Nationals “Considering” Jake Diekman
The Nationals, in clear need of bullpen help as the July 31 trade deadline nears, are “considering” Royals left-hander Jake Diekman and other relievers, Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports reports (video link).
The 32-year-old Diekman’s an obvious trade candidate for the rebuilding Royals, who likely signed him to a $2.75MM guarantee last winter with the intention of flipping him during the season. However, Diekman’s production in Kansas City has been a mixed bag to this point.
On one hand, Diekman has logged a horrid 5.06 ERA with a similarly unappealing 5.3 BB/9 over 37 1/3 innings. On the other, the former Phillie, Ranger and Diamondback has continued to pump 95-plus mph heat, generated more swinging strikes than ever (16.4 percent), posted a 3.68 FIP/3.95 xFIP, amassed 13.02 strikeouts per nine and recorded the majors’ eighth-best infield fly rate for relievers (20 percent). Diekman has also been tough on lefties, whom he has held to a .278 weighted on-base average, while somewhat keeping righties in check (.315 wOBA).
Diekman, who’s owed less than $1MM through season’s end, would be a reasonably priced addition for a wild card-leading Washington team trying to stay below the luxury tax. The club’s less than $3MM under the $206MM line as of now, according to Jason Martinez of Roster Resource, so it may not be in position to make any expensive splashes before the deadline. Having exceeded the threshold in each of the previous two years, the Nationals will have to pay a 50 percent tax for every dollar they go over it this season.
Financial concerns aside, this has been an adverse campaign for Washington’s bullpen, which ranks last in the NL in ERA (6.02). 20th in K/BB ratio (2.26) and 21st in FIP (5.55). For the most part, the Nationals have struggled to find answers in front of closer Sean Doolittle. The recently signed Fernando Rodney has joined Wander Suero, Tony Sipp, Matt Grace and Javy Guerra in performing decently of late, thus helping the team charge up the standings, but its relief corps is still crying out for fortification.
Should the Nationals turn to Diekman, it’s possible he’d become more than a late-2019 solution for the club. Diekman’s potentially controllable through next season on a $5.75MM mutual option, though his employer could decline it in favor of a $750K buyout.
Nationals Place Max Scherzer On Injured List
The Nationals have placed ace Max Scherzer on the 10-day injured list (retroactive to July 10) with a mid-back strain. They recalled catcher Spencer Kieboom from Double-A Harrisburg to take Scherzer’s 25-man spot.
Scherzer last pitched a week ago, when he turned in a seven-inning, four-hit performance with 11 strikeouts against no walks in a win over the Royals. It was another in a long line of gems for Scherzer, a three-time Cy Young winner who may be on his way to his fourth such award this season. The 34-year-old has logged a magnificent 2.30 ERA/2.00 FIP with a jaw-dropping 12.6 K/9 against 1.6 BB/9 across 129 1/3 innings so far in 2019. He’s likely the MVP of a Nationals team that has climbed out of the basement over the past several weeks to grab a 1 1/2-game hold over the NL’s top wild-card spot.
Considering Washington’s place in the standings, it obviously can’t afford to go without Scherzer for longer than a minimum IL stint. Scherzer said Friday his injury isn’t a “long-term” one, per Todd Dybas of NBC Sports Washington. As of now, though, the Hall of Fame-caliber workhorse is in line for a rare stay on the shelf. He’ll be out until at least July 20.
