00:00With Danny, I'm Grant. This is The Fan on the 30th of June, about ready to turn the calendar over
00:07to July.
00:09Critical stretch coming up for the Nats in the days ahead.
00:12They dropped a game against the Boston Red Sox last night. 6-3 final score.
00:17This was one of those where your starting pitching gave you no chance.
00:20Miles Michaelis took the ball, gave up four runs in the first.
00:23In fact, James Wood hit a leadoff homer.
00:25So you got some positive juice and some momentum going.
00:27And then immediately after Michaelis took the mound, you were down 4-1.
00:32He would give up runs in the second and the third.
00:33They were down 6-1 after three, and they couldn't battle back.
00:37To Miles Michaelis' credit, he went seven innings.
00:39He did.
00:40So he ended up wearing...
00:40Which I did not have in the office pool after that first.
00:43Figured some things out, and this is the one, I would say, beneficial thing about a guy who's got an
00:47ERA up around six this season is that he will give you some length.
00:50And when he's getting his teeth kicked in, he's kind of paid to just do that.
00:54You know, hey, you're going to give up a lot of hits and a lot of runs, but save the
00:57bullpen for a bit.
00:58And he was able to do that.
00:59And because there was no bottom of the ninth for the Red Sox, you only needed one inning, one bullpen
01:04appearance basically last night, which freshens a lot of those arms up and helps you potentially win a series.
01:09So that's one of those hidden things in baseball, I think, sometimes.
01:12Game one of a series where people will be upset at Michaelis because he pitched poorly early last night.
01:17And understandably, he's got a 5'4 ERA, hasn't been particularly good, but he also really helped the ball club
01:23have a better chance to win today and tomorrow.
01:26That is well put.
01:27We used to talk about this all the time when it came to Patrick Corbin.
01:29It wasn't always the first game of a series, but it's, I know this isn't fun, and I know he's
01:33just getting shellacked every time, and there's nothing in his repertoire that he can throw to get anybody out at
01:38any point in time.
01:39That was the Nationals, Patrick Corbin, not the guy that pitched elsewhere.
01:42But anyway, the point is, there's value in that.
01:45There's value in somebody that's going to go out there and take the ball every fifth day and be the
01:48lead goose and be one of the leaders among a younger staff at that point.
01:52There is something to that, especially a bullpen.
01:55It just seems like they're always in these stretches where there's no off day for two weeks.
01:58There's no off day for 17 straight days or whatever, and the bullpen is gassed.
02:02It is tired.
02:02It is overworked.
02:03It's beleaguered.
02:03It's the butt of every joke right now, and you save it like that against a struggling team.
02:08As you said, you're in a chance to win a series now.
02:10Paul Tapponi met with the media yesterday, which is not something throughout the season that's going to happen every single
02:16day from a president of baseball operations.
02:18I don't actually know why he talked to the media yesterday, but my guess is it's because he was back
02:23in Boston for the first time, which is where he was when he was hired to come over and run
02:28the operation.
02:28And I'm sure all of the writers and columnists and media people in town wanted to chronicle that story, and
02:34you can't do it without him speaking about his time there.
02:37So my guess is it was just coincidental that they got to ask him about the trade deadline about a
02:41month out.
02:43But because he was back in Boston, because everyone was coming up and giving him high fives and handshakes and
02:48hugs, that was one of the stories.
02:51The Red Sox, by the way, since he left, have had a disastrous season, and their president of baseball operations
02:57might be fired before the year ends or at the end of the season,
03:00whereas Tapponi in year one looks like a potential savant who's got the Nats ahead of schedule at this point.
03:05But what's interesting and what I wanted to talk about with you today is he was asked about the deadline
03:10and what is going to happen.
03:11Are the Nats going to buy if they stay above 500?
03:16His answer was not overly revealing, but actually made plenty of sense to me.
03:23He said, quote, I don't know what we're going to be thinking a month from now.
03:27So the same mindset remains.
03:30We're just going to keep going over the course of the next month and see where we're at and go
03:35from there.
