Nationals Arm Race

Is this the Nat's 2011 Opening Day Starter? (Photo deadspin.com)

By now we’ve all seen predictions of free agents in the off season.  Here’s some from Tim Dierkes, here’s the rest of the MLB trade rumors writers, here’s some by Jon Heyman, and here’s a bunch by the HardBall Times guys.   By various accounts the Nats are going to:

• Let Adam Dunn walk.
• Sign Carlos Pena to take his place
• Roll the dice on Brandon Webb
• Chase after but not obtain Cliff Lee
• Eventually sign Javier Vazquez (I really hope not)
• Maybe get Jorge de la Rosa (I hope not)
• Possibly get JJ Putz as a closer placeholder/trade bait version of Matt Capps

Note: I’ve also seen comments here and there that we’d be interested in Hisanori Takahashi, a 35yr old utility guy in the Mets bullpen or taking Kosuke Fukudome off the Cub’s hands.  The former isn’t a FA and is arbitration eligible but the Mets reportedly are non-tendering him.  The latter could be mildly intriguing; he’s a decent hitter, a decent fielder who has played center in the past.  But it doesn’t necessarily improve over a Morse/Bernadina combo.  Of course, i’m also hearing about possible trades for Zack Greinke (as covered in this blog posting) or Matt Garza.  I’d love to have either guy of course, but don’t want to give up the farm for either guy.  And now that Dan Uggla has indicated that he wants out of Florida (and honestly, given the cheap-skate way the franchise is run and the way the players are run out of town as soon as they get too expensive, who wouldn’t?), there’s all sorts of rumors about his possible destination … and the Nats are in the thick of it.

(Side note: do you start to think that the Nats are acting a little out of character this off season?  They’re attached to marquee free agents, they’re listed as “interested parties” on half the free agents out there, and they’re putting their name in the hat for all the big names on the trading block.  Is this all for real or is this severe over-compensation for the Lerner’s spending the past 5 years of acting like MLB paupers?)

So, our 2011 rotation could look like this:

1. Livan Hernandez
2. Brandon Webb
3. John Lannan
4. Javier Vazquez
5. Jordan Zimmermann

Leaving the likes of Maya, Detwiler, injury disappointment Wang and $15M bust Jason Marquis on the sidelines (to say nothing of the next tier of guys like Stammen, Atilano, Martis, Mock and Chico looking at bullpen spots or AAA).  I can’t see Sammy Solis making a Mike Leake-esque debut at the MLB level having never pitched a day in the minors, especially after his less-than-dominant AFL numbers.

The POTENTIAL of this rotation is great.  Webb’s a former Cy Young winner, Vazquez an innings eater who garnered Cy Young votes in 2009 in Atlanta.  Lannan (outside of the first half of last year) is a difficult lefty who gets a ton of ground balls and pitches at a 110 era+ level, Livan is a revalation and Zimmermann is a Matt Cain replica who could be just as dominant with mid 90s possible shutdown stuff.  The reality could be just as bad: Livan is a soft tossing righty who depends on guile and is regularly shelled, Webb hasn’t pitched in 2 years, Vazquez has lost his fastball, Zimmermann is promising but has never produced, and Lannan (our Ace) is a #4 pitcher on a good staff.  Nothing like glass is half empty/glass is half full analysis.

Our non-pitching/out-field lineup looks pretty set already for the 2011 season.

1. (L) Nyjer Morgan – CF
2. (R) Ian Desmond – 2b (yes I think he and Espinosa need to switch)
3. (R) Ryan Zimmerman – 3b
4. (L) Carlos Pena – 1b (he has to bat cleanup to go R-L-R in the heart of the order)
5. (R) Josh Willingham – LF
6. (L) Roger Bernadina/(R) Michael Morse platoon in RF
7. (R) Ivan Rodriguez – C
8. (S) Danny Espinosa – SS
9. Pitcher

I can live with that.  Frankly i’d like to see another outfielder acquisition.  I liked Bernadina and Morse’s production this year but they’re not game changers.  You really need to use your power positions on the field (first and third base, right field, left field) to hold your big boppers, and we need more production out of the RF spot.  Jayson Werth would really fit in nicely there wouldn’t he?  I guess we wait til 2012 and the introduction of Bryce Harper to fill that spot.

I also think we need to do something in center/leadoff.  Morgan’s troubles towards the end of last season are well documented, but his production wasn’t earning him playing time.  If the Red Sox acquire Carl Crawford, that might make Jacoby Ellsbury available.  His 2010 was a wash but he’d be the perfect center fielder/leadoff guy.  2009 stats: 70sbs, .301 BA and a .355 obp.

