He should remain a starter. He has not reached his peak production years yet. not for 3-4 years actually. We should sign him for 3 more in my opinion.

DC however is not that great. I asked Manny in his blog about CDC (closer DC). But Manny said no way. Not anywhere near enough control. its starter or nothing for DC in DC.

The Orioles coaches have really messed around with Cabrera’s confidence and his mental approach to pitching. You can tell that he has so much going through his head when he’s on the mound. It’s almost impossible for him to just rear back and throw. When he was younger, he was supposedly throwing in the high 90s. Nowadays, he’s tossing 85 mph 55-foot sliders that bounce all over the place. It’s not a pretty sight.

I really don’t know if anyone will be able to sort out all of his pitching issues. He needs a sports psychologist or something. He has the raw talent but he doesn’t seem to have any idea about how to harness that natural strength and ability. The intangibles are all wrong too. It’s no coincidence that the defense makes a lot more mistakes when he’s on the mound. He wastes so much time, walks so many people, throws so many wild pitches and gets into too many full counts that the defenders lose their focus. Yes, you can say that they are all professionals and that they should be ready at all times, but if Cabrera is consistently throwing balls, and walking people, what can those guys do? Not much. There’s no way they can defend against a walk. Thus, they lose their focus every time and the errors start piling up.

This is probably his last shot in the big leagues. I can’t see any other teams taking a chance on him as a starter or as a closer. Who is he getting out? How could he actually come into a high-pressure save situation? He doesn’t even have enough confidence for the early innings as it is. His fragile psyche would crumble under the pressure of a save situation. I hope I’m wrong but nothing I’ve seen, heard or read has made me think otherwise.

Everyone says that Cabrera is a good person. That counts for a lot, but if he wants to be a starter or a closer or just a major leaguer, he needs to get his confidence back and start throwing quality strikes more consistently. If he doesn’t start to turn it around, I don’t see him staying in the starting rotation through the end of this season.

I’m not that excited about having Olsen as a setup man or closer either. His ERA was pretty high last year and he has been very inconsistent this year. He really looks like a no. 5 starter or a middle reliever. Definitely not a closer.

The Nats probably won’t be in the playoff hunt at that time so there’s no urgent need to rush Strasburg along. I guess it would be good for attendance to bring him to the major league team this year. A lot of fans might go to the late-season games just to see him. But I hope the team doesn’t give him a start. Maybe they can put him into a lopsided game where he can pitch in a no-pressure situation, preferably when the Nats are losing. If it’s a 12-2 game in the 7th inning, put Strasburg in there to get his feet wet, and no more.

Then bring him into spring training and see how fast he adjusts to the big-league game. Hopefully he can make the jump relatively quickly but I think it would be a mistake to name him the opening day starter. There have been too many big prospects in baseball and other sports that had their confidence crushed permanently by coming up too soon.