Nationals Arm Race

Still waiting. Photo via fanragsports.com

Unbelievably, its now mid February, pitchers and catchers are reporting to Spring Training … and the two best FAs and two of the best players in the game remain unsigned.

If there was ever a sign that baseball’s collective pay system is broken, we’re seeing it.  An amazing combination of tanking, salary cap, poor CBA negotiating and GMs too smart for their own good has the game barrelling towards a large, ugly work stoppage in a few years time.  But we have to get there first.

Here’s my all-still unemployed team.  Every one of these players is unsigned as of the date/time i’m writing this and per mlbtraderumors: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2016/12/2018-19-mlb-free-agents.html

How many games do you think this team wins?

• Catcher: Matt Wieters starting with A.J. Ellis backing him up (post publishing correction per comments; Ellis has retired so we’ll go with Evan Gattis as the backup/DH).  Poor defense, but halfway decent offense based on 2018 numbers.
• 1B: Logan Morrison: he fell off a cliff in 2018, but had an OPS+ of 133 in 2017.  Bet on a rebound.
• 2B: Josh Harrison.  2 time all star, solid player.
• SS: Manny Machado
• 3B: Mike Moustakas: four straight years of above MLB average production.
• LF: Carlos Gonzalez: would you bet against CarGo with a chip on his shoulder?
• CF: Adam Jones: maybe he can’t really play CF anymore, but he can still play
• RF: Bryce Harper
• Utility: Marwin Gonzalez: can play 6 positions, hits the ball and isn’t 30 yet.  Why is he still a FA?

Lots of power potential here: I’d go Harrison, Machado, Harper, CarGo, Jones, Morrison, Moustakas, Wieters and Pitcher.

My Rotation?

• #1: Dallas Keuchel
• #2 Gio Gonzalez
• #3: Clay Buchholz
• #4: Ervin Santana
• #5: Yovani Gallardo

That rotation is better than 10 teams’ rotations right now.

bullpen?

• Closer: Craig Kimbrel
• Setup: Jim Johnson, Sergio Romo
• RH middle relief: Bud Norris, AJ Ramos
• LH middle relief: Xavier Cedeno, Aaron Loup

————-

Is that a lot of talent still waiting to be signed?  I think so.  I still count at least 15 starters who could impact nearly any team in the league on the bench.  its just crazy.

Imagine tis guy in a Nats uniform? Photo via latimes.com

It seems like every time I turn around, I see another ex-Nat pitching against us.  This past weekend our old friend Tommy Milone surfaced with the Mets to help lead his team to victory against us.

It got me wondering; what’s the best pitching staff of ex-Nats you could come up with right now?

Using a quick and dirty reference guide for depth charts at rotoworld.com, and basically going off of memory of who used to be in our organization, here’s my starting five rotation members, how they were connected with us and how we parted ways.

1. Rich Hill, LA Dodgers.  He of the near perfect-game turned to walk-off homer loss.  Hill was a MLFA signing in March of 2015, threw in 25 games of relief and then was given his release halfway through the season (he probably had an opt-out).  From there, he bounced to Boston before signing a one year deal with Oakland where he suddenly was an all-star starter.  Oakland flipped him to LA, and now he’s the #2 starter basically on the best team in baseball.
2. Robbie Ray, Arizona.  He was a big-money draft-pick by us before the new rules came in.  Initially seen as a throw-in in the Doug Fister trade, Ray is now the one who “got away.”   Detroit moved him to Arizona in the 3-way Didi Gregorius move, and he’s slowly come into his own.  He made the All-Star team in 2017 and is one of the better starters in the NL this year.
3. Marco Estrada, Toronto.  This one still amazes me; we drafted him in 2005 and developed him all the way through his 6-year free agency in the minors, with him showing little of what he now shows for Toronto.   After leaving Washington, he signed in Milwaukee and eventually became a solid rotation member for them, but became an all-star in Toronto.  I’m tempted btw to also put in Marcus Stroman, who we drafted out of HS as a short stop in 2009 before he went to Duke, learned how to pitch, and became a first rounder.
4. Brad Peacock, Houston.  He’s got a 11.9 K/9 rate as a starter/swingman for Houston this year.  We drafted him under the old “draft and follow” rules in the 41st round in 2006, developed him to the majors, then flipped him in the Gio Gonzalez deal.  Oakland then moved him (as they’re apt to do) to Houston in 2013, where he’s pitched ever since.  2017 is easily his best pro season.
5. Alex Meyer, Los Angeles Angels.  Our second “first round”pick in the 2011 draft (the “Rendon” draft), he was thought to be perhaps too big to start.  Initially the trade bounty sent to Minnesota for Denard Span, Meyer took for ever to develop, got flipped to Los Angeles and took til his age 25 year to even debut in the majors.  Finally in 2017 he’s showed some promise as a starter (though he’s missed time with a shoulder injury).

Honorable Mentions: Doug Fister, Lucas Giolito, Reynaldo Lopez, Jordan Zimmermann, Nate Karns,  Tommy Milone, Nick Pivetta, Mat Latos, Bronson Arroyo, Vance Worley

Interesting.  When I started this post I thought it’d be deeper.  I struggled to pick the 5th starter over the list of HMs.  Would you take any of the honorable mentions over Meyer or Peacock right now?  Can you think of anyone I’m missing?  Giolito just had a nice start; do you take him over Meyer or these other guys?

Do we have any regrets about any of these guys getting away?  Probably not.  There’s no way we could have predicted what Hill would have become, and Ray was just a baby when he was flipped.  We knew we were giving up talent in Peacock and Meyer … just not knowing how long it would have taken to matriculate.  Estrada’s maturation was totally unexpected too.

As far as the honorable mentions go … i’m completely surprised Fister (and Milone for that matter) is still in the league.  Giolito/Lopez was giving up talent to get talent.  We seem to have dodged a huge bullet with Zimmermann.   Karns has never really been healthy enough to show us what he has.  Pivetta may eventually come back to haunt us, but his 24-yr old season showed he’s not quite ready for the bigs.  Latos and Arroyo are barely hanging on (Arroyo may have already announced his retirement).  Worley pitched against us a few weeks ago and beat us but overall his 2017 has been a struggle.

How about relievers?  Here’s my best seven ex-Nats relievers out there (feel free to remind me if I forgot someone):

• Felipe Rivero: the big name on this list; he’s exploded onto the scene since being flipped to Pittsburgh in the Mark Melancon deal.  He’s got an ERA+ for 2017 of 345, a just ridiculous.  He’s my ex-nat closer.
• Blake Treinen: flipped to Oakland in a classic “change of scenery” move and he’s been stellar from day one on the west coast.  Sub 2.00 ERA, 7 saves.  Will he stay at this level?  Hopefully for him, yes.
• Mark Melancon: I know he’s struggled with injury this year, but he’s only 32 and should have plenty of more success.  I’ll take him as closer 1-A to Rivero on my Ex-Nat staff.
• Fernando Abad: DFA’d in the 2013 off-season then flipped to our favorite trade partner for a non-prospect minor leaguer, Abad was subsequently stellar for Oakland the following season.  He’s been up and down since, but has also been stellar in Boston’s bullpen this year.  He’s one of my Ex-Nat Loogies.
• Jerry Blevins: the guy who (I think) Mike Rizzo traded for 50 cents on the dollar because he took the Nats to arbitration in 2015.  He got hurt soon after the trade in 2015, but has given the Mets two very solid years out of the pen since.
• Craig Stammen: that’s right; he’s not only back but has had a very nice season in San Diego’s bullpen.
• Yusmeiro Petit: we signed him away from our nemesis San Francisco … and then he struggled badly enough to have his club-option declined.  He promptly signed with the Angels and has been quite effective in 2017.  He’s my ex-Nat long-man.

Honorable Mentions: Tyler Clippard, Matt Belisle, Michael Brady, Ian Krol, Drew Storen, Josh Smoker, Marc Rzepczynski, Zach Duke, Paolo Espino, Abel de los Santos, Matt Purke, Xavier Cedeno.

So, this is a much better bullpen than starting rotation.  Three closer-quality guys at the top and two quality lefties.  Both Stammen and Petit have been good this year.  There’s a long list of honorable mention Nat relievers at this ponit and there may be others who are sitting in AAA right now.

Did we dodge a bullet by allowing Zimmermann to leave? Photo via The Boston Globe.

Next in a series moving backwards.  Here was the “We Miss You” for the 2016 team.

Lets go back a year and look at those players gone from the 2015 team.  I’m building these partly from the Nats to Oblivion Posts and partly from my own notes using a combination of players gone via FA, trades, DFAs, to include major league players and significant minor league players.   If a player is still in the org but was just DFA’d off the 40-man, I’ll mostly skip them.  I may miss someone; pipe up in the comments if I have a glaring miss.

I’ll organize this by roughly by the level of the player; major league players who left via FA or trade, then DFA’d/declined players, then minor leaguers of note who departed.

• Jordan Zimmermann; signed 5/$110M with Detroit and left us with a comp pick, used to take Dane Dunning.  I think its safe to say that Zimmermann’s tenure in Detroit thus far has been disappointing: he had a 4.87 ERA in 2016 and missed half the season, and he’s been even worse this year.  Detroit has to behaving some buyer’s remorse right now.  And he’s signed for 3 more years past this one, at big money.
• Dan Uggla: The Nats were probably his last stand chance in the majors; hit just .183 and was given just 17 ABs the last two months of the 2015 season.  Never signed for 2016 and seems to be retired.
• Doug Fister: signed 1/$7M with Houston, to whom he gave 32 starts and 180 innings of mediocrity (4.64 ERA) in 2016.  Apparently still believes he’s worthy of a 25-man spot and refused all offers this past off-season that were not MLB deals.  Remains unsigned as of this writing; he may have to swallow his pride if he wants to keep playing and take a MLFA deal.
• Ian Desmond signed 1/$11M with Texas after declining Washington’s qualifying offer.  Desmond became kind of the poster child for all the things wrong with the Qualifying Offer season; after turning down a 5yr/$89.5M deal the previous season, he turned down a guaranteed $15.8M offer to eventually sign for $11M.  To add insult to injury, Desmond had to move off of SS for Texas, which was what propped up his value in the first place.  He had an up-and-down season with Texas, starting the year incredibly hot and making the All Star team, but slumping towards the end.  He got saddled with a second QO, which he again signed, but his 2016 season was enough for Colorado to give him perhaps the most inexplicable contract of last off-season, a 5yr/$70M deal … to play first base.  A position he’d never played before.  And Colorado gave up literally the highest unprotected draft pick to do so (the 11th pick in the upcoming 2017 draft).  Desmond suffered a hand injury this spring, and as a result Colorado has installed slugger Mark Reynolds at 1B; he’s done so well that the team is wondering just what they’ll do with Desmond when he returns in early May.  On the bright side for Desmond; at least he finally got paid.  And i’m sure that 100% of Nats fans would take what the team has done at SS since over having a $90M contract on their hands.
• Denard Span signed 3/$31M with San Francisco, capping a frustrating year for Span and the team.  He only played 61 games for the 2015 team, forcing the Nats to start Michael Taylor and his 30% K rate in CF for a good chunk of the season.  Span’s first season in SF was similar to his first in DC; he struggled offensively.  He’s been even worse in 2017, and is currently on the D/L (in an interesting twist of fate; his replacement on the SF active roster?  None other than Michael Morse).
• Nate McLouth; The team couldn’t wait to decline his 2016 option and pay his 750k buyout for 2016 after his disastrous stint with Washington.  His contract was ill-advised from the start; did we really need to pay good money to have a “veteran 4th outfielder?”  McLouth missed the entirety of 2015, has yet to sign since, and may have played his way out of baseball.
• Matt Thornton signed a MLFA deal with San Diego for 2016, got called up after a couple of months in AAA, but struggled.  He posted a 5.82 ERA over the next couple of months and was released in August.  He has not appeared since and now at age 40 is likely done.
• Casey Janssen was so poor for the Nats that they bought his 2016 out for a cool $1.5M buyout for 2016); he also signed a MLFA deal with San Diego for 2016.  Ah San Diego; the place where pitchers go to resurrect their careers.  He was released in late Spring Training 2016, got picked up with Boston in June of 2016, pitched a bit for their Short-A and AAA teams then was released in early August 2016.  Did not pick up with a team for 2017 and at age 35 with little velocity on his fastball, he may be retired.
• Reed Johnson got picked back up on a MLFA deal by Washington for 2016 season, but did not make the team out of spring and was released on 4/2/16.  He did not pick up with anyone for 2016 and at age 39 may be retired.

