00:00What's going on, Jesse?
00:01Jesse, how are you, buddy?
00:03Good, how are you guys?
00:04I know you wrote about the draft, and we can ask you about the draft here shortly,
00:08but let's start off with the Nats' bullpen continuing to struggle.
00:11They have a lead in all three games against the Yankees, right?
00:14All of them in the seventh inning, and the bullpen blew all three of them.
00:21Predictable at this point with 27 blown saves on the season.
00:24I mean, what, if anything, can they do?
00:26Has the ship sailed?
00:29Yeah, I mean, I think one thing that this season, and particularly this last month or
00:34so, has proven is that there's like a finite amount of people on the planet who can pitch
00:39the sixth, seventh, or eighth inning of a Major League Baseball game, right?
00:41Because what they've done is just like churn through the end of their roster, pick guys
00:45up who have bad ERAs from other teams, see if they can catch lightning in a bottle, and
00:49it's just like, that's a really hard path to take, obviously, right?
00:53And it doesn't always work either when you try to pump money in.
00:57I mean, we saw in 2019, which ended up being a great year when Mike Rizzo went and basically
01:01bought a bullpen in the offseason.
01:03It imploded by the end of May, and the guys who ended up being in that pen were not the
01:07ones that were ultimately brought in to be in the back end.
01:09So what they can do now, I mean, either keep churning and see if they can catch that lightning,
01:14like I said, but that's really difficult.
01:16They can try to add on the margins at the deadline if they feel like they want to do that,
01:21but they also could just stick with what they have and see if some of the results even
01:25out, or if they keep getting their brains beat in the late innings, just be okay with
01:29that, which if you're a fan, you're like, that's an option.
01:31I don't feel like it should be, but I think it is.
01:34Jesse, do you think this is just a result of when Paul Toboni and his staff were assembling
01:38the roster that they just weren't expecting to win this many games at this point?
01:43And if you told Nats fans that they'd be 48-49 at the All-Star break before the season
01:48started, they would have taken it in a heartbeat.
01:50But the way that the bullpen has failed has just magnified how bad it's been.
01:55Is it just that they weren't planning to be anywhere close to like an 80-85 win team,
02:00but the offense is so good that it's kind of carried them to that point?
02:04Yeah, I mean, it's absolutely, I think you nailed it.
02:07So then what happens is, if they were 48-49, but had 20 blown saves, but then just lost
02:15seven of those games by four runs, you know, getting beat in the early innings, I think
02:19this would maybe feel different, right?
02:21It would just be like, well, they're beating expectations, and it's been really fun, and
02:26James Wood and C.J. Abrams look like stars and are all stars, and this Foster Griffin guy
02:29has been a huge, you know, excitement and a huge surprise and a great win, frankly.
02:35But because the bullpen, it's so, like, brazenly, the bullpen that is messing everything up
02:41right now, like, it kind of starts to feel bad.
02:43And if you frame it on, like, pure record and numbers and offense alone, you can certainly
02:48frame this season so far as, like, a massive success.
02:51And frankly, like, I would probably make that argument first.
02:54But I understand if you're following this team day-to-day, it's so easy to think, like,
02:58if they had just put 2 million, 3 million, 4 million, 5 million, 10 million into the bullpen
03:03in the offseason or been more proactive in the early months to try and make moves to
03:08get this bullpen better, like, it does feel like, well, why can't the Nats be a second
03:12wildcard team or a third wildcard team or be in a much different situation?
03:15So it's an odd, it's an odd all-star break in that, like, how should our brains process
03:21this?
03:21Should it be a disappointment, or do you kind of just take the house money and run and
03:24say, this team's a lot better than I expected?
03:27It's a lot better than the front office expected, frankly.
03:29And that's ultimately a good thing for the larger arc of the franchise.
03:34I kind of assumed, heading into this season, that it would be, like, that 65-win team or
03:39whatever the Vegas number was, and that CJ would probably be traded halfway through.
03:46That's kind of how I thought.
03:47And look, here we are now.
03:50How many of these guys offensively are likely to still be around the next couple years?
03:56Well, that's, like, one of the main subplots of the season, and could also be a main success
04:02of this roster, is that there's a good chance that they've played well enough that trading
04:09CJ Abrams, who's become a linchpin of this team, becomes a really tough proposition, where
04:14you're right, if they were tracking toward that Vegas number at this point, I think we'd all
04:18just be writing our, you know, wasn't he great, and wasn't that a great Juan Soto trade, and the
04:23success stories, but it would kind of be as a farewell tone.
04:26Now, I think it's in the balance whether they want to go that route.
04:30And, you know, I think that's sort of, you know, there's always going to be dissonant
04:35goals between the front office and the clubhouse when you're through a rebuild, right?
04:38Like, the clubhouse wants to win every day.
04:41Those guys, they rely on it.
04:42Their future paychecks, arbitration checks, whatever, rely on playing well.
04:45The front office, I think, in a vacuum, they want to win, but they want to win, you know,
04:50at a more sustainable level in the future.
04:51So, right now, like, you know, that clubhouse and that roster and that coaching staff has
04:57played their way into it not being a slam dunk to just trade whatever's not nailed down
05:01to the floor, like you saw in 21 and 22.
