Get Rid Of Austin Kearns

by Beltwayboy on Jun 23, 2009 12:05 AM EDT Comment 25 comments

The team needs to get rid of Austin Kearns. Trade him or demote him, anything other than playing him. I don't care if we have to bring up a kid from the minors. He is a nice guy, but has no bat whatsoever. The team is going nowhere so why keep playing him when you can play Willingham full time when he comes back. Getting rid of him will open up a roster spot to bring up a kid who you think has a future with the team and get him some seasoning. I don't agree that Manny Acta deserves to be fired. Maybe one day the front office will start acting like one!! All we can do is hope.

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nobody wants him and you cant demote him

From Richmond to the District

by pas493 on Jun 15, 2009 3:38 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Right on the first part, half right on the second

He has no minor league options, but the Nats would be well within their rights to designate Kearns for assignment. I’m sure they’d welcome a waiver claim, but none would come. At that point, Kearns could choose to accept the assignment to Syracuse or become a free agent…. he’d still be owed the remainder of his contract, but at least he wouldn’t be blocking the likes of Maxwell/Milledge/Bernie/etc. anymore at the big league level.

by bluelineswinger on Jun 15, 2009 8:49 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Bring it on

Sounds ideal to me. Time to get J-Max some more ABs. Now should be the time we test guys at this level and start making decisions whether they are long term prospects or space fillers. We should be going into 2010 with most of the decisions made.

"Baseball is like church. Many attend; few understand."

by Mezza on Jun 15, 2009 8:57 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Maxwell has done nothing at AAA (or in the Majors for that matter) to deserve a call-up and Bernadina/Milledge are hurt…

by thehoagster07 on Jun 15, 2009 10:24 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

That doesnt mean you dont kep giving the kid a shot if you think he has potential. Im under no illusion that JMax could play everyday but some of these guys need some assessment as to where they stand in the organisation and the future. I have no doubt that they havent performed at AAA, my point is youve got a guy hitting a woeful amount who is holding up a chance for one of the other young guys to develop. Id rather have JMax hit 200 and learn from it and get better for the future rather than Kearns hit 200.

"Baseball is like church. Many attend; few understand."

by Mezza on Jun 16, 2009 12:32 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

The point is he’s not holding anyone back. Maxwell clearly is not ready for the majors and sending him there will stunt his growth. He’s struck out in more than 40% of his AB’s this year (42% in AAA and 45% in ML). That’s 10% more than even Adam Dunn.

If there was a clear choice to come up, I’d be all for sending Kearns down…but as I said, Maxwell is absolutely positively not ready to play every day in the majors, at least not with the bat. Let him gain some confidence in AAA and be up with the big club next year if he’s ready then.

by thehoagster07 on Jun 16, 2009 2:04 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Need speed

When we release Kearns and eat his salary (going to happen) the replacement outfield need not be every day. With Willingham back tomorrow, we have him, Dunn, Harris, and Dukes to play outfield. What we’ll still need is speed on the basepaths. Maxwell might not be hitting, but he can pitch run/get in scoring position and can stay in as a late inning fielding upgrade. BTW: can’t believe we brought Kearns in as a pinch hitter the other day!

by The District on Jun 16, 2009 4:27 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Keeping Maxwell on the bench for defense/speed will stunt his development. Even though I don’t support calling Maxwell up, he needs to play every day no matter what level he’s at.

by thehoagster07 on Jun 16, 2009 6:13 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Jorge Padilla looks ok to me to give it a shot (AVG 347 OBP .411 SLG .422 OPS .833)

And J-Max hit 2 homers in the last week. I’d even take his 211 Avg over Mr no-RBI-for-May Kearns any day.

"Baseball is like church. Many attend; few understand."

by Mezza on Jun 16, 2009 8:30 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Austin Mendozza

Know that these is days late on this post but now that Kearns has fallen below the Mendoza Line, question now becomes who will replace him on the roster when the eventuality occurs. I still say Maxwell. The Yankees are using Brett Gardner for speed and defense for and he seems to be progressing fine.

by The District on Jun 19, 2009 1:14 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Dunn-Harris-Dukes is the way to go

as I noted below, the Nats’ winning pct with this alignment is twice as good as any other Nats starting outfiled

by shaw on Jun 22, 2009 1:22 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Who are you going to replace him with? None of our good OF prospects are ML ready and the guys in AAA (sans Langerhans) are all playing poorly. Patterson is awful, Maxwell has bombed in the majors so far, Bernadina and Milledge are hurt, etc. Even if you look in Harrisburg, the Lowrance/Baez/Davis combination that are all hitting fairly well are doing so with horrible BB/K ratios, where they will be eaten alive (like Maxwell) in the majors. There simply is nothing there to put in Kearns’ place, so why bother discussing it? Unless somebody wants to trade for him (and nobody does), Kearns stays in the ML for no other reason than no other viable alternative for the time being.

by thehoagster07 on Jun 15, 2009 5:51 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I thought the team already said Willingham was going to play more

Didn’t Manny say that Willingham would get most of the starts in RF after he returns from bereavement leave? He was already playing more and more in recent weeks. I think it’ll be Dunn, Dukes and Willingham in the OF most of the time, with Kearns becoming a pinch-hitter and occasional starter (once or twice a week, if that).