• Taylor Jordan: After brief stints with the team in 2015, started 2016 in AAA but got hurt in June of 2016, he had a second TJ surgery … and then was released by the club on 6/28/16 to correspond to the Giolito contract addition.  Man, that seems kind of cold to release a guy just after surgery, but his odds of making it back to the majors just took a significant hit.  As of 2017 has not re-signed anywhere and seems a long-shot to do so, with little major league track record and two arm injuries.  Likely out of baseball at this point.
• David Carpenter: shoulder injury, DFA’d, elected free agency and quickly signed a ML deal with Atlanta for 2016.  However he was cut after just a handful of spring training games; maybe his injury is worse than we thought.  He then bounced from Tampa to the Angels system for 2016, and then signed back with Tampa as a MLFA/NRI for 2017, but was cut on 4/4/17.
• Emmanuel Burriss: signed MLFA with Philly and lead-off against the Nats in their first visit to Philadelphia in the new season.  He was DFA’d and purchased a couple times by Philly last year, but upon his outright after the season he elected FA and signed a MLFA to return to the Nats for 2017.  He looked like nice utility infielder insurance until he got suspended for a “drug of abuse” in the spring (his second such offense).  He currently sits on Syracuse’s restricted list.  I have to say; his status as the sole DC-bred baseball player in the pros (as far as I can tell) and his playing for the Washington franchise seems to put him in a great post-career outreach position … but now with two drug suspensions on his resume, I wonder if he’s scuttled any such possibility of representing the team in the community.
• Craig Stammen: fan favorite had an ill-timed injury late in the 2015 season and was non-tendered instead of guaranteeing him a contract for 2016.  He signed a MLFA with Cleveland for 2016 but never made it out of AAA.  I had him as a leading “oblivion candidate” until he signed another MLFA deal for 2017 and made the San Diego opening day roster.  His april has not been good though, sporting an ERA in the mid 8s as of May 1st.  He may be in danger of a DFA, which might spell the end of his MLB career given how the last couple of seasons have gone.  He gave the Nats 3 solid years as a bullpen workhorse that may have led to his eventual wearing out.
• Tyler Moore never could match the magic of his debut season in 2012, but a series of injuries kept him hanging around in 2014 and 2015 when he may otherwise have been released.  His luck ran out though for the 2016 team, when he got beat out for the RH bench bat by Chris Heisey and he got DFA’d at the end of spring training.  We negotiated a trade of similar discarded assets with Atlanta, trading Moore for Nate Freiman.  Freiman didn’t last three weeks with the AAA team before being released (a measure of just how little we got in return for trade), while Moore got injured early and missed most of the year for AAA Gwinnett.  He signed a MLFA for 2017 with the Marlins and team out of spring training.  He even got a crucial hit against the Nats early in 2017 season, but was soon DFA’d again.  He passed through waivers and was outrighted to New Orleans (where, as noted in the previous post, he joins a litany of former Nats).
• Xavier Cedeno was the first 25-man DFA of the 2015 season.  He was used 4 times in 5 nights in early April, gave up a couple of runs and then got designated with just 3 IP.  It was an odd move at the time; why was he getting appearance after appearance if the team was going to DFA him?  Why did the team have so little patience with him?  After his DFA, he got purchased by the Dodgers, who then sold him to the Rays 5 days later … and he had 61 appearances with a 2.09 ERA for Tampa Bay the rest of 2015.  He was a solid bullpen arm for them all of 2016 and remains on their team now.  Do you think maybe the team gave up on him too soon?
• Taylor Hill: Hill was DFA’d to make room for January 2016 signings and was outrighted to AAA, where he pitched the entire 2016 season.  Hill finished out the year for AAA Syracuse with a 4.60 ERA in 27 starts.  He is still with the AAA team for 2017 but has been passed on the depth chart by several guys (Cole, Voth, Fedde) and faces long odds of a return to the majors with this organization.  Additionally, Hill has started the 2017 AAA season by getting shelled; an 8.14 ERA for April.  He may be in serious jeopardy of getting released.
• Aaron Barrett: Tommy John in 2015, then in June of 2016, he had a major set-back in his TJ recovery, fracturing his elbow.  He has re-signed with the Nats for 2017 and starts the  year on the AAA D/L.  I was happy to see the Nats give Barrett this gesture of signing him so that he can rehab with the team, and I hope it pays off with an eventual return to the fold.
• Matt Purke got his last shot at salvaging a career with the Nats, who signed him for big-time money ($2.75M as a 3rd rounder in 2011, the last free for all non-capped bonus draft).  He failed to impress again, and the team let him go to free agency.  He signed a MLFA deal with the Chicago White Sox, who assigned him to AAA … and then he earned a call-up by mid May 2016.  The nats were looking rather foolish for cutting bait on a guy who made the Chicago MLB team after just a few weeks.  But his time in South-Side was short lived; he was optioned back to the minors by the end of June, never made it back, was outrighted over the off-season and started 2017 off the 40-man pitching for AAA Charlotte.  He is still wild (8 walks in 11 2017 innings) but he’s only 26 so there may still be time.  But from a Nats transaction perspective, i’m not sure what else they could have done.
• Yunel Escobar: after a productive season with the Nats, where Escobar played multiple positions and covered for infield injuries galore, he was traded to Los Angeles Angels for Trevor Gott and Michael Brady in the off-season.  At the time of the trade (mid December 2015) Escobar was considered surplus to requirements, in that the team had its infield already spoken for in Anthony Rendon, Danny Espinosa, and Trea Turner.  Two weeks later the team signed Danny Murphy to play 2B, thus relegating Turner back to AAA to save his service clock.  Escobar was traded to the team with perhaps the worst farm system in the majors; Gott has yet to throw a pitch for the MLB team and Brady is already gone via MLFA, so the return for Escobar is rather paltry.  That being said, I think the league knew we were shopping him, he had just had a career year with a BA 30 points above his career average, and may have been ceiling limited with the expectation of regression.  Since the trade, Escobar has played a solid 3B for the Angels and kept his BA above .300, and has been joined in their infield by fellow Nats reject Espinosa.
• Drew Storen traded with cash to Toronto for Ben Revere, ptbnl.  I think we’ve litigated the Storen case to death; he was flipped more or less since the acquisition of Jonathan Papelbon and Storen’s undeserved demotion seemed to break him; it was as clear of a case of someone needing “a change of scenery” as I’ve seen with one of our players.  We got a player in Revere that filled a point of need (CF) and one that looked on paper like a good deal at the time.  I think its fair to say now that this trade didn’t work out for either team: Storen put up an ERA north of 6.00 for Toronto, got flipped again to Seattle, and at current sits as the 8th inning guy for one of the worst teams in baseball (Cincinnati).  Meanwhile Revere barely hit the Mendoza line for the Nats, forcing the team to put its SS of the future into CF as a make-shift replacement, and got non-tendered at season’s end.  A crummy end to Storen’s career here, where he remains in 2nd place all time (behind Chad Cordero) in career franchise saves.
• Kila Ka’aihue,  Ian Stewart, Mike Carp: part of the great 2016 RH bat spring training cattle call; didn’t make the team and were eventually released.
• Tony Renda traded to Yankees for David Carpenter mid-season in an attempt to buttress the bullpen.  Didn’t work.  Renda may have been my farcical “future hall of famer” before Max Schrock, in that they’re both basically undersized middle infielders that posted good minor league numbers but seem ceiling limited.  Renda got traded to Cincinnati ahead of the 2016 season, had a cup of coffee up there, but got outrighted after the 2016 season and remains on the AAA Louisville roster.
• Mitch Lively and Evan Meek: both AAA hurlers released from their contracts so they could sign in Japan and Korea respectively.  Lively struggled in Japan and has been pitching in the Mexican league ever since, while Meek also struggled in the KBO and has been playing indy ball ever since.
• Jose Valverde opted out of his MLFA contract and was released in July; never picked back up for 2015, or 2016.  Kept pitching in winter ball and is now in the Mexican league.
• Eric Fornataro the off-season waiver claim never made it out of AAA, posting a mid 5 ERA and got released in July.   He picked back up with a MLFA for 2016 with Baltimore, but struggled in AA and was released in May of 2016.  He has not signed since and may be done.
• Nick Pivetta: traded to Philadelphia for Papelbon.  We know the Papelbon story, and now we know the Pivetta story; he debuted in Philly’s rotation last weekend in LA after a solid year starting in AA and AAA in 2016 and a hot start in Lehigh Valley for 2017.  He may be in a position to haunt the Nats for 6 seasons …. all for a year and a half of tumult out of Papelbon.
• Dan Butler was a Catcher we received from Boston for Danny Rosenbaum in Jan of 2015; he was a 40-man spot holder for most of the season but served mostly as catcher depth before being DFA’d in July to make room for Papelbon.  He was outrighted to AAA, elected FA after the season and went right back to Boston for 2016.  He remains as their AAA backup catcher.

Did I miss anyone?

Player I most miss from this list: From a Nats “legacy” perspective it was tough to wave good bye to Ian Desmond, who gave this franchise 11 years of his life.  Same with Zimmermann; he was part of the core that turned this team from a laughing stock to divisional winner.

Player Loss I most regret using unfair “hindsight is 20/20” vision: Pivetta.  Even if he’s “only” a 4th starter, he represents all that was wrong with the Papelbon decision.

Player Loss that is the most “We dodged a bullet” situation: Zimmermann’s contract; we thought he’d get overpaid, but a year and a half in his contract looks awful for an aging team that’s moving the wrong direction and has little chance of unseating Cleveland in their own division.

Papelbon becomes the most high-profile 2016 Oblivion candidate. He’ll always have this though. Picture via ny daily news

Note: this is a recurring post, and large chunks of the older material is recycled.  I’ve updated the research for older players as needed (mostly 2015 and 2014’s players), getting 2016 season updates for everyone on this list still playing, plus 2017 assignments and whether or not htey’ve .  See here for the 2015 version,  2014’s version,  2013’s version, and 2012’s version of this post, though honestly everything from those posts that’s still relevant is updated here.

Even though I know most of this data is repeated from last year, I still find myself reading the whole way down just for a crazy trip down memory lane each time I do this post.

Background: many years ago (November 2010) Mark Zuckerman initially posted a fascinating analysis he titled “From Nats to Oblivion.”  It chronicled the astoundingly high number of players that the early incarnations of the Nats were using who, once the Nats released them, never again appeared in a MLB game.  I thought the analysis was so interesting that I kept up the same data and have been keeping it up-to-date with the whereabouts of Nats-to-Oblivion candidates ever since.  So with apologies to Zuckerman for stealing his original idea, here’s an interesting visit to the Nats darker past.

It is nearly impossible for a team to field an entire year’s worth of players who will not fall into this “Oblivion” category.  Every MLB team has guys playing out the string or near retirement, and every MLB team calls up guys through out the season from the minors who eventually show themselves as unable to compete on the MLB level and who never make it back.  So a 0% oblivion measure isn’t a goal.  The best this team has done is 4 players (the 2013 team).  I don’t think the 2015 team will get that low, and I’m not sure the 2016 team will get that low either.  

For your reminiscing pleasure, here is the summary data updated to the 2016 team:

• 2016: 19 position, 24 pitchers, 43 total. 5/43 = 11.6% candidate ratio right now.
• 2015: 20 position, 24 pitcher, 44 total.  7/44 = 15.9% candidate ratio right now.
• 2014: 22 position, 18 pitchers, 40 total.  5/40 = 12.5% candidate ratio right now
• 2013: 23 position, 21 pitchers, 44 total.  3/44 = 6.8% candidate ratio right now
• 2012: 24 position, 19 pitchers, 43 total.  6/43 = 13.9% candidate ratio right now
• 2011: 20 position, 24 pitchers, 44 total.  6/44 = 13.6% candidate ratio
• 2010: 20 position, 26 pitchers, 46 total.  12/46 = 26.0% never appeared again
• 2009: 25 position, 30 pitchers, 55 total.  9/55 = 16.3% never appeared again
• 2008: 25 position, 25 pitchers, 50 total.  8/50 = 16% never appeared again
• 2007: 21 position, 26 pitchers, 47 total.  12/47 = 25.5% never appeared again
• 2006: 28 position, 29 pitchers, 57 total.  20/57 = 35% never appeared again
• 2005: 30 position, 25 pitchers, 55 total.  16/55 = 29% never appeared again

Look at the 2006 season; 35% of the players who played for the team that year never played another Major League game.  That’s still astounding to me.  Read on for a detailed look back at some of the very bad players that have put in significant time for this team.

2016: (5 leading candidates right now, 7 overall counting 40-man guys):

Total players used: 19 position players, 24 pitchers, 43 total.  5/43 = 11.6% candidate ratio right now.

Candidates: They are listed in the order of their odds of staying on this list: highest to lowest odds that they’re done playing.

• Jonathan Papelbon: hard to believe he’s on this list.  But the facts remain; after his release mid-2016, not only did he not sign on for the rest of the season … he has yet to sign on with anyone for 2017.  Is it possible he’s being forced into retirement?  I think he still holds value as a middle reliever for someone, but it is a possibility that his “baggage” is preventing teams from signing him.  Or perhaps he’s instructed his agent to hold out for closing jobs only.    Nonetheless, of all the players on this list, right now I give Papelbon the highest probability of being done with baseball and staying on this list.
• Sean Burnett: given a quick look late in 2016, signed MLFA deal with Philadelphia for 2017 but failed to make their opening day Roster.  Active on Philly’s AAA team all of 2017, but no appearances.  Might be done.
• Spencer Kieboom: had a “Moonlight Graham” esque 2016 debut; one at bat, a walk, then an off-season DFA.  He remains in the organization but once you’re off that 40-man, its tough to get back on.  I still think he’s 4th on the realistic catcher depth chart and may get called back up if injuries persist, but there is another catcher (Raudy Read) on the 40-man which complicates things for Kieboom.  At least he got his one AB in the majors … which gives him access to the MLB players health benefit plan for life.
• Clint Robinson: long-time minor league veteran made the team in 2015 and had a break-out season, but struggled badly in 2016, prompting the team to sign Adam Lind to a guaranteed deal, all but eliminating Robinson’s chances from making the roster.  Robinson was waived towards the end of Spring Training as expected, cleared waivers and is at Syracuse.  I give him a decent chance of getting called back up if Lind or Ryan Zimmerman gets hurt.
• Rafael Martin: Just a handful of Sept 2016 innings after a not-very-impressive 2016 in Syracuse, and was DFA’d early in 2017; he was outrighted and may struggle to return to the majors.

Names removed since Apr 2017 publication: Espinosa, Revere, Belisle, Melancon, Rzepczynski, all of whom signed MLB deals and appeared in the first week of 2017 for new teams.  Petit, who made the 2017 Angels as an NRI.  Difo and Taylor for making the Nats 2017 opening day roster and getting appearances.  Mat Latos removed when Toronto added him and called  him up in April 2017, shocking me; I figured Latos was done.  Technically Ross’ first start removed him from this list.  Matt den Dekker got removed when Detroit  recalled him for a few games in June 2017.  Wilson Ramos indeed returned from his injury and began starting for Tampa.  Brian Goodwin not only returned to the majors but got an extended run of starts with Werth’s 2017 foot injury.  Severino got recalled during an outfielder crunch in July 2017.  A.J. Cole got a spot-start in May 2017.  Relievers Gott and Grace both got re-calls, with Grace impressing and Gott not.  Reynaldo Lopez removed upon his 8/11/17 call-up for CWS.  Giolito was called up a week later.

Outlook for remaining 2016 Oblivion candidates: Of the 5 candidates, I don’t see an easy path forward for any of them.  Two are older guys probably forced out of the game, the other three marginal prospects who, now that they’re off the 40-man roster, face long odds of getting back on.

Favorite Nats to Oblivion Story: Jonathan Papelbon.  (ok maybe not “favorite” but certainly most interesting…).  What a whirlwind career he had with the Nats: he was already controversial even before arriving, then essentially ended the productive career of Drew Storen, who he replaced (as a condition of his accepting the trade) as closer upon his arrival.  Two months into his tenure here, he took it upon himself to choke teammate Bryce Harper as Harper and the rest of the team disappointingly played out the string of the 2015 season.  These two buried the hatchet over the off-season, and everyone looked happy entering 2016 … but a 6.00 ERA in June and an even worse ERA in July sealed Papelbon’s fate; the team paid heavily to acquire Mark Melancon for the stretch run and Papelbon was released a couple weeks later.  Quite the Nats tenure for the combustible Papelbon.  Side note: for reasons beyond explanation, the Papelbon’s decided to buy a $2.9M house in Alexandria just after his acquisition …. which was only assessed at half their purchase price.  I wonder if they ever even moved in?

2015: (7 candidates right now):

Total players used: 20 position, 24 pitcher, 44 total.  7/44 = 15.9% candidate ratio right now.

