ESPN Chalk's Joe Peta is sharing his season win total projections for every MLB team, including a reason for optimism and pessimism. Plus, he recommends an over/under play, or a pass. This is the entry for the Washington Nationals.
Washington Nationals
Reason for optimism: The stingiest team in the majors last year added the game's best free-agent pitcher.
Reason for pessimism: Despite 93 wins a year for three seasons, October success has been elusive.
The Nationals and the Atlanta Braves have alternated National League East titles the past three years, but the Nationals are a prohibitive favorite to break that pattern this year. They have the lowest futures odds to win the NL pennant (5-2) and World Series (5-1), and the list of reasons is lengthy and persuasive:
• Washington has won more regular-season games in the past three years (280) than any team in the majors.
• The Nationals were the second-highest scoring team in the NL in 2014 and gave up the fewest runs, resulting the largest run differential in the league.
• Age does not appear to inhibit repeatability. Based on Baseball-Reference's weighted average age calculations for batters and pitchers, of the 10 playoff teams only Baltimore, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis had younger rosters.
• The contributions are balanced. Per Baseball Prospectus, second base represented the Nationals' position of weakest performance in 2014. At 1.2 WAR, it was barely below the average NL second baseman. When the worst performer on your team is essentially league average, you've got a potential juggernaut.
• During the offseason, the Nationals got better. A lot better. The signing of Max Scherzer attracted all the attention but the Nationals have improved their lineup as well. Danny Espinosa, the "weak spot" at second base, has lost his starting job to Yunel Escobar, which projects to be a marginal upgrade. Additionally, Ryan Zimmerman will move over to first now that dark horse MVP candidate Anthony Rendon (he finished fifth last year) has established himself as the third baseman of the future. The loss of Adam LaRoche's team-leading 26 home runs will hurt. Still, even though Zimmerman probably doesn't have that many dingers left in him, he's a doubles machine with a lifetime .476 slugging percentage. First basemen slugged .426 across the majors last year, and LaRoche .455. The Nationals shouldn't lose any overall production of note.
In a division where the rest of the teams might not average 600 runs scored, the Nationals are an even bet to score 700.
Adding Scherzer to a rotation that had, by far, the lowest ERA in the majors last year, seems like a great move. But will they have better results than last year's staff? That's not as clear. Scherzer's performance in 2015 will apparently come at the expense of Tanner Roark, who made 31 starts last season and had a 2.85 ERA. Roark, who has low-strikeout, high fly ball tendencies, has high-3.00 ERA stuff even if he got high-2.00 results in 2014. He wasn't going to repeat his performance in 2015, and although there is a much higher chance Scherzer could equal that output, you'd have to put the over/under on his midpoint ERA projection higher.
That's how marginal changes must be looked at when handicapping. Scherzer makes the Nationals a much stronger team than they would have been without him, but it doesn't mean they're necessarily going to get better results than last year.
The rest of the stellar rotation is intact and while it's more likely Stephen Strasburg posts a repeat of Jordan Zimmermann's 2.66 ERA in 2014 than Zimmermann himself, on a net basis, it's really only Doug Fister's 2014 ERA of 2.41 that screams significant regression. Overall bullpen ERAs of 3.00 don't tend to repeat from year to year either, and this is the one area of instability for the Nationals. They have to replace 132 innings thrown by Tyler Clippard and Rafael Soriano. It's not the 32 saves that will be difficult to replace, as the closer's role is in good hands with Drew Storen, it's the combined 2.65 ERA from Clippard and Soriano that will almost certainly result in a marginal increase in runs allowed this year. That may come as a surprise to fans -- and manager Matt Williams, who had soured on Soriano by the time the playoffs began.
The NL East is so weak that the Nationals probably will end up playing a slate of teams that averages 78 wins over 2015 as opposed to the league average of 81, and thus there is no team that is a more solid bet to win at least 90 games. The Nationals market opened at 93 in Vegas and has been bid up to 94. They're a lock to make the playoffs but there is no value in an over bet at that price.
2015 projection: 94-68 (first, NL East)
Bet recommendation: Pass