Nationals Arm Race

In a word: I have no idea.

While the rest of Nats nation talks about the fallout of Jayson Werth‘s broken wrist (most of this post was written before last night’s debacle), I had been thinking about this topic: when Chien-Ming Wang exhausts his 30 day rehab assignment, what in the world is this team going to do with him?

If I’m correct about rehab assignment rules while on the 15-day DL, players have 30 days once they appear in a minor league game.  Wang’s first ML appearance was in Potomac on Apr 29th, and then he pitched 6 innings on Friday night in Hagerstown.  As has been reported in both local media and national, Wang’s 6 inning stint represented a big step forward in the pitcher’s ability to return to the majors.  Now, perhaps this isn’t a problem for another month or so, but both these reports seemed to indicate that Wang was “nearly ready” to return to the majors.  Problem is, the Nationals really don’t have anywhere to put him.

As everyone knows, the Nats currently have the best pitching staff in baseball by most statistical measures.  We’ve rocketed out to an 18-10 start, winning 8 of our 9 series so far, on the strength of starting pitching.  And there’s no logical starter that we should replace right now.  Strasburg just won NL pitcher of the month, Gonzalez is making all the “Nats paid too much” pundits eat their words thus far with a stellar start, Zimmermann is allowing a miniscule .992 WHIP right now (even after counting for May 6th inflation), and Detwiler is pitching better than any of them now to little fan fare, with a 3-1, 1.59 era, .988 whip and a staff-best 241 ERA+.  Arguably the “worst” of our starters is also our most expensive: Edwin Jackson.  Of course, the word “worst” is only understood in context: if it weren’t for one first inning meltdown on April 19th, Jackson’s ERA would be 2.34 instead of its current 3.69.

If you’re Davey Johnson, you don’t possibly dare disrupt the existing rotation do you?  I wouldn’t.  But, Wang needs to go somewhere.  Can you put him in the bullpen?  Doubtful; he’s a starter coming off a shoulder injury and probably needs to be on a set schedule of throwing.  I doubt he’s able to jump up and be ready to enter a high-leverage reliever situation with 8 pitches to get ready.  Do you send Detwiler to the pen?  He’s the least experienced of the 5 starters we have; the other 4 have long since established their spots.  Do you move Jackson to the bullpen?  That’d make for an awful expensive middle reliever.  Wang has no options (nor does Detwiler or Gorzelanny for that matter, logical choices to move up or down to make way), so they all have to find room on the active roster.  I don’t think Wang is trade-bait; who would give up anything other than a marginal prospect for him based on his injury past?

Honestly, I’m expecting some 15-day DL hijinks to ensue if/when the situation comes to loggerheads.

Opening day is always so much fun.  Except when you are running late, try driving to the stadium, and literally drive around for an hour trying to find a place to park.  I’ve never seen the areas around the stadium THAT jammed, with no parking available in any lot for any price.  We ended up illegally parked off of Delaware ave and somehow didn’t get a parking ticket.  My guess is that the meter maids got carpel tunnel syndrome from writing so many tickets for out of towners that they had to go home before reaching the neighborhood where my car was parked.  We saw the jets from 395, we heard the fireworks while driving past the McDonalds on South Capitol, and arrived in time to see the Nats bat in the bottom of the 2nd.  Lesson learned; never never try to drive to opening day again.

Anyway.

Gio Gonzalez looked fabulous; 7ip, 2 hits, 7 punchouts and zero walks.  He works fast, his four seamer hopped and his curve (at least from the side) looks amazing.  He made Joey Votto, Cincinnati’s best hitter, look just foolish, punching him out twice.  Gonzalez continues a trend of Washington’s 3 best starters pitching 7 complete with room to spare (Gonzalez sat at 97 pitches through 7 complete but had 7-8-9 coming up, meaning that Clippard had a relatively easy hold, but more importantly meaning that, were it later in the season, Gonzalez easily could have extended himself to get through the 8th).

Too bad Gonzalez’s Win was spoiled by the 2nd and 3rd defensive gaffes from Ryan Zimmerman on the afternoon.  He had a fielding error earlier in the game (compounded by throwing the ball away) that didn’t end up factoring into the game, but his defense in the 9th was very questionable.

Baseball 101: if you’re nursing a close lead in the 9th inning, what do you tell your fielders?  NO DOUBLES.  That means your 1st and 3rd basemen guard the line and your outfielders play deep.  You can absorb a single but you don’t allow someone into scoring position.  So what happens in the top of the 9th?  Scott Rolen doubles down the line past Zimmerman to get into scoring position.  Zimmerman was so far off the line he didn’t even dive after the ball.   What he heck was he doing?

Then, after a walk to load the bases Zimmerman plays Ryan Ludwick at least even with the bag, perhaps even further in, apparently guarding against the bunt.  Ok: I guess I can understand that play to a certain extent … except that Ludwick is a power hitter and the Reds were 2 runs down at that point.  Dusty Baker isn’t playing for a suicide squeeze, he’s playing for a gapper to score two runs.  To make matters worse, Ludwick gets down 1-2, and Zimmerman STILL doesn’t return to double play depth.  Ludwick, who was a far shot to bunt in the first place, certainly isn’t bunting with 2 strikes down 2 runs in the 9th!  So what happens?  Ludwick hits a routine grounder to Zimmerman, who gets eaten up because he’s playing right on the grass and the ball takes a weird hop.  If Zimmerman plays at normal depth, that’s a game ending double play ball at best, a force out at 3rd for the 2nd out at worst.