Candidates (these players are listed in the order of their odds of staying on this list: highest to lowest odds that they’re done playing):

• Dan Uggla: The Nats were probably his last stand chance in the majors; hit just .183 and was given just 17 ABs the last two months of the 2015 season.  Never signed for 2016 and seems to be retired.
• Reed Johnson: Got picked back up on a MLFA deal by Washington for 2016 season, but did not make the team out of spring and was released on 4/2/16.  He did not pick up with anyone for 2016 and at age 39 may be retired.
• Casey Janssen: Signed a ML deal with San Diego for 2016 but was released in late Spring Training.  Picked up with Boston in June of 2016, pitched a bit for their Short-A and AAA teams then was released in early August 2016.  Did not pick up with a MLB team for 2017.  Signed for a Mexican league team, pitched in 15 games and was released.  Might be the end of the line for the 35-yr old.
• Taylor Jordan: After brief appearances in 2015, started 2016 in AAA but got hurt in June of 2016, he had a second TJ surgery … and then was released by the club on 6/28/16 to correspond to the Giolito contract addition.  Man, that seems kind of cold to release a guy just after surgery, but his odds of making it back to the majors just took a significant hit.  As of 2017 has not re-signed anywhere and seems a long-shot to do so, with little major league track record and two arm injuries.  Likely done.
• David Carpenter: shoulder injury, DFA’d, elected free agency and quickly signed a ML deal with Atlanta for 2016.  However he was cut after just a handful of spring training games; maybe his injury is worse than we thought.  He then bounced from Tampa to the Angels system for 2016, and then signed back with Tampa as a MLFA/NRI for 2017, but was cut on 4/4/17.  Signed w/ Arizona in July 2017 and posted an ERA north of 9.00 for AA/AAA.
• Taylor Hill: Hill was DFA’d to make room for January 2016 signings and was outrighted to AAA, so he faces longer odds to get back to the majors at this point.  If it comes to it, would you rather go with Hill or the likes of Voth or Giolito at this point?  Hill finished out the year for AAA Syracuse with a 4.60 ERA in 27 starts, but I’d have to say he’s just an innings-eater/org guy now.  Still with the team for 2017 but has been passed on the depth chart by several guys (Cole, Voth, Fedde) and faces long odds of a return to the majors with this organization.  Started 2017 badly, demoted to AA.
• Aaron Barrett: the odds of him turning into Cole Kimball seems small; an elbow is not a shoulder.  But until he recovers from his 2015 surgery, he’s an Oblivion candidate.  He’ll sit on the 60-day D/L for most of 2016.  In June of 2016, he had a major set-back in his TJ recovery, fracturing his elbow.  This will require another visit to Dr. James Andrews and another surgery.  The Nats outrighted him off the 40-man after the 2016 season and he elected free agency.  He has re-signed with the Nats for 2017 and starts the  year on the AAA D/L.

Names recently removed: Fister (signed a $7M deal with Houston for 2016).  Thornton (MLFA deal with San Diego and made 25-man roster).  Burriss: signed MLFA with Philly and lead-off against the Nats in their first visit to Philadelphia in the new season.  Added Stammen when he failed to make Cleveland’s 25-man roster in 2016.  Removed Solis when he got called up to cover for injury to Belisle.  Removed Martin when he got called up briefly on 6/27/16.   Removed de los Santos when he got waived, picked up by Cincinnati and appeared for them mid Sept 2016.  Removed all our 2015 prospect-types who all got 2016 call-ups: Turner, Difo, Severino, Grace, Cole.  Stammen removed after he made the 2017 San Diego Padres out of spring training.  Tyler Moore made the 2017 Marlins, and got a crucial hit against the Nats early in 2017 season, but was soon DFA’d.

Note: the one guy DFA’d mid-season 2015 by the Nats (Xavier Cedeno) got purchased by the Dodgers, who then sold him to the Rays 5 days later … and he had 61 appearances with a 2.09 ERA for Tampa Bay this year.  Do you think maybe the team gave up on him too soon?

Outlook for 2015 Oblivion candidates: Most of these guys seem like they have little shot of re-gaining a MLB spot; the first 4 guys are likely retired at this point (Uggla, Johnson, Janssen, Jordan), and the other 3 (Barrett, Carpenter, Hill) face pretty long odds to make it back.

Favorite Nats to Oblivion Story: Dan Uggla.  Uggla was released out of a $13M/year contract from Atlanta and the Nats picked him up for 2015, paying just a MLB minimum on him as middle infield cover/lottery ticket.  Well, Uggla’s luck turned out pretty well as injuries shredded the Nats lineup and Uggla earned a 25-man roster spot.  He played sparingly throughout April but had a massive homer in the epic April 28th come-from-behind 13-12 win over Atlanta, which sparked the Nats (who were just 7-13 at the time) to a 21-6 run.  It was one of just two homers Uggla hit on the year (the other in the last game of the season/his career), and Uggla played less and less as the team got healthier.  For the year he hit just .183, which was in line with what he had hit the prior to years, and he never got picked up after his “last hurrah” season.  Uggla never seemed to recover from two separate concussions he suffered from HBPs (one in July 2012, another in ST 2013), never again hitting even the meager .220 he managed in 2012.

2014 (5 remaining candidates right now):

Total Players used: 22 position, 18 pitchers, 40 total.  5/40 = 12.5% candidate ratio right now

Candidates:

• Greg Dobbs: FA after 2014, retired in May 2015 when he didn’t catch on with a new club.
• Nate McLouth, who signed an ill-advised 2-year deal to be our “veteran 4th outfielder” behind Denard Span … but who struggled in 2014 and then missed the entirety of 2015.  The team bought out his 2016 option and as of this writing has not signed with a new team (not even a minor league deal).  May have played his way out of the game.  (Thanks to Karl in the comments for the reminder on McLouth).
• Jeff Kobernus: Released by the team Mar 2015, played the rest of 2015 with SF’s A+ club in San Jose, MLFA for 2016.  He never signed with anyone in 2016 and may be finished.
• Scott Hairston: FA after 2014, sat out 2015.  Signed for Chicago White Sox for 2016, but then was cut on 3/29/16.  He did not pick back up with anyone for 2016, and at age 36 could be forced into retirement.
• Nate Schierholtz: FA after 2014, signed w/ Texas but did not stay with club out of spring training.  Played 2015 in Japan, then signed as a MLFA with Detroit in Dec 2015.  Starting in AAA for Detroit 2016 but not a 40-man player.  Subsequently released on 5/23/16 after hitting .246, did not pick back up for the rest of 2016.  May be done.

Names removed since the last post: Kevin Frandsen (signed w/ SFG and appeared in 7 games in 2015), Ryan Mattheus (got one game with LAA, waived, then pitched the whole of 2015 in Cincinnati’s bullpen), Rafael Soriano (who finally signed with the Cubs in June but had just 6 appearances before getting released on 9/4/15, and Taylor Hill (who had 12IP across 6 games for the Nats in 2015).  Added Nate McLouth after Karl noticed he was missing in the comments.

Outlook for 2014 Oblivion candidates: after a rough 2016 for all these players, only Schierholz really seems like he may give it another shot, but he never signed for 2017 and this list may be complete.

Favorite Nats-to-Oblivion story: I’ll go with Kobernus at this point, if only because he went to my dad’s Alma Mater (Cal-Berkeley) at a time where the program was threatened with the Axe (eventually donations resurrected the program in 2011).  He’s an example of an odd fascination the Nats seem to have with good field-no hit upper round draft picks from Cal (see also Renda, Tony).

2013 (3 Candidates):

Total Players used: 23 position, 21 pitchers, 44 total.  3/44 = 6.8% candidate ratio right now

Current Candidates

• Chad Tracy: MLFA signed w/ LA Angels for spring 2014, cut, retired 4/25/14.
• Yunesky Maya; MLFA with Atlanta AAA for 2014, then went to Korea where he got pounded for two seasons.  Just signed a MLFA deal with Los Angeles Angels for 2016 and is pitching for AAA Salt Lake.  He strained his elbow and missed a big chunk of the 2016 season, which was a missed opportunity for Maya as the Angels had very little SP depth.  Did not sign for 2017.
• Erik Davis; Nats AAA 2014 60 day D/L Tommy John surgery 2014, still on Nats D/L 2015.  Outrighted off the 40-man in January 2016, assigned to AAA.  Posted a 4.13 ERA in a full year of middle relief for Syracuse, with excellent K/9 ratios, but did not merit a 9/1 call up.  Elected free agency after 2016, signed with Arizona and pitching at AAA Reno for the organization in 2017, posting mediocre numbers but pitching a ton (50+ appearances in 2017).

Updates since last post: removed Jhonatan Solano went 1-20 for Miami in 2015 and may be a “Marlins to Oblivion” candidate going forward.  Removed Chris Marrero after he made the 2017 San Francisco Giants team in a shock (four years in the minors between MLB at bats).   Unfortunately he was DFA’d just a few weeks later after struggling to start the season.

Outlook for 2013 Oblivion candidates: The 2 active remaining guys face uphill climbs; none remain with the Nats.  Davis is with a new organization for 2017 while Maya has not signed for 2017 and may be done.

Favorite Nats-to-Oblivion story: Yunesky Maya, who was Mike Rizzo‘s first foray into the Cuban exile market.  Signed to a 4yr/$8M deal, he was given several shots at the majors and never could capitalize.  He arrived in the US with a wide arsenal of pitches but not a lot of swing-and-miss talent, and he ended up basically being a AAA starter.   He spent the last three seasons as Syracuse’s lead starter (getting 22, 28 and 24 starts there in-between infrequent call-ups) and ended up with just one career MLB win for his $8M salary (making his one of the worst dollars-per-win contracts ever … even if it was “just” $8M).  This whole paragraph is assuming that Maya never makes it back to the majors … but based on what he’s shown thus far combined with his advancing age, that seems like a likely end-result for the Cuban starter.  As we speak, he has given up on minor league ball and has decamped for Korea, where he’s shown some good stats in limited appearances.

2012 (6 candidates)

Total Players used: 24 position, 19 pitchers, 43 total.  6/43 = 13.9% candidate ratio right now

Candidates

• Brad Lidge: Retired post 2012.
• Christian Garcia: got added to the 40-man roster down the stretch of 2012 and provided some electric relief out of the pen, even making the playoff roster.  Got hurt in ST 2013, went to the 60-day D/L, still hurt in 2014, and released in June of that year.  Garcia never had bad stats … just too many injuries that he couldn’t overcome.  (Thanks to commenter Justin for this reminder!)
• Ryan Perry: Wash AAA/AA 2013, 2014, released by Washington in 2014, signed back with Detroit and played 2014-2015 with their AAA affiliate.  Released mid 2015 by Toledo and never signed on again for 2015 or 2016; may be done.
• Jesus Flores; signed ML deal with Los Angeles Dodgers for 2013, was with TB, KC for 2014, Miami AAA for 2015, but was released in July 2015 and never re-signed.  Played Winter Ball 2015 never signed for 2016; may be done.
• Brett Carroll: signed ML deal w/ Pittsburgh for 2013, Tor for 2014.  Never signed for 2015, looks done.
• Carlos Maldonado: Wash AAA 2013.  Played Venezuelan Winter Ball for a number of years, then after no US-based organized ball for 2 seasons signed a ML deal with Texas in 2015 …and made their AA team as a 37-yr old.  Still plugging away.  In 2016 Maldonado again was assigned to Frisco, but was immediately put on the D/L and never appeared.  In fact, he doesn’t even have a minor league at bat since 2013; is he just on a roster to serve as a bullpen catcher?

Updates since last post: Updates for Maldonado, who I can’t believe is still playing in the bus leagues at age 37.  Added Christian Garcia after commenter Justin noticed he was missing.

Outlook for 2012 Oblivion candidates: Only Maldonado seems like he’s still technically “active,” but as a 38-yr old catcher who hasn’t even had an at-bat since 2013 the odds of him making it back are nil.  The book seems closed on 2012.

Favorite Nats-to-Oblivion story: Brad Lidge, who gave it one last shot and failed and didn’t keep trying.  Sometimes, when you lose your stuff, its gone and gone fast.  I’ll readily admit I thought the signing was a great one when it occurred but it just didn’t work out.  I really hoped that Lidge would be a serviceable 7th inning guy and mentor to Drew Storen and Tyler Clippard, being one of the great closers of his day.  It didn’t work out that way: the Nats released him on June 25th and he hung ’em up.

2011 (6 candidates)

Total Players used: 20 position, 24 pitchers, 44 total.  6/44 = 13.6% candidate ratio right now…

Candidates

• Ivan Rodriguez – retired after 2011; will appear on the 2017 Hall-of-Fame Ballot with 1st ballot stats but a PED cloud over his head.
• Matt Stairs — retired after 2011.
• Alex Cora — retired after 2011, now the General Manager of a Puerto Rican Winter League team.
• Cole Kimball — Nats 60-day DL in 2012, XST in 2013, DFA’d off 40-man roster.  2014 indy, NYY AA team.  Threw 3.2 Innings of 14-ERA ball in the Mexican summer league in 2015.  Does not seem to be on any 2016 rosters; may be done.
• Brian Broderick — Stl AAA, waived now Nats AAA in 2012, AA in 2013.  Indy ball 2014, Kansas City AAA 2015, where he had a pretty good season.  He elected MLFA … and (oddly?) did not get picked up for 2016.  May be done.
• Atahualpa Severino — Nats AAA, DFA’d off 40-man in 2012, signed w/ KC for 2013, Atl AAA in 2014, LAA AAA in 2015 but he got cut and ended the year in the Mexican league.  For 2016 he is again in the Mexican League, and had a strong season for Monterrey.  Perhaps he gets another shot some-day.  There’s always people looking for loogies.

Changes since the last post: none other than 2016 assignment updates; nobody’s gotten off this list in a while.

Outlook for 2011 Oblivion candidates: Just one guy still hanging on: Severino continues to throw albeit in his home country’s unaffiliated Mexican league.

Favorite Nats-to-Oblivion story: Matt Stairs: He made the 2011 roster despite having almost no defensive capabilities and, as it soon became evident, almost no remaining abilities at the plate.  He somehow hung onto his roster spot until August 1st despite having just one extra base hit in 74 at-bats on the year.  I remember one game in particular; we were at the stadium going against the hated Phillies and they left Roy Halladay in to attempt to finish a shutout with a 3-0 lead (Game was on 4/13/11).  Nats rally, score 2 runs to make it 3-2.  Stairs comes up pinch hitting for Jerry Hairston with guys on 1st and 2nd with one out; he promptly watches three straight fastballs go right down the middle of the plate without moving his bat.  I’ve never been so p*ssed at a player at the ball-park.  Fellow Nats-to-Oblivion candidate  Ivan Rodriguez then promptly struck out on 3 pitches as well, looking strike 3 into the mitt and then arguing vehemently with the ump over the game-ending call which gave Halladay the complete game victory.  Those were the good ole days.

2010 (12 players)

Total Players used: 20 position, 26 pitchers, 46 total.  12/46 = 26.0% never appeared again

Players:

• Kevin Mench; retired after 2010
• Jamie Burke; retired after 2010
• Luis Atilano: in CIN org, AAA in 2012, never signed for 2013, out of baseball.
• Scott Olsen; in CWS org, AAA 2012, never signed for 2013, out of baseball.
• Tyler Walker; indy league 2011, never signed for 2012, out of baseball.
• Matt Chico; indy league 2012, never signed for 2013, out of baseball.
• Garrett Mock: Houston AAA 2012, AZ AAA for 2013.  Not signed for 2014
• Jason Bergmann: indy 2011, Col AAA 2012, Indy again in 2013, KC AA.  Not signed for 2014.
• Jesse English; indy league 2011, 2012.  Mexican League 2013, Indy ball 2014 but struggled, no 2015 stats.
• Joe Bisenius; in Mexico 2011-12, Atl AA/AAA 2013, indy/mexican league 2014 but struggled, no 2015 stats.
• Willy Taveras; played AAA for Col in 2011, retired prior to 2012, back with KC AAA 2013.  Mexican league 2014, 2015, Indy ball in 2015.  He re-signed with Pueblo in the Mexican league for 2016 and played a full season, hitting .325.  He’s still playing in 2017.
• JD Martin; in MIA org AAA 2012, in TB AAA 2013, in Korea 2014 but struggled, no 2015 stats.  2016 MLFA signing back with the team and re-making himself as a knuckleballer.  However, in 2017 he spent most of the year in XST, got one appearance in the GCL and was released.

