Nationals Arm Race

Scherzer: the #1 on the #1 rotation. photo via wp.com

Every off-season I find myself meticulously tracking Starting pitching movement, with a working XLS that attempts to quantify the rank of every rotation in the majors.

Before we get too further into the pre-season, and these ranks start to get obsoleted as we find out that some starters are going to head into surgery or to the DL, i wanted to get this out there.

Previous years of doing this

• 2019 Cubs #1, Nats #4.  Probably overvalued Cubs, undervalued the Dodgers, Rays and Astros.
• 2018: did not do the analysis, but Houston led the league in ERA, FIP, fWAR
• 2017: Cubs #1, Mets #2.  Cleveland and LA Dodgers really the best.
• 2016: Mets #1, Cardinals #2.  Mets and Nats ended up being the best on the season.
• 2015: did not do the post.  Cubs, Nats, Dodgers the best.
• 2014: Cards #1.  Nats ended up being the best rotation by most measures.
• 2013: Nats #1, Tigers #2.  In the end, Detroit really was the best rotation.

Here’s my rankings of the Starting Rotations of every team in the majors.

Raw data, which includes a ton more detail including movement, starters still out there, and color coding indicating whether i think a pitcher is a #1, a #2, a #3 or lower is here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gztFB_MIkVLd-Bzw9SuSYJxE709eHOPAsAZL8nzsiPw/edit?usp=sharing

Notes: i have these roughly grouped for discussion.  Each of these groups of rotations are in the correct order, but are relatively close enough that if you wanted to argue within the grouping I wouldn’t probably push back too much, but i’d put any of the teams in one group ahead of any team in the next group.

1. Washington:  Max Scherzer Stephen Strasburg Patrick Corbin Anibal Sanchez Joe Ross
2. Texas:  Corey Kluber Lance Lynn Mike Minor Kyle Gibson Jordan Lyles
3. Los Angeles Dodgers:  Clayton Kershaw Walker Buehler David Price Julio Urias Alex Wood
4. New York Mets;  Jacob deGrom Noah Syndergaard Marcus Stroman Steven Matz Rick Porcello

Yes, i’ve got our home team #1.  I think the top 3 are all three Aces (meaning, they’re all among the top 15-20 arms in the league), and the Nats are the only team that can make that claim.  Texas has completely remade their rotation, adding an ace in Kluber, adding the back-end of their rotation via FA this off-season and I really think they’re in a position to make some noise.  LA comes in third, and yes I still have Kershaw as an “Ace” for now, but Buehler is probably the best arm of the bunch.  the Mets are a speculative #4; is Snydergaard really an Ace?  What happened to him last year?  If he returns to form, the NL East becomes that much more difficult to navigate for all the teams involved.

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5. Tampa Bay:  Blake Snell Charlie Morton Tyler Glasnow Yonny Chirinos Ryan Yarbrough
6. Houston:  Justin Verlander Zack Greinke Lance McCullers Jose Urquidy Rogelio Armentos
7. Philadelphia:  Zack Wheeler Aaron Nola Jake Arrieta Zach Eflin Vincent Velasquez
8. Cincinnati:  Sonny Grey Luis Castillo Anthony DeSclafani Trevor Bauer Wade Miley
9. Atlanta: Mike Soroka, Mike Foltynewicz, Cole  Hamels, Max Fried, Kyle Wright

Tampa is a hard one to rate, b/c of their use of the “Opener” so much.  Houston takes a hit by letting Cole go and replacing him with someone who I couldn’t pick out of a lineup.  I think Cincinnati’s rotation may prove to look quite mediocre if Grey and Bauer in particular don’t produce.  Atlanta has five talented guys who all could step up and make them really tough to beat, so watch out.

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10. Oakland:  Sean Manaea Frankie Montas Mike Fiers Jesus Luzardo Chris Bassitt
11. St. Louis:  Jack Flaherty Dakota Hudson Miles Mikolas Adam Wainwright Kwang-Hyun Kim
12. New York Yankees:  Gerritt Cole Luis Severino Masahiro Tanaka J.A. Happ Domingo German
13. Toronto:  Hyung-Jin Ryu Chase Anderson Matt Shoemaker Tanner Roark Shun Yamaguchi
14. Minnesota:  Jake Odorizzi Jose Berrios Kenta Maeda Homer Bailey Randy Dobnak
15. San Diego:  Chris Paddock Garrett Richards Drew Pomeranz Zach Davies Dinelson Lamet
16. Cleveland:  Mike Clevinger Shane Bieber Carlos Carrasco Aaron Civale Adam Plutko

Oakland could look a lot better fast if Luzardo lives up to his #2 starter hype.  Its also noteworthy that no matter where you rank Oakland’s rotation pre-season, they produce.  I think i had them in the bottom five last year and they won 97 games with a bunch of #4 starters.  So who knows.  The Yankees are #12, which also seems amazing for a 103 win team that ADDED perhaps the best right hander in the game … but they fall off fast AND they seem to have lost Severino for the season (which is not accounted for here), so they may be actually worse.  Toronto’s got 3 new starters and some unknowns: is Ryu going to be an Ace or a 4th?  Cleveland is the lowest team with an “Ace” in the rotation

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17. Arizona:  Robbie Ray Luke Weaver Mike Leake Merrill Kelly Alex Young
18. Milwaukee:  Brandon Woodruff Adrian Houser Brett Anderson Freddy Peralta Eric Lauer
19. Chicago Cubs:  Kyle Hendricks Yu Darvish Jon Lester Jose Quintana Alec Mills
20. Boston:  Chris Sale Eduardo Rodriguez Nathan Eovaldi Martin Perez Matt Hall
21. Chicago White Sox:  Lucas Giolito Dallas Keuchel Reynaldo Lopez Carson Fulmer Gio Gonzalez
22. Colorado:  Jon Grey German Marquez Kyle Freeland Antonio Senzelata Jeff Hoffman
23. San Francisco:  Jeff Samardzija Johnny Cueto Tyler Beede Kevin Gausmann Drew Smyly
24. Los Angeles Angels:  Shohei Ohtani Julio Teheran Jamie Barria Andrew Heaney Dylan Bundy

this is a logical stopping point (the #24 ranked Angels) because this is clearly the end of teams that are “trying” in 2020.  And you might push back on the notion that some of these teams are even trying (Boston, SF, etc).  Its still kind of amazing to me that the White Sox are ranked this low, given the pedigree of their prospect-laden rotation and the fact that they added a recent cy Young winner in Keuchel this past off-season.  Boston takes a hit as we hear that Sale may start the season on the DL.  Lastly what to make of LAA?  Is Ohtani goign to compete and be an ace?  If not they need production from a bunch of #5 starters or else they waste even more of Trout (and now Rendon‘s) careers.

