Nationals Arm Race

Hope that Wieters contract was worth it; its the reason we’re over the cap 2x years running. Photo via District On Deck

Inspired by this series from John Sickels at minorleagueball.com, here’s a first pass related to what this team may do this coming off-season.

In order to know what we need to do, we kinda need to know how much money we have to play with.

In 2018, despite a sell-off of salaries at the trade deadline and into August (which resulted in roughly $8M in payroll saved for this year), the team wasn’t able to stay under the luxury tax for the season.  2018’s luxury tax payroll figure was $197M, and at the end of all the machinations … we were still several million over.

Cots tries to do the ridiculous payroll accounting to figure out how much over or under a team is on payroll; their Nats 2018 calcs are here.   The key point of looking this up is this: the annual payroll figure is not just about player salaries; it has to include Player Benefits too.  So 2018’s Benefit figure was roughly $14M and 2019’s will be $14.5M.  So we have to remember to take this figure back later on when figuring out how much money the team has to spend…

Here’s the list of FAs coming off the 40-man from this year (if they havn’t already done so) and their 2018 salary:

• Bryce Harper, $21M
• Daniel Murphy, $17.5M (waived, traded)
• Gio Gonzalez: $12M (traded)
• Matt Wieters, $10.5M
• Ryan Madsen: $7.6M (traded)
• Shawn Kelley, $5.5M (DFA’d, traded)
• Matt Adams: $4M (waived, traded)
• Joaquin Benoit: $1M
• Kelvin Herrera: $4.4M remaining
• Jeremy Hellickson: $2-$6M depending on incentives (use $4M in total)
• Mark Reynolds: $? but probably $1.5M or so
• Brandon Knitzler $5M (traded)
• Tim Collins: (nominal)
• Tommy Milone: (nominal)
• Miguel Montero: $1.3M (released in April)

total payroll savings: roughly $95M …. but we’re not going to have *nearly* that much in free cash for 2019.  Read on.

There’s three factors involved.  Using the invaluable Cots payroll tracker, but accounting for “real” dollars versus what Cots lists for players (which is their luxury tax figure that has annualized shares of bonuses paid), here’s how I think things are rolling for this team’s payroll in 2019:

#1. Payroll Commitments for those signed for 2019 (i.e. non-arb eligibles): $81.4M in “real” dollars, $112M in luxury tax/cap dollars:

There’s a huge delta between what Scherzer and Strasburg are scheduled to be paid in actual 2019 dollars versus luxury tax calculated dollars, but thanks to ridiculously bad payroll management at the edges of the cap this team has now gone over two years in a row, and there’s just no way they’ll go over in 2019.  So we’ll use the cap numbers for calcs.

#2. Arbitration Eligibles for 2019.  I count 6 players (as does Cots right now), but I’m not sure if someone like Justin Miller got enough service time to qualify.   For now we’ll use these 6.  I estimate $35M in total payroll.

This might go up or down slightly, especially if i’m wrong about Miller, or if the team non-tenders Sammy Solis (a distinct possibility).  I don’t see the other 5 arb-eligible players as non-tender candidates.  You may quibble with my arb salary estimates; Rendon might be a bit low.  Roark may be a bit low too but he had a middling 2019 honestly.  Ross‘ figure may be generous given his lost season to injury.  Do I have Turner’s first year figure too low based on what he’s done?  He was so much flashier in 2017 than 2018; is he worth more?  Maybe this figure at the end of the day is closer to $40M.

#3. Pre-Arb players.  Thanks to the massive shedding of veterans, right now 21 of our 33 40-man players are pre-arb players.  And they’re on or near MLB-min salaries.

If 2019 started tomorrow, 13 of these guys would make the opening day roster, costing the team roughly $7.2M in payroll.

So if you add up these figures;

• 2019 Veterans under contract: $112M
• 2019 Arb players: $35M
• 2019 pre-arb players: $7.2M
• Total: $154M or there abouts.

The 2019 luxury cap for payroll is $206M.  $206M less $14.5M in benefits and less the $154M estimate from above which leaves this team about $37.5M right now to sign new players and to fit in the rest of the staff salaries to get underneath that threshold.  So that’s what we have to work with in the off-season.

Does this look about right to you guys?

In the next post we’ll talk about what this $37.5M can buy us … but one things seems rather certain.  If the team allocates $30M of it or so to Bryce Harper …. there’s not going to be a lotta room to buy what this team needs to buy (pitching, a catcher, a couple relievers and a couple of bench bats).  But we’ll expand on this later….

Its that time of year; for all the non-playoff contenders, the last few weeks of September are for “showing some fight” and “making a run to build on for the next season.”

In reality, wins in September for a lost team are really only good for one thing: “costing your team spots in the 2019 draft.”

Luckily for one team though this year … the #1 draft pick in 2019 is already sewn up.  The Baltimore Orioles, the pride and joy of Peter Angelos and the major’s best (and most expensive) team back in the mid 1990s … has officially bottomed out in a way that not even the Houston Astros could accomplish.

As of this writing (9/20/18) they sit at 44-108, a .289 W/L percentage.  They sti an astounding 59 games out of first place.  They project to around 46-47 wins, which means the 2003 Detroit Tigers’ ignominious record is safe.  But they’re still projecting to be one of the worst teams in the history of the 162-game era.