Do you blame his positioning on Zimmerman or the dugout?  Probably the latter, but Zimmerman has been playing long enough and is a good enough fielder that he should have known what to do.  I hope he buys Gonzalez dinner for costing him a Win (not to mention Lidge for the blown-save).  In the end the Nats get the W … but as I was driving away from the stadium it wouldn’t have surprised me in the least to see the team demoralizingly drop that game after controlling it the entire day.

Could Marlon Byrd be coming back to the Nats? Photo Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images via bleachereport.com

If this MLB rumor is true, then make that trade tomorrow.   If Chicago is inquiring “again,” then make the deal before they stop calling.

Marlon Byrd for John Lannan straight up.  Or even if Washington throws in some salary or perhaps a low-level prospect.  We know why this trade makes sense for Washington; we’ve done Lannan badly, we’re paying him $5M to sit in Syracuse, and he’s a tradeable asset that has asked for a trade and probably has mentally checked out of the organization.  Why does the trade make sense for Chicago?  Because their pitching is a mess right now.

Past their good 1-2 punch of Ryan Dempster and Matt Garza, the Cubs have 3 big question marks for starters penciled in right now.   Here’s the rest of their planned rotation:

3. Jeff Samardzija was a great reliever (and an even better wide receiver), but has never started in the majors.  Despite great scouting reports and good spring numbers (and April 8th’s start where he took a 3 hitter into the 9th) its a risk.  And with Kerry Wood walking 3 straight guys to spoil a fantastic start from Dempster on opening day, the Cubs probably could use some back-of-the-bullpen stability that Samardzija formerly provided.

4. Paul Maholm was decent last year, but as put up some big ERAs in the recent past and now will be pitching in a hitter’s park (though not yesterday, 41 degrees with the wind in… hey everyone looks like Cy Young when you pitch in those conditions).   On most teams he’s barely a #5 starter.

5. Chris Volstad has been awful for Florida (ahem, Miami) for the past few years, and now is a good bet to be even more awful for Chicago.

Lannan easily slots into the #4 spot and gives the team better innings than what they would have gotten from Volstad.  Or, Lannan puts Samardzija back in the bullpen until Volstad puts up a 6.00 ERA in April and the team’s hand is forced.

Chicago could put Reed Johnson in center, or call someone up.  In either case they’re patently in a rebuilding phase and don’t need a veteran playing in Center.  They’re not hurting for money, but a little pay

Make this move!  It’ll be better for everyone.  Washington gets a real CF with some offensive capabilities, moves Lannan (who’s clearly disgruntled and finished with the organization), and everyone wins.

Hope to see you back soon Mr Lannan. Photo Luis Alvarez/AP via www.timesunion.com

I was sort of curious why there was so much volume on my Nationals RSS feeds this morning; little did I know there was a relatively shocking piece of news to report and comment on; John Lannan has been optioned to AAA to start the 2012 season.

I’ll admit it: I had Lannan penciled in as the 5th starter as soon as Chien-Ming Wang went down with injury.  I didn’t give it a second thought.  When the Nats bought Edwin Jackson, they had 6 starters for 5 spots and my presumption was that Lannan was the default choice for the 5th starter once Wang proved not to be ready for the start of the season.  In the back of my mind I knew Lannan had an option … but never thought that he and his $5M salary would be dropped to Syracuse.

This action definitely sends some statements.  In no particular order:

1. Unlike past iterations of the team (notably the 2009 team and the bullpen construction decisions made at the end of spring training), this sends the message that roster spots are not entirely guaranteed by virtue of salary or options status.  We all knew Ross Detwiler had no options and was set to make the 25-man roster, but nobody thought he’d be beating out Lannan for the 5th starter spot.  Its hard to argue he didn’t earn it; his Spring Training ERA was half that of Lannan’s.

2. The team isn’t concerned about “wasting” salary: Lannan joins fellow multi-millionare Yuniesky Maya in Syracuse, meaning that the Syracuse rotation is set to earn a sizeable percentage per annum of the major league rotation (roughly $20M for the Nats starting 5 versus $7M and change in AAA).  In fact if it weren’t for Jackson’s $11M salary the two rotations would be roughly equal.  Amazing.

3. Was there a stated rotation competition still ongoing this late into Spring Training?  If so it certainly didn’t come out in the dozens of stories filed by the beat reporters from Viera.  Perhaps the real shock here is that nobody knew that Lannan’s job was in jeopardy.  Did Lannan?

4. Sending Lannan down isn’t the same thing as sending Bryce Harper down: I’ve seen some bloggers kvetching about the statement “we’re starting with our best 25” when explaining the demotion while the team breaks camp with 3 non-roster invitees (Tracy, Carroll, Nady), at least one of which is set to get major reps in the outfield, and none of which are as good as Harper right now.  The simple matter is this; there’s “money” considerations and then there’s “MONEY” considerations.  Just keeping Harper in the minors a couple of weeks guarantees us one more year of his service prior to FA eligibility, and that’s hugely important.  No-one will argue the WAR-value add of 2 weeks of a 19yr old rookie versus 162 games of a 25-yr old emerging slugger.

