Anthony Rendon, 3B:
Brian Dozier, 2B:
Howie Kendrick, 1B/2B/3B:
Asdrubal Cabrera, 2B/3B:
Gerardo Parra, OF:
Daniel Hudson, RP:
Jeremy Hellickson, RHP:
Fernando Rodney, RP:
Jonny Venters, RP:
Here are the 25 players who’ll appear in uniform for the D.C. organization:
Right-Handed Pitchers
Left-Handed Pitchers
Infielders
Outfielders
Catchers
The Nats have tweaked their pitching staff several times throughout the postseason, but haven’t yet added to the number of arms they’re carrying. It’ll again be eleven pitchers for the Washington club, with hopes that the team won’t need to rely much at all upon several of them.
Southpaw Roenis Elias moves off the roster after being added for the NLCS. Presumably, the team decided the extra lefty wasn’t needed for the lefty-leaning Astros, though having the additional match-up option might have been nice. Right-handed reliever Wander Suero takes his place. It’s notable that Suero has had success against both right and left-handed hitters, though his bottom-line results this year didn’t quite match up to his promising peripherals and the club hasn’t trusted him with a postseason appearance since a rough showing against the Dodgers.
Like Elias, Hunter Strickland was acquired at the deadline in hopes he’d contribute. But the righty is again off the roster after a rough NLDS showing. That leaves Hudson as the lone mid-season trade piece who’s contributing; his good work has been pivotal. The Nats are also still carrying Cabrera, who was signed just after the trade deadline and played a big role down the stretch. He has not been utilized much in the postseason, but could see added opportunites with Kendrick expected to DH for games in which that slot is available.
Meanwhile, the Nats have made a somewhat unexpected move with their long man role. Austin Voth is off the roster; he had been a potential long man but wasn’t needed in the NLCS. He’ll be replaced by Ross, who is a candidate for similar duty. Ross has also been tasked with pinch running at times in the past and might also be used in that capacity.
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We already rounded up the position players. Now, here are the pitchers that have recently taken to the open market, along with their now-former teams (via the International League and PCL transactions pages):
Kieboom, the brother of standout Nationals shortstop prospect Carter Kieboom, has been a member of the organization since going in Round 5 of the 2012 draft. Spencer Kieboom was a decently regarded prospect in his own right a few years back, though he hasn’t been able to carve out a consistent big league role thus far.
Kieboom got his only real taste of the majors in 2018, when a patient, low-strikeout approach helped him post a playable on-base percentage. However, a lack of power limited Kieboom to a .232/.322/.320 line over his 143 plate appearances. The 28-year-old didn’t make it back to Washington or even play with Fresno this season, instead spending all of it with Double-A Harrisburg. Kieboom batted just .196/.271/.256 in 188 PA before an elbow injury cut his season short.
]]>There isn’t even a lengthy or significant trade history to work with in finding links between the two clubs, as the last deal between Washington and Houston took place back in 2007. However, the reigning pennant winners came close to a much more significant trade in July 2018, when Bryce Harper almost became an Astro. As detailed by The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal (subscription required) last November, the two teams had worked out the framework of a trade that would have sent Harper to Houston for a three-prospect package headlined by right-hander J.B. Bukauskas. The other two prospects were a pitcher in the lower minors and catcher Garrett Stubbs “was in play” to be the third piece, Rosenthal noted.
The swap was ready to go by July 30, the day before the trade deadline, though Nationals ownership stepped in to veto the proposal. The Lerner family was still hopeful of re-signing Harper to a new contract either in free agency or even before he hit the open market, and didn’t yet want to part ways with the star outfielder. For similar reasons, a potential August trade between the Dodgers and Nationals that would have seen Yasiel Puig head to D.C. and Harper go to L.A. was also a no-go.
The idea Harper going to the Astros is such an eye-opening concept that the entire baseball world would have been shaken up had the trade been completed. Here are four of the larger ripple effects that could have emerged if Harper had indeed donned Houston orange in July 2018…
Do The Astros Win The 2018 World Series?
Maybe the most obvious question of the bunch, as the Astros had a surprisingly middle-of-the-pack offense in the second half of the 2018 season. With Harper’s bat in the lineup, perhaps Houston (who won 103 games in real life) could have scored enough extra victories to overtake the 108-win Red Sox for home-field advantage throughout the postseason. If not, perhaps at least Harper helps the Astros generate enough offense to overcome the Red Sox in the ALCS. Astros hitters combined for a mediocre .219/.337/.385 slash line in Houston’s five-game loss, and while pitching (a combined 5.52 ERA) was the Astros’ larger problem against Boston, it’s worth noting that Sox hitters had only a .710 collective OPS.
