Nationals Arm Race

So, with the addition of TalkNats.com to the Nats Blogosphere, I decided to re-visit my blogroll and to do some adding/removing as necessary.  I culled through my RSS feed and did some re-arranging.  The last time I really dug into a review of the Nats blogosphere was in March 2013, and lots has changed since then.

Here’s what my collection of Natsmosphere links looks like now.  Let me know if you think i’m missing any.  This is a combination of Nats blogs and “blogs” run by Nats beat reporters.  I don’t count baseball columnists like Tom Boswell or Thom Loverro as “bloggers” here since they’re columnists and don’t entirely focus on the nats.

Note: in some cases i’ve found that blogs that I thought went dark really just changed affiliations, changed their host name, eliminated their RSS feeds (like redporchreport.com), or something else.  And it definitely seems like we’ve lost a “blog” from the Washington Times after Amanda Comak left the Times to go work for the team.  So, please help me correct this list and tell me if I’m missing anyone.

Active blogs (generally have posted something in the last week, though some have been idle for a few months and have been given a pass):

Recently Inactivated blogs: per my RSS feed, no new posts in months or years.  Could be because of RSS issues; let me know.

Beat Reporter Review

By the Way, am I missing any beat reporters?  By my count, here’s the outlets covering the Nats and their beat reporter:

• MLB: Bill Ladson
• Washington Post: James Wagner, Chelsea Janes (formerly Adam Kilgore, Barry Svrluga)
• Washington Times: Zac Boyer, Todd Dybas?  (formerly Amanda Comak)
• Comcast Sports Net: Mark Zuckerman, Chase Hughes
• MASN: Byron Kerr, Chris Johnson, Pete Kerzel, Olivia Witherite
• Washington Examiner: Stopped covering sports in 2013.

Does anyone else cover this team regularly in print?

Nice Hair bro. Photo via his instagram

Every year, Dave Nichols over at DistrictSportsPage.com runs a fun little pre-season survey, asking the various Nats bloggers to do predictions about various things.  Here’s a navel-gazing look back at how my predictions turned out.

I read all my sports news via RSS Feeds, which I’ve read into Google Reader for years.  If you’re like me, you were probably highly irritated when finding out that Google is summarily ending the Reader service.   I’ve done a bit of research on where to transfer my RSS feeds and “Feedly” seems to be the way to go.  (Tangent: if you’re a big RSS reader, where are you moving your RSS feeds to, or what do you use as an alternative to Google Reader?  I’m leading towards Feedly)

Anyway, while thinking about my Google RSS feed future, I happened to take a look at the two categories of Nationals RSS feeds that I have listed and was astonished to see the number of Nationals links I now have.  I count at least Eighty (80) Nationals related blogs and another Thirty (30) Nationals “Official” feed links (official meaning Team sites, beat reporters, or Masn feeds).

Can you believe there are (or were) eighty blogs out there about the Washington Nationals??  And in reality that number may be a bit low, because I’m always finding out about new Nationals blogs that pop up.  A great number of these blogs are now dormant (read onwards), but there’s still quite a few near daily blogs pumping out nearly as much content as the paid Beat Reporters.

Anyway; I thought it would be of great service to list all these various Blog links for the general Nats readership.  And of course if you see a blog out there that I don’t have, I’d love to grab it.  I also took this opportunity to clean up my own links section along the right-hand side to prune away obsoleted blogs and add in the currently active blogs.   Lastly: if your site doesn’t have an Nats-specific RSS feed, then I don’t have it here.

I’ll divide these blogs into various categories.  The links for each Blog are the RSS feeds, not the actual blog site.  But if you want to go to the blog site it is usually straight forward enough to figure out from the URL or from a bit of google work.

