{"id":16401,"date":"2019-12-12T10:47:55","date_gmt":"2019-12-12T15:47:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=16401"},"modified":"2019-12-12T10:48:35","modified_gmt":"2019-12-12T15:48:35","slug":"rendon-signs-with-laa-now-what-for-the-nats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=16401","title":{"rendered":"Rendon signs with LAA: now what for the Nats?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Rendon's<\/a>

Rendon’s lasting legacy will be his amazing 2019 post season late inning performances. Photo via wtop.com<\/p><\/div>\n

I’m not the only one writing about this particular question today, but its the biggest question the team has faced in a while.<\/p>\n

Incumbent 3B\u00a0Anthony Rendon<\/strong>, who before the season was thought in most circles to have no chance of matching\u00a0Nolan Arenado<\/strong>‘s 8yr\/$260M deal ($32.5M AAV), got a slightly shorter but higher AAV deal with zero deferred dollars by signing a 7yr\/$245M ($35M AAV) deal with the Angels.<\/p>\n

As we noted, Rendon made himself a whole lotta money in the post season.\u00a0 And he blows past the reported 7yr\/$215M deal with significant deferred dollars (the Nat’s specialty) to stay here.<\/p>\n

Nats ownership warned us they may not be able to retain both players, and now we know for sure.\u00a0 \u00a0Despite tens of millions of dollars of expected new revenues flowing into the team, they still are beholden to the imaginary luxury tax line (thanks MLBPA!) and using it as a budget as opposed to a guideline for retaining home grown (but expensive) talent.<\/p>\n

