Banks of the Anacostia

New Year's Resolutions

noreply@blogger.com (JammingEcono) — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 21:30:00 +0000

Happy New Year to one and all! As we recover in our own ways from those champagne hangovers, most of us will turn our thoughts to resolutions for 2008. While we can't know that darkness lurks within the minds of the Nats' front office gurus, I'll take a stab at what they should be promising to do with the Nats in '08.

Keep Elijah Dukes on the straight and narrow. I, for one, am ready to believe in the guy until proven otherwise (and this is a good start). If Da Meathook and his other handlers can help him grow up a bit, the Nats will have a very nice bat on their hands, possibly making Kearns expendable in RF.
Let Milledge grow into the CF position. I see very little reason why Milledge shouldn't be allowed to experience some growing pains at CF. The team needs to be patient with his inevitable mistakes in the field at his growing pains at the plate. (It's not like the playoffs are at stake, despite what Ladson thinks.) The potential payoff could put the Church/Schneider trade on par with the Scott Kazmir deal in the annals of Mets infamy.
Don't expect much from Lo Duca. The Dukes and Milledge deals were inspired risks. The LoDuca signing was a snoozer. The best that I can say about it is that the contract is a short one. For the definitive debunking of any illusions there may be about LoDuca's talent, I highly recommend my esteemed colleague's take from a while back at CP.
Sign Kris Benson. I was shocked (SHOCKED!) to see that Benson's career ERA+ is 102. The rotator cuff issue is obviously a huge concern (though reports from his throwing session were good), but that just makes him an affordable risk on a one-year make-good deal. Best-case, you get 150-170 IP and a 4.60-ish ERA that can be dealt at the deadline or turned into a Class B free agent. Worst case, his shoulder blows up again and you waste the $7M is will likely take to sign him and let the kids pitch more. Oh, and insert obligatory Anna Benson = butts in seats JPG here for the benefit of the mouth-breathers. Other interesting names: Josh Towers, Rodrigo Lopez...

Just When You Thought It Was Safe...

noreply@blogger.com (JammingEcono) — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 20:37:00 +0000

Elijah Dukes to the Nats for the well-traveled PTNBL, according to multiple sources.

Not sure how I feel about this one. Obviously the kid has talent, but it's all clouded by the character issues. I'll reserve judgement until I find out who the PTNBL was.

I would guess that the publicized JimBo/Meathook meeting in Tampa with Dukes was something akin to the one JimBo & Co. had with Dmitri last year, e.g. "we want you to be a part of the team and we will give you an opportunity to succeed, but if you screw up, it's adios, jefe."

UPDATE: The PTBNL is LHP Glenn Gibson. Chris has all the details over at CP.

We Just Bamboozled the Mets

noreply@blogger.com (JammingEcono) — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 18:48:00 +0000

Wow, just saw the news. WFAN reporting (and Rosenthal confirming) that the Nats have traded Brian Schneider and Ryan Church to the Mets for Lastings Milledge. I'm going to join with Chris at CP and Brian at NFA in calling this a BIG win for the Nats.

Mets fans are in a tizzy. Tee hee.

More analysis to come later.

Leadoff Hitters

noreply@blogger.com (JammingEcono) — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 13:30:00 +0000

Continuing with my theme of evaluating the free agent market, let's look at what's out there in the market for lead-off hitters. Unfortunately, "true" leadoff men in the classic sense of the word are among the rarest hitters there are. Think Derek Jeter or Ichiro Suzuki as the modern-day prototype and see if you can come up with five other hitters who fit that mold and you'll see what I mean. While such hitters may be rare, they're not (yet) extinct. Here's the qualities (in order of importance) I would look for if I was wearing the GM sombrero:

OBP (You can't steal first)
Speed (The ability to turn a single into a double or go from 1st to 3rd on a hit)
Durability (A problem at the position for the Nats in recent years)
Stolen Bases (Overrated, but still a useful metric.

For the purposes of the Nats, let's add to this that the potential player has to be either an outfielder or second baseman since those are the only two open or potentially open positions on the team at the moment. Obviously, Felipe Lopez has to get traded and Ronnie Belliard has to be a bench bat to open the 2B hole. Since both scenarios are only hypothetical, I'll throw them both into the analysis for context. Lead-off types linked to the Nats in the trade rumor mill are also included. Finally, I'll require than the player batted #1 for more than 100 ABs in 2007 (OK, I fudged a bit on Coco Crisp, so sue me).

Most of the stats are self-explanatory, but I did a little projectifying and came up with the Extrapolated 2B stats which assume 500 ABs for all the players. I did this to account for injuries (Baldelli) and limited playing time in the #1 spot (Crisp) and to better compare the players listed with guys who led off most of the year (Castillo, Lopez). Doubles are a useful way to evaluate speed since a good lead-off man should be able to turn a long single into a double. As with yesterday, the James and Chone average OBP projections may not be terribly reliable since the full 2008 data for the other major projections systems (PECOTA, ZiPS, Marcel, etc.) have yet to be released.

Name	Age (2008 Opening Day)	2007 OBP	2007 SB	2007 CS	2007 Extap. 2B	Bill James OBP (proj.)	Chone OBP (proj.)	Avg OBP (proj.)
Rocco Baldelli	26	.268	4	1	26	.329	.326	.328
Luis Castillo	33	.362	19	6	16	.370	.364	.367
Coco Crisp	28	.330	28	6	37	.335	.338	.337
David DeJesus	28	.351	10	4	23	.361	.358	.360
Darin Erstad	34	.310	7	2	27	.322	.321	.322
Felipe Lopez	27	.308	24	9	22	.336	.329	.333
Nook Logan	28	.304	23	5	22	.313	.301	.307
Kenny Lofton	40	.367	23	7	24	.347	.351	.349
Kazuo Matsui	32	.342	32	4	40	.350	.315	.333
Juan Pierre	30	.331	64	15	23	.343	.333	.338

So what does it all mean? I enjoyed my list so much yesterday let's use it again.

Just because you're fast doesn't make you lead-off material, Nook.

Kazuo Matsui's 2007 numbers are seriously Coors-inflated.

home-away splits

Coco Crisp ain't the answer to lead-off.

David DeJesus and Luis Castillo pass the sniff test.

Bob Dutton

Kansas City Star

similar

As opposed to a potential deal for Andruw Jones, I don't think the Nats can afford to stay put if option #1 (DeJesus) is not on the table. The position isn't essential, but I don't think that we can suffer through another year of a Lopez/Guzman/Logan/Jimenez leading off. Call Castillo a useful Plan B.

Go Big or Go Home on CF Free Agents

noreply@blogger.com (JammingEcono) — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 03:21:00 +0000

Happy Opening Day, everyone! Of course I'm not talking about the real Opening Day, rather Opening Day of the Hot Stove League. As we are 15 days out from the end of the World Series, teams can now officially talk to free agents.

This much is certain: Washington seeks any or all of the following: a middle-of-the-order slugger, a center fielder and a veteran starting pitcher to help provide stability to a young rotation.

Not my words, rather those of Washington Times' Mark Zuckerman today. Sounds like a good offseason priority list to me.

To get me back into the blogging routine, I'm going to spend the next three postings running the numbers of those three player groups. Of course, a CF and a middle-of-the-order hitter aren't mutually exclusive, so don't expect so don't expect me be a stickler about that rule. Today, we'll focus on the CF free-agent candidates, and for kicks, I'll throw in the Nats' in-house CFs for comparison.

Most of the chart below is self-explanatory. For the statistically uninitiated, OPS is On-Base % + Slugging %; RZR is Revised Zone Rating; OOZ is Out of Zone Outs. Evaluating fielding statistics is still a developing art, but RZR and OOZ are two of the better ones, so I'll run with those for our purposes. Just remember to take them with a pinch of salt. H/T to FanGraphs for the Bill James projections, Chone Smith for the eponymous projections, and THT for the RZR and OOZ numbers.

Name	Age (Opening Day 2008)	Bill James OPS (proj.)	Chone OPS (proj.)	Avg OPS	RZR (2007)	OOZ (2007)
Mike Cameron	35	.764	.766	.765	.894	53
Brady Clark	34	.715	.725	.720	.840	5
Jeff DaVanon	34	N/A	.689	.689	.861	5
Darren Erstad	33	.685	.685	.685	.896	19
Steve Finley	44	N/A	.696	.696	.854	4
Jerry Hairston, Jr.	31	.673	.661	.667	.891	9
Torii Hunter	32	.811	.836	.824	.891	47
Andruw Jones	30	.834	.811	.823	.921	80
Kenny Lofton	40	.718	.735	.727	.667	0
Corey Patterson	28	.733	.707	.720	.949	46
Curtis Pride	39	N/A	.588	.588	N/A	N/A
Aaron Rowand	30	.820	.786	.803	.861	69
Brad Wilkerson	30	.804	.771	.788	N/A	N/A
Ryan Church	29	.815	.764	.790	.912	14
Nook Logan	28	.636	.631	.634	.912	42
Justin Maxwell	25	N/A	.615	.615	1.000	1

So what kind of conclusions can we draw from this exercise?

Nook Logan and Ryan Church are both a pretty good center fielders.

Ryan Church is a decent bet to outperform some big-time free agent talent at the plate.

Justin Maxwell may one day be the answer in center field, but it's waaaaay too soon to make that call definitively.

minor league stats

Making a serious run at Andruw Jones makes sense.

