Nationals stand pat at deadline, stick with roster (updated)

What does a defending champion sitting seven games under .500 in the strangest season in baseball history do at the trade deadline? Nothing.

The Nationals did not make any deals before today's 4 p.m. deadline, opting instead to stick with the roster as currently constructed and hope it can turn things around over the final month of this 60-game season.

"If there's something out there that we could've gotten, they would've gotten it to help us," manager Davey Martinez said from Philadelphia during his pregame Zoom session with reporters, minutes after the deadline passed. "Right now, we feel good with what we've got. We're going to stay put."

In choosing neither to buy nor sell, general manager Mike Rizzo followed the same path he took at the 2018 trade deadline, when he gave a similarly underachieving club a chance to make a late run, only to end up parting with four veterans in post-deadline August transactions.

There is no further option to make moves this year. Today was the final day for all clubs to acquire a player who could be eligible to make a postseason roster.

"We've just got to go out there now - this is what we've got - and play baseball," Martinez said. "We're getting close to September. Let's have a good month, finish up strong."

With a rotation sporting a 5.62 ERA, averaging fewer than five innings per start and missing Stephen Strasburg, the Nationals' biggest area of need entering the day was clear. But there's nothing tougher or costlier to acquire than good starting pitching, and the challenge was only magnified during this unusual season.

The big-name starters on the block under club control beyond this year (Mike Clevinger, Lance Lynn) carried huge price tags, and the Padres wound up parting ways with a bevy of young talent to acquire Clevinger today while the Rangers surprisingly hung onto Lynn. The best one-month rentals (Robbie Ray, Mike Minor) weren't having great seasons and thus carried more risk for the clubs that acquired them (Blue Jays, Athletics).

So the Nationals are left to proceed with their rotation as-is, hoping Max Scherzer and Patrick Corbin can continue to lead the way, Aníbal Sánchez can turn this season around the way he did last season and Erick Fedde and struggling Austin Voth can at least give them a chance to win every fifth day.

In an unexpected twist, the Nats bullpen has been their pitching strength this season, so there was less urgency to add another relief arm than there had been in the past. And though they are lacking in reliable left-handers, the addition of the three-batter-minimum rule this year made the notion of trading for a specialist antiquated, so the club will have to hope Sean Doolittle returns to form over the next month.

The Nationals didn't make a trade for a bench bat, but they did acquire Brock Holt over the weekend, signing the veteran utility man, who had been designated for assignment by the Brewers.

If Rizzo felt like the odds of winning this season were too slim, he could have sought to deal away one of several veterans who could become free agents this winter: Howie Kendrick, Asdrúbal Cabrera, Kurt Suzuki, Eric Thames, Adam Eaton, Sánchez, Doolittle. But in keeping the roster intact, the longtime GM opted at least to give this group one last chance to make a late charge and return to the postseason.

"When you go through these trade deadlines, a lot of guys start worrying about where they're going to end up," Martinez said. "Especially this year, in such a short season, they don't want to go anywhere. For the most part, these guys love it here and love playing with one another. ...

"Now that they know they're here and they're not going anywhere, they can ease their mind, come out today and go out there and hopefully have fun and play."