The Morning Briefing: July 30

Good morning, Washington Nationals fans.

Here are the latest headlines and analyses around the Washington Nationals and Major League Baseball for today, July 30. There was a massive trade, a big recovery performance from a guy who needed it, and a meltdown by the biggest remaining trade candidate, a meltdown that was precipitated by managerial malpractice. Big night all around.

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Welcome to the Morning Briefing!

Leading this Morning's Briefing: Nats Trade Thomas to Cleveland

Since the Great Fire Sale of 2021, Lane Thomas - acquired for the last two months of Jon Lester's career (someone correct me if I'm wrong, but Lester's most notable contribution to the Nats might have been being the last pitcher to homer for the franchise) at that same deadline - had been one of the most familiar faces on the team. He had a career year last year, slashing .268/.315/.468 with 28 home runs and 20 stolen bases; in a slightly lesser year for outfielders he would have been the Nats' All-Star a year ago instead of Josiah Gray. This year was rougher, as he suffered a knee injury that cost him a few weeks and had recently been mired in a power outage (32 games without a home run), despite getting on base in each of his last 25 games.

But with Jacob Young playing a brilliant enough center field to be an everyday guy, James Wood now in the majors, and Dylan Crews' imminent arrival, Thomas didn't have any more future here. Too good to be a bench player but not good enough to hold down a regular spot beyond the end of this season, he was a more obvious trade candidate than a year ago, and getting him for three strong-to-quite-strong prospects in the always deep Cleveland system looks like another brilliant stroke by Mike Rizzo on the trade market.

The Lane Train will be missed - he is a class act and a professional, and apart from the knee injury posted darn near every day for the past three years. Go listen to some Jon Pardi if you're sad about his departure, for old times' sake.

Last Game Out

Mitchell Parker came into last night's start on the heels of consecutive brutal outings, and three tough starts in his last four. So it was ideal when the Nats staked him to a five-run lead before he even took the mound and he then retired the first nine Diamondbacks he faced. Ultimately Parker gave up two runs over five, a solid if unspectacular performance, but the Nats' offense did its job, leading 6-0 and 8-2 before Arizona clawed a run back in both the seventh and eighth innings to get the score to 8-4.

Perhaps if Arizona had not scored that final run we might have seen Eduardo Salazar or Tanner Rainey instead of Kyle Finnegan - that we will never know. But we do know that earlier the same day the Nats had scored an impressive haul for their second-most viable trade candidate (Thomas), and despite iffy peripherals - stick a pin in that - Finnegan remained one of the best trade pieces on the entire market with under twenty-four hours left before the deadline. So of course Davey Martinez inserted him into a non-save situation where there was only downside and no upside.

If Finnegan shuts the door with a four-run lead, whoop-de-freaking-do, it's not impressive to any of the pro scouts in the stands trying to determine if their organization should pony up for him. If he lets the game get away, then all those teams are going to have doubts in their minds. Finnegan's peripheral issue is that he gives up a lot of hard contact - without diving into the numbers I would be willing to bet that his strong surface numbers this year (well, before his ERA jumped a full run last night) are directly tied to the rise of Jacob Young as an elite center fielder who runs a lot of those balls down. To be fair to Finnegan, he got absolutely jobbed on what should have been strike three to Alek Thomas for the first out (the ball was easily in the zone), and naturally Thomas scorched the next pitch into the right-center gap for a triple. Five batters and five hard-hit balls later (starting with Thomas' triple: 106.8 triple, 100.3 single, 110.2 home run, 94.1 lineout, 95.8 single, 109.5 home run) the game was over. And now we wait to see what impact that performance has on the trade market with a 6 PM EDT deadline.

Nationals Headline of the Day

Over at MLB.com, Jessica Camerato has a good breakdown of the Lane Thomas trade with some good thoughts from the man himself.

Down on the Farm

The three acquisitions from the Guardians are the following: José Tena, the 23-year-old shortstop of the AAA Columbus Clippers, who has played 21 games in the majors over the past two seasons but was blocked in Cleveland; left-handed pitcher Alex Clemmey, drafted last year out of the same Rhode Island high school that produced Rocco Baldelli and currently in the Carolina League with the Lynchburg Hillcats; and Rafael Ramírez Jr., also with Lynchburg, a teenaged shortstop and son of a former big leaguer (his dad played from 1980-1992 with Atlanta and Houston, principally as a shortstop, but waited a while to have kids).

Tena has hit .298/.353/.493 with 17 bombs in AAA this year and is MLB-ready now - it will be interesting to see if he maybe bumps CJ Abrams to second base and/or sets up a move for Luis García Jr. this winter. Clemmey can best be thought of as a left-handed version of top-five Nats prospect Travis Sykora (and now they will be in the same rotation); he's huge (6'6") and throws hard (99 mph) and largely overpowers A-ball hitters (97 K in 69.1 IP). However, He has command issues (47 walks), so it will be interesting to see if the new development team can iron those out. And Ramírez Jr. will push Armando Cruz and others at Fredericksburg; he may only be hitting .187/.301/.319 this season but has displayed some power potential and on-base skills.

Featured Baseball Story of the Day

Half of this (or more!) might be out of date by the time you read it, but Mark Feinsand has a good column on interesting storylines to follow as the deadline approaches this afternoon.

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