VIERA, Fla. — Matt den Dekker’s blue New York Mets duffel bag sat in the middle of the Washington Nationals’ clubhouse Tuesday morning, one last holdover from a recently-departed home. At one end of the clubhouse, the bag’s owner chatted with old friend Michael Taylor, two former high-school teammates freshly reunited in the major leagues. At the other, Reed Johnson pulled a stool up alongside Ian Desmond and Bryce Harper.
Den Dekker and Johnson were acquired by the Nationals in different ways Monday afternoon, but they were brought in for the same primary reason. With Denard Span and Jayson Werth likely to miss Opening Day, and Nate McLouth possibly out much longer, the Nationals needed reinforcements in the outfield.
For starters, they traded left-handed reliever Jerry Blevins, who was one year from free agency, to the Mets for den Dekker, a 27-year-old with two minor-league options remaining. Then, when Johnson opted out of his contract with the Miami Marlins, the Nationals scooped up the 12-year major-league veteran merely hours after he’d become available.
The moves strengthened, yet also muddled, an outfield that could include as many as 11 players in various combinations over the first month of the season.
“There’s an opportunity here,” den Dekker said. “I’m not entirely sure to what extent there is. But there’s some opportunity.”
Four months ago, the Nationals entered 2015 with a projected Opening Day outfield of Span, Werth and 22-year-old phenom Bryce Harper. Then Werth had surgery on the acromioclavicular joint in his right shoulder. Span had his second surgery of the winter, this time to repair an abdominal muscle. And McLouth, who had surgery to fix a torn labrum in August, suffered an apparent setback in his recovery process.
The Nationals had plenty of possibilities to replace those injured pieces, and on Sunday, general manager Mike Rizzo said he was satisfied with their depth. One day later, manager Matt Williams said acquiring two outfielders was not an indictment of the other outfielders already in camp.
“Not at all,” he said. “The trade is the trade — need from the other team, and need from us with Denard out. … Reed, we know him really well. I’ve seen him play a long time. He knows how to come off the bench and get a hit. He handles righties just as well as he handles lefties. It just gives us more options. It’s not a sense of being disappointed with anything available. Good players. We’re glad to have them on our club.”
As recently as this weekend, it seemed that Harper, Taylor and Tyler Moore would share Washington’s outfield at Nationals Park on Monday. Now, den Dekker and Johnson are thrown into the fray, and it’s unclear how either fit in.
Den Dekker is versatile, both in his on-field ability and contract status. With two options and several years of team control, den Dekker could begin the season in Washington and shuttle back to Triple-A Syracuse when needed. He is one of only a handful of players who is comfortable and adept in center field, and he would add another left-handed swing to Washington’s predominantly right-handed lineup.
“His skill set is important to us,” Rizzo said Monday. “He runs really well, he can play plus defense at all three spots, he gives us another defender that can play above-average center field, and we like his left-handed bat. We’ve seen him play a lot in the last couple of seasons, and think he’s a guy whose skill set fits for us, for this year and for beyond.”
Johnson’s role is more interesting. At 38, he can’t cover ground like he once could. He also struck out 37 times and walked once in 187 at-bats last season. He signed a minor-league contract with an invitation to the very end of spring training, so he is not even a certainty to make the team.
The Nationals, however, like his ability to hit off the bench, a tough role in which few players have sustained success. He is a career .276 pinch hitter in 279 at-bats, and knows that would likely be his role.
“I think we all know that the most important part of this game is having your big boys healthy when it’s time to go in late September [and] October, when you’re in a race, when you’re kind of rolling into the playoffs,” Johnson said. “So I think that’s really what my job has been over the last couple of years: Making sure those guys get their rest, making sure I can kind of hold the fort down until those big boys get back.”
When den Dekker and Johnson arrived Tuesday, the Nationals had six days remaining until Opening Day and a list of 36 players that must be whittled down to 25. Both den Dekker and Johnson could be among them. Or they could be out of Washington’s big-league picture as quickly as they entered it.
“I have opportunity to play baseball, which is what I’ve done my whole life,” Johnson said. “I’m going to take that opportunity and wherever it goes four to five days from now, we’ll see.”
• Tom Schad can be reached at tschad@washingtontimes.com.
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