner for the ready now C of the future, a couple months of Max for the maybe 3rd, probably 4th starter and couple of throw-ins, one intriguing one not.  

**Sort of - they actually traded money for him to get him from the Royals where he was hitting like Alcides would in AAA.

Off-Season Position Discussion : Second Base

2nd base for the Nats in 2021 was the temporary fix of Josh Harrison with the hopes that eventually Luis Garcia would graduate to the role. Harrison played fine and hit well which made him a trade target and eventually saw him shipped to the A's.  Garcia was yo-yo'd up and down as the first injury replacement (or maybe initially the second but Kieboom was so bad) and never quite got the hang of the majors, sitting around a .200 average. After the trade deadline he was up for good and he flirted a couple time with looking like he was settling in only to slump again. However the last half of September provided some hope as Garcia hit .290+ in arguably his longest stretch of decent hitting of his career.

Jordy Mercer played 2B as well but he was a veteran stop-gap and there isn't much reason to talk about him. Well at least right now

Presumed Plan : Garcia first up with some sort of veteran stop gap back-up. 

Reasoning behind Presumed Plan : You can't fill every position with a FA, and the Nats only have so many (or really so few) prospects. Garcia is one of them, he hit in AAA last year, so he starts, much like Ruiz at catcher. While he never settled, he also never looked overwhelmed and given he'll be an old 21 next year that's perfectly fine. He should get all next year to try to make it work, and probably a year or two more after that depending. This not only is about hitting. Garcia's fielding wasn't all that great and if he can't play 2B and is able to hit but needs to be shifted to 3B that's something useful to know sooner rather than later. 

Since next year is a lost year it really shouldn't matter who they bring back to fill that role. For example if they do go out and sign a SS then Alcides Escobar can probably fill that role while also backing up SS.  I'd expect this person to start less than 20 games next year unless something goes terribly wrong with Garcia. That can happen (see, Kieboom, Carter) but most likely if he's not good that means he bottomed out at below average and you just let him play through it.

My take : Yes. Do this. Garcia may not be ready, but he's hit .254 over 110 major league games now so I don't see what sending him back down to the minors would help. He doesn't strike out much, especially in this day and age. His K rate was 17%, so he's not learning that. He hit for power in AAA in a way he didn't in the majors (or any time else in his career), so he's not working on that. Walks? Yeah he could definitely use some work there but are you going to really send him down for patience and fielding practice? Maybe if you were a manipulative GM and the clock hadn't started but Rizzo isn't that and it has. 

So he plays and he plays as often as possible. 4 out of every 5 days or so would work. Expectations for next year should be pretty low. Maybe a .260 average and 15 homers (and like 30 walks - seriously he does need to work on that)? And if he's there, great! That's real close to league average. You bump it up in 2023 to something like .275 and 20 and 40 walks and you have a useful major leaguer.  If he's not there, that's fine too. You mark 2023 as needing to see some improvement. Again he's 21/22 next year. Precious few players are Soto or Bryce types who can give you something even GOOD at that age. 

The only thing that derails this plan is if it's Memorial Day and he's hitting like .150 or .190 with 1 homer or hitting .210 with 3 homers but striking out a third of the time. You know, problems. He's gotta give you SOMETHING and you can't be worried about him getting messed up in the majors. That's all. There's the line. 

As for the back-up.  Doesn't matter much. If they don't sign a SS, Alcides gets penciled in there and you sign a bargain basement type for a million and forget about it. That's the "right now" part in the Mercer evaluation above. You need someone to stick in there if Garcia needs a day off. Mercer was fine in that role this year. Personally I see more value in someone that can teach Garcia some defense. Taking a quick glance Jason Kipnis, who spent all of 2021 in the minors for ATL even though he arguably could have been someones spot starter, isn't a bad choice. Seems perfect in the Nats "you used to be good, come here and have one more good year for us" strategy. But you get the point 

With Kieboom entering on-field bust territory, Garcia is the future of the Nats IF along with Brady House who could be here in 2023 or 2025 - we don't know.  What we do know is Garcia is here now and we should see all the Garcia we can possibly take next season. 

Off-Season Position Discussion : First Base

As we went over in "lucky/unlucky" the Nats, or more precisely Mike Rizzo, actually did quite well in offensive pick-ups last year, bringing in a number of players who performed near the top of expectations. One of those players was Josh Bell, who the Nats traded for right before Christmas*. Along with Ryan Zimmerman, Bell manned first base for pretty much the entire season and after a dreadfully slow start (bottomed out at .133 / .198 / .289 on May the 12th) he'd perform quite well in the remaining 75% of the season (.287 / .375 / .513) and end up with a season like you probably would have hoped from Josh; ok average, a few walks, some good power. Add in passable defense and a likeable personality and he's a steal for his price (likely around 10 million next year)

Zimmerman hit just ok and can't really move anymore. The splits show that there is still a future there for a LHP killer (.291 / .319 / .582 vs LHP) but all indications from the last home stand pointed to a LAST home stand.

