Nationals Arm Race

I don’t think this post is necessarily a surprise to those of us who follow the sport. MLB has a serious competitiveness problem, and it seems to be coming to a particular head for the 2021 season … just in time for the CBA to expire.

The reason I bring this up is because of a series of really, really concerning moves we’ve seen this past off-season, coupled with some of the more seismic moves seen in the past couple of off-seasons, has really got me shocked.

Specifically, i’m about:

• the Colorado Rockies dumping their franchise player and likely future hall of famer Nolan Arenado for a set of middling prospects AND sending $50M to the Cardinals.
• I’m talking about one of the absolute wealthiest teams in the sport (the Chicago Cubs) trading away key players (Yu Darvish) and doing little to augment their team for 2021.
• I’m talking about Boston trading away the best home-grown player they’ve had since, I dunno, Ted Williams, in what amounted to a salary dump (again, this is Boston, who make more than $500M annually in revenues) when they jettisoned Mookie Betts.
• I’m talking about teams in major, huge markets (Texas Rangers, Seattle Mariners) basically not trying.
• I’m talking about the best team in the AL last year (Tampa Bay) flipping its best player (Ian Snell) for 60 cents on the dollar BEFORE he even got that expensive.
• I’m talking about teams like Atlanta (whose numbers are public record because they are owned by a publicly-traded company) earning $476M in revenue in 2019 and basically holding pat on payroll for years.
• I’m talking about teams in mid-sized markets (Arizona, Baltimore, Miami) acting as if they’re barely staying afloat.

And so on.

I did a quick analysis of where the MLB teams stand in terms of whether they’re really “trying” for the 2021 season, based on their off-season activity and their 2020 results, and i came up with a pretty shocking list of teams. By my counts:

• 14 teams are purposely doing as little as possible to improve their teams this off-season. Not surprisingly, these 14 teams account for 14 of the 17 smallest projected payrolls right now.
• Another 3 teams are competitive and/or have high payrolls, but are making moves that question their intent (specifically: Boston, San Francisco, and Tampa)
• This leaves the remaining 13 teams which are clearly “trying,” actively signing and improving their teams, increasing payroll, etc. Again, not surprisingly, these 13 “trying” teams currently comprise 12 of the top 13 projected 2021 payrolls.

Here’s the core data, stored by division and then projected payroll rank. I used Cot’s 2021 payroll projections , Fangraphs Roster Resource Depth charts/transaction trackers, and MLBtraderumors 2021 FA tracker to gauge activity.

Team	Division	Rank	CB Tax 40-man	Trying?	Notes
Chicago White Sox	AL Central	11	166.6	Yes	Acquired Lynn, signed Hendricks
Minnesota	AL Central	17	125.9	Yes	Done enough to maintain divisional lead
Kansas City	AL Central	21	96.8	No	Only minor moves
Detroit	AL Central	22	91.2	No	Only minor moves
Cleveland	AL Central	29	62.7	No	Traded Carrasco and Lindor
Boston	AL East	2	201.9	Sort-of	They've made moves, but really payroll hamstrung. Betts trade was disappointing
New York Yankees	AL East	3	199.9	Yes	Signed LeMahiue, Kluber, acquired Taillon
Toronto	AL East	12	148.3	Yes	Springer acquisition plus Siemen trade, Matz trade
Baltimore	AL East	26	79.9	No	Waiver claims and rule5 picks.
Tampa Bay	AL East	28	70.1	Sort-of	… but traded away Snell.
Houston	AL West	4	195.8	Yes	Stable, competitive roster
Los Angeles Angels	AL West	7	185.2	Yes	Acquired Cobb, Iglesias, etc.
Texas	AL West	23	89.9	No	Not really attempting to compete in AL West, traded away Lynn
Oakland	AL West	24	89.1	No	0 FA signings, almost no off-season activity
Seattle	AL West	25	80.6	No	Very little improvement attempts
St. Louis	NL Central	10	169.7	Yes	Acquired Arenado but that's about it for activity
Chicago Cubs	NL Central	14	143.5	No	Tanking mode; traded Darvish, non-tendered Schwarber
Cincinnati	NL Central	18	125.6	No	Little movement in improving the team.
Milwaukee	NL Central	20	102.9	No	Almost no off-season activity
Pittsburgh	NL Central	30	58.2	No	100% tanking mode; traded away most of their assets; just ONE guy on a multi-year contract
Washington	NL East	5	193.7	Yes	Multiple acquisitions pre season
Philadelphia	NL East	6	186.2	Yes	Resigned Realmuto big, got Didi
New York Mets	NL East	8	180.7	Yes	Huge moves pre 2021; new owner, signed McCann, acquired Lindor and Carrasco, bullpen signings
Atlanta	NL East	15	138.1	Yes	Two starters … but refuse to go much higher than current
Miami	NL East	27	73.6	No
Los Angeles Dodgers	NL West	1	204.4	Yes	Defending WS champs
San Diego	NL West	9	172.2	Yes	Got Darvish AND Snell, plus Musgrove??
San Francisco	NL West	13	146.1	Sort-of	Lots of movement, but none to really make them competitive
Colorado	NL West	16	128.3	No
Arizona	NL West	19	103	No	Not a SINGLE off-season move

Furthermore, there’s some teams who I give credit for “trying” who just happen to be in divisions where basically everyone else is NOT trying … so just treading water constitutes as a pathway to success. Going division by division:

