Washington acquired three relief pitchers – Daniel Hudson, Roenis Elias and Hunter Strickland – prior to Wednesday’s trade deadline, but the club also attempted to bolster its starting staff before then. While the Nationals “were engaged on a starting pitcher Tuesday night,” the other team bowed out of talks, Barry Svrluga of the Washington Post reports. The Nats were in the mix for a No. 5-caliber starter, and had they landed him, they wouldn’t have come away with as many relievers as they did, according to Svrluga.
As expected, the competitive balance tax was a concern for the Nationals as they tried to improve in advance of the deadline, Svrluga writes. The Nationals entered the season reluctant to exceed the $206MM tax, which would’ve meant shelling out a 50 percent surtax for every dollar spent over that figure. Even after the acquisitions of Hudson, Elias and Strickland, they’re at just under $204MM, Jason Martinez of Roster Resource and FanGraphs estimates. Consequently, after exceeding the tax for two straight years, the Nationals are in position to stay below it this season. They paid $2,386,097 for going over the barrier in 2018.
It’s highly debatable whether the Nationals should have been so bent on steering clear of the tax this year. After all, as Svrluga notes, what’s a couple million more for a team spending upward of $200MM on players? But it was nonetheless important for the Nationals, who are slated to reset the tax by avoiding it this season. General manager Mike Rizzo did admit, though, that “it limited us to an extent.”
While Rizzo was seemingly able to improve a bullpen that has been problematic all season, he wasn’t able to address a rotation with concerns of its own. All-world ace Max Scherzer just landed on the injured list Monday for the second time in the past few weeks because of back/shoulder troubles, leaving Stephen Strasburg, Patrick Corbin and Anibal Sanchez as the only established pieces in the Nationals’ rotation right now. Erick Fedde and Joe Ross, both unproven at the major league level, are filling out the group at the moment. The Nationals (57-51) are tied for the NL’s second wild-card spot, but we’ll see whether their insistence on dodging the tax comes back to haunt them before the season ends.
Mike Leake?
really could have used a back end starter. If Scherzer is out for any amount of time Ross + Fedde will likely sink this team
Go braves
Aww. I feel so bad for the Nats… They could not trade for another starter for fear of going over the $206 million limit on salaries. Nats have out spent the Braves by $80 million already. Moral of the story: spend wisely, but don’t whine.
I don’t really get the “spend wisely, but don’t whine.” comment. Why the ‘but’ in there? Seems like an ‘and’ or even just omitting the conjunction altogether so it reads “spend wisely. Don’t whine.’ might have been more appropriate.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who didn’t understand that
it’s not as simple as “the Nationals didn’t want to go over the $206 million mark because it cost them $2 million etc.
each year they remain over the Competitive Balance Tax amount has additional impacts:
If they go over this year even a little, they are hit harder next year. it goes to 50% of every dollar over the CBT on salaries.
They forfeit an extra draft pick if they sign a FA with a qualifying offer. multiple signings cost even more draft picks,
Also, if the Nats give a qualifying offer to say Rendon, instead of getting a pick back after the 1st round, it goes to like after the 4th round.
i think they lose Int’l signing monies as well.
what isn’t mentioned here should be stressed. NOT going over the limit this year…. re-sets the penalties. And that’s what the Nats are trying to do.
And it’s not necessarily about spending wisely and not whining as someone suggested. The Braves have a low team salary level currently because they went thru several years of crappy performance. and the benefit of that is that several of their top performers now are arbitration players that won’t cost nearly as much in the near future.
The Braves have 12 players that are either Free Agents, or Option year players next year. i think maybe one of them is the year after. but believe me, if the Braves want to continue to enjoy the success they have with the cheaper arb eligible or min contract players they have now they are gonna need to spend next year. they did do a hell of a job on Acuna and Albies contracts though. i can only hope the Nationals are able to lock up Soto and Robles to similar type deals.