Presumed Plan : Bell returns at first base. He's backed up by some player they are evaluating who has nowhere else to play. Maybe Yadiel Hernandez, Riley Adams, or even Carter Kieboom if they just want to give him at bats. Maybe someone they haven't acquired yet.

Reasoning Behind Presumed Plan: With 2021 Bell proved he was good, not bad, which was a question after a weak 2020 and only one season that was clearly better than average. You have a good player at a reasonable contract. You have no immediate alternatives. Sometimes it isn't hard.

With the Nats in rebuild mode, signing a veteran to back-up Bell doesn't make much sense. Better use would be getting ABs / playing time for guys you don't have other positions for. I won't argue that Zimm for his token salary wouldn't be a decent choice but that's up to him and he seems to be checking out. 

My take : To trade or not to trade? The only way Bell improves on his value is if he is red hot out of the gate and is one of the best 1B in baseball in the first half. Otherwise his value goes down with less playing time for the other team. That's not even considering the real possibility he hits something more middling. A little less power, maybe a dip in average and/or patience. So if they Nats are really rebuilding, sending Bell off now makes a decent amount of sense... unless you are going to extend him. 

At 29/30 for next year you probably have a few more good years left in Josh's bat and a couple more seasons before you have to pull him from first. The Nats have no good alternatives coming up so if they aim to be good again sooner (2023) rather than later (2025) then extending Josh makes a lot of sense too. 

So really a lot of light about the Nats future will be shed based on their decisions on Josh. Extend? They are likely aiming for a quick rebuild. Sit? Less sure about whether they can put together that next competitive team so quickly.  Trade? They probably are giving up for a few years.... unless they sign a big name FA. 

You can be a lot more certain at being good at 1B quickly if you sign Freddie Freeman or Anthony Rizzo. Add in a SS and you've kind of got an offense back already. But Freeman will be a hard pull from ATL and Rizzo is on the way down and questionably worth the difference in price from Bell. Gurriel? OLD. Belt? Hurt now and also likely to want to go back to SF.  This sounds good but is unlikely.

Why not sign a true back-up?  I suppose you might if there's a D first veteran out there. Travis Shaw? But I don't see much of a point.  Bell is good enough to play pretty much everyday and back-up first is a good place to stick a bat you are interested in but don't have a position for. The Nats should have someone like that or should pick-up guys like that. If they keep Bell this is the right path forward for a season that doesn't matter outside of setting up 2023 or beyond. 

As for Zimm, I think he either truly hasn't decided (might be waiting for a DH decision, having a desire to just get up and whack the ball for 150 games before going home for good) or he has but the org hasn't exactly decided what his role will be and they are waiting for that to make an announcement. Either way he won't be playing much 1B and almost certainly not after next year. He'd only be there if you need him or he's hitting so well he has to play (hard to see in what should be a lost season) 

So I think the presumed plan makes sense to me provided they make a decision on Bell now. Trade or extend. Long term rebuild or quick one. But don't sit and take a chance he loses value. You can get something back for him now.  A completely average Josh in July gets back a lot less.

*traded for Eddy Yean and Wil Crowe.  How'd they do?  Yean, a 20 pitcher, struggled mightily in A ball. Really bad start, decent middle, bad finish. My guess is he's a full time reliever next year. Crowe pitched in the majors (he did for the Nats too last year if you forgot) and pitched a lot. Started 25 games and pitched 120 innings. Not good. He's not as good as Ross/Fedde but he can eat innings at the back of a terrible rotation for Pittsburgh for another year or two hoping something clicks.

Off-Season Position Discussion : Catcher

The beat goes on. The season is weeks over, nearly every team is done playing and the Nats are looking toward 2022 and what that means exactly we don't know yet.  For the first time since... the off-season of 2010 I guess, the Nats aren't gearing up for a potential playoff run. We can argue about 2010 even as the Nats went into that off-season with dreams of Cliff Lee and other FA signings (they ended up with pretty much just Werth) but I'd consider that set-up for 2012 and beyond, not a real belief they could compete in 2011. Anyway, we don't know for sure what the Nats are planning for in 2022.  A quick rebuild to compete seems very unlikely given the resources at hand. A continued tear-down also doesn't seem in the cards considering the trades made for upper minors talent and the elephant in the room of Prime Soto being wasted. That leaves a modest rebuild, where they gather a few pieces in this off-season to start the process with the eyes on finishing it next off-season and being back competing in 2023. 

But that's just a guess.

Keep that in mind as we discuss these things because that's the place my presumed Nats plans are coming from. If the Nats swerve in another direction these could be completely wrong. 