• AL East: NY and Toronto competing. Boston sits at #2 in payroll thanks to god-awful contract management during the Dave Dombrowski era. Tampa was the best team in the AL in 2020, but projects to have the 3rd lowest payroll and just flipped Snell. Baltimore of course is doing almost nothing as normal.
• AL Central: Chicago and Minnesota sit mid-league in payroll but get a free ride thanks to the rest of the division actively tanking. Kansas City, Detroit and Cleveland all trying to get worse on purpose.
• AL West: Houston treading water with a great and expensive roster, the result of years of purposely tanking and starting this whole trend. The Angels continue to ineptly spend their money and not get Mike Trout to the playoffs. Nobody else trying, and Texas, Seattle, Oakland all sit in huge markets. Texas in particular is particularly galling; they reside in the 4th largest market in the majors and project to have the 23rd ranked payroll.
• NL East: the most competitive division, with 4 of the 5 teams trying and spending money. Of course, as noted above Atlanta’s wealth is hamstrung artificially (which must be awesome for their fans). Miami continues to be an embarassment, a revenue suck on the rest of the league.
• NL Central: perhaps the most egregious example; just one team seems to be trying to win in 2021 (St. Louis). The other four are dumping players and not spending money (Cubs, Cincy, Milwaukee and Pittsburgh, which projects to the lowest payroll in teh majors)
• NL West: the Dodgers will always spend, and the Padres are really well positioned out of the blue, which has made the rest of the division wave the white flag already. San Francisco treads water getting out from under a ton of expensive, aging players, while Colorado has traded away an all-star team worth of talent in the past few years, and Arizona continues to be one of the most inept franchises in the game while sitting in the 10th largest US market, one that is growing wildly.

For me, a big part of this is the Luxury tax cap, which clearly is treated as a hard cap and thus stops wealthier teams from going over it. But another huge part is the lack of a corresponding salary floor. There’s also little incentive for teams to compete and win with pre-determined RSN payments driving their revenues. I think the league needs to look at bigger revenue sharing for its smaller teams to keep them competitive (like what the NFL does). Lastly, too many teams have now seen the pathway to success that bottoming out does and are emulating it … all at once. Only one team can draft #1 overall, but half the league is trying to do so. How do you resolve this?

In any case … the lack of trying and lack of spending has led to hundreds of millions of dollars of payroll NOT being spent on players … and they’ve got to get the playing field back to level. I think we’re going to see a pretty ugly work stoppage after 2021. I’m sure we’ll be revisiting this. But when it comes to good faith attempts to compete, more than half the league is not holding up their end of the bargain for 2021.

I write a baseball blog. Therefore, I am obligated to put in my 2 cents on Hall of Fame voting. And the new year is also the deadline for BBWAA voters to send in their real ballots for the Hall of Fame, so you see a glut of sportswriters publishing their ballots. Here’s more of the same from me.

How many years have I been doing this post?  Basically as long as we’ve had the blog.  Here’s (by class) 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011. 

I know lots of people have lost faith in the Hall of Fame, are tired of reading analysis like this, etc etc.  Fair enough; feel free to move on.

Here’s two key links for you, if you’re still reading.

• Baseball-Reference.com’s 2021 ballot class link
• Ryan Thibodaux‘s online tracker of all HoF votes

So, the 2021 class is … well its weak. With all due respect to the newly eligible candidates on the 2021 ballot, there’s not a single one hall-worthy. Several “hall of very good” players, but none transcendent. There was just one “major award” won between any of the newly eligible players, that being Barry Zito’s Cy Young award in 2002.

Nonetheless, here’s some quick thoughts on those that are on this ballot, in rough order of descending career bWAR/likelihood of getting 5% votes to stick around on the ballot.

New to the 2021 Ballot Candidates:

• Tim Hudson; highest JAWS of any of the 2021 new candidates, nearly the highest total career WAR. He certainly had enough time in the sun, playing for multiple playoff teams in his career (7 seasons pitching in the playoffs). Was frequently in Cy Young talks, but never really came close to winning one. Probably the best of this year’s class.
• Mark Buehrle: the Andy Pettitte of the 00s. Their career stats are eerily similar; if you support Pettitte, you support Buehrle. I think both guys were career #3 starters with occasionally amazing stuff.
• Torii Hunter had a surprisingly solid, quiet career. Great defender, great teammate. Not enough to make the hall.
• Dan Haren: hey, he pitched for the Nats! And he threw 88mph (his twitter account is https://twitter.com/ithrow88).
• Barry Zito: great early part of his career, forming the trio of amazing starters that Michael Lewis never once mentioned in Moneyball. Then became one of the worst-ever free agent contracts signed. 7 years, $126M. For that $126M he contributed a COMBINED 3.0 bWAR. Over 7 years. That’s $42M per WAR. Not the best legacy. Did win a Cy Young though.
• Aramis Ramirez: a long-time middle of the order dangerous bat for Chicago. Multiple 30hr/100 rbi seasons. Surprised he never got more press.
• Shane Victorino; we saw a lot of Victorino during the Philly golden years of the late 2000s. Solid player, that’s about it.
• A.J. Burnett: pitched for years, .500 career record, just kind of always there as a #2 or #3 starter. He made one All Star team in his entire career and it was his farewell season.
• Nick Swisher; the golden-child of the book Moneyball. Nice career.
• LaTroy Hawkins: no disrespect, but I don’t want to ever hear about another reliever until Billy Wagner is inducted.
• Michael Cuddyer; From Virginia! Part of a great history of players coming out of Great Bridge HS in Chesapeake over the past 20 years (also including Justin Upton, John Curtice and Connor Jones).

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Returning Ballot Candidates
Here’s how I’d vote my imaginary ballot. Amazingly, i find myself struggling to get to 10 players.

• Yes on Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, Curt Schilling, Manny Ramirez
• more tepid Yes on Scott Rolen, Andruw Jones
• Maybe it’s time to vote for Gary Sheffield, Billy Wagner, and Todd Helton
• Pass for now on Jeff Kent, Sammy Sosa, Andy Pettitte,
• No on Omar Vizquel, Bobby Abreu

Quick reasoning in order of the above:

