Wake Up Call

 

The Nationals are, by design, a very young team. You have people like C.J. Abrams, James Wood, Jacob Young, Luis Garcia, Mitchell Parker, D.J. Herz, now Jose Tena, all guys who are under 25 and providing crucial support to this team. Yet at the same time, this is a Nats regime that has allowed for a story like Joey Meneses, who took the league by storm as a 30-year-old rookie in 2022, a year after 33-year-old Yadiel Hernandez broke through in a similar manner. The rookies and breakthrough players don't need to be young, 'future of the team' guys in order to truly make a difference.

Case in point: as people were being dealt at the end of July, the Nats called up Alex Call, who seemed like he'd be here to stay after a strong 2023 but was blocked at multiple positions to start the season. Call is in his third season of MLB play, but he's 29 years old. He's at the benchmark where most players strive for free agency numbers, rather than still struggling to make one's mark. There's a whole conversation about how players take longer to progress through the minors now, and start their MLB careers at 25 or 26 rather than in their early 20s, and while that is the safer course of action it does rob us of a lot of long, 20 year careers. The myth of Dave Winfield, the guy who walked right out of the draft and onto the Padres' roster, seems to have passed through.

Yet someone like Call can still be a great service to a Nats team that is just trying to end the season with some shred of dignity. In 24 major league games this year, Call is hitting .367 with 12 RBIs and 29 hits. The man just keeps finding new and exciting ways to get on base, and with Lane Thomas and Jesse Winker gone, there's outfield room for him to play everyday and stay at this pace. To be honest, the Nats could go with a Young-Wood-Call outfield for a little while. Young blossomed this year, he's a really versatile OF piece, and Wood is slowly coming along hitting .289 in 40 games. 

And that's the cool part. You're seeing both short term and long term solutions in Washington. Juan Yepez is the short term 1B solution, his power numbers have been fantastic, while Andres Chaparro seems like the longer term 1B solution, just as his own power bat improves. MacKenzie Gore is seeming more like a short-term starter, as his all-K/no nuance stuff works until the homegrown guys like Irvin, Parker and Herz can really take over. Ildemaro Vargas is a sharp short term solution at third, while Jose Tena smooths out the wrinkles now so he can take over eventually. 

The Nats are still a few more years away, so they need guys like Alex Call to keep things moving now so that when they can compete, everybody's ready and they can start tacking on more strategic contract pieces as supplemental additions. The Nats seem closer to putting together a working core than tearing it all down again, and hopefully they have enough at the end of this season to bring with them to 2025.

Coming Tonight: A useful infielder for a team that...somehow silenced mine yesterday. 

Answering the Call

 

The Brewers' first main test after the end of the trade deadline, in which they bulked up with very clever moves, was to dominate the Nationals, who were already a last place team that, while only parting with one asset in Jeimer Candelario, weren't exactly going for a wild card spot. It was a series that was going well enough, with an even series through the first two games. 

But, ultimately, the series ended with a Nationals advantage. The 3-2 match was decided by a hit to the right place, not by a heavy hitter like Lane Thomas or a power bat like Dominic Smith. No. Alex Call.

Alex Call is the latest Nationals standout to be formed out of practically nothing. We had Yadiel Hernandez in 2021, and we had Joey Meneses last year, and though Call showed up at the end of 2022, this has been his year. A White Sox farmhand traded for Yonder Alonso, then waived by Cleveland, Call bopped around for a while before being utilized properly by a team. 2023 alone has been a prosperous year for Call, as he's working with a 1.0 WAR, 61 hits in 88 games, 32 RBIs and 6 homers. A handy guy to have around that can also be an impressive clutch piece.

Call illuminates a trend that may not immediately occur to you when thinking about the Nationals: the entire starting lineup is made up of people from other farm systems. Only one active hitter on the Nationals is actually a team product, that being Jake Alu, a Princeton product who's been a utility piece for the team. Just him and the oft-injured Victor Robles. Most of the rotation is non-Nats people as well, save for Jake Irvin. You can say it's because of how picked clean this team has been, but other ridiculously-pawned-off teams, such as the Athletics and Royals, are still starting team products right now. The Nats don't have a single one right now, and Alu really isn't a starter. There is a chance that Carter Kieboom makes the team this year and finally shows the Nats what he's been waiting nearly 5 years to showcase but, honestly, it'd be funnier if he didn't.

What makes the lack of homegrown guys somewhat palatable is how inexplicable a lot of these pieces can feel. The Nats can make impressive use out of people like Ildemaro Vargas, Stone Garrett and Jordan Weems, three players that didn't fit in other larger teams. They've also, thankfully, made stars out of Lane Thomas, Josiah Gray and MacKenzie Gore, three guys that could have been great in large markets but were sent away when their teams became overstuffed. Though not as successful as the Rays, the Nats are very good at making a good team out of whatever they have. It's something that can build once these larger pieces start building, and once the farm system begins to yield great players again [remember, we still have some pieces from the Soto deal waiting to develop].

