David Huzzard: Re-examining how free agency affects the Nationals

One of the big refrains coming into the 2015 season for the Nationals was that because of the loss of pending free agents Denard Span, Ian Desmond, Doug Fister and Jordan Zimmermann at the end of the season, the window is closing. While this has always been somewhat faulty logic, it made sense that the Nationals would have difficulty replacing four good players. But the season has not gone according to plan, and the idea that the window would be closing because of the loss of those four players seems almost laughable, a phrase to be parroted by those not paying complete attention.

Let's start with the obvious. Desmond has struggled, and saying he's struggled might be putting it mildly. Desmond has gone from being one of, if not the best, shortstops in baseball over the past three seasons to being one of the worst. Desmond is ranked 22nd among qualified shortstops with an fWAR of minus -0.7. That means the presence of Desmond on the field is actually doing harm to the Nationals. At the midway point, the Nationals would be almost a win better with a replacement level player at the position.

Unlike Desmond, Span has done well when he's played. His .304/.367/.430 batting line is excellent for a leadoff hitter. When Span is in the lineup he is one of the top run producers for the Nationals and then man that makes everything go. But there is a big caveat that has reared its ugly head recently. Span is 31 coming off of two surgeries to his core and now has back issues. Span has been great when he's been on the field, but he isn't able to be on the field and the back is not an issue that is going to get better with age.

The season might be a little more than half over but there is still a lot of baseball to be played, and if the Nationals are going to make a serious run at the World Series they are going to need their excellent pitching to be excellent. Max Scherzer, Gio Gonzalez and Jordan Zimmermann have all done that. Stephen Strasburg and Doug Fister have both dealt with injuries and underperformance. While Strasburg gets talked about quite a bit, Fister's poor season has flown under the radar. In 64 innings, he's posted a 4.08 ERA and seen his already low strikeout/nine innings rate drop from a career average of 6.02 to 4.36. There is time for him to improve on this, but the Nationals have already played half a season with a Fister worth 0.1 fWAR - or just about replacement level.

Adding up the fWAR of the three players mentioned above gives you 0.7 fWAR. In other words, not something that is going to make a huge difference even if we assume it simply doubles by season's end. The one free agent-to-be that the Nationals are going to miss is Zimmermann. Zimmermann has a 3.04 ERA in 106 2/3 innings and in his most recent starts has once again looked like a dominant ace that's going to get $160 million on the free agent market. The Nationals may make one last run at Zimmermann, but it is more than likely that he is gone and that the Nationals will have trouble replacing him.

This doesn't mean the window is closing. While Zimmermann is going to be missed from the rotation, the argument could easily be made that the 2015 Nats rotation is missing just as much due to Strasburg's injuries. And then there is how Joe Ross performed in his brief appearance in the majors. Assuming the Nats are banned from making roster moves in the offseason, the 2016 rotation would set-up as Scherzer, Strasburg, Gonzalez, Tanner Roark and Ross, with Reynaldo Lopez and Lucas Giolito waiting in the minor leagues.

The same can be said for the lineup. While the 2016 Nationals will miss a healthy Span, the 2015 lineup has been without Anthony Rendon for pretty much the entire season. Again, assuming the Nationals are banned from making roster moves, the 2016 lineup would look something like this: Rendon, Yunel Escobar, Bryce Harper, Ryan Zimmerman, Jayson Werth, Danny Espinosa, Wilson Ramos, Michael A. Taylor with Trea Turner and Wilmer Difo in the minors. In reality, the 2015 Nationals roster has been more decimated by injuries than the 2016 Nationals will be by free agency.

David Huzzard blogs about the Nationals at Citizens of Natstown. Follow him on Twitter: @DavidHuzzard. His views appear here as part of MASNsports.com's season-long initiative of welcoming guest bloggers to our pages. All opinions expressed are those of the guest bloggers, who are not employed by MASNsports.com but are just as passionate about their baseball as our regular roster of writers.