As far as catcher goes, this year Yan Gomes was elevated to "pretty much #1" and he was starting like 2 out of every three games before getting injured and then traded. He was doing pretty well, too showing that the terrible 2016 season was the fluke and while he can be up and down, the downs aren't unplayable and the ups are a relative steal. Avila was the primary back-up and was fine for a back-up. He was also down when Gomes got hurt, leaving catching duties to Tres Barrera who was also fine (a lot of walks mostly) and Rene Rivera (not good). But no one in the organization is high on Barrera anymore as a starter and the Nats traded for three catchers. First in play was the older, less prospecty Riley Adams, and after getting a bit more seasoning the Nats saw young, real prospect Keibert Ruiz. Riley would be surprisingly good. Ruiz decent, especially late. 

You might look at this and say "Hey this all sounds surprisingly good" It was! Without looking too much into defense one could argue the Nats had maybe the 2nd best catching situation in the majors behind Tampa. Granted that's almost certainly an overreach (Sal Perez in KC and Posey in SF come to mind even if Sal's D is gone and Posey can only play 60% of a season) but Top 5? Maybe. Top 10? Almost certainly. That's pretty good for 2/3rds a year of Yan Gomes and whatever.

Presumed Plan : Keibert Ruiz starts and Tres Barrera backs-up. Riley Adams either sits in AAA, shifts positions, or is traded

Reasoning behind Presumed Plan : Keibert as a starter is a no brainer. Ruiz worked his way through the minors quickly but not overly so. He had a minor "stumble" in AA in 2019 where he seemed to lose his power stroke, which caused him to drop back in the prospect rankings but he was also 20 at the time. As a 22 year old in AAA this year he bounced back and everything seemed to click. He was slashing .311 / .381 / .631 in Oklahoma City and was arguably the key piece in the Scherzer/Turner deal to LA.* The move from the more offensively minded used to be PCL to the used to be ECL didn't change anything and after getting all the constant ABs the Nats felt he needed, Ruiz debuted in the majors. It wasn't smooth sailing at first but a late rally had him finishing the season at .284 / .348 / .395. 

Ruiz is still a work in progress and while he'll likely be on ROY short lists, no one would be surprised if next year is a struggle. He has all the tools to be good but he can get a little lazy, particularly on defense. He's seen as the long term (re: through 2026) solution at catcher and that means only a real crash and burn next year would derail those plans. 

Shorter : You traded for this guy to be your catcher. You are playing him when he's ready to be in the majors and he's ready to be in the majors. 

Tres Barrera is a long term Nats prospect who is sort of a "catcher's catcher". He plays constantly - college, summer, fall, foreign - and is seen as a guy who studies his craft and looks to learn and improve constantly. A leader type with plus defense who presents the type of guy you'd like Ruiz to emulate... if you are to believe the failed PED test was an accident which maybe?** I mean he is suing MLB which is a funny tack to take if you were straight up juicing. What's holding Barrera back from being more is his hitting, which given his age (27) and minor league history - won't ever be great, or even good. But as shown this year he might be able to hold his own and for a back-up C that you like for every other reason that's good enough. 

Adams is a far more interesting hitting prospect than Barrera, as Nats fans caught a glimpse of in his month of playing, but he's a big guy whose fielding is a question. You might consider him as a bat-first backup of a defense first catcher but that's not what Ruiz is, so it's hard to see him ending up as his back-up instead of Barrera. You could also try shifting him over to another position, but as he's still capable, if not good, behind the plate, it seems like a waste to do that. So really your choices are stick him in AAA try to make him better (his K rate is very high and suggests a very low .200 BA ceiling in the majors) as a potential injury/failure replacement for Ruiz or as better trade bait, or just trade him now.  He was about as good as one could hope for in his month with the Nats, flashing a power/patience combo that he's rarely shown. He could very well be at his highest value now.

My take : This seems right. Ruiz IS the future at catcher, or at least the Nats hope so. All signs have been positive up until now. The only reason the Nats could get him is the Dodgers already have a very good young catcher in the majors (26yo Will Smith) and a very good prospect in the minors (barely 20yo Diego Cartaya who will be in the Top 50 prospects across the board before 2022). He makes FANTASTIC contact striking out only 183 times in almost 1900 minor league plate appearances, giving the Nats what could be a very special contact-heavy team with him, Soto, and Luis Garcia (if Garcia improves enough to stick). I'm not sure if the BA will be high enough or the power consistent enough to be a multi-year All-Star type but I'd be surprised if he's not at least average.  This goes as well for his defense which probably will never be great but seems fine relying more on talent than max effort. 

