Nats show how baseball teams inject risk with mid-season trades

Six months ago I was really looking forward to writing this column. The baseball play-offs would be starting this week and my beloved Washington Nationals would be en route to the World Series finale.

This wasn’t just my fond belief, steeped in springtime sauvignon blanc. Just about every pundit in the sport thought the Nationals had the right mix of pitching, hitting, experience and management to go all the way, as they had threatened to twice in the previous three years.

Today the nation’s capital is in the slough of despond because they did not even make the play-offs, in spite of a season of Ruthian proportions by their 22-year-old slugger, Bryce Harper. (If he does not win the National League most valuable player award, the voters should be drug-tested and their offshore bank accounts scrutinised.)

But the reasons for Washington’s failures — injuries, trades and an indifferent manager — have mirror images elsewhere. They explain why the long hapless — the New York Mets, the Toronto Blue Jays and even the Chicago Cubs, who last won it all before Magna Carta was signed — are dreaming of glory; and also why the long excellent, such as the St Louis Cardinals and the recently rising Kansas City Royals had the best records in the regular season.

To be sure the Nationals were blighted by injuries. Only twice in 162 games were they able to field their projected starting line-up. But so were other teams. One statistically based analysis (there are so many computer-generated baseball statistics it defies imagination) showed that both St Louis and Toronto had lost the services of their most important players more often than the Nats and still won their divisions.

Mid-season trades for talent to boost contending teams can work out — or not. The Mets, above all others, were transformed by the acquisition of Yoenis Céspedes, the Cuban-born slugger, who immediately hit every ball he saw halfway to Havana. And he was not the only one as the new-look Mets roster started to sweep all before it.

The Nats also made a mid-season trade that looked good on paper — for Jonathan Papelbon, the closing relief pitcher. That meant demoting Drew Storen, the incumbent closer who happened to be having a fabulous season but had previously flopped in two play-off games, to pitching the eighth not the ninth and final inning. A demoralised Storen promptly fell apart, further exposing the frailties of a terrible corps of relief pitchers.

But that was only the half of it. Papelbon has the reputation of being an old-school hothead, potentially poison in the delicate mechanism of any club house. That was revealed, in front of television cameras, 10 days ago when he tried to throttle Harper, of all people, in the dugout for not sprinting to first base after popping out. Whatever else may be said of Harper, hustle is normally his middle name.

This incident, in turn, shone the spotlight more brightly on Matt Williams, the Nats manager, strengthening the sense that he had lost control of his players, not to mention their confidence. Williams, nicknamed the ‘Big Marine’, is what might be called a rigid man, a fine hard-nosed player in his time. But a baseball game is a living organism, tactile even. The best managers understand this, directing by feel, not by the book, which is all Williams knew. Manager of the year last season, he might not see next season.

The contrast with Joe Maddon, in his first year with the Cubs, could not be sharper. He has knocked around with good teams and bad, is loosey-goosey, funny and good with young players. In Kris Bryant, younger even than Harper, he has a serious talent he has nurtured well. Under his guidance Jake Arrieta, very ordinary when pitching for Baltimore, turned into the second coming of Catfish Hunter.

When push comes to shove, my head says St Louis will take it all, if Yadier Molina, the nonpareil catcher, can play with his injured thumb. The heart is with the Mets and Cubs, but, then, it has already been broken by the Nats.

This article was amended after publication to make clear that Matt Williams was not an ex-Marine.

ohana.martin@gmail.com