Nationals Arm Race

First off, this is partly a post of self-flaggelation, to show how far off my various predictions of what the 2013 minor league staffs would look like by doing 2012 season-ending analysis.  Such is the nature of minor league pitching staffs in the modern day; they’re a combination of spare parts, rising stars and hangers-on and they can change rapidly with trades and spring training performances.  Every trade and every MLFA signing trickles down and fouls up predicitons.

Here’s my End of Season 2012 post with predictions for each of the 2013 minor league pitching staffs.   We’ll use that as a basis for the Opening Day 2013 rosters of the four full-season minor league teams.  Just for fun we’ll throw in (and start with) the MLB prediction.  Note that this early in the season we don’t really know who’s shaking out as starters and relievers necessarily for these minor league teams; i’m just going on first week usage right now.  As always, Luke Erickson and nationalsprospects.com, the Nats Big Board and the tireless work by “SpringfieldFan” is much appreciated here.

MLB Nov 2012 Prediction

• MLB Rotation: Strasburg, Gonzalez, Zimmermann, Detwiler, FA or other acquisition
• MLB Bullpen: Clippard, Storen, Mattheus, Stammen, Garcia, a FA left-hander (possibly Burnett), a FA long-man (possibly Gorzelanny).
• MLB notables Out of Organization: Jackson, Burnett, Gonzalez, Lannan, Wang

MLB April 2013 Actual

• MLB Rotation: Strasburg, Gonzalez, Zimmermann, Detwiler, Haren
• MLB Bullpen: Clippard, Storen, Mattheus, Stammen, Duke, Rodriguez, Soriano
• MLB notables Out of Organization: Jackson, Burnett, Gonzalez, Lannan, Wang, Gorzelanny

MLB Discussion: It wasn’t going to be that difficult to predict the 2013 Nats pitching staff make-up by looking at our staff and their FA status heading into the off-season.  The rotation filled its one spot with Dan Haren.  The bullpen was 5/7ths predicted correctly (if you count Zach Duke as a FA left-hander acquisition).  Christian Garcia‘s injury opened the door for one more season of Henry Rodriguez, and of course nobody could have predicted the Rafael Soriano purchase.  Lastly all 5 of the predicted departures occured, in addition to Tom Gorzelanny being let go.

AAA Nov 2012 Prediction

• AAA Rotation: Roark, Maya, Broderick, Meyers, Perry
• AAA Bullpen: Tatusko (swingman), Arneson (swingman), Severino (loogy), Davis, Lehman, Nelo (closer), Martin,  Mandel

AAA Apr 2013 Actual

• AAA Rotation: Ohlendorf, Roark, Maya,Perry, Rosenbaum ( eventually Young)
• AAA Bullpen: Tatusko, Mandel,  Davis, McCoy, Crotta, Abad, Romero, Bramhall
• AAA D/L: Kimball, Bray, Meyers, Torra, West, Garcia (technically XLS), Accardo
• AAA cut/released/FA: HPena, Mann, Zinicola, Arneson, Atkins, Ballard
• AAA Missing: none

AAA Discussion

We were 3/5s correct on the rotation, and probably would have been 4/5ths right if Brad Meyers was healthy.  Ross Ohlendorf and (eventually) Chris Young are new faces here, both being former MLB starters who are taking the Zach Duke route of signing on for full seasons as AAA starter insurance for the big club in the hopes of rebuilding value and finding a MLB job for next year.  Brian Broderick is indeed back; its just that he’s starting for AA instead of AAA.  Lastly Danny Rosenbaum was returned to the team after his spring Rule-5 adventure and was put in AAA instead of AA, where (as we’ll see in a second) I would have predicted he would start.  Once Young is ready to go, I see Tanner Roark turning into the swingman/long-man.

On the bright side (pun intended), when was the last time a professional baseball team had TWO Ivy League alumni pitching in its rotation??  Both Young and Ohlendorf went to Princeton.  I wonder if they have NYTimes crossword puzzle competitions instead of (assumedly) video game competitions on off-days in the clubhouse.

As far as bullpen predictions go, next year I’m paying more close attention to who are 6-year free agents.  Arneson, Severino and Nelo were all MLFAs and have either signed on elsewhere or are facing forced retirement.  Tatusko, Davis and Mandel are onboard.  Lehman is (surprisingly?) in AA, perhaps a victim of the numbers game of the Nats signing (and keeping) a number of minor league lefty relievers this off-season.  I would guess, looking at the names in the bullpen, that Erik Davis is the closer but who knows what the usage will be like.  Lastly Bramhall was a MLFA signing over the off-season who just got placed on the AAA roster to replace the injured Accardo.

AA Nov 2012 Prediction

• AA Rotation: Rosenbaum, Holder, Gilliam, Karns, Grace, Demny (swingman?) or MLFA?  Solis if he’s healthy?
• AA Bullpen: Frias, McCoy, Selik (maybe high-A again), Holland (setup),  Wort (closer), VanAllen (loogy), Demmin (maybe high-A again), an org arm or two to fill in.

AA Apr 2013 Actual

• AA Rotation: Broderick, Treinen, Demny, Clay, Karns
• AA Bullpen: Holder, Frias, Holland, Wort, Barrett,  Krol,  Lehman, Swynenberg
• AA D/L: Solis, RMartin, Olbrychowski, Selik
• AA Cut/released/FA: VanAllen
• AA Missing: none

AA Discussion

We got, well, not much of this right.  Of my starter predictions: Rosenbaum is in AAA, Holder is here but seems to be the long-man right now, Gilliam is hurt, Solis is still on the DL, and Grace is back in High-A.  We do seem to have at least gotten Karns and Demny right.  Broderick was a surprise FA signing, his being a favorite of the Nats organziation per our Rule-5 experiment with him a couple years back.  I’m surprised he’s not in the AAA rotation though.  Treinen was a trade-throw in from the Morse deal and takes a spot in this rotation, while Clay was a 2013 MLFA signing who (surprisingly?) made the rotation over the likes of other candidates.

The bullen prediction is all over the place: We got Frias, Holland and Wort right.  McCoy is in AAA, Selik is on the AA D/L and VanAllen and Demmin were MLFAs who were left unsigned (and per the big board are still unsigned).   I thought Barrett and Swynenberg would be in high-A instead of AA, I (and most others) thought Lehman would be in AAA, and Krol arrived as the PTBNL in the Morse trade.

High-A Nov 2012 Prediction

• High-A Rotation: Swynenberg, Ray, Meyer (maybe AA?), Schwartz (maybe low-A), Rauh(maybe low-A)
• High-A Bullpen Competition: Barrett (maybe AA) , Testa, Smoker (loogy), Hill, Meza(perhaps a starter?), Holt, Hawkins, Bates, Mirowski
• High-A bullpen Release candidates: Olbrychowski, McCatty, Applebee

High-A Apr 2013 Actual

• High-A Rotation: Ray, Jordan, Cole, Turnbull, Hill
• High-A Bullpen Competition: Herron, Mirowski, Holt, Hawkins, Meza, Bates, Self, Grace
• High-A D/L: Smoker, Applebee, Gilliam
• High-A Cut/FA/Released: Demmin, Consuegra, Samuel, Testa
• High-A Missing: McCatty, Olbrychowski

High-A Discussion

The Potomac rotation guess was already light; a couple of the guys I was guessing might be in low-A are indeed there (Schwartz and Rauh).  Swynenberg is in the AA bullpen.  Meyer was traded.  Only Robbie Ray returns.  I thought Jordan was going to repeat Hagerstown.   We got Cole back in the Morse trade and bumped up Turnbull from short season (over Mooneyham, interestingly) Lastly Hill seems to have beaten out Grace for the 5th starter spot.

The Bullpen prediction looks pretty good: 7 of the predicted guys are here (Smoker on the DL, Meza, Holt, Hawkins, Mirowski and Bates).  Barrett indeed is in AA.  Testa was released.  Of my release candidates McCatty is in XST, Applebee and Olbrychowski are on the DL.  Lastly both Samuel and Consuegra were off-season MLFA signings who didn’t pan out and have already been released.

Low-A Nov 2012 Prediction

• Low-A Rotation: Turnbull, Jordan, Purke (if healthy), Monar, Mooneyham
• Low-A Rotation Competitors: Hansen, Lee (loogy if not), Encarnation, McGeary (if finally healthy)
• Low-A Bullpen Competition: Anderson, Estevez, Dupra, McKenzie, Henke, Davis, Boyden, Benincasa, Hudgins, Dicherry, Mudron

Low-A Apr 2013 Actual

• Low-A Rotation: Anderson, Mooneyham, Pineyro, RPena, Encarnation
• Low-A Swingmen: Rauh, Schwarz, Dupra
• Low-A Bullpen: Fischer, Harper, Henke, Hudgins, Benincasa
• Low-A D/L: Estevez, Purke, Simko, Mesa, Weaver
• Low-A Cut/FA/Released: Kreis, Lucas, Upperman, Hansen, Monar
• Low-A Missing: Hollins, Hicks

Low-A Discussion

Historically the hardest to predict, the Low-A team.  Of the guesses for the rotation last fall, we only got Mooneyham right.  Turnbull and Jordan were bumped up a level.  Purke is still hurt.  Of the “competitors” the team flat out released Monar and Hansen to my surprise.  Monar was really good in Auburn last year, and while Bobby Hansen wasn’t nearly as dominant as a starter, I thought he’d at least get a shot at being a loogy after so many years in the organization.  Jack McGeary was selected out of the org during the minor league phase of the rule-5 draft.  Lee is in XST limbo right now.

So who are these surprising Low-A rotation guys?  I thought Anderson would be relegated to the bullpen in Low-A; instead he’s the opening day starter.  I thought Pineyro would repeat short-season ball but he made the full-season team.  And lastly I thought Pena was destined for another season in short-A.

Rauh and Schwartz, after I thought they had shots in the rotation in high-A, seem to be taking the roles of “2nd starters” for now, each having gone multiple innings in relief of the starter.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see them becoming full time starters if one of the 5 guys ahead of them falter.

Most of the rest of the predicted bullpen are 2012 signees who are currently amongst a large group of extended spring training guys who will be battling it out for short-season jobs with 2013 signees.   And we seem to have a very large group of them; the big board lists in excess of 30 hurlers who are currently still in the organization, who are not on the D/L officially, but who are not assigned to one of the four full season teams.   That’s a lot of arms for just a handful of spots in short-A and the rookie league after the 2013 draft occurs.

I read all my sports news via RSS Feeds, which I’ve read into Google Reader for years.  If you’re like me, you were probably highly irritated when finding out that Google is summarily ending the Reader service.   I’ve done a bit of research on where to transfer my RSS feeds and “Feedly” seems to be the way to go.  (Tangent: if you’re a big RSS reader, where are you moving your RSS feeds to, or what do you use as an alternative to Google Reader?  I’m leading towards Feedly)

Anyway, while thinking about my Google RSS feed future, I happened to take a look at the two categories of Nationals RSS feeds that I have listed and was astonished to see the number of Nationals links I now have.  I count at least Eighty (80) Nationals related blogs and another Thirty (30) Nationals “Official” feed links (official meaning Team sites, beat reporters, or Masn feeds).

Can you believe there are (or were) eighty blogs out there about the Washington Nationals??  And in reality that number may be a bit low, because I’m always finding out about new Nationals blogs that pop up.  A great number of these blogs are now dormant (read onwards), but there’s still quite a few near daily blogs pumping out nearly as much content as the paid Beat Reporters.

