Nationals Arm Race

Sanchez joins the Nats on a 2 year deal. photo Atl official via ESPN

Well, now we can have the argument; was the Tanner Roark salary dump worth it?  Because just a few days later the team signed his replacement; Anibal Sanchez last night to a  deal to be his replacement.  Contract details are a bit complicated by the reports i’ve seen: 2 guaranteed years, $19M of guaranteed money, with $6M deferred and a 2021 option worth $12M, and some unspecified details that could add $4M to the package.

From what I can tell, the luxury tax implications are just the guarantees; $19M over two years means $9.5M of a luxury tax hit this season … which is almost identical to the $9.8M we’d been using to project Roark.

So, is the team better off?  Probably.  Roark has had flashes of brilliance (2014 and 2016) … but his last two years he was losing velocity and had plateaued as a slightly below league average pitcher.   Despite being much younger, we all kind of saw where he seems to be going, and the team clearly didn’t think his potential performance was worth the money.

Sanchez was a solid, familiar opponent in our division for years, always a solid competitor, an under the radar solid rotation piece.  He was god-awful in the AL, then suddenly found a new pitch and a new approach upon returning to the NL and pitched like a #2 starter most of last season.

So the Nats are betting on his 35-year old resurgence continuing, and paying him for it.

Implications for the team:

40-man: this is the 40th guy on the 40 man; the next move requires us to cut loose someone.

Salary Cap: We’re basically treading water from where we were a week ago; i’ve got the team at $188.8M in luxury tax dollars for fy2019, versus a cap of $206M, still leaving $17.6M of room.  I’ve seen other reports saying the Nats are now above $200M for the year and I don’t really see how people are arriving at that conclusion:

• $134M for 12 signed players for 2019
• $32.75M estimate for 6 arb eligible players
• $4.6M for the other 7 pre-arb players that will make up the rest of the 25-man roster
• $2.25M for the other 15 guys on the 40-man in the minors
• $14.5M for benefits

That totals $188.8M, leaving the $17.6M of room.  I know some people want to use “real” dollars instead of lux tax dollars, but the difference really isn’t that much.

Rotation: obviously this bumps Erick Fedde to AAA, where he probably should be.   This makes for a pretty solid rotation improvement over where we were yesterday.   I’m not sure where this places the Nats rotation in the pantheon of the league right now; i have a worksheet that I’ll turn into a blog post that ranks them 1-30 once the remaining impact starters sign (Dallas Keuchel, Yusei Kikuchi, Wade Miley, Gio Gonzalez, Drew Pomeranz, Mike Fiers, etc).  But I think there’s a clear top 5 of rotations in the league in some order: Chicago Cubs, Boston, Washington, Cleveland and the Dodgers.  Right now i’ve got them roughly ranked in that order.  This move bumped up the Nats a couple of slots by replacing a sub-#5 starter in Fedde with at least a #3 quality guy.

Verdict; I think they did pretty darn good considering what’s out there and what they have to work with.   I’ll take Sanchez and his 2018 performance as my 4th starter any day.  The question is … is it sustainable?  Is it a one-off?  Scouting reports seem to indicate he found a new pitch and worked it heavily, but that his numbers had some luck involved w/r/t BABIP and soft contact.  He’s also 35, so we’re counting on an older guy to continue a sustained late-career surge.  Kinda like what the Dodgers have done with Rich Hill, so it isn’t out of the realm of possible.

Roark parts ways with the club. Photo via milb.com

The rumors ended up being true.  The Washington Nationals, who have traded away half a dozen top pitching prospects in the past few years and who have now cut ties with an additional half dozen starters just since the trade deadline of 2018, have traded away their #4 starter Tanner Roark.

Their return?  Tanner Rainey, a 25yr old RHP 8th inning type who apparently throws hard, just finished his age 25 season,  has 5 years of control, and got shelled in his MLB debut last year.

I dunno; why exactly did the team make this move?  Was it a salary dump?  Was the prospect of paying Roark a projected $9.8M too much to stomach, given that he’s provided just slightly worse than league average pitching over the past two seasons?  I guess so.  Was it worth the return?  I mean, a AAA reliever isn’t exactly something to write home about, so its kind of clear that moving the salary was more important here.

But why would a team that has practically no SP depth … get rid of its 4th best starter?  A guy who eats innings, who never gets hurt, who has shown flashes of brillance in the past, and who represents one of the best player development/low-end acquisitions in the history of the franchise?