05:03So, when you look at sort of the guys who are going to be around, I mean, you can look
05:07at James Wood, Dillon Lyle, even C.J.
05:09Abrams as being, like, real pieces of a roster moving forward.
05:14The Curtis Mead types, the ones more on the margin, Jacob Young, Caber Ruiz, like, you know,
05:19I think that could go either way.
05:20I mean, is this Luis Garcia even, like, you know, did they, is this uptick sort of an
05:24aberration?
05:25Are they more in line with what their career stats have been to date?
05:27Maybe the staff has unlocked something.
05:29But I think more than anything, like, the team has put the front office in a much more
05:33difficult position than it would have expected in April or May.
05:37So, on notice, you did write about the team preparing for the draft, and we can get into
05:42some of the players they drafted, but you wrote about how the front office kind of reimagined
05:48the draft, right, and made things different.
05:50Can you fill us in on what's different about how they prepared for the draft and kind of
05:55the structure and the guys involved in the draft?
05:59Yeah.
05:59So, I mean, I think just purely, like, staff-wise, like, the people around Paul Tivoni, it's
06:05a draft group.
06:06I mean, they really, this is what they've made their careers on.
06:09Devin Pearson, who's now the farm director, was the scouting director in Boston, meaning
06:13he ran the draft for them.
06:14Justin Horowitz comes from Pittsburgh that has had a lot of success in the draft, and he's
06:18a draft guy, and he oversees all acquisitions.
06:20So, I wrote about it last week through mostly the lens of, like, if these guys are going to
06:26be the ones who are right to run this team, it's not necessarily as, like, sexy or exciting
06:30as, like, a big deadline acquisition, but, like, the draft's going to matter a whole lot.
06:34Like, this is what these guys do.
06:36And their general approach, which is a major change in D.C., frankly, is that, like, the
06:40player development and the amateur scouting departments are really, really, really meshed
06:46together.
06:47And what that means is, like, they're drafting guys with the idea that, like, this is exactly
06:52what we're going to do in the developments in the next three years.
06:55Like, we think, because our development staff has looked at a ton of video, has looked at
06:59a ton of numbers, has talked to our scouts, has been involved in the process, that this
07:03guy can add this specific pitch two years from now and really take off.
07:07Or the second he gets it down in West Palm after the draft, this is the bat spree program
07:11he's going to be on.
07:11And it can kind of get a little wonky, and it can feel like, you know, does that really
07:15win baseball games?
07:16But I think, like, process-wise, it's really healthy.
07:19And culturally, what I think it does, or what they hope it does, is that if a guy fails,
07:24there's not, like, that finger-pointing that, frankly, happened a lot with the last group
07:28of, well, you drafted the wrong guy, or, no, we drafted the right guy, you did not teach
07:32him the right things, right?
07:33Like, there was a lot of that infighting that existed, and I think they're trying to weed
07:38that out and say, like, we're all responsible, because we were all part of the process on
07:41the front end.
07:41So when this guy's going well, or when this guy's going poorly, like, we own that as a
07:46group, and I think they're trying to foster that environment where there's not just like,
07:51you know, but you said this, and you said this, and yada, yada, yada.
07:54Jesse, fill the listeners in on the top draft pick, went number 11 overall, Texas A&M second
08:00baseman Chris Hacopi, and we know he's a local guy, went to Churchill.
08:04His dad was a Terp.
08:05Yep, his dad was a Terp.
08:06He started at Maryland.
08:08Yeah, so, I mean, I think the archetype of hitter that they are looking for is someone
08:14who swings at strikes and hits them really hard.
08:17That might seem, you know, that might seem obvious, but, you know, there is sometimes
08:23a propensity for teams to draft players that have these, like, really big tools, like power
08:27or strength or look a certain way, but they might swing and miss a ton, or they might chase
08:31a lot, and the Nats are betting on this guy just being a really, really sound fundamental
08:36hitter where he swings at the right pitches.
08:37He makes contact a lot.
08:39When he makes contact, the ball is hit hard, and then kind of what you try to see if you
08:43can, you know, work on is obviously, like, further developing that, but then also defensively,
08:48he's not, like, locked into one position.
08:50I think they'll probably have to figure out where he plays down the line, but generally
08:54with their bats in this draft, if you look across the board and if you dug into the college
08:58stats or you went really deep in advanced stats, if that's your thing, you'll probably find
09:02really high contact rates and really good swing decisions.
09:05I mean, that's their thing.
09:06So this guy was seen as, like, a super fundamental polished hitter that they feel like they can
09:10really build on, and that's the bet moving forward.
09:12All right, Jesse, that's good stuff.
09:14Jesse Dougherty, you can check out his work at Notice.
09:17Thank you, buddy.
09:18Appreciate it.
09:19Thanks, Jesse.
09:19Yep.
09:20Thanks, guys.
09:20Appreciate it.
09:21Hey, right now, I'm going to hook up caller number 10 at 1-800-636-1067.
09:24We'll hook you up with a pair of tickets to go see Soja.
09:27Special guest Pigeon playing ping pong Saturday, August 1st at Nationals Park.
09:32Tickets are on sale now.
09:33For tickets and more event information, visit thefandc.com slash events.
09:37All you have to be is caller 10 at 1-800-636-1067.
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