Anyway; I thought it would be of great service to list all these various Blog links for the general Nats readership.  And of course if you see a blog out there that I don’t have, I’d love to grab it.  I also took this opportunity to clean up my own links section along the right-hand side to prune away obsoleted blogs and add in the currently active blogs.   Lastly: if your site doesn’t have an Nats-specific RSS feed, then I don’t have it here.

I’ll divide these blogs into various categories.  The links for each Blog are the RSS feeds, not the actual blog site.  But if you want to go to the blog site it is usually straight forward enough to figure out from the URL or from a bit of google work.

Highly Active Nats Blogs (Daily posts or close)

• D.C. Baseball History: Daily “This Day in…” Washington Baseball history posts from Art Audley, Mark Hornbaker, and Marty Niland along with other content by a host of writers.
• DCNatitude: author Adam Bitely has this newer blog (well, newer to me; just found it while doing this post).
• District on Deck; primary authors Flax, Book and Somers are now part of Si.com’s Fansided Network.
• Federal Baseball; primary author Patrick Reddington and others are now part of SBNation
• Lady and the Nats: by anonymous author “NatsLady.”
• Let Teddy Win! Washington Nationals Presidents Race: “Presidents Race Fan” Scott Abelman keeps everyone up-to-date on the Racing Presidents.
• mlb trade rumors – Washington Nationals Feed: MLB Rumors – MLBTradeRumors.com: not officially a “Nats Blog” but this well-known baseball blog has a Washington-only feed of rumors and stories that serves as a great way to keep on top of Nats dealings.
• Nationals 101: Frank & Susan Lattuca also host a podcast.
• Nationals Arm Race: what you’re reading now 🙂
• Nationals Baseball: author Harper Gordek posts interesting opinion pieces and gets good discussions.
• Nationals Home Plate: newer blog that I just found doing this post.
• Nationals Inquisition: author Drew Kinback posts photo-heavy pieces with a good humor slant.
• NationalsProspects.com: author Luke Erickson took over for Brian Oliver‘s old NatsFarmAuthority and keeps the flag flying for Nats Prospects and Farm System updates.
• Nats Enquirer author “CK” is now part of the YardBarker network.
• Nats Nation (as viewed from Section 138 and beyond). Lots of fun with screen grabs, photoshop and embedded video links.  Oh and his leading picture is of Luis Ayala.
• NatsGM; author Ryan Sullivan posts good opinion pieces and makes for good reading and discussion.
• Red Porch Report: Nationals Podcast and Blog which is part of the Ball Hogs Radio Network.   Kevin Eaton and Ryan Sullivan.
• Sharkadina: Roger Bernadina‘s #1 fan Terry Gangelosi and friends.
• The Nationals Review by author Charlie Fliegel, who also hosts a Podcast periodically.
• The Nats Blog, by multiple authors (Joe Drugan, Wil Yoder, Ted Youngling, et al).  Now part of the Bloguin Network.
• The Zimmerman(n) Telegram: multiple authors led by Ben Devin with great reporting on the WBC over the past month.
• Nationals Locker: author Joe Lapinski‘s blog is part of the BlogLockers.com blog network.
• Washington NationLOLs; great fun with images and photoshop’d captions.
• http://www.CitizensofNatstown.com: a new project with some of the familiar names in the Nats blogosphere (Sean Hogan, Dave Huzzard, and others).  No RSS feed?
• http://www.NationalsObsession.com (launches on Opening Day)
• http://thenationalsarchive.com; brand new Mar 2013 (no RSS?)

Less Active but not Dormant Nats Blogs (sporadic posts)

• 2011 Nationals Draft Info: Sean Hogan‘s 2011 Draft blog; listed here since its part of a series (see next).
• 2012 Nationals Draft Info: Sean Hogan’s 2012 Draft blog
• Bang! Zoom!: last post 2/11/2013. before that Nov 2012.  Not sure what’s happened to Kirk Raymond but I hope he returns.
• Center Field Gate: last post 1/20/13: was highly active in-season so we’ll hope for a return.
• DC is for Baseball: last post 1/31/13: Sean Hogan‘s main site; his interest lays more in prospects and the draft, so he gets busier around the Rule 4 draft and has the per-year detailed Draft blogs (see below).
• First Ladies of Baseball: last post Oct 11, 2012, may not actually be dormant; we’ll see if the authors Ashley Warlick and Maggie Keller pop back up when the 2013 starts.
• For Love of the Nationals: Last post Jan 2013: despite posting recently, Dave Lint only has posted a handful of times in the last 3 years, so we’re calling this site dormant for now.
• Internet Baseball Writers Association: Washington, D.C. Chapter;  home site for Dave Nichols-led DC-IBWA where Nats bloggers emulate the BBWAA and vote on things.  Coincidentally the membership rolls of DC-IBWA mirror this blog posting in terms of listing Nats bloggers.
• Nats Noodles; last post 1/15/13: author “Nat Anacostia” has been sporadic this off-season.
• Nats Triple Play: last post 1/29/13: only a handful of posts in the last year; may be dormant.
• Natsfangirl; last post 10/4/12: author Jenn Jenson posts beautiful photography on this blog, which seems to have taken the off-season off.  I hope she’s back for opening day 2013.
• Natstradamus last post 3/7/13: periodic intelligent pieces with heavy Sabre-lants from author Luigi De Guzman (aka “Ouij”).
• Dick Heller: last post 2/21/13 by namesake author Dick Heller.
• Win for Teddy: last post Sept 2012: very active last season, hope to see them come back.

Dormant, Obsolete or Abandoned Nats Blogs

• Ball-Wonk: last post Dec 2010
• Capitol Baseball: last post July 2012: not sure what happened here; the author was posting nearly daily in-season 2012.
• Capitol Punishment: Last post Sept 2012.  Chris Needham‘s infamous Nats blog, one of the first and one of the most vociferious about the state of the early Nats, which he “quit” a couple years ago but to which he continues to post sporadically.
• DC Double Play: last post Jan 2012.
• DC Sports Plus: last post Nov 2012.  Sean Hogan’s previous blog, essentially ended May 2011.
• De civitate sabermetricarum: last post 5/29/12: was doing near daily posts and then suddenly stopped.
• Distinguished Senators: Last post May 2011.
• FJB: last post Apr 2012: like Needham, Steven Biel sometimes pops back up on this blog and posts about the team, despite the title of the blog (Fire Jim Bowden) long since being obsoleted.
• F*ck Yeah Stephen Strasburg: last post Jan 2012: yes indeed there’s a site with this title.
• Half Street Blues; last post May 2010
• I Miss RFK; last post July 2009.
• Just A Nats Fan; last post July 2011.
• Life is Better With Baseball; signed off Aug 2011.
• National Record; last post Feb 2012.
• Nationals 360: last real post Jan 2011, now taken over by an Electronic Cigarette company?
• Nationals Daily News: last post Dec 2011, this was Mark Hornbaker’s former site before starting the DC Baseball History site above.
• Nationals Fangirls moved to just Nationals FanGirl (singular), but www.nationalsfangirl.com currently says that its “Account is Suspended.”  Oh well.
• Nationals Farm Authority: Brian Oliver‘s fantastic farm system tracking site, who signed off Sept 1 2010 to start a new career.  NationalsProspects.com has picked up where Oliver left off.
• NATIONALS NEWS NETWORK: Dave Nichols closed this to join it with the larger District Sports Page, which reports on all Washington Sports in one location.  Unfortunately he has no Nats-specific RSS feed, so I don’t regular read the site (I don’t really care about random Redskins, Wizards or Capitals stories).
• NATIONALS NEWS NETWORK: Off The Field; last post Sept 2011.  Cheryl Nichols also moved to the District Sports page.
• Nationals Review; last post May 2012.
• NationalsDailyNews.com Teamwire: last post July 2010
• NationalsFanboyLooser: last post June 2011.  Former blog by Mike Harris, who then took over as Sports Editor of The Washington Times after they re-introduced Sports to the paper after a 2 year hiatus.
• NationalsPride.com: last post: April 2010.  Authors Bergin and Henderson suddenly stopped writing.
• Nats Doggerel last post Mar 2010: short lived blog that posted quick poems about the Nats.  I’m not kidding.
• Nats320 — A Washington Nationals Blog: Jeff Saffelle‘s photography-heavy blog which suddenly went off the air in July 2011.  There’s a story there but last time I saw Jeff we didn’t get into it.  I think the loss of this blog, one of the absolute first Nats blogs, is a real shame.  Jeff took a lot of heat on the blogosphere/twitter for being “too friendly” to the Nats cause; to that I say “this is a free country; you’re free not to read what you don’t like.”  Too many haters in this world.
• NatsStats: last post Aug 2010.
• Nats of the Round Table: last post Oct 2008, may have morphed into Nationals Baseball above.
• NBTN: last post July 2009, now the page renders in Japanese.  Weird.
• Passing Time Between Wil Nieves’ Bombs… last post March 2012.
• Past a Diving Vidro: last post May 2011.
• Planetary Nats Blog: last post Dec 2010
• Pulp Nationals: last post Mar 2010.
• Senators Fans Unite: Will Bentzel signed off Jan 1 2010.
• StephenJWalker.com: last post Oct 2011.
• Swatting Nats; last post Oct 2010.
• The Half Street Highrise: last post Apr 2010, author Banneker moved to The Nats Blog.
• The Nats Report: last post Nov 2010.
• Washington Nationals; last post Nov 2010, domain now gone.
• We’ve Got Heart; last post Apr 2010.
• YOU DEAD DAWG: last post Nov 2011.

Not entirely about the Nats but of Interest to Nats Fans

• Are the Hagerstown Suns relocating to Winchester?: Collection of news articles about the seemingly dead possibility of the Suns moving to Winchester, VA.
• Search Results – AuburnPub.com: Auburn DoubleDays link with some Nats-relevant content.
• (Am I missing RSS feeds about the rest of our farm system?  I used to have a Potomac Nationals feed but it seems broken).

Nats Beat Reporters

• All Nats All the Time: official blog feed of MLB.com Nats beat reporter Bill Ladson.
• Byron Kerr: MASN Nats beat reporter Byron Kerr‘s official blog feed.
• Latest entries for Nationals Watch: from Washington Times beat reporter Amanda Comak.
• MASNsports.com‘s Nats Beat Reporter Pete Kerzel‘s blog feed.
• Nationals Journal; Washington Post Nats Beat reporters Adam Kilgore and James Wagner‘s official blog.  The NatsJournal is one of the longest running blogs out there and is very widely read.
• NATS INSIDER; Comcast Sports Net’s Mark Zuckerman‘s blog, probably which has the widest readership of any link on this page.

Other links for Members of the Press

• Bob Carpenter: MASN TV broadcaster Bob Carpenter‘s official blog feed.
• Examiner Beanballs RSS: Washington Examiner Beanballs feed, Nats specific but very sporadic.
• Examiner MLB RSS: Washington Examiner MLB feed, but seems Nats specific.  Sometimes picks up Tom Loverro‘s stuff.
• Washington Nationals News: official MLB feed for the team, mostly written by Ladson as well.
• Thomas Boswell (washingtonpost.com): Washington Post National writer Tom Boswell‘s rss feed.  He doesn’t write exclusively on the Nats, but there’s plenty of baseball content.

Nats “Official” Blogs; these are from the team, from players, etc.

