It’s always fun when Philadelphia comes into town. Three of their best hitters are former Nats (Turner, Harper, and Schwarber) and a massive number of DC area residents are PA transplants more than willing to scarf up cheap seats, drink beer, and make noise.
This week’s trip though had a somewhat ominous feeling. That’s because this week may finally have been the breaking point for the cobbled together bullpen for this erstwhile wild card contender.
- On Tuesday, the bullpen gave up three in the 8th and eight in the 9th to blow two leads in two innings.
- On Wednesday, they gave up 2 in the 9th to blow another lead.
- On Thursday, they turned a 5-0 lead into a 10-5 loss, this time giving up five in the 9th, including a F-You homer from or former prodigal son Harper.
That’s, not good. Those are debilitating losses for an offense that did its job and demoralizing for starters who put the team in position to win. Nearly every guy in the bullpen over the last three days showed the kind of ineptitude that would lead to demotions or outright releases on a real team.
- Tuesday it was Lovelady for 3, Lord for 6, and Schultz for 2
- Wednesday it was Ribalta and Lovelady for 1 apiece
- Thursday it was Parker for 3, Varland for 5
The only relievers not named for ineptitude this week were Poulin (the opener on Tuesday who also got a hold Wednesday) and our closer Beeter (who blew saves on both Tuesday and Thursday but somehow avoided having any ERs).
Fun fact, and a reason I began writing this post: I read someone on twitter point out that the Nats relievers now have had 48 Save Opportunities this season and have blown HALF of them. Half! Mitchell Parker has as many blown saves by himself as the entire Houston Astros team this season, and our closer Beeter isn’t far behind, having padded his stats this week. Pretty awesome statistic.
I’ve been kind of beating the drum on this bullpen for a while, having been thrown together primarily with MLFAs, Waiver claims, and low-level trade acquisitions. Somehow the team has remained above .500 for weeks thanks to an amazing offense in spite of the pitching staff deficiencies. But this week, it finally collapsed.
There’s five 40-man relievers in AAA right now, four of them down there because they weren’t even as good as the crew we have in the majors. Henry has a 6.00 ERA in the majors this season, Granillo a 9.64 ERA, Kent a 6+ ERA in limited innings, and Schulz at 5.87. We also have a just-acquired waiver claim in Justin Lawrence, who may be next in line for the firing squad if the team decides to demote one of these guys before the weekend series.
On top of that, the team has spent most of the last 2 months grabbing every MLFA they could find looking for reinforcements. This team now has 35 MLFAs in its system signed this year, all up and down the system, many of them arms. They’ve got 26yr old MLFAs in rookie ball, they’ve got Indy league castoffs up and down the system, they’ve got a 29yr old MLFA from the Mexican leagues in AA. All looking for found gold apparently. Havn’t really found it yet, but we’re running out of time.
Is this week’s results the end of our Wild Card dreams? Well, no, but they’re not looking good. We lost 3 games to a Wild Card competitor and now sit 3 games out of the last wild card spot. We can get healthy fast; our next six games are away to AL East competition that normally would be competitive, but are not this year (Baltimore and Boston). However, these two teams are not easy to beat, especially on the road. Then we host Pittsburgh and Houston, both hovering around .500 like us. Our last series before the ASB is hosting the Yankees, which could be a telling series to take us into the break.
If this team scuffles through its next few series, then gets pulverized by the Yankees, that could be the signal to the front office to Sell, Sell, Sell. We’ll see.
it may be time to find out whether Eric Mejia is a possibility. he was sharp last night.
at least we know he’ll field his position well!
FredMD
26 Jun 26 at 10:21 am
ESPN has this to say about the bullpen in their weekly power rankings column yesterday (so before another meltdown/blown lead/blown save): “[The Wednesday loss] gave Washington 21 losses in games it has led at some point, tied for the most in the NL. In June, Washington’s bullpen has MLB’s lowest strikeout rate, has allowed the most homers and has blown an MLB-high eight saves.” Woof!
MG
26 Jun 26 at 11:37 am
Well, everyone expected this bullpen would have fewer blown saves not because they’d be better, but because they’d have far, far fewer save opportunities than they have had.
It’s a bad bullpen, there’s no doubt of that. But the rest of the team is shockingly competent. What sucks is that now, there’s very little to do about it.
