On the second-to-last day of the 2018 season, Trea Turner hit second for the Washington Nationals in Colorado and rapped three hits, together with a homer. Bryce Harper was within the three gap, and he singled twice and scored a pair of runs. Anthony Rendon was the cleanup man, and his lone hit was a triple. Juan Soto was the 19-year-old left fielder, hitting fifth, belting a double and a homer and driving in 4 runs.
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Perspective | Why do the Nats let stars leave? Juan Soto’s exit would revive the question.
Oh, and on the hill was Stephen Strasburg, ending a irritating, injury-interrupted season with six innings of two-run ball — some momentum for the winter. That’s fairly a core to construct a workforce round.
There are explanation why, when the Nationals took the sector Monday night time at Dodger Stadium, Turner was the beginning shortstop for opposing Los Angeles; why Harper received the second of his two MVP awards with the Philadelphia Phillies; why Rendon is using out the season on the injured record of the Los Angeles Angels; and why Soto’s unsure future is the one storyline that issues for the shell-of-their-former-selves Nationals.
A commerce of Soto by subsequent Tuesday’s deadline stays a definite risk. As jarring as it will be, there are plain, justifiable causes for the Nationals to maneuver him. The specifics of why — failure to succeed in settlement on a long-term contract extension, an try to maximise the return of prospects who might assist rebuild the franchise — have been damaged down and analyzed even earlier than we all know whether or not a deal could be pulled off.
However Soto’s potential departure — be it over the following week, within the offseason or through free company in 2½ years — provides oxygen to an inconvenient narrative: The Nationals can’t maintain on to their very own gamers.
“It’s the enterprise that’s the a part of baseball that’s — nicely, not unavoidable, as a result of perhaps you’ll be able to keep away from it slightly bit,” Turner mentioned final week on the All-Star Recreation, the place he began for the Nationwide League with “Dodgers” emblazoned throughout his chest. “Nevertheless it occurs.”
It has occurred, and is occurring, to the Nationals. Every of those conditions is exclusive and has its personal dynamics, which we’ll get to. However the wide-angle view provides not-so-flattering issues: The Nationals have to be low-cost. The Nationals lowball their very own. What’s incorrect with Washington?
Overlook the accuracy of every and any of these conclusions, typically created from afar. It’s a indisputable fact that the Nationals developed and raised these gamers from children to stars — and didn’t lock up any of them.
Effectively, they did lock up one. And that contract is strangling the franchise.
A part of me thinks there’s no level in re-litigating every of the opposite circumstances — besides that the totality of them defines the place the franchise as soon as was and the place it’s now. So begin with the star who stayed: Strasburg. He first signed a seven-year, $175 million extension in Could 2016, when he was lower than six months from free company — a shocking growth. After successful the World Sequence MVP award in 2019, he exercised an opt-out clause in that deal to grow to be a free agent — solely to signal a seven-year, $245 million cope with the workforce that drafted him first in 2009.
I’m not going to cover. On the time of that contract, I wrote: “This feels proper. That is the way it ought to have ended.”
There’s some “skilled” evaluation for you. Within the three seasons since, Strasburg has made solely eight begins. Following an aborted comeback from surgical procedure to alleviate thoracic outlet syndrome, there’s no telling if he’ll pitch once more. Since 2020, solely Arizona and Pittsburgh have misplaced extra video games than the Nationals — who’re charging quick from behind, trailing 198-196 heading into Monday night time. Their play over that stretch interprets to a 100-loss tempo in a season. It’s fairly a fall.
Strasburg didn’t come first in all of this, however his standing — making $35 million per yr to not pitch — has essentially the most impression on the group. There was drama and angst over Harper’s departure in free company, however in the long run he acquired the $330 million he needed — with no deferrals, because the Nationals had provided — from the Phillies. The Nationals received the World Sequence the following yr with out him. I’ll by no means consider the Nats have been higher as a result of he left, however they actually might survive — and even thrive.
Rendon’s departure was nearly telegraphed even because the Nationals got here again from a 19-31 begin in 2019 to succeed in the playoffs and blitz to the title. The third baseman — the Nats’ final actual draft-and-develop success, the Recreation 7 hero who homered off Zack Greinke to arrange Howie Kendrick — by no means appeared fully enamored with Washington or the group. He cared about his teammates, and he cared about successful. However whereas Harper at all times appeared to have one foot within the door, Rendon at all times appeared to have one out.
There are individuals within the group who would have most popular to signal Rendon for the seven years and $245 million that went to Strasburg — and people have been precisely the phrases of Rendon’s cope with the Angels. However Rendon’s tenure in Orange County has been bumpy — his on-base-plus-slugging share in his final three seasons with the Nats was .953, and in his three seasons with the Angels it’s .780 — and he’s out for the yr with a wrist damage. Bullet dodged? In hindsight, perhaps. However solely in hindsight.
Turner remains to be the hardest one to take — to date. A lot went into the Nationals’ determination to commerce away all the things that wasn’t nailed down final summer time: their report on the time, Strasburg’s incapacity to pitch, the skinny farm system, their prospects for 2023. All of it contributed, and if there’s a day when Keibert Ruiz is the catcher for Josiah Grey in a postseason sport — nicely, it’ll be some model of value it, as a result of these are the important thing items that got here in return from the Dodgers for Turner and Max Scherzer.
However will that future, hard-to-see-from-here October sport additionally characteristic Soto in proper discipline?
“I’d like to see him play his entire profession in Washington as a result of he’s a franchise participant and I don’t suppose guys like him needs to be let go or go away,” Turner mentioned. “They need to do no matter they’ll to maintain them, in my view.”
He was talking about Soto, whose future is in flux as a result of he turned down a 15-year, $440 million extension — and the Nats don’t appear inclined to lift it. However Turner might have been talking about any of these all-star Nationals who went earlier than him — himself included. There are causes Bryce Harper, Anthony Rendon and Trea Turner aren’t in Washington anymore. There are rationalizations for exploring a commerce of Juan Soto now. Stephen Strasburg’s contract and Stephen Strasburg’s accidents are woven into all of it.
The snapshots are separate from each other, every with its personal rationalization. However the ebook, as a complete, is miserable. And it might be including one other chapter — all whereas the losses mount.