Nationals Arm Race

The last time anyone was happy with Jason Marquis. AP Photo/Luis M. Alvarez

This is the 3rd of a quick series of reviews on the Nat’s 2010 season ending roster with analysis of what we should do.  Part I was a discussion of our Arbitration candidates while Part II was a discussion about Free Agents (ours and rumored acquisitions).  Part III is a quick rundown on the players either already under contract for 2011 or under club control (not yet reached arbitration status).  Bold means I am guessing that they’re on the 25 man roster on opening day.

We had more than 40 guys that needed to be made active  (given that we ended the year with several on the 60-day DL) and some had to be designated for assignment (DFA) to make room when the date arrives to make the rosters right post 2010.   That date was 11/10/10, and between our 5 free agents we also cut loose four other players.  None was really a surprise.

• Scott Olsen endured another injury and earned the ire of the manager when his move to the bullpen was met with some petulance.
• Tyler Walker was injured all year and is the most common of commodities in baseball (the right handed middle reliever).
• Jesse English suffered a similar fate to Walker, and is surplus to requirements after Slaten did such a good job as the LOOGY.
• The mild surprise DFA so far has been Joe Bisenius.  He didn’t have the greatest numbers out of our bullpen at the end of last season (walking more than he K’d) but he’s a power arm in a league that is quickly becoming a power-arm league.  Perhaps he’ll be invited to spring training to try to earn another shot.

As of right now, we sit at exactly 37/40 on the 40 man.  This gives us some nice flexibility to acquire players via trade or sign free agents without having to make any more moves.  We also have a pending deadline to add Rule5 eligible players, and we have several guys we probably want to protect (a blog posting on this is upcoming…), so I do feel we could make a few more moves:

• Juan Jaime: he’s buried in the minors and its unlikely someone would risk him after being injured all year
• Ryan Mattheus (see Jaime)
• Aaron Thompson: who had just a horrible 2010 and could probably pass through waivers.
• We could also cut JD Martin loose: he’s 27 coming off a season-ending injury, is clearly not going to be in the future plans of the team, and a soft-tossing right handed starter isn’t likely to be in great demand on the waiver wire.

Let the offseason mania begin!

Is this the National’s 2011 First Baseman? Photo: J. Meric/Getty Images

In our first of a 3-part post, we talked about the arbitration cases that the Nats face.  Some of those decisions are already being made and that post has been updated.  Now, lets talk about the free agents.

Clearly, the Adam Dunn decision will be critical to the direction of the team and our offense next year.  As noted above, personally I think he needs to be re-signed.  The team’s actions all year (plus Tom Boswell‘s repeated comments about how the front office has bungled the negotiations) seem to indicate though that we’re content with getting the compensatory picks and moving another direction.  If we decide to let him go, I’d prefer to sign someone like Adam LaRoche, a player who plays decent defense and shows a good bat.  I don’t think Carlos Pena (as is frequently rumored) is a good choice, and there’s sentiment in the Tampa Bay community that he may stay on in Tampa and try to improve on an awful 2010 season.  But, most pundits seem to think he’s coming here.

We also could become more creative and put someone like Josh Willingham, Michael Morse or even a supposedly healthy Jesus Flores at first as a stop gap until one of our prospects like Chris Marrero or even, say it isn’t so, Bryce Harper is ready to come up.  I mean come on, you “hide” defensive liabilities at first base.  If someone is 6’4″ and has any fielding ability they should be good enough to play the position.

Moving on to other FAs to be the decisions are relatively easy.  Harris, Mench, and Kennedy are gone.  None batted well enough to even consider and we have more able (and cheaper) minor leaguers ready to come up and serve as backups.  The last FA to be Miguel Batista proved to be a great asset to the bullpen at relatively little cost and would be worth bringing back.  We signed him last year on a non-guaranteed contract but guaranteeing him $1M wouldn’t be a huge risk.

