Five Steps To Fix The Mess That Is The Washington Nationals

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After a crushing defeat sealing a four-game sweep, the Washington Nationals are a disaster. Here are five steps to fix the mess that is the 2019 Nationals.

There may not be a word in the English language to describe how poorly the Washington Nationals’ 2019 season has gone. Well, at least one not appropriate to put out on the internet. Every single possible thing that could go wrong has for the lowly Nationals.

After a four-game sweep at the hands of the division-rival New York Mets, Washington sits at 19-31, the second-worst record in the National League, and fifth-worst in all of Major League Baseball.

It is pretty unbelievable to imagine a team with a $200 million dollar payroll that was favored by many to win their division and make a deep postseason run, is all but eliminated from postseason contention on May 23. The Nationals are on pace to finish the season with 90 plus losses for the first time since the 2010 season.

Whether you blame the historically bad bullpen, the questionable manager decisions, or the lack of offense with runners in scoring position, there is no way around just how awful a season this has been. For the first time in nine years, Nationals fans have to endure a summer where their team has absolutely no chance to compete for the postseason.

After you get over the disappointment period of realizing how much of a failure this season was, the next logical step is to attempt to fix the mess.

It won’t be easy, and it will take a lot of moving parts, but here are five steps to fix the mess that is the Washington Nationals.

Step One: Fire Manager Dave Martinez

On October 29, 2017, the Washington Nationals announced Dave Martinez as the team’s eighth manager since their return to D.C. in 2005. Martinez took over for the recently let go Dusty Baker, in a move that was questioned by many outside the organization.

Baker had led the Nationals to back-to-back 90 plus win seasons but was unable to get out of the first round of the postseason, losing in the NLDS to the Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago Cubs. Despite the questions from the outside, there was optimism from the Nationals organization that Martinez could be the right man for the job.

He quickly grew a close relationship with then Nationals’ superstar Bryce Harper, and in his first spring training quickly gained admiration from his players. Expectations were high from Martinez in year one, but the team finished 82-80 in a year where Martinez was criticized exponentially for his managerial decision, especially his management of the bullpen.

After losing Harper in free agency, expectations were still sky high for Martinez and the Nationals coming into the season. There was a belief Davey would learn from his mistakes in year one, and we would see a new, more effective game manager in 2019.

This narrative could not have been further from the truth, as it seems Martinez has almost regressed in his managerial ability in year two. 50 games into the season, it seems almost every day Martinez makes a decision that makes people scratch their head.

Whether it was warming up Joe Ross to have him experience getting hot but not getting into a game, matching up subpar reliever Dan Jennings with All-Star Rhys Hoskins because they liked the “matchup”, or overusing Sean Doolittle in every situation possible, Martinez has seemingly made the wrong call every chance he has had this season.

Now you can’t put the blame entirely on the manager. Martinez can’t make the team hit better with runners in scoring position, he can’t make Wander Suero not groove a fastball right down the middle in a 1-2 count, some things are out of his control. But you can’t fire the team, you fire the manager. Martinez has had his chances, but it is time for a new voice. In trying to fix this mess of a team, step one has to be firing Dave Martinez.

Step Two: Chip Hale as Interm Manager, Joe Girardi in The Offseason

If Martinez is fired, to the dismay of many in Washington the team will likely not bring in a big-name manager during the middle of the season. It is almost 100% likely if he is let go, someone inside the organization, most likely Chip Hale, will take over the duties for the rest of the season.

The current Washington bench coach has had managerial experience in 2015 and 2016 with the Arizona Diamondbacks but was unable to win 80 games in both of those seasons. Now if Hale somehow pulls a miracle out of the sky and gets this Nationals team even close to competing for the postseason, he likely would have a good case to be the full-time manager in 2020.

But, this will likely not be the case and Washington will probably finish somewhere between 70-77 wins this season. So then begins the real manager search, and Washington should look no further than former Yankees skipper Joe Girardi. The 54-year-old manager has been out of the dugout since 2017, and actually was the color analyst for the Nationals vs. Cubs game last Saturday.

In his 10 seasons as manager of the New York Yankees, his team never had a losing season. Five straight winning seasons is remarkable, and Girardi posted ten in a row. He qualified for the postseason six out of the ten years and won the World Series in 2009.

In 2017, Girardi took a very young Yankees team, much like Washington, to the ALCS and finished one game away from heading back to the World Series once again. In New York Girardi faced criticism regularly for his attitude with the media, and some questionable decisions he made. Girardi is old school and sometimes was unable to relate to his players on a level that is preferred today.

No matter what your criticisms of the guy are, there is one thing he does well, win, and at the end of the day, that is all that really matters. One hurdle is the Lerner family deciding to spend money on a very high-profile manager. Just three years ago it seemed all but finalized that Bud Black would be the Nationals’ new manager, but the management griped over his salary demands and eventually walked away from a deal.

The Lerners have never given a manager a contract that it would likely require to bring Girardi to D.C., but they also never have had a $200 million dollar team lose 90 games. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and the Lerners likely will be very aggressive this offseason trying to improve this Washington team. Joe Girardi would bring a winning, and hard-nosed attitude to Washington, and is the perfect man to replace Martinez in D.C.

Step Three: Figure Out An Anthony Rendon Extension

Anthony Rendon is the lifeblood of the Washington Nationals’ offense. Without him, Washington may have 13-15 wins instead of 19. Rendon has clearly been the best, most consistent Nationals hitter in 2019 hitting for a line of .325/.423/.675 with nine home runs, 27 runs batted in, and a National League-leading 17 doubles.

