Bryce Harper: Baseball card designer for Topps

Topps Baseball Cards 220 set designed <a rel=

For the first time in Topps history, the iconic company has handed over the reins to someone outside the company, and in this new concept, they chose Washington Nationals star Bryce Harper to create his own baseball card set with his vision. Harper can now add “baseball card designer” to his resumé, and this adds to Harper’s foray into designing baseball caps, cleats, and bats as well as Rawlings baseball gloves.

The end result in this collaboration with Topps is an absolutely unique baseball card set featuring top players in the league, his all-time favorites — and yes — even guys with the best hair featuring Bryce’s original baseball mentor and hair aficionado Jayson WerthContinue reading

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Good, Bad, Interesting — 2018 Season Final

GBI for NPP 2

Our final look at the leaders, trailers, and outliers in the Washington Nationals minor leagues. Repeats from 2017 are in italics Continue reading

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Tell us if you’ve heard this one before: Nats blow this one in the bullpen!

Photo by Marlene Koenig for TalkNats

The Nationals had a 4-3 lead heading into the 8th inning, but set-up man Justin Miller couldn’t hold the lead that turned into an extra innings loss. The Nationals had their chances to win this game in the 8th inning with men on 3rd and 2nd base with one-out and it was not meant to be. The early runs came off of the bat of Mark Reynolds on a booming two run home run and a Rendon RBI double and a Trea Turner RISP single. Continue reading

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Game #141 Daniel Murphy is back in D.C. for 4-games

Murphy and Adams by USA Sports

This 4-game series will highlight the new-and-improved Daniel Murphy. The Nats fans will see the difference. Murphy is like a new player. With the Nats, he homered in 3.1% of his at-bats and with the Cubs he is bashing the ball and homering in 7.0% of at-bats. On top of that, Murphy is diving for baseballs on defense and tracking balls with an extra pep in his step. Murphy’s slugging percentage with the Cubs is the 2nd best of his career at .579. Maybe all of this is just a coincidence, but some of Murphy’s newfound power and defensive range seems like some extra motivation playing on a team with legitimate World Series aspirations. Continue reading

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2019 Preview – Michael A. Taylor

Photo by Marlene Koenig for TalkNats

In the first of our series looking at the current roster with an emphasis on projections for next season, we will take a look at Michael A. Taylor. MAT has been bouncing between a full-time every day player, the bench 4th outfielder, late inning defensive replacement, pinch-hitter, and pinch-runner type for a couple of years now. At this time, we have a pretty good idea of who MAT is and what he brings to the table.  Continue reading

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A familiar beginning and ending to this game…Another 1-run loss! #Nats

The Nationals battled back in another game that began with a deep deficit. The Nationals had to make up a 6-run hole they dug for themselves and clawed back and made it to 7-6. The Nats had a great chance to win this game in a walk-off as they put on their first two runners to start the 9th inning but Ryan Zimmerman who could have been the hero as he already had 3 RBIs in his pocket from an earlier clutch hit but this time he struck out in the 9th and did not move up the runners. Zim quickly moved from the penthouse to the outhouse in the game which ended with Michael Taylor never seeing a ball in the zone but he swung and missed at 3 of them. This game became the carbon copy of so many losses and this was another disturbing one-run loss. Continue reading

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Game #140 Roark and Mikolas finish the season series!

Photo by Marlene Koenig for TalkNats

The Nationals and Cardinals finish their season series tonight, and this 3-game set is tied at a game each right now with tonight’s game determining the series winner. Finally it looks like Miles Mikolas will pitch tonight after reports said that he was pitching on Monday then Tuesday then Wednesday. Tanner Roark was always scheduled for today.  Continue reading

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The comeback kids almost pulled off a miracle! #Nats

Austen Williams photo by Marlene Koenig for TalkNats

If you are into high scoring, and a lot of action — this game was for you. The Nationals starter, Erick Fedde, gave up 4-runs and the Nationals tied the game up and got Fedde off the hook. Austen Williams came in to relieve Fedde and he gave up 3 home runs in the 6th inning. The Nationals scored one back. In a 2-run game, Sammy Solis gave up a grand slam in the 9th inning to Yadier Molina on an 0-2 count that put the Nationals 6-runs behind and the Nationals rallied back in the 9th inning to score 3 quick runs and had the tying run in the batters box but it was not meant to be.  Continue reading

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Game #139 What role will Victor Robles have for the #Nats?

Photo by Sol Tucker for TalkNats

Most expected top prospect Victor Robles would be part of the Nationals sooner than later in 2018, but an elbow injury in mid-April suffered on a dive in the outfield buckled his arm and forced Robles into a lengthy 3-month DL stint with a hyper-extended elbow. It could have been worse for Robles as many feared after seeing that video of the injury. On July 7th, Robles headed to the Gulf Coast League to rehab then to his Triple-A Syracuse team on July 27th. With a little over a month with Syracuse, Robles finished up his Triple-A season yesterday with a slash of .278/.356/.386/.742. Now the question is: How will Nationals manager Dave Martinez get Robles playing time in a crowded outfield? Continue reading

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Marching gently into September for the #Nats

Photo by Kevin Nibley for TalkNats

This past week was very representative of what the Washington Nationals season has looked like in the 2nd half. There were some nice wins bookended with ugly losses. The team continued to struggle getting consistent starting pitching in games not started by Max Scherzer although Tanner Roark and Stephen Strasburg have mostly been able to keep the team in games. The bullpen continues to be “pot luck” with some heroic effort coupled with blah performances. Put all that in a mixer and you get .500 baseball. Continue reading

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