• Clemens and Bonds are two of the best players ever to play, regardless of later-in-their-career PED transgressions (alleged or otherwise). You can cut both their careers off at the point where they both allegedly used and they’re still HoFamers. Vote them in and be done with it.
• Schilling may be abhorrent on social media, but he deserves the Hall based on his playing career. It does not go without saying though that it is completely reasonable for journalists to pass as a statement of protest at this point. If you want a full accounting of all the reprehensible stuff he’s spewed on social media lately, see Jay Jaffe‘s HoF post for a partial list. Its ridiculous. And frankly it makes me pause even putting his name here. Maybe its “putting your head in the sand” to support someone posting the vile crap he does … especially since he’s completely aware of what he posts and seemingly now does it for attention.
• Ramirez was perhaps the most feared RH hitter for a decade in this league and has career numbers that put him in the top 25 hitters ever to play. Again, less interested in PED transgressions at the end of his career than I am with the bulk of his accomplishments.
• Rolen is an interesting player whose value was much more about his defense than his offense. Interestingly the Hall has no problem electing top-end defensive short stops who couldn’t hit (see Ozzie Smith or Luis Aparicio) but seem to struggle when presented with an equally dominant defensive 3B who actually could hit. That’s Rolen to a t.
• Jones was, for the first 10 years of his career, discussed as perhaps being the second coming of Willie Mays before getting hurt and getting run out of the game by the time he was 35. Despite playing just 11 full seasons he had 434 career homers and 10 straight gold gloves in Center. I think voters have just forgotten how good he was. Keith Law had a great post at the Athletic this week about just why Jones is hall-worthy, an interesting analysis that was worth reading.
• Sheffield is a borderline candidate but was nearly as feared as Ramirez was at the plate. Has stronger PED usage allegations than others. He was, unfortunately, a “difficult” player to deal with both for club and media, which has probably led to his tepid support.
• Billy Wagner: has better numbers than nearly any other inducted reliever. If you have any relievers in the hall, you’d need to consider Wagner (and as long as we’re having that conversation, say hello to Tom Henke).
• Todd Helton was better than you remember. He had a season once where he hit .357 AND hit 42 homers. Just look past the fact that he was once arrested for DUI while buying lottery tickets. Lottery tickets! For a player who made $156M in his career.

Passing on and reasoning:

• Bobby Abreu: good but not transcendent. Frankly i;m amazed at the support he’s getting so far on the bbhof tracker.
• Jeff Kent is a polarizing figure, both while he played and on the ballot. He’s a borderline guy and his voting totals have indicated that.
• Sosa: too hard to make a case that he reinvented himself as a home run hitter completely thanks to artificial mechanisms. He was a 36–40 homer guy then he suddenly rips off seasons of 66, 63, 50 and 64. I will say though, i do “buy” his corked bat explanation once I read that the league confiscated all his other bats and found no other cork.
• Pettitte lead the league in wins in the 90s (much like Morris did in the 80s) but is recognized similarly to Mark Buehrle; a lefty 3rd or 4th starter for most of his career who stayed healthy and accumulated wins and strikeouts, but was rarely even the best hurler on his own team.
• Vizquel was a mediocre hitter who played forever and nearly got to 3,000 hits. He was a solid defender yes, but I’m kind of at a loss as to why voters are giving him so much credence while Rolon struggles.

So, I try to do this every year, and every year I do reasonably well in predicting the end-of-season awards as voted upon by the media members of the BBWAA.

This year? I have no idea what is going to happen. A combination of work, pandemic, side projects and other interests has really taken away from my focus on baseball in 2020. So honestly I have no idea who is set to win these awards. But lets do some educated guessing, with the help of some of my favorite national baseball writers.

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AL MVP: Well, if you use the old adage “best player on the best team,” you end up with Brandon Lowe on the Tampa Bay Rays. Is Brandon Lowe getting MVP buzz? Of course not. Could you pick Brandon Lowe out of a lineup? Yeah me neither. He’s the only guy on the Rays who hit double digit homers but he’s hitting just .269 on the season and posted a 2.1 bWAR, nearly a full win below some of his compatriots in the league. Tampa is a team effort with great starters and even better relievers that probably won’t go far in the playoffs.

No, this award seems to be coming down between two hitters:
– D.J. LeMahieu of the Yankees, who had a monster batting season and really carried a team that was missing its two best hitters for half the season.
– Jose Abreu, who also blew up this year, hitting .317 with 19 homers in 60 games to lead the resurgent and dangerous White Sox into the playoffs for the first time in more than a decade.

I like the Abreu narrative. I’ll go Abreu 1, LeMahieu 2 and Trout getting sympathy 3rd place votes for yet another playoff-less season for the Angels. Cleveland’s leading slugger Jose Ramirez continues to mash in anonymity and should be in the conversation for 3rd here as well.

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NL MVP: well, its pretty clear that the three best hitters this year in the league were all in the NL. Freddie Freeman, who has never finished in the top 3 in MVP voting amazingly, blew up this year, posting an OPS figure above 1,100 and really continuing to show why he’s consistently year in, year out one of the most underrated hitters in the league. Meanwhile, Mookie Betts quietly led the league in bWAR with a 3.4 figure in just 60 games (that’s projecting to a 9-win season in a full year), but a good chunk of that WAR is defense-related (which some writers struggle to evaluate). Lastly you have our own Juan Soto, who just put up a 212 OPS+ season (the 26th best single season OPS+ figure EVER), became the youngest player to ever lead the league in BA, and posted 2.9 offensive bWAR in just *47 games* (that’s a 10-win offensive season projected to 162 games, before taking away his defensive correction which drags him down from an overall bWAR perspective). And none of this even recognizes any of the guys in San Diego (specifically Fernando Tatis Jror Manny Machado) who have rocketed that team to respectability quickly.

Honestly, I think the narrative gets Freeman the award, given that he’s never come close to winning it anymore. The award goes Freeman 1, Betts 2 and Soto 3. Maybe Tatis takes 3rd over Soto, penalizing the Nat for his false-positive Covid test that cost him a chunk of the season.

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AL Cy Young: I think it has to be Cleveland’s Shane Bieber, who gets the pitching “triple crown” in the AL: he leads the league in Wins (8), ERA (1.63) and Strikeouts (122, which worked out to an astounding 14.2 K/9 rate). His ERA+ figure was 281, good for the 3rd best single season figure … EVER.

I’m not even sure who fills out the rest of the AL bracket: perhaps Toronto’s Hyung-Jin Ryu 2nd for his solid performance in his debut Toronto season, and then Dallas Keuchel, who posted a sub 2.00 ERA for the White Sox.

