The demise of the Nats, or why managers matter

The assertion has persisted for generations: Managers don't greatly matter.

The Washington Nationals right now are an intriguing case study for that assertion.

The Nats have had a chronic revolving door for the dugout boss, apparently at the instigation of ownership, which has been willing to spend heavily on playing talent but not on managers. They have had newbie managers (including the current occupant of the job, Davey Martinez) and really old managers (including his immediate predecessor, Dusty Baker), but their one common denominator has been a lack of bargaining power.

Matt Williams was their manager in 2014-15, his first and probably only stint as a major league manager. He won the divisional title in 2014, finished second in '15, and the defining moment of his tenure came when Jonathan Papelbon tried to choke Bryce Harper in the dugout and Williams had no clue about it.

Out went Williams, in ccame Baker. The change wasn't as smooth as that; there was a tentative agreement with Bud Black that fell apart because Black had higher salary expecations than the Nats were willing to pay. Baker had been out of the game for three years and was willing to take the job at a bargain price.

Baker now has 22 seasons on his managerial resume with a record well above .500 but only one pennant and no World Series titles. His in-game moves are often puzzling and his grasp of the metrics popular with today's front offices is not publicly apparent, but he has no peer at the delicate task of handling superstar egos. The Papelbon-Harper incident suggested that was a skill the new manager needed in Washington, and whether by intent or fortuity, the Nats got that skill.

The Nats won a pair of division titles under Baker but didn't win a postseason series.  Mike Rizzo, who heads the Nats' baseball operations, wanted to extend Baker after last season; ownership said no.

Martinez, long an understudy to Joe Maddon in Tampa Bay and Chicago and almost as long a prominent candidate for managerial jobs, got the Nats post. There was every reason to expect him to be a good selection. But it has not gone well.

The Nationals have, still, as much talent as any team. Harper, Max Scherzer, Anthony Rendon, Stephen Strasburg, Ryan Zimmerman, Daniel Murphy, Trea Turner, Gio Gonzalez ... Juan Soto, age 19, started the season in A ball and now has 14 homers in the majors.

And they're running third in their division, barely above .500, and looking worse than that.

What went wrong for the Nats this year? I suspect this is a case where "clubhouse chemistry" became a real thing.

Just before the trading deadline, Jeff Passan of Yahoo tackled that question, and in the process of describing the Nats quoted an unnamed veteran as calling the clubhouse "dysfunctional." It was almost a throwaway line in the piece, but it got Rizzo's attention.

Rizzo decided -- apparently incorrectly -- that the unnamed player was former Twins reliever Brandon Kintzler and promptly traded him away. A couple days after the deadline, another leading bullpen arm, Shawn Kelley, threw his glove on the ground after giving up a homer; Rizzo designated Kelley for assignment.

With Kintzler and Kelley subtracted, and with Shawn Doolittle and Ryan Madson hurting, the bullpen has become a mess. And Kintzler and Kelley were subtracted in an attempt by the front office to support a beleaguered manager.

One of the voices on MLB Radio, talking about the "dysfunctional clubhouse" description, saying that he'd been in the Nats clubhouse and had never seen a major league clubhouse so devoid of interaction. Whether it's "dysfunctional" or not, he said, it was unique.

And I suspect Harper is at the center of it. Consider this: He is the star on a team of stars, a former MVP, a Sports Illustrated cover boy at 16 -- and yet you pick the stat, somebody in that clubhouse has had a higher number.

Homers? Harper hit 42 his MVP season. Matt Reynolds hit 44 one year in Arizona.

Batting average? Harper's high is .330. Murphy hit .347 the next year.

RBIs? Harper's never had 100 ribbies. Murphy, Zimmerman and Rendon have all topped the century mark.

But it's Harper at the top of the food chain, Harper whose future is the source of constant comment and speculation. You can't watch a game on TV without seeing Harper in an ad. Think that can cause some grumbling?

Baker is, if nothing else, experienced at handling superstar egos -- and the interaction of the other egos.

Baker had Barry Bonds and Jeff Kent in San Francisco, a pair of MVPs who apparently detested each other, They won.

Baker had Sammy Sosa in Chicago. They won, although that situation got away from Baker.