I can buy some of the argument, by the way, that the Super-2 status concerns may be moot with Harper, considering that the team is in its best interests to buy out Harper’s arbitration years before he hits them.  Other forward-thinking teams (Tampa, Colorado, Los Angeles, Milwaukee) have certainly been doing this with their younger stars (Evan Longoria, Matt Moore, Troy Tulowitzki, Matt Kemp, and Ryan Braun respectively for the above teams).  But, as far as I can tell none of the above players are advised by Scott Boras, who knows maximum value is obtained by waiting til the last minute, by playing all the angles, and by not giving “home town  discounts.”  So for me, there is still significant future value in keeping Harper in the minors until mid-to-late June.  The difference can be googled by the reader, as WP writers have done this analysis several times in the past and discovered that a superstar avoiding super-2 can mean $14-$18M in future salary.

5. Davey Johnson needs to get on the same page as his boss (aka, Mike Rizzo).  Johnson telling the press “John’s my guy,” as he reportedly did just last week, or Johnson prematurely announcing that Lannan had won the 5th starter spot and then revoking it is a serious breach of boss-employee trust.   No wonder Lannan “took the news hard;” how would you feel if you were blindsided by your employer a week after them telling you that you were doing a great job and that everything seemed fine?  In this respect, the team seemed to have done Lannan wrong.  I’ll caveat this by saying that none of us armchair pundits are in the clubhouse on a day to day basis, so none of us had any idea what conversations Johnson and Lannan may have had leading up to his demotion.

6. I will have to agree with others who think this sends a bad message to the rest of the team.  Lannan by all respects is the kind of player teams want.  He doesn’t make waves, he doesn’t get bad press.  He was our opening day starter twice in recent years, he was a great example of a middle-round player overcoming his draft position and potential to make the majors, and he frankly isn’t that bad a pitcher.  Does the team’s “treatment” of Lannan send the wrong message to its veterans?  If so, that’s a bad cloud to have hanging over a team with some serious money tied up with its veterans (namely Werth, Zimmerman and Gonzalez).  If these guys didn’t like the way the team handled this situation, the clubhouse could be lost fairly easily.

7. You would think this action kills what remaining trade value Lannan had; Rizzo had already spoken of how the trade market for him was “thin” to begin with.  Lannan is a tough asset to get equal value for; he doesn’t over power you, he has unimposing stats (career 101 ERA+, or exactly MLB average), and he doesn’t get a ton of Ks.  He is a durable lefty who can fit at the back of your rotation.  Is that worth $5M a year (and more next year when he hits arbitration again)?  Or, more importantly to the Nats, is that worth a starting position player?  Certainly the Angels aren’t giving up their promising CF Peter Bourjos (as an example) for Lannan straight up.  We’d have to sweeten the pot.  Except that at some point, the value of keeping a disgruntled Lannan in AAA as starter insurance will eventually be more important than whatever role player we could get in return.

The one precedent that gives me hope on the trade front is when the team somehow turned demoted and malcontented Lastings Milledge into Nyjer Morgan (yes I know there was two others involved, but in terms of like for like, Milledge essentially turned into Morgan).  Perhaps Detwiler will continue his late 2011 performance into April of 2012 and will remain our starter-in-waiting to cover for eventual injuries and what not.  This would give the team more confidence to shop the now-insurance policy Lannan and wait for the right deal.

All in all, just your ordinary Wednesday in Nats town.

Remember this guy? He’ll be 100% for next spring and may spell a changing of the guard in the division. Photo via AllansGraphics.com

With major moves being made this off-season for the rotations of the NL East teams, we seem set to be in store for some serious pitching duels intradivision in 2012.  How do the rotations stack up, right now?  If the season started tomorrow, here’s what we’d be looking at for rotations:

By team, some observations:

