I have not done this in a while. I used to do this near weekly post series when former Nats beat writer Bill Ladsen would answer fan questions. Now he’s moved on and we rarely get any of the known beat writers addressing any fan questions … except for long-time beat man Mark Zuckerman. Zuckerman periodically does a q&a session in the form of comments on a post. Fans post questions and Zuckerman answers them.
So for fun I thought i’d try it. Here’s some of the main questions asked and how I’d answer them. I’ll go from the bottom up. I post the “question” (sometimes editing for clarity), put my response, then put Zuckerman’s response summarized.
Q: Who would you expect the Nationals to add to the roster and who would you like to see them add yourself?
A: If they’re just doing existing 40-man players, the two most obvious players to add would probably be a starter (Rutledge) and an outfielder (recall Meneses). The starter would help manage innings limits for the young guys, and the OF can cover for the guys we traded (Winker, Thomas). If they’re going to add new players to the 40-man roster to do roster expansion on 9/1, then the obvious choice is likely to add Crews at that point and maybe reward Lord? Maybe not; still seems too early for Lord. Zuckerman kind of hedged, saying maybe Crews, maybe Tena/Chapparo, maybe Rutledge, maybe Williams/Cavalli coming off the DL.
Q: Wood has more than held his own at the plate but his defense in LF has been suspect so far. How long until he’s moved to his more comfortable spot in RF? I vision him eventually manning 1st base. Sooner, rather than later.
A: Um. LF is far, far easier to play than RF. If he can’t handle LF, he’s going to be a massive liability in RF. Its small sample size, but indeed his defense so far across the board is bad: DRS of -4 (that’s 4 runs cost in 274 innings, which projects to -20 DRS for a full season) and a UZR/150 of -26. Those are both really, really bad. Luckily, he’s 6’10” and would make a perfect 1B. My guess is this: once we have enough top-quality OFs in the majors, Wood makes way. Who will that be? Who knows: we still have a pipeline of OFs in the minors who could force their way into the conversation: Hassell, Lile, Pinckney, and Stone Garrett are all relatively close, while guys like Vaquero, Green, Cox, and 2024 draftees are further away. Zuckerman asked Martinez if Wood would move to RF once Thomas got traded and he said no … intimating that the Nats believe Crews will take RF upon promotion and the OF will be Woods-Young-Crews for the forsee-able future.
Q: Should they just DFA Corbin at this point? He seems to be getting worse as the year goes on. Trevor Williams could hold that spot for the remainder of the season
A: Nope. As discussed in the July rotation review post, thanks to the injury issues our three possible replacements face (Grey, Cavalli, Williams), the high likelihood is that Corbin stays through the end of the season. Now we’re close enough to 9/30 that our young pitchers like Parker and Herz (and even Gore to some respect) will need to skip starts to keep IP low. Even if Cavalli or Williams magically re-appeared, you’d still keep Corbin in the pen to provide this service until his $35M salary is exhausted. Zuckerman basically agrees, noting that neither Williams or Cavalli are both just basically playing catch right now, let alone building up strength, let alone doing rehab starts.
Q: Which of the minor leaguers we received at the trade deadline are likely to be called up for a cup of coffee? At least 2 (Tena and Chaparro) appear to be MLB ready.
A: The easy answer is Tena, who’s on the 40-man. The moment we have an infield injury he’s on the bus to DC. Fun fact: we’re in mid-August and Nunez has 15 total at-bats! Wow. Chapparo seems like a 2025 NRI to compete for the Meneses job: 1B/DH mostly. He projects to be a stumpy slugger with little defensive value, not exactly something the team values, and I can’t see him getting added to the 40-man to get called up over Meneses and Garrett. Zuckerman says Tena, and maybe sooner than later since Lipscomb continues to struggle playing every day.
Q: (Paraphrased) Kiebert Ruiz had a few decent moments but generally is struggling and batting cleanup, and is signed long term. How do you see this playing out?