Injury Notes: Scherzer, Kluber, Hamels
Nationals ace Max Scherzer will push back his first post-All-Star-break start from Sunday to Tuesday due to back tightness, per Sam Fortier of the Washington Post. At 5.5 fWAR on the season, Scherzer trails only Mike Trout (6.4 fWAR) and Cody Bellinger (5.7 fWAR) while leading all pitchers by a fairly significant margin (Lance Lynn is next at 4.4 fWAR, while Charlie Morton, Gerrit Cole, and Nats-teammate Stephen Strasburg follow with 3.4 fWAR). Scherzer has been beyond mortal over the last two months, winning seven consecutive starts over which he sports a 0.87 ERA while limiting opposing hitters to .157/.196/.249 at the dish (his 79:6 K:BB ratio isn’t half bad either). Needless to say, Mad Max is an essential cog in the Nationals revamped playoff hopes, no less so due to their lack of organizational depth. The scheduling adjustment should give Scherzer the extra rest he needs, as he and the team anticipate he will be ready by Tuesday’s opener at Baltimore. Let’s check in on the health of a couple other star hurlers…
- Corey Kluber intends to pitch again for the Indians this summer, and he’s progressing as planned, per Cleveland.com’s Paul Hoynes. Kluber is playing catch at a distance of 150 feet, and he looks like he’ll be ready for bullpen sessions soon. He’s not there yet, but there’s light at the end of the tunnel for Kluber, who has been out since May 1 with a fracture in his right forearm. The Indians hope he’ll have time to course correct after an aberrant seven starts in which he posted a 5.80 ERA (4.04 FIP).
- Cole Hamels has begun playing catch as well, with the next steps being a team evaluation sometime today, per Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun Times. Hamels hit the shelf in late June after scoring a 1.22 ERA for the month. On the whole, Hamels’ Chicago rejuvenation has kept pace into 2019 with a 6-3 record and 2.98 ERA (3.57 FIP). The Cubs need only replace Hamels spot in the rotation once until early August, at which point a return is conceivable. In the meantime, Tyler Chatwood has held the line in three spot starts, though the Braves hit him hard the last time he got the nod. Alec Mills, 27, has looked ripe as ever with a 2.72 ERA over his last eight starts in Triple-A, where he holds a 4.72 ERA for the season. Mills doesn’t figure as a long-term piece for the Cubs, but he’s more than adequate for this brand of spot start. Before you ask, no, Adbert Alzolay won’t take Hamels next time through the rotation, as his rest days won’t align with the Cubs’ need after starting last night’s game for Iowa.
Nationals Place Jonny Venters On 10-Day IL
The Nationals announced today that they’ve placed lefty Jonny Venters on the 10-day injured list. He has been diagnosed with a left shoulder strain. That’s an injury that could conceivably be quite concerning, though there’s no indication to this point of the severity.
Righty Kyle McGowin was promoted to take the open roster spot. He had been shipped out on optional assignment to make room for Venters when the veteran’s contract was selected recently.
The Nats continue to churn through arms as they try to keep the bullpen afloat. The club received three appearances from Venters, over which he registered five strikeouts but also gave up three runs (two earned) on three hits and two walks. McGowin, 27, has a shiny 11:2 K/BB ratio in his ten MLB innings this year but has also been tagged for 11 earned runs and three long ball in that brief span.
Given their recent performances, neither Venters nor McGowin seem like optimal solutions for the D.C. club. But the organization’s other options can be classed similarly. Lefty Dan Jennings is stashed at Triple-A — where he was sent after a rough showing with the big club. The team just activated righty Kyle Barraclough, but promptly optioned him to iron out his season-long struggles. Just-signed veteran Brad Boxberger has a solid history in the majors, but was bad enough this year that the Royals sent him packing despite already being on the hook for his salary.
While the Nationals will hope their current pen mix is sufficient to get them through the next several weeks, the front office is assuredly working hard to line up new options. The club could unquestionably stand to add multiple arms to its relief corps, much as it did two summers back (but with an even more stringent need). It’ll be interesting to see how the deadline period unfolds.