• Philadelphia plans on replacing Roy Oswalt‘s 2011 starts with a call-up who looked pretty good last year in Worley. Joe Blanton looks like the odd-man out and his $8.5M salary may be wasted by virtue of an underrated but saavy acquisition of Joel Pineiro.  The Oswalt trade didn’t give the team what it seeked (a World Series title) but it didn’t cost them a ton in prospects either (JA Happ didn’t exactly light it up for Houston).  They’ve signed Dontrelle Willis for rotation depth.  Still, you can’t argue with three Cy Young candidates at the top of your rotation, and this team remains the team to beat in the division despite injuries (Ryan Howard) and aging (every single projected starter not named Hunter Pence is 30 or older, and Pence will be 29).   The pitching staff was #1 in ERA in the NL and I can’t imagine them dropping far from that.    If Worley performs like he did in 2011, and if Pineiro returns to his St. Louis form, then this is just as tough a 1-5 as last year.
• Atlanta should have won the wild card last year and seems set to roll out a rather similar rotation this year.  They’ll replace their worst starter Derek Lowe with starts from one of three up-and-coming rookies (I’ve got Delgado slated there now but likely Mike Minor wins the #5 spot in spring training) and should be improved.  Hudson is a year older and hasn’t missed a start in 2 years, but is slow coming back from off-season back surgery and may or may not be ready for opeing day.  The staff was #4 in the NL in team ERA and should do nothing but improve … but there’s some serious injury question marks.  Their incredible SP minor league depth should get them through.
• Miami has a some major question marks, despite acquiring Mark Buehrle to slot into their #2 spot.  They will cross their fingers on Josh Johnson; if he’s not healthy this team will be really hurt.  Nolasco can be brilliant or awful from start to start.   We still don’t know if Vazquez is retiring or returning; my initial guess would have been that he was too good in 2011 (3.69 era, 106 era+) and too young (reportedly 34 but i’ve never heard of any age-questioning here) to retire.  To provide cover though, the team traded for the volatile but possibly still talented Carlos Zambrano to slot in at #5.  Which Zambrano will they get?  And will his notorious clubhouse antics gibe with new hot-head manager Ozzie Guillen? On paper, a 1-5 of Johnson, Buehrle, Nolasco, Sanchez and Zambrano spells an awful lot of power and a lot of Ks.  They could be tough.  They should improve on last year’s #10 team ERA ranking.
• Washington just got a lot better, replacing 29 mostly awful Livan Hernandez starts with a healthy Stephen Strasburg and likewise replacing 35 combined mediocre starts out of Jason Marquis and Tom Gorzelanny with newly acquired power lefty Gio Gonzalez and power righty Edwin Jackson. They were 6th in the NL in team ERA, have mostly the same bullpen in place (5th best in the league in ERA in 2011) and seem set to improve.   Chien-Ming Wang seems set for the #5 spot, leaving John Lannan potentially being the most expensive pitcher in Syracuse.   The jeopardy the team now has is an utter lack of starting pitching depth; Peacock and Milone WERE our 2012 rotational safety nets; now we have just Detwiler, Gorzelanny and a couple guys who clearly seem to be AAA starters.  For this reason the team probably keeps Lannan around with the eventual goal of having him provide cover until our next wave of high-end pitching prospects develop.  Either way, this rotation and bullpen look to be improved from 2011.
• New York faces a grim 2012, not only in the rotation but also in the front office.  We’re hearing reports that Johan Santana is still too hurt to make opening day (though he’s since spelled some of these concerns with his first spring training outing).  Converted knuckleballer R.A. Dickey spent his off-season in a nasty fight with management over his charity climb of Mt. Kilimanjaro.  All their other starters posted ERAs in the mid to upper 4’s (or worse) with ERA+ figures in the 78-82 range.  And there doesn’t seem to be help coming on the Free Agency front (since the team can’t afford to keep operations running without bank loans) or on the prospect front (a quick glance at their AAA and AA starting talent resulted in ONE starter who had a minor league era in the respectable range, an 18th rounder in AA).  I think this team is finishing dead last in 2012 and may lose 100 games despite their payroll.  And to add insult to injury, the owners were just forced to cough up $83 million in a pre-trial settlement over their Madhoff scandal involvement.  Tough times are ahead for the Mets.

What do you guys think?  In terms of Washington, more than a few pundits have stated that the addition of Gonzalez makes the Nats a wild card contender, right now, and that was before the Jackson move finally brought some plaudits from typically cynical national baseball writers when considering signings by this franchise.

Do you think the Nats have now supplanted the Braves as having the 2nd best rotation in the division (as ESPN’s Buster Olney is opining?)  I think they have; I think Atlanta’s starters may be taking a slight step back while our quintet looks to be a solid, young but relatively experienced core.

We all know what Harper’s potential is; but shouldn’t we wait until the ramifications of early promotion have passed? Photo unknown via curlyw.mlbblog.com

Davey Johnson inadvertently has started a storyline that just won’t go to bed; by saying that he wants Bryce Harper to break camp with the 25-man team, national writers and local beat reporters keep reporting about the possibility of Harper playing RF for the team on opening day.

Here’s the facts that that these reporters conveniently forget:

1. If Harper starts the season with the big league club, then he reaches Free Agency one year earlier.
2. If Harper joins the big league club after mid April but before mid-to-late June, then the financial penalties to the club are severe.

In case you weren’t aware of these two issues, lets discuss.

1. Reaching Free Agency a year early: See this excellent Service Time Consideration post from Ben Nicholson-Smith at mlbtraderumors.com.  Simply put, if the Nats start Harper with the big league club as of April 1st, then he will be eligible for free agency at the end of the 2017 season.   If we wait a few weeks, then that buys the club an entire extra season of Harper’s time for the 2018 season.  As has been put simply by other writers, a few weeks of Harper’s rookie season at age 19 is absolutely not going to be worth the value he will provide to the team during an entire 2018 season, by which point he looks to have many full seasons of experience and should be nearing his baseball peak at age 25.

2. Super 2 Status implications: As we should all know by now, the financial implications of bringing up super stars too early can be severe.  Dave Sheinin did this analysis best back when we were asking the same question about Stephen Strasburg, looking at the Tim Lincecum case as a lesson learned.  The Giants called up Lincecum about two weeks prior to the Super-2 status deadline and it has roughly cost them $18million in unneeded salary.

Lots has been said about how Davey Johnson broke camp with two young superstars in Dwight Gooden and Daryl Strawberry during his time with the Mets in the mid 1980s, with the narrative being that he’s not afraid to give young players a shot early.  That’s a great story but it omits one key point: the Super-2 status didn’t exist when Johnson made these decisions!   The Super-2 status didn’t exist in the Collective Bargaining Agreement until 1990, when the players negotiated in the status as a way of getting more money earlier to their union members.  A great idea at the time, but it has had the unintended effect of teams now keeping their best prospects in the minors until the mid-June time-frame as a way of gaming the system and keeping their pay low.