Backing up with Barrera instead of Adams is not directly utilizing a strength but it also is hitting probably the average back-up catcher offense in baseball. It's a tough position to fill. Everyone seems to like his defense. Everyone seems to like his attitude. He brings the "veteran catcher" to the team without having to go out and grab... let's say an Austin Romine... who probably wouldn't be any better. As long as Barrera isn't useless at the plate it's ok. It's only if Ruiz goes down, and really for like a couple years because 2022 doesn't matter much, where back-up Barrera looks like a mistake. 

If you don't stick Adams behind Ruiz, then how to best utilize this "two young catcher advantage"? Frankly I prefer trading him. I don't think his stock will ever be higher. There are just so many Ks and Adams isn't particularly young (he'll be 26 in June) meaning I don't see much improvement there. His cup of coffee with TOR was dreadful, his AAA time was here and there. If you can get a young relief arm of any interest - the Nats need as many of those as they can get. But BUT the Nats C situation in the minors beyond Adams isn't that great. Drew Millas - another trade get - is supposed to be sparkling behind the plate, but bat is a big question. Israel Pineda - a int'l signee - is super young, but also flailing and could easily top out in AA. If Ruiz doesn't pan out do you really want to let a potential starter go? 

In the end though I think Adams likelihood to end up a good major league starter is slim enough that dealing him makes more sense.  Get something with a little more major league certainty back and let another team see if they can get lucky.  

*I'd call Grey 1a. The consensus at the trade time seemed to be Ruiz could very well be a star, while Gray is likely just a solid contributor. 

** I'm not the type to be soft on people who fail PED tests but the story on Barrera and his particular group is that they are failing for EXTREMELY small amounts of a steroid not used regularly in a couple generations of athletes. Very questionable that it's actually a performance-enhancing amount rather than some relic number set years ago that doesn't stand up to scrutiny for the spirit of what they are trying to do.

Lucky or Unlucky : 2021

After a one year COVID hiatus, Lucky or Unlucky is back. This is where I go over the performances in the Nats season looking for where the Nats... well got lucky or unlucky. Mainly I do this because I think this is what drives a successful season as much as talent. 

UNLUCKY

Strasburg is hurt and barely pitches.  The second part of that statement is necessary because "Strasburg is hurt" is not unlucky. It's expected. The man has pitched in 12 seasons and had a full healthy season twice. You expect him to throw anywhere from 22 to 28 games (re: miss two months or miss a month). Outside of that is where luck comes in. Yes Strasburg was hurt in 2020 but all indications is he was a go for 2021. He really wasn't. He only had two starts before going on the IL and then three more starts before needing surgery.  Now he could be really hurt, like dunzo hurt. But that's for unlucky 2022. 

Corbin was terrible. Again something hinted at in 2020 but a performance like 2020, where he probably deserved an ERA closer to 4.00, was never out of the question. 2018/2019 could be a peak and the rest of his Nationals time could be spent eating innings as a 3/4.  If only.  Corbin lost the ability to locate the fastball, making it useless setting up the slider. Worst yet he'd lose it more over the plate and that meant a lot more homers at a time homers were coming back down. It was a unexpectedly terrible year. 

Robles crash.  The last of the "we saw this coming in 2020" Victor hit terribly last year but that seemed like an aberration. He may not be good, but historically he's around average and with better than average fielding and speed you take that.  You can't take .203 / .310 /.295.  It wouldn't have been so bad if not for the fact the Nats really wanted him to leadoff which accentuated the failure.

Castro is a ass who is out of baseball now. There was some indication of this in his past but almost a decade had passed with no public incident. It was fair to think of that as something he had learned from and thankfully moved past. Nope. Bye jerk.  On a less important but relevant for this discussion baseball level the Nats had to fill an unexpected hole.  

Brad Hand hit the wall.  The Nats finally spent on very good relief pitching. A guy who had pitched to an under 3.00 ERA in 4 of the previous 5 seasons and deserved those numbers. But something broke and he couldn't K anyone anymore, especially as the season wore on. The Nats were super lucky that they were able to get something for this guy but also super unlucky that he broke on their watch because a Hand at the level he should have been could have kept the Nats in the hunt and then who knows what they do down the stretch and how the season ends?*

LUCKY

Schwarber refound his star stroke.  You know back around 2016 Schwarber was so coveted the Yanks wanted him for Chapman? And the Cubs said no? He rewarded the Cubs confidence in him by mucking around for a few years hitting homers, walking some but looking like he was half-trying.  Maybe FA lit a fire under him but he once again looked like a player you'd want to build a team around. A pure 40+ homer slugger who could hit and walk enough otherwise to be a star.

Nats veteran bats do well. Harrison? Bell? Escobar? Avila? Yes even Jordy Mercer had seasons at the plate for the Nats that ranged from a little better to a lot better than they did the previous year.  Hell even 5 game stop gap Jon Lucroy did too.  And the one that didn't? Parra? Well he didn't perform much worse than expected. This is important to remember when looking at the Nats offense and projecting it out to next year. They really did hit on pick-ups over and over again, even if for someone like Mercer that was getting a usable month from a guy that should have retired in 2019. 