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NL Cy Young: this race is a mess. If it were me, i’d be seriously considering Max Fried of Atlanta, who was basically unhittable all year (7-0, 2.25 ERA), but who got hurt and did not pitch enough innings to even qualify for the ERA title. But Cincinnati’s Trevor Bauer was even more unhittable, posting some astounding numbers this year: just 5-4 as a W/L record but his ERA was a league leading 1.73, he also led the league in WHIP with an amazing 0.795 figure, he posted a 276 ERA+ (the 5th best seasonal figure ever), and he struck out 12.3 K/9. Just amazing.

I think it goes Bauer 1, Fried 2 and then someone like Yu Darvish or Jacob deGrom 3rd, to recognize their excellent seasons as well.

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AL Rookie of the Year: who knows: there’s been so many debuts this season, it has been hard to keep track. I’ll go with who I see getting more sportswriters buzz; Kyle Lewis of Seattle.

NL Rookie of the Year: I think the narrative gives it to San Diego’s Jake Croneworth, who exploded out of nowhere to have a solid rookie season at the age of 26. Yes, there’s some eye popping figures coming from Milwaukee rookie reliever Devin Williams (53 strikeouts of 100 batters faced, or a 17.7 K/9 rate, good for an ERA+ of … get this …. 1375!), but he’s a middle reliever. we’ll see how the voters evaluate him.

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Managers of the Year: how do you possibly evaluate managers in a short season like this? I default to “manager of the team that surprised people the most and snuck into the playoffs.” Following this theory i’ll go Rick Renteria of the White Sox in the AL(who improved from going 72-89 last year to 35-25 this year) and Don Mattingly of the Marlins in the NL (whose Marlins won just 57 games last year). San Diego’s Jayce Tingler deserves votes here too, as does Cincinnati’s David Bell.

There you have it.

Post publishing Actuals:

For 2020, I got 6 out of 8 predictions right. Missed on one RoY and one Manager.

• RoYs: Devin Williams and Kyle Lewis.
• Managers: Don Mattingly and Kevin Cash. Amazingly, the guy i thought would win was *fired* a few days before he was named a finalist. Not since Davey Johnson and the Orioles in 1997 have we seen something like this.
• Cy Youngs: Trevor Bauer and Shane Bieber
• MVPs: Jose Abreu and Freddie Freeman

I alluded to this in comments on the previous thread…. but it is a question worth asking.

Here’s the rough timeline for the 2020 season:

• Friday, June 26: Transactions freeze ends at noon ET
• Sunday, June 28: Teams must submit 60-man player pool names by 3 p.m. ET
• Wednesday, July 1: Teams report to Training Camp 2.0
• Friday, July 24: New Opening Day
• Monday, August 31: Trade deadline (usually July 31)
• Tuesday, September 15: Players must be on big league roster to be eligible for postseason

So, notably, here we sit not even to July 1 yet, and we have the following issues:

• One third of MLB teams have already reported players or staff testing positive out of their facilities.   The Rangers front-office staff had a run after being mandated to report to work (that was nice of their management)
• Florida and Arizona are hot-spots for a new “wave” of CoronaVirus outbreaks.   Here’s Florida’s map of cases showing a huge up-tick over the past few days.
• Arizona in particular now leads the WORLD in per-capita cases.  Here’s Arizona’s chart of cases lately.
• Toronto is in Canada.  Canada has a) banned “non-essential” travel to and from the US, and b) requires 14-day quarantine of incoming visitors.  So where precisely is Toronto going to play?

MLB has a plan, of course.  And true to MLB fashion, its vague and arguable throughout.  Per the “contingency plan” they can stop the season if:

1.  if restrictions on travel throughout the country are imposed;
2. if the season poses “an unreasonable health and safety risk to players or staff to stage those games,”; and
3. if the competitive integrity of the season is compromised by the number of players who are available.

Those aren’t “or” clauses; they’re “and” clauses.  Meaning all 3 need to take effect.  #2 in particular seems particularly vague enough to basically never be agreed as being true by the 35-40% of this country that still seems to think this pandemic is a joke or a media invention.

I mean, what do you do if the virus hits a team and knocks out a third of their roster?  You can’t possibly ask them to keep playing with a bunch of minor leaguers.  That clearly compromises the integrity of the season.  Meanwhile, we already have players like our own Ryan Zimmerman make pretty cogent arguments that they’re in really tough spots personally to expose themselves to three months of high-risk travel and group settings (If you’re Zimmerman, with an immuno-compromised parent and a small child at home … what would YOU do?)

I dunno.  I think its a frigging mess.  As much as I like baseball and want a season to discuss and analyze, as much as I want to see Max Scherzer vs Gerritt Cole on opening day … part of me thinks we’re gonna get to mid-July and there’s going to be huge roadblocks to play.   We’ll see I suppose.

When our 60-man roster is announced i’ll do another post to talk about it.

 

Post-publishing addition: I completely forgot to add in concerns  about (some of which was mentioned in the comments):

• our foreign players actually being able to fly HERE
• our foreign players actually being allowed to fly home.
• state-based flying restrictions just announced.
• the fact that the DC mayor has apparently banned large gatherings and the Nats may not be able to train at home.

just so many issues.

Its been a whirlwind few weeks, I tell you.

With today’s announcement that Virginia schools are now closed for the rest of the school year, I thought i’d chime in.  Virginia was not the first state to take such drastic measures, but certainly won’t be the last.

We’ve already had the NCAA shutter all spring sports, including baseball and the far-too-early-but-now-seemingly-sensible cancellation of the College World Series in June.

We’re also basically at a point where its likely that all prep sports around the country will be cancelled as well.

Its amazing.

I’ve covered the CWS for years, covering prep baseball in the DC/MD/VA areas is an annual tradition; not in 2020.  There’s nothing.

My son’s little league?  Probably gone.  He’s in a critical development year in the 7-8yr old range; this will set back his class for years to come.

So, now the question is … when do you think MLB will return?  Will it?  Do you think we’ll be past this crisis by the all Star Break in mid July?

