The off-season is off to a great start for the Nats. Photo via majorleagueaholes.com (yes its a site)
Winter meetings this week. I figured I’d wait to start posting rotation reviews until after the craziness goes on (if its anything like last winter).
Here’s some thoughts I have:
- If the Nats intend to “completely remake their bullpen” then they’re off to a pretty slow start. We’re already missing out on several key guys who would be good candidates to join the pen. Darren O’Day, Joaquin Soria to start, Ryan Madsen, Jim Johnson or even Mark Lowe (who signed about 2 minutes after publishing this) as other examples. Instead we sign Oliver Perez, a soft-tossing lefty retread to (I guess) replace Matt Thornton, who is perhaps the 5th or 6th most important role to fill in a 7 man rotation. You couldn’t have adequately handled a LOOGY out of our cache of minor league arms? Didn’t we draft like 10,000 lefty arms in the last three years?
- And now we hear that the Dodgers are hot on the case of Aroldis Chapman, not that I want to spend what it will take to get him. Yes he’s great, yes he’d be a fantastic closer. No I don’t want to give up a top-100 prospect for one year of his time. (post-publishing update: literally 5 minutes after hitting publish, word comes out that the Dodgers have acquired Chapman).
- Why would they non-tender Craig Stammen given the bullpen turnover they already plan to have? Stammen is talking in the press like he’s completely moving on, as if the negotiations went that sour that fast.
Here was 2015’s opening day bullpen: Storen, Treinen, Stammen, Thornton*, Cedeno*, Barrett, Roark with Janssen on the D/L.
Here’s where we stand now: Storen on the chopping block,
Treinen still there, Stammen DFA’d, Thornton a FA, Cedeno DFA’d/traded, Barrett on the D/L with TJ surgery all of 2016, Roark presumably going back to the rotation and Janssen a FA. Throw in late-season acquisition Papelbon also being on the trading block and that’s basically the *entire* bullpen getting turned over. That’s a recipe for disaster.
If the season started tomorrow: I guess the bullpen would be: Papelbon, Storen, Treinen, Perez*, Rivero*, Solis*, Martin. Except that we know that’s not going to happen; you have to think the first two guys are moved one way or another.
Maybe we won’t end up seeing both closers moved and instead we’ll make amends somehow with one of them. Since Papelbon is basically untradeable me thinks the “Lerners are cheap” mentality will win out and he’ll be back for 2016. Awesome. Especially considering the fact that he just filed a grievance against the team for not paying him during his “suspension.” Can’t blame him; the team was stupid for not paying him and thinking they’d just pocket a union player’s salary. Dumb. I hope Dusty Baker has his game face on for dealing with this issue next year, and I hope the whole “Bryce Harper reached out/bros will be bros” BS is not, actually, BS. I’m skeptical.
4. So, is the team going after Ben Zobrist or are they not? Is Zobrist going to be that much better than just keeping Yunel Escobar, who can play 2nd and hit just fine for half the money Zobrist will cost? What’s the urgency of moving Escobar? The way I see it, Rendon goes back to 3rd, Turner plays SS (and if he cannot, then the excellent Danny Espinosa starts at SS instead) and Escobar goes to 2B where his defensive limitations won’t hurt us. Why alter that plan?
5. Where’s the lefty bat going to come from? How about Pedro Alvarez? Still not sure why the Pirates were so quick to non-tender him. I mean, he hit 27 frigging homers last year and his Ks are way down from two years prior. How about buying Alvarez, sticking him at 1st, then shuffling Zimmerman to LF, Werth to right and Harper to CF?
6. Here’s a radical one. Los Angeles and San Francisco both whiff on Zack Greinke, who inexplicably goes to Arizona. Both teams adjusted and bought #3 starters (Iwakuma and Samardzija respectively) but now that basically all the big names are off the market, do you think there’s a possible Stephen Strasburg trade out there? The Dodgers desperately need a Greinke replacement; word on the street is that they’re talking to Miami about Jose Fernandez and that would just be unfair if they got him. Meanwhile, San Francisco’s 3-4-5 starters looks scary right now and they need to keep up (think SF can’t out-spend LA? Google “Mission Rock Development” and see how the Giants are about to become a serious player in the SF commercial real estate market). Even Boston could still be an interesting option: their projected 4-5 aren’t exactly impressive and their new GM is looking to make a splash, and Boston has serious prospect depth. What if the Nats and Boston get together and get a couple of serious prospects for Strasburg? Could you see that? Maybe he gets moved and Giolito gets pushed into service a lot earlier than people thought.
If we moved Strasburg, the Nats would suddenly have a 5th starter hole too (well, unless Giolito became the guy). I don’t really trust our AAA rotation guys to step up so maybe we’d be back in the market for a cheap starter too. Luckily I count like 40 starters who profile like that, and some of them could be had for pretty cheap.
7. I don’t buy that the team needs/wants a CF. But I could be wrong. If we really were targeting a CF, we would have tendered Span. I’ll spit bullets if the sign Dexter Fowler and give up their 1st rounder. If only they could find a power hitting lefty who could play CF (ahem, Bryce Harper).
That’s a good starting point for the Winter meetings. Let the swap meet begin!