The Washington Nationals
Of all these teams, Washington has been in a win-now mode the longest. They won their division for the first time in 2012, thereby kicking off this current run.
For comparison, the Dodgers would neither win their division nor make the playoffs for the first year of their winning ways until the following season, at which time the Yankees would start their version of a rebuild.
But along with being the most extended tenured team, they have also been the least successful.
The Nationals have routinely won their division but lost in the NLDS. That’s a trend they started in that very first year of 2012, and, as Claire McNear points out for the Ringer, what once was a vice has now become a habit:
"The Nationals have won the bottom-heavy NL East in three of the past four seasons, and not by shallow margins: they took the division by 17, eight, and then 20 games, respectively. In each of those seasons, the Nats have then gone on to drop the NLDS, losing a crushing Game 5 in each of the last two."
Gift Wrapping
This year, the offense will once again be wrapped around one of baseball’s five best players in RF Bryce Harper, as it has since 2012.
Harper’s prodigious power and tremendous tools have had him in the MLB since he was 19. Meanwhile, Altuve did not make it to the majors until he was 21, and Aaron Judge didn’t make it until he was 24.
So far, all Bryce has done is be a five-time All-Star, win Rookie of the Year at 19 and MVP at 22. Last season he posted a .319/.413/.595 with 29 home runs in only 420 AB’s. And that wasn’t even close to his best year.
And Washington has always surrounded him with other talented offensive players; this year is no different.