Scherzer Injury Spotlights The Nationals' Achilles Heel

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The Washington Nationals need to adjust their deadline plans given the increasing health concerns around uber-ace Max Scherzer.

There’s a growing concern that Max Scherzer‘s injury – originally workshopped as an extra couple extra days of rest – will now keep the Washington Nationals ace out of the rotation for a couple of turns.

Losing Scherzer for any prolonged period of time would be devastating to the Nats renewed playoff charge, even with Stephen Strasburg shouldering a two-way burden. The injury is concerning enough that it could change the constitution of their deadline: they now need a starter, writes The Athletic’s Brittany Ghiroli.

At first blush, that seems silly – the Nats rotation is as sacrosanct a unit as exists in baseball. It’s certainly is not the natural place to look for an upgrade. Not on this team.

The Nats starters rank 2nd overall in ERA, 3rd in FIP and 4th in xFIP, and by fWAR, they’re leagues ahead of the trailing Dodgers (13.5 to 12.1) for the top spot in the MLB. Their starters have been not only effective, but durable, admirable, virile, and dare I say it, immaculate:

Stephen Strasburg has thrown the 4th IMMACULATE INNING in #Nats history.

9 pitches // 9 strikes // 3 strikeouts pic.twitter.com/3d7XsLNv1C
— Washington Nationals (@Nationals) July 3, 2019

And yet, here we are: the Nats need another starting pitcher. And maybe two! They’re in pole position for the top wild-card spot – but there are significant advantages to taking the division – even with a healthy Scherzer in a one-game playoff.

In this playoff race, with so many teams vying for the playoffs, there’s just no margin for error. It’s easy to point to the bullpen as the squeaky wheel of the Nats playoff hopes, but the secret of this Nats season is that the bullpen is not the disease, it’s the symptom. The Achilles heel of this Nats team is depth.

Across the board, the Nats have no margin for error. When Trea Turner broke his finger, Wilmer Difo was the only potential backup. Difo – who must of us learned wasn’t capable of standing in as a major-league regular when he stood in as a major-league regular last season to the tune of .230/.298/.350. In 39 games this year (32 starts), Difo was worth -1.2 bWAR, -0.4 fWAR. They don’t currently have a backup shortstop on the roster.

When Trevor Rosenthal imploded, they turned to baseball’s pawn shop rather than trust the in-house options. They pulled Tony Sipp, Dan Jennings, Johnny Venters, Javy Guerra, and Fernando Rodney from the DFA scrapheap.

Michael A. Taylor came into the season as the fourth outfielder.

The rotation, as good as it’s been, is not safe from the termitic shortcomings of Mike Rizzo’s rosters. It’s not that Erick Fedde and Austin Voth are incapable, necessarily. They’ve both proven capable stand-ins. But after those guys, the Nats are absolutely barren.

Not to mention, rotations are notoriously fragile. Strasburg misses time every year, Patrick Corbin’s gone through Tommy John, Anibal Sanchez hasn’t made 30 starts since 2012. I won’t go so far as to say this rotation is injury prone, but pitchers, as a species, are. Organizations that can’t go 8-10 arms deep in their rotation get burned every year. Not only do the Nats not have that many arms, but without Scherzer, they barely have five.

Washington Nationals: Who’s in-house?

After Fedde and Voth, the Nats would turn to a pool that includes Joe Ross (11.05 ERA), Kyle McGowin (29th ranked team prospect), and Jeremy Hellickson (injured, 6.23 ERA). Reach even deeper and you’ll turn up 24-year-old Will Crowe, who’s looked good this year while mostly pitching for Double-A Harrisburg. But he hasn’t come close to surfacing and it’s not as if Hellickson/Fedde/Voth have had that fifth starter spot on lock.

The Nationals should have better options available. They don’t.

What’s particularly frustrating is that this should be the easy part. They just need some league average guys to hold the line when natural disasters occur. They have been consistently unable to patch the holes.

The good news is Voth has emerged. He gained a couple of ticks to his fastball this season, which has made all the difference, even if he’s not yet able to consistently hit the sixth inning. Extrapolate his four big-league starts out for the rest of the season, and he’s totally sufficient as your fifth guy.

Fedde, too, looked like a savior when the bullpen couldn’t get an out early in the season. He’s done well enough as a starter by measure of ERA (3.50), but there’s a legitimate reason to doubt his staying power: 5.23 FIP, 4.7 K/9 (to 3.7 BB/9, no less). When regression comes to rear its ugly head, the Nats don’t want to be left holding the bag.

