Nationals Daily Evolutions 12/1/10
by David Huzzard on Dec 1, 2010 11:01 AM EST
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PrintThis week is full of housekeeping before the Winter Meetings, and the first order of business was players deciding to accept or decline arbitration. Adam Dunn declined the Nationals offer of arbitration. --Adam Kilgore from washingtonpost.com
The next order of business is Thursday's non-tender deadline where Wil Neives is expected to not be tendered a contract. --Mark Zuckerman at natsinsider.com
Then next week it is time for the Winter Meetings and GM Mike Rizzo is expected to be busy trying to find a pitcher, a first baseman, maybe an outfielder or two, and to bolster the bench. --Bill Ladson from nationals.com
As far as Adam Dunn goes he might be taking a big chance by publicly saying he doesn't want to DH. --Jon Paul Morosi at foxsports.com
I want to explain something funny that happened to me last night. When I got home I turned on the MLB Network and there were Mitch Williams, Ken Rosenthal, and a couple other guys talking about the Nationals, and to my surprise they were positive. They talked about a team with a lot of young talent, and a team that was headed in the right direction. I wonder if they meant some other Nationals, but no they talked about Zimmerman, and Harper, and Storen. So, I wonder to myself if we are standing behind the tapestry yelling at the knots to be beautiful while those on the outside are admiring the weaved pattern.
It is blog entries like this that make me wonder who is missing the picture. Us or them. It is true that the Nationals so far haven't gotten one free agent they have had interest in, but what is that level of interest. --DangerNat at natsnq.com
Here is a direct counter to the above blog. My only question as a fan, as someone that will be at Nats Park a good deal of the time, if 2011 is being punted why shouldn't the team at least try and make the experience more enjoyable? --traderkirk at bangzoomspot.com
A deeper look at the free agents the Nationals have so far lost out on. --Mac at section409.com
One of the things Rosenthal mentioned was that the Nationals were going to very soon have one of the collections of best young talent in the game. This ranking of pitching prospects shows me that yet again Nationals fans disagree. --Sue Dinem from nationalsprospects.com
If someone were to ask me right now who my surprise player for 2011 was going to be for the Nationals I would say John Lannan. After struggling in the first half of the year and being sent to the minors Lannan came back a different pitcher. So different that he put up a 3.36 K/BB as opposed to the terrible 0.69 of the first half. Do not discount John Lannan. he may not have the best stuff in the world, but he is smart, and he is continuing to learn more and more about pitching. --Byron Kerr at masnsports.com
Another player poised for a breakout is Jordan Zimmermann who would like to win more games in 2011. --Byron Kerr from masnsports.com
Carl Pavano is the last realistic option that isn't coming off of injury or Jeremy Bonderman that is left on the free agent market. --Mike Henderson at nationalsdailynews.com
One of those unrealistic options is Zack Greinke who now says he is fine pitching in New York. --Jeff Passan at yahoosports.com
General Baseball
The importance of relief pitching might be overstated or it might be important because starting pitching has gotten worse. Either way we are entering a new revolution and it revolves around the set-up man. --Joe Posnanski from si.com
If the Nationals are ready to contend in 2012 it might not be because the talent is that great. It might simply be that there is an extra Wild Card teams, and while it would bring excitement to the fans it is mostly about money and might not be the best for competition in baseball. --Jeff Passan at yahoosports.com
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I check here first, but now I'll run over to see what Sue's got up
On the national stuff, I think people have Strasburg goggles on the team. On our end, we have that crushing emotional loss of losing him. On the national side, they just know that we’re a lot more buzz worthy than some of the other teams on the bottom and that we had a better draft this year. There’s different time frames as well and different expectations. Nationally, people are like: “They aren’t those doomed Pirates. They’ve got Strasburg and the potential to spend when they want to make moves like Milwaukee did for a bit!” Here, we’re like we’ve seen incremental progress in wins but significant progress in organizational stability that feels stalled in the Waiting for Harper season that looks to be shaping up.