Baltimore currently has an 8 game “lead” for the #1 overall draft pick.  Amazingly, Kansas City sits at #2 … and they have nearly as large of a lead for that pick over the next worst teams.

So, how about our Nats?  After selling off and waving the white flag (a few weeks too late, and without getting under the damn luxury tax threshold so why did they bother but thats a different story for a different post), the Nats as of this writing sit at 77-75, projecting to 82-83 wins.  They sit precisely in the middle of the 1st round: 15th overall pick (technically they are the 14th worst team, but Atlanta will get the 9th overall pick thanks to blowing their negotiations earlier this summer with Carter Stewart).  Thanks to the machinations of the standings, its likely that irrespective of how they play out the string, they’ll pick no better than 14th overall in the 1st (and 13th of 30 there on) and no worse than 18th overall in the 1st (and 17th of 30 there after).

So, that’s not bad.  They’ve picked in that general area a few times just in the past few years actually.

• In 2012 they picked 16th overall and got Lucas Giolito.
• In 2014 they picked 18th overall and got Erick Fedde

I guess the consolation prize for this year is a slightly better shot at a good arm in that 14-18 overall pick range.

The Nats drop kicked Murphy to Chicago. photo via federalbaseball.com

It feels like perhaps it was 3 weeks too late … but today the Nats started trading away whoever they could get through waivers for whatever they could get in return.

Moved so far: Daniel Murphy and Matt Adams.

Apparently not moving due to negotiations: Bryce Harper (you gotta hang on to that supplemental 4th round pick you’re picking up for him!).

Still worth moving: all our other FAs to be, which are Matt Wieters, Gio Gonzalez, Ryan Madsen, Joaquin Benoit (a great use of payroll he was), Kelvin Herrera, Jeremy Hellickson, and Mark Reynolds.  And maybe Tim Collins and Tommy Milone too.

I’m not sure how much you could get back for any in that last group; maybe someone wants to take a flier on Hellickson or Herrera.  Reynolds could be a bench bat for some contender once the rosters expand.  The rest are either at replacement level or hurt.

I’d like to take this time to note just how much payroll is coming off the books for the coming off-season FA period:  $94M.  That’s right: $94M.

• – Bryce Harper, $21M
• – Daniel Murphy, $17.5M (waived, traded)
• – Gio Gonzalez: $12M
• – Matt Wieters, $10.5M
• – Ryan Madsen: $7.6M
• – Shawn Kelley, $5.5M (DFA’d)
• – Matt Adams: $4M (waived, traded)
• – Joaquin Benoit: $1M
• – Kelvin Herrera: $4.4M remaining
• – Jeremy Hellickson: $2-$6M depending on incentives (use $4M in total)
• – Mark Reynolds: $? but probably $1.5M or so
• – Brandon Knitzler $5M (traded)

Add that up and even with my middle of the road estimates for Hellickson and Reynolds its $94M.  That’s an awful lot of money.  And it doesn’t include the random MLFA signings who have since come up to the majors and may have had split contracts (Tim Collins, Tommy Milone in particular).

And here’s what your 25-man roster looks like for 2019, right now, with no additional acquisitions:

SP: Scherzer, Strasburg, Roark, Ross, JRodriguez/Fedde
RP: Doolittle*, JMiller, Grace*, Suero, Glover, Cordero, Adams, Solis*
C: SKieboom, Solano
INF: Turner, Rendon, Zimmerman, Kendrick, Difo, Sanchez
OF: Soto, Eaton, Robles, Taylor

Admit it, that’s not half bad.  Remember, Joe Ross was pretty darn good before he got hurt and before the team yo-yo’d him for no good reason at the beginning of 2017.   I’ll take that outfield, with Michael Taylor as a 4th outfielder/defensive replacement.  Did you forget we had Howie Kendrick?  I’ll take him starting at 2B to get his solid bat in the lineup in the #7 hole.

So the bullpen looks a little rough, and nobody trusts that 5th starter spot, and yes that’s a big black hole at Catcher.  But $94M should be able to buy fixes for those holes right?

Can Milone get another win? Photo: Tom Priddy/Four Seam Images/milb.com

So, despite winning 5 of 6 over the past week against two teams that havn’t really been trying for years, the Nats …. failed to make up a single game on Philly and head into the Atlanta series 6 games out.

That’s because Philly was also playing a team that isn’t really trying (Miami), and just finished off a nifty 4-game sweep at home.

But hey, at least the Nats scored 3 touchdowns in a game, driving their RS/RA average so far up that now by Pythagorean record they’re leading the division by two games!  You know, in that fantasy world of stat nerds that nobody cares about but which I’ve been guilty of pointing at myself and saying, “See!  they’re just unlucky and will win more soon!”

So here it is.  I’ve already basically written off the season … but hey, maybe if the team plays a 22-7 August … and both Atlanta and Philly scuffle along at .500 … they can get close.  But to play a 22-7 august … they need to take 3 of 4 against Atlanta this week.