For a team with title aspirations (and with a 34-year-old Hall of Famer leading the staff, don’t they have to have title aspirations?), Voth and Fedde should be the depth the Nats lack. They should be waiting politely at the end of the line. Right now, they’re fronting it.

Maybe Max comes back in a week and the Nats keep rolling with Scherzer-Strasburg-Corbin-Sanchez-Voth until that one-game playoff against Bryce Harper and the Phillies (good god would that be fun). But this franchise just lost the best player in franchise history, might lose their second-best player in franchise history next offseason, and they’re on the verge of wasting an all-time season from an all-time starter. There should be some urgency to make the playoffs.

Besides, this team is good. Since May 24, they’ve been great. If they’re going to chase down the Braves for the NL East division lead, they’re going to have to stay great. A great team should have the foresight to build out their depth in a meaningful way.

Practically speaking, they should have a fifth starter that could conceivably be another team’s fourth starter. Voth and Fedde are not that. They are fifth starters.

Even with an exclusive group of sellers, I find it hard to believe that the Nationals can’t go out there and find the fourth starter without giving up their top prospects like Carter Kieboom and Luis Garcia. The type of move that I’m calling for won’t excite you. It’s a raise-the-floor move.

Unfortunately, the low-hanging trade fruit isn’t what it used to be. More and more teams relying on their bullpens for the fourth and fifth rotation spots means there are less fourth and fifth starters throughout the league. For a team like the Nationals, who has remained steadfast in their refusal to use an Opener, that leaves not very many options.

All that said, I don’t want to be the guy that just points out problems. I wanna be the guy that shows up with a solution in hand. So here we go.

Washington Nationals: Who’s the guy?

First thing I’ll say is: woof. This was a lot harder than I expected. Apologies to Mike Rizzo. Apologies to Dave Martinez. Apologies around.

More from Call to the Pen

The teams that are no doubt sellers are few: Royals, Tigers, Orioles, Blue Jays, Mariners, Marlins. Let’s add the White Sox as should be sellers. The Reds should be sellers too, but they seem inordinately obstinate this year. The Mets should be sellers, but they aren’t likely to sell to their rival, and the Nats don’t need an Adam Banks situation.

From our seven sellers, there’s a whole host of starters that either shouldn’t set foot anywhere near a playoff race or are too expensive to move: Jordan Zimmerman, Danny Duffy, Glenn Sparkman, Dan Straily, David Hess, Ivan Nova, Reynaldo Lopez, Yusei Kikuchi, Aaron Sanchez, Dylan Covey, and for old time’s sake, Felix Hernandez.

Add to them the guys that aren’t on the block, usually because they’re too young, too good, or too costly: Lucas Giolito, Brad Keller, John Means, Trent Thornton, Marco Gonzales, Mike Montgomery, Dylan Cease, Caleb Smith, Raul Alcantara, Zac Gallen, Jordan Yamamoto.

There are guys you might consider – if they weren’t hurt: Carlos Rodon, Tyson Ross, Matt Moore, Dylan Bundy, Matt Shoemaker, Clay Buchholz, Clayton Richard, Michael Fulmer.

Then there are the guys who are on the block but will cost top prospects to get: Matthew Boyd, Marcus Stroman. These guys are looking more and more like they might be worth it.

That leaves this uninspired list of potential targets: Tommy Milone, Wade LeBlanc, Mike Leake, Daniel Norris, Jakob Junis. Maybe the Tigers would move Spencer Turnbull or the Marlins Trevor Richards, but both are controllable and therefore probably more costly (prospects-wise) than their worth (talent-wise).

That lands us in an unhappy place: 1500 words to pitch the Nationals on trading for Wade LeBlanc. I’m so sorry.

Tommy Milone‘s already been a Nat twice so that’s played out. Norris boasts some nice FIPs but the ERAs don’t match. LeBlanc is LeFine if he’s the last name on the list. Junis gets the runner-up award for effort here, but he’s not someone you want to up anything of value for.

Next. Do the Yanks need Bumgarner?. dark

Here’s the case for Mike Leake: He’s perennially fine, he’s got fun hair, and he almost threw a no-hitter yesterday. The problem is that he’s still owed $15MM next season with an $18MM mutual option for 2021. See if Trader Jerry is motivated enough to eat most of that money, and if he’s not, the Nats probably have a few Milone jerseys in storage somewhere.

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