2056 Washington Nationals: Changing of the Guard
Sept 15, 2020 21:48:40 GMT -5
RandyP, Rich - Former GM, and 4 more like this
Post by Ryan_NatsGM on Sept 15, 2020 21:48:40 GMT -5
The story of the 2056 Nationals begins in 2046. Young stars Robin Johnson and Chris Allen were coming off of twin 7.1 WAR seasons, and despite missing the playoffs on the last day of the ‘45 season the front office believed they would be cornerstones of the franchise for years to come. The GM convinced owner Antonio Perez to allocate over one third of a billion dollars to lock the dynamic duo up to long term deals. The pair would finish second and third respectively in NL MVP voting that year, and 10 platinum sticks, 8 all-star appearances, 1 MVP, 95 wins above replacement, 3 pennants, and 1 World Series title since then have more than paid off that investment. Johnson and Allen will forever be associated with the golden age of Beltway Baseball.
But time gets the best of us all, even digital baseball players. Johnson and Allen are still productive PBL players, but there are questions as to how much longer that will be the case, and for the first time since they signed those megadeals neither is under contract past this year. It’s unlikely both walk (the fans wouldn’t stand for it), but since the former mainstays at catcher and center field are rapidly converging towards the same RHP hitting side of a DH platoon, it’s very possible this is the 14th and final year of the Allen/Johnson regime.
Management has not been idle however (despite fanbase claims to the contrary). While those two are impossible to replace, the scouting department has been combing the ends of the Earth (or at least the Caribbean) to find a new crop of young talent to take the baton from the aging core. That talent didn’t take off as quickly as the stars of the 40s, but Jose Varquez and Aureliano Cervantes finally put it all together last year. While they can’t rightfully be expected to replicate the careers of their elders, they are giving fans hope that the trend of perennial playoff berths in D.C. will continue for the foreseeable future. The outlook for the immediate future is as follows:
Catcher – The aforementioned Robin Johnson can’t really handle this position anymore, but Ken Pope has been his understudy for almost a decade now, and still has some life in his knees. He’s admittedly been just average over the past few season, but that’ll do in a thin catcher crop. Kinnon Cluett is projected to make the opening day roster to spell Pope against righties, and two-way option Kenny Davis may see a few at bats against lefties.
First Base – Despite being the oldest guy on the roster I didn’t mention Raymond Page in the changing of the guard intro. Partially because he’s still under contract for 2-3 more years, but mostly because he’s immune to the effects of aging. Guy had 10 excellent seasons in LA where he totaled 51.6 WAR and won 2 MVPs behind a .865 OPS. In six seasons of “past his prime” ball in Washington he’s OPSing .917. He’s 39 and his injury history page is blank. The only rational conclusion is that he’s a baseball playing cyborg using machine learning techniques to terrorize PBL pitching. Poor Alfonso Hernandez is probably destined for another year in the minors despite being good enough to take the lion’s share of a platoon on a team with actual humans playing his position.
Second Base – Vincente Barron enters the final year of a four-year contract as the clear starter at second. So far he’s put up two years of excellent production (especially for a guy making $3.5M/year), sandwiched between an awful year where he was bad and/or hurt. Hopefully it’s not one of those even year/odd year things, but for now he’s holding off some promising prospects at the position.
Third Base – I already covered Jose Varquez a bit, but he does have the potential to be a monster. Ratings wise he’s a slightly better version of prime Robin Johnson, but he plays the hot corner at a high level rather than being a passible catcher. He hasn’t really put that all together yet though. He did improve markedly last year with a .826 OPS and 4.0 WAR, but he has MVP potential if he truly figures things out. This may be the make or break season to find out if he’s great or merely good.
Shortstop – Aureliano Cervantes was also covered above, and he had similar questions as to whether he’d ever realize his potential after 1.5 rough season to start his year. After 5.5 WAR in 2055 he silenced most of his doubters. He’s not quite the hitter Varquez is, but he already has a gold glove at short, and these two should have one side of the Washington infield set for years to come. Mario Montano is the nominal backup middle infielder, but that may rotate amongst Syracuse standouts as the year moves on.
Left Field – I hadn’t really had a draft pick come out of relative obscurity to contribute in a while, but Rex Daniels gave me hope I’m not that just lighting my developmental cash on fire. The fourth-round pick improved on a good rookie year in 2054 to an excellent one in 2055, winning the gold glove and platinum stick in left. Barring some sort of weird regression, he’s the long-term solution here.
