{"id":16718,"date":"2020-09-01T09:21:01","date_gmt":"2020-09-01T13:21:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=16718"},"modified":"2020-09-01T11:18:21","modified_gmt":"2020-09-01T15:18:21","slug":"nats-do-absolutely-nothing-at-trade-deadline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=16718","title":{"rendered":"Nats do absolutely nothing at Trade Deadline"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/nationals\/news\/nationals-no-trades-2020-trade-deadline<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Nats on 8\/31\/20 are 12-20.  They have the second worst record in the NL.  They have the 5th worst record in the majors.  But thanks to the crazy 2020 playoff structure they sit just 3.5 games out of a Wild Card spot.  They’ve had season-ending injuries or opt-outs of multiple planned core players; they’ve lost to presumed rotation members in Joe Ross<\/strong> and Stephen Strasburg<\/strong>, they’ve lost a middle-of-the-order off-season acquisition bat in Starlin Castro<\/strong>.  They’ve lost both their lefty specialist relievers in Roenis Elias<\/strong> and Sam Freeman<\/strong>.  They lost an important bench bat\/team leader in Ryan Zimmerman<\/strong>.  They’re now throwing out AAA starters twice every five games, and have had severely disappointing seasons from a slew of players they were counting on (Anibel Sanchez, <\/strong>Adam Eaton, Carter Kieboom, Eric Thames, Daniel Hudson, Sean Doolittle<\/strong>, and so on).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what did they do at the deadline?  Zip.  Nothing.  Nada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe the farm system is now so utterly depleted (given that they’ve already called up their consensus #1, #2, #5 and #10 prospects on the year with little impact) that they couldn’t offer enough in trade to actually acquire someone they wanted.   Perhaps more to the point, the price tag it would have taken to acquire starters (given the spate of pitcher injuries this year and the competition in the area) may have been too high for the team’s taste (how pissed would you be if they had flipped someone like Jackson Rutledge<\/strong> or Cade Cavalli<\/strong> yesterday for a 3rd starter one-month rental?).   It seems foolish to think they have the cavalry coming in to help; right now the only 10-day DL player they have is Seth Romero<\/strong>, who is only up because they needed a lefty bullpen arm.  Brock Holt<\/strong>?  That’s not a savior.  Neither is Josh Harrison<\/strong> (though to be honest he has hit well).  So I guess the plan is to assume that all those veterans listed above who have sucked so far are short sample size regression to the mean candidates and they’ll be rebounding … within the next few days?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, the rest of the division at least tried to improve:<\/p>\n\n\n\n