Here’s the pitching match-ups they’ll go to war with:

• Game 1: Max Fried versus Jefry Rodriguez.  Hmm.  Not a good start, having to call up a guy who has now fallen behind Tommy Milone on the depth chart.  I see the Braves jumping out to a quick 4 run lead and the “veteran leadership” packing it in early to regroup for the nightcap.
• Game 2: Sean Newcomb vs Max Scherzer.  Scherzer will probably be unhittable, but Newcomb nearly threw a no-hitter against the Dodgers his last time out.  I see this as a close Nats win.
• Game 3: Mike Foltynewicz vs Tommy Milone: Atlanta’s best pitcher in 2018 versus the Nats … #10 starter?  #9?  Foltynewicz has already started against the Nats four times, throwing a 2-hit shutout against them in June (albeit in Atlanta).  Odds are he’ll give up a few runs on the road against the Nats … can Milone keep up his magic show?
• Game 4: Anibel Sanchez vs Gio Gonzalez.  Sanchez has been pretty good.  Gio has not.   Any guesses how I think this one will go?

So, you squint at these match-ups and … well a series split seems like an optimistic outcome.  Frankly, I could see just winning the Scherzer start and the other starters getting bombed by Atlanta’s youthful, powerful lineup.

The Phillies head to Arizona (tough), then to San Diego (not so tough) … but a 2-2 or even a 1-3 series here could really spell the end of it.

how are you feeling, heading into this series?

“My Neck hurts.” “Oh yeah, something always frigging hurts with you, you snowflake.” — photo via WP

At some point, you have to stop performing CPR and just call it.

I wonder if we’re at that point.  Today we learned that #2 starter Stephen “the Orchid” Strasburg is heading back to the D/L for what will be his 50th* career D/L trip (* estimated).  I just don’t see how this team goes on the run it needs without one of its best starters.

Even given Tanner Roark‘s wonderful start yesterday, the team (as of this writing) sits at 50-51.  They’re 7 games out of the Division lead, 5.5 games out of the WC, and face a massive uphill climb to make the playoffs.

To get to 90 wins (often regarded in the 2-wild card system as the minimum you’ll need) the team needs to go 40-21 in its remaining games.  That’s a .622 W/L percentage.  I suppose they could go on a 20-7 rampage like they did in May and make it up… but it seems less likely the longer this season goes along.

Of their remaining 61 games…

• 7 against Atlanta
• 9 against Philly
• 7 against the Cubs
• 7 against the Cardinals
• 3 more against Milwaukee
• 3 in Colorado to end the season

So that’s 36 of the remaining 61 games against teams that I think are patently better than us.  And we’ll have to play .622 ball against them AND hold serve against the scrubs we’re playing too.

Oh, and now we’re doing it with, by my count, our #9 starter in Tommy Milone called up.  Scherzer, Strasburg, Gio, Roark, Hellickson, Fedde, JRodriguez, Voth ahead of him in the pecking order.  I’m sure things will go great; lest you forget, Milone’s ERA in 2017 was 8.56 in 27 innings.  Actually, with an ERA like that, he’ll fit right into this team.

So yes, the Braves have scuffled recently and the Phillies are treading water.  And yes our Pythag record shows we’re better than 50-51.  All fair points.  But we’re nearly to August and are still playing .500 ball, with no signs of getting better.

And, as become apparent this week, thanks to the Nats doing such a bang-up job with payroll management this year, they snuck over the luxury tax threshold so the comp pick they’ll get for a once-in-a-generation player leaving next year via FA in Bryce Harper will be … voila!  A supplemental 4th rounder??  Are you frigging kidding me?  That’s all we’ll get by offering him a Qualifying Offer??  Wow, that Matt Wieters contract just keeps looking better and better doesn’t it?  I sure hope Scott Boras enjoys the boat he bought off of that commission that he screwed the Nats out of.  Can someone change the Lerner’s cell phone number so Boras can’t go over Mike Rizzo‘s head to make bad deals any more?

Nats should trade Harper and hope to get a MLB top 100 pick for the rental.  They should also shop around basically every other guy set to leave in FA.  That means Murphy, Gio, Madsen, Wieters, Kelley, heck lets through in Benoit and Reynolds and Adams and all the one-year MLFAs we’ve got too.   Its bargain basement shopping time in DC.  First come, first served.

Will this leadership team admit defeat and make these trades?  Probably not.  They’ll probably do something dumb in the next few days like trade a top prospect for 2 months of a dead-arm starter or a catcher we can just go buy next off-season with the $80M of saved payroll.   They’ll leverage the farm system yet again so they can be an 86 win team instead of an 81 win team.

But I could be wrong.  We’ll see what happens.

ps: I managed to write this whole post without mentioning the manager.  My stance is as clear now as it was the day they let Dusty Baker go, and nothing that Dave Martinez has done has made me think that he was in any way a better choice to manage this team and this set of players in the year 2018.  Any argument about the manager is tough to quantify … i prefer arguments I can back up with stats frankly, so my opinion on his handling of veterans, of Ryan Zimmerman, of the bullpen, of baserunning strategy, of lineup-construction, and of his seeming inability to stand up to the veterans on this team will stay with me.

Here’s my annual Nationals All Star selection post.