• The Backfield Diaries: Ryan Tatusko‘s blog, moved to http://www.ryantatusko.wordpress.com, which has a broken RSS feed.  Grr.   I cannot find a blog by any other Nats player, majors or minors.
• Mike Rizzo‘s official MASN blog.
• Notes from NatsTown: the official blog of the Team; sometimes the owners will blog here.

Obsolete “Official” Nats blogs and links

• CSN Washington: Miss Chatter: last post Jan 2011: I guess Miss Chatter stopped being chatty.
• Ben Goessling on MASNsports.com: left the beat April 2010.
• CSN Washington: Main; the CSN feed may be broken, last updated Mar 2012.
• Debbi Taylor: replaced as the Nats sideline reporter after the 2011 season.
• Jim Riggleman: last post June 2011, just before his bluff was called and he quit.
• Johnny Holliday; last post Dec 2011.
• Phil Wood on MASNsports.com; last post Apr 2010.
• Ray Knight: last post Sept 2010: I guess we don’t ask the TV guys to do much writing.
• Screech’s Blog: last post Apr 2012: the Presidents must get more press.
• The Washington Times Blogs: ‘Chatter’: the previous incarnation of the Washington Times sports nats blog, obsoleted when the paper dropped sports on 12/31/2009.  Luckily Mark Zuckerman picked up where he left off on the NatsInsider blog and by freelanching for a year or so.

Known Nats News items on the Net not listed above

• Mr Irrelevant: Jamie & Chris Mottram has a DC-sports heavy blog, but not Nats specific.
• I’m not entirely sure i’m getting all the content The Washington Examiner offers via the above links (which is a shame if true, because I like the writing of Thom Loverro)
• District Sports Page, what grew out of Nationals News Network and Dave Nichols, doesn’t have a Nats-specific feed, just an all-Washington sports feed, and (frankly) I can’t stand the overexposure the Washington Redskins get in this town.
• DC Sports Bog features the always-entertaining writing of Dan Steinberg but isn’t entirely Nats focused.
• William World News from William Yurasko is in the same boat; some Nats posts, not entirely Nats related.  Lots of DC-area items of interest though.
• We Love DC; as with others in this section, lots about DC, some about the Nats.  Editor: Tom Bridge with Nats specialist Rachel Levitin.
• DC Pro Sports Report: like with District Sports Page; all DC sports, no Nats-specific feed that I can find.  Update: Nichols provided this link: districtsportspage.com/category/nationalsmlb
• Baseball News Hound: authored by Ryan Kelley, who also contributes to Bleacher Report.  Lots of Nats stuff but not exclusively so.
• Seamheads.com: more of a generic baseball blog but does have some DC-centric guys like Ted Leavengood who guest-blogs for MASN.

If you have updates, corrections or additions to anything above, please comment and let me know.  I know I may have some of the names for these blogs wrong, or am missing major contributors to sites whose author rolls change quickly.  I apologize in advance for any errors or mistakes.

After finishing the evaluation of all 6 minor league pitching staffs, plus finally finishing (and posting yesterday) the MLB season review,  here’s an entirely too-early projection of what the staffs and rotations may look like in 2013.  This post assumes for the time being that all major and minor league FAs will opt out and we’ll be looking to fill spots.  In these cases I’ll mark FAs to be as needed, though we very well may acquire these players in trade.

Note: some of these projections are slightly different from the original reviews posted in the per-level links, to account for moves, performances and roster moves that have already happened or seem set to happen this off-season.  I’ve also made some slight adjustments in order to make the rotations and bullpens work at each level.

(notations: FA = free agent, MLFA == Minor League Free Agent)

Staff Review links: MLB is here, AAA is here, AA is here, High-A is here, Low-A is here, Short-A is here, GCL is here.

• MLB Rotation: Strasburg, Gonzalez, Zimmermann, Detwiler, FA or other acquisition
• MLB Bullpen: Clippard, Storen, Mattheus, Stammen, Garcia, a FA left-hander (possibly Burnett), a FA long-man (possibly Gorzelanny).
• MLB notables Out of Organization: Jackson, Burnett, Gonzalez, Lannan, Wang

MLB Narrative: 4/5ths of the rotation are no-brainers.  The 5th starter is the question mark for 2013.  Do we re-sign Jackson and pay him more as a 5th starter than our big 3 guys?  It doesn’t seem so after the team declined to give him a Qualifying Offer.  Do we trade from depth (RH relief, middle infield) and find a 5th starter that way?  Do we find a 5th starter from within?  Meanwhile the bullpen is now full of hard throwing righties, but we could lose all 3 of our lefties.  We may need to work the phones to retain these guys, or else we’re on the FA market.  I think (despite my discussion about converting Garcia to a 5th starter) that he’ll remain in the bullpen and may bump Henry Rodriguez out of a job.  One of our two closer-quality guys (Clippard and Storen) could be moved, cashing in on their value, which could open up a spot for a FA acquisition or a promotion from AAA.

Lots to be decided this off-season for Mike Rizzo, and this hasn’t even mentioned the dominos that will fall if/when the team makes a contract decision on Adam LaRoche.

• AAA Rotation: Roark, Maya, Broderick, Meyers, Perry
• AAA Bullpen: Tatusko (swingman), Arneson (swingman), Severino (loogy), Davis, Lehman, Nelo (closer), Martin,  Mandel

AAA Narrative: We have a lot of long-serving minor leaguers here; as it stands now only a few of them are even 40-man roster guys (Maya, Perry, Garcia).  The modern AAA roster construction is one of “spare parts” and prospects; do we have enough prospects to cover for injuries at the MLB level?  Which one of these AAA starters would Nats fans feel comfortable filling in were one of our starters to go down with injury?  Perhaps the Nats need to work on some starter depth via trade.  Brad Meyers was just returned from the Yankees after a season-long DL stint after being Rule-5 drafted, and seems likely to slot right back into the AAA rotation when he’s healthy.  Perry seems set to get a 4th option and should slot in here, looking to convert back to being a starter.  Broderick is a former Rule-5 pick and was claimed from St. Louis, who dumped him late last season.  I don’t think he’s anything more than a 4-A starter, but the organization seems to like him.

• AA Rotation: Rosenbaum, Holder, Gilliam, Karns, Grace, Demny (swingman?) or MLFA?  Solis if he’s healthy?
• AA Bullpen: Frias, McCoy, Selik (maybe high-A again), Holland (setup), Wort (closer), VanAllen (loogy), Demmin (maybe high-A again), an org arm or two to fill in.

AA narrative: We have a couple of interesting candidates in the AA rotation to start, but what may be more interesting is to see whether the likes of Gilliam and Demny hold onto their spots with the talent ready to rise up out of high-A.  Meanwhile, the bullpen has some interesting arms to keep an eye on.  I forgot to mention Solis in the AA write-up but remembered him here.  Two big questions for me in this AA rotation for 2013: 1) is Rosenbaum for real or is he going to sputter out before reaching MLB potential?   And, 2) Is Nathan Karns ready to make the leap?  I think Karns can quickly put his name in the mix to get promoted to AAA based on his performance in 2012.

• High-A Rotation: Swynenberg, Ray, Meyer (maybe AA?), Schwartz (maybe low-A), Rauh (maybe low-A)
• High-A Bullpen Competition: Barrett (maybe AA) , Testa, Smoker (loogy), Hill, Meza (perhaps a starter?), Holt, Hawkins, Bates, Mirowski
• High-A bullpen Release candidates: Olbrychowski, McCatty, Applebee

High-A narrative: there’s too many arms for too few slots right now in all three of the A-levels.   There’s a ton of release candidates, and some guys who could be higher or lower.   I’d love to be a fly on the wall at the organizational meetings where all this evaluation is done.  Meyer dominated High-A last year; could he start in AA?   Barrett (by virtue of his AFL appearance) may also be AA material.

The same goes for the Low-A team below: I’ve got 5 logical rotation candidates, another 4 guys who make sense to be in the low-A rotation, and a slew of guys who seem to have earned their way to the low-A bullpen.  But there’s only 7 slots to go around.

• Low-A Rotation: Turnbull, Jordan, Purke (if healthy), Monar, Mooneyham
• Low-A Rotation Competitors: Hansen, Lee (loogy if not), Encarnation, McGeary (if finally healthy)
• Low-A Bullpen Competition: Anderson, Estevez, Dupra, McKenzie, Henke, Davis, Boyden, Benincasa, Hudgins, Dicherry, Mudron

We acknowledge the folly of trying to predict short-season staffs which will mostly be populated with 2013 draftees, especially under the new CBA that shortens negotiation times, making it more likely college seniors are drafted (who sign quickly with zero leverage) and get playing.  That being said, there will definitely be guys who stay in extended spring training for a couple months and then get placed on these rosters along with new draftees.  Here’s some guesses based on 2012 performances; all blank spots filled by 2013 draftees or by some of the guys who drop down from low-A.

• Short-A Rotation: Baez, Pineyro
• Short-A Bullpen: Smith (if not released), Fischer, Medina, Pena, Mendez

GCL blank spots filled by younger 2013 draftees (HS, Juco and college juniors/seniors from smaller schools) and by rising DSL grads.

• GCL Rotation: Mieses (if not released), Barrientos, Vasquez
• GCL Bullpen: Heredes

Here’s the AA version of the 2012 season pitching staff review.  I’m going down the line from top to bottom; AAA is here.  As with the other reviews, we’ll look at the main rotation, the substitute and spot starters, then focus on key relievers.  Rehab appearances are not discussed.

Harrisburg starters.  The rotation started the season with Gilliam, Demny, Mandel, Rosenbaum and Ballard.  Lets see how the original rotation and other primary starters fared.