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25. Seattle: Marco GonzalesYusei Kikuchi Justus SheffieldKendall GravemanJustin Dunn
26. Pittsburgh:  Chris Archer Joe Musgrove Steven Brault Trevor Williams Mitch Keller
27. Kansas City: Danny DuffyBrad KellerJake JunisMike MontgomeryJesse Hahn
28. Detroit:  Matt Boyd Jordan Zimmermann Daniel Norris Spencer Turnbull Ivan Nova
29. Baltimore:  John Means Alex Cobb Asher Wojciechowski Dean Kremer David Hess
30. Miami:  Sandy Alcantara Caleb Smith Jose Urena Jordan Yamamoto Pablo Lopez

All 6 of these teams i have as actively “tanking” in 2020, so not surprisingly they’re the bottom 6 rotations.  A couple of these rotations don’t even have what i would consider even a #3 starter, and among all 6 of these teams I only see two acquisitions this off-season that project into their rotations.  Miami, the lowest ranked rotation, made its sole starting pitching acquisition of the off-season a rule-5 drafting of our own former prospect Sterling Sharp, which is pretty telling.  Baltimore has added a bunch of depth but it all projects as just that; depth.  4-A or minor league starter depth.

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That’s it.  What do you think?

Lester: the best pitcher on the best rotation heading into 2019. photo via Grantland

I got out of the habit of doing this piece last year: right around this time in 2018 i was slammed at work, But, I found a bit of time earlier this off-season (thanks for Conference Calls) and put it together.

The core XLS is much more impressive than the text: here’s a Google version of it with the below data.

Here’s my 2019 Rotation ranks for every team in MLB, One to Thirty (1-30).

As I went through doing this, the ranks ended up naturally dividing into kind of natural groupings.  So I’ll show these groupings and then do commentary on the group all together.

Terminology used here:

• to me an “Ace” is one of the best 15-20 starters in the game.  I think i’ve got 18 identified heading into 2019.   And yes, I count both Strasburg and Corbin as Aces for these purposes.  I’ve seen plenty of op-eds claiming Strasburg isn’t an “Ace” for various reasons …. but he’s in the top 10-15 of practically every statistical measure of starters over the past 4-5 years.  Just because someone is the #1 starter for a team does not make them an “Ace.”
• A “#2 starter” is then one of the next best 15-20 guys, players who either used to be Aces but have grown a bit old (good example: Jake Arrieta or Cole Hamels) or younger guys who are one more solid season from taking the next step up (Luis Severino, Mike Foltynewicz).
• A #3 starter is a level below the #2, the next 25-30 guys or so.  A good solid mid-rotation starter.  I have 30 identified.
• A #4 starter is basically slightly better than the #5 starter.
• A #5 starter is someone who gives replacement level starting pitching capabilities, a guy who is only slightly better than a 4-A guy.  Often either a rookie or an aging FA signing.

In the XLS, i do assign quantitative values to assist in the rankings … so you can see who i call a 4, who’s getting a 5, etc.

OK lets get to it:

1. Chicago Cubs: Jon Lester, Kyle Hendricks,Cole Hamels, Yu Darvish, Jose Quintana
2. Boston: Chris Sale,David Price, Nathan Eovaldi, Rick Porcello, Eduardo Rodriguez
3. Cleveland: Corey Kluber, Carlos Carrasco, Trevor Bauer, Mike Clevinger, Shane Bieber
4. Washington: Max Scherzer, Patrick Corbin, Stephen Strasburg, Anibal Sanchez, Jeremy Hellickson

I have Chicago as the #1 rotation in the game.  I have them at the top not so much because the top of their rotation is the best … its because man for man, 1 through 5, they’re the best.  When your 4th starter is Yu Darvish, a guy who was the Cy Young runner up a few years back and is only 32 .. that’s a tough rotation.  Quintana is the Cubs’ 5th starter but was the White Sox’ long time #2.  Its just a lot of good, veteran pitching.   Boston comes in slightly below b/c I rate Porcello/Rodriguez slightly lower than Chicago’s 4/5.  Cleveland has a strong case (as does Washington) for having three legitimate Aces; if their #5 was better they’d probably be #1.   If you wanted to argue that Washington is  above or below the teams above them I wouldn’t argue too much; I look at the #4/#5 starters and say “who would you rather have?”  And I find that i’d rather have Chicago’s arms on the back end than ours.  I’d also note that we’ve had Scherzer now for four seasons; no real injuries … and Strasburg gets hurt literally every year.  So Washington’s rotation really has to take into account its depth … or lack there of.

5. Los Angeles Dodgers:  Clayton Kershaw ,Walker Buehler, Hyung-jin Ryu, Rich Hill, Kenta Maeda
6. New York Yankees:  Luis Severino, James Paxton, Masahiro Tanaka, J.A. Happ, CC Sabathia
7. New York Mets:  Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, Zach Wheeler, Steven Matz, Jason Vargas
8. Houston:  Justin Verlander, Gerrit Cole, Wade Miley, Brad Peacock, Josh James
9. St. Louis:  Miles Mikolas, Carlos Martinez, Jack Flaherty, Michael Wacha, Adam Wainwright

The Dodgers could jump to the next level if/when Walker Buehler turns into an Ace; i’ve still got him as a #2 but hope to gosh I can get him in Fantasy this year.  The Yankees sport four #2 starters … with Severino nearly ready to make the jump to Ace they’re pretty close.  I’d rate the Mets higher but the back end of their rotation just-cannot-stay-healthy.  Houston’s rotation would look a lot better if they re-signed their former ace Dallas Keuchel (more on him at the end), and Houston could really be good fast if their #1 prospect Forrest Whitley pans out.  Lastly in this group is St Louis, which is notable to me b/c their long time ace Adam Wainright is now their #5 starter, just barely hanging on.  Remember how much we heard about how the Nats missed out on Michael Wacha in the 2012 draft?  Well he’s a pretty solid 4th starter and if he could stay healthy he’d improve this rotation quickly.

