1B is easier to fill internally if need be. We have Moore who is probably about as major league ready as he is going to get. I’m not sure I buy into the section of people who think based on his small sample size last season that he is a 30/HR 100/RBI guy but I think he could be a 20-25 homer 85/RBI guy with a below average glove. We also have Matt Skole who is probably permanently switching to 1B after his solid AFL campaign. He looks much better at 1B defensively.

Next offseason’s 1B class is as thin as this years so if you want to put up money at 1B it just looks like the best answer is to resign LaRoche even if it takes a 3rd season.

I was just trying (poorly) to say that I think Zim is much more valuable to Nats at 3B than 1B, so I have never understood the willingness to switch, even to find room for Rendon’s bat. Even with his throwing problems (which admittedly made my stomach clench on occasion), he was essentially league average on D last year. I’d play him there until his range is severely diminished.

If Zim plays in 140 games a year he is probably more along the lines of a .285/.360/.490 line with a 25-30 homer total and 90-100 RBI. If he stays at 3rd for the length of the contract that will provide surplus value. I think that is probably highly unlikely. The only thing I can look at and see is that his contract is only half of what Fielder, Pujols and Votto are making and the contracts of firstbasemen is highly overpaid. If Zimm moves to 1b and provides consistent offense, even if it is below what those 3 do, in the end his contract could look like a bargain. All that is contingent on his questionable health.

Contracts seem to be skyrocketing, as evidenced by Upton getting $15 million a year.

I am sooooooo glad they made this trade instead of a 5 year deal for Bourn. Span is among the best in the league at making contact and that is big with his speed. This makes the lineup look a bit different but I really like it.

Bowden had no concept of building teams, period. Rizzo took over a team that literally had no bullpen and whose farm system had bottomed out. How much of that is Bowden’s fault? Has to be a lot of it. Bowden was obsessed with toolsy guys, reclamation projects and his former players. Hence his falling in love with guys like Lastings Milledge and Dmitri Young, and why Austin Kearns kept getting contracts. I remember counting up the 40-man roster with Cincinnati ties at one point and it was literally a quarter of the roster.

On Gio; i did say it was “trending as a complete steal.” I just think its folly to judge a 5 year deal as a success one year in. If Gonzalez turns into Daniel Cabrera in two years time and we have to eat $20M of that contract … well we won’t think its so great then. I will say though that just on a $/win basis, Gio is already doing a good job of earning value for the life of this contract, even if he gets hit by a truck next year. 21 wins for $45M guaranteed is a bit more than $2M/win, and he’s still got 4 years to accumulate more wins.

Totally agree on Werth’s contract becoming more “innocuous” as more big money deals come out. I may have said the same thing somewhere, either in a column or in a blog posting. In fact, It’ll be very curious to see how the blogosphere starts reacting to all these big money deals. I’m guessing they’re all going to be labeled “massive overpays” immediately, since we’re judging money on the past versus on the future. Brandon League, Jeremy Affeldt deals already criticized for the amount of money for relievers as examples.

I’ve always had a sore spot for the treatment of Werth’s contract and the Nats making it. I felt it was related to the prevailing opinion of the franchise at the time moreso than to the actual contract. My proof was the reaction to the Carl Crawford deal, a guy who got MORE money than Werth but who was inarguably a lesser hitter. Did the REd Sox get absolutely crushed like the Nats did in the press at the time? No of course not, because they were making lots of big money deals.

a.) he overvalued what he had or

b.) every GM in baseball hated him and refused to trade with him.

Maybe it is option c.) a and b combined.

Even if he had moved just Cordero the team would have been able to get a pretty decent prospect for him. Guzman and Young may not have fetched much but Rizzo did manage to turn Guzman into Tanner Roark and Ryan Tatsuko 2 years later. If he got 2 arms, albeit unimpressive ones, you would have to think somebody would have been interested in giving up something with more upside than that during Guzzie’s all star season. I guess maybe Bowden was so delusional he thought he could pull another couple of Dmitri Young’s off the scrap heap and put together a competitive team instead of, you know, actually building from within like “the plan” said.