Here’s all the starters the team has parted ways with just since the beginning of last season: Gio Gonzalez, Jeremy Hellickson, A.J. Cole, Edwin Jackson, Tommy Milone, Jefry Rodriguez and now Roark.

here’s all the starting pitching prospects the team has shed since the 2016 Winter Meetings shock Adam Eaton move: McKenzie Mills, Tyler Watson, Mick VanVossen, Jesus Luzardo, Lucas Giolito, Reynaldo Lopez, Dane Dunning.

I mean, that’s a lot of arms now out of the system.  And now the team needs to augment in the FA market.

Implications of the move:

• 40-man: no change: one man off, one man on.  We saill sit at 38/40
• Payroll: losing Roark’s 9.8M (and offsetting it by the same $150k that Rainey will make that was already accounted for), Nats now project to be at $177M or so, leaving about $28.6M of payroll room.
• The 2019 Rotation, without any more moves, is now quite iffy looking.  The big 3, then Joe Ross, and then Erick Fedde nicely slotted into the current #5 slot.

Still plenty of starters on the market.  Are the nats going to get one as good as Roark for the $10M estimate they clearly didn’t think he was worth?

It sounds like its Fedde-time. Photo via minorleagueball.com

Well, we can’t really seem to go a season without a Stephen Strasburg injury … and this annual affair hit us over the weekend, with Strasburg looking ineffective, getting pulled, going for an MRI and quickly hitting the 10-day D/L with “right shoulder inflammation.”

This comes on the quick heels of two other SP issues for this team:

• miracle MLFA off-season signing Jeremy Hellickson yanking his hamstring and exiting precisely one batter into his friday start, also hitting the D/L.
• Off-season SP depth re-signing Edwin Jackson opting out of his minor league deal and departing the team (he signed with Oakland soon after).

So, it seemed like we could stand the absence of Hellickson thanks to the schedule over the next week and a half (plenty of off-days and no need for a 5th starter), and since his injury is listed as “mild” meaning he may only miss the minimum time … but with the loss of Strasburg we’ll need to reach into our depth.  So who’s getting the call?

(oh, btw on top of this, on 6/9/18 Brandon Knitzler strained his forearm and seems likely to be at least unavailable for a bit, if not on his way to the D/L too, so they’re needing reinforcements stat.  He was officially put on the D/L just after posting this on 6/10/18, resulting in both Trevor Gott and Wander Suero getting their tickets for a DC return…).

We’ve now seen all three of our non-active roster 40-man starters get MLB action this year … and they looked promising enough to have the loss of Jackson or even the presence of Tommy Milone in AAA seem like after-thoughts.  So who gets the call to cover for Strasburg?  Options:

1. Erick Fedde: got one spot-start this year and looked solid: he gave up 3 runs in 5 2/3rds but pitched a lot better than his stat line.  He hasn’t looked as great for Syracuse; a 4.76 ERA and a 1.48 whip showing how he’s giving up too many base-runners.  Do you believe what you saw in the majors, or look at his AAA line for the year?  His most recent start: in Gwinnet, 5 1/3, 2runs, 9Ks but 10hits allowed.
2. Austin Voth: has turned his career around, going from “next guy to get DFA’d” to a MLB call-up earlier this year (he did not appear).  His AAA ERA of 4.35 is a bit inflated; he’s giving up less than a hit/inning.  He had two bad outings in a row just after his call up/send-back, giving up 12 ER in 2 innings … but his last out ing (6/6/18) was stellar; 7IP, 4hits, 6Ks, 0 walks, 0 runs.  That’s the kind of stat line GMs like to see.
3. Jefry Rodriguez: he was thrown into action when Hellickson went down and did awesome: 4 2/3 scoreless innings in his MLB debut.  Can’t ask for more than that.  He’s been good for AA Harrisburg this year; 12 starts, 3.57ERA, a bit wild though (24 walks in 63 innings).  Its interesting that he’s gotten MLB time but has yet to get pushed to AAA; perhaps they’re waiting for the typical Nats mid-season shuffle.  His most recent outing?  6/9/18: 5ip, 1 hit and just 65 pitches thrown (a hint?  why would he have gotten  yanked so quickly?)

You have to think it’ll be Fedde first.  Maybe what they do is promote Fedde, move Rodriguez to AAA.  Then if you need a second starter … it seems like Rodriguez has jumped Voth in the pecking order and is next in line.

