Steve Mears: Aroldis Chapman would not have been worth the high price

How many postseason saves does Aroldis Chapman have? Zero. Chapman does have a blown save and a loss. Wade Davis has four postseason saves with a perfect save record, and he also has three holds and four wins. Davis has 23 postseason games on his record and no blemishes.

There is something called "incremental improvement" that sabermetricians look at to compare a 2.4 WAR player versus a 2.8 WAR player while using their advances stats to determine which player is better. Not so fast: Incremental improvement goes far beyond the simple stats. Chapman has a 12.2 career WAR and Davis has a 9.5 career WAR, and it is like comparing apples and oranges. A general manager looks at players differently based on track records and how a player reacts under the bright lights and high-leverage situations. Is Chapman really that much better than Davis? It all depends on who you ask. Chapman is more exciting. Davis cannot throw a 105 mph fastball, but does that really matter in the proper context where all that matters is the "S" next to the closer's name in the boxscore?

What the Cubs did with the Chapman acquisition was they lengthened their bullpen to where you now have to go through Pedro Strop in the seventh inning, Hector Rondon in the eighth inning and Chapman in the ninth. The way to beat the Cubs is to take a big lead into the seventh inning to neutralize their bullpen advantage to the point that you don't see their A bullpen.

Before the 2014 Royals decided to beef up their bullpen with flamethrowers, the Braves had a similar setup when they asked their starters to give them six great innings and then would turn the game over to their bullpen of Eric O'Flaherty, Jonny Venters and Craig Kimbrel. On October 5, 2012, it did not work in theory as the Cardinals took a lead into the seventh inning and neutralized that Braves bullpen. Yes, O'Flaherty, Venters and Kimbrel all appeared in the game as the Cardinals won 6-3 with the save going to Jason Motte as they knocked the Braves out of the wild card game and the postseason. Was Kimbrel better on that day than Motte?

The Nationals would be a better team with another proven back-of-the-bullpen arm, but Mike Rizzo should not be selling the farm to acquire the player. Rizzo has also shown in the past that he will continue to look for trade opportunities into August as more teams throw in the towel. Expect the unexpected from Rizzo!

Steve Mears blogs about the Nationals for Talk Nats. Follow the blog on Twitter: @TalkNats2. His thoughts on the Nationals will appear here as part of MASNsports.com's season-long initiative of welcoming guest bloggers to our site. 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 roster of writers.