10. Philadelphia: Aaron Nola, Jake Arrieta ,Nick Pivetta, Vincent Velasquez, Zach Eflin
11. Arizona: Zack Greinke, Robbie Ray, Zack Godley, Luke Weaver, Merrill Kelly
12. San Francisco: Madison Bumgarner, Dereck Robinson, Jeff Samardzija, Derek Holland, Drew Pomeranz
13. Atlanta: Mike Foltynewicz, Julio Teheran, Kevin Gausman, Sean Newcomb ,Touki Toussant
14. Colorado : Kyle Freeland, German Marquez, Jon Grey, Tyler Anderson, Antonio Senzelata
15. Tampa Bay:  Blake Snell, Charlie Morton, Tyler Glasnow, Ryan Yarbrough, Yonny Chirinos

An interesting grouping here; all six of these rotations are nearly identical in my private scoring … but looking at the names, you can see that some of these teams are prepped to move up quickly (Atlanta) while others are barely hanging on (San Francisco) with aging cores.  I’m not sure what to make of Philly’s rotation; are these guys scaring you in a short series?   Meanwhile … Tampa in 2018 was so shredded by injuries they went head first into the “opener” strategy … while having a Cy Young winner on staff.  They won 90 games this way, and now have back the starters that got hurt AND added a solid 2nd starter in Morton; are they going to challenge the two teams ahead of them?

16. Pittsburgh: Jamison Taillon, Chris Archer, Trevor Williams, Joe Musgrove, Nick Kingham
17. Oakland: Frankie Montas, Mike Fiers, Trevor Cahill, Brett Anderson, Marco Estrada
18. Texas: Mike Minor, Lance Lynn, Drew Smyly, Edinson Volquez, Jason Hammell
19. Seattle: Mike Leake, Yusei Kikuchi, Marco Gonzales, Felix Hernandez, Wade LeBlanc
20. Minnesota: Kyle Gibson, Jose Berrios, Jake Odorizzi, Michael Pineda, Adalberto Mejia
21. Detroit: Michael Fulmer, Matt Boyd, Jordan, Zimmermann, Tyson Ross, Matt Moore

So there’s a pretty significant step down here; I dont have a single “Ace” defined in this grouping … and only Jamison Taillon even rates for me as a #2.   How did Oakland possibly win 97 games last year?   Texas has bought three lesser-priced pitchers this off season (Lynn, Smyly and Hammel) and stands to improve on their 67 win season.   Seattle is in an interesting place: they won 89 games, added Kikuchi and could be pretty good, pretty fast … but their #1 starter is Mike Leake who’d be the Nat’s #5 starter.

22. Los Angeles Angels: Jamie Barria, Andrew Heaney, Matt Harvey, Tyler Skaggs, Felix Pena
23. Toronto: Aaron Sanchez, Marcus Stroman, Ryan Borucki, Matt Shoemaker, Clayton Richards
24. Chicago White Sox: Carlos Rodon, Ivan Nova, Reynaldo Lopez, Lucas Giolito, Manny Banuelos
25. Kansas City: Danny Duffy, Ian Kennedy, Jake Junis, Brad Keller, Eric Skoglund

The first three of these rotations all seem like they should be ranked higher than they are … but then when you look at them, you realize why.  Los Angeles is depending on injury-heavy arms, Toronto’s arms would be a top 10 rotation if this was 2014, and Chicago’s rotation is proof of the cynical scouting adage, “there is no such thing as a pitching prospect.”    How much better would the Angels be if Shohei Ohtani was there?   Probably 10 spots higher, nearly a top 10 rotation, he’s that good.    Kansas City is lucky to be this high: they  lost 58 games and are rolling out the same crew as last year.

26. Baltimore: Dylan Bundy, Alex Cobb, Andrew Cashner, David Hess, Nate Karns
27. Miami: Wei-Yin Chen, Jose Urena, Dan Straily, Caleb Smith, Trevor Richards
28. Milwaukee: Jhoulys Chacin, Chase Anderson, Zach Davies, Brandon Woodruff, Jimmy Nelson
29. Cincinnati: Anthony DeSclafani, Tanner Roark, Luis Castillo, Alex Wood, Sonny Grey
30. San Diego: Joey Lucchesi, Robbie Erlin, Bryan Mitchell, Eric Lauer, Luis Perdomo

Baltimore looks to improve on the rotation that lost 115 games last year by … signing former Nat Nathan Karns.   The other 4 starters in their rotation went (in order) 8-16, 5-15, 4-15 and 3-10 last year, none posting an ERA+ better than 85 for the year.  And they’re not the worst rotation in the league!  Amazing.  We all know Miami is trying to do worse than last year’s 98-loss team and, as far as I can tell, has not added ONE arm this off-season.   I really don’t know how Milwaukee did so well last year with this crew; they’re all basically #4 starters, backed up by a phenomenal bullpen and a great offense.  I hope they can compete again this year, b/c the club has done very little to improve.

Cincinnati has made a flurry of moves, adding 3 new starters this off-season …and is still ranked 29th.  I mean, Tanner Roark is their #2.

But none of these rotations is even close to as poor as San Diego’s projects to be.  Maybe you could squint and tell me that a couple of these guys are #4 starters instead of #5 starters.  But that’d just return them to the 30th ranked rotation, just slightly closer to Cincinnatis.  Luckily for San Diego (breaking news!) they just signed Manny Machado and Baseball America has ranked their farm system #1 in the league … which 13 of the last 14 years means they’ll be in the playoffs in two seasons.  So hopefully there’s some big-time San Diego prospect arms to go with those bats, and we’ll see you in the playoffs in 2020.

So, what Free Agent pitchers could move the needle of the above?

As of this writing, the biggest FA pitcher who could really move the needle is obviously Keuchel; i rate him as a #2, so if one of the lower-ranked teams replaces a 5th starter with Keuchel they may very well jump up 5-6 spots.  Other impact free agent pitchers available who could change the above rankings include Gio Gonzalez, Clay Buchholz, and Ervin Santana (update: Santana signed minor league deal with the White Sox, which may put them a couple spots higher). Past that, the remaining FAs seem like 4/5 types who wouldn’t really change any of the rankings b/c they’d likely be replacing a 4-A guy at the back of the rotation.  That list includes Bartolo Colon,Yovani Gallardo, Miguel Gonzalez, Edwin Jackson, James Shields, and Chris Tillman.  Yeah, I said Bartolo Colon; i think he can still pitch.   Maybe not that well … but it wouldn’t surprise me if he gave it one last season.

So, that’s my rankings.  Feel free to argue, tell me i’m wrong 🙂

Another season, another MVP runner-up for Trout at the behest of another player? PHoto via redsox life

Hi there.  Its time to write about the “silly season” of baseball.   Its my annual awards predictor piece.

Here’s my predictions for how the awards will go.  Important note: This is not necessarily how I believe the awards should go, it is how I think the current electorate will vote …  though I do tend to believe that the MVP award in particular is not just about naming the WAR leader in the league.  And I also tend to favor giving a pitcher the Cy Young and a non-pitcher the MVP.  But feel free to discuss in the comments if you think i’m wrong.  I can be argumentative either way 🙂

How do I think the voting will go?