It isn’t a very opportune time for this sudden loss of their second ace; their next nine games are AL East interleague play … which will be tough games even though both Toronto and Baltimore are struggling.  After that they get 6 games versus Philly interspersed with five more AL East games (including three at home against Boston) … so this might be a pretty crucial stage for this team.  Lets hope our depth stands up.

Sergio Romo; Tampa’s new #3 starter.  And #4 starter sometimes … photo via Zimbio.

The Tampa Bay Rays, thanks to a run of injuries to their starting rotation this spring, and perhaps a bit of typical organizational ingenuity, are doing something this year that has a lot of people talking; they’re essentially using a closer-quality pitcher to start games, get through the top of the opposing team’s order the first time, then hands it over to the real “starter” (or in most cases longer man) who pitches a typical starter-length outing.

They seem to be sticking to conventional outings for their two best starters (Chris Archer and Blake Snell) even now, but spring training elbow injuries to planned starters Brett Honeywell and Jose De Leon (both Tommy John surguries), plus recent injuries to #3 starter Jake Faria, Yonny Chirinos  (not Laurel Chirinos!) and Nathan Eovaldi and a lack of upper-end SP prospects has led them to this point.

This strategy is getting put to its biggest test over the Memorial Day weekend series they have with Baltimore, announcing that they’ll be “starting” relievers all three games.

So far this season, they’ve used the strategy at least twice; with Sergio Romo starting on back to back nights.

• 5/20/18: Romo pitches the first and strikes out the side before handing off to starter Ryan Yarborough, who pitches 6+ and gets the win.
• 5/21/18:  Romo, going back to back nights, faces the first 6 batters; walks two, gets the other four out, zero runs; the rest of the game is a bullpen game, but the team loses to Shohei Ohtani and the Angels.

Of course, reaction to the moves is already as you’d expect it to be, given our current climate of hot-take/knee jerk reactions.  You’ve got “get off my lawn” types talking about how this isn’t “good for the game.”  You’ve got Joel Sherman (who has been around the sport long enough to know what they’re doing) calling the strategy “Bizarre.”  And you’ve got progressive types like Houston’s A.J. Hinch praising the move.

So, what do I think of this?

Well …. honestly this is the natural evolution of the trend towards specialized relievers that we’ve been seeing lately.  A mediocre/failed starter can be converted to a highly valuable reliever by just having them throw harder and focus on mastering two pitches instead of attempting to master three or four, and it happens All The Time.  See Rivera, Mariano and Eckersley, Dennis for hall of fame exhibits A and B here (ok .. to be fair Eckersley was by  no means a failed starter … but he would not be in Cooperstown had he not become a dominant closer).

Well, what if you had an entire roster of specialized relievers instead of spending tens of millions of dollars on a rotation?

Take the Nats: our top four starters this year are earning north of $80M this season.  What if you had spread that $80M around on a bunch of closer/near-closer types, the kinds of guys who go for significantly less per annum?  What if you had an entire team of guys like Ryan Madsen ($7.6M) or Sean Doolittle ($4.3M) or Brandon Knitzler ($5.5M).  Heck, why not load up y our team with pre-arb guys like Sammy Solis ($560k) and Matt Grace ($557k) and spend that $80M on improving the out-field players?

I’ve often wondered if a team couldn’t just have essentially 12 relievers and would basically turn every game into a bullpen game.  What if you deployed your staff kind of like this:

• Three “Closer” quality guys (like our Doolittle)
• Three solid RH 7th/8th inning types like Madsen and Kelley.
• Three left-handed match-up guys (Solis, Grace)
• Three long-men types who could soak up innings but who can’t turn over a lineup more than twice (kind of like Jeremy Hellickson but perhaps more like a 4-A starter, or what Edwin Jackson is doing in AAA).

You take half this squad and they’re the A-team; that gives you 5-6 arms to pitch the first game of the week.  Then, they all get a break and the other 5-6 arms get the next game.  In a typical week every reliever then gets three to four days off with off-games and off-days.   The long-men only go every two days, since you’re asking them to do 3-4 innings, but still get plenty of rest.  So a pattern of games could look like this:

• Game 1: Closer1 pitches the 1st, RH1 and LH1 combine to pitch 2nd and 3rd.  Longman1 comes in and throws 4th through the 7th.  Then depending on where you are in the game he returns for the 8th or you go to your RH2/LH2 guy before handing off to Closer2 in the 9th.  So that’s 5 to 6 arms used in the first game.
• Game 2: Closer3 starts.  RH3 throws next two innings.  Longman2 throws innings 4-7.  LH3 finishes it out, perhaps throwing Closer1 a second day in a row if need be.
• Game 3: Closer2 starts.  Perhaps you go right to Longman3 for a 5 inning stint.  Back to RH1 and LH1 for the 7th/8th, then either let these guys do a 2 inning stint or go back to Closer3 for back-to-backs to finish the game.

