How does Davey Martinez change his career slow-start record?

Posted on January 24, 2021 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

Davey Martinez in the middle of it; Photo by Craig Nedrow for TalkNats

In Dave Martinez‘s first season managing the Washington Nationals, he inherited an under-achieving 2017 team. His 2018 debut squad got off to a slow start with an 11-16 record which put the Nats quickly in a hole and 4th place in the NL East at the start to May of 2018. The Nats tried to dig out of that hole and with a 4-2 record to finish that season they finished at 82-80 and second place in the NL East. In 2019, we all know the infamous 19-31 start to that season that finished in a World Series win. Last year, the Nats were even worse with a 19-32 start to that season and with the truncated 60-game season it was over quickly with a 26-34 losing record and tied for last place in the NL East. Continue reading →

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MASN’s history with the Nats has been arduous, but it just sunk to a new low!

Posted on January 23, 2021 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

Photo by Andrew Lang

Back on July 16, 2020, the Nationals in-house video group produced an intra-squad broadcast game of the Washington Nationals that was streamed on Nationals.com and the Nats official Twitter which you can watch here. The game’s play-by-play and analysis was done by Charlie Slowes, and he did it solo. What it showed was that the Nats can produce high quality ‘live’ game video as we saw in that broadcast. We also saw the fine work they did on the documentary “Improbable“ as well as other productions they have created in the past. The reason this is being brought up is that MASN dropped a bombshell that was made public yesterday regarding pregame and postgame shows. Continue reading →

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Ryan Zimmerman is back for 2021 in a different role!

Posted on January 22, 2021 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

The dream continues for Ryan Zimmerman; Photo by Marlene Koenig for TalkNats

As the first pick in Washington Nationals history in 2005, Ryan Zimmerman has been a fixture in the Nationals lineup since his September debut in that ’05 season. In 2020, it was supposed to have marked Zim’s fifteenth pro season, but due to COVID concerns he opted out of his contract. Zim was clear that he did not want his career to end that way and now he will get another chance to finish his career with the only team he has ever known and in a city where the fans love him. Affectionately known as “Mr. Walkoff” due to his eleven career walk-off home runs from Father’s Day in RFK Stadium in 2006 to his third career dagger into the Phillies with his last walk-off home run in 2018.  Continue reading →

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Are Platoon Splits Almost a Certainty for the #Nats – 2 of 2

Posted on January 21, 2021 by DonH

Yan Gomes has got this. (Photo by Tom Cicotello for TalkNats)

Time for Part 2 of what we started to discuss in Are Platoon Splits Almost a Certainty for the #Nats – 1 of 2. So lets look at 2B (Starlin Castro and Luis Garcia), Catcher (Jason Castro and Yan Gomes) and CF (Victor Robles and Andrew Stevenson).

Don: Just like our previous discussion, let’s start by looking at their splits against lefty vs. right handed pitchers. Continue reading →

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MLB News: Nationals Need Strasburg Healthy in ‘21

Posted on January 19, 2021 by Luis Navarro

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The #Nats 4th Starter Options

Posted on January 18, 2021 by DonH

Getty Images photo

It is pretty clear that the Nationals need a fourth starter. The issue is who! Trevor Bauer isn’t getting signed by general manager Mike Rizzo. And none of the rest are obvious choices. The priorities posted yesterday clearly shows the need for a 4th starter upgrade.

Don: When the Yankees signed Corey Kluber and the speculation started that they may not want to bring back Masahiro Tanaka who is a free agent. It is looking likely that Tanaka will not be going back to the Yankees I looked at his stats on Baseball Reference it looked like he was an innings eater. That got me to thinking that maybe getting a guy who goes deep into games would be a good idea.

I can query the 2018-2020 data and filtered the pitcher data to include only those that were in the list of MLBTR’s 2020-2021 Free Agent Tracker and that also had at least one game where they went thru the inning twice and look at the midpoint of how far into games they went. For example, if a pitcher started 50 games and I ordered them based on how deep they went, where does the 25th game fall (e.g., 5.2 innings).

Steve: Good idea. I’d think Rizzo wants a guy who can actually make it thru the 6th inning and probably will look to someone who Jim Hickey is comfortable with. There are quite a few of those on the free agent market like Chris Archer, Jake Odorizzi, Jose Quintana, and Jon Lester. Of course of those 4 names, only Lester would qualify as an innings-eater.  Continue reading →

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Priorities change. The #Nats 2021 update!

Posted on January 16, 2021 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

The Washington Nationals have clear priorities for this 2021 season. But the Nats won’t sniff the postseason if the starting rotation repeats their failures of 2020 when they had a Nationals’ franchise worst 5.38 ERA from a starting rotation that cost over $100 million in total for 2020. This year, FanGraphs is projecting a rather mundane 4.39 ERA for the starting staff. Sorry, that will not cut it. You might as well fold the tent if the Nats cannot pitch better than the ERAs in that graphic (above).

Let’s be clear, the Nationals are not paying Stephen Strasburg a salary of $35 million to pitch to a 4.08 ERA. The same could be said for Max Scherzer who will earn $30 million this year, and Patrick Corbin will collect $24.4 million. New pitching coach, Jim Hickey, will have his work cut out for him. You can do the math with Joe Ross‘ $1.5 million contract for 2021, the Nats already have $90.9 million invested in those four pitchers with one spot open in the rotation.

Continue reading →

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A big #Nats day for international signings, arbitration players, and the 30-day countdown to Spring Training!

Posted on January 15, 2021 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

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Posted in Analysis, Feature, MikeRizzo, Prospects, Roster | Leave a comment

Cade Cavalli brings us up-to-date on how he is doing heading into Spring Training!

Posted on January 12, 2021 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

Down on the Farm; Photo by Andrew Lang for TalkNats

The Josh Bell acquisition cost the Washington Nationals their seventh rated prospect when Eddy Yean went to the Pirates as the centerpiece of that trade. Subsequently, there have been rumors swirling about other potential trades involving Kris Bryant and Eugenio Suarez.

Wisely, as Jon Heyman pointed out on December 18, the Nats do not want to deal their top prospects in Jackson Rutledge and Cade Cavalli as well as 20-year-old Luis Garcia who technically exceeded his rookie status and can no longer rate as a prospect. Heyman basically tweeted the same again yesterday about Eugenio Suarez, Rutledge and Cavalli sans Garcia. Currently, Rutledge and Cavalli hold the top-two spots in both Baseball America rankings as well as MLB Pipeline.  Continue reading →

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Where do the #Nats go from here?

Posted on January 11, 2021 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

With Josh Bell, Kyle Schwarber, and Josh Harrison all signed, what moves will Washington Nationals’ general manager Mike Rizzo have up his winter sleeves? With a 40-man roster showing five vacancies, we can expect at least five moves and most likely more moves on the minor league side after the international signings become official on Friday and Riz adds more non-roster invitees to his spring training roster. The issue at-hand, if Fangraphs is your guide, is that they are projecting the Nats for only 84 wins today, and if there are only two Wild Card spots, the Nats would not make the postseason.  Continue reading →

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