Highly Active Nats Blogs (Daily posts or close)

• D.C. Baseball History: Daily “This Day in…” Washington Baseball history posts from Art Audley, Mark Hornbaker, and Marty Niland along with other content by a host of writers.
• DCNatitude: author Adam Bitely has this newer blog (well, newer to me; just found it while doing this post).
• District on Deck; primary authors Flax, Book and Somers are now part of Si.com’s Fansided Network.
• Federal Baseball; primary author Patrick Reddington and others are now part of SBNation
• Lady and the Nats: by anonymous author “NatsLady.”
• Let Teddy Win! Washington Nationals Presidents Race: “Presidents Race Fan” Scott Abelman keeps everyone up-to-date on the Racing Presidents.
• mlb trade rumors – Washington Nationals Feed: MLB Rumors – MLBTradeRumors.com: not officially a “Nats Blog” but this well-known baseball blog has a Washington-only feed of rumors and stories that serves as a great way to keep on top of Nats dealings.
• Nationals 101: Frank & Susan Lattuca also host a podcast.
• Nationals Arm Race: what you’re reading now 🙂
• Nationals Baseball: author Harper Gordek posts interesting opinion pieces and gets good discussions.
• Nationals Home Plate: newer blog that I just found doing this post.
• Nationals Inquisition: author Drew Kinback posts photo-heavy pieces with a good humor slant.
• NationalsProspects.com: author Luke Erickson took over for Brian Oliver‘s old NatsFarmAuthority and keeps the flag flying for Nats Prospects and Farm System updates.
• Nats Enquirer author “CK” is now part of the YardBarker network.
• Nats Nation (as viewed from Section 138 and beyond). Lots of fun with screen grabs, photoshop and embedded video links.  Oh and his leading picture is of Luis Ayala.
• NatsGM; author Ryan Sullivan posts good opinion pieces and makes for good reading and discussion.
• Red Porch Report: Nationals Podcast and Blog which is part of the Ball Hogs Radio Network.   Kevin Eaton and Ryan Sullivan.
• Sharkadina: Roger Bernadina‘s #1 fan Terry Gangelosi and friends.
• The Nationals Review by author Charlie Fliegel, who also hosts a Podcast periodically.
• The Nats Blog, by multiple authors (Joe Drugan, Wil Yoder, Ted Youngling, et al).  Now part of the Bloguin Network.
• The Zimmerman(n) Telegram: multiple authors led by Ben Devin with great reporting on the WBC over the past month.
• Nationals Locker: author Joe Lapinski‘s blog is part of the BlogLockers.com blog network.
• Washington NationLOLs; great fun with images and photoshop’d captions.
• http://www.CitizensofNatstown.com: a new project with some of the familiar names in the Nats blogosphere (Sean Hogan, Dave Huzzard, and others).  No RSS feed?
• http://www.NationalsObsession.com (launches on Opening Day)
• http://thenationalsarchive.com; brand new Mar 2013 (no RSS?)

Less Active but not Dormant Nats Blogs (sporadic posts)

• 2011 Nationals Draft Info: Sean Hogan‘s 2011 Draft blog; listed here since its part of a series (see next).
• 2012 Nationals Draft Info: Sean Hogan’s 2012 Draft blog
• Bang! Zoom!: last post 2/11/2013. before that Nov 2012.  Not sure what’s happened to Kirk Raymond but I hope he returns.
• Center Field Gate: last post 1/20/13: was highly active in-season so we’ll hope for a return.
• DC is for Baseball: last post 1/31/13: Sean Hogan‘s main site; his interest lays more in prospects and the draft, so he gets busier around the Rule 4 draft and has the per-year detailed Draft blogs (see below).
• First Ladies of Baseball: last post Oct 11, 2012, may not actually be dormant; we’ll see if the authors Ashley Warlick and Maggie Keller pop back up when the 2013 starts.
• For Love of the Nationals: Last post Jan 2013: despite posting recently, Dave Lint only has posted a handful of times in the last 3 years, so we’re calling this site dormant for now.
• Internet Baseball Writers Association: Washington, D.C. Chapter;  home site for Dave Nichols-led DC-IBWA where Nats bloggers emulate the BBWAA and vote on things.  Coincidentally the membership rolls of DC-IBWA mirror this blog posting in terms of listing Nats bloggers.
• Nats Noodles; last post 1/15/13: author “Nat Anacostia” has been sporadic this off-season.
• Nats Triple Play: last post 1/29/13: only a handful of posts in the last year; may be dormant.
• Natsfangirl; last post 10/4/12: author Jenn Jenson posts beautiful photography on this blog, which seems to have taken the off-season off.  I hope she’s back for opening day 2013.
• Natstradamus last post 3/7/13: periodic intelligent pieces with heavy Sabre-lants from author Luigi De Guzman (aka “Ouij”).
• Dick Heller: last post 2/21/13 by namesake author Dick Heller.
• Win for Teddy: last post Sept 2012: very active last season, hope to see them come back.