So the workload for a 3-game series goes like this:

• Closers: 2 innings each with an off-day
• RH guys: 2-3 innings each with an off-day
• LH guys: 2-3 innings each with an off-day
• Long-men: 3-4 innings each with two off-days

That’s basically 27 innings across three games, assuming your middle relievers throw a couple of 2-inning stints in there, or one of your long-men does 4 innings instead of three.

Tell me why this wouldn’t work?  Everyone gets a ton of rest, and if you burn out one of your longmen you just call up re-inforcements from AAA to do mop-up games here and there.  You always have a closer going against the top of the order in the first inning, then you try to work it out so that you can do match-ups the next time they come up with a 7th/8th inning quality guy.  The best hitters on the other team will eventually get a shot at your “long man…” but under this plan, they’re getting four at bats generally against four different arms.  That’s going to give the advantage to the pitcher every time; batters don’t get to study up the opposing starter every night for research; they’re going to be seeing gas, trick pitches and one-trick ponies that have ridiculous BAAs and BABIPs thanks to their specialty.

So, who would love this?

• Owners.  no more 9-figure contracts for starters who have like a 50% injury rate.
• Some Pitchers: more opportunities for guys who just couldn’t cut it as starters but who crush it as releivers.

Who wouldn’t like this?

• High end starters: less jobs, less demand for you.  Maybe.  I mean, right now Tampa is sticking with their two solid starters and only doing this for the other slots.  Maybe a team with two Aces like the nats just lets them roll normally then does this kind of bullpen game the other three games out of five.
• Any baseball fan born before 1970, since they hate any change, any game modification.  I mean come on, there’s people demanding that we ban the shift (including the commissioner).
• The Players union; you’d have to think salaries would plummet
• Maybe most every baseball fan?  Offense drives fan interest … and this plan is specifically designed to neutralize the opposing team’s best hitters.

Thoughts?

Felix Hernandez made his leading 11th opening day start.
Photo Keith Allison via flickr/CCL

Every year I capture the Opening Day Starters into an XLS and then capture some useless trivia on it.  This is that post.

Google Doc XLS link: (the data is too big to make an HTML table): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Mv8gLgJOuJHEAf_pXNwPWGCNRL4RnYEyulH6rxMuudA/edit?usp=sharing

Max Scherzer made his 3rd  career opening day start, all in a Nat’s uniform (he never  got an Opening day start while pitching behind Justin Verlander in Detroit).   Stephen Strasburg has himself made four opening day starts, with these two guys covering every Nats opening day start dating to 2011.

The Nats have one other player with Opening day starts on their resume: Jeremy Hellickson made the 2016 and 2017 opening day starts for Philadelphia.  He currently sits in XST building up arm strength so he can take over for A.J. Cole as our fifth starter after he blows up a couple more times.  And its worth noting that former Nat Jordan Zimmermann earned his first ever such start for Detroit this year, shortly before getting hit in the head with a come-backer.

Here’s some useless trivia related to Opening Day Starts:

• Active Leader: Tie at the top: Seattle’s Felix Hernandez with 11.  CC Sabathia also has 11, but hasn’t made the Yankee’s start since 2014.
• Active Consecutive Leader: Also Hernandez, who has made 10 straight, missing one in 2008 when Erik Bedard took the mound in Game 1 as the new shiny FA signing that spring.  The next closest is Clayton Kershaw, who has made 8 straight for LA.
• Other longish conseutive starts streak: Atlanta’s Julio Teheran with 5, Corey Kluber with 4, and Chris Archer with 4.
• Madison Bumgarner, Masahiro Tanaka and Dallas Keuchel all had 3-4 start streaks broken thanks to injury or being passed over for a different guy.
• 13 of the 30 games were started by first time Opening Day starters this year, continuing a trend of new,  younger guys getting these starts.  In fact, I’d say that a couple of the opening day starters you’d be hard pressed to pull out of a lineup: Miami’s Jose Urena, Milwaukee’s Chase Anderson, and SF’s Ty Blach in particular.

