{"id":103,"date":"2010-08-15T08:30:58","date_gmt":"2010-08-15T12:30:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=103"},"modified":"2012-09-26T10:15:42","modified_gmt":"2012-09-26T14:15:42","slug":"what-should-we-do-about-marquis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=103","title":{"rendered":"What should we do about Marquis?"},"content":{"rendered":"

8\/14<\/a> made five (5) starts now on the season for key off-season acquisition Jason Marquis.\u00a0 That’s 5 starts, 5 times he’s given up as many earned runs as he had innings pitched, 5 times he has failed to pitch out of the fourth inning<\/a> (!!) that’s 5 losses and 5 times the nats were completely out of it before they had a chance to get going.\u00a0 2 years, $15M for a guy who wasn’t supposed to be an ace but was supposed to be a quality, eat-innings, pitch decently well as a #3 or #4 starters.\u00a0 Certainly that’s what he’s been for years for various teams.<\/p>\n

What has happened?\u00a0 He was basically throwing meatball pitches up there against major league hitters.\u00a0 No sink, no movement, just mid-to-upper 80s meatballs that were hit and hit hard.\u00a0 Is it still physical?\u00a0 He did have a minor surgical procedure a couple months ago.\u00a0 Is it mental?\u00a0 You need bravado to be successful in the major leagues and he might be short on it right now.<\/p>\n

But, what should we do?\u00a0 Do you sit him?\u00a0 Put him in the bullpen?\u00a0 DFA him?\u00a0 Ask him to go to the minors (where he hasn’t been since 2003)? Replace him with someone else?<\/p>\n

I know we have probably better options than Marquis right now.\u00a0 Stammen pitched well in his last few starts and didn’t deserve to lose his rotation spot honestly.\u00a0 Zimmermann is ready to come up; there’s only so much dominance of AAA pitchers that is needed.\u00a0 Maya is a pro and only needs a few warmup starts.\u00a0 Mock is on a rehab assignment.\u00a0 Chico pitched well in a spot start against the Dodgers earlier this year.<\/p>\n

However, we are committed to 2011 with the guy.\u00a0 And Instead of turning $15M into a complete waste, i say let him work it out, let him take his lumps as he essentially repeats spring training in August against teams in the pennant race.\u00a0 Its not as if the Nats are going anywhere.\u00a0 The season is now about 75% complete, we’re in last place and we’re not getting any better.\u00a0 All we’re playing for at this point is draft positioning (currently 8th!\u00a0 we’re getting better, er i mean worse).<\/p>\n

Of course, I’ll bet the Nats invent some nebulous “soft tissue” error soon on Marquis (my guess; elbow strain) that gives them an excuse to 15-day DL the guy and put someone better in the rotation.\u00a0 It is the best solution honestly; he saves face and saves his ego and can write the whole season off to a tough injury.\u00a0 We’ll see.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

8\/14 made five (5) starts now on the season for key off-season acquisition Jason Marquis.\u00a0 That’s 5 starts, 5 times he’s given up as many earned runs as he had innings pitched, 5 times he has failed to pitch out of the fourth inning (!!) that’s 5 losses and 5 times the nats were completely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[98,90,42,43,87,883],"class_list":["post-103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlbpitching","tag-craig-stammen","tag-garrett-mock","tag-jason-marquis","tag-jordan-zimmermann","tag-matt-chico","tag-yunesky-maya"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=103"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4724,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103\/revisions\/4724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}