• Robert Gilliam, the “forgotten man” in the mega Gio Gonalez trade in December, made the opening day start for Harrisburg but didn’t live up to his billing.  He got 13 starts before going to the bullpen, and then eventually getting demoted to Potomac.  Season AA numbers: 3-7, 6.38 ERA.  Outlook for next season: The team likes him as a starter; i’m guessing they give him another whirl in the AA rotation.
• Paul Demny took a step back in his progressive career with the Nats, going 6-8 with a 5.43 ERA in 23 starts before moving primarily to the bullpen at the end of the season.  He’s still very young (just turned 23) but he’s finishing his 5th pro season and 2013 will be his “walk year.”  Interestingly, the Nats named Demny one of their AFL participants, an odd selection based on his performance this season. Outlook for next season: as with Gilliam, I’d be surprised if Demny remains a starter.  AA bullpen as a swingman unless the team needs a 5th starter.
• Jeff Mandel started the year in the Harrisburg rotation and put in 11 middling starts before getting moved to AAA to replace an equally ineffective Mitch Atkins.  This marked the third straight season he had started in AA and moved to AAA, a sure sign of an organizational arm who filled in where needed.  Outlook for next season: see AAA post.
• Danny Rosenbaum was supposed to be the Ace, the Star of this rotation.  He was the highest-ranked prospect and was the Organization’s best starting pitching prospects.  He didn’t really live up to his billing, going 8-10 with a 3.94 ERA and a 1.31 whip in 26 starts.  He looked great his first 10 starts and then struggled the rest of the season.  He turns 25 in the off-season and is Rule-5 Eligible.  I think the team has to protect him.  Outlook for next season: Added to 40-man roster ahead of the Rule-5 draft but back in AA to start 2013, with an eye on a mid-season promotion to AAA.
• Mike Ballard was a Minor League Free Agent signed from Baltimore (after failing to make it in the Houston organization after 5 minor league seasons).  You would have thought he’d have been in AAA but started the season in the AA rotation.  After 12 up-and-down starts he got absolutely pounded on June 13th, hit the DL with “elbow discomfort” and has been there ever since.   Final season stats: 1-5, 4.31 ERA.  Outlook for next season: released.  You hate to cut a guy with a season-ending injury, but business is business.
• Ryan Perry, astutely acquired for Collin Balester (who failed to impress in Detroit and was DFA’d earlier this year) in spring training and he competed for the MLB bullpen.  He featured briefly, was ineffective and was optioned to AAA.  The team took a look at his repertoire and decided to try to convert him to a starter in AA.  The results?  Pretty good; a 2.84 ERA and 1.11 whip in 13 AA starts.  Outlook for next season: here’s the problem with Perry; he’s out of options for 2013.  He was added to a 40-man roster in April 2009, and burned options in 2009, 2011 and this year.   So he has to either make the MLB club or be DFA’d at the end of spring training.  So look for Perry to compete for the #5 starter job or be considered trade bait in the off-season.
• Kevin Pucetas is another Minor League Free Agent who probably was too experienced for AA (as with Ballard); he spent the previous 3 seasons in the Pacific Coast League.  For Harrisburg in 2012 he was excellent out of the pen early (posting a 1.59 era in 34 relief innings) and then was relatively mediocre in 12 starts (5-5 with a 4.81 ERA).  You have to think he was merely filler for a gap in pitcher development in this system and will be looking for work elsewhere for 2013.  Outlook for next season: with another organization.
• Trevor Holder finally looked like he was putting things together early in Potomac, earned a mid-season promotion to Harrisburg and put up a 3.78 ERA in 10 starts (9 actual starts plus a 10th game where the “starter” went one inning on a rehab assignment).  The knock on Holder was that he was a total signability pick in 2009 after the team spent big on Strasburg and Storen.  It is good to see him putting some things together.  Outlook for next season: AA rotation.
• Ryan Tatusko got 8 starts in 27 appearances in a long-man/spot-starter/swingman role for the team.  He was slightly better as a reliever versus a starter (his splits showing a 2.72 ERA with greater than a k/inning as a reliever, a 4.50 ERA in his 8 starts).  I have always liked Tatusko (not the least reason of which is that he writes a blog) and was eager to see him contributed after he came over (with Tanner Roark) in the Cristian Guzman trade.  But his time with the organization may be at an end; he just finished his 6th minor league season and he took a step back with the organization.  Outlook for next season: I thought he’d have been in AAA by now; perhaps 2013 is the year.  AAA swingman.
• Other guys who got spot starts here and there (non-rehab):
  • Brian Broderick: the team’s former rule-5 pick never made it with St. Louis, and when he was released the Nats picked him up.  He got a handful of appearances down the stretch and finished the season with 3 starts.  The team clearly likes the guy and seems willing to give him a chance.  Outlook for next season: AAA rotation.
  • Austin Bibens-Dirkx, he had a couple starts early before getting promoted up to AAA, where he probably should have started the season based on his experience.   Outlook for next season: (as copied from the AAA post): with another organization.
  • Adam Olbrychowski got called up to make the last start of the season.  Outlook for next season: see High-A post.
  • Of note: Chien-Ming Wang made no less than NINE rehab starts in AA (and fifteen overall minor league rehab starts).  You can argue whether or not the organization was “bending” the DL/service time rules or not; either way I can’t see how Wang stays with this team for 2013 and beyond.

Harrisburg Relievers: taking a look at the relief corps at the end of the season.  They used an awful lot of them.

• Marcos Frias finishes his 6th pro season taking a step back from his 2011 numbers in high-A.  On the year, a 4.82 ERA in 65 1/3 relief innings.   He’s still very young, being a DSL graduate and yet to turn 24.  Technically he’s rule-5 eligible but its hard to see a team taking a flier on a RH reliever without knock-out stuff.  Outlook for next season: back in AA bullpen.
• Erik Davis was generally excellent all season for Harrisburg, posting a 2.52 ERA in 64 1/3 relief innings.  He earned a late season promotion to AAA.  The former starter and trade bounty for Alberto Gonzalez technically is rule-5 eligible but the risk of losing him seems slight.  Outlook for next season: AAA bullpen, looking to become the next Christian Garcia.
• Patrick McCoy had a pretty good season out of the pen in Harrisburg; 7-3 with a 3.70 era in 58 1/3 innings.  He was rule-5 eligible in 2011 but didn’t get picked up.  Now he’s one year from being a Minor League Free Agent.  Outlook for next season: AA or perhaps AAA bullpen, whoever needs a left hander.
• Hector Nelo, who was released by Texas in April of 2011, finished the year with strong numbers as the team’s primary closer.  He had a 2.73 era and 16 saves in 52 2/3s innings over 47 appearances.  More importantly his K/9 rates really jumped from 2011.   He’s the kind of big-time arm that Mike Rizzo loves (he can reportedly hit 100mph) and should get some looks going foward.  He’s tied to the organization for one more season.  Outlook for next season: the closer in AAA.
• Rafael Martin was as unbelievably bad statistically in 2012 as he was good in 2011.  How do you go from a 1.65 ERA across 2 organizations in 2011 to a 6.69 ERA in 2012?  Perhaps the answer is either a late-season injury or fatigue; in his last four appearances in AA this season he gave up 11 earned runs; the 6 appearances before that just one.  He’s no spring chicken though; he’s already 28 and is far far too old for AA at this point.  Outlook for next season: bullpen in AAA and hoping for a rebound to 2011’s numbers.
• Cameron Selik pitched 1/3 of an inning in AA before a season-ending injury.  Outlook for next season: See High-A writeup.
• Pat Lehman got promoted to AAA.  Joe Testa got demoted to High-A.  See those write-ups for outlooks.
• Other Relievers who appeared in AA of note (not including Rehabbing MLBers): Outlook for next season for all of these guys seems the same: either continued “org guy” middle reliever or minor league FA in another organization.
  • Zech Zinicola came back to the team after being rule-5 drafted in late 2009, and remains an organizational arm.
  • Jimmy Barthmaier split time between AA and high-A.  Org arm.
  • Corey VanAllen was demoted down from AAA and then got hurt in July.   Org arm, maybe a loogy in AA again.

Summary

Harrisburg struggled to find a good consistent group of starters.  My guesses on what role these guys will play next season list too many guys getting dumped into the bullpen, so it may be interesting to see who gets another shot at starting in 2013.  Unfortunately these injuries and inconsistencies cost the team a near-certain 2nd half playoff spot.

Craig Stammen looks set to lead a potentially weak 2012 AAA rotation. Photo unknown via sabermetrics.com

We all know who went the other way in the Gio Gonzalez trade; A significant portion of our starter depth, especially at or near the majors.  Both Tommy Milone and Brad Peacock got a few starts in September last year, and both fared relatively well (albeit against somewhat weakened or dis-interested opponents).

Prior to the Gonzalez signing, one would have thought that the MLB 2012 rotation was mostly set, with Ross Detwiler taking the 5th spot over Milone and Peacock by virtue of his (lack of) options status.  That would have left both these younger starters in AAA waiting for their opportunity.  With them now in Oakland’s organization … who is going to start for Syracuse in 2012?  Who represents our starter depth in case someone gets hurt?

At the end of the 2011 season, if one had to guess Syracuse’s 2012 rotation you would have probably guessed it to be Milone, Peacock, Brad Meyers, Craig Stammen and Yuniesky Maya.  This would essentially be the same rotation Syracuse ended their regular season with (replacing spot starter JD Martin with Milone, who by that point had departed for the majors).  Now consider this same group:

• Milone: traded to Oakland
• Peacock: traded to Oakland
• Meyers: picked up by New York in the rule 5 draft
• Martin: signed a minor league FA deal with Miami

Only Stammen and Maya now remain, and frankly I’m not sure who else the team is going to get to start in Syracuse in 2012.  Here’s a list of every one who made starts in 2011 at Syracuse: Red means they’re no longer with the organization, Blue means they were making re-hab starts or were starts by guys who are out of options for 2012 and aren’t appearing in Syracuse:

So, by category of starts:

• 69 were made by players no longer with Washington (including Rule-5 draftee Meyers, who may very well be returned but for now is a New York Yankee)
• 20 were made by Detwiler and other MLBers on re-hab assignments.
• the remaining 51 games made by guys who may or may not feature in 2012.

That’s 63% of your AAA starts made by guys who won’t be making any 2012 AAA starts for this organization.

Well, you may say, perhaps we should just be expecting all those AA pitchers from 2011 to be rising up.  Except that our AA rotation was filled with reclamation projects and minor league free agents in 2011.  Here’s a comparable look at those who made AA starts for the franchise in 2011 (again, with red and blue indicating the same as above):

AA Start Summary:

• 67 were made by players no longer with Washington (including all minor league Free Agents for the time being, even though some may re-sign eventually)
• 4 were re-hab assignments by current MLBers.
• the remaining 71 games made by guys who may or may not feature in 2012.  This includes a few starts by Arneson

That’s 50% of your AA starts made by guys no longer with the organization or re-hab starts.  Arneson pitched well enough, but he’s no prospect; he’s 28 and starting his 6th minor league year.  Roark and Tatusko both struggled in 2011 and seem destined for the bullpen.  Davis was demoted, Bronson only called up for a spot AA start, and Rosenbaum pitched well in 6 late season starts but needs more AA seasoning.  So not a lot of help coming up from Harrisburg.

Luckily, the Nats have been adding minor league free agent signings left and right, guys who probably will feature.  By my notes, here’s the arms we’ve added so far this off season:

• Matthew Buschmann, rhp: taken in the rule5 draft (AA phase) from San Diego, he was reasonably successful in 2011 in the AA Texas league before getting pounded in 20 appearances (15 starts) in AAA.  By virtue of his rule-5 drafting, he’s pretty much guaranteed to be on the AAA roster in some capacity.  He is a starter; will be be one of Syracuse’s starters?
• Joaquin Waldis, rhp, signed to a 1yr ML FA (former club: San Francisco) with an invite to Spring Training.  He was a reliever all of 2011 and was most likely signed to provide some depth in the middle relief phase.  Not a starter option.
• Jeff Fulchino, rhp, signed to a 1yr ML FA (Houston), invite to ST (split contract).  Was relatively mediocre for Houston and San Diego last year, again signed for some reliever depth/spring training competition.
• Robert Gilliam, a rhp thrown into the Gonzalez trade, is a starter but only was at Oakland’s Class-A entry in the California League last year.  He seems set to be in the AA rotation in 2012.
• Mike Ballard, a lhp starter given a 1yr ML FA (Baltimore), invite to ST.  He was relatively effective for Baltimore’s AA affiliate in Bowie, but less so at AAA Norfolk, where he started the season.  He is a full-time starter and seems a likely candidate for our AAA rotation.

Ok, It seems like we may have our answer.  It looks like your AAA rotation will be Stammen, Maya, Arneson, Buschmann and Ballard.  Here’s a quick rundown on these 5 guy’s AAA numbers for 2011:

Without sounding too judgmental … that’s not a lot of AAA depth in case something happens.  Only 2 of these 5 are even on the 40-man, and those who are have either proven to be ineffective at the major league level (Maya) or seem destined to be used as middle relief/organization filler (Stammen).  If Meyers gets returned, look for him to replace Arneson one for one (since Arnesen seems destined to be the minor league utility guy, as he was used last year).

I’d have to say; if someone goes down with injury, we’ll most likely look from within the MLB bullpen (in the form of Gorzelanny or Detwiler) for starts.