Fun Trivia:

• All-time leader in Nats all-star appearances: Harper with 6 appearances.  Scherzer also has been named 6 times but some pre-dated his time here.
• All-time leader in All-Star Game starts: Also Harper, getting his 5th start.
• Total number of Starters in the history of the Franchise: Now is 10; Harper 5 times, Scherzer twice, and one each for Soriano, Murphy, Zimmerman.
• Most all-star players named in a single year: 5 in both 2016 and 2017.
• Least all-star game players named in a single year: 1 in multiple years during the “dark years” of 2006 through 2011.

(* == All-Star game starter)

2018

• Nationals All-Star representatives: Bryce Harper*, Max Scherzer*, Sean Doolittle
• Possible Snubs: Juan Soto, Trea Turner, Anthony Rendon
• Narrative: For the home-town All Star Game, Harper gets the starting nod from the fans despite his abhorrent season at the plate (his slash line on 7/8/18: .219/.371/.475).  However, by making the ASG, Harper now keeps his promise to participate in the Home Run Derby one last time before hitting free agency.   There’s no real “snubs” on this Nationals team; The #2 player on the team in terms of seasonal bWAR is Trea Turner but he’s not exactly having a head-turning season.  He was named to the “last 5 ballot” but was a huge long-shot to make it (update; he didn’t: the very deserving Jesus Aguilar did).  Anthony Rendon is having his typical under-rated season and got no love from the voters over the more famous Nolan Arenado (a common refrain when it comes to Gold Gloves/Silver Sluggers too).  None of our starters besides Scherzer are really deserving; Stephen Strasburg was having a decent but not spectacular season but missed a month and is on the D/L.  Nor is any of the bullpen past Doolittle.  Its an odd-season where a team-wide malaise is contributing to the team hovering at .500 at the All Star Break.  Only Juan Soto really is deserving … but he was never going to make the ASG (not when recent more spectacular rookies failed to make it) and thanks to his missing all of April and most of May he wasn’t on any ballots and may struggle to win the RoY over guys who have played longer this season.  Scherzer is named to the team on 7/8/18 was named the  NL starter for the 2nd year running on 7/16/18.

2017

• Nationals All-Star representatives: Bryce Harper*, Daniel Murphy*, Ryan Zimmerman*, Max Scherzer*, Stephen Strasburg
• Snubs: Anthony Rendon, Gio Gonzalez
• Narrative: For the second  year in a row, the Nats are well and properly represented in the All Star Game.  We have three starters named in the field, including Zimmerman who beats out a slew of 1B sluggers in the NL to not only make the team but get his first start.  Its also likely i’ll be editing this post and adding in Scherzer as an additional starter; he is the obvious choice to start the game for the NL given his first half production (7/10/17 update: yes indeed we did).  Rendon is having a very quiet solid season and is in the “last 5” popular vote, but he seems unlikely to win given that last year’s MVP Kris Bryant is also in the voting (Update: neither guy got in).  Gonzalez misses out despite having a better first half than Strasburg by nearly any statistic; he’s having a career year but seems unlikely to get rewarded with his 3rd ASG appearance.  There’s no other real snub from our 2017 team; certainly there’s nobody in the bullpen meriting a spot, and Trea Turner‘s torrid 2016 2nd half did not translate into the 2017 season (not to mention, he’s had two separate D/L trips).  Once again i’m slightly perturbed that Harper continues to refuse to participate in the HR derby; why the reticence?  Its a fun event that is quickly becoming better than the actual game itself and practically every other slugger is participating.  Is he afraid to lose?  On a larger scale, i’m really happy to see (finally) that deserving rookies are named: Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger are both named and are both on the inside track for ROY awards; too many times in the past we see deserving rookies unnamed.  On July 10th, the fourth Nat starter was named: Scherzer got the starting pitcher nod, a first for the Nats.  August Update: Rendon’s omission is looking even more ridiculous; he’s top 5 in the league in bWAR.

2016

• Nationals All-Star representatives: Bryce Harper*, Stephen Strasburg, Daniel Murphy, Wilson Ramos, Max Scherzer (named as replacement for Strasburg on 7/8/16),
• Possible Snubs: Danny Espinosa, Tanner Roark
• Narrative: The four obvious candidates from the Nats this year were all initially correctly selected, though voting shenanigans out of Chicago elected Ben Zobrist over Daniel Murphy by a scant 500 votes.   I thought perhaps Strasburg would have a chance to start the game, given his 12-0 record, but it seems the team pre-empted any such thought when Scherzer’s naming occurred.  For the first time writing this post, I can’t really name any “snubs” and the team has (finally?) earned the proper respect it deserves in terms of naming its players properly.  Espinosa had a week for the ages just prior to the end of voting but really stood little chance of selection in the grand scheme of things.  He’s not really a “snub” but is worthy of mention based on his resurgent year.  At the break, Espinosa ranked 3rd in NL fWAR but 7th or 8th in bWAR thanks to differing defensive value metrics, so maybe/maybe not on him being a “snub.”  As pointed out in the comments, even I missed the sneaky good season Roark is having; he’s 12th in the NL in bWAR at the break and 9th in fWAR but was left off in favor of any number of starters that stand below him in value rankings.  Unfortunately for fans (and for Harper’s “Make Baseball Fun again” campaign, he opted to skip the Home Run Derby again.  I guess its kind of like the NBA superstars skipping the dunk contest; the Union should really do a better job of helping out in this regard.  The new format is fantastic and makes the event watchable again; is it ego keeping him from getting beat by someone like Giancarlo Stanton?

