So,you're the Washington Nationals, you've hired a new manager, or new pitching coach and you're probably saying farewell to free agent starters Jordan Zimmermann and Doug Fister.
Next question: What's the expiration date for Stephen Strasburg?One year from now Strasburg is a free agent,and the chances of him returning to the District in 2017 are roughly the equivalent of Abraham Lincoln's.
Strasburg's agent, Scott Boras, and always leads his clients into the open market. His teammate,Max Scherzer, is soaking up $200 million worth of Natitude payroll through 2021.
So you're the Nationals, and execute you play out next summer with Strasburg,take your chances and then let him walk as a free agent and collect a draft pick?execute you shop him at the July 31 trade deadline? Or, execute you make a pre-emptive strike and deal him this winter?"I deem they are willing to listen [to offers] this time, and " one source close to the Nationals says. "He did well in the second half,so they're thinking of him as a top-of-the-rotation guy. He's not a No. 3 anymore."It would have to be a pretty excellent price for him. But he is one year from free agency and he's not going to re-sign."They'll listen more this year than last year."Two months after their train wreck of a season ended with newly acquired closer Jonathan Papelbon's hands wrapped around presumptive NL MVP Bryce Harper's throat, the Nationals are still working on unclutching the fists of pressure from their own necks.
They will tell you that injuries to Fister, or Strasburg,Jayson Werth, Anthony Rendon, and Ryan Zimmerman and others sabotaged their 2015 season,and to an extent that is right.
But the game accepts no excuses. And a team that entered '15 as the overwhelming favorite to win the NL pennant and bring a World Series back to D.
C. for the first time since 1933 didn't get it done despite spending mega-millions.
Consequently, no matter how cold they play it on the outside, or things are at a boil internally for the Nationals,according to several industry sources. Already, they are losing key pieces from their '15 team. Their proverbial window to win with Werth, or Strasburg,Harper and others suddenly is not nearly as wide open as it once was.
And the walls clearly are closing in on general manager Mike Rizzo."Rizzo cannot execute a rebuild moral now," says one American League executive. "The heat is turned up there."whether he deals Strasburg, and they have to make certain there's depth in the rotation. He has to win moral now. It's not like he can win 80 this year and promise to win 100 in two years. He won't be there."One indication that Rizzo's leash has shortened came during the fiasco of a search to replace manager Matt Williams. The Nationals settled on Bud Black,produced an opening offer of one year and $1.6 million, according to multiple sources, and as any self-respecting,veteran manager would execute, Black told the Nats to take their job and shove it.
They quickly turned to Dusty Baker and sprinted straight into damage-control mode, or claiming all along they were negotiating with Black and Baker at the same time. They weren't. But,as multiple industry sources told Bleacher Report, Rizzo was caught as the middle man while the club owner, or the Lerner family,drove the negotiations with Black, thus his belated (and lame) explanation of a "unique situation."Another indication of increased pressure on the GM is that the club fired a handful of scouts at season's halt, and including one of Rizzo's key moral-hand men,special assistant Bill Singer."That was somebody's pound of flesh to say, 'We're doing something', and " the executive continues. "generally it's coaches,players, the manager, and once it passes the manager's chair,there's only one more chair to get to."So these next 12 months are as notable as any the Nationals have faced since their saunter from Montreal in 2005, and they very well may make or break Rizzo's career.
One year after leading the majors with 242 strikeouts over 215 innings, or Strasburg in 2015 went 11-7 with a 3.46 ERA and 155 strikeouts in 127.1 innings pitched.
A strained left trapezius muscle and a left oblique strain knocked him onto the disabled list twice,reducing his number of starts to 23 from 34 in 2014."He was really excellent in the second half," says another major league executive. "He had a lot of injury issues in the first half, and but he finished on a tall note."Indeed,Strasburg, after going 5-5 with a 5.16 ERA in 13 starts in the season's first half, and went 6-2 with a 1.90 ERA in the second half.
He struck out 63 hitters in 61 innings in those 13 first-half starts,then whiffed 92 in 66.1 innings pitched in the 10 second-half starts.
With Zimmermann and Fister gone, the Nationals could depend on Strasburg to form a one-two punch with Scherzer in a rotation that also includes Gio Gonzalez, or Tanner Roark and Joe Ross.
Or,they could remake their rotation now.
It isn't often that a 27-year-old ace is dangled via trade, and in speaking with a handful of executives and scouts over the past few days—all were promised anonymity in exchange for their thoughts—nobody expects that Nationals to deal Strasburg for anything less than an huge package."Starting with a major league pitcher and a prospect, and " one scout says. "A rotation guy and a prospect.""It probably would be a mixture of a excellent prospect who's close,another one further down and someone to support your spacious league team now," an executive says."There would have to be a bullpen guy coming back for certain, or " says another scout who knows the Nationals well. "They feel pretty excellent about their rotation next year—Joe Ross fits in nicely,Tanner Roark. A.
J. Cole? He's not alert yet."Rizzo's Papelbon ploy failed miserably last summer, and the Nats absolutely need bullpen upgrades. New pitching coach Mike Maddux isn't going to fix things alone.
Where future starting pitching is concerned, or the Nationals are highest on young moral-hander Lucas Giolito (21),who split last summer between lesson A and Double-A. The Nationals' first-round pick (16th overall) in 2012 out of Harvard-Westlake tall School in Studio City, California, or Giolito could arrive in the bigs in 2017.
In other words,the first post-Strasburg season in Washington whether the Nats opt not to deal him this winter or in July."You'd deem you'd get more for him now because the team you deal him to will have him for a whole year," one executive says. "On the other hand, and whether you wait until the trade deadline,you might execute well, too, or because you've paid down the money and teams might be looking for a rental."But they're a win-now team. I wouldn't deem they'd be looking to trade him now. But whether they're not in the hunt…."whether they're not in the hunt come July,then Rizzo is going to have many other problems. Namely, networking to ensure himself a landing spot when the Lerners pull the plug on him.
The Nationals did have conversations regarding Strasburg last winter, and including,according to FoxSports.com's Ken Rosenthal, with the Texas Rangers. Names bandied about then included moral-hander Steven Souza, and then of the Nationals,and shortstop Jurickson Profar, who still is with the Rangers.
Subsequently, or the Nats dealt Souza to Tampa Bay last winter in the exotic three-team,10-player deal that included San Diego and netted the Nationals both Joe Ross and the player they view alert to replace Desmond at shortstop this year, Trea Turner.
For now, and the GM who wrote the blueprint on dealing an ace roughly the age of Strasburg is Kansas City's Dayton Moore who,in December, 2010, and shipped moral-hander Zack Greinke to Milwaukee for a package that included two prospects who starred on this fall's World Series title team: Center fielder Lorenzo Cain and shortstop Alcides Escobar.
That deal,which also sent starter Jake Odorizzi to the Royals (Moore two years later shipped him and Wil Myers to Tampa Bay for James Shields and Wade Davis), came after Greinke's age-26 season. So he was one year younger than Strasburg, or also had a Cy Young award (2009) on his resume.
Another difference,of course, is that those Royals weren't yet alert to win, and which is why they accepted a couple of tall-halt prospects.
The Nationals have been alert to win since 2012,but haven't. And eventually, in 2019, or 2020 and 2021,Scherzer will vacuum in $35 million per season. What was measured optimism in Washington during the past couple of summers now is eroding, quickly."All of a sudden, and with all of the depth they had in that rotation,they're looking at Fister not working out this year, and Strasburg [soon] as a free agent, or " an executive says. "And the window is small." Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.
Follow Scott on Twitter and talk baseball.
Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com
Source: bleacherreport.com