Changes since last post: none.

Outlook for 2010 Oblivion candidates: Two active players in the minors; Taveras and Martin.  Martin may have run out of chances in 2017.  Taveras may just be a Mexican leaguer now.

Favorite Nats-to-Oblivion story: Jamie Burke: The 2009 Nats were so thin at Catcher by the end of the season that we literally bought a spare catcher in Burke from Seattle so we could have some coverage at the end of the season.  Burke re-signed on for 2010 and appeared in exactly one MLB game.  He was released after the season and retired.

2009 (9 players)

Total Players used: 25 position, 30 pitchers, 55 total.  9/55 = 16.3% never appeared again

Players:

• Elijah Dukes: released and never picked up for 2010.  Arrested in 2011, 2012, out of baseball.
• Alex Cintron; playing in Mexico 2012, nothing in 2013
• Jorge Padilla; in SD org, AAA in 2012, nothing in 2013
• Ron Villone, AAA all of 2010, 2011 playing indy ball, retired prior to 2012.  He was scheduled to appear on the 2015 Hall of Fame ballot but was removed for some reason.  Remains a pitching coach for the Cubs organization.
• Julian Tavarez; retired after getting DFA’d in July 2009
• Mike Hinckley: Tor org in 2011, retired prior to 2012
• Steven Shell; KC org in 2011, retired prior to 2012
• Victor Garate; MIL org and Indy ball in 2012, Mexican league 2013, 2014. Went to Japan for 2015 and had a great season.  Back on the continent and pitching in the Mexican League for 2016; had 10 starts for Saltillo and was released.  May be done.
• Zack Segovia; in Det org AA in 2012, Mexican league/Indy ball 2013, Mexican League 2014.  Picked up with San Diego’s AAA for 2015 but got hit.  Pitching in the Mexican League for 2016 and had decent numbers as a middle reliever, but was released in June.

Changes since last post: none.

Outlook for 2009 Oblivion candidates: Still a couple guys active here, both in the Mexican league.  Not likely to see any changes going forward.

Favorite Nats-to-Oblivion story: Ron Villone, who proved that a crafty lefty with a halfway decent fastball can have a long career in this game.  He had 63 appearances at age 39 for the 2009 Nats and got re-signed for 2010.  He didn’t make the team though, labored in Syracuse the whole season and was released.  Despite being 41 years old, he headed to Indy ball for one last shot but washed out after just a few outings in 2011.

It wouldn’t be a retrospective on poor Nats players if we didn’t briefly talk about Elijah Dukes though.  I think its safe to assume that he’s the only guy on this list that has served more time in jail than has played in the minor leagues, attempting to get back to the show.

2008 (8 players)

Total Players used: 25 position, 25 pitchers, 50 total.  8/50 = 16% never appeared again

Players:

• Kory Casto; 2009 AAA, 2010 in Ariz AA, retired.
• Dmitri Young: some rehab in low minors 2009, retired.
• Rob Mackowiak: 2009: some indy, bounced around AAA, that’s it.
• Johnny Estrada; quit after 2008 mid-season release.
• Odalis Perez; refused his 2009 contract, never resigned (see below)
• Levale Speigner; 2009 in Florida’s AA/AAA, then 2010 in Seattle AAA.  done.
• Ray King; retired after 2008
• Chris Schroder; 2009, 2010 bounced around AAA with Oakland,Florida (now Miami).

Changes in last 12 months: none.

Outlook for 2008 Oblivion candidates: every remaining candidate is now out of baseball.

Favorite Nats-to-Oblivion story: Odalis Perez, though I’m tempted to say either Mackowiak or Estrada, possibly the two worst FA signings of the whole Jim Bowden era (and that’s saying something).  But nothing beats the Perez story.  He was the Nats Opening Day Starter in 2008, and he was the first guy to get a start in the new Nationals Stadium.  He pitched decently enough; in 30 starts he was 7-12 with a 4.34 ERA and a 99 ERA+ for a god-awful team.  But apparently he got really pissed when the team only offered him a non-guaranteed Minor League deal for 2009.  So he held out, the Nats said “fine with us” and released him, and nobody else picked him up.  And he never played another game.  I’m not sure if that was a sign that he was just that bad (not one team wanted to even give an opening day starter a look the subsequent year?), or if there was some sort of MLB general manager omerta that conspired against him.  Either way, Perez never played again, not even in Winter Leagues as far as I could find.  Sometimes a player has to swallow his pride, and Perez apparently could not.

2007 (12 players)

Total Players used: 21 position, 26 pitchers, 47 total.  12/47 = 25.5% never appeared again

Players:

• Nook Logan; indy league 2008, 2010.
• Robert Fick: Cut from the Padres in ST 2008, full year indy league 2009, retired.
• D’Angelo Jimenez: AAA all of 2008, 2009.  Mexican league and Indy league 2010-2012
• Tony Batista: Wash AAA 2008, then released
• Michael Restovich: 2008 in Japan, AAA 2009-2011, retired
• Brandon Watson: AAA 2008-9, indy league 2011, retired.
• Mike Bacsik: 2008 AAA, 2011 indy league, now a broadcaster.
• Jason Simontacchi; 2008 indy league, 2010 again.
• John Patterson; cut in ST 2008, immediately signed w/ Texas but never played again.
• Ryan Wagner: AAA 2008-9, released and presumably retired.
• Arnie Munoz; went to mexican league, retired > 2010
• Chris Booker: AAA in 2008, then retired/released.

Changes in last 12 months: none

Outlook for 2007 Oblivion candidates: every remaining candidate is now out of baseball.

Favorite Nats-to-Oblivion story: Mike Bacsik, who was destined to be a career 4-A guy before Washington picked him up and gave him 20 starts in 2007.  Bacsik was on his 6th minor league organization when he arrived in Syracuse and pitched his way up to the major leagues.  He was overmatched badly; he had a 5.11 ERA and just a 3.4 K/9 rate.  But he did get his moment in the headlines by giving up Barry Bonds‘ 756th career homer one night in San Francisco in August.  Contrary to accusations on the topic, I do not believe Bacsik “served up” the homer.  If you check the play index, Bonds hit the 7th pitch of the at-bat in a 3-2 count for that homer.  Bacsik didn’t purposely give up a homer on the 7th pitch of an at-bat; he just ran out of pitches to show Bonds that weren’t going to get pulverized.

A quick comment though on John Patterson: I remember being absolutely shocked at his release in 2008’s spring training.  He was cut on 3/20/08, right in the middle of Spring Training with no warning and having just thrown his Grapefruit innings.   He was healthy, recovered from surgery, ready to be the ace of that staff and start showing off the potential that he showed in 2005 (you know, when he 4-hit the Dodgers with 13 punch outs and posted the best Game-Score performance in Nats history).  He signed a ML deal with Texas after his release by the Nats, but he couldn’t answer the call and never appeared again, getting released in mid May.  I guess his third arm surgery in 7 years just left him unable to compete at any level and he hung ’em up.

2006 (20 players)

Total Players used: 28 position, 29 pitchers, 57 total.  20/57 = 35% never appeared again

• Damian Jackson; dnp 2007, indy league 2008-9
• Bernie Castro: AAA all of 2007, 8 then retired.
• Alex Escobar: Wash minors 2007-8, then retired.
• Brandon Harper: Wash AAA all of 2007, then released/retired.
• Wiki Gonzalez: CWS AAA all of 2007, indy league 2008, retired.
• Henry Mateo: AAA or Indy league 2007-2009, Mexican league from 2010-2013
• George Lombard: AAA 2007-9, some indy league, retired.
• Mike Vento: 2007 Wash AAA, indy league 2008, back with Syracuse 2009, retired.
• Melvin Dorta; various minor leagues 2007-2010, indy league 2011, retired.
• Luis Matos: AAA 2007, Mexican League 2008-2012.  ? 2013 and done.
• Pedro Astacio; retired after 2006
• Felix Rodriguez: dnp 2007, indy league 2008-9, retired.
• Zach Day: AAA 2007, briefly A+ 2008, retired.
• Beltran Perez; wash minors AA/AAA 2007-8, released and never played again.
• Joey Eischen; released off of Washington and retired.
• Travis Hughes; AAA in 2007, played in Japan 2008, indy leagues 2009, 2011.
• Ryan Drese: various minor leagues 2007-8, indy league 2009-2010, Baltimore AAA 2011, released/retired.
• Kevin Gryboski: AAA 2007-2008, retired/released.
• Brett Campbell: Wash AA 2007, released/retired.
• Santiago Ramirez: Japan in 2007, Mexican league 2008, indy 2009, retired.

Changes in last 12 months: none

Outlook for 2006 Oblivion candidates: every remaining candidate is now out of baseball.

Favorite Nats-to-Oblivion story: Joey Eischen, who bounced around the league in his 20s before settling in Montreal and moving south with the team.  He was known to be a “character” in the clubhouse and to give good quotes to reporters (google “Joey Eischen quotes” and you’ll find some of his classics).   By 2006 though the years had taken their toll on his shoulder; he had 19 walks in 14 2/3 innings through the end of May had blown his rotator cuff.  The team put him on the 60 day D/L and called up Virginia-native Bill Bray.   Eischen never got off that D/L; he was released in the off-season and never played again. He has been a pitching coach in the Colorado system since 2010.

2005 (16 players)

Total Players used: 30 position, 25 pitchers, 55 total.  16/55 = 29% never appeared again

Players:

• Carlos Baerga; retired after 2005
• Junior Spivey: bounced around AAA 2006-7, indy ball in 2009, retired.
• Wil Cordero; released mid 2005, signed on with the NY Mets but never made it out of AAA.  Retired after 2005.
• Deivi Cruz; released after 2005, cut from St. Louis 2006 ST, played indy ball, retired.
• Jeffrey Hammonds; retired in June 2005 mid-season.
• J.J. Davis: Traded to Colorado as part of the Preston Wilson deal, sent to Colorado’s AAA, then released after the season and never played again.
• Rick Short; Granted FA after the 2005 season to play in Japan, played there til 2009.
• Kenny Kelly; AAA in 2006 and 2007, released and retired.
• Keith Osik; a backup catcher, got 4 ABs in 2005, released and retired.
• Tyrell Godwin; after just three MLB at-bats in 2005, spent all of 2006 and 2007 in AAA, released and retired.
• T.J. Tucker; released after 2005, tried one year of indy ball in 2008, retired.
• Joe Horgan; released after 2005, played one year of AAA with Florida, released, retired.
• Matt White; AAA in 2006-7, Japan 2007-8, tried indy ball in 2010, hung ’em up.
• C.J. Nitkowski; AAA in 2006, then went to Japan 2007-8, Korea 2009-10, back with the Mets AAA team in July 2012.  Not signed for 2013.  Was a blow-hard “I’m an ex baseball player and know more than you” Podcast host for Fox Sports with Rob Neyer until their cancellation.  Made news in 2015 for his article on the Bryce Harper/Jonathan Papelbon where he quoted a number of anonymous MLBers who said that (paraphrasing) “Harper had it coming.”
• Antonio Osuna: dnp in 2006, Mexican league 2007-9.
• Tony Blanco; Nats minor leagues 2006-7, Colorado AA in 2008, in Japan from 2009-present.  Hit 41 homers in 2013 for Yokohama but struggled in 2015, but got picked up by Orix and is on their 2016 roster.  Not signed for 2017, may be done.

Changes in last 12 months: none

Outlook for 2005 Oblivion candidates: Tony Blanco is still playing in Japan, entering his 8th pro season there in 2016.  But he has no 2017 assignment.

Favorite Nats-to-Oblivion story: Rick Short, who got his MLB debut at the age of 32, after 11 very long seasons in the minors with many different teams.  He got a couple of call-ups in June and July to provide cover, and then played out the string after a Sept 1 roster expansion call-up.  In that off-season, he returned to Japan (where he’d played one full season prior), and played four more years in the Japanese League and retired in 2009.

Though it merits talking about a couple other guys here. Tony Blanco; he was a rule-5 draftee who the Nats carried the whole of 2005 so they could keep his rights.  He was awful; he had a .177 batting average as the 25th guy off the bench.  In 2006 he couldn’t even cut it in AA and played most of the year in High-A.  After 2007 the Nats summarily released him from their minor league organization altogether.   He found his calling though; he signed on in Japan in 2009 at age 27 and continues to play there today.  You have to wonder if he may very well earn another MLB shot.

Jeffrey Hammonds was well known to Washington baseball fans by virtue of his pedigree with our northern neighbors in Baltimore; he was a 1st round draft pick in 1992 out of Stanford, broke in with the MLB team the following year and was a role player on the powerhouse Baltimore teams of the mid 1990s.   He bounced around the league afterwards though, signing on with the newly relocated Washington franchise for the 2005 debut season but he hung ’em up after a slow start here.  He was only 34 when he retired.

Uggla will always have 13-12. Photo TV screenshot via natsenquirer.com

Note: this is a recurring post, and large chunks of the older material is recycled.  I’ve updated the research for older players as needed, getting 2015 updates for everyone on this list still playing.  See here for 2014’s version,  2013’s version, and 2012’s version of this post.

Even though I know most of this data is repeated from last year, I still find myself reading the whole way down just for a crazy trip down memory lane each time I do this post.

Background: many years ago (November 2010) Mark Zuckerman initially posted a fascinating analysis he titled “From Nats to Oblivion.”  It chronicled the astoundingly high number of players that the early incarnations of the Nats were using who, once the Nats released them, never again appeared in a MLB game.  I thought the analysis was so interesting that I kept up the same data and have been keeping it up-to-date with the whereabouts of Nats-to-Oblivion candidates ever since.  So with apologies to Zuckerman for stealing his original idea, here’s an interesting visit to the Nats darker past.

It is nearly impossible for a team to field an entire year’s worth of players who will not fall into this “Oblivion” category.  Every MLB team has guys playing out the string or near retirement, and every MLB team calls up guys through out the season from the minors who eventually show themselves as unable to compete on the MLB level and who never make it back.  So a 0% oblivion measure isn’t a goal.  The best this team has done is 4 players (the 2013 team).  I don’t think the 2015 team will get that low.