In a short series, even a few hits could have swung the entire thing Houston’s way, and perhaps Harper could have also been a difference-maker in helping the Astros top the Dodgers in the 2018 Series. Stretching the butterfly effect out a bit further, maybe the Harper-led Astros only make it a round further, and it’s the Dodgers who wind up as the 2018 champions. Or, if the Red Sox fell short, perhaps president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski is fired after the season (ownership was already considering a change late in the 2018 season), Boston has a new front office boss installed last winter, and the entire scope of the Red Sox 2018-19 offseason and 2019 season are also changed.
No QO, No Status Quo For Harper’s Free Agency
One can definitely fall down lots of different wormholes when exploring an alternate reality scenario, but one thing seems pretty uniformly certain — Harper would still have become a free agent after the 2018 season, and he wouldn’t have been an Astro in 2019. The Astros didn’t show interest in signing Harper to a mega-deal last winter, and even in a world where Harper magically carries Houston to a championship, it’s very likely that the two sides thank each other for the ring and part ways. As such, the Astros’ offseason decisions aren’t greatly impacted, so the team’s real-world moves (i.e. signing Michael Brantley and Wade Miley) probably still happen.
One wrinkle to Harper’s free agency is that, since he was dealt at midseason, he was ineligible to have a qualifying offer placed on his services. So the Nationals would’ve gotten the Bukauskas package but not the compensatory pick they received for Harper once he signed with Philadelphia. This comp pick ended up falling after the fourth round (since the Nats exceeded the luxury tax threshold in 2018) though Washington actually forfeited this pick regardless — the Nationals had to give up their second- and fifth-highest picks in the draft as compensation for signing Patrick Corbin, another QO free agent. So without the Harper pick to work with, the Nationals wouldn’t have had a fifth-round draft pick, and thus wouldn’t have been able to select hard-throwing Florida right-hander Tyler Dyson. Washington went well above slot ($346.8K) in signing Dyson to a $500K bonus, and MLB Pipeline ranks Dyson as the 20th-best prospect in the Nationals’ system.
So with Dyson still on the board, that single inclusion quite possibly shakes up a lot of movement in the draft. But, if Harper doesn’t have a rejected qualifying offer hanging over him, the Phillies wouldn’t have had to give up their second round pick in order to sign him. So this gives the Phils another high draft pick to add to their farm system — or maybe the Phillies end up using that pick anyway on another QO free agent. Harper was known to be on the Phillies’ offseason radar from day one, so it’s safe to assume they’d already earmarked losing that pick to ink him.
But if that wasn’t a consideration, perhaps Philadelphia looks at the other five QO free agents who hit the market (Hyun-Jin Ryu accepted his offer and remained with the Dodgers) and pursues one of them during its aggressive offseason. How does the 2019 Phillies season play out look if Corbin or Dallas Keuchel had been in the rotation, if Craig Kimbrel was closing games, if A.J. Pollock was in the outfield, or if Yasmani Grandal had been behind the plate? The latter three are particularly intriguing, since signing any of those players would’ve meant the Phils would’ve had to forego some of their other acquisitions (such as David Robertson, Andrew McCutchen, or J.T. Realmuto) at those same positions.
Tax Relief In Washington
It isn’t known whether the Astros would’ve absorbed all of the approximately $7.21MM still owed to Harper over the last months of the season had the Nationals trade gone through. But even if only a portion came off the books, trading Harper would’ve jump-started the Nats’ efforts to reload for 2019, and they might’ve dealt veterans like Gio Gonzalez, Daniel Murphy, Matt Adams, and Ryan Madson on July 31 or earlier in the old August trade waivers period rather than wait until late August to unload the quartet.
The bottom line is that either by moving Gonzalez and company earlier, or in dealing Harper’s salary in its entirety, the Nationals would’ve been able to duck under the $197MM Competitive Balance Tax threshold and reset their penalty clock. In real life, D.C. had a $205MM luxury tax number, which resulted in a tax bill of $2,386,097 (which included a repeater penalty for exceeding the threshold in consecutive years).
The Nationals again slightly exceeded the $206MM threshold this season, as per both Roster Resource (just under $207.94MM) and Cot’s Baseball Contracts (less than $76K). These figures are estimations, of course, and given the small amounts involved, it’s possible the Nats managed to slightly sneak under the $206MM mark after all. Even with the 50% tax rate for three-time CBT payors, this small step over the threshold still means the Nationals won’t be facing a big tax bill. At Roster Resource’s number, the Nats will owe $969,309.50 in luxury tax payments, which is pocket change to a high-spending team.