Hope we get positively surprised with some kind of deal or minor moves at the Winter Meetings.
The wait for 10/7 begins. This man is focused. Are you?
It seems like a lot of folks
have decided that 2011 was going to be a lost cause anyway, so why bother spending a lot of money on a free agent? If this is the argument, then aren’t they almost certain to lose MORE next year while waiting on prospects?
Rob
"People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring." -- Rogers Hornsby
Lot’s of folks here have been saying that the Nats are going backward.
Offensively, assuming the loss Adam Dunn, the Nats have likely gone backward.
Defensively the team should be better if not much better than last year.
The starting pitching should be better than last year
The bullpen should be better than last year.
The catching will be better.
In terms of the minor leagues we are better off than last year.
I think the analyst that were referred to above see all this, along with the fact that they have two superstars waiting to happen in Strasburg and Harper and correctly conclude the Nats as going in the right direction
Do I think the Nats are going to contend next year?
No.
Is the sky falling.
Hell no.
I think the analyst that were referred to above see this along with the fact that they have two superstars waiting to happen in Strasburg and Harper and conclude the Nats as going in the right direction
By no means do I assume that the bullpen will be better next year
The bullpen had several surprises last year – Capps was very good, and Clippard, Burnett, Peralta and eventually Storen did well. Yes, Bruney sucked and his departure should be a plus. But projecting relief pitcher performance is notoriously unreliable, and right now the Nationals bullpen doesn’t have an established closer. Remember when Joel Hanrahan was the closer of the future because of his great stuff and a few saves at the end of 2007? Yeah, me too.
I am cautiously optimistic that the starting pitching will be better than 2010. I hope that the bullpen is as good in 2011 as it was in 2010.
Yeah, ... uh... no.
Starting pitching better than last year? No Strasburg. Hernandez likely to put up 5.00+ ERA numbers. I don’t see this happening.
The bullpen better? Highly unlikely because the BP over-performed last year.
Defense might be better, but the OF defense is shaky, and the margin of a guy like Pena versus Dunn is pretty small.
Unmentioned was the bench should be better. It could hardly be any worse.
Rob
"People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring." -- Rogers Hornsby
I'm not quite so gloomy on the starting pitching
Although Strasburg won’t be there, Zimmermann should be, and for a lot longer than Stras was here. Since Strasburg wasn’t here all that long in 2010, his absence will mostly be a loss of expectation rather than on the field performance. I also think better of Livo than you do, and I also expect that Lannan and Marquis won’t be horrifically awful the way they were for the first half of last season. Not that I think they’ll be any great shakes, but mediocre > horrifically awful. And Lannan especially seemed to be back and even better than before (higher K rate, etc) the last couple of months of the season.
Distance eases the pain, but lest we forget after Livo (33 starts, 3.66 ERA) the Nationals’ starting pitching really was putrid last year. Lannan was second on the team with 25 starts (4.65 ERA), then comes Stammen (19 starts, 5.13), Atilano (16, 5.15), Olsen (15, 5.56) and Marquis (13, 6.60) before you get to Strasburg’s 12 starts and 2.91 ERA. Yes, I do think a rotation of Zimmermann, Lannan, Marquis, Livo and (Maya/Stammen/Mock/etc) should be able to beat those numbers.
If you go in assuming that everyone is going to be worse than last year then I think you are absolutely right!
So…. let’s see
Starting pitching:
Zimmermann will continue pitching like someone coming of a year of rehab from TJ surgery
Maya was a bad signing* and will continue to pitch like someone who hadn’t pitched in a year.
Lannan will pitch like he did at the beginning of last year when he had ligament problems
Marquis will pitch like someone with bones chips in his elbow or like someone coming off surgery to have chips removed from his elbow take your pick. I assume you will choose the former since that was when his ERA was 20+)
Hernandez will be a +5 ERA pitcher because we all know he is what he is.