For your reminiscing pleasure, here is the summary data updated to the 2014 team:

• 2015: 20 position, 24 pitcher, 44 total.  10/44 = 22.7% candidate ratio right now
• 2014: 22 position, 18 pitchers, 40 total.  5/40 = 12.5% candidate ratio right now
• 2013: 23 position, 21 pitchers, 44 total.  4/44 = 9% candidate ratio right now (thanks Natsochrist for the edit)
• 2012: 24 position, 19 pitchers, 43 total.  6/43 = 13.9% candidate ratio right now
• 2011: 20 position, 24 pitchers, 44 total.  6/44 = 13.6% candidate ratio
• 2010: 20 position, 26 pitchers, 46 total.  12/46 = 26.0% never appeared again
• 2009: 25 position, 30 pitchers, 55 total.  9/55 = 16.3% never appeared again
• 2008: 25 position, 25 pitchers, 50 total.  8/50 = 16% never appeared again
• 2007: 21 position, 26 pitchers, 47 total.  12/47 = 25.5% never appeared again
• 2006: 28 position, 29 pitchers, 57 total.  20/57 = 35% never appeared again
• 2005: 30 position, 25 pitchers, 55 total.  16/55 = 29% never appeared again

Look at the 2006 season; 35% of the players who played for the team that year never played another Major League game.  That’s still astounding to me.  Read on for a detailed look back at some of the very bad players that have put in significant time for this team.

2015: (9 candidates right now):

Total players used: 20 position, 24 pitcher, 44 total.  19/44 = 20.4% candidate ratio right now.

Here’s my entirely too early list of Nats to Oblivion candidates from the 2015 Nats.  Odds are that this list will be halved by June 1 of 2016 season.  The candidates are listed from most likely to least likely to stay on this list.

Names recently removed: Fister (signed a $7M deal with Houston for 2016).  Thornton (MLFA deal with San Diego and made 25-man roster).  Burriss: signed MLFA with Philly and lead-off against the Nats in their first visit to Philadelphia in the new season.  Added Stammen when he failed to make Cleveland’s 25-man roster in 2016.  Removed Solis when he got called up to cover for injury to Belisle.  Removed Martin when he got called up briefly on 6/27/16.   Removed de los Santos when he got waived, picked up by Cincinnati and appeared for them mid Sept 2016.  Removed all our 2015 prospect-types who all got 2016 call-ups: Turner, Difo, Severino, Grace, Cole.

• Dan Uggla: The Nats were probably his last stand chance in the majors; hit just .183 and was given just 17 ABs the last two months of the season.  Seems unlikely to pick up with a team in 2016 and may be done professionally.
• Reed Johnson: Got picked back up on a MLFA deal by Washington thanks to his utility capabilities, especially since he did show he was recovered from his 2015 injury.  But age is working against him, and the team signed several utility guys to 40-man deals, making it hard on Johnson to get back onto the roster.  Johnson did not make the team out of spring and was released on 4/2/16.  He did not pick up with anyone for 2016 and at age 39 may be retired.
• Casey Janssen: Signed a ML deal with San Diego for 2016 but was released in late Spring Training.  Picked up with Boston in June of 2016, pitched a bit for their Short-A and AAA teams then was released in early August 2016.  At age 35, he may be done.
• Taylor Jordan: passed on the depth chart by guys getting signed (Scherzer), acquired in trade (Ross), and guys just being in the right place at the right time (Roark).  Just like he saw time in 2015 in brief spurts, he likely will again in 2016, but seems like a long shot to be a permanent part of this franchise’ rotation.  In June of 2016, he had a second TJ surgery … and then was released by the club on 6/28/16 to correspond to the Giolito contract addition.  Man, that seems kind of cold to release a guy just after surgery, but his odds of making it back to the majors just took a significant hit.
• David Carpenter: shoulder injury, DFA’d, elected free agency and quickly signed a ML deal with Atlanta for 2016.  However he was cut after just a handful of spring training games; maybe his injury is worse than we thought.  Picked backup on a ML deal with the Los Angeles Angels in May 2016 (which makes sense since they’ve lost most of their pitchers).  Was released from AAA Salt Lake in Mid June 2016 and did not pick back up.  May be finished.
• Taylor Hill: Hill was DFA’d to make room for January 2016 signings and was outrighted to AAA, so he faces longer odds to get back to the majors at this point.  If it comes to it, would you rather go with Hill or the likes of Voth or Giolito at this point?  Hill finished out the year for AAA Syracuse with a 4.60 ERA in 27 starts, but I’d have to say he’s just an innings-eater/org guy now.
• Tyler Moore; hit just .203 in 2015 yet stayed on the active roster the whole year thanks to our ridiculous number of injuries.  A DFA candidate who never has come close to his rookie year production and now has a career .228 BA in 649 PAs.  Signed for 2016, but then waived, outrighted to AAA and traded to Atlanta towards the end of spring training.  Moore missed most of the 2016 season for AAA Gwinnett with injury and did not appear in the majors.
• Craig Stammen: non-tendered after injuring his arm and missing most of 2015; signed a ML deal with Cleveland in 2016 and did not make the team out of camp.  Immediately sent to the AAA D/L list.  He missed a couple of months, rehabbed in AA and spent the rest of the  year for Cleveland’s AAA team in Columbus.
• Aaron Barrett: the odds of him turning into Cole Kimball seems small; an elbow is not a shoulder.  But until he recovers from his 2015 surgery, he’s an Oblivion candidate.  He’ll sit on the 60-day D/L for most of 2016.  In June of 2016, he had a major set-back in his TJ recovery, fracturing his elbow.  This will require another visit to Dr. James Andrews and another surgery.

Note: the one guy DFA’d mid-season 2015 by the Nats (Xavier Cedeno) got purchased by the Dodgers, who then sold him to the Rays 5 days later … and he had 61 appearances with a 2.09 ERA for Tampa Bay this year.  Do you think maybe the team gave up on him too soon?

Outlook for 2015 Oblivion candidates: Most of these guys seem like they have little shot of re-gaining a MLB spot; the first 5 guys are likely retired at this point, the next three (Hill, Moore, Stammen) are off 40-mans and not really pushing for a promotion with their AAA stats, and Barrett faces another year of elbow surgery recovery.

Favorite Nats to Oblivion Story: Dan Uggla.  Uggla was released out of a $13M/year contract from Atlanta and the Nats picked him up for 2015, paying just a MLB minimum on him as middle infield cover/lottery ticket.  Well, Uggla’s luck turned out pretty well as injuries shredded the Nats lineup and Uggla earned a 25-man roster spot.  He played sparingly throughout April but had a massive homer in the epic April 28th come-from-behind 13-12 win over Atlanta, which sparked the Nats (who were just 7-13 at the time) to a 21-6 run.  It was one of just two homers Uggla hit on the year (the other in the last game of the season/his career), and  Uggla played less and less as the team got healthier.  For the year he hit just .183, which was in line with what he had hit the prior to years, and he never got picked up after his “last hurrah” season.  Uggla never seemed to recover from two separate concussions he suffered from HBPs (one in July 2012, another in ST 2013), never again hitting even the meager .220 he managed in 2012.

2014 (5 remaining candidates right now):

Total Players used: 22 position, 18 pitchers, 40 total.  5/40 = 12.5% candidate ratio right now

Candidates:

• Greg Dobbs: FA after 2014, retired in May 2015 when he didn’t catch on with a new club.
• Nate McLouth, who signed an ill-advised 2-year deal to be our “veteran 4th outfielder” behind Denard Span … but who struggled in 2014 and then missed the entirety of 2015.  The team bought out his 2016 option and as of this writing has not signed with a new team (not even a minor league deal).  May have played his way out of the game.  (Thanks to Karl in the comments for the reminder on McLouth).
• Jeff Kobernus: Released by the team Mar 2015, played the rest of 2015 with SF’s A+ club in San Jose, MLFA for 2016.  He never signed with anyone in 2016 and may be finished.
• Scott Hairston: FA after 2014, sat out 2015.  Signed for Chicago White Sox for 2016, but then was cut on 3/29/16.  He did not pick back up with anyone for 2016, and at age 36 could be forced into retirement.
• Nate Schierholtz: FA after 2014, signed w/ Texas but did not stay with club out of spring training.  Played 2015 in Japan, then signed as a MLFA with Detroit in Dec 2015.  Starting in AAA for Detroit 2016 but not a 40-man player.  Subsequently released on 5/23/16 after hitting .246, did not pick back up for the rest of 2016.  He’s only 32, so he may still give it a shot in 2017.

Names removed since the last post: Kevin Frandsen (signed w/ SFG and appeared in 7 games in 2015), Ryan Mattheus (got one game with LAA, waived, then pitched the whole of 2015 in Cincinnati’s bullpen), Rafael Soriano (who finally signed with the Cubs in June but had just 6 appearances before getting released on 9/4/15, and Taylor Hill (who had 12IP across 6 games for the Nats in 2015).  Added Nate McLouth after Karl noticed he was missing in the comments.

Outlook for 2014 Oblivion candidates: after a rough 2016 for all these players, only Schierholz really seems like he has a shot at even a ST invite for 2017.  The rest are likely done.

Favorite Nats-to-Oblivion story: I’ll go with Kobernus at this point, if only because he went to my dad’s Alma Mater (Cal-Berkeley) at a time where the program was threatened with the Axe (eventually donations resurrected the program in 2011).  He’s an example of an odd fascination the Nats seem to have with good field-no hit upper round draft picks from Cal (see also Renda, Tony).

2013 (4 Candidates):

Total Players used: 23 position, 21 pitchers, 44 total.  4/44 = 9% candidate ratio right now (thanks Natsochrist for the edit)

Current Candidates

• Chad Tracy: MLFA signed w/ LA Angels for spring 2014, cut, retired 4/25/14.
• Yunesky Maya; MLFA with Atlanta AAA for 2014, then went to Korea where he got pounded for two seasons.  Just signed a MLFA deal with Los Angeles Angels for 2016 and is pitching for AAA Salt Lake.  He strained his elbow and missed a big chunk of the 2016 season, which was a missed opportunity for Maya as the Angels had very little SP depth.
• Chris Marrero: MLFA, signed w/ Baltimore AAA 2014, played briefly for the White Sox’s AAA affiliate in 2015.  He’s still out there, playing in the 2015 Venezuelan winter league.  Signed back with Boston’s AAA affiliate for 2016.  He had a strong 2016 season for Pawtucket, hitting 23 homers but did not get called up.
• Erik Davis; Nats AAA 2014 60 day D/L Tommy John surgery 2014, still on Nats D/L 2015.  Outrighted off the 40-man in January 2016, assigned to AAA.  Posted a 4.13 ERA in a full year of middle relief for Syracuse, with excellent K/9 ratios, but did not merit a 9/1 call up.

Updates since last post: removed Jhonatan Solano went 1-20 for Miami in 2015 and may be a “Marlins to Oblivion” candidate going forward.

Outlook for 2013 Oblivion candidates: The 4 remaining guys face uphill climbs; only Davis remains with the Nationals but none are on 40-man rosters.  Maya and Marrero are  hanging on though and may get shots based on decent 2016 seasons in AAA.

Favorite Nats-to-Oblivion story: Yunesky Maya, who was Mike Rizzo‘s first foray into the Cuban exile market.  Signed to a 4yr/$8M deal, he was given several shots at the majors and never could capitalize.  He arrived in the US with a wide arsenal of pitches but not a lot of swing-and-miss talent, and he ended up basically being a AAA starter.   He spent the last three seasons as Syracuse’s lead starter (getting 22, 28 and 24 starts there in-between infrequent call-ups) and ended up with just one career MLB win for his $8M salary (making his one of the worst dollars-per-win contracts ever … even if it was “just” $8M).  This whole paragraph is assuming that Maya never makes it back to the majors … but based on what he’s shown thus far combined with his advancing age, that seems like a likely end-result for the Cuban starter.  As we speak, he has given up on minor league ball and has decamped for Korea, where he’s shown some good stats in limited appearances.

2012 (6 candidates)

Total Players used: 24 position, 19 pitchers, 43 total.  6/43 = 13.9% candidate ratio right now

Candidates

• Brad Lidge: Retired post 2012.
• Christian Garcia: got added to the 40-man roster down the stretch of 2012 and provided some electric relief out of the pen, even making the playoff roster.  Got hurt in ST 2013, went to the 60-day D/L, still hurt in 2014, and released in June of that year.  Garcia never had bad stats … just too many injuries that he couldn’t overcome.  (Thanks to commenter Justin for this reminder!)
• Ryan Perry: Wash AAA/AA 2013, 2014, released by Washington in 2014, signed back with Detroit and played 2014-2015 with their AAA affiliate.  Released mid 2015 by Toledo and never signed on again for 2015 or 2016; may be done.
• Jesus Flores; signed ML deal with Los Angeles Dodgers for 2013, was with TB, KC for 2014, Miami AAA for 2015, but was released in July 2015 and never re-signed.  Played Winter Ball 2015 never signed for 2016; may be done.
• Brett Carroll: signed ML deal w/ Pittsburgh for 2013, Tor for 2014.  Never signed for 2015, looks done.
• Carlos Maldonado: Wash AAA 2013.  Played Venezuelan Winter Ball for a number of years, then after no US-based organized ball for 2 seasons signed a ML deal with Texas in 2015 …and made their AA team as a 37-yr old.  Still plugging away.  In 2016 Maldonado again was assigned to Frisco, but was immediately put on the D/L and never appeared.  In fact, he doesn’t even have a minor league at bat since 2013; is he just on a roster to serve as a bullpen catcher?

Updates in last 12 months: Updates for Maldonado, who I can’t believe is still playing in the bus leagues at age 37.  Added Christian Garcia after Justin noticed he was missing in the comments.

Outlook for 2012 Oblivion candidates: Only Maldonado seems like he’s still technically “active,” but as a 38-yr old catcher who hasn’t even had an at-bat since 2013 the odds of him making it back are nil.  The book seems closed on 2012.

Favorite Nats-to-Oblivion story: Brad Lidge, who gave it one last shot and failed and didn’t keep trying.  Sometimes, when you lose your stuff, its gone and gone fast.  I’ll readily admit I thought the signing was a great one when it occurred but it just didn’t work out.  I really hoped that Lidge would be a serviceable 7th inning guy and mentor to Drew Storen and Tyler Clippard, being one of the great closers of his day.  It didn’t work out that way: the Nats released him on June 25th and he hung ’em up.

2011 (6 candidates)

Total Players used: 20 position, 24 pitchers, 44 total.  6/44 = 13.6% candidate ratio right now…

Candidates

• Ivan Rodriguez – retired after 2011; will appear on the 2017 Hall-of-Fame Ballot with 1st ballot stats but a PED cloud over his head.
• Matt Stairs — retired after 2011.
• Alex Cora — retired after 2011, now the General Manager of a Puerto Rican Winter League team.
• Cole Kimball — Nats 60-day DL in 2012, XST in 2013, DFA’d off 40-man roster.  2014 indy, NYY AA team.  Threw 3.2 Innings of 14-ERA ball in the Mexican summer league in 2015.  Does not seem to be on any 2016 rosters; may be done.
• Brian Broderick — Stl AAA, waived now Nats AAA in 2012, AA in 2013.  Indy ball 2014, Kansas City AAA 2015, where he had a pretty good season.  He elected MLFA … and (oddly?) did not get picked up for 2016.  May be done.
• Atahualpa Severino — Nats AAA, DFA’d off 40-man in 2012, signed w/ KC for 2013, Atl AAA in 2014, LAA AAA in 2015 but he got cut and ended the year in the Mexican league.  For 2016 he is again in the Mexican League, and had a strong season for Monterrey.  Perhaps he gets another shot some-day.  There’s always people looking for loogies.