A: I’m going to chalk it up to just a bad season. His career MLB numbers prior to this were just fine and justified the long term contrac.t The OP asks about why he’s batting cleanup … turns out his splits at cleanup are a lot better than at 6-hole where he batted most of the year. His OPS of .710 batting clean-up would give him an OPS+ figure above 100. I’m not worried about Ruiz. Zuckerman is more harsh, calling Ruiz the biggest disappointment of the season, plus he was critical of Ruiz’ defense. Hmm.
Q: Did Matt Cronin do something to get deep in the dog house?
A: Note: Cronin was finally promoted to AA after sitting in High-A for probably two months too long. I questioned the same in my last two monthly check-ins, and have no answer other than to guess that, as a guy who passed through waivers/DFA to get outrighted, the team doesn’t consider him a prospect anymore and he’s now in “org arm” territory, which means he gets moved around the system as needed to eat up reliever innings until that point where he hits 6year MLFA or gets cut. Zuckerman noted he did have back surgery last year and perhaps the team wanted to ease him back, but otherwise has no idea why he’s been stuck in A ball for so long.
Q: Why is it taking so long to get Williams back on the mound in games?
A: Because he had a serious injury. A Flexor issue is a 2-3 month injury at best case, and worst case leads to TJ surgery. He went on the DL June 4th. We’re now August 7th, so that’s 2 months and he’s reportedly not yet doing mound work. Per the injury update, the team is hoping to have him “throw a few innings” in September. Zuckerman says the same.
Q: What is wrong with CJ’s batting? He seems to be swinging at bad pitches.
A: Everything in Abram’s aggregate stats in 2024 is an improvement over last year. Line Drive % up, hard contact % up, Ground ball and weaker contact down. He is in the 10th percentile of all MLB hitters in Chase rate … but his swing/take numbers are drastically improved over the past two years. I’ll take a couple of chase pitches for a guy who has really improved on balls over the plate. Zuckerman notes he’s in a slump right now and this is what he does when he slumps.
Q: Your early thoughts who Rizzo may target FAs in the off-season (or make any surprising trades like Gonzalez or Eaton) for DH/1B/SP/backup C for 2025? Who would YOU like to see as a veteran (ala Werth) signing to lead the young players?
A: I’m beginning to think that Rizzo may give it another year to allow the younger players to matriculate up before making a massive deal. I don’t think this is a 2011 heading into 2012 deal, where he thinks a major signing will be the catalyst to go to a 90-win team. I also think the team is pretty well set at a lot of the positions.
- OF is set with Wood-Young-Crews once Crews shows up
- 3B/SS/2B will be set with top prospects House-Abrams-Garcia.
- C is set with long-term signee Ruiz. Why bother signing a backup veteran C if you have healthy Adams and Millas?
- So the only thing i could see on the FA market would be yet another 1B/DH veteran type like Gallo to try to catch lightning in a bottle.
- Starters: Gore, Parker, Herz, Irvin all young and healthy right now. You expect Cavalli back for 2025. Williams is a FA and might take a deal to return. We don’t have a ton of depth past that, so maybe another FA starter … but who does that starter replace? Herz? You’re not getting a starter to replace Gore or Cavalli, and Parker/Irvin have earned their spots. So, there doesn’t seem to be a huge need for a starter.
- Relievers; definitely need some FA help. As of this writing, I’d dump half my relievers. So, look for a ton of 1yr and MLFA deals in the off-season.
Zuckerman says, power hitting 1B, maybe a SP, and relievers.
Q: The “500 Clubs” questions. 1) Do you think the next 500 foot home run will be by one of the famous sluggers or someone people don’t expect to hit one that long?; 2) Which players have the best chance of reaching 500 career home runs based on current totals, age, injury history and other reasons?
A: The next 500-foot homer will be from one of the known sluggers (Ohtani, Stanton, Judge), because they’re the ones who are playing regularly and getting frequent looks. The longest so far this year is 480 from someone unexpected, but last year 493 from Ohtani and the last 500 footer was in 2022 in (surprise) Colorado from CJ Cron.
Best chances to get to 500 homers? Taking a quick peek at active HR leaders …
- I think Stanton can get another 80 despite injury issues
- Trout should be a shoe-in sitting at 378 with probably another 7-8 seasons to go.
- Harper and Machado are both 31 and sitting at 330; both are signed long term for the same team and should be able to average 20 a year for 8 years to get there.