Frankly, I’m tired of reading stories about Harper that don’t at least tacitly acknowledge these two important points, and to me any story that talks of Harper making the team blindly without addressing these two modern baseball issues is lazy sports writing.  Johnson may want the guy now, but Mike Rizzo is the guy who has to answer to fans as to why the Nats won’t be able to get a free agent in 3 year’s time because of the payroll implications (upwards of $18M in some cases) of screwing up these decisions.  $18M in payroll generally buys you two starting players on the free agency market, and those two players can make the difference far more than a few weeks of Harper hitting .200 as a 19-yr old.

Honestly, everyone thought that this issue would have been addressed in the latest version of the CBA, negotiated ad-naseum over the past off season.  The clause helps no one; players are kept in the minors longer to game the system, teams have to wait to bring up players that could help them win now, and fans are forced to wait to see the best young stars.  Instead the two sides managed to make the situation WORSE, by increasing the percentage of players that qualify for Super-2 and now forcing teams to keep players in the minors even longer.  It was an inexplicable decision by both sides to further exacerbate the problem.  I realize that no matter what you do, there has to be a cutoff date for service time deadlines to qualify for free agency and/or super-2 status, but why no just make that date early in the season and fix all the problems caused by super-2?

As a fan of the team this season, yeah I’d love to see Harper up and starting in RF.  Who wouldn’t?  But as a long term fan, I want this team to have the best chance of winning for years to come.  And thus I want Harper in the minors until these two issues are non-issues any longer.

Solis’ TJ surgery news thins our already-too-thin starting pitching minor league depth. Photo via Natsinsider blog/Mark Zuckerman

With Spring Training in full swing, most of the focus is on the Nationals 25-man roster and who may or may not make it.  Even with the additions to the major league roster, our minor league starter development is still incredibly important to this team for the long run.  Despite having Strasburg, Zimmermann and Gonzalez each locked up for many years (roughly, 2016, 2016 and 2018 respectively with options exercised), the rest of the rotation is not exactly set in stone for the long run.  Wang and Jackson are on one-year FA contracts and Lannan doesn’t seem a lock to be tendered this coming off season (where he’ll face arbitration for the third time and, if he stays here and puts in 30 starts, could be in line for something close to $8M in 2013).  That is, if Lannan is still even with the team in a year’s time (he seems surplus to requirements right now and may be a trade candidate).

Even more importantly, three key starters in our farm system went the other way for Gonzalez.  Our 2012 AAA starter safety net of Milone and Peacock is now set to be the 4th and 5th starter in Oakland, and our most electric younger arm (Cole) is now one of Billy Beane‘s best prospects.

That being said, lets talk about what the 2012 minor league rotations may look like, and where interest may lie with up and coming arms.  Experienced readers will note that, by and large, I only focus on minor league starters.  That is because, for the very large part, that pitchers rise up in the minors as starters and only get converted to be relievers upon failing as starters.  If you look at our current bullpen; Clippard, Rodriguez, Burnett, Gorzelanny, Detwiler and Lidge are all former starters, converted to being relievers either because of poor performance or for physical reasons.  Only Storen has grown up entirely as a reliever.  Therefore, the odds of a guy who is already pitching in relief in the lower minors rising up to be a part of the MLB bullpen is relatively slim.  Loogies?  Another matter, but still a difficult path (just ask someone like Josh Smoker).  Therefore, I tend to focus on Starters with occasional lip service given to closers per level and other relievers who are pitching their way into promotions.

Luke Erickson has posted some predictions (for AAA, AA, high-A and low-A), I put in an updated guess on Syracuse’s rotation post Gonzalez trade, and I had a series of posts at the end of last season wrapping up each level with predictions for 2012.  From all those posts, here’s my preliminary guesses on the rotations for the minor league rotations:

• AAA: Stammen, Maya, Arneson, Ballard, Buschmann

I wouldn’t be surprised to see Erickson’s guesses of Atkins and Hernandez though replacing the last two; I’m guessing there’s going to be a wide-open competition for this rotation in this year’s spring training.  And, I specifically did not include John Lannan here; I just cannot believe the team is going to stick him in Syracuse by virtue of his option after signing on to pay him $5M.

First man promoted: I’d guess Stammen, who did have some successes in last year’s call-up, but it’ll take a swine-flu epidemic in the Nationals clubhouse for him to get called up to make some starts.  The MLB staff looks to have two former starters in their bullpen who will get the ball before Stammen gets a shot in 2012, and that doesn’t include the Wang/Lannan 5th starter conundrum.

First man demoted to the bullpen: Arneson; he’s bounced our system around like a pinball lately, and the team seems to use him as a multi-level handy-man instead of a starter prospect.

• AA: Rosenbaum, Bronson, Demny, Gilliam, Olbrychowski

This list did have Sammy Solis until his TJ surgery was announced, and I put in Olbrychowski, who was halfway decent in a bunch of 2nd half starts in 2011.  I do think Roark is done being a starter in this system but I could be wrong.  Gilliam was the little-known make-weight player in the Gonzalez trade and I think he makes it to the Harrisburg roster.

First man promoted: Danny Rosenbaum, who aced Potomac last year and has the same make up as Lannan.  But, unfortunately there’s no top-10 stars on this list that could make an immediate impact.