In Cincinnati, Brandon Phillips, while not on the level of Bonds, Sosa or Kent, was one of the Reds' better players and a high-maintenance guy. Baker kept him focused and on track, something other skippers struggled to accomplish,

And with the Nats, there was scarcely a kerfuffle with Baker around. Before and after, drama aplenty.

Yeah, the Nats miss Johnnie B. Baker. Not for pitching changes and when to hit-and-run, but for all the other stuff that comes with a major league season.

Bryce Harper, Jonathan Paplebon and the Nationals disaster

Bryce Harper (right) is pulled away from Jonathan Papelbon
in the eighth inning Saturday in Washington.

Bryce Harper is 22 and having a monster season for the Washington Nationals. As disappointing as the Nats have been, Harper is the overwhelming favorite for the National League MVP award.

Jonathan Papelbon has been one of the game's better closers for almost a decade. He's prolific enough a saves artist that he harbors ambitions of catching Mariano Rivera's career mark.

Washington has here two giant egos who clearly don't like each other very much. Sunday's dugout scuffle, in which Papelbon grabbed Harper by the throat purportedly because Harper didn't sprint to first base on a popup, was a vivid illustration.

This isn't about how hard Harper ran or about a veteran policing professionalism. This has its roots in (a) the massive disappointment that has been the Nationals in the second half and (b) the Manny Machado incident of a week or so ago, when Papelbon decided to throw at the Orioles star and Harper in the postgame declared. "It's tired. I'm probably going to get drilled tomorrow."

As it turned out, Buck Showalter, the Orioles manager, quashed any notion of immediate revenge-taking (which doesn't mean it won't happen next year). The point is: Harper called out Papelbon for his stupidity, and as Thomas Boswell of the Washington Post says in this piece on the meaning of Sunday;s tussle, "the fuse had been lit to a tinderbox player."

Boswell last year inaccurately derided Harper as the seventh-best player on the Nats. He is no Harper apologist, but the overwhelming consensus appears to be on Harper's side in this dispute.

During the runup to the trade deadline, I floated here the notion of the Twins acquiring Papelbon. That notion was based on a wildly inaccurate reading of Papelbon's motivations and contract, and I am quite pleased two months later that Papelbon isn't in Minnesota.

The Nats probably wish now he wasn't in Washington either, but they're stuck with him for another year, having guaranteed his overpriced option for 2016.

Washington figures to have a lot of roster turnover this winter, including manager Matt Williams. This is one team where the single most important quality of the next manager is going to be his ability to handle giant egos. Baseball history is replete with managers who ran their careers aground on such rocks.

I never thought I'd say this again, but this might be a team that would benefit from having Dusty Baker as its skipper.

Scott Boras and the Strasburg shutdown

Stephen Strasburg has thrown his last pitch of the 2012
season.

Last month I took note of this Washington Post column in which agent Scott Boras implied that he was forcing the Nationals to shut down Stephen Strasburg, who is the Nats' ace and a Boras client.

On Monday came this ESPN piece in which Boras disclaims any role whatsoever in the decision.

Yeah, right.

I think the truth is in the middle: That Boras, representing Strasburg, and Mike Rizzo, the Washington general manager, were in agreement all along on how the pitcher's first full year back from Tommy John surgery would be handled.

I think Boras' ego ran away from him in the Post interview. I think Boras wants to be known as a sharp judge of baseball talent as well as a superb negotiator. And he may be that judge of talent, but it's sometimes obscured by the occupational hazard of overselling the talent of his clients; for example, his notorious booklet favorably comparing then-free agent Oliver Perez to Sandy Koufax. To be known as a talent evaluator, you have to build teams, and that, I think, lies behind his August suggestion that he is Rizzo's co-GM.

As for the shutdown itself: I think it's the right thing to do for both Strasburg and the Nationals.

It's best for Strasburg because, in a real sense, this season was a continuation of last year's rehab. He ends the season just shy of 160 innings, which was said in the spring to be his target, and follows the advice of his surgeon. Rehabbing from ligament replacement isn't a precise endeavor, but there's no good reason to disregard the surgeon's protocol.

It's best for the Nats because Strasburg's performance has been slipping in recent weeks, whether because (as manager Davy Johnson suggested) of the mental stress of his impending shutdown or because of fatigue in this rebuilding-the-arm season. His ERA before the All-Star break was 2.82; his ERA since, 3.73. Which isn't bad, but it's going the wrong way, as are his strikeout and walk rates.

