by Andrew Lang
by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears
by Stan4Nats
by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears
by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears
by Andrew Lang
by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears
Photo by John Caulfield for TalkNats
The Washington Nationals made their seventh big league deal of this off-season re-signing Matt Adams to a one-year deal with a mutual option for 2020. Adams will receive $3 million for his 2019 salary according to reports with a mutual option that comes with a $1 million buyout. Continue reading
Jack Chesbro threw 48 complete games in 1904 which is 6 more than all of MLB in 2018
(First of a two-part series)
Changes in baseball may happen at a glacial pace, but over time they produce dramatic effects. Much like any business, baseball as an industry faces constant challenges. Many of them are of their own making. Today the game sits on an odd spot of roadway. The industry as a whole makes more money than ever. Most of it comes from local and regional network television deals. Attendance is on a worrisome downward trend, however. The age demographics of the sport’s consumers is skewed heavily towards the upper range. Generalities are that “Millennials” and “Gen Z” are noted for shorter attention spans; demanding action while loathing dead time. Precisely on cue, baseball is providing less motion while the time between balls put into play has grown to an all-time high. A major reason is that the game has evolved into one of “Ultimate Outcomes.” Continue reading
Nobody draws a crowd like Scott Boras who is the super agent representing Bryce Harper. He is like the ole E.F. Hutton commercials “When E.F. Hutton talks, people listen”. Boras draws standing-room only crowds. His speeches are filled with Boras-isms and clichés and quite a bit of B.S. that he delivers like a used car salesman selling Mercedes while convincing you it is as good as a Rolls Royce. In 2015, Harper was a Rolls Royce, but since then he has performed like a sports car in need of a tune-up. But yet, Boras is trying to sell him at a Barrett Jackson Auction like he is a 2015 Porsche 918 Spyder. The issue is Harper has not even been a Top-10 player from 2016-2018 in WAR. Harper was not even Top-3 on his own team in 2018. Continue reading
Photo by Marlene Koenig for TalkNats
For Tanner Roark, he will not have to be looking over his shoulder anymore as his rumored trade became reality tonight at the Winter Meetings. Roark was traded straight-up for Cincinnati Reds pitcher Tanner Rainey who last appeared for the Reds minor league Triple-A affiliate in Louisville. Rainey received a 2018 call-up and had six forgettable games for the Reds of his eight MLB appearances in the mid-summer. The righty reliever did have a 2.65 ERA for Louisville last year and could figure into the Nats plans in 2019. He takes Roark’s 40-man spot. Rainey is a fastball and slider pitcher with an 11.5 K/9 for Louisville. Continue reading
Watch LIVE as Nats Manager Dave Martinez addresses the media at the Winter Meetings in Las Vegas. https://t.co/RKezTtUUmr
— Washington Nationals (@Nationals) December 11, 2018
Yesterday was Dave Martinez‘s day to step out in Las Vegas and do his interviews with the Press. The entire interview can be heard on this link: https://www.pscp.tv/Nationals/1OyJAyknOdWJb?t=1s
The questions were flying at Davey, and after a while he started sounding like the Davey Martinez who did those post-game interviews that started to sound like his boilerplate answers on the “little things” and pitching and defense.
For Martinez, he gets a second chance and 2019 is the opportunity to prove that 2018 was due to the injuries because an 82-80 record is not acceptable, and Davey said the same while acknowledging that if they had just won 50% of those one-run games — the 2018 season would have been much different.
We learned from Davey that Michael A. Taylor is playing in the Dominican winter league, and he loves the Patrick Corbin acquisition — part of the “three horses”. He talked about working on situations in Spring Training and working on fundamentals. He talked about the Nationals pitchers must improve in two-strike counts. He also talked about when the Nats had a lead early they didn’t put teams away.
“We’re trying to get more athletic,” Martinez said. “We got younger players coming up. We have two catchers that can move pretty good. You got Robles, you got Michael, you got Eaton whose going to be healthy. Soto moves pretty good in leftfield. We’re just trying to get more athletic. We talked about going to Spring Training and really honing in on fundamentals. We lost a lot of games last year by one-run. And if you look back, giving teams 28-29-30 outs, I think that is the difference, and we have to get better at it.”
Martinez said he learned a lot last year as a new manager — we will see how 2019 is different from 2018. Of course his presser would not be complete without Bryce Harper questions, and you can listen to the interview for more on that. With the rumors swirling on Tanner Roark, the Nationals’ manager spoke as if Roark will be an integral part of the back of his rotation in 2019 — but admitted that he was good for 3 months and bad for 3 months and that seems to sum up Roark’s season.
