Nats Will Do Nothing At Winter Meetings
by bknight47 on Dec 8, 2011 11:04 AM EST
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The Nats always say they are going make a big splash at the winter meetings and procure some real talent. As usual they barely make a ripple. Fans in the D.C. area have come to expect that they are mostly all talk and zero action. If you want to get real talent, you have to bid with the big boys. They continually make mediocre offers, and thus lose out to those teams that know what it takes to land serious players. The Nats have some good talent, just not enough.
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While I am, uh, ... disappointed, ... in their inaction so far,
I’ve got to disagree with your thesis. They have offered surprisingly large sums of money to lots of players over the last few years. While they have only been able to actually nab one FA (Werth) with the gobs-of-cash tender, this doesn’t mean that they restrict themselves to making “mediocre” offers.
Rob
-- In baseball we trust.
Morales/Trumbo?
Either would be an improvement over what the Nats have. But that’s not saying much.
Rob
-- In baseball we trust.
And since virtually all the players that the Nationals have "lost out on" over the years have turned out to be disappointments or outright busts
I’ve become much more open to the idea that just because another team offers stupid money, that does not mean that the Nationals must offer even stupider money or they are LOSERS. From Alphonso Soriano through Mark Texeira (disappointing given the $$$) and Aroldis Chapman (loads of potential, so far unrealized) to Adam Dunn (sorry, RobBob) … the Nationals have pretty clearly won each of these pursuits by losing out in the signing race. It’s made it easier for me to respect Rizzo’s judgment in terms of value for a player signing.
by d_c_guy on Dec 8, 2011 12:29 PM EST reply actions 1 recs
Your argument defies logic in several ways
First of all, nobody I know argues that the Nationals should be offering “stupid money” for anyone. That is not the only alternative to “they aren’t offering enough money to attract the players they are targeting”.
Secondly, simply because some of the players that the Nats did not sign happened to perform poorly does not imply that this is some sort of predictable pattern. How about Cliff Lee? How has he done so far?
Third, I realize that Yankees fans demand and expect more than they should as a matter of course, but the fact of the matter is that Teixeira actually been very productive in New York, just a few million dollars shy of the money he’s been paid over the last three years (according to FanGraphs).
Finally, until the Nationals actually become WINNERS, it’s going to be hard to argue that the moves they’ve made over the years don’t make them LOSERS.
Rob
-- In baseball we trust.
The Nationals' organization has a brief history of intense losing
But that’s more due to MLB’s bankruptcy liquidator (Minaya!) approach followed by nearly five years of Bowden’s dumpster-diving idiocy (BOWDEN!!!). When Rizzo took over in Spring Training of 2009 he was taking a team that was on its way to its second 59 win season. And it wasn’t just the major league product that was so bad; the minor league system was consistently a bottom five joke no matter who was doing the rating.
Given where this team was then to where it is now, from top to bottom, sometimes it amazes me how far they’ve come. Given that it’s basically happened on Rizzo’s watch, I’m willing to defer to his judgment of where the “stupid money” line on Buehrle or any of these other guys might be.
One point about Teixeira
He’s currently under-producing on a long-term contract. The later years of the contract are only going to get worse, and are generally overpays to get the big production in the front of the contract.
I’m unhappy that the Nationals were unable to sign the players that we would have liked. I probably would have offered more to Buerhle, but I am going to try to remain faithful that Rizzo knows what he is doing.
+1
There will be big free agents every year. Let’s not lose the ability to resign the better and younger talents of Zinn, Stras, Zin, Harper, etc. etc. because we refused to give a #2 starter #1 money.
Eventually, when the Nats are making a legitimate WS run and have extra money to blow, then they can overpay for decent talent. No need to do it now.
Of course, there's a huge canyon to leap over
because the fact of the matter is that the Nats do NOT have the talent to become a legitimate contender. If they get very lucky with players playing at or above their potential, staying mostly injury-free, and other teams stumbling a bit, then they MIGHT make a run. But counting on that happening is a very poor strategy, IMO.
Rob
-- In baseball we trust.
There we disagree, mon ami. I do think the Nationals have the talent to be a legitimate contender in 2012
They are certainly not a favorite to make the playoffs even if MLB goes to the two wild card structure for this season. But the prospect of an extra two months of Zimmerman and Zimmermann, plus six months of Strasburg, plus Werth regressing to his (career norm – age allowance) puts them into the contender conversation. That’s not even counting various wild cards like the potential impact of various rookies on the cups of the majors (Bryce Harper, Brad Peacock, Tom Milone) or further maturation from the group of Ramos, Flores, Espinosa and Desmond.
This is the assumption that everything goes right for them.
Which, as any veteran Nats fan knows, is not something that happens.
Rob
-- In baseball we trust.
Events Transpire for Everyone
It’s not assuming everything goes right. Everything going right would be Werth returning to 2010, Zimmerman putting up a career year that he’s capable of, Harper taking the ROY by storm and Morse learning how to play a decent OF. The “everything goes right for them” could put the Nationals in the 95-100+ wins territory and take baseball by storm. I don’t believe for a moment that will happen, but (IMHO) they don’t need anything close to the “everything goes their way” scenario to be in contention.
Of course, in this regard maybe I'm scarred by being a Yankee fan
Since they’ve had a couple of “everything goes right” seasons in the past 15 years (1998 and 2009). Particularly 1998; no one saw that team coming, and yet it put itself into the conversation of greatest teams of all time. It was a team, too – not the bloated payroll behemoth that they became in the following years.
95-100 wins?
On the shoulders of 4 players? Are you indulging in Happy Hour already?
No, that can’t be: you don’t drink. Hmm…
Rob
-- In baseball we trust.
Everything going right also includes
Desmond and Espinosa developing a good eye, driving their OBP numbers (with Espinosa keeping the power as well)
LaRoche hitting like it’s August (career .314/.382/.571, 38 HR)
Morse not forgetting how to hit like he did in 2011 even as he learns how to field.
Lannan pitching for a whole season like he did in June and July of 2011
Etc.
They'll only need 10 wins over this year
Zim was down 5 WAR in 2011.
Werth down 2.5 WAR
LaRoche down 1.4
That is 8WAR there.
On the pitching front
Strasburg could provide another 3 or 4 WAR even in limited action (JZimm had 3.4 this year)
Zimmermann could add another 25% of WAR, or about .9 WAR
Potential Impact Rookies:
Harper
Milone (Bill James loves this guy)
Peacock
Lombardozzi (Not a pretty September, but great MiLB numbers if Desmond or Espinosa aren’t working out/ or DL)
This would give us enough to contend. However, I agree that we are unlikely to do so due to regression in other areas. But we might still add a qualified CF, and some useful bench players.
I consider myself an optimist, but...
That’s too rosy for me. There’s hardly a team in MLB that can’t say the same thing you just said, but just swapping our guys’ names for their guys’ names.
We do need to get better, but I’m not sure it’s as simple as just buying some pieces. For one, the pieces we need are extremely rare and in high demand. There is no CF store we can go to to grab one off the shelf.
I’m not sure this is our year. With the Marlins seemingly prepared to go all in, we should focus on winning as much as we can, and save our dollars and prospects to get something good in return.
The absolute worst things we could do are to saddle the team with bad contracts that we’d regret in a couple of years, or to completely drain our farm in trades for marginal improvements.
by rarumberger on Dec 8, 2011 4:41 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
This is Mr. Boras' SBNation account, right?
Yeah, well, you know, that's just like, uh, your opinion man
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