All-time records:

• Most Ever: Tom Seaver (16).  Tied for 2nd place with 14 is Jack Morris, Randy Johnson and Steve Carlton
• Most Consecutive: Jack Morris (14)

Can Felix get 5 more starts to break Morris’ record?   He’s only signed through 2019 with an option for 2020, so he’d need to get an extension … something that’s more and more rare in today’s Baseball climate.

Thanks to that same trend against aging pitchers, a slew of former leaders of Opening Day starts may be permanently retired out of the game.  Guys like Jered Weaver, Tim Lincecum, Edison Volquez, Yovanni Gallardo (who was just DFA’d), Ricky Nolasco, Jake Peavy and perhaps a few others, all of whom have at least 4-5 opening day starts to their name are struggling to find work right now or may be done.   Its turning into a young man’s game.

Solis may have another option year that I didn’t know about. Photo via Natsinsider blog/Mark Zuckerman

My internal notes have Sammy Solis as being a lock for the 2018 roster because he was Out of Options.  In fact, this topic came up again recently in the comments when I posted quickie predictions of the opening day roster.

But, a posting today from MLB Trade Rumors doesn’t list him as being one of the Nationals’ “out of options” players, and a quick glance over at BP’s Roster Resource currently has Solis in the AAA team with an option remaining.

So, how did I have this wrong for so long?

Here’s the relevant transactions for Solis in his career related to options:

• Drafted in 2010
• Added to 40-man in Nov 2013 ahead of the 2013 Rule-5 draft.
• Spent the entire 2014 season in the Minors; option #1.
• Was up and down several times in 2015 season, including the entire month of June and again in August.  Option #2.
• 2016; this is the iffy year because the first two option years are pretty clear.  So Lets look at his 2016 movement. I use ESPN’s transaction list as reference: http://www.espn.com/mlb/team/transactions/_/name/wsh/year/2016
  – March 14th: Solis optioned to AAA
  – April 27th: Solis recalled from AAASo. A Minor league option is burned as per this quote: “When a player is optioned to the Minors for a span of more than 20 days, he loses an option.”  This quote is as per http://m.mlb.com/glossary/transactions/minor-league-options

  3/14 to 4/27 is definitely more than 20 days, but honestly its about when the season starts. So in 2016, the Nats played their first game on April 4th.   4/4 to 4/27 is STILL more than 20 days.

  So therefore, I had thought he burned an option in 2016. Just barely … but he did.  Is “20 days” actually “20 GAMES?”  Is that the distinction?  I also know an option can be cancelled if a player is called back up for injury purposes; I notice that on that same day 4/27/16 the nats assigned Matt Belisle to the D/L … is this what cancelled Solis’ 2016 option?  It might very well be.

Either that or he got a 4th option granted for some reason (his TJ surgery?).

Nonetheless, this options situation is great for the team in terms of roster flexibility … not so great for Solis, because he may very well be one of the 7 best relievers but now may be odd man out in April thanks to this roster quirk.  But it does give us a bit of context to help do roster prediction analysis the rest of this spring…

Maybe its the inverted W that keeps causing Glover shoulder issues? Photo via mlb.com

Hey guys.

So … in case you couldn’t tell, I’ve been swamped and have not been posting.  Its a job transition thing; I’ve gotten hit on all fronts and just have had no time to do much of anything outside of work.

At some point this spring, I hope to do a review of the non-roster invites, like I do every year, since we’re almost guaranteed to get an NRI making the roster.

Big news so far in camp, of course, Koda Glover lasting about 5 seconds into spring training before getting shut down due to shoulder soreness.   I’m beginning to think Glover is the latest incarnation of Christian Garcia, a guy with an 80 arm and a 20 ability to stay healthy.

I guess the other big news is non-news; Bryce Harper preemptively telling reporters to not bother asking him about  his pending free agency.  Fair enough; good luck having that directive stick as Harper (the biggest personality in the sport) travels to all the major baseball cities with beat reporters looking to fill inches.  Harper also made an off-hand comment about the Marlins, quickly retorted by Don “get off my lawn” Mattingly, who was subsequently ridiculed for  his over-reaction by none other than frequent Nat-hater Craig Calcaterra over at Hardball talk.

Chalk all that up to “slow news day.”

