The Washington Nationals needed a stopper and Mitchell Parker and his teammates stopped that nasty five game losing streak. Now the team’s ace, MacKenzie Gore will need to lead his team to a series win. The Padres have former Nats 2013 fourth round draftee, Nick Pivetta on the mound. It was Pivetta who former GM, Mike Rizzo, traded for Jonathan Papelbon in 2015.
While Gore and James Wood repped the Nationals in the All-Star game this past week, Wood is in a long O-fer slump. Did you know that the Nats are 25-14 when Wood has an RBI? The team is 14-44 with no RBI from Wood. In his last 10-games, Wood is batting .083 with a .362 OPS and a 43.9 percent K rate. Some think the HR Derby sims for Wood ruined his swing due to his timing being off. Obviously Ricky Gutierrez was throwing BP pitches at slower velos during their HR Derby practices.
In other news, the Nationals officially signed their No. 1 draft pick, Eli Willits, for $8.2 million. Miguel Sime Jr., 86th ranked prospect, has already signed for $2 million per reports. That was a massive overslot signing. The underslot signing of Willits will add to the money the team will need to sign Landon Harmon ranked 48th, Ethan Petry 59th, and Coy James 94th. Then you have Mason Pike (19th round) who was just outside the Top-100 at 135th, and local Frederick, Maryland product, Ben Moore at 237th. A source tells us that Harmon, James and Moore have all agreed to deals in principle, and these could be official on Monday after the players pass their physicals.
That chart represents the 12-of-the-20 draft picks in the class of 2025 that the Nationals can hopefully get all signed. The rest won’t affect the slot system, and were not ranked.
We are now just 11-days away from the trade deadline. After the Willits press conference, the media got to ask interim-GM, Mike DeBartolo, about the trade deadline and in particular, would he trade Gore?
“I’m looking to keep the young, core group of our best players together [and not trade them]. Certainly in my job, if someone calls, you always listen to what they have to say, but trading away our really high-quality young players is not something I’m looking to do right now.”
— DeBartolo said on Saturday to the media regarding a Gore potential trade
“I’d put [Gore] in that group in terms of our young, really talented players. That’s not a focus of mine to move him.”
“My goal in this role, whether it’s interim or otherwise, is to build a competitive team every year. As frustrating as it is to see where we are this year –my goal is to build future competitive teams and be in that playoff mix. So that’s what my focus is over the next few weeks — whatever we can do to bolster the future outlook of the Nationals and get in that playoff race as soon as we can.”
The bullpen usage looks like this:
Here are your Nats’ WAR leaders with James Wood at +3.6, MacKenzie Gore at +3.1 CJ Abrams at +3.1, and . Add those up, and you get a total of +9.8WAR. The issue is the large gap between those players and the next tier. Brady House in his 24-games jumps to a +0.3, and that extrapolates to +2.8 for a full season.
On defense, the stats are clear as to what his defense is all about. Jacob Young is the team’s OAA leader at +7.0 and Brady House is on the list at +1.0. James Wood is at +0.0 on his OAA, and that is a good sign from where he had been early in the season.
One of the newer Nats, Daylen Lile, is already at a -5.0 OAA and that is unsustainable as that is one of the worst marks in baseball if you extrapolated it for a full-season. Luis Garcia Jr. is at -6.0 — and with CJ Abrams, they combine for -12.0 OAA. That is the worst middle infield in baseball and entirely unacceptable.
Another defensive issue that we have discussed is the positioning of Nathaniel Lowe at first base as he is too often out of position to make a play — and OAA has his chance at success at only 64 percent which must improve. His OAA is at -0.4 now, and that just makes the situation even worse. With as little as Amed Rosario has played on defense, he is at -8.0 OAA this season and the worst on the team. Per Statcast, his defense has cost the Nationals 5-runs. Is his offense good enough to make up that deficit if he plays the field or should he only DH and PH? Keibert Ruiz, per Statcast, has a -8.0 OAA also. The Nationals were supposed to be better on defense. That clearly isn’t the case.
These are your stats leaders on BBRef. There are certainly some surprises on there — good and not so good.
“We’re excited to bring Eli, the person and the player, into the organization.”
— interim-GM Mike DeBartolo said
The Nats starting pitchers have a combined ERA of 4.72 and 26th best in MLB. You might be surprised at the team just ahead of the Nationals in the rankings. The reliever’s ERA sits at a 5.92 and now the worst in baseball in ERA. The bullpen keeps teetering so close once again to the 6.00 ERA mark that seems impossible at this part of the season.
Here is how the starters rank by ERA:
No. 5 Starter: Trevor Williams 6.21
No. 4 Starter: Michael Soroka 5.35
No. 3 Starter: Mitchell Parker 5.00
No. 2 Starter: Jake Irvin 4.58
No. 1 Starter: MacKenzie Gore 3.02
San Diego Padres vs. Washington Nationals
Stadium: Nationals Park, Washington, D.C.
1st Pitch: 1:35 pm EDT
TV: MASN
Radio: 106.7 The Fan radio and via the MLB app; In Spanish on DC 87.7 FM and La Pantera 100.7 FM/1220 AM. On Sirius/XM, tune to Channel 180 for the home broadcast and the road team is online only.
Line-up subject to change (without notice):
- CJ Abrams SS LH
- James Wood DH LH
- Luis Garcia Jr. 2B LH
- Nathaniel Lowe 1B LH
- Alex Call RF RH
- Paul DeJong 3B RH
- Daylen Lile LF LH
- Riley Adams C RH
- Jacob Young CF RH
