Could the Nationals Be A Playoff Team? BMitch & Finlay

WJFK-FM / 106.7 The Fan

JP and BMitch discuss the Nationals chances at challenging for a playoff spot with this season with Mark Zuckerman.

Transcript

00:00the NL East is just crazy. I mean, three of the top 10 spenders are in the division. Um,

00:07the Mets obviously add Soto, which just kind of breaks my heart, but whatever. Um, what

00:14is the path to some sort of, maybe it's a wild card, but even like, uh, August and September

00:21with meaningful baseball.

00:22Speaker 3 Yeah. Um, they're going to have to be better within the division of course.

00:26And that's a, it's a brutally tough division for them to be in right now. I think they

00:30proved last year they are ahead of the Marlins. So they at least have that. And they actually

00:33played the Braves. Well, they had a winning record against the Braves last year, which

00:36was something that I think meant something to a lot of the guys in there. Um, the Mets

00:41and the Phillies, they still were well behind in terms of head to head competition. They're

00:46going to have to close that gap somehow and play them more competitively. Um, the good

00:52news, I guess you want to look at this way with the expanded playoffs. Now you get three

00:56wild cards per league and it would be tough to pull off, but I think it's happened once

01:02so far. You could have three wild cards all come from the same division. So in theory,

01:07say the, uh, Phillies, when the, when the, the Mets and the Braves could be wild cards

01:12and there's still another wild card spot to have. If you can get up there, you're going

01:16to have to beat up on the Marlins. You're going to have to do well against teams from

01:19the other divisions. The West is tough as well with the Dodgers and the Padres and the

01:23Diamondbacks. So it's not an easy path at all. Um, I think they would love to find themselves

01:28in the position come July where they are at or slightly above 500 and kind of lingering

01:34around in that realm. And maybe then you can convince the decision makers at the top of

01:39the organization to, to make some moves. And instead of trading away guys at the deadline,

01:44maybe you're finally acquiring them to make a little bit of a push. Um, they would love

01:48to find themselves in that scenario. It doesn't mean it's going to happen. It doesn't mean

01:51that it's a lost season if they don't get there. Uh, but I think that's the path right

01:56now. If you're trying to, you know, concoct a dream scenario where it all comes together

02:00this year, how far away from being contenders, man? Well, a lot of people hope that it might

02:06be this year. It maybe is another year away from that. Um, we need to see, you know, do

02:14these young stars like we talked about, are they who they're supposed to be to CJ Abrams

02:19come back and play like he did in the first half last year when he was an all-star and

02:22just an incredible all around shortstop. Um, can we Scarcia do what he did last year is

02:28a caber Ruiz able to be the franchise catcher they needed him to be. Uh, and really it is,

02:34I think about the pitching. If Gore pitches like an ACE, if Irvin is like a good solid

02:39workhorse number two, and if somebody else in that group steps up and gives them a chance

02:44to win, um, I think they're going to be in a decent position to win a lot of games. Now,

02:48my biggest concern right now, to be honest, is the bullpen because they non-tendered Kyle

02:54Finnegan decided not to bring him back. They didn't think he was worth eight or 9 million.

02:58They were going to have to pay him in arbitration and they have not really replaced them as

03:02a closer. Um, they find a few guys to lesser deals. They don't really know who their closer

03:07is right now. There's still time. There's a bunch of free agents still available, including

03:11Finnegan. I feel like they're going to find somebody here in the next week or two, and

03:17hopefully that helps shore that up. But to me, there's nothing more demoralizing for

03:21any team than you had. Everybody does everything right for eight innings and you take a lead

03:26into the ninth and somebody blows it. That could be heartbreaking for a young team. That's

03:31trying to learn how to win close games. So I hope they address that because I do think

03:35that's a glaring need right now.

Category

Transcript

Recommended