If this stretches into August … and the players need a 4-week spring training … what time is left?  Would you run a season for a month and a half?

There’s all sorts of articles about service time, negotiations ongoing, etc.  To take a simple example: what would you do with Mookie Betts and the Dodgers if the season goes poof?  Both sides have pretty decent arguments:

• Betts would argue he was blocked from fulfilling his end of the contract and should be a free agent.
• Dodgers would argue that they traded assets to acquire  him and never got a day of playing time out of him so he should play another season for htem.

What a mess.

Any predictions out there?

My hope is for a mid-July restart, then a two month sprint of a season Aug and Sept (60 games or there abouts), maybe entirely within division, to determine the conventional playoff slat of 5 teams/league.  It will be an entirely unbalanced schedule but so be it.  I’d exactly pro-rate a “year” of service time to the actual days played (meaning if they do a 60-day season that’s the new 182-day “service year prorated so that each 2020 day is worth 3 non-2020 service days).  Yeah the teams like the Dodgers that acquired players get screwed, but they’re also paying pro-rated salaries thanks to natioanl emergency clauses and force majeure clauses in contracts.  Not fair to all players … but everyone takes a hit.

With the Marcell Ozuna signing earlier this week, the last qualifying offer-attached player has signed, which means (barring any more stripping of draft picks due to brazen and ridiculous sign stealing by un-penalized players) that we’ve also finalized the 2020 draft order.

This is a two-parter post, closing the books on the 2019 off-season Qualifying Offer accounting, and then a quick look at the 2020 draft.

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First up; lets look at players who had QOs and see how they fared.

Year	Player	Old Team	New Team	Draft Pick Forfeited	Signing Date	Subsequent contract (w/o options)	Money up/down per AAV	Q.O. Screw the player?
2019	Gerrit Cole	Houston	New York Yankees	2-62, 5-160	43810	9yr/$324M	18.2	No
2019	Anthony Rendon	Washington	Los Angeles Angels	2-48	43810	7yr/$245M	17.2	No
2019	Stephen Strasburg	Washington	Washington	none	43808	7yr/$245M	17.2	No
2019	Zack Wheeler	New York Mets	Philadelphia	2-53	43803	5yr/$118M	5.8	No
2019	Madison Bumgarner	San Francisco	Arizona	2-54	43814	5yr/$85M	-0.8	No
2019	Josh Donaldson	Atlanta	Minnesota	3-100	43845	4yr/$92M	5.2	No
2019	Marcel Ozuna	St. Louis	Atlanta	3-99	43851	1yr/$18M	0.2	Not really
2019	Jake Odorizzi	Minnesota	Minnesota	none	43783	1yr/$17.8M	8.3	No
2019	Will Smith	San Francisco	Atlanta	2-67	43783	3yr/$39M	-4.8	maybe
2019	Jose Abreu	Chicago White Sox	Chicago White`	none	43783	1yr/$17.8M	1.8	Not really

Ten players had QOs slapped on them to start the off-season.  Seven of those players signed elsewhere, meaning seven players cost their signing teams draft picks.  Now, the sting of those draft pick losses isn’t nearly as bad as it used to be: 2nd rounder at best, and we saw some interesting teams signing players this time around.

Meanwhile, for the first time in a while I don’t really think any one player got completely screwed by having a QO associated with his FA status.  8 of the 10 players with QOs improved their contract AAV.  Madison Bumgarner accepted a slightly less AAV than the QO figure, but signed for 5 years after a down season, so he can’t be disappointed.  Lastly reliever Will Smith may have taken a significantly lower AAV, but as a reliever he’s gotta be happy about guaranteeing 3 years and $39M.  Even Ozuna, who signed just a one year deal, didn’t *lose* money and rids himself of the QO for next season, and reportedly turned down more money and multi-year deals.

Compare this to last year, where two marquee FAs (Craig Kimbrel and Dallas Keuchel) both waited til after the draft in mid-June to sign and both took significantly lower money than they were probably due.

In case I havn’t made it sufficiently clear in the past, I think this QO system is ridiculous, and that the MLBPA expended a ton of its political capital in the last couple of negotiating sessions to modify it, yet it still continues to screw over players while enabling the owners to pursue what now acts like a hard salary cap.  I think it should be completely abolished.  At this point in the game, does it make sense to tie free agency to draft picks?  I don’t think so.   The Nationals netted a mid-second round extra pick (what ends up being 72nd overall) for losing their marquee hitter in Anthony Rendon in his prime; is this a fair compensation?  Of course not.  I’m not sure what the right solution is.

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So, now that the last QO players has signed, the 2020 draft order is finalized.

Its best seen here at mlb.com: https://www.mlb.com/draft/2020/order , but doesn’t really put in all the details pick by pick.

At the end of the day, 13 Original picks had been lost by teams.  Here’s all 14 and why they were lost (the “xth overall” is the original number, assuming no other lost picks)

• 1st round, 30th overall:  Forfeited by Houston 1/13/20 for cheating scandal
• 1st round supplemental, 31st overall: was to be compensation for Minnesota for Jake Odorizzi but he took the QO
• 2nd round, 49th overall: lost by Los Angeles Angels for signing Anthony Rendon
• 2nd round, 54th overall: lost by Philadelphia for signing Zach Wheeler
• 2nd round, 57th overall: lost by Arizona for signing Madison Bumgarner
• 2nd round, 64th overall: lost by Atlanta for signing Wil Smith
• 2nd round, 67th overall: lost by New York Yankees for signing Gerrit Cole
• 2nd round, 69th overall: Forfeited by Houston 1/13/20 for cheating scandal
• 2nd round supplemental, 76th overall: was to be compensation for Chicago White Sox for Jose Abreu but he took the QO
• 2nd round supplemental, 82th overall: was to be compensation for Washington for Stephen Strasburg, but he re-signed with the team.
• 3rd round, 109th overall: lost by Atlanta for the Marcell Ozuna signing
• 3rd round, 111th overall: lost by Minnesota for the Josh Donaldson signing
• 5th round, 172nd overall: lost by New York Yankees for signing Gerrit Cole (they lost a 2nd pick b/c they were a luxury tax violator, as the Nats were last  year).