Sunday Morning Coffee With the Nats

noreply@blogger.com (JammingEcono) — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 14:27:00 +0000

A couple bits of Nats news this weekend piqued my interest. First off, are the Yanks kicking the tires on Zimmerman? Joel Sherman from the New York Post offers some prognostication:

WANTED - Third baseman HITS - Preferably right-handed with pop to replace Alex Rodriguez and balance a lefty-leaning lineup. ... Ryan Zimmerman would be ideal. But the Yanks have found Washington GM Jim Bowden impossible to deal with even for middle relievers.

Considering Zimm is a cornerstone of the franchise and that the Nats don't have a ready replacement at 3B in the minors, I don't see a deal here either. What I found more interesting was the rumor of talks between JimBo and New York for middle relievers (read: Rauch, Cordero). Please, please, please don't tell me that Johnny Damon is on the Nats' CF shopping list.

Phil Rogers at ChicagoSports.com notes that the Nats could be more concerned about Zimmerman's wrist surgery than had been previously thought:

The Nationals are worried about their terrific young third baseman, Ryan Zimmerman, who had surgery to repair a broken hamate bone in his left wrist, a difficult injury for a power hitter.

I don't read too much in to this. Any time your star player gets cut open you worry, but I'm still putting my faith in the 4-6 week recovery time that Ladson reported on Thursday.

In any case, I'm drinking the dregs of my Chock Full O' Nuts and there's a crib in need of refinishing n my shed, so I'll sign off for now.

Blowing Off the Dust...

noreply@blogger.com (JammingEcono) — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 20:00:00 +0000

Well, it's been another eventful season for our Nationals. As my legions of readers (all two of you) no doubt realized, I've neglected the blog terribly this season. I offer a multitude of reasons for the lack of postings:

A second child (another girl, and cute as a button!).
Other stuff.

That said, I have been been following the Nats as closely as ever this season, just not blogging about them. It's becoming a habit, but at the beginning of the past two season I promised myself that I would do my best to keep up with the daily grind of a 162 game season on the blog. Unfortunately, I've quickly fallen out of the habit in the past two years. I think it just suits my trains of thought more to evaluate and comment on the team once I have a full season's worth of data on which to rely.

With that in mind, I'd like to start my renewed interest in the blog with a look back at my last posting, which sadly occurred more than 7 months ago. In it, I made a bunch of predictions about the then-impending 2008 season. I realize that we're already more than a month into the Nats' offseason and that my esteemed colleagues in the Natosphere have already posted their excellent season roundups. Nonetheless, I consider this my tune-up post, so let's see how I did:

Player most likely to outperform expectations - Not that anyone on this club really has high expectations to live up, of course. That said, I know it's wrong and that he'll just break my heart in the end, but I'll go out on a limb and buy into the spring Guzman hype. .265/.320/.400 for the Guz sounds about right.

Conclusion: Incomplete data. The injured hammy on Opening Day along with the season-ending thumb injury on June 24 resulted in only 174 AB in 2007. While this isn't exactly a Rick Short type of sample size on which to base overblown projections, I think Guz would have likely met or exceeded expectations had he been healthy enough for 400+ AB.

Player most likely to underperform expectations - J-Patt, unfortunately. I just can't see him staying healthy for an entire season. PECOTA projects a meager 95 IP, which I think he'll beat, but I don't think he'll make it to 150 IP. Let's say 115 IP, 4.20 ERA.

Conclusion: Even worse than expected. Recurring injuries limited Patterson to less than 50 IP for the second straight season. At this point, I think he's one more underwhelming performance away from officially deserving the flame-out tag. In the meantime, we get to enjoy the offseason "drama" of weekly updates on J-Patt's recovery. With the Rays in need of starting pitching, I wonder if Bowden hasn't dangled Patterson as part of his rumored interest in oft-injured CF Rocco Baldelli?

Zimm v.2 - No sophomore slump for the pride of Clarendon. .300-25-100, and your starting third baseman for the NL All-Star team (David Wright, who? Miguel Cabrera, wha?)

Conclusion: D'oh! Zimm did indeed undergo a mild sophomore slump, regressing slightly by most offensive measures and in the field (8 more errors than in '06), though he remains a significantly better defensive 3B than league average.

Attendance - The season ticket delivery snafu, the removal of Hard Times Cafe, and a fairly awful team do not attendance records make. Nats fall below 2 million in attendance on the year for the first time since they returned to Washington.

Conclusion: Yahtzee! Admittedly, this wasn't a hard prediction to make, what with the exceedingly low preseason expectations and it being the last year at RFK. For what it's worth, I also think that 2007 will be the last season in a generation that the team will attract less than 2 million fans.

Date when Nook Logan gets replaced in the starting lineup - May 20 vs Baltimore. People who look at that .351 spring OBP and see hope need to take a crash course on why you shouldn't rely on small sample sizes.

Conclusion: Semi-D'oh! Logan did indeed continue starting when he got back from his Opening Day foot strain, but his .265/.304/.345 line in 325 AB did nothing to change my opinion that he doesn't belong in any team's starting lineup, despite the strong defensive showing. He flitted in and out of the starting lineup and never really got going aside from a brief hot stretch in July-August. Needham has the definitive take on the 2007 Nats CF position and I highly recommend it.

Trade deadline moves - Dmitri Young gets traded to the Cubs to fill in for an injured Derrek Lee, giving Casto the playing time he deserves at 1B.

Conclusion: Nuh-uh. Totally off on this one. Meathook blew away everyone's expectations and got a deserved spot on the All-Star team and the NL's Comeback Player of the Year Award. Did he deserve the 2 year/$10M deal? Given the dearth of free agent talent at this position this offseason and the as-yet unknown factor of Nick Johnson's health, I cautiously applauded this deal. In kind of a bass-akwards way, Young's deal also didn't cost the Nats compensation picks, since he barely failed to make the Type B cut in Elias' rankings.

2007 Record - 64-98, 5th place in the NL East. I think Shawn Hill will surprise and Jerome Williams will hold down a spot in the rotation, but I don't expect to see Nick Johnson back before mid-August and the effect of his lost OBP can't be overstated.

Conclusion: Way wrong. 9 games off should be cause for me to hang my head in shame and teach me that it's OK to be a biased fanboy from time to time rather than a stat geek.

So that's it for the first post-season posting. Don't call it a comeback. I never left.

Predications A-Go-Go

noreply@blogger.com (JammingEcono) — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 03:29:00 +0000

While I may have been too busy to post lately, I have certainly found time to keep up with all of the Nats news. Sorry to see Casto get sent down, but I expect him up sooner rather than later.

But more importantly, I am less than 12 hours away from entering the hallowed grounds of Lot 8 for Opening Day festivities. Can't wait! I'll be stopping by MissChatter's tailgate and I'll try to say hello to the gang in Section 320. Looking forward to seeing everyone at the game!

So, since this is my last post before the regular season gets under way, I guess it's time for some predictions for the season:

Player most likely to outperform expectations - Not that anyone on this club really has high expectations to live up, of course. That said, I know it's wrong and that he'll just break my heart in the end, but I'll go out on a limb and buy into the spring Guzman hype. .265/.320/.400 for the Guz sounds about right.

Player most likely to underperform expectations - J-Patt, unfortunately. I just can't see him staying healthy for an entire season. PECOTA projects a meager 95 IP, which I think he'll beat, but I don't think he'll make it to 150 IP. Let's say 115 IP, 4.20 ERA.

Zimm v.2 - No sophomore slump for the pride of Clarendon. .300-25-100, and your starting third baseman for the NL All-Star team (David Wright, who? Miguel Cabrera, wha?)

Attendance - The season ticket delivery snafu, the removal of Hard Times Cafe, and a fairly awful team do not attendance records make. Nats fall below 2 million in attendance on the year for the first time since they returned to Washington.

Date when Nook Logan gets replaced in the starting lineup - May 20 vs Baltimore. People who look at that .351 spring OBP and see hope need to take a crash course on why you shouldn't rely on small sample sizes.

Trade deadline moves - Dmitri Young gets traded to the Cubs to fill in for an injured Derrek Lee, giving Casto the playing time he deserves at 1B.

2007 Record - 64-98, 5th place in the NL East. I think Shawn Hill will surprise and Jerome Williams will hold down a spot in the rotation, but I don't expect to see Nick Johnson back before mid-August and the effect of his lost OBP can't be overstated.

I'd like to finish off this offseason by again giving a hearty applause to my fellow Nats bloggers and assorted denizens of this crazy world we call the Natosphere. You are what makes the long winter bearable. All hail and praise to Chris at Capitol Punishment; MissChatter at JANF; Harper and Co. at OMG; Brian, Scott, and John at NFA; Basil at Federal Baseball; Farid at TBB, Ryan at Distinguished Senators, the Ball Wonk himself; Screech's Best Friend at Nats320; Dave and the crew at Nats Triple Play, Ben and Brandon at The Curly W; Yudites wherever you may be; other Nats bloggers I may have forgotten; and yes, even the homers at BPG. Thanks also to Barry Svrluga at the Post, Mark Zuckerman and Thom Loverro at the Times, Todd Jacobson at the Free Lance-Star, Bill Ladson at Nats.com, and all the other MSM'ers without whom we'd have to rely on rank hearsay and innunendo (not that we don't already).

Finally, a big thanks to everyone that commented or e-mailed me this offseason. While I might not have always agreed with you, seeing those e-mails pop up letting me know that someone had commented always made my day. On more than one occasion what you've written has helped me become a better blogger.

And lastly ...

... let's go Nats!