Dormant, Obsolete or Abandoned Nats Blogs

• Ball-Wonk: last post Dec 2010
• Capitol Baseball: last post July 2012: not sure what happened here; the author was posting nearly daily in-season 2012.
• Capitol Punishment: Last post Sept 2012.  Chris Needham‘s infamous Nats blog, one of the first and one of the most vociferious about the state of the early Nats, which he “quit” a couple years ago but to which he continues to post sporadically.
• DC Double Play: last post Jan 2012.
• DC Sports Plus: last post Nov 2012.  Sean Hogan’s previous blog, essentially ended May 2011.
• De civitate sabermetricarum: last post 5/29/12: was doing near daily posts and then suddenly stopped.
• Distinguished Senators: Last post May 2011.
• FJB: last post Apr 2012: like Needham, Steven Biel sometimes pops back up on this blog and posts about the team, despite the title of the blog (Fire Jim Bowden) long since being obsoleted.
• F*ck Yeah Stephen Strasburg: last post Jan 2012: yes indeed there’s a site with this title.
• Half Street Blues; last post May 2010
• I Miss RFK; last post July 2009.
• Just A Nats Fan; last post July 2011.
• Life is Better With Baseball; signed off Aug 2011.
• National Record; last post Feb 2012.
• Nationals 360: last real post Jan 2011, now taken over by an Electronic Cigarette company?
• Nationals Daily News: last post Dec 2011, this was Mark Hornbaker’s former site before starting the DC Baseball History site above.
• Nationals Fangirls moved to just Nationals FanGirl (singular), but www.nationalsfangirl.com currently says that its “Account is Suspended.”  Oh well.
• Nationals Farm Authority: Brian Oliver‘s fantastic farm system tracking site, who signed off Sept 1 2010 to start a new career.  NationalsProspects.com has picked up where Oliver left off.
• NATIONALS NEWS NETWORK: Dave Nichols closed this to join it with the larger District Sports Page, which reports on all Washington Sports in one location.  Unfortunately he has no Nats-specific RSS feed, so I don’t regular read the site (I don’t really care about random Redskins, Wizards or Capitals stories).
• NATIONALS NEWS NETWORK: Off The Field; last post Sept 2011.  Cheryl Nichols also moved to the District Sports page.
• Nationals Review; last post May 2012.
• NationalsDailyNews.com Teamwire: last post July 2010
• NationalsFanboyLooser: last post June 2011.  Former blog by Mike Harris, who then took over as Sports Editor of The Washington Times after they re-introduced Sports to the paper after a 2 year hiatus.
• NationalsPride.com: last post: April 2010.  Authors Bergin and Henderson suddenly stopped writing.
• Nats Doggerel last post Mar 2010: short lived blog that posted quick poems about the Nats.  I’m not kidding.
• Nats320 — A Washington Nationals Blog: Jeff Saffelle‘s photography-heavy blog which suddenly went off the air in July 2011.  There’s a story there but last time I saw Jeff we didn’t get into it.  I think the loss of this blog, one of the absolute first Nats blogs, is a real shame.  Jeff took a lot of heat on the blogosphere/twitter for being “too friendly” to the Nats cause; to that I say “this is a free country; you’re free not to read what you don’t like.”  Too many haters in this world.
• NatsStats: last post Aug 2010.
• Nats of the Round Table: last post Oct 2008, may have morphed into Nationals Baseball above.
• NBTN: last post July 2009, now the page renders in Japanese.  Weird.
• Passing Time Between Wil Nieves’ Bombs… last post March 2012.
• Past a Diving Vidro: last post May 2011.
• Planetary Nats Blog: last post Dec 2010
• Pulp Nationals: last post Mar 2010.
• Senators Fans Unite: Will Bentzel signed off Jan 1 2010.
• StephenJWalker.com: last post Oct 2011.
• Swatting Nats; last post Oct 2010.
• The Half Street Highrise: last post Apr 2010, author Banneker moved to The Nats Blog.
• The Nats Report: last post Nov 2010.
• Washington Nationals; last post Nov 2010, domain now gone.
• We’ve Got Heart; last post Apr 2010.
• YOU DEAD DAWG: last post Nov 2011.