2015

• Nationals All-Star representatives: Bryce Harper*, Max Scherzer
• Possible Snubs: Yunel Escobar, Drew Storen
• Narrative: Harper not only made it in as a starter for the 2nd time, he led the NL in votes, setting a MLB record for total votes received.  This is no surprise; Harper’s easily in the MVP lead for the NL thanks to his amazing first half (his split at the half-way point of the season: .347/.474/.722 with 25 homers and an astounding 225 OPS+).  I guess he won’t be earning the “Most overrated player” award next year.  That Harper is electing to skip the Home run derby in a disappointment; his father is nursing an arm injury can cannot throw to him in the event.  In a weird year for the Nats, the only other regular worth mentioning is newly acquired Escobar, who is hitting above .300 and filling in ably at multiple positions that, prior to this year, he had never played.  Storen is having another excellent regular season … but at a time when mandatory members from each team often leads to other closers being selected (there are 5 NL closers and 7 AL relievers), the odds of him making the All-Star team were always going to be slim.  Scherzer deservedly makes the team and probably would have been the NL starter; he’s got sub 2.00 ERA and FIP and leads all NL pitchers in WAR at the mid-way point of the season.  But his turn came up in the final game of the first half, making him ineligible for the game and forcing his replacement on the roster.

As a side note, the 2015 All-Star game will go down as the “Ballot-Gate” game thanks to MLB’s short-sighted plan to allow 30+ online ballots per email address.  This led to severe “ballot stuffing” by the Kansas City Royals fans, led to MLB  having to eliminate 60 million+ fraudulent ballots, but still led to several Royals being elected starters over more deserving candidates.

2014

• Nationals All-Star representative: Jordan Zimmermann (Update post-publishing: Zimmermann strained a bicep, and had to withdraw from the ASG.  For a bit it looked like the Nats wouldn’t even have a representative, until Tyler Clippard was named on 7/13/14).
• Possible Snubs: Adam LaRoche, Anthony Rendon, Rafael Soriano, Drew Storen
• Narrative: Zimmermann’s been the best SP on the best pitching staff in the majors this year, and thus earns his spot.  I find it somewhat odd that a first place team (or near to it) gets just one representative on the team (as discussed above).  Rendon tried to make the team via the “last man in” voting, but historically Nationals have not fared well in this competition (especially when better known players from large markets are in the competition, aka Anthony Rizzo from the Chicago Cubs), and indeed Rendon finished 4th in the last-man voting.  LaRoche is having a very good season, almost single handedly carrying the Nats offense while major parts were out injured, but he’s never going to beat out the slew of great NL first basemen (Joey Votto couldn’t even get into this game).  Soriano has quietly put together one of the best seasons of any closer in the game; at the time of this writing he has a 1.03 ERA and a .829 whip; those are Dennis Eckersley numbers.  But, the farce that is the all-star game selection criteria (having to select one player from each team) means that teams need a representative, and deserving guys like Soriano get squeezed.  Then, Soriano indignantly said he wouldn’t even go if named as a replacement … likely leading to Clippard’s replacement selection.  The same goes for non-closer Storen, who sports a sub 2.00 ERA on the year.  Advanced stats columnists (Keith Law) also think that Stephen Strasburg is a snub but I’m not entirely sure: he may lead the NL in K’s right now and have far better advanced numbers than “traditional,” but its hard to make an argument that a guy with a 7-6 record and a 3.50+ ERA is all-star worthy.

2013

• Nationals All-Star representatives: Bryce Harper*, Jordan Zimmermann
• Snubs: Stephen Strasburg, Ian Desmond
• Narrative: Harper comes in 3rd in the NL outfielder voting, ahead of some big-time names, to become only the second Nationals position player elected as an All-Star starter.  He was 4th in the final pre-selection vote, so a big last minute push got him the starter spot.   Harper also becomes the first National to participate in the Home Run Derby.   Zimmermann was 12-3 heading into the game and was on mid-season Cy Young short lists in July in a breakout season.  Strasburg’s advanced stats are all better than Zimmermann’s, but his W/L record (4-6 as the ASG) means he’s not an all-star.  It also probably doesn’t help that he missed a few weeks.  Desmond loses out to Troy Tulowitzki, Everth Cabrera and Jean Segura.  Tulowitzki was having a very solid year and was a deserving elected starter, while Cabrera and Segura are both having breakout seasons.  Desmond was on the “Final vote” roster, but my vote (and most others’ I’m guessing) would be for Yasiel Puig there ([Editor Update: Desmond and Puig lost out to Freddie Freeman: I still wished that Puig finds a way onto the roster but ultimately he did not and I believe the ASG was diminished because of it).   Gio Gonzalez, Ryan Zimmerman, and Rafael Soriano are all having solid but unspectacular years and miss out behind those having great seasons.