At the end of the day, thanks to all these changed/lost picks, the Nats draft slots gain some spots in the later rounds and will look like this; we have four picks in the top 100 this year, which is great.

• 1st round: #22 overall
• 2nd round: #56
• 2nd round supp: #72
• 3rd round: #96
• 4th round: #124
• 5th round: #154
• 6th round: #183
• 7th and on-wards: every 30 afterwards

How does 22nd each round compare as to how the Nats have picked relative to the round over recent years?

• 2019: 16th each round
• 2018: 27th each round
• 2017: 28th each round
• 2016: 18th each round
• 2015: 29th each round
• 2014: 19th each round
• 2013: 30th each round
• 2012: 16th each round
• 2011: 6th reach round
• 2010 and before: usually pretty high each round 🙂

Since the 1st rounder is always the most important pick in a draft, here’s a quick glance at who was drafted with the 22nd overall pick in the first? over the past few drafts:

• 2019: Greg Jones, a SS from UNC-W picked by Tampa.  Hit .300 in first pro season in Short-A ball.
• 2018: Ryan Rolinson, a LHP from Ole Miss picked by Colorado.   full season starting in the Cal league in 2019 with a 4.87 ERA
• 2017: Logan Warmoth, a SS from UNC picked by Toronto; Promoted to AA mid 2019 season but struggled in Eastern league
• 2016: Will Craig, 3B from Wake Forest picked by Pittsburgh; played all of 2019 in AAA, hit 20+ homers at multiple levels
• 2015: Beau Burrows, prep RHP from Texas HS picked by Detroit: top 100 prospect, pitched in AAA as a 22yr old in 2019
• 2014: Grant Holmes prep RHP from South Carolina HS picked by Los Angeles Dodgers.  Some top 100 buzz, pitched most of 2019 in AA as a 23yr old after missing 2018 with injury
• 2013: Hunter Harvey, prep RHP from North Carolina HS picked by Baltimore.  Lots of top 100 buzz, missed a year w/ injury, in the mix for MLB spot.
• 2012: Marcus Stroman, RHP from Duke picked by Toronto.  51-47 as a MLB starter, all-star in 2019.

… so there’s some promise of picking in this range.

 

A pause to talk about the biggest topic of the off-season; the sign stealing scandals currently rocking the Astros, Red Sox and by association Mets franchises.

Summary: the Astros were found to be relaying the catcher’s signs to a monitor just within the clubhouse, and were able to signal their teammates in near real-time in express violation of an edict from the commissioner.  This comes from “whistleblower” Mike Fiers, who was a member of the team and witnessed the situation, which then sparked an investigation and has resulted in:

• 1 year suspension (and subsequent firing) of Astros GM Jeff Luhnow
• 1 year suspension (and subsequent firing) of Astros Manager A.J. Hinch
• Lost of 1st and 2nd round picks in 2020
• Loss of 1st and 2nd round picks in 2021
• $5M fine to the organization

Commissioner’s report is here: http://vendettasportsmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/cglrhmlrwwbkacty27l7.pdf

What’s missing here, of course, is any player penalty.  And when it came out in the report that this was a scheme “driven by the players, executed by the players” it becomes a little harder to swallow that not one player has been suspended.  The “banging” evidence is pretty damning: https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/28476354/how-internet-helped-crack-astros-sign-stealing-case kind of covers it and has some examples of internet sleuths who found pretty clear examples of it.

Why no player penalties?  CBA/Union of course.  But also … without hard evidence as to who was doing what, its awfully hard to pin blame on a particular player.  So the MLB essentially offered players immunity to testify so they could get to the bottom of the scandal.  But if there was direct video evidence of a player doing something nefarious and MLB moved to suspend them, it’d be awfully hard for the MLBPA with a straight face to defend the player at this point.

What’s more upsetting is the newer accusations of Astros players taking this a step further and wearing buzzing devices.  I know that MLB issued a statement that they “found no evidence” of this … but the video that’s surfaced and the comments made by the same twitter account that correctly predicted other parts of this scandal are pretty damning:

• Jose Altuve‘s adamance of not having his jersey ripped off: https://www.12up.com/posts/jose-altuve-dont-rip-my-shirt-off-aroldis-champman-walk-off-hr-alcs-astros-yankees-01dyqxcze7n0
• Josh Reddick appearing to have a wire taped to his chest; https://ftw.usatoday.com/2020/01/astros-cheating-scandal-buzzers-new-allegations-altuve-yankees
• Robinson Chirinos‘ having … something … fly off his person and hit Yan Gomes in the mask: https://foxsportsradio.iheart.com/content/2019-11-19-astros-accused-of-using-electronic-buzzers-at-bat-to-signal-certain-pitches

Ok.  By themselves each of these links has arguments against.  Altuve’s screaming not to tear his jersey off isn’t evidence of anything, but its completely incongruous with his tendency to run around shirtless (as a response to the ridiculous “he’s shy” defense offered by his agent Scott Boras).  Reddick’s “confetti” argument … ok, I think I can tell the difference between a piece of plastic and a wire.  And, whatever flew off Chirinos’ bat doesn’t seem to be what he claims (an authentication sticker?  put on a live game bat??  that’s ridiculous).  So … Occam’s Razor here; what the heck is going on?

Let me put this to you a different way.  The Astro’s organization ALREADY had an awful reputation for repugnant behavior and top-level arrogance before this stuff all hit ; if they were so brazen as to bang trash cans … would it really surprise you if it was discovered they’d taken it a step further and used electronic buzzer devices?

I’m no conspiracy theorist; I believe in fact checking and that 99% of the time internet meme-driven stories are BS.  But this one I can’t shake.

I was chatting with my dad recently, and he asked me if this was the biggest scandal since the Steroids news broke.  Part of me wanted to say yes, but mostly I say “no” in that there’s only credible evidence that one or two franchises partook in electronic sign stealing.  It isn’t a wide-spread, hundreds of players across the sport issue like the PED issue was.  So in that sense, I think we’ll see this go away as an isolated set of incidents.  But every franchise has this capability, so It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if we saw more rumors come out.

