It occurred to me, now that the Nats have sold off all their pieces and continued the dismantling of their 2019 championship team … wow, we’ve parted ways with a lot of very expensive players.
What would our team look like (in terms of payroll and lineup) had we kept all our big-time FAs over the past few years? Here’s a fun exercise, using 2022’s salaries.
- C: Yan Gomes: $6M, flipped with Harrison for Millas/Shuman/Gausch in the 2021 purge
- 1B: Josh Bell: $10M. Traded to SD with Soto in the 2022 purge for 6 player.
- 2B: Josh Harrison: $5.5M. Traded away to Oakland with Gomes for Millas/Shuman/Gausch in the 2021 purge
- SS: Trea Turner: $21M. Traded to LAD with Scherzer in 2021’s big trade to get Grey/Ruiz and assets
- 3B: Anthony Rendon: $36M. Let walk as a FA, received a 2nd round supplementary pick that turned into Samuel Infante.
- LF: Juan Soto, $17.1M. Traded to SD with Bell
- CF: Victor Robles: $1.65M. He has remained our starting CF for four straight seasons now despite a carrer OPS+ figure of just 83.
- RF: Bryce Harper: $26M. Let walk as a FA, received a 4th round supplementary pick that was lost to the Corbin signing.
- DH: Kyle Schwarber; $19M. Traded to Boston in 2021 for Aldo Ramirez.
Rotation?
- SP: Max Scherzer: $43M. Traded to LAD with Turner in 2021
- SP: Patrick Corbin: $23M. Still here, posting a 7 ERA this season.
- SP: Stephen Strasburg, $35M. Still here, might have a career-ending injury.
- SP: Sanchez, Fedde, Ross all still here, a combined $6M or so.
The Bullpen is fungible, so we’ll just skip it from a salary and focus on the above.
Total payroll for this set of players and starters? $251M. For 14 players, no backups, no bullpen and no 40-man. Probably estimate $8M for your backups, $15M for your bullpen, $3M for the rest of your 40-man, and $16M for benefits and that’s a payroll figure of $293M. $60M more than the salary cap threshold, and still not as much as the Los Angeles Dodgers are spending this year.
Would we be a winning team with this lineup? Well, we’d certainly still have a starting pitching problem, since $58M is going to two players who are actively hurting the club (Corbin has a -3.4 WAR this season!). But the lineup would be a monster. How’s this for a lineup: Turner, Soto, Harper, Schwarber, Rendon, Bell, Harrison, Gomes and Robles. Phew. Good luck getting through that lineup 4 times a night without giving up some runs. Of course, some of these guys are hurt in 2022, so this wouldn’t actually be our lineup .. but hey, this is a fantasy post.
Just a fun thought exercise.