Willingham has mentioned that he would be willing to play First, and I think that’d be a great alternative if we can’t get any of the free agent 1st basement to come here.  We could go with an outfield of Bernadina, Morgan and Morse with Willingham at 1st base, giving us a decently good lineup both offensively and defensively.

It looks to be a really interesting offseason for the Nats.

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!

Edgar Renteria buried the Rangers in Game 5. Photo: Stephen Dunn/Getty Images.

(this is a follow-up to a previous posting about the Giant’s World Series victory).

Despite the supposed massive superiority of the American League and its juggernaut payroll teams, a team from the National League (one that barely made the playoffs no less) was crowned WS champion after a rather tidy 4-1 series victory.  The Giants are certainly not a low-payroll team; they started the season with the league’s 9th highest payroll, finished the regular season with the 5th best record and advanced through the playoffs with relative ease (they were 11-4 in the playoffs altogether, losing 2 Sanchez starts, a Lincecum and a Cain start (despite Cain continuing a 22 inning post season no earned-run streak).

Not that it mattered in the end, but game 5 certainly turned on a questionable pitching strategy decision just before the decisive 3-run homer in the 7th.  Cody Ross led off with a single (continuing his amazing post season and certainly buying him FA dollars in the off season).  Cliff Lee made an 0-2 mistake to Uribe who smacked a single into center.  After a fantastic career-first sacrifice/drag bunt by Aubrey Huff, Cliff Lee had runners on 2nd and 3rd with one out.  Lee battled Burrell to 3-2 before striking him out on an outside cutter.  This seemed at the time to be the game-changing strikeout that Lee needed but he quickly fell behind the next batter Edgar Renteria 2-0, missing badly with two curveballs.  Announcer Tim McCarver, often villified as being the master of the obvious, stated very clearly that the right decision upon falling behind 2-0 would be to walk Renteria, load the bases with 2 outs and start afresh with the on-deck hitter Aaron Rowand (a sub in the series and not nearly the threat of Renteria).  Before McCarver could finish his thought, Lee grooved a 2-0 fastball, belt high, down the middle of the plate and the aging, soon-to-be-retired Renteria didn’t miss.  He crushed a 3-run homer and the game was essentially over.  Lincecum pitched 8 complete (giving up a meaningless homer to Nelson Cruz) before oddball closer Brian Wilson blew through the heart of the Rangers lineup (Hamilton, Guerrero and Cruz again) to get the save and finish out the series.

Why does Lee not walk Renteria there?  Why does the pitching coach see the obvious situation, run out to the mound and say, “hey, lets just throw two fastballs a foot outside and start over on Rowand?”  This is the reason MLB teams have bench coaches; to help the manager manage the game.  It was the latest in a series of curious pitching moves (or non-moves) from the Rangers coaching staff.  In reality Lee is a competitor and probably thinks he can get anyone out, at any time, let alone an over-the-hill bounce-around-the league veteran like Renteria.  But, no matter what the quality of the hitter mistakes in Major League Baseball quickly turn into gopher balls.

Overview of all 15 games the Giants played this offseason:

SF Starting Pitching Stats in the playoffs (all three series combined)

The cliche for post season baseball has always been, “good pitching beats good hitting” and we certainly saw this in the 2010 post season.  The Giants featured 2 clear “Aces” in Lincecum and Cain, while witnessing a 21-yr old rookie Madison Bumgarner dominate on the sport’s biggest stage.  Only #3 starter Sanchez struggled in this post season (if you can call a 4.05 era against the best teams in baseball truly “struggling”).   The world series featured the league’s best hitting team in Texas, but they were shut down by the Giant’s pitching staff, hitting .190 for the series.

Ironically; what the Giants just finished doing to the Rangers is what most of the baseball world thought the Phillies and their vaunted rotation would be doing.  Yes; the AL has the Red Sox and Yankees and Rays (by most opinions 3 of the best 5 teams in baseball) but the NL has the rotational depth to shutdown $150M rosters.  If the Yankees want to compete next year, look no further than replacing Vazquez with Cliff Lee, turning the ineffective Burnett into a 5th starter (ala what SF did with Barry Zito) and finding themselves a solid #1a Ace behind Sabathia.

How does this tie back to the Nats?  The answer is clear; if you can put together a top notch starting rotation, you can go incredibly far.  Imagine in 2012 this rotation: a healthy Strasburg, a strong and improving Jordan Zimmerman, an impressive young starter in Sammy Solis, a top notch free agent acquisition along the likes of Greinke or a healthy Brandon Webb, and a take your pick from our stable of #5 starters like Lannan, Detwiler or Maya.  These guys can end losing streaks, keep your team in games, throw up quality starts 80% of the time, and turn a league average offense into a post season team.