Its Hall of Fame ballot time. Let the Jack Morris arguments start-up again. Photo John Iacono via si.com

This is your semi-weekly/periodic wrap-up of Nats and other baseball news that caught my eye.  With the approaching Hall of Fame nonsense, er I mean news cycle approaching, I’ll throw in a HoFame section.

Nationals In General

• Transcribed from a radio interview by Tim Dierkes, here’s Mike Rizzo on CF and 1B.  This is the first time I’ve seen Rizzo mention NEXT year’s FA class in terms of looking for talent and it makes you wonder if we don’t already have our entire primary starting 15 set (8 out-field players, 5 starters and setup/closer) for 2012.   I can live with Jayson Werth in CF, since it opens up lots of FA possibilities in RF.  In fact, I smell a separate post coming…
• Former Nat Lastings Milledge is going to Japan to try to resurrect his baseball career.
• Scouting-specific SeedlingsToStars.com site looks at Anthony Rendon.
• The USA Today does an in-depth, position-by-position overview of the team and where it stands.
• Another Tom Boswell article that I disagree with; he thinks Prince Fielder isn’t “right” for the Nats.   I’m sorry; but Fielder is a run creating machine (he created 35 more runs last year than Michael Morse, by way of comparison, which roughly equates with his 5.2 Wins Above replacement value).  Yes we have LaRoche who is plus defense, but is he going to come back to 2010’s form or is he going to be a lost cause again?  Meanwhile, Fielder looks set to take a shorter term deal and re-try his hand at the FA market when he hits 30.  Wouldn’t you sign him for 3yrs $70M?  You put Fielder at 1B, keep Morse in Left, groom Bryce Harper to play center and keep Werth in right.   For the next 3 years.  How difficult is that?  Boswell talks about where to put Rendon; well; you put him wherever you have a need.  Put him at 2nd and move Espinosa to short.  Or you trade someone to free up room.  This team’s problem isn’t the need for a lead-off slap hitter; we need a big run producer in the middle of the order.  Someone to replace what Adam Dunn gave us for two years.
• Ryan Tatusko posts his 2011 recap of his minor league season plus his time in the Venezuelan Winter League.  I wish more players were as blogger-friendly as Tatusko.

Hall of Fame Specific

• A pro Edgar Martinez take with the important quote, “There is a position called DH…”  I have changed my own stance on this issue in recent years, especially when considering relief pitchers as hall of fame worthy.  If you argue that a closer and his 60-70 innings is somehow more valuable to a team than a designated hitter’s 650 at bats, then I’d have to disagree.  On my hypothetical ballot, Martinez is in.
• Excellent review of active MLB players under HoFame consideration by Fangraph’s Dave Cameron.   Also, the comments discussion brings up a number of other players.  He uses primarily career WAR to determine the player’s value, which I’m somewhat hesitant about (in most cases WAR is an accumulator stat, as a mediocre player who stayed very healthy will have a higher WAR than an excellent but shorter-lived career).
• This article really got to me, to the point where I commented on both the original post by Jay Jaffe at Baseball Prospectus and the discussion at TangoTiger‘s InsideTheBook.com blog.  Jaffe’s hall of fame measuring system (called JAWS) somehow has determined that Brad Radke, the middling pitcher for the Twins who had basically one standout season in his career, was a BETTER player career-wise than Jack Morris.  How would any sane baseball observer possibly come to this conclusion?  This is where the modern blogger’s over-reliance on statistics really gets to me.  I have not read into why this system ranks Radke so high while ranking Morris so low but suspect it is due to a reliance on the same calculations that go into the ERA+ statistic (of which Radke’s career ERA+ of113  is better than Nolan Ryan‘s career era of 112).

Free Agents/Player Transaction News

• Oakland continues to dismantle itself: Boston trades OF prospect Josh Reddick and two other players to Oakland for closer Andrew Bailey and outfielder Ryan Sweeney.  This is after Boston acquired Mark Melancon earlier in the off-season; they now have completely remade the back side of their rotation.  Clearly the team is moving Daniel Bard to the rotation, having just traded for his replacement.   Reddick was clearly seen as surplus to requirements, despite putting together a decent 2011 season, but you have to wonder if the team is going to be satisfied with Sweeney starting in RF.
• Keith Law makes a good point during his analysis of the Bailey move, saying that adding Bailey is a far better move than paying Jonathan Papelbon $50M.  I agree completely and think that anyone who pays $10M+ per year for a guy who throws 70 innings and who only really has about 50% “high leverage” plate appearances (see last year’s splits for Mariano Rivera and Papelbon to see that 57% of Rivera’s plate appearances were in “high” leverage situations as a high, while Papelbon was at 47%) is just wasting money.  Find a hard thrower in your organization (say, like Drew Storen for the Nats), install him as the closer as a rookie, then ride him til free agency and then cut him loose and start over.  Relievers are fungible talents, they come and go, mostly are failed starters since they don’t need the full repertoire of pitches to be successful, and are cheaper to come by.
• (hat tip to ck of the Nats Enquirer): The Baltimore Sun reports that Scott Boras and Prince Fielder were in the Baltimore/DC area to meet with an owner not named Peter Angelos.  More links on the topic from Federal Baseball.  Gee, I wonder who it could be?  Why would those two fly HERE and not directly to the city of the owner in question, unless the owner of the team in question was either a) the Nationals, or b) an owner of a MLB team who lives in this area but owns a team based elsewhere, or c) an owner of another team just happened to be in DC for some odd reason (odd because Congress is out of session, which would seem to eliminate most any possibly lobbying reason).  Don’t get me wrong; I think Adam LaRoche can contribute in 2012 and it seems ludicrous to think he can’t at least get close to his 2010 numbers, but Fielder is a 5+ WAR player who probably makes us the favorite for the NL wild card if we sign him, right now.

General Baseball News

• Wow, two LOOGY articles in the same day.  Bill James answered a question about the evolution of the LOOGY and posted this link describing its birth (apparently by Tony LaRussa in the 1991 season).  I also never knew that the term “LOOGY” was coined by none other than Rob Neyer.  And TangoTiger points to some of the same research.  Mid 30s lefties everywhere have LaRussa to thank for their extended careers.
• Could you imagine this happening in today’s game?  The first intentional pitch would have resulted in ejections.  Certainly modern umpires would not let a pitcher throw pitch after pitch at an opposing batter.  Clearly these umpires let this game get out of hand.
• Will MLB step in?  USAToday’s Seth Livingston thinks that the Oakland payroll dumping trades this off-season may get the attention of the front office.  Hard to see why; according to Cot’s the Athletics are only signed up for around $17M of guaranteed contracts in 2012 right now, before a slew of arbitration cases.  They non-tendered 3 of their 10 arbitration cases but kept a couple of their more expensive guys (Cot’s thinks they had 14 arbitration-eligible players; I havn’t cross-referenced outrights and DFAs but know they had 10 arb tender decisions).  Of those they did tender, they have since traded away Sweeney, Gonzalez, Bailey, Breslow and Cahill.  Geeze.  Baseball-Reference thinks they’ll get to $50M in payroll; I wonder if they’ll get to $35m frankly.  And, its looking more and more like this could be something like a 50-win team.  Things could get ugly in the Bay area in 2012.
• This would be a loss for us prospect hounds: Keith Law is reportedly interviewing for a front-office position with the Houston Astros.  Law takes a very specific, opinionated viewpoint towards player development, drawing from his experiences in the Toronto organization (which itself during his time took a rather college-heavy approach to the draft which ultimately wasn’t as successful as the team wanted, ultimately contributing to the end of JP Ricciardi‘s reign.
• An interesting exercise; USA Today builds an unbeatable MLB team for the median MLB payroll.  Honestly though, I’m not sure just how challenging this exercise is.  If you gave me $86M (the median payroll they used) you should be able to put together TWO such teams.  There’s enough pre-arbitration and arbitration-controlled talent in the league to be able to do the same task for something approaching a $20M payroll.  A future blog post?  🙂
• Follow-up on Alex Rodriguez‘s experimental Germany treatment; this op-ed piece from Jeff Passan on the blurry line between PEDs and legitimate surgical procedures.  The article has a very in-depth description of the A-Rod procedure and raises the question as to what defines a Performance Enhancing Drug?  I have had similar discussions; why are Steroids “bad” but Cortisone “good” in terms of usage?  What do Cortisone shots do?  They enable a player to play through pain that otherwise may keep him out.  Uh … isn’t that the definition of a “performance enhancing” substance??  Steroid’s aren’t illegal; they’re just controlled.  But so is cortisone; you can’t just inject yourself with the stuff without a doctor’s order.  Passan takes things one step further, comparing the healing effects of HGH with these new treatments that A-Rod and Bartolo Colon got and makes a very good point; the WADA uses 3 categories to define a doping drug and everything we’ve described here can be argued to fit those criteria (except that only HGH and Steroids have been determined to be “bad” by the powers that be).  There’s something inconsistent here.

Collegiate/Prospect News

• Seedling to the Star’s scouting report on Braves phenom prospect Julio Teheran.  Teheran’s stock has slipped somewhat in the past two years, especially given the inevitable comparisons to fellow pitching prospect phenom Matt Moore.  While Moore’s 2011 MLB debut was nothing short of amazing (including his 7 innings of shutout ball in the playoffs), Teheran posted a 5.03 ERA in about 20 MLB innings throughout 2011.  It was bad enough to probably rule Teheran out of the 2012 rotation plans and send him back to repeat AAA.  But if he can put things together, he’ll join an arsenal of young arms in Atlanta that seems set to be their next wave of starters in the ilk of John Smoltz and Tom Glavine.

General News; other

• Baseball meets modern America: Joe Maddon and the rising Latino population in his home town of Hazelton, PA, as written by Joe Posnanski.
• 67-56?  I’ve never seen a football game with such a ridiculous scoring line.

Fare the well Mr Balester; we'll miss your moustache's twitter account. Photo Nats official Al Bello/Getty Images North America via zimbio.com

I have a new rule: when this post hits 1500 words, I’ll publish it no matter what the date.

