The 4 N’s: Nats News -n- Notes: Prospect Rating, Bryce Golfing, JZim Tweeting, FP Thanking, & Spanning

Posted on October 28, 2015 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

Don’t think for a minute that things are quiet in Nats Park.  Rizzo as we previously reported has his man-ager, and he’s sitting on the “official” announcement until probably the conclusion of the World Series.  Jim Bowden got everyone’s hopes up that we could know on Monday, and that did not happen.  While we are very confident that it’s Bud Black, we also wouldn’t say 100% sure and bet your life on it until it’s official.  The waiting game will go on and the Nats news will be a little lighter. There will still be news though, and the big news of the last 24 hours was the great Game #1 of the World Series.  Other news as we reported was the scandalous claims by Lenny Dykstra on blackmailing umpires which you can read here . 

 

Other Nats news was that Jordan Zimmermann joined Twitter, sort of, with a lame non-descript Tweeter https://twitter.com/JordanZ04290768 and then yesterday got one with a picture and a quick “Verified Account” https://twitter.com/JZimmermann27 and the obligatory 1st tweet: “Never thought I would say this but I finally made it on Twitter!”

Rendon found out today that he qualifies as a Super-Two and will get a nice raise as he will now be eligible for 4 years of salary arbitration.  Who do you think will Tweet more this off-season between Tony Two-Bags and JZim.  On the Twitter, slight edge to Rendon who has 23 tweets since he joined including what he will be doing with his off-season fitness:

 

Also very cool is that Bryce Harper as a true resident of the Las Vegas area along with Kris Bryant Bryce Harperchildhood friend Kris Bryant will be hosting the MLBPA’s annual off-season golf tourney to support the Players’ Trust charity.  This is a 3 day event of golf and gambling, and you get to golf at Cascata which is an incredible Rees Jones course Cascata, in Boulder City, Nevada.  Rees Jones has designed only 2 courses in the DC area and they are Congressional Country Club (Blue Course) on River Road where Potomac and Bethesda meet and nearby to that Lakewood Country Club and Rees Jones courses are truly amazing landscapes and challenging golf courses.

If you ever wanted a more intimate setting with Bryce let us know as it will cost you $2,500 and that includes:  One spot in the official golf tournament with a celebrity in your group, one spot in the MGM Grand Poker Tournament, a single-occupancy room for a two-night stay at MGM Grand, 1 ticket to the Welcome Reception on Wednesday night, complimentary breakfast, lunch, and dinner on Thursday, Swag bag, autographed baseball, and a photo.  Consult your tax advisor for tax deductibility and remember you have to pay for your airfare.  If you are not a golfer but are a gambler we can check to see if you can split it!

 

On MASN news, this year there was very little question about whether Carp, FP and Dan would return as the new VP of Broadcasting as we previously reported was on top of the October 31st contract expiration for the on-air personalities, and she didn’t let that go past that date like her predecessor had done.  In fact FP and Dan both tweeted their confirmations that they were returning, and Carp, he doesn’t Tweet.

 

Denard Span was in the news yesterday as he appeared on MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM and it was not posted yet to their  Soundcloud. Most interesting was talking about his injury and comments about Matt Williams.  Here’s some quotes:

“I feel like it totally came from the two sports hernia surgeries that I had early on, starting off during the off-season last year and then into Spring Training.  I probably came back a little too early from both of the injuries, and I think it just led to the hip giving into me. That was me trying to hurry back and help my team, and if I had to do it all over again, probably I would do the same thing, but it would have been smart if I would have taken a little bit more time. It’s going good, going really good.  Everything is on track. If anything, it’s probably ahead of schedule. The range of motion in my hip is getting there and just feeling good. Just ready to get going.”

Then the subject changed a little, “I thought that [Matt Williams] did good. I think he’s obviously getting a lot of fall for our shortcomings, but you can’t put it all on him. Us, as the players, we’ve got to be accountable. We had a lot of bad things happen for us this past year. Had a lot of injuries.  Myself, Werth  was out for a while, Rendon was out for a while, and Strasburg was out multiple times.  You don’t want to point to that and use that as an excuse, but we just [pause] just nothing went well for us this year. It’s unfortunate that Matt had to take the downfall for our shortcomings, and the reality of it is we all, top to bottom, came up short. I’d just rather not go there.  Technically, I’m not even a free agent yet, so I don’t know what’s going to happen, but they know my stance.”

Guess what, sort of old news that Span left CAA and joined the Boras Agency,  and Scott Boras will be negotiating his next deal!

Our sources say the Nats will hire Paul Lessard as Head Trainer.  Lessard comes from the Cincinatti Reds where he has been Head Trainer.  This is a big move given all the injuries sustained by key Nats players.

 

There is great Arizona Fall League action with Nats prospects playing for the Salt River Rafters. Salt River Fields at Talking Stick is a shared complex that the Rockies and D’Backs share for Spring Training and development. Tripp Keister who is the Nats High-A manager at Potomac is the manager of the Salt River team.  8 games have been played so far and Kieboom in that small sample size has a nice .440 OPB and a .916 OPS and Drew Ward is taking his walks with a .455 OBP and an .830 OPS.  Bostick is struggling.  Bacus, Wirkin Estevez, Leeand Simms are all pitching well so far and the only Nats pitcher struggling is Abel del los Santos.

Speaking of Nats prospects, Baseball America posted the Top 10 list today with little surprise except who has fallen off, rather way off from the list from 1 year ago with names like Brian Goodwin, Matt Skole, and Jake Johansen.  Goodwin and especially Johansen were questionable picks at the time given the other Draft talent and that’s the crapshoot that the Draft is.

Most of the names on this list are known to Nats fans, and new names like Victor Robles and Anderson Franco we’ve included links:

Prospects 2015b

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