How to Address Starting Pitching

Most Nationals fans and analysts agree that this winter the Nats, with Patrick Corbin's contract coming off of the books and an armada of starting pitchers 27 and under who all have question marks of one variety or another, should look to address that weakness in free agency, particularly as they have so little in salary commitments going forward.

If you spend any time on the TalkNats comment threads or in the Nats Central community on X, you will see a lot of people saying that the Nats should do whatever it takes to get a top-of-rotation (TOR) ace pitcher, whether that be throwing nine figures at Corbin Burnes or making a blockbuster trade for Garrett Crochet or Sandy Alcántara (hi, it me).

This is all in service of the mantra that "starting pitching wins championships," which was true for the Nationals in 2019 and is something that Mike Rizzo has always believed in. This is a franchise that drafted Stephen Strasburg, traded four of their better prospects for Gio Gonzalez and two others for Doug Fister, and signed Max Scherzer and Corbin to big free agent contracts. Despite summer swoons in each of the last three seasons, it still believes that MacKenzie Gore has the talent to become an ace and continue the tradition. But the sport has changed pretty drastically just in the five years since the Nats won that title with an older team that featured four starting pitchers - none of them younger than 29 - who made between 27 and 33 starts that season and pitched between 166 and 209 innings apiece. The 2019 Nats were something of a relic in that regard, or the last gasp of their era.

The increased emphasis on maximizing both velocity and spin has spread throughout baseball, permeating all levels down to Little League, and has fundamentally altered what teams expect from all of their pitchers (not just starters). It also may be contributing to a rise in the kind of major arm injuries (Tommy John, thoracic outlet syndrome, etc.) that put pitchers' careers on pause for a year or more. That, combined with a vastly increased understanding of the "times through the order" penalty (whereby starters get progressively easier to hit in any given game with each additional time a batter sees them), has led to a decrease in the supremacy of the starting pitcher, or at the very least in extended runs of dominance from any one pitcher.

In that vein, does it make sense for the Nats to push many of their chips in on Burnes? The Nats are responsible for three of the ten largest contracts ever handed out to starting pitchers, and while one of them worked out spectacularly (Scherzer), one has been a failure in years two through six and the other is unfortunately the worst contract in North American sports history. And make no mistake, Burnes will get paid this winter. He will be entering his age-30 season, with a 2021 Cy Young under his belt and likely a runner-up finish this year, and is likely to command as much or more than the $35 million annually that Strasburg got five years ago - and probably for as many years.

Starting pitchers, however, between increased injuries and more volatility in effectiveness, are no longer as dependable as they are in our imaginations. Over the past decade, for example, just seven pitchers had even two consecutive seasons on the top ten leaderboard in Baseball-Reference's version of pitcher WAR:

• Max Scherzer (2015-2018, 2021-2022)
• Clayton Kershaw (2015-2016)
• Corey Kluber (2016-2018)
• Justin Verlander (2016-2019)
• Jacob deGrom (2018-2020)
• Zac Gallen (2022-2023)
• Zack Wheeler (2023-2024)

What does that list tell us? First, that Mad Max is indeed a freak and that Nats fans were lucky to get him for most of that time (you will also find him on the leaderboard for 2013 and 2014, giving him a staggering six consecutive years in the top ten - and he helped the Nats win a World Series in the one full season across ten years that he did not finish so high). Second, that starting pitchers don't really perform at elite levels across multiple seasons anymore - Gallen is the only one of those names currently under the age of 34, and only he and Wheeler do not appear to be close to the ends of their careers. By way of contrast, seventeen different position players had consecutive appearances, four of them multiple times. What about by fWAR?

• Wheeler (2023-2024)
• Logan Webb (2023-2024)
• Kevin Gausman (2021-2023)
• Corbin Burnes (2021-2022)
• deGrom (2018-2020)
• Zack Greinke (2019-2020)
• Shane Bieber (2019-2020)
• Gerrit Cole (2018-2019)
• Scherzer (2015-2019)
• Aaron Nola (2017-2018)
• Carlos Carrasco (2017-2018)
• Kluber (2015-2018)
• Luis Severino (2017-2018)
• Chris Sale (2015-2017)

Here, the number of pitchers is doubled, and this list is younger than the previous one. The number of position players with consecutive top-ten finishes rises to nineteen. So what does THAT tell us? Perhaps that one version of pitcher WAR is more flawed than the other? Let's see if there is any change when it comes to the innings pitched leaderboard:

• Scherzer (2015-16)
• Kluber (2015-18)
• David Price (2015-16)
• Madison Bumgarner (2015-16)
• Verlander (2016-19)
• Rick Porcello (2016-17)
• Greinke (2017-19)
• deGrom (2017-19)
• Bieber (2019-20)
• Cole (2019-20, 2022-23)
• Trevor Bauer (2019-20)
• Sandy Alcántara (2021-22)
• Miles Mikolas (2022-23)
• Framber Valdez (2022-23)
• Nola (2022-24)
• Burnes (2022-24)
• Webb (2023-24)

Seventeen this time, with a clean break between guys who did it pre- and post-pandemic. Still, that is not a young list either, and only six of the men on it made three or more consecutive appearances. We can infer from it that getting four or more years in a row of strong performances from an ace pitcher is now more or less impossible, whether due to injury or simply increased fatigue thanks to how pitchers push themselves today to max everything out more than they did even a decade ago.