Lane Thomas and Riley Adams Superstars?  No, they aren't. But for their brief Nats tenures so far they hit like it. So when the original vet pick-ups were traded away guys like this kept it going. Along with Soto of course.

Hudson quietly was very good... for the Nats.  In 2020 Hudson looked bad. That kind of made karmic sense as in 2019 he got real lucky. He's a 4-5 ERA guy, except for another half-season he wasn't for the Nats letting them trade him off for something. Then he fell apart. Thanks for the memories and the timing.  

AS EXPECTED

Max was Max... and Ross was Ross and Fedde was Fedde (and Lester didn't have one more good year in him).  The rest of the rotation went as expected. Two pitchers failing and none overperforming is bad enough. That it was your 1A and your 2? Yeah that was a problem 

Soto was Soto.  Well to be fair he wasn't Soto early and then we was SOTO late, but that's sometimes how seasons are.  Soto is one of the best hitters in baseball, and quite possibly THE best hitter of his generation and he's in his prime. 

Yan Gomes did well. Trea Turner was a star. Zimm hit. All these had a spread of possible outcomes. Gomes was at the top of his, Turner near the top, Zimm about on target. Almost everything good, but also not too far out of line. The Nats didn't build a bad team on offense it just started SO slow and then the pitching was so bad we didn't notice when it got back to normal. 

Homegrown strikes out Stevenson? Bad. Kieboom? Worse. Garcia? Not there yet. There were some decent performances. Tres Barrera, Yadiel Hernandez late, but there was also AAA replacements like Adrian Sanchez and Hernan Perez giving nothing and taking something away.  Overall the Nats internal replacements were not good. But this isn't a surprise. The Nats system was ranked low. It's not good. This is what you get. 

Other trades were in line Adams and Thomas overshot their expectations, but Ruiz didn't (although he looked good in that last week) and Gray and Thompson struggled. It happens. 

The rest of the relief pitching stunk But yeah look at it, that isn't a shock. I guess that  Rainey was so bad and Harris wasn't usable was a little on the unlucky side but you could have seen it coming. They put together a 2 man pen, hoped the rest would come together. One man failed and everything else fell apart. Maybe it was a domino effect of the starting pitching and Davey's tendency to overwarm? I don't know but I'm not going to claim this garbage pen was a surprise even if it was the literal worst.

Overall one can argue the Nats were almost as lucky and they were unlucky but the quality matters as much as the quantity.  The Nats hitting was mostly a bunch of little victories. Guys overall doing better than expected but only one having a star run, and the one that had a star run was for a limited time with a slow start and a a mid-season injury. It arguably was almost countered by the crash of another bat. Meanwhile while the bulk of pitching - back end of the rotation, back of the pen - mirror imaged the bats with a bunch of minor failures. Except there were big failures here, too and no big positives to match these big crashes. 

To put it another way - the veteran bats and the couple trade surprises matched the Ross/Fedde/bulk of pen disappointments. The Schwarber run and Hudson performance was mostly matched by the Robles crash and Hand's issue  But there was no matching for the Strasburg and Corbin issues and those were HUGE issues. Like -6 game issues at the time of the trade deadline. Add in a little general baseball season bad luck and a 55-49 team is 48-56. A 55 win team at that point is an 85-86 win team in general. 

It's probably not enough to get the Nats back in, even under the best of circumstances. The Strasburg and Corbin issues didn't resolve, a lot of those veteran bats who hit better for the Nats didn't as the season winded down and without luck this is only an 87+ win team to start with. The Nats system wasn't good enough to add impact players (no way I see Rizzo trading ANYone with actual talent) so they probably fall a game or two short even adding a couple guys. Even if they do sneak in and win that WC game with Max on the mound - There is just no way to see this rotation and bullpen winning anything beyond that. This was a team that needed to be lucky to get in and win, and got unlucky instead which lead to the teardown. Probably necessary. Still painful I bet

*presumably they trade no one, add a little and end up falling short of the hard charging Braves to end the year with a win total in the low-mid 80s.

Why they lost - San Fran

The checked swing.

 

 

 

Ok you want some more.