Much more importantly than saving under $3.36MM in tax money, escaping the “CBT payor” designation would’ve impacted the Nationals in the 2018-19 free agent market. As per the qualifying offer rules, Washington’s compensatory pick for losing Harper would’ve come after Competitive Balance Round B rather than after the fourth round — a jump of roughly 60 slots. Also, signing Corbin cost the Nationals $1MM in international bonus money as well as their second- and fifth-highest draft picks, whereas if they hadn’t exceeded the luxury tax threshold, the Corbin signing would’ve cost only the second-highest pick and $500K in international pool funds.
Do The Astros Still Get Greinke?
This is the ripple effect that perhaps has the most clear and direct impact on the 2019 Series. If Houston trades Bukauskas in July 2018, it doesn’t have him in the organization in July 2019 to be dealt to the Diamondbacks as part of the four-player return for Zack Greinke.
It’s possible the Astros and D’Backs could’ve settled on another name rather than Bukauskas, though given how the Greinke talks were finalized just minutes away from the trade deadline, who knows how things play out with Bukauskas’ involvement. Bukauskas was the top healthy prospect in the deal, after all, given that Corbin Martin is sidelined due to Tommy John surgery.
Or potentially, in a reality where the Astros swing the Harper trade but it doesn’t work out, perhaps GM Jeff Luhnow thinks twice the next year about another splashy trade for a big name and foregoes a Greinke trade entirely, perhaps focusing on a lower-tier player or players instead.
It’s safe to assume that the Astros would have still acquired some kind of starting pitching help, and still go on to win the AL West even without an ace like Greinke in the mix. And while Greinke hasn’t been great in the postseason, does Houston still win Game Four of the ALCS without his 4 1/3 innings of one-run ball? Or, maybe without Greinke down the stretch, the Astros win fewer than 107 games and lose home-field advantage to the Yankees, which swings the ALCS in New York’s direction. Or, if the Yankees are the top seed, the American League bracket is flipped entirely and, who knows, we could’ve ended up with a Twins/Rays ALCS.
]]>The Astros figure enter the Series as the odds-on favorite. Houston won an MLB-best 107 games in the regular season compared to Washington’s 93. Houston’s +280 run differential was also the league’s best, again significantly better than the Nationals’ still-strong +149 mark. The Astros unquestionably boast a stronger bullpen than their D.C. counterparts, and their lineup, for all their struggles in the ALCS, was among the best of all-time in the regular season.
All that said, there are reasons one might reasonably expect an upset, even beyond the vagaries somewhat inherent in short series. The Nationals are probably the better defensive team, last night’s glove show by Houston notwithstanding, with Víctor Robles perhaps baseball’s best defensive outfielder. Anthony Rendon and Juan Soto can go toe-to-toe with any duo in the Astros’ order.
Most importantly, though, any Nationals’ optimism is rooted in the nature of the short series. Scherzer, Strasburg and Corbin could (and probably would) start six of the seven games for Washington should this Series go the distance. No one’s surprised any time the Nats fly a curly W when any of those three take the mound. The Nats’ pitching depth (most notably in middle relief and setup work) was the club’s Achilles heel during the regular season. Yet the postseason’s heavy dose of off days has allowed manager Dave Martinez to leverage his top arms. To this point, Washington hasn’t felt any ill effects for essentially deploying a six-man pitching staff (the aforementioned trio of starters, fourth starter Aníbal Sánchez, and top relievers Sean Doolittle and Daniel Hudson). With six days off between NLCS Game 4 and Tuesday night’s Game 1, Washington’s arms should be more than ready to empty the tank one final time.
So, MLBTR readers, we turn things over to you. Will the Astros cement themselves as a dynasty by winning their second World Series in a span of three 100-win seasons? Or will the Nationals’ three aces pitch their way to Washington’s first World Series parade since the Coolidge administration?
(poll link for app users)
]]>But Altuve’s ascension to Game 6 October glory is an unlikely development. While this seems like a pat statement at first glance–perhaps referring, as observers often do, to Altuve’s small, 5’6 frame–the truly unlikely thing about Altuve’s story concerns a nascent failure in his native Venezuela. As Alex Putterman’s 2017 story for The Atlantic explained, Altuve was cut by the Astros after appearing as a teenager in a club tryout camp because the organization considered him too short. At the behest of his father, Altuve returned to tryout for the club again, where he ultimately showed enough to earn a $15,000 signing bonus from Houston officials–hardly a considerable sum in an international signing landscape where seven-figure deals often grab headlines stateside. While a recap of Altuve’s many career exploits following that signing would be redundant at this point, tonight seems a fitting occasion to remember that tonight’s hero achieved his place in history due, in part, to familial encouragement and a little bit of old-fashioned determination. Apparently, even the tiniest of prospects can develop into statues, given the right conditions.
