It is safe to say that the Nationals come into 2015 as the most complete team in the division. The Nationals go from strength to strength in the rotation, the bullpen, and their position players.
Position Players
Anthony Rendon might one of the best players in all of baseball and no one outside of Washington and the division is talking about him. In a breakout 2014 season, he walked away with 21 HR, an .824 OPS and .361 wOBA at the plate coupled with 12 DRS at premium defensive position at third base that netted him a very impressive 6.6 WAR. Players that can post 6+ win seasons don’t come around very often. There’s an argument to be made that Rendon isn’t even the biggest candidate to post an MVP-caliber season for the Nats. That potentially bigger candidate is none other than the phenom Bryce Harper.
Harper is entering his age-22 season and has slugged .477, .486 and .432 respectively in his first 3 MLB seasons, all of which have been injury-hampered to some degree. Power is usually the last tool that a young player develop. So if Harper in his late teens and early twenties is posting .200+ ISO seasons, the sky is the limit for him. There doesn’t seem to be any deep flaw in his approach at the plate as he is posting incredibly advanced plate discipline numbers for such a young player. A full healthy season and another year more experienced, especially coming off that impressive playoff series against the Giants last October, and confidence might result in Harper finally having the MVP-caliber season we all expect him to have.
While Rendon and Harper are clearly the most important players for the Nationals at the plate, the rest of the squad is much more than just complementary pieces. Ryan Zimmerman, the former face of the franchise, is coming off an injury-shortened 2014 where he still slashed .280/.342/.449 in only 240 PA . He is moving across the diamond to first base where his plus defense will become spectacular at a position where defense is really not stressed. Zimmerman, who has been slowed down by injuries in recent years, will probably flourish at first base which allow to protect some of his defensive decline. Zimmerman’s decline from incredible third baseman (three 10+ DRS seasons in his first five Major League seasons) has given way to a recent history of league average DRS, which could be due to his string of injuries. Hopefully, playing first base will help protect him from future injuries.
Another aging star who will play a major role for the Nationals is Jayson Werth. Werth, who signed with the Nationals for a $126 million 7-year deal with after the 2010 season, was highly criticized after a 2011 in which he only compiled a .718 OPS and struck out in nearly a quarter of his plate appearances. The baseball punditry believed that he was already past his prime and the Nationals had wasted their money on an aging guy who was going to inexorably breakdown and decline. In the three years since, Werth has seventh highest WAR (10.0) and has posted the fifth best wRC+ (144) amongst all outfielders with more than 1500 PA. The fifth best wRC+ in that stretch only puts him behind Mike Trout, Andrew McCutchen, Giancarlo Stanton, and Jose Bautista. Werth’s incredibly high OBP .394 goes along with an impressive BABIP at .351. There is no reason to think that given his track record of plate discipline that his on-base tool will decline in the foreseeable future.
It is hard to imagine position players that will be more important for run creation and the overall quality of the club than Rendon, Harper, Zimmerman and Werth. Along with Ian Desmond, these players make up thecore of the club and will lead them into the playoffs in 2015.
Rotation
The most impressive collection of talent on the Nationals comes in the starting rotation. The 2015 team will feature the recently signed Max Scherzer, Jordan Zimmermann, Stephen Strasburg, Doug Fister, and Gio Gonzalez.
Despite not missing a prodigious amount of bats, Jordan Zimmerman has a 20.2% strikeout rate for his career and gets outs by giving up extremely bad contact against both his fastball and his slider.Opposing batters on Doug Fister, even more of a groundball pitcher, are only mustering a .305 BABIP and a .391 slugging percentage against his sinker/splitter.
Strasburg and Scherzer are both prototypical swing-and-miss type pitchers who average more than 10 strikes per nine innings and rack up K% rates in the high 20s and lows 30s. The ability to miss bats is very important and a skill both Scherzer and Strasburg excel at, thanks to great fastballs and a nasty secondary pitch; the slider for Scherzer and the change-up for Strasburg.
Gio Gonzalez’ featured pitch is a curveball he uses to force more groundouts and swings-and-misses than the average curveball. Sometimes all it takes is one above average pitch and the Nationals rotation has that in spades in 2015.
If there is one negative that may be taken away from the Nationals, it’s that their tons of talent seems wilt when it came to the bright lights of October baseball. They certainly have star power and are stacked from top to bottom. I have full confidence that this team will run away with the NL East and winning 95 games, but their ability to make a deep run into October is still questionable.