Nationals Arm Race

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Less Likely:

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

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

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

While attending a fantasy football draft, I missed the melee from last night.  But certainly I was not surprised to hear that Nyjer Morgan was in the middle of it.  Borrowing from an email conversation between friends Jamos and Droopy this morning, here’s some point by point thoughts on all of Morgan’s various transgressions lately.

1) Nyjer shouldn’t have gotten into it with the Phillies fans. (isn’t anything involving the words “tauning” and “Philadelphia sports fans” always going to end in disaster?).  Fans are antagonizers, and drunken late-inning fans close to the field who are purposely talking to the players are only looking for a reaction.

2) Nyjer was wrong to give the shoulder bump to the Cardinals catcher.  Agree; Nyjer wrong to hit the St Louis catcher, but that’s a Washington-St Louis issue and i’m sure it will come up next  year if Morgan is still on the team (big “if” here; see later)

3) Nyjer needs to keep his trap shut to the Media when asked about batting 8th and being sat by his manager.  Riggleman is old school and rightly sat Morgan so he wouldn’t get a ball in his ear from Wainwright after the questionable behaviors the previous night.  As for batting eighth … well Nyjer, when you have an OPS+ of 72 and a puny OBP of only .317 on the season, you can’t really complain when you’re put in the 8th spot can you?  How about you perform to your 2009 levels (OPS+ of 121, .396 OBP) and let your bat do the talking?

4) Nyjer should have slid into home against the Marlins, but you can’t fault him for what he did.  As Riggleman was quoted in the post-game, it is incredibly hard to 2nd guess sliding versus body blocking at home plate.  You’re trying to get a read on the catcher’s body language and his positioning as you’re racing down the base-path to try to score the winning run.  You’re certainly NOT saying to yourself, “Hey I really want to hit this guy how can I do it?”  Nyjer made the decision that a collision was going to give him the best chance to score the run.  Riggleman supported him there.  It certainly wasn’t nearly as questionable a play as the Utley-Flores incident that essentially took out Flores for a season and a half.  The fact that Florida’s catcher suffered a season-ending injury is tough though, which led to the next point.

5) I don’t fault the Marlins for throwing at him—however, you’ve got to do it in his FIRST at-bat. You don’t wait until the fourth inning when you’re up 14-3 or whatever to throw at him. Florida could not have been more obvious about what they were doing.  The SECOND time you throw at a player?  That pitcher and coach should be fined and suspended.

6) I don’t think Morgan’s stealing falls into the realm of baseball’s “Unwritten Rules.” Yes, it was a blowout at the time, but the Marlins had their closer in the game in the 8th inning, as Zimmerman pointed out.  And by the way, the whole “you don’t steal when you’re up by 10 runs” never applies to the  LOSING team.  Whoever said that Morgan was showing them up was just looking to stir up trouble.

7) Lastly, I’m ok with Nyjer rushing the mound after getting a ball thrown behind him in his third at-bat. Agree wholeheartedly; the first time you get hit is payback.  The 2nd time is an attempt to damage a player’s career.  I’d support the charging of the mound and if i’m a vet on the Nats i’m going out there for blood.

Noooooow.  All that being said.

Nyjer Morgan’s performance this year, his lapses in judgment in the field and on the base-paths, and certainly his severe lapses in judgment in the past two weeks says to me that his usefulness to this franchise has reached an endpoint.  Rizzo has gone out of his way to rid the team of clubhouse lawyers, cancers, non-hustlers and problem children.  I think a 2011 outfield of Willingham, Bernadina, Morse with Maxwell as a backup is quite serviceable for the short term (without considering any FA pickups, which are a possibility in the OF in the off season).  Perhaps by 2012 we’ll have Michael Burgess or (hold your breath) Bryce Harper ready to take the field.  Perhaps the Nats go after someone like Jayson Werth and keep Morse as a super-sub.  In any case, the only reason to hang on to Morgan right now is if Rizzo was saving face and holding on to one of the key members of the 4-player deal with Pittsburgh.