Now, given the above, what is in store in the FA market?  I know i’ve heard lots of noise about how the Nats are going after Cliff Lee but I just don’t see that happening.  Here’s what I do see them doing:

1. Getting one or two pitchers.  Rizzo has a history with Brandon Webb, Arizona has blown enough cash on the guy, and he may be ready to come back.  We sign him to a one year deal and try to get lucky.  I’d also be happy with trading for one of Tampa’s spare starters (Garza, Shields), acquiring Vazquez (who I think is an NL, non-NY market pitcher and could return to his 2009 Atlanta form) or a De La Rosa type (hard thrower and can get Ks).  Most pundits have us signing Vazquez, some have us getting Webb.

2. Get a FA first baseman: I’ve previously said I like Adam LaRoche.  Rizzo likes Carlos Pena.  We’ll see what happens.  There’s lots of teams looking for first basemen, so the competition for these guys may force our hand into a guy we don’t want.

3. Find a utility player: we need a better version of Willie Harris.  May come from the minors as a prospect but probably not.  We need a guy who can play 2nd/ss or 3b in a pinch.

Less Likely:

4. Sign or acquire a marquee outfielder.  I’d love to see someone like Werth or Ross in right field, which could move Bernadina to center, allow us to rid ourselves of Morgan and then use Maxwell as the 4th outfielder.  We could also acquire someone like Rasmus or Ellsbury, put them in center, dump Morgan and go with Willingham-new CF-Bernadina.  Or we could use a Morse/Bernadina platoon in Right with Bernadina occasionally spelling Morgan in center (though they’re both lefty and both hit relatively the same, so that may not actually work).

I don’t really see us going after any bullpen help or a closer.  As Zuckerman once said, we’re remarkably set on 2011 positions despite being a 90-loss team.   We had a good bullpen last year and have a couple of decent looking reliever prospects in Carr and Kimball.  I could see a 2011 bullpen with Clippard, Burnett, Storen, Stammen, Balester, Slaten and Carr.  Or substitute some of our arbitration/fa guys for Stammen and Balester.

I’ve said for a while that the Nats need to spend like a mid market team.  $90M payroll at a minimum so as not to insult the fanbase.  Perhaps this off season we’ll see it.  They only have a paltry $24M committed for 2011 right now and, while that number will increase with potentially 13 arbitration cases, a huge chunk of last year’s payroll is now gone (just Guzman and Dunn consisted of nearly 1/3 of our 2010 payroll).  So, lets see some FA dollars get spent!

Jason Marquis was an unlucky loser last night, getting tagged with the loss despite going 7 1/3 and only giving up one earned run (a run that was inherited and allowed to score by Tyler Clippard, who had one of his worse outings of the year).  In this one outing Marquis managed to lower his era from 11.39->8.79, lower his WHIP from 2.25 to 1.919, and increase his ERA+ from 36 to 47 on the year (see Nats baseball-reference team stats).

So, how did he look?  Actually, his pitching line rather flattered his performance early on.  He walked the leadoff hitter and went 3-2 on the 2nd hitter and was sitting at 15 pitches without recording an out.  His sinker was high, he was missing his spots by several feet, and was getting bailed out by the very generous strike zone from the home plate umpire Bob Davidson.  Marquis even added in a balk call (an obvious balk, i’m not sure why either he or Riggleman bothered to argue it).   Then to add insult to injury Zimmerman threw away a relatively easy grounder to put Marquis into a 1st and 2nd, no outs 1st inning jam. Marquis weaseled his way out of the jam more through luck and a very weak Cubs lineup.  But no damage was done.

Through the next couple innings he still struggled with his control, getting helped out by very high strikes on balls that better hitters would have clubbed.  On one such pitch he was even seen on camera to audibly curse despite getting a called strike (because it was a sinking fastball left belt-high over the plate).  However, by the 4th inning he was back in the groove.  Suddenly he had his sinking movement back, he was starting balls over the plate and having them end on the hitter’s hands, he was throwing his changeup for strikes, and he looked pretty dominant.