First man demoted to the bullpen: Obrychowski, who started 2011 in the pen and may be on a short leash if someone in Potomac lights it up.

• High-A: Purke, Meyer, Selik, Grace, Hill

I think Purke is advanced enough to start here, as is Meyer.  Of course, I also think Purke’s injury history could work against him and he ends up in extended spring for a bit.  Either way, I think both would be poorly served by sticking them in Low-A.  They’re both first round talents and need to be going against older, more advanced hitters right now.  This rotation is the future for the Nats; if they can’t find a 2014 starter out of this group, then we’ll be spending a ton in the FA pitching market for years to come.  This rotation is hurt by the loss of Taylor Jordan, who will be out the entirety of 2012 with TJ surgery after pitching very effectively for the first half of 2011 for Hagerstown.  Hill is the name i’m least confident in, only putting him here by virtue of his being a senior draftee in 2011, thus he’d be at least 3 years too old for low-A this year.

First man promoted: Cameron Selik; the phenom from 2011’s Hagerstown staff already has a ton of Potomac experience and could move up soon.  Despite their promise, I think both Purke and Meyers will be in Potomac for at least a half a season to get their professional legs.

First man demoted to the bullpen: Grace: he wasn’t entirely convincing as a starter in low-A, but his numbers were skewed by one or two really bad outings.

• Low-A: Turnbull, Hansen, Ray, McGeary, Karns?

Maybe the 5th would be Karns, who if healthy could be a quick riser after so many injuries have derailed what was a promising young arm.  I think Ray starts here again with the idea of quickly promoting him, despite his success here last year.  He’s still young.  Of course, I could also see Ray and Hill switching places between low- and high-A.

First man promoted:  Robbie Ray: he out pitched AJ Cole last year without any of the Baseball America top 100 love.  I think he’s the next in a long line of lower velocity but higher result lefty starters that the system has been developing (see Lannan, Detwiler to a certain extent, Solis, Rosenbaum and McGeary for comps).

First man demoted to the bullpen: Karns, if he’s here.  I’m guessing Karns has this season to show that he continues to be a starter prospect, with a back-of-the-bullpen job waiting if he can’t show he’s durable enough to go 6 innings every 5 days.

• Short-A: MRodriguez, Dupra, Baez and 2 draft picks.
• GCL: Mieses repeating plus 4 guys from DSL and the 2012 draft.

There’s almost no point of trying to predict the short season rotations, but I do believe that the names listed here aren’t going to make the Low-A roster but are still worth keeping as starters in extended spring.  We had almost no starter talent in the GCL last season, with only Mieses making enough of an impression to keep him in that role.

Lastly, Taylor Jordan and Sammy Solis start the year on the DL, unfortunately, both with Tommy John surgery.  They would have both been prominent members of their rotations after great seasons last year, and their injuries further thin our starting pitching depth post Gonzalez trade.

Is there something wrong with Chien-Ming Wang? Photo Washington Nationals official

I can’t say that I was surprised when the team signed Edwin Jackson a couple months ago; Mike Rizzo very openly coveted Jackson at the trade deadline in 2010, with wide spread rumors of a 1-for-1 trade straight up for Adam Dunn falling through at the last minute.  Then, with almost no leading rumors during the waning weeks of the Hot Stove league this past off-season, the Nats swooped in for a relatively affordable $11M deal for the hard-throwing Jackson.  Rizzo likes power arms and Jackson is that power arm, and save any other reason for signing him, he makes the team stronger (especially if they can fix his windup/stretch splits).

Absent any other proof, I (and many others) figured that Jackson’s signing meant the end of the road with the team for John Lannan, who seemed set to lose out on the race for the Nats 5 rotation spots for 2012.  The logic seemed pretty clear to me:  Strasburg and Zimmermann are your home-grown 1-2 punch, newly acquired Gonzalez cost the team a ransom in terms of farm system depth, and now you had Wang and Jackson on newly signed one-year FA contracts.  The implication of the last point is thus: newly signed Free Agents, by rule of the CBA, cannot be traded without their consent in the first year of a FA contract until at least June 15th.  That’s 5 starters for 5 spots.

This didn’t seem to make sense; the team has an underrated talent in Lannan, a sturdy lefty who hasn’t missed a start due to injury in his career here and, save a mid season swoon in 2010 has been a better-than-replacement starter for this team.  Why purposely replace him?  Wouldn’t most every team trade their 5th starter for someone like Lannan, who (even at $5M) is a pretty good, cheap option?

A 5th paragraph item buried in Pete Kerzel‘s latest report on Wang may have a hidden detail; Wang has reportedly been dealing with “shoulder stiffness” early on in spring training.  Stiffness and limitations in the shoulder of someone coming off of shoulder surgery is not exactly the news you want to hear, though every other beat reporter spoke today of Wang looking “sharp” and his sinker showing “exceptional movement.”

Maybe that’s incredible over-analysis of an off-handed, probably benign comment.  Maybe the real answer is that Rizzo is at a point with this team where he can afford to buy too many starters and have depth above replacement starters in case someone goes down with injury.  I’ve said in this space Lannan is odd-man out if everyone is healthy and I still believe that (he has a minor league option but his relationship with the team likely will be ruined if he gets assigned to Syracuse).  Or perhaps Rizzo has a trade up his sleeve for the long-elusive center fielder.  Or, just perhaps, there’s a 15-day DL trip for Wang in our future with Lannan slotting right in where he has been for several years; in our opening day rotation.