Nationals In General

• Re-signing Ryan Zimmerman thoughts, since it keeps coming up thanks to the Pujols signing, Jim Bowden comments and Natmosphere bloggers bringing it up.  After an injury-plagued year (and really, the 3rd such injury-marred year he’s had out of 6 full pro seasons, including 2 surgeries and one torn labrum he just rehabbed but which cost him 1/3 of a season), the team rightfully should be concerned about giving him a Troy Tulowitzki like deal, guaranteeing money for 10 years.  But on the flip side, ironically after such an injury year his value is down and the team probably can save some money by signing him longer term.  The new CBA takes away a lot of the draft pick compensation we would expect by letting him go to Free Agency, and trading him in the middle of 2013, while we’re probably in the middle of a pennant race, would be a non-starter.
• Speaking of Zimmerman, everyone’s favorite ex-Nats GM Jim Bowden posts some potential Hanley Ramirez trade ideas, you know, since he’s a petulant superstar already prone to being a clubhouse cancer and now in the position of having to move to 3B, probably without being told ahead of time that the team was nearing a deal with Jose Reyes.  His #1 option: Ramirez for Zimmerman straight up.  Bowden is convinced the Nats, by virtue of not having addressed Zimmerman’s contract status, are going to let him walk at the end of 2013.  Its not the first time he’s brought it up.  Hey Jim; stop trying to MAKE the news and just report on it.
• Some cool blog posts from Nats minor leaguer Ryan Tatusko, on the differences between learning in Pro ball versus College, and another posting just before it on the “art of throwing a ball.”
• Trade announced Friday 12/9/11: Collin Balester to the Tigers for rhp Ryan Perry.  A good move for both sides: the Nats were likely to have to waive Balester at the end of spring training by virtue of his lack of options, so we get something for nothing.  Perry has an option left and, while his 2011 numbers were pretty bad, he does have one more  option remaining so the team can use spring training as a tryout of sorts.  Perry could be a natural replacement for Todd Coffey, and is a good move since clearly Balester’s value to the team has ceased and we still need a couple of bullpen arms.  Great analysis of the trade here from Masn’s new beat reporter Pete Kerzel.  Great human-interest angle here from Amanda Comak: Balester’s wife is from Detroit so the family is ecstatic that he’s playing so close now.
• Byron Kerr, whose writing I normally like, wrote a laughably pro-team article about some of our marginal relievers.  The quotes about Doug Slaten are especially ridiculous, quoting our new bench coach Randy Knorr as saying that Slaten is “one of the three best left-handed relievers in the National League.”   That is so ridiculous that I had to comment on the article and call Kerr’s reporting into question.
• Henry Rodriguez‘s change-up was listed among the “more interesting” pitches to talk about in baseball by Sam Miller from Baseball Prospectus.  Also thrown in there is Roy Halladay‘s cutter, Mariano Rivera‘s cutter, Javier Lopez‘s drop-down side-arm fastball and Brad Lidge‘s slider.  All of these pitches are analyzed in various statistical measures.
• The Non-tender deadline came and went, and the team acted as I predicted here.  They protected all their arbitration-eligible guys outside of Doug Slaten.  Here’s a link to MLBtraderumors non-tender tracker for all 30 teams, and there are definitely some interesting names out there now for the Nats, who definitely have some FA needs.  Peter Moylan, Ryan Theriot, Joe Saunders, Andy Sonnanstine and a few others.  BJ Upton was tendered, meaning we’re going to have to give up some prospects to get him.  Mind you, some of these non-tenders are part of pre-arranged deals to come back to the club, but some are definitely the team cutting ties.

Free Agents/Player Transaction News

• Let the bidding begin!  Yu Darvish officially posts, and as a side-effect makes his soon-to-be-ex-wife a multi-millionare.  Good for him (and her).  Mike Rizzo and the Nationals have definitely scouted the guy and are interested; how high will be willing to go on the posting fee to “win” the negotiations?  Another thought: why wouldn’t we just blow out the posting fee, guarantee the win, then play uber-hardball with Darvish on a contract to make the entire package reasonable?  If we can’t agree on terms, he goes back to Japan (where he clearly has nothing left to prove) but nobody else gets him?  Sounds a little disingenuous but its a strategy.  In any case, we’ll know the posting winner by Wednesday.
• How do the Tampa Bay Rays keep doing this?  Phenom pitcher Matt Moore signed a 5yr/$14M contract that has club options that could max it out at 8yrs/$40M and buys out the first two free agency years.  I wonder if, 4 years from now, we’ll be looking at this contract and absolutely shaking our heads in disbelief at how underpaid he is.  Kinda like how we look at Evan Longoria‘s contract and say the same thing.
• A good point about the Angels’ Pujols signing: they now have way too many guys who play first base and outfield.  Morales, Trumbo, and Abreu seem to be first basemen only, and they still have the outfield quartet of Wells, Hunter, Bourjos and uber prospect Mike Trout.   They fixed some catcher depth issues, they don’t need starting pitching.  I wonder what the Nats could do to take some of these hitters off their hands?
• Arizona lands one of the Oakland starters Trevor Cahill in trade.  Arizona bolsters their division-winning rotation, now looking at Kennedy, Hudson, Cahill, Saunders and Collmenter.  Not bad.  Most pundits are calling the trade a steal for Arizona, who gave up a 1st rounder but only two other mediocre prospects.
• Turns out the Nats were off by a significant amount on Mark Buehrle.  We offered 3yrs/$39M versus the 4yrs/$58M he got from Miami.  No wonder he took their deal.  Too bad; he would have been a good addition.  Not the addition I would have gone after, but still a solid #3 starter for the next few years.
• All those people who write “Pujols should have stayed”  or “Pujols has tarnished his legacy” articles should probably zip it.  As is depicted here, the Angels clearly showed they wanted Albert for the long term, including the personal services contract.  Not to mention their offer beat St. Louis’ by $40M.   You just cannot leave $40M on the table.  A few million over a number of years, sure.  $40M?  No way.  Oh, and for everyone who says “well, Stan Musial stayed with St. Louis his whole career,” I will counter with this: “Musial had a reserve clause, Pujols does not.  If icons from the pre 1970s had free agency as an option to earn more money and move to better situations, you’d be a fool to think that they wouldn’t have used that system.”
• Would you take a flier on AJ Burnett?  The Yankees apparently are willing to eat $8M of the $33M owed to him over the next two years.  If he moved from the AL East to the NL East, he’d probably see a full point reduction in his ERA.  But a quick look at his career stats lends me to believe that he’s barely above mediocre but paid like a super-star.  Burnett’s career ERA+ is now 105.  Our own John Lannan‘s?  103.

General Baseball News

• Since I’m a bay-area native, I’m always interested in reading news blips about San Francisco and Oakland teams.  Here’s Andrew Clem with a quick blog post with some interesting links to potential new stadium sites and designs.  The big sticking point, obviously, is that the Giants claim San Jose as their territory.  And its hard to argue with them; clearly the “bay area” of San Francisco is exactly the suburbs of San Francisco.  Even though its roughly the same geographical distance from DC to Baltimore as it is from San Francisco to San Jose, there are three major highways to ease the traffic flow (as opposed to one between the two east coast cities) and people routinely make their way up and down the peninsula to commute.  Thus, its going to be a very difficult sell for Oakland to move south, even if they stay across the bay in the Fremont area.  I don’t know the solution; just that the A’s now reside in the same division as the 2-time defending AL champs AND the Angels with their newly minted $170M payroll.  Ouch.
• Unbelievable: the reigning NL MVP Ryan Braun reportedly has tested positive for a synthetic testosterone and faces a 50-game ban.  What an unexpected piece of news; one of the “new generation” of sluggers who wasn’t tainted at all by the shenanigans of the last 90s now has thrown us back into the same PED conversation we’ve been having for years.  That being said, there is some hope in reading the linked article.  Apparently he asked for a second test, and he was clean in the second test.  There are “false positive” tests all the time.  The case is under appeal but has leaked out (unfortunately for the slugger, who now faces the stigma of the positive test even if its a false positive).
• Boston announces that Daniel Bard will be moved to the starting rotation in 2012.  Excellent move by Boston; if Bard is just a decent starter, he’s still far more valuable than as a reliever.  Of course, this more or less guts the back end of their bullpen, so look for Boston to sign some of the reliever/closer talent still available on the FA market.

General News; other

• Not that you may care about the BCS and college football, but here’s a fantastic analysis of the BCS formulas and the flaws contained within them.  It isn’t a bombshell article, but does show some troubling facts about a system that has built in flaws, with coaches voting on items that have a direct effect on their own teams’ successes.

All other news items are meaningless until we know if Wilson Ramos is safe. Photo Al Bello/Getty Images via federalbaseball.com

Here’s a weekly wrap up of Nats-related news items, along with other general interest baseball articles, with my thoughts as appropriate.  (Note: these news items are more or less chronological, with me going back and adding in clarifying links as needed.  Hence the Ramos news is towards the bottom, having happened late in the Saturday-to-Friday blog post news cycle i’m using, despite clearly being the most important item to the team right now…)

