The Final Month

It's been a rough year for Nationals fans. Despite high expectations, the team has hovered around .500 much of the year and in the process, watched the Braves turn into a contender (and likely a powerhouse in the National League for years to come). Frankly, if you don't care about seeing some of the eventual September call-ups playing, there's no real reason to watch Nationals games anymore. The Nationals are 8 games back of the Braves in the N.L. East and 7 games back in the wild card (behind 3 other teams for the second spot). The Nationals have slim to no shot at making the playoffs. They haven't been less than 7 games behind the Braves since August 12th, so there's no reason to think they can make an actual push with just 28 games to go. 

On August 13th, I said that by today, we would probably see Rizzo try to move Daniel Murphy, Gio Gonzalez, Kelvin Herrera and Matt Adams. Herrera clearly isn't going anywhere, but with Murphy and Adams already out, it looks like Gio and Ryan Madson could be next. I can't imagine a contender actually wants Gio Gonzalez starting every 5th day for them, but there is apparent interest. It makes me wonder about the competence of the scouting department of the interested teams, but that's not the Nationals problem. Ryan Madson was claimed on revocable waivers last night by the Dodgers and it appears that he will be headed to Los Angeles sometime in the next 24 hours (probably as a straight waiver claim, as his 5.28 ERA doesn't warrant a prospect return).

The deals for Murphy and Adams were odd. Not because I didn't expect them to be traded, but because of the timing of the deal. Rizzo placed Murphy and Adams on waivers on Friday, August 17th, just prior to a 3 game series against the Marlins. The Nationals were 61-61 at the time, coming off an atrocious road trip, 8 games back in the East and 6 1/2 back in the wild card. They had 3 games against the Marlins and then 6 of their next 9 games against the Phillies. I had circled today as the day that the Nationals would unload any upcoming free agents (aside from Bryce) because it's an off day, coming off a stretch of 6 of 9 games against a viable playoff contender. It's a time where the front office could have sat back and assessed where the team is and what their strategy was going to be for the rest of the season. Being that the Nationals sat back and did a whole lot of nothing at the trade deadline, selling off pieces on August 20th, instead of August 30th seemed very odd, especially when you had 12 games in a row against division opponents sitting in front of you. If there was a time that the Nationals were going to make a move to get back in the race, it was going to be last week, so having one of your best hitters no longer on the team doesn't help your cause. It's not like the Nationals got a big return for either player. I'm sure the return on both would have been the same today as it was on August 20th. Could Murphy or Adams have changed the outcome in any of those 3 shutout losses last week? We'll never know, hence the odd timing of the deals.

We can assess the season as a whole sometime in October, when we're all sitting back on the couch and watching actual good teams play playoff baseball. One major thing we're going to take a look at though is whether or not Davey Martinez is in over his head. The early answer is absolutely. I've been fairly patient with him this season and I'm trying to give him the benefit of the doubt being that he's a rookie manager, but the early assessment is that he's not the guy that we were told he would be. He does not use analytics, he does not have a good feel for when to go to the bullpen, and I'm fairly concerned about what kind of presence he has in the clubhouse. Unfortunately, this team doesn't have a leader (it's tough for Max as a pitcher to be that guy). This team needs their manager to be their leader and unfortunately, Davey isn't going to be that guy - Dusty Baker and Davey Johnson were that guy. Joe Girardi could have been that guy. I anticipate that Davey will be back (take that with a grain of salt - I also anticipated Dusty Baker would be back) and the hope is that he will learn from his mistakes in year one. Maybe this team resets in the offseason and comes back next season to win the division. Right now though, the way this season has played out, it seems like they've got a long road ahead.

Wave the White Flag

The Washington Nationals 2018 season ended last night, once again at the hands of the Chicago Cubs. I don't care what the standings say, they've said the same thing for the past 2 months - the Nationals are close enough to make a move, and close enough to not be written off, but I'm officially writing them off. On June 30th, the Nationals were 3 games over .500 and 5 games out of first place. Today, the Nationals are 2 games over .500 and 5.5 games out of first place. They've gone 18-19 in that stretch and lost a half game in the standings. 

There is nothing to this point insinuating that this team is anything more than a .500 team. They played 8 2/3 of nearly flawless baseball last night and lost on a walk-off grand slam. They find new ways to lose winnable games on a nightly basis. They're 11-20 in 1-run games. That's the 5th worst record in 1-run games in the Major Leagues. The teams with worse records in 1-run games are the Orioles, Twins, Mets and Reds. Those 4 teams have a combined winning percentage of .405 this season. The Nationals have played 22 games since they all-star break. They're 12-10 in those 22 games. In 5 of those 10 losses, they've either been tied or leading in the 6th inning or later. This is not a good baseball team. They would have to go 30-14 to get to 90 wins now. It's not going to happen. The Braves have to go 26-21 to reach 90 wins and the Phillies have to go 25-20 to reach 90 wins. That will not be difficult for either of those teams. 

There are many delicate flowers nursing themselves back to health right now. Stephen Strasburg, Kelvin Herrera and now Ryan Madson all have had poor outings since the all-star break that have cost the Nationals 3 wins. All 3 have claimed they are not healthy after the game. They did not tell the bullpen coach, the pitching coach or the manager of the injury prior to entering the game in any of those three scenarios. They instead told the media after the game. It's easy to claim you're injured after a poor outing. It's way easier than saying "yeah, I didn't have it tonight, I let the team down". So, these three will now hang out on the disabled list together, knowing that they've blown multiple opportunities for this team to make a move in the division race due to their "injuries". 

There's no accountability, no cohesiveness and most of all no urgency from this team. Davey Martinez's post game interviews are turning more and more Matt Williams like by the day. I don't know if he realizes this, but the season will end. There will be a day where you won't be able to say "I believe in these guys, they're going to get hot and when they do, watch out." Matt Williams is still somewhere talking about the game "tomorrow." Pretty soon, Davey Martinez might be right next to him. Mike Rizzo is lucky he got his extension prior to the season, because right or wrong, he wouldn't be getting one after this season.

There isn't a whole lot to look forward to for the rest of the season, but there are a couple of things to watch out for. If and when Mike Rizzo decides this team is out of it - possibly around August 30th which would be right after 6 games in 9 days against the Phillies, he will probably try to trade Daniel Murphy, Matt Adams, Kelvin Herrera and Gio Gonzalez. Assuming all can clear waivers, or assuming a trade can be worked out with a claiming team for each of those players, Rizzo will have officially called it a year. Once that happens, the only thing left will be to see if the Lerners make the decision to move on from Davey Martinez. He will still have 2 years left on his deal, but only at $750,000 per year. I don't imagine they will have a problem with that if they want to bring somebody else on board. At this point though, there aren't going to be many candidates lining up to take this job. Many free agents will be departing and you'll be managing a team where the owners have shown no loyalness to its manager. It has not been a good year for baseball in the nation's capital and it only looks to get worse from here.