• AL MVP: Betts
• NL MVP: Yelich
• AL Cy Young: Snell
• NL Cy Young: Scherzer, changed mind to deGrom after reading the tea leaves
• AL Rookie: Ohtani
• NL Rookie: Acuna
• AL Manager: Melvin (Oakland)
• NL Manager: Snitker (Atlanta)

Discussion/Reasoning

• AL MVP: Mookie Betts is the best player on the best team, always a good place to start with MVP thoughts.  Yes, once again Mike Trout is having a phenomenal year, and once again he toils on the West Coast and for a team out of the playoff race.  I’m eternally sympathetic to those who think MVP should not include team performance … and i’m perennially finding myself agreeing with “old school” sentiments that ask a simple question; how can you be the most valuable player when your team isn’t a factor for most of the year.   Also in the mix would be Betts’ teammate J.D. Ramirez, the Oakland phenomenon Matt Chapman, Houston WAR leader Alex Bregman, and Cleveland stars Jose Ramirez and Francisco Lindor.  My personal hedge statement here: I’d be rather surprised if Betts did not win.
• NL MVP: Christian Yelich has really exploded late in the season to put his name into this discussion.  But the question may end up being this: is this one of those weird years where no dominant, obvious position player candidate steps up and thus the award goes to a pitcher?  I’d suggest this might be possible … except that the top 3-4 pitching candidates all play for non-playoff teams.  And that doesn’t match the narrative.  I’m going to go with Yelich, then the top NL pitchers right behind him, with perhaps Javier Baez,  Nolan Arenado and Freddie Freeman getting some votes as their respective “best player on a playoff team” status.  Coincidentally … did you know that Anthony Rendon is 2nd in the NL in fWAR behind Yelich?  I certainly didn’t.  Personal Hedge statement: I’d still be shocked if a pitcher for a non-playoff team won here, and would find it hard to vote for one of these other position players mentioned.
• AL Cy Young: Blake Snell.   This might be an interesting case of whether you’re wow’d by conventional stats or not.  Snell has a sub 2.00 ERA, but he’s doing it thanks to a ridiculously low BABIP, which drags down is fWAR and puts him well down the league leader list.  Meanwhile in bWAR … he’s the top AL pitcher, ahead of his competition for this award.  I think the fact that he’s put up the numbers that he has playing in the AL East and having fully 25% of his starts this year come against Boston and the Yankees is pretty amazing.  I’d vote Snell.  Also in the mix here: Verlander, Cole, Sale, Kluber, Bauer.  Personal Hedge: wouldn’t be surprised if this went to Verlander or Sale instead.
• NL Cy Young.  Max Scherzer  Yes i’m convinced that his broaching the 300k mark put him over the top, despite the unbelievable season that Jacob deGrom had.  I could be wrong; maybe the electorate has now advanced to the point where they recognize that a guy who finished 10-9 was indeed the best pitcher of the year.  We’ll see.  Either way, I sense these guys go 1-2.  After them, look for Aaron Nola Kyle Freeland, and Patrick Corbin.  Personal Hedge: deGrom is getting enough “holy cow look at this season” buzz that it wouldn’t really surprise me if he won.  And he’d be completely deserving.  Btw, as the off-season narratives grew, I became less and less convinced I had this one right.  Writing this ahead of the awards, I think deGrom wins.
• AL Rookie: Shohei Ohtani: it shouldn’t be close honestly.  He had a 4.0 WAR season, clubbing more than 20 homers and looking pretty darn solid on the mound before the inevitable elbow injury derailed his season and cost him 60 games or so.   Only Gleybar Torres is close; this should be a unanimous vote and I hope Ohtani comes back from injury sooner than later.  Personal Hedge: a vote against Ohtani is really a bad one honestly.
• NL Rookie: Ronald Acuna; its Acuna or Juan Soto, both of whom had historic seasons at a young age.   Acuna’s monster September pushes him over the top, and his stat line for the season is just slightly better than Soto’s, despite the missed time.  By narrative, Soto would have this hands-down though; he advanced from Low-A to putting up a 4-win season as a 19yr old, has had perhaps the 2nd or 3rd best teen-aged season in the long history of our game, and might have been in the MVP race had the Nats won the division.  Hedge: I begrudgingly have to admit that Acuna is slightly better, and rookie status isn’t given context (ie, its not part of the equation that Soto started the year in Low-A and Acuna was in AAA and a known #1 overall prospect).
• AL Manager: hard not to say that Bob Melvin‘s performance taking an expected also-ran to nearly 100 wins isn’t the Mgr of the year.  He’s on his like 18th starter of the year, he’s winning with a bunch of non-prospects, he’s turned trash into treasure (Blake Treinen).
• NL Manager: Brian Snitker, who took the NL east by 8 games in a complete surprise based on nearly every pundit’s pre-season predictions.  No other NL playoff team was really this big of a “surprise” so he gets it.

Actual Award Results added as they were awarded (updated post-publishing).  Finalists announced 11/4/18.

• AL MVP: Betts easily 28 of 30 1st place votes.
• NL MVP: Yelich nearly unanimously; deGrom got one 1st place vote.
• AL Cy Young: Snell squeaked by Verlander with 17 of 30 first place votes to win.
• NL Cy Young: deGrom nearly unanimously, getting 29/30 first place votes.
• AL Rookie: Ohtani in a landslide, getting 25 of 30 1st place votes (Andujar got the other 5).
• NL Rookie: Acuna, in a landslide, getting 27 of 30 first place votes.
• AL Manager: Melvin getting 18 of 30 1st place votes.
• NL Manager: Snitker, getting 17 of 30 1st place votes.

My prediction results: 7 for 8 (missed on my initial deGrom prediction).

Links to other awards that I didn’t predict this year (again, updated post-publishing as they’re announced)

• Roberto Clemente Award: Yadier Molina
• Hank Aaron Award: J.D. Martinez in the AL, Christian Yelich in the NL.
• Gold Gloves: finalists named on 10/25/18 and include just one National: Anthony Rendon.  Actual awards named 11/4/18.
• Relievers of the Year: Edwin Diaz in the AL, Josh Hader (awful tweets and all) in the NL.
• Fielding Bhttps://www.billjamesonline.com/2018_fielding_bible_awards/ible:
• MLB Executive of the Year: Billy Beane in the inaugural year of this award.
• Silver Sluggers: No Nats named this year, and no real competitors for the award honestly.
• Wilson Defensive Player of the Year:
• Comeback Players of the Year: Michael Brantley and Matt Kemp.
• BA Executive of the Year:
• Sporting News Executive of the Year:
• Edgar Martinez DH of the Year:
• J.G. Taylor Spink Reporter of the year (named at Winter Meetings): Jayson Stark for 2019.