NL East Notes: Stroman, Braves, Phillies, Doolittle
The Braves and Blue Jays haven’t had any discussions about Marcus Stroman, MLB Network’s Jon Heyman reports (Twitter link). While Stroman would be a fit on at least half the teams in the league, Atlanta stands out as a natural landing spot due to both the Braves’ talented but generally inexperienced rotation, and the connection between Stroman and Braves GM Alex Anthopoulos (who had the same job in Toronto from 2009-15). While a lack of talks to this point doesn’t mean that Stroman couldn’t eventually become a Braves target, Atlanta has been linked to other pitchers such as Madison Bumgarner or Zack Wheeler, and could simply prefer one of those players (or another arm altogether) to Stroman.
More from the NL East…
- The Phillies focused heavily on position-player additions during their splashy offseason, but a lack of focus on the rotation looks to now be a mistake, the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Scott Lauber writes. The team’s starters have delivered middling-to-mediocre results all season, and depth has now become a particular issue given Jake Arrieta‘s injury concerns. While the Phils could still make a move to acquire a starting pitcher (or two) at the deadline, such a move will cost the club more prospects from a system that has already been thinned out by other trades. As Lauber notes, the Phillies also haven’t done a great job of developing their own pitchers over the last four years, with Aaron Nola standing out as the last success story.
- Trades and trade rumors come with the territory for any baseball player, particularly at this time of year. This being said, there’s an obvious personal toll that comes with knowing one could soon to be moved to another team on another city, and it’s naturally hard to entirely block out all of the speculation. “You see a couple things and that’s all it takes for your brain to run wild a little bit with some of that stuff,” Nationals closer Sean Doolittle told NBC Sports Washington’s Todd Dybas about some early-season rumors buzzing that the Nats could start trading Doolittle and other veterans if the team continued to struggle. Doolittle is no stranger to midseason deals, of course, as it was almost exactly two years ago that he came to D.C. as part of a very notable five-player trade with the Athletics. Needless to say, the Nats’ re-emergence back into the postseason race has ended talk of the club being deadline sellers, which is good news for Doolittle given how he and his wife quickly grew to love being part of the Nationals family. “I will say it’s tough because you don’t have control over [a trade],” Doolittle said. “For some people, it might be easy to say, ‘Hey, I’m not going to think about it because I can’t control it.’ At the same time, that’s why it’s a little disconcerting, is you don’t have control over it. After going through it once before, it’s not as scary as maybe it was. I don’t know. I really want to be here. I like it here.”
Nationals Activate, Option Kyle Barraclough
The Nationals announced today that they have activated righty Kyle Barraclough from the 10-day injured list. Rather than bringing him back onto the MLB roster, the club optioned Barraclough to Double-A.
Barraclough had been sidelined since mid-June with nerve irritation in his right forearm. The 29-year-old, acquired over the offseason, is earning $1.725MM this year in his first season of arbitration eligibility.
Before hitting the shelf, Barraclough had struggled to a 6.39 ERA in 25 1/3 innings. Despite a solid 30:12 K/BB ratio, the righty reliever was touched for seven long balls. Statcast has in the past credited Barraclough with maintaining low hard-hit rates, helping to offset his typically hefty walk numbers. But opposing hitters have jumped him for 43.6% hard contact this year as he has continued to shed fastball velocity (from an early-career peak of 96.6 mph down to 93.7 mph in 2019).
The Nats may well need to call upon Barraclough again later in the season, but they’ll first see if they can find more consistency from other arms. The D.C. relief unit still lacks much in the way of stability, though it is no longer performing at historically awful rates after an unbelievably poor start to the year.
Scott Boras On Possibility Of Anthony Rendon Extension
While quiet Nationals star Anthony Rendon elected not to participate in this year’s All-Star festivities — somehow the first time he has been selected — his less-than-taciturn agent was on hand and willing to discuss Rendon’s contract situation. As Todd Dybas of NBC Sports reports, Scott Boras certainly did not sound like a man who was close to wrapping up a contract for his client.
Engagement between the Nats and Rendon/Boras has seemingly been sporadic. There was an apparent uptick in activity recently, with Boras present in D.C. and reports indicating that the sides were negotiating in earnest. But the super-agent doused that flame, explaining: “I go to a lot of ballparks. It doesn’t mean we’re investing into anything that’s relevant to contract terms.”