Glover’s injury quickly led to a 40-man deal for the ageless Joaquin Benoit, which will require a corresponding 40-man move.   I’m wondering if Glover to 60-day D/L won’t be the play, since they were pretty quick to shut him down post-MRI.  Actually, it probably makes more sense to officially move Joe Ross to 60-day D/L first,  since we won’t be seeing him til August  at the earliest.  (Post-publishing update: yup, that’s exactly what they did when the signing became official; moved Ross to 60-day d/l).

Speaking of Benoit, even given his guaranteed signing, I don’t see a pathway to the 25-man roster for him.  As I’ve noted before, the Nats bullpen is pretty full:

• four veterans on guaranteed contracts in Doolittle, Madsen, Knitzler and Kelley.
• three younger guys, all of whom have zero opens left: Grace, Solis and Romero.

Soooo, unless there’s another injury, or a DFA, I’m not quite sure how Benoit makes this team.

In other non-news … the Nats still don’t have much of a 5-th starter competition.  Mike Rizzo was quoted a few weeks ago “naming” A.J. Cole as his 5th starter.  And why not?  Also out of options, Cole makes the team or faces the waiver wire.  So it only makes sense for him to break camp with the team as its 5th starter.

Not much else to report for now.  Can’t wait for games to start so we can have our typical over-reactions to stat lines!

Is Cole the 2018 5th starter? Photo AP

Interesting news on 1/11/18: Edwin Jackson has re-signed a split minor league deal  with decent compensation if he makes the major league team ($1.5M plus another $1.4M in incentives).

Lots of rumors about the team eventually buying a more established 5th starter, either on the open market or in trade.  There’s too many names still out there to even begin to discuss, from marquee 8-figure free agents (Yu Darvish) to Nats-favorite Scott Boras clients he’s likely to go over Rizzo’s head about (Jake Arrieta) to trade candidates from rebuilding teams (Tampa, Miami, Pittsburgh and their  valuable arms like Gerrit Cole, Chris Archer, though inbetween the time I started this post and published it, Cole had already been traded to the keep-getting-richer Astros).  Bur for now, we don’t have any of these guys … so we’re still projected for a fun spring training competition.

So, what does the #5 starter competition look like right now?  Basically there’s four primary candidates now in-house and signed for 2018.  Lets rank them in likely order of winning the job:

#1: A.J. Cole

I think right now Cole has the inside track, even given the Milone and Jackson signings.  Cole’s 2018 numbers were decent at the MLB level: 3-5 with a 3.81 ERA even if his periperhals were bad (5.88 fip, 1.50 whip).  His AAA numbers in 2017 were awful (5.88 ERA in 18 starts), but then again the entire Syracuse rotation was awful in 2018.  But, he did show some promise last  year and he’s out of options, so I can’t help but think that he’ll get a shot to stick on the MLB roster until he proves he’s either staying or going one last time.

#2 : Edwin Jackson:

He made an ok case for the job based on what he was able to do last  year.   No, he wasn’t awesome: in 13 starts he was 5-6 with a 5.07 ERA and even worse peripherals (5.88 FIP, 1.4 whip).  That’s about what he did for San Diego in 2016, so It shouldn’t be too much of a surprise.   But he’s a known quantity, he throws hard, he never gets hurt.  He also clearly will work in the minors to get another shot at the majors and didn’t sign back up with this team on a whim, so odds are he could get stashed in Syracuse for a bit and wait out his chance.

#3 Tommy Milone: the prodigal son returns to the fold.  Initially sent away in the Gio Gonzalez trade 7 years ago, he pitched well for both Oakland and Minnesota before falling off a cliff in 2016.  His 2017 was not pretty: a combined 7.63 ERA for two different teams.  He also signed a minor league deal that I suspect may have an opt-out if he fails to make the team.  Hopefully not; he did log some AAA time in the last two seasons and may also opt to stick around.  Is it possible he returns to his career form (a 4.37 ERA and a 91 ERA+ figure)?  Maybe; he’d have to do a lot better though to make his case for t he 5th starter.

#4: Erick Fedde; our top starting pitcher prospect and sole arm in AAA or AA (or perhaps even  high-A at this point) which represents a significant draft investment (outside of Mariano Rivera Jr that is … who is already a reliever).  And he did not look ready in his debut last fall.  3 starts. 9.39 ERA … even if two of those starts were against tough competition (home to Colorado, then away vs the Cubs).  Short Sample Size, yadda-yadda, he got knocked around.  He needs more AAA time and you’d have to think he’s starting the year either in XST (if its too cold in Syracuse) or in upstate NY.