DC or Bust!

noreply@blogger.com (JammingEcono) — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 22:25:00 +0000

"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to..."

And so ends another Spring in sunny Viera. The Nats officially finished up the Florida portion of their Spring Training, going 0-1-1 versus the Marlins and O's, respectively, today. Most importantly, the team purchased the contract of RHP Jesus Colome, meaning that Kasto will not make the 25-man roster barring a setback in Nook Logan's rehab. I wonder if the Nats medical staff can do something about Nook's acute suckiness while they're working on that strained groin? Probably not, unfortunately. Capitol Punishment has the full roster, if you're so inclined.

Does anyone really take Tom Boswell seriously any more? Today's gem:

In fact, even as the Nationals sign more scouts, minor league instructors and prospects worldwide, they should be ashamed if they don't acquire a star a year, at least, simply by writing a fat offseason check. They've got the money, or soon will, that's for sure.

Farther down in the article, Boz sets a 2010 deadline for finding out whether "The Plan" has been a success. Using Boswellian logic, that means that the Nats should have aquired at least 3 "stars" by then, not to mention the fat check we'll likely be writing to Zimm. While I'm all for increasing the payroll, signing a star for signing's sake is just not the right attitude to take. In the offseason, a team should take what the market dictates. In Bizarro Boz-world, the Nats would give $11M per to whomever assumes the Gil Meche mantle next offseason simply because the team needs a "star."

You want to know why Tom Boswell wants a star? Because it's easier to write about bigs names. It's no fun discussing the minutiae of building a farm system or the shrewdness of netting a high-upside vet cheaply that could bring compensation picks. Hidden deep within the inflated ego of Tom Boswell is a celebrity-obsessed New York sportswriter striving to escape.

Zuckerman seems to be buying into ¡GUZMANIA 2007! Before we go handing the Comeback Player of the Year Award to Guzzie, let's look at his Spring Training stats, thanks to my friends at ESPN (who unfortunately, only keep them back to 2002) and the indispensable B-Ref:

Cristian Guzman's Spring Training/Regular Season AVGs

2002 - .266/.273
2003 - .185/.268
2004 - .263/.274
2005 - .258/.219
2006 - .222/NA (lost after only 9 spring at-bats)
2007 - .425/?

So Guzzie's spring has been his best in at least the last 6 years. Will this translate into the regular season? At 29 years of age, he is in the "prime" of his career, so it's not out of the realm of possibility that he could actually produce at something more than replacement level. That said, let's temper our enthusiasm. His 90th percentile PECOTA projection is .273/.322/.391, so I guess that's something to hope for.

Next up for the Nats are the O's is a date in Columbus tomorrow afternoon. Let's hope that Manny Acta uses the plane ride to think long and hard as to why ABN (anybody but Nook) would be the best option in CF.

Back to the Future

noreply@blogger.com (JammingEcono) — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 17:54:00 +0000

Well, I've almost survived two weeks of work hell, and with Opening Day less than a week away, I figured it was time to rev up the blogging machine again.

I will defer from commenting on the season ticket SNAFU/fustercluck/brouhaha/fiasco since the rest of the Nats blogs have already gone over it with a fine-toothed comb. Suffice to say that I agree with them and am NOT happy that the team, not entering its third, count 'em THIRD season in Washington couldn't get their act together enough to make sure tickets arrived on time. A free beer night to all season-ticket holders would go a long way towards fixing this, Mr. Kasten.

Today's post is more about knocking off of the blogging rust variety rather than offering any radical insights. Still, I would be remiss if I didn't at least touch on some of the more intriguing developments since I last posted oh so many weeks ago:

Broadway sent down, Travis Lee released, Dmitri Young slotted to start - Call me crazy, but I think this is a good move. Young has the best bat of the three and Broadway's anemic slugging this spring (.381 in 21 spring AB) did not bode well for him holding down the 1B job. Young can't really field the position, but hopefully his bat will make up for the balls he lets through. Besides, every team needs a hard-luck guy to root for, so I'll take Young.

Rotation all but set - Today's Ladson article sets Opening Day rotation ... for the first week of the season at least. J-Patt, Shawn Hill, Matt Chico, Jerome Williams, Jason Bergmann are the starting five and Rule 5 pickup Levale Speigner will be the swingman. FWIW, PECOTA projects 21 wins from the 5 starters. Overall PECOTA is a bit more optimistic on the Nats than many national commentators, pegging the Nats as merely terrible at 96 losses, rather than historically bad.

Interest in Cordero still simmering - Throw the Rockies on the pile of soggy, smoldering kindling that is the Chad Cordero hot stove. Rosenthal reported the weak rumor over the weekend, but *shocker!*the Nats are reportedly asking for multiple high-end prospects, a price the Rox are unlikely to meet. Fortunately, the Nats have time on their side. They'll be bad no matter what, and the contenders may be more willing to meet JimBo's price as the season progresses.

That's it for today. When coming back from injury (or time away from blogging), it's best not to overdo it at first. I wouldn't want to strain a thumb or something and have to go back on the DL.

Workload...

noreply@blogger.com (JammingEcono) — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 17:54:00 +0000

Apologies for the lack of postings, everyone. Real life (and deadlines) intrude. Check out my fellow denizens of the Natosphere for much great coverage of the weekend's Nats news.

First Cuts - Nothing to See Here...

noreply@blogger.com (JammingEcono) — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 12:36:00 +0000

As expected, the Nats announced their first cuts of the spring this morning. All the usual suspects carried the story, but here's the list anyway for posterity's sake:

Released: INF Tony Womack

Re-assigned to minor-league camp: INF Tony Blanco, INF Melvin Dorta, OF Wayne Lydon, 1B Jorge Toca, OF George Lombard, RHP Felix Diaz, RHP Anastacio Martinez, RHP Eduardo Valdez, LHP Luis Martinez and LHP Bill White

Optioned to AAA Columbus: OF Frank Diaz

Optioned to AA Harrisburg: LHP Mike Hinckley

56 players remain in the big-league camp with the next cuts expected on March 13.

No real surprises here. The writing was on the wall for Womack when the team signed Belliard and his 0-7, 2K spring performance sealed his fate. None of the position players or pitchers had received any significant playing time and won't be missed. Too bad for Mike Hinckley. Hopefully he'll be able to come back from his 2005 shoulder surgery to reclaim his role as a prospect one of these days.

This n' That

Shawn Hill looked good for the second straight turn yesterday. Right on cue, Nats320 has the inside access with the hurler.

In fact, all the pitchers except for Saul Rivera pitched well yesterday. Another strong year from Rauch could make for an interesting exchange of figures when arbitration time comes around next year (Rauch's first).

The lineup card for today's game has Guzman again at DH, though he played three innings in the field with no problems in yesterday's B game. Svrluga says that he'll start at SS in the major-league game "sometime later this week." Should we be reading something in to his continued limited action at short? Probably not, but it bears watching.

Nook Logan got two hits yesterday! Stop the presses! This raises his line to a whopping .200/.294/.200 in a team-leading 15 AB on the spring. He'll get the start again in CF today, so we'll see if this is the beginning of an upward trend.

The rumor out of Tucson is that the loser of the Rockies' fifth starter battle between Josh Fogg and Byung-Hyun Kim could get dealt. If the pitching doesn't improve for the Nats this spring, JimBo may want to give Dan O'Dowd a call. Fogg in particular, could be an intriguing target. He has averaged 186 IP on his career and will be a free agent for the first time after this season. This makes it more likely that he would reject arbitration and possibly net the Nats compensation picks should he benefit from the spacious confines of RFK. He is due $3.625M this season, though the Rockies are on the hook for at least $600K of that. If nothing else, he'd at least be an innings sponge to provide some protection for the bullpen and the youngsters.

Speaking of rumors, I forgot to note that SI.com's Jon Heyman suggested on Monday that JimBo could be on the hot seat with Chuck LaMar waiting in the wings to step in as GM. I would tend to agree with Heyman's assessment that it's probably nothing, but I figured I'd be remiss is I didn't pass it along.

The Nats today closed the loop on the Andy Dunn resignation by hiring Bobby Williams as the new director of player development. Nationals Farm Authority has analysis.

The Unkindest Cuts Of All

noreply@blogger.com (JammingEcono) — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 17:49:00 +0000

Manny Acta knows it is coming. The players in camp know it is coming. The unwashed blogger rabble know it is coming. Heck, I'd venture to guess that even Tom Boswell knows it is coming (though he will no doubt flip-flop on the issue at some point). The "it" of which I speak is of course first cuts, which will reportedly happen tomorrow.

Herein lays the Catch-22 for Manny Acta. Because the Nationals did not sign reliable free agent starting pitchers this offseason, he was forced to bring in warm arms by the boatload in the hope that four would rise to the top of the heap of has-beens and could-be's that are in camp at the moment. The problem is that despite extra intrasquad and split-squad games, there just aren't enough innings to go around on which to which to base a well-educated decision. There is your Catch-22. Acta had to have a lot of pitchers in camp to have a chance at finding some serviceable arms, but that quantity is exactly what may cause him to miss out on useful parts due to an over-reliance on small sample sizes.