Call me pessimistic (or optimistic since I am a Braves fan) but I think those Acuna/Albies deals are going to be extremely rare and very few of then will come in the future for any team. It actually has more to do with the player than the club. Those guys love playing in Atlanta but that’s not the only reason. Acuna signed his because you need to have a guaranteed contract in order to legally immigrate your family into the US. He is from Venezuela and they are going through what is almost a revolutionary war right now. Kidnapping of family members of MLB players is rampant there as well. Johan Santana’s mother got kidnapped from there before this war even started. Acuna basically got to save the lives of all his family members by signing that contract. Albie’s is from the Dominican Republic (which isn’t safe either considering David Ortiz just almost got murdered there) but he is also literally Acuna’s best friend. Last I heard they were still living together by choice regardless of the fact they were making Major League money. Once Acuna signed Albies was almost a given. Not to put Albies in the same category as Acuna or Soto but his contract is going to go down as one of the biggest steals in MLB history. $5 mill a year guaranteed for up to NINE years. That’s hard to beat. He is signed for almost as long as Acuna but is basically a third of the money. If Soto were willing to signba contract like that (which I doubt any top MLB stars are now) he probably would have done so already. Those contracts had owners and fans alike salivating to lock up their future potential superstars but I strongly suspect that history will eventually show those type of contracts are the extreme outliers and nowhere near the norm. Last I heard the Braves were hoping to sign Swanson to a contract like that but I don’t think he wants any part of it. Swanson is not the caliber player Soto is so I doubt Soto is considering it either.
Correction: Albies is from Curaçao, not the DR.
Ahh. Yes. I believe you are correct. I think I heard he is a HUGE Andruw Jones fan. Apparently Andruw is a god on that island. Hard to believe that players from Curacao wear a Netherlands jersey during the World Baseball Classic, huh? I know that when I think of Amsterdam I think of Curacao at the same time. Apparently a lot of people from that island are still thought of by some as Dutch from the colonial days.
Thanks, but how can a reputable sports columnist write as though he is ignorant of these realities. What’s a couple million more, moron? For starters, the long term damage to the competitiveness of the team. Svrluga is a horrible columnist who writes thinly reasoned columns like this quite often and to think he is in line to replace Tom Boswell is almost as frightening as what would happen to the Nats if they exceed the salary cap three years in a row.
Glad someone pointed out the repeater penalties
The re-set only applies to the tax rate paid on payroll expenditures north of the luxury tax line. 20% (first time) vs 30% (second time) vs 50% (third or more times). The penalties are more severe if you go way over, but the Nats have never come close to leaving the first tax bracket.
You overstated the draft impacts a bit for the QO situations. They’d go from a post-2nd-round pick (not 1st round) to a post-4th-round pick if they QO and lose Rendon, and from their 2nd-overall to 2nd and 5th-overall for signing a (non-Rendon) QO’d free agent. And, yes, a team in the lux tax also stands to lose an extra $500K in international pool money for signing a QO’d player.
mlbtraderumors.com/2017/08/offseason-primer-the-ne…
Those elements are the same every year, regardless whether you’ve previously gone over the luxury line. Given the level of picks involved and the likelihood it’ll even come into play at all, it doesn’t seem like an overly momentous consideration. Not to say it isn’t something, but it’s relatively minor.
Is it just me or did the 1st place Braves just improve themselves more than any other NL East team did at the trade deadline? With the possible exception of the Mets but they don’t count because they are not winning this division anyway.
This is why free agency is so slow. The few true contenders are capped out.
Wow I feel bad for the 200M teams that can’t spend any more money
As much as a 5th starter would’ve helped the Nats, resetting the luxury tax could be the difference in being BLR to resign Rendon. They know they could have to go over the tax next year to retain him and resetting means they won’t have as harsh penalties in doing so. Just food for thought…
Nats are going to have trouble without Scherzer. They need a 5th starter cause Fedde can’t do it and Joe Ross throws meat