Not entirely about the Nats but of Interest to Nats Fans

• Are the Hagerstown Suns relocating to Winchester?: Collection of news articles about the seemingly dead possibility of the Suns moving to Winchester, VA.
• Search Results – AuburnPub.com: Auburn DoubleDays link with some Nats-relevant content.
• (Am I missing RSS feeds about the rest of our farm system?  I used to have a Potomac Nationals feed but it seems broken).

Nats Beat Reporters

• All Nats All the Time: official blog feed of MLB.com Nats beat reporter Bill Ladson.
• Byron Kerr: MASN Nats beat reporter Byron Kerr‘s official blog feed.
• Latest entries for Nationals Watch: from Washington Times beat reporter Amanda Comak.
• MASNsports.com‘s Nats Beat Reporter Pete Kerzel‘s blog feed.
• Nationals Journal; Washington Post Nats Beat reporters Adam Kilgore and James Wagner‘s official blog.  The NatsJournal is one of the longest running blogs out there and is very widely read.
• NATS INSIDER; Comcast Sports Net’s Mark Zuckerman‘s blog, probably which has the widest readership of any link on this page.

Other links for Members of the Press

• Bob Carpenter: MASN TV broadcaster Bob Carpenter‘s official blog feed.
• Examiner Beanballs RSS: Washington Examiner Beanballs feed, Nats specific but very sporadic.
• Examiner MLB RSS: Washington Examiner MLB feed, but seems Nats specific.  Sometimes picks up Tom Loverro‘s stuff.
• Washington Nationals News: official MLB feed for the team, mostly written by Ladson as well.
• Thomas Boswell (washingtonpost.com): Washington Post National writer Tom Boswell‘s rss feed.  He doesn’t write exclusively on the Nats, but there’s plenty of baseball content.

Nats “Official” Blogs; these are from the team, from players, etc.

• The Backfield Diaries: Ryan Tatusko‘s blog, moved to http://www.ryantatusko.wordpress.com, which has a broken RSS feed.  Grr.   I cannot find a blog by any other Nats player, majors or minors.
• Mike Rizzo‘s official MASN blog.
• Notes from NatsTown: the official blog of the Team; sometimes the owners will blog here.

Obsolete “Official” Nats blogs and links

• CSN Washington: Miss Chatter: last post Jan 2011: I guess Miss Chatter stopped being chatty.
• Ben Goessling on MASNsports.com: left the beat April 2010.
• CSN Washington: Main; the CSN feed may be broken, last updated Mar 2012.
• Debbi Taylor: replaced as the Nats sideline reporter after the 2011 season.
• Jim Riggleman: last post June 2011, just before his bluff was called and he quit.
• Johnny Holliday; last post Dec 2011.
• Phil Wood on MASNsports.com; last post Apr 2010.
• Ray Knight: last post Sept 2010: I guess we don’t ask the TV guys to do much writing.
• Screech’s Blog: last post Apr 2012: the Presidents must get more press.
• The Washington Times Blogs: ‘Chatter’: the previous incarnation of the Washington Times sports nats blog, obsoleted when the paper dropped sports on 12/31/2009.  Luckily Mark Zuckerman picked up where he left off on the NatsInsider blog and by freelanching for a year or so.