I think one of the answers would be finding AAA starters and giving them a Brad Lord-type role. Those guys have to be available for cheap, and instead of trying to cram them into “pitch the 6th 4 nights a week” roles, send them out twice a week for 2 or 3 innings, as long as they’re effective. They stay close to a starter’s schedule, and can really bridge the gap between the 5-6 innings this staff can go and the very back of the bullpen, where the few credible relievers live. Plus, they’re available. The only relievers you can find today are guys who just got DFA’d by someone else, and you pointed out how well that’s working.
kevin r
26 Jun 26 at 1:45 pm
100% agree with this take, Todd.
Here are another few gallows-humor stats I’ve been tracking.
1. FG has save data back to 2002, and the record for team blown saves in a season is 36 (2022 CHW). We’re at 24 in 82 games.
2. The entire pitching staff has been hovering around replacement level. Currently they sit at 0.2 fWAR. Since 1950, pitching staff has generated negative fWAR. The only teams with <1 WAR over a full season are the 2022 Nats (0.0), the 2006 Royals (0.5), and the 1982 Twins (0.9).
3. That 0.2 fWAR number includes +3.9 from starters Cavalli, Griffin, Alvarez and Irvin and 0.5 from relievers Lord, Ribalta and Palmquist. Everyone else is at or below replacement, and they combine to a ludicrous -4.2 fWAR!! Just replacing all those guys with literal replacement level players do more than adding another James Wood and another Jacob Young.
What's weird and a little interesting about all this is that I'm actually kind of enjoying how ridiculously bad they are. Maybe it's because I'm hoping Toboni and the Lerners are able to learn something from this debacle. Because, to my mind, this is exactly why you shouldn't punt on seasons before they start. I get why they won't say so publicly, but I do hope they're at least internally wishing they had signed a few FAs.
SMS
26 Jun 26 at 1:49 pm
since Earl Weavers quote adorns the home page for this site, I’ll add another one of his. “everything changes everything”
there is no way to know whether them adding more free agents would result in all the good things being the same. there is no way to know whether any significant free agent would have come here short of a massive overpay.
I’m enjoying the new direction and positive results where we can find them. playing what if is pointless.
FredMD
26 Jun 26 at 6:55 pm
Toboni’s offseason trades aren’t looking very good in retrospect.
Ford for Ferrer is looking like the throw in, Lyon, might be the more valuable player than Ford.
Perales for Bennett is looking like a big whiff. Bennett has been very good for the Red Sox, and Perales barely competent in AAA…
Mead for Boston Smith. Mead is doing very well, but Boston Smith is also destroying A ball pitching with the second best wRC+ (166) in the Sally League. Still, so far a win-win for both teams.
Vivas for Linan. Linan hasn’t been especially good, but a lot of it looks driven by some bad luck. I still don’t understand why Vivas is on this roster, alongside Mead, Nunez and Tena, all of whom’s lack of options (except Nunez) is hamstringing the team’s roster flexibility.
Still, in retrospect, these trades made the team worse in positions where we had poor depth, both in the short and long term, and acquiring guys at a discount due to a lack of options has handcuffed Toboni’s roster flexibility. But it’s evident Toboni, like most of us, didn’t expect the team to be competitive this year, and was making these moves with a view to 2+ years from now.
Still, I’ve been harping for years how for a rebuilding team, hoarding fungible relievers is an unbelievably effective strategy to acquire prospects. Relievers routinely yield great returns at the trade deadline, so whether Toboni expected us to be competitive or not, he should’ve been assembling a coterie or relief arms. Even if 10%-20% panned out, that’s still several 45 FV prospects in return at the deadline. A couple major league contracts for some decent relievers would’ve gone a LONG way in improving this pen.
Will
27 Jun 26 at 8:18 am
@Will – I 100% agree with you that rebuilding teams would be well served to signed decent FAs, and it’s a glaring market inefficiency that teams don’t. (Or, alternatively, it’s strong evidence that many teams have higher priorities other than winning.)
On some of those trades, though, I think you’re too harsh.
Ford has had a 101 wRC+ since May 1, which is disappointing but not disastrous. Plus, I’d buy that changing orgs can be especially tough for catchers. Maybe he doesn’t look quite as valuable as he did before the trade, but it’s wild to be so entirely out on him that you’re even thinking about ranking Lyon first.