For an idea just how small that sample size is, here's a chart showing the number of pitches each Nationals pitcher has thrown so far through six Spring Training games:

Pitcher	Pitches Thrown
Michalak	29
Van Buren	29
Fruto	28
L. Martinez	27
Traber	25
B. Perez	21
Lewis	20
Wagner	19
J. Williams	19
Bacsik	18
Hall	18
Hanrahan	17
Redding	17
Simontacchi	16
Chico	14
Schroder	12
Hill	11
Bergmann	10
Colome	9
Patterson	9
Bowie	8
Cordero	8
Abreu	6
Diaz	6
Munoz	6
Booker	5
King	5
Rauch	5
Rivera	5

Twenty-nine pitchers have thrown a total of 422 pitches in a Spring Training game this season, an average of 14.6 pitches per player. Compare this to a team like the Red Sox with almost no rotational and few bullpen pitching questions, where 25 pitchers have thrown an average of 19.16 pitches so far. Less than five extra pitches per player may not seem like a lot, but the value of each pitch for a player in Boston's camp is much less than for a Nats pitcher in Viera. In Boston's camp, the majority of the guys know whether they're headed for the farm at the end of March before they even report. At Space Coast, everyone has a shot. Granted, tens, if not hundreds, of pitches thrown in non-game situations (BP, intra-squads, etc.) will be factored into Acta his lieutenants' decisions tomorrow, but I think that the chart is nonetheless illustrative of the small sample Acta will be relying on.

To be clear, the stakes are not all that high for the Nats as a whole. Just because guys like Michalak, Traber, or Josh Hall have performed well so far doesn't mean that they will make the final cut, or if they do, that they won't find themselves back in the minors by the 2nd week of April. Somebody like Jesus Colome or Chris Schroder could get cut tomorrow, do well at Columbus or Harrisburg, and be back at RFK by Memorial Day. In short, despite some spectacularly bad Spring Training performances so far, we will have likely not seen the last of the guys who pack their bags tomorrow.

Still, this is the pitfall in inviting so many people to camp. The possibility that 2-3 strong spring performances will translate into useful regular season innings is just as great as the possibility that one bad spring performance will cause a guy to get cut who could have been a real find.

Could this have been avoided? If the Nats had been willing to devote somewhere in the neighborhood of $10M to signing 2-3 mediocre FA pitchers, then yes. Should it have been avoided? That's a question that's up for debate.

Regardless, the powers-that-be have their first important decision of the spring to make tomorrow. Choose wisely, Manny.

A Short History of "The Plan"

noreply@blogger.com (JammingEcono) — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 17:49:00 +0000

Untold gallons of ink and terabits of silicon have been devoted to discussion, dissection, criticism, and plaudits of "The Plan." With the spring rapidly becoming a (hopefully) forgettable prelude to the regular season (the Nats lost again to the Braves 10-6 as I wrote this), I figured it would be a useful exercise to try to compile a history of "The Plan."

Of course, the biggest problem in determining the exact origins of the term is finding where the concept changed from be just "a plan" to "The Plan ©®™." Further complicating matters is that beyond the bare bones of the idea, just about everyone has a slightly different opinion of just what "The Plan ©®™" actually is. I'll do my best, but I reserve the right to be completely wrong. If anyone feels that I've misrepresented the facts below, please do comment and let me know.

Anyway, let's get started at the macro level. A quick (and thoroughly unscientific) glance at the Nats Google HiveMind yields 72 posts that discuss "The Plan" in some form. Technorati shows 150 posts containing some combinations of "Kasten," "plan," and "nationals." Looking back through the history of the blog postings and trad media articles is like watching the evolution of the Nationals fanbase itself. Nonetheless, I believe that I can pin down the birthplace of "The Plan." Specifically, I believe that this May 10, 2006 Washington Examiner column by our very own Jim Bowden is the "Lucy" moment in the evolution of the Nats' organizational strategy from "plan" to "The Plan ©®™." Here's the quote that started the ball rolling [emphasis below is mine]:

There are three main ways to add good young talent to an organization: First is the amateur draft (where I have been involved in the drafting of such players as Ryan Zimmerman, Adam Dunn, Austin Kearns, Barry Bonds and Moises Alou). Second is international signings as the Braves have proved with Andruw Jones and the Expos did with Vladimir Guerrero. Finally, there’s trading veteran players for young players as described above.

We are working on all three methods to improve this club. That is part of the long-term plan.

Will there be a fire sale?

No.

Have we given up on this team?

No.

However, the Lerner family and incoming team president, Stan Kasten, have made the long-term plan clear. The plan will work. It just takes time, patience and some initially unpopular trades. The course is set. Enjoy watching the process as we build for a bright future for the Washington Nationals.

When this article was first published, most of the major Nats blogs chimed in to comment, though everyone seemed to focus on the trade implications for the team at the time along with a good deal of knee-jerk anti-Bowdenism thrown in for good measure. Remember, this article came at a weird time for the Nats and JimBo, a week after the Lerners had been selected by MLB as the winning bidders, but a couple of months before they officially took control of the team. Bowden was still unsure of whether or not the Lerners would keep him around and so was determined to show his loyalty to Stan Kasten's philosophy. However, I believe that the critics who blasted Bowden for the article missed the most important part of what JimBo was doing. Namely, he was giving form to what would become "The Plan ©®™."

When exactly "the long-term plan" morphed into "The Plan ©®™" is much more difficult to pin down. The best that I can surmise is that debate about what exactly was "the plan" took a back seat to a prolonged mope through the catastrophe that was the 2006 season on the field and the attendant Soriano trade-mania and Frank Robinson death-watch. What is certain is that by the end of November '06, "the plan" was being discussed and analyzed in pretty much the form that we know it now (check the BPG thread related to this Times op/ed, for an example). Chris Needham, perhaps exemplifying his role as a Nats blogging pioneer, was one of the first to capitalize "The Plan" in early December '06 in this comment. That same day, Brian at NFA devoted an entire post the "The Plan." I started to discuss "The Plan" right around the same time. Regardless of who can take credit for being the first to substitute a capital P, "The Plan ©®™" had entered the vernacular of most Nats bloggers on an almost daily basis well before Christmas '06. At around the same time, the battle lines were drawn between the people who were "pro-planners" and those who were "pro-planners, but..." (inaccurately identified as "anti-planners"). I could go deeper into this topic, but the Plan Wars are a topic best left to their own navel-gazing post.

At the end of the day, "The Plan ©®™" is a convenient rhetorical device that encapsulates the rebuilding of the farm and whatever else the user at the time wants it to mean. The efficacy of using "The Plan ©®™" to justify almost any decision made the ultimate jump to the mainstream in late January when Mark Lerner used it in an interview with the Washington Post:

"People will get tired of hearing about 'The Plan,' but it's the truth," Mark Lerner, Ted's son and one of the club's principal owners, said in an interview. "We know we'll get little hits from people who are a little impatient. But we're very enthusiastic. . . . We're not going in [to this season] with a negative attitude. It's quite the opposite."

The question we are faced with as we prepare for what is likely to be a horribly bad 2007 regular season is determining the point at which we start expecting "The Plan ©®™" to begin to pay dividends. What metrics can we base the success of "The Plan ©®™" on going forward? As with so much else regarding the Nats these days, the answer comes from the minor leagues.

If may be a fairly blunt instrument, but I would propose using the win-loss records of the Nationals farm teams, especially in the low minors, as a benchmark. The GCL Nats have finished with below .500 records in each of the past two years. The Vermont Expos/Lake Monsters have finished an average of 19.7 games out of the lead in the NY-Penn League every year since 2002 and has not posted a winning percentage above .400 since 2000. The Potomac Nationals/Cannons franchise made the playoffs once since 1999 and have not finished above .500 at all in that period. In short, as has been well-documented, it's been a pretty ghastly decade so far for the Expos/Nationals farm system.

So what kind of short-term goal can we set for the system? We may not start seeing real star-quality talent come out of the minors until 2009, but until then, the win-loss record of the minor league teams is one indicator of the health of the system, and by extension the success of "The Plan ©®™". If one or more of the low-minor league teams can get above .500 in 2007, for example, it will mean that the overall talent level is increasing.

And if that happy event does come to pass, I'll be able to base my faith in "The Plan ©®™" on more than just Stan Kasten's good name.

Thoughts From the Weekend

noreply@blogger.com (JammingEcono) — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 18:36:00 +0000

While I listened to the Braves pound the Nats this afternoon, I tried to catch up on all the latest Nats news from the weekend that was. In short, Spring Training has been no fun so far. Since Spring Training win-loss recordsdon't mean much (and at 1-4, thank goodness!), let's look at who's impressing and who's not through 5 games:

Good Wood

Ryan Zimmerman - 6-8, slugging 1.125 (!!). I know it's a ridiculously small sample size, but DAYAAAAAM!
Larry Broadway - Apparently getting "goated" on Friday put the fire in Larry's belly. He's certainly making the most of his extended playing time. Funny stat line for him so far this spring: .375 AVG, .375 OBP, .375 SLG through 8 AB.
Ryan Church - If he can't hit the breaking ball, at least he's learning to lay off them. .385 OBP with 3 BB over 10 AB.
D'Angelo Jimenez - Sucking in the field (4 errors), but impressing with the bat (.375/.500/.500 over 8 AB).
Alex Escobar - Another funny stat line that only small sample sizes produce (.429/.429/.429 in 7 AB).
Jesus Flores - Not that we would let him get offered back to the Mets, but he's making the case for Schneider to get some days off here and there (.333/.333/.500).

