Wire Taps: Bryce Harper teaching Juan Soto + Victor Robles; Advanced stats and the Cy Young; Adam Eaton’s knee flare-up

With the AL playoff field set, the readers of Wire Taps should consider what our preferred October team will be. The strongest case appears to reside with the Oakland Athletics: they’re the home of many former Nats (Blake Treinen) and the origin of a plethora of current or past Nats (Sean Doolittle and Gio Gonzalez). Plus, Oakland’s cooler than San Francisco. (If you have another suggestion, let me know.)

Here’s the scoop from South Capitol:

2019 Draft Race to the Bottom; we have a winner! (Nationals Arm Race)
The Nationals will most likely get the 15th overall pick, and nothing better than the 14th — picks that have produced the likes of Giolito and Fedde for the team in years past.

Strasburg not too upset with four-inning no-decision in 7-3 Nats win (MASN)
“It wasn’t ideal,” Strasburg said of the weather. “I think you can tell from the stands. Everybody had to deal with it. I did my best to do that. I just really (wasn’t) efficient tonight. There was a couple long at-bats that kind of killed my pitch count.”

Harper's knowledge is beneficial to Soto and Robles (MASN)
Juan Soto has settled into a routine, but Victor Robles is still new to the show — and he's getting similar advice that Soto got from Bryce Harper when he came up in his extremely young career.

Harper reaches elusive 100-RBI mark in Nats win (MASN)
In what could be his third-to-last game with a curly W in Nationals Park, Harper reached the one statistical mark that had eluded him over his tenure with the Nats: 100 RBI.

Adam Eaton is back in Nationals' lineup despite recent knee soreness (WaPo)
Adam Eaton's knee hurts, but it's fine, we swear, nothing to see here, only five games left, please stop looking.

Breaking down the NL Cy Young battle— Mets’ Jacob deGrom vs. Nationals’ Max Scherzer (BtBS)
Scherzer leads in wins, strikeouts, WHIP, amount of contact allowed, and all of the other stats are just numbers someone in some front office made up to make us all feel bad and make Jacob deGrom look good.

Tanner Roark expected to start home finale (MLB.com)
Roark welcomed the third Roark baby to the family on Sunday, but will return to work on Wednesday for his final start of 2018.

Each MLB team's all-time ace pitcher (MLB.com)
But which Max Scherzer season did they pick?

Bryce Harper finally reaches 100-RBI season for first time in career (ESPN)
It was a meaningless sac-fly in a meaningless game, but Bryce Harper finally cracked triple digits after seven seasons in the show.