Changes in the last 12 months: none other than 2016 assignment updates; nobody’s gotten off this list in a while.

Outlook for 2011 Oblivion candidates: Just one guy still hanging on: Severino continues to throw albeit in his home country’s unaffiliated Mexican league.

Favorite Nats-to-Oblivion story: Matt Stairs: He made the 2011 roster despite having almost no defensive capabilities and, as it soon became evident, almost no remaining abilities at the plate.  He somehow hung onto his roster spot until August 1st despite having just one extra base hit in 74 at-bats on the year.  I remember one game in particular; we were at the stadium going against the hated Phillies and they left Roy Halladay in to attempt to finish a shutout with a 3-0 lead (Game was on 4/13/11).  Nats rally, score 2 runs to make it 3-2.  Stairs comes up pinch hitting for Jerry Hairston with guys on 1st and 2nd with one out; he promptly watches three straight fastballs go right down the middle of the plate without moving his bat.  I’ve never been so p*ssed at a player at the ball-park.  Fellow Nats-to-Oblivion candidate  Ivan Rodriguez then promptly struck out on 3 pitches as well, looking strike 3 into the mitt and then arguing vehemently with the ump over the game-ending call which gave Halladay the complete game victory.  Those were the good ole days.

2010 (12 players)

Total Players used: 20 position, 26 pitchers, 46 total.  12/46 = 26.0% never appeared again

Players:

• Kevin Mench; retired after 2010
• Jamie Burke; retired after 2010
• Luis Atilano: in CIN org, AAA in 2012, never signed for 2013, out of baseball.
• Scott Olsen; in CWS org, AAA 2012, never signed for 2013, out of baseball.
• Tyler Walker; indy league 2011, never signed for 2012, out of baseball.
• Matt Chico; indy league 2012, never signed for 2013, out of baseball.
• Garrett Mock: Houston AAA 2012, AZ AAA for 2013.  Not signed for 2014
• Jason Bergmann: indy 2011, Col AAA 2012, Indy again in 2013, KC AA.  Not signed for 2014.
• Jesse English; indy league 2011, 2012.  Mexican League 2013, Indy ball 2014 but struggled, no 2015 stats.
• Joe Bisenius; in Mexico 2011-12, Atl AA/AAA 2013, indy/mexican league 2014 but struggled, no 2015 stats.
• JD Martin; in MIA org AAA 2012, in TB AAA 2013, in Korea 2014 but struggled, no 2015 stats.  2016 MLFA signing back with the team and re-making himself as a knuckleballer.  Why not right?
• Willy Taveras; played AAA for Col in 2011, retired prior to 2012, back with KC AAA 2013.  Mexican league 2014, 2015, Indy ball in 2015.  He re-signed with Pueblo in the Mexican league for 2016 and played a full season, hitting .325.

Changes in last 12 months: none.

Outlook for 2010 Oblivion candidates: Two active players in the minors; Taveras and Martin.  Martin seems likely to get another MLFA contract in 2017 to see if he can pan out as a knuckleballer.

Favorite Nats-to-Oblivion story: Jamie Burke: The 2009 Nats were so thin at Catcher by the end of the season that we literally bought a spare catcher in Burke from Seattle so we could have some coverage at the end of the season.  Burke re-signed on for 2010 and appeared in exactly one MLB game.  He was released after the season and retired.

2009 (9 players)

Total Players used: 25 position, 30 pitchers, 55 total.  9/55 = 16.3% never appeared again

Players:

• Elijah Dukes: released and never picked up for 2010.  Arrested in 2011, 2012, out of baseball.
• Alex Cintron; playing in Mexico 2012, nothing in 2013
• Jorge Padilla; in SD org, AAA in 2012, nothing in 2013
• Ron Villone, AAA all of 2010, 2011 playing indy ball, retired prior to 2012.  He was scheduled to appear on the 2015 Hall of Fame ballot but was removed for some reason.  Remains a pitching coach for the Cubs organization.
• Julian Tavarez; retired after getting DFA’d in July 2009
• Mike Hinckley: Tor org in 2011, retired prior to 2012
• Steven Shell; KC org in 2011, retired prior to 2012
• Victor Garate; MIL org and Indy ball in 2012, Mexican league 2013, 2014. Went to Japan for 2015 and had a great season.  Back on the continent and pitching in the Mexican League for 2016; had 10 starts for Saltillo and was released.  May be done.
• Zack Segovia; in Det org AA in 2012, Mexican league/Indy ball 2013, Mexican League 2014.  Picked up with San Diego’s AAA for 2015 but got hit.  Pitching in the Mexican League for 2016 and had decent numbers as a middle reliever, but was released in June.

Changes in last 12 months: none.

Outlook for 2009 Oblivion candidates: Still a couple guys active here, both in the Mexican league.  Not likely to see any changes going forward.

Favorite Nats-to-Oblivion story: Ron Villone, who proved that a crafty lefty with a halfway decent fastball can have a long career in this game.  He had 63 appearances at age 39 for the 2009 Nats and got re-signed for 2010.  He didn’t make the team though, labored in Syracuse the whole season and was released.  Despite being 41 years old, he headed to Indy ball for one last shot but washed out after just a few outings in 2011.

It wouldn’t be a retrospective on poor Nats players if we didn’t briefly talk about Elijah Dukes though.  I think its safe to assume that he’s the only guy on this list that has served more time in jail than has played in the minor leagues, attempting to get back to the show.

2008 (8 players)

Total Players used: 25 position, 25 pitchers, 50 total.  8/50 = 16% never appeared again

Players:

• Kory Casto; 2009 AAA, 2010 in Ariz AA, retired.
• Dmitri Young: some rehab in low minors 2009, retired.
• Rob Mackowiak: 2009: some indy, bounced around AAA, that’s it.
• Johnny Estrada; quit after 2008 mid-season release.
• Odalis Perez; refused his 2009 contract, never resigned (see below)
• Levale Speigner; 2009 in Florida’s AA/AAA, then 2010 in Seattle AAA.  done.
• Ray King; retired after 2008
• Chris Schroder; 2009, 2010 bounced around AAA with Oakland,Florida (now Miami).

Changes in last 12 months: none.

Outlook for 2008 Oblivion candidates: every remaining candidate is now out of baseball.

Favorite Nats-to-Oblivion story: Odalis Perez, though I’m tempted to say either Mackowiak or Estrada, possibly the two worst FA signings of the whole Jim Bowden era (and that’s saying something).  But nothing beats the Perez story.  He was the Nats Opening Day Starter in 2008, and he was the first guy to get a start in the new Nationals Stadium.  He pitched decently enough; in 30 starts he was 7-12 with a 4.34 ERA and a 99 ERA+ for a god-awful team.  But apparently he got really pissed when the team only offered him a non-guaranteed Minor League deal for 2009.  So he held out, the Nats said “fine with us” and released him, and nobody else picked him up.  And he never played another game.  I’m not sure if that was a sign that he was just that bad (not one team wanted to even give an opening day starter a look the subsequent year?), or if there was some sort of MLB general manager omerta that conspired against him.  Either way, Perez never played again, not even in Winter Leagues as far as I could find.  Sometimes a player has to swallow his pride, and Perez apparently could not.

2007 (12 players)

Total Players used: 21 position, 26 pitchers, 47 total.  12/47 = 25.5% never appeared again

Players:

• Nook Logan; indy league 2008, 2010.
• Robert Fick: Cut from the Padres in ST 2008, full year indy league 2009, retired.
• D’Angelo Jimenez: AAA all of 2008, 2009.  Mexican league and Indy league 2010-2012
• Tony Batista: Wash AAA 2008, then released
• Michael Restovich: 2008 in Japan, AAA 2009-2011, retired
• Brandon Watson: AAA 2008-9, indy league 2011, retired.
• Mike Bacsik: 2008 AAA, 2011 indy league, now a broadcaster.
• Jason Simontacchi; 2008 indy league, 2010 again.
• John Patterson; cut in ST 2008, immediately signed w/ Texas but never played again.
• Ryan Wagner: AAA 2008-9, released and presumably retired.
• Arnie Munoz; went to mexican league, retired > 2010
• Chris Booker: AAA in 2008, then retired/released.

Changes in last 12 months: none

Outlook for 2007 Oblivion candidates: every remaining candidate is now out of baseball.

Favorite Nats-to-Oblivion story: Mike Bacsik, who was destined to be a career 4-A guy before Washington picked him up and gave him 20 starts in 2007.  Bacsik was on his 6th minor league organization when he arrived in Syracuse and pitched his way up to the major leagues.  He was overmatched badly; he had a 5.11 ERA and just a 3.4 K/9 rate.  But he did get his moment in the headlines by giving up Barry Bonds‘ 756th career homer one night in San Francisco in August.  Contrary to accusations on the topic, I do not believe Bacsik “served up” the homer.  If you check the play index, Bonds hit the 7th pitch of the at-bat in a 3-2 count for that homer.  Bacsik didn’t purposely give up a homer on the 7th pitch of an at-bat; he just ran out of pitches to show Bonds that weren’t going to get pulverized.

A quick comment though on John Patterson: I remember being absolutely shocked at his release in 2008’s spring training.  He was cut on 3/20/08, right in the middle of Spring Training with no warning and having just thrown his Grapefruit innings.   He was healthy, recovered from surgery, ready to be the ace of that staff and start showing off the potential that he showed in 2005 (you know, when he 4-hit the Dodgers with 13 punch outs and posted the best Game-Score performance in Nats history).  He signed a ML deal with Texas after his release by the Nats, but he couldn’t answer the call and never appeared again, getting released in mid May.  I guess his third arm surgery in 7 years just left him unable to compete at any level and he hung ’em up.

2006 (20 players)

Total Players used: 28 position, 29 pitchers, 57 total.  20/57 = 35% never appeared again

• Damian Jackson; dnp 2007, indy league 2008-9
• Bernie Castro: AAA all of 2007, 8 then retired.
• Alex Escobar: Wash minors 2007-8, then retired.
• Brandon Harper: Wash AAA all of 2007, then released/retired.
• Wiki Gonzalez: CWS AAA all of 2007, indy league 2008, retired.
• Henry Mateo: AAA or Indy league 2007-2009, Mexican league from 2010-2013
• George Lombard: AAA 2007-9, some indy league, retired.
• Mike Vento: 2007 Wash AAA, indy league 2008, back with Syracuse 2009, retired.
• Melvin Dorta; various minor leagues 2007-2010, indy league 2011, retired.
• Luis Matos: AAA 2007, Mexican League 2008-2012.  ? 2013 and done.
• Pedro Astacio; retired after 2006
• Felix Rodriguez: dnp 2007, indy league 2008-9, retired.
• Zach Day: AAA 2007, briefly A+ 2008, retired.
• Beltran Perez; wash minors AA/AAA 2007-8, released and never played again.
• Joey Eischen; released off of Washington and retired.
• Travis Hughes; AAA in 2007, played in Japan 2008, indy leagues 2009, 2011.
• Ryan Drese: various minor leagues 2007-8, indy league 2009-2010, Baltimore AAA 2011, released/retired.
• Kevin Gryboski: AAA 2007-2008, retired/released.
• Brett Campbell: Wash AA 2007, released/retired.
• Santiago Ramirez: Japan in 2007, Mexican league 2008, indy 2009, retired.

Changes in last 12 months: none

Outlook for 2006 Oblivion candidates: every remaining candidate is now out of baseball.

Favorite Nats-to-Oblivion story: Joey Eischen, who bounced around the league in his 20s before settling in Montreal and moving south with the team.  He was known to be a “character” in the clubhouse and to give good quotes to reporters (google “Joey Eischen quotes” and you’ll find some of his classics).   By 2006 though the years had taken their toll on his shoulder; he had 19 walks in 14 2/3 innings through the end of May had blown his rotator cuff.  The team put him on the 60 day D/L and called up Virginia-native Bill Bray.   Eischen never got off that D/L; he was released in the off-season and never played again. He has been a pitching coach in the Colorado system since 2010.

2005 (16 players)

Total Players used: 30 position, 25 pitchers, 55 total.  16/55 = 29% never appeared again

Players:

• Carlos Baerga; retired after 2005
• Junior Spivey: bounced around AAA 2006-7, indy ball in 2009, retired.
• Wil Cordero; released mid 2005, signed on with the NY Mets but never made it out of AAA.  Retired after 2005.
• Deivi Cruz; released after 2005, cut from St. Louis 2006 ST, played indy ball, retired.
• Jeffrey Hammonds; retired in June 2005 mid-season.
• J.J. Davis: Traded to Colorado as part of the Preston Wilson deal, sent to Colorado’s AAA, then released after the season and never played again.
• Rick Short; Granted FA after the 2005 season to play in Japan, played there til 2009.
• Kenny Kelly; AAA in 2006 and 2007, released and retired.
• Keith Osik; a backup catcher, got 4 ABs in 2005, released and retired.
• Tyrell Godwin; after just three MLB at-bats in 2005, spent all of 2006 and 2007 in AAA, released and retired.
• T.J. Tucker; released after 2005, tried one year of indy ball in 2008, retired.
• Joe Horgan; released after 2005, played one year of AAA with Florida, released, retired.
• Matt White; AAA in 2006-7, Japan 2007-8, tried indy ball in 2010, hung ’em up.
• C.J. Nitkowski; AAA in 2006, then went to Japan 2007-8, Korea 2009-10, back with the Mets AAA team in July 2012.  Not signed for 2013.  Was a blow-hard “I’m an ex baseball player and know more than you” Podcast host for Fox Sports with Rob Neyer until their cancellation.  Made news in 2015 for his article on the Bryce Harper/Jonathan Papelbon where he quoted a number of anonymous MLBers who said that (paraphrasing) “Harper had it coming.”
• Antonio Osuna: dnp in 2006, Mexican league 2007-9.
• Tony Blanco; Nats minor leagues 2006-7, Colorado AA in 2008, in Japan from 2009-present.  Hit 41 homers in 2013 for Yokohama but struggled in 2015, but got picked up by Orix and is on their 2016 roster.

Changes in last 12 months: none

Outlook for 2005 Oblivion candidates: Tony Blanco is still playing in Japan, entering his 8th pro season there in 2016.

Favorite Nats-to-Oblivion story: Rick Short, who got his MLB debut at the age of 32, after 11 very long seasons in the minors with many different teams.  He got a couple of call-ups in June and July to provide cover, and then played out the string after a Sept 1 roster expansion call-up.  In that off-season, he returned to Japan (where he’d played one full season prior), and played four more years in the Japanese League and retired in 2009.

Though it merits talking about a couple other guys here. Tony Blanco; he was a rule-5 draftee who the Nats carried the whole of 2005 so they could keep his rights.  He was awful; he had a .177 batting average as the 25th guy off the bench.  In 2006 he couldn’t even cut it in AA and played most of the year in High-A.  After 2007 the Nats summarily released him from their minor league organization altogether.   He found his calling though; he signed on in Japan in 2009 at age 27 and continues to play there today.  You have to wonder if he may very well earn another MLB shot.