Later in the discussion, DMart raved about Juan Soto‘s two-strike approach as well as Anthony Rendon‘s.
Photo by Lynn Grody; Tanner Roark
News broke this morning in a quite public way that Tanner Roark is available for trade which hit Twitter on a tweet from Yahoo Sports’ Jeff Passan. From the beginning of the off-season’s roster realignments, Roark was listed by us as a question mark as to whether he would be tendered a contract. When Roark was tendered a contract two weeks ago we pointed to creative financing scenarios of “how do you keep Bryce Harper“, and the common denominator was to trade Tanner Roark and save his contractual dollars that are projected to be near $10 million. That is $10 million for a pitcher who has put up mid-4’s in ERA the last two seasons and has struggled with mechanics and command. While Roark is a popular player on the team, he just has not been effective putting the Nationals in the win column. While wins and losses do not fall solely on the pitcher of record, Roark led the Majors in losses in 2018 at 15, and he had 12-games where he gave up 4 or more runs of which seven of those games he did not get past the 5th inning.
The worst case scenario for the Nationals is that they would have to cut Roark and eat approximately $1.63 million of his salary. The best case is they retain him and he returns to “star” form with his new catching tandem of Kurt Suzuki and Yan Gomes. The middle ground is that Rizzo trades Roark and gets a “lotto ticket” on a prospect. You cannot expect much of a return for Roark if at all given his prior two years’ results and his age. Continue reading
The Winter Meetings are the last semblance of any baseball for Nationals fans except for some reruns on MASN and maybe a glimpse of a Caribbean winter baseball game…until we reach Spring Training which is about 60 days away from when the Winter Meetings wrap-up on Thursday with the Rule-5 draft. Continue reading
This is it! The 2018 Winter Meetings begin today in Las Vegas at the Mandalay Resort. This is a televised event and should be the most dramatic Winter Meetings ever because Las Vegas resident and top free agent, Bryce Harper, will be making multiple appearances at the event as he meets with general managers who are interested in acquiring his services. Some have said that there are no less than a dozen teams in the running, but that just does not seem plausible if you believe recent reports which would take the St. Louis Cardinals, Chicago Cubs, New York Mets, Atlanta Braves, and the Washington Nationals out of the bidding. The Cardinals just snagged Paul Goldschmidt in a trade and the Mets traded for Robinson Cano and Edwin Diaz, and the Braves signed Josh Donaldson. On top of that, Las Vegas resident Kris Bryant was rumored a month ago to have been made available via trade by his Chicago Cubs team. Continue reading
The Washington Nationals had a great time on Friday. Perhaps you heard?
Patrick Corbin‘s first day at #̶N̶a̶t̶s̶ ̶P̶a̶r̶k̶ home. pic.twitter.com/v4SARib5AS
— Washington Nationals (@Nationals) December 7, 2018
Yes, two-time All-Star and Nats top pitching target Patrick Corbin is now officially a member of the team. He was introduced to media at a press conference also attended by rotation-mates Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg and both the longest-tenured National, Ryan Zimmerman, and the hereto shortest-tenured National, Yan Gomes (who made his first public appearance at Nationals Park since being acquired from the Cleveland Indians in a trade one week ago).
General manager Mike Rizzo has been involved in a flurry of activity since the Nationals’ season ended at a disappointing 82-80 record back in September. He didn’t even wait for the playoffs to end to make his first move, snapping up Kyle Barraclough for international bonus money in a swap with the division-rival Miami Marlins. Within just a few weeks, he had signed Kurt Suzuki, the Nationals’ once and future backup catcher, and Trevor Rosenthal, a former closer for the St. Louis Cardinals who missed the 2018 season due to injury. Over the past week, he added Gomes and Corbin to the Nationals roster. Continue reading
Over a month ago, we did a simulation of how the Nationals could accomplish all of their off-season goals and re-sign Bryce Harper. Even after inking Patrick Corbin to a lucrative deal, it is still possible to bring Harper back and stay under the CBT cap of $206 million for 2019. Currently, the Nationals are at approximately $184 million using the CBT calculation. That number does not include incentives which means the Nats need at least a $7 million cushion which would give the team only $15 million to spend on Harper — and that is where the creativity would come into play because you have to figure Harper’s AAV would be at least $27 million a year. Continue reading