There will be great pieces eventually in Washington, ones that can help this team compete again. But for now, there's always Alex Call.

Coming Tonight: Upon his call-up last year, pretty much everyone made the same joke. Thankfully, it's a funny joke. 

Uncustomed Heroes of 2022: Nationals

 

The 2022 Washington Nationals. A team so frustrating, they ran their marquee star out of town on their own unmitigated gall. What a ballclub.

The Nationals were far and away the worst team in baseball this year, with 107 wins, just three years removed from their monumental World Series win. I'm not saying that Kurt Suzuki cursed the team by showing up to the meeting with the 45th president by wearing a red cap that didn't have a curly W on it, but I'm also not NOT saying that either. But now that the regime has changed in Washington, the subsequent seasons for the Nationals have consisted of the team, heh, falling asleep at the wheel.

Now that everybody's pissed off, here are the Uncustomed Heroes.

Patrick Corbin had a stellar 2018 season, and a stellar 2019, and apparently he thought that was enough. 2022 was Corbin's worst season to date, which isn't a good look for the pitcher who's the closest thing they had to an ace this year. Corbin led the league in losses for the second straight year with NINETEEN, a number so embarrassing that even Joan Adon thought it was too many, and pulled a blistering 6.31 ERA while allowing 210 hits and 107 runs. It's one of the worst seasons in recent memory from someone who very nearly won a Cy Young. Ubaldo Jimenez is just happy he's been forgotten about.

2023 Prediction: Two more years of this damned contract left. Hopefully he's a little more competent in this one.

In the absence of Patrick Corbin's ability to not get the shit beaten out of him for five innings, the Nats turned to the man who's become their #2 due to lack of options, Erick Fedde. Saying Fedde had a better season than Corbin is a lot like saying having someone's fingernail poked into your back for ten minutes is less painful than the same fingernail digging into your forehead for ten minutes. I don't know if you can tell, but originally that analogy was dirtier. Anyway, Fedde had a 5.81 ERA this year, as well as a 6-13 record. What's funny is that even if the Nats have 4 starters with 10+ losses, they also have three starters that started 27 or more games, which is...impressive for a terrible team. Corbin, Fedde and Gray lasted pretty much the whole season with them. Joan Adon and his 1-12 record mercifully got demoted after a bit, though.

2023 Prediction: On one hand, I'm happy he's out of Washington, but on the other hand, I have no idea who the hell would wanna pick him up after this season? I say somebody takes a chance on him, and he plays decently for them in May and June.

Luis Garcia was the Nats' primary shortstop this year, and the reason you didn't hear about it was that his defense stank to high heaven. Lord almighty. A -13 defensive WAR column? Even if he hit .275, with 99 hits and 45 RBIs, nobody wanted to start him in the infield because he's terrible there. Between Garcia, Alcides Escobar and Lucius Fox, the team was in DIRE need of infield help before the Soto trade.

2023 Prediction: A bench role. PLEASE MAKE HIM A BENCH GUY.

This was nice. For his last season in the bigs, Anibal Sanchez returned to the city where he earned his World Series ring to finish strong. Honestly, Sanchez did alright for himself, with a 4.28 ERA in 14 games, and a 1 WAR to show for it, which on this team is like a 4 WAR pretty much. Sanchez was a great pitcher for a large number of great teams, and I'm glad he got to save this one for a bit.

So, the Nats trade Soto and Bell to Washington, and one of the big pieces of the deal is C.J. Abrams, who was already stuck behind Fernando Tatis and Ha-Seong Kim in San Diego. Abrams is still working his way up at 21, and while he was mostly a defensive asset in Washington [which, after Luis Garcia, was welcome], he also found time to hit .258 with 41 hits in 44 games. The Nats see this guy, along with Keibert Ruiz and a few other guys, as the future, and this season was a decent start.

2023 Prediction: Like the guy he was playing next to in San Diego, Abrams is gonna take another year or so to figure out the majors, and then he'll be incredible. So I don't think he'll be mind-blowing in 2023, but he'll get his reps in.

And finally, the Nats brought up Alex Call, a longtime minor leaguer who was floundering in Cleveland before getting waived. Call, 27, had a pretty intriguing go of things, hitting .245 with 13 RBIs and 5 homers in 35 games. It's a great plate boost from a career minors guy. Maybe not as huge as another Washington National, but they took it.

2023 Prediction: That said, I don't know how he factors into the team's future. Maybe he gets some reps? Maybe he's a transition piece? I'm just not sure he has staying power like a lot of other 2022 pieces.

Tomorrow, the Orioles team that almost made the playoffs, and some people that helped.