Our top-10 priorities were set back in September, and we check Josh Harrison off of the list!

Posted on October 22, 2020 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

Soto pitching BP in Spring Training; Photo by Craig Nedrow for TalkNats

The Washington Nationals have clear priorities for next year, and we took a deep dive into a Top-1o. We kind of rolled more names into the list, and sure, things changed quickly when manager Dave Martinez opted to make changes on his coaching staff.

Today as you know, the Nationals extended the contract of Josh Harrison as he was technically still under team control and as such was not a free agent.  Also in the previous two weeks, the Nationals DFA’d several players making the roster much more streamlined.

Not originally a Top-10 priority, but it is up there on the list, the Nats must add a new hitting coach to replace Kevin Long … unless the team wisely comes to terms with KLong which seems like a long-shot at this point. This week they named Jim Hickey as the new pitching coach. The team will also need to name a new third base coach after the parting of ways with Chip Hale.

So here is the updated original Top-10 priorites:

Continue reading →

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Priority #3, the #Nats are in need of a #4 starting pitcher!

Posted on October 21, 2020 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

Photo by Sol Tucker for TalkNats

As we work in priority order, we look at what we set as the third priority for this Washington Nationals team which is the spot that Anibal Sanchez held in the starting rotation during the 2019 and 2020 seasons. For Sanchez, he had a very good 2019 season for the Nats, but then struggled for most of his 2020 starts and finished with a 6.62 ERA. His $18 million team option with a $6 million buyout will almost certainly be declined and bought-out, leading to a large vacancy for the team to fill heading into the 2021 season.

The list of priorities has limits with regards to budgetary spending, player availability, and team philosophy. There is always the possibility that the team could try to fill the spot internally which is not optimal, but in these times of budgetary constraints and limited revenue, filling the spot externally is not a given, although we believe the team should look into the free agent market for a candidate who would upgrade the rotation. Continue reading →

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Many local D.C. ties to the World Series this year!

Posted on October 20, 2020 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

Blake Treinen is in the World Series; Photo by Rich Schultz of Getty Images

This World Series roster has many players with ties back to the Washington, D.C. area, and at the top of the list is Blake Treinen who made his debut with the Washington Nationals in April of 2014 at twenty-five years of age. Treinen redeemed himself with a scoreless relief appearance in Game 7 of this NLCS, and was saved by a Mookie Betts catch over the wall to rob Freddie Freeman of a home run. Treinen’s bullpen teammate Adam Kolarek who most will remember from his LOOGY appearances in last year’s NLDS against Juan Soto. The lefty reliever was so nasty, and Kolarek played his college ball right around the corner at the University of Maryland.  Fortunately in the decisive Game 5 of last year’s NLDS with Kolarek available, it was Kershaw who faced Soto instead of Kolarek and of course Soto smashed the game tying home run to pin a blown save on Kershaw. Oh, the little things.

On the Tampa side, they also have a player who came from the University of Maryland in Brandon Lowe. Lowe was the offensive star for the Rays this year before a kid named Randy Arozarena emerged. Lowe, and his Tampa Bay Rays’ teammate Hunter Renfroe both played summer college ball for the Bethesda Big Train wood bat league in the Cal Ripken Collegiate League. Renfroe was so dominating as the league MVP that he moved up in pre-draft projections and was selected by the San Diego Padres in the 1st round (13th overall) of the 2013 MLB June amateur draft. Renfroe was scouted as a 5-tool prospect, but the Padres decided to trade him to Tampa who loves outfielders like Renfroe.

Maybe the most glaring Dodgers connection is in their front office as Stan Kasten was the original architect for the Lerner’s Washington Nationals ownership group. Kasten, who is now the President of the Dodgers, created “The Plan” for the Nationals back in 2006. With the lack of top prospect talent in the Nats’ farm system, he preached slow and steady wins the race, and with a depleted farm system and a small fanbase, he was 100 percent correct as painful as it was. Ironically, the Nats won a World Series after Kasten departed with his original plan paying dividends, and the Nats won that ring before Kasten’s Dodgers.

Of course there are other front office people that Kasten took with him from the Nats when he took his spot in Los Angeles, and paybacks were just made when the Nats hired Jim Hickey from the Dodgers.

The Dodgers go into this World Series as heavy favorites.

