The Team that Might Have Been: 2008 Washington Nationals
It probably comes as a surprise to no one that the Washington Nationals have a pretty abominable team once again this season, and that they are tied with the Texas Rangers for the worst record in baseball at 8-17. That is exactly the sort of performance we have come to expect from the Expos/Nats after so many years of futility.
But need this have been the case? Today I got to thinking about some of the really great talent which has come into the hands of the franchise over the years, only to later slip through its fingers, and I got to wondering, what if the Expos/Nationals had had a real owner instead of being owned by the other 29 teams from 2002-2006? Or what if MLB had hired a competent general manager rather than Omar Minaya, who seemed more intent on padding his own resume for his next job with splashy deals rather than building for the future? What if the team had been able or willing to resign even just its most obvious stars? What kind of team could the Nationals have had today, and how much would it have costed?
Thus I set about on the following thought experiment to come up with the best possible Washington Nationals 25-man roster, out of all the players that have been firmly in the team’s control since 2002. This is what I came up with:
Starting Lineup
CF Grady Sizemore
SS Orlando Cabrera
RF Vladimir Guerrero
LF Jason Bay
2B Brandon Phillips
3B Ryan Zimmerman
1B Brad Wilkerson
C Greg Zaun
Starting Rotation
SP Javier Vazquez
SP Chris Young
SP Jake Westbrook
SP Cliff Lee
SP Ted Lilly
Bench
OF Lastings Milledge
IF Maicer Izturiz
OF/IF Marlon Anderson
C Jesus Flores
OF Endy Chavez
Bullpen
CL John Rauch
RP Chad Cordero
RP Luis Ayala
RP Jesus Colome
RP Saul Rivera
RP Ray King
RP Chris Schroeder
As you can see, this team would easily be the best team in the National League. The lineup is loaded with stars and superstars (the only real hole being at first base, where Javier Vazquez would not have been traded for Nick Johnson), the bench is full of extremely useful parts, and the rotation, while perhaps lacking a true ace, is filled with no. 2s and would easily be the best in baseball (especially the way Cliff Lee is pitching this year). In the lineup, rotation, and bench only third-basemen Ryan Zimmerman and backup catcher Jesus Flores survive from the current team.
As for the bullpen, I decided to keep the entire current Nationals bullpen, which is actually one of the best bullpens the franchise has had in years. The fact is, the Expos/Nats really haven’t let any great relievers slip through their hands, the way they have with the lineup and the rotation, so this pretty much is the best possible bullpen for them.
So looking at this team, it would have to cost a fortune right? Well actually, it’s not too bad. If you add up the current salaries of all of these players, you get a total payroll of only $93.8 million. While that is certainly more than the $55 million the Nationals are paying now, it would actually only be the 14th highest payroll in baseball today, for a team that would easily be one of baseball’s very best.
In my view it would be a team that could easily reach and win the World Series. Paying $94 million for that is a bargain, and sure beats paying $55 million to have the worst record in the game.
April 27th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
I guess it would be going too far back in time to give them Pedro Martinez, but at the very least they might have kept him longer and traded him for prospects better than *ahem* Carl Pavano. Those prospects may very well have gone on to be Sizemores or Phillipses. Either way, I never realized just how sieve-like they have been at holding on to young talent. Astonishing.
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April 27th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Well you are going a little too far. With all those parts rising, one has to imagine they would have been a better team in 2004 which means no Zimmerman in the 2005 draft.
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April 27th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Now that they have a new stadium and are operating in a bigger market they should have the resources to keep their own talent. The question will be if they can maintain the same level of scouting and player development that they have had in the past. Part of what hurt the franchise in the past was not getting quality prospects back for the players they couldn’t afford to keep. That shouldn’t be as much of an issue now.
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April 27th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
Ben, you are of course correct. Obviously, to be completely accurate, you would have to try to find out all the draft picks they got as compensation for losing free agents, and also try to somehow estimate what their record would have been in all seasons from 2002 to present, and then guess who they would have drafted in lower slots, but that is maybe sort of just a little impossible.
I tried to be as accurate as possible, within reason. It took me a pretty long amount of time just to trace through every trade and make sure I could build a team of guys where one guy I wanted hadn’t been latertraded for other guys who were later traded for another guy I wanted! For example, I couldn’t have both Orlando Cabrerra and Austin Kearns on the team, because Brendan Harris was part of both deals.
So basically, I just tried to make a team of guys the Expos once had in their control that weren’t ever traded for each other or for people who were later traded for another guy. We’re dreaming here anyway, so we don’t have to take it so seriously.
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April 28th, 2008 at 9:39 am
Nick, couple things:
One, you can’t blame Minaya for what happened. He knew damned well that once the team was sold, he was out of a job. New owners always want their own guys in there. So what would he have gotten out of trying to build a team that has a chance to win in a few years when there was no way he was going to be around for it? MLB made him a lame-duck GM from the moment he took office.
Two, I wonder how this roster will stack up against the other teams if this exercise was done for all franchises? I figure it’ll still be better than the Pirates, but if we created best-case scenarios for all teams, would it still make the Nats contenders?
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April 28th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
The worst thing here is that under MLB’s control, Minaya oversaw the fire sale - a true fire sale - of the Expos. Trading Bay, Phillips, Sizemore, and Lee in deals where they got nothing in return.
The crime is that after MLB decided not to contract the team, and awarded the team to DC, MLB gave DC no recompensation for what MLB did to the franchise.
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April 28th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
Nick,
Don’t worry, I was just trying to be a jerk and rain on your analysis. There’s too many variables, but it is kinda cool to look back on the what coulda been with all else being equal. Now if only they had someone over the last couple of years who knew how to draft or for that matter, traded Soriano.
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April 30th, 2008 at 2:46 am
Yeah, good points Ben, although I did hear that the Nats had a tremendous 2007 draft, so maybe things are getting better in that department…
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