Looking onward to the 115th World Series, beginning play on Tuesday evening…
He uses the Washington Nationals and their recent pennant victory to examine some of these team-building strategies in context. He starts by citing the all-important playoff axiom: “Just get in.” It’s interesting that Shapiro notes this as a point of contention for him throughout his career, as common baseball discourse stalls on this idea every trading season in divvying up baseball’s 30 organizations into buy/sell/hold buckets.
Those in the “anything can happen once you’re in” camp haven taken a hit as recent postseasons have gone chalk. The last three World Series champions were hardly long shots: 103-win Cubs, 101-win Astros, and 108-win Red Sox. The Nats, in fact, are the first Wild Card team to make the World Series since the 2014 Wild Card showdown that featured two second-place clubs playing on the game’s biggest stage. That season, the 88-win San Francisco Giants defeated the 89-win Kansas City Royals in 7 games.
The “imperfect” Nationals check a couple of boxes on Shapiro’s postseason team wish list: frontline starting pitching and players in a variety of career stages. Shapiro has “always been a big believer in looking at the different segments of the player population and feeling like when you’re ready to win you need representation from all three.” Young cores rising through farm systems together has been the en vogue team-building philosophy after the success of Chicago, Houston, and Boston, but to Shapiro’s point, the Nationals are succeeding with a mix of young, mid-prime, and veteran players.
The Nats field not only the oldest players in baseball – reliever Fernando Rodney – but they field the oldest roster in baseball with an average age of 31.1 years old. Veterans like Max Scherzer, Howie Kendrick and Ryan Zimmerman have keyed their postseason success. True to Shapiro’s “need to have a balance,” however, the engine of this Nats roster is their young superstar duo of Juan Soto, 20, and Victor Robles, 22. The steadiest production will usually come from those players in their prime, Anthony Rendon, Trea Turner, and Stephen Strasburg are some of the players that qualify for the Nats. Shapiro sees all three brackets as vital to team success: energy from the youth, reliability from those in their prime, and the strongest desire to win coming from those veteran players.
The full podcast is worth a listen, as Shapiro speaks directly to rumors about different job opportunities. Notably, he listens to all inquiries, but he has not been interviewing for outside opportunities. Given his comments here and before, Shapiro continues to be a good candidate for an extension this winter.
]]>WEDNESDAY: According to a tweet from Jon Heyman of MLB Network, Tim Bogar, first base coach for the Nationals, is under consideration for the open Mets managerial seat (link). It is not clear if Bogar has interviewed for the position, but Barry Svrugla of the Washington Post confirms that Bogar is “involved to some degree” with New York (link).
Being that third base coach Bob Henley was linked to the Padres opening today, it seems the World Series-bound Nats are in danger of having their coaching table rightly pillaged by the rest of the league. Bogar, for his part, offers a pretty sterling resumé, as far as coaches go. The 52-year-old, Chicago-bred baseball man has worked on the coaching staffs of managerial big-shots like Joe Maddon, Terry Francona, Bobby Valentine, and Ron Washington. He earned the opportunity to serve as Texas’ interim manager in 2014 after Washington stepped down, leading the Rangers to a 14-8 record in the season’s final month. Bogar also has spent a little time as a front office assistant to Jerry DiPoto while the latter was in Anaheim, and, of course, logged a 700-game playing career that began with–you guessed it–the Mets.
If interviewed, Bogar would become the seventh man to sit down with New York brass since Mickey Callaway was dismissed on Oct 3. To this point, Diamondbacks player development director Mike Bell, Yankees assistant Carlos Beltran, former MLB manager Joe Girardi, ESPN analyst Eduardo Perez, Twins bench coach Derek Shelton, and Mets quality control coach Luis Rojas have been reported as Mets interviewees.
]]>A member of the club’s coaching ranks since 2004, Hill was previously first base coach with Colorado’s big league squad from 2007 to 2012. The 54-year-old Santa Cruz native played for the Jays, Indians, Cubs, Giants, Yankees, and Angels over the course of a twelve-year MLB career. After Hill’s dismissal, top Colorado third base prospect Colton Welker figures to suit up for a fresh face at Triple-A Colorado Springs next season.
More notes from around the National League…