Center Field – This was the biggest hole on the team going into the offseason with Chris Allen’s defense going from gold glove winner in 2053 to unplayable here in 2055. After putting out help wanted ads, we ended up shipping three solid prospects out for Tony Padilla. Tony has snuck into the MVP conversation a couple of times, but mostly he’s a steady hand here providing a high batting average, decent power, and good defense. He’ll cede a few at bats to Ivan Otero, but Padilla will get most of the work here.
Starting Rotation – Julian Robles and Alonso Bravo lead things off, as they have since the Nats’ last title in 2048. Robles is following the standard ace career trajectory to a T, slowly increasing his WAR until age 26, then slowly declining. Bravo as noted in the excellent albatross article has managed to be an effective #2 starter despite awful movement ratings. The secret to his success is having four pitches grading out at 8+, and a 9 control rating, which I assume is unique among starters. When you don’t walk many and miss a lot of bats you can get away with a few long balls. Jose Garcia has been a solid #3 starter, after which the auditions begin. The front office let Bo Moore walk, and Maurice Thomas is banged up, meaning a few AAA players are going to get a shot. Syracuse is pretty loaded with SP prospects though, so we’re prepared for this situation. Candidates include our long-time top prospect Ismael Garcia, fellow top-100 prospect Mike Hernandez, lefty Kenny Clark, and a top-200 guy in Tommy Groves. There may be growing pains, but I think we can replicate last year’s production in those spots.
Bullpen – I don’t know if he gets the pub that the top closers get, but Kelly Nunez is one of the best in the game with 12.1 WAR in the last five years. He’s the poster child for first round RPs working out. Even with relivers being notoriously volatile we were happy to give him a $30.8M/4 extension a few weeks back. The nominal closer is Aaron Rine, who did an excellent job replacing the fallen Bill Dodd last year. Other bullpen candidates include 2055 trade acquisition Octavio Rivera, rule-V pick Tobias Priktl, two-way Swiss army knife Kenny Davis, lefty Antonio Garcia, knuckleballer Manuel Reyes, and swingman Pat Thomas. I wouldn’t call the pen our strength, but it holds its own.
Outlook – After a disastrous 2054 season where we only won 79 games, I predicted a 15-win increase in 2055. We won 94, so apparently I know my team. Unfortunately the Braves added a lot of talent this offseason and took the division from us last year anyway, so they might be hard to catch. I’m calling for 96 wins this year and the #5 seed in the NL. What happens after that depends on how much our old men have in the tank. Here’s hoping they go out on top.
But time gets the best of us all, even digital baseball players. Johnson and Allen are still productive PBL players, but there are questions as to how much longer that will be the case, and for the first time since they signed those megadeals neither is under contract past this year. It’s unlikely both walk (the fans wouldn’t stand for it), but since the former mainstays at catcher and center field are rapidly converging towards the same RHP hitting side of a DH platoon, it’s very possible this is the 14th and final year of the Allen/Johnson regime.
Management has not been idle however (despite fanbase claims to the contrary). While those two are impossible to replace, the scouting department has been combing the ends of the Earth (or at least the Caribbean) to find a new crop of young talent to take the baton from the aging core. That talent didn’t take off as quickly as the stars of the 40s, but Jose Varquez and Aureliano Cervantes finally put it all together last year. While they can’t rightfully be expected to replicate the careers of their elders, they are giving fans hope that the trend of perennial playoff berths in D.C. will continue for the foreseeable future. The outlook for the immediate future is as follows:
Catcher – The aforementioned Robin Johnson can’t really handle this position anymore, but Ken Pope has been his understudy for almost a decade now, and still has some life in his knees. He’s admittedly been just average over the past few season, but that’ll do in a thin catcher crop. Kinnon Cluett is projected to make the opening day roster to spell Pope against righties, and two-way option Kenny Davis may see a few at bats against lefties.
First Base – Despite being the oldest guy on the roster I didn’t mention Raymond Page in the changing of the guard intro. Partially because he’s still under contract for 2-3 more years, but mostly because he’s immune to the effects of aging. Guy had 10 excellent seasons in LA where he totaled 51.6 WAR and won 2 MVPs behind a .865 OPS. In six seasons of “past his prime” ball in Washington he’s OPSing .917. He’s 39 and his injury history page is blank. The only rational conclusion is that he’s a baseball playing cyborg using machine learning techniques to terrorize PBL pitching. Poor Alfonso Hernandez is probably destined for another year in the minors despite being good enough to take the lion’s share of a platoon on a team with actual humans playing his position.