Is it too early to guess who starts the Home Opener? My guess is newly acquired Gonzalez. Photo Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images via cbssports.com

We’re getting reports of players getting to Viera early, and we’ve had a slew of off-season moves.  Beat reporters are starting to talk about the 25-man roster (here’s WT’s Amanda Comak‘s take).  The Nats pretty much took care of every off-season need the had:

• Top-end Starting Pitcher: Gonzalez
• Backup Outfielder: Ankiel and Cameron (though, apparently Cameron is retiring instead of competing for a spot…)
• Lower-end Starting Pitchers: Re-signed Wang, signed Jackson
• Utility Infielders to replace Cora, Bixler, Hairston: signed DeRosa, claimed Rivera
• Bullpen arm depth (to replace Coffey, Kimball): signed Lidge, traded for Perry

The notable exception to the off-season shopping list, of course, is a lack of a proven center fielder.  Perhaps one could quibble that a shortstop should have been on that list; it seems the team is giving another year to the Ian Desmond experiment, hoping he builds on the strong end of 2011 (he hit .294 in Aug and Sep of 2011).  The backup infielders and backup outfielders listed here, to go along with a slew of minor league/invite to spring training signings, should be where most of the competition for roster slots occurs.

The big question for me is; Is there any real competition for pitching spots this spring?

Starters

We all know the narrative; we now have 6 starters with multi-million dollar commitments for 5 spots, and someone has to give.  The Edwin Jackson signing has pretty much made John Lannan the odd-man out of this rotation.  Mike Rizzo likes power arms, and has gone to great lengths to acquire guys who throw more than 89-90 to replace what he inherited in 2009.   Wang and Jackson can’t be moved until June 15th without his consent by virtue of the FA signing rules (as discussed in this article here), Gonzalez just signed a long-term deal, and Strasburg/Zimmerman are our future.  To me, there’s no mystery who’s going to be in the rotation, and frankly articles that say there’s going to be a competition for the 5th starter between Wang, Lannan, Detwiler and Gorzelanny are not really paying attention to the contract realities of the situation.  Barring injury, your opening day rotation will be (in this order):

• Strasburg, Gonzalez, Zimmermann, Jackson and Wang.

Should someone go down with injury, Lannan steps in to take the 4th or 5th rotation spot (depending on whether Davey Johnson likes to mix up LHSP/RHSP in any fashion).  Otherwise, Lannan is trade-bait and should be moved during the spring.  There are plenty of teams that could be trade partners if we wanted to focus on a center fielder (see this article I did in November talking about the CF market for the whole of baseball for some thoughts).  Barring a trade, it seems inconceivable but Lannan does still have a minor league option left and could be sent down, but a $5M pitcher toiling in Syracuse (to go along with $2M bust Yuniesky Maya) could make the Nats AAA team the most expensive minor league rotation in the league.  (We won’t say “most expensive ever,” since the Yankees kept Kei Igawa and his $46M commitment in the minors for most of his contract).

Relievers

A recent post on option status at Nationalsprospects.com (the option status of every player is now kept on the Big Board, which is good for me since I did this work last year and its a nightmare to keep track of), as well as a question asked of Bill Ladson leads to this conclusion: there literally is no question right now who your 7 bullpen members will be.  Tyler Clippard, Sean Burnett, Henry Rodriguez, Tom Gorzelanny and Ross Detwiler ALL are out of options.  Brad Lidge can refuse a demotion based on his service time and Drew Storen is your closer.  There’s your 2012 bullpen; not much room for anyone else.

The only wiggle room may be with someone like Detwiler: he’s clearly a starter and seems set to be the first Spot starter to fill in for an injury (assuming we trade Lannan of course).  Does the team keep him in the bullpen, where he basically fills the exact same role as Gorzelanny (ex-left handed starter long man/spot starter in a pinch)?  Or does the team cash him in to fill a hole?

This configuration leaves newly acquired Ryan Perry, Ryan Mattheus and Atahualpa Severino in AAA.  Cole Kimball starts on the 60-day DL (and, frankly, probably stays there; the odds of him coming back from that shoulder injury are low).  Lastly Craig Stammen joins Maya in AAA as deep-need emergency starters.

So, here’s your bullpen:

• Closer: Storen
• Setup: Clippard
• 7th inning guys: Lidge, Rodriguez
• Loogy: Burnett
• Long Men: Gorzelanny and Detwiler

What’s nice about this bullpen is that, despite my naming players to roles, there’s lots of flexibility.  Rodriguez on a good day has 8th or even 9th inning stuff.  Lidge is a former closer and clearly can do the setup or closing roles.  Clippard excels in the 8th inning role and doesn’t seem to aspire to replace Storen.  Burnett is far more than just a one-out guy, but can serve that role in a pinch.  Lastly both Gorzelanny and Detwiler can be anything from a one-out lefty to a 3-4 inning mop-up guy, given the day.  I like the way this sets up and I think we go into 2012 with a better bullpen than in 2011 (when, if you recall, we wasted a spot on Brian Broderick, had the failure of Doug Slaten in the loogy role and watched Chad Gaudin pitch horribly).

Who starts the Home opener?