Other links to awards worth noting

• MLB.com Players/Pitchers/Rookies of the Month.
• Players choice awards: The players choice awards had some interesting choices.  Miguel Andujar and Acuna for Rookies, Snell and deGrom Pitchers of the year, Curtis Granderson the “Marvin Miller” man of the year, etc.
• Esurance MLB Awards:

Sergio Romo; Tampa’s new #3 starter.  And #4 starter sometimes … photo via Zimbio.

The Tampa Bay Rays, thanks to a run of injuries to their starting rotation this spring, and perhaps a bit of typical organizational ingenuity, are doing something this year that has a lot of people talking; they’re essentially using a closer-quality pitcher to start games, get through the top of the opposing team’s order the first time, then hands it over to the real “starter” (or in most cases longer man) who pitches a typical starter-length outing.

They seem to be sticking to conventional outings for their two best starters (Chris Archer and Blake Snell) even now, but spring training elbow injuries to planned starters Brett Honeywell and Jose De Leon (both Tommy John surguries), plus recent injuries to #3 starter Jake Faria, Yonny Chirinos  (not Laurel Chirinos!) and Nathan Eovaldi and a lack of upper-end SP prospects has led them to this point.

This strategy is getting put to its biggest test over the Memorial Day weekend series they have with Baltimore, announcing that they’ll be “starting” relievers all three games.

So far this season, they’ve used the strategy at least twice; with Sergio Romo starting on back to back nights.

• 5/20/18: Romo pitches the first and strikes out the side before handing off to starter Ryan Yarborough, who pitches 6+ and gets the win.
• 5/21/18:  Romo, going back to back nights, faces the first 6 batters; walks two, gets the other four out, zero runs; the rest of the game is a bullpen game, but the team loses to Shohei Ohtani and the Angels.

Of course, reaction to the moves is already as you’d expect it to be, given our current climate of hot-take/knee jerk reactions.  You’ve got “get off my lawn” types talking about how this isn’t “good for the game.”  You’ve got Joel Sherman (who has been around the sport long enough to know what they’re doing) calling the strategy “Bizarre.”  And you’ve got progressive types like Houston’s A.J. Hinch praising the move.

So, what do I think of this?

Well …. honestly this is the natural evolution of the trend towards specialized relievers that we’ve been seeing lately.  A mediocre/failed starter can be converted to a highly valuable reliever by just having them throw harder and focus on mastering two pitches instead of attempting to master three or four, and it happens All The Time.  See Rivera, Mariano and Eckersley, Dennis for hall of fame exhibits A and B here (ok .. to be fair Eckersley was by  no means a failed starter … but he would not be in Cooperstown had he not become a dominant closer).

Well, what if you had an entire roster of specialized relievers instead of spending tens of millions of dollars on a rotation?

Take the Nats: our top four starters this year are earning north of $80M this season.  What if you had spread that $80M around on a bunch of closer/near-closer types, the kinds of guys who go for significantly less per annum?  What if you had an entire team of guys like Ryan Madsen ($7.6M) or Sean Doolittle ($4.3M) or Brandon Knitzler ($5.5M).  Heck, why not load up y our team with pre-arb guys like Sammy Solis ($560k) and Matt Grace ($557k) and spend that $80M on improving the out-field players?

I’ve often wondered if a team couldn’t just have essentially 12 relievers and would basically turn every game into a bullpen game.  What if you deployed your staff kind of like this:

• Three “Closer” quality guys (like our Doolittle)
• Three solid RH 7th/8th inning types like Madsen and Kelley.
• Three left-handed match-up guys (Solis, Grace)
• Three long-men types who could soak up innings but who can’t turn over a lineup more than twice (kind of like Jeremy Hellickson but perhaps more like a 4-A starter, or what Edwin Jackson is doing in AAA).

You take half this squad and they’re the A-team; that gives you 5-6 arms to pitch the first game of the week.  Then, they all get a break and the other 5-6 arms get the next game.  In a typical week every reliever then gets three to four days off with off-games and off-days.   The long-men only go every two days, since you’re asking them to do 3-4 innings, but still get plenty of rest.  So a pattern of games could look like this:

• Game 1: Closer1 pitches the 1st, RH1 and LH1 combine to pitch 2nd and 3rd.  Longman1 comes in and throws 4th through the 7th.  Then depending on where you are in the game he returns for the 8th or you go to your RH2/LH2 guy before handing off to Closer2 in the 9th.  So that’s 5 to 6 arms used in the first game.
• Game 2: Closer3 starts.  RH3 throws next two innings.  Longman2 throws innings 4-7.  LH3 finishes it out, perhaps throwing Closer1 a second day in a row if need be.
• Game 3: Closer2 starts.  Perhaps you go right to Longman3 for a 5 inning stint.  Back to RH1 and LH1 for the 7th/8th, then either let these guys do a 2 inning stint or go back to Closer3 for back-to-backs to finish the game.

So the workload for a 3-game series goes like this:

• Closers: 2 innings each with an off-day
• RH guys: 2-3 innings each with an off-day
• LH guys: 2-3 innings each with an off-day
• Long-men: 3-4 innings each with two off-days

That’s basically 27 innings across three games, assuming your middle relievers throw a couple of 2-inning stints in there, or one of your long-men does 4 innings instead of three.

Tell me why this wouldn’t work?  Everyone gets a ton of rest, and if you burn out one of your longmen you just call up re-inforcements from AAA to do mop-up games here and there.  You always have a closer going against the top of the order in the first inning, then you try to work it out so that you can do match-ups the next time they come up with a 7th/8th inning quality guy.  The best hitters on the other team will eventually get a shot at your “long man…” but under this plan, they’re getting four at bats generally against four different arms.  That’s going to give the advantage to the pitcher every time; batters don’t get to study up the opposing starter every night for research; they’re going to be seeing gas, trick pitches and one-trick ponies that have ridiculous BAAs and BABIPs thanks to their specialty.

So, who would love this?

• Owners.  no more 9-figure contracts for starters who have like a 50% injury rate.
• Some Pitchers: more opportunities for guys who just couldn’t cut it as starters but who crush it as releivers.

Who wouldn’t like this?

• High end starters: less jobs, less demand for you.  Maybe.  I mean, right now Tampa is sticking with their two solid starters and only doing this for the other slots.  Maybe a team with two Aces like the nats just lets them roll normally then does this kind of bullpen game the other three games out of five.
• Any baseball fan born before 1970, since they hate any change, any game modification.  I mean come on, there’s people demanding that we ban the shift (including the commissioner).
• The Players union; you’d have to think salaries would plummet
• Maybe most every baseball fan?  Offense drives fan interest … and this plan is specifically designed to neutralize the opposing team’s best hitters.

