WASHINGTON — For a decade, they dominated more than they didn’t, almost always in championship contention, the biggest club on the planet for a fleeting moment.
On Tuesday morning, the Washington Nationals finally hit it all, leaving an uncertain future and scores of scarred, flaky teams in their wake.
A disgraced star. An abusive general manager. A staggered clubhouse. A tearful manager. A confused fan base.
That’s the power of Juan Soto, the 23-year-old superstar who’s out trying to win a World Series with the San Diego Padres but will be remembered around here as the last man out the door, the last of a quintet of superstars. Who dug baseball on the map here but showed the door to other forever homes.
No departure, however, was more controversial: Soto, still more than two years from free agency and the biggest hitter of his generation, was shipped cross-country less than three weeks after he rejected a contract offer and was then defrauded by its revelations. Description.
You can call that afternoon — July 16, 2022 — the day it all ended here, when the Nationals’ desire to pursue a trade for their star became public after he turned down a $29 million per year offer.
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The details — serendipitous, really — emerged Monday morning when the Nationals struck a deal for four prospects and big league slugger Luke Voight in exchange for Soto and respected first baseman Josh Bell. A so-called reboot has become an official teardown.
And with that 2019 World Series title, the final recognition that the championship window has reached the Naming Finals.
“That flag will fly forever, sure,” says reliever Sean Doolittle, one of the last pieces of the title club still assembling about it, “but it stinks.”
It’s probably a little less stinky for Soto. He’ll bat between Manny Machado and Fernando Tatis Jr. in San Diego, where money, superstars and the potential to replenish it all flow like horchata washing down your fish taco.
But Soto loved it here, bought a house here, mentored less-experienced hitters almost his age like a seasoned vet, changed the hearts of fans. Now he has to pack up, possibly sell a house, saying an emotional goodbye to manager Dave Martinez.
But did not cry for Soto.
“The first time I got traded,” says designated hitter Nelson Cruz, whose poor first half ensured the Nationals were stuck at 35-69 at Tuesday’s deadline, “I was 20 years old and I cried for two days. He’s very mature in everything he does. .”
No, the greater loss than the great Soto is the totality of it all, a closed window on a group of superstars that will never be assembled in this fashion again.
Once in a lifetime
In 2009, the stars that made up the franchise bubbled. Rizzo’s first major act as GM after taking over for the disgraced Jim Bowden after consecutive 100-loss seasons was drafting pitcher Stephen Strasburg No. 1. That was followed a year later by another horror. The season that enabled the drafting of Bryce Harper with the top pick.
For Nats fans wondering if their franchise has a curse on them, it probably isn’t enough, but: No club has drafted superstars of this caliber as 1-1 picks in consecutive years. And thanks to the new collective bargaining agreement, it’s unlikely to happen again.
By 2012, the Nationals had won the first of four division championships. By 2014, Anthony Rendon was an All-Star caliber player. By 2015, Max Scherzer was in the fold. Trea Turner was acquired in a trade from the Padres.
Come 2019, all were World Series champions — except for Harper, the replacement in the hearts of Nationals fans after Soto left Philly as a free agent in a $330 million deal.
The schadenfreude was palpable: the sometimes insular Harper was rich and ringless, championing a merry band of cheerful Soto and vets.
Instead, a terrifying revolving door and a strange pattern of contract negotiations began.
Harper had turned down $300 million from the Nats, we somehow learned. Through his end of things, we found out that it had been postponed a lot. Rendon also couldn’t sign a long-term deal. He eventually pegged the club to keep Strasburg at $245 million, a fateful decision.
Turner? It’s almost as if the Nationals liked him until he was too good, until his shortstop rental was closer to $300 million than the $200 million district.
Now, with all that gone, Turner packs the Dodgers with Scherzer as 2021 turns sour. You don’t have to be the biggest fan to realize the Nationals are faced with choices in all of these guys. Harper, Rendon and Scherzer received free agent contracts worth a combined $705 million, with Scherzer receiving a record $43 million from the Mets.
Turner will get at least $200 million later this year, with Soto north of $400 million after 2024 and perhaps $1.5 billion in superstars.
Still, you don’t have to be a banker or a seamhead to know that with Soto and his remaining two years nailed down — it’s unforgivable to let them all go, too.
Rizzo seems to know it too.
‘I was the one who signed him’
In what felt like a day of mourning in the clubhouse and manager’s office, suddenly filled with anachronistic sarcasm in the online community and homes across the DMV, the GM struck a different tone. His 2019 championship ring and commemorative polo said as much, but he offered more.
