The fight in the Washington Nationals dugout on Sunday had nothing to do with the best player in the National League not properly running out a fly ball or the frustration of being eliminated from the playoffs or any of the other reasons given for Jonathan Papelbon’s chokehold of Bryce Harper (Papelbon has since been suspended for four games over the incident).
This was about a bad trade. A stupid trade. A trade that never should have happened. A trade that tore apart the Nationals the moment it was made on 29 August. The very act of adding Papelbon to their clubhouse ruined any hope Washington had this season and might well have destroyed next year as well.
He has been that divisive. A self-proclaimed sheriff who hadn’t been given a badge.
Looking purely at numbers the trade made sense. In fact it appeared to be a steal. The Nationals were trapped in second place in a season that was supposed to end in the World Series. There were many reasons for this but an obvious one was the bullpen where the team lacked ideal seventh and eight inning pitchers to get to closer Drew Storen.
Papelbon, who has been one of baseball’s best closers the last several years, was available. The Philadelphia Phillies were dumping their expensive players in the middle of a rebuilding. Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo could get Papelbon for this year and all of next for the price of a solid minor league pitcher, Nick Pivetta. It seemed too good a deal for Rizzo to pass up. He would get a season-and-half of Papelbon, Storen would move from being closer to the eighth inning and the Nats would have one of the best backs of a bullpen in baseball.
But here is the problem with making trades by looking at numbers. The game is played by people. Too often this is forgotten in today’s obsession with statistics. Metrics can say a lot but they don’t always tell us about the man. This is why Dodgers general manager Farhan Zaidi, a brilliant MIT and University of California educated master of sabermetrics, reportedly blows an airhorn in scouting meetings when players are assessed only on statistics. Tell us about the person, he says.
There was a reason Papelbon was available so cheaply at trade deadline and it had little to do with the 2016 option on his contract the Nationals would eventually guarantee for $11m as part of the deal. Several teams needed a reliable closer. Few wanted Papelbon despite the fact he had converted all 17 of his save chances with the Phillies. He might be a great closer but he agitated team-mates in Boston and Philadelphia. He often yelled at opponents. And after a particularly bad outing in 2014 he grabbed his crotch in a particularly-profane salute of booing fans at home.
Before coming to the Nationals he extracted a promise that he would be made the closer, pushing Storen to the eighth inning. While many relievers could have handled this change in roles, Storen had previously been demoted in 2013 when Rizzo signed Rafael Soriano to be the closer. Storen is more sensitive to these things. He felt his performance to that point (29 saves in 31 chances) had earned him the right to remain the closer.
Storen was well-liked in the Nationals clubhouse. Humiliating him for the sake of adding a player who is not liked at all did not inspire enthusiasm on a team that already did not accept the rigid, authoritative style of manager Matt Williams. Storen struggled as an eighth-inning pitcher, eventually injuring himself after punching his locker in frustration. And Papelbon apparently anointed himself as team leader even if no one else wanted this.
Last week he fired two fastballs at the chest of Baltimore star Manny Machado, presumably as retaliation for a home run Machado had hit off another Nationals pitcher earlier in the game. The thing is no one wanted Papelbon to hit Machado. Nor did the Nationals did not seem to appreciate his hitting Machado. Harper later grumbled that he worried the Orioles would retaliate the next day by hitting him as part of baseball’s unspoken code headhunting balance: a star for a star.
On Sunday, Papelbon chose to lecture the 22-year-old Harper about running out a fly ball. Harper has 41 home runs and leads all of baseball with 10.2 Wins Above Replacement. Papelbon is a relief pitcher. Harper does not need lectures about running out fly balls from relief pitchers. Words were said and suddenly Papelbon was grabbing Harper by the throat and shoving him into the dugout wall for fans and television cameras to see.
Later, Papelbon apologized. But the damage had been done. The Nationals are stuck with him for next year. It seems unlikely anyone will trade for him and Washington’s ownership is not the kind to throw away $11m to rid itself of a clubhouse problem. They will have to probably trade Storen as well, leaving the team with a closer nobody wants in Papelbon and the same eighth-inning hole they had on 29 August.
The trade that looked to be a steal has been a disaster. But that should have been obvious at the time.
Who knows if the Nationals could have won the National League East had Rizzo not chased Papelbon? Washington appears to have fundamental flaws despite the talent Rizzo has collected. But knowing Storen’s sensitivity, knowing Papelbon’s past and knowing the fragility of his team’s clubhouse, Rizzo plunged ahead and made the trade. Then on Sunday Rizzo’s greatest mistake grabbed his best player by the throat in the dumbest of fights in a season gone bad.