Half the offense checked out - San Fran scored the second most runs in the NL this year mostly through a "no-one be bad" offensive strategy. Not that you'd get above average performance from everyone every week, but when someone was bad, some one else was great, and most everyone else was still ok. There wasn't a 3 or 4 or 5 guys all slumping at the same time.  Well in this series there were.  Solano (0-8) Yaz (0-13) Flores (1-12). Wade (1-10) Longoria (2-17) Ruf (1-11 yes the homer was his only hit)  Dickerson and Duggar a combined 0-7 all had rough series and it showed with the Giants scoring 6 runs in the last 4 games.  The whole replacement part theory doesn't work in these instances. Only Bryant was above a .900 OPS for the series.  A lot of bad, very little great.  Compare this to SF vs LA in the regular series. Crawford, Flores, Posey, Wade, Slater all OPS'd over .900 so Yaz, Belt, Rug , Dickerson could all OPS under .650.  That's the way the team worked all year, players picking up players, until this series 

Power outage while standing still - You can maybe survive getting no hits, which LA's staff was the best at keeping you from, if you can walk and/or homer. The LA staff was good at keeping you from those too, just not as much. The Giants had the most homers in the NL this year and the second most walks.  After G1 where they hit 3 homers, it looked like they'd slug their way to the series win. They hit two more the entire series. They only walked 6 times. The Dodgers pitching won the battle against the Giants hitting. With ease. 

Not pitcher perfect With the offense not performing the Giants were gonna have to pitch like crazy and let fate help them win the close games. They did not all pitch like crazy. Gausman had second half issues and DeSclafini showed some inconsistency during the year. Both had bad outings. That was bad but it wasn't a surprise. Leone - lights out since coming back in June and sort of the "next guy up" after Rogers, Doval, and McGee - being terrible was. The Giants had a little margin for error with Webb being so good, but they couldn't take advantage of it.

Taint funny McGee - Jake McGee was the Giants closer all year long, but he sputtered a little late and missed a couple weeks in September putting his post-season use in question. Kapler decided to use Doval, a guy with lights-out stuff, as the closer and McGee as another arm. Looking at the ERAs it's hard to argue but Doval looked pressured in his one "have to win or the season is over" chance in a way a vet like McGee might not have been. Of course use McGee and fail and the complaints are even more obvious. Still we can only know what did happen and Doval was wild and left pitches up.

If you want it in short - this was a world class battle between the best hitters and pitchers in the NL and the Dodgers pitchers bullied the Giants bats. The other battle being more even (Dodgers bats were alive in 2 games, absolutely dead in 3) meant the Dodgers would take this series.

Why they lost - Brewers and White Sox

 You got it from the headline - let's dig in

Brewers didn't do anything to the offense. The Brewers offense was decent this season but it was kind of an illusion. The didn't get hits, they didn't hit for power.  All they did was walk and get timely hits and guess what? Getting timely hits isn't a dependable repeatable skill beyond getting hits in general. Rather than a big move to allow the offense a chance to compliment the pitching the Brewers only brought in perfectly decent Eduardo Escobar. Unsurprisingly they didn't get hits and they didn't hit for power (5 XBH in 4 games) and they couldn't walk enough against a good pitching staff to make up for that. 21 straight innings without a run is going to be pretty much a series killer 

Counsell got too antsy. Dying for some sort of offense in Game 3 Counsell pulled Freddy Peralta, who was doing perfectly well shutting down the Braves, pinch hitting for him in a 2nd and 3rd and one-out situation.  The PH didn't come through and the Braves pounced on Houser who they had seen for two innings in game 1.  Never pull a working pitcher early, I say. 

RP injuries - Suter one of the Brewers perfectly good middle relievers got an oblique strain right before the playoffs. Williams, probably the Brewers 2nd best reliever, punched something in anger and hurt his hand. The combo meant the Brewers would carry a guy they wouldn't even use in the series (he's ok but really on there to eat innings in a blowout - a scenario that never came in this series).  This meant even though they didn't have a lot of relief work early they did use everyone they liked by the time G3 rolled around. So Counsell's early pull was even more problematic. But it all stems from the offense, if the offense had hit better they could have stretched pitchers more.  

White Sox starters went wild. If there was one thing the White Sox pitching staff did only well, not great, it was limiting walks. The Astros were pretty good at getting walks. all in all you'd expect some walks here but nothing crazy. But in 34 innings the White Sox gave up 18 free passes, including 12 in 12.1 IP by the starters. The Astros were going to get hits, that's what they do. They don't have to get walks or hit homers, that's how you might stop them. By giving them walks the White Sox gave them a way to turn those singles and doubles into a lot of runs and a lot of runs early. It also made these games bullpen games for the White Sox. No team is well prepared for 3-4 bullpen games

The White Sox batters didn't wear out the Astros enough.  The Sox were second best at taking walks and the Astros are a wild throwing bunch. The combo should lead to a lot of White Sox baserunners. But they couldn't quite pull it off. No particular villain here. 

Lance McCullers was really good OK OK while I said usually players don't go above and beyond Lance McCullers did. He pitched more innings than anyone in a CS so far (but a very good chance Webb will pass him) and his pitched better than anyone even close, giving up 12 baserunners yes, but only two XBH both to Gavin Sheets, while striking out 9. 

