The Nationals have been a “team on the rise” for a few years now, with young stars like Ryan Zimmerman, Stephen Strasburg, and Jordan Zimmermann making up a solid core in the always tough NL East. 2011 was Washington’s best year since 2005, as they won 80 games and finished third in the division behind the Braves and the Phillies. In 2012, they could be even more dangerous. But right now, we’re just going to take a look at the 2011 season in Washington.
WHAT WENT RIGHT
Ivan Rodriguez only played in 44 games for the team, and it looked like they’d miss his veteran presence behind the plate. Nope! Wilson Ramos stepped into the role and showed the talent that made him a top prospect with the Twins, OPSing .779 in 113 games. After a couple of years on the bench in Washington, Michael Morse was handed a starting job, and he fluorished, OPSing a team-leading .910, splitting his time between left field and first base. Rookie Danny Espinosa was a top contender for the Rookie of the Year award in the first half before tailing off, but he still had a .737 OPS and 21 homers for the season. Strasburg’s return from Tommy John surgery went…well, nearly perfectly, with the young stud striking out 24 batters and walking just two in five September starts. Zimmermann’s first full season back from Tommy John was also a huge success, with a 3.18 ERA in 161 1/3 innings on the year. Tyler Clippard and Drew Storen also became a dominant late game duo for the team.
WHAT WENT WRONG
Jayson Werth was brought into Washington to be the veteran glue for this team, and to call his year a disappointment is a tremendous overstatement. Werth had a .719 OPS in the first year of a seven year, $126 million contract that’s already looking like it could cripple this team. Another big free agent signing, Adam LaRoche, played in just 43 games and was terrible with a .546 OPS. The injury bug hit Ryan Zimmerman again, and he only played in 101 games, and wasn’t nearly as good in those 101 games as he’s been for a majority of his brief career. No one on the starting staff was able to pitch more than 185 innings. Chien Ming Wang fiinally debuted in the majors with the Nationals, and looked like a shadow of his former self, striking out just 25 in 62 1/3 innings.
SURPRISES
No one expected the performance out of Morse that the team got. Despite some impressive minor league numbers, he never got much of a chance in the majors until this season, and he broke out in a massive way. At 29 years old, he’s in his prime, but not the type of player you’d want to lock up to a long-term deal. I guess you could call Strasburg’s season a surprise too, since he looked just as good a year removed from his surgery as he did before he underwent the operation. The team plans to cap his innings at around 160 in 2012, much like they did with Zimmermann this year.
DISAPPOINTMENTS
Oh Jayson…it’s hard to pinpoint where his performance went wrong. His power vanished, and while his BABIP was lower than it was during his glory years with the Phillies, it wasn’t egregiously low. The Nationals have to hope that they’re able to figure out what happened with him this past season, otherwise his contract could start to look like a real bane on the organization. I think the team is probably really disappointed with the performance of Cuban defector Yuniesky Maya as well, with the 30 year old posting an ERA above 5.00 in the majors as well as in AAA this season. He’s still under contract until 2013 as well.
2012 CHANGES
There is going to be a lot of attrition on this Nationals team. Three members of the pitching staff (Livan Hernandez, Wang and Todd Coffey) are free agents, and the only one I could see being brought back in Hernandez. The team will also have a new center fielder, with Rick Ankiel a free agent and leaving town. Could the team possibly shift Werth there and let Morse start in the outfield with LaRoche coming back for 2012?
POSITION BATTLES
The situation with the outfield and first base is interesting. LaRoche is making too much money to sit on the bench next year, and his contract makes him untradeable, so he’ll be playing every day. You also can’t bench Morse’s awesome bat, and Werth’s contract puts him in the same position as LaRoche. The Nats could also go balls to the wall and promote top prospect Bryce Harper to start in the outfield alongside Morse and Werth, because Laynce Nix is also a free agent. It’ll be interesting to see what happens with the 2012 Nationals team, because this is clearly a talented team, but they’ve still got some holes to worry about.
