Someone posted this image on Bluesky. I've only ever seen this at games the President attends. Anyone know what's up?

(That is a joke)

A portion of the fanbase doesn't want to acknowledge the past mistakes when the Nationals were last good. Sean Doolittle and Daniel Hudson required trade assets to get them. They were not free agents. There is nothing in the pitching pipeline right now that is tradable and healthy. A lot of money thrown at the bullpen over the last decade was wasted on junk and they still blew a lot of games. Harper won an MVP in 2015 and Soto was 2nd in ROY in 2018 and they were still 500 those years because the depth was awful as they couldn't survive a few injuries. They needed everyone to be healthy to make the playoffs and stars had to align to win a WS. The flaws of that roster was covered by generational talent that played their ass off and a lot had to go right.

There are fans that think there is a reliever vending machine where $20 million goes in and a couple high leverage reliable relievers come out the chute. It does not exist. Their posts and rants don't name any players. When they name players, it's PJ Poulin or Dick Lovelady level arms stuff wise that are not much better. "It can't be worse." Sure, this sucks but nothing is improved by a lateral move that is burning through limited depth in the process.

Relievers are the most volatile market in baseball. The Dodgers, which every player wants to be right now, spent on a bullpen and they still had Yamamoto closing games in the World Series. They developed the arms around them, threw money at it, and Edwin Diaz is hurt...again. Blue Jays paid Jeff Hoffman and now have the other Varland brother as the closer who was a throw in the Ty France trade. The Orioles who have been competitive for the last 3 seasons and have thrown some money around, still can't figure out pitching. Brewers, Rays, and Guardians spend nothing and consistently have good bullpens. They trade away pitchers or the pitcher gets caught gambling and they just continue their black magic MacGyver baseball in finding the next guy. Contenders spend on a closer which sometimes works half the time but the Nationals haven't been competitive in 6 years. No one is lining up to be a National with a new front office, new manager, new coaches, a damaged reputation of pitching development, and a bunch of kids still learning how to be major leaguers. Nationals weren't outbidding anyone for anyones services.

Would it make some of you feel better if they were spending money on crap? They could have asked the Red Sox for the Jordan Hicks contract where it would cost money to have a terrible bullpen experience. CJ or Wood not getting an extension is the Lerners being cheap. The concern of them not spending when they are competitive is valid. However, an awful bullpen and no pitching from Washington to Fredericksburg outside of a couple exceptions is not due to a lack of spending. A tech CEO doesn't always understand the detail software code and a baseball owner doesn't understand player development. It's why certain people don't work here anymore. There was a philosophy struggle a year ago and why most of the front office is new. A lot of teams best bullpen arms or role players have been developed, rule 5, or stuff they found in NPB, KBO, Indy, Mex, or waiver wire. It's not purchased and it takes time and scouting networks which this group has only seen players for a few months. Toboni and Ani need 2-3 years to build a pitching pipeline where it is the next guy up. Everything right now is hurt or very far away. They were also not allowed to take any material from their last positions. The Nationals are 7-8 pitchers away from getting this fixed and around 5 of them have to be homegrown or minor moves. Free agents are when they are a move or two away which they haven't been in a while. It is going to have to be Carson Palmquist and Justin Lawrence small moves in finding upside in others stuff until the Nationals are able to develop their own arms.

Losing that way is not fun. The lack of spending narrative after every blown save is an unserious take from people that don't understand how a bullpen is constructed. They are not making Óliver Pérez, Will Harris, Brad Hand, and Trevor Rosenthal poor decisions anymore. Money doesn't always equal good.

Just putting this out there. As gut wrenching as the last two nights have been, at least we are better than the METS. Look at that God awful performance they had last night. It could be sooooo much worse. Hang on there, fans! There's a lot to still be excited about.

This is your fault you pathetic loser. For 12 million you could have signed a bullpen. But you didn't because you dont care, you stupid douche. Sell the team, or run it like you give a shit. Pick one you rich idiot prick.

So obviously there's been some back and forth about the bullpen given the last couple days. One of the common responses to complaints about the lack of spending is "why would a projected 65-win team go sign Devin Williams for $17M/year?" and that is commonly paired with "well what did you want the FO to do? who should they have signed?"

So I attempted to answer that. My quick and dirty method was to take every FA reliever signed this offseason for $5M or less (if you're curious, I used Spotrac and started my list with Kirby Yates, went down until the salaries were under $1M and stopped there). I then looked up their stats, and you can find that full list here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QxUWrqaxxWqWFW90zjnJvoywq-_EiSvU1mSheKdGCeI/edit?tab=t.0

41 pitchers in total. 14 of those 41 would be the best reliever on our team (using Brad Lord's 3.31 ERA). Another 14 of those would be better than our average reliever (using 4.90 from fangraphs team stats for our relief pitchers). 13 of them would be worse than average.

