{"id":2097,"date":"2011-07-27T13:54:37","date_gmt":"2011-07-27T17:54:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=2097"},"modified":"2012-10-11T13:28:51","modified_gmt":"2012-10-11T17:28:51","slug":"is-the-gomes-trade-solely-about-a-comp-pick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=2097","title":{"rendered":"Is the Gomes trade solely about a comp pick?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_2098\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/GomesJonny-unknown-via-redlegsbaseball.blogspot.com_.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2098\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2098\" title=\"GomesJonny unknown via redlegsbaseball.blogspot.com\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/GomesJonny-unknown-via-redlegsbaseball.blogspot.com_-300x204.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"204\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/GomesJonny-unknown-via-redlegsbaseball.blogspot.com_-300x204.jpg 300w, https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/GomesJonny-unknown-via-redlegsbaseball.blogspot.com_.jpg 594w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2098\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Nat acquired Gomes ... why?  Photo unknown via redlegsbaseball.blogspot.com<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Yesterday, The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/blogs\/nationals-journal\/post\/nationals-acquire-jonny-gomes-for-two-minor-leaguers\/2011\/07\/26\/gIQA43YZbI_blog.html?wprss=nationals-journal\">Nationals<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/mlb.mlb.com\/news\/article.jsp?ymd=20110726&amp;content_id=22321374&amp;vkey=news_was&amp;c_id=was&amp;partnerId=rss_was\">acquired<\/a> <strong>Jonny Gomes<\/strong> from the Cincinnati Reds for minor leaguers <strong>Bill Rhinehart<\/strong>, <strong>Christopher Manno<\/strong> and cash (i.e., the Reds are paying part of Gomes&#8217; salary the rest of this year).<\/p>\n<p>Why?<\/p>\n<p>The teams needs, as far as I can tell:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>reliable leadoff hitter<\/li>\n<li>better centerfielder<\/li>\n<li>a more offensively productive shortstop<\/li>\n<li>An ace starting pitcher<\/li>\n<li>2-3 better starting pitchers.<\/li>\n<li>incrementally better relievers, or relievers who don&#8217;t hit the backstop with fastballs.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>No where in that list is there a need for &#8220;yet another backup outfielder&#8221; to go with the slew of them we already have.\u00a0 Don&#8217;t get me wrong&#8217; there is definitely some value in having Gomes on the bench as a right-handed pinch hitting option (since both <strong>Ankiel<\/strong> and <strong>Stairs<\/strong> are lefties).\u00a0 And there&#8217;s some value in having Gomes platoon with his left-handed hitting doppleganger <strong>Laynce Nix<\/strong>.\u00a0 But last place teams don&#8217;t generally spend time on such a small matter.\u00a0 To make matters worse, quotes from Gomes clearly show he&#8217;s disappointed to be traded from the Reds to the Nats, and it may be interesting to see how his attitude plays out the rest of the year.<\/p>\n<p>To me, this trade was solely about getting the supplemental first rounder that Gomes would net if he maintains his type-B FA status.\u00a0 Rizzo <a href=\"http:\/\/www.masnsports.com\/the_goessling_game\/2011\/07\/mike-rizzo-on-jonny-gomes.html\">said as much himself<\/a> when asked about the trade.\u00a0 And I&#8217;m ok with that.\u00a0 The two prospects we gave up were marginal prospects in this team&#8217;s grand scheme; Rhinehart was a good-hitting first baseman, but is a 26yr old in AA and is blocked by the younger, more promising <strong>Chris Marrero<\/strong>.\u00a0 Manno, while certainly a blogosphere favorite, was a 22-yr toiling and putting up dominant numbers in low-A, and his ceiling seemed to be as a matchup-left hander (loogy) at some point in the future.\u00a0 I guess Rizzo thought a 2012 mid 30-s draft pick was worth those two prospects in the long run.<\/p>\n<p>Last question; who makes way on the 25-man?\u00a0 You have to think this is the end of the road for one <strong>Matt Stairs<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday, The Nationals acquired Jonny Gomes from the Cincinnati Reds for minor leaguers Bill Rhinehart, Christopher Manno and cash (i.e., the Reds are paying part of Gomes&#8217; salary the rest of this year). Why? The teams needs, as far as I can tell: reliable leadoff hitter better centerfielder a more offensively productive shortstop An ace [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[336,124,30,149,177,337,129,179],"class_list":["post-2097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-natsgeneral","tag-bill-rhinehart","tag-chris-marrero","tag-christopher-manno","tag-jonny-gomes","tag-laynce-nix","tag-matt-stairs","tag-mike-rizzo","tag-rick-ankiel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2097"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2104,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2097\/revisions\/2104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}