At the risk of sounding TOO optimistic (like perhaps the ever rosy Thomas Boswell in today’s WP column), Jordan Zimmermann looked awfully good last night in his 2nd start back (gamer and box score from nationals.com).  He went 6 complete innings, gave up 1 hit (a double by Sanchez that was erased on a great outfield assist from Bernadina), struck out 9 and finished on 86 pitches before being lifted.  He could have gone more, but why would you at this point in the season with a guy coming back from injury?

Zimmermann’s effort is probably the 2nd best/2nd most dominant pitching performance of the year (behind Strasburg‘s 14k debut 6/8/10) from any Nats starter.  Per the pitch f/x data he hit 94 once, touched 93 a few times and averaged 91.79 on his 65 fastballs on the night.

(side note; just goes to show you can NOT trust the stadium Guns, ever, as they had Zimmermann on 96 in the first inning several times, which means that the stadium gun was at least 3mph faster than reality).

It is hard to gauge the breakdown of pitches though; per the f/x data he only threw one changeup, yet was quoted in the gamer as saying that his changeup felt great.  I’m guessing that some of the pitches classified as “sliders” were in reality changeups, and that the variation of speeds between his slider and curve screwed up the pitch classification.  Either way, his curve was definitely faster and less loopy than his previous start.  By pounding so many fastballs he showed that he has dominant enough stuff to challenge a pretty decent hitting Marlins team.  Zero walks and 86 pitches to finish 6 innings means he had pretty good control.

Unless the Nats are specifically NOT calling changeups after what happened to Strasburg?  That’d be a bad precedent.

On the season, Zimmermann now has 13ks and 1 walk in 10 innings.  That’s something to build on.  I’ve always thought that best-case Zimmermann had the capabilities to be a great #2 starter on a good team, and performances like last night are indicitave of that and much more.

Nieves out for the birth of his kid, so wonder kid/future Nieves replacement Wilson Ramos (booty in the Matt Capps trade) comes up and gets a start today.  Ironically (and potentially an omen) Ramos gets #3, which has been Flores‘ number since he was picked up in 06.  Hmmm.  Doesn’t bode well for Flores’s future here.

Willingham to the DL, done for the year but coinciding with Morgan‘s return.  So we’ll be throwing out an outfield of Bernadina, Morgan and Morse for the time being.  Not bad.

But I did see an interesting note that the Rockies are getting ready to flat out release Brad Hawpe.  Why?  Partly because they know they can’t resign him in the off season and are wary of offering him arbitration.  But mostly becuase he’s underperformed this year and the Rockies want to play a up and comer named Eric Young Jr. Either way, his numbers are not THAT bad, i hope we sign him just so we could offer him arbitration and get the draft picks (he projects as a type A) or even if he accepts arbitration he’s better than Morse in right field, right?

Probably though, he signs on with a contender to be a 4th outfielder.

Mike Morse.  2-3 with two homers last night in the pitcher friendly confines of Milwakuee.  Raises his season slash line figures to .338/.386/.636.  That’s a 1.022 ops and a 170 ops+ figure (by way of comparison, Votto is currently leading the NL in ops with 1.003).

He has 6 homers in 38 games, projecting to about 25 in a 150 game season.  He makes a ton of contact (15 ks in those same 38 games, projecting to only 60 or so in a full season).

I don’t get it.  We have a struggling center fielder/leadoff hitter in Morgan, and right next to him a surprising Bernadina character who has speed and a bit of power and could lead off/play centerfield.  Why aren’t we going Willingham-Bernadina-Morse in the outfield?  Lineup would be:

1. Bernadina
2. Guzman
3. Zimmerman
4. Dunn
5. Willingham
6. Morse
7. Desmond
8. Pudge
9. pitcher

That would give us ops+ guys over 100 in 3-4-5-6 spots, would give Willingham some protection, and would put a better producing guy at the top of the lineup.

