Nats "optimistic" Murphy will be healthy by opening day (updated)

Buried amid the Nationals' latest managerial change was the news that one of the club's most important players - Daniel Murphy - needed significant knee surgery at season's end. And though team officials believe the All-Star second baseman will be fully healed well before the start of the 2018 season, they can't definitively say that just yet.

Murphy had debridement and microfracture surgery two weeks ago to repair damage to the articular cartilage in his right knee. The procedure, which has been performed on several ballplayers and other professional athletes but is not all that common, can require six or more months of recovery time.

That timeline would carry Murphy into April, though it's admittedly too early in the process to know for sure.

"We're optimistic that he'll be ready for opening day," general manager Mike Rizzo said. "That's me telling you that on Nov. 2. I've been in contact with him on several subjects. He's feeling good. He's moving around. And he feels optimistic that he'll be ready, so that makes me feel optimistic."

Murphy appeared to have been playing through some discomfort in his legs late in the season, though specifics were never offered. He actually performed better at the plate in September than his overall season numbers, batting .346 with a .978 OPS in 22 games, though he was held out of the lineup for eight games.

Murphy, like most of his teammates, struggled in the National League Division Series, going 4-for-19 with one double, one homer, two RBIs and six strikeouts.

"It wasn't to the point where it was debilitating," Rizzo said. "But he wasn't himself. I don't want to put a kind of percentage on it. But this game is hard enough to play when you're feeling good and your body is reacting well. Suffice to say, he grinded through it. We needed him in the lineup, and he played."

Murphy is under contract with the Nationals for one more season, with an official salary of $17.5 million (though $5.5 million of that is deferred). Eleven of his teammates from 2017, however, officially became free agents today upon conclusion of the World Series.

Outfielders Jayson Werth, Howie Kendrick, Ryan Raburn and Alejandro De Aza; infielder Stephen Drew; catcher Jose Lobaton; right-handers Matt Albers, Brandon Kintzler, Joe Blanton and Edwin Jackson; and left-hander Oliver Pérez all are now free agents.

The Nationals have a five-day window to exclusively negotiate with those 11 players. If they decide to extend a one-year, $17.4 million qualifying offer to any of them, they would need to do so by Monday. Players then have 10 days to either accept or decline the qualifying offer, at which point they can negotiate with all clubs.

Upated: The Nationals announced this afternoon that the $5 million mutual option with first baseman/outfielder Adam Lind has been declined, making him a free agent. Lind will get a $500,000 buyout.

Lind, signed to a one-year, $1 million deal just as spring training started, slashed .303/.362/.513 with 14 homers and 59 RBIs. As a pinch-hitter, he slashed .356/.396/.644 with four homers and 13 RBIs.