Boras was content to press the obvious leverage he has gained over recent months. The mammoth Nolan Arenado extension removed a major market competitor and set a big price for top third-base talent before the season, with the surprisingly light Xander Bogaerts contract providing only a meager counterweight in terms of precedent. Rendon has since ramped up his already sterling resume to the point that Boras now has trouble embellishing. (Not that he wasn’t willing to dabble, labeling Rendon a “superstar” and at least hinting at a partial comparison to the peerless Mike Trout.)
A few choice quotes hint at Boras’s stance vis-a-vis a Nationals organization he has dealt with frequently:
- “I think [Rendon’s] focused on the season.”
- “I don’t know what their diagnostics are, but we’ll see as we approach the offseason.”
- “It’s really in their corner as to how we go from there.”
- “Ted and the Lerner family, and the organization, we’ve always worked out things — usually.” (an under-the-radar, instant Boras classic)
The takeaway is clear, if already obvious to the familiar Nats: Rendon’s camp is in the driver’s seat and in no rush to make a deal. Convincing him to forego a run at a market that’ll be mostly devoid of other top talent will take a major payday — one that the team may ultimately be willing to post. If there’s an ace in the hole for D.C., beyond its familiarity to Rendon, it may simply be that it’s the only place the reserved 29-year-old can line up his future without an attention-grabbing foray into free agency.
Nationals Nearing Deal With Brad Boxberger
The Nationals are nearing a deal with veteran reliever Brad Boxberger, according to Barry Svrluga of the Washington Post (via Twitter). It’s said to be a minor-league arrangement.
Boxberger was released recently by the Royals, who’ll remain obligated for the remainder of his $2.2MM salary. Should the righty make it up to the majors in D.C., his new organization would pay him at the league-minimum rate, providing a bit of relief to the Kansas City club.
If it feels as if the relief-needy Nats are scooping up all the veteran relievers that have been cut loose by other teams … well, that’s not far from the truth. Fernando Rodney, Jonny Venters, and Javy Guerra all opened the season with other clubs before landing with the Nationals on minors deals and then filtering up to the big leagues. (The club also nabbed outfielder Gerardo Parra under similar circumstances.) Dan Jennings and George Kontos also opened the year elsewhere before joining the D.C. org, though both are at Triple-A at present.
This approach surely wasn’t the plan going in, but it proved necessary as the Nationals relief unit turned in calamitous results over the first few months of the season. It still doesn’t look like an inspiring assemblage of pitchers, but the D.C. pen has been a passable group more recently, allowing (though not exactly driving) a fantastic run in the standings that now has the organization set up for more substantial additions over the next three weeks.
Even as the Nats’ front office begins pursuing trade targets in earnest, they’ll seemingly continue building out the depth options. Boxberger certainly fits the same general mold as the numerous other pitchers who’ve been brought on board. A long-established MLB hurler, the 31-year-old merited a guaranteed contract after a tepid but still-useful 2018 season but then failed to hit his stride in the early going this year.
It’ll be interesting to see whether the new organization can get Boxberger back on track. Trouble is, he’s working with significantly less velocity than ever before; he’s down to 90.5 mph with his average heater this year after sitting just under 93 for his career. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, Boxberger is going to offspeed offerings more than ever before, serving up his change on about one in three pitches and his slider on one of every five deliveries.
The results just haven’t been there, and neither have the peripherals. Boxberger is sitting on a 5.40 ERA over 26 2/3 innings, with 9.1 K/9 and 5.7 BB/9. On the positive side, his 11.3% swinging-strike rate isn’t far from his career average. And Statcast readings indicate that Boxberger has been a bit unfortunate. Opposing hitters have managed only 85.3 mph in average exit velocity. Boxberger is carrying a .311 xwOBA-against that lags the .329 wOBA that opposing hitters have produced.
