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.
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