- Judge sitting at 298 at age 32 is an interesting question mark: he’s so prolific but so injury prone.
- Alonso and Ohtani are both 29 and sitting in the 205-215 range; that’s a ways to go but doable.
- Soto is only 25 and already has 188. He could hit 200 before the end of the season. The better question for Soto might be can he hit 600, or 650.
Zuckerman wasn’t aware of stat cast tracking, but listed the same guys I did.
Q: Do you have any insight or theories as to why the return for Flora was so light (a minor league free agent) relative to other mid reliever trades?
A: Probably reputation, role, and contract status. Honestly, in hindsight the return for Hunter was amazing. What a fleece job (Cayden Wallace and a supp-1st draft pick). Zuckerman says it’s because Floro was a 2month rental and a FA at the end of 2024, so there was limits as to what you’d get.
Q: Why has the radio feed been eliminated in the concourse?
A: No idea. There’s no good reason to turn that off. Zuckerman has no idea either
Q: Who’s next to be brought up, Millas, Ribalta etc.? Got a guesstimate?
A: I’m sure we’ll see random call-ups for double headers and other minor injuries between now and 9/1. Willingham and Millas seem to be the two most likely. Zuckerman says he hopes its Crews.
(From here down Zuckerman called it a day, so no alternate answers)
Q: Do you think Joey Gallo will return to nats line up after he gets off IR?
A: Yes I do think he’ll return and will be given a chance to showcase himself for the off-season. Seems like veteran privilege. I don’t think he’ll hit though and may get DFA’d so the team can continue to start prospects to audition for 2025.
Q: What is Jake Noll up to these days?
Hit MLFA in November 2023 and never signed another affiliated deal. He wasn’t in winterball and he’s not with any indy or foreign league in 2024. I can’t find any hint as to what he’s done since: nothing on his twitter or wikipedia page. So, who knows?
Q: Who is one player you wish that has gotten more opportunity with Nats but it was not meant to be?
A: I wonder why we couldn’t get the performance out of Fedde that he found in Korea.
Q: Outfield of the future for Nats? Young needs to hit for more power to be part of it or? Do you still be believe in Hassel?
A: I believe its Wood-Young-Crews for the time being until Hassell or Lile makes a case. But, neither are really making that case right now.
Q: Do you think Abrams is good enough as SS or better as 2B?
A: Defensively? He’s not half bad: for 2024 he’s at 1.1 UZR/150 and a 4 DRS for the season. I’ll take that for a SS generating his offense, as would nearly every other team in the league. There’s no reason to move him to 2B unless we found a SS who was just significantly better and provided passable offense. our SS depth right now doesn’t really show that coming: Tena/Cluff in AAA, Made in AA, Pena in High-A (who will lose that job as soon as King is ready to go), Cruz in low-A? Maybe Dickerson next spring in FCL? Nobody is close.
Q: How much of the offensive struggles can and should be placed on the hitting coach and manager?
A: Some, I suppose? But if a hitter just isn’t talented, what can a hitting coach do? You can only get results up to a point. We’ve seen our pitchers drastically improve and are attributing it to Sean Doolittle, perhaps we should expect more from our hitting coach.
Q: If the Nats win the draft lottery in 2023, do they draft Paul Skenes instead of Dylan Crews, and would Lane Thomas still be a Nat?
A: 100% we would have picked Skenes. Thomas still would have been traded b/c he fetched value and we still have other OFs in the system.
Phew. that was fun. Disagree with my or Zuckerman’s answers?
1. I wouldn’t place too much emphasis on 274 innings of Wood in LF. With that said, his defense isn’t passing the eye test either. But I still expect him to improve. Scouting reports said he would be competent at CF, so it’s strange to see him be bad in left. But then again, scouting reports said Jacob Young wasn’t a good defensive CF, so who knows what these guys are talking about…
2. I’m consistently amazed at the arguments people concoct to justify Keibert Ruiz’s performance. As the months drag into years, arguments pointing to his mediocre 2022 as some sort of bellweather for his potential continue to become more and more strained, while ignoring he’s regressed in every possible way since then. Over his past 222 games (two seasons), he’s batting .248/.290/.389. That’s simply not good enough, even when you’re not the worst defensive catcher in the game, as Ruiz is. It’s a shame that he’s the guy the FO was willing to give an 8 figure extension to, because he’s now blocking players who are better than he is. The old, Sunk Cost Fallacy at play.