The Nats still have four solid power pitchers lined up for the postseason in Gio Gonzalez, Jordan Zimmermann, Ross Detweiler and Edwin Jackson. Given the trajectory of Strasburg's season, the Nats may not be worse off in October without him.

There are no guarantees in any of this. The Nats might win the World Series without Strasburg; they might be knocked off in the first round. Strasburg may go on to have a full and brilliant career; he could blow out his elbow again in spring training.

The Nationals made the best decision they could with the information they had. And part of that decision-making process is this reality: Scott Boras is Strasburg's agent, and Boras was and is definitely in favor of shutting the pitcher down. He probably didn't force the move, but he was hardly silent about it either.

Cole Hamels, Bryce Harper and "bully teams"

Bryce Harper gets hit by the pitch...

If you were watching ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball last night. you saw Philadelphia's Cole Hamels drill superrookie Bryce Harper in the back in the first inning. You also saw Harper take third base on a single to left (two outs and Juan Pierre throwing, but still rare) and then steal home on a Hamels pick-off throw to first base (video here).

Which is better retribution for an intentional plunking than charging the mound. The 19-year-old hotshot embarrassed the veteran pitcher.

... and then steals home.

Hamels admitted after the game that he hit Harper on purpose, calling it a "welcome to the majors" old school moment. (And Washington pitcher Jordan Zimmermann later hit Hamels in the leg in obvious retribution.)

Hamels wasn't be the first guy to greet a heralded rookie with a HBP, and he won't be the last. But I think there was something more to the incident.

The Phillies have won five straight divisional titles. The Nationals had taken the first two games of their weekend series and are now in first place.

When a young, unheralded team suddenly becomes a threat to a veteran dynasty, the veteran team often tries physical intimidation. As I recall, the Tampa Bay Rays in 2008 had separate bench-clearing incidents with both the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox, both of them begun with buzzballs from the accustomed contenders. I think of this as "bully ball" — something teams resort to when they realize the upstarts might actually be better.

Usually that realization comes later in the summer. That Philly turned to it in early May is illuminating. The Nationals may not win the division this year (Jayson Werth broke his wrist Sunday, which probably matters a lot more than the outcome of this particular game), but I think the Phillies' domination of the NL East is over.

A piece of the Acta

The Washington Nationals — possessors of a .299 winning percentage this season — fired manager Manny Acta on Monday.

What an ill-run franchise: An interim general manager, an interim manager, a scandal in its Latin American scouting operation, a roster badly in need of detonation — even uniforms with the team name misspelled.

From the outside, it's difficult to tell what role Acta played in the deterioration of the team's record. In his first season, the Nats were 73-89; in his second, 59-102; and now 26-61.

Peter Gammons on Monday's Baseball Tonight called it "the most ill-conceived roster," and that's an accurate assessment. What input Acta had as former GM Jim Bowden went about accumulating corner outfielders and first basemen is the question the comes first to my mind. If Acta assured him that Lastings Milledge and Elijah Dukes were capable center fielders, then Acta shares the blame for the silliness.

The second question is why the Nationals' bullpen is such a mess. A useful quick-n-dirty gauge to the quality of an organization is the bullpen. A sharp operation can dig up usable arms for short stints. Operations that have repeated bad years in the pen (the Mets, the Indians) get those bad years for a reason. The Nationals' pen has deteriorated each season under Acta.

There are things I like about the Nationals. In Jordan Zimmermann, John Lannan and Ross Detwiler, they have three starters of promise. Assuming they (a) get first-round pick Stephen Strasburg signed and (b) keep everybody healthy, they could very quickly have the best starting rotation in the division.

That's something to build on. They need some players who can catch the ball — starting with center field and second base — to protect those pitchers. And that's going to require a GM who can turn their ridiculous surplus of DH-first base-slow outfielders (Adam Dunn, Dmitri Young, Josh Willingham, Austin Kearns, Nick Johnson) into something usable.

As for Acta: I suspect there are a half-dozen teams that would benefit from having him as their manager rather than the current occupant. But that's only a suspicion. I'm inclined to put the blame for the ill-conceived roster on Bowden. But Acta was in the room.