Max Scherzer Dealing With Back Tightness
Max Scherzer‘s spot on the All-Star roster has been filled by a replacement, and Jesse Dougherty of the Washington Post reports (via Twitter) that the three-time Cy Young Award winner has elected not to participate in the exhibition because of a minor back issue that dates back to his start against the Tigers a week ago.
As Dougherty notes, the injury is not especially serious; Scherzer expects to make his next regular-season start without issue, hopefully benefitting from the extended rest period. The back issue flared up in yesterday’s game, so it’s no surprise that Scherzer and the Nationals will take precaution in hopes that nothing gets worse over the break.
Though he won’t be playing in the Midsummer Classic, Scherzer will still travel to Cleveland to partake in the All-Star festivities. It’s the seventh time that the 34-year-old has been named an All-Star, all of which have come since 2013, when he broke out with the Tigers. Scherzer has been a model of durability in his career, having made 30 or more starts in every season since 2009, and as of now there’s no reason to believe that streak will end in 2019.
For what it’s worth, Scherzer seems to have been unfazed by the injury: he followed up his 14-strikeout outing in Comerica Park with seven innings of shutout ball on Saturday, looking as electric as ever. Of course, that’s easy to say from the outside looking in, and recent performance shouldn’t discount the injury.
Still, it’s promising for baseball fans that Scherzer, who has been an iron man throughout his career, has shown that he can pitch through the injury if needed, and doesn’t expect to miss any meaningful games for the playoff-hopeful Nationals. Washington has ridden Scherzer’s excellence to a 46-42 record that lands the club on the brink of playoff contention. Since a dreadful start that saw the team fall to a 19-31 record, they’ve reversed their fortune on the back of stellar performances from Scherzer and Anthony Rendon, among others.
Nationals, Anthony Rendon Discussing Extension
Nationals third baseman Anthony Rendon is slated to become the best position player to hit free agency in the upcoming offseason. He might not reach the open market, though. Nationals owner Ted Lerner and Rendon’s agent, Scott Boras, are discussing an extension for the All-Star, Mark Zuckerman of MASNsports.com reports.
Boras was at Nationals Park on Saturday – an indication of how serious negotiations have become, Zuckerman observes. The two sides have talked about a new deal for Rendon on and off for a while now, though they haven’t been able to bridge the gap thus far. Jesse Dougherty of the Washington Post reported earlier this week there hadn’t been much progress between the team and player, noting Rendon’s likely seeking a pact in the range of the seven-year, $234MM extension Rockies third baseman Nolan Arenado signed before the season.
Rendon’s trophy case is nowhere near as full as that of Arenado, who has earned five All-Star trips and six Gold Gloves, among other awards. Nevertheless, Rendon has been one of the majors’ premier players in his own right. Rendon, whom the Nationals chose sixth overall in the 2011 draft, debuted in 2013 and has since slashed .286/.363/.482 (125 wRC+) with 122 home runs and 29.0 fWAR in 3,597 plate appearances. Only 11 position players have bettered Rendon in the fWAR department dating back to his first at-bat, and he’s now enjoying his top season yet. On the strength of a .304/.388/.612 line (150 wRC+) with 20 homers in 320 PA, Rendon finally picked up a long-overdue All-Star nod.
Now, having lost Bryce Harper to free agency last winter, the Nationals don’t seem prepared to let yet another homegrown superstar depart. Harper’s also a Boras client, but even though the team was unable to retain the outfielder, its ownership is known to have a positive relationship with the super-agent.
Along with Rendon, four of the Nationals’ other players are Boras clients, including high-profile starters Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg. Washington signed Scherzer to a seven-year, $210MM contract in free agency entering 2015. The club then handed Strasburg a seven-year, $175MM extension in May 2016, when he was just a few months from potentially testing the open market. The Nationals may now follow suit with Rendon.