Read through Stark’s espn chat yesterday and he took some Dunn trade questions.

Basically he says that the word on the street is that Dunn wants to stay but also wants a 4 year guaranteed contract.  He’s also hearing that the Nats have a “higher than
average” opinion of themselves and want to keep their 3-4-5 hitters in tact because we have so many arms coming back.  This agrees with Kasten’s recent comments that we’re “closer than you would think.”  And its hard to argue.  We’re puttering along with 3 guys in the rotation who would other wise be in AAA (Stammen, Atilano, Martin).
We never intended Livan to be our season savior; he was always meant to be a placeholder until Strasburg and Wang got healthy.

Now we’re looking at a situation by late august where we have way too many guys for the roatation.  Here’s a quick rundown on our former MLB arms:

• – Chico has two 7ip 0er performances in a row and (probably) makes a spot start sunday.
• – Detwiler is ready to come up (7 starts in the minors) and has been pitching well.
• – Olsen is on his 4th rehab start and might need a few more.
• – Marquis has 3 rehab starts but hasn’t looked great.  He says he feels good though. But post injury you have to think he is an option.
• – Zimmermann has pitched 13 scoreless innings with zero walks and 13 ks in high-A so far; you figure he has about 3 more starts before they have to make a decision on him too.
• – Wang looks like wasted money so far, but may be a bargain next year if he’s healthy at a cost controleld arbitration figure next year.
• – Lannan now has 6 starts in AA trying to “find” his sinker and so far he looks unsuccessful.  I hate to say it but Lannan may be completely forced out of the Nats starting picture.
• – and don’t forget new cuban signing Yuneski Maya, who most scouting reports say is MLB ready at 28.  Though, he apparently hasn’t pitched since last fall so hey may not get to the majors this year and will pitch in various minor leagues until sept.

The problem is that most of these guys are on rehab assignments.  Those can only last for 30 days (or about 6 starts).  Detwiler technically was activated and optioned (burning another option year for him, so now unless they get a medical waiver for a 4th option he has to pass through waivers to go back to the minors from here out; thanks Bowden for that 2007 callup!).

I guess the point is; a ton of pitching talent lays awaiting.  Maybe the Nats lick their wounds on this season, stand pat, resign Dunn to 3yrs $42M with a club option for the 4th that possibly vests with certain productivity in year three and focus on filling the hitting holes we’ll have in free agency.  And next year’s rotational competition looks tough.

boss

1. Atilano.  In 16 starts he’s now 6-7, 5.15 era, 1.49 whip.  The team is 6-10 in his starts. More telling: in 5 of his 16 starts now he’s given up as many earned runs as innings pitched.  That’s just not acceptable.  I realize there’s nobody really better (Chico?  Martis?) until one of Detwiler/Wang/Zimmermann/Marquis/Olsen recovers from injury but man.  Its brutal.

2. Leake.  Like this kid.  He looks a lot like Bronson Arroyo, even down to the stupid haircut. A ton of movement with a mlb-average fastball and decent control.  I know everyone is talking about the St. Louis rookie pitcher Garcia  but i like this guy.  Taken 2 picks before Storen; imagine if he had fallen to us at the #10 spot lastyear?

3. At what point in the season do we do what is obviously right for the team and stick Bernadina in center and Morse in right?  Morse is hitting .324/.375/.554 with 4 homers in 80 plate appearances.  That’s almost a 30 homer clip extrapolated out to a full season.  Have we found our right field solution by accident?  Bernadina is doing great; he has some power, hits for average, has some decent speed (7 sbs).  Maybe we stick him in center.  Morgan has easily the worst OPS+ on the team right now and has a .315 on base percentage at leadoff.  Unacceptable.  Even Guzman, he of the 4 walks in 600 plate appearances last season, has a better OBP this year.  And nearly as many walks as Morgan!

Nats currently on track for 69-93 season and the 7th overall pick.  And if we succumb to pressure and trade Dunn or Willingham or both, we may not score the rest of the season…