Remember the preseason? So many of us thought the Nationals would barge to the best record in baseball. That wasn't an unreasonable opinion, given that we're talking about a team that won 96 games a year ago and added Max Scherzer over the winter. Remember that slow start they endured? They were 7-13 on April 27 and 8.0 games out of first place. It was early, though. Sure enough, they methodically started winning. Remember on July 5, when they beat the Giants and moved to 10 games over .500 and pushed their lead in the NL East to 4.5 games? The 2015 Nationals were finally the 2015 Nationals as we first conceived of them.
Well, not long after that the Nats began taking on water once again, and we're now thinking of them as a team that's poised to squander a lavishly talented roster and MLB's sixth-highest Opening Day payroll. This time, it's getting late out there. After Madison Bumgarner suffocated the Nationals on Sunday (box score), the presumptive NL East champs are below .500 for the first time since May 6.
The question is thus raised: What's happened to the Nationals? It's no one thing, as we'll now explore ...
They've been injured.
Yes, every team deals with maladies of varying seriousness, but the Nats have suffered more than their share in 2015. Here's a partial listing of players who have spent time on the DL this season for Washington: Denard Span, Stephen Strasburg, Anthony Rendon, Doug Fister, Jayson Werth, Ryan Zimmerman, Reed Johnson, Nate McLouth, David Carpenter. A number of those have logged multiple stints on the DL this season.
More to the point, Rendon, perhaps the team's MVP a season ago, has at this writing logged just 167 plate appearances on the year, while, when healthy, producing well below his 2014 standards. As well, the Nats have gotten a combined 163 innings from Fister and Strasburg (and those innings have significantly worse than expected). Time was when we fretted that Tanner Roark would be forever relegated to the bullpen because of a rotation that was larded with bedrock certainties. Now he's one of nine pitchers to make at least one start for the 2015 Nats.
To put a finer point on it, just six times this season have the Nats had Rendon, Zimmermann, and Werth in the lineup at the same time. That's part of why they've been reduced to giving more than a combined 300 plate appearances to the likes of Dan Uggla, Tyler Moore, and Matt den Dekker.
They've gotten terrible production from some bat-first positions.
Speaking of Zimmermann and Werth, they're the main offenders when it comes to Washington's complete lack of production from first base and left field -- the least premium positions on the diamond. This season, Nationals first basemen have combined to hit .221/.282/.399, while the average MLB first baseman has a line of .259/.336/.450. As for the Nats' left fielders, in 2015 they've batted .226/.296/.320 against an MLB positional average of .256/.320/.406. That's a big marginal production deficit from a pair of positions that usually are lineup linchpins.
Ian Desmond has collapsed.
From 2012-14, the Nats' shortstop batted a combined .275/.326/.462 with three Silver Sluggers and 26 homers per 162 games played. This season, though, Desmond's batting a paltry .225/.275/.385. It appears as though the contact issues that first showed up in 2014 have exacted a toll on his overall numbers. As well, Desmond's defense grades out significantly worse this season, according to both the eye-test and advanced metrics (albeit across a limited sample).
The defense has been lacking.
Speaking of defense, the Nationals rank 13th in the NL in Defensive Runs Saved, 10th in Ultimate Zone Rating, and 12th in Defensive Efficiency. If you're of a more traditional bent, then know that the Nats this season rank 10th in the NL in fielding percentage and last in double plays turned. Choose your measure, and the Nats are faring poorly when it comes to preventing runs via glove-work in the field.
They haven't run the bases well.
Consider this to be of lesser importance relative to some other failings. However, it's still worth noting that the Nationals don't stack up well with their NL peers when it comes to adding value on the basepaths: They're presently 10th in the NL in base-running runs above average, 13th in stolen bases, and 12th in percentage of extra bases taken.
The pitching staff has struggled in key spots.
While all pitchers tend to be a bit worse in RISP situations, the Nationals' staff in 2015 has gone somewhat beyond that. Typically, as measured by opposing OPS, pitchers will be about 5-6 percent worse with runners in scoring position. This season, however, the Nationals' pitchers have been 8.3 percent worse when the opposition is in an RBI situation. In matters related, the Nats this season rank just 11th in the NL in percentage of opposing runners stranded. All of this is part of why FanGraphs ranks the Nationals' staff as being the fourth-least "clutch" in the NL this season. This almost certainly isn't anything more than bad luck, but it's certainly a factor in the team's overall struggles.
Again, there's no singular and obvious shortcoming with the Nats this season. You can't point to a league-worst offense or a bottom-feeding pitching staff or anything like that. It's instead been "soft" failures on a number of fronts that have made them the most disappointing team of 2015. As noted, they were, almost by acclamation, regarded as the World Series favorites coming into this season. Coming into Sunday, though, the SportsLine Projection Model gave them just a 17 percent chance of making the playoffs. Things, you see, have changed.
Consider the next stretch of games to be critical. They'll play their next 12 against the Rockies, Brewers, Padres, and Marlins -- losing teams, all -- and nine of those 12 will be at home. That's a fine opportunity to reverse course. They also have six more head-to-head games against the Mets, including a three-game set in Queens to end the regular season.
Yes, there's still time for the Nats to be something other than baseball's latest cautionary tale and about the hazards of presumption, but time is running out.