Suckitude Incarnate

Ronnie Belliard - 9 AB, 1 hit, zero walks. 'Nuff said. He'll still get the backup IF job, but you know...
Nook Logan - 7 AB, zero hits. Two walks is all that saves him from the triple crown of suck. I know it's too soon to drop the "I told you so," bomb, but...
Darnell McDonald - 6 AB of nada (.000/.000/.000).
Abraham Nunez - I thought he had an outside shot at a bench job, but .167/.286/.167 over 6 AB doesn't help the cause.
Cristian Guzman - 5 AB, zero hits, zero walks, 2 strikeouts. If Jimenez wasn't costing us so many runs with his glove, I might suggest that we have a SS position battle on our hands...

While there was some decent news on the hitting side, the pitching has been atrocious. When the most anyone has pitched has been 3 innings so far, it's relatively useless to suggest trends, so take the following with a hefty pinch of salt. Since we know that J-Patt, Rauch, Chief, etc. will be heading north, I'll take a look at some of warm bodies fighting for slots on the 25-man roster.

Nasty in a Good Way

Matt Chico - (3 IP, 1 hit, 2 K, 0 BB) Making a strong case that he should be the young arm in the rotation that Manny Acta said he wanted.
Billy Traber - (2.2 IP, 3 K, 0 BB) Long relief/swing starter

Nasty in a Bad Way*

Mike Bacsik - (1.2 IP, 7 ER, 1 HBP) Eek. I hear Columbus is nice this time of year.
Jerome Williams - (1.1 IP, 4 ER, 2 BB) Probably the biggest disappointment on the pitching side. He'll have to improve in his next turn in the rotation.
Tim Redding - (0.2 IP, 3 ER, 2 BB) Granted, he came in today in relief, but the walks are still troublesome.
Luis Martinez - (2.1 IP, 4 ER, 4 !! BB) See Bacsik, Mike.

*and by "bad," I don't mean "good"

Zimmerman Contract Talks Continue

Multiple sources report continued talks between Ryan "Face of the Franchise" Zimmerman and the Nationals. The Times' Mark Zuckerman noted on Sunday that the team isn't averse to buying out Zimm's arb years and a year or more of free agency to the tune of $50M+. However, no doubt aware of my aversion to such a deal at this early stage in his career (and yes, that is sarcasm you detect), Bill Ladson today reports that the current negotiaions are only for a one-year deal. Giving Zimm a good-faith one year raise (say, somewhere int he neighborhood of $750K) makes much more sense in my book.

That's it, that's all for today folks. Be sure to check out my fine Natmosphere neighbors for more (and no doubt better) analysis of the last few days of Nats news.

Get Used To It, Nats Fans

noreply@blogger.com (JammingEcono) — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 21:04:00 +0000

Nats fall, 7-12 to the Dodgers to open the Grapefruit League. I know that Spring Training games mean relatively little in the grand scheme of things, but why do I feel like this is a preview of what the rest of the year will look like? The Nats offense was good enough, but terrible pitching sunk the ship. "Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy," JimBo was heard to mutter. No word yet on whether he was referring to the game or how he's going to get at the bar tonight. Watching your team give up three unearned runs can do that to a guy...

Since the final result isn't all that important (it was the first game, after all), let's take a look at who impressed and who stumbled:

Gods

Ryan Zimmerman - 2-3, HR (a mammoth 420' shot to center), 3 RBI
D'Angelo Jimenez - 2-2, 2 R, RBI (though 2 errors in the field cost at least a run)
Chirs Michalak - 2 IP, 1 hit, 1 K, 1 BB, 1 R (unearned)

Goats

Larry Broadway - 1-3, 3 LOB
Chris Schroder - 1 IP, 3 ER, 1 HR
¡Fruto! - 0.2 IP, 4 hits, 4 ER, 2 BB, 1 HR

¡Fruto! and Broadway have room for error (admittedly, getting Goated for going 1-3 may be harsh on my part), but Schroder may have just bought his ticket to Columbus. Acta seemed to take the errors in stride, so Jimenez should live to start another day.

And We're Under Way!

noreply@blogger.com (JammingEcono) — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 18:31:00 +0000

And the Nats 2007 Grapefruit League schedule gets under way! W00t! Dodgers up 0-2 after one. I'll have more to write about after the game. In the meantime, head over to MissChatter's abode where she's live-blogging the game. You go, girl!

Last Day of School

noreply@blogger.com (JammingEcono) — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 17:56:00 +0000

Remember those last few days of high school before summer break? Getting up at 6:00 AM was made a little easier by the fact that you could drive to school with the windows down and watch the dew steam off the pine trees on the road from home to school. Generally, I'd be done with the hardest final exams and have only a couple of easy one left, leaving me lots of time to daydream about the coming summer beach party season. When the final bell of the afternoon would ring at 3:35 PM I would be blessedly into the warm glow of a June afternoon that made life even better.

The last few days before spring training get under way are kind of like that for me. I know that good stuff is coming soon, but I can't help but try and envision how it's all going to go down as the spring unfolds.

At least, we have our intrepid beat writers to keep feeding us tasty nuggets of tantalizing Grapefruit League information. Thanks to our boys in Viera, we can bring you the lineup for tomorrow's Grapefruit League debut:

Felipe Lopez -- 2B
D'Angelo Jimenez -- SS
Ryan Zimmerman -- 3B
Austin Kearns -- RF
Ryan Church -- LF
Alex Escobar -- DH
Brian Schneider -- C
Larry Broadway -- 1B
Nook Logan -- CF

Starter: Shawn Hill (for 45 pitches or so) to be followed by Chris Michalak, Luis Martinez, Felix Diaz, Jesus Colome, and Emiliano Fruto.

Only in Spring Training would you let the other team know what pitchers to expect when. Guzman won't make the trip. One has to wonder how his rehab from shoulder tendonitis is progressing. Speaking of Guzzie, his .750 AVG actually worries me. If Cristian Guzman and Nook Logan can tee off against Nats pitching, I shudder to think what real batters will do against our pitchers.

Zimmerman Contract Talks?
Svrluga brings news today about the RZA's contract situation:

Third baseman Ryan Zimmerman remains the team's only unsigned player. Because Zimmerman has less than three years of service time, the club could renew his contract, which paid him the major league minimum of $327,000 in 2006, if a new deal isn't struck before March 11, per terms of the collective bargaining agreement.
That, however, is unlikely, and there are signs the two sides are considering a multi-year deal for Zimmerman that would solidify his status as the face of the franchise -- a significant statement for a player who isn't eligible for arbitration until after 2008. General Manager Jim Bowden and President Stan Kasten declined to comment Wednesday on such negotiations. Bowden, Kasten and Zimmerman's agent, Brodie Van Wagenen of Creative Artists Agency, will all be here this weekend. [emphasis mine]

As I wrote a few weeks ago, I think that signing Zimm to a multi-year based on one year of data however good it was) may be premature. I'm sticking with that statement for now. Dissenting opinions abound, however, so feel free to make your own decision.

You Gotta Start Somewhere
Tim Dierkes over at the esteemed MLBTradeRumors.com today previews the 2007 Nats. His prediction for the Opening Day rotation? Patterson, Williams, Redding, Hill, B. Perez.

Speaking of starting from ground zero, the good Senator has a great post up today which admires, albeit grudgingly, the honesty coming out of the front office in justifying the miserly offseason spending this year.

Smoke and Mirrors
After re-reading JimBo's quotes in the Loverro piece yesterday, the following statement set off a late B.S. alarm in my head:

"The (major league payroll) budget was a lot lower this year than before. But that was a baseball decision. We certainly could have gone out and spent, let's say $9 million, on three pitcher who would do a better job of keeping us in games or gone and got one Gil Meche for $10 million a year. But we said, how is that investment going to get us a world championship? How do we get that if we do it that way? If you take the three $3 million guys, at the end of the year, you don't get a draft pick, because you can't offer them arbitration because they would get $8 million or $9 million."

This reminded me of a quote that Bowden gave in his interview with Screech's Best Friend from Nats320 back in January:

"OK, but if the quality of pitcher you are going to get for that $3 million is: WHO, ON THE MARKET? There is not going to be a draft pick for Ramon Ortiz. He got $3 Million (with Minnesota). There is not going to be a Draft Pick for Tomo Ohka, who just got $1.5 (million) plus $1.5, $3 Million total. There is not going to be a Draft Pick for David Wells, who got $3 plus (million). There is no compensation there, zero, because no one is going to offer arbitration. So, you are going to spend the money and that’s all you are going to have for it (nothing). You don’t get a pick at the end of the year, after you pay the money. You can’t offer Ortiz arbitration, you would end up spending $7-8 Million. You can’t offer arbitration to Ohka (Milwaukee), they didn’t. They didn’t offer arbitration to Wells. These guys that are signed, look at the facts, the teams are not getting picks for those guys, that are left at the bottom of this free agent market."

Continuing in that vein, specifically with regards to why the team did not offer arbitration to Ramon Ortiz:

"If he (Ortiz) was arbitrated, our attorneys, in house, as well as, the people we consult with, when you look at all he did, he would have had the case for $7 to $8 Million. Gil Meche got $10 (Million per season from Kansas City). He (Ortiz) is going to arbitration, because of innings pitched, he’s going to get $7 to $8, if we offered him arbitration. We did not think he was worth that type of money. So, we did not offer him arbitration. So there is no compensation there. Yet, we got a pick for (Jose) Guillen (shrewdly realizing Jose was definitely signing with Seattle).