Even if a team does have an ace, that person can still pitch only every fifth day, typically every fourth game in the playoffs, and with fewer aces it is practically impossible to hoard multiple such pitchers the way the Nats did with Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg, and the 2019 version of Patrick Corbin. Rather than one hopefully dominant guy around whom hopes revolve, might it not be better to have four or more healthy starters at any given time whom, in the words of Yahoo! Sports baseball writer Jake Mintz, "are good enough to start a playoff game"?

It does feel like this might be the best path forward (and does not preclude signing a Burnes or trading for a Crochet - but does recognize that a team also needs depth). Playoff teams that plan for bullpen games in the playoffs, or roll the dice with a weak starter from whom they are hoping to get one trip through the order, two at most, can dig themselves tough holes to get out of - either they are all but planning "schedule losses" (a dangerous choice in a best-of-five or best-of-seven series) or are putting immense pressure on their offense to outperform their inadequate pitching.

Where does this leave the Nats for 2025? If the plan is "have a deep bench of guys who can start a playoff game," they have a lot of work to do. Right now I would say that there is one pitcher who a) will be on the Nats in 2025 and b) I would feel comfortable starting in a playoff game atmosphere; Jake Irvin. MacKenzie Gore and DJ Herz could get there but are not there yet, and I would probably put Mitchell Parker below that line until he shows he can miss a few more bats at this level. Can any of them get there next year? Hopefully, but that is to be determined.

Meanwhile, starting pitching depth throughout the organization is the best it has ever been. Irvin (27), Gore (25), Parker (24), and Herz (23) are all already on the major league roster. Thaddeus Ward (27) remains on the 40-man and has been solid since AAA ditched the automated balls and strikes system mid-season. Cade Cavalli (25) might actually pitch next season (but don't expect more than 80-100 innings from him after what will be two years off for Tommy John surgery). Andrew Alvarez (25) and Andry Lara (21) will definitely be added to the 40-man roster this winter (it's not inconceivable that Alvarez could debut for the Nats in September). Brad Lord (24) and Tyler Stuart (24) are at AAA and look like they are on track to be in the picture next year. That's ten internal options before the Nats add anyone via free agency or trade.

Looking beyond 2025, Jarlin Susana (20) and Travis Sykora (20) have made major strides this year that put them as viable candidates to be factors at the major league level as soon as 2026, when Josiah Gray (26) will return from his recent TJ surgery, and when Jake Bennett (23) could be on the precipice of the majors after getting the elbow zipper himself. José Atencio (22), Marc Davis (24), and Luke Young (22) are depth guys further down the ladder who could factor in two years down the road. Alex Clemmey (18), José Feliz (18), Jackson Kent (21), Merritt Beeker (22), and Yoel Tejeda (20) are unlikely to arrive any earlier than 2027.

Despite the recently floated proposal to require starting pitchers to work six innings (don't like it, also don't think it will happen, although I do think MLB will eventually restrict teams to twelve pitchers instead of the current thirteen in order to incentivize longer starts, and might also tie DH use to how long a starter goes in a game), it will be nigh impossible to put the twin genies of max velocity and max spin rate back into the bottles. That naturally makes rotation depth more important that tying a team's future to one or two or even three "aces" - witness the Texas Rangers, who have paid $96 million this year for thirty combined starts from Scherzer, deGrom, and Nathan Eovaldi.

None of this should preclude the Nats pursuing Burnes or [insert name of preferred SP here] in free agency this winter, or of exploring a trade, but we fans and followers should be careful not to put all of our eggs in that basket, whatever it turns out to be. After years of trying and mostly failing to develop even backend starting options, the Nats finally appear to be on the right track in that regard, and should continue to grow their own stockpile of pitchers so that they can both a) make it through each regular season without burning out a bunch of arms - their record of SP health even with two Tommy John surgeries at the major league level and the forearm flexor strain for Williams has been pretty exemplary the past two seasons - and b) have enough viable options to feel good about putting a playoff rotation together without feeling like they have to pull most of them after two trips through the order - even if that comes as early as the fourth inning - or committing to planned bullpen games with decidedly lesser pitchers.

The model is different than what we are used to, both in Washington and historically, but the Nats are on an exciting path with the immense growth that the system has experienced at every level, and they should use those newfound resources wisely.