Written by Thomas Boswell at Washington Post.com
This May has brought lots of talk of “windows” to Washington sports, some of it discouraging. The Nationals are often said to have a two-year window to win a pennant, and thereafter, the light supposedly dims a lot. That’s not right.
The future of the current run of Nationals excellence is bright in 2019 and probably 2020, too. Few teams in baseball ever see further into their own future than that. But the clouds over the Nats are darker than generally thought, too. A scattershot decision-making process, with owner Ted Lerner, 91, surrounded by family members and agent Scott Boras as well as General Manager Mike Rizzo, already has fed the team’s current bullpen crisis. What new damage will that do?
Two main strengths of the Nats are often missed. First, so many long-term events have gone well in the past year — the contract extension of Stephen Strasburg, the emergence of shortstop Trea Turner and reliever Koda Glover, the trade for Adam Eaton and the rebirth of Ryan Zimmerman — that the Nats can now name an entire 2019 team, and a good one, that is already under control.
Second, in a staggeringly overlooked key to the future, the team has managed its payroll so well, and thus far been so lucky on career-damaging injuries, that by the end of 2018 a staggering amount of more than $100 million will drop off the payroll. Why, Bryce Harper might settle for a mere $40 million per year of that. What does $100 million buy? This season’s five best free agents — Yoenis Cespedes, Edwin Encarnacion, Justin Turner, Aroldis Chapman and Kenley Jansen — earn about $96 million per season combined.
Put those two realities in the same frame and you have big possibilities. Including that core of five Nats mentioned above, the team already can name five starting pitchers, four relievers and an entire coherent lineup at every position for Opening Day 2019 — and that doesn’t include spending the $106 million.
“When I signed a seven-year contract here, I knew you couldn’t see any team’s future more than about halfway that far,” said reigning NL Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer, signed through 2021. “Since then, so many good things have happened, and so few bad ones, that if we make good organizational decisions in the future, that window could stay open for my whole contract. I hope so. But the big ‘if’ is always making good decisions . . .
“When you can win, you don’t lose,” Scherzer added cryptically.
Translation from ballplayer-ese: When you have a realistic shot at a pennant, you can’t lose on attainable deals that would help. At recent trade deadlines, as well as last winter in the pursuit of a proven closer, the Nats have lost repeatedly on transactions in which the sticking points were relatively small amounts of money.
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