• MLB’s Bill Ladson reports that the Nats have interest in Roy Oswalt, late of the Phillies.  I don’t think its a serious interest frankly; yes Oswalt would be nice to have and would be a better member of the rotation than either Detwiler or Milone (your probable #5 starters right now), but I suspect that this is just Mike Rizzo claiming interest in every good FA.  I’m sure if you asked Rizzo if he was interested in Pujols he’d say, “yes!”  But its not worthy of an 800 word article.
• Nice start in the AFL from Sammy Solis on Friday 11/5/11: 9 K’s in 4 scoreless innings.  He gave up 3 hits and 3 walks though, so not an entirely clean outing, but that many strikeouts against an AFL hitting all-star lineup is good.  Also on the night, Matthew Purke had a 1-2-3 inning, progress considering what he’s done earlier in the AFL.  Solis’ next start wasn’t as clean, 3 runs in 3 innings for the loss.  We’ve all been cautioned not to read too much into any stat line coming out of the AFL; its the end of a long season, the pitchers are tired, the hitters are tired, its a hitters league in hitters ballparks, etc.  So perhaps I’ll stop trying to analyze performances in Arizona.  I’d like to see some progress, some decent scouting reports about Purke specifically, but Solis, who just finished a full season, probably isn’t a concern.  Especially if, by previous accounts, he’s working on a new curve ball.
• For anyone who cares about our neighbor franchise in Baltimore, their GM search did not go very well.  The lost out on their (presumed) top choice Jerry Dipoto to the Angels, then had their #2 choice Tony LaCava turn down the job.  Why?  According to Danny Knobler, owner Peter Angelos refused to clear out his cronies in the front office, so LaCava declined the job.  Now we hear that the #3 candidate DeJon Watson has pulled out, seemingly because (according to allegations in this post) he was only being interviewed to satisfy minority-consideration requirements out of the front office.  Wait, it gets better; Boston assistant Allen Baird declined to even interview for the job.  Finally on 11/6, former Montreal and Boston GM Dan Duquette signed on for the job.  Still, what a joke; at what point does Angelos look in the mirror, and look at the 15 years of destruction he’s done to what was once the best team and best franchise in the sport, and admit to himself he needs to change his ways?  I don’t have a reference necessarily, but recall an article discussing this decline of the once proud Orioles as a classic case of successful business executive in one field (in Angelos’ case, law) obtaining a sports franchise and then immediately assuming (because of ego) that because he was successful in business, he will be successful in sports ownership.  You see this clearly with Dan Snyder‘s tenure of the similarly once-proud Redskins.  How do the Orioles get out of this mess?  Unfortunately, it may take the untimely death of Angelos to get some movement towards reality in the ownership group.
• Is it just me, or is the Oakland franchise heading for some dark days?  Per Ken Rosenthal, they’re taking offers on nearly any player on the team, their entire OF and DH are free agents and not likely to be pursued, and they may look to actually pare salary from last year’s 21st ranked salary team.  The A’s have a slew of younger arms that all put up good numbers (albeit in a pitcher’s ballpark), and could be entertaining phone calls on some of their arbitration-eligible starters.  Perhaps the Nats, who have a history of trading with Billy Beane, could flip some prospects for someone like Trevor Cahill or Gio Gonzalez, both entering the first year of arbitration and sure be in the $3M range (Rosenthal’s article says Cahill is signed long-term, but its not in Cots).  Or, they could pursue a non-guaranteed deal with Dallas Braden, who clearly will be non-tendered coming off major shoulder surgery but who could be the next Wang-like reclamation project.  Lastly, Brandon McCarthy is a free agent,  and pitched pretty well in 2011 when he wasn’t hurt.  He could be another injury-reclamation, low-cost acquisition.
• Frank McCourt, as we all know by now, is selling the Los Angeles Dodgers.  About time.  But did you also know he’s selling the Los Angeles Marathon?  Question: how do you “own” a marathon?
• Silver Sluggers announced on 11/2/11:  No Nats mentioned, hardly a surprise.  Michael Morse was never going to beat out the NL outfield trio of Kemp, Braun, and Upton, who may finish nearly 1-2-3 in MVP voting.  No room in the NL outfield for Lance Berkman either.
• Thanks to Nats blogs District on Deck and NationalsProspects for pointing out BA’s published list of all 500-something Minor League Free Agents.  There’s several very familiar names on the list (Garrett Mock, JD Martin, and Shairon Martis to start) and it could be interesting to see if these guys try their luck elsewhere.  I’ll probably put together a re-cap of these FAs along with my commentary culled from my minor league review articles later on.
• My former teammate and GM/coordinator of the collegiate wood bat franchise Antonio Scott just got enough backing to enter his team into the Cal Ripken league for next season.  His team, which generally tries to recruit from historically black colleges and also spends a great amount of time reaching back into the DC youth baseball community, will partner with Gallaudet University and play at their new facility.  Great news for Antonio and for youth baseball in the District.
• Per Byron Kerr, Baseball America released top 10 prospects for NL East teams on 11/6.  Here’s the BA link directly for the Nationals.  The rankings show just how good BA thinks our 2011 draft was, and more or less mirrors the Fangraphs.com ranking that came out earlier this off-season.  Here’s 2010’s rankings for comparison.  There is some complaining in the Natmosphere about the over-ranking of our 2011 draft crop, but (as I pointed in in comments on other blogs) there’s little argument in ranking Rendon, Purke, Godwin and Meyer over the guys most likely ranked 11-15th in our system (guys like Hood, Kobernus, Marrero or Smoker).
• The next great hope from Cuba: Yoenis Cespedes. Wants $30M contract, projects as a center fielder (albeit with a poor arm) and a #5 power hitter. Of course, the Nats have their name listed as “interested.”  One wonders if the Yuniesky Maya experiment will color their opinions of the next great Cuban question mark.
• I found a random blog related to Cuban baseball; here’s their reaction to Cespedes’ FA announcement.  All I can say is, wow.  Can’t say I’ve ever seen a blog post calling someone the “N-word” for pursuing a free agent contract.
• Awful news coming out late Wednesday: Wilson Ramos kidnapped in Venezuela.  This is, as noted in Adam Kilgore‘s article, a growing trend in certain South American countries.  Lets hope its done for a quick buck and Ramos is returned unharmed.  The call to return home in the off-season is large for latin american players; I wonder how much incidents like this (along with other well publicized incidents of late involving family members of other prominent baseball players, as well as numerous accounts from pro Soccer players and their families) will force teams to “strongly advise” against their players returning to latin america in the off season.  Ryan Tatusko, Nats farm-hand and fellow Venezuela Winter League participant, blogged about his thoughts of the safety issues in the country.
• Rob Neyer scanned and published (with Bill James’ consent) the first set of Baseball Analyst articles edited and written by James back in the early 80s.  You can save-as all the PDFs and cover art JPGs.
• Great, great Nationals Prospect chat by Aaron Fitt at Baseball America, in the wake of their top 10 for the system.  Lots of interesting nuggets of opinion from Fitt.  Unfortunately Baseball America is subscription only but its worth the $30/year for content like this (as is ESPN insider).
• Why are the Phillies getting ready to give Ryan Madson $40M+??    And why would the Nationals POSSIBLY be involved in the bidding for a $10M/year right-handed reliever when we already have that, in spades, at a fraction of the cost??!  That would be a colossal waste of money.  Closers are a colossal waste of money in general (google Joe Posnanski and the history of the save for his excellent article on how team’s save percentages are virtually identical through the  years despite the rise of highly paid closers.
• My 2 cents on the entire Sandusky/Paterno/PSU mess: I couldn’t have said it better than Tom Boswell said it on the front page of the WP on 11/10. Paterno may not have done anything “illegal,” but he certainly did not use his best judgement throughout the years, allowing Sandusky to continue to be in the good graces of the program.  And that is why Paterno doesn’t have a job any more (as opposed to being charged with a perjury felony like the administrators who lied to the Grand Jury).  Just a sad event all around, for the victims, for Paterno (who found himself in an impossible situation) and for the Penn State students and alumni who are not exactly distinguishing themselves for not seeing what poor judgement was used by their icon throughout the years.

Brad Peacock was your AA pitcher of the year, and earned two subsequent promotions in 2011. Photo via bleacherreport.com

(2nd in a series.  See yesterday’s post for Syracuse).

The Harrisburg rotation started the year with two starlets, a couple question marks and a few guys who had MLB experience (either in the rotation or on the DL, waiting to get their shot).  It was interesting to see a rotation in AA that was (on average) younger and had more MLB time than the team’s AAA roster, but that’s how this season played out.  No less than twenty guys got “starts” for the AA team this year, including a number of rehab starts and even more “passing through” starts for guys on their way out of the organization.

Here’s the status of the Harrisburg pitching staff at the end of the season (ages are as of 9/30/11)

• Starters: Roark 24, Arneson 27, Martis 24, OPerez(L) 30, Rosenbaum (L) 23
• Bullpen: Lehman 24, VanAllen (L) 27,  Barthmaier 27, McCoy (L) 23, RMartin 27, HPena 26
• Spot starts: CMartinez 27
• Promotions: Mandel, Meyers, Mattheus, Tatusko, Zinicola,  Peacock, Mock (post rehab)
• up-and-back: Arneson, Pena, CMartinez
• demotions: RMartin (from last year), EDavis
• DL: Atilano 26
• Cut/released post Spring or mid-season: Leatherman, Novoa, Spradlin, Dials, CJames, Alaniz, Chico
• Missing: JJones 29

Harrisburg starters.  The rotation started the season with Meyers, Tatusko, Atilano, Peacock and Erik Davis.  Here’s how these guys and the rest of the starters fared in 2011.

• Brad Meyers got the season opening start and it was clear after 6 starts he was ready to be promoted, going 3-2 with a 2.48 era and a sub 1.00 whip.  Outlook for next season: (from AAA post): Begins 2012 in AAA, competes for MLB #5 starter in spring.
• Ryan Tatusko was mediocre at best in a AA starting role, putting up a 5.94 era in 12 appearances (9 starts) before being dumped to the bullpen when Oliver Perez was ready to go.  His last couple of appearances were decent though, and he got promoted to fill an opening in AAA’s bullpen, where he played most of the season.  Outlook for next season: (from AAA post): Org guy, in AAA’s bullpen or in another organization.
• Luis Atilano only got 2 starts in and was hammered before hitting the DL, where he remained the rest of the season.  He’s 26 this year and was DFA’d, cleared waivers and accepted his assignment, indicating that he’s probably not in the future plans of the team.  Outlook for next season: I’m guessing he’s given his release and will be a minor league free agent.
• Brad Peacock tore up AA, putting up a 10-2 record with 129 Ks in just 98 IP.  Most questioned why he was left to languish in AA for so long, clearly having earned a promotion.  But he’s young (only 23 this year) and there was not really a hole in the AAA rotation for him until Detwiler’s promotion opened one up.  Outlook for next season: (from AAA post): Loses out on #5 starter competition, starts in AAA, possibly in MLB bullpen b/c of his arm.
• Erik Davis was obtained in trade for disgruntled utility infielder Alberto Gonzalez, had a bunch of starts, a DL stint, and then a string of awful starts that got him demoted to Potomac (where he didn’t fare much better).  Final AA line: 5-7, 4.79 era, 1.61 whip and 93/41 k/bb in 94 ip.  He’s got great K/9 but not much else.   Outlook for next season: there’s not much use for a 25yr old right-hander who can’t cut it in High-A, though his precipitous drop in stats from 2010 to 2011 is cause for hope that this was an aberration year.  I’ll guess he features in the AA bullpen in 2012.
• Erik Arneson started the year with 3 pretty decent AAA starts, then suddenly was in the AA bullpen.  This was his third year repeating the AA level with this franchise, clearly indicating that the team views him as an organizational guy.  Despite his all-star game appearance and stellar 2011 numbers in AA (8-4, 2.43 era, 1.10 whip in 16 starts and 26 appearances), he’s 27 this year and clearly isn’t going anywhere.  Outlook for next season: Org Guy; either a minor league FA or perhaps floating between our AAA and AA levels as he did this year.
• Shairon Martis is an interesting case; he was in the Nats starting rotation in 2009, and by the spring of 2011 he had successfully passed through waivers and was on our AA squad despite only being 24.  Not surprisingly, he did well, posting a 8-6 record, a 3.05 era, a 1.22 whip, had 146/39 k/bb in 133 ip and threw a 7-inning no-hitter.  And this all proved, what exactly?  As I said over and again during the season’s rotation reviews, Martis getting out AA hitters with ease shows us nothing that we didn’t already know.  We need to see him at least at the AAA level to see if he’s ever going to be the pitcher that showed so much promise when he was promoted to the majors in 2008 as a 21-yr old.  There was word/rumors during spring training that the team wasn’t pleased with his conditioning or his work efforts, perhaps contributing to his being essentially in the franchise “doghouse.” Outlook for next season: He should be in the AAA rotation, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he was stuck in extended spring training by virtue of a numbers issue.
• Tanner Roark got nearly a full season of starts in the AA rotation and didn’t have the greatest season,  In 21 starts he posted a 9-9 record, 4.69 era, 1.40 whip and pedestrian K/9 rates.  He’s younger than his trade mate (Tatusko, both received for Cristian Guzman in mid-2010) so the team will have a bit more patience.  Outlook for next season: I think his starting days are done; i’d think he’ll be converted to a reliever and start in the AA bullpen.
• Oliver Perez was picked up in a relatively high-profile signing after he was unceremoniously released (with $12M still owed on his 2011 contract) by the Mets, who had tired of his poor performances on the mound.  The Nats, surprisingly in my opinion, installed him as a starter in AA and left him there the entire season.   Outside of a quick DL stint he mostly pitched decently, posting a 3-5 record in 15 starts, with a 3.09 Era and a 1.39 whip.  But, as with Martis above, what exactly did we learn from this?  An experienced MLB veteran *should* be getting AA guys out with regularity.  With the troubles the team had with their loogy (see Slaten, Doug‘s inherited runners and WHIP rate on the season), I’m surprised they didn’t try to feature Perez as a lefty out of the bullpen.  Now, with the season over I suppose the team has learned that Perez is now just a mediocre AA starter.  Outlook for next season: Perez will be a FA and probably goes elsewhere to continue his career on a minor league deal, looking to regain a starting job somewhere in the MLB.
• Denny Rosenbaum got a late season call-up after pitching well in high-A all season and continued his excellent season in AA.  His stats for Harrisburg: 3-1, 2.29 era and a sub 1.00 whip in 6 starts.  These numbers were slightly better than what he posted in 20 Potomac games, and he seems to be featuring as a Tom Milone-esque crafty left-hander who is riding under the radar.  Outlook for next season: at 23 he’s still pretty young and will be in the AA rotation with a mind to get promoted after a few starts in the same way Meyers or Peacock earned their way up this year.
• Other guys who got spot starts here and there (non-rehab): Jimmy Barthmaier got a couple spot starts but worked mostly out of the bullpen, sporting a high ERA but good k/9 rates.  Same for journeyman Carlos Martinez, albeit without the good K/9 rates.  Evan Bronson put in a spot start during a brief call up to provide cover for the team during one of their many rain-out induced double headers.  Outlook for next season: Barthmaier and Martinez are org guys and may or may not return.  We’ll cover Bronson in the high-A post, where he spent most of the season.