Second Base – Vincente Barron enters the final year of a four-year contract as the clear starter at second. So far he’s put up two years of excellent production (especially for a guy making $3.5M/year), sandwiched between an awful year where he was bad and/or hurt. Hopefully it’s not one of those even year/odd year things, but for now he’s holding off some promising prospects at the position.
Third Base – I already covered Jose Varquez a bit, but he does have the potential to be a monster. Ratings wise he’s a slightly better version of prime Robin Johnson, but he plays the hot corner at a high level rather than being a passible catcher. He hasn’t really put that all together yet though. He did improve markedly last year with a .826 OPS and 4.0 WAR, but he has MVP potential if he truly figures things out. This may be the make or break season to find out if he’s great or merely good.
Shortstop – Aureliano Cervantes was also covered above, and he had similar questions as to whether he’d ever realize his potential after 1.5 rough season to start his year. After 5.5 WAR in 2055 he silenced most of his doubters. He’s not quite the hitter Varquez is, but he already has a gold glove at short, and these two should have one side of the Washington infield set for years to come. Mario Montano is the nominal backup middle infielder, but that may rotate amongst Syracuse standouts as the year moves on.
Left Field – I hadn’t really had a draft pick come out of relative obscurity to contribute in a while, but Rex Daniels gave me hope I’m not that just lighting my developmental cash on fire. The fourth-round pick improved on a good rookie year in 2054 to an excellent one in 2055, winning the gold glove and platinum stick in left. Barring some sort of weird regression, he’s the long-term solution here.
Center Field – This was the biggest hole on the team going into the offseason with Chris Allen’s defense going from gold glove winner in 2053 to unplayable here in 2055. After putting out help wanted ads, we ended up shipping three solid prospects out for Tony Padilla. Tony has snuck into the MVP conversation a couple of times, but mostly he’s a steady hand here providing a high batting average, decent power, and good defense. He’ll cede a few at bats to Ivan Otero, but Padilla will get most of the work here.
Right Field – As noted Chris Allen has migrated to corner outfield, but lest you think his ratings decline has rendered him useless he still had an OPS of .950 last year while battling injury. Righties beware. Lefties will face Diego Bustamante because Allen never did figure them out too well. Still, when the positional rankings say this is the weakest spot on the team, and I have a probable hall-of-famer there, we’re probably not doing too bad.
Designated Hitter – Robin Johnson can’t really hack it in the field anymore, so he ends up here. He’s been solid in this role for the last couple of years, so we’re not too worried about his production. He could be platooned against LHP, but at the moment most of our lefty-killers already have a position they can field, so he may hold both sides of the DH platoon down for a while.
Starting Rotation – Julian Robles and Alonso Bravo lead things off, as they have since the Nats’ last title in 2048. Robles is following the standard ace career trajectory to a T, slowly increasing his WAR until age 26, then slowly declining. Bravo as noted in the excellent albatross article has managed to be an effective #2 starter despite awful movement ratings. The secret to his success is having four pitches grading out at 8+, and a 9 control rating, which I assume is unique among starters. When you don’t walk many and miss a lot of bats you can get away with a few long balls. Jose Garcia has been a solid #3 starter, after which the auditions begin. The front office let Bo Moore walk, and Maurice Thomas is banged up, meaning a few AAA players are going to get a shot. Syracuse is pretty loaded with SP prospects though, so we’re prepared for this situation. Candidates include our long-time top prospect Ismael Garcia, fellow top-100 prospect Mike Hernandez, lefty Kenny Clark, and a top-200 guy in Tommy Groves. There may be growing pains, but I think we can replicate last year’s production in those spots.
Bullpen – I don’t know if he gets the pub that the top closers get, but Kelly Nunez is one of the best in the game with 12.1 WAR in the last five years. He’s the poster child for first round RPs working out. Even with relivers being notoriously volatile we were happy to give him a $30.8M/4 extension a few weeks back. The nominal closer is Aaron Rine, who did an excellent job replacing the fallen Bill Dodd last year. Other bullpen candidates include 2055 trade acquisition Octavio Rivera, rule-V pick Tobias Priktl, two-way Swiss army knife Kenny Davis, lefty Antonio Garcia, knuckleballer Manuel Reyes, and swingman Pat Thomas. I wouldn’t call the pen our strength, but it holds its own.
Outlook – After a disastrous 2054 season where we only won 79 games, I predicted a 15-win increase in 2055. We won 94, so apparently I know my team. Unfortunately the Braves added a lot of talent this offseason and took the division from us last year anyway, so they might be hard to catch. I’m calling for 96 wins this year and the #5 seed in the NL. What happens after that depends on how much our old men have in the tank. Here’s hoping they go out on top.