I may be reading this wrong, but it sure seems to me like an awful lot of the decision not to sign 2nd-tier starting pitchers this offseason were made because of what the in-house attorneys said that Ortiz would have gotten at arbitration. Back in December, JimBo started singing this tune to defend the decision not to offer arbitration to Ortiz. As NFA mentioned back then, the idea that the team could have offered arb to Ortiz (a Type B free agent who would have returned draft picks) as part of a hand-shake agreement where Ortiz would agree not to accept is not unheard of. How did the team's attorneys arrive at that $8M figure in the first place? Furthermore, how can the team reconcile legal advice that said that Ortiz would get $8M in arbitration with his eventual decision to sign a 1 year/$3.1M deal with the Twins? I smell some bad legal advice that may have cost the team a draft pick.

Cordero Interest Cooling?

noreply@blogger.com (JammingEcono) — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 18:04:00 +0000

I goofed yesterday by not passing along this interesting opinion on Cordero's trade possibilities from Ken Rosenthal:

At first glance, the Nationals' Chad Cordero appears to be an ideal trade target — he is young, turning 25 next month, and accomplished, with 90 saves in his first three seasons. But officials from two clubs in need of late-inning relief express doubt that Cordero is a long-term solution.
The biggest complaint with Cordero is his lack of overpowering stuff. His workload — an average of 77 innings the past three concerns — is another concern. Cordero is universally admired for his moxie, but rival clubs say the Nationals' asking price — two high-end pitching prospects — is too high.

I'm flummoxed to explain why teams routinely discount the Chief because of his alleged lack of "stuff." Admittedly, he's not a prototypical flame-throwing closer in the mode of Billy Wagner or Eric Gagne (the 2002-04 version). Cordero primarily relies on a low 90's fastball that he commands well and an excellent slider. Call him Trevor Hoffman without the changeup. As with Hoffman, despite the lack of a 95+ mph fastball, Cordero is extremely effective. I think his home run spike last season was a fluke, as most of his other peripherals did not rise noticeably, but that is apparently the biggest warning flag (along with JimBo's high price) that are keeping teams away. His workload so far in the majors has certainly been higher that in college and the minors, but he has yet to have a major injury. What's not to like? Sons of Sam Horn had an excellent thread on the topic a while back. If you can filter through the b.s. posts there's some good stuff in there.

Simontacchi Impressive
Game 2 of the Intrasquad Series is under way and the Reds are beating the (Black and) Blue senseless -- 6-0 as of Savalags's last update. Most importantly, Simontacchi was impressive, throwing 2 perfect innings. Move him up a notch in your "guess the Nats rotation" office pools. Redding was decidedly unimpressive (2 IP, 1 ER, 1 BB). Did anyone else cringe when they read "Snelling hit by a pitch,"? Fortunately, it appears he is OK.

Nook Logan hit a home run. Something tells me that I won't be writing that very often this year.

[UPDATE: Zuckerman nicely wraps things up from today's game. Nice to see Jerome Williams impress. I wouldn't read much into Guzzie's 3-5 performance over the past two days.]

JimBo Saying All the Right Things
~~Zuckerman~~ Loverro pulled out some second-string quotes from an old interview with Jim Bowden. As Zuck noted, Bowden's most impressive line was the following:

"We could have spent the money on a higher payroll, but we want to compete with any team in baseball in going after that best young talent in the world. We want to be big market, and we are big market right now. We are going to be able to sign all of our draft picks. We will be able to compete for another Smiley Gonzalez. We can compete with anybody in that arena right now, with our budget." [emphasis mine]

Does this mean that the reason the team was not able to sign Sean Black was a lack of funds? The decision was sold to us as being due to Black's insistence on being paid $400K above slot, not a lack of funds on the Nats' part.

Acta-Mania Spreading Nationwide
Uber-M's blog U.S.S. Mariner is the latest out-of-town blog to pick up on the fact that Manny Acta is likely to be a pretty good manager. Speaking of the Mariners, I hear that they are shopping 25 year-old CF Jeremy Reed. When the Nats finally come to the realization that Nook Logan is not the answer in CF, Reed could be an excellent find.

What the experts say on Reed:

TSN.ca: Reed is an excellent contact hitter who hits line drives and burns up the bases. He plays hard and has occasional power. He still has some work to do on his defensive game in center. They'd like to see a little more power out of him and he has big trouble against southpaws. Career potential: Can be a solid everyday center-fielder.

FoxSports.com: Reed makes contact easily with a line-drive stroke that sprays balls to all fields. He has good gap power, hits lefties successfully and consistently totals more walks than strikeouts. Reed is a good outfielder with a solid arm, and he may have enough speed to play center. That still isn't certain, as Safeco Field has a big outfield, but Reed has tremendous instincts, which may make up for his lack of pure speed. He still needs to fine-tune his jumps and angles on balls hit his way.

Reed's 2007 Projections:

PECOTA: .266/.333/.399
Bill James: .274/.335/.413
CHONE: .275/.337/.408
Marcel: .262/.327/.398
ZiPS: .262/.335/.393

Average NL CF: .264/.335/.418

Bodes already snookered the M's once this offseason, why not make it a two-fer?

Natmospherics

Capitol Punishment expresses a sentiment I've felt all too often.
OMG offers yet another take on John Patterson's career and 2007 prospects. If J-Patt again breaks down this season, one has to think that the team would give some thought to sending him to the bullpen to lessen the strain. "The Big Nasty" sounds a lot more apt for a closer than a starter anyway, doesn't it?
MissChatter's doing a much better job of "live"-blogging these games than I am.
Mike at NationalsPride.com has been doing a bang-up job lately with his series of position breakdowns. Good stuff.
Basil discusses the awesomeness of Roger Federer and the crusty ball of suck that is Murray Chass.
Farid takes another stroll down memory lane. I can die happy now that I know who "Morganna the Wild One" is.
Only a stock market crash can give the Nats a break from Screech's Best Friend.

Intrasquad Madness!

noreply@blogger.com (JammingEcono) — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 14:42:00 +0000

Kudos to St. Barry for getting the lineups for today's intrasquad games. Here they are:

Intrasquad away team:
Felipe Lopez, 2B
Nook Logan, CF
Ryan Zimmerman, 3B
Austin Kearns, DH
Brian Schneider, C
Michael Restovich, RF
Larry Broadway, 1B
D'Angelo Jimenez, SS
Chris Snelling, LF

Intrasquad Home:
Tony Womack, SS
Ronnie "Not Rafael" Belliard, 2B
Kory Casto, 3B
Alex Escobar, DH
Ryan Church, LF
Abraham Nunez, CF
Jorge Toca, 1B
George Lombard, RF
Jesus Flores, C

Hanrahan and Chico will start, though no word yet on who will pitch for which team.

Biggest omission - Cristian Guzman, who is still recovering from shoulder tendinitis. Also, Dmitri Young and Tony Batista stay in accelerated minor league training camp rather than getting the start. Also, Toca gets the nod at 1B instead of Travis Lee. Perhaps they'll get a shot off the bench?

Actual games are here. Can't wait to see the results.

UPDATE: Svrluga is semi-live-blogging the game here. Chico and Beltran Perez getting bombed. Get used to reading that Nats fans.

Rotational Thinking

noreply@blogger.com (JammingEcono) — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 17:26:00 +0000

Not much news Nats-wise this weekend. Since the snow here in Arlington completely screwed up our house shopping, I figured it was as good a time as any to produce a rare weekend post. The most interesting recent Nats developments to me have been the various innuendos from the beat writers and team sources about which pitchers are impressing. Most notably, Acta finally released his rotation for the upcoming intrasquad and Grapefruit League games. According to the Times' Mark Zuckerman:

Tuesday (intrasquad game): Joel Hanrahan vs. Matt Chico, with Beltran Perez, Jason Bergmann, Bill Hall, Winston Abreu and Emiliano Fruto among those pitching in relief.
Wednesday (intrasquad game): Jerome Williams vs. Tim Redding, with Jason Simontacchi, Colby Lewis, Mike Bacsik, Chris Booker, Mike Hinckley and Levale Speigner among those coming out of the bullpen.

Friday (Grapefruit League opener vs. Dodgers): Shawn Hill starting, followed by Chris Michalak and others.

Saturday (vs. Orioles): John Patterson starting.

Now, as The Beltway Boy himself ably pointed out, just because someone looks good in spring training doesn't mean they're going to be worth much in the regular season. That said, given the wide-open nature of the Nationals' rotation, this kind of news carries a bit more weight that in would for, say, the Yankees. It's still far too early to tell, though every journalist and blogger who's been down in Viera seems to have one or two pitchers who the think are standing out from the rest. Without some game-situation data to go on, however, I'm not ready to predict a rotation. What is especially interesting from Zuckerman's list is that guys like Simontacchi and Colby Lewis, who I had thought would be starting rotation options, will be coming out of the bullpen. Granted, with dozens of guys competing for rotation spot, 6 starting slots in the 4 upcoming games, don't leave much room, so you can only read those particular tea leaves so much.

Is Zimmerman's power developing? Svrluga certainly seems to think so. Keep an eye on how many of his doubles turn in to homers as the Grapefruit league unfolds. Most of the projection systems see him as a consistent mid-20's home run guy for his career. I wouldn't be surprised to see him outperform that.

Some Respectful Disagreement
I'd like to address a comment that Capitol Punishment's Chris Needham left on Friday's post. Essentially, Chris took issue with my agreement with Baseball Prospectus's Christina Kahrl that it would be a good idea for Felipe Lopez to shift to center field, have D'Angelo Jimenez play short instead of Guzman, and start Belliard at second.