Do I think the Astros players need to be penalized?  Absolutely.

Do I think the franchise should have its World Series title stripped?  No.  I just can’t see how you do that.  This isn’t the NCAA, which routinely vacates wins and titles … ask a USC fan whether they frigging care that Reggie Bush‘s scandal caused them to vacate their wins while he played.  Who cares.  The WS titles are etched in stone, they’re already paid out and the parades have been held.  Do you really think it makes sense to retroactively award the title to the Dodgers from 2017 because potentially one or two guys knew what pitch was coming?  Can’t say I think that’s a workable solution.

Something tells me we havn’t heard the last of this … but this is how i’m feeling about it right now.  Who said the off-season was boring?  🙂

 

 

The powers that be in baseball have long rung the bell of anti-competitiveness w/r/t payroll and success.  In fact, its the salient driving early topic of Michael Lewis‘s seminal book Moneyball ….

Tangent.  Moneyball has its faults, don’t get me wrong.  I may have gone on this rant before, but having recently re-read the book, I was reminded of these issues:

• A huge part of the Oakland A’s success in the 2002 103 win season was due to their two best hitters (Miguel Tejada and Eric Chavez) being home grown talents that pre-dated Billy Beane‘s tenure as GM.  Tejada was an IFA signed in 1993, Chavez drafted out of HS as the 10th overall pick in 1996.  Beane did not ascend to the job til 1997.
• An even huger part of the A’s success was due to their rotation; three Ace-level arms under the age of 26 that season in Tim Hudson, Barry Zito and Mark Mulder, none of which was paid more than $875k that year as pre-arb guys … and in fact Zito wasn’t even to arbitration yet.  Combined bWAR for these three: 15.8.
• The much-ballyhood 2002 draft, which is the subject of most of the book and is the center of the movie’s conflict?  The one where the A’s had 7 first round or supp-1st round picks?  It was an abject failure.  Of the 7 guys they drafted in the 2002 1st round, 3 never made the majors and a 4th (the much-argued-about Alabama C Jeremy Brown) had a MLB career that consisted of 5 games.  A 5th player (Mark Teahen) had a combined career MLB bWAR of 2.6.  The remaining two players (Nick Swisher and Joe Blanton) had long careers of course … but Blanton had just 11.8 career bWAR across 262 games in 13 years, finishing his career with none other than the Washington Nationals and never once making an all-start team or gaining a single Cy Young vote: career ERA+?  95.  I’m sorry, but good drafting teams hit on their first rounders more often than not and the “bar” is MLB regular.  They got perhaps 1 and a half out of 7 picks right in this year, for all of the
• That whole guitar-playing daughter movie BS?  Non-existent in the book.  Hey I get it; you gotta make Brad Pitt look likeable.  By all accounts in the book, Beane is … not likeable.  There were stories of him screaming in meetings, throwing furniture in the draft room, being incapable of watching the games with others because he got so worked up … to say nothing of his exploits as a professional hitter self-destructing in rage.  Pretty sure these behaviors wouldn’t fly in today’s climate.

I digress.

As pointed in Moneyball … during MLB’s investigation a pesky economist kept asking questions like, “If there’s a direct correlation between payroll and success, then  how does Oakland keep winning with these low payrolls?”  And nobody had a good answer. It got me thinking, in the wake of Washington’s well-funded World Series victory in 2019, what exactly was the history of payrolls to WS wins.  Well, here it is in tabular format.

Year	team	payroll	high	low	median	payroll rank	notes
2019	Washington	197	236	60	126	4
2018	Boston	233	233	65	134	1	33m more than #2
2017	Houston	124m	241	63	139	17	Result of bottoming out strategy in 2013
2016	Chicago Cubs	171m	250	63	131	6
2015	Kansas City	112m	282	69	118	17	LA = 282; just crazy
2014	San Francisco	149m	236	45	107	7
2013	Boston	150m	229	26	93	4	Houston = 26m
2012	San Francisco	131m	213	51	94	6
2011	St. Louis	109m	207	39	92	10
2010	San Francisco	97m	212	37	84	11
2009	New York Yankees	203m	203	37	81	1	50M more than #2
2008	Philadelphia	96m	213	25	78	13	Miami = 25
2007	Boston	147m	195	25	87	2
2006	St. Louis	89m	201	16	83	11	Miami = 16
2005	Chicago White Sox	75m	209	30	67	13
2004	Boston	128m	185	27	63	2
2003	Florida	47m	153	19	69	25	TB = 19
2002	Anaheim	61m	126	34	61	15
2001	Arizona	85m	111	23	64	8
2000	New York Yankees	92m	92	16	58	1	5m more than #2
1999	New York Yankees	91m				1	11m more than #2
1998	New York Yankees	73m				2
1997	Florida	52m				5
1996	New York Yankees	61m				1	6m more than #2
1995	Atlanta	47m				4

Some thoughts looking at 2019 and going backwards:

• 17 of the 25 WS winners since divisional play started had payrolls in the top 10 of the league
• 14 of these 25 winners were top 5.
• The Los Angeles Dodgers have spent an amazing amount of money to win nothing over the past 5-6 years.   They’re the “high” payroll for most of this decade, peaking at $282M in 2015.
• The Nats just won the WS with the 4th largest payroll in the game, basically at the top of the luxury tax line.
• Boston won it last year with easily the highest payroll in the game, fully $33M more than the 2nd highest payroll. Now that’s buying a title!
• Houston’s 2017 title comes on the back of them absolutely bottoming out in 2013 and having successive 110+ loss seasons, so its status as an outlier doesn’t exactly hold water.
• You have to go back to Kansas City’s 2015 run to see our first outlier … and it should be noted that Kansas City completely bottomed out their farm system to achieve those two years of success, immediately dropped to a .500 win team the year after and now have two straight 100+ loss seasons AND have by some accounts one of the worst farms in the game.
• Before that you’re in the 2010-11 time-frame, where a 90-win St.Louis team with the 11th highest payroll went on a magical run to take out a bunch of teams with better records.
• The 2008 Phillies were only the 13th ranked payroll; they were driven by career years of home-grown stars still confined by arbitration; within a couple of years Philly would be at the top of the league payroll list too.
• Clearly 2003 Florida is the huge outlier; the only team with a payroll not at least in the top half of the game to take a series.  And I think we all know about that year…. i’m sure Dusty Baker and Steve Bartman remember it well.