So, what about our minor league depth past these four guys?  Honestly: there’s not a ton of depth we can count on in AAA or AA.  The 40-man names are Fedde, Cole, Voth and Jefry Rodriguez.  That’s it.

Here’s a quick glance at our other minor league starters out there who are more likely to be AA or AAA fodder (in rough order of their consideration for the job/likely 2018 assignments)

AAA projected rotation (over-top of those four names above who miss out and who don’t opt out, that is):

• Jared Long (he may or may not be a MLFA still; rosterresource.com shows him on the Nats roster but milb.com shows him as a FA): if he’s still with us, he showed two years running he was better than AA.  I’d like to see him with a long run in AAA to see if he’s a viable candidate to move up.
• John Simms: this home grown product (2013 11th round draftee) has earned promotion after promotion and should start 2018 in AAA.  He doesn’t have shutdown stuff, but could be a sneaky candidate for spot starts.
• Logan Darnell; this 2018 MLFA signing from Tampa had good AAA success several years running for other organizations and seems like a clear AAA arm eater for now.  Can he be more?
• Austin Voth; two years ago looked like he could be the next Tanner Roark, but a brutal 2017 season got him demoted to AA.  He posted a 3.15 ERA in AAA in 2016; can he get back there?   If not, then he’s in clear danger of being first man off the 40-man roster if a spot is needed.
• Greg Ross: as with Voth, the Greg Ross train got derailed in upstate New York in 2017, also earning him a demotion.  He re-signed though for 2018 to give it another shot and might start in AAA given past success in AA.

Note: at least one of these names likely gets pushed down, especially since Fedde likely isn’t winning the 5th starter job.  Jackson and Milone as veterans may have opt-outs and are not likely to stick around, but you never know.  And if Cole doesn’t make the team, he’s passing through waivers before he gets to AAA and may not make it.  So the AAA rotation will be in flux right up until 4/1/18.

AA projected rotation (on top of whoever above might get pushed down, likely Ross then Voth)

• Wirkin Estevez had good AA numbers in 2017 (3.63 ERA in 11 starts after promotion from high-A) and re-signed a ML deal to stay with the organization.   He’s probably first AA starter for a need-based promotion.
• Tyler Mapes missed all of 2017 after a very solid AA 2016 season; if he’s healthy, he starts here looking to repeat his 2016 performance before getting moved up.
• Kyle McGowin; our trade bounty for Danny Espinosa has shown two years running his inability to succeed in AAA.  He likely starts in AA again in 2018 given the log-jam in Syracuse.
• Matt Crownover had a 4.50 ERA in a full AA season; nothing to really prove he needs to move up (especially given his weak K/9 rates), so likely starts in AA again looking for a mid-season promotion.
• Jefry Rodriguez: the newest member of the 40-man roster, Rodriguez will hope to harness his high-A success from last year at the next step up.

Nobody in AA right now who looks like he could help immediately; Rodriguez though may get some spot-start/double header duty since he’s on the 40-man and doesn’t require a corresponding move.

So; are you satisfied with a ST 2018 competition or do you think we need to spend money or prospects on another arm?

Keep in mind; the division is a mess, with Atlanta not really trying, Miami actively getting worse and Philadelphia making curious moves.  Only the Mets will challenge, and their big move this off-season has been to sign Adrian Gonzalez .  So we don’t need a $20M/year 5th starter.  And there’s the luxury tax considerations that keep coming up.

thoughts?

Ohtani signs with the … Angels? photo via theatlantic.com

We now know that Japanese superstar Shohei Ohtani has signed; he’s going to the Los Angeles Angels … or in other words, the other baseball team in Los Angeles.  His selection of that team seems to have been driven by a desire to be on the West Coast, his apparent desire to be on an AL team to open up the DH opportunities in-between his starts … and his insane desire to leave literally tens of millions of dollars on the table.

I was listening to a podcast where some guy was trying to argue that Ohtani was actually making a “good” business move by coming over now.  I was flabbergasted.  The guy’s main argument was that by coming over now, he gets to free agency two years earlier and thus can get more money then.  But it gave zero credence to the fact that he’s going to be costing himself literally tens of millions of dollars by playing for MLB min salaries for three years.

I thought i’d try to map out just how ridiculously bad his financial decision was to leave Japan now versus in two years, when he’d be 25 and would be an unrestricted FA.  So, using some simple guesses and projections, here’s an attempt to discuss just how much money he’s leaving on the table.