That’s the “plan” anyway.

Now that the regular season is over, lets take a look at the opening day payrolls and how the teams finished up:

What we see here is some direct relationship between payroll and performance at the very top and bottom of this table: the Yankees certainly bought their way into the playoffs while the Pirates certainly played their way to the worst record in the league with the lowest payroll in baseball.  But how do you explain the other 28 teams in between?

First lets talk about the high end of the spectrum.  The Red Sox slumped at the end of the season to the 10th best record but were only a game worse than the AL West winning Rangers.  Several high payroll teams (Cubs, Mets, Tigers) continue to show why long term contracts for aging veterans are not the way to win in modern baseball.  Well, unless you’re the Yankees and you buy enough of them to cover for mistakes (see Vazquez, Javier).  The two LA teams are both in the upper ends of the payroll spectrum but faltered this year for different reasons (the Angels with injuries and key FA losses and the Dodgers with ownership ridiculousness).

At the other end of the spectrum, the Padres and Rangers are in the beginning stages of where Tampa and (to a lesser Extent Florida) are now; teams that gutted themselves, developed their teams through superior drafting and player development (even with the Lee trade most scouting pros believe the Rangers still have the best or 2nd best farm system) and kept payroll low.  If you have superior drafting capabilities and develop players, soon you’ll have a good young team, cost contained, that outproduce multi-million dollar free agents.  Also, Kudos to the Atlanta Braves for smartly spending money and continuing to produce quality major leaguers.  A team that spends $84M on payroll certainly can’t complain about being poor, but to produce a playoff success with a young team and with more players in the wings (Mike Minor comes to mind)

A good number of teams fall more or less in line with their payroll productivity.  St. Louis underperformed this year but finished with the 12th best league record and the 12th highest payroll.  Milwaukee, Arizona, Washington, Cleveland, Colorado and Philadelphia all basically finished in line with their payroll output.

However, when a team with the second lowest payroll (Padres) misses out on the playoffs on the last day of the season, arguments for a salary structure in the major leagues basically goes out the window.  Why would you penalize a team for excelling at player development and shrewdness in the amateur market by going to an NFL-esque salary structure?  If the Rays can consistently outperform a higher payroll team like Toronto with more expensive personnel, shouldn’t the message be to teams to get better management and a better plan?  The real lesson learned is that no matter what your payroll, incompetence in the front office will turn a $100M payroll into a poor team (see the NY Mets for the past few years).  Each of the GMS of the teams with the 5 biggest “negative” deltas between payroll and record (San Diego, Texas, Tampa, Cincinnati and Oakland) are on the short lists of anyone’s GM of the year candidates.  Meanwhile, the Executives of the 5 “positive” delta teams (the Mets, Cubs, Mariners, Orioles and Tigers) are being questioned or (in Minaya‘s case) already out the door.

The Yankees continue to spend a ridiculous amount of payroll (at $200M+, that is nearly 7 times what Pittsburgh spent last year) and look to add to that amount with rumored FA chases of Cliff Lee and Carl Crawford.  This cannot be healthy for the competitive spirit of the other teams playing in the AL East.  But if there doesn’t prove to be a direct correlation between payroll and results, how can anyone realistically ask for a salary cap?

In a short series (if you went to a 3-man rotation in the playoffs, as lots of teams do), who scares you the most?

Candidates:

• Philadelphia: Halladay, Hamels and Oswalt
• Boston: Lester, Beckett, Buchholz.  tough.  If they were all performing that is.  Beckett seems off this year.
• NY Yankees: Sabathia, Burnett and Hughes; this was supposed to be Vazquez but once again the best rotation that money can buy, didn’t.
• St Louis: Carpenter, Wainwright and Garcia.  Wow.
• San Francisco: Lincecum, Cain and Zito/Sanchez/Bumgarner; again, that’s tough.
• Tampa Bay: Price, Garza, Shields (with Sonnanstine/Hellickson thrown in there).  Scary tough, which is why they’re beating out the Red Sox right now.

For my money, it has to be Philly slightly followed by St. Louis.  How is that team gonna get beat this off season?  Of course, they have to MAKE the playoffs for it to matter.  Ironic that the 3 best rotations in the AL are all in the east.  Chicago’s is decent but more veteran laden.  Texas’ starts with Lee and ends with a guy who was playing in Japan this time last year (Colby Lewis).  I don’t think Minnesota’s guys are scaring anyone.  How scary is it that Toronto has two guys with one-hitters this year (Marcum, Morrow) but is buried in FOURTH place in the AL east.  That’s a tough division.