And finally none of the young pitchers in the system will either, A.) Mature into a decent pitchers as young pitchers are know to do, or B.) Over-perform (because they did that last year and that can’t happen two years in a row)
The bullpen:
It’s not just “unlikely” that the bullpen will get worse it’s “highly” unlikely. I’m really not sure why you believe this to be the case so (unless you want to clarify your statement), I’ll just take your word for it.
Defense:
No improvement there.
Why?
The OF defense is shaky .
Okay I can go along with that and just for the sake of argument let’s the Nats will do nothing to stabilize that in 2011
A guy like Pena will only be marginally better than Dunn.
Check.
But why stop there?
Why not also assume that a full year of Espinoza will be no better or worse than a platoon of Guzman and Kennedy and that Ian Desmond will lead the league in errors again?
Yikes! Pretty gloomy. But how bout that bench!
- Definition of a bad signing: Anyone signed by the Nats.
Believe it or not,
I am not 100% gloomy about the team. I do think that some of the young players will be better in 2011 than they were in 2010. Guys like Desmond will improve mostly with the bat and a bit in the field. Zimmermann will be very good, I’m betting.
Espinosa, if he gets the second base job to start, will probably have to go through the same growing pains the Desmond endured this year (this is driving my pessimism about the defense a bit).
My real gloominess comes from the fact that I believe that the Nats will regress in the areas that they got lucky: esp. Livo and the bullpen. That’s just the way things go most of the time.
I don’t know whether Maya will be a great signing or not. I was initially pretty excited about it, but I was never all that impressed when I saw him in person. Was it all because of his year off?
Marquis will probably not be a walking disaster that he was last year. But will he be a sub-4 ERA guy? Probably not.
I’ve never been a big fan of John Lannan. He’s a back-end starter who had a particularly bad stretch this year. Will he be able to avoid that again?
On balance, I’d say some of the rotation will probably be better than last year, some will probably be worse. Unfortunately, as much as I like Zimmermann, I don’t think he can fill Strasburg’s shoes.
Rob
"People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring." -- Rogers Hornsby
I don't think we're that far apart
I’m just measuring Zimmermann’s impact against Strasburg’s 2010 impact (very good, but very limited) instead of Strasburg’s potential impact. My point was simply that getting a season of five starting pitchers with 20+ starts each and ERAs in the 4.00-4.75 range would actually be a major step forward for the Nationals – and I think that’s quite possible even though they don’t/won’t really have a #1 (or even a #2) starter. So overall I am cautiously optmistic that, even without Strasburg, the overall rotation will be better in 2011 than it was in 2010.
I agree with most of what you say Rob, so like dcguy I don’t actually think we are that far apart.
Where I mostly disagree with you is with the bullpen.
I think Storen will improve some. But maybe he wasn’t as good as hoped and will just be an okay bullpen guy but not a semi-dominate closer.
I think Clippard was over used early and that cause him to falter later and then lose confidence in his stuff. Hopefully better management make him a better reliever.
I think Burnett developed into a pretty nasty lefty. Maybe it was luck, but maybe he just got better. Do you not think that happen?
Peralta impressed. Will he continue? Maybe, maybe not. But I’m counting on him being about the same.
Balester? Who knows? I’m hoping he found a home in the pen, because I had given up hope for him as a starter.
And then overall, if you assume that the starting pitching will be at least marginally better than the staff the began 2010 (and like the bench how could it not), then that will help the pen too.
Anyway right now I see those guys as the core of the Nats bullpen and like I have said before, I think it’s the least problematic area of the team.
A New Challenger has Appeared
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/athletics/detail?entry_id=78100
A’s meet with Dunn.
If anyone thought the Lerners were cheap...
There’s nearly no way they’d pony up 4 years @ $60-ish…come on the A’s, really… BTW Mary and Joseph like a Donkey, too….I prefer a Mule myself.
Lance Berkman
anybody have any thoughts on acquiring Berkman as a 1 year stopgap measure at first base?
yeah, he's got a degenerative knee problem.