Known Nats News items on the Net not listed above

• Mr Irrelevant: Jamie & Chris Mottram has a DC-sports heavy blog, but not Nats specific.
• I’m not entirely sure i’m getting all the content The Washington Examiner offers via the above links (which is a shame if true, because I like the writing of Thom Loverro)
• District Sports Page, what grew out of Nationals News Network and Dave Nichols, doesn’t have a Nats-specific feed, just an all-Washington sports feed, and (frankly) I can’t stand the overexposure the Washington Redskins get in this town.
• DC Sports Bog features the always-entertaining writing of Dan Steinberg but isn’t entirely Nats focused.
• William World News from William Yurasko is in the same boat; some Nats posts, not entirely Nats related.  Lots of DC-area items of interest though.
• We Love DC; as with others in this section, lots about DC, some about the Nats.  Editor: Tom Bridge with Nats specialist Rachel Levitin.
• DC Pro Sports Report: like with District Sports Page; all DC sports, no Nats-specific feed that I can find.  Update: Nichols provided this link: districtsportspage.com/category/nationalsmlb
• Baseball News Hound: authored by Ryan Kelley, who also contributes to Bleacher Report.  Lots of Nats stuff but not exclusively so.
• Seamheads.com: more of a generic baseball blog but does have some DC-centric guys like Ted Leavengood who guest-blogs for MASN.

If you have updates, corrections or additions to anything above, please comment and let me know.  I know I may have some of the names for these blogs wrong, or am missing major contributors to sites whose author rolls change quickly.  I apologize in advance for any errors or mistakes.

Espinosa is still great in the field ... but struggling at the plate. Photo AP via mlb.com

I’m not the only one tolling this bell right now.  Nats beat reporters Dave Nichols posted today on the same topic.  Despite being annointed the starting 2nd baseman, and for a while last year while Ian Desmond struggled serving as the shortstop in waiting, Danny Espinosa is really struggling to start off 2012.   He’s posting a 49 OPS+ right now, with a .188 batting average and (as Nichols points out), an alarming number of strikeouts.

Meanwhile, Steve Lombardozzi is more than ably filling in defensively at 3rd but is a natural 2nd baseman and is getting on base at a .383 clip.  He’s also batting nearly .300 (two 0-fers in Los Angeles dropped his BA below the .300 margin).  Sounds to me like a prototypical lead-off hitter, doesn’t it?

I’ve often used this mantra when complaining about Roger Bernadina‘s continued presence on the lineup: after more than 900 MLB plate appearances, isn’t it safe to say we know what his performance will be?  Well, Espinosa now has nearly as many PAs as Bernadina and seems regressing by the day.  His OPS+ is still decent for his career on account of his 21 homers last season.  But he’s only hit one so far this year and as a result the slugging component of his OPS and OPS+ has drug him down to below replacement level.

Most have noticed his severly bad switch-hitter splits from 2011; clear evidence that he may consider giving up switch hitting and just batting from the right-side.  Of course, its awful hard to do that after you’ve been switch hitting your entire life.

With our #3 and #4 hitters on the DL, and with the team ranked in the bottom 3 in MLB in most offensive categories right now … how long before the team makes a move and benches Espinosa in favor of Lombardozzi?  I like Espinosa; have always defended him.  And after watching Lombardozzi look absolutely lost at the plate last fall, I never thought i’d be saying this so quickly.  But he looks good, Espinosa does not, and the team needs to give itself the best chance to win and score runs.  They can’t win games 3-2 every night.