So now what?<\/p>\n

Options seem to be:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Play\u00a0Howie Kendrick<\/strong> at 3B?\u00a0 \u00a0 He actually played nearly 100 innings at 3B this past season, didn’t make an error and had a decent UZR\/150 and -2 DRS in a SSS sampling.\u00a0 I know he’s still athletic and in shape, but he’s a 2B\/LF guy.\u00a0 He’s really not even tall enough to play 1B (he’s not even 6’0″).\u00a0 I think our defense takes a huge hit if he’s at third.\u00a0 BUT … it guarantees his bat in the lineup and allows the Nats to buy a big bopper 1B FA guy to hit in the middle of the order.\u00a0 Is it worth an experiment?<\/li>\n
  2. Hand the keys to 3B for the next six years to\u00a0Carter Kieboom<\/strong>?\u00a0 \u00a0per Fangraphs, Kieboom played all of 10 games at third for AAA Fresno this\u00a0 year.\u00a0 He made four errors in those 10 games.\u00a0 Not quite as bad as his defensive show playing SS for the big club last April; 10 games, 4 fielding errors, -7 DRS (in other words, he basically cost the team two full wins by defensive runs cost).\u00a0 \u00a0So, how is it possible he was THAT bad playing SS in the majors (where the fields are astronomically better than in the minors) and hasn’t been moved off the position yet to someplace like 2B or 3B where he can do less damage?\u00a0 \u00a0Anyway; decision time has come.\u00a0 His hitting numbers in AAA were great: .303\/.409\/.493 and a 123 wRC+.\u00a0 that’s great; everyone’s hitting numbers are great in the PCL.\u00a0 What does that tell us?\u00a0 Can he start at 3B in the majors next year?\u00a0 Its a $25M question, because if he can’t, the next best alternative will be….<\/li>\n
  3. Win the\u00a0Josh Donaldson<\/strong> sweepstakes for the honor of paying him $25M\/year (or more) as he rockets into his mid 30s.\u00a0 He just finished a show-me season in Atlanta in his age 33 season and thrived; now he’s looking for a 3-4 year deal at $25 per… is this what you want to commit to if you’re the Nats?\u00a0 We’re not the only team out there now desperate for a starting 3B.\u00a0 Philly, Atlanta, Texas, Los Angeles Dodgers, even the Mets all went into this season with a big checkbook looking to win Rendon (or at least a quality 3B).\u00a0 Now what?\u00a0 Do we pay the money for this guy?\u00a0 On the one hand, buying him weakens our biggest divisional rival (Atlanta) and blocks him from two other likely NL East rivals, both of whom might have interest.\u00a0 On the other hand, we buy Donaldson that’s a huge chunk of our remaining cap space (roughly $39m in my spreadsheet, probably slightly more once we figure out how MLB values\u00a0Strasburg<\/strong>‘s contract on an AAV basis).<\/li>\n
  4. Trade for\u00a0Kris Bryant<\/strong>, the rumor of the week.\u00a0 \u00a0He made $12.9M last year, probably jumps up to at least $16M in arbitration after another All Star season in 2019, and currently in the midst of a dispute over the most blatant service time manipulation case we’ve seen in the last decade.\u00a0 I’m guessing personally that he does NOT win the service time dispute and gains a 4th arb year, meaning that anyone trading for him gets two years of control.\u00a0 Now; do we want to empty what is left in our dwindling farm system for two years of Bryant?\u00a0 \u00a0Lets be honest here; he’s a crummy defender whose defensive bWAR component cost him more than a win and who has negative advanced fielding metrics across the board.\u00a0 The Cubs had him in LF for more than 100 innings this year, and he was even worse out there.\u00a0 If you are willing to put up with a crummy defensive component at 3B to gain a big bat … isn’t that Kendrick for 1\/3rd the cost?\u00a0 Or perhaps Kieboom for 1\/25th of the cost?\u00a0 I’m not saying its apples for apples; after all Bryant was nearly a 5-win player by fWAR last\u00a0 year even with defensive issues.\u00a0 He’s a big middle of the order, former MVP, former 2nd overall pick.\u00a0 You’re going to pay for him.\u00a0 But at this point in the Nats lifecycle … with so little in the farm … do you want to blow it out for 2 years of a gun for hire with no ties to the city?<\/li>\n
  5. Trade for some other 3B: who knows who else is out there for the having, or what they’d cost.\u00a0 Its impossible to speculate; lots of teams that I thougth were already tanking for 2020 are signing starters to 8 figure deals this offseason.<\/li>\n
  6. Sign a lesser FA 3B: there’s two dozen FA 3B out there right now<\/a>.\u00a0 \u00a0Todd Frazier<\/strong> wasn’t bad last year.\u00a0\u00a0Starlin Castro<\/strong> can hit and could be a one year bridge to a prospect.\u00a0\u00a0Ben Zobrist<\/strong> may be old but he can still play 7 positions and may still produce.\u00a0 None of these guys would break the bank and could allow for the pursuit of a more expensive 1B option (which then allows you to put Kendrick at 2B, where he’s not great defensively but at least its what he knows).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    What would I do?<\/p>\n

    I dunno.\u00a0 I like going with the prospect but Kieboom’s debut was not hope-inspiring.\u00a0 I like Kendrick at 3B to buy a 1B … but it has to be the right bat.\u00a0 I like keeping what prospect depth we have in lieu of trading for Bryant.\u00a0 I like the thought of a one year solution in a lesser 3B free agent, allowing Kendrick to 1B\/2B and buying what we don’t have and enabling Kieboom to get more minors time.<\/p>\n

    Lots of options here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I’m not the only one writing about this particular question today, but its the biggest question the team has faced in a while. Incumbent 3B\u00a0Anthony Rendon, who before the season was thought in most circles to have no chance of matching\u00a0Nolan Arenado‘s 8yr\/$260M deal ($32.5M AAV), got a slightly shorter but higher AAV deal with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[185,1209,3186,1940,2046,1776,1947,133,38,1179],"class_list":["post-16401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-natsgeneral","tag-anthony-rendon","tag-ben-zobrist","tag-carter-kieboom","tag-howie-kendrick","tag-josh-donaldson","tag-kris-bryant","tag-nolan-arenado","tag-starlin-castro","tag-stephen-strasburg","tag-todd-frazier"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16401","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=16401"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16401\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16405,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16401\/revisions\/16405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}