2012

• Nationals All-Star representatives: Stephen Strasburg, Gio Gonzalez, Ian Desmond, Bryce Harper
• Possible Snubs: Adam LaRoche, Craig Stammen
• Narrative: The two SPs Strasburg and Gonzalez were the obvious candidates, and my personal prediction was that they’d be the only two candidates selected.  Gonzalez’ first half was a prelude to his 21-win, 3rd place Cy Young season.  The inclusion of Desmond is a surprise, but also a testament to how far he’s come as a player in 2012.  Harper was a last-minute injury replacement, but had earned his spot by virtue of his fast start as one of the youngest players in the league.  Of the “snubs,” LaRoche has had a fantastic come back season in 2012 but fared little shot against better, more well-known NL first basemen.  Stammen was our best bullpen arm, but like LaRoche fared little chance of getting selected during a year when the Nats had two deserving pitchers selected.

2011

• Nationals All-Star representatives: Tyler Clippard
• Possible Snubs: Danny Espinosa, Michael Morse, Drew Storen, Jordan Zimmermann
• Narrative: While Clippard was (arguably) the Nats best and most important reliever, I think Zimmermann was a more rightful choice.  He was 10th in the league in ERA at the time of the selections and has put in a series of dominant performances.  Meanwhile Espinosa was on pace for a 28-homer season and almost a certain Rookie-of-the-Year award (though a precipitous fall-off in the 2nd half cost him any realistic shot at the ROY), and perhaps both players are just too young to be known around the league.  Lastly Morse is certainly known and he merited a spot in the “last man in” vote sponsored by MLB (though he fared little chance against popular players in this last-man-in voting).

2010

• Nationals All-Star representatives: Matt Capps
  
• Possible Snubs: Adam Dunn, Josh Willingham, Ryan Zimmerman, Stephen Strasburg
• Narrative: Capps was clearly deserving, having a breakout season as a closer after his off-season non-tender from the Pirates.  The 3-4-5 hitters Zimmerman-Dunn-Willingham all had dominant offensive seasons as the team improved markedly from its 103-loss season.  But perhaps the surprise non-inclusion was Strasburg, who despite only having a few starts as of the all-star break was already the talk of baseball.  I think MLB missed a great PR opportunity to name him to the team to give him the exposure that the rest of the national media expected.  But in the end, Capps was a deserving candidate and I can’t argue that our hitters did anything special enough to merit inclusion.

2009

• Nationals All-Star representatives: Ryan Zimmerman
• Possible Snubs: Adam Dunn
• Narrative: The addition of Dunn and Willingham to the lineup gave Zimmerman the protection he never had, and he produced with his career-best season.  His first and deserved all-star appearance en-route to a 33 homer season.  Dunn continued his monster homer totals with little all-star recognition.

2008

• Nationals All-Star representatives: Cristian Guzman
  
• Possible Snubs: Jon Rauch
• Narrative: The first of two “hitting rock-bottom” seasons for the team; no one really merited selection.  Zimmerman was coming off of hamate-bone surgery in November 2007 and the team was more or less awful across the board.  Rauch performed ably after Cordero went down with season-ending (and basically career-ending) shoulder surgery.   Guzman’s selection a great example of why one-per-team rules don’t make any sense.  Guzman ended up playing far longer than he deserved in the game itself by virtue of the 15-inning affair.

2007

• Nationals All-Star representatives: Dmitri Young
• Possible Snubs: Ryan Zimmerman, Shawn Hill (though I wouldn’t argue for either)
• Narrative: Young gets a deserved all-star appearance en route to comeback player of the year.  Zimmerman played a full season but didn’t dominate.  Our 2007 staff gave starts to 13 different players, most of whom were out of the league within the next year or two.  Not a good team.

2006

• Nationals All-Star representatives: Alfonso Soriano*
• Possible Snubs: Nick Johnson, Ryan Zimmerman, Chad Cordero
• Narrative: Soriano made the team as an elected starter, the first time the Nats have had such an honor.  Our pitching staff took massive steps backwards and no starter came even close to meriting a spot.  Cordero was good but not lights out as he had been in 2005.  Soriano’s 40-40 season is a poster child for “contract year” production and he has failed to come close to such production since.  The team was poor and getting worse.  Johnson had a career year but got overshadowed by bigger, better first basemen in the league (a recurring theme for our first basemen over the years).

2005

• Nationals All-Star representatives: Livan Hernandez, Chad Cordero
• Possible Snubs: Nick Johnson, John Patterson.
• Narrative: The Nats went into the All Star break surprisingly in first place, having run to a 50-31 record by the halfway point.  Should a first place team have gotten more than just two representatives?  Perhaps.  But the team was filled with non-stars and played far over its head to go 50-31 (as evidenced by the reverse 31-50 record the rest of the way).

You’d be smiling too if you just got a $3M check! Photo via MASN

July 6th came and went, and the Nats signed their #1 overall pick without too much fanfare, giving Mason Denaburg a nice bump over his slot value and wrapping up the 2018 Draft Class.

Here’s a table of the 29 players we successfully signed, with known bonus amounts.  The MLBpipeline Draft Tracker is the most up-to-date resource for this data now that Baseball America has taken most of its stuff behind a paywall.