I would, however, like the idea of signing Berkman, and exploring a trade for the Kila monster.
But then, Berkman probably would prefer DHing in the AL to being a backup 1B/bench bat.
Going out on a limb here, again...
but my pick to click next year, to deliver on his as-yet-unfulfilled promise, is Garret Mock.
Rob
"People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring." -- Rogers Hornsby
starter.
Garrett Mock is the only think Rob and I see eye-to-eye on. :-)
Your voice of doom and gloom. Read more at natsnewsnetwork.blogspot.com
by Dave at District Sports Page on Dec 2, 2010 10:51 AM EST up reply actions
I guess we're Mock's biggest fans the three of us...
I predicted last year would be his breakout season. Here’s hoping the neck issues are behind him. And, Mr. Mock, I’m sorry for, uh, mocking your issues gripping the ball in one particular start last year. How was I to know it was numbness caused by the neck issues and not an attempt to blame the weather for your control issues that night…
Vivian Jaffe: "Have you ever transcended space and time?"
Albert Markovski: "Yes. No. Uh, time, not space... No, I don't know what you're talking about."
by Patrick Reddington on Dec 2, 2010 11:47 AM EST via mobile up reply actions
The Four of Us!
I really like Mock…..plus, he also seems like a really nice guy. I was able to speak to him briefly last season, and he was a very friendly person.
I think he's a potential asset but I'm really not expecting anything.
I do think that Syracuse will have pitchers of interest, though, and that’s another reason to be more optimistic about our starters next year. Mock/Milone/Detwiler/Ailano/Martis is a decent mix of pitchers of interest at that level. This past year, Syracuse was kind of Chico/Martis and a bunch of meh for the most part. You had guys like Kown, Mandel, and an imploding Balester taking starts. We should have 5 guys in the Syracuse rotation who at least have an outside chance of being young assets.
The wait for 10/7 begins. This man is focused. Are you?
And a decent crop at Harrisburg, too
I expect that Solis, Kimball, Milone, Roark and Tatusko will get some time in AA for all or part of the year, with Ray and Cole farther down in the system trying to work their way up. As a group I think they may well project higher than the “taxi squad” in Syracuse – most of whom are solid AAA guys but project no better than #4 or #5 in the bigs.
Having all kids in the upper minors with no major league retreads is an indicator that the system is on the rise.
I really hope the claim about Dunn and the A's is inaccurate.
Rizzo is going to have to kiss the big donkey’s behind and look like a dumb one too. Who would ever pass up a trade for a guy like Daniel Hudson(who grew up in VA) plus another decent prospect and instead take the 60th pick and a sandwich pick in the draft with an extra pick? Not a good move if this happens.
Daniel Hudson was traded to AZ to get Edwin Jackson...
If the Nats were going to trade w/ Chicago for Hudson that makes no sense. I read all the time that Rizzo passed up Hudson but the timeline there simply doesn’t work.
Vivian Jaffe: "Have you ever transcended space and time?"
Albert Markovski: "Yes. No. Uh, time, not space... No, I don't know what you're talking about."
by Patrick Reddington on Dec 1, 2010 5:19 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
Oh, now, Patrick - don't mess up a good narrative with facts
A lot of the stuff that Bos, Lasden & company get are anonymously sourced and leaked by people who have an agenda that isn’t exactly a faultless allegiance to The Truth. Not their fault, that’s the way the world works. But having been on the inside of some (non-sports) matters that received some press coverage, they’re not kidding when they say that newspapers “are the first rough draft of history.” With the pressure to publish/post only increased by the blogosphere and the 24 hour news cycle, the draft seems to get rougher and rougher with each passing year.
We don’t know what offers the Nationals actually received and turned down. Period.