So, does this data tell us anything?   Is it correlation or causation?  Or coincidence?

So, with a week to go, who’s in the lead for the #1 overall draft pick/largest bonus pool for the 2020 draft?

http://www.tankathon.com/mlb

I love that there’s an official “Tanking” page now tracking this.

With a week to go, here’s how we stack up (records as of 9/24/19).  There’s really only four teams to discuss; there’s a 7 game gap to the 5th worst team right now.

1. Detroit: 46-109, projecting to 48-114.  Remaining Schedule: home to Min, away to CWS.  Likely getting swept by Minnesota, who is pushing for playoff positioning but may get some wins against CWS.
2. Baltimore: 51-106, projecting to 53-109.  Remaining schedule: away to Tor, away to Bos.  may end up picking up a couple of wins here since all remaining teams also playing out the stretch.
3. Miami: 55-101, projecting to 57-105.  Remaining schedule: away to NYM, away to Phi.  May very well lose out, given that these two teams are finishing strong.  but seems locked into 3rd spot.
4. Kansas City: 57-100, projecting to 59-103.  Remaining schedule: home to Atl, home to Minn.  hosting all playoff teams still pushing, might lose out.

So, here’s the top 4 of next year’s draft.  At this point, it seems pretty likely that this will be the tankathon finish too.  Detroit is locked in for #1, Baltimore is pretty well locked into #2.  We might see a flip between 3 and 4 but doubtful since both teams are playing motivated squads to finish up.

So, what’s the prize of the 2020 draft?  Well, unlike 2019, when the conesnsus 1-1 overall pick Adley Rutschmann was pretty well established even at this early date, the 2020 draft isn’t consensus for #1 overall yet.   But the top few picks likely will include names from this list:

College top candidates for 2020

• Spencer Torkelson, 1B/LF Arizona State.   3rd team AA PG/Rawlings 2018 as a freshman.   2nd team d1baseball AA 2018.  2018 Collegiate USA team as freshman.  Hit 25 homers as a freshman, 22 homers as sophomore.  2nd team d1baseball.com AA as sophomore.  2nd team NCBWA AA as sophomore.   2nd team BA AA 2019 as sophomore.  2019 Collegiate National team
• Emerson Hancock, RHP Georgia.  High-90s fastball, 3-pitch guy, great sophomore numbers for #3 team in the land.  2nd team d1baseball.com AA 2019 as sophomore.  2nd team NCBWA AA as sophomore.  2nd team BA AA 2019 as sophomore
• Austin Martin, 2b/ss/3B Vanderbilt.  Slashed .410/.502/.603 as a sophomore w/ speed.  1st team d1baseball.com AA 2019 as sophomore.  Plays 6 positions, should be primary SS in 2020.  1st team BA AA 2019 as sophomore.  2019 Collegiate National team

Or, if a prep player goes:

• Pete Crow-Armstrong, OF (CF) Harvard-Westlake HS, CA.  top all-around prep position player in draft.   Vanderbilt commit.  3rd team Baseball america AA in 2019 as junior.  Maxpreps 2nd team AA as junior
• Blaze Jordan, 1B/3B DeSoto Central High School (Southaven, Mississippi).  Re-classified/graduating early.   Mississippi State commit
• Dylan Crews, OF Lake Mary HS (Fla).  LSU commit.  PG has him as #2 prep player in class, long-time member of US national teams.

The last time Detroit picked 1st overall, they got a guy in Casey Mize in 2018 who dominated high-A in 6 starts to begin the 2019 season, then threw a no-hitter in his AA debut.  He finished off AA this year with solid numbers for a 22 yr old, and could be featuring in the Detroit rotation mid-next season … that is if the team doesn’t play service time manipulation games.

 

 

 

Here’s my annual Nationals All Star selection post.

Nats All Star Game Trivia:

• All-time leader in Nats all-star appearances: Harper with 6 appearances.  Scherzer has been named 7 times but some pre-dated his time here (he has 5 with the Nats now)
• All-time leader in All-Star Game starts: Harper, who had 5 starts.
• 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)

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2019

• Nationals All-Star representatives: Max Scherzer, Anthony Rendon
• Possible Snubs: Juan Soto, Stephen Strasburg, Howie Kendrick, Trevor Rosenthal (just kidding)
• Narrative: Rendon finally is named to an all-star team, having played in the shadows of other more well-known NL third basemen for  years.  Arbitrary Endpoints: Rendon is 7th in baseball among hitters in total fWAR since 2014.  7th.  In the entire league.  And this is his first ASG.  Meanwhile Scherzer is the obvious pick, though i’m not sure he gets the start this year.  Scherzer leads the NL in bWAR … but Hyun-Jin Ryu is having an amazing season and could get the nod (indeed, he has).  Soto’s numbers are solid, as good as his rookie campaign, but he started slow and the story-line surrounding the Nats this season has overshadowed his production.  Strasburg actually has more bWAR than Rendon … but his numbers are solid, not all-star good.  Kendrick would never have gotten a nod, but he should be a shoe-in for comeback player of the year for the season he’s having.  Others of note: Sean Doolittle was amazing for most of the first half but has tired and his numbers slipped.  Patrick Corbin‘s debut season has been solid, not flashy, and he has the same issues as Strasburg had.

Post publishing update: neither of our two representatives are actually going to Cleveland.  Rendon staying home to rehab a nagging quad injury, and Scherzer is traveling but will not pitch b/c he threw a start just ahead of the game.  Both players were replaced by non-Nats … which was a shame b/c a like-for-like with Strasburg for Scherzer seemed like the right thing to do.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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).