3. On Cronin: if only Zuckerman had the opportunity to ask the Nats about this…
4. Floro’s value was exceptionally light when you compare him to other relief rentals. I ascribe it to the Nats spending too much time trying to work out a Carlson-for-Floro deal, got beat to the punch by the Rays, and then found themselves with no more buyers for relievers at the last minute. A big whiff in an otherwise good deadline (the other whiff being Finnegan).
Will
7 Aug 24 at 5:38 pm
I’m not going to the wall to defend Ruiz, but he isn’t even the worst defensive catcher on his team. By virtually every metric (including pitch framing) he’s better than Riley Adams.
John C.
8 Aug 24 at 12:16 pm
Wood and SSS in LF: definitely. But man his time so far doesn’t look great. One thing probably worth mentioning; he seemed to play mostly cf and rf in the minors (i see like 22 games in Left this year and a handful previously) so it is fair to say he’s playing a relatively uncomfortable position while making the huge adjustment to MLB pitching. His priorities are probably in the right order right now.
Ruiz: I hope i didn’t come across as making excuses for Ruiz … I also thought the timing of the extension was odd … and he’s really been bad this year. I’d be happy if he rebounds to last year’s production. I would push back though on the claim that he’s blocking people. Who? Adams or Millas? Both are backups. PIneda?? He’s hitting .158 in AA this year. I’ll bet you couldn’t name the guys starting in high-A or low-A (Romero and Colomenares) The next decent C prospect in the entire system might be the two guys we just drafted. There’s like no catcher depth in the mid minors. If Lomavita crushes his way to the majors, Ruiz can make way. Until then we take what we can get.
Finnegan: still can’t believe we got a prospect and a 1st round pick for Harvey but nothing for Finnegan.
Todd Boss
8 Aug 24 at 1:00 pm
Re Finnegan, I think the explanation is simple: the other 29 teams saw him as a guy with a 4.30 career FIP (worse than career avg over the last two years) and middling K numbers (the two stats are related, of course). His profile is probably *at best* the third-best reliever on a good team and that’s probably overstating the case for him. An extra year of control for a meh reliever just isn’t worth very much. For once, the phrase “Harvey’s better” turns out to be true. I think Rizzo concluded that Finn is just worth more to the Nats than on the trade market.
Derek
8 Aug 24 at 3:51 pm
Maybe I misunderstood your point. Saying his numbers before this season were fine is what I took as these sort of bad excuse. They were very bad last year too, and they’re again very bad this year. He’s just switched between terrible with the glove and terrible with the bat. Altogether, he’s been worth negative WAR in each of the last two seasons, and now he’s only been worth a grand total of 1.0 WAR in his 366 game career. (Using fWAR here because bWAR doesn’t include pitcher framing, which is one of Ruiz’s biggest weaknesses)
So why do you think Ruiz is a superior player to Millas?
For one, Millas’ defense is significantly better. Two, even in a ridiculously small sample size of rare starts interspersed with games on the bench, he’s still just as good as Ruiz with the bat (if not better). From 2023-2024, Millas has a 87 wRC+ and Ruiz a 85 wRC+. Altogether, despite wildly different sample sizes, Millas has been worth 0.3 WAR and Ruiz -1.0 in the same period.
Is Millas an All Star? I doubt it. Is he better than Ruiz? Yes. And that’s why he’s blocking Millas.
I could write the same argument in favor of Adams, who himself isn’t anything special, but with the argument flipped. He has a better bat by a decent margin (both this season and last), and (this season) similarly bad defense (albeit significantly better last season). Altogether, a similar WAR story, though Adams’ sample size is larger: 0.4 WAR vs Ruiz’s -1.0 WAR.
I’m just really frustrated that Ruiz is getting playing time seemingly solely because of his salary. I don’t think we should DFA him or anything, but we should be giving Adams or Millas more starts behind homeplate, and consider playing Ruiz at 1B or DH. Sorry, I’ll stop now. Rant over.
