The Morning Briefing: August 16

Good morning, Washington Nationals fans.

Here are the latest headlines and analyses around the Washington Nationals and Major League Baseball for today, August 16.

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Welcome to the Morning Briefing!

Leading this Morning's Briefing: Nats Retain Entire Coaching Staff

In a move that came as a surprise to Nationals beat writers, fans, and Nats coaches themselves, the entire major league coaching staff is being brought back next year, despite it being unclear with a quarter of the season remaining that there has been enough progress to warrant such a move. This is a team that has played a lot of sloppy baseball this year. The lineup has been shut out thirteen times, tied with the Chicago White Sox - who might yet wind up as the worst team in MLB history - for most in the majors, and at least once a week gets held to a couple of scattered singles for seven innings on 80 pitches or less courtesy of some JAG starter with an ERA north of 5.00 (106.7's Danny Rouhier calls this the "Dillon Gee Special"). The fielders outside of Jacob Young - although he dropped a line drive that was practically right at him last night - give away extra outs on a nightly basis, with their 79 errors ranking third-worst in the majors ahead of only the Red Sox and Marlins. And after a hot first month they have run into a a ton of outs on the bases, boasting an insurmountable lead in caught stealing (56, 2nd place has 43) and unofficially leading the majors in TOOTBLANs (thrown out on the bases like a nincompoop). Oh, and their catching tandem has been one of the worst in the league at both framing and preventing other teams from running. The pitching has made real progress, but I do not see a ton of evidence that making the decision (at least two months before they had to do so) to run it back with the same crew in 2025 is going to lead to improvement from the players.

Last Game Out

Last night was a rough one in Philadelphia, as the NL East-leading Phillies poured it on to the tune of 13-3. Bad defense by José Tena in the first and by Tena, Andrés Chaparro, CJ Abrams, and Alex Call in the fourth allowed those innings to get away from Mitchell Parker, and it was 9-0 before the game was half over. That fourth inning was hideous, and it could not have been more apparent that these guys don't know each other well (apart from Abrams and Luis García Jr.), because there were errors in communication and in playing the ball. Perhaps both Tena and Chaparro shouldn't start in the field together just yet - have Juan Yepez play first base when Tena is at third, and have Ildemaro Vargas play third when Chaparro is at first. Keibert Ruiz homered twice to salvage a teensy bit of pride for the Nationals.

Nationals Headline of the Day: LG a star in the making?

Jessica Camerato of MLB.com wrote a column about Luis García Jr.'s star turn this season, something that has been a very welcome development for the Nationals.

Down on the Farm

Brady House homered twice last night for Rochester, and Yohandy Morales hit an opposite field home run that left Harrisburg's FNB Field entirely.

Featured Baseball Story of the Day

Also at MLB.com, Anthony Castrovince wrote about the twelve biggest surprises of the season. Nothing Nationals-related made the cut.

Former National of the Day

Ian Desmond spent some time in the television booth over the past weekend, and although he was clearly inexperienced he also clearly has potential there. Desmond was a third-round draft pick by Les Expos in 2004 out of Sarasota HS in Florida, and first cracked the bigs in 2009. He became the starting shortstop the following year and spent six full seasons there for the Nats from 2010-2015, making the NL All-Star team in 2012. Over his Nats tenure he was almost exactly a league-average hitter (.264/.312/.424) while hitting 110 home runs and stealing 122 bases.

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