Thoughts?

Is someone going to sign this guy?? Photo via mlb.com

We’re in a weird time in baseball.  The players drastically misplayed their hand in the last couple of CBA negotiations, allowing the luxury tax to become so penurious that it now basically functions as a hard cap … but without the corresponding hard floors that would prevent the wholesale tanking we’ve been seeing lately.  This has resulted (along with a couple other factors) in the worst FA market we’ve seen since the days of collusion.

I thought i’d do a little noodling to see just how bad this problem is.

Taking a quick look at 2017 off-season spending patterns and looking at the general activities of teams, here’s what seems to be going on:

Trying and Spending Big

• Boston: not really a surprise that they’re spending money, with more just announced with J.D. Martinez.  The Boston-NYY wars are back on.
• New York Yankees: obviously trying … not necessarily “spending” a ton of money on the FA market but spent a ton to acquire Giancarlo Stanton in terms of added payroll
• Los Angeles Angels, who won the Ohtani sweepstakes, signed Justin Upton to a 9-figure deal and have made moves.
• Philadelphia: Added nearly $40M in payroll … but in really odd moves for a team that seems like it should just be waiting things out another year.   Does anyone really think they’re a playoff team?
• Milwaukee: they even bought a compensation-attached FA in Lorenzo Cain, perhaps looking at their division and sensing that a WC run is in the offing.
• Chicago Cubs: they’re the big spenders this off-season, having more than $50M of payroll AAV
• Colorado: still spending money in an attempt to get into the NL WC game.

Trying and Spending “some”

• Minnesota: the most surprising team on this “trying and spending” list; the Twins keep signing guys.  Good for them.
• New York Mets: they definitely have signed FAs … but they’re not signing marquee guys who might actually help them get better.
• San Francisco: they havn’t signed a ton of guys, but have “spent” a ton of prospect depth to acquire the likes of Andrew McCutchen and Evan Longoria this off-season.
• San Diego: in one of the more inexplicable deals of the past few years, San Diego signed Eric Hosmer to a $144M deal so that they can continue to finish 30+ games out of first in the NL West.  But hey, they spent some cash!

So, that’s just 11 of the 30 teams that are actively spending on the FA market.  About a third of the league.   And it includes half the teams you’d project to make the playoffs this year right now (Boston, NYY, Milwaukee, Colorado and Minnesota).

How many of these teams are “done”  spending at this point?  There’s still several QO-attached FAs who are/were expecting $50M or bigger contracts; where in this list above do you see anyone still willing to absorb a $20M/year AAV?

Trying but not really Spending:

• Houston: the defending champs havn’t really had to spend a ton, having acquired Justin Verlander last season to address their biggest need.  They’ve signed just two minor FAs.
• Arizona: have added about $10M of contracts … but are just augmenting the edges of their surprise 93-win team from last year.
• Los Angeles Dodgers: the league’s wealthiest team has added a grand total of $3M of salaries for the new  year.  $3M!!
• Cleveland: successful small market team is just working the edges of their 102-win team and trying to maintain their success while the window is open.
• Washington: we’re at the luxury tax threshold, it seems like the owners don’t want to go over it, and we’ve added around the edges of the roster only.

Can’t fault these 5 teams for having done the work to put themselves in near-guaranteed playoff position (in fact, they’re probably the “other” 5 teams making the playoffs in 2018).   This has also contributed to the problem; most of the time playoff teams want to get better to get to the next level; half your likely 2018 playoff teams are tapped out and standing pat on last year’s rosters.

Treading water and not spending

• Oakland: what’s new?
• Toronto: seem to be in a no-man’s land in a division with two teams absolutely trying; should probably sell off
• St. Louis: not exactly lighting the world on fire with off-season moves.
• Seattle: they made a flurry of moves last season and have spent very little this off-season; they cannot outspend or outperform two other divisional teams right now, so are just treading water.
• Baltimore; as normal, nobody knows what’s going on with this front office.  They’ve bought two veteran 5th starter FA pitchers and … that’s it.
• Texas: i’m not entirely sure what Texas is doing; they have money to spend, desperately need starting pitching .. and are doing very little.
• Chicago White Sox: little new spending; they’re like a couple other teams that are coming out of a rebuild and waiting for their prospects to mature.

Most of these teams are staring in the face of a tank job.  Only Chicago is on their way out (well, technically Philadelphia too, who should be sitting here but instead spent $60M on a DH to “play” first base for them in Carlos Santana).  Not one of these teams really can look at their situations or their divisions and say that they’re favored to make a playoff run.

Not Trying/Tanking and not spending:

• Atlanta: they’re still waiting for all their prospects to grow up; may not be “tanking” but definitely are not spending the money to win in 2018.
• Miami: we’re all painfully aware of the shambolic sell-off in Miami; yet another stain on MLB for enabling a billionaire owner to suck freely at the revenue trough while not putting anything back.
• Pittsburgh: traded their franchise player, have not committed one penny of MLB FA dollars.  The chickens have come home to roost in Pittsburgh; we’ll see you in 20 years when you’re relevant again.  They should have sold off last season frankly.
• Tampa Bay: you don’t trade your franchise player w/o officially waving the white flag.  Maybe we need to contract both Florida teams like certain curmudgeon NY-based columnists have advised
• Cincinnati: last place last year, payroll flat, no real chance of winning the division == tanking.
• Kansas City: their grand plan of offering QOs to all their FAs is being killed by the weird circumstances of this off-season, but they’re reading the writing on the wall and gearing for a rebuild.
• Detroit: like with Tampa and Pittsburgh, jettisoned their franchise player recently and probably wishes they could do even more.  they’re looking at $75M LESS in payroll in 2018 versus last year, and would do more if they could.  It could be pretty ugly in Detroit for a while.

That’s a lot of teams not really trying, or actively shedding players.    And it won’t take much to push some of the “standing pat” teams into this category.

The larger point is that 19 of the 30 teams, for one reason or another, are not spending this off-season.  Two thirds of the league basically went into the off-season not planning on doing anything except roster-fine tuning on the open market.

Great news for the Nats; Miami will be lucky to win 60 games, Atlanta still isn’t trying fully, Philly has done practically nothing to help make the leap, and the Mets seem like they’re going to be in Bernie Madoff-hell for years.  Will they win the division by 20 games again in 2018?  Probably not … but it shouldn’t be close.