Why they lost - Rays Edition

I've talked about this several times but I'm a "teams don't win, they lose" type of guy.  Rare are performances where someone goes above and beyond to accomplish in games. Far more likely are the times when one team just does what they are supposed to and the other team fails to. This isn't an indictment on those teams - if it were easy to always do what you were supposed to then everyone would do it - but it is a different way of looking at things. In baseball that means looking at a game and seeing players mostly getting hits because of pitches missing spots as opposed to great approaches, or conversely Ks happening more on ill advised swings then a great pitch sequence followed by a killer out pitch. 

Playing this out all the way - here are the reasons the Rays lost the series

1)  Half the line-up went dead.   It's one thing to slump. It's another to watch 4 of your hitters go 8-65 with 2XBH and only 3BBs against a team who's pitching staff is merely ok and not at all top heavy (which can help them - see the Nats in 2019). This was highlighted by Brandon Lowe being especially awful going 0-18 with 9Ks.  The fact they consistently scored is pretty amazing but also they should have blown the doors off the Red Sox in the series. 

2) Cash accentuated the above problem.   In the playoffs there is no room for loyalty or wishy-washiness. If a guy is struggling and looks bad doing it you gotta drop them in the line-up and let them sit there until they figure things out.*  Ideally you drop everyone down but it was the Rays 3-4-5 (and 8) struggling so you can only do so much. Still Lowe should have been pulled from the 3 and dropped down to 6 or 7 and something new done in 3-4-5.  He WAS pulled from the 3 in Game 3... but Cash inexplicably moved him to the 1**. Lowe promptly went 0-6.

3) The Rays tried to sneak through using a prospect. Shane Baz should be great... at some point, but right now he's an unknown. The Rays were counting on him to give them some innings in game 2 but he stunk giving up 6 hits and a walk in 2 1/3 and setting in motion the big G2 loss that should have been a back breaking Sale failure. Why did they need to do this? Well Tyler Glasnow got hurt but also they traded their good veteran arm Rich Hill at the trade deadline because... well we can come up with a bunch of reasons but money probably does play into it in some way.  Hill might have not been any better but he obviously couldn't have lost more.

4) "Relief" pitching failures. But starters aren't what the Rays are about. They are about throwing out 6 guys in relief and getting the job done.  Unfortunately for the Rays a big part of relief success is the inexperience seeing a guy.  You bring in 5 guys a game in a 3 games series and one batter would be lucky to get 3 times at bat total against a guy.  But this starts to fall apart over the course of the season against a divisional opponent - which the Red Sox are. Pretty much each dependable relief arm - spot starter Rasmussen, McHugh, Wisler, McClanahan, had a straight up failure appearance. So something worse than a 1 inning 1 run disappointment but you'll take it type. In a short series where this is what your best guys are doing, you can't survive that.

5) Rays didn't exploit any advantage really. The Rays aren't adverse to a timely steal and the Red Sox aren't particularly good at stopping them, yet they only stole two bases - one of them the Randy steal of home. The Rays take walks and the Red Sox give them, yet the Rays didn't get many. The Rays pitchers strike out guys and the Red Sox can strike out some, yet the Rays couldn't strike out enough. There are certainly things the Red Sox could do to affect all of these but these weren't Sox strengths beating Rays strengths, places there were a question of who might excel, but instead places that were reasonably good bets for the Rays to succeed so the more likely scenario, to me, is the Rays failed. (confirmatory deep dive stats take a while to compile since most sites don't bother keeping them for short series)

*I'll add the caveat if it's THE guy for your team - like Juan Soto this year - this does not apply. You just gotta suck that up and hope he returns to form. 

** More insanely he moved Meadows, who was on the bench the first two to 3, and moved the spark plug Arozarena to 6.  SIX! If people cared about the Rays they'd be more mad at this awful managing decision.

Monday Quickie - Rules of Engagement

 But you know, funny. Or at least funnier. 

There were two rules things that went on last night that I want to talk to here.

Boston vs Tampa - Dumb rule, ruled right. 

In extra-innings, Kevin Kiermaier hit a ball to the wall that should have scored, would have scored Yandy Diaz to give Tampa a lead.  But the ball caromed off of Hunter Renfroe and went over the stupid short walls in the Boston OF. The umpires got together and sent Yandy back to third even though he was well on the way to scoring. 

The thing is the rule is clear. Much like a regular automatic double, where the ball bounces into the stands or gets stuck in a wall or goes under a tarp, etc., if the ball bounces off a player and goes into the stands it's two bases from the time of the pitch. That's what's implied in the MLB rules and explicitly spelled out apparently, in the umps manual. There are other occasions where the two bases awarded are from the time of the incident, like a throw into the stands, but this is not one of them. There isn't anything to argue here in terms of whether the rule was applied correctly.  Hate it? Fine. Wrong? Nope.