And I have no idea how you can be anything but thrilled about Mead for Smith. Mead has generated an actual MLB 0.8 fWAR in a half season, and is under team control through 2030. Boston Smith isn’t even on anyone’s top 30 for the White Sox. If that’s a wash trade in your book, I don’t think any front office is going to grade out very well.
The Vivas for Liñan trade would have made more sense to me if they cut Tena. Like if you think Vivas is a better defensive backup at 2B/3B, fine. You can trade an FV40 for that. It seems kind of at cross-purposes with the org’s other moves, but in a vacuum it’s reasonable. But carrying both players (and giving Tena 40% of the playing time at DH?) is one of the least explicable moves I’ve ever seen in the sport. Maybe there was another deal that fell through at the last minute?
I see the Perales/Bennett trade much the same as you. I was mildly against it at the time, and in retrospect it’s only looked worse. And I’ve been vocal about still being underwhelmed by the Gore return, but we don’t need to rehash that again.
Which is to say that I’m also unimpressed with the new regime’s trades overall. But credit where it’s due – Mead was entirely off my radar, and they acquired him for an impressive-looking non-prospect and immediately turned him into a useful piece. That’s an A+ trade in my book.
SMS
27 Jun 26 at 12:00 pm
I have some sympathy for Ribalta and Lord this week. Ribalta threw 67 pitches in 3 appearances over 4 days by the time he pulled after facing Schwarber. He’s a reliever who actually deserves to be in MLB. As for Lord, the fact that he can give up 6 earned runs in 2/3 of an inning coming in as closer but still have a 3.31 kind of tells you how good he’s been. Also the fact that your long guy was closing there tells you a lot about the bullpen.
If you squint really hard, then it seems the problem in the bullpen is more on the lefty side and getting lefty hitters out. More or less, Ribalta, Lord, and Beeter are adequate to good most days. It’s the left side – Parker, Lovelady, Poulin – that’s sort of hopeless. Parker had one good relief appearance after working on the side to fix things, but has been a disaster since. Poulin actually is effective against lefties (0.92 WHIP, .578 OPS) but horrible against righties (1.82 WHIP, .821 OPS). Lovelady has been horrible since his last appearance in May.
Figuring out how to deal with lefties I think is a priority. For starters, maybe letting Lovelady open instead of Poulin might help deal with lefty pockets later in the game. Lovelady gives up a run in the 1st shouldn’t bury you. Getting Irvin back lets the Nats use Alvarez in the Parker role. And, of course, there’s trying Palmquist again as an opener or multi-inning guy let’s them become less reliant on Lovelady while he figures things out as the 7th guy in the bullpen.
I don’t think they press Jackson Kent into the rotation or as a converted reliever. Too soon to start the clock. Perhaps Cranz settles down a bit in AAA and could be used later in the season as 4th righty with a chance to move up. Otherwise, do you see any help on the way, especially help vs lefties?
JCA
27 Jun 26 at 1:15 pm
Lord had one uncharacteristically terrible outing. If he hadn’t, we’d have split this Philly series and be much less upset about everything. (Also, the entire bullpen would have thrown like 100 fewer pitches during the week, and maybe held on either Wednesday or Thursday.)
This reminds me of 2005 when they had negative WAR from SS and 2B most of the season, but couldn’t manage to find even replacement-level production from either spot, as the entire season unraveled in July and August.
I agree the Vivas trade makes it look like they were continually shuffling Scrabble tiles in hopes of finding kumquat in the tray.
Also, FOR GOD’S SAKE why are Morales and Ortiz still in AAA? They’re just abusing that league, and while they not wind up as good MLB hitters, it sure looks like they’re worth a look.
kevin r
27 Jun 26 at 2:19 pm
I can’t pretend to know the thinking of the organization, but there’s a perfectly logical reason for Morales and Ortiz to still be in AAA. Ortiz is a first baseman, and right now Luis Garcia Jr. (134) is right there with Wood (150) and Abrams (140) in OPS+. Promoting him to be the short side of an occasional platoon at 1b makes no sense when compared to letting him play every day. Morales situation isn’t all that different. As a 1b/3b, he’s got the same 1b problem as Ortiz and has Mead ahead of him at 3b. The Nats don’t much care about development for Vivas and Chaparro. They might just care about Morales and Ortiz.
John C.
1 Jul 26 at 1:23 pm
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