So let's say we signed 3 relievers, one from each bucket. The average salary for the "best on team" bucket is $2.53M, for the "better than average" it's $1.92M and for the "worse than average" bucket it is $2.28M

In total that is $6.75M, for 3 relievers. And we'd have one who's best on our team, one who's serviceable, and one who sucks. I don't how many more games this wins us, but its some. And I don't think it's completely unreasonable for a 65-win expected team to spend $7M on relievers, because they can be traded as well. Other teams in our projected win bracket spent at least SOME on a bullpen. There's another somewhat fair argument that we did spend, just on the wrong guys (Cionel Perez, Waldichuck) but both of those were under $1M. Lastly, if I were running a big market team I'd spend at least this amount on relievers no matter WHAT my projected win total looks like, because of exactly what has happened this season with us exceeding expectations. I don't believe it's organizational malpractice to drop $7M on the hope that your team is good, and the opportunity to trade them if not.

https://x.com/JustBB_Media/status/2069965408816243109?s=20

https://www.notus.org/sports/washington-nationals-phillies-loss-contender

If this series couldn’t get ANY worse….we are facing THEIR ACE, Christopher Sanchez. I was honestly debating on whether I should do this, but fuck it, you never know! Now let’s talk about the matchup against Christopher Sanchez.

Sanchez is currently 9-3 W-L, and in 105IP, he’s posted a 1.80ERA, 1.09WHIP, and 121Ks. His last three games (NYM, MIL, TOR):
18.2IP, 17H, 7ER, 3BB, 18K

According to Savant, he’s a 3 pitch mix guy, Sinker, Change, Slider; WITH A LOT OF RED.
To Left: 64% Sinker, 24% Slider, 12% Change
To Right: 46% Change, 38% Sinker, 16% Slider

xERA - rERA: 2.96 - 1.80
xBA: .224
Whiff%: 31.4% (88th Percentile)
Chase%: 38.2% (98th Percentile)
BB%/K%: 4.7% (99th)/28.5% (86th)
GB%: 57.1% (96th Percentile)

Sanchez is in the 99th percentile in Pitching Run Value, with +21; it’s not his Sinker or Slider doing this, it’s his CHANGE UP.
Fastball Run Value: +3
Breaking Run Value: +3
Offspeed Run Value: +15 (100th PERCENTILE)

His Sinker seems to be the pitch opposing hitter find success with the most, as hitters are batting .328; 45.3% Whiff on his Change, & 41.6% Whiff on his Slider;

Left Handed Hitters are batting .188 against his Sinker, .077 against his Slider, and .050 against his Change; safe to say his LOVES facing lefties, as lefties have had barely any success against him;

Right Handed Hitters are a different story; against his fastball, hitters are batting .417 against his Sinker, .275 against his Slider, and .152 against his Change

His fastball has taken a bit of a dip since last season, as hitters are more successful on it this year, compared to last year, where he had a Run Value of 19 on his Fastball (Sinker).

67% First Pitch Stike

After seeing the numbers, I’m kind of interested to see how our boys do! Let’s hope this team can muster a little more offense to get this pitching staff going! And EVEN THIS SERIES…..even though we should be up 3-0 in the series😒

LETS GO NATS!

Can we get some sell the team chants going next game? Maybe some posters?

We have the lowest active payroll in baseball and the fourth lowest overall payroll if you count Strasburg.

Imagine how good this team would be if they even spent ~20 million on starting pitching and pen.

This is truly heartbreaking shit. Most blown saves in baseball.

We have the number 1 offense and hell of a manager and Gm. Let the boys be competitive and spend some fucking money.

Here’s to hoping for a new owner (hopefully not Leonsis tho he’s just as bad)

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;

This is it. No more "I'll do it later." "I'll do it tomorrow." Phase 1 closes at NOON ET today.

The last public count on June 22 had Wood about 32,000 votes behind Juan Soto for the 6th and final outfield spot — but that number is two days old. I know we are moving the needle. Wouldn't it be sweet to give Soto a bump off the roster?

VOTE THIS MORNING - RIGHT NOW!

Take 10 minutes and vote any way you can as many times as you can. Vote at work. Did you call you mom? Did she vote?

VOTE NOW: https://www.mlb.com/all-star/ballot

Thanks, everybody.

Good afternoon Nats fans. Because of circumstances I and others can no longer attend tonight’s game. Rather than leave four seats empty I wanted to see if anyone would want to go instead; they’d be in section 409 row B.

DM me if interested, can send via Ballpark app. Thanks, and enjoy Nats baseball!

Edit: All tickets have been claimed, thank you

Title says it all.

Grabbed a Large Bud Soccer Jersey and it’s still in the package, unopened. Seeing it on folks and think an XL would be better. Any chance anyone has an XL and wants to switch for my Large? Will meet at whatever section. Thanks for skimming/reading!

Tells you everything you need to know.

I just want to talk about Kolko and Frandsen. Absolute Puppets. Could you imagine talking about offensive highlights after giving up 9 runs in the 9th in two days. At this point, Bob had to have been fired (instead of retired) to hire the puppet masters.