{"id":14325,"date":"2017-08-26T08:40:42","date_gmt":"2017-08-26T12:40:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=14325"},"modified":"2017-08-26T08:40:42","modified_gmt":"2017-08-26T12:40:42","slug":"who-is-on-your-post-season-nats-roster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=14325","title":{"rendered":"Who is on your Post season Nats roster?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"So,<\/a>

So, is this photo from 2012 or 2017? via federalbaseball norm hall getty images<\/p><\/div>\n

Assuming that the expected players on the D\/L come back (all 10 of them as of this writing), there’s a ton of decisions to make in September.<\/p>\n

This is probably premature, but it keeps coming up, and the Nats now have a 100% playoff odds chance right now per fangraphs<\/a>, so might as well speculate.<\/p>\n

Who is on your post-season roster?<\/p>\n

Assuming that all of Drew, Glover, Goodwin, Harper, Madsen, Raburn, Romero, Scherzer, Turner and Werth come back and are fully healthy (yes, huge caveat), here’s what the Nats are looking at by category:<\/p>\n

\n

4 SPs<\/strong><\/span>: Options: Scherzer, Strasburg, Gonzalez, Roark, Jackson. \u00a0Plus for completeness sake, Fedde and Cole.<\/p>\n

As discussed previously, it’d take an injury to one of the first four to get Jackson to the post-season roster and in the rotation (more on this later). \u00a0Gio’s great 2017 moves him up to 3rd starter and possible 7th game decider in a long series. \u00a0Lets hope we get there.<\/p>\n

Who plays in October<\/strong><\/span>: \u00a0Scherzer, Strasburg, Gonzalez, Roark<\/strong>, in that order.<\/p>\n

\n

8 RPs<\/strong><\/span>: \u00a0Options: Doolittle*, Kintzler, Kelley, Albers, Perez*, Blanton, Grace*, Solis*, Glover, Madsen, Romero* plus 40-man guys Gott and Adams.<\/p>\n

I think you have to carry the 7th-8th-9th guys we just acquired, so that’s your law-firm of Doolittle, Madsen and Kintzler. \u00a0Madsen apparently is more hurt that we thought and may not be back until the end of September, a situation to monitor for sure. \u00a0Albers is a lock as a middle reliever. \u00a0Perez’s capabilities of soaking up innings plus doing match-up puts him on the roster too. \u00a0I think Grace and Romero have earned their spots, thought that makes for e very lefty-heavy bullpen (which might really come in handy against the Dodgers, if we get there). \u00a0One remaining spot; i’d say that it should go to Glover …. but maybe it goes to EJackson instead if Glover isn’t healthy. \u00a0I know the assumption here is that everyone is healthy, so we’ll go with Glover for now, but I could also see\u00a0Dusty Baker<\/strong> going with the experienced arm that could start in a pinch if Roark struggles.<\/p>\n

So that leaves Blanton and Kelley having pitched themselves out of contention. \u00a0Solis’s up and down season costs him a post-season spot too. \u00a0Gott\/Adams never had a chance based on MLB performance.<\/p>\n

Now, the question is this; does Baker leave off vets like Blanton\/Kelley for youngsters like Grace or Romero? \u00a0Maybe. \u00a0Grace\/Romero’s ERAs on the season are in the 4 range … not the sub 2.00 range that would guarantee the spot. \u00a0So I dunno. \u00a0Maybe they go righty-heavy against Chicago in the NLDS then switch things up and go lefty heavy if we make it to the NLCS against LA.<\/p>\n

Who plays in October<\/strong><\/span>: Doolittle, Madsen, Kintzler, Albers, Glover, Perez, Grace, \u00a0Romero.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Starting lineup<\/strong><\/span>: I cannot disagree with\u00a0Jamal \u00a0Collier’s\u00a0<\/strong>predicted playoff lineup from his Mailbag earlier this week.<\/p>\n

1 SS Turner
\n2 LF Werth
\n3 RF Harper
\n4 1B Zimmerman
\n5 2B Murphy
\n6 3B Rendon
\n7 C Wieters
\n8 CF Taylor<\/p>\n

Werth can work the count in the 2-hole, makes good contact and can drive the ball; if Rendon wants to stay in the 6-hole then there’s no better person to put up top with Turner. \u00a0Perhaps you switch Wieters and Taylor. \u00a0Perhaps you switch Zimmerman and Murphy if you’re not worried about having two lefties in a row. \u00a0 If Goodwin could play CF, maybe he’d be starting there but right now its a coin-flip between them performance wise. \u00a0I don’t think the playoffs are a good time to experiment with Harper in CF so you can slip in Goodwin in RF so as to gain a few incremental points of OPS. \u00a0Still can’t quite believe that under-the-radar MVP candidate Rendon is batting 6th.<\/p>\n

If Werth still isn’t healthy … then we slot in Kendrick nice and neat into LF\/#2. \u00a0He’s done great there for us since his acquisition.<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

Bench\u00a0<\/b><\/span>
\nINF\/OF Kendrick, INF\/OF Lind, C\u00a0Jose Lobaton, INF\u00a0Drew, OF Goodwin<\/p>\n

This Bench means that the likes of Raburn and more specifically Difo are off the roster. \u00a0 I’d much rather have Drew off the bench in a critical situation than Difo. \u00a0But the thing is … Drew may not be healthy, which would leave Difo on the roster. \u00a0Maybe you carry Difo instead of Drew b\/c that’d make one too many lefties on the bench (Lind, Drew, Goodwin all lefty only), while Difo can switch hit. \u00a0I could see that argument … but then again, does the player’s manager Baker go with Difo over the vet? \u00a0It may not matter; if Werth isn’t healthy, both Drew and Difo make it while Kendrick starts.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Assuming that the expected players on the D\/L come back (all 10 of them as of this writing), there’s a ton of decisions to make in September. This is probably premature, but it keeps coming up, and the Nats now have a 100% playoff odds chance right now per fangraphs, so might as well speculate. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,2036],"tags":[689,17,185,3379,3692,257,164,1859,253,3445,2425,385,1940,3391,115,213,2239,2827,3438,1228,2094,1037,708,78,2952,3575,36,19,1347,3277,1014,38,77,2426,3067],"class_list":["post-14325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-natsgeneral","category-post-season","tag-adam-lind","tag-aj-cole","tag-anthony-rendon","tag-austin-adams","tag-brandon-kintzler","tag-brian-goodwin","tag-bryce-harper","tag-daniel-murphy","tag-edwin-jackson","tag-enny-romero","tag-erick-fedde","tag-gio-gonzalez","tag-howie-kendrick","tag-jamal-collier","tag-jayson-werth","tag-joe-blanton","tag-jose-lobaton","tag-koda-glover","tag-matt-albers","tag-matt-grace","tag-matt-wieters","tag-max-scherzer","tag-michael-taylor","tag-oliver-perez","tag-ryan-madsen","tag-ryan-raburn","tag-ryan-zimmerman","tag-sammy-solis","tag-sean-doolittle","tag-shawn-kelley","tag-stephen-drew","tag-stephen-strasburg","tag-tanner-roark","tag-trea-turner","tag-trevor-gott"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14325"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14335,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14325\/revisions\/14335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}