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.