A report came out earlier this week that Scott Boras is telling people that the Nationals “missed the boat” in regards to getting an extension done with Rendon, but Washington general manager Mike Rizzo came out Wednesday and said the team is “aggressively” attempting to get a deal done with the third basemen.

No matter which report is true and which isn’t, one thing is for sure. The Nationals cannot afford to lose Anthony Rendon. If Washington was to let Rendon walk, they would lose their best player to free agency for the second straight season.

This is something almost no franchise could recover from, and Washington needs to do everything possible to make sure this does not happen. The Nationals have around $50 million dollars in club options on Ryan Zimmerman, Trevor Rosenthal, Yan Gomes and Adam Eaton for the 2020 season.

Washington could decline all of these, still be okay as a team, and use this money to help sign Rendon. Besides Rendon, Washington’s only other big name free agents after this season are Sean Doolittle, who the team has a club option on, and Howie Kendrick, who will likely be traded if the team continues to plummet.

Once the Nationals organization and more importantly the Lerners made the decision to move on from Bryce Harper, they had to see it was imperative to lock up Rendon next year. Without him in their lineup, Washington would have one of the worst offenses in the National League.

With salaries across baseball being inflated, Rendon likely will get more money than he deserves, but who hasn’t in recent baseball history. Washington needs to do everything they can to settle this extension with Rendon before he hits the free agent market in November. If they can agree to a long-term deal with Rendon during the season, Washington enters the offseason as a team with no pressing need in free agency besides their bullpen.

(Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images) /

Step Four: Somehow Fix The Bullpen Via Trades and Free Agency

When the Washington Nationals began their 2019 season, the one question that remained about their team was the bullpen. Instead of going after big-name players in free agency, Mike Rizzo and the Nationals organization decided to try to put together a group of under-the-radar but quality bullpen arms.

The team signed RHP Trevor Rosenthal to a one-year nine million dollar deal, traded for RHP Kyle Barraclough, and at the end of spring training signed LHP Tony Sipp to be the team’s lefty specialist.

On paper, these moves looked like they would leave Washington with a solid bullpen that could bend but not break, but on the field, they have gone about as bad a humanly possible. To date, here are the ERA’s of every member of the Nationals bullpen who has pitched in more than five games.

Doolittle: 3.43
Miller: 4.02
Sipp: 5.40
Barraclough: 5.40
Suero: 7.17
Ross 7:82
Grace: 8.02
Jennings: 13.50
Rosenthal: 36.00

The highest bullpen earned run average in the last ten Major League seasons was the 2010 Diamondbacks at 5.74. The last team to have an average bullpen ERA over six was the 2007 Devil Rays at 6.16.

To date, Washington’s bullpen has an ERA of 7.02, on their way to becoming statistically the worst bullpen in the history of Major League Baseball. Somehow, someway the Nationals front office needs to find a way to fix this mess of a bullpen if they want to field a successful team.

If Washington goes the free agent route, RHP Dellin Betances, LHP Will Smith, RHP Brad Brach, RHP Jeremy Jeffress, and RHP Brandon Morrow are guys who could greatly help improve the Nationals bullpen. Washington has not been a team that has ever been willing to spend big money on bullpen arms, but after this disaster of a season that clearly has to change.

Via the trade route, Washington can try to sell off some of their somewhat valuable pieces this season, Howie Kendrick, Matt Adams, Yan Gomes, and Adam Eaton and try to acquire some young bullpen arms who can contribute next season. Young players such as Tanner Rainey, Kyle McGowin, and Koda Glover have shown promise and should get opportunities at the end of this season over veterans like Barraclough, Sipp, and Rosenthal.

Step Five: Move Juan Soto To First Base and Acquire a Starting Outfielder

Juan Soto is an outstanding young talent and hopefully will be a Washington Nationals for years to come. Despite hitting just around .250 to start this season, Soto has shown signs of improvement in the past few days at the plate, and overall he will recover and be the outstanding hitter he was last season.

At just 20-years-old Soto will learn how to become a better hitter as he matures and grows in his career, and will only get better than we have seen him to date. Soto is very good at so many things, but one of those is not his defense. This season Soto has a -5 defensive runs saved average and a -17 defensive runs saved per 1,200 innings.

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The 20-year-old outfielder has not improved statistically defensively at all since his rookie season in 2018, and if you watch Soto on a nightly basis he is good for one or two head-scratching plays in the outfield a week.

Now part of this is due to Soto being young. Typical young defenders do struggle in the outfield, and it takes time to become a good Major League defender. But the Nationals are in an intriguing spot where they can move Soto and help their team in more ways than one.

Moving Soto to first base would a) help him extend his career by not taking as much wear and tear ad he would in the outfield, b) help Washington become an overall better defensive team. With Washington likely being completely out of playoff contention as early as the middle of June, the Nationals can get an extended look at Soto at first base in meaningless games the rest of this season.

Soto could get 50-60 games of experience at first before having the entire offseason to work on learning the position. If he fails in these games, who cares. It is a chance for him to get a head start on the learning process.

Next. Analyzing Nats Negative Run Differential. dark

In the offseason, Washington can let the long-time face of the franchise Ryan Zimerman go, or bring him back on a team-friendly deal to be Soto’s backup. The 2020 free agent class has some interesting outfield prospects in Marcell Ozuna, Yasiel Puig, Billy Hamilton, and Starling Marte who could all help the Nationals offensively and defensively.

There is also the trade market where Washington could look to acquire a corner outfielder in the fall. Whatever way they go about it, moving Soto to first base would help the team in more ways than one.

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