Will
8 Aug 24 at 4:17 pm
@Derek, I completely understand this argument, and it’s a good one.
However, you could write the exact same thing about Carlos Estevez (career 4.05 FIP), Luis Garcia (3.97 FIP), Gregory Soto (4.13 FIP), Jason Adam (3.81) or Yimi Garcia (3.82), who all yielded similar prospect hauls to Harvey, despite most of them becoming free agents this winter.
That last bit is what eases my frustration, because Finnegan should still have some trade value next July, so all isn’t lost. It’s the Floro trade that I’m actually more disappointed in. Floro actually has excellent peripherals, and has for multiple seasons. A 2.62 FIP and a career of 3.02. He’s a much better reliever than all the guys mentioned above, and yet his prospect return wasn’t even half as good as any of them. That’s a really big whiff by Rizzo.
Will
8 Aug 24 at 4:34 pm
Is it possible Finnegan’s extra year has negative value on the trade market? He’s racked up a bunch of saves, which get you paid in arbitration. Plus I think a lot of GMs view sub-elite relief pitchers as expiring assets: you can rely on them performing similarly to the recent past up until the pitcher’s next injury, which for a relief pitcher can happen at any time. Yes, Finnegan is under control in 2025 but there are plenty of reasons to be worried that he won’t be all that useful to a team down the stretch run and in the playoffs.
Derek
8 Aug 24 at 6:31 pm
Todd’s point about Wood having very little experience in LF is a good one. Let’s try to forget what that shift did to Werth. (PTSD activated.) A related point is that there’s a hella difference in MLB stadiums and minor league parks.
I’m voting that Wood will be fine. Law saw him several times in Wilmington and thought he had a legit shot to stick in CF in the majors. I don’t think he would have been completely wrong in his defensive evaluation.
We know that Wood is a hard worker. If he’s truly told that he’s going to be in left field, he can focus his offseason in that direction.
KW
8 Aug 24 at 9:00 pm
A point that Todd raised in the original post is one that I posed a few weeks ago: should the Nats make a bid to extend Trevor Williams as a starter? And if so, at what price? Considering the list of options we discussed in the comments of the last post, it seems fair to say that the Nats could spend more for less.
Williams will turn 33 soon after the next season starts, and he’s only managed to pitch 56.2 innings thus far this summer. There’s definitely risk involved, but his 2.22 ERA/2.82 FIP are still likely to draw some solid bids. He’s never made more than $7M in a season (2024). Would 2/$25M be too much to put on the table? As low as the Nats’ payroll is, that would be a drop-in-the-bucket level gamble.
KW
8 Aug 24 at 9:11 pm
I would definitely love to see Chaparro and Tena get looks with the big club sooner or later (at least by Sept.). Tena is already on the 40-man so seems like a no-brainer. Since they’ve been playing Lipscomb and Vargas at 3B, they’ve truly got nothing to lose. I still hope that Lipscomb has some future, but his present is a struggle. Chaparro in particular also could see time at 1B and/or DH. Let’s find out what we’ve got with these guys.
Among the more elite prospects, it’s interesting that while there’s a lot of buzz about possibly promoting Crews in September, there’s almost no mention of House. He’s hitting solid .284 at AAA, albeit in a SSS of only 17 games. If the Nats foresee both of those guys being with the big club for most or all of 2025, it wouldn’t hurt a thing for them to get their feet wet now. But if they think that House in particular may not be ready until mid-2025, then there’s no rush now. He may be ticketed for the Arizona Fall League instead.
Among arms, while Rutledge is on the 40-man, he still sucks. Give Lord the look instead.
KW
8 Aug 24 at 9:25 pm
I’m scratching my head at the 500 homers question. There are several guys with pretty decent chances, but none is guaranteed. Neither Trout nor Stanton has topped 140 games since 2018. Stanton only has three more contract years guaranteed. Trout has six contract years, and 6 x 20 homers basically gets him there. I’d give him better odds than I would Stanton, but I think he’s just going to be barely making the 500 club if he does. I fear that his body will be done by the time his contract is, if not before.