“I wore this ring on purpose, all right. It shows what we’ve done in the past and what we’re going to do in the future,” he said before evoking one of Martinez’s chestnuts from the 2019 run. It will be a beautiful place to come.”
It must be hard to recognize Juan Soto as the GM who traded, right?
“I’m the guy who signed him, too,” he replied, before noting that Soto, with a career OPS of .894, was lucky enough to accompany him in the 2019 title run. “I’ll remember Juan as the guy who was with me when I won my first World Series as a general manager. And now I’m looking to make my next one.”
But what to do with fans who are female A star players?
“Well,” he said, if you wonder where those players come from, “thanks to the scouting and player development staff for running all those guys through here. We’ve got as many dominant players as we’ve had in the game. We’ve had stars here throughout our tenure. We’ve had a 10-year run.” That was unmatched by some teams. We won four division titles, a wild card title, a National League pennant and a world championship.
“You can count on one hand the number of teams that have matched the success story of the last 10 years and we’re equipped and capable and able to reboot it and have 10-year success.”
Now that we are aware of how this club has been built, it is fair to wonder if past performances can predict future prospects. Padres – Outfielders Robert Hassell III and James Wood, major league-ready shortstop CJ Abrams and pitchers Mackenzie Gore (he’s close) and Jarlin Susanna (he’s 18 but promising) are strong to get. A talent evaluator for an American League club, seeking anonymity for competitive reasons, called it “very solid,” after watching it over several seasons.
As Rizzo noted, the trades the Nats have made over the past two years have put them in a potentially elite up-the-middle lineup, with catcher Keibert Ruiz, Abrams at short, Hassel in center and Luis Garcia at second. The contracts of pitching holdovers Strasburg and Patrick Corbin will saddle them for two more years, but shouldn’t preclude a big spending spree if needed.
It’s kind of wild that the club is starting over, after a decade of winning revived the blah franchise and added billions of dollars to the Lerner family fortune.
“We went from being an organization and team to a contender year in and year out,” says reliever Tyler Clippard, who joined the club from 2008-14 and returned this year. “I was proud to be a part of that. It came full circle … but it turned into a winning organization.”
Clippard was there for the brash Harper, debuting at 19, the reticent Rendon, traded before Scherzer stomped onto the scene and enjoyed a few weeks of Soto. Now, he and Doolittle, two injured relievers, are the only recognizable players from an era that has suddenly passed, along with the struggling Corbin and Shelf Strasburg.
“You’re talking about the talent that’s come into this locker room over the last 10 years with Harper and Strauss and Soto,” Clippard says. “All those generations of players have come and gone. It’s not easy. It will be tough for the fans.
“But it’s up to us as players and as an organization to give them something to root for.”
‘I’ll never have to make that decision’
That would not include Soto, who, Doolittle recalls, was a visibly different man the day details of his contract offer leaked. Soto did not laugh. He wasn’t hanging out with his colleagues. As Doolittle put it, he was “carrying it around a bit.”
Soto’s on-field swagger transitions to a more calm companion in the clubhouse. Now, he would be embroiled in a public-relations battle, with his team suddenly the injured party because he chose to pursue free agency in two years and not the $440 million offered.
The $29 million annual salary, however, would be $6 million less than the injured Rendon and Strasburg received three years ago. Players understand when others — especially elite talent — are reluctant to sign old contracts while the ink is dry.
“Juan had such support from the guys here that when we started talking about it, we were like, ‘Yeah, I can see why he wouldn’t take it.’ He’s very good and young,” says Doolittle, 35, who joined the club via trade in 2017, a year before Soto’s debut.
“None of us knew we were in that situation. And in my time here there were conversations like that where things came up with Harper and Rendon. Where it was like, ‘I never have to make that decision.’
“But then you start thinking about it and you’re like, ‘I can see why. Hopefully, they’ll work something out.’ I know it seemed for a day that he felt uncomfortable being out there. But there was never a time when the guys here felt differently about him.
Rizzo states that he was not currently or in the future acting in any command form ownership; Lerners is expected to sell the team when a buyer emerges. Whether or not it is Rizzo’s reign to see this rebuild through to whichever group pays the estimated $2 billion needed to buy the club.
Rizzo put his resume on the table Tuesday. Soto has done that the past five seasons and chances are, the Nationals won’t see another like him, or those who left before him.
“It’s a trade. A big trade. And when you’re trading a player like that, it’s never easy,” Clippard says. “You could argue that there’s never really a good trade for a player like that.”