Summary of the 29 drafted players:

• One High Schooler, 13 College Seniors
• 16 Arms (including Evan Lee) and 13 Bats
• Of the 16 arms, 4 were relievers in College and are (presumably) already routed to that role in the pros.
• Thus, 15 College players with eligibility remaining
• As of this writing, two guys have already been double promoted to Hagerstown; 11th rounder Frankie Bartow, UMiami’s closer this past season, and 5th rounder Cage Ganning, OF from UCLA.
• I count $6,800,500 in total bonus money paid out, more than their bonus pool figure of $5,603,800 and a bit more than their 5% cushion figure above the bonus pool figure of $5,883,990
• A few of the lower level bonus figures have yet to be disclosed; i could see Cole Daily getting a $125k bonus or near to it since he got bought out of his senior year, but the rest of the players w/o known bonuses were College Seniors who probably each got the same $3,000 bonus that other College Seniors got in rounds 20 and up.
• As of this writing, 2 have yet to be assigned, 15 went to the GCL, 9 went straight to Auburn, and 3 played a week or so in the GCL before getting to Auburn.

Verdict on this class overall: I like the fact that they threw out a ton of max $125k bonuses in the rounds 11-20; that certainly wasn’t the case last  year and it may have bought them some good players.  I’m ok with Denaburg as their 1st rounder and wasn’t as hung up on picking a more “famous” name at that point in the draft.  Unlike in 2017, I liked who they got in the rounds 3-6 area, and I think they may have a real player in 10th round senior sign Carson Shaddy.    In the rounds 11-20 they got a number of weekend starters from good schools to sign for the $125k figure, one of which has already forced his way to be twice-promoted.  Of course, when nearly half your draft dollars go to one kid, and that kid is a high schooler who probably is playing in our minor leagues for the next 5 years … its going to be quite a while til we really know if this was a winning class or not.

Here’s a table of the 11 guys who did not sign:

Quick Summary here:

• The big misses here of course are the 12th and 17th rounders from South Carolina, both of whom announced on twitter within a few minutes of each other of their intent to return to school.
• 19th rounder Zach Linginfelter was a draft-eligible Sophomore from Tennessee who made it into their weekend rotation late in the season and had the easy decision to return to school, where he probably is a weekend starter all next year and could easily find his way into the top 10 rounds.
• 6 of the 11 non-signees were 30th+ round prep players who were never going to sign … either because they were 1st round rumored kids with million dollar price tags or because they were legacy picks
• 2 of the non-signees are Juco guys who were a little hard to find info on: Cole Hamilton and Andrew Nardi.  Nardi seems to have a committment to go to Arizona; can’t blame him for heading to a good program.  Hamilton doesn’t even have a perfectgame.org profile and too common of a name to research on twitter.

No major misses; highest non-signed player was a 12th rounder.

The time has come to officially panic, both about Harper and this team. Photo via ftw/usatoday

I’ve certainly been among those making excuses for this team, and for players on the team, for a while now.   These points are true:

• They are better than their pythagorean record; by runs scored versus runs against, they should be 45-39, in 2nd place ahead of the luckier Phillies but still 5 games back of the surprising Braves.
• They’ve been incredibly unlucky in one run and extra inning games.  This is a direct input to the pythag record; they’re 8-16 in one run games and 2-4 in extra innings.  Both the teams ahead of them in the NL east have wildly better one-run records (13-6 and 18-7 respectively)
• They’ve been just slaughtered with injury, at various times this year leading the NL in total players on the D/L and total man-games lost.
• They’ve experienced a complete gutting of last year’s middle of the order, with Ryan Zimmerman disappearing for weeks on end with little-to-no idea when he’d come back, Daniel Murphy taking nearly half a season to recover from his surprise off-season knee injury, and Bryce Harper putting up one of his worst seasons … clearly pressing, expanding his zone and being amazingly unlucky in terms of BABIP thus far this season.

To add insult to injury, #2 starter Stephen Strasburg threw his annual arm injury into play early this year, our mid-rotation guys have struggled, and our #5 starters keep going down with injury.

What else is true?  This is a team that’s kinda old; average age 29.1 (which is only 10th), but which is helped greatly by the presence of youngest-guy-in-the-league Juan Soto.  And Old teams get hurt, a lot.  Meanwhile  young teams (like Atlanta at 5th youngest and Philly who are the absolute youngest teams) don’t get hurt a lot.

This season is starting to remind me of a couple of past seasons:

• 2012, when the Nats were significantly improved from 2011 and took the league by storm, frankly, a year before they thought they would.  To me, this is the 2018 Braves.   The Braves only won 72 games last year; now they’re on a pace to win 94 games.  That’s a massive difference year over year and they’re doing it with almost  no off-season moves; all internal.
• 2015, when the Nats themselves showed similar season-long malaise and only came to life at the end of the season when it was too late and all they managed to do was cost themselves draft position the next year.

So what now?  They just finished a relatively brutal section of the schedule, playing a ton of AL East teams.  AL teams are bad match-ups for any NL team thanks to the DH’s impact on roster construction … even if they’re playing a crummy AL team like Tampa or Baltimore.  But to face off against the likes of Boston and New York, who are juggernauts, with a sputtering offense and missing a couple of key arms … well its no surprise to me they got swept.