First of all, infielders make successful transitions to the outfield all the time. Cases in point that jump immediately to mind: Alfonso Soriano (2006) and Craig Biggio (2003-04). Second, Jimenez isn't necessarily a bad fielder and he played games at shortstop as recently as last season. It would have been more accurate for Chris to say that he hasn't been a regular starter at short in 6 years.

Most important, however, is Chris's suggestion that Jimenez would hurt the team more at short than either Guzman or Lopez. This is an interesting argument that bears further analysis. Allowing for all the caveats that go with using defensive metrics, here's a comparison of Lopez, Guzman, and Jimenez's career numbers at shortstop:

	Fielding %	Zone Rating	RATE2
Lopez	.959	.817	90
Guzman	.972	.808	96
Jimenez	.954	.805	94

The chart requires a bit of explaining. First off, fielding % is a bit of a misleading statistic, and I included it in the chart as a way to illustrate why it is easy to label Jimenez as a sub-par SS with the glove versus Lopez or Guzman. Fielding percentage is calculated as the sum of putouts plus assists divided by total chances. The Wikipedia entry on the statistic does a good job of explaining why this is not a very reliable statistic:

While a high fielding percentage is regarded as a sign of defensive skill, it is also possible for a player of lesser defensive skill to have a high fielding percentage, as it does not reflect or take into account a player's defensive range; a slow-footed first baseman, for example, might have a high fielding percentage simply because he rarely drops a thrown ball or makes an errant throw. Likewise, a relatively slow outfielder might have a high fielding percentage even though he doesn't reach many of the fly balls which a faster player would catch. Conversely, a highly skilled fielder might have a comparatively low fielding percentage by virtue of reaching, and potentially missing, a greater number of balls.

I included Zone Rating and RATE2 to show that while specific defensive metrics have differing results for each of the three players, all three are fairly comparable (and below average) at the position.

I don't think it takes a sabremetric analysis to conclude that Lopez is a better hitter than Nook Logan. As the two examples I cited above illustrate, replacing Logan with Lopez in center would not necessarily be a defensive disaster in the making. Yes, Lopez is probably not as good with the leather as Logan, but I believe that Lopez's greatly superior offense would offset the defensive loss at the position. As I mentioned on Friday, most projections agree that Jimenez is likely to outperform Guzman at the plate by a significant degree. Furthermore, by adding Belliard to the starting lineup at 2B, you further ameliorate the losses of Logan and Guzman from the batting order.

Finally, I hate to put a lot of stock in these "clubhouse cancer" allegations. I certainly saw the press about his difficulties in Cincinnati, but then again Jose Guillen came to DC with a similar label and mostly behaved. Soriano was on the verge of getting the dreaded "CC" label last season, but that got worked out. I have high hopes that Manny Acta will be able to bring a good deal of chemistry to the team and deal effectively with its varied personalities.

To summarize, here are the basic planks of my argument:

1) Replacing Guzman with Jimenez at SS would not be a big drop-off defensively.
2) Replacing Nook Logan with Lopez in CF would, but...
3) A lineup that replaced Guzman's and Logan's bats with Belliard and Jimenez would end up as a net-plus when the runs created minus runs allowed are calculated.
4) "Clubhouse cancers" are benign until proven malignant and Acta is a hell of a doctor.

Discuss amongst y'selves.

How Much Leash Will Nook Get?

noreply@blogger.com (JammingEcono) — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 18:00:00 +0000

As usual, Manny Acta's press conference today was full of interesting little tidbits of insight into his thinking thus far. While he didn't give a lot away, he mentioned that Shawn Hill, Jason Simontacchi, and Jon Rauch had impressed him in the limited amount of time he's been able to devote to watching them. Rauch was assured of heading north with the team already, so I'll use Acta's comments as support to move Simontacchi and Hill from "who knows?" to "on the bubble," as far as making the 25-man roster.

What I found most intriguing was Acta's frank admission that Nook Logan's primary asset is his speed, which translates into good fielding, bunting, and base stealing, not hitting. Refreshingly absent was a Boswell-esque reliance on meaningless phrases like "he's a switch-hitter," as if that carried any weight. As has been made abundantly clear, Logan can't hit. He never has been able to hit. And his brief flashes of non-suckiness (if I have to hear how he's a .322 RH hitter one more time...) only serve to highlight how unremarkable his bat has been.

Which leads me to a question. Just how bad with the bat does Nook have to be before Acta realizes that his offensive ineptitude isn't outweighed by his speed? What if he hits .260 but stays at his career OBP of .319? Would a Guzman-esque .230 AVG get him to pull the plug? I guess I just wonder if Acta has told Nook that he must hit for X AVG and Y OBP in order to remain in the starting lineup.

Following on the heels of that runaway train of thought for a moment, Christina Kahrl at Baseball Prospectus (subscribe today!) had some interesting thoughts regarding the Nats position players yesterday. Considering the likelihood that Guzman will not continue to start whether due to ill health and/or offensive stinkiness, Ronnie Belliard is likely to eventually get the starting nod at second when Lopez gets shifted over the short. Unfortunately, as was made painfully obvious last season, Lopez cannot play short (tops in the NL in errors at the position last year). To address this problem, Kahrl offers an interesting solution that I hadn't seen discussed before. Noting that Logan doesn't have the bat to hold down a starting gig, she suggests shifting Lopez to center and putting an actual productive bat in the form of D'Angelo Jimenez at short. An added benefit of this move would be to solidify Ryan Church's spot in left field, a position much more suited to his defensive skill set. While Lopez has never played the outfield in his career, I suspect that he would thrive there even given the more defensively-focused nature of the CF position.

Would Jimenez be a better bet at short than Guzman though? You bet, say the projections:

	Guzman	Jimenez
PECOTA	.245/.288/.339	.243/.339/.377
Bill James	.258/.299/.366	.257/.354/.370
CHONE	.249/.296/.354	.256/.354/.380
Marcel	.253/.301/.371	.260/.349/.390
ZiPS	.240/.279/.327	.246/.333/.352

Furthermore, PECOTA predicts a -0.6 VORP for Guzman versus a 6.0 for Jimenez. While all of the projection systems obviously penalize Guzman severely for his injury history, I don't doubt that a healthy Jimenez would outperform a healthy Guzman. Their AVG is nearly identical, but Jimenez beats him hands down on OBP and SLG.

Oh course, if Guzman is healthy but sucks, it could set up an interesting battle in the front office as Acta tries to make the case to bench him while JimBo wouldn't want to sit the $8.4M left on that contract.

Can't wait for the intrasquad games next week!

Chalk It Up To An "Oversight"

noreply@blogger.com (JammingEcono) — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 17:54:00 +0000

There are grown men running around and throwing, catching, and hitting balls in Viera and occasionally eating Boston Market, right now. There are other grown men (and women) writing about them. Still others are engaged in their usual flip-floppery.

This is all well and good, but I can't let it distract me from the scandal (OK, mild brouhaha) gripping the nation's capital (OK, probably just me) today. What scandal is this, you say? Namely, Chalkgate:

The Washington Nationals baseball team put down illegal chalk advertisements on sidewalks in the District of Columbia this morning.
One such advertisement at the corner of Connecticut and K Streets urges passersby to “pledge allegiance” to the Nationals.

The local (Oregon, actually) do-gooders wasted no time in adding their two cents:

"This corporate graffiti is offensive and intolerable," said Gary Ruskin of Commercial Alert. "We urge Mayor Fenty to investigate the defacement of our streets with advertising, and punish wrongdoers to the extent the law allows. It is important to teach out-of-control advertisers to respect our public spaces and places."

So, non-corporate graffiti is urban art while corporate graffiti is "defacement." Yes, that makes total sense. Anyway, cue the bureaucrats in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...:

[DC DoT spokesman Erik] Linden said that under DC Municipal Regulation 24-104.9 (“Advertising device on sidewalk”) the company can be fined $150 per violation.

The Nats front office, alerted to the potential for MASSIVE profit reduction from the fines (no doubt to be compensated with reduced payroll) quickly jumped into action:

Washington Nationals spokesperson Chartese Burnett said that there was an “oversight” and that the ads are being removed this morning.

I didn't get down to Connecticut and K this morning to check out the situation, but I'm sure that the hordes of Commercial Alert protesters were out in force showing their displeasure.

FYI, there is no truth to the rumor that the sidewalk graffiti stunt was "Option B" after the Nats rejected Massivemedia's proposal to put likenesses of Ryan Zimmerman and Cristian Guzman fashioned out of Lite-Brite on the 14th Street Bridge.

UPDATE: I almost forgot to add my daily trade rumors. Or, in this case, non-rumors. According to Svrluga this morning:

It's likely Cordero will continue to be targeted by clubs who enter spring training without a closer, namely Boston. But one Nationals official said Wednesday he didn't expect Cordero to be traded, adding that the club hasn't wavered on its asking price -- young, high-end starting pitching.

Once Boston realizes what a gawd-awful closer mess they've gotten themseles in to, I fully expect them to become more amenable to a deal. Whether that deal is with the Nats for Cordero, the Rangers for Otsuka, or some other as-yet-unnamed club remains to be seen.

The other interesting trade news is really just historical in nature. FRobby apparently put the kaibosh on a Joey Eischen trade last season, according to Jim Hawkins with the Royal Oak (MI) Daily Tribune:

Still, the Tigers figure Eischen is worth the gamble. He will make $700,000 this year, with a chance to earn a $400,000 bonus - provided he makes the team.

"As far as what I'm getting paid, I'm one of the great deals in baseball," Eischen said. "Fifty-percent off."