Harrisburg Relievers: taking a look at the relief corps at the end of the season.

• Rafael Martin and Hassan Pena split the closing duties and both put up great numbers.  Pena was a AAA demotion while Martin seems to be a bit old for the level.  Despite this, Martin is representing the franchise in the Arizona Fall League, so perhaps he’ll feature prominently next year.  Outlook for next season: both guys seem set to be part of the AAA bullpen.
• Pat Lehman and Corey VanAllen both pitched pretty well; Lehman earned a mid-season promotion and put up a 3.71 era in AA, earning a trip to the AFL as well.  VanAllen is older, lefty and had a great K/9 ratio.  Outlook for next season: Lehman stays in the AA pen to start, while VanAllen moves up to AAA as a possible loogy.
• Pat McCoy struggled in AA, putting up a 4.78 era in 52 innings of work, but he’s also very young and had a 9.0 K/9 rate.  Outlook for next season: he’ll start again in AA bullpen, looking to gain on his experiences in 2011.
• The Rest not already mentioned; Barthmaier, Martinez already covered above. 

Other pitchers who appeared in AA of note (not including Rehabbing MLBers): Ryan Mattheus started the season in AA and earned two promotions, ending up with good MLB numbers.  He’ll make the 2012 bullpen as long as he stays healthy. Matt Chico was awful in 10 appearances before being demoted/DL’d and eventually released.  Zech Zinicola and Jeff Mandel started in AA before both being promoted to AAA, where they worked the bulk of the season.  Garrett Mock put in two awful rehab starts en route to his own release.

Tom Milone was your AAA pitching star of 2011. Photo Tom Priddy/Four Seam Images via Milb.com

(editors note before we begin; I’m sure my faithful readers noted that I abandoned the Minor League Rotation Review posts right after the 4th of July.  That was right around the same date I put in notice and began the process of switching consulting engagements.  Free time and post-work free time suddenly evaporated and something had to give.  Paying gigs before volunteer ones unfortunately.)

That being said, I did maintain the good/soso/bad all the way through the season, and did my best to keep up with the various reliever movements (my interest is mostly with the starters in the system).  Now that the regular seasons are over, I’ll do a team-by-team review of the pitchers, the moves and where guys may/should start in 2012.  Ideally this set of reviews should start with the MLB roster, but since the minor leagues are done, I’ll hit them up first.

Syracuse’s rotation started the year with two guys who some thought could have made the MLB roster, two guys who were closer to the “organizational guy” title than a spot on the 25-man, and a relatively young up and comer who had been cruising up the organization under the radar.  By the end of the year it held three of our better starting pitcher prospects to go with two guys who are not long for the organization.

Here’s the status of the Syracuse pitching staff at the end of the season (ages are as of 9/30/11)

• Rotation: Maya 30, Stammen 27, Meyers 26, Peacock 23, JD Martin 28
• Bullpen: Mandel 26, Wilkie 27, Severino(L) 26, Zinicola 26, CGarcia 26, Hyde (L) 26
• Spot starter: Tatusko 26
• Promotions: Kimball 26, Mattheus 27, Detwiler 25,  Milone(L) 24, Balester 25
• 9/1 promotions: Maya, Stammen, Peacock, Severino
• up-and-back: Stammen, Maya, Severino
• demotions: Martis (from last year), Chico, Mock, Arneson, Bronson (spot start), CMartinez
• cut/released from 2010 or this year: Meredith, Kown, Bergmann, Bisenius, Romero (L) (opted out), Carr 27, Mock 28
• missing: Villone 41

Syracuse starters.  The rotation started the season with Maya, Detwiler, Mock, Milone and Stammen, with JD Martin as the season-long spot starter.

• Yuniesky Maya: failed to make the team out of spring training, was the opening day starter in Syracuse, but struggled for long parts of the season.  Got a call-up and did not impress in Washington and sulked up on his return.  Finished the year 4-9, 5.00 era, 1.24 whip and 98/28 k/bb ratio in 129 2/3 innings.  Outlook for next season: He probably can’t make the MLB rotation again, and probably returns to AAA for 2012.  His fastball was never as good as advertised and he isn’t as good as countryman Livan Hernandez at getting guys out with control and guile.  At this point, this signing looks like a failure.
• Ross Detwiler: Promoted mid-season just before the-all star break and has pitched considerably better in the majors than he did in AAA.  In fact, there was some debate at the time of his promotion whether he was the deserving pitcher to come up.  Final AAA numbers: 6-6, 4.53 era 1.49 whip, 63/32 k/bb in 87 1/3 innings.  Outlook for next season: He’s officially out of options and can’t be assigned to AAA without passing through waivers.  He WILL make the 2012 MLB team, likely as a #5 starter with an eye towards moving to the bullpen if he falters.
• Garrett Mock: started strong, then had two incredibly bad outings and went on the DL.  His rehab travels around the low minors became some what of a joke, but when he returned he failed to impress, and was DFA’d in early September to make way for 9/1 callups to the majors.  Final AAA line: 0-3, 6.28 era, 1.67 whip, 32/24 k/bb in 28 innings.  His stats at all levels are worse.  Outlook for next season: there are plenty of people who openly questioned why Mock occupied a 40-man spot for so long.  I’m guessing he picks up with another team and tries to start fresh with a new organization for 2012.
• Tom Milone: posted his third straight 12-win season in successive levels and earned a pre-9/1 call up.  He’s young, he’s lefty, and he’s got impeccable control.  Final AAA numbers: 12-6, 3.22 era, 1.03 whip and 155/16 k/bb in 148 1/3 innings.  Another great season for the Nats 2010 minor league pitcher of the year, an award he is in the running for again in 2011.  Outlook for next season: He has 3-4 more September starts to audition for next year’s rotation.  The big question with Milone is whether his 89-90mph fastball and control will be enough in the majors.  I’m predicting he falls victim to a numbers/options status game and starts next year in AAA.
• Craig Stammen: all around nice guy never once featured in the team’s plans this year, officially crossing over from starter potential to organizational guy in 2011.  He put together a decent season, tailing off in the end to sully his overall numbers, but was never threatening to get a call-up or another shot in the Nats rotation.  AAA stats: 10-7, 4.75 era, 1.43 whip, and 127/40 k/bb in 142 innings.  Outlook for next season: He becomes 2012’s version of JD Martin, the AAA-bound starter and innings eater.  I think he’ll stay on the 40-man because he does have value, and has one option left, but after 2012 he’s a DFA candidate.  Too bad, because he’s a good-guy and deserves better.
• Brad Meyers: earned one of the first promotions of the season after recovering from injury and dominating in his first few AA starts.   He struggled upon first arriving at AAA, hit the DL briefly, but finished strong.  Final AAA numbers: 6-5, 3.48 era, 1.31 whip and 74/15 k/bb in 95 ip.  Outlook for next season: I think Meyers gets added to the 40-man roster ahead of the Rule-5 draft for protection, but he is at least 7th in the starter pecking order (Strasburg, Zimmermann, Lannan, Detwiler, Peacock, and Milone) right now, so he starts in AAA.
• Brad Peacock: Peacock absolutely dominated AA, to the point where it was long past the time to promote him when he finally was moved to AAA.  He had two rough starts but more than a few great ones, and finished AAA with a 5-1, 3.19 era, 1.25 whip and 48/24 k/bb in 48 innings.  On the season his minor league numbers were fantastic and earned him the organization’s Minor League Pitcher of the Year; 15-3, 2.39 era, 177/47 k/bb in 146 2/3 total innings.  Outlook for next season: He’s very young (only 23) and certainly could use another year of seasoning in AAA.  He may end up competing for the #5 rotation spot with Milone, unless a new starters comes in via trade or FA.  On the other hand, if he doesn’t master his secondary pitches he’ll be destined for the bullpen, and Rizzo loves hard-throwers in the pen, so I could see him featuring as a righty out of the bullpen next season.  We’ll see.
• JD Martin: Outrighted before the season and then signed a minor-league deal, Martin was AAA’s long man/spot starter.  He ended up with 14 starts and pedestrian numbers on the season: 3-7, 3.93 era in 30 appearances.  His fate was sealed in January when he was outrighted and nobody else sniffed; he’s a soft-throwing righty who is a good AAA pitcher until his spot is needed.   Outlook for next season: he could be back in the same role he was in this year, unless a numbers game forces his release.
• Other guys who got spot starts here and there (non-rehab): Erik Arneson (started in AAA then was dumped to AA despite 3 decent starts.  See the AA post) and Ryan Tatusko (pitched mostly in relief with 2 AAA spot starts after a mid-season promotion).  See the AA post for thoughts on Arneson and below for Tatusko.

Syracuse Relievers: taking a look at the relief corps at the end of the season.

• Relievers Cole Kimball, Ryan Mattheus and Collin Balester were each promoted up at various points during the season and each performed pretty well at the MLB level.  Outlook for next season: Kimball may start 2012 on the DL post surgery.  Mattheus should earn a bullpen spot after pitching well.  Balester’s spot is more tenuous; he’ll be out of options and has not really impressed at either level in 2011.  I’m guessing he’ll lose out in a long man competition to someone like Tom Gorzelanny and get a DFA at the end of spring training 2012.
• Local Favorite Josh Wilkie served as the AAA closer and put up good numbers; 3.13 era, 1.36 whip, 57/21 k/bb in 60 1/3 innings pitched.  Outlook for next season: He’ll get a spring training invite but seems destined to return to AAA to wait for injuries or an opportunity.
• Athualpa Severino got a 9/1 call up and finally featured in a MLB game, showcasing a big fastball for a little guy.  Outlook for next season: He’s a little old for a prospect (27) but could feature as a LOOGY in 2012, especially since the team is so thin on that particular speciality.
• Everyone else (Mandel 26, Zinicola 26, CGarcia 26, Hyde (L) 26, Tatusko 26) in the AAA bullpen seems destined to be organizational guys, unfortunately.  Jeff Mandel passed through waivers and toiled decently this year.  Zech Zinicola was a rule-5 draftee who got returned and put up great numbers, but seems to be a AAA ceiling guy.  Christian Garcia didn’t have great numbers in the Yankees organization but the team took a flyer on him.  Lee Hyde has already passed through waivers successfully and was more or less awful in 2011.  Lastly Ryan Tatusko regressed badly in 2011 after a stellar 2010.  He was demoted to the bullpen and pitched mostly in relief for AAA this year, getting a couple of spot starts that he was just “soso” in.  Outlook for next season: All these guys will be back in AAA or with another organization, trying to keep the dream alive.

Other pitchers who appeared in AAA of note (not including Rehabbing MLBers): Hassan Pena pitched 7 horrible innings and was demoted.  Matt Chico was similarly bad and was DL’d/demoted before getting released.  Philly castoff JC Romero had 16 appearances and pitched well before opting out of his contract because the team hadn’t promoted him (a surprise, given our loogy struggles this year).  A year after Adam Carr was put on the 40-man to protect him, he was flat-out released after an injury riddled season (lets hope the team re-signs him and he gets another shot).  Both Evan Bronson and Carlos Martinez put in brief AAA outings before returning to their normal teams.  Lastly I put in Ron Villone as “missing” because he was in our Spring Training camp but never made it onto any roster.  We didn’t necessarily hear any announcement, but I suspect he retired after not making the team out of camp.

After reviewing all the staffs at each level, I’ll cull the above predictions into a summarized 2012 projected staff throughout the system.