The next 3 weeks will be the season.  They have 3 series against poor teams where they should be able to go 8-3 or 9-2 if they’re a legit team.  The should get at least one arm back in Hellickson and maybe Fedde can be replaced like for like with the surprising Jefry Rodriguez until Strasburg shows back up.   Then we have to hope for a post-all star game bump and take it to Atlanta in the first season post ASG to make up some ground.

Now, what does this team have going for it?

• Harper just cannot continue to hit this badly; at some point he should have a solid month.
• This team was dominant in May; it can play .600 ball when it needs to
• Strasburg returns likely after the ASG
• The Nats have one of the easiest remaining schedules in baseball; slightly easer than Philly and significantly easier than Atlanta.   The Nats have no more interleague games either.
• Furthermore, the Nats have already done all their West Coast trips; their worst remaining road trip is to Colorado the last series of the season.   Both their NL East competitors still have big west coast trips to make.

So the big question is this: can this team get it together a little now, a little in August and put themselves in a position to take back the division?   If they scuffle and go just .500 between now and the ASG … then no way.

For your weekend viewing, here’s a quick glance at the CWS Super Regional match-ups with the Nats draft picks still playing

Super Regional Nats Draftee list

Lots of top-end draft picks will be playing this weekend, just ahead of the MLB draft which starts on 6/12/17.  By Super Regional:

• #5 Arkansas vs South Carolina: 10th rounder Carson Shaddy, the Arkansas starting 2B as well as our 15th rounder Evan Lee, a role-player on the team this year.
• Mississippi State vs Vanderbilt: 3rd rounder Reid Schaller and 7th rounder Chandler Day, both working out of Vanderbilt’s rotation.

I’m favoring both Arkansas and Vanderbilt to win these series and continue to Omaha, not good news for these four guys in terms of getting them into a short-season squad.  Going to Omaha probably means we don’t see these guys until July.  At best case (a 2-and-out in Omaha) a player isn’t done playing until June 18th or so, while making the CWS finals extends their season until potentially June 27th.   You’d have to think these guys aren’t even thinking about meeting with the team to negotiate/sign deals until they’re done playing, then need a mental break/vacation before starting.  Heck, we didn’t even see some of our CWS-playing draft picks *play* for us last year (Cole Freeman, our 4th rounder, signed on July 7th after his college team LSU made the CWS finals … then debuted in Hagerstown in April of this  year).

Nonetheless; if you want to eyeball our new players, these are the games to watch.

What a difference a year makes. Last year he was MLB’s POTM; this year he’s hitting .217 and is now on the D/L. Photo via WashingtonTimes.com

Another day, another D/L trip.  The latest is Ryan Zimmerman, whose position is more than ably being filled by Matt Adams, heading to the 10-day d/L with “back soreness” but which we know to be an oblique (which is a notoriously iffy injury, if indeed he has a real injury and this isn’t some sort of paper maneuver to get Adams more ABs.  Yes I’m a cynic).  This a day after starting catcher and $10M “homage to Scott Boras‘ ability to undermine Mike Rizzo‘s plans by repeatedly going over his head to ownership” Matt Wieters goes down with a “hamstring” injury (btw: he looked like a 50-yr old man running to first base; was it any surprise he came up hobbled?)

The Nats, as of 5/13/18, now have 10 guys on the D/L and an 11th suspended.  Only three of them even have a vague return date defined, and one of those is Joe Ross, who is recovering from Tommy John and whose return date is listed as “probably 2018.”  Nine of the 10 guys (not including Read) arguably are part of the “best 25” that our team would field, meaning we’re playing 9 guys out of 25 who should be in AAA.

This number of current players on the D/L, not surprisingly, leads the league and their cumulative totals of number of players, games lost and payroll wasted for the season is at or near the top.

Great.

Yet, somehow, during this period the team is on fire.   They’ve won 12 of 14.  They’re 13-7 in their last 20.  Went into the hot Arizona team and crushed them on their turf.

What’s going on?  How is this happening?

Part of this is the particular guys getting hurt; i.e. none of the rotation.  We’re getting a ton of quality starts, guys pitching deep into the games.  Under-rated at the time signing Jeremy Hellickson took a perfect game into the 7th.  That’s the definition of “found gold” for a 5th starter.   Five of the top Eight season-to-date guys by bWAR are the 5 rotation members.

But for the most part it has been part-time players stepping up big time.

• Pedro Severino in for Wieters (and before that Miguel Montero, 2018’s first “Oblivion” candidate): posting a 98 OPS+ and providing stellar defense behind the plate.
• Howie Kendrick in for Daniel Murphy?  113 OPS+ thank you very much.  Great signing.
• Wilmer Difo covering for Anthony Rendon while he missed half the season thus far?  102 OPS+
• Adams, as previously noted, is crushing the ball right now: 178 OPS+.
• The hodge-podge of left fielders not named Adams?  well … that’s another story.  Thankfully  we can put most any ole stiff out there and still get production.

I thought this team did amazingly well last  year given its injuries … but now its looking even worse this year.   Yet they’re right where they need to be after a sluggish start.  What I worry about is missing a month of Scherzer, or having Harper  go down ye t again.