There’s a slew of other underlying issues that are making the issue worse.  Kiley McDaniel summarized them pretty well in this chat answer from last week:

I think teams have

• 1) been getting more similar in their methods
• 2) more careful to avoid long-term deals
• 3) owners have been getting less involved
• 4) the league has been getting younger and rookies have been making more of an impact and they’re all cheaper than vets
• 5) it’s worked out that deals get better the longer you wait, so teams are seeing how much you can stretch that principle, so we were moving toward this gradually.

What made it all happen now was

• 1) the big market teams are trying to get under the tax for next off-season
• 2) Boras overplayed his hand but with more players than usual and
• 3) teams that can spend, big or middle market, want to wait until next off-season to spend huge money when there’s better players.

Sounds like a good summary of the off-season.

Post publishing update: just after I posted this, word comes out that the MLB player’s Union is filing a grievance against four teams for not spending their revenue sharing money.   Miami, Tampa, Pittsburgh and Oakland, four perennial violators of this rule and 3 of which I named as actively tanking.  Frankly, I would have put Oakland as an active tanker too except … they’re so poor right now they have no assets to sell.  Heck, even Mike Rizzo hasn’t been able to swing a trade with Oakland this off-season.

Ohtani signs with the … Angels? photo via theatlantic.com

We now know that Japanese superstar Shohei Ohtani has signed; he’s going to the Los Angeles Angels … or in other words, the other baseball team in Los Angeles.  His selection of that team seems to have been driven by a desire to be on the West Coast, his apparent desire to be on an AL team to open up the DH opportunities in-between his starts … and his insane desire to leave literally tens of millions of dollars on the table.

I was listening to a podcast where some guy was trying to argue that Ohtani was actually making a “good” business move by coming over now.  I was flabbergasted.  The guy’s main argument was that by coming over now, he gets to free agency two years earlier and thus can get more money then.  But it gave zero credence to the fact that he’s going to be costing himself literally tens of millions of dollars by playing for MLB min salaries for three years.

I thought i’d try to map out just how ridiculously bad his financial decision was to leave Japan now versus in two years, when he’d be 25 and would be an unrestricted FA.  So, using some simple guesses and projections, here’s an attempt to discuss just how much money he’s leaving on the table.

By coming over now, he is subjecting himself to the same rules as any other IFA; he gets the maximum bonus that the Angels can offer ($2.315M after they acquired some bonus money just ahead of the signing).  He’ll play for the MLB minimum the next three years.  Then he’ll enter arbitration, with the caveat that any shenanigans in the contracts he may sign to buy out arb years will probably be voided by MLB.  So we’ll use the records for 1st/2nd/3rd year eligible arb players as benchmarks.

By year:

• 2017: $2.315M bonus
• Age 23-25 seasons: 2018, 2019, 2020: MLB minuimums or there abouts; lets assume he gets good raises and earns $545k, $800k and then $1.1M (Mike Trout owns the current record for pre-arb player salary of $1M).
• Age 26 season in 2021: 1st arb year; $10M, which is Ryan Howard‘s current record for first year arb eligible players … and which is significantly higher than the 1st year record for pitchers (Dallas Keuchel‘s $7.25M).
• Age 27 season in 2022: 2nd arb year: $11.3M
• Age 28 season in 2023: 3rd arb year: $15.5M
• Age 29 season in 2024: 4th arb year (why does he get a 4th year?  Because what’s stopping the Angels from keeping him in Spring Training until a few weeks have passed and keeping him for an extra year?  Wouldn’t you?): $19.75M.

So, adding that up; assuming he matches the absolute highest figures in arb figures and doesn’t sign an extension, he’d earn $61.31M in bonus and salary by the time he’s reached Free Agency.

Versus ….

• 2018: plays in Japan at his current salary of about $2.378M
• 2019: does the same.

And in 2020, he comes over here completely unencumbered and signs a massive deal.   The pundits that i’ve read, when asked what he’d be worth on the open market right now, say between $200M and $240M in total value.  Their argument would be that he’d easily be the best FA on the market, he’s got better stuff than any pitcher out there (he sits upper 90s, touches triple digits and per Dave Cameron of fangraphs has spin rates the equivalent of Luis Severino … all while producing at the plate and being an 80 runner).   $200-$250M is a crazy contract to try to project to … so lets assume, for the sake of argument, its a $25M AAV deal (which is probably light, but makes the point anyway).  To then cover the same years as the above scenario:

• 2020, 2021,2022, 2023,2024 at $25M/per.

So that’d be $125M plus his two years of Japan salary.  That’s a difference of about $65M just between now and 2024 … and that assumes several key points (that he gets the arbitration record each year, that he continues to get his ridiculously cheap $2.3M Japanese salary, and that he “only” gets $25M AAV).

Odds are that the actual difference would be much higher, since he’s likely to get a lot more than $25M AAV.  Why?  Because unlike typical Pitcher FAs we see in the majors … he’s still in his early 20s, he’s got no injury history … and he can hit!  So if you think he’s likely to get closer to $35M AAV … then add another $50M to that $65M gap above and now you see why people are saying he’s making a $100M mistake.

Yes, Ohtani will be making bank through endorsements.  So he’s not going to be hurting for cash.  But the life of a pro athlete can be fleeting; you get as much as you can, as soon as you can, because there’s no guarantees about what happens tomorrow.  Ohtani might blow out his elbow twice in four years and he’s out of the league before he even hits free agency.  Or he might turn into the next Roger Clemens.  He’s making a huge gamble though in order to “compete” against the best now versus in a couple years.

(I think I got the above scenario right … let me know if there’s some detail of his contract that I missed).

Are the Nats really in the mix for Japanese superstar Ohtani? Photo via cbssports.com

As many others have noticed … there isn’t a heck of a lot going on right now in the “hot stove” season.  But given where we are in the regular off-season calendar, lets bang out a couple of topics.

First: the Non-tender deadline.

For the first time in an awful long time, the Nats have no real obvious non-tender candidates on their roster.  They entered the off-season with just four arbitration-eligible players and they are all set to be crucial pieces for 2018:

• Bryce Harper technically would have been arb-eligible but signed away his 4th year for north of $21M.
• Anthony Rendon comes off easily his finest season as a pro (his numbers across the board eclipse his 2014 5th place MVP season) and he should be in line to more than double his $5.8M 2017 salary.
• Tanner Roark struggled in 2017 (… perhaps caused/aided by the frequently-seen WBC hangover?) but is still slated to be our 4th starter on a rotation that doesn’t currently have a fifth and should be in line for about an $8M payday.
• Michael Taylor has established himself as one of the premier defensive center fielders in the game, will be set to start in 2018, and faces arbitration for the first time (likely to get around a $2.5M check).

