It Was Not Dusty's Fault

In recent years, no baseball team has won more preseason World Series titles than the Washington Nationals. Like clockwork, experts and prognosticators gush over the team’s talent and promise that this is the year they will get over the hump and bring the nation’s capital its first World Series title in almost 100 years. The expectations are understandable. Since 2012, the Nats have won four NL East titles and more regular season games than any other team except the Dodgers. Their pitching staff is anchored by Max Scherzer, a three-time Cy Young award winner and their number two, Stephen Strasburg, is becoming a threat to pick up his first. The everyday lineup stars Bryce Harper, the 2015 league MVP and other young stars like Anthony Rendon and Trea Turner. 

Of course, the team’s futility in the playoffs is well-documented. For all their regular season success, the Nats have been ushered out in what feels like successively more excruciating ways each October. The most recent failure cost the team’s manager, Dusty Baker, his job, even though he had piloted the team to division titles in both his years at the helm and 95 and 97 wins, respectively. Exit Dusty, enter Dave Martinez, the Cubs former bench coach who was expected to bring some of that Joe Maddon magic from the Windy City.

But in another year of World Series hopes, the Nats are sinking, and sinking fast. The team got off to a strong start by sweeping a three-game series in Cincinnati, but that has turned out to be fool’s gold. Not only are the Reds by far the worst team in the league, but since then, the Nats are 7-11. They are in fourth place in the division, four-and-a-half games behind the Mets. And here’s the thing, commentators can talk about slow starts and unusually cold weather, but for the Nats to get to 90 wins this year, they will need to go 80-61 (.567), to get to 95 wins, their mark in 2016, they will need to go 85-56 (.602) and to get to 97 wins, they will need to win 87 of their last 141 games, a .617 clip. In other words, a team playing .500 ball will have to play better baseball than division winning teams did over the entire season. 

Granted, the Mets and Phillies, the early division leaders, will come back to the pack. The Mets are relying on pitching that has not held up in recent years and the Phillies are a (mostly) young team that as recently as last year, was the league’s worst. But the Nats cannot count on other teams’ failures and the squad this year does not inspire much hope. Ryan Zimmerman, last year’s comeback player of the year, is back to his pre-2017 production, which is to say, very little. Adam Eaton, who the Nats gave up their three top pitching prospects for, missed most of last season with a knee injury, and after playing a handful of games this year, is again injured. While Harper is playing well, he’s getting little help from the rest of the squad, and the one bat the team desperately needs, Daniel Murphy, is still two weeks from returning. The pitching has been mediocre, the bullpen shaky (shocker), and yet, Martinez seems to be avoiding blame while offering precious little in terms of solutions. 

This state of affairs is depressing for a Nats fan. Everyone understands this may be Harper’s last year with the team and management was handed a surprise gift when last off season’s free agent class lingered far longer and many players signed for far less than expected. The Lerners are the richest owners in the sport and can be profligate spenders when they want to be, but they could not pony up $75 million over three years for Jake Arrietta? They did not think that a better back-up plan at first base than Matt Adams made sense? 

With Harper and Murphy a year away from free agency and Rendon a year behind then, why the Lerners did not go all in, especially when so many free agents were in the bargain bin, is beyond me. And what message does it send to Harper, Murphy, and Rendon that you are not willing to spend when the championship window is open? I know there is “a lot of baseball” left to be played, but we have also seen this movie before. In both 2013 and 2015, coming off dominating regular seasons that ended in playoff heartbreak, the team fell flat, missing the playoffs and finishing just above .500. It may be too early to say that will happen again, but the early returns do not look promising. 

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I Am Tired Of Waiting For Next Year

On the evening of October 12, 2012, I went to bed early, knowing my hometown team, the Washington Nationals, had the decisive fifth game of their playoff series against the St. Louis Cardinals well in hand. Entering the fifth inning, the Nats led 6-1, having come back from a two games to one deficit and with 21-game winner Gio Gonzalez on the mound. So, I hit record on my DVR and hit the hay, eager to watch the rest of the game the following morning. Little did I know that night would begin a run of frustration, disappointment, and heartbreak that continued five years to the day later when the Nats lost another Game 5 at home, this time to the Chicago Cubs. 

On one level, you have to hand it to the Nats. They have set an impossibly high bar for futility in such a short period of time. They have lost games (and series) because of fluke plays (non-call after Wieters got popped in the head by Baez?), one-hit wonders (CURSE YOU PETE KOZMA), epic performances (Clayton Kershaw in relief anyone?), questionable managerial decisions (looking at you Matt Williams for pulling Zimmermann in Game 1 of the 2014 NLDS), and of course, the epic meltdown I watched on tape-delay. 

After this most recent collapse, the natural question was whether the Nats are chokers. Some have said these losses are not choke jobs, that  instead, the Nats have simply been victim of an odd combination of bad luck, bad breaks, and bad calls. I don’t buy it. On paper, that is, by record, the Nats were better than all four teams they have lost to over the past five years. In each series they had home field advantage. Each Nats playoff team has been led by a man who won a World Series as a player and manager (Davey Johnson), as a player and managed in the World Series as a manager (Dusty Baker) or a guy who played for three World Series teams, winning one (Matt Williams). While the 2012 team was not that experienced, it was anchored by Jayson Werth, who had been signed the year before to provide precisely the type of “veteran leadership” that was needed in that brutal loss but every other playoff flameout had a roster full of players with plenty of playoff experience. 

The irony is that there is not really a lot that can be done. On paper, they have few flaws. The one major problem this season, the bullpen, was addressed before the trade deadline, but other than Werth’s departure, which will immediately be filled by either Michael Taylor or Adam Eaton, who missed most of the year with a knee injury, and maybe upgrading at catcher, the team has few moves to make. Switching managers? What is the point? They have had well-credentialed managers who wear World Series rings and two of whom had won more than 1,500 games each as managers and it did not matter. Plus, what kind of message would it send to have a fourth manager helming the team in the last six years? 

And that is what makes the Nats’ situation so frustrating. They are so good, the losses are that much more painful to watch. But going forward, the pain could be more acute and the good times could end. The team missed the playoffs the year after their division wins in 2012 and 2014 and player health is one of the great variables in sports (just ask this year’s New York Mets). More importantly, Bryce Harper and Daniel Murphy will be free agents after next season and Anthony Rendon the year after. The Lerners may try to avoid the drama and sign Harper to a mammoth contract, or lock down Murphy or Rendon, but one (or all) of them may leave, creating huge voids in a roster that is right now one of the deepest in baseball. 

Occam’s Razor says that instead of looking for a complex answer, the simple one is usually true. With the Nats, the simple one is, they choke when the lights are brightest. 

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