Jeffrey Hammonds was well known to Washington baseball fans by virtue of his pedigree with our northern neighbors in Baltimore; he was a 1st round draft pick in 1992 out of Stanford, broke in with the MLB team the following year and was a role player on the powerhouse Baltimore teams of the mid 1990s.   He bounced around the league afterwards though, signing on with the newly relocated Washington franchise for the 2005 debut season but he hung ’em up after a slow start here.  He was only 34 when he retired.

Here’s a quick recap of the year in stories on this blog, to tie a bow on 2015.  From each month, I’ve grabbed a couple of the more interesting or unique posts I did, with thoughts and follow-on.

(Here’s 2014’s review and  2013’s review as well, to see how far we have or have not evolved…)

Jan 2015:

• Holy Cow Scherzer! Nats make a statement by signing Scherzer for $210M; he does not disappoint with 2 no-hitters in his first season.  We’ll conveniently forget his 6+ ERA during crunch time when the team was caught and surpassed in the standings by the eventual NL champion Mets.
• Like the Janssen signing: Yeah; this one didn’t work out as well.

Feb 2015

• Nationals Prospect Ranks historically: I reference this post more for one of my better accomplishments lately; turning all my historical prospect rankings into one big XLS.  Here is that XLS in Google Drive, updated for the latest prospect rankings list I could find (BA’s year-end top 10 for the system).
• Qualifying Offers: Are they working? (2015 edition): Answer: doesn’t seem so.  And so far in this off-season, we’re seeing similar results.

Mar 2015

• Brady Aiken has TJ surgery, shakes up draft boards: Aiken eventually goes 17th overall and loses millions versus where he was drafted the year prior.  Hope he can come back from such an early TJ surgery.
• Nats Outfield … what happens next?  Big discussion once it became clear that both Span and Werth were not making the 2015 opening day lineup healthy.

Apr 2015

• Forensicane’s campaign finally fulfilled; Rafael Martin called up & Cedeno axed: the title speaks for itself.  Martin didn’t pitch much but certainly impressed with his debut.  Cedeno’s DFA seemed deserved at the time, but he pitched very well for Tampa after catching on there.
• Cole up … why not Roark?: My prophetic post predicting Cole’s meltdown in Atlanta … of course I couldn’t predict the Dan Uggla homer and 13-12 game, which I immediately put into …
• Greatest (and worst) ever Nats games & Events; updated for 2014 events and April 2015 Atlanta game: I’ll be re-doing this post soon for all the stuff that happened the rest of 2015 and the weird off-season the team has had.

May 2015

• 2015 CWS Field of 64 announced; teams and analysis: one of many CWS posts, culminating in UVA winning in Omaha in late June.
• DC/MD/VA District High School Tournament Report: 2015 post-season: May is Prep HS tournament time.  June has a ton of College and College World Series posts.  I know I don’t get a lot of comments on my HS and College coverage, but I enjoy following both and try to keep interest in local baseball alive.  FWIW, the area may very well have a first round pick in 2016 in Oakton HS’ Joe Rizzo.  More to come in February when I start up Prep baseball 2016 posts.

June 2015

• First Look: Nats top 10 draftees from 2015 Rule-4 Draft: The culmination of the pre-draft work for the Nats; digging in and looking at who we’ll be following from a-far for the next few years.
• 2015 Draft Results: local player interest draft results. This post is the end result of months and months of work, digging into players with local ties in order to follow and eventually publish where they’re going.
• Is Ross making the Nats re-think their future rotation strategy?  Yes, I think its safe to say he did.  Is Turner/Ross for Souza/Ott the best trade Rizzo has ever done?

July 2015

• State of the Nats at the halfway point 2015: Where I was noticing that our offense was holding on by a thread but that we’d still win the division by 10 games.  Yeah.  Didn’t think the Mets would find the second coming of Babe Ruth in Yoenis Cespedes and they would catch fire they way they did.
• Nats 2015 Draft Wrap-up: Nice wrap-up of the whole draft class.
• Papelbon for Pivetta: good trade, bad karma? Another prophetic blog post title, eh?

Aug 2015

• The Nats post-All Star game gauntlet of opposing Starting Pitchers: It was tough, and the team didn’t do very well against them.  They went 6-10 to open the 2nd half and went from 2 games up to 2 games back … and never made it up.
• Its make or break time; even more so than a week ago.  Arbitrary endpoints, ranting about the Papelbon trade, ranting about the manager.  Just a regular post about the 2015 Nats.
• Why exactly did the Nats call up Turner?? A question I keep asking to this day.

Sept 2015

• The Definition of Insanity… is apparently to keep watching the Nats play the Mets in September.
• I said “Call me when they Sweep Atlanta” … 115 comments on this post from the viewers, the season high by a lot.

Oct 2015

• GM for a day (or an off-season): what do you do to this team for 2016? A fun post to write.  Some of it has even come true!
• Rotation Reviews of your 2015 Playoff Teams & WC Picks: One of the reasons the October post output is way up; I did a bunch of prediction picks.  None of which were right of course.
• Chase Utley gets away with yet another dirty play; time to change the rules: F*ck Chase Utley, I hate that guy.
• 2015 Season Statistical Review of all Nats 2015 draft picks: A new feature I stumbled across that I’ll now make sure I find the time to do every year.
• Welcome Bud Black: haha; i wish I could un-post 🙂

Nov 2015

• My 2015 End-of-Season Awards Predictions: Only missed one BBWAA award this year.
• Three take the QO; but some still rolling the dice: First time for everything.  Murphy’s QO ends up costing the Nats their 17th overall pick.

Dec 2015

• Operation Bullpen Makeover Status Report: So far, so good.  Lots of new faces.
• Nationals/MLB Pitching Staff Year in Review; 2015: First in a series that is still being written as we speak.
• Murphy Signing: I guess I’m ok with it: A ringing endorsement!

Total posts for 2015 (including this one): 115.  That’s down from 130 posts in 2014 and down significantly from 2013 (237 posts).  Wow, how in the heck did I do 237 posts in 2013.  That’s nearly a post for every weekday, all year.  Including this post, i’ve published 923 total since the inception of the blog.  When I hit 1000 i’ll do some cool retrospective or something.  Should happen midway through 2016.

923 posts; that’s a lot of writing.  I once calculated that a typical novel is between 90,000 and 100,000 words.  Well, most of my posts are between 1000 and 2500 words … so that means I’m writing about a book every 50 posts.  I’m in the wrong profession.  Of course, i’m not sure who would ever read a book about some random IT guy’s musings about his local baseball team.  🙂

I feel like we have a solid group always commenting, no trolls.  Very grateful for everyone who stops by and everyone who comments.  I wonder how we can get more readers; should I do more publishing on twitter when I post?  Probably.  Now that natsinsider.com is gone, we may struggle to get the word out since Mark was my primary feeder site.

We generally have 20-30 comments on each post, which is cool.  High comments on posts were 70 on a “Ladson Inbox”post in January 2015 and an astonishing 115 comments on the August “call me when we sweep Atlanta” post.

Happy New Year and thanks for reading in 2015.

Scherzer will always have his no-hitters from 2015. Photo via thesportsquotient.com

Here’s the first in a 7-part series where we delve into the pitching staffs from start to end, from the majors all the way to the GCL.  We start with the rotations, review all the starters and then hit up the relievers.  We try to predict as we go, which I’ll summarize at the end with a big “2016 predictions” piece.

Here’s 2013’s post and then 2012’s post.  We never got to 2014 as I was switching jobs and this series takes a ton of time and I couldn’t do it.

All stats are courtesy of either Baseball-Reference page or via Fangraphs page.  Also useful here are the Big Board and the Nats Draft Tracker as always.

Washington starters.  The rotation at the beginning of the season was Scherzer, Zimmermann, Strasburg, Gonzalez, Fister.  By the end of the season it was basically the same, with Roark replacing Ross who had replaced Fister.

• Max Scherzer: 14-12 with a 2.79 ERA, 0.918 whip with 276/34 K/BB ratio in 228.2 IP (33 starts).  Look at that K/BB ratio again: that’s more than 8 strikeouts for every walk for a power pitcher.  His season also included two no-hitters (both of which easily could have been perfect games) and a one-hitter, and by one measure (Game Score) his season-ending 17-K no-hitter was nearly the best pitching 9-inning performance ever.  If you needed another excuse to ignore W/L records, just look at Scherzer’s record on the year given his peripherals.  But even given his season on a macro level, some were rather disappointed in Scherzer because in August, when the chips were down and this team collapsed, he was 0-3 with a 6.43 ERA in 5 starts.  Nonetheless, Scherzer more than earned his salary in 2015 and I see no reason not to expect similar results in 2016.  Outlook for next season: 2nd straight opening day start.
• Jordan Zimmermann: 13-10, 3.66 ERA, 1.205 whip with 164/39 K/BB over 201.2 IP (33 starts).  His ERA was a point higher than in 2014, his WHIP was 10% higher and his FIP was inflated to a very un-Zimmermann 3.75 level.  Not exactly the walk year season he was hoping for.  Nonetheless, Zimmermann should make out like a bandit on the FA market, where he occupies the lead spot in the 2nd tier of FA pitchers and should do just fine.  Unfortunately, it seems like his time in DC is up; we don’t know the size or length of the contract extension he turned down, but it seems obvious that the team didn’t give him what he and his advisers thought he deserved.  He’ll be oft-mentioned in the coming weeks as he finds a new home and it’ll be a shame to see him go.  Outlook for next season: pitching for another team: Signed with Detroit for 5yrs/$110M.
  
• Stephen Strasburg: 11-7, 3.46 ERA, 1.107 whip with 155/26 K/BB in 127 IP (23 starts).   His end-of-the-year numbers don’t look nearly as bad as the debacle that his season really was.   He had a 6.55 ERA through his first 10 starts, then missed most of June and July with two separate D/L trips.  Upon his return, he was awesome, dropping his season ERA from 5.16 to 3.46 thanks to 9 quality starts (out of 10) and 5 double-digit strikeout games.  But, the damage was done; he was awesome down the stretch in a series of games that ended up being meaningless.  On the bright side, the Nats likely save a few million dollars in their arbitration case.  Lets just hope that whatever he finally figured out in Aug and Sept continues into next season.  Outlook for next season: Nats #2 starter.
• Gio Gonzalez: 11-8, 3.79 ERA, 1.423 whip with 169/69 K/BB in 175.2 IP (31 starts).  Another year, another inconsistent season from our #4 starter.  The team was 16-15 in his 31 starts, which makes sense since he had exactly 16 quality starts.  I think at this point Gio is what he is: a decently valued 4th starter who earns his salary and puts up enough value to keep his spot.  The Nats will ride his arm until his contract expires.  Outlook for next season: Nats #4 starter.
• Doug Fister: 5-7, 4.19 ERA, 1.398 whip with 63/24 K/BB in 103 IP (25 appearances, 15 starts).  MLB’s most underrated starter over the past few  years finally had father time catch up to him, going 4-7 with a 4.60 ERA in 15 starts before the team mercifully pulled the plug.  His average fastball velocity has been dropping, but dropped precipitously this year (down to 86.1) and just was too hittable.  To Fister’s credit, he accepted the move to the bullpen instead of taking the “easy” way out and claiming a D/L trip, and was effective in 17 relief innings to make his season ERA look a little more palatable.  Nonetheless, it was not exactly the way the Nats drew things up.  Fister faces an uncertain future; he went from being guaranteed a Qualifying Offer to maybe struggling to get a guaranteed offer.  In the end, I can see perhaps a west coast team taking a flier on him as a 5th starter with a pillow contract for him to try to regain some value.  Outlook for next season: Pitching elsewhere, hopefully as a 5th starter somewhere.
• Joe Ross: 5-5, 3.64 ERA, 1.109 whip with 69/21 K/BB in 76.2 IP (16 appearances, 13 starts).  Ross initially got called up to cover for Strasburg’s first injury, and was impressive enough to be the first man in line to replace the suddenly ineffective Fister.  He got another 10 mostly effective starts, getting shut down in early September after two ineffective starts where he was uncharacteristically wild (9 of his 21 MLB walks were in his last 2 starts) as he reached a soft innings limit for the year.  No complaints here; Ross quickly guaranteed his rotation spot for 2016 with his work during the summer and is making the trade where he was acquired looking even more lopsided.  Outlook for next season: Nats #3 starter.
• Tanner Roark: 4-7, 4.38 ERA with 70/26 K/BB in 111 IP (40 appearances, 12 starts).  The Nats thanked Roark for his “found gold” 5-win 2014 season by acquiring Scherzer and pushing Roark to the all-important long-man/slop innings guy.  Not exactly what Roark probably expected.  He did get 5 starts covering for Strasburg in late May-early June but otherwise was yanked all over the place; sometimes being a one-inning middle reliever, then getting 3+ in a blowout loss, even getting higher leverage innings in the 8th and 9th (he even had a save in May).  When Fister proved ineffective, the Nats didn’t give the slot to Roark like they should have, instead calling up Ross and leaving Roark pitching in relief (their reason was that he wasn’t stretched out).  When it became clear Ross was going to run out of innings, they sent him back to Potomac briefly to “stretch out” and Roark finished the year in the rotation with 6 relatively ineffective starts.  Not the year Roark wanted.  There was an incredibly long-winded article in beyondtheboxscore.com that seemed to point at Roark’s position on the rubber as the cause of all his ills, but i put Roark’s struggles more simply: pitchers are creatures of habit and when you take a starter and suddenly tell him he’s a one inning reliever, you shouldn’t be surprised when he doesn’t immediately perform in that role.  The question the Nats have to face is this: was 2014 a fluke?  Do you pencil in Roark for the #5 starter in 2016 or do you try to acquire his replacement?  Do you have an open competition between Roark and the slew of AAA arms for the spot?  Personally, I’m a Roark believer and think he’ll be just fine if you install him in the rotation and let him work.  Outlook for next season: Nats #5 starter.
• Others who got 1-2 Spot Starts:
  • Taylor Jordan: got one spot-start in early June, getting pounded by Toronto.  He provided long-relief cover a few times here and there throughout the season but wasn’t used even after being called up 9/1 (perhaps an innings limit?).  See AAA write-up for more.
  • A.J. Cole got one spot start in late April, getting destroyed by Atlanta in the epic 13-12 game.  I was highly critical of this particular call-up at the time, questioning why the start didn’t go to Roark at the time.  Cole got two other mop-up games to make his ERA slightly less awful for the year, but raised serious questions as to his future.  See AAA write-up for more.

Rotation summary: Scherzer was good but struggled when the chips were down.  Zimmermann regressed, as did Gonzalez.  Strasburg was either awful or  hurt most of the season.  Fister was abhorrent.  Roark was wasted.  Yet despite all that negativity surrounding our rotation, the Nats starters as a group were still ranked pretty highly : 3rd in fWAR, 7th in ERA, 4th in FIP.   So, it was still a pretty good rotation but not nearly as good as we thought they’d be upon the Scherzer acquisition.

Washington relievers.  On opening day the MLB bullpen was Storen, Treinen, Stammen, Thornton, Cedeno, Barrett, Roark.  By the time it was over, the team had used no less than *20* relievers.  Not exactly how they sketched it out in the off-season.  Lets talk about all 20 guys; here they are ordered with closers first, then descending by IP.  Anyone with less than 10 innings is relegated to the end with generally a shorter write-up.