In the 8th, Marquis was sitting on about 90 pitches and faced a pinch hitter for opposing starter Ryan Dempster (in a rather shocking decision by the Cubs new manager Mike Quade, taking out Dempster at that point.  Game is 0-0, he’s at 79 pitches through 7 complete innings and had given up 2 hits.  why not let him go further?  Can’t disagree with the results though; Dempster’s PH gets on, scores and earns the win for the team)  In any case, Marquis walked the pinch hitter and within a few minutes immediately showed why leadoff walks hurt.  Clippard allows the guy to steal first pitch, then a mistake to the Cubs star rookie Castro results in a run scoring double.

7 1/3 innings with 4 hits and 3 walks (though honestly a couple of those walks were really “situational” in nature as Marquis pitched around Fukodome to get a double play situation).

As Kilgore‘s WP article suggests though, you can’t win if you don’t score.  Dunn in particular cannot strikeout looking three straight times in a game like this.  Yes the strike zone is wide, and yes a couple of those calls were borderline.  But after your first couple innings, when the zone is established and you know you’re getting a ball off the outside corner and an above-the-belt strike call over the heart of the plate, professional hitters have to adjust.  Dempster did, and Dunn did not.

Verdict on Marquis: pretty promising in terms of him returning to the form that earned him the 2yr $15M contract.  At this point in the season, frankly I’m rooting for two things:

1. Starting pitcher progress building towards 2011.
2. Losses to improve their draft position next year.

It seems odd but it is the truth.  A workable Marquis fits into any decent team as a #3/#4 starter, and performances like last night’s will make him look that much better in a rotation headed by Strasburg and Zimmermann.  We’re now 53-73 on the season, on pace for a 68-94 win season and last night’s loss has officially moved us into the 6th draft pick next year.

The “10th day of Strasmas” was today, as wonderkid took the mound against the Arizona Diamondbacks to finish off a quick homestand.  Coincidentally, the Nats have now “overtaken” the Astros for the 8th draft pick, but it’ll be hard to maintain this pace.  He didn’t look bad but he didn’t look that good either.

Strasburg went 5 innings, gave up 5 hits, 7ks, 0 walks, 3 runs but only one earned and was lifted in-between innings sitting on 85 pitches.  The two unearned runs were due to the 3-base error Strasburg himself committed by letting a throw to first sail down the RF line, scoring a guy from 1st and putting that runner on 3rd with one out (scored on the next pitch by a routine flyball).

Most of the hits were weaker.  Reynolds had a seeing eye single through the middle, Montero had a jammed soft flyball into center, and Drew hit another relatively innocuous ball up the middle.  Chris Young turned on a fastball pretty well, hitting a sharp line drive into left but got stranded.

The best hit ball of the night was LaRoche, who has been incredibly hot lately, absolutely unloading on a 2-0 fastball that Strasburg left up and over the plate.  LaRoche’s ball was the kind of ball you swing through and don’t even feel the contact on the bat.  Definitely a mistake to a guy who made him pay.

Strasburg’s first pitch registered 101 on the TV gun (impressive considering that normally he eases into it).  He had good velocity most of the night, he had control of his curve, and he threw his change up well.  All in all, an unlucky error cost him 2 runs to blemish an otherwise pretty good line.  I think the Nats are babying him a little bit and should have let him pitch the 6th.  If he gets to 105 pitches, it isn’t the end of the world.  I’d rather see the guy stretched out to 105 than yank him at 85.  There was no pressing pinch hitter need in the bottom of the 5th either.

Editor’s Update: Apparently Strasburg was lifted mostly in part due to the 10 minute delay caused by Arizona law protesters who took to the field.  Strasburg cooled off too much as a result and Riggleman didn’t want to risk it.

As far as the game goes, Willingham hit a 2 run bomb to tie it up and get Strasburg off the hook for the loss.  Zimmerman absolutely killed a ball in the 6th to give the Nats the lead, and Clippard/Burnett/Storen closed it out for the win.

Bottom Line; not the greatest line for Strasburg and no W on the board, but he looked good and he only really had two hard hit balls off of him all night.  Looking good.