{"id":1321,"date":"2011-05-09T10:20:46","date_gmt":"2011-05-09T14:20:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=1321"},"modified":"2011-05-09T10:20:46","modified_gmt":"2011-05-09T14:20:46","slug":"we-gave-up-willingham-for-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=1321","title":{"rendered":"We gave up Willingham for *this*?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Rodriguez getting ready to fire in another pitch that he has no idea where its going. Photo via humorfeast.blogspot.com<\/p><\/div>\n

Here’s Henry Rodriguez<\/strong>‘s outing on Sunday 5\/8: 6 batters faced, 3 walks, 2 wild pitches, one weak grounder and two strike outs.\u00a0 1 inning pitched, 1 earned run on zero hits.\u00a0 27 pitches but only NINE for strikes.<\/p>\n

This gives him, as of Sunday, a grand total of 5 innings pitched on the year.\u00a0 In those 5 innings he’s only given up 1 run (today’s) and three hits.\u00a0 He also has 7 strikeouts in those 5 innings.\u00a0 But he now has 6 walks and 3 wild pitches in those same 5 innings.\u00a0 His ERA may be nifty (1.80) but his WHIP is the same (1.80), which is really bad for a late-innings reliever.<\/p>\n

Adding insult to injury, as Steven at FJB pointed out<\/a> tonight, Steve McCatty and Jim Riggleman’s comments<\/a> about the reliever are rather ridiculous.\u00a0 Per WashingtonTimes.com beat reporter Amanda Comak<\/strong>‘s story, Riggleman said that Rodriguez “needs to get sharper before we can get him into bigger spots.”\u00a0 Hmm; isn’t that what spring training is for?\u00a0 Oh yeah, Rodriguez showed up 3-weeks late, but the Nats couldn’t do jack about it except invent an injury to stash him on the DL to start the season since he’s out of options despite a grand total of 36 mlb innings in his career.<\/p>\n

He’s now replaced Brian Broderick<\/strong> as the lowest-leverage use reliever in the Nats bullpen.\u00a0 In other words, the guy you would be least likely to bring into a close game.\u00a0 For a team already carrying a rule-5 reliever, this shortening of the bullpen means that manager Jim Riggleman<\/strong> is now basically playing with a 5-man pen on any night where the team has a lead or the game is close.\u00a0 And, as noted several times in this space<\/a>, Rodriguez’s lack of options handcuffs the team’s roster flexibility.<\/p>\n

How about the other player we got in the Willingham deal?\u00a0 Corey Brown<\/strong>?\u00a0 Oh, he’s hitting .202 in AAA<\/a>.\u00a0 But, he’s gotten hits in his last four games, so there’s that.<\/p>\n

Yes, we are talking about small sample sizes.\u00a0 We’re only 5 weeks into the season.\u00a0 But no matter how slowly<\/a> Willingham is starting off himself in Oakland, he’s still out-performing our current left field platoon.\u00a0 Oh, and his 5 homers would be leading the team, and his 104 ops+ would be 3rd best on the squad (behind injured Ryan Zimmerman<\/strong> and part-time catcher Wilson Ramos<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

Did Rizzo make a god-awful deal?\u00a0 Or is it too early?\u00a0 Or do I keep needing to tell myself, “hey, this team isn’t winning in 2011, so this is the best season to experiment with guys like Rodriguez to see what you have?”\u00a0 Sure; i tell myself that all the time.\u00a0 But this team has potential; they’re nearly .500 despite their horrible offense.<\/p>\n

But in the end, it seems to me that we’ve traded our #5 hitter, a guy who always produced for us and who was a popular clubhouse guy, for a reliever we can’t use, and a minor league outfielder who’s in danger of getting benched in Syracuse.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.washingtontimes.com\/blog\/nationals-watch\/2011\/may\/8\/henry-rodriguez-wildness-comes-heat\/<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s Henry Rodriguez‘s outing on Sunday 5\/8: 6 batters faced, 3 walks, 2 wild pitches, one weak grounder and two strike outs.\u00a0 1 inning pitched, 1 earned run on zero hits.\u00a0 27 pitches but only NINE for strikes. This gives him, as of Sunday, a grand total of 5 innings pitched on the year.\u00a0 In […]<\/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":[],"class_list":["post-1321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlbpitching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1321","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=1321"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1327,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1321\/revisions\/1327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}