• Drew Storen was having a near-all Star calibre season closing, holding a 1.69 ERA with 46/9 K/BB over 37.1 IP and 29 saves.  Then suddenly he was demoted thanks to the Papelbon acquisition.  His numbers post 7/29/15: 7.13 ERA in 17 innings, which culminated with his 3-walk performance in the season-ending Mets loss in early September (his 5th blown save of the year).  Two days later he slammed a locker on his thumb, broke it and was done for the season along with his team.  We’ve argued this one to death; there are people who like to argue that players are machines and they are highly paid to do whatever the team asks of them.  I maintain that this team has tried over and over to replace Storen thanks to a couple of poorly-timed games of ineffectiveness that just happened to occur in the two NLDS series this team has managed to reach, and the “layering” of Papelbon over top of him was the icing on the cake of his Nats career.  I’m sure Storen wants out of town, and I’m sure he’ll be a classic “change of scenery” guy.  Mike Rizzo needs to make it happen.  Outlook for next season: Closing for another team.
  
• Jonathan Papelbon was acquired in late July straight up for a relatively low-level prospect (Nick Pivetta), an indication of how desperate Philadelphia was to rid themselves of him.  He pitched a grand total of 23.1 innings in two months, through little fault of his own clearly disrupted the karma of the bullpen, and entirely at fault on his own took offense to Bryce Harper‘s non-defense in the press of Papelbon’s over-reaction and subsequent plunking of Manny Machado in a game earlier in that week and decided that calling out one of the game’s premier hustlers for “not hustling” down the line on a routine pop-up was a good idea.  Fast forward to the umpteenth unnecessary embarrassing moment for the franchise and perhaps the final nail in the coffin of the inexplicably unaware and dense manager Matt Williams.  Fun fact: Papelbon bought a $2.9M house in Alexandria exactly one week before choking his teammate on national TV and getting suspended for the rest of the season.  Good timing.  I know that Harper has “reached out” to Papelbon and they’re all saying this is just ‘brothers fighting” and all that BS, but Rizzo has to be shopping him for whatever he can get for him, upto and including eating the entirety of his $11M 2016 salary.  Many think he’s completely untradeable, but i’m guessing someone will take a flier on him.  Outlook for next season: Closing for another team.
  
• Blake Treinen was the busiest guy in the pen this year (outside of sometimes starter Roark that is), throwing 67.2 innings in 60 innings as mostly an 7th/8th inning guy.    He had a 3.86 ERA, a 3.49 FIP, and a 1.389 whip, all incrementally worst in 2015 than the year before.  65/32 K/BB in those 67IP.  Treinen features a mid to upper 90s sinking fastball that has so much movement that TV announcers sometimes think its a changeup, yet still has some really odd splits.  Righties had just a .493 OPS against him on the year … while lefties teed off to the tune of a .934 OPS.  Odd because you’d think that a guy who could throw a fastball that tails away from lefties like Treinen would be more successful.  Another oddity; he had a 5.90 ERA at home and just a 2.33 ERA away.  So basically, if he was facing a righty on the road, he’s your guy.  He has limited his repertoire to just two pitches these days (2-seam sinker and a wipeout slider), and seems so far removed from having anything resembling a third pitch that any thoughts of returning to the bullpen seem long gone.  Is Treinen just a ROOGY (right handed one out guy?)  Do teams even have that?  Maybe his goal for the off-season is to figure out some pitch that is effective against lefties.  He also needs to work on his control; his walk rate of 4.3 per nine just won’t cut it for a higher leverage reliever.  Outlook for next season: back in his 7th/8th inning role.
• Felipe Rivero, 2.79 ERA, 2.64 FIP, 0.952 whip and 43/11 K/BB in 48.1 relief innings.  Rivero was a revelation for the team this year, converting to relief for the first time in his career and really shining.  He has some serious heat; max fastball of 99.8 and an average of 95.5 from the left side, but really was a two pitch pitcher this season; fastball and slider (fangraphs distinguishes his 4-seamer from his 2-seamer but the velocities are exactly the same; does he throw two different, distinct fastballs?)   Unlike Treinen, Rivero got righties and lefties out at equal clips (.200 BAA for righties, .198 for lefties) and really came into his own in the bullpen.  He’s much more than a matchup-lefty and could be a valuable bullpen member for a while.  Can he return to starting?  Hard to say; does he have a third pitch?  Years of starting in the minors seems to indicate that his future remains in the pen.  Outlook for next season: reprising his 7th inning reliever role.
• Matt Thornton had an excellent age 38 year; 2.18 ERA, 3.52 FIP, 1.065 ERA in 41.1 relief innings across 60 appearances.  His FIP is much higher than his ERA because he doesn’t rely as much on the strikeout; he had just a 23/11 K/BB ratio in those 41.1 innings.  His splits showed some interesting tidbits: 10 of his 11 walks on the year came against right handed hitters, while he had an 11/1 K/BB ratio when facing lefties.  Thornton is best judged by his performance against lefties and he was excellent; .198/.205/.279, and this is why I’m an advocate of resigning him for 2016.  I’m still kind of baffled by his being waived by the Yankees frankly.  The FA market for left handed relievers is a little busy; I count 20 lefties out there.  But not all of them were as effective as Thornton was in 2015.  Can the Nats re-sign him?  Do they want to?  They do have several in-house loogy replacements to be discussed, if they wanted to save a couple million dollars off of payroll.  Outlook for next season: another season as a loogy, for the Nats or elsewhere.
• Casey Janssen: when the Nats acquired Janssen, a three year closer for the Toronto Blue Jays, I figured the team’s late-inning bullpen issues were solved.  The loss of Rafael Soriano was inevitable (and, frankly, not really that important given how badly he finished 2014), but the loss of Tyler Clippard was going to be hard to fix.  But plugging in a former AL east closer into the 8th inning role?  No worries.  Well, that’s not quite how it went.  Janssen got hurt in spring training, missed the first 7 weeks of the season … and then underwhelmed once he arrived.  His numbers on the season: 4.95 ERA, 4.05 FIP, 1.150 whip, with 27/8 K/BB in 40 IP.   Perhaps the 4.95 ERA is skewed by a few bad outings: scanning through his game log he gave up 4 runs on 5/30, another 4 runs on 8/31, 3 more the following day (in that infamous St. Louis series) and 2 on 9/27.  So of the 22 runs he allowed all year, 13 of them were in four outings.  Perhaps so, but his job as an 8th inning guy is not to allow these massive rallies, ever.  His fastball velocity has been declining and his 4-seamer sat at just 88.3 MPH on average this year; is that fast enough even if you have pinpoint control and can throw 5 pitches?  Apparently not; Janssen’s struggles were a big part of the bullpen’s struggles this year, a big reason they felt the need to acquire Papelbon, and in crunch time towards the end of the season Williams didn’t trust him to give him important assignments.  The Nats bought out his option year and cut ties with him; the end of a disappointing season together.  Outlook for next season: middle reliever for another organization.
• Aaron Barrett: started out the year looking good as a key 6th/7th inning righty, struggled starting in May, hit the D/L in June, got lit up on Aug 5th to the point of getting demoted to AAA, at which point he (finally) told team doctors that his arm had been bugging him for weeks (months even).  A quick scan showed a blown UCL and he underwent Tommy John surgery on September 5th, 2015.  Final season stats: 4.60 ERA but a 2.21 FIP, 1.193 whip and 35/7 K/BB in 29.1 innings.  Look; you don’t want to wish ill will on a guy for trying to gut it out, but at what point was his arm issues impacting his performance on the field and costing the team games?  Outlook for next season: on the 60-day D/L for most if not all the season. 
• Sammy Solis was closer to a DFA than a call-up at the end of 2014, a season mostly lost to injury and lost promise of the former 2nd round pick.  But a slew of injuries forced him into action in the Nats bullpen and he held up, throwing 21.1 innings of 3.38 ERA, 3.46 fip, 1.359 whip with a 17/4 K/BB ratio.  That’s not too bad of a debut, even if it was his age 26 season.  He showed a reverse split interestingly, with lefties hitting him at a .355 clip (righties: .255).  I have a feeling that the team is likely going to look elsewhere for a second lefty out of the pen.  Option number one is probably resigning Matt Thornton, which will relegate Solis to AAA/spare part duty in Syracuse.  Outlook for next season: Syracuse bullpen/lefty reliever coverage.
• Matt Grace; 4.24 ERA, 3.08 fip, 2.00 whip with 14/8 K/BB in 17 IP across 26 outings.  Grace is a nice story, a guy who really came on strong in 2014 and earned his 40-man slot.  But his numbers in his first go-around in the majors were less than ideal.  See Solis’ write up and then add on a little pessimism and you have Grace right now; too many baserunners and not enough ability to get right handers out (.429 BAA) to be trusted as an effective major league reliever right now.  Outlook for next season: As with Solis Syracuse bullpen/lefty reliever coverage.  Except he’s “behind” Solis.
• Rafael Martin: everyone’s favorite story.  Signed out of the Mexican leagues, shot up the system posting just ridiculous numbers in AA and AAA in 2013 and 2014.  Finally got his shot and had some really odd stat lines: 5.11 ERA, 4.76 FIP, 1.378 whip with 25/5 K/BB in 12.1 major league innings.  That’s right; he had an 18.2 K/9 ratio.  He struck out 8 of the first 12 batters he faced, including a pretty memorable debut where he struck out 5 guys in two innings in Boston in mid April.  He was looking like a made-for-TV-movie story until he took a rough outing in Miami and got sent down … not to be recalled until 9/1.  He threw a bunch of garbage time innings in September and got his ERA back down but kept striking guys out with his upper 80s arsenal.  Why didn’t he get more of a shot when the chips were down and other right handed relievers were struggling in August?  I don’t know.  Honestly, I think he’d make an excellent long-man/middle reliever, the classic “7th guy out of the pen” with his ability to go long and spin the ball in there as a change of pace versus harder throwing guys.  Something tells me though that he’s going to be back in Syracuse as bullpen insurance.  Outlook for next season: Syracuse bullpen/righty reliever coverage.
• David Carpenter: acquired in trade from the Yankees for Tony Renda, threw 6 innings in the majors for the team, got hurt, went to the 60-day D/L with a shoulder issue, outrighted on 11/15/15, refused the assignment and has already signed with Atlanta for 2016.  Not exactly the best return for a former 2nd round pick and slightly surprising he was outrighted while there was still room on the 40-man roster (and still is room as we speak).  Outlook for next season: in Atlanta organization.
• Craig Stammen: threw just 4 innings before requiring elbow surgery.  A huge blow for a guy who had been a team leader in IP and an effective middle reliever for  years.  He’s arbitration eligible, and the team could not arrive at an equitable deal ahead of the 12/2/15 non-tender deadline, so Stammen was non-tendered.  I have a feeling that if the team still wants him for 2016 and will work out some sort of heavy incentive-laden deal to keep him in the fold (he’s been with the organization since 2005 after all, tying him for the longest tenured player still with the team now that Ian Desmond has declared FA.   Outlook for next season: hopefully back in his 7th inning middle relief role, perhaps pitching elsewhere.
  
• Xavier Cedeno: threw 3 innings, gave up 3 hits, 2 walks and two runs, then was inexplicably DFA’d and traded to the Dodgers for “cash.”  The Dodgers then turned around and traded him to Tampa, where he put up a 2.09 ERA in 43 IP in 2015.  What the heck happened here?   We talked about it in this space when it happened, and the quick hook DFA was as inexplicable then as it seems now.  Was this perhaps the first precursor into the questionable bullpen management that plagued Matt Williams all year?  Outlook for next season: a valuable loogy for Tampa.
  
• Other Relievers who pitched too few innings for analysis:
  • Taylor Hill: provided 12 innings of bullpen coverage in Late May-Early June: see AAA write-up.
  • Abel de los Santos: added to the 40-man, called up and started his service clock (oh, and burned an option too while they were at it) so that he could throw to exactly eight (8) batters in mid-july before being returned to Harrisburg.  Ridiculous use of resources frankly.  See AA write-up.
  • Position players Clint Robinson and Tyler Moore became the 1st and 2nd position players to ever hurl for the Washington franchise, each throwing the final inning in a blow-out loss.

Bullpen summary: Ugh, what a mess from start to finish.  Under performance, injuries, and a rotating door of guys trying to perform.  By the end of August there wasn’t anyone even worth trusting in that pen, as evidenced in the critical Mets home series where the season was lost.  Even given that, the bullpen as a whole ranked 12th in fWAR, 10th in ERA, 9th in FIP, so it wasn’t really that bad league-wide.  Which surprised me too when I went to fangraphs to pull the data.  Some more telling stats: 7th in the league in Blown saves with 27.  17th in total saves.  17th in Holds.

Pitching summary overall: we expected more, and in the end the performance of the staff and bullpen probably wasn’t the sole reason this team failed to win the NL East.  But it didn’t help.

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:

1. 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?
2. 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).
3. 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!

Nice Hair bro. Photo via his instagram

Every year, Dave Nichols over at DistrictSportsPage.com runs a fun little pre-season survey, asking the various Nats bloggers to do predictions about various things.  Here’s a navel-gazing look back at how my predictions turned out.

Welcome to the big show Mr. Martin! photo Nats official

So, is that a quick release or what?

Xavier Cedeno, he who has faced exactly 15 batters this season, was DFA’d ahead of the Tuesday 4/14/15 game as first reported by Mark Zuckerman on twitter.  In those 15 batters, he gave up 3 hits, 2 walks, one HBP, struck out 4 and got the other 5 guys out somehow.  Oh and he threw two wild pitches.  Those numbers totaled a 6.00 ERA, a 1.667 WHIP and an even higher FIP.  But more importantly, it spelled his DFA (since he’s out of options and until a week ago everyone thought he had beaten out Jerry Blevins for the bullpen).

I also reference the acerbic comments of others on twitter: from Half Street Heart Blog: “A few days ago, Xavier Cedeno was Matty’s go-to guy with the based loaded and nobody out w/ a 1-run lead. Now he’s off the roster.”

It is hard to argue with this observation because its true.  Yesterday we were wondering why the heck Matt Williams was pitching Cedeno for the 4th time in 5 days despite being 5 runs down in a losing cause … today he’s DFA’d.  What he heck is going on??

In January, I never would have thought that Cedeno had a shot at the team anyway … but I also wouldn’t have thought the team would have dumped Blevins for a 4-A outfielder who we probably didn’t need in a move that smacked of pettiness over the outcome of the off-season’s arbitration result (I reference Ken Rosenthal‘s tweet on the matter here).  Den Dekker is the TENTH outfielder on our current 40-man roster; the only “real” infielder who isn’t already on the MLB bench in the entire system is Wilmer Difo.  To say that the team has a slight imbalance of players on its 40-man right now is an understatement.

Anyway.  To the good news.  Long-serving and well-deserving RHP reliever Rafael Martin has been called up, added to the 40- and 25-man and will join the team in Boston.  He more than earned this spot with his excellent 2014 numbers, and his career path is the stuff of movies.  I say bravo to the Nats for finally recognizing his great minor league performances, and I hope he sticks around.