Compare this to previous non-tender years (with links to non-tender specific posts from years past):

• 2016: we non-tendered Ben Revere, waived Aaron Barrett before having to make the NT decision, and declined Yusmeiro Petit‘s option as a way of “non-tendering” him.
• 2015: we non-tendered Craig Stammen, but kept NT candidates Jose Lobaton and Tyler Moore (eventually trading Moore after waiving him at the end of spring training).
• 2014: we did not non-tender anyone, though a couple weeks later traded NT candidate Ross Detwiler to Texas for two guys who never really panned out for us (Chris Bostick and Abel de los Santos).
• 2013: we did not non-tender anyone, only Ross Ohlendorf was a candidate, and in retrospect he probably should have been NT’d since he didn’t throw a pitch for the Nationals in 2014.
• 2012: we non-tendered three guys (Jesus Flores, Tom Gorzelanny, John Lannan) in the face of a huge amount of arbitration players (10).
• 2011: we non-tendered Doug Slaten deservedly, but tendered candidate Gorzellany.
• 2010: we non-tendered Chien-Ming Wang, Wil Nieves, Joel Peralta.  We also outrighted 5 guys prior to the NT deadline, DFA’d two more in December, and DFA/dreleased four more guys prior to Spring training in a very busy off-season.
• 2009: we non-tendered Scott Olsen, Mike MacDougal
• 2008: we non-tendered Tim Redding, now the Pitching coach for our Auburn Short-A team, so I guess there was no hard feelings there 🙂
• 2007: we non-tendered Nook Logan, Mike O’Conner.
• 2006: we non-tendered or declined options for Ryan Drese, Brian Lawrence, Zach Day (it might have only been Day who was officially non-tendered)
• 2005: we non-tendered Carlos Baerga, Preston Wilson, Junior Spivey.

That’s a long trip down random memory lane for marginal Nationals players from yesteryear.

Post-publish edit: as expected, the team formally tendered contracts to the 3 arb-eligible players on 12/1/17.

The FA market in general seems to be held up by two major names: Giancarlo Stanton and Shohei Ohtani.  Jeff Passan argues there’s other reasons (see this link) for the lack of movement, but one has to think the big names are a big part of it.  I also believe that this year’s “crop” of FAs is … well kind of underwhelming.  Here’s Passan’s ranking of FAs: his biggest names past Ohtani are Yu Darvish (who just sucked in the post-season, is coming off TJ surgery and doesn’t rate as the “Ace” he once was), J.D. Martinez (who blew up in 2017 but who has normally gotten a lot of his value from defense and he’s not getting any younger), Eric Hosmer (a 1B only guy, even if he’s really good, who seems like a safe bet to get over-pad and age badly) and Jake Arrieta (who has taken a step backwards from his Cy Young win and has already entered his decline years).  Plus, the “price” for signing some of these QO-attached guys (Hosmer, Arrieta plus other top-10 FAs like Lorenzo Cain, Mike Moustakas and Wade Davis) will be quite steep for big-market and/or Luxury tax teams like our own Washington Nationals.

Frankly, between the higher price of forced loss of picks due to our over-spending last season, our current payroll tightness (we seem to only have about $17M to spend to stay under the tax for all of next year) and the underwhelming lot of available players … i don’t see us really participating in this year’s sweepstakes.    Do we want to pony up for a middling 5th starter type like Jaime Garcia at the likely going price of $10M/year?  Or roll the dice with a MLFA like we did with some success last year (Edwin Jackson, Jacob Taylor).  Or just stay inhouse and let Erick Fedde continue to mature every 5th day on the mound?

Stanton, according to the tea-leaves i’m reading this week, seems like he’s heading to San Francisco, who is in desperate need for offense, outfielders and a franchise makeover after last year’s debacle.  Stanton could fit all three.  Which is great for him (he’s born and raised in California and would be joining a franchise that, despite its 2017 season, still has 3 WS titles in the last decade and a slew of marquee players to build around), great for the Nats (getting him out of the division), great for the “franchise” of Miami (who rids themselves of perhaps the 2nd worst contract in baseball behind Albert Pujols‘ and lets them get a relatively clean slate to start over for the new franchise ownership group), and of course awful for the “fans” of Miami, who thought they were finally getting rid of one of the worst owners in professional sports only to get slapped in the face with comical missteps by the new Derek Jeter-led ownership group, who managed to embarrass themselves in the most ridiculous way (by firing ceremonial Marlins legends for no good reason) early and then put themselves on the defensive needlessly by immediately crying poor and saying that they needed to pare payroll within a few days of taking over.  If i was a Miami fan I wouldn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

I also think its notable that the first ex-Nat ranked on Passan’s list comes in at #43; the “ripe for regression” Matt Albers.  Brandon Knitzler comes soon after him (who could be a re-signing candidate frankly for us, to put the “law firm” back together), then you have to get all the way down to #62 to find Jayson Werth.  As compared to next off-season, when the Nats will have the #1 guy on the list.

Coming back to Ohtani (I’m going with the h in the name since after much research that’s what seems like the right way to spell it) ….

First things first: I desperately hope the Nats get him.  Anyone who thinks that they’re better off without Ohtani is a fool; he’s set to become one of the biggest bargains in baseball.  For the small price of a $20M posting fee, you get a guy who throws 100, is an 80 runner, and hits the crap out of the ball.  For a miniscule bonus figure (the max any team has seems to be about $3.5M; the Nats only have $300k) and then a MLB min contract.  Its just amazing.  His presence could literally change the face of a franchise for a decade for about the same amount of money we will have paid Gio Gonzalez this year and next.  I doubt he picks us though; it seems more likely he picks either a major market team (NY, Boston) on the east coast or (more likely) one of the west coast teams for better proximity to Japan and a larger Asian native market (LA, SF, Seattle).  But its all speculation.

Hey, did I mention that the Nats need both another starter AND a lefty-bat off the bench, right now??  Ohtani would be perfect!

Side Note: why the heck is he coming over now and subjecting himself to MLB minimum contracts and arbitration??  He’s literally leaving $100M on the table by not waiting just two years and coming over un-restricted.  I just cannot believe he’s doing this and costing himself so much money.  I get the lip service comments about wanting to challenge himself, yadda yadda, but when there’s literally 9 figures of money on the table, I just don’t understand the decision.  He’s projected to be better than Daisuke Matsuzaka, better than Darvish, both of whom got many times more money (Dice-K got $52M to him, $103M in total cost plus his posting fee), while Darvish got $60M to him and cost the Rangers $111M total with posting fee).  It seems crazy.

Can’t wait to see where he goes, and I can’t wait to see if he’s the real deal.