Quick guess: based on the way the schedule plays out it looks like our home opener will be thrown by our #2 starter Gonzalez.  We play two 3-game series away to Chicago and New York, then open at home with what should be the #2 rotation spot up.  There’s only one off-day in between, meaning the starters most likely stay on normal rest.

Craig Stammen looks set to lead a potentially weak 2012 AAA rotation. Photo unknown via sabermetrics.com

We all know who went the other way in the Gio Gonzalez trade; A significant portion of our starter depth, especially at or near the majors.  Both Tommy Milone and Brad Peacock got a few starts in September last year, and both fared relatively well (albeit against somewhat weakened or dis-interested opponents).

Prior to the Gonzalez signing, one would have thought that the MLB 2012 rotation was mostly set, with Ross Detwiler taking the 5th spot over Milone and Peacock by virtue of his (lack of) options status.  That would have left both these younger starters in AAA waiting for their opportunity.  With them now in Oakland’s organization … who is going to start for Syracuse in 2012?  Who represents our starter depth in case someone gets hurt?

At the end of the 2011 season, if one had to guess Syracuse’s 2012 rotation you would have probably guessed it to be Milone, Peacock, Brad Meyers, Craig Stammen and Yuniesky Maya.  This would essentially be the same rotation Syracuse ended their regular season with (replacing spot starter JD Martin with Milone, who by that point had departed for the majors).  Now consider this same group:

• Milone: traded to Oakland
• Peacock: traded to Oakland
• Meyers: picked up by New York in the rule 5 draft
• Martin: signed a minor league FA deal with Miami

Only Stammen and Maya now remain, and frankly I’m not sure who else the team is going to get to start in Syracuse in 2012.  Here’s a list of every one who made starts in 2011 at Syracuse: Red means they’re no longer with the organization, Blue means they were making re-hab starts or were starts by guys who are out of options for 2012 and aren’t appearing in Syracuse:

So, by category of starts:

• 69 were made by players no longer with Washington (including Rule-5 draftee Meyers, who may very well be returned but for now is a New York Yankee)
• 20 were made by Detwiler and other MLBers on re-hab assignments.
• the remaining 51 games made by guys who may or may not feature in 2012.

That’s 63% of your AAA starts made by guys who won’t be making any 2012 AAA starts for this organization.

Well, you may say, perhaps we should just be expecting all those AA pitchers from 2011 to be rising up.  Except that our AA rotation was filled with reclamation projects and minor league free agents in 2011.  Here’s a comparable look at those who made AA starts for the franchise in 2011 (again, with red and blue indicating the same as above):

AA Start Summary:

• 67 were made by players no longer with Washington (including all minor league Free Agents for the time being, even though some may re-sign eventually)
• 4 were re-hab assignments by current MLBers.
• the remaining 71 games made by guys who may or may not feature in 2012.  This includes a few starts by Arneson

That’s 50% of your AA starts made by guys no longer with the organization or re-hab starts.  Arneson pitched well enough, but he’s no prospect; he’s 28 and starting his 6th minor league year.  Roark and Tatusko both struggled in 2011 and seem destined for the bullpen.  Davis was demoted, Bronson only called up for a spot AA start, and Rosenbaum pitched well in 6 late season starts but needs more AA seasoning.  So not a lot of help coming up from Harrisburg.

Luckily, the Nats have been adding minor league free agent signings left and right, guys who probably will feature.  By my notes, here’s the arms we’ve added so far this off season:

• Matthew Buschmann, rhp: taken in the rule5 draft (AA phase) from San Diego, he was reasonably successful in 2011 in the AA Texas league before getting pounded in 20 appearances (15 starts) in AAA.  By virtue of his rule-5 drafting, he’s pretty much guaranteed to be on the AAA roster in some capacity.  He is a starter; will be be one of Syracuse’s starters?
• Joaquin Waldis, rhp, signed to a 1yr ML FA (former club: San Francisco) with an invite to Spring Training.  He was a reliever all of 2011 and was most likely signed to provide some depth in the middle relief phase.  Not a starter option.
• Jeff Fulchino, rhp, signed to a 1yr ML FA (Houston), invite to ST (split contract).  Was relatively mediocre for Houston and San Diego last year, again signed for some reliever depth/spring training competition.
• Robert Gilliam, a rhp thrown into the Gonzalez trade, is a starter but only was at Oakland’s Class-A entry in the California League last year.  He seems set to be in the AA rotation in 2012.
• Mike Ballard, a lhp starter given a 1yr ML FA (Baltimore), invite to ST.  He was relatively effective for Baltimore’s AA affiliate in Bowie, but less so at AAA Norfolk, where he started the season.  He is a full-time starter and seems a likely candidate for our AAA rotation.

Ok, It seems like we may have our answer.  It looks like your AAA rotation will be Stammen, Maya, Arneson, Buschmann and Ballard.  Here’s a quick rundown on these 5 guy’s AAA numbers for 2011:

Without sounding too judgmental … that’s not a lot of AAA depth in case something happens.  Only 2 of these 5 are even on the 40-man, and those who are have either proven to be ineffective at the major league level (Maya) or seem destined to be used as middle relief/organization filler (Stammen).  If Meyers gets returned, look for him to replace Arneson one for one (since Arnesen seems destined to be the minor league utility guy, as he was used last year).

I’d have to say; if someone goes down with injury, we’ll most likely look from within the MLB bullpen (in the form of Gorzelanny or Detwiler) for starts.