Cruz Control

 

It happened with Bartolo Colon. It happened with Encarnacion. And now it's happening with Nelson Cruz. For players who can sustain their peak years into their late 30s, the inevitable has to happen eventually. Nelson Cruz's 2021 was still a pretty nice power season for a 40 year old, and one he honestly should have gone out on.

Now, as a power-hitter in Washington, Cruz has sort of settled into a season a 41-year-old power guy should have. Not that it's bad. He's hitting .261 with 7 homers and 36 RBIs, which are great numbers. Heck, because of how depleted the Nationals are this season, his 0.7 WAR is one of the higher ones on the team. Nevertheless, Cruz, whose first season in the league was also the Nationals' first season in Washington, seems to be handling things with humility. He's still something of an integral part of the team, but the team doesn't come down to him- Juan Soto and Josh Bell are the tentpoles of the lineup, Keibert Ruiz and Luis Garcia are coming into their own, and the youth of this team is slowly starting to define what the next decade of Nats baseball could look like. 

Part of me does feel bad about Cruz, because I got the sense that he wanted to play for a competitor, was inches away from a reunion with the Twins, and decided to go to Washington while both the Twins AND the Rays, whom he was traded to last year, are competing this year. I don't think Cruz is gonna finish his career by getting that ever-elusive ring he came so close to as a member of the Rangers...that is unless he gets traded at the deadline which, while I don't THINK it'll happen, definitely could. However, now that NL teams have DHs, it's definitely an option. 

The Nats themselves are unspectacular this year, and it's mostly because the starting pitching is so terrible. Josiah Gray and Erick Fedde are close to good, but Patrick Corbin's pretty spent, and Joan Adon, in his rookie season, has TEN LOSSES. TEN LOSSES and one win. He's been demoted to sort things out but MAN is that a sour taste for a first MLB stint. Even worse, Strasburg once again proved how much of a bullet the Yankees dodged in 2020 by throwing one game and then immediately going back on the IL. As much as I love Strasburg as a pitcher, I absolutely hate how fragile and unreliable he can be sometimes. 

The Nats are gonna do their thing. They're clearly not competing this year, but they're also not dealing Soto, so they'll still have some big games in the next few months. I'm actually gonna be seeing them play in Philly in a week or so, so that'll be fun.

Coming Tonight: One of the big rookie prospects that, unlike a lot of his contemporaries, has actually figured some things out since coming up.