03:37His point is the players will determine what we do a month from now.
03:42Now, I still have my reservations about if they'd actually legitimately buy.
03:46I don't think they would.
03:47But let's just say hypothetically they're awesome this month and they're 5 over 500 at the trade deadline.
03:55Based on what Tapponi said yesterday, Danny, there's reason to believe he would go out and help them try to
04:01make the playoffs.
04:03The other side of that is they have lost more games than they've won in the last week and a
04:07half.
04:07They haven't been playing quite like they were last month when they were exceptional in June.
04:13And if it goes the direction it's gone more recently where the bullpen falters and the starting pitching isn't as
04:19consistent and the lineup instead of being number one in the sport over the last couple of weeks is probably,
04:23you know, somewhere back in top 10 or something.
04:25If I looked it up, then maybe you're four or five under 500.
04:28And that makes his decision to where you do trade Foster Griffin or Luis Garcia.
04:33I doubt C.J. Abrams, but maybe Abrams.
04:35And you sell.
04:36What do you think in his heart of hearts?
04:39Truth serum, dark room, no microphones.
04:41It's swept for bugs like the FBI's, you know, making sure there's no surveillance devices.
04:47What do you think he wants?
04:49I think that his preference would be that he is able to sell a couple pieces off without people being
04:57mad that he's not giving them the chance or this isn't good for the clubhouse.
05:03Because he knows, and he's right, they can't win anything meaningful this year.
05:06Yep.
05:06But fans don't necessarily care about that.
05:08They want the good times to keep rolling.
05:10They want August to be competitive.
05:12They want September at Nats Park to be fun.
05:14They want to add because it's more exciting to do that than to subtract.
05:18Yeah, when I'm paying and there's a game in August, if it's meaningful and there are more good players on
05:22the field, that's better for me.
05:23But Paul Taboni knows that he's got the bullpen right now with the third highest ERA in baseball, over five.
05:29That he's got a rotation with an ERA of 4-3-4, which is not even in the top half
05:34of Major League Baseball, just outside of it.
05:36And that there's really not a legitimate path to significant success when you can't pitch better than that.
05:42Now, if you were to add a starter and a couple of relievers, could you possibly make the wild card?
05:48I guess, are you going to go deep into the playoffs with this group?
05:52Not likely.
05:53And you're still counting on the lineup sustaining itself and guys who haven't put full seasons together, like C.J.
05:58Abrams or James Wood, tailored off last season, to continue to carry this team.
06:03And so those are things he's got to consider as well.
06:05But he's been extremely transparent about this.
06:08Yes.
06:08This is what I give them credit for.
06:11For whatever gripes people have had over the years with Ted Leonsis, I do feel like he is mostly always
06:16very transparent in telling you what they're doing.
06:19You might not like that they're not going to rebuild and tank.
06:22That's what he was saying for a long time.
06:24And then more recently, they said, hey, we're going to be bad.
06:26It's going to take some time.
06:27You've got to give us another year.
06:28Wait until you see this draft class next year.
06:30Paul Taboni has said this is a multi-year process.
06:33This is going to take time.
06:35And I think his feeling behind the scenes now, if I had to guess, is fans have gotten excited because
06:40we're ahead of schedule or overperforming or whatever's happening.
06:43And that excitement triggers the hope that we do something.
06:46My job is to not react to that.
06:48I have to do what's best for the ball.
06:49I have a very, very good plan.
06:51That's part of why I was hired, by the way.
06:52I guarantee he revealed some of the elements of his plan during the hiring process.
06:56And we should probably trust the plan more now than we did then just based on the staff that he
07:02put together and how well they've done.
07:03100%.
07:04And the results speak of themselves in that regard.
07:06It's almost like you go, sorry, this worked too well.
07:09I mean, think of the, it's almost the curse of that immediate success.
07:13Think of year one of Rivera, right, where they weren't particularly good.
07:16The division is maybe the worst division in the history of football.
07:19And they, quote, unquote, won it with a 7-9 record.