Hudson was not my point
My point was that Rizzo had to get an offer better than 2 picks that weren’t first rounders. You’re right dc guy, maybe he didn’t, but I would have to guess that he did. A team has to know that a .260/near 40/105 guy is worth more than 2 non-first rd picks and would have to give up at least 1-3 top, solid, or legitimate prospects to get him. If he didn’t get anything more valuable than this, I would be surprised but would have to say kudos and sorry to Mr. Rizzo for what I am about to say in regards to him. You are not a scout anymore, you are a GM. The draft is not the only way of building a team. A year ago, I thought you were a genius by the FA signings you put on with first bringing Pudge to make Washington appealing to other free agents such as Marquis and Capps.
*When you think about it, Rizzo is fully responsible for bringing in Ramos by taking Pudge, then Capps, then making a good trade for Ramos.
However, everything is going wrong for the Nats so far. It is possible the Nats don’t get a first round pick for Dunn though it seems likely with the teams that are interested, but it is possible. This “number one” starting pitcher thing isn’t working out because Rizzo can’t seem to find the guts to make a better offer than the MARLINS and the Rockies. Now he is backing off of the idea. I won’t even get started on Pena, seems this site has said enogh about him. So far, it looks like 2011 is going to be more like not 2010, but 2009 with 100 losses. unfortunate.
Also, I know that the A’s don’t sound like potential suitors for Dunn anymore. Still, the fact that a team with a pick of 1-19 would take Dunn had to be a thought in the GM’s mind.
The thought of the As testing the Dunn-waters scares me,
because they might pursue him precisely because of their draft status.
Rob
"People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring." -- Rogers Hornsby
+1 on Rob's comment
teams are certainly getting smarter about how they manage signing Type-A free agents, and you don’t get much smarter baseball-wise than Billy Beane. he can get blood out of a turnip.
Your voice of doom and gloom. Read more at natsnewsnetwork.blogspot.com
by Dave at District Sports Page on Dec 2, 2010 10:54 AM EST up reply actions
The problem and I think the reason Rizzo didn't get the sort of offer he wanted...
Was that Dunn openly stated at the time that he didn’t want to play in the AL, going so far as to say he’d accept a trade there but only since he’d just have to stay for two months. No one is going to give away top prospects for a two month rental who clearly had no intention (at the time) of staying with an AL team.
Vivian Jaffe: "Have you ever transcended space and time?"
Albert Markovski: "Yes. No. Uh, time, not space... No, I don't know what you're talking about."
by Patrick Reddington on Dec 2, 2010 11:52 AM EST via mobile up reply actions
Dunn killed us with that attitude last summer
Now that it only benefits him, he is ALL IN to be a DH in the AL. As much as I like Dunn, this disappoints me.
More bad Dunn news:
@jcrasnick: The Chicago White Sox have jumped in on free agent Adam Dunn, according to sources. Kenny Williams’ interest appears serious
Vivian Jaffe: "Have you ever transcended space and time?"
Albert Markovski: "Yes. No. Uh, time, not space... No, I don't know what you're talking about."
by Patrick Reddington on Dec 2, 2010 12:42 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
hmm. wonder where i've heard that before?
#tootsownhorn.
Your voice of doom and gloom. Read more at natsnewsnetwork.blogspot.com
by Dave at District Sports Page on Dec 2, 2010 12:43 PM EST up reply actions
Sox have 23rd pick which as far as I know is not protected...
6 and 23 would be nice, not “we have 40 HR/100 RBI threat in the lineup” nice, but it will be some consolation…
Vivian Jaffe: "Have you ever transcended space and time?"
Albert Markovski: "Yes. No. Uh, time, not space... No, I don't know what you're talking about."
by Patrick Reddington on Dec 2, 2010 1:36 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
Patrick says :6 and 23 would be nice, not "we have 40 HR/100 RBI threat in the lineup" nice, but it will be some consolation…
Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! Ha !
It’s zingers like that that keep me coming back…
Take it with salt
This may be more posturing for Konerko’s agent than it is real interest in Dunn. Having both in the lineup would be pretty lethal, but pretty pricey.
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