By coming over now, he is subjecting himself to the same rules as any other IFA; he gets the maximum bonus that the Angels can offer ($2.315M after they acquired some bonus money just ahead of the signing).  He’ll play for the MLB minimum the next three years.  Then he’ll enter arbitration, with the caveat that any shenanigans in the contracts he may sign to buy out arb years will probably be voided by MLB.  So we’ll use the records for 1st/2nd/3rd year eligible arb players as benchmarks.

By year:

• 2017: $2.315M bonus
• Age 23-25 seasons: 2018, 2019, 2020: MLB minuimums or there abouts; lets assume he gets good raises and earns $545k, $800k and then $1.1M (Mike Trout owns the current record for pre-arb player salary of $1M).
• Age 26 season in 2021: 1st arb year; $10M, which is Ryan Howard‘s current record for first year arb eligible players … and which is significantly higher than the 1st year record for pitchers (Dallas Keuchel‘s $7.25M).
• Age 27 season in 2022: 2nd arb year: $11.3M
• Age 28 season in 2023: 3rd arb year: $15.5M
• Age 29 season in 2024: 4th arb year (why does he get a 4th year?  Because what’s stopping the Angels from keeping him in Spring Training until a few weeks have passed and keeping him for an extra year?  Wouldn’t you?): $19.75M.

So, adding that up; assuming he matches the absolute highest figures in arb figures and doesn’t sign an extension, he’d earn $61.31M in bonus and salary by the time he’s reached Free Agency.

Versus ….

• 2018: plays in Japan at his current salary of about $2.378M
• 2019: does the same.

And in 2020, he comes over here completely unencumbered and signs a massive deal.   The pundits that i’ve read, when asked what he’d be worth on the open market right now, say between $200M and $240M in total value.  Their argument would be that he’d easily be the best FA on the market, he’s got better stuff than any pitcher out there (he sits upper 90s, touches triple digits and per Dave Cameron of fangraphs has spin rates the equivalent of Luis Severino … all while producing at the plate and being an 80 runner).   $200-$250M is a crazy contract to try to project to … so lets assume, for the sake of argument, its a $25M AAV deal (which is probably light, but makes the point anyway).  To then cover the same years as the above scenario:

• 2020, 2021,2022, 2023,2024 at $25M/per.

So that’d be $125M plus his two years of Japan salary.  That’s a difference of about $65M just between now and 2024 … and that assumes several key points (that he gets the arbitration record each year, that he continues to get his ridiculously cheap $2.3M Japanese salary, and that he “only” gets $25M AAV).

Odds are that the actual difference would be much higher, since he’s likely to get a lot more than $25M AAV.  Why?  Because unlike typical Pitcher FAs we see in the majors … he’s still in his early 20s, he’s got no injury history … and he can hit!  So if you think he’s likely to get closer to $35M AAV … then add another $50M to that $65M gap above and now you see why people are saying he’s making a $100M mistake.

Yes, Ohtani will be making bank through endorsements.  So he’s not going to be hurting for cash.  But the life of a pro athlete can be fleeting; you get as much as you can, as soon as you can, because there’s no guarantees about what happens tomorrow.  Ohtani might blow out his elbow twice in four years and he’s out of the league before he even hits free agency.  Or he might turn into the next Roger Clemens.  He’s making a huge gamble though in order to “compete” against the best now versus in a couple years.

(I think I got the above scenario right … let me know if there’s some detail of his contract that I missed).

Halladay was always a tough out for the Nats; RIP. Photo via wcpo.com

I have the mlb app with notifications turned on, so I got the news as soon as it was confirmed that Roy Halladay was in the plane.  It was shocking indeed.  Hate to see something like this.

My Halladay memories: The best seats I ever had at a Nats game were for a Nats-Philadelphia game in late 2008 with Halladay starting.  I sprung for those diamond seats, 2nd row behind the plate.  It was an awesome experience, and you just don’t really get a sense for how hard these guys throw until you’re *that* close.  I also remember vividly a game that I’m sure some of you also remember: Halladay going for a complete game against us in 2011 but running into trouble in the 9th only to strike out both Matt Stairs and Ivan Rodriguez looking  … and neither guy moved their bat off their shoulder.

I’ve begun thinking about his legacy, as one is apt to do in times like this: Halladay was an incredibly dominant pitcher for a good stretch of his career, but he was essentially washed up at 34 and out of the game at 36, didn’t have the counting numbers some older voters want, and may have some difficulties getting elected.