As the saying goes, “Who would complain about the parade route?” Days after the Washington Nationals won the 2019 World Series, the happiness went right back to bitterness. Stephen Strasburg opted-out of his contract to join Anthony Rendon as two key free agents, and fans found a new reason to complain. Probably the same ones who complained about the parade route.

A confession, I applauded when Howie Kendrick, Yan Gomes, Asdrubal Cabrera, Daniel Hudson, Adam Eaton, and Ryan Zimmerman were all returning. On top of that, the team spent big for Stephen Strasburg in a new $245 million contract which set a record at the time.

But that was not enough for some fans who found reasons to be upset that Rendon left to be closer to his home near Houston — although Los Angeles really wasn’t closer. The narrative was Rendon wanted to be closer to his home. In hindsight, the Nats were lucky that they only had the horrible contract for Strasburg. Could you imagine if they were paying Rendon and Stras a total of $70 million a year from 2020-to-2026?

Were all of those other moves the correct read by former-GM Mike Rizzo? Was that team likely to maintain a similar level going forward? Clearly using the benefit of knowing what has transpired the answer is no  — but Rizzo had to make decisions without the benefit of knowing what would happen  — so to judge fairly let’s take a walk back in time.

Let’s look at several truths about the 2019 team. The core of the team was comprised of aging veterans known as the Los Viejos, and then there was the youngster Juan Soto who had just turned 21 years old a few days before the World Series.

The team got off to a horrid start in 2019 exacerbated by critical injuries to Trea Turner and Rendon and others. Close to two months into that 2019 season (which followed an under-performing 2018 season) there were calls to start retooling the team with the feeling that the contention window had ended.

In the Washington Post on May 23, 2019, ex-writer Barry Svrluga called for a firing of Davey Martinez in an article titled: Who Cares About Davey Martinez? In a Lost Season, Nationals Face Tougher Decisions. Of course, we all know what happened the day after that article was published. The Nats went on an historic run and into the postseason as the Improbable season turned into a World Series win.

Yes, Svrluga was wrong at the time. Very wrong. Martinez still had the passion and energy level to lead that team — and the clubhouse had his back. After the 2022 season, Martinez should have been fired. Instead in 2023, a new coaching staff came in, and things could not have gone worse — and yet they did.

But let’s bring the microscope a little closer.

•  The Nats were this |—-| close to getting bounced in the Wild Card round.
•  The Nats faced elimination FIVE times while trailing in each of these games before coming back.
•  Players like Kendrick, Rendon, Strasburg, etc. had insanely great postseasons.

This is not meant to minimize the incredible accomplishments at all. It was the highlight of this old fan’s life as a sport junkie by a wide margin to celebrate a team that I have written about as commentor or writer since the day in 2004 that baseball was coming back to Washington, D.C.

Objectively (this is just my opinion) the 2019 team was one of the weakest in the 8-year run from 2012-2019, and even if everyone including Rendon returned the strong likelihood is that the window was indeed coming to a close and more painfully if Rendon was on the roster. Again, hindsight showed how awful he was for the Los Angeles Angels.

Adding to this all, the team lost Rendon who was right at the top of the team in offense throughout the 2019 season, and who could not be replaced adequately except a short-stint by Jeimer Candelario. Third base and first base have been issues for the Nats ever since. Maybe Brady House becomes the star. I have no interest in re-litigating whether or not he should have been signed, fact is he wasn’t. Rizzo made a bit of a run at Josh Donaldson showing he really felt the team was still competitive.

Clearly, I feel that trying to go back to the well with the same horses (minus Rendon) was not a sustainable approach from a baseball perspective, but I must note that a championship team faces enormous fan pressure to defend the title with the group that won it, so this is not a criticism-based article, just some fun discussion before the hot stove really gets going. The Milwaukee Brewers will face some of these same pressures.

Could there have been a different approach that would have continued the run?

With hindsight, sure. That’s too easy to say looking back. The Nats could have traded Max Scherzer and Turner sooner while extracting better and more prospects and from a baseball perspective. At least Keibert Ruiz is finally producing and we will see what happens in the final part of Josiah Gray‘s tenure.

Should the team have signed Strasburg to the contract they did? Again in hindsight, of course not. Should the team have brought back all the ancillary pieces without a realistic shot at contention? (And I must note that Rizzo felt he could go back to contention in 2021 not throwing in the towel until the 2021 trade deadline). Debatable, probably should have focused on younger players. That’s the key is knowing when to say it is over. The Phillies are up against this right now. They are older than the Los Viejos.

My conclusion is that the Nats were doomed to have a big fall and by the end of 2019 there wasn’t much that could have been done to avoid the fall. Years of poor drafting and developmental failures put the team in a place from which it could not pivot. Going all in year after year was the only way to go, and in the end, it became necessary to start over from scratch, and here we are with hope with Paul Toboni and what is to happen coming up.

Photo by Tom Sileo for TalkNats