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The Nationals name Jim Hickey as their new pitching coach

Posted on October 19, 2020 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

Photo by Andrew Lang for TalkNats

With Paul Menhart‘s spot as the pitching coach available, it did not take Washington Nationals manager Dave Martinez an extended period to fill that spot. Reportedly, Martinez will go with a pitching coach he was very familiar with from their shared time in Tampa Bay with the Rays (2008-2014), and the Nats made it official today. Jim Hickey, 59, was on the short-list of names mentioned as a possibility.  He was a former Minor League pitcher who transitioned to coaching. Continue reading →

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NLCS in a Winner-Take-All game between the Braves and Dodgers

Posted on October 18, 2020 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

The Dodgers are dealing with a depleted starting rotation, and the Braves will go with their 22-year-old rookie who has a 0.00 ERA in three starts in this postseason. Ian Anderson makes the biggest start of his life and has been very effective in this postseason with a stealth 0.89 WHIP which means he is not even allowing an average of one runner per inning to reach base and he is doing this on the biggest stage. Additionally, Anderson has 22 strikeouts in 15 2/3 innings. As of this point in the day, Dodgers’ manager Dave Roberts still has not posted who his starting pitcher will be.  Continue reading →

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Dusty Baker can do something so rare in baseball that only the 2004 Red Sox have pulled off!

Posted on October 17, 2020 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

Fenway Park by Sol Tucker for TalkNats

Manager Terry Francona led his 2004 Boston Red Sox team to a 98-64 record. They swept the Angels in the ALDS and then faced the hungry Yankees in the ALCS. The Bronx Bombers took a 3-0 lead in the series, and then the miracle happened by the team led by the young analytical General Manager, Theo Epstein, who assembled a team to break the Curse of the Bambino. The Red Sox never lost a game after that. They won the next four against the Yankees to do the unthinkable and become the only team in MLB history to come back from a 3-games deficit in a 7-game series to win it. Dusty Baker‘s Astros have a chance to match that feat tonight. Continue reading →

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Multiple DFA’s bring more clarity to the #Nats roster

Posted on October 16, 2020 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

Photo by Laura Peebles for TalkNats

In early October, the Washington Nationals wasted no time in making roster moves. They had until December 2 to make non-tender decisions for arbitration-eligible players, but the team announced that Michael A. Taylor was designated for assignment (DFA), cleared waivers, and chose free agency. Taylor came up big in several postseason games for the Nats, but his regular seasons sans 2017 were mostly disappointing and he only batted .196 this year. If the Nats tendered Taylor a contract, he probably would have pocketed over $3.75 million and that would be a massive overpay. In addition, the same fate went the way of five pitchers as Javy Guerra, Roenis Elias, Paolo Espino, Aaron Barrett and Sam Freeman all were DFA’d and elected free agency. Continue reading →

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The 2020 MLB ‘exhibition’ season is at its Final Four

Posted on October 15, 2020 by Andrew Lang

If you look closely, that Sports Illustrated was from August 2017; Winning the World Series takes more than a stacked roster!

Baseball is still being played in two cities, and soon it will be down to one as MLB is using bubble host cities for the NLCS and the ALCS. They are also playing every day without the usual travel days off making this a survival of the fittest through the battle of attrition.  Continue reading →

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The “Law of averages” does not guarantee anything!

Posted on October 14, 2020 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

Dusty Baker with the media; Photo by Steve Mears

If you want a manager to get you into the playoffs, Dusty Baker is your man. He has done it with all five franchises he has managed, unfortunately the previous four franchises all parted ways with Baker when the main objectives were not achieved.

As the current Houston Astros manager, Baker has been a baseball lifer, but his own stubbornness might be his ultimate downfall. Everyone loves Dusty until he wears out his welcome which he has done in every prior managerial spot. There are plenty of great stories about Dusty in San Francisco, Chicago, Cincinnati, and Washington, D.C., and he can share stories of Jimmy Hendrix, Hollywood celebrities, U.S. Presidents, and some of the greatest players of the game. The media loves him, and they have his back every time he loses. But each time he is fired from a job, he is mystified at what happened — as it is never his fault. Maybe he is right since he is not batting, fielding or throwing pitches, but he does hold the power of the lineup card and makes the pitching substitutions, and sends in the signals to put on plays. Sometimes managers are simply the “fall guy” and scapegoat for the general manager or even owners.

The 71-year-old has had good teams, and he has had great teams although he said after he departed from the Nationals that he was never handed a great time. That is debatable. Nats’ manager Dave Martinez took a lesser version of Baker’s 2017 team and won the World Series two years later.

The media rarely will get negative with Dusty, rather they play along even after a loss to ask fun questions or throw him creampuffs about the losses which it always seems to get attributed to bad luck. There is an old saying, “Sometimes you have to make your own luck.” Continue reading →

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Draft orders are set and #Nats pick 11th in the 2021 draft

Posted on October 13, 2020 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

Jackson Rutledge was the Nationals’ top draft pick in June 2019. (MLB)

The last time the Washington Nationals selected better than eleventh in the amateur draft was 2011 when the team selected Anthony Rendon with the sixth overall pick in the first round that year.  Continue reading →

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