07:22And that changed everyone's eyeline.
07:24The expectations were so good.
07:25Does that sound familiar with the most recent Washington 53, right?
07:29That year one with a bunch of castoffs and veterans and Noah Brown and Zach Ertz,
07:32who hadn't been healthy for more than an hour and a half, all of a sudden in the NFC title
07:35game,
07:36everyone's expectations are sky high.
07:38That's kind of what's happening here.
07:40Not to the same degree.
07:40They're not going to the NLCS or anything.
07:42But they're picked for 65 and a half wins.
07:45This is one of the lowest over-unders in the sport.
07:48And they're going to do that by the all-star break.
07:49Numbers approximate.
07:50And so everyone's going, oh my God, this is great.
07:53Hold on.
07:54Not so fast.
07:54Don't put the cart before the horse.
07:55There is a flip side.
07:58And there's a devil's advocate to be played here.
08:02It's somebody, and I don't know whose job it would be in the front office,
08:05brings up to DeBoney, I'm sure, in some of these meetings, which would be,
08:08it is hard to be good.
08:12And it is really hard to be 500 or better in baseball.
08:15A team like the Orioles with jobs on the line from Mike Elias and, you know,
08:19players where they're determining what are we doing this year, next year?
08:21Are we going to sell guys off?
08:23They'd give their left arm in that front office to be where the Nats are.
08:28They're 39 and 47.
08:29They can't figure it out.
08:30Boston was built to win this season.
08:33They're 10 under 500.
08:35You know, a team like the New York Mets has one of the great payrolls we've ever
08:38seen in the history of the sport.
08:39They're 15 under 500.
08:40They can't feel the baseball at this point.
08:43The San Francisco Giants, I mean, I could give you more teams, but sometimes,
08:47whether it's a chemistry thing in the clubhouse or you just don't come through
08:50in the big spot with two outs or, you know, you guys underperform or have down
08:54years or injuries set in, it's hard to be where they are at this point of the
08:59season.
09:00Yes.
09:00Do you have to occasionally just look the gift horse in the mouth and say,
09:05well, shucks, let's just see.
09:06I got to act accordingly.
09:07That certainly, we talked about this and you're going back and forth.
09:10Every decision, it's a cost benefit, right?
09:13Where you're going, I'm of the mindset in general.
09:16And we talked about this last week when the bullpen was melting down every single
09:19night, but I'm in the process of general going, if I'm not any good yet, I don't
09:25know what my team is in two years, which is what I'm building towards.
09:28I am not going to give up a single asset in my building.
09:31I want that Spencer Strider story.
09:33I want the guy that nobody thought was going to be any good that rockets through
09:36my minor league system.
09:37Now that I've got some good tools in place to actually develop some players for the
09:40first time in a couple of decades here.
09:41I need even the, even throw in a Theodore, even the, the last guy in some deal, the
09:47player to be named later that nobody cares about.
09:49If I'm not winning at the big level, I'm sitting here trying to develop as many things as possible,
09:53either assets for me or for somebody else in trades as they come along.
09:57I'm hoarding my prospects.
09:59In other words, at this point, the only way I break glass is a case of emergency.
10:03And last week it felt like there was an emergency last week.
10:06It felt like, okay, now the emergency has happened.
10:08And they're pretty good.
10:09And this bullpen is, is not competitive.
10:12That way you never give yourself the opportunity to be the team that got hot and went on the
10:17magical carpet.
10:18Totally.
10:18But because it's year one of the plan, this is not a season where I would deviate.
10:24If I was Paul Tivoni, I'd stick to the script.
10:26If this was next season, I might feel differently.
10:29If this is two years from now, obviously it's a different story.
10:32It's your first year setting the foundation, still far away, knowing from a talent standpoint,
10:37where you need to be.
10:38So I think the decision is pretty easily made for them, unless they get hot and get a handful
10:43of games over 500.
10:45We can talk more about this later on.
10:47The World Cup is ongoing in the knockout round.
10:49Team USA's road ahead got scarier.
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