Now should the rule be like this? Why does it exist? Can we change it?  All good questions. 

Why does it exist?  Don't know.  I'm not a baseball rule historian. Twitter bandied about a few ideas.  My thought it probably came from a time where there weren't always full sets of umps and there were games in weird parks late in the evening with no lighting and there was a pretty good chance you couldn't see where the runners were at the moment the ball went out of bounds*. If that's the case, since these things happen quickly usually, you can see how two bases from the pitch seems the best bad solution.

Should the rule be like this? Like I said... it's probably the best of several bad solutions.  I think the less discretion given to the umpires the better. While you open up the ability for umpires to make a good decision, you do the reverse as well. Rules should be as objective as possible to maintain the necessary consistency. 

Can we change it? So in my mind to change it we would have to find a way to change it that isn't "well let the ump figure it out".  I can think of three ways it could be done. (1) change all automatic doubles always to two bases from time it goes out of bounds. There's a lot of umps now and good lighting and mostly normal park - they can see where players are... or can they? They already huddle up for any throw OOB. This would be a lot of ump huddles and they'd still get things incorrect at times. Do you want arguing if a guy was a foot before 2nd or a foot after 2nd when it crossed the plane of the OF fence? I don't, at least not on every automatic double. This kind of extra rule work is exactly what the game doesn't need. (2) If the ball hits the OF wall first before caroming off a player then it's from the location of the players on the basepaths.  I like this one, just because it satisfies the "rule must change crowd" makes a reasonable amount of sense (1-2 extra seconds means more chance runners have gotten around), and it would happen so rarely it wouldn't effect much of anything, or (3) like (1) but we use the guys in the booth to make these decisions. Is this better or worse than 1? I think worse. You'd get more calls right but you wouldn't get ALL calls right and if not what are we doing adding all this time and effort? 

Astros v  White Sox - It's hard to rely on their good intentions

In the 4th inning Yasmani Grandal hit a ground ball to a drawn in Yuri Gurriel at first, he decided to go home to try to catch Robert trying to score from third.  The throw glanced off Gurriel and went past the catcher, scoring the run and giving the White Sox a man on first. 

The rule here is NOT clear, or at least it is not black and white and in fact it goes into two separate grey parts of the baseball rule book, ending with a umpire subjective call. 

The first gray area of the rules is the idea of "basepaths". We think a runner has to run in a straight line from base to base, or at least as best they can. But there is actually nothing in the rules that states that to be the case. With one exception the only time that basepaths actually come into play is when a fielder has a ball in his hand and is trying to tag a runner.  The runners path is set at that time to be a rough straight line from where he is when this starts to the bag he is trying to go to.  As you can tell it's a little fuzzy here and a couple feet in either direction is usually given, but it's there to keep a runner from making fielders chase him out into the OF. 

 The one exception is the last half of the path a runner takes to first base.  He's supposed to be between the foul line and the line in foul territory. This is to stop the runner from trying to take the first baseman out with a body block to have him miss a throw. You've all seen this come into play if you remember the Trea Turner getting called out play in the Series. Trea did what a lot of RHB do and run kind of very close to (or on) the grass until more toward the last few steps when they peel off. This is technically against the rules but no one cares because they aren't trying to hit the fielder. It only comes into play in a play like Trea had where the throw for whatever reason is impacted by his location in the path.

Since there is no thing as a "basepath" a runner can literally run anywhere until a fielder wants to try to tag him, this includes the first 45 ft or so toward first base which Grandal was not in when the ball hit him. So he could not be called out simply for being where he was, which was both feet in the grass which he got to by sort of running toward the classic 1B/2B hole from the left-handed batting box. At this point the umpire must judge why the runner was where he was. If he was there to intentionally disrupt the play he can be called out.  For example on a suicide squeeze the bunter CAN run toward the ball and stand between the ball and home, that itself isn't illegal (imagine if the fielders were on strike and just sat on the ground and didn't move) but assuming the play goes as expected and he impedes the fielders throw home the umpire should rule him out for intentional interference. 

Here umpires have to determine intent and OH MY GOD IT WAS DAMN OBVIOUS HE WAS INTENTIONALLY GETTING IN THE WAY.  I mentioned before his path was not toward first it was toward getting in the way. I mean COME ON 

 

It's HIGHLY questionable coming from the RHB box, from the LHB box it's a joke. And yet the umpires said it wasn't intentional. They got this part of the call completely wrong. This isn't even close and any analyst or person trying to defend it is lying to either both themselves and you, or just you.

*In contrast to a throw where usually the throw is around the basepaths so you can tell where everyone was and award extra bases using that information.