Harper’s move to 1B should decrease the wear and tear on his body, and he plays in a band box. That said, his HR production hasn’t exploded in the City of Brotherly Hate as much as some expected, in part because of injuries. The only season in which he has topped 40 homers came when he was 22. He’s signed for seven more seasons, and at 1B he likely could linger a bit longer. Within the current contract, 7 x 25 gets him over 500. The odds seem fairly good that he can average that number.
Machado still has NINE years left on his contract. His HR production in recent seasons has been more consistent than Harper’s (with a lot less publicity). That contract will give him a really good chance to stick around to chase 500, even if it’s mostly as a DH.
Since Soto has yet to hit more than 35 homers in a season, 600 seems somewhat ambitious. He seems likely to play at least 12 more seasons, though, and 12 x 26 homers gets him to 500.
KW
8 Aug 24 at 10:01 pm
The Washington Nationals called up infielder José Tena from Triple-A Rochester today.
HMG
10 Aug 24 at 3:43 pm
HMG: and Chapparo last night. Its good to see these guys get a run-out to see if they are good options for next year.
Todd Boss
12 Aug 24 at 11:01 am
Tena was the 20th guy to get a look at third base since Rendon left, and Chaparro may be the 21st:
https://www.masnsports.com/blog/five-years-later-nats-still-searching-for-rendon-s-replacement
Of course Rendon’s contract has been a disaster for the Angels, so keeping him wouldn’t have solved anything either. They had bet big on Kieboom, but that didn’t work.
KW
12 Aug 24 at 12:51 pm
The failure of Kieboom is still stupifying. We’re talking a 1st round pick who was ranked in multiple top 10 lists by major pundits for the entirety of the minors. He peaked at #15 for BA:
https://www.baseballamerica.com/rankings/2020-top-100-prospects/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=email
The dude slashed .303/.409/.493 in AAA in 2019 in his age 22 season. Yes it was the PCL, but he still hit. And then suddenly he stopped hitting. And he goes back to AAA and never had an OPS within 150 points of what he did in Fresno. It’s just dumbfounding. The Nats let Rendon go b/c they thougth they had the solutoin. I don’t blame them; so did I.
Todd Boss
13 Aug 24 at 12:04 pm
The outcomes for Kieboom and Robles were 10th percentile outcomes or worse. In a counterfactual world where they reach their median outcome, I wonder where we’d be now. In that world, Corbin still sucks and Strasburg still breaks, so it’s probably not all sunshine and lollipops. But maybe Trea isn’t traded until the next year, and who knows what they do with Soto. I doubt it would be worse—it’s better to have more valuable assets than less valuable ones. But the rebuild might be less far along
Derek
13 Aug 24 at 5:25 pm
alternate world: if MASN/Angelos hadn’t screwed the Nats out of $50M a season for years … would we have just resigned Schwarber, Turner, and Harper instead of letting them go?
Philadelphia gets $125M/ year in RSN dollars; we get $61M. That’s $64M a year.
2024 salaries:
Harper: $27M
Turner: $27M
Schwarber: $20M
That’s $74M in salary for the Phillies #1, #2 and #3 hitters. Nearly all of which could have been made up if we were being paid a fair RSN share.
No, that doesn’t solve our pitching issue; Strasburg & Corbin would still have cost us the $70M they did this season. And we wouldn’t have Gore or Grey w/o the trades. So we’d probably still be chasing FA pitchers and struggling to compete, but at least we wouldn’t be watching Philly on pace for a 100 win season.
Todd Boss
14 Aug 24 at 9:33 am
A note about Wood and the “eye test”.
When you’re 6’10”, it looks like you run funny. He actually got some comments about “dogging it” earlier in his minors career, until someone noticed that it only takes him 4 steps to make it to first, so who cares how slowly those steps come.
But seriously, he and Judge are always going to look weird when they run, just because they’re so tall. Don’t let that part make you think they’re bad at fielding. Now, the drops, the zone rating, and so on, those matter. I’m just saying there’s a good reason to discount the eyeball test a bit.
Kevin R
18 Aug 24 at 1:06 pm