According to Eischen, the Tigers tried to trade for him last spring, but Washington manager Frank Robinson "nixed it."

Classic Eischen line there. Of course, why Robinson would have nixed an offer, ANY offer, for a guy with a torn rotator cuff on the cusp of free agency is beyond me. Have I mentioned how much I like Manny Acta lately?

[UPDATE (2) : You MUST check out this video of Jim Bowden mock-choking WUSA-9's Brett Haber. Destined to be a YouTube classic for years to come. H/T's to David for the tip and DMCj for the link.]

Extorting Ronnie

noreply@blogger.com (JammingEcono) — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 23:25:00 +0000

The signing of presumed utility IF (and de facto GUZMANIA replacement) Ronnie Belliard this week added another bit of off-the-field drama to the Nats clubhouse, thanks to his involvemnet in an ongoing federal extortion case. Belliard's brush-off of questions yesterday and today about the episode perked my antennae. Since there's not much else going on of note, I figured it would be a worthwhile research project to look back at how this case has developed and what effect (if anything) it could have on the Nats going forward.

Short version -- It's all reeeaaaallly shady.

Long version -- It's bad hooj, man. Bad hooj. A big hat-tip to Robert Patrick at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch who tracked down the affidavit that the FBI investigator on the case gave detailing how it all went down:

Laura Edwards and the athlete had an "encounter" on Sept. 29 and she left messages for him in late October or early November. He had a friend call back. That friend's message was returned by George Edwards [her father], who met with the friend and said his daughter was pregnant and wanted money.
The friend offered several thousand dollars. Later in November, a sports agent worked out a deal to pay $25,000 for a paternity test, and $125,000 more if the child was the athlete's.
George Edwards and a different sports agent met Jan. 5 at a hotel near Lambert Field, where the agent gave George Edwards $25,000 cash.
George Edwards called the second agent Jan. 10 with word of a miscarriage. He allegedly said he would not go to the press or file a legal claim, in exchange for the additional $125,000.
Investigators recorded several of the phone calls. On Jan. 11, the second agent called George Edwards and agreed to pay the $125,000 if Laura Edwards signed an affidavit promising to never disclose the relationship. George Edwards agreed not to notify the media directly or through his lawyer.
On Jan. 16, the agent called George Edwards again, demanding Laura Edwards' presence at a meeting the next day to exchange the $125,000. Recordings and videotapes were supposed to be turned over as well.
George Edwards balked, and the meeting was never held.

That "athlete" was identified on February 3 as Belliard thanks to a leak from George Edwards' brother Milo to the Post-Dispatch. "I want his name in the paper like my family's name is in the paper," Milo Edwards was quoted as saying in the article. He further accused Belliard of twisting the story.

Belliard's agent, Dominic Torres, issued a wide-ranging denial of Edwards' version of events that same day:

"The events as they are told are completely unfounded. I have been working with the FBI from the onset in an attempt to apprehend this known extortionist and his daughter. In the end, my client will be vindicated and due to the continuing legal nature of this case, I have no further comments at this time."

Incidentally, MO Boiler from Cards blog The Birdwatch had the best reaction to the whole thing:

Belliard, incidentally, went 0-for-4 with a K on September 30. Must've been a hell of an "encounter".

While I wouldn't put it past a pro athlete (or anyone, for that matter) to cheat on his wife, that's no excuse for extortion. I'm all for letting the judicial process play out, but I'm also inclined to give Belliard's version of events the benefit of the doubt in this case.

Why, you ask? To be clear, George Edwards is no saint. A former demolition chief for the East St. Louis Tax Increment Finance Department, he was convicted of federal drug and weapons charges in 1983 and was charged with transporting stolen goods in 1993, though the latter charges were later dropped. At the time of his arrest in late January of this year, Edwards was still on parole due to the '83 conviction. While he was on parole, he tested positive for morphine, codeine and marijuana, according to court records. He has a record of arrests on drug charges in Illinois, California and Georgia dating to 1979. All these were reasons that the judge in the current case refused bond for Edwards.

If convicted of the extortion charges, Edwards could face 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

So what does this mean for the Nats? Aside from perhaps having to miss a game or two testify in the case, probably not very much on face. How the trial and any family issue it has caused affects his mental state is a different animal altogether. Based on his reluctance to talk to the media (mainstream media or otherwise) about this, it's obviously still on his mind. Let's hope that all of this wraps up quickly so that Belliard and his family can start healing, put this ugly incident behind them, and allow the newest Nat to focus on baseball.

This Is Not A Football Team

noreply@blogger.com (JammingEcono) — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 17:58:00 +0000

The good vibrations just continue to flow out of Viera, don't they? The various and sundry wise men apparently all chose today to wax rhapsodic about how hope springs eternal for the Nats on the first day of full-squad workouts. Personally, what makes me happier about the prospects for this season is when I hear Manny Acta say smart things like these gems from today's press conference:

"The stats, they're all and fine. I mean, they don't lie but I need enough of it to back me up. ... If I have enough data, let's say over twenty, over thirty, a hundred sometimes you have access to all of that then I can go by the stats, because they don't lie. I mean, it's been proven to me that a guy from first base with no outs has a better chance to score than a guy from second base with one out. That's been proven to me with millions of at-bats. So I don't like moving guys over from first to second unless there's a pitcher up or it's real late in the game. ... Top of the lineup guys will bunt, bottom of the lineup will bunt in those types of situations. ... I'm telling you right now you're not going to be seeing me bunting guys from first to second in the middle of the games or early unless it's the pitcher. ... I'll be straight up to you guys, I'm not going to be running all over the place just so 20-25,000 people in the stands are saying that I'm aggressive while people are getting thrown out on the bases."

Did I mention that I like Manny a lot? This kind of sound logic based on historical baseball data about how best to score runs is a refreshing change from Frank Robinson's obsolete by-the-gut managing. Give credit to Boswell that he can take off his rose-colored glasses regarding Frank for a minute to objectively evaluate his failures as a manager in the 21st century game:

As for strategy, he [Robinson] was still in the '60s. In 21st-century baseball, he was a hunch-playing day trader going up against a hedge-fund quantitative analyst with seven computers.

Cordero Watch

Still no word this morning on the outcome of the Chief's salary arbitration hearing. According to Ken Wright at the Times, we should hear something "sometime today." Gotta love all those great details the Nats front office puts out there, don't you? By way of an update on my update yesterday, the Sox are saying that co-owners John Henry and Tom Werner were "simply having fun" with their exchange yesterday in which they suggested that the team had settled on a closer. Ah, 'tis the life of a rumor-monger to get excited over little things that turn out to be nothing. Stan McNeal from The Sporting News today opines that the Rangers' Akinori Otsuka could be an option for the Boston closer job if Eric Gagne can prove that he's back. He also notes that the Nats "appear to be in no hurry" to trade Cordero.

[UPDATE: Hail to the Chief. JimBo's final arb record for the year is 1-1, according to the Post. Cordero will get $4.15M this season.]

Prospect-less Watch

Baseball Prospectus' Top 100 prospects list came out today and (surprise, surprise), the Nats only managed to get one name on the list - 1B/3B/OF Chris Marrero. *Sigh* Fortunately, Nats fans should be able to look forward to better days when we could get *gasp!* TWO names (or more, perish the thought) on the list thanks in part to the team's new relationship with the Tabasco Olmecas Baseball Club of the Mexican Summer League. The agreement apparently increases the Nats' scouting resources in Mexico, which is never a bad thing. I also wonder if the deal gives us access to any of the prospects that have played down there. Their roster is nothing much to look at, but one name that popped out to me was 24-year old RHP Vinicio Gonzalez. He looked good in the 2006 regular season, sporting a 3.24 ERA, 1.36 WHIP over 122 IP, though his 5.75 K/9 was nothing to look at. He struggled in the Mexican Winter League (5.09 ERA/1.63 WHIP) and in the 2005 regular season (5.35 ERA/1.65 WHIP) so there may be nothing there. Still, it bears at least adding him to the watch list to see if he improves on his 2006 regular season numbers.

Natmospherics

Ball Wonk brings the snark yet again and suggests that Jerome Williams and Tim Redding have the inside track on rotation slots.
Capitol Punishment gives props where props are due to the Nationals front office for responding to the blogs regarding a snafu with the $100 20-game package. True 'dat.
The Honorable One concurs with the prevailing opinion regarding the Belliard signing (i.e. it's a good thing) and hopefulness for Dmitri Young to turn things around.
Basil suggests that Young needs to put the past behind him and focus on the present. The distraction issue that he brings up is one that concerns me as well. This will be an interesting storyline to follow as we continue through spring training.
Brian at NFA has a great article on how the international player development market shakes out. This is required reading, especially in light of today's announcement with Tabasco Olmecas.
Nats320 rocks. 'Nuff said . [UPDATE: So does MissChatter.]
Farid reiterates his man-love for Larry Broadway. It's not that I have a problem with Larry Broadway, per se; it's just that at 26 years old, I don't see him improving enough with the bat to hold down first base at the Major League level. I really doubt that he will be able to get near his .288/.353/.455 2006 AAA line in the bigs, and if he is closer to the .246/.315/.408 line that PECOTA projects, he hurts the team. If Dmitri Young's diabetes were indeed to blame to for his 3-year statistical slide (and personal issues), then there stands a good chance IMO that he easily beats out Broadway for the job if the problem is now under control.
Last but certainly not least, if you haven't gotten your fill of linkable goodness, check out Brandon's latest over at Curly W.