In 1986, there was a major change to the United States Tax Code (In fact, there were many changes, but I am just referring here to one of them). Before this change, if you purchased a property on December 31 of a given year, you could depreciate it as if you had owned it the entire year. After the change, depreciation would not start until December 31.

I remember a quote from a real estate investor right after the law was changed. It was reported in the Wall Street Journal as something like: “We have all been riding our bicycles very fast downhill, thinking we were great athletes.”

I know it’s far from a perfect analogy, and I know that I have no idea if what I am saying bears any relationship to reality, but when I think of that quote today, I think of Blake Butera, the manager of the Washington Nationals. Blake Butera is only 33 (almost 34) years old, and obviously has never managed a major league team before. He is the youngest manager in major league baseball today, and the youngest manager in the league in over 50 years.

Going into mid-season, Butera’s Nationals were outperforming everyone’s expectations, playing 50-50 ball, and having an offense that basically topped the league. It’s win-loss record was affected by a sub-par pitching and particularly by very sub-par relief pitching.

This past Monday, August 3, was the MLB trade deadline. If you wanted to trade any players, it was then or never (this year). What were the Nationals going to do? Traditionally, teams that think they have a chance to make the playoffs will hold on to what they have. Those that don’t will often trade good players for others they feel can fill some longer term need, or trade those whom they think may opt to go elsewhere when their contracts run out (if they only have this year or maybe one more on their present contract).

As it turned out, the Nationals offloaded three quality players. For a week or so before the trade deadline, it was unclear what the Nats were going to do. There was rumor after rumor.

Let me back up a minute. A couple of points. For the past few years, the Nats have been comfortably in last place. Towards the end of the last season, virtually the entire top tier management of the Nats was fired and replaced. A few deals were made over the summer and some of the younger minor league players who had been in the Nats system had matured to the point where they were ready for the big league.

Not only were the 2026 Nats more ready than assumed, but – as you can guess – they were a very young team. Hardly anyone was even 30. And when you added them to their 33 year old manager, they were ready to show the baseball world what they could do, and they did.

But I believe, in part because they are so young and relatively inexperienced, and because they had formed such a successful and cohesive group, they were scared to death as the trade deadline loomed. And it showed in their performance, a four game series against league leading Atlanta. The Nats lost all four games. And they lost three players.

One of these players is Luis Garcia, Jr, who had become the regular first baseman and had been in the Nationals pipeline for ten years, who is now a Yankee. A second was Curtis Mead, an infielder from Australia, who happened to have been brought to the Nats primarily, as I understand it, by Blake Butera with whom he had worked in Tampa Bay. A third, pitcher Foster Griffin, was the team’s steadiest pitcher, his first year with the team coming after three years pitching in Japan, but who only had a one year contract with the Nationals.

All three were fan favorites. Big fan favorites.

In return for them, the Nats picked up one outfielder and nine or ten pitchers, only a few of whom are ready for the major leagues today, although none of them are beginners and all of them are good prospects. One one level (or two levels) this all makes sense. The Nats actually had more good hitting fielders than they need, perhaps, and not enough pitching strength. They figured they were going to lose Griffin anyway (someone would outbid them when he became a free agent), that the Mead trade for a well thought of young pitcher Connelly Early was worth it, and that the four pitchers they received in return for Garcia were also going to pay off.

But, as one reporter put it (don’t remember who or where), Paul Toboni (the Nats’ general manager) traded this summer’s fun for potential longer term stability.

I assume the Nats’ brass decided that the Nats were not going to make the playoffs (they certainly were not supposed to), and that they should think about 2027 or 2028. This was the original plan anyway.

Now, I have no idea how these decisions were made. I don’t know how closely Toboni listened to Butera in deciding what to do. But I do know that the two brief post-trade deadline interviews with Butera that I have watched show a much less perky, confident guy than the one who managed the team the first part of the year. And I can only imagine what the effect of losing three teammates and friends, so rapidly and unexpectedly, is on the overall morale of the team.

Of course, everyone has resilience, but it takes a while for the resilience to show itself. It hasn’t shown itself yet, as the Nats are (as I write this) losing their second game to the Phillies, 5-0, and their seventh in a row (unheard of for this year before now).

But I can tell you one thing. It is up to Blake Butera to bring his team together. He is no longer a great athlete pumping downhill. The terrain has changed.