That contract of his is a big albatross for this team. Think of who the Nats could have picked up over the winter for that money. Maybe not a Mark Teixeira but maybe a quality veteran reliever. Or two. Manny is a big supporter of Kearns for some reason, maybe because he does have a good work ethic. His problems lie with his impatience at the plate, or maybe some undiagnosed physical problem. Whatever it is, he’ll probably stay on the bench for the rest of the season, and then he’ll be gone in the winter. I guess it would make sense to try out some of the young guys instead of keeping Kearns on but they’ll get their shot toward the end of the year when the rosters are expanded.

You can’t trade him either because no one in their right mind would take on his contract to get a sub .220 hitter with no power. Looks like that “big” Nats-Reds trade a few years ago didn’t work out so well, for either team. But if we had kept those other players, we wouldn’t have been stuck with the big Kearns contract, so that deal has to be considered a negative for the franchise.

-------------------------------------------------
Washington, first in war, first in peace, last in the NL East :(

by Potomac Fan on Jun 16, 2009 12:40 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Yeah. If I remember, Manny said Dunn will be in LF when in the OF. Hammer and Kearns duke it out for RF.

by ROSCOEtheNATSfan on Jun 16, 2009 10:25 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

At least we can DH Dunn again in NY.

by ROSCOEtheNATSfan on Jun 16, 2009 10:26 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Kearns starts, streak ends; as statistics would have predicted

Going back to May 1 (which is all I had time for during lunch), the Nats’ winning percentage with a starting out field of Dunn-Harris-Dukes is .571 (5-2), while all other Nats starting outfield combinations have a winning percentage of .282 (11-28). In other words, the Nats are TWICE AS GOOD with the Dunn-Harris-Dukes alignment. So yesterday, Kearns starts and the streak ends. No surprise.

by shaw on Jun 22, 2009 1:18 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Lerner should just write the check and say goodbye to Kearns. The small sample size of the lineup trumps the large sample size of Kearns hurting the team and the fanbase.

"It's just too bad, because it reflects on us, the coaching staff." -Manny Acta
"So it's clowns for the next two months, then?" by Graysnail on Jun 7, 2009

by cat daddy3000 on Jun 22, 2009 3:04 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Good post. I bet nobody in the front office is aware of that stat!

by Beltwayboy on Jun 22, 2009 3:06 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

oops, that's 4-3 for a .571 pct, not 5-2

by shaw on Jun 22, 2009 4:29 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

The nats were briefly above .300 after Saturday's game. I think winning 4 out of 7 games is worth a shot. Somebody tell Manny.

Though, Manny could be under orders from the FO to showcase “Kearns” even though it will hurt the team.

The Long Nationals Nightmare with AK should end like LoDuca’s. Then AK can be a defensive replacement for a playoff team who has a good hitting right fielder who doesn’t play the field so well.

by ROSCOEtheNATSfan on Jun 22, 2009 7:00 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Boosted to the top of the fanposts...... (ed, you hear something else this past weekend?)

I started going through the W-L record when Kearns started, but realized it was hard to blame Kearns for Cabrera starts, for instance.
Subjectively, we all know how much he’s choked and further stats to back it up are really un-needed. Almost every other starter has had some games where they made a major positive impact, and I can’t remember one where AK did anything, given his opportunities.

His only value is helping guarantee drafting that catcher kid next year.

"It's just too bad, because it reflects on us, the coaching staff." -Manny Acta
"So it's clowns for the next two months, then?" by Graysnail on Jun 7, 2009

by cat daddy3000 on Jun 23, 2009 1:23 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Looks like there is starting to be consensus for Harris in CF

Which I am happy with. TAWH has been great of late and it now looks like the outfield might be Dunn, TAWH and Dukes / Hammer. That combination seems to probably the way to go unless they want to give J-Max the shot but I doubt it when Harris is playing so well.

I noticed that Chico described Zimmerman’s latest performance as a ‘Kearnsian’ effort. I think when you become an adjective for crap… its time to cut your losses.

"Baseball is like church. Many attend; few understand."

by Mezza on Jun 23, 2009 3:50 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

we gotta have harris in center!

dukes in right, I guess platoon him with willingham until one catches fire

but dunn in left exacerbates the problem of weak fielding center fielder, and we’ve proved all year that we can’t cut corners on defense and expect to win, even moreso now with a struggling offense.

by VA SLIM on Jun 23, 2009 5:30 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Kearns is the best defensive RF we have and he on bases .343%

which is the best of our RFs and above the major league average. So I think he should play as the #4 OF. He should pinch hit and enter games as soon as we get a lead.

"What you know is often the enemy of what you can learn" Bill James

by PhDBrian on Jun 24, 2009 7:35 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Actually, Dukes is +14 UZR/150 over Kearns so far this season...

…although AK is finally ahead of Dunn in RF, defensively. His OBP is down to 331 right now (656 OPS), ZiPS is projecting a 729 OPS on the rest on the season—no great shakes. Hammer and Dunn both have higher OBPs if you want to count them as ‘RFs.’

"NatsTown™, Village of the Damned" --MissB

by Doghouse on Jun 24, 2009 10:14 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs